Sarah Scott - Lesbianism and Feminism

Lesbianism and Feminism

Scott frequently expressed her love for Lady Barbara Montagu, and she cited the refusal of her husband to have Lady Barbara in the house as a reason for the couple's estrangement. At the same time, Scott's novels avoid any consideration of heterosexual eroticism in any form. However, Scott's works are also unrelentingly pious.

Scott's female characters are not "liberated" in the conventional sense of the term. They are entirely subjugated in their emancipation, for they exchange powerlessness at the hands of men for a sense of duty, both religious and social, that removes any sense of egoism.