12 - Montesquieu and the Liberty of Women

Summary

The “woman question” is at the heart of Montesquieu’s epistolary novel, The Persian Letters, and other early works like the erotic-philosophic tale, The Temple of Gnidus. In these works of the imagination, women are important both as characters and as potential audience. Although women do not seem as central to either Considerations on the Causes of the Greatness of the Romans and Their Decline or The Spirit of Laws, they do appear at key moments in the unfolding argument of both works. The chapter examines the place of women within Montesquieu’s oeuvre, with special emphasis on the links between women and the politics of liberty in The Spirit of Laws. Not only does the condition of women serve as a paradigmatic case for the status of liberty altogether, women actually become the agents of the liberalizing reforms that Montesquieu cautiously forwards.