《The Subjection of Women》读后感1000字

《The Subjection of Women》是一本由John Stuart Mill著作，Dover Publications出版的Paperback图书，本书定价：USD 3.50，页数：112，特精心收集的读后感，希望对大家能有帮助。

《The Subjection of Women》读后感(一)：The Subjection of Women几点感想

1. 读的Oxford World's Classics2008年的本子，竟然有不少印刷错，感觉自己简直在做proofreading(15年oxford新出的版本改了一些错，但仍有不少没改；我参照的权威版本是Collected Works of J. S. Mill)。强烈不推荐oxford这个本子

2. Mill句子长，但是读起来清楚，并且每读完一个超级长的句子就有种成就感哈哈哈，有种每读一句就变聪明一点的幻觉。关于Mill的风格，有人觉得他过于理性，但我觉得还要补充一句，他的理性其实还挺幽默的，并不是板起面孔说教那种。

3. 读到后面愈发感觉到和George Eliot小说Middlemarch的关联（在Mill这本小册子出版三年后Middlemarch出版）。The Subjection of Women里都能找到大段论述不少可以直接拿来作为对Dorothea和Rosamond（当然还有Lydgate，毕竟Mill一直在强调对女性的压迫最终对男性也是不利的，会造就对双方都不幸的婚姻等等）悲剧的commentary，似乎反映出两位作家对女性处境的观察都非常准确，大概这就是英雄所见略同吧哈哈！

4. 当时有人批评Mill这个小册子实在忽视了女性的特质，比如要生育孩子，以致他笔下的女性似乎不过是小一号的男性。这个问题当然重要，今天生育问题仍然是阻碍女性职业上实现与男性平等的重要障碍，但是想想Middlemarch里探讨的女性处境（尤其是Dorothea）其实和Mill的讨论很相似，更多是智识上发展受限，生理上的限制并不怎么讨论。或许两位作家的关注点都更偏向mental层面，也是他们自己感受最深的层面吧。

《The Subjection of Women》读后感(二)：妇女之友

Muller 开篇指出应该实现男女平等，这样才能促进人类这个物种的进步。男女不平等的观念源自custom和general feeling，但是是没有证据可以证明男女应该不平等。男性认为只要观察自己的妻子就是了解女性了，这只是很小的sample，每个地方、每个时代的女性都是不同的、难以概括的，即使是这个sample也不能展示出女性的真正样貌，而呈现的是artificial（Muller比波伏娃更早提出women are becoming）。在法律中，妻子是被遮蔽的存在，即使法律在涉及citizenship时规定了男女平等，若平等的理念没有渗透进家庭中，真正的平等也难以实现。对男性来说，to be equal is to be enemy，这句读来让人不寒而栗。女性在文学、艺术等领域很少做出原创性的贡献，是因为她们的创作不被鼓励，因而被消音和抹杀，而且她们也没有时间。Muller甚至大胆推测，很多男性说不定模仿（抄袭）了女性的作品。If women lived in a different country from men, and have never read any of their writings, they would have had a literature of their own. 在最后一章，Muller 提问，实现男女平等到底能为人类社会带来什么好处？会变得更好，而是和原来差不多？如果是后者，那么何必大费周章实现男女平等？想用鲁迅《呐喊》中的话回答他：“假如一间铁屋子，是绝无窗户而万难破毁的，里面有许多熟睡的人们，不久都要闷死了，然而是从昏睡入死灭，并不感到就死的悲哀。现在你大嚷起来，惊起了较为清醒的几个人，使这不幸的少数者来受无可挽救的临终的苦楚，你倒以为对得起他们么？”

《The Subjection of Women》读后感(三)：约翰·密尔：《妇女的屈从地位》（The Subjection of Women）读书笔记

第一章

【论文的目的】密尔开篇即提出论文的目的：两性从属的法定原则是错误的，并成为人类进步的主要阻碍，应以平等原则取代。That the principle which regulates the existing social relations between the two sexes—the legal subordination of one sex to the other—is wrong in itself, and now one of the chief hindrances to human improvement; and that it ought to be replaced by a principle of perfect equality, admitting no power or privilege on the one side, nor disability on the other. (pp.119.)

【困难：情感因素】The difficulty is that which exists in all cases in which there is a mass of feeling to be contended against. So long as an opinion is strongly rooted in the feelings, it gains rather than loses in stability by having a preponderating weight of argument against it.……while the feeling remains, it is always throwing up fresh intrenchments of argument to repair any breach made in the old. And there are so many causes tending to make the feelings connected with this subject the most intense and most deeply-rooted of all those which gather round and protect old institutions and customs, that we need not wonder to find them as yet less undermined and loosened than any of the rest by the progress of the great modern spiritual and social transition; nor suppose that the barbarisms to which men cling longest must be less barbarisms than those which they earlier shake off. pp.119-120.十九世纪赋予人类自然中的非理性因素以绝对可靠性，对本能的崇拜替代了对理性的崇拜，（It is one of the characteristic prejudices of the reaction of the nineteenth century against the eighteenth, to accord to the unreasoning elements in human nature the infallibility which the eighteenth century is supposed to have ascribed to the reasoning elements. For the apotheosis of Reason we have substituted that of Instinct; and we call everything instinct which we find in ourselves and for which we cannot trace any rational foundation. This idolatry, infinitely more degrading than the other, and the most pernicious of the false worships of the present day, of all of which it is now the main support, will probably hold its ground until it gives way before a sound psychology, laying bare the real root of much that is bowed down to as the intention of Nature and the ordinance of God. pp.121-122.）

【习惯与男女不平等】习惯的普遍性在某些情况下是一种强有力的推测，即它是或无论如何曾经是有助于值得赞美的目标的。【288】（The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presumption that it is, or at all events once was, conducive to laudable ends. pp.122.）男人对女人的权威并非如此：

（1）“赞成现行制度，即较弱的女性全然从属于较强的男性，其意见仅仅以理论为根据，因为从未试行过其他方式，以致在通理论平庸地对立意义上的经验，不能自称已经宣告任何判决。”【289】（the opinion in favour of the present system, which entirely subordinates the weaker sex to the stronger, rests upon theory only; for there never has been trial made of any other: so that experience, in the sense in which it is vulgarly opposed to theory, cannot be pretended to have pronounced any verdict. pp.122-123.）

（2）“采用这个不平等的制度，从来也不是深思熟虑或预先盘算的结果，不是任何观念或什么有助于人类的利益或社会良好秩序的意见的结果。”【289】（the adoption of this system of inequality never was the result of deliberation, or forethought, or any social ideas, or any notion whatever of what conduced to the benefit of humanity or the good order of society. pp.123.）这个制度兴起于人类社会早期女人为男人奴役的状态，此后为法律和政治体制承认并固定，奴役从主奴之间的强迫成为正式的、主人们之间的契约。[It arose simply from the fact that from the very earliest twilight of human society, every woman (owing to the value attached to her by men, combined with her inferiority in muscular strength) was found in a state of bondage to some man. The generality of a practice is in some cases a strong presumption that it is, or at all events once was, conducive to laudable ends. This is the case, when the practice was first adopted, or afterwards kept up, as a means to such ends, and was grounded on experience of the mode in which they could be most effectually attained. If the authority of men over women, when first established, had been the result of a conscientious comparison between different modes of constituting the government of society pp.122.…… Laws and systems of polity always begin by recognising the relations they find already existing between individuals. They convert what was a mere physical fact into a legal right, give it the sanction of society, and principally aim at the substitution of public and organized means of asserting and protecting these rights, instead of the irregular and lawless conflict of physical strength. Those who had already been compelled to obedience became in this manner legally bound to it. Slavery, from being a mere affair of force between the master and the slave, became regularized and a matter of compact among the masters, who, binding themselves to one another for common protection, guaranteed by their collective strength the private possessions of each, including his slaves. pp.123.）]尽管对女性的奴役逐渐变成较温和的依附形式，但原始的奴役延续下来。（and that of the female sex has been gradually changed into a milder form of dependence. But this dependence, as it exists at present, is not an original institution, taking a fresh start from considerations of justice and social expediency—it is the primitive state of slavery lasting on, through successive mitigations and modifications occasioned by the same causes which have softened the general manners, and brought all human relations more under the control of justice and the influence of humanity. It has not lost the taint of its brutal origin. pp.123.）密尔反对现行制度保留到文明进步时期意味着它能够适应人类自然并对普遍利益有帮助的说法，强调置正义于权势一边的习俗制度的生命力和持久性，建立在暴力之上的社会关系的事实也将继续存在。（They do not understand the great vitality and durability of institutions which place right on the side of might; how intensely they are clung to; how the good as well as the bad propensities and sentiments of those who have power in their hands, become identified with retaining it; how slowly these bad institutions give way, one at a time, the weakest first, beginning with those which are least interwoven with the daily habits of life; and how very rarely those who have obtained legal power because they first had physical, have ever lost their hold of it until the physical power had passed over to the other side. Such shifting of the physical force not having taken place in the case of women; this fact, combined with all the peculiar and characteristic features of the particular case, made it certain from the first that this branch of the system of right founded on might, though softened in its most atrocious features at an earlier period than several of the others, would be the very last to disappear. It was inevitable that this one case of a social relation grounded on force, would survive through generations of institutions grounded on equal justice, an almost solitary exception to the general character of their laws and customs; but which, so long as it does not proclaim its own origin, and as discussion has not brought out its true character, is not felt to jar with modern civilization, any more than domestic slavery among the Greeks jarred with their notion of themselves as a free people. pp.124-125.）在回顾了从古代共和国到斯多亚学派、基督教和教会崛起到法国革命后，小密尔指出，[If people are mostly so little aware how completely, during the greater part of the duration of our species, the law of force was the avowed rule of general conduct, any other being only a special and exceptional consequence of peculiar ties—and from how very recent a date it is that the affairs of society in general have been even pretended to be regulated according to any moral law; as little do people remember or consider, how institutions and customs which never had any ground but the law of force, last on into ages and states of general opinion which never would have permitted their first establishment. pp.127.] 如英国人口买卖和军事专制、美国的奴隶制，这类事例中权力建立在暴力之上，得不到多少支持，但要排除竟如此缓慢如此困难，妇女屈从问题上必然更为困难。【295】（If, in the other cases specified, powers manifestly grounded only on force, and having so much less to support them, are so slowly and with so much difficulty got rid of, much more must it be so with this, even if it rests on no better foundation than those. We must consider, too, that the possessors of the power have facilities in this case, greater than in any other, to prevent any uprising against it. pp.128.）反驳男性的支配是自然的，何曾有过某种统治在统治者看来似乎是不自然的？【296】亚里士多德、美国南方奴隶主、君主专制理论家、中世纪的封建贵族、英国女王等等。（Some will object, that a comparison cannot fairly be made between the government of the male sex and the forms of unjust power which I have adduced in illustration of it, since these are arbitrary, and the effect of mere usurpation, while it on the contrary is natural. But was there ever any domination which did not appear natural to those who possessed it？ pp.129.）不过男人对女人的统治与其他形式的不同在于它不是暴力的统治，而是自愿接受的，妇女不抱怨并同意参与。（But, it will be said, the rule of men over women differs from all these others in not being a rule of force: it is accepted voluntarily; women make no complaint, and are consenting parties to it. pp.131.）女权运动的兴起，不过由于社会和自然原因妇女不大可能机体反抗男性权力，她们居于从属地位，主人除了要求顺从更要求感情。【299】（All causes, social and natural, combine to make it unlikely that women should be collectively rebellious to the power of men. They are so far in a position different from all other subject classes, that their masters require something more from them than actual service. Men do not want solely the obedience of women, they want their sentiments. pp.132.）密尔总结道：The preceding considerations are amply sufficient to show that custom, however universal it may be, affords in this case no presumption, and ought not to create any prejudice, in favour of the arrangements which place women in social and political subjection to men. pp.133.）

【基于人类进步反对不平等制度】密尔主张：[But I may go farther, and maintain that the course of history, and the tendencies of progressive human society, afford not only no presumption in favour of this system of inequality of rights, but a strong one against it; and that, so far as the whole course of human improvement up to this time, the whole stream of modern tendencies, warrants any inference on the subject, it is, that this relic of the past is discordant with the future, and must necessarily disappear. pp.133-134.]他所说的现代世界的特点是：“人不再是生而即有其生活地位并不可改变地被钉在那个位置上，而是可以自由地运用其才能和有利的机会去获取他们最期望的命运。”【301】（For, what is the peculiar character of the modern world— the difference which chiefly distinguishes modern institutions, modern social ideas, modern life itself, from those of times long past？ It is, that human beings are no longer born to their place in life, and chained down by an inexorable bond to the place they are born to, but are free to employ their faculties, and such favourable chances as offer, to achieve the lot which may appear to them most desirable. pp.134.）旧理论留给个人选择的可能尽可能少，而是由上级的智慧安排，留给自己肯定要做错；现代理论认为，同个人直接利害相关的事应交由自己处理，由权威管理是有害的。【302】（The old theory was, that the least possible should be left to the choice of the individual agent; that all he had to do should, as far as practicable, be laid down for him by superior wisdom. Left to himself he was sure to go wrong. The modern conviction, the fruit of a thousand years of experience, is, that things in which the individual is the person directly interested, never go right but as they are left to his own discretion; and that any regulation of them by authority, except to protect the rights of others, is sure to be mischievous. pp.134-135.）在这个原则下，我们不应因出生而终身确立女性、黑人、平民的地位，并将其与社会地位较高的人隔绝，禁止从事除少数以外的一切体面职业。（But if the principle is true, we ought to act as if we believed it, and not to ordain that to be born a girl instead of a boy, any more than to be born black instead of white, or a commoner instead of a nobleman, shall decide the person's position through all life—shall interdict people from all the more elevated social positions, and from all, except a few, respectable occupations. pp.135-136.）妇女的社会从属性的事实（王室是例外）[The social subordination of women thus stands out an isolated fact in modern social institutions; a solitary breach of what has become their fundamental law; a single relic of an old world of thought and practice exploded in everything else, but retained in the one thing of most universal interest pp.137.]在小密尔看来，这类问题并不应当通过既存的事实或既存的意见所造就的偏见来被考虑，而是应当作为正义和权宜问题，根据其优点来讨论，对这一问题的考虑取决于对全人类（不分性别）最有利。（The least that can be demanded is, that the question should not be considered as prejudged by existing fact and existing opinion, but open to discussion on its merits, as a question of justice and expediency: the decision on this, as on any of the other social arrangements of mankind, depending on what an enlightened estimate of tendencies and consequences may show to be most advantageous to humanity in general, without distinction of sex. pp.137.）并要求深入基础而非满足于空泛的无根据的断言上，如（1）断言人类经验表明赞成现行制度等。（And the discussion must be a real discussion, descending to foundations, and not resting satisfied with vague and general assertions. oo.137-8.）（2）性别平等只是理论上的，密尔指出相反的学说也只有理论上的支持，且经验上人类进步也与提高妇女社会地位同步，历史学家和哲学家率先采纳以妇女地位的高低作为对一民族或以时代文明检验的尺度。（On the other hand, experience does say, that every step in improvement has been so invariably accompanied by a step made in raising the social position of women, that historians and philosophers have been led to adopt their elevation or debasement as on the whole the surest test and most correct measure of the civilization of a people or an age. Through all the progressive period of human history, the condition of women has been approaching nearer to equality with men. This does not of itself prove that the assimilation must go on to complete equality; but it assuredly affords some presumption that such is the case. pp.138.）（3）两性的自然（nature）使他们适应了现在的功能和位置。小密尔认为男女的自然差别在当下社会不可能获得完全的、正确的知识；现在被称为女性的自然显然是人为的（强制压迫或是非自然的刺激的结果）（If men had ever been found in society without women, or women without men, or if there had been a society of men and women in which the women were not under the control of the men, something might have been positively known about the mental and moral differences which may be inherent in the nature of each. What is now called the nature of women is an eminently artificial thing—the result of forced repression in some directions, unnatural stimulation in others. pp.138.……what are the natural differences between the two sexes—a subject on which it is impossible in the present state of society to obtain complete and correct knowledge pp.139.）着重谈了阻碍男人获得女性自然之知识的困难，指出不可能让女性去做违反他们自然的事情。（what is contrary to women's nature to do, they never will be made to do by simply giving their nature free play. pp.143.）小密尔批评妇女的自然职业是妻子和母亲的说法（类似的例子如白人强迫黑人种植棉花和甘蔗，强制水手服兵役），她们没有选择的自由。（I agree in thinking it probable that few women, capable of anything else, would, unless under an irresistible entrainement, rendering them for the time insensible to anything but itself, choose such a lot, when any other means were open to them of filling a conventionally honourable place in life: and if men are determined that the law of marriage shall be a law of despotism, they are quite right, in point of mere policy, in leaving to women only Hobson's choice. But, in that case, all that has been done in the modern world to relax the chain on the minds of women, has been a mistake. They never should have been allowed to receive a literary education. Women who read, much more women who write, are, in the existing constitution of things, a contradiction and a disturbing element: and it was wrong to bring women up with any acquirements but those of an odalisque, or of a domestic servant. pp.145.）

第二章

【妻子在法律上的地位相当于奴隶】这一章从对婚姻的讨论开始。（the conditions which the laws of this and all other countries annex to the marriage contract. pp.147.）妻子在法律上的地位无异于奴隶，她们不能自由选择：基督教以前婚后男子掌握妻子的生死之权，男人是她唯一的裁判和法律。[After marriage, the man had anciently (but this was anterior to Christianity) the power of life and death over his wife. She could invoke no law against him; he was her sole tribunal and law. pp.146.]；根据英格兰的古老法律，丈夫是妻子的主，是最高统治者，妻子是仆人，在法律义务是不比奴隶好些。（By the old laws of England, the husband was called the lord of the wife; he was literally regarded as her sovereign…… Meanwhile the wife is the actual bond-servant of her husband: no less so, as far as legal obligation goes, than slaves commonly so called. pp.147.）妻子不能拥有私产，比许多国家关于奴隶的法律更坏，如罗马法（She can acquire no property but for him; the instant it becomes hers, even if by inheritance, it becomes ipso facto his. In this respect the wife's position under the common law of England is worse than that of slaves in the laws of many countries: by the Roman law, for example. pp.147. ……The two are called "one person in law," for the purpose of inferring that whatever is hers is his, but the parallel inference is never drawn that whatever is his is hers; the maxim is not applied against the man, except to make him responsible to third parties for her acts, as a master is for the acts of his slaves or of his cattle. pp.148.）没有自由选择，使妻子同奴隶完全一样。（All I now say is, that to those to whom nothing but servitude is allowed, the free choice of servitude is the only, though a most insufficient, alleviation. Its refusal completes the assimilation of the wife to the slave —and the slave under not the mildest form of slavery: for in some slave codes the slave could, under certain circumstances of ill usage, legally compel the master to sell him. But no amount of ill usage, without adultery superadded, will in England free a wife from her tormentor. pp.149.）合法的暴力，家庭的制与政治专制。（the defenders of the existing form of the institution think that all its iniquity is justified, and that any complaint is merely quarrelling with the evil which is the price paid for every great good. But the mitigations in practice, which are compatible with maintaining in full legal force this or any other kind of tyranny, instead of being any apology for despotism, only serve to prove what power human nature possesses of reacting against the vilest institutions, and with what vitality the seeds of good as well as those of evil in human character diffuse and propagate themselves. Not a word can be said for despotism in the family which cannot be said for political despotism. pp.150.）男人作为丈夫，凭借婚姻法赋予的合法权力对女性实施暴行。（In every grade of this descending scale are men to whom are committed all the legal powers of a husband. The vilest malefactor has some wretched woman tied to him, against whom he can commit any atrocity except killing her, and, if tolerably cautious, can do that without much danger of the legal penalty. pp.151.）再次把家庭中的暴虐与政治暴虐对比。（In domestic as in political tyranny, the case of absolute monsters chiefly illustrates the institution by showing that there is scarcely any horror which may not occur under it if the despot pleases, and thus setting in a strong light what must be the terrible frequency of things only a little less atrocious. pp.152.）

【妇女自由】如何真正减轻权力的腐蚀作用？（What is it, then, which really tempers the corrupting effects of the power, and makes it compatible with such amount of good as we actually see？ pp.154.）小密尔否认把女人奉承（feminine blandishments）作为答案，强调的是妇女自由。“在家庭事务或政府事务中，权力都不是丧失自由的补偿。她的权力常带给她的是她无权享有的东西，但并不使她得以确保自己的权利。”【325】（But neither in the affairs of families nor in those of states is power a compensation for the loss of freedom. Her power often gives her what she has no right to, but does not enable her to assert her own rights. A Sultan's favourite slave has slaves under her, over whom she tyrannizes; but the desirable thing would be that she should neither have slaves nor be a slave. pp.155.）但有人会问，没有政府的社会可以存在吗？同样，在家庭里必须有人是最后的统治者。（But how, it will be asked, can any society exist without government？ In a family, as in a state, some one person must be the ultimate ruler. Who shall decide when married people differ in opinion？ Both cannot have their way, yet a decision one way or the other must be come to. pp.155.）在小密尔看来，自愿结合的两人并不存在绝对的主人，更不能由法律决定哪一个人应该是绝对的主人，以商业上的伙伴关系为例。（It is not true that in all voluntary association between two people, one of them must be absolute master: still less that the law must determine which of them it shall be. The most frequent case of voluntary association, next to marriage, is partnership in business pp.155.）他反对夫妻二人应该永远是同一个人，认为自然的安排时间两人分掌权力，任何制度和原则变更须双方同意；分工不能也不应该由法律规定，而必须根据个人的能力和适合度。[It is quite true that things which have to be decided every day, and cannot adjust themselves gradually, or wait for a compromise, ought to depend on one will: one person must have their sole control. But it does not follow that this should always be the same person. The natural arrangement is a division of powers between the two; each being absolute in the executive branch of their own department, and any change of system and principle requiring the consent of both. The division neither can nor should be pre-established by the law, since it must depend on individual capacities and suitabilities. If the two persons chose, they might pre-appoint it by the marriage contract, as pecuniary arrangements are now often pre-appointed. There would seldom be any difficulty in deciding such things by mutual consent, unless the marriage was one of those unhappy ones in which all other things, as well as this, become subjects of bickering and dispute. The division of rights would naturally follow the division of duties and functions; and that is already made by consent, or at all events not by law, but by general custom, modified and modifiable at the pleasure of the persons concerned. pp.156.] 对压迫的反抗：[ Besides that no freedom is worth much when held on so precarious a tenure, its conditions are not likely to be the most equitable when the law throws so prodigious a weight into one scale; when the adjustment rests between two persons one of whom is declared to be entitled to everything, the other not only entitled to nothing except during the good pleasure of the first, but under the strongest moral and religious obligation not to rebel under any excess of oppression. pp.157-158.]

【性别平等】小密尔赞同性别平等。（If women are better than men in anything, it surely is in individual self-sacrifice for those of their own family. But I lay little stress on this, so long as they are universally taught that they are born and created for self-sacrifice. I believe that equality of rights would abate the exaggerated self-abnegation which is the present artificial ideal of feminine character, and that a good woman would not be more self-sacrificing than the best man: but on the other hand, men would be much more unselfish and self-sacrificing than at present, because they would no longer be taught to worship their own will as such a grand thing that it is actually the law for another rational being. pp.158.）不满足于平等考虑的人，是离婚法的恰当对象。（There are, no doubt, women, as there are men, whom equality of consideration will not satisfy; with whom there is no peace while any will or wish is regarded but their own. Such persons are a proper subject for the law of divorce. pp.159.）在小密尔看来，夫妻在法律面前平等不仅有益于双方的公正和幸福，而且是使人类日常生活在任何高级意义上成为道德培养之学校的唯一手段；真正的道德情感的唯一学校是平等人之间的社会，而非现在这样由强制的、适应暴力创造的关系的法律来完成道德教育。（The equality of married persons before the law, is not only the sole mode in which that particular relation can be made consistent with justice to both sides, and conducive to the happiness of both, but it is the only means of rendering the daily life of mankind, in any high sense, a school of moral cultivation. Though the truth may not be felt or generally acknowledged for generations to come, the only school of genuine moral sentiment is society between equals. The moral education of mankind has hitherto emanated chiefly from the law of force, and is adapted almost solely to the relations which force creates. pp.159.）平等的联合取代命令和服从，道德从以服从权力的义务为依据转变为以弱者的权利受强者容忍和保护为依据；平等由限于自由的男性公民拓展到诸性别、阶级或社会地位。（Yet command and obedience are but unfortunate necessities of human life: society in equality is its normal state. Already in modern life, and more and more as it progressively improves, command and obedience become exceptional facts in life, equal association its general rule. The morality of the first ages rested on the obligation to submit to power; that of the ages next following, on the right of the weak to the forbearance and protection of the strong. pp.159.）……[Whenever, in former ages, any approach has been made to society in equality, Justice has asserted its claims as the foundation of virtue. It was thus in the free republics of antiquity. But even in the best of these, the equals were limited to the free male citizens; slaves, women, and the unenfranchised residents were under the law of force. The joint influence of Roman civilization and of Christianity obliterated these distinctions, and in theory (if only partially in practice) declared the claims of the human being, as such, to be paramount to those of sex, class, or social position. The barriers which had begun to be levelled were raised again by the northern conquests; and the whole of modern history consists of the slow process by which they have since been wearing away. We are entering into an order of things in which justice will again be the primary virtue; grounded as before on equal, but now also on sympathetic association; having its root no longer in the instinct of equals for self-protection, but in a cultivated sympathy between them; and no one being now left out, but an equal measure being extended to all. pp.160.] 小密尔承认已婚夫妇在现行法律下夜生活在公证法律的精神中。[I readily admit (and it is the very foundation of my hopes) that numbers of married people even under the present law, (in the higher classes of England probably a great majority,) live in the spirit of a just law of equality. pp.161.] 在谈论了基督教中关于服从的义务后，小密尔认为谈论妇女对自己财产的权利就是多余的了，主张婚后财产自由和权利平等。（After what has been said respecting the obligation of obedience, it is almost superfluous to say anything concerning the more special point included in the general one—a woman's right to her own property. pp.163.）……共同财产：The rule is simple: whatever would be the husband's or wife's if they were not married, should be under their exclusive control during marriage; which need not interfere with the power to tie up property by settlement, in order to preserve it for children. Some people are sentimentally shocked at the idea of a separate interest in money matters, as inconsistent with the ideal fusion of two lives into one. For my own part, I am one of the strongest supporters of community of goods, when resulting from an entire unity of feeling in the owners, which makes all things common between them. But I have no relish for a community of goods resting on the doctrine, that what is mine is yours but what is yours is not mine; and I should prefer to decline entering into such a compact with any one, though I were myself the person to profit by it. pp.163.）……如果职业自由开放，妇女无须为保护自己而承担家庭主妇的功能。[if the connection were no longer enforced to the oppression of those to whom it is purely a mischief, but a separation, on just terms (I do not now speak of a divorce), could be obtained by any woman who was morally entitled to it; and if she would then find all honourable employments as freely open to her as to men; it would not be necessary for her protection, that during marriage she should make this particular use of her faculties. pp.164.]这就承接了第三章的内容。

第三章

【职业开放特别是选举权问题】小密尔在这一章讨论的问题是：（On the other point which is involved in the just equality of women, their admissibility to all the functions and occupations hitherto retained as the monopoly of the stronger sex. pp.166.）在他看来，坚持妇女在家庭之外无资格的说法只是保持她们在家庭生活中的从属地位，不能容忍与平等的人生活在一起的观念。（I believe that their disabilities elsewhere are only clung to in order to maintain their subordination in domestic life; because the generality of the male sex cannot yet tolerate the idea of living with an equal. pp.166.）从前，妇女被排除在职业之外的理由并非不适合，而是社会的利益即指男性的利益；今天，没有能力去做成为压迫的借口，但妇女们已证明她们能做男人做的一切事情，可能无一例外。（Now, the most determined depreciator of women will not venture to deny, that when we add the experience of recent times to that of ages past, women, and not a few merely, but many women, have proved themselves capable of everything, perhaps without a single exception, which is done by men, and of doing it successfully and creditably. pp.167.）此外，这种不公正不但伤害了女性，也伤害了职业的所有人，使他们被剥夺了竞争的刺激效果，被局限于个人选择的较狭窄范围。（To ordain that any kind of persons shall not be physicians, or shall not be advocates, or shall not be members of parliament, is to injure not them only, but all who employ physicians or advocates, or elect members of parliament, and who are deprived of the stimulating effect of greater competition on the exertions of the competitors, as well as restricted to a narrower range of individual choice. pp.168.）他特别讨论的是选举权问题。在小密尔看来，不允许妇女有选举权是毫无理由的。（Under whatever conditions, and within whatever limits, men are admitted to the suffrage, there is not a shadow of justification for not admitting women under the same. The majority of the women of any class are not likely to differ in political opinion from the majority of the men of the same class, unless the question be one in which the interests of women, as such, are in some way involved; and if they are so, women require the suffrage, as their guarantee of just and equal consideration. This ought to be obvious even to those who coincide in no other of the doctrines for which I contend. Even if every woman were a wife, and if every wife ought to be a slave, all the more would these slaves stand in need of legal protection: and we know what legal protection the slaves have, where the laws are made by their masters. pp.169.）

【妇女不适合参加选举或担任某项职务或职业？】小密尔首先指出这个考虑对争论的实际问题并不重要，因为在公开职业上成功的妇女已经用事实证明适合。（With regard to the fitness of women, not only to participate in elections, but themselves to hold offices or practise professions involving important public responsibilities; I have already observed that this consideration is not essential to the practical question in dispute: since any woman, who succeeds in an open profession, proves by that very fact that she is qualified for it. And in the case of public offices, if the political system of the country is such as to exclude unfit men, it will equally exclude unfit women: while if it is not, there is no additional evil in the fact that the unfit persons whom it admits may be either women or men. pp.169）小密尔把男女之间的智力差别看作教育和环境差异的结果，而非自然上的差别。（any of the mental differences supposed to exist between women and men are but the natural effect of the differences in their education and circumstances, and indicate no radical difference, far less radical inferiority, of nature. pp.169-170.）“在这件事上，反面的证据没有价值，而任何正面的证据却具有决定性的意义。不能推断一位妇女不可能成为荷马，或是一位亚里士多德，或是一位迈克尔·安吉洛，或是一位贝多芬，因为还没有妇女在任何一个卓越的行业中实际上产生过可与他们相比拟的作品。这个反面的事实充其量是使问题不确定并引起心理学的讨论。但相当肯定地是，一位妇女可以是伊丽莎白女王，或是狄波拉，或是贞德，因为这并非推断而是事实。”（For, in this case, negative evidence is worth little, while any positive evidence is conclusive. It cannot be inferred to be impossible that a woman should be a Homer, or an Aristotle, or a Michael Angelo, or a Beethoven, because no woman has yet actually produced works comparable to theirs in any of those lines of excellence. This negative fact at most leaves the question uncertain, and open to psychological discussion. But it is quite certain that a woman can be a Queen Elizabeth, or a Deborah, or a Joan of Arc, since this is not inference, but fact. pp.170.）经验上，不允许妇女做的事情正是她们特别有资格去做的，因为通过给予她们很少的机会，其政治才能已显现并立功建业（If anything conclusive could be inferred from experience, without psychological analysis, it would be that the things which women are not allowed to do are the very ones for which they are peculiarly qualified; since their vocation for government has made its way, and become conspicuous, through the very few opportunities which have been given; while in the lines of distinction which apparently were freely open to them, they have by no means so eminently distinguished themselves. pp.170.）如历史上施政卓越的女皇。既然她们适合担任重大的政治职务，认为不能胜任次要职务就不够合理。（Is it reasonable to think that those who are fit for the greater functions of politics, are incapable of qualifying themselves for the less？ pp.172.）强调差异是因为对女性自然的束缚、人为的扭曲导致的。【345】不过小密尔在这里认为，女性不擅长抽象概念，思想偏重于眼前的、真实的和具体的事实，并认为男女互补，在这一点上对于平等原则的贯彻不够彻底。（But, looking at women as they are known in experience, it may be said of them, with more truth than belongs to most other generalizations on the subject, that the general bent of their talents is towards the practical. pp.173.…… women's minds to the present, to the real, to actual fact pp.175.……Women's thoughts are thus as useful in giving reality to those of thinking men, as men's thoughts in giving width and largeness to those of women. In depth, as distinguished from breadth, I greatly doubt if even now, women, compared with men, are at any disadvantage. pp.175.）女性较快理解力的优点。反驳妇女神经敏感而爱动、易变，过强受一时影响而不能坚持，运用才能不相等不确定，指出神经气质的男人是否不适合通常由男人担任的职务和视野？那么为什么有同样气质的女性就不适合？【350】（It will be said, perhaps, that the greater nervous susceptibility of women is a disqualification for practice, in anything but domestic life, by rendering them mobile, changeable, too vehemently under the influence of the moment, incapable of dogged perseverance, unequal and uncertain in the power of using their faculties. pp.176.…… We will assume this as a fact: and let me then ask, are men of nervous temperament found to be unfit for the duties and pursuits usually followed by men？ If not, why should women of the same temperament be unfit for them？ pp.177. ）这是一个训练问题。（But this is wholly a question of training. pp.178.）女性思想更易动（mobile）的优势，也是由于教育和训练所得。【352-3】男人智力高于妇女的解剖学证据？可疑。在小密尔看来，关于妇女自然的观念纯属先验概括而没有哲学和分析。（To so ridiculous an extent are the notions formed of the nature of women, mere empirical generalizations, framed, without philosophy or analysis, upon the first instances which present themselves, that the popular idea of it is different in different countries, according as the opinions and social circumstances of the country have given to the women living in it any speciality of development or non-development. pp.182.）

【环境对男女差异的塑造】小密尔再次申说男女之间的智力差别多少是自然的多少是认为的是不可能回答的，而是研究环境对人的塑造。除去体力上的差异，另一批评是没有第一流的哲学、科学或艺术作品出自妇女之手。在小密尔看来：

（1）这首先是妇女从事这方面工作尚未满三代人，经验不足以提供充足理由。（It is scarcely three generations since women, saving very rare exceptions, have begun to try their capacity in philosophy, science, or art. It is only in the present generation that their attempts have been at all numerous; and they are even now extremely few, everywhere but in England and France. pp.184.）即便如此，她们也曾做出突出成绩。

（2）其次，缺乏独创性（deficiency of originality）的缺陷，这与妇女不具备相应的准备、条件和教育有关。这里小密尔对独创性有这样一段论述：[Let us remember, then, so far as regards mere thought, that during all that period in the world's existence, and in the progress of cultivation, in which great and fruitful new truths could be arrived at by mere force of genius, with little previous study and accumulation of knowledge.……Nearly all the thoughts which can be reached by mere strength of original faculties, have long since been arrived at; and originality, in any high sense of the word, is now scarcely ever attained but by minds which have undergone elaborate discipline, and are deeply versed in the results of previous thinking. It is Mr. Maurice, I think, who has remarked on the present age, that its most original thinkers are those who have known most thoroughly what had been thought by their predecessors: and this will always henceforth be the case. Every fresh stone in the edifice has now to be placed on the top of so many others, that a long process of climbing, and of carrying up materials, has to be gone through by whoever aspires to take a share in the present stage of the work. pp.186.] 这段话讲的很有意思。

（3）即使对双方都同样开放的工作，为什么妇女落在男子之后？小密尔指出很少有女性有时间从事工作，她们为家务劳动占用。（For one thing, very few women have time for them. This may seem a paradox; it is an undoubted social fact. The time and thoughts of every woman have to satisfy great previous demands on them for things practical. There is, first, the superintendence of the family and the domestic expenditure, which occupies at least one woman in every family, generally the one of mature years and acquired experience; unless the family is so rich as to admit of delegating that task to hired agency, and submitting to all the waste and malversation inseparable from that mode of conducting it. pp.189-190.]其次，很少有女性追求声名的渴望，寻求的影响是对周围人的影响，这也是环境作用的结果，她们被教育关注家庭而非自身的出色表现，这妨害了创造出传世的伟大作品。小密尔在这里对创造与野心的论述同样很有趣：[In the various arts and intellectual occupations, there is a degree of proficiency sufficient for living by it, and there is a higher degree on which depend the great productions which immortalize a name. To the attainment of the former, there are adequate motives in the case of all who follow the pursuit professionally: the other is hardly ever attained where there is not, or where there has not been at some period of life, an ardent desire of celebrity. Nothing less is commonly a sufficient stimulus to undergo the long and patient drudgery, which, in the case even of the greatest natural gifts, is absolutely required for great eminence in pursuits in which we already possess so many splendid memorials of the highest genius. Now, whether the cause be natural or artificial, women seldom have this eagerness for fame. Their ambition is generally confined within narrower bounds. The influence they seek is over those who immediately surround them. Their desire is to be liked, loved, or admired, by those whom they see with their eyes: and the proficiency in knowledge, arts, and accomplishments, which is sufficient for that, almost always contents them. This is a trait of character which cannot be left out of the account in judging of women as they are. I do not at all believe that it is inherent in women. It is only the natural result of their circumstances. pp.191-2.]批评颂扬妇女的德性的做法。

在小密尔看来，“有特权者对无特权者的让步很少是出于比许多无特权者勒索他们更好的动机，任何反对性特权的论点似乎很少为少数人所注意，只要他们能对自己说，妇女并不抱怨。”这一事实使男人可以较长时间保留不公正的特权。【368】（The concessions of the privileged to the unprivileged are so seldom brought about by any better motive than the power of the unprivileged to extort them, that any arguments against the prerogative of sex are likely to be little attended to by the generality, as long as they are able to say to themselves that women do not complain of it. That fact certainly enables men to retain the unjust privilege some time longer; but does not render it less unjust. pp.193-4.）提到东方穆斯林女性不抱怨不允许她们享有欧洲女性的自由，反而认为后者大胆和非女性，男人也抱怨一般的社会制度，这让人想起孟德斯鸠的《波斯人信札》。

第四章

这一章讨论妇女得到自由后人类境况是否会变得更好。（What good are we to expect from the changes proposed in our customs and institutions？ Would mankind be at all better off if women were free？ If not, why disturb their minds, and attempt to make a social revolution in the name of an abstract right？ pp.195.）在小密尔看来：

（1）废除不平等的利益在于[由于公正而不是不公正的调整，整个人类关系将得到最普遍最普及的整顿。……人类中存在的一切自私自利、自我崇拜、不公正的自我偏爱，根源在于男人和女人之间关系的现行制度，并从中得到主要的营养]【371】（the removal of women's disabilities— their recognition as the equals of men in all that belongs to citizenship—the opening to them of all honourable employments, and of the training and education which qualifies for those employments—there are many persons for whom it is not enough that the inequality has no just or legitimate defence; they require to be told what express advantage would be obtained by abolishing it.…… To which let me first answer, the advantage of having the most universal and pervading of all human relations regulated by justice instead of injustice. The vast amount of this gain to human nature, it is hardly possible, by any explanation or illustration, to place in a stronger light than it is placed by the bare statement, to any one who attaches a moral meaning to words. All the selfish propensities, the self-worship, the unjust self-preference, which exist among mankind, have their source and root in, and derive their principal nourishment from, the present constitution of the relation between men and women. pp.196.）密尔认为，男权教育（对女孩子的优越感）会对孩子性格产生坏影响，【372】这种傲气可能导致他们常常向妻子报复。【373】“与社会公正的主要原则相矛盾的、建立家庭存在基础的关系所提供的事例和给予的感情教育，从人的天性说，必然有如此巨大的破坏作用。……只要敌人的城堡未受到攻击，教育和文明要消除强制法律性质的影响并以公正替代它，它们还只是停留在表面上。在道德和政治中，现代运动的原则是行为，并且只有行为值得尊敬。不是男人是什么，而是他们做什么，才构成他们要求的尊敬。最重要的是功绩，而不是出身，才是对权力和权威的唯一合理的要求，”【373-4】（The example afforded, and the education given to the sentiments, by laying the foundation of domestic existence upon a relation contradictory to the first principles of social justice, must, from the very nature of man, have a perverting influence of such magnitude, that it is hardly possible with our present experience to raise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for the better as would be made by its removal. All that education and civilization are doing to efface the influences on character of the law of force, and replace them by those of justice, remains merely on the surface, as long as the citadel of the enemy is not attacked. The principle of the modern movement in morals and politics, is that conduct, and conduct alone, entitles to respect: that not what men are, but what they do, constitutes their claim to deference; that, above all, merit, and not birth, is the only rightful claim to power and authority. pp.198.）

（2）可以有双倍的智力才能为人类更好地服务。（The second benefit to be expected from giving to women the free use of their faculties, by leaving them the free choice of their employments, and opening to them the same field of occupation and the same prizes and encouragements as to other human beings, would be that of doubling the mass of mental faculties available for the higher service of humanity. pp.199.）……（This great accession to the intellectual power of the species, and to the amount of intellect available for the good management of its affairs, would be obtained, partly, through the better and more complete intellectual education of women, which would then improve pari passu with that of men. pp.199.）除了增加可用于人类事情的个人才能，妇女的意见对人类大多数的信念和情操有更多益处，包括软化的影响和给予男人的品德以有力的刺激，二者合而产生侠义精神，这是妇女情感影响人类道德修养的顶点；如果妇女处于从属地位则不然。（Besides the addition to the amount of individual talent available for the conduct of human affairs, which certainly are not at present so abundantly provided in that respect that they can afford to dispense with one-half of what nature proffers; the opinion of women would then possess a more beneficial, rather than a greater, influence upon the general mass of human belief and sentiment. I say a more beneficial, rather than a greater influence; for the influence of women over the general tone of opinion has always, or at least from the earliest known period, been very considerable. The influence of mothers on the early character of their sons, and the desire of young men to recommend themselves to young women, have in all recorded times been important agencies in the formation of character, and have determined some of the chief steps in the progress of civilization. pp.200.……First, it has been a softening influence. pp.200.…… The other mode in which the effect of women's opinion has been conspicuous, is by giving a powerful stimulus to those qualities in men, which, not being themselves trained in, it was necessary for them that they should find in their protectors. Courage, and the military virtues generally, have at all times been greatly indebted to the desire which men felt of being admired by women.…… From the combination of the two kinds of moral influence thus exercised by women, arose the spirit of chivalry pp.201.……The chivalrous ideal is the acme of the influence of women's sentiments on the moral cultivation of mankind: and if women are to remain in their subordinate situation, it were greatly to be lamented that the chivalrous standard should have passed away, for it is the only one at all capable of mitigating the demoralizing influences of that position. pp.201-202.）当前妇女得到的影响主要限于家庭，自从其活动范围略有拓展，相当数量妇女从事促进她们家庭和家务以外的目标后，她们对公共道德的基调形成也有了一份影响，表现在厌恶战争和热衷慈善事业。（It is small blame to them that they discourage objects of which they have not learnt to see the advantage, and which withdraw their men from them, and from the interests of the family. But the consequence is that women's influence is often anything but favourable to public virtue.…… Women have, however, some share of influence in giving the tone to public moralities since their sphere of action has been a little widened, and since a considerable number of them have occupied themselves practically in the promotion of objects reaching beyond their own family and household. The influence of women counts for a great deal in two of the most marked features of modern European life—its aversion to war, and its addiction to philanthropy. pp.203.）妇女对一般舆论的益处。

【理想的婚姻】小密尔研究了夫妻之间的差异对婚姻结合的享乐和利益的影响。【386】（the effects on the pleasures and benefits of the marriage union which depend on the mere unlikeness between the wife and the husband pp.210.）他理想中的婚姻是：平等：[What marriage may be in the case of two persons of cultivated faculties, identical in opinions and purposes, between whom there exists that best kind of equality, similarity of powers and capacities with reciprocal superiority in them—so that each can enjoy the luxury of looking up to the other, and can have alternately the pleasure of leading and of being led in the path of development—I will not attempt to describe. To those who can conceive it, there is no need; to those who cannot, it would appear the dream of an enthusiast. But I maintain, with the profoundest conviction, that this, and this only, is the ideal of marriage; and that all opinions, customs, and institutions which favour any other notion of it, or turn the conceptions and aspirations connected with it into any other direction, by whatever pretences they may be coloured, are relics of primitive barbarism. The moral regeneration of mankind will only really commence, when the most fundamental of the social relations is placed under the rule of equal justice, and when human beings learn to cultivate their strongest sympathy with an equal in rights and in cultivation. pp.211.]……自由：[Thus far, the benefits which it has appeared that the world would gain by ceasing to make sex a disqualification for privileges and a badge of subjection, are social rather than individual; consisting in an increase of the general fund of thinking and acting power, and an improvement in the general conditions of the association of men with women. But it would be a grievous understatement of the case to omit the most direct benefit of all, the unspeakable gain in private happiness to the liberated half of the species; the difference to them between a life of subjection to the will of others, and a life of rational freedom. After the primary necessities of food and raiment, freedom is the first and strongest want of human nature. While mankind are lawless, their desire is for lawless freedom. When they have learnt to understand the meaning of duty and the value of reason, they incline more and more to be guided and restrained by these in the exercise of their freedom; but they do not therefore desire freedom less; they do not become disposed to accept the will of other people as the representative and interpreter of those guiding principles. On the contrary, the communities in which the reason has been most cultivated, and in which the idea of social duty has been most powerful, are those which have most strongly asserted the freedom of action of the individual —the liberty of each to govern his conduct by his own feelings of duty, and by such laws and social restraints as his own conscience can subscribe to. pp.211-212.]提及个人独立，“He who would rightly appreciate the worth of personal independence as an element of happiness, should consider the value he himself puts upon it as an ingredient of his own.”（pp.212.）

【妇女自由、幸福和人类进步】对权力的热爱与自由的热爱对立。（Where liberty cannot be hoped for, and power can, power becomes the grand object of human desire; those to whom others will not leave the undisturbed management of their own affairs, will compensate themselves, if they can, by meddling for their own purposes with the affairs of others. Hence also women's passion for personal beauty, and dress and display; and all the evils that flow from it, in the way of mischievous luxury and social immorality. The love of power and the love of liberty are in eternal antagonism. Where there is least liberty, the passion for power is the most ardent and unscrupulous. The desire of power over others can only cease to be a depraving agency among mankind, when each of them individually is able to do without it: which can only be where respect for liberty in the personal concerns of each is an established principle. pp.213-214.）……才能得不到自由发挥与不幸福（But it is not only through the sentiment of personal dignity, that the free direction and disposal of their own faculties is a source of individual happiness, and to be fettered and restricted in it, a source of unhappiness, to human beings, and not least to women. There is nothing, after disease, indigence, and guilt, so fatal to the pleasurable enjoyment of life as the want of a worthy outlet for the active faculties. pp.214.）……（When we consider the positive evil caused to the disqualified half of the human race by their disqualification—first in the loss of the most inspiriting and elevating kind of personal enjoyment, and next in the weariness, disappointment, and profound dissatisfaction with life, which are so often the substitute for it; one feels that among all the lessons which men require for carrying on the struggle against the inevitable imperfections of their lot on earth, there is no lesson which they more need, than not to add to the evils which nature inflicts, by their jealous and prejudiced restrictions on one another. Their vain fears only substitute other and worse evils for those which they are idly apprehensive of: while every restraint on the freedom of conduct of any of their human fellow creatures, (otherwise than by making them responsible for any evil actually caused by it), dries up pro tanto the principal fountain of human happiness, and leaves the species less rich, to an inappreciable degree, in all that makes life valuable to the individual human being. pp.216-217.）

*约翰·密尔：《妇女的屈从地位》，剑桥大学出版社1989年版；中译本汪溪译，商务印书馆2017年版。