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Abstract

This article investigates the place of space in two works of liberal social and political theory, Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and John Stuart Mill’s The Subjection of Women. Contrary to standard interpretations of how these theorists conceptualize citizenship and its relationship to public and private space, the author contends that Wollstonecraft and Mill establish a conceptual basis for thinking about private space as a type of political community. Rather than presenting the domicile exclusively as a site where citizens cultivate the virtues that render them fit for participation in the public sphere, the author argues that these texts also introduce the possibility that one can be a citizen of private space. Moreover, she further argues that friendship emerges in these texts as the ideal form of citizenship that one can practice in domestic and intimate sites.

Keywords

public space private space citizenship liberal social and political theory

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Citizenship in Private Space

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