French for "after us, the deluge," Linton is appropriating a quote said by Louis XV of France to Madame de Pompadour. A "deluge," or a flood, refers to a forecast of ruination. The phrase references the biblical flood in Genesis 6-8, comparing it to France's loss of the 1757 Battle of Rossbach to Prussia in the Seven Years War. The "flood" does not refer to revolution, but to the arrival of Halley's Comet in 1757, which was believed to have caused the biblical flood. Linton may be referring to a future where the "flood" of the New Woman ideology saturates English society and brings about the destruction of the empire.

Juvenal was a late first and early second century CE Roman poet, while Petronius was a Roman courtier during the reign of Nero. In Autobiographical Fantasies of a Female Anti-Feminist: Eliza Lynn Linton as Christopher Kirkland and Theodora Desanges](https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/44371534.pdf), Anderson cites that Linton was not opposed to women studying the humanities, but viewed women doctors and artists as "unfeminine." Linton's career was supported by the majority Victorian women who opposed women's rights, so to tell this audience that women should not read would shrink her audience by women not reading her because they disagree with her, or because they took her advice.

The Married Woman's Property Act of 1970 permitted married women to keep their wages and investments independent of their husbands, inherit small sums, hold property either rented or inherited from close family, and made both parents liable for their children. The Married Women's Property Act of 1982 furthered economic independence for women, giving women the right to own, buy, and sell, property. The 1882 revision ended the system of coverture that married British women lived under. Linton remarks here that though women have property rights, their worlds rarely extend beyond the home. Hence, to give women the right to vote would be absurd, for her responsibility is to be the "mistress of her own property."

The French Revolution of 1789 culminated as a result of Louis XVI failure to address the conditions of the poor in France, heavily taxing French peasants instead of the nobles and clergy. His wife, Marie Antoinette, ostentatiously spent public funds. Linton argues that if Louis had Antoinette's confidence and Antoinette had Louis reserved nature, the French Revolution may have never occurred. Linton may be insinuating that the confidence of Antoinette was "mannish," leading to her downfall because she rejected femininity.

Manon Roland was a prolific revolutionary salonnére inspired by Enlightenment thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Roland assisted her husband Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiére in writing parliamentary bills and speeches. She hosted the Jacobin leader Robespierre on several occasions and was hated by the sans-culottes of Paris. She was arrested during the Reign of Terror and executed by guillotine in 1793. Linton insinuates that Roland could not handle the responsibilities of politics, leading to both her own death and the death of many other Girondins in the struggle for power in France.

St. Joan of Arc is a heroine of France and led the French army to victory during the Hundred Years' War. Joan of Arc has been co-opted as a feminist icon, for she transcended patriarchal gender roles during the fifteenth century. Linton does not dismiss Joan of Arc as an illegitimate hero, but rather claims Joan of Arc as an exception to defying gender roles rather than an example.

The full phrase "commes les moutons de Panurge" is a French idiom that translacks to "like Panurge's sheep." In English, this refers to a flock of sheep who are "blind followers" to trends. Linton equates the women who embody New Women consciousness to sheep, following an ideology without understanding the weight of the application of such an ideology on English society.

Judith refers to the deuterocanonical "Book of Judith" that is excluded from the Hebrew canon. Judith, a beautiful widow, is perturbed by her Jewish countrymen's lack of faith in God to save them from the Assyrians. Judith slowly integrates herself into the camp, promising the general Holofernes that she will give him information on the Israelites. Later, she decapitates him, brings his head back to her countrymen, and the Assyrians disperse.

The philosophical school of Nihilism originated from the works of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in the mid-to-late nineteenth century. The school of thought flourished in Russia, and was demonized in Victorian literature texts. L.T. Meade's "II. The Seventh Step" from her series Stories from the Diary of a Doctor, published in the Strand Magazine vol. 9, follows a detective aboard a cruise ship who finds a young lady, posing as a disabled person, sneaking to Russia with a peer to join a Nihilist cult. The beliefs of Nihilism are not defined in "II. The Seventh Step," nor are they articulated any further in Linton's essay, indicating that the term served as a pejorative more than an actual descriptor of a group of people that writers used to dismiss their adversaries as "evil."

Madame de Maintenon was the secret second wife of King Louis XIV of France. She is often falsely blamed for influencing the political decisions of her husband, most noticeably the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 that denied all rights to Protestants in France. Linton's allusion to her actually contradicts the point she is trying to make about the incapability of women to participate in politics, for Madame de Maintenon was actually and advocate of decency, dignity, and piety.

A common insult prescribed to New Women by Linton was that they were "unsexed" and hostile toward sexual relationships with men. In her novel The Rebel in the Family (1880), the antagonistic, man-hating New Woman Bell forces a sexual relationship upon the young protagonist Perita. Meem argues that Linton's writing reveals a "lesbian orientation, while Anderson concludes that Linton's unconscious sexual orientation as a lesbian led to severe "inner conflict about sexual identity which she defended by projecting self-hatred onto women's rights women." Anderson also infers that Linton's possibly unconsummated marriage to William James Linton played a not-insignificant part in the failure of her marriage.

Linton was a firm atheist, alienating her from her Anglican father. Linton considered agnosticism to be masculine, stating in her novel Christopher Kirkland that "religious sentiment, shifting, personal, emotional, subject to the pressure of affection and the relief of compassion ... is feminine. The fundamental doctrines of Christianity ... are essentially feminine ... Does not the whole world lie between these two limits? Surely! - the whole world of masculine self-control and feminine obedience; masculin reason and feminine emotion." Here, Linton displays her own self-described "manliness" by identifying as an atheist while simultaneously using the beliefs of Christianity to assert why other women should adhere to gender roles, insinuating her own unconscious male identification.

Caird alludes to the addition of women into political life in her essay "A Defense of the So-Called 'Wild Women.'" Caird questions the "one-sided sacrifice" of men, who live and commit "actions day by day which imperil and destroy the well-being of the race." Caird criticizes this "artificial selection of victims" for the good of society, stating that society has no right to sacrifice either gender for the "general good." Further, Caird espouses that if women were to enter the labour market and competed with men and one another, the "result would be evil." However, this evil that Linton fears comes not from women, but rather stems from the inherently dehumanizing labour field of England.

Mona Caird criticizes this point by Linton in her essay "A Defense of the So-Called 'Wild Women," claiming that Linton harbors a bias against "New Women" because of their youth. Caird calls these "widows and spinsters" that Linton believes should be allowed to vote as "half-developed women" who cling onto the "old order." Caird remarks that older women only "launch their complaints" against "Fate and Nature" instead of the patriarchal structures of English society, insinuating the Linton was secretly jealous of the freedoms that could be granted to future generations. Linton was Caird's senior by 22 years, and their published debates often depicted a generational debate.

Linton echoes sentiments similar to those of Grant Allen in his essay "Plain Words on the Woman Question." Grant remarks that "the vast majority of the women [of England] must become wives and mothers, and must bear at least four children apiece" to maintain the empire's population. Like Linton, Allen asserts that motherhood is a woman's "natural duty" that must be fulfilled by almost all women of a community.

Mænads are female followers of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. Derived from the Greek maenade, meaning "mad" or "demented," the mænads, or "raving ones," were the female cult followers of Dionysus. These extremely beautiful women were akin to nymphs. Mænads were perpetually intoxicated by wine and danced to moud music. These women were also depicted as sexual and promiscuous. Linton may describe the New Women as Mænads to insinuate that New Women were inherently hedonistic and sexually promiscuous.

Anderson argues in "Autobiographical Fantasies of a Female Anti-Feminist" that Linton, lacking a mother figure in childhood, blamed her father for her unconventional upbringing. Linton believed she lacked nurturing in childhood and was victim to long periods of loneliness and pain. Linton's invectives against women's emancipation, insisting that a woman's place was by the cradle, was an expression of her own maternal deprivation.

Linton's vituperative espousements against the New Women largely derived from these women not conforming to the conventional codes of women's morality. Devotion to femininity to Linton was an almost metaphysical ideal, believing that gender roles were inherent laws of nature that bestowed upon each sex a duty to act certain ways. Linton viewed gender roles not as a societal structure but as responsibilities each gender was meant to abide by. Women who rejected the "best traditions" of women were, to Linton, acting immoral.

Sarah Grand refutes this argument in her essay "A Defense of the So-Called 'Wild-Women'" in Nineteenth Century vol. 31. Grand agrees that if all women were to "rush into the labour market and begin to compete with men and one another, the results would be evil." However, Grand points out that societal structures, not attributes to either sex, are the cause of the "destruction of future generations." New Women like Grand asserted that women would be destroyed by the system: not because of their sex, but because of the dehumanizing structures of political and economic life that men are already subjected to.

Reference to Matthew 19:4-6: "And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."

In this parable, Jesus quotes Moses from Exodus to remind his apostles of God's original human family design.

Anderson notes that during Linton's six years publishing for Household Words, Linton produced a series of "thinly disguised autobiographical accounts" of her marriage to William James Linton, her sexual repugnance of her husband, and her troubles with civilizing his children, disdaining her "naturally imposed" duties.

Praxagora is a character in Aristophanes' comedic play Assemblywomen, where the women of Athens take control of the government. When in power, the women ban private wealth and enforce sexual equity for the old and unattractive. The play criticizes the Athenian government of the time the play was written, asserting female superiority because of their tenacity to work hard and stay loyal to tradition.

Aspasia was the mistress of Pericles, an Athenian statesman, in 500 BCE. She was known for her intellect and charisma, described by Socrates in Plato's Menexenus as a "teacher of oratory." Aspasia was accused of urging Pericles of provoking war with Sparta by crushing the island of Samos, the rival of Miletus.

Agnes Sore was a mistress of King Charles VII of France. She gave birth to four of Charles VII' children and was the first acknowledged mistress of the king. Linton credits Sorel, for though she was not abstinent her service to the king was neither degrading or harmful for her nation.

Eugénie de Montijo was wife of Napoleon III and the empress of France (1853-70). She heavily influenced her husband's foreign policy. "À Berlin!" translates to "To Berlin," refers to her support of French opposition to a Prussian candidate for the vacant Spanish throne. This led to the Franco-German War (1870), where France, in the Battle of Sedan, lost with 3,000 dead, 14,000 wounded, and 103,000 captured of 120,000.

Though Linton was, in her later life, a pioneer of traditional gender roles within heterosexual marriages, she herself could not handle a life limited to the "inside." Her short-live marriage to William James Linton was a failure, for with the marriage came with the responsibility to watch over his children. In a short story titled "Crook Sticks" Linton published in National Magazine, Linton elucidated her dissatisfaction with her marriage through a story about a maid, looking for a stick, gave up and took home a crooked one. The stick represented suitors, warning young people to not be fastidious when selecting a partner. Anderson argues in Autobiographical Fantasies of a Female Anti-Feminist that Linton resolved her own hatred of married live and her promotion of marriage to other women by "enjoying freedom herself in the man's world while emphatically insisting that other women remain in their prescribed sphere." Anderson insists that Linton had a sense of male identity she never consciously recognized.

This assertion, and the thesis of this entire essay, opposes Linton's early, pro-feminist sentiments. in an 1854 essay published in the English Republic, Linton praised Mary Wollstonecraft for "asserting by her own life the truth of her equality with man, and boldly claiming as her right an equal share in the privileges hitherto reserved for himself alone." Linton seemingly pleaded Englishwoman to negate the "slave's degradation" of marriage, insinuating that for women, marriage is inherently constricting and dehumanizing. However, another essay by Linton written in the same year, titled the "Rights and Wrongs of Women, urged women to stay within the domestic sphere. For a women, her home is in the "shade" of a man that he casts when his wife walks at her side. Linton's inconsistent views can be attributed both to her trying to match the editorial tone of the array of journals she published for and her conflicted feelings and the roles of women, including herself.

French for "the reason or justification for one's existence."