Explores the central and largely forgotten part that the writings of public women played in the revolution in the family and in middle- and upper-class ladies' status and familial roles in the 18th century. Chapters consider the visions of domestic hierarchy and the nonpatriarchal family, the mechanisms and conventions of fictional exemplification, sexual revolution and the Hardwicke Marriage Act of 1753, and how opposing views of Matriarchs and Egalitarians constructed the family as a sphere of female action and imagined women and men governing separate spheres. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Includes bibliographical references (p. [277]-293) and index.

Enlightenment Feminisms and the Domestic Novel Ch. 1. The Question of Domestic Government Ch. 2. Domestic Fictions and the Pedagogy of Example Ch. 3. Sexual Revolution and the Hardwicke Marriage Act

Ch. 4. "The Public Uses of Private Families" Ch. 5. Governing Utopias and the Feminist Rousseau Conclusion: The Domestic Revolution.