MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
AND THE BEGINNINGS OF
FEMALE EMANCIPATION
IN FRANCE AND ENGLAND

INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. The Main Theories regarding the Position of Women.

The history of the Emancipation of Women is the long and varied record of their slow and gradual liberation from that utter subjection to Man in which various circumstances beyond their control—among which the physical superiority of the latter, a form of male supremacy which has seldom been called into question, was probably the most prominent—had combined to place them. It relates how in the course of centuries—either with the support of a certain portion of the opposite sex or relying upon their own resources—they strove to cast off the shackles which bound and degraded them, and to acquire that degree of physical, intellectual and moral freedom to which they felt themselves entitled. That the movement towards complete enfranchisement met with a varied reception and was hampered and retarded by men and often by women themselves was due chiefly to the fact that in the question of female possibilities there was much diversity of opinions at different times and among different nations. The worst enemies to evolution of this kind were those women who, holding the Empire of Love and Gallantry to be their exclusive domain, in which their sway was not likely to be ever disputed, turned deliberately against those of their own sex who in trying to wrench from the hands of men the sceptre of social power, were willing to forego the privileges of sex. That women were thus divided among themselves from the first, was the natural outcome of those differences in personal attractions and in personal intelligence which have always constituted the great danger of too sweeping conclusions with regard to the inclinations and capabilities of the female sex. Individual members of the same sex may yet be radically different, and he who would prescribe for all will always find himself confronted by the bewildering problem of the disparity of individuals.

The champions of the Cause of Woman have had to overcome a great deal of stubborn opposition, nor can it be said that even at the present moment the emancipation of women is complete. Even now that the ideal of perfect equality in everything seems almost within reach, and the domestic woman has largely given way to the social worker and political agitator, it may be a matter of speculation whether the full realisation of the long wished-for end, throwing open to women all those occupations from which centuries of injustice rigorously excluded them, would mean a blessing to society and to women in particular, or a mixture of gain and loss. Those who regard women from the all-human standpoint, holding the functions of sex to be only a passing incident in the great scheme of life, will be inclined to take the former view; those, on the other hand, who believe that a woman's life derives its colour from considerations of sex which refuse to be ignored, may well wonder where a rigorous application of perfect equality will land us in the end. In one respect however, there has been great and undeniable progress. The modern tendency to overlook sexual differences ensures to individual women the necessary freedom to judge for themselves whether a life of domestic or one of social duties will be more compatible with their personal inclinations; and no woman whose hopes of domestic bliss are rudely blunted, need—as was the case in former times—despair of succeeding in life; any talents she may happen to possess, will find full scope. If we contrast with this the truly pitiable condition of unmarried women in earlier ages, who were too often treated contemptuously for failing to perform what was considered the only duty of womanhood—the propagation of the species—we cannot but feel grateful to the champions of emancipation, whose restless ardour and unceasing devotion has entailed such glorious results.

The feminist programme includes a number of points, on some of which something will have to be said. There is, in the first place, that physical enfranchisement which makes the woman cease to be the willess, and therefore irresponsible and soulless, slave to the caprices of a brutal master. There is, in the second place, the intellectual emancipation of women, admitting the female sex to the participation of Reason and granting them that education of the mind which is to place them on a par with the other half of humanity; and there is that moral emancipation which recognises woman as a being endowed with a soul, equal to that of man, with consequent moral duties and responsibilities, partly dictated by considerations of sex. As a direct consequence of these, there is finally, social emancipation, constituting principles of perfect equality between the sexes, also in matters of social and political interest. They are all of them largely dependent on the growth of civilisation. It has even been said that the degree of civilisation in a nation is determined by the position of its women in the life of the community.

In the early stages of history—in that savage state which some authors persist in preferring to the social state of an imperfect civilisation—only the physical condition of women was considered, and, where even some of the most fervent advocates of the female excellence are forced to acknowledge the physical inferiority of the sex, it is but natural that the women of prehistoric times were kept in utter subjection, being regarded exclusively as a means of gratifying the animal instincts. But with the growth of civilisation came the development of the mind, and it has always been one of the bitterest grievances of feminists against man, that he, taking advantage of his usurped authority, deliberately withheld from woman the means of proving that the supposed inferiority only concerned her physical capacities, and not those of the mind. Even as late as the 18th century the complaint is repeatedly uttered (and this is one of the points where two women of such widely different views as Mary Wollstonecraft and Hannah More fully agree) that men keep from women all opportunities of that cultivation of the understanding which infallibly leads to virtue, and by a singular want of logic hold them responsible for the moral deficiency which is the inevitable consequence. In the introduction to her "Strictures on the modern system of female education" Hannah More calls it "a singular injustice which is often exercised towards women, first to give them a very defective education and then to expect from them the most undeviating purity of conduct; to train them in such a manner as shall lay them open to the most dangerous faults and then to censure them for not proving faultless"[1], and the argument seems indeed unanswerable. Hence the cry for female education which Plato was among the first to raise. The physical inequality between the sexes was apparent and therefore remained, upon the whole, uncontested, but the problem of the possibilities of the female understanding was less easy to solve and admitted of different opinions; hence it was in the first stage of the growth of the human mind that the great question was first broached the solution of which was to occupy so many minds in so many successive centuries.

While making every possible allowance for deviations due to individual opinion, which mostly had its roots either in a particular form of creed or in some special system of philosophy, it may be stated that there were throughout the centuries two directly opposing lines of thought, each leading to certain clearly marked conclusions.

Of these, the first and oldest is based upon considerations of practice rather than theory, which makes it less rigid and more adaptable to the exigencies of practical life. It was adopted on the whole by churchmen and religious moralists rather than by abstract philosophers, and had the full support of the unquestioned doctrines of Christianity, of which support its adherents never failed to make the best use. It determined the attitude of the early Christian Church towards women in taking for granted the existence of a sexual character, from which it draws inferences. The difference between the sexes is essential and not restricted to physical differentiations. They were intended for different functions and have widely different duties to fulfil. Man's chief duty is the support of the family he has reared—for which obviously his strength of muscle was intended,—his is the struggle for life against a hostile society in which egoism reigns supreme and the interests of individuals constantly clash. Woman's special province is the home; hers is the difficult and important task of regulating the domestic life and bringing up the children she has borne. So far this theory receives support from observations of the animal world. But that faculty which marks the essential difference between the human and the animal kingdom became the apple of discord among many later generations. For Reason was held to be the prerogative of Man only, in which Woman had no share. His world is the world of the Intellect, the world of Action, in which sex is only an episode; hers is the world of Sentiment and of Contemplation, in which sex is the dominant factor. To think is the prerogative of Man, to feel that of Woman. That there is also an intellectual side to the quiet undisturbed contemplation of confinement at home was demonstrated by Shakespeare when creating the character of Lady Macbeth, nor was the monopoly of Thought greatly abused by the mediaeval Lords of creation, the only scholars of that period being those who had resigned their sex. But apart from those who lived in convents and whose reading was exclusively religious, women were self-taught or rather taught by experience, and the use of books was confined to some monasteries.

Starting from the above principle, any claim to intellectual equality would have seemed an encroachment upon the male kingdom. Love and maternity, and the daily routine of the household ought to be the only considerations in a woman's existence and whatever is outside these is the domain of Man. To Woman was allotted the task of managing the home, to Man the more comprehensive one of managing society. That in reality the former is quite as important as the latter, which must always largely depend on it, since Woman is the mother of Man, and the guide of his first steps, did not find full recognition until the 17th century, when Fénelon and some of his contemporaries made this consideration a basis on which to build their demands for a female education.

Early Christianity, drawing the necessary conclusions from certain Biblical allusions to the position of Woman and guided by St. Paul's teachings, adopted the Hebraic notions of female inferiority and dependence, which long met with no resistance whatever. The early churchmen, in strict obedience to the teaching of their faith, tacitly accepted the inferiority of women and their subjection to men. About these little need be said here. They were partly responsible for the misery of women in the early Middle Ages, the time of their greatest debasement and degradation, and will be remembered only among the adversaries of feminism. However, the fact must here be emphasized, that even the full acceptance of a sexual character does not necessitate, and in practice did not always lead to, insistence upon the female inferiority.

There are those who, while assigning to woman a place in society differing essentially from that held by man, do not infer that woman is necessarily inferior to man. They purposely refrain from comparing that which by its very nature defies comparison: "for Woman is not undeveloped Man, but diverse." They insist instead on the division of functions which makes the sexes supplement each other. The majority are moralists, churchmen of a later age, and to them the problem is that of sexual duties, with the promise of eternity in the background, which is intended for both sexes, female as well as male. The pursuit of Christian virtue, which to them is the essential thing, is regardless of sex and leads to self-abnegation which renders the sexual problem of secondary importance. The very orthodoxy of her faith prevented Hannah More from becoming a feminist in the full sense of the word, and as Mary Wollstonecraft's feminism came to absorb her mind more fully, her religious convictions retired into the background. To the Christian moralist the place of woman in the social structure must of necessity be an important one; but it is made so only by the domestic duties which devolve upon her. She is expected to bring up her children to be good Christians, good citizens, and good fathers and mothers, in the moral interest of society, and this duty obviously involves the necessity for women to receive the benefit of a moral education. In this lies the gist of the moralist's arguments in favour of a partial female emancipation. To be a good educator of the young it is indispensable that the mother herself should be liberally instructed, for what is to become of her influence, should her male offspring come to regard her as intellectually inferior? In this argument the feminist and the moralist join hands. Fénelon and his contemporaries were philosophers and for the rigid, inflexible interpretation of Scripture by the early churchmen they substituted the structure of moral philosophy, which thus indirectly promoted the growth of feminist ideas. In their eyes an education is the very first requisite to enable a woman to discharge the duties imposed by motherhood.

The second line of thought, in direct opposition to the assumption of a sexual character, takes for its starting-point the theory of equality in everything except what is physical, arriving at the conclusion that there is nothing which woman—if given the benefit of the same education—is not capable of performing equally well as man. In view of the impossibility of furnishing conclusive rational evidence—women are not educated and therefore no opportunity is given them to vindicate their powers—the adherents of this theory, who mostly belong to the rational school of philosophy, point to the example of some individual women, who in spite of a defective education obtained great results, thereby laying themselves open to the criticism that what may apply to certain individuals, need not hold good for the entire sex, which argument they try to refute by insisting on the experiment being made. This ultra-feminist way of thinking equally originated in France, where Mlle de Gournay and François Poullain de la Barre built up their theories more than a century before Mary Wollstonecraft voiced their claims in the English language.

Apart from certain physical differences which even she could not deny, although she held with truth that they were often exaggerated, nay, purposely augmented, woman possesses the same capabilities as man and the existing difference in intellectual development may be entirely removed by means of an education which does not regard sex. This process of reasoning naturally leads to a denial of sexual character. The mental inferiority of women is merely the consequence of ages of neglect which urgently demands reparation. The soul, they agreed with the moralists, has no sex—an assertion which some of the early Christian leaders might have felt inclined to call into question—and since the development of the moral sense depends largely upon the condition of the mind, it is the right of women to be educated. The claim for education as a natural right was first made in its full purport by Mary Wollstonecraft, to whom belongs the undivided honour of having been the first woman in Europe to apply Rousseau's famous theory of the Rights of Man to her own sex by taking her stand upon the principle of equality of the sexes.

The extreme adherents of equality among the philosophers of the French Revolution founded their claims upon an absolute denial of all innate character, holding the character of every individual to be the resultant of different influences to which it has been exposed. Among French philosophers Helvétius had been the first to profess this theory in his "Traité de l'Homme." Diderot had written an energetic reply, vindicating the theory of innateness and heredity, and the topic had remained a theme of frequent dispute. The partisans of Helvétius, among whom were both Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft, continuing his line of argument, were naturally led to the most optimistic forecasts for a happy future. It only remained to find a way to perfect education and to extend it from a few privileged ones to the multitude, and all evil would of necessity disappear, and society would be rebuilt upon a more solid foundation. The consequence was an overwhelming number of educational treatises, mainly in the French language, most of which, however, sadly overlooked the pressing needs of woman.

It was again Mary Wollstonecraft who extended this implicit faith in the perfectibility of humanity to the case of woman. All that women needed was to be given a good education, and the rest would follow. So convinced were these idealists of the incontestability of their arguments that they refused to make any concessions, however slight, to those who held different views. This very inflexibility became the means of ruining their best intentions. They did not stop at intellectual and moral enfranchisement, their daring schemes comprised complete social and political emancipation. In the period with which we shall be chiefly concerned, their efforts were doomed to failure by the circumstance that their aims were physically incapable of realisation while society remained in the state in which it found itself at the time of the outbreak of the French Revolution. Those more or less unconscious feminists, the Bluestockings, were responsible for far more direct improvement through the very moderation of their suggestions than Mary Wollstonecraft, whose lonely voice in the wilderness of British conventionality heralded the great and successful movement of a later century. When the inevitable reaction set in, the entire feminist movement, which Mary had identified with the cause of liberty, as advocated by the French, was regarded as anti-national and seditious, and first ridiculed and reviled, to be soon after consigned to a temporary oblivion.

When called upon to decide which of the two lines of argument referred to above deserves most sympathy, the unbiased onlooker may find himself sadly perplexed. In choosing between the advocates of dignified domesticity and those of perfect equality, one might be inclined to decide in favour of the former; yet the fact remains that, if especially the last decades have brought considerable progress, it is chiefly the latter we have to thank for it. For the pathway of the pioneer is rough and beset with difficulties, and she may seem "no painful inch to gain", and yet the amount of progress, when measured after the lapse of ages may be found to be considerable. But the fatal tendencies to generalise and to exaggerate are everywhere, and invariably spoil the best arguments. To the advocates of equality à outrance might be held up the warning example of the "masculine woman", who has succeeded in getting herself abominated both by man and by the wise members of her own sex; who has voluntarily, for the prospect of mostly imaginary gains, unsexed herself, forgetful alike of her task of propagation and education and of the fact that even outside the home-circle there are the sick to be ministered to, and the suffering to be comforted, occupations that demand the loving gentleness and unselfish devotion of which the womanly woman is made more capable by Nature than her brother Man. She scornfully resigns the chivalrous worship of the opposite sex, mixing in political and other debates with a want of moderation and often with a narrowness of views which prove all too clearly that the average woman's qualities fit her for the domestic rather than the social task.

On the other hand, those moralists who exhort women to be content to take their place in society as "wives and mothers", not inferior to man, but different, forget to provide for those women, whom circumstances beyond their control have destined for celibacy, debarring them from the privileges of their own sex, while not allowing them to share those of the male. For such women it was indeed a blessed day when the word that was to deliver them from bondage and to open to them paths of public usefulness was first spoken by the pioneers of feminism, throwing open to the female sex the many professions for which they are as fit, or even fitter—in spite of the equality theory—than men!

Whatever may be the absolute truth,—which probably no moralist or feminist has ever held, although some may have held a considerable portion of it,—both may be credited with a firm and unshakable belief in the creative force of a good education for women, of whatever description their chief duties in life may be. And, after all, the question of perfect equality and of rivalry between the sexes leading to a struggle for pre-eminence will chiefly attract women who, being more gifted than their sisters, and filled with a laudable desire to devote their talents to their cause, make the error of identifying their own individual plight with that of their sex, imagining women in general to be thwarted in their aims and ambitions, and ascribing to them aspirations which the majority of women never cherished and probably never will cherish. They turn their weapons against "man, the usurper", goading him to opposition and forgetting Hannah More's wise remark that "cooperation, and not competition is indeed the clear principle we wish to see reciprocally adopted by those higher minds in each sex which really approximate the nearest to each other"[2]. This remark, however much it may hold good for the times in which we live, would have elicited from Mary Wollstonecraft the reply that between master and slave there can be no cooperation until the latter's individuality has been fully recognised by emancipation. If, moreover, we consider how she was always thinking of duties before considering the question of female rights, claiming the latter only that with their help women might be better enabled to perform the former, it is difficult to withhold from either woman that sympathy to which the purity of her motives and the extreme earnestness of her endeavour justly entitles her.

The history of female emancipation, therefore, is so closely bound up with that of female education that it often becomes impossible to separate them. Education, to follow the feminist line of rational thought, forms the mind; and a well-formed mind shows a natural inclination towards that perfect virtue which ought to be the ruling power in the universe and the attainment of which is the sole aim of humanity. The feminist problem will not be fully settled until all men and women are equal partakers of the best education which it is in our power to bestow.

It is impossible to record the earliest beginnings of feminism in England without first glancing at that country whence came the powerful wave of philosophical thought which, stimulated by the fathers of British philosophy, in its turn stung the latent feminist energy of a Mary Wollstonecraft to life and was also—although in a less degree—indirectly responsible for the more qualified feminism in the tendencies of the Bluestocking circles and their literature, which it will be our business to describe. After one or two abortive attempts of a directly feminist nature a movement of indirect feminism, which was fostered and nursed by the French salons of the 17th century began at a time when in England the condition of women was rapidly sinking to the lowest ebb since the dark ages of mediaevalism. All through the 17th and the greater portion of the 18th century female influence and importance grew and intensified without calling forth anything like a parallel movement in the great rival nation beyond the Channel. Those who, like Mary Astell and Daniel Defoe, caught the spirit of emancipation were indeed pioneers, and to them all English women owe a never-to-be-forgotten debt.

From the beginning of the religious revival in England in the early part of the 18th century to the outbreak of the French Revolution a strong and determined reaction against French manners was noticeable in England. This reaction found its root in national prejudices, which held whatever came from France to be tainted with the utter corruption and depravity of French society and as a natural consequence disqualified public opinion from appreciating the glorious edifice of philosophical thought which was being erected at the same time. It derived greater emphasis from the vicious excesses of the French aristocracy and afterwards from the unparalleled horrors of the Revolution. The English nation has never been remarkable for any special love of imitation, and the menace of French revolutionism turned Great Britain into the very bulwark of the most rigid conservatism. So general did the feeling of hatred of the French revolutionary spirit become, that even Mary Wollstonecraft's determined attempt remained unsupported and was predoomed to failure merely because it was identified with the hated principles of the French Revolution.

CHAPTER II. The Beginnings of a Feminist Movement in France.

The two main feminist tendencies of the preceding chapter may be found illustrated among the Ancients by the respective theories of Plato and Plutarch regarding women.

The history of ancient Greece records the earliest traces of what might be termed a feminist movement. There was a period when the position of the women of Greece, who had long been kept in submission, excluded from political influence and treated contemptuously in literature, began to awaken some interest. The views of Plato were of an advancedly feminist tendency. His Republic, of which the fifth Book deals with the position of women in the ideal state, ascribed their inferior power of reasoning to an education which was based upon the assumption of a sexual character. Plato was the first to assert the moral and intellectual equality of women and to claim for them an equal share in the public duties. His writings foreshadow the constant alternative of later centuries. The woman who is regarded as essentially a citizen will find the consequent responsibilities crowding upon her, which she will be expected to share with her male partners, a bar to the exclusively feminine duties of motherhood and the education of her own progeny. No theories and social movements of the past or of any future time have altered or will alter the axiom that every individual woman will sooner or later find herself at a parting of roads, one of which will lead her to devote her energies to the progress of human society at large, the other to the more exclusive happiness and welfare of the domestic circle. So completely does Plato disregard the feminine instinct, that the children in his commonwealth were to be entrusted to professional nurses, and that the mothers were to be allowed only to suckle the infants promiscuously and without even recognising them, out of bare necessity. The maternal instinct in Plato's state was ignored, and the existence of a sexual character emphatically denied.

Another feminist among the Ancients, although his views differed widely from Plato's, was Plutarch, whose ideas represent the opposite extreme of the ideal set up for women. Woman's chief duty he held to be, not to the state, but to her own family. She should try to be her husband's associate not merely in material things, but also in the fulfilment of more delicate tasks, prominent among which is that of educating the young, for which purpose she herself requires to be instructed. In direct opposition to Plato, Plutarch insists on the essentially feminine qualities of tenderness, gentleness, grace and sensibility. In preference to a national education, he wishes for a home-education, based upon the natural affections between parent and child.

The theories of Plato and Plutarch contain the germ of one of the main points of dispute among later feminists and anti-feminists: that of a sexual character. On the attitude taken by later writers on the Woman Question towards this all-important problem depends the course into which they are directed. Those who, like Plato, either deny or ignore the existence of a specially feminine character and specially feminine proclivities, are naturally driven to assert the equality of the sexes, and to claim for the female sex an equal share in both the rights and the responsibilities of social life. On the other hand, those who, like Plutarch, lay stress on the domestic and educational duties of womanhood, counterbalancing the public duties of man, duties which take their origin in the innate propensities of the female character, may yet become defenders of the cause of woman, but their demands will be more qualified, and while including in their programme a liberal female education to make women fitting companions to their husbands and wise mothers to their children, will regard the political emancipation of the sex as a hindrance to the discharge of more important duties, and therefore as undesirable.

Although the problem regarding the social status of women was a matter of some speculation and discussion in the early days of antiquity, no female writers arose to take part in them, and the position of the female sex was exclusively determined by male opinion. This circumstance in itself proves conclusively that the prevailing opinion was that woman in her then state was an inferior creature. Women were not even appealed to to make known their own wishes on a subject so vitally concerning them. Their participation in the movement belongs to later times. Upon the whole, the educationalists of Rome took little notice of the problem of female education and instruction. Quintilian, the chief among them, completely ignores the point, and Roman literature affords no contribution of any real importance.

The first statements of the cause thus remained without any direct results. Such traces as had been left were completely swept up in the years of turmoil that followed, causing early civilisation to fall back into barbarism. The centuries that elapsed between the fall of the Latin Empire and the Renaissance may be called the Dark Age of feminism. Mr. Mc. Cabe in his "Woman in Political Evolution" states that the decline of the comparative esteem in which women were held among the Romans set in even before the great Empire began to totter on its foundations, and was largely due to the Judaic spirit which prevailed in the early days of Christianity, demanding the implicit obedience of women to the stronger sex, a point of view which was found endorsed in many places in both the old and the New Testament. The earliest Christian leaders had been taught to regard woman as the agent of man's downfall, and readily observed the law that rendered her dependent. They were for the most part zealots, who did not believe in any literature that was not devotional. Even the most enlightened among them, St. Jerome, who had to answer the charge of occupying himself preferably with the instruction of women—which accusation he met with the complaint that the men were displaying an absolute indifference to instruction of any kind—wanted to make narrow religious asceticism the basis of his education of women. Being exempt from social and political duties, they seemed naturally fitted for a life of devotion and contempt of the world, directing their energies and hopes towards a life to come. In the strict retirement of the cloisters they filled their time with prayer and sacred literature. Thus, in the dark age, the ideal of womanhood became the Virgin, who lived her life of devotion far from the temptations of a wicked world with which she had nothing in common. Those women—and they were the majority—who did not pursue so lofty an ideal, sank lower and lower, and came to be regarded as mere sexual instruments, without any claim to consideration, by men whose only interest was war, and among whom learning was regarded with contempt.

Before the great Renaissance came with its revival of learning in which some women had a share, bringing improvement to some privileged ones, but leaving the bulk of them in the pool of ignorance and slavery into which they had sunk, two minor renaissances call for mention. The first, of the late eighth and early ninth century, centres round the names of Charlemagne, Emperor of the Franks, and Alcuin. They saw, indeed, the necessity for better instruction and founded a great many schools, but in their scheme women as a class were unfortunately overlooked. The second revival, that of Abélard, which took place in the twelfth century, marks the beginning of a more rational education, subjecting various theological problems to the test of reason and logic. Unfortunately, this second revival soon degenerated, and gave rise to a class of pedants who neither understood the aims, nor even the principles of education and against whose severity and arrogance the great reformers of the Renaissance as Rabelais, Montaigne and Roger Ascham directed their shafts. Neither of these revivals, therefore, exercised any considerable influence on the position of women.

It was also in the twelfth century that the influence of the conquest of England by the Normans began to make itself felt in Latin Europe. The early traditions of England regarding women offer a striking contrast to those which lived on the continent. When in the days of Julius Caesar the Romans first set foot on British soil, they found a well-balanced society, in which prevailed a state of comparative equality between the sexes, and a correspondingly high code of morality. The British women were consulted whenever an important resolution had to be taken, and Tacitus, and in later days Selden, were lavish in their praise of the dignity and bravery of Boadicea, whose history has furnished even modern authors with a fitting subject.

About the middle of the fifth century there began those invasions of Anglo-Saxons which led to a partial blending of the two races. The newcomers also reverenced their women; history even records the names of some "Queens regnant" among them, and ladies of birth and quality sat in their Witenagemot. The church boasted among its abbesses some fine specimens of intellectual womanhood (St. Hilda, St. Modivenna), and in general the position of women among the Anglo-Saxons points to a spirit of generous chivalry.

William the Conqueror and his men, who overran and subjected the country in the eleventh century, came from a land where the principles of the Salic law were recognised. Seen from a feminist point of view, this invasion was a most fatal occurrence. Under Norman influence a rapid decline set in.

But if the Normans Latinised the manners and customs of the nations subjected to their rule, the latter influenced their conquerors in a more subtle way through their literature. It was especially the literature of Celtic England that hit the taste of mediaeval France. The Arthurian Cycle found its way to the Continent. It breathes a spirit of chivalry, and depicts a blending of the sexes on terms of homage to the fair and weaker which came like a revelation. And although the chivalrous element soon degenerated—Mr. Mc. Cabe deliberately leaves early romanticism out of account, calling it "a cult of pretty faces and rounded limbs, leading to a general laxity in morals"—yet it opened the eyes of the stronger sex to the possibility of women playing some slight part in society. In this connection it is rather amusing—and also enlightening as illustrating the general estimate of women—to read about a proposal made by one Pierre du Bois to king Edward the First to make Christian women marry Saracen husbands, that they might have a chance of converting them. The first social mission of women, if du Bois had been given his way, would thus have been that of utilising their charms to make religious converts. At the same time, he deemed it advisable to fit them for this task by giving them a rather liberal education and instruction.

There was, however, one important result of the new tendencies. The education of girls in the early Middle Ages,—such as it was—was a monastic one, practised within the walls of a convent. But in feudal society it became more and more customary to have the daughters of aristocratic families brought up at home, either by a tutor, or by some member of the family whose parts fitted him for the task. This first secularisation of female education among the higher classes was mainly responsible for the awakening interest of some women in literature of a secular kind. The traditions of the Church had demanded the teaching of Latin long after it had fallen into disuse in the outside world. The secular education, which comprised little actual instruction, next to music and dancing, came to include a good deal of physical exercise. Religion was not neglected, but relegated to a less commanding position, and secular literature in the vernacular became a favourite pastime, so much so, that (about 1400) Gerson thought it necessary to protest against the reading of the Roman de la Rose by young ladies, from motives of delicacy.

In spite of many backslidings, the position of women was now very slowly beginning to improve, and in the argument between the partisans and the opponents of female instruction the latter were beginning to have the worst of it. In the fifteenth century one or two forerunners of the renaissance-women swelled the ranks of the advocates of the cause.

There was in France Christine de Pisan, who in her "Cité des Dames" protested against the conventional statement, that the spreading of learning among women had had a disastrous influence upon their morals. In illustration of her plea she quoted the example of Jehan Andry, "solennel canoniste à Boulogne", who, when prevented by circumstances from giving his lessons of divine wisdom, sent his daughter Novelle in his place. In order that the beauty of her appearance might not awaken illicit thoughts among her male scholars "elle avait une petite courtine devant son visage." Christine de Pisan was one of the first women who made a living by their pen, and is said to have lived a life of irreproachable virtue, besides being possessed of great erudition.

The country where the most considerable gain was recorded was Italy. Not only did many Italian women share in the enthusiasm aroused by the Renaissance, but their doings were no longer regarded as unworthy of interest. In Boccaccio's writings, for instance, women occupy a very prominent place, and Chaucer was among those who followed his example. Although a great many writers of the period make the failings of women the object of their satirical remarks, yet there is in their very criticism the wish for something better and nobler, and better still, the conviction that women are capable of improvement.

The Renaissance, with its revival of ancient culture, contained a strong educational element, which, although like the earlier revivals it busied itself only very indirectly with the female half of society, was not without importance to the movement of female emancipation. For in the first place man was the usurper of all authority, and it was only by educating him and widening his horizon that he could be made to recognise the absurdity of the relations between the sexes; and in the second place it was the philosophical spirit of the Renaissance that built its educational speculations upon a solid foundation of thought and method. The educationalists of the Renaissance were not churchmen, but philosophers. The tendency among them—when at all interested in women—is to condemn both the monastic education, which forms devotees instead of mothers, and that secular education which creates literary ladies instead of housewives, and to return to the ancient ideal of womanhood in making them essentially wives and mothers, assuming without discussion the female inferiority.

The most striking exception to this rule was the German Cornelius Agrippa, of Nettesheim, who was the first to state the cause and pronounce upon it in a sense so favourable to female instruction that it entitles him to the name of "father of feminism". His treatise "De nobilitate et praecellentia feminini sexus" (first published in 1505), though naturally crude and immature, and hesitatingly put forward, has that enthusiasm of firm convictions which touches the reader's heart. The rudiments of later contentions are to be found in his plea. The tyranny of men, he says, has deprived woman of her birthright of liberty. Iniquitous laws have prevented her from enjoying it, usage and custom have neglected it, and finally an exclusively sexual education has quite extinguished it. In her youth she is kept a close prisoner at home, as though she were utterly incapable of any more dignified occupation than the performance of domestic duties like a kind of superior servant, and using the needle. Thus she is prepared for the matrimonial yoke which is laid upon her the moment she has attained maturity, that she may quickly serve her chief purpose of propagating the species. She is then delivered up to the oppression of a husband whose inordinate jealousy and fits of temper reduce her to a deplorable condition. Or she is kept all her life in the even more rigorous confinement of a convent, a retreat of so-called virgins and vestals, where she is left to a thousand agonies, the worst among which is a gnawing regret for lost happiness which finishes her.

In a supplementary treatise Agrippa exhorts the husband to regard and to treat his wife as a companion, and not as a servant. He seems almost afraid of the consequences of his audacity when he tries to weaken its effects by acknowledging the natural dominion of the male sex. "However", he adds, "let their rule be all grace and reverence. Although woman be inferior, let her be given a place by the husband's side, that she may be his faithful helpmate and counsellor. Not a slave, but the mistress of the house; not the first among the servants, but the mother of the fine children who are to inherit her husband's property, succeed to his business, and transmit his name to posterity."

Erasmus in his Dialogues depicts women as eager to rise out of their conditions of servitude. However much he tempers the force of his argument by continual jokes and pleasantries, yet he seems to sympathise with the female complaint that woman herself has abandoned her cause, leaving the husband to decide all matters of importance and voluntarily resigning all liberty, consigning herself to a life of religious devotion and household duties. The consequence is that men regard them as mere playthings and even deny them the name of human beings. The woman who voices this complaint enumerates the various occupations for which her sex would be fit, and winds up by saying that "there is nothing in what she has said which does not deserve serious and mature consideration."

In "Abbates et Eruditiae" Erasmus anticipates the problem of female education as it would present itself in later ages. He foresees that there will come a time when women, dissatisfied with the state of bondage, will seek improvement by demanding an education. The innate masculine egoism, however, will realise that learning will make women less submissive to male authority, and they will resist any innovations by which their supremacy may be endangered. The coming struggle is thus foreshadowed by one of the most prominent among the philosophers of the Renaissance, and his sympathies are, upon the whole, with the female sex. He is the first to see the close connexion between the moral worthlessness of females and their need of an education. To remedy the frivolity of women he demanded that girls should be taught some useful occupation, so as to keep them from idleness and its concomitant vices. He also wished for a more liberal intellectual education to be supplied in the family, and, should that be impossible, by the husband.

In full accordance with the above is the main drift of the third of the great humanist's works which show a tendency favourable to women: his "Christian Marriage", which made its appearance in 1526. It resolutely prefers the state of matrimony to that of religious celibacy and makes the possibilities of conjugal happiness dependent on the cultivation of the female soul.

Works like the above could not fail to draw to the problem the attention of the reading public, and to make it a favourite topic of controversy. France especially proved an extremely fruitful soil, and the French nation became interested in a regular "querelle des femmes" which inspired a great many pens, and culminated in the third Book of Rabelais' Pantagruel. The habit of reviling the female character and satirising the female weaknesses was of mediaeval growth, and may be found illustrated among many other examples in that portion of the "Roman de la Rose" which is the work of Jean de Meung, in the "Lamentations de Matheolus", of which the late professor van Hamel issued a new edition in 1892, and in a great many "fabliaux". It also prevailed in England with great persistence for several centuries.[3] But the somewhat puerile invective became a controversy in France when about the middle of the 15th century the female sex found some staunch defenders among the male French authors. Martin le Franc's "Champion des Dames", composed between 1440 and 1442, aroused a great deal of hostile criticism, mostly in the prevailing satirical form and culminating in the "Grand Blason des Faulces Amours" by Guillaume-Alexis, and some sympathy, as in the "Chevalier aux Dames", an allegorical poem; while some authors, like Robert de Herlin in his "Acort des mesdisans et biendisans" tried to reconcile the two parties.

After 1500 the growth of the Renaissance spirit soon caused the controversy to enter into a new phase. The interest it commanded remained undiminished and towards the middle of the century it even increased to immense proportions, without, however, leading to any pronounced tangible results. The progress of learning caused the argument to become intensified into a more serious, philosophical cast. One of the champions of the female sex, at the time when the "quarrel" had reached its acute stage, François du Billon, who also made use of the allegorical device to level his threats at the heads of the revilers of women in his "Fort inexpugnable de l'honneur fëminin", narrates how three of the worst sinners are taken prisoner by the gallant defenders of the fortress. They are Boccaccio, Gratien Dupont, seigneur de Drusac, whose "Controverses", written in 1534, are full of the fiercest invective against women, and Jean Nevizan, author of a Latin treatise, published in 1521, of which the very lengthy title may be advantageously condensed into "Sylva nuptialis". Nevizan's work shows the Renaissance spirit of enquiry into the stores of antiquity in its mention of a great many sources from Christ to Plato and itself became a source of inspiration to Rabelais.

In the years that followed the champions of feminism became identified with the Platonic idealists who were bent upon spiritualising love[4], whilst its adversaries tried to uphold the ancient "gaulois" traditions with their lower estimate of womanhood. The publication (in 1542) of Antoine Héroët's "Parfaicte Amye", with its Platonic notions, heralded a new phase in the history of the "Querelle des Femmes". In its metaphysical tendencies this brief treatise contains a delicate analysis of the emotions attendant upon the pure passion, the chief inspirer of virtue which brings us nearer to God. It ushered in the acute stage, during which not one of the great authors remained silent on a question which occupied so many minds. The different contributions to the problem under discussion were soon combined in one volume under the name of "Opuscules d'Amour". The poets and poetesses of the "école lyonnaise", Maurice Scève, Pernette du Guillet, Louise Labé, and others, ranged themselves among those who tried to introduce a purified love-ideal and also Marguerite, Queen of Navarre[5] joined the controversialists in her poetry. So general did the interest taken in the issue become, that Rabelais interrupted the narrative of his Pantagruel to contribute his reflections on the subject in the Third Book (about 1546). He took his cue from Nevizan's "Sylva nuptialis" in introducing the problem as a consequence of speculations regarding the marriage of Panurge. Rabelais proved himself on the whole an anti-feminist, and we have du Billon's authority for the fact that the name "Pantagruéliste" was considered equivalent to that of enemy to the cause of woman.[6]

If we except Christine de Pisan, Marie de Jars de Gournay, and "la Belle Cordière," the Lyons poetess Louise Labé, the number of French female authors was not greatly increased by the Renaissance movement. But the number of women of the higher classes who took part in the great intellectual movement grew all over Europe, particularly in France, England and Spain. One of the most erudite Frenchwomen of the time was Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre, (1492-1549), sister to Francis the First, who welcomed to her court the greatest scholars of the day, and who was herself no mean poetess. It would not be difficult to extend this list with more names of high-placed women who owed their intellectual development to the instruction of special preceptors. Education of this kind became the privilege of the female aristocracy. The schools for the most part refused to admit women; in the convent learning was discouraged because a spirit of free inquiry mostly led to heresy, and for the women of the lower classes nothing at all was done. Their more fortunate sisters learned to speak and write Latin, Greek and Italian, and after 1600 also Spanish, and the abuse by women of Italian words while pretending to speak their own language called forth a strong reaction in 1579, the year which saw Euphues, and the beginning of its influence at the Elizabethan court.

The tendencies of the Reformation pointed in the same direction; they encouraged a spirit of free inquiry and were directly opposed to those of the monastic education. Under Luther's influence a number of lay-schools for girls arose in Germany and the early Reformation thus tried to fill up the gap in female education which the Renaissance had left. Unfortunately the political condition of France in the late 16th century was most unfavourable to educational reform owing to the violence of the religious wars, and it was not until after the Edict of Nantes that a number of Huguenot schools arose. The outlook in the opening years of the 17th century was far from bright; great misery prevailed everywhere, in addition to which the internal wars had brought about a general decay of morals which threatened to become the country's ruin. It was at this critical stage in the history of France that woman had become sufficiently confident of her powers to claim a beneficial share in all matters of social importance.[7] For the first time in history the Woman Question reached an acute stage. The seventeenth century, which witnessed the deepest abasement of English women, will always be remembered in the history of France as the time of the first self-conscious vindication of female rights. This vindication—except in one or two isolated instances—did not take the form of a direct appeal; it adopted the persuasive method of furnishing convincing evidence of woman's capacity to hold her own both intellectually and morally and even to supply certain elements which were lacking among the opposite sex, for the benefit of French society.

We have seen that in the late sixteenth century the problem came to be a much-discussed one in French literature, which it remained all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. M. Ascoli, in the "Revue de synthèse historique" (Tome XIII) has published an extensive bibliography of no fewer than ninety-seven works of a feminist or anti-feminist tendency written between 1564 and 1773, which proves conclusively that the intellectual condition of women remained a subject of contemplation. The thirst for knowledge, as we have seen, had imparted itself to a small category of women whose circumstances enabled them to share the literary pursuits of their menfolks. But even the boldest of these earliest champions in their wildest dreams did not go beyond that enfranchisement of the mind which—however important in itself—is only the indispensable first step in female emancipation. Until quite late in the 16th century no women had entered the field as the avowed champions of their sex against the arrogant assertions of male supremacy. The alleged inferiority of women was a theme of frequent discussion only in the works of male authors, who further degraded the sex by the bantering, often insolently satirical tone of their contentions. But no woman had come forward to test the evidence on both sides, far less to enter into competition with men on behalf of her sex. The growing taste for literature had done little or nothing to improve the social position of women; it unfortunately limited itself to a few privileged women, leaving the rest of womanhood in the obscurity of hopeless ignorance. Thus matters stood when in the first quarter of the seventeenth century two events of great importance in the history of feminism took place, of which the first, abortive though it was, and therefore predoomed to barrenness, represents a deliberate attempt by a woman to constitute herself the champion of her sex; the second being something in the nature of a social experiment, which, without aiming definitely at the attainment of an exclusively feminist ideal, did more to improve the condition of women than any more direct endeavour. I refer to the work of Marie de Jars de Gournay, and to the establishment of the first salon by Catherine de Rambouillet.

The former struck a bold and defiant note, resolutely claiming for her sex equality with men. This audacious assertion stamps her as the pioneer of modern feminism. The remarkable thing about her theories is that without the help of anything like a clearly defined philosophy she strikes the keynote of whatever claim was put forward on behalf of women in later times as a consequence of more than a century of philosophical speculation, the practice of which entailed the all-absorbing consequences of the great Revolution of 1789. When the cause of woman was taken up in England by Mary Wollstonecraft, and grafted upon the larger cause of humanity as its logical consequence, the arguments of her plea were directly derived from that philosophy of liberty, equality and fraternity which may be traced to its origin in Locke, Descartes and Bacon. Yet here was a lady, at a time when Descartes was a mere boy, boldly asserting that nature is opposed to all inequality. "La pluspart de ceux qui prennent la cause des femmes contre cette orgueilleuse preferance que les hommes s'attribuent, leur rendent le change entier: r'envoyans la preferance vers elles. Moy qui fuys toutes extremitez, je me contente de les esgaler aux hommes: la nature s'opposant pour ce regard autant à la supériorité qu'à l'infériorité." She thus sets about vindicating the equality of her sex in everything except physical strength, going beyond the most daring speculation of any previous author, with the exception of those who, blinded by hate, had put forth theories of female pre-eminence in which in sober moments they themselves hardly believed.

Marie de Gournay ascribed the state of inequality to the circumstance that woman is purposely denied an education by man, who owes his usurped authority to abuse of physical force, which she holds in utter contempt. "Les forces corporelles sont vertus si basses, que la beste en tient plus pardessus l'homme, que l'homme pardessus la femme." Woman is man's inferior in bodily strength only "par la nécessité de port et la nourriture des enfants", compensating her lack of brute force by her delicate mission of propagation. But Mlle de Gournay emphatically asserts the perfectibility of the female mind.

To understand and partly justify the extreme vehemence of the lady's attack upon the opposite sex, whose unmerited contempt of the feminine intellect had deeply injured her feelings, it is necessary to take into account the circumstances of her life, which explain her acerbity. She was a studious woman,—a forerunner of the Hannah Mores and Elizabeth Carters as well as of the Mary Astells and Mary Wollstonecrafts of a later period—whom her exceptional intellectual gifts betrayed into that error so common among the extreme female champions—that of substituting herself for her sex and claiming for all what no one with any discernment would think of refusing her personally. Her mother's attempts to turn her away from literature only irritated her. She had no personal beauty and her entire life was a protracted struggle against indifference, opposition and ridicule, which embittered her beyond measure against that sex which valued the gift of a pleasing appearance above that of a comprehensive mind. Born in or about 1565, she must have been a mere girl when first brought into contact with Montaigne's Essays. She expressed her admiration of them in a letter to the author, couched in terms so enthusiastic that the philosopher came to see her, thus laying the foundation of a friendship which was only disturbed by his death in 1592. She became his spiritual daughter,—his "fille d'alliance"—and took an active part in the publication of the later editions of the Essays. She rather conceitedly accounted for the close affection which bound them together as "the sympathy from genius to genius". When Montaigne died, his "fille d'alliance" was in a fair way to become a prominent figure in the literary world, having under his influence written some pedagogical essays, which were favourably received. With the philosopher her chief guide passed away, and subsequent experience seems to have soured her and made her spiteful and old-maidish before her time. Those whose object was to ridicule her represent her with three cats, following her about wherever she went. She met with little sympathy beyond that expressed from chiefly intellectual motives in the correspondence of the learned Dutchwoman Anna Maria Schuurman, and of the renowned Louvain professor Juste Lipse—whose praise of Montaigne's Essays had won her instant recognition. But she deserves respect for the courage of her opinions, regardless of the prejudices of her contemporaries, and for standing her ground firmly, often turning ridicule into esteem.

Such was the pioneer whose ideas regarding the position of women are embodied chiefly in a treatise entitled: "De L'Egalité des Hommes et des Femmes" and in the "Grief des Dames", and further alluded to in her preface to the 1595 edition of Montaigne's Essays and in a prose "Apology", intended to disarm her ridiculers, in which she protests against being disregarded merely on account of her womanhood. Here, indeed, we are confronted by a sense of personal injury. Concerning "De L'Egalité" she says in one of her later writings: "Il faut le soubmettre à la touche par ce que peuvent valoir ses raisons et ses pensées, fortes ou feibles qu'elles soient, et puis apres, par la consideration de son dessein. Sçavoir si ce nouveau biais qu'elle prend, et qui la rend originale, est bon pour relever le lustre et pour verifier les privileges des Dames, opprimez par la tyrannie des hommes."

The treatise "De L'Egalité" consists of two parts. In the first, the right of women to equal consideration with men is vindicated by means of evidence derived from the writings of men; in the second the authority of God himself as contained in the Bible is referred to and expounded in a manner wholly favourable to the doctrine of equality.

Regarding the first point, the author derives comfort from the reflexion that the chief revilers of women are to be found among the worst specimens of the male sex, who merely repeat the opinions of others, "n'ayans pas appris que la première qualité d'un mal habill' homme, c'est de cautionner les choses soubs la foy populaire et par ouyr dire," in doing which, "d'une seule parolle ils desfont la moitié du Monde." Their sole aim is to rise at the expense of the female sex. But fortunately there is the testimony of truly great men to prove the mental and moral capacity of women. Here follows a list of the male partisans of some degree of feminism among the philosophers of antiquity and of the renaissance: Plato, Socrates, Plutarch, Seneca, Aristotle, Erasmus, Politian, Agrippa. Montaigne is introduced as "le tiers chef du triumvirat de la sagesse humaine et morale" (with Plutarch and Seneca), for having written that "il se trouve rarement des femmes dignes de commander aux hommes," which she twists into an implication that he holds woman to be the equal of man.

To counterbalance the principles of the Salic law, constructed entirely upon considerations of war, Tacitus' account of the position of women among the Germanic tribes is quoted, together with the example of the Spartans, who in the discussion of their public affairs consulted female opinion.

Marie de Gournay held that the two sexes have equal souls given them; the institution of a sexual difference having been made exclusively with regard to the propagation of the species. To illustrate which, the author, whom nobody would dream of accusing of levity, bashfully craves permission to quote a popular saying. "Et s'il est permis de rire en passant, le quolibet ne sera pas hors de saison, nous apprenant: qu'il n'est rien plus semblable au chat sur une fenestre, que la chatte."

After passing in review the principal secular authorities with feminist tendencies, Mlle de Gournay tries the more difficult task of reconciling her feminist views to those of the early Christians, taking what she calls "la route des tesmoignages saincts", quoting St. Basil and St. Jerome, and finding herself for the first time somewhat perplexed at the teachings of St. Paul, who forbids preaching by women and enjoins silence, "not because he despises the female sex, but merely lest their beauty and grace, displayed to advantage in a public office, should become a source of temptation to men."

That women have always excelled in religious devotion is demonstrated by means of a reference to the championship of Judith and the martyrdom of Joan of Arc. The mention of the former brings us to direct Scriptural evidence, which the author finds an even harder subject to tackle. Here, indeed she is sometimes led by her zeal into the most palpable absurdities: "Et si les hommes se vantent, que Jesus-Christ soit nay de leur sexe, on respond qu'il le falloit par nécessaire biensceance, ne se pouvant pas sans scandale, mesler jeune et à toutes les heures du jour et de la nuict parmy les presses, aux fins de convertir, secourir et sauver le genre humain, s'il eust esté du sexe des femmes: notamment en face de la malignité des Juifs."

The entire treatise is mere theorising, and being produced at a time when the public mind on the subject was one mass of inveterate prejudice, brushing aside any speculations of the kind it contained as ridiculous and "paradoxical", it is not astonishing that Marie de Gournay spoke to the winds, and that the practical results of her labour were nihil.

One gets the impression that the author herself was fully convinced of the hopelessness of even obtaining a hearing, and wrote chiefly to relieve herself of the burden of her glowing indignation. To this circumstance it may be attributed that she refrains from formulating any practical claims, or drawing up a scheme of an ideal society in which women were given their due. But her zeal and devotion to the cause she believed to be just were above suspicion, and she has a claim to the gratitude of her sex for having asserted the female equivalence.

If Mlle de Gournay combined in her person some of the elements of the social reformer, there certainly is nothing sensational about her personality and way of expressing her views, and she must be described as revolutionary in a limited sense. Apart from her extreme feminism, her social and political views were quite conventional, and in her preface to "De l'Egalité" she even seeks the patronage of Queen Anne, as the most prominent and influential member of her sex. François Poullain de la Barre, however, who half a century later became heir to her spiritual legacy, was an out-and-out revolutionist, whose theories of female equality proceeded from generally revolutionary tendencies. Like Mlle de Gournay, he was a theorist, but he differed from her in being above all a philosopher of the school of Descartes, and the first to apply the doctrine of Cartesianism to social problems. This consideration renders him important not merely as the direct advocate of the cause of woman, in which capacity his efforts met with no success whatever, but as the forerunner of J. J. Rousseau in his theory of human rights, which in its turn became the basis of the feminist movement in England in the last years of the next century, inaugurated by Mary Wollstonecraft. As M. Piéron puts it, "le chemin réel ira de Descartes au féminisme par la Révolution, et non de Descartes à la révolution par le féminisme."