Notes to help with John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women
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Notes to help with:

Mill, J.S. 1869 The Subjection of Women

Structure of a book without chapter headings

The book is divided into four chapters. These do not have titles. Their content can be gathered from the first sentence of each.

On the basis of the first sentence and the content of the chapters, I have given the chapters titles. Here are the chapters, the first sentence, and the titles I have given to the chapters. Clicking on a quotation will take you to the fuller text in the extracts.

(I also give the page number in the Dent edition. Having the number of the first page of each chapter in one edition can help you trace quotations in other editions. However, I recommend counting the paragraphs of each chapter and using the paragraph number for referencing.)

Chapter 1. Introduction

"The object of this essay is to explain as clearly as I am able, the grounds of an opinion that I have held from the very earliest period_ That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes_the legal subordination of one sex to the other_is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.219)

Chapter 2. Marriage

"It will be well to commence the detailed discussion of the subject by the particular branch of it to which the course of our observations has led us: the conditions to which the laws of this and all other countries annex to the marriage contract." (Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.246)

Chapter 3. Employment

"On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex, I should anticipate no difficulty in convincing anyone who has gone with me on the subject of the equality of women in the family." (Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.266)

Chapter 4. General Good

"There remains a question, not of less importance than those already discussed,...What good are we to expect from the changes proposed in our customs and institutions?" ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.295)

Varieties of freedom

The idea of freedom has taken a lot of shapes. For example:

  • Economic Freedom: - the free market.

  • Political Freedom: - freedom within the law.

  • Intellectual Freedom: - freedom of thought and speech.

  • Personal Freedom - Which Mill and his intellectual companion, Harriet Taylor, are most concerned about. Personal freedom, the freedom for self-development, is the key to much of what Mill (and Taylor) wrote
Personal freedom illustrated

I will illustrate Mill's idea of personal freedom with some quotes from the Subjection of Women. Personal freedom is what Mill and Taylor called self-dependence in their 1848 essay. It could also be called self- determination. (See utilitarianism)

"After the primary necessity of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.311).

"Whatever has been said or written, from the time of Herodatus to the present, of the ennobling influence of free government - the nerve and spring which it gives to all the faculties, the larger and higher objects which it presents to the intellect and feelings, the more unselfish public spirit, and calmer and broader views of duty, that it engenders, and the generally loftier platform on which it elevates the individual as a moral, spiritual and social being - is every particle as true of women as of men." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.313).

Free direction of our faculties is not just a matter of personal dignity:-

"There is nothing, after disease, indigence, and guilt, so fatal to the pleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for the active faculties." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.314).

Freedom is something you need for your personal development.

Development of the Franchise in England and how Mill's The Subjection of Women fitted in with this

The English, as well as the French, perceived the French revolution of 1789 as putting into effect the democratic ideals propounded by J.J. Rousseau. The revolution stimulated Edmund Burke's writings against democracy.

1820 James Mill's Essay on Government argued the democracy for adult men was the political system that would secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

1825 James Mill's "Essay on Government" distributed in a free edition. William Thompson's Appeal on Behalf of Women, written in collaboration with Anna Wheeler, criticised James Mill for excluding women from the franchise and for believing that human beings are naturally competative, rather than cooperative.

1832 The 1832 Reform Act gave votes to middle-class men

estimated electorate
  England & Wales Scotland Ireland United Kingdom
1831 435,391 4,579 75,950 515,920
1833 652,777 64,447 92,152 809,376

The percentage increase in the electorate was not great, except in Scotland. It was 49% in England and Wales and 57% for the United Kingdom.

The greatest change brought about was from the complex and diverse system of representing the country in the House of Commons to a system based more on arithmetical principles. An arithmetical system of representation, with each person's vote carrying the same weight, was favoured by the Benthamites. The traditional system, favoured by conservatives such as Blackstone, included representation for some very small rural populations, whilst most large urban areas did not have and MP. The new system abolished the "pocket boroughs", so small that one person could decide who was elected, and reduced the number of "rotten boroughs" with populations small enough that they could be bribed. (But see Maldon and Ipswich). Instead, it gave MPs to the major towns. It moved towards the idea that constituencies should be roughly equal in size (although this principle was not adopted until 1918). It also replaced a diversity of electoral systems, varying with the constituency, with one overall one. This meant that constituencies that traditionally had a few women voters, ceased to do so.

1840s The working class campaign for votes for adult men, known as the charter, failed to reach its objectives in the 1840s. Most of its objectives were achieved, a bit at a time, by other campaigners in later years. These campaigners included Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill - But they argued that women should be included on an equal footing with men.

1848: John Stuart Mill's "Principles of Political Economy" published with a chapter drafted by Harriet Taylor on the self-determination of the labouring classes.

1848 Marx and Engels The Communist Manifesto says that The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.

July 1851: Harriet Taylor's article "Enfranchisement of Women" in "The Westminster Review".

John Stuart Mill's writings on democracy:
1859: "Thoughts on Parliamentary Reform" (a pamphlet)
1861 "Considerations on Representative Government"

1865 to 1868 John Stuart Mill was Liberal Member of Parliament for Westminster. In 1867 he made a speech on: "The Admission of Women to the Electoral Franchise".

The 1867 Representation Act gave votes to better of working class men in towns

1869: John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women published.

The 1869 Municipal Franchise Act gave votes to some women in local elections

The 1884 Representation Act gave votes to better of working class men in the country

1904 to 1918: Suffragettes' campaign

1914-1918 First World War

The 1918 Representation Act gave votes to all men over 21 and many women over 30

The 1918 Representation of the People Act increased the electorate to about 21 million, 8.4 million of whom were women. [See history learning site article

The 1928 Representation Act gave votes to women over 21. ("Flapper vote")

The 1969 Representation Act gave votes to 18 to 21 year olds


Women, freedom and progress

The personal is political

Hegel suggested that society has three corners:

  • The State

  • Civil Society (the economy) and

  • Private Society (the family).

Perhaps his analysis anticipates the claim of 20th century feminists that "the personal is political" - John Stuart Mill's analysis definitely does.

Victorian women in law and practice

In mid-Victorian Britain women were barred from higher education, the professions and politics. The female vocation was marriage and in marriage a woman ceased to be a separate person and became the person of her husband. Her property became her husband's property and she had no right to separate from him, but could be forced to live with him and have sex with him. In law her children were not hers - but his. The first Married Woman's Property Act was not passed until 1870 and the right of a husband to use force against his wife was first denied by the courts in 1891.

Mill argued that the legal position of Victorian women was worse than that of slaves. For example: a female slave could refuse to have sex with her male master: a Victorian wife could not. (See Mill, 1869 par.2.1)

[Mill argues from the common law, which is only part of English Law. Mary Beard suggests this exaggerates the "legal enslavement" of women in Britain and America.]

Mill did not argue that in practice the position of Victorian women was worse than that of slaves:

"I am far from pretending that wives are in general no better treated than slaves"

In practice, most men treated their wives with courtesy and civility - even love.

Mill called this the morality of chivalry. (See Mill, 1869 par.2.12). It was a morality that belonged to what he and Harriet Taylor had called (in Futurity of the Labouring Class) the theory of dependence: a theory that belonged to an age of violence when the weak sought protection from the strong.

" What is there in the present state of society to make it natural that human beings, of ordinary strength and courage, should glow with the warmest gratitude and devotion in return for protection? The laws protect them, where laws do not reach, manners and opinion shield them. [1852: The laws protect them; wherever the laws do not criminally fail in their duty.]

To be under the power of some one, instead of being as formerly the sole condition of safety, is now, speaking generally, the only situation which exposes to grievous wrong;"

Mill argued that, whatever the position of the majority of women, the law allowed the most brutal men to get away with (almost) any act of brutality short of murder. In the 1852 edition of Futurity of the Labouring Classes, Mill added the following passage:

"The so-called protectors are now the only persons against whom, in any ordinary circumstances, protection is needed. The brutality and tyranny with which every police report is filled, are those of husbands to wives, of parents to children. That the law does not prevent these atrocities, that it scarcely attempts, except nominally [1857: is only now making a first timid attempt], to repress and punish them, is no matter of necessity, but the deep disgrace of those by whom the laws are made and administered."

Conservatism versus Progress

The subjection of women was sanctified by long usage. Popular opinion, along with theorists like Filmer, Burke and Macaulay, doubted the wisdom of changing intimate connections and patterns of personal relationship that seemed so timeless as to be natural. In different ways Filmer, Burke, and Macaulay had all argued for the wisdom of tradition, and had all appealed - from the kind of abstract reason that Locke, Rousseau, Bentham and James Mill used - to the sanctity of established fact. Their arguments had been powerfully reinforced by the work of the lake poets: Coleridge, Southey and, above all, Wordsworth.

When Coleridge, Southey and Wordsworth began publishing they were political radicals, inspired by the ideas of freedom and self-determination that they associated with the French Revolution. As their lives progressed they saw the values of the natural life as supported by the established order rather than recovered by radical political reason. See the web page on the Lambs for some background information.

Mill had sympathies with this tradition, even though he rejected its conservatism. [see Mill and Taylor 1848]. He styled himself a progressive and contrasted the conservatism of hallowed tradition with the idea of progress. We need not suppose, he said

that the barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off. ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.219)

The subjection of women, Mill argues, is possibly the last hangover from an outdated society of brute force.

The direction of progress

Mill argues that history is moving from a society of brute force to a society of justice. Hierarchy is the political theme of the society of brute force. Equality is the political theme of the society of justice. Brute force was the dominant theme in bygone society because of the importance to survival of protection [see Mill and Taylor 1848], but it is not the natural condition of society:

"command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life; society in equality is its normal state". ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.259)
Society of brute force transitional period Society of justice
Hierarchy   Equality
Morality of submission Morality of chivalry Morality of justice

Women by nature: Unknown - Family and politics

The popular opinion and hallowed tradition that we talked about earlier, reveals itself on analysis to incorporate the ideology of brute force - under a frilly disguise of naturalism. The general opinion of men is supposed to be, that the natural vocation of a women is that of a wife and a mother. But, Mill argues

"What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing" ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.243).

So the logic of such a prohibition has to be

"It is necessary to society that women should marry and produce children. They will not do so unless they are compelled. Therefore it is necessary to compel them." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.244)

Talking about women's natural vocation turns out to be an example of paternalism:

"In the present day, power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good" ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.266)

A school for freedom

Mill wanted equality in marriage and equality of opportunity in civil and political society. What would the advantages be? Amongst the most significant would be the contribution to political virtue: The family would become a school for freedom:

Mill states his idea of what the ideal relations are between human beings are in any circumstances:

"the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals claiming nothing for themselves but what they as freely concede to everyone else..

It is an ideal of treating the other person as we would want to be treated ourselves. We can consider this as part of the morality of justice towards which Mill argues society is moving, away from the morality of submission. See above

If the morality of justice is to be developed, it must be exercised. The despotic family goes the other way: It exercises the morality of submission.

To these virtues, nothing in life as at present constituted gives cultivation by exercise. The family is a school of despotism.."

Mill says that participating in democratic politics will develop the virtues of equality

"Citizenship, in free countries, is partly a school of society in equality;

But politics only takes up a very small part of most people's lives. The place with the power to train people to be democratic is the family:

but citizenship fills only a small place in modern life, and does not come near the daily habits or inmost sentiments. The family, justly constituted, would be the real school of the virtues of freedom." ( Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 p.260)

Mill suggests that the emotional intimacy of the family makes it particularly powerful in developing despotic or democratic behaviour

The other factor that makes the family so effective is that it concerns the "daily habits" and not just the occasional activity of politics.


See ABC Referencing for general advice. Check that you understand the key word - key numbers rule in the Harvard system of referencing

Referencing: Printed copies (below). - The web extracts - Andrew Roberts' web notes

Referencing printed copies of The Subjection of Women

Often a printed copy is bound with other works of Mill. This requires two entries in your bibliography. The in-text reference could be (Mill, J.S. 1869 p.-), but the bibliography has got to show both what "Mill J.S. 1869" is and the book it is bound in.

The following Bibliography includes many of the editions students have used for their essays. When more than one work by Mill is bound together in a book, or when Mill's work is included in a book by another author, the books are in pairs. See, for example, Mill, J.S.1869/1975 and how it relates to the book it is linked to. You need both entries in the bibliography.

Bibliography

Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1929 The Subjection of Women. Dent/Everyman 1929 (Introduction by G.E.G. Catlin)

Mill, J.S. 1869/Dent1985 The Subjection of Women. Dent/Everyman 1985 (Introduction by Mary Warnock)

Mill, J.S.1869/1970 The Subjection of Women
in
Rossi, A. 1970

Mill, J.S.1869/1975 The Subjection of Women
in
Mill, J.S. 1975/Oxford

Mill, J.S.1869/1989 The Subjection of Women
in
Mill, J.S. 1989/Cambridge

Mill, J.S.1869/1991 The Subjection of Women
in Mill, J.S. 1991/Oxford

Mill, J.S. 1975/Oxford John Stuart Mill, Three Essays

Mill, J.S. 1989/Cambridge On Liberty and other writings, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press

Mill, J.S. 1991/Oxford On Liberty and Other Essays by John Stuart Mill

Rossi, A. 1970 (Edited with an introduction by) Essays on Sex and Equality.


© Andrew Roberts. 24.2.1998 following.

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Referencing this web page and referencing printed copies of The Subjection of Women.

Structure of a book without chapter headings

Varieties of freedom - Personal freedom, for self-development, is the key.

Development of the Franchise in England - Who got the vote and when, and how Mill's work fitted in.

Women, freedom and progress - An analysis of the issues in Mill's book

  1. The personal is political

  2. Victorian women in law and practice

  3. Conservatism versus Progress

  4. The direction of progress

  5. Women by nature: Unknown - Family and Politics

  6. A school for freedom

Bibliography




See also Wikipedia notes




These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.













These are the notes to help you understand the extracts from John Stuart Mill's The Subjection of Women. - These notes have a yellow margin - The extracts have a blue margin.