Mary Wollstonecraft and the beginnings of female emancipation in France and England

by Jacob Bouten

Women are to receive the same instruction as men. It is not astonishing that the theorist Condorcet should be inclined to go beyond what the practical Talleyrand considered feasible and to forget the undeniable difference in character and capacities existing between the sexes. In this, Mary Wollstonecraft felt like Condorcet. Both make the mistake, when anxious to assert the intellectual equality of women and to have them recognised as "partakers of Reason", of trying to strengthen their plea by pointing to one or two exceptional women to prove what woman is capable of. The grounds on which Condorcet—continuing the line of thought of his French predecessors—demands instruction for women are the same as those of Mary. Women are the natural educators of the young, they should guard their husbands' affections by making themselves agreeable companions, capable of taking an interest in their daily occupations. But it is the last argument that clinches matters: the two sexes have equal rights to be instructed.

It is Condorcet's ideal—as it had been that of Bernardin de St. Pierre—to give the children of the two sexes a joint education, which may prepare them for the social state, and which he feels confident will remove the atmosphere of unhealthy mystery which an artificial separation is apt to produce. Mary heartily concurs with this view. "I should not," she says, "fear any other consequence than that some early attachment might take place, which, whilst it had the best effect on the moral character of the young people, might not perfectly agree with the views of the parents."

I have tried to point out that, although the acquaintance of Mary Wollstonecraft with the works of the French educationalists (Rousseau, of course, excepted) is doubtful, yet there is the closest resemblance in the spirit which animates them. The English writers on the subject, as we have seen, were upon the whole much less enlightened. Their names are repeatedly mentioned in the Vindication, and their methods criticised. The principles underlying the theory of the Rights of Man are adopted with perfect logic as a basis on which to consider the position of the female half of society. "If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation", says the dedication to Talleyrand, in whom she trusted to find a sympathiser, "those of woman, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test."

Mary's methods of investigation are borrowed from Rousseau. In his scheme for the improvement of social conditions, the latter had insisted on the necessity of reverting to the original principles which underlie the social structure, and out of the misunderstanding and consequent misapplication of which the great hindrances to human progress, prejudice and prescription arose. A too close regard to expediency—continually contrasted with simple principles—seems to her the cause of the introduction of measures "rotten at the core", from which flow the misery and disorder which pervade society. While adopting Rousseau's general lines of thought, however, she cannot bring herself to share his raptures about the state of nature, which in its essence is nothing but a denial of the possibility of a well-organised society. The optimism with which he regards the individual does not extend to society, in respect to which he is far too pessimistic to suit Mary's unshakable confidence in human perfectibility. Where Rousseau asserts that "l'homme est né bon", and holds the social state responsible for the introduction of evil, Mary Wollstonecraft feels in the presence of evil the will of the Almighty that we should make use of the gift of Reason as a means of conquering evil and attaining perfection. To return to Nature, therefore, would mean evading the chief task which God meant to impose upon his favourite creature, that of cultivating virtue in the social state which He ordained.

Here again, as in Helvétius, d'Holbach and so many others, Reason is to be the governing power. In Reason lies Man's pre-eminence over the brute creation, and out of the struggle between Reason and the passions arise virtue and knowledge, by which man is conducted towards happiness. Mary Wollstonecraft, in bringing her reason to bear upon the existing social conditions, had become deeply conscious of the degrading position of her sex, and, having herself risen above her troubles, makes a fervent appeal to rational men to give them a chance of becoming more respectable. Her plea, while in the first place for her sex, embraces all humanity, for unless woman be prepared by education to become the companion of man rather than his mistress, she will hamper the progress of knowledge and virtue.

There seems, indeed, a great deal of absurdity in a social scheme which in vindicating the rights of the male portion of humanity, in claiming for them equality, liberty and the blessings of education, could leave the other half of mankind out of consideration. Was liberty to be the portion of men only; and was woman to continue in her state of bondage? Were all men to be partakers of Reason, guided by her only, whilst women had the use of that faculty denied them? In a social state where such partiality could prevail, man was himself responsible for the utter depravity of women. The worst despotism is not that of kings, but that of man, and woman is the trampled-upon victim.

We are thus led to a natural division of the subject into an examination of the position of woman such as it is, and an investigation of what it ought to be and might be. There is one circumstance which distinguishes Mary Wollstonecraft from other champions of the new social creed. In their eagerness to champion oppressed humanity against all forms of tyranny and oppression, Thomas Paine and his followers had been too much inclined to forget that "every right necessarily includes a duty." It is very much to Mary's credit that she emphatically pointed out that "they forfeit the right who do not fulfil the duty." In her claims for equality with men, far from being prompted by sordid motives of envy, or by a desire to obtain power or influence for her sex, she aims at enabling women to discharge the duties of womanhood, among which that of educating their own children occupies the first place. She was always ready herself to take more than her share of those duties, and no one at present doubts her sincerity when saying that she pleads for her sex rather than for herself.

In considering the actual position of women in society she concludes that the trouble arises from two widely different sources. Women have either too much attention paid them, or they have no attention whatever paid them, and the result is equally disastrous, although in a different way. She had had personal experience of the defencelessness and helplessness of a young woman whom fate had cast out upon the cruel world without the means of fighting adverse circumstances, when financial embarrassments forced her to accept a situation as governess in Lord Kingsborough's home. It had stung her to the quick to realise the contempt in which she was held by those whom she justly considered her intellectual inferiors, merely because no government had ever taken the trouble to provide for women without a natural protector, and the narrow views of society were that any woman who, compelled by circumstances, tried to support herself in an honest profession, degraded herself. That her only alternative was to throw herself upon the protection of some lord of creation and prostitute herself, did not seem to occur to these judges of morality. The only compassion excited by the helplessness of females was the consequence of personal attractions, making pity "the harbinger of lust."

It is the duty of a benevolent government to add to the respectability of women by enabling them to earn their own bread, and to save them from inevitable prostitution, or from the degradation of marrying for support. Let the professions be thrown open to them, let women study to become physicians and nurses. Let there be midwives rather than "accoucheurs", let them study history and politics, all of which will keep them far better employed than the perusal of romances or "chronicling small beer". Women are capable of taking a share in the dealings of trade, of regulating a farm, or of managing a shop. The only employments which have hitherto been open to them are of a menial kind. Thus the position of a governess, who must be a gentlewoman to be equal to her important task of education, is held in less repute than that of a tutor, who is himself treated as a dependant. This prejudice entirely destroys the aim of tutorship in rendering him contemptible to his pupils.

How the personal note appears in the above remarks, the demands of which will certainly not strike the modern reader as exorbitant. However, seen in the light of the prejudices prevailing in Mary's days, they make her stand out very clearly from the common herd of those who were willing slaves to man. She seconds Condorcet in hinting at the remote possibility of having female representatives in Parliament. It may here be argued in favour of her modest proposal—which she fears may excite laughter—that the introduction of women into the Parliament of those days could not very well have made matters worse than they were. The mock representation of the "rotten boroughs" was indeed as she calls it "a handle for despotism" of the worst description, and on this subject at least a large portion of the nation held coinciding views.