Darwin and “The Natural History of Doctresses”: The Sex War Between Howells, Phelps, Jewett, and James

Abstract

Two years after charles darwin'sThe Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex(1871) ignited a great debate about race, culture, and sexual difference, Dr. Edward H. Clarke drew the lines in what soon became a literary war in America over the supposed differences between the sexes. In his highly appreciative review of Clarke'sSex in Education; or, A Fair Chance for the Girls, William Dean Howells(?) wrote that “the subject is a very delicate one to handle,” not only because it involves certain embarrassing physiological details, such as “periodicity,” but because woman is the weaker vessel in many ways, and does not always care to be reminded of it. Yet the facts of anatomy and physiology are at the bottom of many differences in the capabilities and adaptations of the two sexes for the various offices of life. The female's muscles are weaker than the male's, and she must not be expected to do so much bodily work. The female's brain is five or six ounces lighter, on the average, than the male's, and she must not be expected to do so much “cerebration” as he can do. The special relation of the female to humanity that is to be, involves many disturbances, habitual and occasional, which handicap her, often very heavily, in the race of life.