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Reevaluating Female “Inferiority”: Sarah Grand Versus Charles Darwin

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

Patricia Murphy
Patricia Murphy
Affiliation:
University of Iowa
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Extract

The figure of darwin hovered like a specter over the fin de siècle, not only the Darwin of the explosive 1859 On the Origin of Species that redirected evolutionary thinking but also the author of the 1871 Descent of Man — a less heralded work, though generating equally significant repercussions with its pronouncements on the intellectual capacities of the sexes. By linking a perceived mental inferiority of women to the mechanism of evolution, Darwin seemingly brought scientific proof to support a cultural truism. In so doing, he reinforced Victorian strictures that maintained women in a subservient state, which now could be justified on the basis of biological determinism. Yet Sarah Grand's popular 1897 novel, The Beth Book, contests the Darwinian verities, questioning the scientists' specious conclusions about sex-linked traits and identifying culture as an equally significant force determining the mental dispositions of the sexes.

Type
Research Article
Information
Victorian Literature and Culture , Volume 26 , Issue 2 , fall 1998 , pp. 221 - 236
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

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