SEX AND STATUS IN SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT SOCIAL-SCIENCE - MILLAR,JOHNAND THE SOCIOLOGY OF GENDER-ROLES

John Millar's Origin of the Distinction of Ranks (1771) contains one o f the first extensive and systematic discussions of the status of wome n in different societies. In this paper I attempt to show first that a combination of circumstances associated with the teaching of moral ph ilosophy at Glasgow and with the reform of Scots law undertaken by Lor d Kames made the status of women a critical problem for Millar. Second , I attempt to demonstrate that Millar drew heavily upon the resources of associationist psychology to explain how female status changed fro m hunting to pastoral to agricultural to commercial societies and that in doing so he diverged substantially from the perspectives developed by his mentor, Adam Smith. Finally, in view of Millar's extraordinari ly positive reputation throughout Europe prior to the French Revolutio n and in view of the potential relevance of his analysis to early femi nism and to mid-19th-century anthropological discussions of early matr iarchy, I seek to account for why his work was virtually ignored from around 1802 to 1960.