SOURCE: Brookes, Barbara. “The Feminism of Condorcet and Sophie de Grouchy.” Studies on Voltaire and the Eighteenth Century 189 (1980): 297-361.

In this excerpt, Brookes addresses the development of Condorcet's feminism after his marriage to Sophie de Grouchy, linking his thoughts on government and natural rights to his beliefs about the rights of women.

Introduction1

The debate on the equality of the sexes, which can be traced back through the centuries to Greek civilisation, arose at different times in the history of France.² In the years preceding the French Revolution, the philosophes attacked the abuses of the old regime. It seems likely that such men, concerned with destroying privilege and with creating a new humane society founded on reason, would have concerned themselves with ameliorating the position of women. Prominent philosophes such as Montesquieu, Thomas, Diderot and d'Alembert, were tentative in their claims and they did not present a coherent...