30 pages • 1 hour read
Judith Sargent MurrayOn the Equality of the Sexes
Nonfiction | Essay / Speech | Adult | Published in 1790A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Historical Context: Women and the American Revolution
Judith Sargent Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes” was written in 1770 as conflict between Britain and America grew into what would become the War of Independence. This tumult prompted many in the American colonies to think about the nature of the ideal state, including freedom and equality. The war itself officially erupted in 1775 and ended in 1783 when America officially became a separate country from Britain. The founders of the independent American state were heavily influenced by earlier political ideologies of John Locke (1632-1704), which became essential to America’s revolutionary philosophy in the later 18th century. Locke argued that all men were created equal and that a government must have the consent of those who are governed, ideas enshrined in 1776 with the Declaration of Independence. This emphasis on equality, freedom, and consent raised questions of how American social and political structures could disregard these ideals in relation to sex. Murray’s “On the Equality of the Sexes” shows the influence of Lockean ideals and of wider concerns about a society that excepted women from equal rights. The essay’s official publication in 1790 formed part of the rise of feminist thought in America as a growing subset of the discourse on universal rights.
During the late 18th century, it was an accepted belief that women were inferior to men. Women were expected to maintain the domestic order of their household and to raise families. They were subject to their fathers or husbands. Their access to education was extremely limited, and very few women had paid work. Murray’s essay deals directly with these practical obstacles as faced by women at the time, to underpin her intellectual theory and argument on the potential of women’s equality.
Literary Context: Satire
Satire is the ridicule of vices or problems through the sustained use of irony, sarcasm, comedy, parody, or exaggeration. The satirical nature of Murray’s essay is integral to its purpose and is expressive of its place within Enlightenment discourse in America in the later 1700s. By the time of the Enlightenment, satire was an established and fashionable method of sharing, enjoying, and interrogating philosophical ideas, employed by Alexander Pope, Jonathan Swift, and Daniel Defoe. By the 1770s, it was closely associated with the essay and poetic forms, both of which Murray demonstrates in “On the Equality of the Sexes.”
When Murray composed her essay in the 1770s, it was intended for private circulation, a common means by which these satirical pieces were shared amongst friends and acquaintances. Circulation was a method of semi-publication in which copies of a work were passed around and copied by hand or via correspondence within an interested set of people, usually in the educated upper section of society. This was the major way that literary works had been spread before printing; it continued into the 1700s as a relatively discreet and non-commercial method of sharing and refining ideas. Women often used it in preference to publication, as it was considered respectable. Murray’s choice of satire is closely linked to this context, as the genre was popular with the intelligentsia as a humorous and self-consciously elite form of argumentation, for a specific audience.
In using the first-person singular, in combination with an arch and heightened tone, the satirical essay subverts the form of the personal letter. This can be seen in Murray’s personal tone and appeals to the individual reader, as well as her use of humor and rhetorical flourishes. In using the satirical form, Murray was drawing on an established genre that had originated in Classical Greek literature and been revived in the Renaissance by the likes of François Rabelais, Erasmus, John Donne, and John Dryden, and through into the Enlightenment period. In adopting this style, Murray was demonstrating in practice that a woman with (some) education could equal men, even in the highest and most difficult of literary forms.
Murray’s later essays conform less rigidly to generic conventions, especially self-consciously intellectual forms such as the satire: These essays were written deliberately for publication, at a time when Murray required an income, and were therefore composed for a different type of audience, as well as for a later one.
