Margaret Fuller: Woman in the Nineteenth Century

Fuller first outlined her ideas about gender equality in her article “The Great Lawsuit,” published in the Dial in July 1843. This analysis of the unequal status of women in American society attracted a good deal of notice and earned the praise of Horace Greeley, who urged Fuller to expand it into a book. After accepting Greeley's offer to join the staff of his New-York Tribune, Fuller completed the book that would be published as Woman in the Nineteenth Century by the firm of Greeley and McElrath in February 1845.

She begins by linking the cause of feminine equality to the struggle against slavery. She notes the inability of a widow to receive a full inheritance after the death of a spouse, making her less than an adult under the law. Turning the issue of money around, she describes the way in which irresponsible and abusive husbands can live with impunity off the incomes of their wives. She particularly condemns the ability of fathers to take custody of children from their mothers, no matter how ill suited to parenthood such fathers might be. This state of affairs is evidence, she says, that men hold “a tone of feeling toward women as toward slaves,” able to impose their will without legal restraint.

Fuller emphasizes that men do not feel that women are capable of self-sufficiency and full citizenship. Men believe that women are not able to use “the gift of reason” fully and therefore must be kept under men's guidance. Fuller's own experiences as a critic and journalist had brought her into contact with such opinions. When she refers to male comments and offhand jokes about women, she is probably recalling the belittling reception that she encountered as an assertive, intellectually gifted woman. Because of her experiences, Fuller agrees with “many reformers” that women need to represent their own interests in order to gain greater equality, rather than relying upon men to act for them.

She then attacks the belief that women are meant to remain within the “inner circle” of the home for their own protection. No matter what such an allegedly protective circle consists of—whether she is the favorite of a king or a lowly washerwoman—a woman's lot has all too often been one of drudgery or slavery. The stress of public life pales beside the physical hardships that women constantly endure. Fuller points to the examples of stage actresses and female Quaker preachers to refute the idea that women cannot achieve prominence in the world without losing their femininity. If women moved more freely in the larger world, they would be no more attracted to trivial social diversions than men are.

There is a fundamental inequality of power between the sexes, Fuller says. Men cannot be trusted to “do justice to the interests of woman,” because they cannot rise above the belief that “woman was made for man.” Fuller makes distinctions between types of men in their opinions of women—the worst offender, she says, is “the man of the world,” who writes its laws and manages its practical affairs. Despite all this, Fuller affirms her hope. She declares that a new world of harmony would begin if the barriers blocking women's progress were removed. She writes with mystically tinged language of the “divine energy” that would be unleashed once equality was achieved. To reach this goal, men must acknowledge that women's freedom is a birthright and not a concession granted by superior beings to inferior ones. Fuller makes a direct comparison between the subjugation of women and the enslavement of African Americans, and in both cases, she declares, women and slaves are accountable only to God, not to man.

Fuller recognizes that women have exercised a measure of power even during their oppression. However, by acting in an indirect and manipulative fashion, they have harmed themselves in the process. Far better is the sort of wholesome, honest influence that comes when men and women stand together as equals. This equality is simply a fulfillment of America's basic principles. Fuller stresses once again that women must look to one another rather than to men to obtain this equality. The only assistance Fuller asks for is the removal of “arbitrary barriers” blocking women's advancement.

In her writing Fuller displays an understanding of American race and class distinctions. Using an incident recounted in Irish aristocrat Edward FitzGerald's travels among Native Americans, she describes how issues of status affect the relations of men and women. She declares that if women carry themselves with dignity and self-confidence, they will naturally win the respect of men—much as Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture, commanded reverence for her life-sustaining power.

Fuller expects that the achievement of equality between the sexes will be a gradual process. If it comes all at once, she hazards no doubt that women's innate sense of balance will ensure that a radical overturn of society would not result. Still, there is no retreating from the idea of free vocational choice—she declares that women can be anything, even sea captains. She alludes to such examples of female heroism as Agustina Domènech (or Agustina of Aragón, known as the Maid of Saragossa, who fought in the Spanish War of Independence in 1808), the Suliote women who died fighting the Ottoman Turks in 1803, and Countess Emelia (or Emily) Plater (a Polish nationalist who led troops against the Russians in 1830–1831). If women are not allowed to make their own decisions and fulfill their potential, they become stunted and unhappy. To support this view, Fuller refers to the writings of the French socialist philosopher François-Marie-Charles Fourier, who declared in The Theory of the Four Movements (1808) that social progress is fundamentally underpinned by the extension of women's rights and privileges.

While acknowledging that most women will not choose to work outside the home, Fuller makes clear that the exceptional woman who wants to do so deserves to be encouraged. With rising force, she stresses that her call for equal opportunity for men and women will correct an unnatural imbalance. The fact that women have often had “an excessive devotion” to men has given the latter a godlike status, preventing an honest relationship between the sexes. By stating that women should live first for the sake of God, Fuller challenges the conventional Victorian-era belief that men's role as head of the household is divinely mandated. In Fuller's view, a woman is debasing herself (and by implication being impious) by exalting a man beyond his humanity. If she desires to give and receive love, she can do so only by being a strong and fulfilled human being. She cannot look to man for her salvation.