To force me to give up my fortune, I was imprisoned, yes: in a private madhouse…” (Maria 131-32). These lines from the unfinished short story Maria, or the Wrongs of Wife by Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), justify the private functioning of the madhouse where the protagonist Maria is confined. The importance of private property is that it places the madhouse outside of legal discourse. It is illegitimate, but it is legitimized because it is a symbol of male-dominated state oppression. At the same time, Bastille becomes a direct symbol of the same repression that Wollstonecraft used to describe the plight of dissident revolutionary women in late 18th-century England. The language she uses is obviously that of the French Revolution since we know the symbolic importance of the formidable Bastille tower where the political “criminals” were imprisoned. Thus, Wollstonecraft's goal is to politicize the genre of the novel like other Jacobin writers – the novel, for them, is a vehicle for political propaganda. The objective of this article is twofold. First, to examine why Wollstonecraft felt this novel genre's quest for politics that she had already discussed at length in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792)? The second part of the investigation will focus on national ideas of despotism that arise from sexual discrimination perpetuated by the state apparatus, particularly the legal system. This second part will address common issues such as the legally disadvantageous position of married and maternal women and the way in which the revolutionary bodies of these mothers are confined as well as the moral harassment inflicted by the private and state systems. The question of imprisonmentm...... middle of paper ......instock. “The missing mother: the meanings of maternal absence in Gothic mode. » Studies in Modern Languages, Vol. 33, n° 1/2 (spring - autumn 2003), pp.25-43. JSTOR. November 2, 2008. Todd, Janet. Reason and sensitivity in “The Wrongs of Woman” by Mary Wollstonecraft. Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, Vol. 5, no. 3 (fall 1980), pp. 17-20. JSTOR. November 2, 2008. Humphreys, AR "'Women's Rights' in the Age of Reason." » The Review of Modern Languages, Vol. 41, no. 3 (July 1946), pp. 256-269. JSTOR. November 2, 2008. Komisaruk, Adam. “The privatization of pleasure: 'Crim. Swindle.' in Wollstonecraft's Maria. »Law and Literature, Vol. 16, no. 1 (spring 2004), pp. 33-63. JSTOR. November 2 2008.