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And then there is a deeper question of the contributions by the women in their lives to
the writings of intellectual giants like John Stuart Mill and Alfred Marshall.  Mill's is
an easier case, because he himself made clear how important Harriet Taylor Mill was to his
work. In the Autobiography he wrote: "When two persons have their thoughts and
speculations completely in common...it is of little consequence in respect to the question
of originality which of them holds the pen; the one who contributes least to the
composition may contribute most to the thought; the writings which result are the joint
product of both..."(Mill, 1989,183-84).  There has been much controversy over the years
about Mill's glowing praise of his friend who later became his wife, which ranges from
giving her every credit in his output, particularly with regard to his feminism and his
progressive thoughts, to dismissing his statements as nonsensical and reflective of the
feverish pronouncements of a hopeless [hapless?] romantic. Hayek critiques this position
best when he writes:
"Yet it is not altogether easy to accept the view that so eminently sober, balanced and
disciplined a mind, and a man who chose his words as deliberately and carefully as Mill,
should have had no foundation for what he must have known to be unique claims on behalf of
any human being."
Feminist economists are willing to take Mill's feelings as real, even with regard to The
Principles. I have more sympathy for this opinion because in many places Mill was very
explicit about the debt he did not owe to Harriet. Mill, of course, could not put his
wife's name as a co-author for fear of ridicule and of the work not being taken seriously.
  
Marshall's more difficult relationship with Mary Paley Marshall is finely described in the
chapter in Women of Value, (eds. Dimand, Dimand and Forget, Elgar, 1995). The author
refers to how her path to academic heights, culminating in being offered a lectureship in
economics at Cambridge had gone very smoothly until her marriage to Marshall. Please
indulge me further for another quotation:
"After her marriage in 1877, she appears to have come up against setbacks and opposition
for the first time. The task of writing a simple textbook proved more difficult than she
had anticipated. It was taken over by her husband, who not only made it his own, but who
also criticized it with increasing harshness, especially the first part, which probably
included her own contribution to the work." Her nurturing role in all Marshall's endeavors
is a generally accepted fact.
  
Historians of economics ought to ponder the morality of such patriarchal structures in the
evolution of their discipline.
  
Cheers, all the same! 
  
Sumitra Shah 
 
 
 
 
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