The Limit of the Enlightenment of Martha Laurens Ramsay

Martha read Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, but she understood it incorrectly. In the book, Mary Wollstonecraft mainly wanted to advocate women to have good education and struggle for the same legal rights as men in a world which was dominated by men. After reading it, Martha wanted to be an “obliged and grateful wife” rather than to be a radical female as Mary Wollstonecraft claimed. Obviously, Martha put an “obliged and grateful wife” to her husband at the most important place and she even didn’t consider how to be an independent woman. For Martha, we can see clearly that her enlightenment served for her religious faith of a good Christian, as well as an obliged and grateful wife.

Although Martha received well education and accepted enlightened ideas, she was weak to exert her own rationality. As a daughter, she obliged to her parental authority. In early August 1782, without her father’s permission, monsieur Caladon deVerne, a local fellow-Huguenot merchant, who was obviously well known to the James Laurens household and to Martha, dared to discuss the marriage between Martha and him. Martha’s father of course didn’t know it and when Henry finally knew it, he was very angry, because he thought that his parental authority was challenged by his daughter. During the remaining months of 1782, correspondence between Martha and Henry conveyed his deep unwillingness to recognize the powerful logic and appeal of matrimony for her and her refusal to simply fall in line with his wishes. Finally Henry asked Henry Laurens, Jr. to take words for him, he wrote, “if she continues to resist, speak to her very affectionately but pointedly……I shall hold [Uncle and Aunt] Criminal in preferring a little self convenience to the honor and happiness of my Daughter, of her Father, and her Brothers.” His last sentence gave Henry Laurens, Jr. an ultimate threat to deploy: his sister was shortening her father’s days, “say finally you apprehend [that her resistance] will cost me a Winter’s journey to Vigan, at the hazard of my life and the risqué of my reputation at home.” Considering her father’s authority, as well as her family’s reputation, although Martha was reluctant to obey her father’s instructions, she finally compromised with his father, cut down her link with monsieur Caladon deVerne and directly traveled straight across France toward her father in Bath, England at the beginning of February 1783. Regarding to her own marriage, she could not make her own choice. While instead, she had to respect her father’s authority and follow his instructions.