Wollstonecraft & Eloise Bridgerton
Mary Wollstonecraft, I am so sorry. that someone looked at your life in the 19th century, and decided that you didn't "value love". These Bridgerton show-runners didn't do any research about your life, and its clear your name only came up bc they did a cursory search on google about. "most well known feminist in regency England"
Even though Wollstonecraft existed in the most stringent gender norms, she had multiple passionate & public love affairs, one when it ended, she were so heartbroken she attempted suicide.
Wollstonecraft had sexual relations outside of marriage (when lead to MULTIPLE babies conceived out of wedlock) in an era that shunned that heavily. Both she and the philosopher Goodwin weren't fond of marriage as an institution but wed to make their child legitimate.
You wrote publicly about the heart's desires, of the pains of heartbreak, of passion and love. Your marriage to Goodwin was seen as extraordinary by your contemporaries, enviable in that you espoused and LIVED through a true marriage of equals, of a husband who saw your feminist ideals and progressiveness as one to uplift.
He wrote a memoir entailing her intellectualism and defending her unconventional lifestyle : “There are no circumstances of her life, that, in the judgment of honour and reason, could brand her with disgrace.” he writes. “Never did there exist a human being, that needed, with less fear, expose all their actions, and call upon the universe to judge them.”
Because Bridgerton show-runners are so misogynistic, are so violently antifeminist and conservative, they only viewed Wollstonecraft as a warning for others. It's clear Eloise is meant to be the taming of the shrew archetype. They have stripped her of her spirited desire to make the world a better place. Her fiery cries about the injustices women face.
Because of course, that is for immature girls that will outgrow them and know their "place" in society. Wollstonecraft will have lived in a feminist light, Eloise will not.
