Woman in the Nineteenth Century: Margaret Fuller's Feminist Legacy

Publication Context and Rhetorical Urgency. Woman in the Nineteenth Century (1845) originated from the 1843 Dial essay, "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women." By almost every account, this work poses singular challenges for readers. It is characterized more by a sense of urgency than by a carefully sequenced argument or narrative of events. Rather than offering a calm discourse, it reads like an impassioned call to action urging the extension of equal rights to both sexes.

An example of this urgency appears in the closing pages, where Fuller appeals directly to the women of America. "Women of my country!" she exhorts. "Tell them that we will not accept the glittering baubles, spacious dwellings, and plentiful service, they mean to offer you by these means. Tell them that the heart of woman demands nobleness and honor in man, and that, if they have not purity, have not mercy, they are no longer fathers, lovers, husbands, sons of yours" (Woman 98). Despite the work's sometimes incoherent structure, pedantic diction, and at times off-putting erudition, what cannot be denied is that regardless of stylistic weaknesses, it was an enormously influential contribution to the budding women's movement in the United States. Stylistic missteps may in part be attributed to Fuller's daring to challenge patriarchal norms in the absence of literary precedent.

As do other pathbreaking writers, Fuller had to feel her way a step at a time. In a sense, what she had to say was finally more important than the way she said it, and women readers responded positively to her efforts. The first printing sold out within a week, and the basic tenets espoused in the work would become foundation blocks for the documents that emerged from the 1848 Seneca Falls convention, widely seen as the birth of the American women's rights movement.

Navigating Literary and Historical Allusions. As historically significant as Fuller's tract has become, for a contemporary reader it can require patience. Without a firm grasp of biblical allusion, classical mythology, American transcendentalism, William Shakespeare, and myriad literary and historical references, understanding her prose is difficult. A good strategy is to stay focused on main themes and concentrate on Fuller's clearest illustrations.

Bear in mind, for instance, that she includes many references to women from the past in order to provide evidence for her contemporary readers that women can assume and have actually assumed important public roles. Some of these women, such as the Greek Panthea and Madame Necker de Saussure of Geneva, will strike modern readers as obscure because history has traditionally focused on the actions of men, casting a shadow over female contributions. Drawing attention to these women necessarily involves shedding light on the dark corners of history.

One of Fuller's most useful and clear conventions is a technique she experimented with in Summer on the Lakes: the introduction of a female protagonist through whom we view many of the dialectical musings of the author. One such character is Miranda, a female intellectual who clearly parallels Fuller. This is especially evident when Miranda explains that she has been given an excellent education because her father saw her not "as a plaything" but "as a living mind" (Woman 33). This homage to the supportive father is perhaps Fuller's way of atoning for her more critical early assessments of the incredibly rigid and demanding study schedule her own father imposed on her when she was a child.

Reconciling Dualities and Transcendental Ideals. Her tone of reconciliation of the sexes is also far different from the more aggressive repudiation of male presumption and indifference so evident in Summer on the Lakes. In Woman in the Nineteenth Century Fuller makes the case that both men and women must appreciate that they are part of one whole, humanity, and that transcendence can occur only when their collective potential is realized. "The growth of man is two-fold, masculine and feminine" (Woman 99), writes Fuller near the end of her book. She continues, stating that there "cannot be a doubt that, if these two developments were in perfect harmony, they would correspond to and fulfill one another" (Woman 100).

After a discussion of the often unharmonious struggle to achieve a balance of male and female power, she concludes: "Whenever the poet or artist gave free course to his genius, he saw the truth, and expressed it in worthy forms, for these men especially share and need the feminine principle. The divine birds need to be brooded into life and song by mothers" (Woman 101). Once the challenges posed by the text are met, Woman in the Nineteenth Century can actually be read as the optimistic, focused counterpart to Summer on the Lakes. Whereas Fuller communicated considerable skepticism regarding the supposed promise of westward expansion and the unfulfilled Jeffersonian dream of social harmony and individual freedom in Summer on the Lakes, she is quite effulgent in Woman in the Nineteenth Century, where she concentrates on the potential for both men and women to attain spiritual progress. Indeed, she speaks of "a clearer version and better action" when "man and woman may regard one another as brother and sister, the pillar of one porch, the priest of one worship" (Woman 101).

Interestingly, even though she had become despondent after witnessing the horrible conditions and lack of opportunities for frontier women, her new hopes for American progress centered on the liberation of women and men from the very gender constraints she had seen as so prevalent in the West. The basis of her argument in Woman in the Nineteenth Century is that men and women are both part of a "great radical duality" that gives them the capacity to experience the whole spectrum of human thought, feeling, and action. In language reminiscent of Eastern religions thought, she postulates that there is a unifying force for male and female and that "they are perpetually passing into one another. Fluid hardens to solid, solid rushes to fluid. There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman" (Woman 68-69).

At other times in the text, Fuller uses a conversational give and take to expose the sexist assumptions embedded in a patriarchal culture where men have been encouraged to speak for women. In one notable example that appears in the early pages, Fuller engages her readers by staging a radical dialogue between a representative husband and a defiant female voice. The narrative voice acts almost as a lawyer conducting a subtle cross-examination in which characters are pumped for information with the aim of revealing widely held assumptions about the sexes that Fuller seeks to overturn. Here the presumptuous husband presents observations about the condition of his wife (and presumably all other wives), stating, "She is happy enough" (Woman 15).

When pushed to state whether he has actually asked her if she feels completely self-actualized, he replies, "No, but I know she is. . . . I will never consent to have our peace disturbed by any such discussions." The arch interrogator then answers: "Consent—you? It is not consent from you that is in question, it is assent from your wife." "Am I not the head of my house?" asks the taken-aback husband. "You are not the head of your wife. God has given her a mind of her own," concludes the voice of the dauntless female (Woman 16). With this statement Fuller leaves what she referred to as "her footprint" on the annals of U.S. literature by initiating the conversation about the rights of women as citizens, wives, and intellectual and religious free agents that has now continued for more than 150 years.

Abolitionism, Race, and Physical Endurance. It is not solely the rights of women that are the focus of the work, however, but also those of the African American and the American Indian. As an abolitionist tract, the book appears fairly tame when compared with the more fiery works that would soon follow. Still, Fuller minces no words in stating unequivocal support in exactly the same manner she had used previously when she repudiated the fictitious husband's audacious stance. She writes, "If the Negro be a soul, if the woman be a soul, appareled in flesh, to one Master only are they accountable. There is but one law for souls . . . God" (Woman 20).

In a passage that appears immediately prior to the one just quoted, Fuller extends the equality of souls to the equality of bodies and minds, going so far as to argue that perceived differences between the sexes and among the races arise from environmental circumstances rather than inherent abilities. In one of her most daring passages Fuller illuminates the extent to which prejudice regarding female physical endurance has blinded Americans to the actual behavior of women and their suitability for public service outside the home. She begins by presenting the conventional male view of women assuming roles traditionally assigned to men: "The beauty of the home would be destroyed, the delicacy of the sex violated, the dignity of the halls of legislation degraded by an attempt to introduce them there" (Woman 18). Fuller responds with a bitingly ironic female counterargument.

"But if, in reply, we admit as truth that woman seems destined by nature rather for the inner circle, we must add that the arrangements of civilized life have not been, as yet, such as to secure it to her. Her circle, if the duller, is not the quieter. If kept from 'excitement,' she is not from drudgery. Not only the Indian squaw carries the burdens of the camp, but the favorites of Louis the Fourteenth accompany him on his journeys, and the washerwoman stands at her tub and carries home her work at all seasons, and in all states of health. Those who think the physical circumstances of woman would make a part in the affairs of national government unsuitable, are by no means those who think it impossible for the negresses to endure field work, even during pregnancy, or the sempstresses [sic] to go through their killing labors" (Woman 19). By revealing the actual physical labor completed by women of all races, Fuller exposes the extent to which American culture perpetuates an inaccurate view of female ability by looking only at the diminished physical capacity of middle-class women who have been artificially confined within the dull inner circle of the home.

As to the danger that women would somehow surrender the distinctive beauty of the female form by playing a role in public discourse, Fuller replies as follows: "We should think those who had seen the great actresses, and heard the Quaker preachers of modern times, would not doubt, that woman can express publicly the fullness of thought and creation, without losing any of the particular beauty of her sex" (Woman 24). In this manner Fuller urges readers to trust to their own senses as providing the strongest argument supporting the equality of the sexes. After regaling her readers with multiple powerful women, such as Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth I, who proved at least as capable as men at directing the ship of state, Fuller concludes with a note of conciliation, brilliantly implying that her requests are in truth modest and need not be seen as threatening the fabric of American culture. She does this by clearly stating that her aim is to expand the options for female self-expression, not impose a new artificial order.

This expansion of potential occupations will not prevent women from deciding to continue as they have. "I have no doubt," Fuller acknowledges, "that a large proportion of women would give themselves to the same employments as now" (Woman 103). Neither is she opposed to women and men living meaningful lives together: "I have urged on woman independence of man, not that I do not think the sexes mutually needed by one another, but because in woman this fact has led to an excessive devotion, which has cooled love, degraded marriage, and prevented either sex from being what it should be to itself or the other." Her aim is to grant women the exercise of strengths they already possess and that will add to the overall growth and stability of American culture: "I think women need, especially at this juncture, a much greater range of occupation, to rouse their latent powers" (Woman 102).

Despite her prevailing sense of urgency, she assumes a muted, patient stance at the end. Admitting that she has now reached middle age—"the sunny noon of life"—Fuller accepts that "objects no longer glitter in the dews of morning" and that her youthful sense of a glorious destiny has significantly diminished. "Yet," she writes in one of the truly great declarations of enduring commitment, "enough is left, even by experience, to point directly to the glories of that destiny; faint, but not mistaken streaks of the future day" (Woman 104). Thus, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, one of the most unconventional, unprecedented, and daring books ever written, ends on a note of humility.

For Discussion or Writing. The following prompts facilitate deeper critical engagement with Fuller's text.
1. Examine the way Fuller's sense of the challenges of her day overlapped with and differed from those HARRIET BEECHER STOWE addresses in Uncle Tom's Cabin.

2. During parts of Woman in the Nineteenth Century the prosecutorial narrator calls forth historical personages such as Isabella of Spain, Elizabeth I of England, and the French author George Sand (Amandine-Aurore-Lucile Dupin) in order to establish the prowess and intellectual equality of women. Do you consider this as central to her argument that "those who think the physical circumstances of woman (domestic drudgery) would make a part in the affairs of national government unsuitable, are by no means those who think it impossible for the negresses to endure field work, even during pregnancy, or the [seamstresses] to go through their killing labors"?

3. Fuller's invocation of the Muse, her use of a character modeled on herself such as the female intellectual Miranda, and her writing sections in the voice of Minerva added great variety to the narrative flow of the work. What are the positive aspects of such experimentation in one's writing? What might the downsides be?

4. It has been said that Fuller claimed for women the same principles that Emerson claimed for men. What might those principles be? Examine Emerson's Nature and Essays, First Series to compare the moral issues he raises with those Fuller discusses in Summer on the Lakes, in 1843 and Woman in the Nineteenth Century.