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Revolutionary Nuptials
"[T]he whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please
them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honored by them,
to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to council them,
to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them.these are
the duties of women at all times, and should be taught them from their
infancy. Unless we are guided by this principle we shall miss our aim, and
all the precepts we give them will accomplish nothing either for their
happiness or for our own."
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Brief Biography
Deistic philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau was born in Geneva
in 1712. Rousseau fled from home to escape his disinterested father ans
strict discipline of this home. His mother had died while giving birth to
him. He spent much of his life in various parts of Europe, including a
stay in England with the philosopher David Hume.
Rousseau questioned social customs and institutions already in place. Mary
Wollstonecraft quotes him regularly in her Vindication of the Rights of
Woman on issues related to social customs. However, Wollstonecraft and
Rousseau were diametrically opposed on many issues of women's rights and
education. Wollstonecraft passionately disagrees with comments such as
these made by the philosopher: "women have, or ought to have but little
liberty; they are apt to indulge themselves excessively in what is allowed
them. Addicted in every thing to extremes, they are even more transported
at their diversions than boys" (qtd. in Falco 141). According to
Teas, in the
early pages of The Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft refers to
Rousseau as "one of those authors who tend 'to degrade one half of the
human species, and render women pleasing at the expense of every solid
virtue'" (65).
Chronology entries
Literary
Works by Rousseau (Rousseau Association)
Additional
Biographical Information (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
Relevant Bibliography Entries
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