Hume is famous for his perspective that stresses experience as the only true vector of

knowledge. Such a viewpoint proves sympathetic to women in the 18th century, whom the

Catholic Church and nobility were quick to condemn for engaging in premarital sex and having

children out of wedlock. What they failed to understand, however, were the enormous pressures

these women faced. Hume’s Of Love and Marriage explores women’s tendencies to resist

possessive marriages and a universal search of love, which provides a defense for the rampant

premarital sex and shaky, love-based marriages of the 18th century.

Early 18th marriages were largely a one sided affair; women were expected to stay at

home and raised the children while most husbands did as they pleased. Subordinate to men,

women’s personal thoughts and dreams were disregarded in favor of motherhood. Hume’s belief

in human experience would have spread the negative aspects of marriage by way of women’s

conversations. “After we have acquired a confidence in human testimony, books and

conversation enlarge much more the sphere of one’s experience and thought than those of

another.” (Miller) Wives speaking with other women of marriage would divulge the difficulty of

their lives to prospective brides. Young women, with stories from other wives, would most likely

see marriage as a bleak life with little enjoyment or freedom. This knowledge would discourage

young women from entering marriage easily.

However hesitant a young woman was to marry, however, she still had carnal desires.

Premarital sex was a sin, so the only sex free of fault available to women was with a husband.

With their knowledge of poor and harsh wifedom, women sought alternatives in the form of

premarital sex. Following this boom in fornication, women had children out of wedlock much

more often. Hume would argue that their experience through conversation was responsible for
women’s avoidance of marriage: their lust needed satisfaction, but their hesitance to marry led to

relations with men they had no intent of marrying.

Under tremendous expectations, husbands still demanded obedience from their wives, but

Hume came to women’s defense: “that if we [men] did not abuse our authority, they would never

think it worth while to dispute it.” (Miller) According to Hume, it only makes sense that wives

are apt to disobey their husbands when they are held under tyrannical authority. Conversely, less

oppression from their husbands would mean less chance of rebellion of wives against them.

Hume would see the startling increase of out of wedlock babies as a response to women’s

domestic lives. If men were to be less strict with their wives, the marriage would be less

oppressive. Thus, the reputation of marriage would be less intimidating to potential brides. These

brides would then more easily accept marriage to satisfy both their financial and carnal needs.

Obviously, marriage was, most times, devoid of romance. “Nothing could be so

businesslike, so calculating, as a peasant marriage that was often dictated by the need of the

couple’s families” (Mckay) Marriage wasn’t a joining of two people meant to be together: it was

a financial endeavor. Daughters could gain fiduciary stability by marrying the proper gentleman,

and their families were quick to find one for them, with the girls getting little say in who they

would spend the rest of their lives with. The idea of marrying for love without concerns of

finances was ludicrous: “Members of the older generation were often high critical of the lack of

responsibility they saw in the early marriages of the poor” (Mckay). Hume’s view of marriages

based on love is much more sympathetic. He suggests that readers consider Plato’s allegory of

the Androgyne, a creature which was once man and woman but, split in half by Jupiter, must

now “remedy this disorder, and to bestow some comfort, at least, on the human race in their

forlorn situation, Jupiter sent down LOVE and CARE to collect the broken halves of human
kind, and piece them together.” (Miller) Hume’s endorsement of this allegory is appropriate for

the situation of women living in populous cities. Free from the pestering of the close, village

family in the late 18th century, women in the city could pursue notions of love as openly as they

wanted to. Their spontaneous marriages in search of love would be explained by Hume as an

inherent desire to find their other half. New trends in weddings that weren’t financially focused

weren’t irresponsible but, by Hume’s logic, romantic.

Common women in the later 18th century were changing: though their freedoms weren’t

fully realized, they were beginning to defy the obligations that society had forced upon them.

Hume would argue that women were driven to premarital sex, a result of their negative

experiences with marriage. Along with the romantic idea of Androgyne, Hume wouldn’t have

been condemning of the increase in premarital sex, but understanding.

Miller, Eugene. "Hume, Essays, Moral, Political, and Literary, Part III, Essay V, OF LOVE

AND MARRIAGE." Library of Economics and Liberty. 1987. Web. 30 Nov. 2010.

<http://www.econlib.org/library/LFBooks/Hume/hmMPL44.html>.

McKay, John P., Bennett D. Hill, and John Buckler. A History of Western Society. Boston:

Houghton Mifflin, 2006.