I extend my thanks to Steven B. Smith, David Bromwich, Norma Thompson, Penny Weiss, Virginia Sapiro, and the anonymous reviewers of this article for their helpful comments on this project.

1. I borrow the term “egalitarian family” from the historian Randolph Trumbach's book The Rise of the Egalitarian Family (New York: Academic Press, 1978)Google Scholar. Trumbach traces the shift from a patriarchal to an egalitarian system of household relations between 1690 and 1780 in England. No longer was the father, as head of household, the “owner” of his wife, children, and servants. Strict primogeniture faded in favor of aristocratic marriage settlements in which the eldest son received the estate, but all his future children, male and female, were guaranteed generous fixed incomes. This shift in inheritance law paved the way for people to marry for love, rather than wealth. Companionate marriage superceded arranged marriage by the mid-eighteenth century among English aristocrats (and consequently became the universal model for marriage, regardless of class). Children's education increasingly emphasized physical, intellectual, and moral development rather than exclusively vocational training. According to historian Aries's, PhillipeCenturies of Childhood (New York: Vintage, 1962)Google Scholar, children were increasingly expected to enjoy an extended period of innocence, play, and learning rather than seek gainful apprenticeships and employment at a young age. Servants also began to enjoy fewer restrictions on their religious practices and romantic pursuits as the century moved forward. Stone's, LawrenceThe Family, Sex and Marriage in England 1500–1800 (London: Weidenfeld and Nelson, 1977)Google Scholar, together with the work of Aries and Trumbach, assumes that the changes that took place in the structure and function of the eighteenth century aristocratic family eventually “trickled down” into the family life of the lower classes. All these changes contributed to the ascendance of the egalitarian family over the patriarchal, or traditional, family of the past during the course of the eighteenth century.

2. See the second chapter of my dissertation—“The Loss of a Little Platoon? Burke's Fear of the Destruction of the Traditional Family” in “Family Feuds: The Enlightenment Revolution in the Family and its Legacy for Liberalism” (Ph.D. diss. Yale University, 2001)Google Scholar—for a comprehensive study of Burke's philosophy of the family and his conservative reaction to the egalitarian transformation of the family during the eighteenth century.

3. Burke, Edmund, Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. Pocock, J. G. A. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987), p. 41Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Reflections).

4. For Burke's, aesthetic distinction between the sublime and the beautiful, see A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757)Google Scholar.

5. Reflections, p. 173Google Scholar.

6. Wollstonecraft, Mary, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman in A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, ed. Tomaselli, Sylvana (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), p. 256CrossRefGoogle Scholar (hereafter cited as Rights of Men and Rights of Woman).

7. McCann, Andrew, Cultural Politics in the 1790's (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999), p. 165Google Scholar; Johnson, Claudia, Equivocal Beings: Politics, Gender and Sentimentality in the 1790's (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wollstonecraft, Mary and Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft, Mary, Maria and Matilda, ed. and intro. Todd, Janet (London: Pickering and Chatto, 1991), pp. vii and xxviGoogle Scholar; Langbauer, Laurie, “Motherhood and Women's Writing in Mary Wollstonecraft's Novels” in Romanticism and Feminism, ed. Mellor, Anne (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1988), pp. 208–219Google Scholar.

8. Rauschenbusch-Clough, Emma, A Study of Mary Wollstonecraft and the Rights of Woman (London: Longmans, Green and Co., 1898)Google Scholar.

9. Blakemore, Steven, Intertextual War: Edmund Burke and the French Revolution in the Writings of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine and James Mackintosh (Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Johnson, Claudia, Equivocal BeingsGoogle Scholar; Sapiro, Virginia, A Vindication of Political Virtue: The Political Theory of Mary Wollstonecraft (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992)Google Scholar; Gatens, Moira, “The Oppressed State of My Sex: Wollstonecraft on Reason, Feeling and Equality” in Feminist Interpretations and Political Theory, ed. Pateman, Carole and Shanley, Mary (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991), pp. 112–27Google Scholar;

10. In the words of Sapiro, Virginia, “Danger lurks in the attempt to apply a label where no such concept existed. This is certainly the case in referring to anything in the eighteenth century as feminism. Although coined in the late nineteenth century, the term is best understood as a product of the early twentieth century” (Vindication of Political Virtue, p. 258Google Scholar).

11. Kelly, Gary, Revolutionary Feminism: The Mind and Career of Mary Wollstonecraft (London: Macmillan, 1992)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lorch, Jennifer, Mary Wollstonecraft: The Making of a Radical Feminist (New York: Berg, 1990)Google Scholar; Langbauer, Laurie, “Motherhood and Women's Writing in Mary Wollstonecraft's Novels” in Mellor, Romanticism and FeminismGoogle Scholar; Eisenstein, Zillah, The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism (Boston: Northeastern Press, 1981)Google Scholar.

12. Sapiro, , Vindication of Political Virtue, pp. xix–xxiiGoogle Scholar.

13. Ferguson, Moira and Todd, Janet, Mary Wollstonecraft (Boston: Twayne, 1984)Google Scholar; Poovey, Mary, The Proper Lady and the Woman Writer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984)Google Scholar.

14. Michaelson, Patricia, “Religious Bases of Eighteenth Century Feminism: Mary Wollstonecraft and the Quakers,” Women's Studies 22 (1993): 281–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Barker-Benfield, G. J., “Mary Wollstonecraft: Eighteenth Century Commonwealthwoman,” Journal of the History of Ideas 50 (1989): 95–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Butler, Melissa, “Wollstonecraft versus Rousseau: Natural Religion and the Sex of Virtue and Reason” in Man, God, Nature and the Enlightenment, ed. Mell, Donald Jr, (East Lansing, MI: Colleagues Press, 1988)Google Scholar.

15. Pennell, Elizabeth, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1885)Google Scholar; Kegan-Paul, C., Life of Godwin (1876)Google Scholar.

16. Taylor, Barbara, “For the Love of God: Religion and the Erotic Imagination in Wollstonecraft's Feminism” in Mary Wollstonecraft and 200 Years of Feminisms, ed. Yeo, Elaine (London: Rivers Oram Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

17. About 50 biographies of Wollstonecraft have been written so far. There have been very few books written mainly about her philosophy; even Sapiro's, Vindication of Political VirtueGoogle Scholar and Kelly's, Revolutionary FeminismGoogle Scholar, the two most famous and impressive recent critical studies of her political ideas, do not resist the temptation to analyze her colorful personal life.

18. Godwin, William, Memoirs of Mary Wollstonecraft (London: Joseph Johnson, 1798)Google Scholar; Pennell, , Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin (1885)Google Scholar; Taylor, G. R. Stirling, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Study in Economics and Romance (London: Martin Seeker, 1911)Google Scholar; Wardle, Ralph, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Critical Biography (1951)Google Scholar; Flexner, Eleanor, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Biography (New York: Coward, McCann and Geohegan, 1972)Google Scholar; Tomalin, Claire, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft (London: Weidenfeld and Nelson, 1974)Google Scholar; Todd, Janet and Butler, Marilyn, eds., The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, 7 vols. (New York: NYU Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Todd, Janet, Mary Wollstonecraft: A Revolutionary Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 2001)Google Scholar.

19. The early stage (1784–1788) covers her experiences as an educator, first as the owner and director of a school for girls in Newington Green, and then as a governess for an aristocratic family in Ireland. During this era, she wrote Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787)Google Scholar, The Cave of Fancy (composed and left incomplete in 1787, published posthumously in 1798)Google Scholar, Mary, a Fiction (1787)Google Scholar and Original Stories from Real Life (1788)Google Scholar.

The middle stage (1788–1792) covers her work as a professional writer in London and her membership in Joseph Johnson's circle of political and religious radicals. During this era, she translated Necker's, Of the Importance of Religious Opinions (1788)Google Scholar, Salzman's, Elements of Morality, for the Use of Children (1788)Google Scholar, and de Cambon's, Young Grandison (1790)Google Scholar, edited the literary anthology The Female Reader (1789)Google Scholar, anonymously composed numerous book reviews for the Analytical Review, and wrote her two great treatises of political theory, A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790)Google Scholar and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)Google Scholar and Hints (the notes for the unwritten second volume of the Rights of Woman, published posthumously in 1798)Google Scholar.

The late stage (1793–1797) covers her move to Paris during the Terror, her relationship with Gilbert Imlay and the birth of their daughter Fanny, her trip to Scandinavia, and her return to London where she married William Godwin and died giving birth to their daughter Mary, the future author of Frankenstein and wife of Percy Shelley. During this era, she wrote Letter on the Present Character of the French Nation (1793, published posthumously in 1798)Google Scholar, A Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution (1794)Google Scholar, Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (1796)Google Scholar, Letters to Imlay (originally part of the manuscript of Letters from Sweden, removed by Wollstonecraft before publication to preserve her privacy, yet published posthumously by Godwin in 1798Google Scholar), Letters on the Management of Infants (published posthumously by Godwin in 1798)Google Scholar, Lessons (published posthumously in 1798)Google Scholar, and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria (published posthumously in 1798)Google Scholar.

20. Todd, , introduction to Mary, Maria and MatildaGoogle Scholar; Butler, and Todd, , introduction to The Works of Mary WollstonecraftGoogle Scholar.

21. Wollstonecraft, , The Cave of Fancy, in vol. 1 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 192Google Scholar.

22. Ibid., p. 206.

23. Wollstonecraft, , Mary, a Fiction, in vol. 1 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 42Google Scholar.

24. Ibid., p. 11.

25. Ibid., p. 16.

26. Ibid., p. 17.

27. Wollstonecraft, , Thoughts on the Education of Daughters, vol. 4 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 42Google Scholar.

28. Ibid., p. 41.

29. Wollstonecraft, , Original Stories from Real Life, in vol. 4 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, 361Google Scholar.

30. Mitchell, Orm, “Blake's Subversive Illustrations to Wollstonecraft's Stories,” Mosaic 17 (1984): 17–34Google Scholar.

31. Socinianism is an anti-trinitarian theological position in the Christian tradition that originated in the sixteenth century. The Italian theologian Fausto Sozzini (1539–1604) authored the doctrine, namely, that Jesus was neither cosubstantial with God the Father and the Holy Spirit (as Origen insisted) nor a preexistent creature (as Arian contended). Rather, Jesus was a man of exemplary character, a prophet, and the messiah sent by God to save humanity not through the mystery of the atonement, but rather through the moral example of his life and teachings. Hence, Socinians likewise upheld the doctrine of nonadorantism. Socinianism is the theological precursor to nineteenth- and twentieth-century Unitarianism; God is one, not three, and only the one God may be worshiped.

32. Blakemore, , Intertextual WarGoogle Scholar; Sapiro, , Vindication of Political VirtueGoogle Scholar; Boulton, James, The Language of Politics in the Age of Wilkes and Burke (London: Routledge, 1963)Google Scholar.

33. Bromwich, David, “Wollstonecraft as Critic of Burke,” Political Theory 23 (1995): 617–634CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

34. Rights of Men, p. 55Google Scholar.

35. Rights of Women, p. 81Google Scholar.

36. Rights of Men, p. 55Google Scholar.

37. Ibid., p. 56.

38. Robinson, Daniel, “Theodicy versus Feminist Strategy in Mary Wollstonecraft's Fiction,” Eighteenth century Fiction 9 (1997): 183–202CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39. Rights of Men, p. 21Google Scholar.

40. Ibid., p. 9.

41. Ibid., p. 22.

42. Ibid., p. 60.

43. Ibid., p. 61.

44. Ibid., p. 60.

45. The central place of physical education in Wollstonecraft's philosophy of education has been neglected in the scholarly literature about her. Virginia Sapiro offers the only substantive look at this important facet of her thinking; see Vindication of Political Virtue, pp. 68, 120–28, 240, 243, 247, 318Google Scholar.

46. Wollstonecraft, , A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, in vol. 5 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 168Google Scholar.

47. Ibid., p. 26.

48. Ibid., p. 145.

49. Ibid., p. 150.

50. Ibid., p. 178.

51. Ibid., p. 247.

52. Wollstonecraft, , Letter on the Present Character of the French Nation, in vol. 6 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 445Google Scholar.

53. Wollstonecraft, , A Historical and Moral View of the Origin and Progress of the French Revolution in vol. 6 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 159Google Scholar.

54. Wollstonecraft, , Letters Written during a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976), p. 102Google Scholar.

55. Ibid., pp. 179–80.

56. Ibid., p. 80.

57. Wollstonecraft, , The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria, in vol. 1 of The Works of Mary Wollstonecraft, p. 146Google Scholar.

58. Ibid., p. 88.

59. Ibid., p. 154.

60. Ibid., p. 134.

61. Ibid., p. 167.