Editing Maria Edgeworth (section)

===Social===

Maria agreed with the [[Acts of Union 1800]], but thought that it should not be passed against the wishes of the Irish people.  Concerning education, she thought boys and girls should be educated equally and together, drawing upon [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau|Rousseau]]'s ideas.{{sfn|Fauske|Kaufman|2004|p=37}}
She believed a woman should only marry someone who suits her in "character, temper, and understanding".{{sfn|Butler|1972|loc=p.&nbsp;187}} Becoming an old maid was preferable to an incompatible union. ''Tales of Fashionable Life'' and ''Patronage'' attacked the [[Whigs (British political party)|Whigs]]' [[Dublin Castle administration|governance of Ireland]] as corrupt and unrepresentative.{{sfn|Fauske|Kaufman|2004|p=49}}
Edgeworth strove for the self-realization of women and stressed the importance of the individual. She also wanted greater participation in politics by middle-class women. Her work ''Helen'' clearly demonstrates this point in the passage:
"Women are now so highly cultivated, and political subjects are at present of so much importance, of such high interest, to all human creatures who live together in society, you can hardly expect, Helen, that you, as a rational being, can go through the world as it now is, without forming any opinion on points of public importance. You cannot, I conceive, satisfy yourself with the common namby-pamby little missy phrase, 'ladies have nothing to do with politics'."<ref>Maria Edgeworth (1893). [https://archive.org/details/helen_1511_librivox ''Helen'']. London: George Routledge and Sons. p. 260</ref>
She sympathised with Catholics and supported gradual, though not immediate, Catholic Emancipation.{{sfn|Butler|1972|loc=p.&nbsp;451}}