Sarah Chapone

Sarah Chapone (11 December 169924 February 1764), born Sarah Kirkham and often referred to as Mrs Chapone, was an English legal theorist, pamphleteer, and prolific letter writer. She is best known for the treatise The Hardships of the English Laws in Relation to Wives, published anonymously in 1735.

Background

Chapone lived and wrote in mid-18th-century England. At home, the period, known as the Georgian era, was marked by the dominance of Robert Walpole in Parliament. Abroad, military conflict between France and England was constant, until the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763—one year before Chapone's death.

Feminism Describing Chapone's theory as 'feminist' is an anachronism: the use of 'feminist' and 'feminism' to designate views favouring women's rights is attested only from the late 19th century. However, scholars have identified aspects of Chapone's work that correspond to present-day feminist theory. For instance, philosopher Jacqueline Broad argues that 'Chapone deserves a prominent place in the history of feminist philosophy as one of the first writers consistently to apply what is now known as the republican concept of liberty to the situation of married women in early modern society'.

Bluestocking circle Scholars dispute whether Chapone was a bluestocking—an 18th-century term for an educated woman who belonged to tight-knit intellectual circles. One difference between Chapone and most bluestockings was her social status: unlike Elizabeth Montagu and Mary Delany, she did not come from wealth or nobility. Orr points out that Chapone, unlike most bluestockings, was particularly focussed on the law—bluestockings, while they were advocates for education and literary work by women, did not generally critique coverture.

Personal life Church of St Michael and All Angels in Stanton. Chapone spent much of her life in Stanton and came from a family of Anglican clergy. Chapone was born in 1699 to Damaris and the Reverend Lionel Kirkham, to a family largely of Anglican clergy. She was raised in her father's rectory in Stanton, Gloucestershire, then quite a remote area. She married Reverend John Chapone in 1725. John Wesley, the Anglican theologian, had courted her; they later became friends and correspondents. For nine years after her marriage, she operated a boarding school while raising five children. whom she had read for many years. Together, Chapone and Ballard worked to find Elizabeth Elstob, who by the 1730s was living in poverty, financial assistance and a better living situation.

Chapone struck up a correspondence with Richardson in 1750. Their relationship was 'almost purely epistolary'. Richardson had a high regard for Chapone, calling her 'a great Championess for her Sex'.

Works

Hardships

Edition of the Hardships in the collection of the Bodleian Library. Although Chapone's Hardships (1735) was published anonymously, it was an 'open secret' at the time—and recent scholarship has confirmed In the Apology, Phillips, known by that time as a courtesan, argues that she has now rejected such a life. The Letter was printed with the second edition of the Apology, published in 1750. Addressed to Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, it argues that Stanhope, as a man, was able to overcome the libertinism of his youth; but that Phillips, as a woman, could not escape her past in the view of the public.

Chapone's Remarks was published anonymously in 1750, but Chapone told Richardson privately that she had written it. Indeed, Richardson read a manuscript version of this work and may have printed it in 1750. It is not clear why Chapone decided to publish her Remarks on Phillips's Letter.

In her Remarks, Chapone expresses sympathy for Phillips's painful past—the Apology tells the story of Phillips's rape at age 13 —but argues that Phillips has not sufficiently reformed her character or shown appropriate contrition. She further accuses Phillips of attempting to profit from Stanhope's reputation in addressing the Letter to him.