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Western Political Thought

Notes Marriage being the destination appointed by society for women, the prospect they are
brought up to, and the object which it intended should be sought by all of them, except
those who are too little attractive to be chosen by any man as his companion; one
might have supposed that everything would have been done to make this condition as
eligible to them as possible, that they might have no cause to regret being denied the
option of any other. Society, however, both in this, and, at first, in all other cases has
preferred to attain its object by foul rather than fair means.
Like Wollstonecraft and Margaret Fuller (1810-1913), Mill articulated and defended the right of
women to be considered as free rational beings capable of choosing the life they would like to lead
for themselves, rather than being dictated by what society thought they should be or do. Mill was
confident that women, even if granted freedom and opportunities, would not fail to perform their
traditional functions. It was not a question of a choice between domesticity and a career. The
reason why men shied away from granting equal status to women was because they were afraid of
marriage on equal terms.
As a member of the English Parliament, Mill supported a Married Women’s Property Bill. He
contended that England had to move beyond the “savage state” where marriage was based on the
idea that one had to have absolute power over the other. He pointed out that the position of the
wife under the common law of England “is worse than that of slaves in the laws of many countries;
by the Roman law, for example, a slave might have his peculiar status which to a certain extent the
law guaranteed to him for his exclusive use” (Mill ibid: 225).
Mill further pointed out that marriage did not give the woman the dignity and equal status that
she ought to get. Once married, she was totally under the control of her husband. She was denied
by law right to her children and property. Hence, they must have the rights to property, inheritance
and custody. The woman, according to Mill was worse than a slave, a “personal body-servant of
a despot for her husband may compel her, claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of
a human being, that of being made the instrument of an animal function contrary to her inclinations”
(Mill ibid: 250). The law also granted the husband rather than the wife the right over her children.
A mother did not become a legal guardian of her children in the event of the death of their father,
unless expressly desired in the will of the deceased. If a wife decided to leave her husband, she
could not claim anything, including her children. Mill pleaded, therefore, for equality of the sexes
before the law, for that was crucial to ensuring a just arrangement. This, he felt, would be beneficial
to all. Here he made an interesting point, that normally institutions such as slavery, political
absolutism or the autocracy of the head of the family were judged by giving the best examples in
their support, as the purpose of the law and institutions was not for good, but for bad persons.
Moreover, any good law should take into account domestic oppression and personal violence,
considering the high incidence of such crimes. The only option was that
... the equality of married persons before the law, is not only the sole mode in which
that particular relation can be made consistent with justice to both sides, and conducive
to the happiness of both, but it is the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind,
in any high sense a school of moral cultivations.
A marriage contract based on equality of married persons before law was not only a sufficient, but
a necessary condition for full and just equality between the sexes. For Mill, equality was a genuine
moral sentiment that ought to govern all relationships, including the marital one. Such a sentiment
could be instilled and nurtured within a family that had been justly constituted. Mill acknowledged
the family as the real school for learning the virtues of freedom and liberation, yet it was here that
sentiments of injustice, inequality and despotism were taught. The boy, by virtue of being a male,
was treated and reared as if he was superior and better, thus dismissing the needs and interests of
one-half of humankind to bear the consequences of subordination and inhumanness. The self-

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