More Women Have Joyless Sex Than You Think

The American Conservative:

The great 19th century British jurist, James Fitzjames Stephen, writes the following in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: “A woman marries. This in every case is a voluntary action. If she regards the marriage with the ordinary feelings and acts from the ordinary motives, she is said to act freely. If she regards it as a necessity, to which she submits in order to avoid greater evil, she is said to act under compulsion and not freely.” But no, Stephen argues, the woman who marries from “necessity” or to “avoid a greater evil” acts just as voluntarily and as freely as the one who chooses “from the ordinary motives” and with “ordinary feelings.” In putting forth his argument, Stephen rejects the position “accepted by Mr. Mill.” He was referring, of course, to John Stuart Mill, who contended in On Liberty that a woman who marries or otherwise acts from a fear of the consequences of choosing differently is acting under “compulsion,” such that “no one is ever justified in trying to affect any one’s conduct by exciting his fears.”



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