The Subjection of Women

"The Subjection of Women, which Mill wrote in 1861 but did not publish until 1869, is one of the seminal texts of feminism and aroused more antagonism than anything Mill ever wrote. Conservatives predicted it would do to the English family what socialism would do to England's economy. Liberals believed that women would vote conservative. Many prominent Englishwomen, such as Charlotte Brontë, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Christina Rossetti, and George Eliot, opposed women's suffrage. Even such advanced thinkers as Sigmund Freud were hostile to the book. In The Subjection of Women Mill argues with lucidity, force and more than usual metaphorical eloquence 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; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality ..." Mill does battle on two fronts, that of intrinsic justice and that of utility. He sees the subjection of women as not only inherently wrong, but intertwined with all the evils of existing society. In support of his central principle, Mill argues that t