Towards an Equality of the Sexes in Early Modern France

Derval Conroy

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000348941
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This volume sets out to examine the ways in which an equality between the sexes is constructed, conceptualised, imagined or realised in early modern France, a period and a country which produced some of the earliest theorisations on equality. In so doing, it aims to contribute towards the development of the history of equality as an intellectual category within the history of political thought, and to situate "the woman question" within that history. The eleven chapters in the volume span the fields of political theory, philosophy, literature, history and history of ideas, bringing together literary scholars, historians, philosophers and scholars of political thought, and examining an extensive range of primary sources. Whilst most of the chapters focus on the conceptualisation of a moral, metaphysical or intellectual equality between the sexes, space is also given to concrete examples of a de facto gender equality in operation. The volume is aimed at scholars and graduate students of political thought, history of philosophy, women's history and gender studies alike. It aims to throw light on the history of Western ideas of equality and difference, questions which continue to preoccupy cultural historians, philosophers, political theorists and feminist critics.

1
Poulain de la Barre, a Logician of Equality

Prejudice Time and the Sex of the Mind

Geneviève Fraisse

On the occasion of the republication of the remarkable book De l’égalité des deux sexes (1673), [On the Equality of the Two Sexes] in the Corpus des œuvres de philosophie en langue française, I highlighted in a first article the philosopher’s dual ambition: on the one hand, to shed light on gender bias, the philosopher’s Cartesianism affirming that “the mind has no sex,” and on the other hand to inaugurate a “putting on trial” of prejudice, that is to say, a public debate that would no longer be just a simple querelle. This second piece, which is reflective, returns to the idea of the originality of this philosopher, his epistemological originality this time. To not be of any time makes it possible to think freely, whilst being of one’s time excuses prejudice; to not be of any sex in order to think is to implicitly recognise the philosophical eros.

The publication of Poulain de la Barre’s text in 1984 was an event.¹ Given the fine qualification of Cartesian bestowed on an author as unknown as he was unappreciated, focus was on the dualism so favourable to the equality of the sexes (irrespective of the sexed body, the mind is the same for women and men). But above all, it was apparent that Poulain established the equality of the sexes conceptually. And indeed, over the course of the seventeenth century, from Marie de Gournay² to Poulain, equality went from being an idea to being a concept, from a new representation to its radical exposition.

But to be able to conceptualise equality, Poulain had to deconstruct prejudice; “to rid oneself of it,” as the subtitle of his book, unfortunately omitted from the 1984 edition, explicitly states. At the time, I concentrated on the question of prejudice.³ Combatting prejudice against women, bringing such prejudice to trial, required a development, a strategy even, that contrasted sharply with the Cartesian representation of prejudice. No tabula rasa, no simple efficient gesture to clear the way for a method or a meditation, but a long process of identifying prejudice and its mechanisms. This author consequently was questioning textual history as much as contemporary opinion. The critique of prejudice was not a starting point but an end goal.

It is a question of a “prejudice,” the strongest of prejudices, the philosopher tells us: that which concerns the female sex. It is clear that philosophy thus makes room, finally, for a persistent phenomenon, this prejudice against women, this negative view, that recurs repeatedly in the history of thought. His reflection no doubt benefits from the recent introduction of this neologism into the French language. The word “prejudice” in fact first appeared in the previous century. And Poulain is the first to connect “sex” and “prejudice.”

Deconstructing prejudice might seem, at first glance, an almost banal undertaking. But the philosophical nature of the aim can be specifically seen with regard to the object of the prejudice, the inferiority of women, the inequality of the sexes. Indeed, philosophical tradition often integrates prejudice against women as an explanatory fact when confronted with too blatant a misogyny in a certain thinker’s work, or an anti-feminism which contradicts the articulation of a political theory or a philosophical thesis. In this case, the historian of philosophy, or the commentator, declares the author in question to be “a victim of the prejudices of his time.” Thus, texts that are difficult to accept in relation to the female sex are removed from the philosophical construction of a thinker and given an inferior, extra-philosophical status. These texts are relegated to a place outside philosophy and marked as relative to a particular time and historical period. The comparison between Poulain’s philosophical courage and the excuse granted philosophers who are not kindly disposed to women becomes pertinent: one attacks the strongest of prejudices, and we might ask ourselves from what “time” he is speaking, so out of time does his radicality seem; the others are excused because they are of their time, and their attack on women is attributed to historical relativism, to a particular context, which saves us from having to analyse the prejudice philosophically. My question, which is situated between these two positions, is thus about “prejudice time” [“le temps du préjugé”]. Is it caught in history to the point of interfering with a philosophical body of thought? Or, on the contrary, is it possible to extract it [from history] and thus to set it up as an object of knowledge, of truth, like any object of reflection?

Secondly, rereading this text today, another angle can be explored, this time in relation to the tradition of the philosophical erotic. On several occasions, Poulain evokes gallantry—that is to say, the pleasure of the expression [“le plaisir du propos”], whether possible or impossible, used to speak of the sexes and their equality. He says he is careful to avoid gallantry, but nevertheless often implies regret in so doing. Regarding the question of the quality or the status of the expression that can be used to write the equality of the sexes, something of an interior reflection, a hesitation, is perceptible. But therein lies the catch, and Poulain knows it, namely the risk of not being taken seriously or of failing in his demonstration. Rigour is therefore necessary, logical rigour that allows for no ambiguity. We are thus offered a new perspective within which to resituate the famous affirmation “the mind has no sex,” which followed the expression “the mind is of every sex,” in circulation in the middle of the seventeenth century. From the affirmative to the negative, as though it were necessary to separate the mind from sex in order to avoid confusion and ambivalence with regard to the aim of the thesis being demonstrated, that of the equality of the two sexes. I will also focus therefore on “the pleasure of the expression.”

Prejudice Time [“Le temps du préjugé”]

As I mentioned above, the subtitle—“the importance of ridding oneself of prejudices”—was omitted from the 1984 edition. Two theoretical priorities can be identified here: “ridding oneself” of prejudices is not a preamble but a goal; thus, it is not a simple gesture preliminary to the exercise of thinking but work, an elaboration that takes time, that of demonstration. The matter is important, moreover, because prejudice against women is the “fine question” [“la belle question”], the ultimate prejudice. Confronting the diverse versions of prejudice (biblical texts, philosophical tradition, popular opinion) in a very well-argued manner, Poulain proposes thinking of “full equality” [“l’égalité entière”]. This formulation should be highlighted. The fullness signals its radicality; and the adjective indicates the rigour called for by Poulain. Equality does not accept limits, and its affirmation, “the equality of the sexes,” must assume all the resulting practical consequences, both social and political which ensue. In subsequent centuries, the logic of equality in its “entirety” was to sit alongside more moderate formulas, for example, that of the nineteenth century in its search for “near equality” [“la ‘presque égalité’”]. We might ask, in passing, why equality seems to be frequently “qualified” with an adjective or adverb. Does equality on its own not suffice?

Putting forth the idea of equality is one thing; following the reasoning through to its end is another. Poulain is thus the first of a line of “logicians of equality,” for whom the concept cannot be split by a restrictive adjective or by a limit to its practical application. Condorcet and Olympe de Gouges, Stuart Mill, Hubertine Auclert and Simone de Beauvoir all come to mind here. So too does Fanny Raoul, author of a harsh indictment, published in 1801, Opinion d’une femme sur les femmes [A Woman’s Opinion on Women], in which she cites Condillac in the epigraph: “Prejudices that assume in us what is not there or that hides what is, are an obstacle to discovery and a source of error.”⁴

In one sense, Poulain is not a “precursor,” as has often been stated or discussed, but the first in a tradition. Not ahead of his time so much as “of no time.” And doubly so, by pointing to an established prejudice and by affirming equality as an entirety. Whence we see that the “logic of equality” is not simply a demonstration but, in fact, the deconstruction of an obstacle and the clearing of a new path to follow. Being of no time is the result of a radicality as theoretical as it is political.

Being of his time, on the other hand, is exactly what Fénelon is when he announces, in the now-famous first sentence of his work on girls’ education, that “nothing is so neglected as the education of girls” [“Rien n’est plus négligé que l’éducation des filles”]. This statement is provocative. It not only condemns a fact but also a social arrangement. Nevertheless, the charge remains measured and one has only to turn the page to understand the influence of the period in which Fénelon is writing (1687). Firstly, limit equal access to knowledge: “It is true that we should fear creating ridiculously learned women. … [T]hus it is in no way appropriate to engage them in studies with which they might get carried away” [“Il est vrai qu’il faut craindre de faire des savantes ridicules. … [A]ussi n’est-il point à propos de les engager dans des études dont elles pourraient s’entêter”]; then, indicate the real danger: “They should not govern the State, nor go to war, nor enter into the sacred ministry” [“Elles ne doivent, ni gouverner l’État, ni faire la guerre, ni entrer dans le ministère des choses sacrées”].⁵ One senses that Fénelon is responding here to Poulain, since only he drew conclusions about the social consequences of women’s education in terms of access to symbolic functions and political office. It seems that realism suits Fénelon, a thinker of his time, whilst Poulain does not back away from any of the consequences of his demonstration, despite the time in which he lived.

Being of one’s time is also understandable in the case of a young researcher who became interested in Poulain at the beginning of the twentieth century. Henri Piéron, author of a very long article on Poulain, whom he discovered we know not how, was surprised by the egalitarian logic, dismissing it as a temporal, historical anomaly: Poulain’s text would have “bold social consequences.”⁶ Boldness is a sort of excessive courage, a courage that extends beyond an era. And equality cannot be “absolute.” Meaning yes to education for girls, no to social functions for women. Two centuries separate Henri Piéron and Poulain, and the latter’s ideas still seem excessive. Poulain “exaggerates,” says Piéron, but does so in order to make himself understood, he adds. … This is why, yet again, Poulain is not of his time; or rather, simply, he is of no time.

We could take another example, that of Victor Cousin, who wrote several biographies of seventeenth-century women. This nineteenth-century philosopher praises Jacqueline, Pascal’s sister, for having traded a poetic and intellectual disposition, greatly appreciated in the society of her youth, for a withdrawn monastic life at Port-Royal.⁷ Cousin idealises this journey, the journey of a brilliant female mind moving out of the light and into the shadows. Here, the seventeenth century is understood through the prism of the nineteenth, where the important issue was to stress the necessary absence of women from the public sphere, object of democratic desire. In this sense, Victor Cousin is truly “of his time,” and he re-interprets the story of a remarkable woman, taking her as an example at a remove of two centuries. He judges her negatively also—and this is not contradictory—when he begins the epilogue to her biography by affirming that “so much genius, so much virtue did not find their true purpose.” Between these two points of reference, public life and access to truth, we are left to wonder from which time period he is telling the story.

It remains to be noted, with regard to this moment of the seventeenth century, and still on the same subject of women, of equality and specifically of knowledge, that an author can be “timeless.” Molière wrote Les femmes savantes [The Learned Ladies] in 1672, one year before the publication of Poulain’s treatise. In it he exposes a dual situation, or rather dual desires, that of love and that of philosophy. From the first scene, it is about “giving oneself over to the mind” [“se donner à l’esprit”], of “being married to philosophy” [“se marier à la philosophie” I.i]. And we know that at the very end of the play, when Armande resigns herself to renouncing marriage, she still has “the support of philosophy” [“l’appui de la philosophie” V.iv]. Two erotes, therefore, the desire for the other and the desire for philosophy, move together on two fronts, but separately, as though in opposite directions. It is here that Molière appears without any of the constraints of his era. He is, precisely, “timeless” and can be read and understood very easily today. Far from being an attack against certain women of his century, this play lays out again and again the stakes of women’s freedom of thought, and the possibility of loving both love and philosophy. Molière clearly indicates the two markers of this tension. On the one hand, Philaminte, the mother, revolts against her condition [where men are]: “Limiting our talents to trivialities, and shutting us off from sublime enlightenment” [“De borner nos talents à des futilités / Et nous fermer la porte aux sublimes clartés” III.ii]. The desire for knowledge has no limit. On the other hand, the se...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• Introduction: Thinking Equality in the Early Modern Period
• 1 Poulain de la Barre, a Logician of Equality: Prejudice Time and the Sex of the Mind
• 2 Equality, Neutrality, Differentialism: Descartes, Malebranche and Poulain de la Barre
• 3 Gender Equality in Community: Descartes, Poulain de la Barre, Fontenelle
• 4 The Rhetoric of Equality: Marie de Gournay, Linguist and Philosopher
• 5 Virtue as a Language of Equality: Gender, Moral Androgyny and the Representation of Archduchess Isabella Clara Eugenia in Seventeenth-Century France
• 6 Reading, Acting and Writing Into Being: Ursulines as Jesuitesses in the French Atlantic World
• 7 The Paradoxes of Early Modern Nuns and Gender Equality: The Case of Port-Royal in Early Modern France
• 8 Fashioning Equality and Friendship: Saint-Evremond, Hortense Mancini and Ninon de Lenclos
• 9 Gender Equality and the Role of Women Theatre Professionals in Late Seventeenth- and Early Eighteenth-Century France
• 10 Equality in the Printed Book: The Case of Book Privileges in France in the Seventeenth Century
• 11 The Destabilisation of Gender in the European Enlightenment and Qing China
• Index