Page 248 - DPOL201_WESTERN_POLITICAL_THOUGHT_ENGLISH

Western Political Thought

Notes Liberty and self-determination were two themes that figured prominently in Mill’s writings.
Freedom, he believed, was the most precious and crucial issue for a human’s well-being. In this
context, women were the subjugated sex denied access to their own potential, and subjected to the
unquestioned prejudices and biases of society. He declared his concern to show that
the existing relations between the 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 the principle of perfect equality admitting no power or
privilege on the one side nor liability on the Other.
Equality as a legal right between the sexes was Mill’s main concern. He referred to women as both
the subject and the enslaved class, for their position was worse than that of slaves. Unlike slaves,
they were in a “chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined”. Mill’s The Subjection
... is avowedly devoted to condemning the legal inferiority of women in Victorian
England, but it ends with an argument from the absolute value of liberty : no country
would surrender its independence for any amount of prosperity, and no human being
who has tasted freedom would give, it up at any price. What further proof could there
be of the supreme value of liberty, for women as well as for men?.
Writing to Comte, Mill pointed out that women’s capacities were spent seeking happiness not in
their own lives, but exclusively for the favour and affection of the other sex, which was only given
to them on the condition of their dependence. The parallel between women and slaves was used
to depict the reality of nineteenth-century England, where, on marriage, the woman became
subservient to her husband both in physical being and property. For women, marriage was like
Hobson’s choice, either marry and face the abuses and loss of dignity that subjugation and
subservience entailed, or remain single and get deprived of educational and professional
opportunities. A woman was not free within marriage, nor was she free to remain unmarried.
Through the description of Eleanor Garrett (the sister of Millicent Garrett Fawcett, the suffrage
leader), Mill explained how unmarried women in the nineteenth century were deprived of avenues
for leading a good and independent life. He deplored the lack of freedom of choice for women,
and contended that equality should be the ordering principle of societal and personal relationships
“The work was a pioneering effort, rightly honoured as one of the first essays to discuss the
inequality of women as a political problem and to consider its sources and solutions in a scholarly
manner”.
Mill pointed out that opposition to sexual equality was not based on reason. To dismiss equality
of sexes as a mere theoretical proposition did not lend credibility to the argument that women
were weaker, and hence subordinate. He agreed that the majority opinion favoured inequality,
but this he contended went against reason. The basis for such a supposition was that it was
derived from the generality of the practice in the history of humankind, and hence was regarded
as good. But Mill pointed out that the subordination of women was only due to the fact that they
were physically not as strong as men. In fact, the origins of women’s subjection was in physical
force, of the allegedly superior bodily strength of men. Consequently, while this had become a
virtue in a man, the opposite, namely renunciation, patience, resignation and submission to power,
have been regarded as characteristics of a gentle and graceful woman. The subjection of women
was similar to slavery. “So true is it that unnatural generally means only uncustomary, and that
everything which is usual appears natural. The subjection of women to men being a universal
custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural”.
Mill pointed out that the rule of men over women was not entirely and altogether based on force.
Women also accepted it voluntarily without complaint and became consenting parties to their
subordination. Men, on their part, expected not only obedience, but even affection from women.

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