The Second Sex

by Simone de Beauvoir

  Nevertheless, the history of Roman law shows a tendency that contradicts the one just described: rendering the woman independent of the family, the central power takes her back under its guardianship and subjects her to various legal restraints.

  In fact, she would assume an unsettling importance if she could be both rich and independent; so what is conceded with one hand is taken away from her with the other. The Oppian Law that banned luxury was voted when Hannibal threatened Rome; when the danger passed, women demanded its abrogation; in a famous speech, Cato asked that it be upheld: but a demonstration by matrons assembled in the public square carried the repeal against him. More severe laws were proposed as mores loosened, but without great success: they did little more than give rise to fraud. Only the Velleian Senate decree triumphed, forbidding woman to “intercede” for others,3 depriving her of nearly every legal capacity. It is when woman is probably the most emancipated that the inferiority of her sex is proclaimed, a remarkable example of the male justification process already discussed: when her rights as girl, wife, or sister are no longer limited, she is refused equality with men because of her sex; the pretext for persecuting her becomes “imbecility and fragility of the sex.”

  The fact is that matrons did not put their newfound freedom to the best use; but it is also true that they were forbidden to take the best advantage of it. These two contradictory strains—an individualistic strain that tears woman from the family and a state-controlled strain that abuses her as an individual—result in an unbalanced situation for her. She can inherit, she has equal rights with the father concerning the children, she can will her property thanks to the institution of the dowry, she escapes conjugal restraints, she can divorce and remarry as she wishes: but she is emancipated only in a negative way because she is offered no employment for her vital forces. Economic independence remains abstract since it yields no political capacity; therefore, lacking the power to act, Roman women demonstrate: they cause a ruckus in towns, they besiege the courts, they brew, they foment plots, they lay down prescriptions, they inflame civil wars, they march along the Tiber carrying the statue of the Mother of the Gods, thus introducing Oriental divinities to Rome; in the year 114 the scandal of the vestal virgins breaks out, and their college is then disbanded. As public life and virtue are out of reach, and when the dissolution of the family renders the former private virtues useless and outdated, there is no longer any moral code for women. They have two choices: either to respect the same values as their grandmothers or to no longer recognize any. The end of the first century and beginning of the second see numerous women living as companions and partners of their spouses, as in the time of the Republic: Plotina shares the glory and responsibilities of Trajan; Sabina becomes so famous for her good deeds that statues deify her while she is still alive; under Tiberius, Sextia refuses to live on after Aemilius Scaurus, and Pascea to live on after Pomponius Labeus; Paulina opens her veins at the same time as Seneca; Pliny the Younger makes Arria’s “Paete, non dolet” famous; Martial admires the irreproachable wives and devoted mothers Claudia Rufina, Virginia, and Sulpicia. But numerous women refuse motherhood, and many women divorce; laws continue to ban adultery: some matrons even go so far as to register as prostitutes to avoid being constrained in their debaucheries.4 Until then, Latin literature had always respected women: then satirists went wild against them. They attacked, in fact, not women in general but mainly contemporary women. Juvenal reproaches their hedonism and gluttony; he accuses them of aspiring to men’s professions: they take an interest in politics, immerse themselves in court cases, debate with grammarians and rhetoricians, develop passions for hunting, chariot racing, fencing, and wrestling. But in fact they rival men mainly because of their own taste for amusement and vice; they lack sufficient education for higher aims; and besides, no objective is even proposed to them; action remains forbidden to them. The Roman woman of the ancient Republic has a place on earth, but she is still chained to it by lack of abstract rights and economic independence; the Roman woman of the decline is typical of false emancipation, possessing, in a world where men are still the only masters, nothing but empty freedom: she is free “for nothing.”

  1. This account is taken from Clement Huart, La Perse antique et la civilisation iranienne (Ancient Persia and Iranian Civilization).

  2. In some cases the brother had to marry his sister.

  * “Where you are Gaius, I am Gaia.”—TRANS.

  3. That is, to enter into contracts with another.

  4. Rome, like Greece, officially tolerated prostitution. There were two categories of courtesans: those living closed up in brothels, and others, bonae meretrices, freely exercising their profession. They did not have the right to wear the clothing of matrons; they had a certain influence on fashion, customs, and art, but they never held a position as lofty as the hetaeras of Athens.

  | CHAPTER 4 |

  The evolution of the feminine condition was not a continuous process. With the great invasions, all of civilization is put into question. Roman law itself is under the influence of a new ideology, Christianity; and in the centuries that follow, barbarians impose their laws. The economic, social, and political situation is overturned: and women’s situation suffers the consequences.

  Christian ideology played no little role in women’s oppression. Without a doubt, there is a breath of charity in the Gospels that spread to women as well as to lepers; poor people, slaves, and women are the ones who adhere most passionately to the new law. In the very early days of Christianity, women who submitted to the yoke of the Church were relatively respected; they testified along with men as martyrs; but they could nonetheless worship only in secondary roles; deaconesses were authorized only to do lay work: caring for the sick or helping the poor. And although marriage is considered an institution demanding mutual fidelity, it seems clear that the wife must be totally subordinate to the husband: through Saint Paul the fiercely antifeminist Jewish tradition is affirmed. Saint Paul commands self-effacement and reserve from women; he bases the principle of subordination of women to man on the Old and New Testaments. “The man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man”; and “Neither was man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.” And elsewhere: “For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church.” In a religion where the flesh is cursed, the woman becomes the devil’s most fearsome temptation. Tertullian writes: “Woman! You are the devil’s gateway. You have convinced the one the devil did not dare to confront directly. It is your fault that God’s Son had to die. You should always dress in mourning and rags.” Saint Ambrose: “Adam was led to sin by Eve and not Eve by Adam. It is right and just that he whom she led into sin, she shall receive as master.” And Saint John Chrysostom: “Of all the wild animals, none can be found as harmful as woman.” When canon law is written in the fourth century, marriage is treated as a concession to human failings, incompatible with Christian perfection. “Take up the hatchet and cut the roots of the sterile tree of marriage,” writes Saint Jerome. In the time of Gregory VI, when celibacy was imposed on priests, woman’s dangerous character was more harshly asserted: all the Fathers of the Church proclaim her wretchedness. Saint Thomas will remain true to this tradition, declaring that woman is only an “occasional” and incomplete being, a sort of failed man. “Man is the head of woman just as Christ is the head of man,” he writes. “It is a constant that woman is destined to live under the authority of man and has no authority of her own.” Thus, the only marriage regime canon law recognizes is by dowry, rendering woman helpless and powerless. Not only is she prohibited from male functions, but she is also barred from making court depositions, and her testimony holds no weight. The emperors are more or less under the influence of the Church Fathers; Justinian’s legislation honors woman as spouse and mother but subjugates her to those functions; her helplessness is due not to her sex but to her situation within the family. Divorce is prohibited, and marriage has to be a public event; the mother has
the same authority over her children as the father, and she has equal rights to their inheritance; if her husband dies, she becomes their legal tutor. The Velleian Senate decree is modified: from that time on she can intercede for the benefit of a third party; but she cannot contract for her husband; her dowry becomes inalienable; it is her children’s patrimony, and she is forbidden to dispose of it.

  In barbarian-occupied territories, these laws are juxtaposed with Germanic traditions. The German customs were unique. They had chiefs only in wartime; in peacetime the family was an autonomous society; it seemed to be midway between matrilineal filiation clans and patriarchal gens; the mother’s brother had the same power as the father and the same authority over their niece and daughter as her husband. In a society where all capacity was rooted in brute force, woman was entirely powerless; but the rights that were guaranteed to her by the twofold domestic powers on which she depended were recognized; subjugated, she was nonetheless respected; her husband purchased her, but the price of this purchase constituted a dowry that belonged to her; and besides, her father dowered her; she received her portion of the paternal inheritance and, in the case of parents being murdered, a portion of the fine paid by the murderer. The family was monogamous, adultery being severely punished and marriage respected. The woman still lived under wardship, but she was a close partner of her husband. “In peace and in war, she shares his lot; she lives with him, she dies with him,” says Tacitus. She went to war with him, brought food to the soldiers, and encouraged them by her presence. As a widow, part of her deceased husband’s power was transmitted to her. Since her incapacity was rooted in her physical frailty, it was not considered an expression of moral inferiority. Some women were priestesses and prophets, so it could be assumed that their education was superior to men’s. Among the objects that legally reverted to women in questions of inheritance were, later, jewelry and books.

  This is the tradition that continues into the Middle Ages. The woman is absolutely dependent on her father and husband: during Clovis’s time, the mundium weighs on her throughout her life;* but the Franks rejected Germanic chastity: under the Merovingians and Carolingians polygamy reigns; the woman is married without her consent and can be repudiated by her husband, who holds the right of life or death over her according to his whim. She is treated like a servant. Laws protect her but only inasmuch as she is the man’s property and the mother of his children. Calling her a prostitute without having proof is considered an insult liable to a fine fifteen times more than any insult to a man; kidnapping a married woman is equivalent to a free man’s murder; taking a married woman’s hand or arm is liable to a fine of fifteen to thirty-five sous; abortion is forbidden under threat of a hundred-sou fine; murder of a pregnant woman costs four times that of a free man; a woman who has proved herself fertile is worth three times a free man; but she loses all worth when she can no longer be a mother; if she marries a slave, she becomes an outlaw, and her parents have the right to kill her. She has no rights as an individual. But while the state is becoming powerful, the shift that had occurred in Rome occurs here as well: the wardship of the disabled, children, and women no longer belongs to family law but becomes a public office; starting from Charlemagne, the mundium that weighs down the woman belongs to the king; he only intervenes at first in cases in which the woman is deprived of her natural guardians; then, little by little, he confiscates the family powers; but this change does not bring about the Frank woman’s emancipation. The mundium becomes the guardian’s responsibility; his duty is to protect his ward: this protection brings about the same slavery for woman as in the past.

  When feudalism emerges out of the convulsions of the early Middle Ages, woman’s condition looks very uncertain. What characterizes feudal law is the confusion between sovereign and property law, between public and private rights. This explains why woman is both put down and raised up by this system. She first finds herself denied all private rights because she lacks political capacity. Until the eleventh century, order is based on force alone and property on armed power. A fief, legal experts say, is “property held against military service”; woman cannot hold feudal property, because she is incapable of defending it. Her situation changes when fiefs become hereditary and patrimonial; in Germanic law some aspects of maternal law survived, as has already been shown: if there were no male heirs, the daughter could inherit. This leads, around the eleventh century, to the feudal system’s acceptance of female succession. However, military service is still required of the vassals; and woman’s lot does not improve with her ability to inherit; she still needs a male guardian; the husband plays that role: he is invested with the title, holds the fief, and has the usufruct of the goods. Like the Greek epikleros, woman is the instrument and not the bearer through which the domain is transmitted; that does not emancipate her; in a way she is absorbed by the fief, she is part of the real property. The domain is no longer the family’s thing as it was for Roman gens: it is the lord’s property, and the woman also belongs to the lord. He is the one who chooses a spouse for her; when she has children, she gives them to him rather than to her husband: they will be vassals who will defend his property. She is therefore a slave of the domain and of its master through the “protection” of a husband who was imposed on her: few periods of history seem harsher for woman’s lot. An heiress means land and a château: suitors fight over this prey, and the girl is sometimes not even twelve years old when her father or his lord gives her to some baron as a gift. The more marriages, the more domains for a man; and thus the more repudiations; the Church hypocritically authorizes them; as marriage was forbidden between relatives up to the seventh degree, and as kinship was defined by spiritual relations such as godmother and godfather as well as by blood relations, some pretext or other can always be found for an annulment; many women in the eleventh century were repudiated four or five times. Once widowed, the woman immediately has to accept a new master. In the chansons de geste Charlemagne has, all at once, the widows of his barons who had died in Spain remarry; in Girard de Vienne, the Burgundy duchess goes herself to the king to demand a new spouse. “My husband has just died, but what good is mourning? Find me a powerful husband because I need to defend my land”; many epics show the king or lord dealing tyrannically with girls and widows. One also sees the husband treating the woman given to him as a gift without any respect; he abuses and slaps her, drags her by her hair, and beats her; all that Beaumanoir in Coutumes de Beauvaisis (Customs of Beauvaisis) asks is that the husband “punish his wife reasonably.” This warlike civilization has only scorn for women. The knight is not interested in women: his horse is a treasure of much higher value to him; in the epics, girls are always the ones to make the first step toward young men; once married, they alone are expected to be faithful; the man dissociates them from his life. “Cursed be the knight who takes counsel from a lady on when to joust.” And in Renaud de Montauban, there is this diatribe: “Go back into your painted and golden quarters, sit ye down in the shade, drink, eat, embroider, dye silk, but do not busy yourself with our affairs. Our business is to fight with the sword and steel. Silence!” The woman sometimes shares the males’ harsh life. As a girl, she excels in all physical exercises, she rides, hunts, hawks; she barely receives any education and is raised with no regard for modesty: she welcomes the château’s guests, takes care of their meals and baths, and she “pleasures” them to sleep; as a woman, she sometimes has to hunt wild animals, undertake long and difficult pilgrimages; when her husband is far away, it is she who defends the seigneury. These ladies of the manor, called viragoes, are admired because they behave exactly like men: they are greedy, treacherous, and cruel, and they tyrannize their vassals. History and legend have bequeathed the memory of several of them: the chatelaine Aubie, after having a tower built higher than any donjon, then had the architect’s head cut off so her secret would be kept; she chased her husband from his domain: he stole back and killed her. Mabel, Roger de Montgomerie’s wife, delighted in reducing her se
igneury’s nobles to begging: their revenge was to decapitate her. Juliane, bastard daughter of Henry I of England, defended the château of Breteuil against him, luring him into an ambush for which he punished her severely. Such acts remain exceptional, however. Ordinarily, the lady spent her time spinning, praying for the dead, waiting for her spouse, and being bored.

  It has often been claimed that courtly love, born in the twelfth century in the Mediterranean south of France, brought about an improvement in woman’s lot. There are several opposing hypotheses as to its origins: according to some people, “courtliness” comes from the lord’s relations with his young vassals; others link it to Cathar heresies and the cult of the Virgin; still others say that profane love derives from the love of God in general. It is not so sure that courts of love ever existed. What is sure is that faced with Eve the sinner, the Church comes to glorify the Mother of the Redeemer: she has such a large following that in the thirteenth century it can be said that God was made woman; a mysticism of woman thus develops in religion. Moreover, leisure in château life enables the noble ladies to promote and nurture the luxury of conversation, politeness, and poetry; women of letters such as Béatrice de Valentinois, Eleanor of Aquitaine and her daughter Marie of France, Blanche of Navarre, and many others attract and patronize poets; first in the Midi and then in the North culture thrives, giving women new prestige. Courtly love was often described as platonic; Chrétien de Troyes, probably to please his protector, banishes adultery from his novels: the only guilty love he depicts is that of Lancelot and Guinevere; but in fact, as the feudal husband was both a guardian and a tyrant, the wife sought a lover outside of marriage; courtly love was a compensation for the barbarity of official customs. “Love in the modern sense does not exist in antiquity except outside of official society,” notes Engels: at the very point where antiquity broke off its penchant for sexual love, the Middle Ages took it up again with adultery. And this is the form that love will take as long as the institution of marriage lasts.