The Lover Gender Roles

Gender Roles in The Lover: A Ballad

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu was one of the first female authors to write so boldly to the general public regarding her perception of women loving and marrying. Women understood exactly what men desired and expected of them, but did not appreciate game playing or the notion that society only approved men having casual encounters. With her short poem, The Lover: A Ballad, Montagu dictates how women should live and enjoy their youthful years in the same manner as men.
Montagu’s first revealing stand is she is not a prude like men so often think, “I am not as cold as a Virgin in lead, Nor is Sunday’s sermon so strong in my head.” She expresses she is not pure like the Virgin Mary that one sees in a stained glass window at church. Furthermore, she may not feel guilty for having sex before marriage as the Sunday sermon discourages. When Montagu states, “But I hate to be cheated, and never will buy Long years of repentance for moments of joy,” she is expressing how women would simply like to have
single fun nights without the promise of marriage. Montagu viewed marriage as a ball and chain, where women were bound to eventual doom. This statement is the first to express a woman’s concern with affairs and that they may be inevitable once married. This explains how women understand a man is only interested in a woman he has casual sex with for a short period of time, and that even if they married the man would soon find a new attraction. These ideas openly tell the reader that women are bound to a stagnant and uneventful role merely by society’s perception of a pure and untainted woman, but given equality with this stance women would act similarly to men. Montagu makes a notion that having casual sex with men does not make her impure like society believes, “As I long have lived chaste, I will keep myself so.” Her belief is that she has not fallen in love with several men, that would be considered impure, but having meaningless encounters like men do is simply her enjoy youthful years. Society frowns upon this principle because women were supposed to treat men a certain way and act in specifically pure manner. Montagu’s poem arguably asks for equality between men and women regarding extramarital intercourse, so that women will enjoy their youth while searching for an ideal lover.
The underlying knowledge is that women are not oblivious to men’s intentions with their courting and wit, “The toasters and songsters may try all their art But never shall enter the pass of my heart.” By calling men toasters and songsters this shows how women understand the tricks and maneuvers men play by flirting and showing their clout in public.
Montagu directly says women will not fall for this cheap trickery at love, and that this showing only makes finding a genuine man that much more difficult. The ideal man who possesses “Good sense and good nature so equally joined” is nearly impossible to find since these men overestimate their own intellect while underestimating women’s. As Montagu is beginning to explain her ideal lover, the reader sees how women are intelligent and capable of making their own decisions. They are not naïve individuals like society may believe; women simply did not act as openly as men about their
desires.
Montagu helps readers realize the gap between men and women experienced during the eighteenth century. In contrast to the social standard of courting and marriage, Montagu expresses that the needs and desires of women are identical to men’s, except women did not attempt game playing and trickery to court a mate. Furthermore Montagu tells how women “harden like trees, and like rivers are cold.” Meaning women might never enjoy life as do men at this rate. Montagu’s poem is mainly written to the intellectual reader that would understand a more complex writing. Her audience would therefore be the middle to upper class women who would also understand the trickery and courting men perform. The lower class women may not be able to observe the same tactics and could fall for deceit. The resulting issue is women were still viewed as impure after casual sex while men proceeded unscathed. This locked women into a role where they must perform specifically to society’s standards while men were able to unjustly roam freely and literally act as pigs. Men should have been held to the same standards, and thus eliminating illegitimate heirs, instead, society expanded the gap of inequality between men and women.