Warren Discusses Women’s Roles

MERCY OTIS WARREN, Letter to a Young Friend (1790) and Letter to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham (1791)

Mercy Otis Warren (1728–1814) was an extraordinary woman in extraordinary times. Though constrained by the gender discrimination pervasive in her day, she pushed against those boundaries, demonstrating in her books and essays that women were capable of political participation in the young republic. She was an astute observer, and her family connections to Massachusetts’s political elite enabled her to see and experience firsthand the major conflicts of her day. Her letters, including two excerpted here, reveal her engagement with the political debates of the 1790s and her interest in pushing women’s rights.

Letter to a Young Friend

You seem hurt by the general aspersions so often thrown on the Understanding of ours by the Illiberal Part of the other Sex. — I think I feel no partiality on the Female Side but what arises from a love to Justice, & freely acknowledge we too often give occasion (by an Eager Pursuit of Trifles) for Reflections of this Nature. — Yet a discerning & generous Mind should look to the origin of the Error, and when that is done, I believe it will be found that the Deficiency lies not so much in the Inferior Contexture of Female Intellects as in the different Education bestow’d on the Sexes, for when the Cultivation of the Mind is neglected in Either, we see Ignorance, Stupidity, & Ferocity of Manners equally Conspicuous in both.

It is my Opinion that that Part of the human Species who think Nature (as well as the infinitely wise & Supreme Author thereof) has given them the Superiority over the other, mistake their own Happiness when they neglect the Culture of Reason in their Daughters while they take all possible Methods of improving it in their sons.

The Pride you feel on hearing Reflections indiscriminately Cast on the Sex, is laudable if any is so. — I take it, it is a kind of Conscious Dignity that ought rather to be cherish’d, for while we own the Appointed Subordination (perhaps for the sake of Order in Families) let us by no Means Acknowledge such an Inferiority as would Check the Ardour of our Endeavours to equal in all Accomplishments the most masculine Heights, that when these temporary Distinctions subside we may be equally qualified to taste the full Draughts of Knowledge & Happiness prepared for the Upright of every Nation & Sex; when Virtue alone will be the Test of Rank, & the grand Economy for an Eternal Duration will be properly Adjusted.

Letter to Catharine Sawbridge Macaulay Graham

Plymouth May 31st 1791

I have my dear madam been particularly obliged by two of your favours since I have taken up my pen to write to my friend. Were I fully to express my sentiments with regard to your letters on education and on your learned and metaphysical disquisitions, you might think they savoured of flattery. This is a fault not less despised by myself than it is detested by a lady whose talents, set her very much above it.

I will therefore only say, I was entertained and delighted with the volume and pleased that you had taken up your pen on subjects so important: nor was I less gratified with the manner of executing the design. I have since been obliged by your ingenious and just observations on Mr. Burke’s strictures on the national assembly of France. What an inconsistent creature is man!

I am sorry for the sake of the human character, that a gentleman whose oratorical powers have been so often so honourably employed and exerted in favour of the rights of society, should so far deviate from the principles he has supported, as to vilify the advocates for freedom, and to abuse characters that have discovered more firmness and consistency than himself, yet his celebrated pamphlet may be productive of good, both to Europe and to America. It appears to me that it will lead to the discussion of questions that have for some time lain dormant, and to the revival and vindication of opinions that have of late been too unfashionable to avow.

Even some Americans who have fought for their country and been instrumental in her emancipation from a foreign yoke, seem to be at war with every Democratic principle: — and some men of genius, professed republicans, who formerly shared the confidence of the people, are now become the advocates for Monarchy and all the trappings of Royalty. The British constitution is the idol of their warmest devotion and they daily sigh for Patrician rank, hereditary titles, stars, garters, and nobility, with all the insignia of arbitrary sway.

Thus from age to age, are the people coaxed, cheated, or bullied until the hood-winked multitude set their own seal to a renunciation of their priviledges, and with their own hand rivet the chains of servitude on their posterity.

This is a painful reflection to the patriot in retirement and the philosopher in his closet: but when we consider it is the usual course of human conduct, one is almost led to assent to the Federal creed lately established in America. First that mankind are incapable of the enjoyment of liberty; second that the mass of the people have not the capacity nor the right to choose their own master; therefore the game of deception must be played over and over to mislead their judgment and work on their enthusiasm until by the assent, hereditary crowns and distinctions are fixed, when their posterity may load the authors thereof with as many curses, as now daily fall on the first Federal head who it is said conveyed an hereditary taint to all succeeding generations.

Yet it is my opinion commotions in France will check the designs of certain characters, about the American Court: and for a time keep them within some bounds of moderation and perhaps awake the vigilance of others, so far as to keep in awe those who are buzzing for a crown for their President and hereditary title, lordships, and revenues for his ministers and favourites.…

I hope you have received a small packet from Dilly; if the amusements of some leisure hours should meet your approbation, I should be highly gratified. The volume I know will be read by you Madam with candour, if not partiality. What the critics may say I know not — but sensible many a hapless reputation has been wrecked on the ocean of public opinion, I have endeavoured to arm myself with fortitude either to ride out the storm or to see my little shallop1 stranded on the quicksands of neglect.

I am my dear madam with unalterable esteem your very sincere friend,

M Warren

Alice Brown, Mercy Warren (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1896), 241–242.

Mercy Otis Warren Selected Letters, ed. Jeffrey H. Richards and Sharon M. Harris (Athens: The University of Georgia Press, 2009), 230–232.

READING AND DISCUSSION QUESTIONS