Woman's Philosophy of Woman, A.
d’Hericourt, Madame (“Jenny“). A Woman’s Philosophy of Woman; Or, Woman Affranchised. An Answer to Michelet, Proudhon, Girardin, LeGouve, Comte, And Other Modern Innovators. Translated from the last Paris Edition. New York: Carleton, 1864.
8vo.; blue endpapers; pages bright; green-grey cloth, stamped in gilt and blind; covers worn, spine stamping fading; spine slightly tattered.
First American edition; translated from the first French edition, which was published four years earlier and briefly banned on moral grounds.
A landmark work of feminist philosophy, written by Jenny d’Hericourt, a classically trained philosopher. A weighty and intellectually challenging tome, in which the author takes on Michelet, Proudhon, Comte, Legouve, and De Girardin, among others; topics covered include “Objections to the Emancipation of Woman”; “Nature and Functions of Woman”; “Love; Its Functions in Humanity”; “Marriage”; “Summary of Proposed Reforms”; and an “Appeal to Women.” D’Hericourt’s style is direct and affecting; she makes her arguments persistently and effectively. For example:
Readers, male and female, I am about to tell you the end of this book, and the motives which caused me to undertake it, that you may not waste your time in reading it, if its contents are not suited to your intellectual and moral temperament. My end is to prove that woman has the same rights as man....At present, over the whole surface of the globe, woman, in certain respects, is not subjected to the same moral law as man; her chastity is given over almost without restriction to the brutal passions of the other sex, and she often endures alone the consequences of a fault committed by both. In marriage, woman is a serf. In public instruction, she is sacrificed. In labor, she is made inferior. Civilly, she is a minor. Politically, she has no existence. She is the equal of man only when punishment and the payment of taxes are in question... (pp. ix-x)
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