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Theodore Gottlieb von Hippel

(1741-1796)

Written after the French Revolution had begun, after Condorcet published his essay "On Giving the Rights of Citizenship to Women," after Olympe de Gouges penned her immortal "Declaration of the Rights of Women and the Citizeness," and after the Legislative Assembly had been constituted, written while the French Legislative Assembly governed France and Louis XVI still had both his crown and his head, and written before the beginning of the Reign of Terror, von Hippel presents a broad defense of women. While Condorcet and de Gouges wrote rousing polemics which stir the passions, von Hippel wrote a more prosaic (and at the same time witty) work to appeal to human reason. While his contemporary Mary Wollstonecraft addressed women in The Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), von Hippel addressed men in On Improving the Status of Women .

A comprehensive treatise on woman's status, education, and natural rights,1 von Hippel intended to prove Condorcet's assertion, which was not self-evident to 18th-century men, that women are rational, sentient beings, just like men2. Methodical and thorough, at times funny and witty, at other times holding the looking-glass too close to men for comfort, even harpooning the faults and foibles of men, von Hippel addressed several facets of the Woman Question: the legal rights (such as they were) and disabilities of women, the natural superiority of women over men in some arenas, the history of men's subjugation of women, the role men play in maintaining male supremacy and the reluctance of men to cede their power, and the benefits to accrue to both the family and the state with the education and emancipation of women. He buttresses his arguments concerning women's competence to engage in various social arenas by pointing to both past and contemporary women of accomplishment.

Although von Hippel, as expected by his contemporaries, addresses the story of women's subjugation found in the Creation Story in Genesis, he does so with a female friendly argument. In a later chapter, he gives one of the earliest (and highly original) discourses to explain the rise and persistence of male supremacy without reference to the biblical story of Adam and Eve. His secular, sociological explanation of patriarchy is one of the first to seriously explain women's subjugation to men without reference to Divine Will, age-old prejudice, or man's ignorance of women abilities. As Sellner notes, "What is of particular importance here for the history of ideas is the application of reason and empirical data, however primitive and unsophisticated those data may be, to the solution of a problem previously considered (even by Hippel himself) only in the light of Scripture3." Von Hippel's suggestions for the improvement of women's education and for their admission to citizenship, his refusal to accept the status quo, his references to prominent women of the periods all make the text interesting, lively, and unique, as well as a treasured addition to any collection of works on the defense of women. Echo's of von Hippel's arguments can be found in John Stuart Mill's The Subjugation of Women (1869), J. J. Bachofen's Mother Right (1861), and even Gerda Lerner's Creation of Patriarchy (1986).

Born in the small East Prussian town of Gerdauen on January 31, 1741 to a school superintendent with noble antecedents, von Hippel entered the University of Königsberg in the autumn of 1756 to study theology. Although he completed his course work by 1760, he never received his degree. While working in the home of a Königsberg notable, Hippel was invited to accompany his employer's nephew on an "almost-all-expenses-paid" political trip to Russia.4 Moving in the very highest Russian political and social circles, Hippel was introduced to the world of polite society and to men of influence and reputation, not just of learning. After returning home, he took a position as tutor for a wealthy family, once again coming into contact with wealth and power. He returned to school in 1762 to study law and was admitted to the Königsberg bar in 1765. The young lawyer, by his manners, hard work, rhetorical skills, keeness of understanding, brilliant logic, and innate leadership abilities, established an excellent reputation catering to the rich and powerful of the city. Beginning in the early 1770s, Hippel began his meteroric rise through the Prussian bureaucratic system, eventually earning a seat on the city council in 1778 at the age of 37. No longer a financially struggling student, in this same year von Hippel purchased a large house, considered by many to be the most beautiful in Königsberg, for more than 250 times the salary he had earned years before as a tutor. When the Governing Mayor of Königsberg died and no one else wanted the job because of widespread corruption and the generally dilapidated state of the city government, Fredrick the Great appointed him to the position. So at age 39, von Hippel, successful in several senses of the word, was appointed Governing Mayor of Königsberg, the largest and most important city in East Prussia. With brief interludes of service in other positions to the Prussian government, von Hippel remained Governing Mayor of Königsberg for the remainder of his life. Von Hippel, diligent in his work as always, transformed city government over the next decade5.

So much for von Hippel's official life. He had a secret life, too. Perhaps one of the excerpts given below will help explain why von Hippel so adamantly treasured his anonymity. In the evenings, he wrote articles, essays, and books, many of which were published anonymously, and which included

The 1774 and 1775 editions of Über die Ehe contain the traditional male supremacist, masculine head-of-household vision of marriage. In the 1792 edition von Hippel "actively advocates the emancipation of women and equality in marriage.6" In 1793, an expanded fourth edition was published including additional examples and arguments to support his arguments7. What accounts for von Hippel's change in attitude regarding marriage between the last two editions of Über die Ehe?

According to Sellner, several factors influenced von Hippel, a lifelong bachelor, softened his opinion of women.

  1. As he grew older and acquired more experience of life, through his practice of law, he frequently saw evidence of the legal and social disabilities of women.
  2. The attitude of the greater society was changing: outright misogyny was giving way to the patronizing patriarchy of the Romantic era while more emphasis was being placed on the rights of the individual and less emphasis on the immutability of social systems.
  3. The intensely misogynistic Fredrick the Great had died and the social climate was more supportive of marriage.
  4. The Enlightenment philosophés with their humanist approach to social systems emphasized the rights and happiness of the individual. Von Hippel also had at least one long-term, intensely intellectual relationship with a woman that ended sadly during this period.8
  5. Perhaps, most importantly, von Hippel retained a lifelong interest in marriage as an institution. A reformer of institutions by nature, he came to understand that marriage as an institution could be reformed, that both parties in a marriage benefited from the institution, and that both parties would benefit even more from marriage if it was reformed – and it was not possible to make those needed reforms until the equality of the sexes had been achieved.9

In the same year as the third edition of On Marriage was issued, von Hippel also published a new work, On Improving the Status of Women . Why his sudden flurry of activity on behalf of women? The short answer to the question is: he wanted to influence a pending major revision of the Prussian law code by writing in favor of women10.

Instead of one long excerpt, I include several shorter quotes. Since this series of articles is about women and political power, specifically women's quest for suffrage, these excerpts emphasize von Hippel's attitudes about women in the political arena. Perhaps, not surprisingly, since he lived and thrived in an absolute monarchy with a non-existent Republican movement and had earned his reputation by working through the system, von Hippel says little about woman and suffrage. In a brief aside, he does take the French Revolutionaries to task for failing to extend suffrage to half of the French people, the female half of the French people, when they were willing to extend that same suffrage to many French men. Near the end of the book, he also speculates about how female voters would conduct themselves in comparison to male voters.

He does, however, write copiously and favorably about the role of women in the executive and judicial branches of government – as ministers and magistrates. He defends the ability of women to perform those jobs, he holds the faults and foibles of many self-assured magistrates and ministers up to the light, and he describes the advantages to accrue to both the family and the state if the status of women is improved, in part by allowing, even encouraging them, to become governors of the state.

I would have liked to include more excerpts from the book, but there are copyright laws. On Improving the Status of Women and On Marriage are great books. Sellner has provided an interesting Introduction for each work and has performed masterful translations of some very obviously intricate writing.

Excerpts

"As long as women have only privileges and not rights; as long as the state treats them as mere parasitic plants, which are indebted for their existence and worth as citizens only to that man with whom they have been united by fate, will not the women fulfill only very incompletely (and the longer it takes, the more incompletely) that great calling of her nature: to be the wife of her husband, the mother of her children, and, by virtue of these noble designations, a member, a citizen – and not merely a denizen – of the state? Light burdens, borne long, grow heavy. But let one give them their rights back, and he will soon discover just what this sex truly is, and what it can become!" On Improving the Status of Women, p. 80

"The new French constitution deserves a repetition of my reproaches, because it has considered it sufficient not to make mention of an entire half of a nation, even though it did grant the rights of active citizenship to a smaller part of this nation – that is, to those who already enjoyed the right to religious toleration. All human beings have the same rights – all the French, men and women alike, should be free and enjoy the citizens' rights. Proposals for a degradation civique, a public ceremony in which men are declared unworthy of citizenship in the French state because of criminal acts, have not been extended to include the female sex. In such cases, women are merely to have the following curse spoken over them: "Your fatherland has found you guilty of an infamous act." On Improving the Status of Women, p. 120

"If members of a certain social class can only be represented by their peers; if even our ancestors had justice meted out to them and laws interpreted for them by those of equal rank, how can we exclude women from service to the state, insofar as legislation and the administration of laws in concerned? Do we wish to deny women initiation into these mysteries to keep them from seeing that our true weakness lies precisely at that point where we pretend our greatest strength by means of hieroglyphic rituals and incantations? Most officials of the state are nothing more than midwives to a mountain giving birth to a mouse, a mouse which nevertheless is baptized with the most glorious names and brought before the public with almost more fanfare than if a writer were to review his own books. Whoever has had the good fortune to have lived in close proximity to those who govern the state will readily grasp my meaning. What sweat of the brow! – councils and boards, assemblies and committees, tribunals and commissions! What great quantities of paper are carried about, written upon, and read! Stockbrokers of merely another sort – paper dealers of a higher dignity! And yet it seems as if everything is against everyone, because everyone is warring against everyone else." On Improving the Status of Women, p. 122

"Even less should women be forbidden to take part in the inner workings of the state, since at present they are entrusted with the management of their entire household, and their performance at these duties, even in the judgment of us men, is commendable. Most certainly we would then have fewer tyrants who watch with pleasure from solid ground as other suffer shipwreck, or who, by means of the charitable institutions under their jurisdiction, cast straws amidst the blaring trumpets and rolling drums of those surrounded by rising flood waters. We would have fewer leeches who on the one hand see to it that every object of financial value is identified and properly accounted for, and on the other squander the sweat and blood of their subjects without measure or purpose; who try to lure the chicken right out of the pot of the common man; who begin their administrations with pillage, just as miserable field commanders begin their occupation of a city; and who, in order to avoid the rumors of new oppression, give redoutes and balls, dinners and suppers, doing precisely what Alcibiades did when he cut off the ears and tail of his best dog!

If anyone denies that the female sex possesses the ability to perceive matters in a larger context; to set up regulations for whole kingdoms and then carry them out on a large scale; to comprehend far-reaching laws and, in short, to raise its ideas to the level of the universal, he betrays very little familiarity with the way of the world and is drawing his conclusions only from its ability to undertake minor matters and perform details work, the single functions which is presently entrusted to their sex." On Improving the Status of Women, pp. 156 - 157

"Already the idea is beginning to make itself felt that only equals can pass judgment on equals if the law is to be a living entity instead of a lifeless one. Would it not meanwhile be a monstrous injustice to exclude women from judge's benches and the jury room before that glowing ember bursts into flame? How would it be if the opposite sex were to take part in the administration of justice; if quarrels and lawsuits could be handled by good women as well as by good men (arbitri)? Would not the administration of justice be rendered more perfect thereby? " On Improving the Status of Women, pp. 158 - 159

"In political matters they will not, however, side with any particular party, but cast their vote for what they think is best! – while we spend our time filling rooms with hot air. The sheer complexity of our political machinery prevents us from accomplishing anything, and the everlasting tally of votes prevents us from ever deciding anything. Who of us has not at some time become annoyed by the incessant tuning of the instruments before the symphony ever began?" On Improving the Status of Women, p. 182

Footnotes:

References and More Information:

Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel and Timothy F. Sellner (Ed. and Trans.), On Improving the Status of Women , 1792 [Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1979]

Theodor Gottlieb von Hippel and Timothy F. Sellner (Ed. and Trans.), On Marriage , (Über die Ehe ) [Detroit: Wayne State Univ Pr, 1994]

Dr. Sellner plans to publish a volume of von Hippel's collected works on women in the near future. Tentatively titled Collected Works on the Status of Women, Sellner's new translation of von Hippel's works will include other essays, letters, and excerpts from various novels, in addition to the complete text of On Improving the Status of Women.

Why did Enlightenment thinkers believe all men were created equal, but not women?

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last updated February 2003