Abstract: Marriage has long been a subject of outsized concern for women. This is hardly surprising given the control marriage exerted over the trajectory of women's lives. Noticing this, many historical Anglo-American women philosophers from the 17th to early 20th century wrote at length about marriage as the supposed purpose for women, the harms that it visits upon them, and the potential for its reform and greatness for men and women alike. They did so in treatise form, as Astell in Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1706), in plays, as Cavendish (1662, 1668), in speeches, as Woodhull and Goldman (1872, 1910), and in novels, as Wollstonecraft and Austen (1796, 1811). And yet, as a subject of historical, philosophical concern, marriage tends to be overlooked.

What is overlooked, and the focus of this paper, is how marriage is not only a matter of feminist theorizing, but also iterative of these women philosophers' political philosophical engagement. As I will argue, for many Anglo-American women philosophers, marriage is a microcosm of political theorizing which links gender injustice to broader contemporary political movements: their interest in marriage was not only personal, but political. I argue that there are three broad models of marriage which emerge and evolve through 17th – 20th century Anglo-American women philosophers' writings: one which tracks a Christian metaphysics of persons despite sexed bodies, one which tracks a debate about authority and the scope of political obligation, and one which tracks an ethical and economic debate about alienated labour. These models proceed roughly chronologically and track contemporaneous large-scale political philosophical debates, tying in to, for example, Lockean criticisms of absolute monarchy and Marxist criticisms of capitalist alienation.

These connections between marriage and mainstream political philosophical debates are no accident: I argue that these women philosophers are connecting gender injustices usefully captured by marriage to topics of wider interest as a deliberate, feminist, and ameliorative strategy. Thus, marriage is both more traditionally political than is usually understood and functions as a microcosm of historical feminist political theorizing.

I close by considering two important connections for contemporary scholarship on historical women philosophers on marriage. First, I address a methodological challenge of interpreting these philosophers on marriage and political theory more generally given that many were writing in non- traditional, non-literal genres like plays and novels. I suggest that genre and method have a philosophically complex relationship mediated by expected audience. Second, I consider what the enormous upswing in 'tradwife' content in print and media says about our present political moment and how historical Anglo-American women philosophers would over us guidance.