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Summary Of A Married State By Katherine Phillips

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Summary Of A Married State By Katherine Phillips
In A Married State, Katherine Phillips speaks to the clash between a woman fulfilling her spiritual, emotional needs and fulfilling her physical social responsibilities. Phillips begins with the light diction of “content” and “innocent” to highlight the two different spaces that were expected of women: virginity and happiness in their lowly station in life. The former reflects their physical history, while the latter reflects their spiritual state. These were often at odds due to women being unable to marry for love and oppressed by society. Phillips then goes on to illustrate these physical and worldly oppressions as “blustering husbands to create your fears, pangs of childbirth to extort your fears, children cries for to offend your ears”.
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