John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill’s arguments for liberty and equal rights for women, as mentioned in podcast# 12, are based on his Utilitarian beliefs. This philosophy asks, “what is the use of it?” and consequently Mill approaches the subjects of individuality and freedom of women not from a natural rights perspective but from a desire to see the greatest good for the maximum number of people.

In “On Liberty”, Mill promotes the idea that discussion is necessary for society to progress. He states, “…the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it” (515). Discussion only comes about from introducing individuals to ideas different from those they already hold. Thus, diversity of ideas is necessary, as is freedom of speech to express those ideas.

Mill notes that his society is not one to embrace new ideas, “In the present age-which has been described as ‘destitute of faith, but terrified at scepticism’-in which people feel sure, not so much that their opinions are true, as that they should not know what to do without them…” (516). This obstinacy is ironic, as Industrialism was supposed to herald new technologies, modes of travel, and presumably, newer ideas. However, Mill’s description is probably accurate for upper class Victorian ladies and gentlemen. They are locked into gender roles, separate spheres, and feel that to change the status quo would only bring disaster. The ladies spend a good part of each day visiting one another, but avoid topics of conversation that would be upsetting. While the ladies are contributing to a social calm, they avoid the real education that a good argument could bring.

This lack of individuality Mill mentions can also be applied to the struggle of women. It could be said that women lose themselves in marriage. The common attitude was that “husband and wife are one person, and the husband is that person” (564). These sentiments are reflected in Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s “The Princess”, which indicates that “woman’s cause is man’s” (583). Caroline Norton states the problem even more clearly in her “A Letter to the Queen.” A victim of an unhappy marriage, she notes, “A married woman in England has no legal existence: her being is absorbed in that of her husband” (565).

Indeed, Mill was aware of and against the subjection of women. He views the enslavement of marriage as worse than common slavery. In “The Subjection of Women”, he explains, “Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. All men, except the most brutish, desire to have, in the woman most nearly connected with them, not a forced slave but a willing one, and not a slave merely, but a favourite” (523). Slaves are only required to be obedient, while wives must love their masters. Slaves still have freedom of thought and feeling; they may privately disagree with their masters and escape punishment but the wife is not so lucky.

The closest Mill gets to the natural rights arguments for women’s rights is in asserting that the natural cannot be known. Whatever is the status quo appears natural, because no alternative is acknowledged. He asks, “…was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it?” (522). Citing ancient Greek practices and the slavery in the American South, Mill explains that the slave-owner mentality is not just a disease of the Victorian husband. Indeed, it is an outdated way of thinking that society as a whole would be better without. Free speech and equal rights for all!