Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Enlightenment and Historical Progress
- 2 Politics, Democracy, and Religious Toleration
- 3 History and Biography
- 4 Revolutions
- 5 Colonialism and Cultural Progress
- 6 Political Economy and Society
- 7 Macaulayâs Women
- 8 Nature and Animals
- 9 Art and Artistic Style
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
7 - Macaulayâs Women
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 December 2022
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Preface
- List of Abbreviations
- 1 The Enlightenment and Historical Progress
- 2 Politics, Democracy, and Religious Toleration
- 3 History and Biography
- 4 Revolutions
- 5 Colonialism and Cultural Progress
- 6 Political Economy and Society
- 7 Macaulayâs Women
- 8 Nature and Animals
- 9 Art and Artistic Style
- Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Women from the Enlightenment to Liberalism
Macaulay’s no doubt excessive infatuation with two of his sisters, Margaret and Hannah, has been the most oft-cited aspect of his attitude towards women. Some scholars have gone so far as to suggest that this relationship, at least on his part, was almost quasi-incestuous in spirit. This type of psychologizing regarding long-dead historical figures is, however, at the very least unhistorical. William Thomas, the editor of Macaulay’s journals, has come much closer to the truth when noting, regarding Macaulay’s affection for his niece Margaret, “Baba”: “We may be inclined to see an element of eroticism in these endearments, but their source seems to me more innocent, and pathetic. They were part of the lost childhood he was always recalling, and in Hannah’s family seemed to be able to relive.” While it cannot be denied that Macaulay compensated for his bachelorhood through the vicarious enjoyment of the family life of his sister Hannah, there are other aspects of his attitude towards women which can be gleaned in detail from his writings.
To be sure, Macaulay was no libertine, and remained convinced of the paramount importance of domestic life. He was a staunch critic of homosexuality. In the Indian Penal Code he opposed it, even if he did not recommend capital punishment for it. Yet elsewhere he referred to it, usually obliquely, as an “odious kind of immorality,” and as one of the “vices from which history averts her eyes, and even Satire blushes to name.” Specifically, it was “that cursed taint which poisons so much of [ancient] Greek history, poetry, even philosophy.” Criticism of homosexuality was, however, common even among enlightened liberals, and in itself was not a necessary sign of sexual intolerance more generally. There were in fact many instances in Macaulay’s writings, journals, and letters, where he demonstrated a liberal approach towards the changing social condition of women, albeit not a radical feminist one.
Women’s place in society, in Europe in general, and in Britain in particular, underwent significant changes, not all of them progressive, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The development of women’s rights was far from an uncomplicated linear story of progress. While women’s rights were advanced on both sides of the Atlantic, the French Revolution was followed by a reaction regarding their advancement.
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- Information
- Macaulay and the Enlightenment , pp. 231 - 277Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2022