“Man, Secluded from the Company of Women, Is… a Dangerous Animal to Society”: The History of Women in Scotland’s Enlightenment

This chapter focuses on a new genre of history-writing that began to take shape in eighteenth-century Europe: the history of women. By concentrating on Scotland’s Enlightenment, it examines how women’s history emerged as an important but ambiguous chapter of the history of civilisation, while also being embedded in natural history. The relationship between natural history and the history of civilisation is central to understanding the new focus on women, both as bearers of the species and as agents of culture. Female reproductive labour, enabling population growth, was considered indispensable to the development of human societies, while the improvement of women’s status was deemed a key barometer of social progress. Scottish historians sketched a differentiated and unequal geography of civilisation on a global scale and within Europe, measured by the condition of women: according to this logic, they placed Spain on the margins of European development. Yet the most “civilised” regions were also regarded as unstable and insecure—largely due to women’s influence. Natural feminine characteristics which had allowed the whole of humanity to progress could also lead to the collapse of advanced societies. The revaluation of women had its downside in the Scottish Enlightenment, ultimately setting the limits of civilisation.