"Perhaps no American woman writer until Margaret Fuller equaled Murray in intellectual powers, in the breadth of genres in which she wrote, or in public recognition¹." Born the oldest of 8 children into an elite merchant family, Murray became a poet, essayist, playwright, and novelist and, eventually, she would edit her husband's autobiography.

      Her second husband was John Murray, the minister responsible for transporting the Universalist religion from England to America. Together the Murray's traveled the east coast and worked to establish the new religion here. Although John Murray advocated education for women and encouraged Judith to continue writing after their marriage, many of Universalism's feminist tenets spring from the mind of Judith Sargent Murray.

      In her own lifetime Murray was best known for the regular column which she wrote for the Massachusetts Magazine. Her essays considered all the topics of the day: politics, religion, the French Revolution, manners, the role of women in society, "domestic finances," etc.. Today she is best known for her short essay "On the Equality of the Sexes" where she strongly advocated equal educational opportunities for women. Some attribute the nineteenth-century "Republican Motherhood²" movement to her but this confines her vision. Her ideas are strikingly similar to Betty Friedan's in The Feminine Mystique. To her, women had an intellect and "the needle and the kitchen" did not provide enough stimulation to occupy a woman's intellect. And when women did not have positive outlets for their intellect they used it to bad ends. Women's apparent intellectual inferiority to men's arose from their different up-brings: boys were encouraged to learn and grow while women were intellectually confined. If girls were educated like boys, the apparent difference in their intellectual capacities would disappear. Women needed education to develop their intellect and encouragement to use their intellect and knowledge throughout life. Still, the major theme of Murray's work would always be: knowledge of history is important to all people but women's knowledge of earlier women's abilities and accomplishments is the most important tool for empowering young women in the new republic.

      Her feminist work, On the Equality of the Sexes (1792), was a secular work. Meeting fierce opposition because she failed to address the biblical injunctions against women teaching men and because she failed to acknowledge women's inherent inferiority on account of Eve's sin, Murray added an introduction to the second edition that dealt with the religious issues. In subsequent editions of the work, the religious tract appeared as an appendix.

      Here is an excerpt from the appendix of On the Equality of the Sexes:

"Yes, ye lordly, ye haughty sex, our souls are by nature equal to yours; the same breath of God animates, enlivens, and invigorates us; and that we are not fallen lower than yourselves, let those witness who have greatly towered above the various discouragements by which they have been so heavily oppressed; and through I an unacquainted with the list of celebrated characters on either side, yet from the observations I have made in the contracted circle in which I have moved, I dare confidently believe, that from the commencement of time to the present day, there hath been as many females, as males, who, by the mere force of natural powers, have merited the crown of applause; who thus unassisted, have seized the wreath of fame."³

1. Sharon H. Harris (ed.), Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray, [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995] p. xv
2. The "Republican motherhood" movement stressed that men had to be educated and virtuous to be good citizens of a democracy and to take their social obligations seriously. The movement stressed education for women so that women in turn could educate their sons and raise them to be model citizens.
3. Alice Rossi, The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir, [Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1988] p. 16-25, quote p. 21

      note: This article first appeared in the Tidewater Va Now Newsletter of July 1997. I wrote the newsletter. So it ain't plagarization to copy my own work.

References:

      Sharon H. Harris (ed.), Selected Writings of Judith Sargent Murray, [Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1995] p. xv

      Alice Rossi, The Feminist Papers: From Adams to de Beauvoir, [Boston, Northeastern University Press, 1988] p. 16-25

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