Katherine Philips

While reading the biography page on Katherine Philips, I was interested in what the Society of Friendship actually was, so I decided to look into it. The Society of Friendship was founded by Philips in 1651 until 1661. It was a semi-literary correspondence circle made up of mostly women, though men were also involved. The membership of this group, however, is somewhat questionable, because the authors took on pseudonyms from Classical literature. It is in this group that the women began writing poems of love and friendship to one another. Clearly, Philips has a strong view point when it comes to feminism and women’s rights.

In her poem “An Answer to Another Persuading a Lady to Marriage”, we see this to be true. The poem is about how men should be treating women when they want to marry. Philips is taking a stance on how women should be treated with respect and not just a pawn in the household. It is not just about their looks, there is much more to a women than that. It must have been hard for Philips to express the idea of feminism during this era, due to the fact that women did not really have any outlets to education.