Amongst Samuel Johnson’s vast literary output were essays in which he addressed many of his concerns about the society in which he lived. One of these was the lack of formal education given to women, and the constraints that this, together with society’s rigid social structures, placed on them.
In this post, University of Birmingham masters student Janet Neale look at examples from his essays which demonstrate this concern, and includes an extract from his moral tale ‘The History of Rasselas’, which continues this theme.
While reading and writing were taught to women in the eighteenth century, it was rarely intended to cultivate their knowledge or intellect. The main aim instead was to prepare them for their future station in life; charity schools concentrated on teaching ‘useful’ subjects such as sewing and spinning, and upper-class women learnt the ‘accomplishments’ of music, needlework and drawing.
Johnson demonstrates his understanding of the frustrations of such a restrictive education by giving women a ‘voice’ in some of the essays he produced for periodicals such as The Rambler and The Idler, between 1751 and 1758.
In order to do this, he employs the literary device of a fictitious female correspondent; in essay number 84 for The Rambler, for example, he hears from the sixteen year old Myrtilla. She is growing up as a “country gentlewoman” under the care of her aunt, but she chafes at her isolated life where she has learned only “domestick prudence”. She is being pushed towards a match with “young Mr Surly, an heir in the neighbourhood”, but meets the educated Flavia, whose intellect makes Myrtilla regret the years spent confined in her aunt’s home, educated in nothing but housewifery. The essay has a note of humour, but the point is made that Myrtilla’s social surroundings have dictated her lack of education and opportunity.
In two essays of 1758 for The Idler, Johnson’s ‘correspondent’ Betty Broom is a poor girl, who grew up in a charity school, maintained with the contributions of the rich, and where she learnt how to read and write. The schooling ceased however when the contributors were persuaded that giving poor girls an education would put them above their station in life. The essays then detail various situations in which Betty’s employers also came to believe an educated maid was: “too wise”, and dismissed her. Eventually, Betty is hired for her reading and writing, and rewarded with an inheritance; but Johnson is making the point that the rigid social structures of the eighteenth century viewed Betty as an anomaly; someone fitted to be neither a maid nor a gentlewoman.
With the adoption of the persona of a female correspondent, Johnson was able to construct situations which provide an understanding of how female lives were shaped by their surrounding cultural and social structures.
Written in 1759, The History of Rasselas, set in an imaginary Africa, is concerned with a quest for human happiness; while this goal remains elusive, Johnson through his two female characters makes a subtle point about the benefits of female education. During the story, Pekuah, the favourite of the princess, is kidnapped and Johnson uses her captivity to make an argument about the circumstances in which women are brought up, echoing the complaints of ‘Myrtilla’. Pekuah is confined with uneducated women: “of what could they be expected to talk? They had seen nothing; for they had lived from early youth in that narrow spot: of what they had not seen they could have no knowledge, for they could not read. They had no ideas but of the few things that were within their view”.
Both in his periodical essays and The History of Rasselas, Johnson demonstrates an acute awareness of how women’s lives in the eighteenth century were constrained by society’s perceptions and structures.
Contributor: Janet Neale graduated from the University of Leicester in 2018 with degree in Humanities & Arts. The degree included an in-depth study of the writings of Samuel Johnson. She is now studying for a Masters in West Midlands History at the University of Birmingham.