Jeremy
Bentham's Essay on “Paederasty”
FOREWORD
John
Lauritsen
All gay scholars are grateful to Louis
Crompton for rescuing Jeremy Bentham's “Essay on
Paederasty” from oblivion, as well as for his 1985 book, Byron
and Greek Love: Homophobia in 19th Century England, and his
magnum opus, Homosexuality & Civilization
(2003). Crompton's Introduction was published in
the Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 3(4), Summer
1978, and Bentham's essay appeared in the following issue. In this
Internet edition I have silently corrected a few errors, eliminated
some of Crompton's square brackets, improved the punctuation, and added
my own notes. I have not corrected or modernized Bentham's spelling.
Crompton was a thorough scholar, but he sometimes used
inappropriate language, for example, “homosexuals”
or “homosexuality”, and he was sometimes deaf to
the tone of a passage, unable to distinguish between statements made
facetiously or ironically and those intended literally. In my notes
following Crompton's Introduction I point out a few examples. My own Afterword
follows Bentham's essay.
AN
INTRODUCTION
Louis Crompton
The
following essay, which is being published for the first time, is the
earliest scholarly essay on homosexuality presently known to exist in
the English language. It was written by Jeremy Bentham, English
utilitarian philosopher and law reformer, about 1785. After Bentham's
death in 1832, the manuscript was given to University College, London,
as part of its enormous collection of unpublished Bentham papers. The
essay was first noted in the Catalogue of the manuscripts published in
1937 (Milne, 1962). It antedates by a generation the next known essay
on homosexuality, Shelley's “Discourse on the Manners of the
Antient Greeks Relative to the Subject of Love” (written in
1818, but not published until 1931) [Note
1], and by almost a century John Addington Symonds's A
Problem in Greek Ethics (written in 1873) and Richard
Burton's “Terminal Essay” to his translation of The
Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night (1886) [Note 2]. None of these other essays
deal with Bentham's subject, which is law reform.
In all, Bentham left about 300 manuscript pages on homosexuality and
the law. He wrote substantially on the subject at three periods of his
life, first when he was 26, again when he was 37, and finally, at
greatest length, in his 60s. The University of London manuscripts
include 36 folios of notes in English and French on sexual
“Nonconformity”, dated, by the cataloger, c. 1774;
the essay on “Paederasty”, with related notes,
dated c. 1785; and 188 folios of notes dated 1814 and 1816. In 1931, C.
K. Ogden printed 22 pages of excerpts from the 1814-1816 materials in
an appendix to his edition of Bentham's Theory of Legislation, under
the title “Offences against Taste”. This is all
that has so far appeared in print.
The 1780s, when Bentham wrote the present article, were a period when
much thought was given to criminal law reform in western Europe. The
movement had been inspired by the publication of Cesare Beccaria's
(1764/1964) Of Crimes and Punishments. Widely read
in Europe and America, Beccaria's book had a significant influence in
France on the eve of the Revolution, especially after Voltaire wrote a
commentary on it and published his Prix de la justice et de
l'humanite in 1777. It was in this current of impassioned
zeal for reform that Bentham moved. As a utilitarian moralist his test
for the ethical value of an act was whether it increased pleasure and
diminished pain; his test for legislation was the “greatest
happiness principle”, which he took from Beccaria.
In France and Latin Europe in the 18th century the penalty for sodomy
was burning; in England it was hanging. At least a dozen executions
took place in England in that century (Report of the Select Committee,
1819) and more than 60 in the period 1806-1835 (Crompton, 1978, p. 91;
Gilbert, 1974, 1977). To Bentham, the use of the death penalty for what
he regarded as a socially harmless pleasurable activity must have
seemed the ultimate perversion of law. Consequently, he attempts in his
essay to develop some kind of theory to account for the existence of
such virulent homophobia in English society. Bentham also takes issue
with other leading political and legal philosophers of his time.
Montesquieu (1748/1966), in the sixth chapter of Book XII of L'esprit
des loix, had linked sodomy with such ecclesiastical crimes
as heresy and witchcraft, thus implying that it might be now regarded
less seriously in an enlightened age. Nevertheless, he had condemned
homosexual behavior as communicating to men the
“weaknesses” of the female sex. Voltaire
(1764/1962), although he was later to argue against burning homosexuals
at the stake, was largely hostile to homosexuality in his widely read
essay on “Socratic Love” in the Philosophical
Dictionary. There he implies that such practices are a threat
to population and that “Greek love” among the
Greeks was a wholly Platonic affair. [Note
3] In England, public sentiment and legal thought were both
much more conservative. Sir William Blackstone (1769/1966, chap. 15),
who had classified “buggery” as an
“Offence against the peace” in his Commentaries,
held that the death penalty was divinely sanctioned by the biblical
story of Sodom and Gomorrah, and seemed to regret that England had
abandoned the traditional punishment of burning.
Blackstone also endorsed the opinion, highly influential on later
English and American judges and legal authorities, that references to
the legal aspects of sodomy should be brief, terse, and as obscure as
possible. [Note 4] That Bentham
should write hundreds of pages on a topic English authorities regularly
dismissed in a paragraph or a page was a remarkable act of defiance,
even though the pages were never published. He was quite aware of his
daring and fearful of the consequences. In a remarkable page of
jottings, wholly different in style and tone from the essay itself, and
written in a crowded, miniscule hand that is almost indecipherable, he
revealed his personal anxieties. “To other
subjects,” he notes, “it is expected that you sit
down cool: but on this subject if you let it be seen that you have not
sat down in a rage you have given judgment against
yourself at once.” (Bentham then changed the words I have
italicized to “betrayed”.) “It is a
curious example to think what would have become of Socrates, and Titus,
the delight of mankind, Cicero the Father of his Country ... had they
lived in these latter days. They would have perished on our
gibbets.” “I am ashamed to own that I have often
hesitated whether for the sake of the interests of humanity I should
expose my personal interest so much to hazard as it must be exposed to
by the free discussion of a subject of this nature.”
“At any rate when I am dead mankind will be the better for
it.” “There is a kind of punishment annexed to the
offence of treating it with any sort of temper, and that one of the
most formidable that a man can be subjected to, the punishment of being
suspected at least, if not accused, of a propensity to committ it,
should he plead [Note 5] for
the liberty of trying the offence by the principle of
utility.” “When a man attempts to research [Note 6] this subject it is with a
halter about his neck. On this subject a man may indulge his spleen
without controul. Cruelty and intolerance, the most odious and most
mischievous passions in human nature, screen themselves behind a mask
of virtue.” In speaking of this crime, men “make a
merit of discarding all reason and all humanity” [72-188d].
In his essay on “Paederasty” Bentham answers
Montesquieu, Voltaire, and Blackstone, argues that ancient Greece and
Rome practised homosexuality widely, and attacks sexual asceticism in
morals. He is a kind of champion on the side of the homosexual in favor
of decriminalization. Yet at the same time, he repeatedly refers to
homosexual behavior as “disgusting”,
“preposterous”, “abominable”,
and the like. Apparently, the use of traditional homophobic language
was the price Bentham felt he had to pay for treating the question from
a reformist point of view. [Note 7]
Though such language appears in the 1785 essay, which Bentham seems to
have been preparing for publication, it is absent from the 1785 notes,
and from the Ogden transcription of the notes of 1814 and 1816. In the
latter, he explicitly objects to homophobic expressions, that is, to
labeling homosexuality an “abomination” or
“unnatural”, and coins new neutral language,
calling it “the improlific appetite”. [Note 8] Indeed, where the essay of
1785 might be described as reformist, the notes of 1814 and 1816 can
only be called revolutionary, since in them he presents homosexual
activity not simply as not meriting punishment but as behavior the
encouragement of which would have positive social consequences
(Bentham, 1814-1816/1931).
Great as Bentham's influence on law reform was in Britain, Spain, and
Latin America, his opinions on homosexuality do not seem to have had
any effect in England. [Note 9]
In the early 19th century, England reduced its capital offenses from
about 200 to about half a dozen crimes, all involving violence, but
kept the death penalty for sodomy. A proposal to abolish it in 1841
failed. Not until 1861 was life imprisonment substituted for hanging.
Bentham's proposed reform, decriminalization, was not achieved until
1967.
I have not been able to
examine the Bentham manuscripts in London, but have worked from Xeroxes
and microfilms kindly supplied to me by Mrs. J. Percival, archivist at
the Manuscripts and Rare Books Room, D. M. S. Watson Library,
University College, who has also supplied useful information about
these documents. The essay on “Paederasty” is part
of Bentham's proposal for a reformed “Penal Code”.
It is preserved in Box 72 of the Bentham collection and is written on
large foolscap sheets (or “folios”), each folded to
make four pages. The essay begins on the folio stamped %2-191 by the
cataloger and continues through folio 205. In the text I have indicated
new pages by slant bars and new folios by the numbers stamped on them.
Folios 72-187 to 189 contain separate notes which will appear at the
end of the essay.
Bentham's
handwriting is often extremely difficult to decipher. In some places
the ink is very faint. I have indicated doubtful readings by a question
mark in brackets. Words omitted or required by the sense where
Bentham's scrawls are illegible have been placed in brackets. [Note 10] Bentham frequently writes
interlinear or other revisions without canceling his first version.
Where these are legible I have usually preferred them to the original.
Where they cannot be deciphered I have transcribed the first draft.
Where both versions are legible it usually appears that the second
changes the wording but not the sense. I have incorporated Bentham's
footnotes into the text in parentheses and marked them J.B. The topical
headings that Bentham placed in his margins have been printed in
italics as sectional headings. In most cases I have silently replaced
Bentham's French and Italian quotations from Montesquieu, Voltaire, and
Beccaria by modern translations from the editions listed in the
References.
Taking his cue from
Montesquieu, Bentham classified homosexual acts under
“Offences against one's self”. It is perhaps worth
noting that Bentham nearly always, in this essay, conceives of male
homosexuals as bisexuals, capable of marriage, who are also attracted
to adolescent boys, rather than as adult men who love other adult men. [Note 11]
REFERENCES
Beccaria,
C. [Crimes difficult to prove. Of crimes and punishments]
(K. Foster & J. Grigson, trans., chap. 36). New York: Oxford
University Press, 1964. (Originally published, 1764. )
Bentham,
J. Offences against taste. The theory of legislation
(C. K. Ogden, Ed.). New York: Harcourt Brace, 1931. (Originally
written, 1814-1816.)
Blackstone, W. Commentaries
on the laws of England (Vol. 4). London: Dawson's of Pall
Mall, 1966. (Originally published, 1769.)
Crompton,
L. “Gay genocide: From Leviticus to Hitler.” In L.
Crew (Ed.), The gay academic. Palms Springs,
Calif.- ETC Publications, 1978.
Gilbert, A. N. “The
Africaine courts-martial: A study of buggery and the Royal Navy.” Journal
of Homosexuality. 1974,1(1), 111-122.
Gilbert,
A. N. Sexual deviance and disaster during the Napoleonic Wars. Albion,
1977, 9, 98-113.
Milne, A. T. Catalogue of the
manuscripts of Jeremy Bentham in the Library of University College,
London (2nd ed.). London: Athlone Press, University of London, 1962.
Montesquieu,
Baron de. [Of the crime against nature. The spirit of the laws] (T.
Nugent, trans., Book XII). New York: Hafner, 1966. (Originally
published, 1748.)
Report of the Select Committee on
Criminal Laws. House of Commons, July 8, 1819.
Voltaire.
[“So-called Socratic love.” Philosophical dictionary] (P. Gay, trans.).
New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1962. (Originally published,
1764.)
The late Louis Crompton (1925-2009)
was Professor of English, University of Nebraska. Crompton gratefully
acknowledged the assistance of Frank Rice and Luis Diaz-Perdomo in
transcribing the Bentham manuscripts. Bentham's essay was published
with the permission of the D. M. S. Watson Library, University College,
London.
Crompton's Introduction was first published
in Journal of Homosexuality, Vol. 3(4), Summer 1978.
NOTES
John Lauritsen
1.
There was considerable overlap between the Bentham circle and the
Shelley circle. The Pagan Press edition of Percy Bysshe Shelley's
superb translation of Plato's dialogue on Eros, The Banquet or The
Symposium, is the only one to include Shelley's introductory essay,
“Discourse on the Manners of the Antient Greeks Relative to
the Subject of Love”. Shelley's essay begins with an eloquent
tribute to Ancient Greece, the fountainhead of Western Culture.
Although Shelley does not explicitly address legal reform, he puts
forward a pain versus pleasure criterion for evaluating acts, acquired
from his reading of Beccaria; he holds that acts should not be punished
unless they cause harm to another person. Shelley discusses aesthetic
issues, the superior beauty of the young Greek male, and asserts that
love can be far more important than the pleasure derived from sexual
acts. For information on The Banquet and other Pagan Press books click here.
2. An annotated edition of
Burton's essay on pederasty is included in the web pages, Sir Richard Francis Burton: Explorer of
the Sotadic Zone.
3. Crompton misreads
Voltaire here. The essay on “Socratic Love” is an
exercise in irony and studied ambivalence. Voltaire was unable or
unwilling to celebrate or defend male love overtly, so he threw in such
expressions of mock disapproval as “vice” and
“infamous outrage against Nature”. Nevertheless,
the overall thrust of his essay is positive, for example, the title. In
the passage below Voltaire rebuts the ecclesiastical dogma that sex
between males is unnatural, a “sin against Nature” (peccatum
contra naturam):
“How can a vice, which would
destroy the human race if it became general, an infamous outrage
against Nature, be nonetheless so very natural? Though ostensibly the
final stage of willful corruption, it is nevertheless the common
endowment of those who have not had time to be corrupted. It has
entered innocent hearts that have not yet known ambition, nor deceit,
nor the lust for wealth. It is blind youth, graduating from childhood,
that follows an inchoate instinct and plunges into the fray.”
(tr. John Lauritsen)
4.
Here Crompton might have given the Latin phrase used by Blackstone and
other legal scholars: “Peccatum illud horribile
inter christianos non nominandum” (“The
sin so horrible that it must not be named among Christians”).
5. Crompton has
“[if he] pleads”. Surely, “should he
plead” is what Bentham either wrote or intended to say, and
the square brackets have been eliminated.
6.
Crompton gives “search [?]” here. Obviously,
“research” makes better sense.
7. Unfortunately, Crompton
had a tin ear for irony — not only in the writings of
Bentham, but also those of Voltaire, Gibbon, Shelley, and Sir Richard
Burton. For a discussion of Burton's use of irony and ostensibly
negative language to elude the censors click
here. For Henry Fowler's discussion of irony click here.
8. The obvious inference,
which Crompton fails to draw, is that Bentham's
“homophobic” language in the essay is mock
disapproval or camouflage, and that his real sentiments are expressed
in his notes.
9.
If Bentham's “opinions on homosexuality” were never
published or expressed publicly, how could they have had any effect in
England?
10.
I have eliminated these brackets. See footnotes 5 and 6.
11. It is regrettable that
Crompton uses “homosexual” as a substantive,
denoting a particular kind of person, rather than as an adjective,
defining a particular kind of love or act. It is true that Bentham
portrays men who have sex with other men as capable of marrying women,
having sex with them, and raising families. But the time has come to
acknowledge that most human males, not just a minority, are attracted
to each other, erotically and otherwise. When males have sex with each
other, they are expressing an ordinary, healthy component of male
sexuality — something phylogenetically inherent in the sexual
repertoire of the human male, and thus a product of evolution. Contra
Crompton, it is clear in context that Bentham uses the word
“paederasty” (despite its literal meaning) to apply
to all forms of male love — including sex between two adults
or between two adolescents — not just to sex between adults
and adolescents.