INDORE INSTITUTE OF LAW, INDORE

SUBJECT: POLITICAL SCIENCE

TOPIC: JOHN STUART MILL WITH REFERENCE TO HIS ‘FEMINISIM’

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

MRS. MADHURI MODI PARYUSHI KOSHAL

[B.A. LL.B]

ROLL NO. - 12

SESSION: 2018-2023

SEMESTER – 3

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 CERTIFICATE

This is to certify that Paryushi Koshal , B.A.LLB (HONS.) , 2 nd year – 3rd semester has
successfully completed the project assignment in partial fulfillment of requirements for the
knowledge of political science provided by Mrs. Madhuri Modi prescribed by INORE
INSTITUTE OF LAW .

This assignment is the record of authentic work carried out during the academic year 2019 - 20.

Signature of faculty - ----------------------------

Date - ----------------------------

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 DECLARATION

I hereby declare that the project assignment entitled John Stuart Mill with reference to his
‘Feminisim’ submitted for fulfilling the essential criteria of INDORE INSTITUTE OF LAW, is
a record of an original work done by me under the guidance of Mrs. Madhuri Modi , B.A. LLB.
1st year- 1sem , Indore Institute of Law for the Academic session 2018 - 19.

Paryushi Koshal

BA.LL.B (Hons.)

2nd year – 3rd sem

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 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Trust in the lord with all you heart and lean not on your own understandings; in all your ways
acknowledge him, and he will direct your paths.

It is not possible to prepare a project without the assistance and encouragement of other people.
This is certainly no exception. On the very outset of this project I would like to extend my
sincere and heartfelt obligation towards all the personages who helped me in this endeavour.
Without their guidance, help, cooperation and support I would not have made headway in this
project.

I am ineffably thankful to Mrs. Madhuri Modi for conscientious guidance and encouragement to
accomplish this assignment.

I extend my sincere gratitude to INDORE INSTITUTE OF LAW for giving me this opportunity.

I also acknowledge a deep sense of reverence, my gratitude towards my friends and family
members who have always supported me morally as well as economically.

Last but not the least I want to thank THE ALMIGHTY who made everything possible.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Abstract

1.1 Keywords

2. Introduction

3. Sexual equality

3.1. The Case for Sexual Equality

4. Other important theories given by J.S.Mill

4.1. Mill’s Utilitarianism

4.2. Mill’s liberty principle

5. Harriet Taylor Mill’s influence

6. Conclusion

7. References

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 1.ABSTRACT

The 19th century British philosopher John Stuart Mill is recognized in modern philosophy
chiefly for two reasons. He refined the Utilitarian tradition of philosophy established by Jeremy
Bentham and he reemphasized the primacy of individual liberty and self-determination against
the inroads of the majority in democratic societies. One part of Mill's contribution has been
largely overlooked, however. It is his call for legal and social equality for women in an 1861
volume entitled The Subjection of Women.

Mill lived in an era when women were subordinate to men by law and custom. They were
expected to marry, rear children, and devote themselves to their families. In most cases they
could not pursue a formal education, own property or amass wealth, vote, serve on juries,
practice a profession or trade, seek a divorce, even from an abusive husband, or travel alone.
Women lived in the shadow of their de facto masters, their husbands.

Mill's case for women's equality reflects his Utilitarian roots. The subordination of women, he
argues, is not only "wrong in itself" but "one of the chief hindrances to human improvement." By
denying women the same opportunities as men, he says, society not only impedes the
development of roughly half the population but denies itself the benefit of their talents.

Mill argues that the progress of society requires that all people, men and women, not be
imprisoned in the "fixed social position" in which they are born but instead be given
opportunities to develop their talents and to pursue their desires as long as they pose no threat to
the rights of others. History confirms that Mill's confidence in the outcome was prescient. To the
skeptic who opines that the liberation of women will destroy marriage and the family, Mill
answers that a marriage which is attractive to women, one based on equality and mutual respect
instead of subordination, will prosper indefinitely.

Keywords: women, philosophy, equality, influence and marriage.

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 2. INTRODUCTION

John Stuart Mill, (born May 20, 1806, London, England , died May 8, 1873, Avignon, France),
English philosopher, economist, and exponent of  Utilitarianism. He was prominent as a
publicist in the reforming age of the 19th century, and remains of lasting interest as a logician
and an ethical theorist.

His father was James Mill, a British historian, economist, and a Scottish philosopher who gave
his son an intensive education, beginning with the study of Greek at the age of three. By his
eighth year he had read in the original Greek Aesop’s Fables, Xenophon’s Anabasis, and the
whole of the historian Herodotus. He was acquainted with the satirist Lucian, the historian
of philosophy Diogenes Laërtius, the Athenian writer and educational theorist Isocrates, and
six dialogues of Plato. He had also read a great deal of history in English. At the age of eight he
started Latin, the geometry of Euclid, and algebra and began to teach the younger children of the
family. His main reading was still history, but he went through all the Latin and Greek authors
commonly read in the schools and universities and, by the age of 10 could read Plato and the
Athenian statesman Demosthenes with ease. About the age of 12, he began a thorough study of
Scholastic logic, at the same time reading Aristotle’s logical treatises in the original. His father
was friendly with Jeremy Bentham, whose utilitarian philosophy was a huge influence on Mill.

From May 1820 until July 1821, Mill was in France with the family of Sir Samuel Bentham,
brother of Jeremy Bentham, the English Utilitarian philosopher, economist, and theoretical
jurist. Copious extracts from a diary kept at this time show how methodically he read and wrote,
studied chemistry and botany, tackled advanced mathematical problems, and made notes on the
scenery and the people and customs of the country. He also gained a thorough acquaintance with
the French language. On his return in 1821 he added to his work the study of psychology and
of Roman law, which he read with John Austin, his father having half decided on the bar as the
best profession open to him. However this idea was abandoned due to his appointment in 1822.

In 1822, Mill was given a job in the examiner's office of the East India Company, where his
father also worked. He was employed by the company for more than 30 years, eventually
becoming head of his department, but his job allowed him plenty of time for writing.

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At the age of 21, Mill suffered a nervous breakdown. He turned to poetry for consolation,
particularly that of William Wordsworth. He also began to shape his own philosophical views. In
his writing, Mill championed individual liberty against the authority of the state. He believed that
an action was right provided it maximized the greatest happiness of the greatest number of
people.

In 1858, following the Indian Mutiny, the East India Company was dissolved and its functions
taken over by the British government. Now without a job, Mill moved to Avignon in France.
From 1865 to 1868, Mill served as a Member of Parliament for Westminster. In 1866, he
became the first M.P. ever to call for women, support for equality for women, compulsory
education, birth control introducing a bill written by his friend Richard Pankhurst. Mill continued
to advocate for women's vote along with other reforms including additional suffrage extensions.
He served as president of the Society for Women's Suffrage, founded in 1867.

Mill was not re-elected in the general election of 1868, so he returned to France. He divided his
time between Avignon and London, studying and writing. He died on 7 May 1873.

In 1822 Mill had read P.-E.-L. Dumont’s exposition of Bentham’s doctrines in the Traités de

Législation, which made a lasting impression upon him. The impression was confirmed by the
study of the English psychologists and also of two 18th-century French philosophers—Étienne
Bonnot de Condillac, who was also a psychologist, and Claude-Adrien Helvétius, who was noted
for his emphasis on physical sensations. Soon after, in 1822–23, Mill established among a few
friends the Utilitarian Society, taking the word, as he tells us, from Annals of the Parish, a novel
of Scottish country life by John Galt.

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 3.SEXUAL EQUALITY

Mill applies his liberal principles to issues of sexual equality primarily in “The Subjection of
Women”. He denounces existing forms of sexual inequality in clear and unequivocal terms.

Mill wrote "The Subjection of Women" in 1861, though it was not published until 1869. In this,
he argues for education of women and for "perfect equality" for them. He credited Harriet Taylor
Mill with co-authoring the essay, but few at the time or later took it seriously. Even today, many
feminists accept his word on this, while many non-feminist historians and authors do not. The
opening paragraph of this essay makes his position quite clear:

“The object of this Essay is to explain as clearly as I am able grounds of an opinion which I
have held from the very earliest period when I had formed any opinions at all on social political
matters, and which, instead of being weakened or modified, has been constantly growing
stronger by the progress reflection and the experience of life. That the principle which regulates
the existing social relations between the two sexes - the legal subordination of one sex to the
other - is wrong itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it
ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the
one side, nor disability on the other.”

3.1. The Case for Sexual Equality

Mill rejects sexual inequality in both domestic and social contexts. He discusses domestic
equality primarily in Chapter II. There, he focuses on the rights of wives and mothers,
recognizing women’s equal rights over their bodies or persons, to own and control property to
control various aspects of domestic decision-making and household management, to custody and
care of children, and to separation and divorce. But Mill is not only concerned with wives and
mothers in domestic contexts. He also defends equal rights to education, to professional
opportunities, to vote in political elections, and to run for political office. In addition to these
rights, Mill presumably also endorses equal rights to freedom of expression, worship, and

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association. One assumes that he sees the main threats to these rights as occurring in the
domestic realm and coming from husbands, fathers, and brothers.

At times, Mill defends sexual equality on explicitly consequentialist grounds as a way of making
fuller use of people’s talents and promoting a culture of equal opportunity, accountability, and
genuine meritocracy. But Mill also defends sexual equality as a matter of individual rights and
justice.

Thus far, the benefits which it has appeared that the world would gain by ceasing to make sex a
disqualification for privileges and a badge of subjection, are social rather than individual;
consisting in an increase of the general fund of thinking and acting power, and an improvement
in the general conditions of the association of men and women. But it would be a grievous
understatement of the case to omit the most direct benefit of all, the unspeakable gain in private
happiness to the liberated half of the species; the difference to them between a life of subjection
to the will of others, and a life of rational freedom. After the primary necessities of food and
raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want to human nature.

In elaborating this claim about women’s higher-order interests in liberty, he says that personal
independence is an “element of happiness”. This echoes the arguments in On Liberty for
claiming that basic liberties are necessary for persons to exercise the deliberative capacities that
make them progressive beings.

In defending women’s rights, Mill also appeals to the distinctively modern and progressive
commitment to equal opportunity for welfare. At several points, he likens the status of women
inside and outside of marriage to slavery. Mill is not much impressed by those who would
dispute the analogy on the ground that women are treated much better than slaves. Gilded cages
are still cages that restrict freedom and opportunity. And often the cages are not gilded; Mill
insists that husbands can be and often are just as violent and abusive as masters. Indeed, with the
demise of slavery in America, he views sexual inequality as the last vestige of slavery in the
West.

The law of servitude in marriage is a monstrous contradiction to all the principles of the modern
world, and to all the experience through which those principles have been slowly and painfully
worked out. It is the sole case, now that negro slavery has been abolished, in which a human

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being in the plenitude of every faculty is delivered up to the tender mercies of another human
being, in the hope forsooth that this other will use the power solely for the good of the person
subjected to it. Marriage is the only actual bondage known to our law. There remain no legal
slaves, except the mistress of every house.

The restrictions contained in Victorian marriage law that give husbands complete control over
the person and property of their wives and that do not allow for unilateral divorce or separation
make marriage a form of sexual slavery. Slavery is an impermissible restriction of the liberty of
another. Slavery would be impermissible even if the wife consented to marriage. Mill might
question whether the consent is meaningful given the social pressures to marry and to defer to
their husbands, the limited options for those who do not marry, and the adverse consequences to
women of expressing dissent within marriage. But the quality of consent should be in any case
irrelevant, because we know that Mill thinks that it is impermissible to contract into slavery and
that paternalistic laws that prevent such contracts are not only permissible but obligatory.
Presumably, this is just the sort of case that Mill has in mind when he suggests that the
prohibition of selling oneself into slavery is a principled exception to the usual prohibition on
paternalism that has “wider application.” This norm of equal opportunity for welfare, which is
violated by Victorian marriage law, is a demand of justice and grounds a claim of right.

Mill’s response to these alleged differences is mixed. Sometimes, he questions whether the traits
in question are unevenly distributed. But, for the most part, he seems to concede that the traits
are unevenly distributed. He doesn’t always agree that the female trait is a deficit or disqualifier.
For instance, he thinks that being more intuitive, more practical, more focused on particulars, and
less rigid allows women to compensate for deficits in the way that men typically approach
decision-making. Women are less likely to follow principle for its own sake and are more likely
to test principles by their real world consequences. They are better able to multi-task and
intellectually more open-minded. Being morally superior and less aggressive are unqualified
goods. However, he seems to concede that women are more excitable, less accomplished, and
less original than men. He tries to explain these deficits and disqualifiers in ways that do not
presuppose women’s natural inferiority.

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Mill’s primary response to the apologists is to claim that even if the trait is unevenly distributed
and functions as a deficit or disqualifier there is nonetheless no evidence of natural inferiority.
There is no evidence of natural inferiority, because we cannot be sure that the incapacity is the
product of nature, rather than nurture. In particular, because the history of sexual relations has
been discriminatory, we cannot rule out the possibility that female incapacity is the product of
past discriminatory treatment against them.

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 4. OTHER IMPORTANT THEORIES GIVEN BY J.S.MILL

4.1. Mill’s Utilitarianism

Utilitarianism, by John Stuart Mill, is an essay written to provide support for the value of
utilitarianism as a moral theory, and to respond to misconceptions about it. Mill defines
utilitarianism as a theory based on the principle that "actions are right in proportion as they tend
to promote happiness, wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness." Mill defines
happiness as pleasure and the absence of pain. He argues that pleasure can differ in quality and
quantity, and that pleasures that are rooted in one's higher faculties should be weighted more
heavily than baser pleasures. Furthermore, Mill argues that people's achievement of goals and
ends, such as virtuous living, should be counted as part of their happiness.
Mill argues that utilitarianism coincides with "natural" sentiments that originate from humans'
social nature. Therefore, if society were to embrace utilitarianism as an ethic, people would
naturally internalize these standards as morally binding. Mill argues that happiness is the sole
basis of morality, and that people never desire anything but happiness. He supports this claim by
showing that all the other objects of people's desire are either means to happiness, or included in
the definition of happiness. Mill explains at length that the sentiment of justice is actually based
on utility, and that rights exist only because they are necessary for human happiness.

4.2.Mill’s liberty principle

Mill’s liberty principle (also known as the harm principle) is the idea that each individual has the
right to act as he/she wants, as long as these actions do not harm others (Mill, 1860). This
principal (applicable both to political and individual morality) holds that not the state, nor
anybody else, should interfere in anyone’s activities unless those activities will harm somebody
other than themselves (he believed people should be free to hurt themselves if they wanted).
Mills ideas (written in the 19th century) are still subject to on-going discussions, namely on
topics such as gay marriage and legalisation of cannabis. Mill’s liberty principle appeals to many
people in Western liberal democracies as it aligns with values of freedom and individualism.
However, his work cannot be used as a complete guideline for our society because it contains a
number of grey areas and contradictions.

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 5.HARRIET TAYLOR MILL’S INFLUENCE

In 1851, Mill married Harriet Taylor. They had been close friends for 20 years, but were only
able to marry when her first husband died. She was a great influence on his work, particularly in
the area of women's rights, of which she was an early advocate. She died in 1858 and the
following year he published 'On Liberty', his most famous work, which they had written together
and which he dedicated to her.

According to Mill himself, Harriet’s influence was profound. He credits his wife with playing a
major role in his most celebrated works. “The Principles of Political Economy” in 1848 was “a
joint production with my wife”, he wrote. Later, Mill claimed: “like all that I have written for
many years…[“On Liberty”]…belongs as much to her as to me.” And he nodded towards her
true authorship of “Enfranchisement,” noting: it was “hers in a particular sense, my share in it
being little more than that of an editor and amanuensis”.

Mr Miller concluded that her greatest contribution was probably to turn Mill’s attention to a set
of progressive ideals which she was passionate about: socialism, women’s rights, individual
liberty and a “utopian” view of humanity’s improvability

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 6. CONCLUSION

Although Mill criticizes women’s status as wives and mothers and condemns the injustice of
marital slavery, his views on marriage show certain limits to his liberal feminism. He does not
attack traditional assumptions regarding women’s and men’s different responsibilities in a
household, and accepts the notion that when women marry they should be responsible for taking
care of the home and children, while men provide the family income: Like a man when he
chooses a profession, so, when a woman marries, it may in general be understood that she makes
choice of the management of a household, and the bringing up of a family and that she
renounces, not all other objects and occupations, but all which are not consistent with the
requirements of this. It might seem curious – given his high regard for women’s intellectual
abilities and his admission that women’s duties as wives and mothers prevent them from
succeeding in professions – that Mill still believes even the most liberated woman would
continue to choose the family over other competing activities. By accepting the traditional
gender-based division of labour in the private sphere in his discussion of family life, Mill never
questioned or objected to the maintenance of traditional sex roles within the family, but
expressly considered them to be suitable and desirable.

Many of Mill’s views on women’s social position and status are relevant today; this is true even
from the viewpoint of current feminist philosophy. These include Mill’s thoughts on issues like
the source of women’s subjection, the difference between women and men, the origins and
nature of such differences, and so on. Although I cannot agree with everything which Mill says
on these issues, I believe his philosophical argumentation is still worthy of consideration. For
example, with regard to the thesis (found even in contemporary discourse) that the experience of
mankind confirms the existing social order and the current gender arrangement, Mill points out
that experience “cannot possibly have decided between two courses, so long as there has only
been experience of one”.

In a nutshell, then, Mill argued nearly 150 years ago that the liberation of women will produce
two important results. It will benefit society by triggering the contributions of women in many
fields, and it will benefit women by granting them the autonomy that is essential to happiness. In
my view he was right on both counts.

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 7. REFRENCES

 Magnus, P.D., 2015, “John Stuart Mill on Taxonomy and Natural Kinds”, HOPOS: The

Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science.

 Miller, D.E., 2010, J.S. Mill, Cambridge: Polity Press

 2015, “The Place of Plural Voting in Mill’s Conception of Representative

Government”, The Review of Politics.

 2017, “Mill on the Family”, in Macleod and Miller 2017.

 Zastoupil, L., 1994, John Stuart Mill and India, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

 The Subjection of women by , John Stuart Mill

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 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873)

J.S.Mill travelled from England to France.

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