Harriet Taylor Mill (1807–1858)

Harriet Hardy was born at Walworth, near London, the daughter of Thomas Hardy, a surgeon, and his wife Harriet Hurst. In 1826, at age 18, she married John Taylor, a wealthy businessman with whom she had three children. Harriet Taylor moved in radical intellectual circles in London and in 1830, she met the philosopher and writer John Stuart Mill. Mill treated her as an intellectual equal and asked her opinion on his writings. Their friendship stirred up rumors of an affair, and though both claimed that the relationship was strictly platonic, it caused great social scandal. Harriet separated from her husband and set up her own household with her daughter Helen. After John Taylor died in 1849, Harriet insisted that Mill wait two years before the couple could be married. A few months after the wedding, the Westminster Review published The Enfranchisement of Women under Mill's name, although it had been written by Harriet. Harriet Taylor Mill rejected the misogynistic standards of her day and the subordination of women to men. She believed that women could use education, laws, and politics to improve their lives. Mill fully supported her views, and they collaborated on The Subjection of Women, published in 1869. The couple lived for a few years in the south of France, where Harriet Taylor Mill died of tuberculosis. Helen Taylor helped her step-father finish the book. Much of Harriet Taylor Mill's writing on art, religion, and ethics was only published after her death.