Abstract
"Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Views on Marriage and Education in Her Letters," is a thesis that explores the Eighteenth century poet and letter writer, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu's views on these two important subjects. The Eighteenth century was a time in which the upper classes started to rethink the institution of marriage, and authors and thinkers contributed to the debate. During this period, old mercenary and dynastic considerations were to a certain extent substituted with the idea of marrying for love.
Education was also an important question during the Eighteenth century, as rationalism and Enlightenment were new forces that challenged the way people thought about learning in a wide sense. Accordingly, some thinkers and authors began to question the widely held belif that women were uneducable by nature.
Lady Mary in particular was very preoccupied with these two questions that she discussed in many of the approximately 900 letters by her that are preserved. So, in this thesis I examine what influence these institutions had on her life and what she thought about marriage and education for women.