THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN by JOHN STUART MILL.

Original source: info.umd.edu
/info/ReadingRoom/Miscellaneous/SubjectionofWomen

Digitized August 1993 by:
Paula Gaber <gaber@inform.umd.edu>

Based on the Everyman's Library edition, originally published
in 1929, reprinted 1992. (Only the introduction is copyrighted.)
ISBN 0 460 87173 0

[Fixed several typos, WT, 9/1/93]

Originally published 1869, this text is in the PUBLIC DOMAIN.

                    THE SUBJECTION OF WOMEN 
                               BY
                        JOHN STUART MILL

                            CHAPTER I

The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able
grounds of an opinion which I have held from the very earliest
period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political
matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been
constantly growing stronger by the progress reflection and the
experience of life. That the principle which regulates the existing
social relations between the two sexes--the legal subordination of
one sex to the other--is wrong itself, and now one of the chief
hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced
by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege
on the one side, nor disability on the other. 

The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken,
show how arduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that
the difficulty of the case must lie in the insufficiency or
obscurity of the grounds of reason on which my convictions. The
difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a
mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as opinion is
strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses
instability by having a preponderating weight of argument against
it. For if it were accepted as a result of argument, the refutation
of the argument might shake the solidity of the conviction; but
when it rests solely on feeling, worse it fares in argumentative
contest, the more persuaded adherents are that their feeling must
have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach; and
while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh
intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old. And
there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected
with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of those
which gather round and protect old institutions and custom, that we
need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened
than any of the rest by the progress the great modern spiritual and
social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men
cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier
shake off. 

In every respect the burthen is hard on those who attack an almost
universal opinion. They must be very fortunate well as unusually
capable if they obtain a hearing at all. They have more difficulty
in obtaining a trial, than any other litigants have in getting a
verdict. If they do extort a hearing, they are subjected to a set
of logical requirements totally different from those exacted from
other people. In all other cases, burthen of proof is supposed to
lie with the affirmative. If a person is charged with a murder, it
rests with those who accuse him to give proof of his guilt, not
with himself to prove his innocence. If there is a difference of
opinion about the reality of an alleged historical event, in which
the feelings of men general are not much interested, as the Siege
of Troy example, those who maintain that the event took place
expected to produce their proofs, before those who take the other
side can be required to say anything; and at no time these required
to do more than show that the evidence produced by the others is of
no value. Again, in practical matters, the burthen of proof is
supposed to be with those who are against liberty; who contend for
any restriction or prohibition either any limitation of the general
freedom of human action or any disqualification or disparity of
privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, as compared with
others. The a priori presumption is in favour of freedom and
impartiality. It is held that there should be no restraint not
required by I general good, and that the law should be no respecter
of persons but should treat all alike, save where dissimilarity of
treatment is required by positive reasons, either of justice or of
policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will the benefit be
allowed to those who maintain the opinion I profess. It is useless
me to say that those who maintain the doctrine that men ha a right
to command and women are under an obligation obey, or that men are
fit for government and women unfit, on the affirmative side of the
question, and that they are bound to show positive evidence for the
assertions, or submit to their rejection. It is equally unavailing
for me to say that those who deny to women any freedom or privilege
rightly allow to men, having the double presumption against them
that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must
held to the strictest proof of their case, and unless their success
be such as to exclude all doubt, the judgment ought to against
them. These would be thought good pleas in any common case; but
they will not be thought so in this instance.