The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able groundsof an opinion which I have held from the very earliest period when I hadformed any opinions at all on social political matters, and which, insteadof being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing stronger by theprogress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle whichregulates the existing social relations between the two sexes -- the legalsubordination of one sex to the other -- is wrong itself, and now one ofthe chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replacedby a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on theone side, nor disability on the other.
The very words necessary to express the task I have undertaken, show howarduous it is. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the difficulty ofthe case must lie in the insufficiency or obscurity of the grounds of reasonon which my convictions. The difficulty is that which exists in all casesin which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as opinionis strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses instabilityby having a preponderating weight of argument against it. For if it wereaccepted as a result of argument, the refutation of the argument might shakethe solidity of the conviction; but when it rests solely on feeling, worseit fares in argumentative contest, the more persuaded adherents are thattheir feeling must have some deeper ground, which the arguments do not reach;and while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchmentsof argument to repair any breach made in the old. And there are so many causestending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intenseand most deeply-rooted of those which gather round and protect old institutionsand custom, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined andloosened than any of the rest by the progress the great modern spiritualand social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men clinglongest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off.
In every respect the burthen is hard on those who attack an almost universalopinion. They must be very fortunate well as unusually capable if they obtaina hearing at all. They have more difficulty in obtaining a trial, than anyother litigants have in getting a verdict. If they do extort a hearing, theyare subjected to a set of logical requirements totally different from thoseexacted from other people. In all other cases, burthen of proof is supposedto lie with the affirmative. If a person is charged with a murder, it restswith those who accuse him to give proof of his guilt, not with himself toprove his innocence. If there is a difference of opinion about the realityof an alleged historical event, in which the feelings of men general arenot much interested, as the Siege of Troy example, those who maintain thatthe event took place expected to produce their proofs, before those who takethe other side can be required to say anything; and at no time these requiredto 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 withthose who are against liberty; who contend for any restriction or prohibitioneither any limitation of the general freedom of human action or any disqualificationor disparity of privilege affecting one person or kind of persons, as comparedwith 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, eitherof justice or of policy. But of none of these rules of evidence will thebenefit be allowed to those who maintain the opinion I profess. It is uselessme to say that those who maintain the doctrine that men ha a right to commandand women are under an obligation obey, or that men are fit for governmentand women unfit, on the affirmative side of the question, and that they arebound 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 freedomor privilege rightly allow to men, having the double presumption againstthem that they are opposing freedom and recommending partiality, must heldto the strictest proof of their case, and unless their success be such asto exclude all doubt, the judgment ought to against them. These would bethought good pleas in any common case; but they will not be thought so inthis instance. Before I could hope to make any impression, I should be expectednot only to answer all that has ever been said bye who take the other sideof the question, but to imagine that could be said by them -- to find themin reasons, as I as answer all I find: and besides refuting all argumentsfor the affirmative, I shall be called upon for invincible positive argumentsto prove a negative. And even if I could do all and leave the opposite partywith a host of unanswered arguments against them, and not a single unrefutedone on side, I should be thought to have done little; for a cause supportedon the one hand by universal usage, and on the other by so great a preponderanceof popular sentiment, is supposed to have a presumption in its favour, superiorto any conviction which an appeal to reason has power to produce in intellectsbut those of a high class.
