Freedom to
Early American writer Judith Sargent Murray exemplified positive freedom in claiming equality for her sex. She can be an inspiration for writers and anyone defending freedom today.
She did everything a writer should. When publishers rejected her, she ignored them and continued writing. She circulated copies of her unpublished work amongst friends, and developed a name for herself as a literary and political intellectual. When financially able, she self-published. She cultivated friendships with men who held influential power. Eventually she found a magazine to publish her work and a theater to produce her first play. She wrote prodigiously in every literary medium and was able to create a reliable income stream to help support her family. She packaged letters and magazine columns into books in order to market her writing and gain historical relevance.
Judith Sargent Murray’s story as a professional writer follows the advice given to every developing writer today. Write daily, and select topics you care about. Continue to submit your writing despite the inevitable rejections. Build a community of followers, and cultivate a network of influential people. Become adept at marketing your own work.
Sargent Murray1 had to figure this out for herself as she broke new ground for women. She began writing early in her life and didn’t let up during the Revolutionary War—an inauspicious time to publish for any writer, much less an 18th century woman. That she was able to surmount serious challenges in pursuit of her art should lift the spirits of every writer.
Her persistence was key.
This essay is part of a series called “Shut Out, Not Shut Up” on women through the ages who’ve written despite being dismissed because of their sex. They persisted.
The life of Judith Sargent Murray 1751-1820
Family life
Judith was the oldest of eight children born to a wealthy merchant, Winthrop Sargent, and his wife, Judith Saunders Sargent. The family lived in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where Winthrop was a shipping merchant.
Her parents encouraged her education in reading and writing while they provided a formal education to her brother. They allowed Judith to share tutoring sessions with her brother, who was being prepared to attend Harvard. Armed only with literacy, Judith read through her family’s extensive library and became proficient in multiple disciplines. However, she never outgrew her indignation that she was denied the formal education offered to her brother, despite being at least his equal in intelligence.
Aged nine, Judith began writing poetry and never stopped for the rest of her life. Her poems impressed her father, who shared them, in humblebrag fashion, at dinner parties. For a developing writer who was learning her craft on her own, praise from her family fueled her motivation to continue.2
Judith’s first marriage, when she was 18, proved challenging. She married John Stevens, a successful ship captain and together they adopted his orphaned nieces and her cousin. Soon enough, the Revolutionary War disrupted the shipping business, which was Gloucester’s primary industry. When Stevens couldn’t find employment, Judith attempted to earn enough from her writing to keep the family solvent. She found little success and John went to debtor’s prison before fleeing to the West Indies. He lived only a few years more. She was widowed by the time she was 35.
Within two years, Judith married a longtime friend and Unitarian minister, John Murray. Although her first child, a boy, died within hours of delivery, Judith bore a daughter, Julia Marie Murray, who eventually survived her mother.
Literary life
Judith Sargent Murray wrote with an eye for posterity even as a young woman. At 23, she began a lifelong practice of compiling her letters into books. She intended, without question, to be taken seriously by literary history.
During wartime, she tried unsuccessfully to earn an income from having her work published. Despite these difficulties, she wrote regularly. She submitted her essays using a pseudonym—“Honora,” “Martesia,” or “Constantia”—a then-popular practice especially for anyone with controversial opinions to share.
The colonial revolutionary movement compelled Sargent Murray to expand her progressive vision of women’s equality beyond education. Like Mary Wollstonecraft in England3 and Olympe de Gouges in France,4 Judith Sargent Murray advocated for educating girls and women. These writers lived in times of revolution, when it became possible for those who had lived in the shadows, if not under the thumb of, aristocracy to push for freedom in a way that had never before seemed realistic. Revolutionaries, whether in the American Declaration of Independence or in the French Rights of Man, articulated not only their freedom ‘from’ authoritarians but importantly also established their freedoms ‘to’—life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness; liberté, égalité, fraternité.
Importantly, women writing in the revolutionary spirit focused primarily on their freedoms ‘to’: an education, yes, but also to participate meaningfully and fully in society. They advocated for women to be published and to debate their ideas on equal footing with men. They demanded political power and self-determination. Women too should participate vocally “in the room where it happens.”
Sargent Murray developed her ideas on equality in discussion with other women. Men in her time may argue for freedom from tyrants, but she was most interested in freedom to: be heard, be taken as seriously as a man would be. She didn’t argue for freedom from the burdens women exclusively shoulder (family care, child raising, cooking, sewing, housekeeping): after all, these tasks did not suppress her imagination.
She wrote her most famous work four years into the war, when she was 28, married, and taking care of her husband and family. Her essay circulated amongst her friends for over 10 years. During the intervening years, she became widowed, remarried, and delivered a son who lived only hours. She succeeded in publishing her essay in the Massachusetts Magazine, under the name “Constantia”—likely, a popular affectation (similar to Benjamin Franklin’s nom de plume, Silence Dogood), rather than a disguise, since readers easily credited the essay to her.
Two years later, she adopted a male pen name, The Gleaner, and landed a regular column with the magazine that had published her popular essay. She later compiled her Gleaner columns into book form, to remarket them.
In 1793 the family moved to Boston, where she wrote a play, The Medium, that was produced for stage performance. This production gave her the distinction of being the first American playwright whose work was performed onstage.
She wrote poems prolifically, and published four books in addition to her essays and plays. She helped her husband John Murray compile a book of sermons, and after his death she finished and edited his autobiography.5
Later life
Widowed, Sargent Murray moved to Natchez, Mississippi to live with her daughter. She died a few years later at the age of 69, having never abdicated her family name for a husband’s.
In 1945, Gordon Gibson discovered twenty volumes of her correspondence. Gibson placed the volumes with the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, which published her approximately 2,500 letters on microfilm. This archive remains one of the few collections of women’s writing from the Revolutionary period in American history.
On the Equality of the Sexes, published 1790
Judith Sargent Murray’s essay begins by establishing that ability is distributed universally, while resources are reserved for only some.
“Is it upon mature consideration we adopt the idea, that nature is thus partial in her distributions? Is it indeed a fact, that she hath yielded to one half of the human species so unquestionable a mental superiority? I know that to both sexes elevated understandings, and the reverse, are common. But, suffer me to ask, in what the minds of females are so notoriously deficient, or unequal.”
Not content to “hold these truths to be self-evident,” Sargent Murray swiftly moved to establish a defense based on reason. Intelligence, she posits, has four qualities: imagination, reason, memory, and judgement. She then argues that women clearly excel in at least two of these, if not equal men in all, and she makes her case by appealing to the stereotypes men hold of women.
Women display imagination in many ways, she argues: in ever-changing and outlandishly creative fashion, in their cleverness in explaining away their misdeeds, in their slanderous gossiping and scandalizing: “…how many reputations, in the fertile brain of a female, have been utterly despoiled?”
Women’s abilities to reason is not so clearly manifest to men, because reason relies on knowledge, and women have been denied access to knowledge.
In memory, however, women clearly excel, as any man who’s suffered the long memory of an aged mother can attest.
“Memory, I believe, will be allowed us in common, since everyone's experience must testify, that a loquacious old woman is as frequently met with, as a communicative man; their subjects are alike drawn from the fund of other times, and the transactions of their youth, or of maturer life, entertain, or perhaps fatigue you, in the evening of their lives.”
Given that women rarely have the power to exercise judgement, Sargent Murray compares the sexes at a time in their lives when they’re still on equal footing: early childhood. She compares a two year old girl to a boy the same age:
“Will it be said that the judgment of a male of two years old, is more sage than that of a female's of the same age? I believe the reverse is generally observed to be true. But from that period what partiality! how is the one exalted, and the other depressed, by the contrary modes of education which are adopted! the one is taught to aspire, and the other is early confined and limitted. As their years increase, the sister must be wholly domesticated, while the brother is led by the hand through all the flowery paths of science. Grant that their minds are by nature equal, yet who shall wonder at the apparent superiority.”
Parents rig future outcomes for their children when a son’s mind receives instruction and a daughter’s is restricted. Rather than ceding reason and judgement to men based on unfair advantages, Sargent Murray showcases her own expertise in these faculties, manifesting her argument. Although not allowed to study at Harvard, she taught herself logic and philosophy, wielding this expertise to demonstrate the equality for which her essay argues.
On women’s work
Sargent Murray fastens on a novel argument6 that the work women do enhances their mental abilities. The repetitive nature of women’s labor—caring for family, raising children, cooking, sewing, gardening—frees the mind from the task, allowing it to engage in intellectual exercise.
“Is the needle and kitchen sufficient to employ the operations of a soul thus organized? I should conceive not, Nay, it is a truth that those very departments leave the intelligent principle vacant, and at liberty for speculation.
Will it be urged that those acquirements would supersede our domestick duties. I answer that every requisite in female economy is easily attained; and, with truth I can add, that when once attained, they require no further mental attention. Nay, while we are pursuing the needle, or the superintendency of the family, I repeat, that our minds are at full liberty for reflection; that imagination may exert itself in full vigor; and that if a just foundation is early laid, our ideas will then be worthy of rational beings. If we were industrious we might easily find time to arrange them upon paper, or should avocations press too hard for such an indulgence, the hours allotted for conversation would at least become more refined and rational.”
To the notion that a man’s physical superiority to women justifies his overall superiority, Sargent Murray counters that physical strength is animalistic, not intellectual. Women’s work, unlike men’s, better supports mental activity because it is mindless.
Sargent Murray likely developed her viewpoints while engaged with other women in ‘more refined and rational’ discourse. She was a leader in the post-war “Republican Motherhood” movement7 that advocated for universal education (women as well as men) as a requirement for self-government. Her correspondence numbered in the thousands. She distributed her essay amongst friends for over ten years before she published it. In modern parlance, she developed networks of like-minded women and men, then used these relationships to promote their collective ideas. She discovered power in women talking, and used that power to make herself heard.
Appeal to religion
Closing her argument, Sargent Murray considers divine plans for the sexes.
“[…] is it reasonable, that a candidate for immortality, for the joys of heaven, an intelligent being, who is to spend an eternity in contemplating the works of the Deity, should at present be so degraded, as to be allowed no other ideas, than those which are suggested by the mechanism of a pudding, or the sewing the seams of a garment? Pity that all such censurers of female improvement do not go one step further, and deny their future existence; to be consistent they surely ought.”
Souls—being the essence of humankind and disassociated from the muscles and organs of the human body—are by definition undifferentiated by sex. Sargent Murray stipulates that, in a spiritual sense, men and women are fully equal.
She acknowledges that the Bible contains many stories that elevate men over women, but she dismisses these as ‘metaphorical.’ David, though esteemed by God, was a slave to ‘his licentious passions!’ Job complained bitterly of his tribulations: is this a patient man?
“Listen to the curses which Job bestoweth upon the day of his nativity, and tell me where is his perfection, where his patience–literally it existed not.”
Arguing male superiority from scripture fails miserably when scripture is read literally and figuratively. If David and Job are emblematic of male superiority, we’re left wondering about the standards being used.
Sargent Murray argues forcefully for women’s education. She advocates against zero-sum thinking: educating women won’t take anything away from men and it will benefit all. Women will continue to do the work they currently do in family and social life, and will be more productive. Elevating women will be additive to human achievement. Freedom to acquire knowledge would lift all people, since it would realize the fulfilment of human potential.
Thoughts
Timothy Snyder, in his recent book On Freedom, differentiates between negative and positive freedom. Freedom from restraints is a negative freedom. It releases one from restrictive laws, regulations, oversights—the goal of both anarchists and libertarians. It speaks the language of the extreme right: don’t tell me what to do. Freedom to is a positive freedom. It articulates what could be possible, if one is allowed to realize one’s ideas. This was the (originally unfulfilled) promise that the Declaration of Independence pronounced:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”
Eventually, the nation would secure these rights for all men, and also women. The right to safety and happiness. The right to pursue one’s interests. The right to form a government in order to secure self-determination, which would otherwise be unattainable. The Declaration didn’t establish a government that could do this, but it articulated the freedoms that the colonists intended to secure for themselves, through its own government.
Sargent Murray wrote her essay three years after Thomas Jefferson composed the Declaration of Independence. She plainly held grievances that dated back to being denied the education her brother received, but she founded her argument on positive freedoms. She didn’t demand that husbands and fathers share the responsibility for maintaining a family and home. She didn’t force men to make room for women in politics or business chambers. She didn’t ask men to cede women anything. Instead, she advocated that women be given access to resources that would enable women to fulfill their potentials. Not every woman would want this, nor would every woman have the determination necessary for intellectual pursuits in addition to never-ending women’s work. For the women who craved intellectual discourse and artistic expression, Sargent Murray demanded that they have the freedom to become educated and participate equally with men.
Writers can learn much from Sargent Murray. I contemplated her treatise while knitting a sweater, the repetitive stitching freeing my mind to interact with her ideas. I’m one of many writers who enjoy walking outdoors to stimulate thoughts, since the activity both wakens the senses while delegating its mental load to the subconscious.
Although writing is solitary, extended discourse with others remains the best way to shape one’s thoughts. Texts and social media posts are no substitute for the give-and-take of discussion or Sargent Murray’s bountiful longform correspondence, nor for the salon culture that fostered women writers in Europe.
Since we’ve allowed software corporations to interpolate social activities, we’ve moved our discourse online, rendering it asynchronous and filtered. Messages typed into a software form become cleaved from human emotions. We’ve accepted emojis in exchange for human feelings.
As a person you’re free to opt out of online discourse, but an unpublished writer can’t easily disconnect. To attract an agent or publisher, one must build an online ‘community’ and ‘following’ of sufficient size to demonstrate the commercial attraction of your writing. If you choose to self-publish or take a hybrid approach, you depend even more on the internet to publish and promote.
Sargent Murray experienced none of these constraints. She faced even more fundamental disadvantages. Not provided access to a formal education, she had to teach herself the disciplines Harvard taught her brother. Rejected repeatedly by publishers who dismissed a woman’s intellectual and literary abilities, she continued to write and distribute her work amongst her circle of friends. She made friends with revolutionary leaders—she fostered friendships with George Washington and John Adams—whose reputations burnished hers. She applied her creativity and logic to create a place for herself when men denied her access.
I struggle some weeks to clear my mind of the turmoil I witness in social and political realms. I wonder, how can I write, as the world erupts into a Hydra of conflicts? Whatever your personal or professional interests, you may feel the same. And yet, Judith Sargent Murray wrote prolifically while living on the frontlines of the Revolutionary War, her family devastated by the war’s economic impacts on her husband’s business. Despite this onslaught, she wrote with measured reason and humor on a topic that confronted misogyny while most people were trying to survive the war.
Freedom for women was that important to her. So she fought for it, with her words.
Ellie’s Corner
We’re still rugging up, with lows generally below freezing and highs just above. We aren’t complaining. When it’s chilly, you can snuggle.
Thanks for reading,
Throughout her adult life, Judith Sargent Murray insisted on using her family surname instead of replacing it with her husband’s. (During her first marriage, she called herself Judith Sargent Stevens.) Hyphenated surnames weren’t in fashion then, and social custom demanded that a woman replace her family name with her husband’s. Since Sargent Murray insisted on it, I’m following her preference.
This, too, likely resonates with many writers who haven’t yet found their audiences. Agents may not care if your family thinks you’re a brilliant writer, but you do.
Wollstonecraft’s celebrated treatise on women’s equality, “A Vindication on the Rights of Women,” was published in 1792, two years after Judith Sargent Murray published her essay on women’s rights. I wrote about Wollstonecraft here.
Olympe de Gouges’ “Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen (Déclaration des droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne) riposted the National Constituent Assembly’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789). I wrote about de Gouges and her revolutionary essay here.
She called her collaboration ‘a continuation.”
Having studied women who wrote before and during Sargent Murray’s life, I haven’t seen another writer make this argument before she did. Mine isn’t a scholarly opinion but a reader’s.
Republican as in ‘of the Republic”, since there was no political party of that name.
Historical perspective can be healing and helpful as we face the greatest crisis since the Civil War. The horrors unfold faster than we can process them. The "Save Act" which would save married women from the labor of voting...
Thank you for this. Impressive to say the least. And thanks for Ellie's Corner. Oooommmm.
Sophie has been fed, she is napping. Sometimes I just stare at her and marvel. Mostly, I rub her belly.