ABSTRACT
Intellectually, the Enlightenment shaped the eighteenth century with its concentration on the social contract, rights of man, the importance of Nature, Reason and perfectibility, which influenced thinking about individuals, state and society. Attitudes towards ‘woman’ were ambivalent, and notably drew on older Judeo-Christian ideas that depicted woman as temptress and lustful, as well as employing an Enlightenment notion of a ‘natural’ woman cast as a domestic creature but with a special role as mother, responsible for the proper education of young children.
