Civilization, Patriotism and Enlightened Histories of Woman

Abstract

The concept of civilization has been pressed into hard work in eighteenth-century studies in recent years and as such warrants scrutiny. While it will be examined somewhat tangentially here, its conjunction with patriotism in the present chapter will provide a framework for, and possibly even the beginning of an answer to, a fair question prompted by an examination of the Enlightenment debate about woman, namely, why it was that, since the progress of civilization was said to be so favourable to woman, women did not themselves herald the good news. Why was it, in other words, that men, not women, wrote the conjectural history of woman in the eighteenth and nineteenth century? For it was indeed only men who outlined the various stages of society, noting how each transformation from the state of nature to the modern age marked an advancement in the condition of women.