Of Women's Love, Learning, and (In)Discretion: Maria Lorenzade de Los Rios's La sabia indiscreta (1803)

"Your list of the common extent of accomplishments," said Darcy, "has too much truth. The word is applied to many a woman who deserves it no otherwise than by netting a purse or covering a screen. But I am very far from agreeing with you in your estimation of ladies in general. I cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen, in the whole range of my acquaintance, that are really accomplished."

"Nor I, I am sure," said Miss Bingley.

"Then," observed Elizabeth, "you must comprehend a great deal in your idea of an accomplished woman."

"Yes, I do comprehend a great deal in it."

"Oh! certainly," cried his faithful assistant, "no one can be really esteemed accomplished who does not greatly surpass what is usually met with. A woman must have a thorough knowledge of music, singing, drawing, dancing, and the modern languages, to deserve the word; and besides all this, she must possess a certain something in her air and manner of walking, the tone of her voice, her address and expressions, or the word will be but half-deserved."

"All this she must possess," added Darcy, "and to all this she must yet add something more substantial, in the improvement of her mind by extensive reading."

"I am no longer surprised at your knowing ONLY six accomplished women. I rather wonder now at your knowing ANY."

(Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice [1813])

The definition, extent, and relative value of a young lady's accomplishments were issues that provoked a great deal of literary comment around the turn of the eighteenth century. The debate centered on the intellectual equality or "natural" complementarity of women and men (Bolufer 61-70) and extended to ancillary but nevertheless perplexing problems such as the appropriate kind of education for women. As women's domestic role was naturalized in the discourse on gender norms that took place during the last half of the century (Bolufer 70-89; Lacqueur 149-63), moralists and pedagogues asserted the necessity of instruction for women because of their crucial role in raising and molding their children. Ever the realist with an eye for the probable, Jane Austen points out the absurd contradictions this unsettled state of expectations posed for women. She wryly questions the value of the rather superficial activities cried up in her day as "accomplishments"—dancing, drawing, needlework, a smattering of French, elegant posture and carriage—and also has her heroine Elizabeth ironically punctured Mr. Darcy's well-meaning but rather pompous reiteration of moralists' demands for a wider intellectual formation than most women would have found possible or practical.

While Jane Austen was deftly sketching women's lot among the rural English gentry, another woman writer, living in a very different, aristocratic, urban milieu in Madrid, was thinking and writing about similar issues. María Lorenza de los Ríos y Loyo, the Marquesa de Fuerte Híjar, belonged to the political and cultural elite of Spanish society and was an important member of the small group of enlightened female intellectuals living at the end of the eighteenth century in Spain. Born in Cádiz in 1768, she was active in aristocratic Madrid society and hosted her own tertulia or salon attended by painters such as Francisco de Goya, writers such as Nicasio Álvarez de Cienfuegos, and actors such as Isidoro Máiquez. She and her husband, who was Subdelegate General of Theaters in 1802, participated in economic societies organized to guide and benefit national industry. The Marquesa contributed actively to various philanthropic undertakings and was President of the Junta de Damas de Honor y Mérito of the Madrid Economic Society in 1817, the last year of recorded information on her life. She was a translator and, as part of her endeavors for the Junta de Damas...