Olympe de Gouges, The
Declaration of the Rights of
Woman (September 1791)
Title
Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (September
1791)
Description
Marie Gouze (1748–93) was a self–educated butcher’s daughter from the
south of France who, under the name Olympe de Gouges, wrote pamphlets
and plays on a variety of issues, including slavery, which she attacked as
being founded on greed and blind prejudice. In this pamphlet she provides
a declaration of the rights of women to parallel the one for men, thus
criticizing the deputies for having forgotten women. She addressed the
pamphlet to the Queen, Marie Antoinette, though she also warned the
Queen that she must work for the Revolution or risk destroying the
monarchy altogether. In her postscript she denounced the customary
treatment of women as objects easily abandoned. She appended to the
declaration a sample form for a marriage contract that called for communal
sharing of property. De Gouges went to the guillotine in 1793, condemned
as a counterrevolutionary and denounced as an "unnatural" woman.
Source
The materials listed below appeared originally in The French Revolution
and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History, translated, edited, and
with an introduction by Lynn Hunt (Boston/New York Bedford/St.
Martin's, 1996), 124–129.
Date
September 1791
Relation
[Link]
Identifier
293
Text
To be decreed by the National Assembly in its last sessions or by the next
legislature.
Preamble.
Mothers, daughters, sisters, female representatives of the nation ask to be
constituted as a national assembly. Considering that ignorance, neglect, or
contempt for the rights of woman are the sole causes of public misfortunes
and governmental corruption, they have resolved to set forth in a solemn
declaration the natural, inalienable, and sacred rights of woman: so that by
being constantly present to all the members of the social body this
declaration may always remind them of their rights and duties; so that by
being liable at every moment to comparison with the aim of any and all
political institutions the acts of women's and men's powers may be the
more fully respected; and so that by being founded henceforward on simple
and incontestable principles the demands of the citizenesses may always
tend toward maintaining the constitution, good morals, and the general
welfare.
In consequence, the sex that is superior in beauty as in courage, needed in
maternal sufferings, recognizes and declares, in the presence and under the
auspices of the Supreme Being, the following rights of woman and the
citizeness.
1. Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social
distinctions may be based only on common utility.
2. The purpose of all political association is the preservation of the natural
and imprescriptible rights of woman and man. These rights are liberty,
property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.
3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially in the nation, which is
but the reuniting of woman and man. No body and no individual may
exercise authority which does not emanate expressly from the nation.
4. Liberty and justice consist in restoring all that belongs to another; hence
the exercise of the natural rights of woman has no other limits than those
that the perpetual tyranny of man opposes to them; these limits must be
reformed according to the laws of nature and reason.
5. The laws of nature and reason prohibit all actions which are injurious to
society. No hindrance should be put in the way of anything not prohibited
by these wise and divine laws, nor may anyone be forced to do what they
do not require.
6. The law should be the expression of the general will. All citizenesses
and citizens should take part, in person or by their representatives, in its
formation. It must be the same for everyone. All citizenesses and citizens,
being equal in its eyes, should be equally admissible to all public dignities,
offices and employments, according to their ability, and with no other
distinction than that of their virtues and talents.
7. No woman is exempted; she is indicted, arrested, and detained in the
cases determined by the law. Women like men obey this rigorous law.
8. Only strictly and obviously necessary punishments should be established
by the law, and no one may be punished except by virtue of a law
established and promulgated before the time of the offense, and legally
applied to women.
9. Any woman being declared guilty, all rigor is exercised by the law.
10. No one should be disturbed for his fundamental opinions; woman has
the right to mount the scaffold, so she should have the right equally to
mount the rostrum, provided that these manifestations do not trouble public
order as established by law.
11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most
precious of the rights of woman, since this liberty assures the recognition
of children by their fathers. Every citizeness may therefore say freely, I am
the mother of your child; a barbarous prejudice [against unmarried women
having children] should not force her to hide the truth, so long as
responsibility is accepted for any abuse of this liberty in cases determined
by the law [women are not allowed to lie about the paternity of their
children].
12. The safeguard of the rights of woman and the citizeness requires public
powers. These powers are instituted for the advantage of all and not for the
private benefit of those to whom they are entrusted.
13. For maintenance of public authority and for expenses of administration,
taxation of women and men is equal; she takes part in all forced labor
service, in all painful tasks; she must therefore have the same proportion in
the distribution of places, employments, offices, dignities, and in industry.
14. The citizenesses and citizens have the right, by themselves or through
their representatives, to have demonstrated to them the necessity of public
taxes. The citizenesses can only agree to them upon admission of an equal
division, not only in wealth, but also in the public administration, and to
determine the means of apportionment, assessment, and collection, and the
duration of the taxes.
15. The mass of women, joining with men in paying taxes, have the right
to hold accountable every public agent of the administration.
16. Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured or the
separation of powers not settled has no constitution. The constitution is
null and void if the majority of individuals composing the nation has not
cooperated in its drafting.
17. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separated; it is for
each of them an inviolable and sacred right, and no one may be deprived of
it as a true patrimony of nature, except when public necessity, certified by
law, obviously requires it, and then on condition of a just compensation in
advance.
Postscript
Women, wake up; the tocsin of reason sounds throughout the universe;
recognize your rights. The powerful empire of nature is no longer
surrounded by prejudice, fanaticism, superstition, and lies. The torch of
truth has dispersed all the clouds of folly and usurpation. Enslaved man has
multiplied his force and needs yours to break his chains. Having become
free, he has become unjust toward his companion. Oh women! Women,
when will you cease to be blind? What advantages have you gathered in
the Revolution? A scorn more marked, a disdain more conspicuous. During
the centuries of corruption you only reigned over the weakness of men.
Your empire is destroyed; what is left to you then? Firm belief in the
injustices of men. The reclaiming of your patrimony founded on the wise
decrees of nature; why should you fear such a beautiful enterprise? . . .
Whatever the barriers set up against you, it is in your power to overcome
them; you only have to want it. Let us pass now to the appalling account of
what you have been in society; and since national education is an issue at
this moment, let us see if our wise legislators will think sanely about the
education of women.
Women have done more harm than good. Constraint and dissimulation
have been their lot. What force has taken from them, ruse returned to them;
they have had recourse to all the resources of their charms, and the most
irreproachable man has not resisted them. Poison, the sword, women
controlled everything; they ordered up crimes as much as virtues. For
centuries, the French government, especially, depended on the nocturnal
administration of women; officials kept no secrets from their indiscretion;
ambassadorial posts, military commands, the ministry, the presidency [of a
court], the papacy, the college of cardinals, in short everything that
characterizes the folly of men, profane and sacred, has been submitted to
the cupidity and ambition of this sex formerly considered despicable and
respected, and since the revolution, respectable and despised. . . .
Under the former regime, everyone was vicious, everyone guilty. . . . A
woman only had to be beautiful and amiable (=beminnelijk); when she
possessed these two advantages, she saw a hundred fortunes at her feet. . . .
The most indecent woman could make herself respectable with gold; the
commerce in women [prostitution] was a kind of industry amongst the
highest classes, which henceforth will enjoy no more credit. If it still did,
the Revolution would be lost, and in the new situation we would still be
corrupted. Can reason hide the fact that every other road to fortune is
closed to a woman bought by a man, bought like a slave from the coasts of
Africa? The difference between them is great; this is known. The slave
[that is, the woman] commands her master, but if the master gives her her
freedom without compensation and at an age when the slave has lost all her
charms, what does this unfortunate woman become? The plaything of
disdain; even the doors of charity are closed to her; she is poor and old,
they say; why did she not know how to make her fortune?
Other examples even more touching can be provided to reason. A young
woman without experience, seduced by the man she loves, abandons her
parents to follow him; the ingrate leaves her after a few years and the older
she will have grown with him, the more his inconstancy will be inhuman.
If she has children, he will still abandon her. If he is rich, he will believe
himself excused from sharing his fortune with his noble victims. If some
engagement ties him to his duties, he will violate it while counting on
support from the law. If he is married, every other obligation loses its
force. What laws then remain to be passed that would eradicate vice down
to its roots? That of equally dividing [family] fortunes between men and
women and of public administration of their goods. It is easy to imagine
that a woman born of a rich family would gain much from the equal
division of property [between children]. But what about the woman born in
a poor family with merit and virtues; what is her lot? Poverty and
opprobrium. If she does not excel in music or painting, she cannot be
admitted to any public function, even if she is fully qualified. . . .
Marriage is the tomb of confidence and love. A married woman can give
bastards to her husband with impunity, and even the family fortune which
does not belong to them. An unmarried woman has only a feeble right:
ancient and inhuman laws refuse her the right to the name and goods of her
children's father; no new laws have been made in this matter. If giving my
sex an honorable and just consistency is considered to be at this time
paradoxical on my part and an attempt at the impossible, I leave to future
men the glory of dealing with this matter; but while waiting, we can
prepare the way with national education, with the restoration of morals and
with conjugal agreements.
Form for a Social Contract between Man and Woman
We, ________ and ________, moved by our own will, unite for the length
of our lives and for the duration of our mutual inclinations under the
following conditions: We intend and wish to make our wealth communal
property, while reserving the right to divide it in favor of our children and
of those for whom we might have a special inclination, mutually
recognizing that our goods belong directly to our children, from whatever
bed they come [legitimate or not], and that all of them without distinction
have the right to bear the name of the fathers and mothers who have
acknowledged them, and we impose on ourselves the obligation of
subscribing to the law that punishes any rejection of one's own blood
[refusing to acknowledge an illegitimate child]. We likewise obligate
ourselves, in the case of a separation, to divide our fortune equally (dus
nieuw marriage contract nodig) and to set aside the portion the law
designates for our children. In the case of a perfect union, the one who dies
first will give up half his property in favor of the children; and if there are
no children, the survivor will inherit by right, unless the dying person has
disposed of his half of the common property in favor of someone he judges
appropriate. [She then goes on to defend her contract against the inevitable
objections of "hypocrites, prudes, the clergy, and all the hellish gang."]
Tags
Text, Women
Citation
“Olympe de Gouges, The Declaration of the Rights of Woman (September
1791),” LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY: EXPLORING THE
FRENCH REVOUTION, accessed February 29,
2024, [Link]