By FRANCOIS-MARIE AROUET VOLTAIRE*
Article collected in the recently published book, organized by Regina Schöpke & Mauro Baladi
Woman – physical and moral1
She is generally much weaker than man, smaller and less capable of long labors. Her blood is thinner, her flesh less compact, her hair longer, her limbs more toned, her arms less muscular, her mouth smaller, her buttocks more upturned, her hips further apart and her belly broader. These characteristics distinguish women all over the world, in all races, from Lapland to the coast of Guinea, in America as well as in China.
Plutarch, in the third book of his Table Talks, asserts that wine does not intoxicate them as easily as it does men, and here is the reason he gives for this which is not true. I use Amyot's translation:2 “The temperament of women is very moist, which makes their flesh soft, smooth, and shiny, with their menstrual purgations. When, therefore, wine falls into such great humidity, then, finding itself spoiled, it loses its color and strength, and becomes discolored and watery; and as to this we may gather something from the words of Aristotle himself: for he says that those who drink in great gulps, without catching their breath—what the ancients called amusizein – They do not get drunk so easily, because the wine hardly stays inside their body; being thus pressed and pushed by force, it passes through their whole body. Now, it is most common to see women drinking in this way, and if it is plausible that their body, because of the continuous attraction that is made of the humors in counterpoint to their menstrual purgations, is full of various conduits, and traversed by various tubes and networks of channels, when the wine comes to fall into them, it leaves quickly and easily, without being able to stick to the noble and principal parts - which, when disturbed, cause drunkenness.
This physics is totally worthy of the ancients.
Women live a little longer than men, which means that in a generation they are older than their elders. This is what has been observed in Europe by all those who have made accurate records of births and deaths. It is to be believed that the same thing happens in Asia and among black, red and gray women, as well as among white women. Nature is always there for us.3
We have mentioned elsewhere an excerpt from a Chinese newspaper, which tells that in the year 1725, when the wife of Emperor Yontchin decided to give gifts to the poor women of China who were over seventy years old,4 In the province of Canton alone, among those who received these gifts, there were 98.220 women over seventy, 70 over eighty, and 48.893 over one hundred years of age. Those who appreciate final causes say that nature grants them a longer life than men to reward them for the work they have done in carrying children for nine months, bringing them into the world, and nourishing them. It is not to be believed that nature gives rewards. But it is probable that, as women's blood is softer, their fibers harden more slowly.
No anatomist, no physician has ever been able to know the way in which they conceive. Despite Sanchez5 have ensured that Mariam et Spiritum sanctum emississe semen in copulatione, et exsemine amborum natum esse Jesum,6 this abominable impertinence of Sanchez, in other things very wise, is not adopted today by any naturalist.
Women are the only type of female that sheds blood every month. Some have tried to attribute the same evacuation to other species – and especially to monkeys – but this has not turned out to be true.
These periodic emissions of blood, which always weaken women during this loss, the illnesses arising from the retention of menstrual blood, the periods of pregnancy, the need to breastfeed and care for their children continually, and the delicacy of their limbs, make them little suited to the fatigues of war and the fury of combat. It is true, as we have already said, that in all times and in almost all countries there have been some women to whom nature has endowed extraordinary courage and strength, who have fought alongside men and who have endured prodigious labors. However, in the end, such examples are rare. We refer you to the article “Amazonas”.
The physical always governs the moral. Since women are weaker in body than we are; have more dexterity in their fingers—much more flexible than ours—and are hardly able to work in the arduous tasks of building, carpentry, metalworking, and farming; are necessarily entrusted with the lightest small jobs around the house, and especially with the care of children; lead a more sedentary life, they must have a gentler character than the male race; they must also be less acquainted with great crimes. And this is so true that in all civilized countries there are always at least fifty men executed for a single woman.
Montesquieu, in his spirit of laws,7 promising to speak about the condition of women in various governments, he asserts that “among the Greeks women were not considered worthy of participating in true love, and that love only had among them a form that we dare not say”.8 He cites Plutarch as his guarantor.
This is a mistake that can only be forgiven in a spirit such as Montesquieu's, always carried away by the speed of his ideas, which were often incoherent.
Plutarch, in his chapter on Love, introduces several interlocutors; and he himself, under the name of Daphneus, refutes with the greatest vehemence the speeches made by Protogenes in favor of debauchery with young men.
It is in this same dialogue that he goes so far as to say that there is something divine in the love of women; he compares this love to the sun, which animates nature; he places the greatest happiness in conjugal love, and ends with the magnificent praise of the virtue of Eponine. This memorable adventure had taken place before the very eyes of Plutarch, who lived for some time in the house of Vespasian. This heroine, learning that her husband Sabinus, defeated by the emperor's troops, had hidden in a deep cave between Franche-Comté and Champagne, entered it alone with him, served him, fed him for several years and had some children with him.
Finally, being arrested with her husband and brought before Vespasian, who was astonished at the greatness of her courage, she said to him: “I have lived happier under the earth, in darkness, than you have in the light of the sun at the height of your power.” Plutarch therefore affirms precisely the opposite of what Montesquieu makes him say; and he even speaks out in favor of women with a very moving enthusiasm.
It is not surprising that in all countries man has become the master of woman, with everything being based on force. He commonly has much superiority in regard to the body, and even the spirit.
We have seen some very wise women, just like warriors. However, we have never seen a female inventor.
The spirit of sociability and grace are commonly what characterize them. It seems, generally speaking, that they were made to soften the manners of men.
In no republic have they ever had the slightest share in government; they have never reigned in purely elective empires; but they reign in almost all the hereditary kingdoms of Europe, in Spain, in Naples, in England, in several northern states, and in several great fiefdoms which are called feminine.
The custom which is called Salic law9 excluded them from the kingdom of France; and it is not, as Mézerai says,10 because they were incapable of governing, since they were almost always granted regency.
It is said that Cardinal Mazarin recognized that several women would be worthy of ruling a kingdom, and that he added that there was always the fear that they would allow themselves to be subjugated by mistresses incapable of governing a dozen hens. However, Isabella in Castile, Elizabeth in England and Maria Theresa in Hungary have all given the lie to this supposed joke attributed to Cardinal Mazarin. And today we see in the North a respected legislator.11 to the same extent as the sovereign of Greece,
of Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt is little esteemed.12
Ignorance has long asserted that women are slaves during their whole life among the Mohammedans, and that after their death they do not enter paradise at all. These are two great errors, similar to those which have always been propagated about Mohammedanism. Wives are in no way slaves. The sura or chapter IV of the Koran assigns them a dowry. A daughter should receive the equivalent of half of the property inherited by her brother. If there are only daughters, they divide between themselves two-thirds of the inheritance, and the rest belongs to the relatives of the deceased – each of the two lineages will receive a sixth part – and the mother of the deceased also has a right to the legacy. Wives are so little slaves that they are allowed to ask for a divorce, which is granted to them when their complaints are judged legitimate.
It is not permitted for Muslims to marry their sister-in-law, their niece, their foster sister, and their stepdaughter brought up under their wife's care; it is not permitted to marry two sisters. In this they are much more severe than the Christians, who every day buy in Rome the right to contract such marriages, which they could do for free.
Polygamy
Muhammad reduced the unlimited number of wives to four. However, since one must be extremely wealthy to support four women according to one's condition, only great lords can make use of such a privilege. Thus, the plurality of women does not cause the Muslim states the harm that we so often criticize in them, and does not depopulate them, as is repeated every day in so many books written at random.
The Jews, by an ancient established custom, according to their books, since Lamech, have always been at liberty to have several wives at the same time. David had eighteen, and it is from that time that the rabbis have limited the polygamy of kings to that number – although it is said that Solomon had seven hundred.
Nowadays, Mohammedans do not publicly grant Jews the right to have a plurality of women; they do not believe that Jews are worthy of such an advantage. But money, always stronger than the law, sometimes grants, in the East or in Africa, to Jews who are rich, the permission that the law refuses them.
It is seriously said that Lelius Cinna, tribune of the people, announced after Caesar's death that the dictator had intended to enact a law giving women the right to have as many husbands as they wished. What sensible man does not see that this is a popular and ridiculous tale, invented to make Caesar odious? It resembles that other tale that a Roman senator had proposed, in a full senate, to give Caesar permission to sleep with all the women he wanted. Such ineptitudes dishonor history, and harm the spirit of those who believe them. It is sad that Montesquieu believed this fable.
The same thing does not happen with Emperor Valentinian I, who, claiming to be a Christian, married Justina while his first wife, Severa, mother of Emperor Gratian, was still alive.
In the first dynasty of Frankish kings, Gontran, Cherebert, Sigebert and Chilperic had several wives at the same time. Gontran had in his palace Veneranda, Mercatrude, and Ostregila, recognized as legitimate wives. Cherebert had Merosleda, Marcovesia and Theodogila. It is difficult to conceive how the ex-Jesuit Nonotte13 could, in his ignorance, be so bold as to deny these facts, to say that the kings of this first dynasty did not make use of polygamy, and to disfigure, in a two-volume libel,14 more than a hundred historical truths, with the confidence of a teacher giving lessons in a school. Books of this kind do not cease to be sold for some time in the provinces where the Jesuits still have supporters; they seduce some poorly educated people.
Father Daniel,15 wiser and more judicious, admits the polygamy of the Frankish kings without any difficulty; he does not deny the three wives of Dagobert I; he expressly says that Theudebert married Deuteria, although he had another wife named Visigalda, and although Deuteria had a husband. He adds that in this Dagobert imitated his uncle Clotaire, who married the widow of his brother Chlodomer, although he already had three wives. All historians admit the same thing.
How, after all these testimonies, can we bear the impudence of an ignorant man who speaks as a teacher, and who dares to say, while spreading such enormous nonsense, that he is defending religion? As if our venerable and sacred religion – which some despicable slanderers make serve their inept impostures! – depended on a point of history.
Of the polygamy permitted by some popes and by some reformers
Abbot Fleury,16 author of Ecclesiastical history, does more justice to the truth in all that concerns the laws and customs of the Church. He acknowledges that Boniface, the apostle of Lower Germany, having consulted Pope Gregory II in the year 726 to know in what cases a husband may have two wives, Gregory replied to him on November 22 of the same year in these very words: “If a woman is attacked by an illness that makes her unfit for conjugal duty, the husband may marry another; but he must give the sick woman the necessary aids.” This decision seems in accordance with reason and policy; it favors the settlement, which is the purpose of marriage.
But that which seems not to be in accordance with reason, policy, or nature, is the law which decrees that a woman separated in body and property from her husband may not have another husband, nor may the husband take another wife. It is evident that this set of people are lost to the settlement, and that if this separated husband and wife are both of uncontrollable tempers, they are necessarily exposed to and forced into continual sins for which the legislators must be accountable before God, if…
The decrees of the Popes have not always had as their object what is expedient for the good of States and of individuals. This same decree of Pope Gregory II, which permits bigamy in certain cases, deprives forever of conjugal society the boys and girls whom their parents gave to the Church in their earliest childhood. This law seems as barbarous as it is unjust: it is annihilating several families at the same time; it is forcing the will of men before they have a will; it is making children forever slaves to a vow they have absolutely not made; it is destroying natural liberty; it is offending God and the human race.
Philip's polygamy, landgrave17 of Hesse, in the Lutheran communion in 1539, is quite public. I knew one of the sovereigns of the empire of Germany, whose father, having married a Lutheran, received permission from the pope to marry a Catholic, and who kept both his wives.
It is public knowledge in England, and they would vainly deny it, that Chancellor Cowper18 He married two women who lived together in his house in a singular harmony that honors all three. Several curious people still have the little book that this chancellor composed in favor of polygamy.
We must be wary of authors who say that in some countries the laws allow women to have several husbands. Men, who everywhere made the laws, were born with too much self-love, are too jealous of their authority, and usually have a much more fiery temperament, compared with that of women, to have devised such jurisprudence. That which does not conform to the common way of acting of nature is seldom true. But what is very common, especially among ancient travelers, is to have confused an abuse with a law.
the author of spirit of laws says19 that on the Malabar coast, in the Nair caste, men can have only one wife, and that a woman, on the contrary, can have several husbands; he cites some suspicious authors, and above all Pyrard.20 One should not speak of these strange customs unless one has been an eyewitness to them for a long time. When one mentions them, one should do so with doubt. But what impulsive spirit knows how to doubt?
“The lubricity of women,” he says,21 – is so large, in Patane, that men are forced to use certain protections to defend themselves from its attacks.”
President Montesquieu never went to Patane. Did Linguet22 Have you not very judiciously observed that those who printed this tale were travelers who were mistaken or who wished to mock their readers? Let us be fair, let us love what is true, let us not be seduced, let us judge by things and not by names.
Continuation of reflections on polygamy
It seems that it was power, and not convenience, that made all laws, especially in the East. It was there that we saw the first slaves, the first eunuchs, and the prince's treasury composed of what was taken from the people.
He who can clothe, feed and entertain several women, has them in his harem and commands them despotically.
Ben-Abul-Kiba, in his Mirror of the faithful, says that one of the viziers of the great Suleiman23 He made the following speech to a representative of the great Charles the Fifth: “Christian dog, for whom I have, by the way, a very special esteem, can you blame me for having four wives according to our sacred laws, while you empty twelve barrels a year, and I do not drink a single glass of wine? What good do you do the world by spending more hours at table than I do in bed? I can give four children a year to the service of my august lord; and you can hardly provide one. And what is the son of a drunkard? His brain will be clouded by the vapors of the wine that his father has drunk. Besides, what do you want me to do when two of my wives are in confinement? Is it not necessary that I attend to two others, as my law commands me? And what do you do, what role do you play in the last months of the pregnancy of your only wife, and during her confinement, and during her illnesses? You must either remain in shameful idleness, or seek another woman. You are necessarily caught between two mortal sins, which will make you fall directly, after your death, from the sharp bridge.24 to the bottom of Hell”.
“I suppose that in our wars against the Christian dogs we lose a hundred thousand soldiers: here are a hundred thousand girls to be provided for. Is it not the rich who should take care of them? Woe to every Muslim who is so apathetic as not to give shelter in his house to four beautiful girls as his lawful wives, and not to treat them according to their merits!”
“What then do they do in your country, the herald of the day, whom you call a cock; the honest ram, prince of the flocks; the bull, sovereign of the cows? Doesn’t each of them have his own seraglio? Is it really appropriate that you should blame me for my four wives, while our great prophet had eighteen, David the Jew the same number, and Solomon the Jew seven hundred, with three hundred concubines?! You see how modest I am. Stop criticizing the gluttony of a wise man who eats such mediocre meals. I allow you to drink, allow me to love. You change wines, tolerate me changing women. Let each one of us live according to the manner of his land. Your hat is not made to dictate laws to my turban; your lace collar and your coat should not give orders to my doliman. Finish drinking your coffee with me, and go and pet your German woman, since you are reduced to her alone.”
German's answer
“Muslim dog, for whom I have a deep veneration, before finishing my coffee I want to contest what you said. He who has four wives has four harpies, always ready to slander each other, to harm each other, to quarrel with each other; the house is a den of discord; none of them can love you. Each one has only a quarter of your person, and could only give you at most a quarter of her heart. None of them can make your life pleasant; they are prisoners who, having never seen anything, have nothing to say to you. They know only you: therefore you hate them. You are their absolute master: therefore they hate you. You are obliged to keep them under the guard of a eunuch, who whips them when they make too much noise. You dare to compare yourself to a rooster! But a rooster does not have his hens whipped by a capon. Take your examples from the animals; resemble them as much as you like. As for me, I want to love like a man; I want to give my whole heart, and have them give me theirs. I will report this conversation to my wife tonight, and I hope she will be pleased with it. As for the wine, for which you reproach me, you must know that if it is bad to drink it in Arabia, it is a very praiseworthy habit in Germany. Good-bye.”
*Francois-Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778) was a historian, philosopher and writer. Author, among other books, of Candido, or optimism (Penguin/Companhia das Letras). [https://amzn.to/4i88pNz]
Reference
Regina Schöpke & Mauro Baladi (orgs.). Women in the Lights. Translation: Regina Schöpke & Mauro Baladi. New York, New York, 2024, 402 pages. [https://amzn.to/41KGzBg]
Translators' notes
1 “Femme – Physique et morale”, Questions sur l'Encyclopédie par des amateurs (6th part) (SL: SE, 1771, p.29-46).
2 Jacques Amyot (1513-1593), French scholar who became famous for his translation of the works of Plutarch.
3 “Nature is always in harmony with itself.” Quote by Isaac Newton.
4 Very instructive letter from the Jesuit Constantin to the Jesuit Souciet, 19th compilation.
5 Tomás Sanchez (1550-1610), Spanish Jesuit theologian born in Córdoba.
6 “Mary and the Holy Spirit expelled semen during copulation, and from the mixture of their semen Jesus was born.”
7 Book VII, chap. IX. See the article “Love”, in which this mistake has already been pointed out.
8 Montesquieu refers to pederasty.
9 Compilation of customs and rules of private law of the ancient Franks.
10 François Eudes de Mézerai (1610-1683), French historian.
11 Voltaire refers to Catherine the Great, Empress of Russia between 1762 and 1796, who was one of her main protectors.
12 Voltaire is probably referring to Mustafa III, sultan of the Ottoman Empire between 1757 and 1774.
13 Claude-Adrien Nonnotte (1711-1793), French Jesuit born in Besançon. He became famous for his long polemic with Voltaire.
14 Voltaire's Errors [The Errors of Voltaire], published in 1762. In this work, Nonnotte defended the Christian point of view against the attacks of Voltaire and other Enlightenment thinkers.
15 Gabriel Daniel (1649-1728), French Jesuit priest and historian. Author of an esteemed Histoire de France, after the établissement of the monarchie French in the Gauls (History of France, from the Establishment of the French Monarchy in Gaul), published in 1713.
16 Claude Fleury (1640-1723), French religious man born in Paris. His monumental Ecclesiastical history has twenty volumes.
17 Title of nobility in Germany and Scandinavia.
18 William Cowper (1665?-1723), English aristocrat and politician.
19 Book XVI, chap. V.
20 François Pyrard de Laval (1578-1621), French traveler and explorer.
21 Book XVI, chap. X.
22 Simon-Nicolas-Henri Linguet (1736-1794), French jurist and polemicist.
23 Suleiman I (1494?-1566), sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 to 1566. Nicknamed “The Magnificent”. 24 According to Muslim belief, on the Day of Judgment men will have to cross an immensely long and narrow bridge like a sword's edge. The wicked will not have the strength to make this crossing and will fall into Hell.
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