Ladies were treated with scant respect and their social status in general was low. They were addressed in a tone of gallantry, as if they were totally devoid of understanding. Often compliments paid even to unmarried girls were indecent, and look like love-making. The Rape of the Lock is an epitome of female vanity and frivolity.
They were generally treated as little children, pretty triflers, better fitted to amuse men than to elevate them. Even Addison treats them like inferior beings, devoid of all commonsense, and dwells upon their foibles, on their dress, and on the thousand little artifices practised by them. The frivolity of women is a theme on which the writer of the day harps constantly.