“An Essay on Woman, or, Physiological and Historical Defense of the Fair Sex”

by Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro

THE LITERARY WORK

An essay set in the early eighteenth century for a Spanish audience; published in Spanish (as “Defensa de las mujeres”) in 1726 and revised in 1740; published in English in 1765.

SYNOPSIS

Taking a radically unique stand for its day, the essay defends the intellectual faculties of women and their right to be educated in the same subjects as men.

Events in History at the Time of the Essay

The Essay in Focus

For More Information

Benito Jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro (also spelled Feijóo, without the accent) was born on October 8, 1676, in Casdemiro, a village in the bishopric of Orense, province of Galicia, Spain. The eldest son of ten children born to Antonio Feijóo y Sanjurjo and María de Puga Sandoval Novoa—both of noble descent—Benito renounced his claims to succeed to the family estate in order to devote his life to a religious career. At age 14 he entered the Benedictine order at the monastery of St. Julian of Samos, then continued his religious and academic education at several colleges, belonging to orders in Galicia and León and later at the University of Salamanca. He was educated in the era’s scholastic system, which he subsequently campaigned to change. Beginning his doctoral work at the Monastery of San Vicente, Oviedo, in 1709, Feijóo spent the rest of his life in this town, writing all his works here and teaching theology at the University of Oviedo. The proximity of Oviedo to the seaport of Gijón exposed Feijóo to intellectual currents of the day, allowing him to obtain recently published foreign books and treatises and newly invented instruments. In 1734, due to poor health, he retired from teaching and devoted the rest of his life to his writing. Between 1726 and 1740, Feijóo published the eight volumes of his major work Teatro crítico universal. (Universal Theater of Criticism) and from 1742 to 1760, the five volumes of Cartas eruditas (Intellectual Letters). Together these sets of articles comprise an encyclopedic array of human knowledge as capsulized by Feijóo. “An Essay on Woman” is Essay 16 of Volume 1 in the Teatro Crítico Universal. Feijóo continued his life of study and meditation until he was stricken by an attack that left him paralyzed and unable to hear or speak. He died in Oviedo on September 26, 1764, leaving behind among other riveting tracts for their time his revolutionary treatise on women, which anticipates a similarly revolutionary essay by England’s Mary Wollstonecraft (A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792) by 66 years.

Events in History at the Time of the Essay

The Enlightenment in Spain

At the close of the seventeenth century, Spain’s Habsburg king, Carlos II, remained without direct descendants. This situation set the stage for the Bourbons’ ascension to the Spanish throne, beginning with French king Louis XIV’s grandson, Felipe V, and Spain entered an era of “Frenchification,” during which it fell under the influence of French ideas and customs.

Like the French, the Spaniards opened their intellectual and social life to the effects of the European Enlightenment. The seeds of this movement appeared first in Holland in the seventeenth century, spreading later to England, where it found two notable representatives in John Locke (1633–1704) and Isaac Newton (1645–1727). But it was in France that the movement flourished, through the writings of the philosophers Voltaire, Jean Jacques Rousseau, and Denis Diderot, and through the publication of the Encyclopaedia of arts, sciences and trades. From these works came the enunciation of radical ideas for the time, celebrating individual thought and attacking the heretofore uncontested authority of the Church and other established institutions. At the heart of the movement was the desire to educate the masses in new discoveries and scientific advancements, or, more generally, to improve the human condition.

Enlightenment thought in Spain was never as strong or widespread as in France. In Spain, the movement restricted itself mainly to intellectuals and groups of politicians close to the royal court, especially under Carlos III. For the first time, with the introduction into Spain of the reforms advocated by the defenders of the Enlightenment, a rift occurred between the existing religious, political, and cultural traditions of the nation and its political and administrative regime. This division led to a confrontation between major sectors of the population (especially the uneducated groups) and the nobles and intellectuals who defended the new doctrines.

More exactly, the king pitted himself against the Catholic Church. During the Enlightenment, the Spanish Bourbons—Felipe V (1700–46), Fernando VI (1746–59), Carlos III (1759–78), and Carlos IV (1778–1808)—set out to establish political absolutism in the Peninsula, and to centralize administration of the old Spanish empire—namely the Spanish possessions in the Americas and the Philippines, and the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in Italy. This policy gave unlimited power and control to the king, leading to a series of major changes that clashed with the Catholic Church’s upper clergy. Until then the king had relied on the Church’s advice for almost every matter. But now, the king, rather than the Pope, started appointing ecclesiastical dignitaries, and he furthermore reduced the number of religious institutions and decreased his regime’s pecuniary contribution to the clergy. The king did not implement these policies without resistance from the Church. The Inquisition, the tribunal to suppress deviation from the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, took some time to collect itself as a counterforce, distracted by the setback it suffered as the object of the Enlightenment’s attacks, but it soon recovered its authority and became the mouthpiece of the Catholic Church, confronting the absolute power of the king. Despite this resistance, the Bourbons invoked reforms that improved the nation’s economy, promoting industry and commerce, at the same time reinvigorating agriculture and livestock. Also, while Spain continued being a class-conscious land, the new administration supported the enterprises of the middle class and founded economic societies to educate its people.

The Enlightenment’s commitment to education, in particular to the sciences, resulted in the creation of a series of cultural institutions: the Royal Academies of the Spanish Language (1713), of Medicine (1735), of History (1738), and of Fine Arts (1752); the National Library of Madrid (1712); and the Astronomic Observatory of Cádiz (1753). In the realm of the arts, the Baroque—characterized by a complexity of design, a profusion of ornaments, and an emphasis on grandeur and mystery—dominated the first part of the eighteenth century, but soon shared the aesthetic domain with the rococo—characterized by excessive refinement, asymmetrical designs, curves and countercurves, gold and pastel colors. On the heels of the rococo came the Neoclassic styles, a reaction to the frivolity of the rococo that resurrected the ancient models of the Greeks and Romans, regarding their civilizations as the cradles of reason, philosophy and democracy.

Neoclassicism in Spain manifested itself not only in the visual arts but also in literature, particularly in drama and poetry. In poetry, for example, the obscurantism, colorful language, and sublime emotions that characterized the Renaissance (middle of the fifteenth century through the sixteenth century) and the Baroque and late Baroque (seventeenth century through the first half of the eighteenth century) were replaced by the simple language and didacticism of Neoclassicism (second half of the eighteenth century). Neoclassic writers in eighteenth-century Spain adopted as their guiding tenet Horace’s famous quotation: Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci/lectorem delectando paritarque monendo (“He has won every vote who has blended profit and pleasure, at once delighting and instructing the reader”—Horace, lines 343–44).

The Teatro crítico universal and the Age of Reason

The eighteenth century gave rise to thinkers who contested and contradicted ancient, established theories, their doubts and abstract thoughts leading to a larger number of new findings than before. Moreover, these new findings influenced the middle and lower classes for the first time in history; results of scientific experiments reached ordinary citizens, thanks to the spread of information through new maritime and terrestrial trade routes, through the growing number of publishing houses in Europe, and through the advent of journalism. With this gain came a concomitant loss. The ordinary citizen did not stay in as close touch with his local environment, that is, with traditional knowledge and custom.

Before the teachings of French philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650), the acceptance of new theories was controlled by the Church and based not on reason or direct observation and experimentation but on theological dogmatic criteria—the Bible and the works of the fathers of the Church, such as St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. The Enlightenment’s new discoveries—the telescope, thermometer, microscope—were, however, geared toward evidence collecting and empirical truth, and led to challenges against the currently authorized theories of the Church. Two famous examples of Church dogmatism were the forced retraction of Galileo Galilei (1564–1642), who systematized Copernicus’s theory of the sun as the center of the universe (and not the earth, as the Church assessed), and the Church’s condemnation of the Spanish Michael Servetus (1511?–53), who was burned alive for his discovery of the circulation of the blood—a fact denied by the Catholic and Protestant Churches. The Enlightenment’s empiricism conflicted with scholasticism—the existing method of teaching at the Church-dominated university system. Scholasticism favored the deductive approach based on Aristotelian syllogisms (e.g., “legumes are edible; legumes are vegetables; therefore vegetables are edible”). Empiricism, in contrast, favored an inductive approach, to which the scholastic-minded academic authorities reacted negatively.

Descartes’ theories furthermore conflicted with more than those of just the traditionally educated. They clashed as well with the vulgo (the “common herd”), an expression used by Feijóo to designate not a social class but rather the mentally inactive members of any social group, whether learned or not. In his view, the vulgo uncritically accepted anything that appealed to their thirst for sensationalism, especially unnatural phenomena, which led them to favor superstition over empirical truth.

Feijóo wrote the Teatro crítico universal (Universal Theater of Criticism) to let the vulgo know they were behind the times, and to help them

FEIJÓO TAKES THE OFFENSIVE

According to the critic I. L McClelland, Feijóo approached the Spanish audience (as he used to his college students) by using shock tactics:

On at least the natural plane, many of your ideas about yourselves, other people, and the world in general are basically wrong. This is partly because you are too lazy or too stupid to observe and think for yourselves; partly because new evidence about the universe has come to light. I am passing it on to you. Some of this evidence, as you will realize if you use your brains at all, gives a clear explanation of things not understood before. Some of it merely proves that in certain fields we have everything to learn. Some of it, as it stands—the Copernican theory for example—seems to contradict even the unassailable authority of the Bible, and this is a field in which we must suspend our own judgment and wait for the pronouncement of the Church. But, as presumably thinking beings, we must know about such evidence, even if we hesitate to interpret it; for we must be able to understand the mind even of the heretic, not only in order to convert him, but because, outside religion, he is as likely as we are, and more likely than most of you, to arrive at truths about nature. What I demand of you, therefore, is a willingness to learn and to go on learning. For the time when explanations of all things could be thought of as final and conclusive has gone for ever. I invite you all, without much hope of cooperation from you all, to accompany me into the unfamiliarity of the unencompassed.

(I. L McClelland, p. 44)

eradicate old ways of thinking and erroneous assumptions and superstitions. In the “Prologue to the Reader,” he acknowledges that a relatively large audience will disagree with most of his arguments but nevertheless hopes to instill doubts by advancing reasons that may change those attitudes. Given his intended audience, Feijóo wrote not in Latin—as was expected from a member of the Church and according to this type of work—but in Spanish so as to reach every member of the vulgo.

The eight volumes of Teatro crítico universal are divided into 118 discourses of variable length on a diversity of subjects: art, astronomy, economics, geography, history, political science, philosophy and metaphysics, philology, physics, mathematics, natural history, literature, aesthetics, Christian morals, medicine, superstitions, and more. The vast, multifaceted encyclopedic work is not organized in any orderly fashion; it makes no pretense to be a scientific treatise, aiming only to provide information and a commentary on anything that could become a subject of curiosity within the cultural or everyday world.

Feminism at the dawn of the eighteenth century

At the beginning of the eighteenth century the situation of women in Spanish society had not changed much from ancient times. Men went out into the public sphere in pursuit of political and commercial activities, while women remained guarded in the private sphere, and limited in their education to the acquisition of skills useful around the house.

During the baroque period, (seventeenth to early eighteenth century) philosophers showed an interest in educating women or at least in discussing the consequences of their education. Their interest built on the earlier activism of Erasmus of Rotterdam (1469–1536), foremost representative of Christian Humanism in Europe, who attempted to change the misogynist attitude inherited from the Middle Ages. Erasmus advanced new rules to transform women’s perception of themselves and their role in society. Two of his followers were the Spanish scholars Luis Vives (14927–1540?) and Juan Huarte de San Juan (1530–92), who promoted women’s education but addressed it in different ways. In the Examination of Men’s Wit (1575, published in English in 1596), Juan Huarte de San Juan—referred to as the “father” of differential psychology—discussed a type of education based on an individual’s skills and capabilities and related to professions and particular courses of study. He insisted that women’s education needed to be reduced to what was necessary for them to run a household; in spite of their good memory and fluency, argued Juan Huarte de San Juan, their overall mental inferiority prevented them from attaining any sort of intellectual depth. On the other hand, Juan Vives, the forefather of modern psychology and author of On the Education of aChristian Woman (1523), defended the organic unity of pedagogy and supported popular education. He felt that women should not be excluded from this popular education, though perhaps they required a different kind of schooling because of their different functions in life. Echoing and extending this tack, Spain’s Fray Luis de León (1527–91) in The Perfect Housewife (1583) established a clear sexual division of work. De León declared that while women were worthy of an elementary education, their place was in the house, cooking, cleaning, and spinning.

Despite the educational restrictions reinforced by such views, several women scored personal victories during the Baroque era not only in their intellectual achievements but also in the polemic about the separate natures of the sexes. There were two aspects to the feminist issue during this period: access to education and freedom to choose a husband. The novelist María de Zayas (1590–1661?) was a conservative feminist who advocated the education of women, though she always focused on the aristocratic class and supported the patriarchal system (see The Disenchantments of Love , also in WLAIT 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times). Maintaining that souls have no sex, she contended that men’s denial of women’s rights to education stemmed from a fear of competition. A main concern for Zayas, aside from women’s education, was the defense of their honor and reputation, and to this end, she depicted them in stories that provided rational explanation for their behavior in relation to men. In México, then part of Spain’s empire, Sor Juana de la Cruz (1648–95) echoed Zayas’s concerns, and in her philosophic satire “Foolish Men Who Accuse [Women]” condemned men who spoke ill of women while at the same time demanding their favors. In her two polemic writings, “Letter worthy of Athena” and “Reply to Sor Filotea,” Sor Juana defended her own desire for broader knowledge and access to culture at a time when women were expected to shun intellectual pursuits. Feijóo’s “Essay on Woman” includes Sor Juana among the women who distinguished themselves in literature in Spain, praising her for “the sublimity, force, and erudition of her poems,” saying that any tribute to her would be “superfluous” and that “perhaps not one equals her in variety and extent of knowledge” (Feijóo, “An Essay on Woman,” pp. 156–57). Yet he chastised her in a religious matter, siding with Father Vieyra, whose opinions Sor Juana had refuted in her “Letter worthy of Athena.” At issue was their understanding of a phrase attributed to Christ just before he died: “A new commandment I give unto you: that you love one another as I have loved.”

Her criticism on Father Vieyra’s sermons, shows the poignancy of her wit; but it must be allowed not to come up to that of the matchless Jesuit, whom she attacks; and is it anything strange that a woman should be inferior to that man, whom no preacher has hitherto equaled for sublimity of thought, solidity of argument, and a perspicuous force of expression?

(“Essay of Woman,” p. 157)

In general, the Enlightenment promoted women’s education and the right to equal education for both sexes. Descartes theorized that the intellect, being independent of the body, was the same in both sexes and Feijóo denounced society for not acting on such theories to improve women’s rights during his era. His “Essay on Woman” is just such a denunciation. The importance of Sor Juana, on one side of the Atlantic, and of Father Feijóo, on the other, lay in their claiming vindication for “all” women, rather than one individual and in their making not some abstract philosophical generalization but a comment on the behavior of their times.

The Essay in Focus

Contents overview

The title of the essay, “Defense of Women,” and Feijóo’s words in Section 5, “I being only a council, must not take on myself to act the judge,” indicate the legal character of this work (“An Essay on Woman,” p. 43). The “defense” aims to vindicate women from past injustices in society and to substantiate the claim for women’s right to an equal education, in keeping with the Enlightenment’s prescription for an educated society. The essay is divided into 24 sections, arranged according to the five-part division of the rhetorical style of speech attached to the Roman statesmen Cicero and Quintilian. In Section 1, the introduction (or exordium), Feijóo prepares his readers for the nature of the subject he will discuss: the vindication of women from a series of erroneous charges that have been historically attributed to them. In Sections 2 through 23 he clarifies his position (the narratio) and presents the arguments that establish his case (the argumentatio), summing them up in Section 24, (the peroratio).

Contents summary

Section 1 elaborates on how the argument will progress, from the moral and physical aspects of women’s being to their intellectual abilities.

In the moral part of their composition, say those unnatural railers, women are all vice, and their physical part is full of imperfections.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 4)

Many will scarce allow that the sex affords one single good woman; and in those whose outward deportment speaks a constellation of virtues within, it is construed design and hypocrisy.… (“She may seem a prude, and affect the austerity of a Sabine dame, but it is all a mask.”)

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 10)

I am far from denying that great crimes have been committed by women; but … let him who would have all women good, set about converting all men. Nature has implanted modesty in them, as a fence against all the batteries of appetite; and it is very seldom that the first breach in this fence is made from within the place. As for some passages in the scriptures, which seem to bear hard against the women, they are undoubtedly to be understood only of the wicked and perverse.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 13)

Here, methinks, adversaries rise up on all sides, and stun me with that common, but senseless clamor, that women are the cause of all evil; and in proof of it, the very populace are continually roaring out, “Caba ruined Spain and, Eve the world.” [Florinda (a.k.a. Caba) was raped by the last Visigoth king Rodrigo, and she revealed the rape to her father, Count Julian, who was stationed in Spanish North Africa at the time. To avenge his daughter, the count instigated the Moorish invasion of Spain in 711, which led to eight centuries of Moorish domination. Historically Caba has thus been blamed for the fall of Spain to the Moors.]

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 16)

In Section 2, (the narratio, or explanation), Feijóo attacks the theory that women comprise the defective sex, and the idea that their existence is ‘fortuitous and foreign from nature’s intent” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 23). He furthermore discredits the belief that at the resurrection women will be perfected by a sex change.

To proceed from the moral to the physical part, as more immediately relative to our present purpose, the preference of the robust sex to the delicate, sex is accounted, beyond all question, as self-evident. Great numbers make no scruple to call a woman an imperfect, and even monstrous animal; and affirm, that nature, in generation, always intends a male, and that it is only from mistake or deficiency either of the matter or the faculty, that a woman is produced. Excellent philosophers truly! So nature intends its own destruction, as without the concurrence of both sexes, the species cannot be maintained; and human nature would, in this its capital operation, fail as often as it hits, the number of both sexes being in all countries very nearly equal. …

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 20–21)

From the same physical error of reviling woman, as an imperfect creature, sprung another theological error, combated by St. Augustine, in his City of God, Book 22, Chap. 17. And of which, the partisans, take upon them to say, that at the universal resurrection, this imperfect work, will be rendered perfect, by a change of sex; all the women, becoming men, grace being then to complete that work, which nature had left, only as it were, rough hewn.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 26)

In Section 3, Feijóo discusses men’s physical superiority, to which he contrasts women’s beauty, gentleness, and candor. He demonstrates that the character of these physical qualities varies depending on their use; in one case they may be seen as a vice; in the other, as a virtue.

Section 4 discusses another positive quality associated with women, modesty, “the strong redoubt, covering the whole castle of the soul, against the batteries of vice” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 38). In Section 5, Feijóo contends that granting separate positive qualities to both sexes still does not give men the advantage, since the masculine type “is counterpoised, by many women being eminent for those endowments on which men value themselves” (“Essay on Woman,” pp. 44–45).

The endowments, which I have on evident grounds, attributed to women, balance, and perhaps surpass the qualities which distinguish men, but, who shall decide this process? Were it my province, my verdict would be very concise, that the qualities, in which women excel, tend to make them better in themselves, and the talents, in which men are superior, make them better, that is, more useful to the public; but, I being only a council, must not take on myself to act the judge; so for the present, the cause must remain undecided.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 42–44)

In Sections 6 and 7, Feijóo introduces a catalog of meritorious women to inductively demonstrate women’s aptitude by furnishing examples of those who have excelled in political acumen and in courage in various countries and ages (e.g., England’s Queen Elizabeth, Spain’s Queen Isabella, France’s Joan d’Arc, and Italy’s heroine Blanca de Rossi). Finally, in Section 8, Feijóo discusses “a point on which men sport their wit, as that in which the weakness of women, mostly betrays itself: the keeping of secrets” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 77). Here, also by example, he proves that women do keep secrets “with invincible firmness” (“Essay on Woman,” Section 8, p. 80). Bringing the argument to a close, he contests the basic charge, substantiating his view:

Some persons, I make no doubt, will charge this parallel, between women and men, with flattery [from me to women]; but I refer [these persons] to Seneca, whose stoicism, so far from flattering, spared no pardon; yet, he puts women absolutely on a level with men, for any valuable talents and qualities. His words are these: Quis autem dicat naturam malique cum mulieribus ingeniis egisse, et virtutes illarum in arctum retraxisse? Par illis, mini crede, vigor, par ad honesta (libeat) jacultas est. Laborem, doloromque ex equo si consuevere patiuntur (in Consol. Ad Marciam). (“Who will say that nature has not dealt kindly with women, bestowing on them, but a very slender share of virtue. No; they have an equal strength of mind, equal disposition and ability for virtue and decorous actions; and with a little use, bear toil and pain, as well as we.”)

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 85–86)

At the center of the controversy over women is the question of their intellectual aptitude. Feijóo analyzes this subject in depth (sections 9 through 15), and systematically overturns religious and scientific arguments that discredit women’s talents.

To talk thus contemptuously of women, denotes a superficial man. Seeing female knowledge to be in general limited to those domestic employments in which they have been trained up; they from thence infer (though without knowing, that they do infer, as being unacquainted with reflection) that they are not capable of anything farther; whereas, every smatterer in logic, knows, that the absence of the act does not imply the absence of the power; and thus, if women do not know more, is no conclusive argument, against their having a talent for greater employments.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 90–91)

Feijóo’s essay challenges a theory of the French philosopher Nicolas Malebranche about women’s “softness of the brain,” wherein their discernment of sensible things is superior than men, but absurd in abstract matters (“Essay on Woman,” p. 93). According to Feijóo, this “failing” must be attributed to difference of application and practice.

A woman of very clear intellects, has her thoughts taken up all day, about her domestic concerns, without hearing any discourse of a superior nature, or, if any edifying subject is introduced, hears it only superficially. Her husband, though greatly her inferior in natural endowments, is often in company with learned ecclesiastics, or expert politicians, in whose conversation, he acquires [a] variety of knowledge, becomes acquainted with the course and conduct of public affairs, and of many other important particulars.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 97)

Feijóo moves on to the body, discussing jokingly in Section 12 the theory that equates mental aptitude to the amount of substance and temperature of the brain. He quotes the opinion of several philosophers who agree “that the greater the quantity of brain, the greater share of reason; which they infer from the observation that man has, in proportion, more brain than any other animal” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 111). Feijóo wonders if the quantity of brain would cause any difference in the degree of understanding and if this quantitative difference would apply in the same manner to large-frame and small-frame males. (Not surprisingly, he feels obliged to the subscribers of this theory, “he having his share both of height and bulk” [”Essay on Woman,” p. 112].) Another theory of his day posits the inferiority of women’s intellect, attributing this inferiority to a difference of temperature—men are hot and dry while women are cold and moist. Tackling this theory, Feijóo proves its absurdity through deductive logic and through examples. He concludes rather comically: “Let not moisture any longer labor under the unjust reproach of being incompatible with wit; and be it allowed as a certain truth, that no such argument can afford any satisfactory proof that women are inferior in reason and understanding to men” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 137).

In Sections 16 through 22, Feijóo once again catalogs examples of meritorious women (e.g., the Spanish philologist and polyglot Louisa Sigea, the French poetess Magdalena Scuderi, the Italian writer Dorothea Bucca, and the German child prodigy Anna Marra Schurman, who excelled in the liberal arts and the sciences). His goal in this case is to prove that “female intellects are equally capable of the most abstruse sciences, as those of men: this is indeed the best way for convincing the generality, all examples weighing more with them than reasons, which it is not given to all to comprehend” (“An Essay on Woman,” pp. 148–49). Because he fears that his praise of women’s intellectual gifts may shift around prejudice in society, he warns women not to exhibit discriminatory behavior towards men: “My opinion therefore is against all declamation about an inequality in the capacities of either sex” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 201).

In his closing argument, Section 23, Feijóo contends that God’s command about the superiority of men over women was meant to prevent social anarchy, not to establish intellectual advantages for one sex over the other.

Some imagine all the premises to be at once overthrown by this single reply: if women are equal to men in understanding and an aptitude for sciences, and political and domestic government, how comes it that God invested man with the dominion and superiority over woman; which he plainly does by this decree in the third chapter of the Genesis [3:16] Sub viri potestate eris (“thou shalt be under the power of thy husband”) … I answer, first, the precise sense of that text cannot be certainly known, by reason of the difference of the [Bible] versions.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 211–12)

Secondly, the domestic subjection of women may be affirmed to have been merely a penalty for the breach of God’s injunction, and thus would not have taken place in the state of innocence, at least, the text says nothing to the contrary: or rather, had woman been originally subject to man in the state of innocence, the all-wise and gracious Creator of both would not have omitted making this subordination known at the formation of Eve. Thus it was not on account of any superior understanding in man that such authority was conferred on him, but because woman had led the way in the transgression. Thirdly, even had God originally invested man with an authoritative superiority over women, that does not absolutely conclude for man’s intellectual superiority: the reason is, that though both be equal in talents and understanding, the decorum and tranquility of the house and family required subordination, as otherwise it would have frequently been a scene of clamor and confusion.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 212–14)

Section 24 consists of the peroratio or conclusion, and in it Feijóo reaches a harmonious balance between rationalism and his own religious convictions. Equality among sexes, says Feijóo, will increase self-esteem, strengthen the bond of matrimony and reduce carnal sins.

I shall conclude this discourse with an exception, which may be raised against the whole tenor of it; which is, to promote a persuasion, that both sexes are equal in intellectual qualities, is so far from being of any public advantage, that it may rather occasion many mischiefs, as fomenting the pride and presumption of women. This difficulty may be removed only by saying, that in everything, which comes under the cognizance of reason, it is of use to display truth, and explode error.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 216)

But I claim a still greater merit; the maxim which we have corroborated, so far from tending to any moral evil, may bring about much good. Let it be considered how many men this imaginary superiority of talents has prompted to undertake criminal conquests on the other sex.

(“Essay on Woman,” p. 218)

Another very interesting consideration is, that any woman yields the more easily to the man whom she fancies to be greatly her superior. A man finds little reluctancy to serve another of higher birth, but where that circumstance is equal, servitude goes sorely against the grain. It is the very same in our case. If a woman is so far mistaken as to think man of a much more noble sex, and that as for herself, she is but an imperfect animal, a kind of inferior being, she will think it no shame to submit to him. … I have not yet displayed all the moral benefit, which would accrue from men and women being cured of their mistake, with regard to the disparity of the sexes. It is my real belief, that this mistake is of infinite prejudice to the marriage bed. Here some may imagine, I am running into a strange paradox, yet, it is an evident truth, as a little attention will show.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 220–22)

In such a situation, how shall the most discrete, the most resolute woman act? How resist two impulses, directed to one and the same end, one impelling her, the other gently drawing her? [the despotic behavior of the husband and the gallant approach of a prospective lover]. Without the powerful support of Heaven, fall she must; and if she falls, who can deny, but that it was by the hand of her own husband. Had he not treated her with contempt, all the blandishments of the gallant, would not have prevailed against her. The rigor of the one, enforced the complaisance of the other. Such are the evils which frequently spring from that mean opinion of the other sex, which married men so often harbor and delight in exemplifying. Would these but throw aside such false maxims, their wives would spurn at every temptation to infidelity.

(“Essay on Woman,” pp. 226–27)

Feijóo’s vulgo and the common error

Feijóo’s Teatro crítico universal is intended to critically examine everyday customs, national conventions, and the beliefs embedded in people’s minds. He did not take upon himself the task of creating a new vision of the world or establishing new trends in philosophy: as noted, he intended only to upset old common errors and superstitions, and to remove habits of thinking in Spain as well as abroad.

In referring to the mass of the people as vulgo, with the inclusive meaning he bestows on the term, Feijóo continues a tradition from the Spanish Golden Age. Werner Bahner explains that in the sixteenth century the word vulgo was not limited to ordinary people (Bahner, p. 90). The novel Don Quixote (also in WLAIT 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times), for example, says that all of those who are ignorant can and must join the vulgo: “And you must not think, sir, that when I speak of the ‘ignorant mob’ I am referring only to humble working people, for all those who know nothing of poetry, whether they be lords or princes, can and should be thus classified” (Cervantes, p. 430). Bahner himself says “vulgo are those people who have not reached the ideological foundations of the century of the lights,” and who instead of relying on reason, blindly accept the decrees of the “authorities” (Bahner, pp. 91, 93; trans. J. Grin-stein). For Feijóo, the vulgo, consists not only of the mass of ordinary people but also of many erudites—a large number of writers, academicians, and clergymen as well as members of the upper classes. In his view, knowledge is not equated solely with erudition; it needs to be accompanied by discernment and wisdom.

Spanish tradition endorses beliefs such as the “people’s voice is the voice of God,” meaning that something must be true if it is believed by such a large crowd. Feijóo disagrees, and to this would reply “the value of opinions are measured by weight [quality] and not by the number of believers” (“Voice of the People,” Teatro crítico universal, vol. 1, p. 1). By correcting and instructing the vulgo, Feijóo does not aim to eliminate this group but to rectify the deeply rooted common errors—superstitions, absurd traditions, and irrational customs. In keeping with the didacticism that is characteristic of the Enlightenment, he campaigns to rectify their mistaken notions, or errors, which he defines as “any opinion [he] believe [s] to be false” (“Prologue to the Reader,” Teatro crítico universal, vol. 1, p. lxxiii).

The subject of the supernatural was a main source of errors in Feijóo’s time. Ghosts, demons, witches, and angels figured in many pagan and Christian oral traditions. A man of religion, Feijóo does not assail dogmas or principles of the Catholic Church, which in the eighteenth century held a monopoly on interpretation of all non-natural phenomena. However, he criticizes the lower clergy for encouraging and perpetuating wonder tales that he describes as superstitions—alleged miracles not investigated enough by authorities of the Church. Some common errors identified by Feijóo follow:

Errors Born of Marvel Tales, Alleged Miracles, and Popular Traditions

• Women have smaller brains than men, thus less intellectual capabilities

• Women are imperfect human creatures; by being upgraded to manhood during the Final Judgement, they will attain perfection

• Jews have tails (demoniac personification)

• Jews kill one out of every five patients because they hated Christians

• Goblins exist in Oviedo in spite of contrary evidence

• Witches and demonically-possessed individuals exist who are agents of supernatural forces

• The Bull of St. Mark is a living miracle (the tradition holds that a wild bull docilely participates in the rites of the Mass on the feast of St. Mark, before returning to the wilderness)

• The Bell of Vellilla is a living miracle (since the Moorish invasion, it has rung by itself before disasters or propitious events)

• The flowers of St. Louis are a living miracle (during the Mass on the feast of this saint, the walls appear every year to be covered by small white flowers [which are in fact insect eggs])

Errors Born of Medical Ignorance

• Surgery is nonacademic technology

• Menstrual discharge is poisonous

• Bleeding and purging are recommended for almost every ailment

• Stages of an illness can be correlated with the seven phases of the moon (a week), and the crisis can be plotted on the seventh day or a multiple of seven

Sources and literary context

Feijóo’s first 50 years were spent in religious practices, lecturing on Ecclesiastical history and Canonic law at the university, and avidly reading the ancient and avant-garde authors in Latin or in the original language. In his writings, Feijóo acknowledges a great debt to his vast array of readings by quoting the sources of his arguments, unless their authors were censured by the Inquisition. He cites the ancient pagan philosophers and classical authors as well as the sacred scriptures and the writings of the Fathers of the Church. Among the Spaniards, the already mentioned Luis Vives proved to be the greatest influence on Feijóo’s thoughts in relation to the Enlightenment. Also influential were numerous foreign writers, philosophers, and scientists—records have identified 354 of them, from Corneille, Descartes, and Montaigne, to Montesquieu, Rousseau, Erasmus, Voltaire, and Bacon.

Francis Bacon was particularly influential on Feijóo’s thought because of a general intellectual skepticism that led him to test the word of the authorities, his insistence on systematic and analytical experiment, and his conception of knowledge as a complex system of relationships. Bacon’s draft of a dictionary of arts and sciences and suggestion for a “Calendar of doubts and problems” accompanied by another “Calendar of popular errors” helped inspire the goal as well as the selection of topics and polemic style of Feijóo’s Teatro crítico universal Feijóo also drew inspiration from two very important French journals: the Mémoires de Trévoux (Memoranda for the History of the Arts and Sciences), and the Journal des Savants (Savants’ Journal). The first one, published by French Jesuits from Trevoux from 1701 to 1762, reported new findings and theories—especially in medicine and public health—from a variety of cultural settings and countries. The Journal des Savants, published in Paris from 1665 to 1792, was a scholarly critical review, covering culture and scientific matters, and Feijóo quoted it frequently in his essays. Mostly the Teatro crítico universal resembles these journals, in its character as a “Calendar of popular errors,” adapted in Feijóo’s case to local Spanish conditions and reflective of an academic rigor characteristic of its author alone. In relation to the specific article, “An Essay on Woman,” while France distinguished itself as the cradle of the Enlightenment, it did not produce a voice like Feijóo’s to vindicate women’s rights at the time. On the contrary, as years passed French thinkers promoted separation of the sexes. Rousseau, in Emile or On Education (1762), stated that inequality between the sexes was imperative, and designed distinct educational models for them. Similarly Voltaire, in Dictionary of Philosophy (1764), declared that men were the superior sex, informing his readers that the arts and all important aspects of culture were invented by men.

Reception

The publication of the first two volumes of Teatro crítico universal took Spain by storm, with Feijóo’s strong arguments in regard to the ordinary Spaniard’s attitude towards new knowledge, as well as his advocacy of rationalism and experimental science, provoking academic and nonacademic reaction. A long polemic began between admirers and detractors, coming to an end only after the intervention of the Spanish king Fernando VI, who issued a.decree in 1750 forbidding further attacks on Feijóo’s books. Published between 1726 and 1742 were 97 works defending or attacking Feijo’s ideas—books, letters, notes, and apologies, some under very provocative titles, such as Intellectual combat […] and Anti-theater of Criticism. The particular article “An Essay on Woman” was the subject of ten of those 97 polemic works, only four of these ten supporting Feijóo’s standpoint. Dr. Martín Martinez defended Feijóo in his Carta defensiva (Letter in Defense [of Feijóo’s “Essay on Woman”]: “His sixteenth essay to make amends to women is fair and well elaborated. As a professor of anatomy, I can state that [the body’s] organization does not differentiate in both sexes thoughts, and since they [the thoughts] emanate from the same organ in both men and women, I do believe that their attitude towards science has to be the same.” (Martínez, p. 231; trans. J. B. Grinstein). Feijóo’s critics included those who portrayed him as a detractor of Spanish values and a follower of foreign theories and fashions.

Fifteen editions of Teatro crítico universal were printed between 1725 and 1787, and close to half a million copies of all of Feijóo’s works were sold before his death in 1764 (Alborg, p. 147). They were translated into French, Italian, Portuguese, English, and German during the century, and indexes and dictionaries appeared to facilitate the reading of his works. As a believer in the constant evolution of knowledge, Feijóo modified some of his opinions and presented new theories and information. Volume 9 was titled “Suplemento” (Supplement). In it he included additions and clarifications to the previous eight volumes, as well as some of his responses to attacks by other scholars and Churchmen. Future editions did not include the ninth volume, since the new information was added as footnotes (our English version) or endnotes (most Spanish versions).

The English took strong interest in Teatro crítico universal, publishing John Brett’s translation of the entire work in London in 1780 under the title Essays, or, discourses. Earlier and later they also published translations of different sets of the essays (in 1739, 1751, 1779, and 1800). Essay No. 16 appeared several times under various titles: “An essay on woman, or, physiological and historical defense of the fair sex” (London, 1765, 1770, 1779); “An essay on the learning, genius, and abilities, of the fair-sex, proving them not inferior to man, from a variety of examples, extracted from ancient and modern history” (London, 1774); and “Three essays or discourses on the following subjects, a defense or vindication of the women, church music, a comparison between ancient and modern music,” (London, 1778). The translation being used for this entry, “An Essay on Woman. A Defense of Women” (London, 1774) reflects Feijóo’s influence. The translator added some pages to Section 21 of the original work, including examples of meritorious Englishwomen because “Father Feijóo having for reasons best known to himself thought fit to pass over the females of these islands, I take the liberty of inserting three or four, in commemoration of a few out of many, after the example of my original” (“Essay on Woman,” p. 192). Among the names added were Constantia Grierson, Lady Jane Grey, the countesses of Derby and Winchelsea, and a Mrs. Macauley.

After 1787 the interest in Feijóo’s works declined, largely due to the hostility expressed by Romanticism towards the Enlightenment era. Only a few abridged versions were published in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but still the polemic continued. In the nineteenth century, Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo doubted the validity of Feijóo’s attribution of common errors to the vulgo, blaming it on the arrogance of a Benedictine monk who simply wanted to vaunt his own vast knowledge.

Impact

What impact did Feijóo’s “An Essay on Woman” have in Spain? His essay set out to prove women’s ability to be trained in any field, including the military or medicine, and, though the essay became a cause célèbre, it did not instigate any major change in Spanish society. In fact, the rest of the seventeenth century would be witness to theatrical works that ridiculed women’s desire for change, in plays attended by the vulgo whom Feijóo had set out to educate. However, there were a few exceptions to this generalized attitude. Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos (1744–1811), a politician, promoted the idea of women’s access to the work force in his “Report on the free practice of the professions” (1785)—he was referring to trades and not liberal professions. The dramatist Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1760–1828) wrote plays championing the right of young women to choose their own husbands (e.g., Maiden’s Consent , also in WLAIT 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times), though he did not favor equal access to education (as shown in his La comedia nueva [The New Comedy]). María Rosa de Gálvez (1768–1806), the major Neo-classic Spanish female dramatist, vigorously criticized the patriarchal system and defended women’s access to education and free will to choose a husband or stay single (in her La Deli-rante [The Delirious Lady] and La familia a la moda [Family à la mode]).

In the second half of the nineteenth century and on the bicentennial of Feijóo’s birth, the importance of “Essay on Woman” was acknowledged by the feminist movement, mainly represented by the lawyer and writer Concepción Arenal (1820–93) and the novelist Emilia Pardo BazÁn (1852–1921; see House of Ulloa , also in WLAIT 5: Spanish and Portuguese Literatures and Their Times). During much of the twentieth century, however, the Spanish feminist movement foundered, frustrated in its design to modernize society, which caused the “Essay’”s demise as an ideological work. The resurgence of the movement in the 1970’s brought renewed attention to many seminal works of the European Enlightenment. In 1997, “Essay on Woman” was reedited in Barcelona by the distinguished feminist writer Victoria Sau, who in the Introduction discusses the essay as a major landmark of feminist history.

—Julia Bordiga Grinstein

For More Information

Alborg, Juan Luis. Historia de la literatura Española. 5th ed. Vol. 3 of Siglo 18. Madrid: Gredos, 1985.

Bahner, Werner. “El vulgo y las luces en la obra de Feijóo.” Actas del Tercer Congreso Internacional de Hispanistas (1968): 89–96.

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. The History of that Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote de la Mancha. Trans. Burton Raffel. New York: Norton, 1996.

Feijóo y Montenegro, Benito Jerónimo. Teatro crítico universal. 9 vols. Madrid: Imprenta Real de la Gaceta, 1765.

_____. “An Essay on Woman.” In El teatro crítico. London: Bingley, 1774.

Horace. The art of poetry: an epistle to the Pisos. Epistola ad Pisones, De arte poetica. Trans. George Colman. New York: AMS Press, 1976.

Martínez, Martín. “Carta defensiva.” In Obras escogidas del P. Fray Benito jerónimo Feijóo y Montenegro. Con una noticia de su vida y juicio crítico de sus escritos por D. Vicente de la Fuente. BAE. Vol. 1. Madrid: Sucesores de Hernando, 1961.

McClelland, I. L. Benito Jeronimo Feijóo. New York: Twayne, 1969.