Mary Astell validates the inexorableness of divorce in compelling situations: “There are some Reasons, (for the Laws of God and Man allow Divorces in certain Cases) though not many, that authorize a Wife’s leaving her Husband, but if any Thing short of absolute Necessity, from irreclaimable Vice and Cruelty, prevails with her to break these sacred and strongest Bonds, how is she expos’d to Temptations and Injuries, Contempt, and the just Censure of the World.” Should a woman experience disdain and degradation from her husband, then a divorce would be defensible because in such case, the woman would not be loving the unqualified utility of matrimony. Affection and disdain are mutually exclusive; hence, a man who is unreservedly in adores with his wife would not subject her to agony once they are wedded. When couples can no longer endorse the marriage oaths, then it is laudable for them to divorce instead of sticking to a marriage that is grounded on insincerity.
Marriage should be based on consensus and will rather than duress: “They only who have felt it, know the Misery of being forc’d to marry where they do not love; of being yok’d for Life to a disagreeable Person and imperious Temper, where Ignorance and Folly (the Ingredients of a Coxcomb, who is the most unsufferable Fool) tyrannizes over Wit and Sense: To be perpetually contradicted for Contradiction-sake, and bore down by Authority, not by Argument; to be denied one’s most innocent Desires, for no other Reason but the absolute Will and Pleasure of a Lord and Master, whose Follies a Wife, with all her Prudence, cannot hide, and whose Commands she cannot but despise at the same Time that she obeys them.”
Coercing an individual to wed is correspondent to imposing an untenable yoke on his heart. Instead of appreciating the enjoyment of marriage, an individual would be upset with even the spectacle of the partner whom he/ she does not adore. Therefore, marriage is a mutual treaty that obliges the qualified will of the involved parties. Withstanding an involuntary marriage results in permanent anguish ; thus, individuals should not be pressured to marry if there are not enthusiastic.
The foremost dynamics that hearten women to endure marriages are “Religion and Reputation”: “Religion and Reputation are so sure a Guard, such a Security to poor defenceless Woman, that whenever a Man has ill Designs on her, he is sure to make a Breach into one or both of these, by endeavouring either to corrupt her Principles, to make her less strict in Devotion, or to lessen her Value of a fair Reputation, and would persuade her, that less than she imagines will secure her as to the next World, and that not much Regard is to be given to the Censures of this.” Religious women bear the affliction of maltreatment by being unreservedly dedicated to their men. Accordingly, religion may be deleterious to the contentment of woman specifically when it enforces irrational standards on women. Furthermore, women who are conscious of their reputation would do all that it takes to ensure that their matrimonies are undamaged. Such women would relinquish their gladness for the sake of shielding their repute in the society.
