Abstract: Despite being infamous in her own time, and known now for her unconventional metaphysics (e.g., Blake 2023; Lascano 2023; Peterman forthcoming), very little philosophical attention has been paid to Margaret Cavendish's view on marriage. This is surprising: marriage was a frequent theme in Cavendish's writings, albeit in her 'non-philosophical' genres—particularly her novel, letters, and plays. And, as with many topics in Cavendish's oeuvre, there is a kind of internal tension concerning her true view on the matter. While Cavendish lauded about her equitable, amicable, supportive marriage, her characters and plots often explore the myriad ways in which marriage undermines women's freedom, epistemic authority, and moral character. In Sociable Letters, Cavendish writes to her sister:

"I Cannot Advise you to Marry… indeed there is so much Danger in Marrying, as I wonder how any dare Venture… Neither will I have you think by this Discourse, as if I did not Approve of Marriage, for if you do, you Mistake me, there being no Life I Approve so well of, as Married Life…But the Safest Way is to Live a Single Life, for all Wives, if they be not Slaves, yet they are Servants…" (SL 201)

Even within this letter, Cavendish is of two minds on whether marriage is a prudent choice for women. It is my contention that Cavendish was not, in fact, undecided about the value of marriage. Rather, Cavendish had a theory of marriage which was both attentive to the conception of gendered virtues and anticipatory of later political philosophical developments concerning alienated labor.

Indeed, I will argue that for Cavendish, a marriage will be bad if is predicated on and sustained by alienated labor. This includes sexual, reproductive, and socio-epistemic labor. But, perhaps most interestingly, the underlying concern and form of labor which is fundamentally alienated is that of the gendered labor of performing chastity: it is this performance of chastity which sets women up to be alienated from themselves, each other, and men in sexual, reproductive, and socio-epistemic domains. Focusing on two of Cavendish's plays—The Bridals and The Convent of Pleasure (published in the same volume with overlapping characters)—I show that Cavendish thinks a good marriage is possible, but only barely, given the gendered norms and expectations binding men and women.

Insofar as women refuse to perform chastity—and for Cavendish, it very much is an activity—and insofar as men refuse to be enticed by such a performance, a good marriage is possible. Through the pitfalls of performing chastity rather than simply being chaste, Cavendish suggests not only a way to facilitate better marriages and thus relations between men and women, but also an account of chastity which is importantly political: for Cavendish, wives are meant to govern families, but in setting women up for alienated labor and deficient social and spousal relations, performing chastity impedes women's abilities to govern and be governed. Indeed, attending to Cavendish's theory of marriage is illuminating, for she suggests that performing chastity undermines women as political subjects.