Scottish Discussions of Indian Effeminacy in the Eighteenth Century

Title

Scottish Discussions of Indian Effeminacy in the Eighteenth Century

Author

Jeng-Guo CHEN

Page

149-167

DOI

Abstract

The controversy over virtue and luxury preoccupied many of the most eminent writers of eighteenth-century Britain. Extending far beyond morality, the subject involved government, law, the army and other topics dear to civic humanists. It became a paradigmatic issue in the broader concerns about national character and the rise and decline of civilizations. In this paper, the author presents a complex picture of how the Scottish discourses on Indian societies in the second half of the century were interwoven with ideas of luxury and virtue. Enlightenment thinkers viewed luxury as central to Asian despotism and to civilization itself. But the controversy over virtue and luxury changed many minds: effeminate Asia ceased to be viewed as worthy of a European partner. With the coming of the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, the terms of the debate were more hotly contested than ever. As this paper will illustrate, they became the indices according to which many Scottish writers distinguished Islamic from Hindu civilizations in the early nineteenth century.

Keyword

Virtue, Luxury, Effeminacy, Hindus, the Scottish Enlightenment

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