Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen
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The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen ("Déclaration des Droits de la Femme et de la Citoyenne") was a letter addressed to the French queen, Marie Antoinette, asking for women's rights. It was written in 1791 by Olympe de Gouges, also known as Marie Gouze, who simply revised the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen to include women as free and equal. It includes a rewritten marriage oath so men and women are equal in marriage. It also suggests laws to assist widows and compensate young girls given false promises and then abandoned.
The Declaration
Article 1. Woman is born free and lives equal to man in her rights. Social distinctions can be based only on the common utility.
Article 2. The purpose of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of woman and man; these rights are liberty, property, security, and especially resistance to oppression.
Article 3. The principle of all sovereignty rests essentially with the nation, which is nothing but the union of woman and man; no body and no individual can exercise any authority which does not come expressly from it [the nation].
Article 4. Liberty and justice consist of restoring all that belongs to others; thus, only limits on the exercise of the natural rights of woman are perpetual male tyranny; these limits are to be reformed by the laws of nature and reason.
Article 5. Laws of nature and reason proscribe all acts harmful to society; everything which is not prohibited by these wise and divine laws cannot be prevented, and no one can be constrained to do what they do not command.
Article 6. The law must be the expression of the general will; all female and male citizens must contribute either personally or through their representatives to its formation; it must be the same for all: male and female citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, must be equally admitted to all honors, positions, and public employment according to their capacity and without other distinctions besides those of their virtues and talents.
Article 7. No woman is an exception; she is accused, arrested, and detained in cases determined by law. Women, like men, obey this rigorous law.
Article 8. The law must establish only those penalties that are strictly and obviously necessary, and on one can be punished except by virtue of a law established and promulgated prior to the crime and legally applicable to women.
Article 9. Once any woman is declared guilty, complete rigor is [to be] exercised by the law.
Article 10. No one is to be disquieted for his very basic opinions; woman has the right to mount the scaffold; she must equally have the right to mount the rostrum, provided that her demonstrations do not disturb the legally established public order.
Article 11. The free communication of thoughts and opinions is one of the most precious rights of woman, since that liberty assures the recognition of children by their fathers. Any female citizen thus may say freely, I am the mother of a child which belongs to you, without being forced by a barbarous prejudice to hide the truth; [an exception may be made] to respond to the abuse of this liberty in cases determined by law.
Article 12. The guarantee of rights of woman and female citizen implies a major benefit; this guarantee must be instituted for the advantage of all, and not for the particular benefit of those to whom it is entrusted.
Article 13. For the support of the public force and the expenses of administration, the contributions of woman and man are equal; she shares all the duties and all the painful tasks; therefore, she must have the same share in the distribution of positions, employment, offices, honors and jobs.
Article 14. Female and male citizens have the right to verify, either by themselves or through their representatives, the necessity of public contribution. This can only apply to women if they are granted an equal share, not only of wealth, but also of public administration, and in the determination of the proportion, the base, the collection, and the duration of the tax.
Article 15. The collectivity of women, joined for tax purposes to the aggregate of men, has the right to demand an accounting of this administration from any public agent.
Article 16. No society has a constitution without the guarantee of rights and the separation of powers; the constitution is null if the majority of individuals comprising the nation have not cooperated in drafting it.
Article 17. Property belongs to both sexes whether united or separate; for each it is an inviolable and sacred right; no one can be deprived of it, since it is the true patrimony of nature, unless the legally determined public need obviously dictates it, and then only with a just and prior indemnity.
See also
- The March on Versailles
- Women's Petition to the National Assembly
- Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen
