Women in European Culture and Society

A Sourcebook

Deborah Simonton

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Topic: History
• eBook ISBN:
  9781317325772
• Subtopic: 19th Century History
• Index: History

Women in European Culture and Society: A Sourcebook includes a range of transnational sources which encompass the history of women in Europe from the beginning of the eighteenth century right up to the present day. Including documents from across Europe, from France and Germany to Estonia, Spain and Russia, organized in a broad chronological spread, the diversity of the sources included in the book is unique – including many never translated into English before. Deborah Simonton offers detailed interpretive introductions that analyse and contextualize the sources.

A central feature is its exploration of how women operated within gendered worlds and used their skills and abilities to shape and claim their own identities and to engage with how they contributed as practitioners to shaping European culture and society. With over 200 sources, the book allows us to 'hear' women's voices as they articulate their understandings of their worlds and helps capture a sense of women's motivations, options and choices as they understood them - allowing readers to focus on either a period or a theme and providing a comparative resource.

Ideal for use on its own or as a companion volume to Simonton's other major work, Women in European Culture and Society: Gender, Skill and Identity since 1700, this sourcebook is an invaluable collection offering vivid first-hand accounts of women's lives.

Part I Rights of man and duties of woman

Prelude: women's identity in eighteenth-century culture

DOI: 10.4324/9781315656670

Intellectually, the Enlightenment shaped the eighteenth century with its concentration on the social contract, rights of man, the importance of Nature, Reason and perfectibility, which influenced thinking about individuals, state and society. Attitudes towards ‘woman’ were ambivalent, and notably drew on older Judeo-Christian ideas that depicted woman as temptress and lustful, as well as employing an Enlightenment notion of a ‘natural’ woman cast as a domestic creature but with a special role as mother, responsible for the proper education of young children.

At the end of the century, Olympe de Gouges and Mary Wollstonecraft represent two clarion voices of the Enlightenment and the debate on women’s rights. Writing from different perspectives, they epitomised feminist criticisms of woman’s allocated place in European society. De Gouges wrote in response to the Déclaration des droits de l’homme et du citoyen [Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen, 1791], which she closely parallels. Claiming equal rights, she imagined a vision of the political landscape where women, like men, had rights and responsibilities under the law. She was executed on the guillotine for her stringent advocacy of women’s rights in 1793, at the height of the ‘Terror’ of the French Revolution. Wollstonecraft, in contrast, focused on the operation of Nature and Reason and on education and gendered expectations in constructing masculinity and femininity. Thus she argued for women’s equal right to reason and to a rational education which would enable her to realise her capacities, to achieve virtue and make her a suitable companion to man, and not his insipid sexual slave.

1.1 Declaration of the Rights of Woman, Olympe de Gouges

Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne (Paris, 1791), 5–13.

Prreamble

Mothers, daughters, sisters, representatives of the nation, ask to be constituted as a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, forgetfulness or contempt of the rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental corruption, [we] have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the natural inalienable and sacred rights of woman: so that this declaration, being constantly before all members of society, shall remind them continually of their rights and duties; so that the actions of women’s and men’s power can be compared at any moment with the aim of any and all political institutions and thus be more respected; so that the complaints of citizens, based henceforth upon simple and incontestable principles, shall tend to the maintenance of the constitution, morality, and happiness of all.

In consequence, the sex, which is superior in beauty as in the courage or maternal sufferings, recognises and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the supreme Being, the following rights of woman and the citizeness.

First article

Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only on public utility.

II

The aim of every political association is the preservation of natural and inalienable rights of woman and man: These rights are liberty, property, safety and especially resistance to oppression.

III

The principle of all sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man: nobody, no individual can exercise authority that does not emanate expressly from it.

IV

Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others, so the exercise of natural rights of woman has no limits except the perpetual tyranny with which man opposes them; these limits must be reformed by laws of nature and reason.

V

The laws of nature and reason prohibit all actions injurious to society: whatever is not prohibited by these wise and divine laws should not be obstructed and no one can be constrained to do what they do not require.

The law should be the expression of the general will; all Citizenesses and Citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it should be the same for everyone: all Citizenesses and Citizens, being equal in its eyes, should be equally eligible for all honours, positions and employments, according to their capabilities, and without other distinctions than those of their virtues and talents. . . .

VII

No woman is excepted; she is accused, arrested and detained in cases determined by law. Women like men obey this rigorous law.

VIII

The law should only establish strictly necessary punishments and no one can be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the crime and legally applied to women.

IX

Any woman being declared guilty, law should exercise complete rigour.

X

No person shall be harassed for fundamental opinions, woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb public order established by law.

XI

Free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, since this liberty assures the recognition by fathers of their children. Any Citizeness can freely say I am the mother of a child that belongs to you, without being forced by a barbaric prejudice [against unmarried mothers] to hide the truth, except in response to the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by law.

XII

The guarantee of the rights of woman and the Citizeness requires a usable power; this safeguard should be established for the benefit of all, and not for the particular benefit of those to whom it is entrusted.

XIII

For maintenance of public authority and expenses of administration, the contributions of woman and man are equal; she takes part in the corvées [forced labour], in all painful tasks; she also must have the same share in the allocation of positions, employments, responsibilities, honours and in industry.

XIV

Citizenesses and Citizens have the right to decide, either for themselves or through their representatives, the necessity for public contributions. Citizenesses can only accede to them on admission of an equal share, not only of wealth but also of public administration, and to determine the amount, basis, collection and duration of tax.

XV

The mass of women, joining men as taxpayers, has the right to hold any public agent accountable for his administration.

XVI

Any society, in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no constitution; the constitution is void, if the majority of individuals who constitute the nation have not cooperated in its drafting.

XVII

Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for each an inviolable and sacred right; no one may be deprived of it, since it is a true patrimony of nature, except when public necessity, legally established, obviously dictates it, and under the condition of a just and advanced indemnity.

Postscript

Woman, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe; understand your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition and lies. The torch of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his strength and needs recourse to yours to break his chains. Become free, he has become unjust to his companion. Oh, women, women! Women, when will you cease to be blind? What are the advantages that you have received from the revolution? A scorn more marked, a disdain more overt? During the centuries of corruption you only reigned over the weakness of men. Your empire is destroyed; what is left to you then? The conviction of the injustices of man? The reclamation of your patrimony, founded on the wise decrees of nature; why should you fear such a beautiful enterprise? . . . Are you concerned that our French legislators, correctors of that morality, long attached to political practices no longer in fashion, will only repeat: women, what is it that is common between you and us? Everything, you respond. . . . courageously apply the force of reason to their vain pretensions of superiority; unite under the banner of philosophy; deploy all the energy of your character, and you will soon see these haughty men, not servile adorers crawling at your feet, but proud to share with you the treasures of the Supreme Being. Whatever barriers oppose you, it is within your power to free yourselves; you have only to want to.

1.2 A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Mary Wollstonecraft

3rd ed. (London: J. Johnson, 1796), iii–xvi, 1–10.

To M. Talleyrand-Périgord . . .

Contending for the rights of women, my main argument is built on this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge, for truth must be common to all, or it will be inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And how can woman be expected to co-operate, unless she know why she ought to be virtuous? Unless freedom strengthen her reason till she comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her real good? If children are to be educated to understand the true principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts her out from such investigations. . . .

Consider, . . . whether, when men contend for their freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves, respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in the manner best calculated to promote their happiness? Who made man the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?

In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination from the weak king to the weak father of a family; they are all eager to crush reason; . . . Do you not act a similar part, when you FORCE all women, by denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in their families groping in the dark? . . . the more understanding women acquire, the more they will be attached to their duty, comprehending it, for unless they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable principles as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it in a virtuous manner. They may be convenient slaves, but slavery will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject dependent. . . .

Besides, whilst they are only made to acquire personal accomplishments, men will seek for pleasure in variety, and faithless husbands will make faithless wives; . . . now that more equitable laws are forming your citizens, marriage may become more sacred; . . .

The father of a family will not then weaken his constitution and debase his sentiments, by visiting the harlot, nor forget, in obeying the call of appetite, the purpose for which it was implanted; and the mother will not neglect her children to practise the arts of coquetry, when sense and modesty secure her the friendship of her husband.

But, till men become attentive to the duty of a father, it is vain to expect women to spend that time in their nursery which they, ‘wise in their generation,’ choose to spend at their glass; for this exertion of cunning is only an instinct of nature to enable them to obtain indirectly a little of that power of which they are unjustly denied a share; for, if women are not permitted to enjoy legitimate rights, they will render both men and themselves vicious, to obtain illicit privileges. . . .

Introduction . . .

I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization, which has hitherto taken place in the world, has been very partial. . . . The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove, that their minds...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART I Rights of man and duties of woman
• Prelude: Women’s identity in eighteenth-century culture
• 1 Intimate worlds: self, sex and family
• 2 Community spaces
• 3 Wider worlds: gendering the Enlightenment
• Intermezzo: the Revolutionary era
• PART II Domesticity and industrialism
• Prelude: legacy of the Enlightenment
• 4 Intimate worlds: self, sex and family
• 5 Community spaces
• 6 Shaping wider worlds
• Intermezzo: la Belle Époque
• PART III Modern times
• Prelude: carrying Linda’s stones
• 7 Intimacy and independence
• 8 The transitional community
• 9 The wider stage
• Further reading
• Index