Part 6: The Petticoat in the Convent of Pleasure

Further to my previous series of posts, I'm sharing another of my Philosophy Fluency podcast script. Here's my script for my episode 7, Season 13, where I build on my research thoughts on Cavendish and discuss a question I asked at the Cavendish on Literature conference last month. 

For the reference bibliography of works cited in this episode, see the end of this blog post. 

This episode is available to listen to on demand on Spotify 🔗 here

🎧 

Hello and welcome to episode 7 of Season 13 of Philosophy Fluency. Over chilled coffees today, I shall look at the issue of the petticoat in Margaret Cavendish's play, the Convent of Pleasure, first published in 1668. 

In Act IV. Scene I, the stage directions tell us that the Princess "walks a turn or two in a Musing posture, then views her Self, and speaks".¹ After this, her name is shortened to Prin. in the online edition that I gather is a copy of the first ever publication edition of Cavendish's book: 'Plays, never before printed', which was printed in London by A. Maxwell, in 1668². I point this out because some contemporary editions reproducing this play have altered this gender neutral abbreviation by expanding it to Princess. For instance, the editors Liza Blake and Shawn Moore say on the website: Digital Cavendish: A Scholarly Collaborative, that they advise readers to, and I quote:

"note here that by expanding the original’s printing’s “Prin.” to “Princess” we have lost the generative gender neutrality or ambiguity of the original speech prefix."³

Nevertheless, when it comes to stage directions, they took the editorial decision to incorporate brackets and put the c-e-s-s letters in the word princess into square brackets so readers are more aware of the notion that prin refers to stage directions for a princess looking character.⁴

Personally and academically, I never agree with such editorial linguistic alterations to historical original texts. Writers in past eras could be deliberately, very unconventional in their creative decisions so you can never be sure that you are not changing the meaning or implications or message of their work. 

So, although apparently abbreviations were standard practice in the Early Modern era, this does not assure us that Cavendish did not wish to use this convention as a vehicle for playing with gender assumptions about the Princess. Referring to the Princess by using the abbreviation Prin., could symbolise her gender ambiguity, whether she is male, female or non-binary since it's a gender neutral abbreviation. 

So I argue that it's always best practice to retain all the original idiosyncrasies, in case the symbolisms and meanings and unconventional creative practices are lost as we make big assumptions and iron out anything that isn't immediately clear to a reader in the 21st century.  

The Princess's lines are as follows, and I quote:

Prin. "What have I on a Petticoat, Oh Mars! thou God of War, pardon my sloth; but yet remember thou art a Lover, and so am I; but you will say, my Kingdom wants me, not only to rule, and govern it, but to defend it: But what is a Kingdom in comparison of a Beautiful Mistress? Base thoughts flie off, for I will not go; did not only a Kingdom, but the World want me."⁵

Then, according to the stage directions, she leaves.⁶ 

So, what options do we have for interpreting this passage? I think it could be a rather pivotal scene, given the scholarly debate surrounding the Princess's true biological sex and gender identity and the questions raised about the possible sincerity or insincerity with which she presents and expresses her femininity and masculinity. 

In her talk on the 12th of June last month, at the Cavendish on Literature conference at Southampton University, Michaela Tiller brought up this petticoat scene when the Princess is praying to the god of Mars, in her paper: 'Cavendish and crossdressing: on the performance and embodiment of gender in English drama'.⁷ Tiller seemed to suggest that this scene shows that, the Princess is actually somewhat uncomfortable in her female clothing, and this only comes out once she's alone, when she doesn't have to keep up feminine appearances amongst other women⁸. 

I remembered off the top of my head that pagans worshipped their gods whilst wearing clothes that match the gender of the god, not their own gender. Therefore, when worshiping the god Mars, both men and women wore men's armour to honour him as the god of war. I've discussed this elsewhere as part of my research on LGBTQ+ positive interpretations of Jewish scripture, and this pagan crossdressing topic arises in Jewish approaches to and arguments about whether or not there are religious prohibitions on trans people dressing according to their gender identity as opposed to their sex assigned at birth. Whilst researching the religious anti-trans arguments that trans people are having to battle against, I discovered that the Jewish medieval philosopher, Maimonides, argued in his Guide for the Perplexed that Deuteronomy 22:5 which seems to translate as claiming: 

"A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God"⁹

is actually about preventing idolatry by disallowing the pagan custom of dressing in accordance with the gender of the male or female pagan god. This makes sense to me and strikes me as an accurate, objective reading of the Torah, known as the Old Testament to Christians. Since Judaism is a purely monotheistic religion that only has the one God, this polytheistic, pagan custom is irrelevant and contrary to Judaism. 

So I suggest that Cavendish may have known about Maimonides's reference to pagan worship and crossdressing or somehow come across information about pagan worship elsewhere. Like me, Cavendish may have found it fascinating that people's modern day confusion and issues with dressing in gender non-conforming ways, and even crossdressing, were not shared by people in ancient times. Indeed, as I discuss in my volume 3: Research Thoughts on....Spinoza, the Roman emperor Nero expressed various genders through his clothing and took on different gender roles in marriage, being both a husband and a wife to people of different sexes and genders.¹⁰

So gender roles were sometimes more fluid in ancient times than in Cavendish's era, and even these days in the 21st century when binary biological sex ideology is attempting to take over and suppress scientific knowledge and expression of any genders that don't conform to their so-called gender critical opinions. 

Furthermore, Cavendish generally drew on classical Roman culture and literature. In Roman culture, the god of Mars was a military, protective figure who wore chest armour, a Corinthian helmet, shin guards, and held a shield, sword and spear, and so on. The god of Mars is depicted by the colour red which symbolises blood. So wearing a red cloak would be appropriate. You'd also try to look like an heroic and honourable soldier, dressed in the typical attire worn by an army in battle. Nevertheless, Mars was not some vicious warmongering god. His purpose of going to war was to merely bring about peace, so his values are oriented around peace, not war.

He is also the god of Agriculture, so he can be associated with fertility too. 

So, given Cavendish's periodic classical references, she may be picturing the Princess, at this point, as the Roman god Mars may have looked, whilst, at the same time, being aware of the gender debates and religious controversies surrounding Deuteronomy 22:5. 

At question time, I explained to Tiller¹¹ that the pagan custom and ritual was to dress as the gender of the god one is praying to so everyone dressed in women's clothing when praying to the goddess Venus and everyone dressed in men's attire when praying to the god of Mars. Hence, crossdressing was commonplace amongst pagan worshipers irrespective of gender identity. So, I suggest, that the princess may simply know that she shouldn't wear a petticoat when worshiping Mars, and therefore apologises out loud for wearing female attire because she's breaking the pagan etiquette and customs surrounding correct worship rituals. Therefore, if this is true, then on this picture, that passage may not tell us much about the Princess's internal sense of gender identity because she would apologise for breaking this religious practice, irrespective of her biological sex or her gender identity. 

Tiller¹² replied she was unaware of this pagan crossdressing religious custom. She merely saw this scene as being one of the many shifts in gender throughout this play. And she had interpreted this passage within the context of for instance, another scene towards the end of the play, when the princess ends up, seemingly, a macho male Prince who is liable to remove Lady Happy out the convent by force, using the power of the whole army of a nation. Hence, Tiller¹³ related this later section, referring to war, as being relevant as to why the Princess is praying to Mars, the god of war, earlier in the play. 

The passages in the Convent of Pleasure that I assume Tiller is referring to, are in Act V Scene I.¹⁴

I'll resume my philosophical analysis of this section in the Convent of Pleasure in the next episode. Feel free to follow, like and interact with the official social media channels for Philosophy Fluency, on Instagram, Threads, Facebook, and X. You can also leave a comment on the Spotify platform about an episode. Until next time, have a good week! 

References / bibliography:

¹Cavendish, Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, First published in: 'Plays, never before printed', Printed in London by A. Maxwell, 1668.

Available online at the University of Pennsylvania Digital Library, edited by Mary Mark Ockerbloom 

Accessed 26 July 2025. 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html

²Ibid

³Digital Cavendish Project. ‘The Convent of Pleasure Edited by Liza Blake and Shawn Moore’, 5 July 2017. http://digitalcavendish.org/complete-works/plays-never-before-printed-1668/convent-of-pleasure/

⁴Ibid 

⁵Cavendish 1668 

https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/newcastle/convent/convent.html

⁶Ibid 

⁷Tiller, Michaela. 'Cavendish and crossdressing: on the performance and embodiment of gender in English drama' University of Southampton, 2025.

⁸Ibid

⁹Deuteronomy 22:5-11 

¹⁰Kaucky, Liba. Chapter 4: 'Women and Eunuchs – Effeminacy and Power (in the TP)' in Research Thoughts on... Spinoza - Volume 3: A Feminist Approach to Spinoza's Political Treatise (2019)

https://myspinozaresearchdiary.blogspot.com/2019/05/spinoza-vol-3-ebook-chapter-4-women-and.html?m=1

¹¹Tiller 2025

¹²Ibid

¹³Ibid

¹⁴Cavendish 1668