ROUSSEAU JEAN-JACQUES: (1712-1778) French Writer and Philosopher. A curious and interesting autograph manuscript, three pages, 4to, n.p., [Paris], n.d. (c.1745), in French. The manuscript of 50 lines, in Rousseau's hand, is from his unpublished work relating to the history of women and laws which he prepared between 1745-51 for his benefactress Louise Marie Madeleine Dupin. Rousseau writes his text in the right column of the page, the left reserved for additional notes. Rousseau states in part `On lit dans un Jurisconsulte que le mari est dispensé de pleurer la mort de la f[emme], que la f[emme] au contraire, doit pleurer la mort de son mari. On y lit bien d´autres choses étranges a la raison, mais comme celle-ci sert apparemment de base a la plus grande longueur du deuil des f[emmes], nous demandons si ce fondement est solide et bon, et a quoi une pareille chose peut servir?´ (“We read in a Jurisconsult that the husband is exempted from mourning the death of the wife, that the wife, on the contrary, must mourn the death of her husband. One reads there many other things strange to reason, but as this apparently serves as the basis for the greatest length of women's mourning, we ask if this fundament is solid and good, and what for such a decision is useful?” Rousseau comments on how a husband could not cry after the death of his really beloved wife or how a wife could cry after the death of a husband who made her life miserable, and further insists on what should be the common sense saying `Le deuil est une bienséance qui doit toujours etre ordonnée en tout état de cause, mais cette bienséance doit etre réciproque, c´est lui donner atteinte que de la rendre inégale entre les maris et les f[emmes] et personne de bon sens ne pourra considerer sans rire cette inégalité´ (“Mourning is a decorum that must always be in order in any case, but this decorum must be reciprocal, it is to undermine it that to make it unequal between husbands and wives and no one with common sense can consider without laughing this inequality”) The autograph manuscript by Rousseau includes several corrections and additions in the hand of Madame Dupin. Overall small age tone with left edges very slightly trimmed and a water stain to the bottom right corner, only slightly affecting few words. G

 

At the time Rousseau wrote these pages, between 1745 and 1751, he was working as secretary to his benefactress Louise Marie Madeleine Dupin.