An Introduction to Mill’s The Subjection of Women

Mill’s advocacy stands out among his contemporaries. To be blunt, most philosophers throughout history, despite their pretensions of seeking truth above all else, have conformed to the social norms and status quo of their time. This becomes painfully apparent when looking at the disparaging attitudes of many eminent Western philosophers towards women and their intellectual faculties. This tradition of misogyny stretches as far back as Aristotle, who wrote, “The relation of male to female is by nature a relation of superior to inferior and ruler to ruled” (Aristotle 1984, p. 36). But this misogyny was by no means relegated just to the ancients. Esteemed Enlightenment thinker Immanuel Kant argued that education and philosophical acumen were qualities that destroyed the proper merits of the female sex. Kant went so far as to say intellectual women “might as well even have a beard” (Kant 2011, p. 36).

Name any famous philosopher before Mill, and there is an exceedingly high likelihood they viewed women as, at best, pretty distractions or, at worst, a species of subhuman. Despite the misogynistic climate, some mounted attacks on the patriarchy in favor of equality between the sexes, people such as Christine De Pizan, Arcangela Tarabotti, and Mary Wollstonecraft. But by and large, these writers and their egalitarian notions were in the minority until the 20th century.

Mill’s feminism is most apparent during his seven-​year stint in parliament. He sponsored the women’s suffrage amendment to the Reform Act of 1867, an amendment that would expand the right to vote for both men and women. The following year, Mill cosponsored the Married Women’s Property Bill, which aimed to give married women the same rights as unmarried women to own and dispose of land. Later, in 1871, Mill testified before the Royal Commission against the Contagious Diseases Acts, legislation that allowed police officers to arrest any woman within certain ports and army towns if they suspected she was a prostitute and subject them to invasive, compulsory checks for venereal disease. Not every feminist cause that Mill embraced came to fruition during his lifetime; he was the first-​ever member of the British parliament to demand women receive the right to vote, though women’s suffrage wouldn’t be enacted until 1918.

Contemporary conservatives ridiculed Mill for his dedication to the principles of equality. In 1873, just weeks before he died, a cartoon of Mill being mocked as a “Feminine Philosopher” appeared in Vanity Fair. Mill was, by all means, an ardent and dedicated feminist right up until the day he died. Even after his death, Mill influenced feminist thinkers through his seminal essay, The Subjection of Women, which applied the liberal principles Mill had developed throughout On Liberty to the debate over gender equality.

The Subjection of Women is broken into four untitled chapters. In the first, Mill describes the social and legal status of women in contemporary Victorian England. In the second chapter, moving from the general to the particular, Mill hones in on how the legal inequities of Victorian marriage oppress women and what the reforms could mitigate women’s dismal situation. The third chapter focuses on how women’s exclusion from the public sphere of work and politics harms both men and women. Lastly, Mill articulates how the adoption of the principle of equality will change society for the better. While each chapter deals with a discrete facet of women’s experiences, each has overlapping and complementary themes that solidify The Subjection of Women as a foundational text of feminist thought.

Without wasting any time pontificating, Mill states at the outset “that the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes-​the legal subordination of one sex to the other is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement” (p. 409). Mill’s solution is to replace the current regime regulating the sexes with the “principle of perfect equality, admitting to no power or privilege on one side, nor disability on the other” (p. 409). Mill believed that inequality did not just separate men and women into different spheres and realms; it created legally supported relations in which husbands, even those with the best intentions, dominated their wives’ lives and stunted their prospects.

Despite living during an age of reform, Mill saw the legal and social inequality between the sexes as one of the most egregious examples of an outdated and barbaric institution persisting throughout the centuries. Mill called women’s forced dependence on men “the primitive state of slavery lasting on” (p. 413). Women’s subordination stood out like a sore thumb when juxtaposed against an era marked by revolutions championing the rights of man. But as Mill noted, equality remained a minority opinion; a sizable number of reformers actively and passionately defended the widespread subordination of women while also holding “enlightened” views on men’s hitherto unrecognized rights.

Mill explains that defenders of the status quo suffer from self-​interested laziness motivated by their desire to maintain traditional institutions. This laziness manifests itself most prominently as a lack of imagination. Mill explains that for defenders of the status quo, “The subjection of women to men being a universal custom, any departure from it quite naturally appears unnatural” (p. 420). Mill observed that detractors of equality usually defend the status quo both by invoking women’s alleged nature and how institutions supporting inequality were natural. But Mill replies, “But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?” (p. 419). Mill did not concede that gender inequality was somehow rooted in the natural order; instead, it was liberty that was natural, and thus, “in practical matters, the burthen of proof is supposed to be with those who are against liberty” (p. 410).

Mill says we cannot yet answer questions about the nature of women because, as he explains, “what is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing-​the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others” (p. 428). What is required is what Mill calls in On Liberty, “experiments in living.” Mill concludes that what is natural to the two sexes can only be found out by allowing both to develop and use their faculties freely. Until men and women are treated equally, we remain fundamentally ignorant of the other sexes’ abilities.

Mill believed that until recently, the law of the stronger prevailed as the misguided principle upon which we organize society. In contrast to this, Mill supports what he calls “the modern conviction,” the idea that “human beings are no longer born to their place of life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties and such favorable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable” (p. 423). Or to boil it down to one word, what defined modernity for Mill was choice, something he believed should be available to all individuals regardless of sex. And Mill describes freedom of individual choice as the most effective means of achieving progress.

After setting the stage with his argument that inequality between the sexes harms both individuals and society as a whole, Mill devotes his second chapter to discussing the institution of marriage, which he believed perpetuated women’s oppression. Women’s education and upbringing focused heavily on the importance of attracting a partner for marriage. But despite this focus on getting women married, marriage in Victorian England remained a deeply perturbing legal relationship. So much so, Mill wrote that ‘‘marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal slaves, except the mistress of every house” (p. 483).

In Mill’s day, the vast majority of professional and educational opportunities were closed off to women, even those of high status. The result was that for women, marriage was a take-​it-​or-​leave-​it affair; there were no other realistic options for attaining a living for an upper-​class woman. Mill explained that scarcely any means were open to women except as a wife and mother. Yet contemporary Victorians believed modern marriage was built upon the ideal that it was a relationship grounded in the enthusiastic consent of both partners. Mill attacked this fantasy by showing that marriage was not a meaningful choice but a cruel necessity forced on women by depriving them of any realistic alternative to marriage.

Once married, women were placed in a position of legal subservience to their husbands. The English common law doctrines of coverture and spousal unity—derived ultimately from the biblical book of Genesis—deprived a wife of legal status outside of her husband’s authority. By Mill’s day, legal thinkers such as William Blackstone could comfortably say, “The very being or legal existence of the woman is suspended during marriage” (Blackstone 1753, p. 441). Legally, spousal unity meant that a married couple was considered one person, that person being the husband. Through this doctrine, women were deprived of their earnings-​-​as all income went to the “head” of the household—and even custody of their own children.

Mill was most appalled by how marriage laws did not counteract domestic abuse but sanctioned its existence. According to the doctrine of spousal unity, a married man and woman were considered by the law to be one body. Therefore, legally, sexual assault within a marriage was an impossibility. Husbands could, in Mill’s words, “claim from her and enforce the lowest degradation of a human being,” because the law protected abusive men, making them legally immune to any charges an abused wife might bring to court (p. 438). Under Victorian marriage laws, domestic abuse and spousal rape were legally sanctioned.

For Mill, however, legally created and enforced inequality in the domestic realm turned what should have been a private and intimate relationship into a public and callous relationship infused with state-​sanctioned power. Legal reforms such as giving married women the right to hold property, extending equal custodial rights for mothers and fathers, and providing equal grounds for legal separation were necessary to eliminate this spousal domination.

Mill was not against marriage per se but the current state of the institution of marriage. After all, most men did not abuse their wives despite their legal power. Mill writes, “I have no desire to exaggerate, nor does the case stand in any need of exaggeration. I have described the wife’s legal position, not her actual treatment” (p. 439). Regardless, if a husband ever brings his legal privilege to bear on his wife, the mere existence of such a massive power imbalance forces women to be subordinate to men. Women become a subject class, and “each individual of the subject-​class is in a chronic state of bribery and intimidation combined” (p. 418). Women’s lives are not secure; instead, they are based upon the kindness and restraint of men, but this can never be considered freedom, even if husbands never use their power in that manner. Mill warns, “No freedom is worth much when held on so precarious a tenure” (p. 447).

Mill concludes that despite the reforming zeal of his day, “Not a word can be said of despotism in the family which cannot be said for political despotism” (p. 440). Being an ardent advocate of progress, Mill believed that equality between the sexes, both in marriage and at large, is “the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind, in any high sense, a school or moral cultivation” (p. 449). Mill believed that “the true virtue of human beings is fitness to live together as equals” (p. 450). But humanity’s moral training will be forever stunted if we fail to practice “in the family the same moral rule which is adapted to the normal constitution of human society” (p. 450).

Towards the very end of his second chapter, Mill writes, “The power of earning is essential to the dignity of a woman” (p. 454). Mill begins his third chapter by discussing women’s exclusion from politics, education, and professional work. Mill opens his argument by stating in blunt terms, “I believe that their [women’s] disablities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal” (p. 455). Mill argues that women ought to be allowed access “to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex” (p. 455). In Mill’s day, women were barred from most professions, were denied access to education, and were deprived of the right to vote, all based upon their apparent natural inferiority. Mill laments, “In the present day, power holds a smoother language, and whomsoever it oppresses, always pretends to do so for their own good” (p. 455). Mill argues that all avenues of education, work, and politics should be open to both men and women on equal footing.

Much of this chapter consists of Mill refuting the bizarre prejudices of his contemporaries, such as how men had larger brains than women, thus making them more intelligent. While these antiquated arguments might seem odd to modern readers, Mill was no abstract philosopher; all of his works were meant to convince people of the efficacy of social reform. The Subjection of Women was written to appeal to men and show them the benefits of equality. Mill writes, “It may seem a waste of reasoning to argue against a bad joke; but such things do affect people’s minds; and I have heard men quote this saying, with an air as if they thought there was something in it” (p. 460).

While today, Mill’s legal reforms seem quite timid, at the time, they were well beyond the pale of respectable thought. Mill understood that if women were to be emancipated they needed the support of men, who should, “in considerable number,” join women in the fight for equality” (p. 483).

In his final chapter, Mill discusses the adverse effects of inequality on the character of men and women and espouses his ideal of marital friendship. Mill believed that reforming the law was essential, but he did not believe it was sufficient to bring about equality. Law alone was not enough. Mill believed that society should also change by reassessing education, the workplace, and, most importantly, family life.

Mill believed that male resistance to equality was not because of their reluctance to give up the material benefits of excluding women but instead because “the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal.” Women’s exclusion from the public sphere stemmed from women’s subjection in the private sphere. Mill believed this situation stunted both men’s and women’s lives.

With no representation or chance of ever holding office, women had few reasons to really care about politics. Mill feared women’s subordination would mold them to be dull, petty, or unprincipled, lacking the public spirit required for the emerging modern world. But women’s subjection hurts both sexes by giving men an unearned and false sense of superiority that encourages them to “worship their own will as such a grand thing that it is actually the law for another rational being” (p. 448). Worse yet, young boys emulate their elders and think of themselves as inherently superior to their female counterparts “by the mere fact of being born male” (p. 485). Widespread sexism encourages men to irrationally believe that they are superior to the other half of the human race.

Mill believed that efforts to reform restrictive laws would be beneficial, but in the long run, something more comprehensive was required to combat the attitudes of misogyny that restricted and damaged the lives of men and women. Mill’s solution was what he called marital friendship. The ideal marriage for Mill was “a union of thoughts and inclinations” creating a “foundation of solid friendship” (p. 498). This hardly sounds revolutionary today, but it was very much so in the Victorian social context.

Philosophers such as Aristotle, Cicero, and Montaigne praised the virtues of friendship as a relation that could only exist between two partners of equal excellence. For this reason, many philosophers argued that men and women could not be friends since they were not equals, and women supposedly lacked the moral capacity for friendship. Mill was making a radical break from the past by arguing instead that “the true virtue of human beings is the fitness to live together as equals” regardless of their sex. Marital equality would not only be a more fulfilling relationship for both parties, but it would help instill an ethos of equality in the next generation. If headed by equals, Mill believed that the family could become ‘‘a school of sympathy and equality, of living together in love, without power on one side or obedience on the other’’ (p. 443).

Libertarians might question the state’s role during this time of progress and upheaval. For Mill, is the state meant to guide progress or even mandate that it occurs in the first place? But with the proper conditions in place, Mill believed that ideas, not the state, would be the main engine of progress that drives humanity towards gender equality. Mill praised the “speculative faculties of mankind” and the subsequent successive transformations of human opinions. As a true liberal, Mill faithfully believed in “experiments in living,” and that the vast majority of progress would be generated through voluntary cooperation.

If ideas motivate progress, then the state is at a loss. The state cannot force citizens to think for themselves conscientiously. It is naive to believe that the subjection of women could be ended through law alone; Mill envisaged a much larger movement that transformed society as a whole. In Mill’s plan for progress, the optimal task for the state is to protect individual rights and ensure that experiments of living can continue within a climate of tolerance and free inquiry.

When first released, The Subjection of Women was lampooned by conservative critics, who made a mockery of Mill’s principles. But in the intellectual climate of Victorian England, there were always bound to be critics on the issue of gender equality. Among women’s rights advocates, The Subjection of Women became an instant classic and was widely circulated throughout mainland Europe and America. Mill’s arguments became indispensable to later reformers.

Millicent Garret Fawcett, the leader of Britain’s largest women’s rights association, wrote highly of Mill’s legacy within the feminist movement, writing, “There can be no doubt that Mr Mill’s influence marks an epoch in the women’s movement. He was a master and formed a school of thought. Just as in art, a master forms a school and influences his successors for generations, so the present leaders and champions of the women’s movement have been influenced and to a great extent formed by Mr Mill” (Caine 1992, p. 33). The suffragette Kate Amberely absorbed and memorized Mill’s arguments so that, in her own words, she could get “all the arguments into my head and have them ready for any scoffers” (p. 34). Mill’s focus on equality greatly informed the objectives of the first-​wave feminist movement.

Libertarians rightly praise Mill for the liberal principles he and Harriet articulated in On Liberty. But we should also remember that Mill used those very same principles to argue for gender equality. Mill argued men and women should have the same legal rights; however, Mill did not view law as the only nexus for feminist activity. Mill rightly observed that full equality could not come about through mere legal reform, but through the everyday decency and respect we show one another, which, over time, transforms society to be more prosperous, tolerant, and, above all, free.