The Enlightenment (cont’d)

Debates on Women Ambivalent situation (women’s role in salons, as organizers of charities, the fame of some female novelists) Anatomical studies influenced the image of women: traditional view of female anatomy ( as an inverted botched equivalent of male’s reproductive anatomy) replaced by the new image: female & male body - as entirely different  women’s anatomy points to their unique role as mothers But: Comparisons of male & female sculls  women’s intellectual Inferiority

Debates on women (cont’d) The cult of domesticity (later 18 th century onward in Britain, product of bourgeois society)  women’s role as homemakers & loving companions for their husbands  education that stressed nurturing skills and obedience (not intellectual development) Jean Jacque Rousseau, Emile, 1760 – educating girls for their role as wives.

Debates on women: women’s response Mary Astell, Some Reflections on Marriage, “If absolute authority be not necessary in a state, how come it be so in a family …? If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?” Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Right of Woman, 1792: against gendered approach to education, demands for equality in education, economic & political life

The Enlightened philanthropy: London’s Magdalene Hospital, 1758 – for re-education of prostitutes John Lettisom (son of a wealthy plantation owner) – fashionable physician in London. Set free his slaves in Founded: General Dispensary (free pharmacy for the poor ) Humane Society to pioneer techniques of resuscitating the drowned, 1791 Royal Sea Bathing Infirmary, a convalescent home for the tubercular.

The issue of poverty. Ambivalent attitude. In England - each parish is responsible for its “deserving poor” (1700 –£ 600,000, £ 4,2 million – too burdening for tax-payers). In other countries – a matter of private charity. Cost of living in cities – crowds of beggars Christian ethics vs. individualist thinking (debates: does the system of poor relief remove the incentive to work?). Workhouses in the 18 th cent – an attempt to find a solution (harsh discipline)

The idea of Progress in the Enlightenment causes: Advances in science & medicine Modern comforts & conveniences The idea that humans, nature & society are improvable Belief in history as a progressive unfolding of events (the birth of science fiction & futurological novel in the 18 th century)  Possibility of remodelling society along more progressive lines (towards greater social & economic justice) Condorcet, Progress of the Human Mind, 1793

Pessimistic voices: Towards the end of the 18 th century – concerns about population growth (previously economists greeted population increase as a sign of prosperity) Thomas Malthus, An Essay of the Principle of Populations, 1798: Food supply grows arithmetically: 2,4,6,.., while population increases geometrically: 2, 4, 16,… Wars, epidemics, natural calamities check population growth in a ‘natural’ way but increasing life expectancy & fertility rate offset these checks. Solution: the poor must practise abstinence and control the size of their families.

The fate of the Enlightenment thought in the 19 th century: For conservatives – the Enlightenment as a source of dangerous ideas leading towards revolutions For Liberals – the source of inspiration; liberal philosophy was rooted in the enlightened ideals of individual freedom, equality of people as human beings & popular sovereignty (the power ultimately resides in people) (originally- Locke’s idea)