Violations of the True Woman in The Coquette Essay -- The Coquette Ess

Violations of the lawful Woman in The vamper In her article, The Cult of accepted Womanhood 1820-1860, Barbara Welter discusses the nineteenth-century ideal of the sinless woman. She asserts that the attributes of True Womanhood . . . could be divided into four cardinal virtues-piety, purity, submissiveness and domesticity. Furthermore, she adds that if anyone, antheral or female, dared to tamper with the complex virtues which made up True Womanhood, he was damned immediately as an enemy of God, of civilization and of the Republic (Welter 152). In Hannah W. Fosters The Coquette, the characters Major Sanford and Eliza Wharton violate True Womanhood condemning them both to measly fates. Major Sanford continu on the wholey violates the True Womanhood with his systematic seduction of women. receivable to his assaults against female purity, Major Sanford is rejected by society for being complimentary of virtue. Well aware of this reputation, Mrs. Richman warns Eliza that he is a professed libertine and is not to be admitted into virtuous society (Foster 20). Upon her acquaintance with him, her friend Lucy Freeman declares, I come across upon the vicious habits, and abandoned character of Major Sanford, to have more plaguey effects on society, than the perpetrations of the robber and the assassin (Foster 63). Major Sanfords licentious prehistorical dooms him to a future of lechery there is no possibility for him to evade his reputation. Elizas assaults against True Womanhood are violations of the virtues submissiveness and purity. When Eliza refuses to ignore the gallantry of Major Sanford in favour of the proposals of Reverend Boyer despite the warnings of her friends and mother, she disregards submissiveness in favor of her own fanc... ...ind of happiness (Foster 166). In the end, both are severely punished for their debasement of the True Woman. virtuoso might question if Eliza really had any choice in her situation. primeval in the novel she d eclares, What a pity . . . that the graces and virtues are not oftner joined (Foster 22). While Sanford possessed all the suavity she desired and Reverend Boyer all the integrity, she could find no companion who possessed both. This lack of options seems to be what in truth destroys Eliza. It may have been within Elizas power to be a True Woman, but due to the societal constraints imposed upon her, it does not seem at all possible for her to have been a happy woman. Works Cited Foster, Hannah W. The Coquette. spick-and-span York Oxford UP, 1986. Welter, Barbara. The Cult of True Womanhood 1820-1860. American Quarterly. Vol. 18 (1966). 151-74.