Margaret Cavendish on Gender, Nature,

and Freedom
DEBORAH BOYLE

Some scholars have argued that Margaret Cavendish was ambivalent about women’s roles
and capabilities, for she seems sometimes to hold that women are naturally inferior to men,
but sometimes that this inferiority is due to inferior education. I argue that attention to
Cavendish’s natural philosophy can illuminate her views on gender. In section II I consider
the implications of Cavendish’s natural philosophy for her views on male and female nature,
arguing that Cavendish thought that such natures were not fixed. However, I argue that
although Cavendish thought women needed to be better educated, and could change if they
had such an education, she also thought their education should reinforce the feminine virtues.
Section III examines Cavendish’s notorious “Preface to the Reader” (from The Worlds
Olio), where Cavendish claims that women are naturally inferior in strength and intelligence
to men. Section IV addresses another notorious Cavendish text, “Female Orations,” arguing
that its message is similar to that of the “Preface to the Reader.” Nonetheless, although
Cavendish held conventional views about male and female nature and appropriate gender
roles, she also recognized how social institutions could limit women’s freedom; section V
explores the complexities of Cavendish’s critique of one such institution, patriarchal
marriage.

I. INTRODUCTION

When she started writing in the 1650s, Margaret Cavendish was entering into an
already long-standing debate over the nature of women. The querelle des femmes that
began in the fourteenth century became especially lively in England in the sixteenth
century with the publication of works by English writers (such as the 1541 School-
house of Women) as well as of translations of earlier works by continental writers such
as Christine de Pizan and Juan Luis Vives (Kelly 1984; Henderson and McManus
1985, 11–12). This debate continued in a “pamphlet war” in the early seventeenth
century; vigorous defenses of women were published in response to anti-female

Hypatia vol. 28, no. 3 (Summer 2013) © by Hypatia, Inc.

 Deborah Boyle 517

pamphlets that portrayed women as inferior in intelligence and moral fiber (Hender-
son and McManus 1985, 16–20). Although Joan Kelly has argued that writers as early
as Christine de Pizan “had a sure sense that the sexes are culturally, not just biologi-
cally, formed” (Kelly 1984, 67), Hilda Smith suggests that this sort of analysis of
women as a sociological group developed more fully in the second half of the seven-
teenth century, in the works of writers such as Bathsua Makin, Hannah Woolley,
and Mary Astell (Smith 1982, 6–7).
Cavendish was among these writers; her works are permeated with comments
about gender roles and male and female nature. However, as Smith observes,
Cavendish’s writings on gender are often contradictory and thus difficult to inter-
pret. Two of Cavendish’s most notorious texts on male and female nature are
“The Preface to the Reader” in The Worlds Olio and “Female Orations” in Orations
of Divers Sorts. Cavendish often seems critical of men’s treatment of women; writ-
ing that men “would fain bury us in their Houses or Beds, as in a Grave” (Caven-
dish 1662a), she seems to suggest that women are naturally as capable as men, but
are prevented by men from realizing their potential. In other texts, however,
Cavendish seems to concur with the orthodox view of women as naturally inferior
to men.
The conclusion some scholars have reached is that Cavendish was simply
ambivalent about women’s roles and capabilities (Sarasohn 1984; Schiebinger 1989,
54–58; Lewis 2001, 346; James 2003, xxix; Broad and Green 2009, 223–24; Sara-
sohn 2011, 84–85). Another possibility is that she changed her views over time;
after all, Worlds Olio was written in 1650–51 (although not published until 1655),
and Orations in 1662. However, I think that clues from these texts and others
indicate that Cavendish’s views on gender were fairly consistent over time, and
that these views can be characterized with more precision than scholars have
previously thought, particularly by examining Cavendish’s natural philosophy. In
section II I consider the implications of her views in natural philosophy, particu-
larly her theory of occasional causation, for her views on male and female nature,
arguing that she thought that such natures were not fixed; education could
improve women’s abilities. Nonetheless, I argue, Cavendish’s views on female
education remained traditional; although she thought women needed to be better
educated, she did not think they should be educated in the same way as men, into
the masculine virtues. In section III I examine the Worlds Olio Preface, arguing
that Cavendish held that most women are naturally inferior in strength and intelli-
gence to men, even if she thought education could change that nature. In section
IV I consider “Female Orations,” arguing that its message is similar to that of the
“Preface to the Reader.” Yet although Cavendish’s views about gender were very
traditional, she also recognizes the ways in which social institutions can limit
women’s freedom; section V explores the complexities of Cavendish’s critique of
one such institution, patriarchal marriage.
518 Hypatia

II. MUTABLE NATURE AND THE ROLE OF EDUCATION

Cavendish’s natural philosophy has recently been ably illuminated by several scholars
(Hutton 1997; James 1999; O’Neill 2001; Detlefsen 2006 and 2007). For our purposes
here, a sketch of its main features should suffice. Cavendish’s philosophical system
resembled the dominant model in natural philosophy in her day—mechanism—insofar
as it explains natural phenomena in terms of matter in motion, and insofar as all things
are said to be made of the same basic kind of stuff. However, crucially, the matter in
her theory is not the inert, lifeless stuff posited by the mechanists. For Cavendish,
matter is a blended and self-moving intermixture of three basic kinds of matter
(Cavendish 1668b, 4–5 and 21). Its varied motions result in all the diversity of Nature
—indeed, in “infinite Varieties” (6).
For Cavendish, to be self-moving is to be alive, which in turn entails being
perceptive and knowing (Cavendish 1655a, 47). Cavendish also often characterizes
self-moving matter as “free” (Cavendish 1668b, 6). As Karen Detlefsen has lucidly
argued, Cavendish’s claims that matter is perceptive and free serve to support her
theory of occasional causation, which was importantly different from a mechanistic
account of causation (Detlefsen 2007). In the standard mechanist’s account, one
object A causes a second object B to move by transferring its motion to B; a mecha-
nist’s account of causation would see the object B as the passive recipient of the
motion transferred by object A. Cavendish, however, sees both objects as active.
According to her theory, a body A serves as the occasional cause of a change in body
B when body B, responding to some suggestion or influence from body A, produces
the appropriate change in itself. As Cavendish puts it, “One body may either occa-
sion, or imitate another’s motion, but it can neither give nor take away what belongs
to its own or another body’s substance” (Cavendish 1664a, 98).
Since the various parts of nature may choose how to act, this model of causa-
tion implies that, contrary to the assertions of the mechanists, nature is not
law-governed. Nonetheless, Cavendish does think that nature is usually orderly. As
she writes in Philosophical Letters, “Nature hath but One Law, which is a wise Law,
viz., to keep Infinite matter in order, and to keep so much Peace, as not to disturb
the Foundation of her Government” (Cavendish 1664a, 146). Nature achieves this
by prescribing that certain forms of behavior are appropriate for its various parts;
Detlefsen has described these principles as “norms” (Detlefsen 2006, 207), a term
that, although anachronistic, does nicely capture an important element of Caven-
dish’s theory. For Cavendish, the parts of matter are parts of a whole, a system
that operates, for the most part, according to certain principles designed to produce
peace and stability. Thus her metaphorical descriptions of Nature often invoke
governing or leading: Nature is a “wise and provident lady” in charge of the
members of her household (Cavendish 1666, 105); Nature is a “Monarchess over
all her Creatures” (Cavendish 1664a, 337); Nature is “the onely Mistress and cause
of all” (284); Nature has “Wisdom” by which she “orders and regulates her Corpo-
real Figurative Motions, into kinds and sorts of Societies and Conjunctions”
(Cavendish 1668b, 32).
 Deborah Boyle 519

But although Nature lays down norms for the appropriate behavior of her parts,
those principles do not actually determine or force the parts of matter to behave in
certain ways. No part is necessitated to follow the norms; as Cavendish puts it, “all
Creatures may have some Natural Rules; but, every Creature may chuse whether they
will follow those Rules” (Cavendish 1668b, 246–47). And although Cavendish thinks
that the natural world is usually orderly and peaceful, she certainly recognizes that
things do not always operate in the usual way. That is, “Wise Nature’s Ground or
Fundamental actions are very Regular,” but sometimes those actions are “irregular,”
that is, “different, cross and opposite, not moving always after their usual and accus-
tomed way” (Cavendish 1664a, 161 and 538).
Irregular actions are atypical, but Cavendish also points out that in the grand
scheme of things, they are not really unnatural. She explains that “what we call
Irregularities in Nature, are really nothing but a variety of Natures motions” (Caven-
dish 1666, 44). Irregularities in particular objects are not really defects when consid-
ered from the perspective of Nature as a whole:
Nature is neither blind nor dumb, nor any ways defective, but infi-
nitely wise and knowing; for … there is no defect in self-moving mat-
ter, nor in her actions in general; and it is absurd to conceive the
Generality of wisdom according to an Irregular effect or defect of a
particular Creature; for the General actions of Nature are both life
and knowledg, which are the architects of all Creatures, and know
better how to frame all kinds and sorts of Creatures then man can
conceive. (Cavendish 1664a, 151–52)
Nonetheless, Cavendish does think that, in another sense, irregular actions are unnat-
ural and are indeed defects.1 She says in Philosophical Letters that irregularities tend to
a thing’s destruction or death, characterizing them as “errors of nature” (Cavendish
1664a, 539, 238–39, 128, and 29). In fact, when Cavendish discusses falsehood, mad-
ness, foolishness, wickedness, sickness, and pain, she explains how these occur in a
creature by appealing to the irregular motions of some parts of that creature.2 Thus,
although irregularities are not bad or unnatural in the grand scheme of things, she
does think that irregularities in the parts of nature are bad for the particular entity of
which the irregularly moving bits of nature are a part.
Cavendish’s theory of occasional causation and regularities is relevant for under-
standing her views about human nature. Every part of nature has free will; when
one part of nature causes an effect in another part of nature, the first part is merely
providing an occasion for the second part to choose how to act. For Cavendish, this
applies to humans, too. Thus events in someone’s life do not necessitate a certain
response from the person; only the person herself causes the response, with the
events serving merely as occasions for the person to act. Not even the “nature” of
an individual object or person leads inexorably to a certain kind of behavior, for a
thing or person’s “nature” is just the norms set up by Nature, governing what
behavior is most conducive to peace, but not dictating that that behavior must
absolutely occur.
520 Hypatia

These views have important implications for Cavendish’s theories about gender
and nature. Being parts of nature, of course, women, too, have free will. Thus, even
if Nature has dictated that the appropriate behavior for some individual woman is to
be, say, quiet and meek, it is up to the individual woman to decide whether to follow
that prescription. Some women may choose to follow Nature’s norms; others might
choose not to. Women who choose not to follow these norms are acting irregularly,
and unnaturally; and, Cavendish suggests, although this may not be a defect from the
perspective of Nature as a whole, it is likely to be destructive and dangerous to the
society of which the irregularly acting woman is a member.
What norms of behavior does Cavendish think Nature lays down for men and
women? Cavendish does not refer to norms, but she does refer to virtues, and surely
virtues are character traits that one ought to possess; that is, to describe a trait as a
virtue is to make a normative claim. Thus we should look to Cavendish’s account of
male and female virtues in order to see what she thought constituted natural, appro-
priate behavior for men and women. Cavendish points out that moral philosophers
have traditionally identified justice, prudence, fortitude, and temperance as the funda-
mental virtues (Cavendish 1655b, 160), but she mentions various others as being
especially appropriate for men: particularly wisdom, but also carefulness, charity,
clemency, being fashionable, friendship, generosity, hardiness, humility, industry,
modesty, patience, sufferance, valor and courage, and watchfulness (Cavendish
1655b, 48, 53, and 58; 1662a, 29). The traditional view regarding feminine virtue
treated chastity as central, a view with which Cavendish concurs, although she does
list various other feminine virtues such as constancy, patience, piety, trustworthiness,
thrift, and being fashionable (Cavendish 1655b, 73).
For Cavendish, to choose not to follow Nature’s norms is to act irregularly, and
thus, in one sense, unnaturally; for example, the narrator in Sociable Letters
describes a woman who beat her husband as “unnatural” (Cavendish 1664b, letter
26). Girls and women should be raised to conform to the natural feminine virtues,
Cavendish thought; when she objects to the poor education women receive, her
objection is that women are not properly educated to have feminine virtues and
behavior. In Sociable Letters, for example, she writes that “for the most part Women
are not Educated as they should be,” complaining that they receive only “an Educa-
tion of the Body, and not of the Mind,” but her recommendation is not that
women be taught, say, mathematics or natural philosophy; rather, she says that
“Women should be Instructed and Taught more Industriously, Carefully, and
Prudently, to Temper their Passions, and Govern their Appetites, than Men,
because there comes more Dishonour from their unruly Passions and Appetites,
than from Mens” (Cavendish 1664b, letter 26). For Cavendish, education should
follow, not oppose, Nature.
Thus if education were to have the effect of changing a woman’s nature, Caven-
dish would oppose it; in her view, education should not seek to turn women into
men. What would result from such an education, in Cavendish’s view, would be a sort
of hybrid person—or, to adopt a word she sometimes uses, a “hermaphrodite.” This
would be problematic for Cavendish—not because she thought that hermaphroditical
 Deborah Boyle 521

things were inherently problematic, but because (I shall argue) she thought that it
was unclear how a hermaphroditical being should behave.
Cavendish generally uses the term “hermaphrodites” to refer to hybrid products
resulting from “art” rather than nature. In Observations upon Experimental Philosophy,
Cavendish seems at first glance to be critical of things she calls “hermaphroditical.”
For example, she condemns “experimental philosophers” for their use of microscopes
to try to learn “the truth of an object,” writing that the lenses made by “art” “repre-
sent the figure of an object in no part exactly and truly, but very deformed and
misshaped” (Cavendish 1666, 7–8). She then makes some more general comments
about the relationship between art and hermaphroditical products:
And it is to be observed, that Art, for the most part, makes hermaph-
roditical, that is, mixt figures, partly Artificial, and partly Natural: for
Art may make some metal, as Pewter, which is between Tin and
Lead, as also Brass, and numerous other things of mixed natures; In
the like manner may Artificial Glasses present objects, partly Natural,
and partly Artificial. (7–8)
This passage is descriptive, not evaluative; Cavendish does not say that hermaphroditi-
cal things are intrinsically inferior to natural ones. Her criticism is aimed at
philosophers who think they are observing pure nature when they are in fact observing
only altered nature. A close reading of another passage in which she seems critical of
art shows that she is criticizing the humans who think that the products of art can
reveal the secrets of nature (Cavendish 1664a, 281). Her criticism is not that artificial
things are intrinsically bad, but simply that they do not help us understand the true
nature of the world. Indeed, in some texts Cavendish is not at all critical of things
made by “art.” In her fantasy story Blazing World, for example, she describes a powerful
wind-producing engine, with no hint that this device is monstrous or dangerous
(Cavendish 1668a, 7). The artificial, though “hermaphroditical,” is not necessarily bad;
it just needs to be recognized for what it is, and not mistaken for a natural object.
Although Cavendish did not think hermaphroditical things were inherently bad,
she nonetheless did not think women should be educated so as to develop the same
virtues as men. I suggest that Cavendish rejected this because she thought it would be
unclear what the natural norms, or virtues, for hermaphroditical things would be. How
could a woman educated in the same way as a man—to engage in public affairs, for
example—possibly follow the feminine virtues? On the other hand, how could a
woman really follow the masculine virtues, without actually masquerading as a man?
Interestingly, Cavendish’s fictional works contain a number of examples of women
displaying—and being honored for—masculine virtues, yet in nearly all cases the
women are disguised as men. In “Assaulted and Pursued Chastity,” for example, the
female character Travelia excels as a general while pretending to be a man; when her
true identity is revealed, she immediately marries, fulfilling the traditional female role
(Cavendish 1656). In Blazing World, the Lady who becomes the absolute sovereign of
Blazing-World and a successful military commander might seem to show that Caven-
dish thought women could adopt the masculine virtues. Yet the Lady’s policies are
522 Hypatia

detrimental to Blazing-World, making the society less stable than it was when she
arrived; her attempt to embody masculine virtues evidently is unsuccessful (Cavendish
1668a, 121). For Cavendish’s characters, imitating the masculine does not produce the
same effects for women as those masculine acts and virtues achieve for men. Thus I
take it that although Cavendish had no objection to hermaphroditical things per se,
she did not think women should be educated into the masculine virtues.
What about Cavendish herself? In some sense, she seems to have seen herself as a
hermaphrodite.3 She was well aware of her differences from other women of her day.
In a dedicatory letter to Poems, and Fancies, for example, she indicates that she
lacked the skills deemed appropriate for women, such as spinning (Cavendish 1653).
She also recognized that she was unusually ambitious: “I confess my Ambition is rest-
less, and not ordinary; because it would have an extraordinary fame” (Cavendish
1656, C1r). Moreover, Cavendish was known for her unusual attire, which sometimes
included masculine clothes such as the juste-au-corps, a knee-length coat (Whitaker
2002, 297). As Rudolf Dekker and Lotte van de Pol have documented, a tradition of
female cross-dressing began at the end of the sixteenth century in early modern
England and the Netherlands, and the theme of cross-dressing was popular in seven-
teenth-century books and plays (Dekker and van de Pol 1989, 93–94). Nonetheless,
they say that cross-dressing “never became an accepted social practice which women
could choose openly” (40).4 Indeed, in 1620 an English pamphlet, Hic Mulier; Or,
the Man-Woman, had denounced women who dressed as men as “monstrous imita-
tions” and “new Hermaphrodites” (Hic Mulier 1620, B2v and C2v). If women who
imitated men were “hermaphrodites,” then Cavendish likely saw that in some
respects she fit that description, too. This perhaps explains her various attestations
that despite her unusual role as a writing woman, she had never acted contrary to
feminine virtue (Cavendish 1653, A3r).5
In sum, Cavendish’s natural philosophy allows that natural entities can freely
choose how to behave, despite the existence of norms set up by Nature that are
supposed to guide their choices. This implies that men and women could choose not to
behave according to the virtues that are natural for them, and thus that gender traits
are not fixed. Nonetheless, Cavendish saw such behavior as irregular—unnatural, in
one sense—and thought that the effect would be a “hermaphroditical” creature, a crea-
ture with no clear nature at all, one that does not fit in with the order and harmony
preferred by Nature. With this picture in place, we can consider afresh the two passages
in Cavendish’s corpus that most pointedly address gender and nature: the “Preface to
the Reader” in Worlds Olio, and “Female Orations” in Orations of Divers Sorts.

III. MALE AND FEMALE NATURE IN WORLDS OLIO

Worlds Olio was the first work Cavendish wrote as an adult, preceding her works of natu-
ral philosophy by several years. Nonetheless, the views on gender that Cavendish
expresses in the “Preface to the Reader” are consistent with the natural philosophical
views she developed later, and can usefully be understood in light of those later views.
 Deborah Boyle 523

The Preface opens by preemptively responding to the criticism that the writing in
Worlds Olio is neither witty nor wise enough. Cavendish’s excuse is simply that she is
a woman: “it cannot be expected I should write so wisely or wittily as Men, being of
the Effeminate Sex, whose Brains Nature hath mix’d with the coldest and softest
Elements” (Cavendish 1655b, A4r).
The rest of the Preface defends Cavendish’s view that women are naturally infe-
rior to men. She reports that “our Sex make great complaints” that although Nature
originally made men and women equal, men usurped power for themselves, and that
women have thus become “dejected” and “stupid.” But, she goes on, “to speak truth,
Men have great Reason not to let us in to their Governments, for there is great
difference betwixt the Masculine Brain and the Feminine, the Masculine Strength
and the Feminine.” Men are like the sun, “made to Govern Common Wealths”
whereas women are like the moon, only reflecting the light cast by the sun, and only
able to govern “their privat Families” (Cavendish 1655b, A4r-v). In fact, the Preface
asserts that women are inferior to men in just about every respect: “neither have
Women such tempered Brains as men, such high Imaginations, such subtill Concep-
tions, such fine Inventions, such solid Reasons, and such sound Judgement, such
prudent Forecast, such constant Resolutions, such quick, sharp, and readi flowing
Wits” (A5r). Curiously, some scholars seem to have misread this portion of the Pre-
face, taking the “complaint” that Cavendish reports as representing Cavendish’s own
position. It is worth reprinting the relevant passage. Cavendish writes: “True it is, our
Sex make great complaints, that men from their first Creation usurped a Supremacy
to themselves, although we were made equal by Nature, which Tyrannical Gover-
ment they have kept ever since, so that we could never come to be free, but rather
more and more enslaved” (A5r). Taking Cavendish to be endorsing this view, Smith
sees the Preface as internally inconsistent (Smith 1982, 80). Sarasohn describes this
passage as a “strong statement of radical feminism” that “arose from Cavendish’s
despair at her own position and that of her sex” (Sarasohn 1984, 298). But in the
passage just quoted, Cavendish is merely reporting—and not endorsing—the idea that
women’s inferiority results from men’s “usurping” supremacy. What is “true,” Caven-
dish says, is not the complaint itself but merely the fact that women make that
complaint.
Thus, although Cavendish is aware of the position that women are “equal by
nature,” she does not herself accept that view. Indeed, later in the Preface she explic-
itly rejects the argument that women’s inferiority can be explained simply by their
upbringing and education. However, although Cavendish does clearly endorse the
view in the “Preface to the Reader” that Nature has made women naturally less intel-
ligent and talented than men, we have already seen that her natural philosophy,
developed in her later works, implies that nature is not fixed. This point is reflected
in the Preface when Cavendish says that despite their differences in nature, “Women
by Education may come to be far more knowing and learned, than some Rustick and
Rude-bred men” (Cavendish 1655b, A5v). She compares humans to soil: “for some
Ground, though it be Barren by Nature, yet, being well mucked and well manured,
may bear plentifull Crops, and sprout forth divers sorts of Flowers, when the fertiller
524 Hypatia

and richer Ground shall grow rank and corrupt, bringing nothing but gross and stink-
ing Weeds, for want of Tillage” (A5v). The original nature of men and women is
important, but so is the upbringing and education—the “tillage”—that boys and girls
receive. In other words, because Cavendish thinks that nature is mutable, women’s
natural condition can be changed.

IV. “FEMALE ORATIONS”

The evidence from the “Preface to the Reader” in Worlds Olio shows that, at least in
her earliest writings, Cavendish thought women were naturally inferior to men. I
think the same message can be drawn from the 1662 “Female Orations.” In this puz-
zling section of Cavendish’s Orations of Divers Sorts, seven women debate what, if
anything, can be done to improve women’s situation. The difficulty is discerning
which speaker (if any of them) represents Cavendish’s own views.
In the striking opening speech, the speaker exhorts women to band together, “that
we may Unite in prudent Counsels, to make our Selves as Free, Happy, and Famous
as Men, whereas now we Live and Dye, as if we were Produced from Beasts rather
than from Men; for Men are Happy, and we Women are Miserable” (Cavendish
1662a, 224). According to this speaker, men “Indeavour to Barr us of all Sorts or
Kinds of Liberty,” so that women “Live like Bats or Owls, Labour like Beasts, and
Dye like Worms.” The second speaker agrees with the first, suggesting that women’s
situation is hopeless: “our Words to Men are as Empty Sounds, our Sighs as Puffs of
Wind, and our Tears as Fruitless Showres” (225). These aspects of the first and sec-
ond speakers’ views could be Cavendish’s own, particularly when we consider Caven-
dish’s negative views about marriage (to be discussed in section V). However,
Cavendish does not suggest in any other texts that the solution for women is to form
associations, nor did she do so in her own life (Schiebinger 1989, 49).
The debate over what causes women’s situation—nature or nurture—begins with
the third speech. The third speaker maintains that women’s lack of power is due to
natural inferiority; indeed, she suggests that without men to protect and provide for
them, women’s situation would be even worse than it is. In asserting that Nature
“hath made Men more Ingenious, Witty, and Wise than Women, more Strong,
Industrious, and Laborious than Women” (Cavendish 1662a, 227), this third speaker
echoes the views that Cavendish had expressed in the Preface to Worlds Olio. This
speaker adds a point not present in that text: that unless they bear children, women
are “Witless, and Strengthless, and Unprofitable Creatures.”
Hilda Smith has suggested that the third orator’s characterization of women
certainly did not match Cavendish’s own image of herself as a (childless) woman,
and indeed that it “far exceeded even the conventional arguments about women’s
limitations” (Smith 1982, 83). However, the third speaker’s characterization of
women may not have been so different from the way women were conventionally
viewed. In their book Women in Early Modern England 1550–1720, Sara Mendelson
and Patricia Crawford cite proverbs and jokes from the seventeenth century to show
 Deborah Boyle 525

that “the axiom of female inferiority was as common among ordinary people as it was
among the educated
elite” (Mendelson and Crawford 1998, 60). One such proverb
was “None but fools were fit to bear children” (64). Furthermore, as we have already
seen, Cavendish herself recognized that she was very different from other women.
Thus although Smith is surely correct that Cavendish would not have described her-
self as “Witless, and Strengthless, and Unprofitable” for not bearing children, this
does not imply that Cavendish did not think it applied to other women. It is not
implausible to think that Cavendish herself endorsed the sentiments of the third
orator in “Female Orations.”
The fourth speaker responds that no one really knows what women are capable
of, precisely because they have been prevented from participating in the same activi-
ties as men. She recommends that “we should Imitate Men, so will our Bodies and
Minds appear more Masculine, and our Power will Increase by our Actions” (Caven-
dish 1662a, 228). In a manifesto of sorts, she declares:
let us Hawk, Hunt, Race, and do the like Exercises as Men have, and
let us Converse in Camps, Courts, and Cities, in Schools, Colleges,
and Courts of Judicature, in Taverns, Brothels, and Gaming Houses,
all which will make our Strength and Wit known, both to Men, and
to our own Selves, for we are as Ignorant of our Selves, as Men are of
us. (228)
This speaker’s suggestion is actually consistent with two different views about gender
essentialism: either that women’s inferiority is due simply to having been deprived of
the same experiences as men (rather than due to Nature), or that women are natu-
rally inferior, even if education and environment can shape and mold that nature.
The second view is the one I found Cavendish to be endorsing in the Preface to
Worlds Olio. There is too little evidence in the fourth speaker’s oration to ascribe to
that speaker any particular view about the original nature of women. However, we
can assess whether Cavendish would have agreed with the fourth speaker’s advice to
imitate men. Cavendish likely would have agreed that if women were to act as men
do, they would change and actually become more like men (if not exactly like them).
However, would Cavendish have thought women should begin frequenting places like
camps, colleges, courts, taverns, and gaming houses? This seems less likely, for, as we
have seen, Cavendish endorsed the traditional list of feminine virtues, and the
behavior practiced in such traditionally male preserves would surely not have
supported the development of those virtues.
The fifth speaker rejects the advice of the fourth, asserting that “we cannot
Change the Nature of our Sex”; indeed, she says that to imitate men would make
women “Hermaphroditical, as neither to be Perfect Women nor Perfect Men”
(Cavendish, 1662a, 230). She then lists the feminine virtues to which women should
aspire: to be “Modest, Chast, Temperate, Humble, Patient, and Pious; also to be
Huswifely, Cleanly, and of few Words” (230). This view comports with the views I
ascribed to Cavendish in section II. Interestingly, the sixth speaker also suggests that
the feminine virtues are inferior to the masculine virtues, concluding that since “one
526 Hypatia

Terrestrial may Imitate an other,” and indeed that less perfect creatures should imitate
the more perfect, women should indeed imitate men (231). Her suggestion, like that
of the fourth speaker, is that women would be able to equal men in their capabilities,
if they would just imitate them. Given what we have seen about Cavendish’s remarks
elsewhere on hermaphrodites and irregular behavior, the fifth speaker more accurately
represents Cavendish’s view.
In the seventh, final speech, women are actually said to be naturally superior to
men; however, this is because of their “Beauties, Features, Shapes, Gracefull Demean-
our, and such Insinuating and Inticing Attractions.” These qualities give women a
certain power over men, says the orator, claiming that “Men are Forc’d to Admire us,
Love us, and be Desirous of us” (Cavendish 1662a, 232). This is surely a dubious
form of superiority, yet it seems to be Cavendish’s view. She suggests elsewhere that
physical beauty is part of female nature; in Worlds Olio, for example, she says that
when Nature “works perfectly,” she gives women “a chast Mind, a sober Disposition,
a silent Tongue, a fair and modest Face, a neat Shape, and a gracefull Motion”
(Cavendish 1655b, 84). But even if Cavendish does agree with the seventh orator
that women are naturally more attractive and graceful than men, this hardly suggests
a rejection of female inferiority. Is it really better to have these qualities than those
she ascribes to men—generosity, valor, wisdom, and so on?
To sum up, a cursory reading of “Female Orations” suggests that Cavendish is
merely describing an unsettled contemporary debate about male and female natures
and social roles. A closer look, taking into account other passages from Cavendish’s
writings, suggests that Cavendish’s own views are close to those of the third, fifth,
and possibly the seventh speaker: women are by nature different from, and inferior
to, men; seeking to imitate men will not benefit women; women should cultivate the
virtues appropriate to them. Women may be superior to men in certain respects, but
in ways that do not give them real power or success in the world.

V. FREEDOM AND MARRIAGE

On the interpretation I have offered, Cavendish held that women are naturally infe-
rior to most men; that women, like other parts of nature, are free and thus are not
necessitated to act in traditionally feminine ways; but that despite this freedom, for a
woman to act in unfeminine ways is in a certain sense unnatural. So far, the views I
have ascribed to Cavendish are conservative, and would not warrant characterizing
her as a feminist or proto-feminist (and certainly not as a “radical feminist”). But
Cavendish’s writings do show that she was aware of the ways in which male power
limited women’s options, and that she was critical of this.
We saw in section II that Cavendish characterizes the parts of nature as being free
in an indeterminist sense, but she also appeals in her writings to a Hobbesian concep-
tion of liberty as being unimpeded or lacking in external constraints.6 Cavendish
clearly recognizes that women frequently lack freedom in this Hobbesian sense, for in
many passages she points out the impediments society places on women’s freedom of
 Deborah Boyle 527

action. As she writes in a preface to Natures Pictures, “all heroick Actions, publick
Imployments, powerfull Governments, and eloquent Pleadings are denyed our Sex in
this age” (Cavendish 1656, C1r). In other words, Cavendish recognizes that even
though women have the metaphysical freedom to choose how to act, they are also
subject to social constraints that make it very difficult to exercise that freedom. One
central constraint was the institution of patriarchal marriage.
Like Hobbes, Cavendish saw the family as the most fundamental unit in a peace-
ful state (Hobbes 1994, 152–53). The character of Lady Grand Esprit in the 1662
play Natures Three Daughters expresses this view:
marriage Unites into Familyes, Familyes into Villages, Villages into
Cities, Cities into Corporations, Corporations into Common-wealths;
this increase keeps up the race of Mankind, and causes Commerce,
Trade, and Traffick, all which associates men into an Agreement, and
by an Agreement men are bound to Laws, by Laws they are bound to
Punishments, by Punishments to Magistrates, and by Magistrates and
Punishments to Obedience, by Obedience to Peace and Defence.
(Cavendish 1662b, 526)
Thus Cavendish evidently thinks that some form of marriage is necessary for a peace-
ful society; marriage promotes Nature’s aims of peace and stability. In some texts,
Cavendish writes of the peace and joy that marriage can bring to a couple (Caven-
dish 1655b, 77), and this seems to have been true of her own marriage to William
Cavendish, which she characterized in her autobiography as a happy one (Cavendish
1656, 375).
And yet, for the most part, Cavendish’s comments about marriage are quite nega-
tive (McGuire 1971). She realized that her case was exceptional, writing frankly that
“Marriage most commonly knocks all quick Spirits on the Head, and buries all Wit
and Mirth, giving Life onely to Care and Trouble” (Cavendish 1655b, 78). Her many
depictions of marriage in her fictional works are generally negative (Hobby 1988,
105-11). For example, in the play The Several Wits, Mademoiselle Solid declares that
“to marry an unworthy man, were to me to be at the height of affliction, and
marriage being unhappy in it self, needs no addition to make it worse” (Cavendish
1662b, 90). In Youths Glory, and Deaths Banquet, the highly educated Lady Sanspar-
eille gives a long speech against marriage, declaring that it is bad for men and women
both (159–60).
What exactly did Cavendish think was wrong with most marriages? Sometimes
she suggests that it is simply the fact that any human relationship brings with it
cares and responsibilities (Cavendish 1655b, 31–32). And sometimes Cavendish
acknowledges that the problems in a marriage are due to individuals’ character flaws,
which may not be obvious before marriage. But in some texts she seems to recognize
that the problem is due to something more institutional, something about the form
of marriage in her society. In these passages, to put the point in Hilda Smith’s terms,
Cavendish is treating women and men as sociological groups, and showing how
men, as a group, have greater power than women (Smith 1982, 3). The problem,
528 Hypatia

Cavendish seems to realize, was with patriarchal marriage in seventeenth-century

England.
This is not to say that Cavendish rejected patriarchal marriage altogether. On the
contrary, she thought that having certain clearly delineated gender roles helped
assure peace and stability in society; that, I argued earlier, was the basis of her rejec-
tion of “hermaphrodites.” This can also be seen from the parallel Cavendish drew (as
did many of her contemporaries) between patriarchy and absolute monarchy. Caven-
dish herself compares marriage to government, referring in Sociable Letters to “Matri-
monial Government” and insisting that women who do not obey their husbands are
“Matrimonial Traitors, for which they ought to be highly punished” (Cavendish
1664b, Letter 26). The analogy also appears in the play Loves Adventures, where Lord
Singularity says that “every Master of a Family are petty-Kings” (Cavendish 1662b,
67). Since Cavendish thought that absolute monarchy was necessary to promote
peace,7 it seems reasonable to infer that she thought patriarchal marriage was also
necessary to promote peace. And given her belief that most women are naturally
inferior to most men in strength and intelligence, she would have thought that
women needed the protection and guidance of men.
Cavendish’s objection was thus not to patriarchal marriage itself, but to the ways in
which men abuse the power they have in such marriages. In The Convent of Pleasure,
the characters detail some of the ways that patriarchal marriages can be bad for women.
Husbands might squander the family’s money (including whatever money their wives
might have brought to the marriage) on drink, gaming, or other women; women are
often subject to physical abuse at the hands of their husbands (Cavendish 1668c,
24–25). A telling passage from Loves Adventures sums up the contrast between Caven-
dish’s ideal of a patriarchal marriage and the reality. Lady Ignorance expresses Caven-
dish’s ideal: “if a Husband loves his wife, he will be carefull to please her, prudent for
her, subsistence, industrious for her convenience, valiant to protect her, and convers-
able to entertain her, and wise to direct and guide her” (Cavendish 1662b, 18). Her
husband corrects her: “To rule and govern her, you mean wife.” Husbands may have
the natural authority to “direct and guide” women, Cavendish is suggesting, but once
they interpret that to mean “ruling and governing,” they have overstepped their role,
and this results in conflict (or even violence) and further limitations on women’s
freedom.
Does this mean that Cavendish thought women ought not to marry? Some of her
fictional works do, indeed, portray women who reject marriage. The Convent of Plea-
sure seems at first to suggest a radical alternative to traditional patriarchal marriage.
Lady Happy decides that instead of marrying, she will retire to a convent of her own
design, which “shall not be a Cloister of restraint, but a place for freedom, not to vex
the Senses but to please them” (Cavendish 1668c, 7). A mysterious foreign Princess
joins this “convent of pleasure”; strikingly, Lady Happy and the Princess fall in love,
with Lady Happy initially bemoaning what she takes to be an unnatural attachment.
As the play progresses, Lady Happy appears to reconcile herself to the relationship,
and thus it seems that Cavendish is suggesting that there can be fulfilling relation-
ships for women other than patriarchal marriage.
 Deborah Boyle 529

And yet The Convent of Pleasure ends with Lady Happy marrying. The “Princess,”
it turns out, was a foreign prince in disguise. The final scene of the play depicts a
celebration after the wedding; tellingly, Lady Happy is virtually silent, with the
Prince deciding when the couple will dance and when they will rest. It even appears
that the Prince has taken over the convent founded by Lady Happy, for although an
earlier remark in the play suggested that widows were not permitted in the convent,
the Prince declares that he will now divide it in two parts, “for Virgins and Widows”
(Cavendish, 1668c, 51). Patriarchal marriage has evidently triumphed in The Convent
of Pleasure.
There are many similar examples. Another character, Mademoiselle Caprisia in
The Comedy Named the Several Wits, also declaims against marriage—but ends up
marrying (Cavendish 1662b). In “Assaulted and Pursued Chastity,” Travelia receives
great honors for displaying masculine traits, but only while disguised as a man; once
the other characters know she is a woman, she immediately marries (Cavendish
1656).8 The all-female army led by Lady Victoria in Bell in Campo routs the enemy
and saves the regular male army; these female characters clearly reject the social
norms of seventeenth-century England. They are honored with an elaborate trium-
phal parade, the promise of great fame, and new freedoms for all women (Cavendish
1662b, 631). But even these women are not, ultimately, able to avoid their social
roles as wives and mothers.
What are we to make of all this? I suggest that the message of these plays and
stories is ultimately a pessimistic one: patriarchal marriage is simply unavoidable, no
matter what efforts women make to avoid it. Cavendish seems to want to imagine a
society in which women take on roles other than the traditional ones, yet each time
her characters capitulate to the social pressure to become wives. Thus, despite Caven-
dish’s critique of men’s abuses of power in patriarchal marriage, she did not seem to
think that not marrying was a genuine option for women.

VI. THE QUESTION OF CAVENDISH’S FEMINISM

Should Cavendish be described as a feminist, or perhaps as a proto-feminist? Many

recent readers of Cavendish have described her this way, but I think the answer is,
on the whole, “no.” Cavendish thought women were naturally inferior to men. Her
views regarding educating women were also conventional: education should follow
nature, reinforcing the feminine virtues. Nor did she offer any critique of patriarchal
marriage itself; although she is critical of the ways in which men abuse their power,
she did not criticize the premise that men should have more power in the first place.
She was aware of the ways in which male power over women limited women’s
options, and to that extent she could perhaps be described as a proto-feminist. Yet
Cavendish’s message was not necessarily an empowering one for female readers, for
few female characters in her plays and stories actually overcome the social barriers
standing in their way. The second orator in “Female Orations” declares that although
women would “adore and worship … as a goddess” the woman who could “be our
530 Hypatia

guide, to lead us out of the labyrinth men have put us into,” it is impossible for
anyone to do so (Cavendish 1662a, 227). There is, says this orator—and Cavendish
evidently concurs—no “getting out.”

NOTES

1. Cavendish is anticipating a distinction between two senses of “nature” that John

Stuart Mill was to make explicit in his essay “On Nature” 200 years later (Mill 1874, 6–7).
2. On falsehood, see Cavendish 1664a, 39; on foolishness and madness, see Caven-
dish 1664a, 36 and 1668b, 83; on sickness and pain, see Cavendish 1664a, 296 and 393;
1668b, 20; 1666, 168; and on wickedness, see Cavendish 1666, 248.
3. Lisa Sarasohn makes a similar suggestion (Sarasohn 2011, 191).
4. See also Purkiss 1992, 82.
5. In that passage, she says that her book is “harmlesse and free from all dishonesty.”
In the seventeenth century, “dishonesty” meant lewdness or unchastity, so Cavendish is
defending her status as a virtuous woman (OED online, June 2011).
6. See Hobbes’s definition of liberty in his short treatise “Of Liberty and Necessity”
(Chappell 1999, 38).
7. A defense of this interpretation of Cavendish is beyond the scope of this paper,
but see, for example, Sociable Letters, where she writes that “Royal Government … is
certainly the Best and Happiest Government, as being most United, by which People
becomes most Civil, for Democracy is more Wild and Barbarous than Monarchy” (Caven-
dish 1664b, Letter 65). For further discussion of Cavendish’s political views, see Fowler
1996; Lewis 2001; and Broad and Green 2009.
8. Lady Orphant, in Loves Adventures (Cavendish 1662b), acts in a similar way.

REFERENCES

Broad, Jacqueline, and Karen Green. 2009. A history of women’s political thought in Europe,
1400–1700. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Cavendish, Margaret. 1653. Poems, and fancies. London: Printed by T. R. for J. Martin,
and J. Allestrye. Women Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University.
http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.fancies.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1655a. Philosophical and physical opinions. London: J. Martin and J. Allestrye.
———. 1655b. The worlds olio. London: Printed for J. Martin and J. Allestrye. Women
Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University. http://www.wwp.brown.
edu/texts/cavendish.olio.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1656. Natures pictures. London: Printed for J. Martin and J. Allestrye. Women
Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University. http://www.wwp.brown.
edu/texts/cavendish.natpix.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1662a. Orations of divers sorts, accommodated to divers places. London.
 Deborah Boyle 531

———. 1662b. Playes. London: Printed by A. Warren, for John Martyn, James Allestrye,
and Tho. Dicas. Women Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University.
http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.62.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1664a. Philosophical letters. London. Women Writers Online. Women Writers Pro-
ject, Brown University. http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.philosophical.html
(accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1664b. CCXI Sociable letters. London: William Wilson.
———. 1666. Observations upon experimental philosophy. Women Writers Online. Women
Writers Project, Brown University. http://www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.obser-
vations.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1668a. The description of a new world, called the Blazing-World. London: A. Maxwell.
Women Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University. http://www.
wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.blazing.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
———. 1668b. Grounds of natural philosophy. London: A. Maxwell.
———. 1668c. The convent of pleasure. In Plays, never before printed. London: A. Max-
well. Women Writers Online. Women Writers Project, Brown University. http://
www.wwp.brown.edu/texts/cavendish.68e.html (accessed January 19, 2012).
Chappell, Vere, ed. 1999. Hobbes and Bramhall: On liberty and necessity. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge University Press.
Dekker, Rudolf M., and Lotte C. van de Pol. 1989. The tradition of female transvestism in
early modern Europe. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Detlefsen, Karen. 2006. Atomism, monism, and causation in the natural philosophy of
Margaret Cavendish. In Oxford studies in early modern philosophy, vol. 3, ed. Daniel
Garber and Steven Nadler. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
———. 2007. Reason and freedom: Margaret Cavendish on the order and disorder of nat-
ure. Archiv f€ur geschichte der philosophie 89 (2): 157–91.
Fowler, Ellayne. 1996. Margaret Cavendish and the ideal commonwealth. Utopian Studies
7 (1): 38–48.
Henderson, Katherine Usher, and Barbara F. McManus. 1985. Half humankind: Contexts
and texts of the controversy about women in England, 1540–1650. Urbana: University of
Illinois Press.
Hic mulier; or, the man-woman. 1620. London: I. Trundle.
Hobbes, Thomas. 1994. Leviathan, ed. Edwin Curley. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Hobby, Elaine. 1988. Virtue of necessity: English women’s writing, 1649–88. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Hutton, Sarah. 1997. In dialogue with Thomas Hobbes: Margaret Cavendish’s natural
philosophy. Women’s Writing 4 (3): 421–32.
James, Susan. 1999. The philosophical innovations of Margaret Cavendish. British Journal
for the History of Philosophy 7 (2): 219–44.
———. 2003. Introduction. Margaret Cavendish: Political writings. Cambridge, UK: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Kelly, Joan. 1984. Early feminist theory and the querelle des femmes. In Women, history,
and theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lewis, Eric. 2001. The legacy of Margaret Cavendish. Perspectives on Science 9 (3): 341–65.
532 Hypatia

McGuire, Mary Ann. 1971. Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, on the nature
and status of women. International Journal of Women’s Studies 1 (2): 193–206.
Mendelson, Sara, and Patricia Crawford. 1998. Women in early modern England 1550–1720.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Mill, John Stuart. 1874. On nature. In Nature, the utility of religion, and theism. London:
Longmans, Greene, Reader and Dyer.
O’Neill, Eileen. 2001. Introduction. Observations upon experimental philosophy, by Margaret
Cavendish, ed. Eileen O’Neill. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Purkiss, Diane. 1992. The seventeenth-century woman debate. In Women, texts and histo-
ries 1575–1760, ed. Clare Brant and Diane Purkiss. London: Routledge.
Sarasohn, Lisa. 1984. A science turned upside down: Feminism and the natural philosophy
of Margaret Cavendish. Huntington Library Quarterly 47: 289–307.
———. 2011. The natural philosophy of Margaret Cavendish: Reason and fancy during the sci-
entific revolution. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Schiebinger, Londa. 1989. The mind has no sex? Women in the origins of modern science.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.
Smith, Hilda L. 1982. Reason’s disciples. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Whitaker, Katie. 2002. Mad Madge: The extraordinary life of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of
Newcastle, the first woman to live by her pen. New York: Basic Books.