De vrouw is erop gebouwd om zonder bezwaar binnenshuis te kunnen leven. Vertalingen van Duitse populariserende zedenkundige werken over man en vrouw in Nederland tussen 1800 en 1840

Samenvatting

Abstract – In the first twenty years of the nineteenth century, German popular works about the phenomenon of ‘gender characters’ (about the biological/mental differences between men and women) appeared in translation in great numbers in the Netherlands. In this article I examine the position of these translations in Dutch thinking from 1800 to 1840. How were these translations received, did they serve as a reference point, and did they play a part in the national discourse? It turns out that in this period in the Netherlands the sexes did indeed become more polarized, albeit moderately, while respecting the national tradition and the human rights of women.