SOURCE: "Only Women," in The New York Review of Books, Vol. XXXII, No. 6, April 11, 1985, pp. 21-22.

In the following review, historian Stone objects to several features of Fraser's Weaker Vessel and praises others.

Before beginning a discussion of the books under review, I must first set out the ten commandments which should, in my opinion, govern the writing of women's history at any time and in any place:

1. Thou shalt not write about women except in relation to men and children. Women are not a distinct caste, and their history is a story of complex interactions;

2. Thou shalt strive not to distort the evidence and the conclusions to support modern feminist ideology: social change is by no means always the product of an activist minority, and all change is relative not absolute;

3. Thou shalt not forget that in the past nearly all women paid at least lip service...