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The Subjection of Women · Theme
Marriage as Bondage
How The Subjection of Women develops Marriage as Bondage.
Mill critiques the institution of marriage, describing wives as legal bond-servants with no rights to property, children, or personal autonomy, and argues that marriage is the only remaining legal slavery.
Where it surfaces
- I
The chapter describes women's dependence on men as a 'primitive state of slavery' that has only been mitigated, not abolished.
- Chapter II: The Marriage Contract and Legal Subordination
Marriage is described as the only remaining legal bondage, with the wife's position worse than that of slaves in some legal systems.
- Chapter IV: The Benefits of Equality and the Influence of Women
Mill declares marriage the only remaining legal bondage, a monstrous contradiction to modern principles, and the sole case of human servitude after the abolition of negro slavery.