What was the condition of women in "primitive societies" around the world?
Upvote:14
Quite the opposite, he's arguing that "savage" societies give women higher status (from our modern point of view).
I think its important to understand that this was written by a man who benefitted from sitting comfortably in the upper rungs of Victorian (technically actually Georgian) English society. He's not talking about modern western women with (on paper at least) comparable rights to men, he's talking about Victorian Women. This was an era when women had a very specific and idealized role as essentially the lead domestic in a man's house, but with sexual duties of actually producing the children as well. They had no legal rights to own property, to take anyone to court, and of course not to vote. Effectively, they were the property of men.
This was what people such as Malthus viewed as the natural and rightful place for women, the ideal that should be aspired to, the pinnacle for a woman. Anything that fell far from that pinnacle was considered a "degradation" of the woman.
"Savages" in the English of the day was the word particularly used to describe Native Americans. It is in fact used this way in the Declaration of Independence. Different tribes had different cultures and different roles for women, and by-and-large the status of women in Native societies was still lesser to men, but of course anything outside of the Victorian ideal of the status of women (eg: being expected to do non-household labor, have their own possessions, or having political say) Malthus would have considered a "degradation".
One thing in particular that tended to drive Europeans nuts was the typical American cultural quirk that farming was considered "women's work". This is likely what he's referring to with his "beast of burden" comment. A large amount of the "civilizing" mission of the US BIA was to get Native American men to do their own farming (which of course the native men in question looked at as an attempt to effectively make them women), and it was still trying to do this well into the 20th century.
Here's a quote I found from an 1827 Norwalk, Ohio newspaper talking about the Osages that expands on exactly what English-speaking society meant by "degraded".
And their condition is truly degraded; for while the man are _____ing at their ease in their camps, striking or telling stories, or engaged in the sport of war, or of hunting; the females have to build their houses, plant their corn, dress the skins, transport the baggage, and wood, and water, and bear a many a heavy burden.
Of course looking at this with modern eyes, he's basically reciting the identity function: The less European a society, the less European its women behave.
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