Gabrielle Suchon: A Third Way beyond Gender

Gabrielle Suchon (1631-1703): A Third Way beyond Gender: A Play in Three Acts by Steve Barbone, San Diego State University

It is rare enough that women’s voices be heard in the philosophy classroom. It is yet more rare that those voices reach us from the 17th century. More rare still are those that do not come to us because of their correspondence with or connection to some man about his philosophy but rather instead present a new point of view, a new philosophy. Such is the case with Gabrielle Suchon, a philosopher too long ignored both in the history of ideas and within philosophy itself.

Some background may be in order since almost no one will have heard of this philosopher, though her thinking – perhaps now taken as all too common and obvious – was quite new, quite astounding for her time. Born in Semur, France, 1631, to a well-to-do but perhaps minor noble family, Gabrielle Suchon was sent by her family to live in a convent. She traveled to Rome to plead her case to be released from the vows she claimed she was forced to make and was granted a rescript by the pope himself. Her par-ents, remarkably, opposed this, and a civil arrest was issued by the Dijon authorities. Somehow she evaded prosecution and lived out her days caring for her mother, remaining in her home after her mother’s death. She constantly wore a sort of veil (perhaps remi-niscent of her days in the cloister). She otherwise spent her life teaching children and reading and writing in solitude. Of her writings, only two books are extant, and there is no evidence of her writing letters, pamphlets, or other works. The first work, published under an obvious pseudonym (G. S. Aristophile ) and improbably titled A Treatise on Morality and Politics, Divided into Three Parts, Viz., Freedom, Knowledge, and Authority, wherein It Is Seen that though Having Been Deprived of These, Persons of Gender Do Not Lack a Natural Capacity that Enables Them to Participate in Them. With a Little Treatise on the Weakness, Frivolity, and the Instability that Is Wrongly Attributed to Them (1693), is almost as long as its title (765 pages), and the second work, On the Voluntary Single Life or Life without Engagement (1700), which did bear her name, was limited to 654 pages. Both books were approved by the religious censors of the day, and both were marked “with Approval of the King.” She died in 1703, and it seems that only some servants attended her funeral (Bertolini, “Gabrielle Suchon” 306).

Her books commanded some official attention. The first received a lengthy review in Le Journal des Savans (December 1694, 469-472). The second was more widely re-ceived and reviewed in both Le Journal des Savans pour l’année 1700 (205-206) and the Nouvelles de la République des Lettres (May 1700, 582-583) (Bertolini, “Gabrielle Suchon” 298). And then, almost nothing until 1975 when Pierre Ronzeaud presents a study of Salic law in France (Ronzeaud, “La femme”). Thanks to Ronzeaud, Suchon gains some attention by those working in seventeenth-century or French studies. In 1977, Suchon is the subject matter of an unpublished thesis (Bertolini, Gabrielle Suchon). In 1978, Paul Hoffman complains Suchon didn’t aim high enough as far as a woman’s right to be free from external constraints, and Ronzeaud disagrees (“Note”). Suchon remains almost forgotten until Christine Fauré’s 1985 brief mention in her major tome on the his-tory of feminism in France (128-130), but in 1988, Jennette Geffriaud Rosso offers a summary of On the Voluntary Single Life. That same year, Séverine Auffret publishes the first part (on freedom) from Suchon’s Treatise on Morality and Politics, which seems not to have been reprinted in any form since its original publication in 1693. The floodgates open, though with a trickle, with Auffret’s publishing On the Voluntary Single Life in 1994 and the Little Treatise in 2002, and Suchon receives some concentrated attention by those more interested in seeking to place her within the history of literature or biography (Desnain; Dunn-Lardeau; Kirsop; Nubola, bis) or by those interested in securing her place within the history of the feminist movement (Le Dœuff, “Feminism”; Winn). With the exception an encyclopedia entry (Le Dœuff, “Suchon”), unpublished theses by Bertolini and Véronique Pageau, and, of course, Auffret’s commentaries to her re-editions, no one seems to have engaged Suchon as a philosopher.

And why not? It could be that while Suchon is an interesting historical curiosity within the study of literature and publications of the seventeenth century or that she is among the earlier, but by far not the earliest, writers advocating for more (or some!) po-litical freedom for women, there is little philosophical worth to Suchon’s works. Our aim here is to offer a bare summary of her works and to make the case that Suchon does merit a place among the ranks of philosophers and that her thought deserves not only some attention in the usual survey course of (modern) philosophy but in courses touching contemporary identity politics.

The title of Suchon’s first and major work already more than hints at what is to come in her fight for freedom with its reference to “Persons of Gender” (personnes du Sexe). In her native French, a gendered language, this particular selection of terms has some interesting effects. Many philosophers, thinking they are being inclusive, more habitually write of men or mankind (l’homme in French, a masculine word) when writing about all humans. However, in French, even the more inclusive English terms like “hu-man” (l’humain), “human being” (l’être humain), or even “people” (le peuple or les gens) are also masculine. To write only of women (les femmes) or, as Suchon sometimes does, girls (les filles), both feminine terms in French, permits no possibility of being inclusive of males. The use of personne, however, immediately alters the reader’s perspective since now the reader is confronted with a discourse at once both feminized and inclusive (something that seems quite difficult if not impossible in contemporary English.) To help readers of this work keep this in mind, we employ a neologism, “pherson” – both inclu-sive and feminine – in this essay. Language, we all know and Auffret reminds us, is our way of apprehending, our way of seeing the world (“El Neutre” 90). What better mark is there of a philosopher than to use words and ideas to make a real difference in one’s fight for freedom:

Mais la lutte individuelle ne suffit pas à son ambition théorique. Il s’agit de faire rendre gorge à l’opinion, fût-elle celle des savants, des philosophes et des théologiens lorsqu’elle autorise et légitime à des coercitions réelles. Il faut combattre dans les mots et les idées […]. Tel est l’enjeu du philosopher. [Auffret, “Héroïnes” 8; italics in original.]

Suchon’s subtle thought goes yet further since her terminology helps to point out the artificial distinction made between women and men insofar as their being phersons. Suchon sets up her readers for a new way of grasping reality that transcends the femi-nine/masculine divide, one that is not intermediate, negative, or lacking but one that is additive (Auffret, “El Neutre” 88, 92-93). A “pherson of gender” seems to be or have more than does a “person” [sic] tout court. There is something more to, not something missing from, a pherson of gender.

This innovative phrasing is the scenery, lighting, and performer on the stage set by Suchon’s philosophy insofar as it serves as the background for her argumentation, it focuses on and highlights her main point, and it certainly takes the active role. To continue this metaphor, Suchon’s comedy can be divided into three acts. The first act introduces the free being (this includes God, angels, and all phersons). Freedom is the highest good, one that preferable to life itself. Only those beings who are rational may be free. Act two provides the dramatic tension with its cataloging the so many different ways by which phersons may be constrained and enslaved. How can a pherson overcome these obstacles? Act three opens with a series of tableaux vivants in which are depicted famous phersons from the course of history who have overcome constraint and lived free lives. The finale closes by introducing a third option, a third way of life, the life of the “neutraliste,” by which phersons may live freely.

Space (but perhaps mostly interest) does not permit us here to treat God and an-gels, so we pass directly to Suchon’s definition of “freedom”: “a precious gift made by God’s generosity to rational and intelligent creatures through which means they become mistresses of all their actions” (Suchon, Traité 41; our emphasis). Animals and other natural objects have no ability to be free since they are ordered and move by an “absolute and natural necessity” (ibid. 45). A child of her time, when human reason was assuming its role as ground of all human activity, including morality, Suchon could not help but exult a pherson’s rational abilities as the way to freedom and thus to deliberation, tran-quility, joy, and, finally, happiness. “Que la raison soit garante de la liberté du sujet, voilà une position tout à fait XVIIème siècle, mais faire de la liberté le passeporte pour le bonheur, voilà une idée novatrice, annonciatrice des Lumières” (Pageau 109). Reason allows the pherson to know God and God’s will for the pherson’s vocation, or to use more secular terms, for one to know one’s place within the world without misapprehending any thing’s true value or importance so that one’s desires accord both with God and nature; indeed, we are most free when our desires conform to reason and we no longer desire what cannot be had (Pageau 89-90). In order to develop reason to the level needed to achieve such enlightenment requires freedom from unnecessary burdens and unnatural obligations (e.g., living in a religious cloister against one’s will), and it requires education, professional opportunities, and freedom to travel not normally available to woman of Suchon’s time.

This brings us to the second act: the many ways by which phersons are con-strained or enslaved:Slavery is the worst of all evils since it not only deprives men of freedom, which is the most precious of all goods; but yet it includes the most laborious, the most vile, and the most abject services and reduces men to be used as the basest and coarsest things. Those who are slaves by birth have inherited this misery from parents who gave them life; others, through deadly and blind consent, after having engaged their freedom, find themselves captivated by the power of the great and rich; from this originates the rights of slavery, from which customs and ancient laws have taken as their source and origin. [Suchon, Traité 63-64.]

Although the name “slave” extends particularly to those who were traf-ficked in ancient times all over the world and still at present in the Indies, in Turkey, and in other places, it does not omit including still all those phersons who by the misfortune of their station or their circumstances find themselves bonded to the same miseries and calamities. This is why it is permitted to get oneself out of it in all kinds of ways by which God is not in the least bit offended [Suchon, Traité 68.]

Suchon is not subtle about what she means by “station” or “circumstance.” She certainly refers to the African slaves of her day. She also explicitly rails against the en-slavement by which poverty afflicts most of humankind (Traité 69). But the most horrific form of slavery is yet more widespread and insidious: phersons, through their not being allowed to have sufficiently developed their reasoning ability to choose well, may mistakenly – through “deadly and blind consent” and by force of “customs and the ancient laws” – marry or join the cloister regardless of their true vocation or place within the world. Worse still, they may be forced by their own parents, station, or circumstances to enter into one of these states made miserable and calamitous only because it wasn’t freely – that is, through unfettered reason – chosen. To be clear, Suchon does not a priori condemn the married or religious states, and these conditions are very suitable for those who freely enter them; indeed, for the less intellectually gifted – insofar as they are capable of making something like informed, rational, dispassionate choices – such a controlling situations may be, with luck, their best chance for maximal development (Pageau 97). In short, marriage or the cloister subordinates those who do not enter into them freely, and to be subordinate is to be less human (Ronzeaud, “La femme” 30; “Note” 270).

How precisely do these states subordinate the phersons who fall into them? In Suchon’s time, the wife is legally, socially, and morally subordinate to the husband, and she has no more rights than a child, if she has any rights at all. Furthermore, if she is a mother, she is constrained by the demands of her children since, she, not the father, is the principal caretaker. She is also burdened with the care and concerns of the servants as well as other mundane activities that leave her little to no time for study. In short, she may be mistress of the house, but she will never be mistress of herself.

Likewise, the cloistered nun must go and come as commanded. Her time is not her own; nor is she free to develop her talents as she sees fit. Perhaps the gravest threat of all to the pherson’s rational development and freedom, according to Suchon, is the imposition of a spiritual adviser. Suchon is clear that all people require a spiritual adviser, but this ought to be someone chosen, not assigned. A cloistered nun must accept whoever is assigned her.

These conditions are fatally damaging since they give no time for education, ef-fectively closing off the opportunity to become more rational and thus achieving true freedom in and union with God. Hoffman claims that since knowledge is the way to God for Suchon, “Il importe donc au salut même de la femme qu’elle n’est soit pas privée” (275; also Desnain 157). The wife and mother will be too consumed with her household duties and the nun too regulated to develop her rational capacities. Ideally, of course, a pherson already would have been educated before freely choosing to engage in one of these states, but the reality is that the custom and tradition – for it is only this – that pro-hibits formal education for all phersons, and thus they are conditioned to accept their miserable and calamitous state (Ronzeaud, “La femme” 22; Hoffman 270).

Our third act opens with examples of phersons who were free. Suchon’s express purpose is to demonstrate that phersons are capable of exercising true freedom, that her philosophy is not idle speculation but quite practicable. Her series of tableaux present many examples, and they include phersons from ancient and modern times, both pagans and those canonized by the Church. Married and religious phersons are included in her gallery, but the spotlight falls on the “neutralist,” the pherson who chooses freely and knowingly neither to marry nor to take religious vows but to live a life otherwise without engagement, that is, a life wherein the pherson is subordinate to no one. Phersons in such a condition are free to study, to develop their rationality to the fullest, and to exer-cise the utmost freedom in all their choices. Again, it is custom and tradition that either legally prohibits or makes it practically impossible for phersons of gender to pursue such a lifestyle since they are denied access to education and thus to most professions by which they might support themselves without having to be reliant upon anyone.

This is Suchon’s famous third way, the neutral way. Though she seems to present it in terms of women (men already seem to have this possibility), the neutral lifestyle may apply to both men and women indiscriminately. Gender is not an issue as it is when one is seeking a marriage partner or joining a religious order. The neutral life, because it dis-regards gender, transcends it. Gender simply does not matter, and this is how phersons of gender become something more than just gendered persons; they overcome the societal and traditional norms and expectations tied to one gender or the other. They free themselves from labels and the limitations that go with being categorized as this or that gender. No one is their master or mistress; they alone own themselves. Thus the third way for phersons of gender is most often, for those who can choose it, the freest and most enabling lifestyle.

Suchon’s philosophy thus belongs to our century every much as it did in her own. In a world too consumed with categorizing and thus marginalizing the other, we need to continue to find ways to break through traditional and social expectations. We need not be bound by our ethnic, racial, gender, age, sexual orientation – and dare we suggest im-migration? – etc. status? As philosophers, it is up to us to mold and to shape the discourse by which we describe ourselves and are so labeled. As the term “person of color” now overcomes and transcends a status that once was viewed as limiting and negative, so Suchon’s pherson of gender, by putting the spotlight on the fact that we are all gendered, so we are each alike, carries with it the positive connotations of one who is primarily ra-tional, independent, and free (Auffret, “El Neutre” 99). It is no longer a perceived as a weakness to be a pherson of gender, and it is this moment of redrawing – actually erasing – the lines between “us” and “them” that free both us and them from limitations that come with a ready-made label and all its baggage. As we are each a rational creature, we each have the right to develop this rationality inasmuch as it lies within us; it is only in this way that we each can be truly free, that we each may attain happiness.

It is very much in this light, then, that we claim that Suchon, though long forgotten, belongs in the classroom. Her philosophy offers us a third way, a neutral way, to see beyond the either/or categories we artificially impose on ourselves and each other. Our chief virtue is freedom, and our chief enemies are the socio-legal expectations that constrain that freedom. Here the curtain falls on Gabrielle Suchon’s work, but let’s all call for an encore!

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