In his autobiography, Mill describes his indebtedness to his wife, and his daughter Helen Taylor for the creation of The Subjection of Women:Īs ultimately published it was enriched with some important ideas of my daughter’s and some passages of her writing. At the time of its publication, the essay's argument for equality between the sexes was an affront to European conventional norms regarding the status of men and women. Mill submitted the finished manuscript of their collaborative work On Liberty (1859) soon after her untimely death in late 1858, and then continued work on The Subjection of Women until its completion in 1861. Moreover, if they are to share the freedoms enjoyed by men, equal opportunities for employment and education for women are also necessary.įor its time, the work was radical and far-reaching in its demands but despite its repeated emphasis on forms of oppression and recognition of the difficulties endured by women, it is essentially an optimistic work maintaining a firm belief that increased equality and liberty for women were inevitable.Ĭarefully researched and clearly expressed with great logic and consistency, the book remains a landmark in the struggle for human rights.The Subjection of Women is an essay by English philosopher, political economist and civil servant John Stuart Mill published in 1869, with ideas he developed jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill. Believing that the subjugation of women was primarily political and psychological in origin, Mill urged the establishment of "complete equality in all legal, political, social, and domestic relations between men and women."Īrguing for both legal reforms and a social revolution, he focuses on women's exclusion from the political process, their lack of any rights in marriage, and the benefits to be obtained by their liberation.
Written in 1861 and published eight years later, this influential essay by the great English philosopher and economist is still relevant and its arguments significant.
Signed by the author on the half title page, “From the Author.” This was a customary way to sign books in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
London: Lonmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer, 1869.įirst edition.
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