The Subjection of Women
John Stuart Mill's 1869 essay arguing for full legal and social equality between women and men.
At a glance
Key ideas
Perfect equality, Nature cannot be known yet, No need to forbid …
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John Stuart Mill, On Liberty and Women and Economics
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- Mill argues that the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself and holds back human improvement.
- He says nobody can know women's nature while they have only been seen in their present unequal position.
- He compares marriage law of his day to slavery and calls for reform of property and inheritance law.
- He argues that women should have the vote on the same terms as men.
- Its argument for equality between the sexes went against the European norms of its time.
Why it matters
- It is one of the early classic arguments for women's equality, written by a philosopher who also campaigned for women's suffrage in Parliament.
Key facts
- Author
- John Stuart Mill, with ideas developed jointly with Harriet Taylor Mill1
- Published
- 18691
- Written
- Completed in 18611
- Contributors
- Mill credited his wife's ideas, and some ideas and passages of his stepdaughter Helen Taylor1
- Mill's stepdaughter
- Helen Taylor, his literary executor2
- Forerunner
- Harriet Taylor Mill's essay The Enfranchisement of Women (Westminster Review, 1851) covers much of the same ground1
Key ideas
-
Perfect equality1
The subordination of one sex should be replaced by a system admitting no privilege on one side and no disability on the other.
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Nature cannot be known yet1
What is natural to either sex can only be found out by letting both develop their faculties freely.
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No need to forbid1
"What women by nature cannot do, it is quite superfluous to forbid them from doing."
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Marriage law1
Married women were the last legal slaves; women should keep their own property and be free to work outside the home.
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The vote1
On whatever terms men are admitted to the suffrage, there is no justification for not admitting women on the same.
Connections
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