SOURCE: Pichanick, Valerie Kossew. “An Abominable Submission: Harriet Martineau's Views on the Role and Place of Woman.” Women's Studies 5, no. 1 (1977): 13-32.

In the following essay, Pichanick examines Martineau's views on women's place in society and the home as well as her advice on how women should achieve equality in every area of life.

I fully expect that both you and I shall feel as if I did not discharge a daughter's duty, but we shall both remind ourselves that I am now as much a citizen of the world as any professional son of yours could be.

With this admonition Harriet Martineau (1802-76) informed her mother that her career as a professional writer had begun. The year was 1833, and Martineau was reminding her mother, perhaps, of an earlier attempt to establish herself as an author in London. Then she had been peremptorily ordered home, and she had acquiesced...