Lady Mary, however, was less concerned with “the open door” for women in politics:  her primary desire was that a woman should have the right, within reason, to live her own life, and not merely be a chattel of her husband.  There is the conduct of her own married life to prove her sincerity.

Her view of the Turkish woman has already been given, as also has her opinion that marriages should be for the limited period of seven years.  Now, she gave her opinion of the woman question in Italy, and it would seem that, realising that her own marriage has been anything but satisfactory to either party, she wrote from her heart.

“I cannot let pass in silence the prodigious alteration, since Misson’s writing, in regard to our sex.  This reformation (or, if you please, depravation) began so lately as the year 1732, when the French overran this part of Italy; but it has been carried on with such fervour and success, that the Italian go far beyond their patterns, the Parisian ladies, in the extent of their liberty.  I am not so much surprised at the women’s conduct, as I am amazed at the change in the men’s sentiments.  Jealousy, which was once a point of honour among them, is exploded to that degree, it is the most infamous and ridiculous of all characters; and you cannot more affront a gentleman than to suppose him capable of it.  Divorces are also introduced, and frequent enough; they have long been in fashion in Genoa; several of the finest and greatest ladies there having two husbands alive.  The constant pretext is impotency, to which the man often pleads guilty, and though he marries again, and has children by another wife, the plea remains good by saying he was so in regard to his first; and when I told them that in England a complaint of that kind was esteemed so impudent no reasonable woman would submit to make it, I was answered we lived without religion, and that their consciences obliged them rather to strain a point of modesty than to live in a state of damnation.  However, as this method is not without inconvenience (it being impracticable where there is children), they have taken another here:  the husband deposes upon oath that he has had a commerce with his mother-in-law, on which the marriage is declared incestuous and nullified, though the children remain legitimate.  You will think this hard on the old lady, who is scandalised; but it is no scandal at all, nobody supposing it to be true, without circumstances to confirm it; but the married couple are set free to their mutual content; for I believe it would be difficult to get a sentence of divorce, if either side made opposition:  at least I have heard no example of it.”

Lady Mary made no secret of her views upon marriage; and though she did not so frequently air her religious beliefs, she often pondered the subject, and when challenged to speak was not reticent.  As regards sacred matters, she always had the courage of her convictions, even as she had in mundane affairs.