...of the matrimonial state, put with a startling incisiveness. " I told him I had, perhaps, different notions of matrimony from what the received custom...mere woman ever after — that is to say, a slave." So far Roxana's argument is but a statement of the law as it then stood, and she reinforces it, on...

...that Aft, gave himself up to be a Servant during Life. That the very Nature of the Marriage-Contract was, in short, nothing but giving up Liberty, Estate,...mere Woman ever after, that is to say, a Slave. He reply'd that though in some Respects it was as 1 had said, yet I ought to consider, that as an Equivalent...

...that Act, gave himself up to be a Servant during Life. That the very Nature of the Marriage-Contract was, in short, nothing but giving up Liberty, Estate,...mere Woman ever after, that is to say, a Slave. He reply'd that though in some Respects it was as I had said, yet I ought to consider, that as an Equivalent...

...mechanisms governing the female, exposing the truth behind the social construction of marriage, that "[it] was, in short, nothing but giving up liberty, estate,...mere woman ever after — that is to say, a slave" (p. 126). The irony of Roxana's characterization is that, at the same time she tries to escape slave...

...Defoe's contemporary heroine, Roxana, that because of "the very nature of the marriage contract . . . the woman was indeed a mere woman ever after - that is to say a slave." But there were also compensating factors at work. The pressure of public opinion - especially female...

...many identities, relationships, houses, countries, continents. She rejects a marriage proposal because "the very nature of the marriage contract was, in...a mere woman ever after, that is to say, a slave" (142). In other words, the "situation of the seraglio lives on here as a metaphor; London is clearly...

...money cannot be combined with marriage, since ' the very nature of the marriage contract was . . . nothing but giving up liberty, estate, authority,...mere woman ever after — that is to say, a slave'. So she refuses marriage, even with a nobleman, because 'I was as well without the titles as long as...

...no personal property, make no personal contracts, and bring no lawsuits.81 As Daniel Defoe observed, "the very nature of the marriage contract was, in...indeed a mere woman ever after — that is to say a slave."82 We thus find that during the second half of the eighteenth century, 78. See John Locke, Two...

...echoed by Daniel Defoe's Roxana, whose heroine proclaims: 'The very Nature of the MarriageContract was, in short, nothing but giving up Liberty, Estate,...a mere Woman ever after, that is to say, a Slave.' Quoted in Pateman, p. 120. 94. Diaries of Hannah Cullwick, p. 273. 95. Ibid., p. 238. 96. Ibid., p....