Malthus and Women
Despite that turn of phrase, Malthus viewed women of his own class in a favorable light, and many of them returned the favor. The concept of moral restraint appealed to women seeking to counter the sexual demands of their own suitors and sometimes even their own husbands.
It elevated control over the sexual passions as a feminine virtue that men should emulate (at least where marriage was concerned). Malthus subtly challenged the traditional religious view that women were more susceptible to sensual temptation than men, describing virtue, like benevolence, as a feminine trait. Late marriage, he argued, ‘‘would be a most decided advantage to the more virtuous half of society.''44 The age at which an unmarried woman would be forced to consider herself an old maid would be pushed up.45Two influential women writers helped popularize Malthus's theories, especially his views on the poor laws. Mrs. Jane Marcet's Conversations on Political Economy, published in 1816 and explicitly aimed at a female audience, was widely read.46 In one of the dialogues a wise matron named Mrs. B. persuades the emotional young Caroline that assistance to the poor should be abolished because it does more harm than good. In 1834, Harriet Martineau, one of the most famous old maids of her day, chimed in with her enthusiastically Malthusian Illustrations of Political Economy (see discussion in Chapter 5).47
Eager to prove that Malthus had underestimated the power of moral restraint, William Hazlitt pointed to the example of calculating young Misses who dismissed suitors who did not command sufficient economic assets. Surely, if the ‘‘silliest women'' would exercise such calculating restraint, men should be capable of it as well.48 Hazlitt then alluded proudly to the many virtuous Englishwomen who had chosen never to marry at all.49
More on the topic Malthus and Women:
- NOTES
- The Sexual Welfare State
- The modern reputation of Henry Sidgwick is that of a later nineteenth-century Cambridge moral philosopher, whose 1874 Methods of Ethics is a landmark text in the consideration of the moral foundations of human action:
- Life