Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791
Declaration of the Rights of Woman, 1791 Written by Olympe De Gouges
A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker's platform.
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Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated--in a century of enlightenment and wisdom--into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.
Preamble.
A woman has the right to mount the scaffold. She must possess equally the right to mount the speaker's platform.
Olympe
de Gouges was a French feminist activist, advocate of
complete equal rights for women, freedom of divorce, the abolition of slavery, and of capital punishment. In
1791, she became part of the Society
of the Friends of Truth; an association with the goal of equal political
and legal rights for women; and "a mixture of revolutionary political
club, the Masonic Lodge, and a literary salon. She advocated leniency toward King Louis XIV.
She authored The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen, modelled on the Declaration of the Rights of Man. This ironically written document exposed the failure of the French Revolution’s
promise of equality. It states that: “This
revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their
deplorable condition, and of the rights they have lost in society.”
Olympe de Gouges was executed by guillotine in 1793 during the Reign of
Terror for attacking the tyranny of the Jacobin regime and for her close relation with the
Girondists.
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"[Olympe] De
Gouges was a butcher's daughter ... who wrote several plays and a number of
pamphlets on the coming Estates General. In this work [Les Droits de la
Femme] de Gouges states that the Declaration of Rights of Man and Citizen
is not being applied to women. She implies the vote for women, demands a
national assembly of women, stresses that men must yield rights to women, and
emphasizes women's education."- Gay-Levy, Branson-Applewhite, & Johnson, eds., Women in Revolutionary
Paris, 1789-1795 (1980), p. 87.
De Gouges's
devotion to the cause of women's rights led to her being charged with treason
under the rule of the National Convention. She was arrested, tried, and later,
in November of 1793, executed by the guillotine.
The Rights of Woman
Man,
are you capable of being just? It is a woman who poses the question; you will
not deprive her of that right at least. Tell me, what gives you sovereign
empire to oppress my sex? Your strength? Your talents? Observe the Creator in
his wisdom; survey in all her grandeur that nature with whom you seem to want
to be in harmony, and give me, if you dare, an example of this tyrannical
empire. Go back to animals, consult the elements, study plants, finally glance
at all the modifications of organic matter, and surrender to the evidence when
I offer you the means; search, probe, and distinguish, if you can, the sexes in
the administration of nature. Everywhere you will find them mingled; everywhere
they cooperate in harmonious togetherness in this immortal masterpiece.
Man alone has raised his exceptional circumstances to a principle. Bizarre, blind, bloated with science and degenerated--in a century of enlightenment and wisdom--into the crassest ignorance, he wants to command as a despot a sex which is in full possession of its intellectual faculties; he pretends to enjoy the Revolution and to claim his rights to equality in order to say nothing more about it.
Declaration of the
Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen
For the National
Assemby to decree in its last sessions, or in those of the next legislature:
Preamble.
Mothers, daughters,
sisters, female representatives of the nation ask to be constituted as a
national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or contempt for the
rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes and governmental
corruption, they have resolved to set forth in a solemn declaration the
natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman: so that by being constantly
present to all the members of the social body this declaration may always
remind them of their rights and duties; so that by being liable at every moment
to comparison with the aim of any and all political institutions the acts of
women's and men's powers may be the more fully respected; and so that by being
founded henceforward on simple and incontestable principles the demands of the
citizenesses may always tend toward maintaining the constitution, good morals,
and the general welfare. In consequence, the
sex that is superior in beauty as in courage, needed in maternal sufferings,
recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the auspices of the Supreme
Being, the following rights of woman and the citizeness.
1. Woman is born free
and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on
common utility.
2. The purpose of all
political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible
rights of woman and man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and
especially resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of
all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation, which is but the reuniting of
woman and man. No body and no individual may exercise authority which does not
emanate expressly from the nation.
4. Liberty and justice
consist in restoring all that belongs to another; hence the exercise of the
natural rights of woman has no other limits than those that the perpetual tyranny
of man opposes to them; these limits must be reformed according to the laws of
nature and reason.
5. The laws of nature
and reason prohibit all actions which are injurious to society. No hindrance
should be put in the way of anything not prohibited by these wise and divine
laws, nor may anyone be forced to do what they do not require.
6. The law should be
the expression of the general will. All citizenesses and citizens should take
part, in person or by their representatives, in its formation. It must be the
same for everyone. All citizenesses and citizens, being equal in its eyes,
should be equally admissible to all public dignities, offices and employments,
according to their ability, and with no other distinction than that of their
virtues and talents.
7. No woman is
exempted; she is indicted, arrested, and detained in the cases determined by
the law. Women like men obey this rigorous law.
8. Only strictly and
obviously necessary punishments should be established by the law, and no one
may be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated before
the time of the offense, and legally applied to women.
9. Any woman being
declared guilty, all rigor is exercised by the law.
10. No one should be
disturbed for his fundamental opinions; woman has the right to mount the
scaffold, so she should have the right equally to mount the rostrum, provided
that these manifestations do not trouble public order as established by law.
11. The free
communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious of the
rights of woman, since this liberty assures the recognition of children by
their fathers. Every citizeness may therefore say freely, I am the mother of
your child; a barbarous prejudice [against unmarried women having children]
should not force her to hide the truth, so long as responsibility is accepted
for any abuse of this liberty in cases determined by the law [women are not
allowed to lie about the paternity of their children].
12. The safeguard of
the rights of woman and the citizeness requires public powers. These powers are
instituted for the advantage of all and not for the private benefit of those to
whom they are entrusted.
13. For maintenance of
public authority and for expenses of administration, taxation of women and men
is equal; she takes part in all forced labor service, in all painful tasks; she
must therefore have the same proportion in the distribution of places,
employments, offices, dignities, and in industry.
14. The citizenesses
and citizens have the right, by themselves or through their representatives, to
have demonstrated to them the necessity of public taxes. The citizenesses can
only agree to them upon admission of an equal division, not only in wealth, but
also in the public administration, and to determine the means of apportionment,
assessment, and collection, and the duration of the taxes.
15. The mass of women,
joining with men in paying taxes, have the right to hold accountable every
public agent of the administration.
16. Any society in
which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the separation of powers not
settled has no constitution. The constitution is null and void if the majority
of individuals composing the nation has not cooperated in its drafting.
17. Property belongs
to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for each of them an inviolable
and sacred right, and no one may be deprived of it as a true patrimony of
nature, except when public necessity, certified by law, obviously requires it,
and then on condition of a just compensation in advance.
Postscript
Women, wake up; the
tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe; recognize your rights. The
powerful empire of nature is no longer surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism,
superstition, and lies. The torch of truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly
and usurpation. Enslaved man has multiplied his force and needs yours to break
his chains. Having become free, he has become unjust toward his companion. Oh
women! Women, when will you cease to be blind? What advantages have you
gathered in the Revolution? A scorn more marked, a disdain more conspicuous.
During the centuries of corruption you only reigned over the weakness of men.
Your empire is destroyed; what is left to you then? Firm belief in the
injustices of men. The reclaiming of your patrimony founded on the wise decrees
of nature; why should you fear such a beautiful enterprise? . . . Whatever the
barriers set up against you, it is in your power to overcome them; you only
have to want it. Let us pass now to the appalling account of what you have been
in society; and since national education is an issue at this moment, let us see
if our wise legislators will think sanely about the education of women.
Women have done more
harm than good. Constraint and dissimulation have been their lot. What force
has taken from them, ruse returned to them; they have had recourse to all the
resources of their charms, and the most irreproachable man has not resisted
them. Poison, the sword, women controlled everything; they ordered up crimes as
much as virtues. For centuries, the French government, especially, depended on
the nocturnal administration of women; officials kept no secrets from their
indiscretion; ambassadorial posts, military commands, the ministry, the
presidency [of a court], the papacy, the college of cardinals, in short
everything that characterizes the folly of men, profane and sacred, has been
submitted to the cupidity and ambition of this sex formerly considered
despicable and respected, and since the revolution, respectable and despised. .
. .
Under the former
regime, everyone was vicious, everyone guilty. . . . A woman only had to be
beautiful and amiable; when she possessed these two advantages, she saw a
hundred fortunes at her feet. . . . The most indecent woman could make herself
respectable with gold; the commerce in women [prostitution] was a kind of
industry amongst the highest classes, which henceforth will enjoy no more
credit. If it still did, the Revolution would be lost, and in the new situation
we would still be corrupted. Can reason hide the fact that every other road to
fortune is closed to a woman bought by a man, bought like a slave from the
coasts of Africa? The difference between them is great; this is known. The
slave [that is, the woman] commands her master, but if the master gives her her
freedom without compensation and at an age when the slave has lost all her
charms, what does this unfortunate woman become? The plaything of disdain; even
the doors of charity are closed to her; she is poor and old, they say; why did
she not know how to make her fortune?
Other examples even
more touching can be provided to reason. A young woman without experience,
seduced by the man she loves, abandons her parents to follow him; the ingrate
leaves her after a few years and the older she will have grown with him, the
more his inconstancy will be inhuman. If she has children, he will still
abandon her. If he is rich, he will believe himself excused from sharing his
fortune with his noble victims. If some engagement ties him to his duties, he will
violate it while counting on support from the law. If he is married, every
other obligation loses its force. What laws then remain to be passed that would
eradicate vice down to its roots? That of equally dividing [family] fortunes
between men and women and of public administration of their goods. It is easy
to imagine that a woman born of a rich family would gain much from the equal
division of property [between children]. But what about the woman born in a
poor family with merit and virtues; what is her lot? Poverty and opprobrium. If
she does not excel in music or painting, she cannot be admitted to any public
function, even if she is fully qualified. . . .
Marriage is the tomb
of confidence and love. A married woman can give bastards to her husband with
impunity, and even the family fortune which does not belong to them. An
unmarried woman has only a feeble right: ancient and inhuman laws refuse her
the right to the name and goods of her children's father; no new laws have been
made in this matter. If giving my sex an honorable and just consistency is
considered to be at this time paradoxical on my part and an attempt at the
impossible, I leave to future men the glory of dealing with this matter; but
while waiting, we can prepare the way with national education, with the
restoration of morals and with conjugal agreements.
Form for a Social
Contract between Man and Woman
We, ________ and
________, moved by our own will, unite for the length of our lives and for the
duration of our mutual inclinations under the following conditions: We intend
and wish to make our wealth communal property, while reserving the right to
divide it in favor of our children and of those for whom we might have a
special inclination, mutually recognizing that our goods belong directly to our
children, from whatever bed they come [legitimate or not], and that all of them
without distinction have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers
who have acknowledged them, and we impose on ourselves the obligation of
subscribing to the law that punishes any rejection of one's own blood [refusing
to acknowledge an illegitimate child]. We likewise obligate ourselves, in the
case of a separation, to divide our fortune equally and to set aside the
portion the law designates for our children. In the case of a perfect union,
the one who dies first will give up half his property in favor of the children;
and if there are no children, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the
dying person has disposed of his half of the common property in favor of
someone he judges appropriate. [She then goes on to defend her contract against
the inevitable objections of "hypocrites, prudes, the clergy, and all the
hellish gang."]
Source: These materials appeared originally in The French Revolution and Human
Rights: A Brief Documentary History, translated, edited, and with an
introduction by Lynn Hunt 124–129. Also see Darline Gay Levy,
Harriet Branson Applewhite, and Mary Durham Johnson, eds., Women in
Revolutionary Paris, 1789-1795 (1980), pp. 87-96.
This declaration was the inspiration for Mary Wollstonecraft's
