The Subjection of Women by John Stuart Mill

First published: 1869

Type of work: Philosophy

The Work:

Written in 1860-1861, The Subjection of Women first appeared as a pamphlet in 1869, shortly after John Stuart Mill finished a three-year term as a member of the British parliament. While a member of Parliament, Mill presented a petition for woman’s suffrage (1866) and sponsored the Married Women’s Property Bill (1868). After losing his seat in Parliament in the 1868 election, Mill revised his early draft of the essay and published it. Mill’s primary activity in Parliament was aimed at the enfranchisement of women—their right to vote—and The Subjection of Women makes clear Mill’s liberal feminism and his commitment to gender equality.

The Subjection of Women is divided into four chapters, each chapter presenting and supporting an aspect of Mill’s argument. In chapter 1, Mill states his general aim explicitly. He challenges the common notion that women are by nature unequal to men. He explains that “the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself, and one of the chief hindrances to human improvement,” and the systematic subordination of women by men “ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other.” Mill acknowledges that his views challenge accepted views and practices, but he counters by pointing out the historical foundations of subjection, that is, the conversion of “mere physical fact into a legal right.” The subjection of women, then, is based on a premodern law of force, not on the modern use of reason. Since no other system has been tried, the then-present system of subjugation of the “weaker” female sex to the “stronger” male sex rests upon unproven theory, says Mill. Mill hoped to pave the way for a new system of equality, based on theory, as no practice of gender equality had as yet been allowed.

Using an analogy that angered many of his readers, Mill compares women’s subordination to men to that of the slave to his master and speaks of a kind of domestic slavery to the family. Unlike the slave, however, the woman’s master not only wants her labor but also her sentiments, and he conspires to bind nature and education to accomplish his desire for the loving, submissive, domestic slave over whom he, as husband, has absolute control. The relationship between men and women is merely the customary relationship, and whatever is customary appears natural. To those with power over others, their domination appears natural, perhaps even good, and appears owing to the nature of the dominated. Women’s true natures cannot be verified, however, for they are repressed in some areas and unnaturally stimulated in others, according to Mill. Furthermore, women have seldom been allowed to testify to their own natures; rather, they have been described by the men who exercise power over them. Since women have never been allowed to develop naturally without the repression, stimulation, or guidance of men, a system of subordination founded on women’s “natural” sensitivity and lack of more “masculine” qualities is not inherently more valid than any other system based on theory alone.

In chapter 2, Mill attacks women’s status in the marriage contract, which he sees as a kind of legal bondage. All property and any income derived from marriage belonged to the husband, even if the wife had brought the property to the marriage. Additionally, only the father had legal rights over his children. A woman who left her husband could take nothing with her, not even her children. Any action she might take must have her husband’s tacit approval. Indeed, Mill sees the bondage of marriage as a more profound slavery than slavery itself, not because a woman might be treated as badly as any slave—though he does not neglect the physical power the husband has over his wife and the potential for physical abuse—but because “hardly any slave . . . is a slave at all hours and all minutes.” A wife and mother, on the other hand, is available at all times to all people. No activity a wife does is considered important enough to protect her from being interrupted to meet the needs of others.

Mill argues for a marriage contract based on equality before the law and the division of powers in the home. Though in chapter 3 he makes the case for women’s admission to all “functions and occupations” held by men, he does not call for a division of duties within the home. Rather, he claims that just as a man chooses a profession, a woman who marries is choosing the management of the household and the raising of the children. The latter view is seen by many feminist readers and critics as a weakness in Mill’s liberal feminism, but it is not surprising that he should hold that view in the Victorian period. Mill nonetheless states that the “power of earning is essential to the dignity of a woman.” As Mill argues for women’s freedom to enter all the professions and jobs monopolized by men, he boldly attacks male self-interest, which uses women’s assumed disabilities to maintain subordination in domestic life. Most men cannot tolerate the notion of living with an equal, says Mill.

One of the functions women should exercise, Mill argues, is the vote, and there is no justification for excluding women, who, as a principle of self-protection, have as much right as men to choose who is to govern them. In The Subjection of Women and in an earlier essay, “Enfranchisement of Women” (1851), Mill notes the new freedoms of the modern world, where birth no longer determines individual destiny. With the new freedoms of industry, of conscience, of the press, and of action and political liberty, men should not subject half of the race to restrictions that men are no longer required to tolerate. It is only women who still suffer from that “relic of an old world of thought and practice,” presuppositions based on birth.

As for the mental differences said to exist between men and women, Mill attributes these to the differences in their education and circumstances, rather than to their natures. Women are trained away from, and men are trained for, certain occupations and functions. What women have done, they have proven they can do, and their capabilities for other pursuits are unknown because they are untried. Women have not been allowed entrance into most occupations; hence, there is no evidence that they cannot be as accomplished in these forbidden offices as they have been in those offices they have exercised. Mill uses royalty as an example of women’s capabilities when allowed to develop. Queen Elizabeth fulfilled well the duties of the highest office in the land. Had she not inherited the throne, she would not have been permitted even the least important of political duties.

Mill attacks the traditional notion of women’s nervous susceptibility, seeing it as the overflow of unused energies and often the result of conscious or unconscious cultivation, as exemplified by the popularity and then the unpopularity of fainting spells. He counters the biological argument that because women are smaller than men and thus have smaller brains, they have inferior intellectual powers, and points out that stereotypes of women differ from one culture to another. Women are seen as voluptuous in one country, fickle in another, and cold in yet another. In regard to the lack of cultural artifacts produced by women, Mill claims that women have had insufficient time to practice those vocations that lead to such productions. Women have been trained away from what men have been trained for. Women have been trained for the social obligations of house and family and have been discouraged from creating books, art, and the like.

Mill closes chapter 3 with a strong statement: “Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the emancipation of women, until men in considerable number are prepared to join them in the undertaking.” From a practical perspective, a married woman could be legally stopped from engaging in any activity of which her husband disapproves. In chapter 4, Mill explains why an end to the subordination of women would benefit even the privileged men most likely to resist it.

Mill also posits two questions: What good would come from the proposed changes in customs and institutions? Would humanity be better off if women were free? He argues that the inequality of marriage—the only actual bondage known to law since the abolition of slavery—contradicts all the principles of the modern world. He also claims that it is damaging to boys to grow up believing that they are superior to half the human population merely because they are male, rather than through any merits of their own. If such gender preference were eliminated, children would, “for the first time in man’s existence on earth, be trained in the way [they] should go,” as members of a just society.

A second benefit of giving women the free use of their faculties and free choice of employment is the advantage gained by doubling the available brain trust for the advancement of humanity. By subjugating women, society is wasting half its resources. Relations between men and women would also be much improved if women were allowed to develop their faculties. Women’s influence would extend beyond the boundaries of the domestic, and men and women would be better companions to one another.

The most direct benefit from an end to the subordination of women would be the “unspeakable gain in private happiness to the liberated half of the species,” allowing them a life of rational freedom. Mill sees freedom as the third necessity of life, after food and clothing. Withholding from women freedoms that are available to men is a “positive evil,” says Mill, and “leaves the species less rich.” Mill knows that societal change can occur after the opinions of society change. By his arguments in The Subjection of Women he hopes to encourage exactly that.

The Subjection of Women remains Mill’s least studied work, but it has not lost its relevance with the passage of time. In his discussion of women’s true nature, Mill anticipates the “nature versus nurture” debates that have continued into the twenty-first century. It is true that women in the West can vote, they can own property, and legal conditions have changed. Women have entered many of the occupations once closed to them and exercise many of the functions once the purview of men only, but Mill’s goal of gender equality has yet to be completely realized. The Subjection of Women contains many arguments of practical use for today’s feminists and other believers in individual freedom.

Bibliography

Donner, Wendy, and Richard A Fumerton. Mill. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell, 2009. Part of the Blackwell Great Minds series, this biography of Mill examines his political philosophies, including his theories of gender equality and the oppression and subjugation of women.

Lonoff, Sue. “Cultivated Feminism: Mill and The Subjection of Women.” Philological Quarterly 65, no. 1 (Winter, 1986): 79-102. Describes Mill as an apostle of liberal feminism rather than its prophet. A lucid examination of the rhetorical structure of his essay.

Morales, Maria H., ed. Mill’s “The Subjection of Women.” Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005. Nine essays examine the work and include discussions of Mill as a liberal and radical feminist and his ideas about marriage, marital slavery, friendship, and androgyny.

Okin, Susan Moller. Women in Western Political Thought. 1979. New ed. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1992. Examines traditional philosophical views on women expressed in Plato, Aristotle, and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Part 4 focuses on Mill, the only one of the major liberal political philosophers to include women in the application of principles of liberalism.

Pyle, Andrew, ed. “The Subjection of Women”: Contemporary Responses to John Stuart Mill. Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1995. A collection of essays written in response to The Subjection of Women, including some pieces from eminent women intellectuals of the Victorian era.

Reeves, Richard. John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand. London: Atlantic Books, 2007. An authoritative and well-received biography that recounts Mill’s life, philosophy, and pursuit of truth and liberty for all.

Tulloch, Gail. Mill and Sexual Equality. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner, 1989. Examines The Subjection of Women in detail, particularly noting Mill’s arguments for reconstructed marriage. Traces the development of Mill’s liberal feminism and its relationship to the themes of his major works.