_Mr. K. R. Gallas_, Lecturer on French Literature in the same University, has likewise a claim to my heartfelt gratitude for giving me the benefit of his extensive knowledge in making various suggestions with regard to the chapters dealing with the literature of France. My best thanks are also due to _Mr. M. G. van Neck_ and _Dr. P. Fijn van Draat_ for guiding my reading for the B.-examination, and particularly to my first teacher of English, _Mr. L. P. H. Eijkman_, for giving me that interest in England and her language and literature which has determined my subsequent career. _Amsterdam_, November 1922. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE MAIN THEORIES REGARDING THE POSITION OF WOMEN 1 II. THE BEGINNINGS OF A FEMINIST MOVEMENT IN FRANCE 11 III. THE POSITION OF FRENCH WOMEN IN EIGHTEENTH CENTURY SOCIETY 52 IV. FEMINIST AND ANTI-FEMINIST TENDENCIES AMONG THE ENGLISH AUGUSTANS 73 V. QUALIFIED FEMINISM: THE BLUESTOCKINGS 98 VI. RADICAL FEMINISM: MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT 128 BIBLIOGRAPHY 183 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER. _The Main Theories regarding the Position of Women._ The history of the Emancipation of Women is the long and varied record of their slow and gradual liberation from that utter subjection to Man in which various circumstances beyond their control--among which the physical superiority of the latter, a form of male supremacy which has seldom been called into question, was probably the most prominent--had combined to place them. It relates how in the course of centuries--either with the support of a certain portion of the opposite sex or relying upon their own resources--they strove to cast off the shackles which bound and degraded them, and to acquire that degree of physical, intellectual and moral freedom to which they felt themselves entitled. That the movement towards complete enfranchisement met with a varied reception and was hampered and retarded by men and often by women themselves was due chiefly to the fact that in the question of female possibilities there was much diversity of opinions at different times and among different nations. The worst enemies to evolution of this kind were those women who, holding the Empire of Love and Gallantry to be their exclusive domain, in which their sway was not likely to be ever disputed, turned deliberately against those of their own sex who in trying to wrench from the hands of men the sceptre of social power, were willing to forego the privileges of sex. That women were thus divided among themselves from the first, was the natural outcome of those differences in personal attractions and in personal intelligence which have always constituted the great danger of too