earticle

영어

It is controversial how spinsterhood was construed by the early nineteenth-century American middle-class women. Catharine Sedgwick, who was one of the most influential women writers in the antebellum America, led her life as a spinster. For Sedgwick, the issue of marriage and single life was an obsessive one throughout her life. This study delves into Sedgwick’s ideas about marriage and single life revealed in her novels, journals, letters, and autobiography. The antebellum spinsters are often celebrated by feminist critics as foremothers of modern day female activists. These critics praise their courage to face the problems of marriage institution and to pursue their autonomy and self-development. On the other hand, some critics argue that it is distorting to interpret antebellum spinsterhood in terms of contemporary progressive ideas. They try to understand the female ideals of love, marriage, and vocation in the context of antebellum cultural milieu. Sedgwick, though she was wholeheartedly advocating women’s rights, made distance from the radical ideas of feminist activists. She did not repudiate the sacredness of marriage itself. However, when the true marriage is hindered by moral compromise, she thought it was no better than single life. Sedgwick tries to dissolve the binary interpretation of marriage and single life. For Sedgwick, both terms were on the same continuum that strives to pursue moral perfection.