Women’s ethical freedom and feminism of the French revolutionary period

-From Rousseau to Wollstonecraft-

Abstract

This paper compares two distinct ideas on ethical liberty inherent in two versions of womanhood in Enlightenment France, one championed by republican motherhood, focusing on the reproductive function of women, the other derived from Doux commerce theory, highlighting the benevolent social influence of women. More specifically, such thinkers as Montesquieu and Hume considered the art of conversation as practiced by female hostess of French salons one of the sources of social morality, as they function as peacemakers who reconciles the various opinions of her male audience. By contrast, Rousseau opposed this idea and considered the reproductive function of women as the very basis of their social morality, updating the discourse on Republican motherhood. Wollstonecraft took Rousseau’s ideas on womanhood one step further and considered motherhood as rooted in the biological perspective of womanhood, the very moral foundation for women’s political right. As a result, Wollstonecraft’s theory of women’s rights can be seen a political thought with republican tendencies that places constraints on women’s civil rights, as it potentially lacks the perspective of women’s ethical freedom in reproduction from our contemporary perspective.