This paper explores both Wollstonecraft and Woolf s use of philosophical reasoning and literary imagery to discuss the ways in which marriage confines the feminine soul. Using the biographies of Wollstonecraft and Woolf to show possible reasons why each writer was philosophically opposed to marriage, this paper discusses the different coercive forces in marriage that Wollstonecraft and Woolf dramatize in their fiction. From Wollstonecraft s attention to externally binding social codes of the eighteenth century, to Woolf s presentation of psychological internalization of fright, both writers demonstrate the intrinsically binding nature of most upper class marriages. In writings such as Wollstonecraft s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Mary . . . a Fiction, as well as Woolf s A Room of One s Own and The Voyage Out , both writers present direct consequences of marriage and the ways that women are coerced, both internally and externally, into lives of dependence and eventual misery. Companionate Confinement Historian Lawrence Stone describes late eighteenth-century marriages as companionate.
Stone characterizes companionate marriage as one of increased gender equality within marital unions.
Prior to the companionate marriage, power roles in marriages were clearly defined and dominated solely by the husband, whose ability to work and own land far exceeded the political and social abilities of women. The wife, often chosen for the size of her dowry, was expected to submit to her husband in every aspect of their marriage. She was completely dependent on him for finances, accommodations, and protection. However, with the rise of the companionate marriage, unions became less contractual than in prior times. Essentially, more emotional connection existed between man and wife, yet the hearth-bound woman still depended on her husband for financial support.