A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern.

  • Iwan Bloch
Date:
1936
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: A history of English sexual morals / by Ivan Bloch ; translated by William H. Forstern. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    65/700 (page 35)
    (especially fed by the Puritans) did not serve to increase the general respect for women1. At the beginning of the eighteenth century the position of English women in public life was far from satisfactory. Men held them in such scant respect at that time that a Mrs. Drake felt called upon to write an Essay in Defence of the Female Sex (London, 1696). This state of affairs, however, soon underwent a change. The eighteenth century—the period of the Four Georges and of great writers and artists—is noteworthy also in the history of the English woman; indeed, of the whole female sex. The idea of all that is comprehended in the phrase 8 the emancipation of women ' was first clearly formulated in England, developed and made into a lasting subject of public agitation. The study of the beginnings of this movement would make an interesting theme for a special book, as a good many matters in those beginnings still remain obscure. I intend to confine myself to presenting the chief moments in the history of English women's emanci- pation, and to passing a few critical remarks upon the subject of the emancipation of women in general. The foundation, from which alone the modern woman's movement could arise, was enlightenment and awakened individualism, spread by the influence of Rousseau's writing (who curiously enough was an opponent of women's emanci- pation). The self-assurance of the woman became active, and in England, where it had always existed and was only at times suppressed, it advanced once more with renewed energy. Miss Bellamy said: ' The superiority of mind, of which men 1 James I, that learned eccentric, asks in his Demonologie: ' What can be the cause that there are twentie women given to that craft where there is only one man? ' and gives his answer: ' that women are frailer than men And he cites Eve's fall as the beginning of Satan's lordship over woman. The last witch was executed in 1716, when a mother and daughter were put to death at Huntington. [35]