Mrs. Fielding: The Single Woman as the Incarnation of the Ideal Domestic Women.

Mrs. Fielding: la mujer soltera como encarnación del ideal de la mujer en el hogar.

Single women; Hamilton, Elizabeth, 1758-1816; Social conditions of women; Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (Book); Single women in literature; Women's roles; Gender stereotypes; Social history

Eighteenth-century female writers realized that single women were scorned and viewed with contempt. They tried to modify the negative stereotypes, found mainly in the work of male authors, by offering more attractive portraits of single, independent women. Elizabeth Hamilton dignified the figure of the "old maid" by creating the characters of Martha Goodwin, Maria Fielding and Mrs. Mason. The aim of this article is to analyse the similarities between Hamilton herself and Mrs. Fielding in Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800), as well as comment on how Hamilton used her fictional counterpart to explore her own ideas on women's education, marriage or spinsterhood. With a character like Mrs. Fielding, Hamilton not only created a positive role for old maids like herself but showed her readers that it was possible for an unmarried woman to have a varied, interesting, useful and fulfilled life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Las escritoras del siglo XVIII eran conscientes de que a las mujeres solteras se las ridiculizaba y despreciaba. Por ello intentaron modificar los estereotipos negativos existentes, creados principalmente por los novelistas masculinos, ofreciendo atractivos retratos de mujeres solteras e independientes. Elizabeth Hamilton dignificó la figura de la solterona a través de los personajes de Martha Goodwin, Maria Fielding y Mrs. Mason. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar las similitudes entre Hamilton y Mrs. Fielding en Memoirs of Modern Philosophers (1800), así como el modo en que la autora utilizó a este personaje para explorar sus propias ideas sobre la educación de las mujeres, el matrimonio o la soltería. A través de Mrs. Fielding Hamilton no solo creó un papel positivo para "solteronas" como ella misma, sino que enseñó a sus lectores que era posible para una mujer soltera tener una vida variada, interesante, útil y reconfortante. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]