Harriet Taylor Mill
Encyclopedia
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
advocate. Her second husband was John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill
John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...
, one of the pre-eminent thinkers of the 19th century. Her extant corpus of writing is very small, and she is largely remembered for her influence upon John Stuart Mill.
Early life
Harriet Hardy married her first husband, John Taylor, in 1826, at age eighteen. She had three children with Taylor: Herbert, Algernon, and HelenHelen Taylor (feminist)
Helen Taylor was an English feminist, writer and actress. She was the daughter of Harriet Taylor Mill and stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. Raised at home by a mother, she went to the stage in 1856-1858. After the death of her mother, she lived and worked with John Stuart Mill. Together they...
. John and Harriet became active in the Unitarian Church
American Unitarian Association
The American Unitarian Association was a religious denomination in the United States and Canada, formed by associated Unitarian congregations in 1825. In 1961, it merged with the Universalist Church of America to form the Unitarian Universalist Association.According to Mortimer Rowe, the Secretary...
and developed radical views on politics. They became friendly with William Fox
William Fox
William Fox may refer to:* William Fox , Irish international footballer active in the 1880s.* William Fox , Paymaster of the Forces of England* William Johnson Fox , British politician* William F...
, a leading Unitarian minister and early supporter of women's rights. Harriet Taylor moved in radical circles; in 1830 she met the philosopher John Stuart Mill.
Premarital relationship with Mill
Taylor was attracted to Mill, the first man she met who treated her as an intellectual equal. Mill was impressed with Taylor, asking her to read and comment on the latest book he was working on. The two became close friends.In 1833 she lived in a separate residence from her husband, keeping her daughter with her while John Taylor raised the two older boys. John Taylor agreed to Harriet's friendship with Mill in exchange for the "external formality" of her residing "as his wife in his house". Over the next few years Harriet Taylor and John Stuart Mill exchanged essays on issues such as marriage and women's rights; the surviving essays reveal that Taylor held, on these matters, more radical views than Mill. Taylor was attracted to the socialist philosophy promoted by Robert Owen
Robert Owen
Robert Owen was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.Owen's philosophy was based on three intellectual pillars:...
in books such as The Formation of Character (1813) and A New View of Society (1814). In her essays Taylor especially criticized the degrading effect of women's economic dependence upon men.
Marriage to Mill
After John Taylor died in 1849, Taylor and Mill waited two years before marrying in 1851. Taylor was hesitant to create greater scandal than the pair already had. Her radical views on marriage and equality delayed her from wishing to enter a marriage. She did, however, marry Mill, and wrote a number of essays, including "The Enfranchisement of Women", published in 1851. Many of her arguments in this piece would be developed in J. S. Mill's The Subjection of WomenThe Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
, published eleven years after her death.
Own work
Except for a few articles in the Unitarian journal Monthly RepositoryMonthly Repository
The Monthly Repository was a British monthly Unitarian periodical which ran between 1806 and 1838.The Monthly Repository was established when Robert Aspland bought William Vidler's Universal Theological Magazine and changed the name to the Monthly Repository of Theology and General Literature...
, Taylor published little of her own work during her lifetime. Taylor did, however, read and comment on all the material produced by John Stuart Mill. In his autobiography, Mill claimed Harriet as the joint author of most of the books and articles published under his name. He added, "when two persons have their thoughts and speculations completely in common it is of little consequence in respect of the question of originality, which of them holds the pen." Together, they wrote "Early Essays on Marriage and Divorce", published in 1832.
A letter written by Mill in 1854 suggests Taylor was reluctant to be described as joint author of Mill's books and articles. "I shall never be satisfied unless you allow our best book, the book which is to come, to have our two names on the title page. It ought to be so with everything I publish, for the better half of it all is yours".
J. S. Mill called her a valuable contributor to much of his work, especially On Liberty
On Liberty
On Liberty is a philosophical work by British philosopher John Stuart Mill. It was a radical work to the Victorian readers of the time because it supported individuals' moral and economic freedom from the state....
.
Death
Harriet Taylor Mill died in AvignonAvignon
Avignon is a French commune in southeastern France in the départment of the Vaucluse bordered by the left bank of the Rhône river. Of the 94,787 inhabitants of the city on 1 January 2010, 12 000 live in the ancient town centre surrounded by its medieval ramparts.Often referred to as the...
after developing severe lung
Lung
The lung is the essential respiration organ in many air-breathing animals, including most tetrapods, a few fish and a few snails. In mammals and the more complex life forms, the two lungs are located near the backbone on either side of the heart...
congestion, a consequence of tuberculosis
Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis, MTB, or TB is a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease caused by various strains of mycobacteria, usually Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Tuberculosis usually attacks the lungs but can also affect other parts of the body...
on 3 November 1858. Her daughter Helen
Helen Taylor (feminist)
Helen Taylor was an English feminist, writer and actress. She was the daughter of Harriet Taylor Mill and stepdaughter of John Stuart Mill. Raised at home by a mother, she went to the stage in 1856-1858. After the death of her mother, she lived and worked with John Stuart Mill. Together they...
, who would become a well known feminist, completed the writing of The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women
The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favour of equality between the sexes...
with Mill.
Upon her death, Mill wrote:
See also
- History of feminismHistory of feminismThe history of feminism involves the story of feminist movements and of feminist thinkers. Depending on time, culture and country, feminists around the world have sometimes had different causes and goals...
- List of suffragists and suffragettes
- SuffragetteSuffragette"Suffragette" is a term coined by the Daily Mail newspaper as a derogatory label for members of the late 19th and early 20th century movement for women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, in particular members of the Women's Social and Political Union...
- Women's Social and Political UnionWomen's Social and Political UnionThe Women's Social and Political Union was the leading militant organisation campaigning for Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom...
- Women's suffrageWomen's suffrageWomen's suffrage or woman suffrage is the right of women to vote and to run for office. The expression is also used for the economic and political reform movement aimed at extending these rights to women and without any restrictions or qualifications such as property ownership, payment of tax, or...
- Women's suffrage in the United KingdomWomen's suffrage in the United KingdomWomen's suffrage in the United Kingdom as a national movement began in 1872. Women were not prohibited from voting in the United Kingdom until the 1832 Reform Act and the 1835 Municipal Corporations Act...