Women in Sade’s World
By Adel Elsherif
The Marquis de Sade, often mischaracterized as a misogynist, was in fact deeply fascinated by the complexities of women.
To understand his work, it’s essential to recognize that he did not merely portray women as victims. Instead, he explored their roles as active agents—willing participants in the pursuit of pleasure, power, and transgression.
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| Women in Sade’s World |
The wife of De Sade
Marquis de Sade married Renée-Pélagie de Montreuil in 1763. Their union was arranged, typical of aristocratic families at the time, and they had three children together. But the marriage was anything but conventional.
Despite Sade’s notorious behavior—including scandalous affairs, public orgies, and repeated imprisonments—Renée-Pélagie remained loyal for many years. She even smuggled his writings out of prison during his early incarcerations. However, her support eventually crumbled. After years of humiliation and pressure from her family—especially her mother, Madame de Montreuil, who once defended Sade but later turned against him—Renée-Pélagie legally separated from him in 1790.
Their relationship was a strange mix of loyalty, betrayal, and endurance. She was pious and dignified; he was rebellious and extreme.
In many ways, her refusal to abandon him early on allowed him to continue writing and living defiantly. But when she finally left, it marked the end of any illusion of domestic stability.
In his writings, women are not passive recipients of male dominance. They possess their own desires, motivations, and capacity for cruelty. Sade depicts them as cunning, manipulative, and often remarkably strong. He does not shy away from the darker aspects of female sexuality, portraying women driven by impulse and capable of both passion and brutality.
They are not only subjected to power—they frequently wield it.
Sade subverts conventional portrayals of women as innocent, fragile, or submissive. His female characters often break free from societal constraints, embracing roles that defy moral expectations. Writing in a time when women had limited rights and agency, Sade’s depictions—however extreme—challenge prevailing norms and explore the philosophical dimensions of desire and domination.
His intent was not necessarily to glorify violence, but to examine the brutal power dynamics of human nature.
In his amoral universe, women are frequently portrayed not as passive victims but as influential agents of vice, cruelty, and libertinage. Many female characters actively participate in, instigate, and even theorize the most extreme forms of depravity.
Justine’s Character and Morals
Justine stands as a symbol of unwavering virtue—a soul guided not by circumstance but by conscience. She is the quiet voice of morality in a world that punishes goodness. Sade, in his cruel philosophical theater, strikes her down with a bolt of thunder—not because she was wicked, but because she refused to become what he demanded.
Though she questions Providence, she remains faithful to the innate goodness she carries within.
Inherent Goodness and Sensitivity
From childhood, Justine is described as “gloomy and melancholic by disposition, yet blessed with surprising gentleness and sensitivity.”
Her appearance reflects this inner purity: modesty, refinement, and shyness, wrapped in a virginal air.
Despite her sister Juliette’s descent into libertinage and deceit, Justine categorically refuses to follow her into “an abominable life” of debauchery. She clings to virtue even when it brings suffering, declaring:
“Whatever the thorns of virtue, I shall always prefer them to the false beams that shine on prosperity.”
She finds solace in the belief that her suffering will be “amply rewarded in a better world” by Providence.
Active Compassion and Honesty
Justine’s virtue is not passive—it is active, courageous, and often self-sacrificing.
- She refuses Monsieur Du Harpin’s scheme to rob his neighbor.
- She defies Monsieur de Bressac’s demand to poison his mother, choosing instead to warn the Countess.
- She rescues a 12-year-old girl from surgeons who intended to dissect her alive—an act that leads to her own torture and branding.
- She warns Dubreuil of a robbery plot, only to lose all her possessions and be falsely accused of murder and arson.
- She risks her life in a fire to save a child, only to be charged with child-murder.
Each act of compassion deepens her suffering, yet she never abandons her principles.
Resistance to Corruption,
Throughout her trials, Justine consistently rejects offers that would compromise her virtue:
- She resists the advances of a corrupt parish priest.
- She refuses to join bandits in the forest.
- She defies the friars in the monastery.
- She withstands the temptations of Dalville, the coiner.,
Her resistance often leads to brutal punishment, reinforcing Sade’s bleak portrayal of a world where virtue is persecuted and vice rewarded.
Final Redemption and Influence
In the end, Justine is vindicated. Her name is cleared, she receives a pension, and is granted full citizenship. But her true legacy lies in the transformation of her sister, Juliette—now Madame de Lorsange—who, moved by Justine’s suffering and moral steadfastness, repents and enters a convent.
Justine’s story becomes a quiet triumph: not of worldly success, but of moral endurance. Her purity, tested by cruelty, emerges as a redemptive force—proof that even in Sade’s darkest universe, virtue can still leave a mark.
Juliette’s Transformation and Agency
Embracing Crime and Infamy
Juliette begins as a susceptible figure but quickly embraces crime. She reflects on the “fruits of crime” and the “gigantic pleasures” it affords her. After committing murder, she declares:
“Yes, yes, let me be evil; let new possibilities for wicked deeds be offered me, and they’ll see how avidly I fly to commit them!”
She describes her excitement growing the deeper she sinks into infamy.
Intellectual Justification for Vice
Juliette credits her mentors for teaching her that denying aid to the suffering intensifies pleasure. She describes her soul as “riddled with crimes, fed by crime,” and wishes for crime to “emanate from my very ashes.” She rejects the idea that crime offends God or Nature, believing Nature is pleased by destruction.
Active Participation in Torture and Murder
Juliette is directly involved in torture and murder: intensifying Madame de Noirceuil’s suffering, burning victims alive, poisoning an entire family, and mutilating her own daughter and wife. She personally kills a poor woman.
Strategic Manipulation and Ambition
She uses hypocrisy as a strategic tool, contrasting it with open cynicism. She orchestrates betrayals, seeks profit from others’ misfortunes, and even considers ruling a nation. She states:
“Force was the only deciding factor, and it was only with force I wished to keep company.”
Sexual Libertinage and Sapphism
Juliette engages in various sexual acts, including sapphism with Elvire and Clairwil. She declares her innate virtue is “whorishness” and lives to “shed fuck.” Her sexual preferences are guided by libertine principles rather than affection.
Clairwil’s Philosophical Depravity and Male Hatred
Intellectual and Ruthless
Clairwil is described as “profoundly wise” and “depraved.” She admits to loathing men after sexual satisfaction and expresses a desire to destroy them:
“I’d not be adverse to destroying every last one of those by the mere sight of whom I have always felt myself debased.”
Active in Cruelty
She tortures young girls, sometimes to the point of severe injury. She prefers “butchering males” to avenge her sex and drinks blood and swallows a testicle of a male victim.
Leader in the Sodality of the Friends of Crime
As Juliette’s sponsor, Clairwil introduces her to a club where crime and debauchery are celebrated. She ensures members indulge every caprice and lewd whim.
Challenge to Divine Authority
She dismisses Saint-Fond’s divine hopes as “fables” and urges him to focus on the evil he can enact in this world.
Delbene’s Corruption and Teaching
Corrupter of Innocence
Madame Delbene, a Mother Superior, is a notorious libertine who boasts of corrupting nearly every girl in her convent. She engages in sexual activity with nuns, novices, and pensionnaires.
Philosopher of Vice
She teaches Juliette the “inutility” of virtue, advocating promiscuity, infanticide, and sodomy as natural and beneficial. Her teachings “rotted Juliette’s heart and infected her brain.”
Enjoyment of Cruelty
Delbene exhibits intense rage and inflicts physical harm during sexual encounters.
Olympia’s Insatiable Lust and Ambition
Embracing Whorishness and Notoriety
Olympia declares “whorishness” as the “most sacred of the laws writ in my heart.” She longs to be a globally infamous prostitute and wishes to die on a scaffold as a “byword for evil.”
Instigator of Mass Destruction
She proposes burning hospitals, poorhouses, and orphanages in Rome to satisfy her lust and greed, predicting she would “die of pleasure” from the spectacle.
Active in Torture and Patricide
Olympia delights in the idea of torturing her mother and daughter, desiring to bathe in their blood. She participates in brutal flagellations and revels in others’ suffering.
Catherine (Empress) as a Model of Tyranny and Cruelty
Tyrannical Ruler and Torturer
Catherine adopts the brutal legacy of Basilovitch as her model of governance, declaring her intent to “strengthen my hold on the throne” through “horror.” She demands “debasing services” and subjects Amelia to “the most trying vexations” and “every one of the tortures prescribed,” demonstrating her commitment to cruelty as a tool of power.
Sadistic Sexual Practices
She insists on being embuggered during torture sessions and engages in a wide range of sexual acts with multiple partners, including scenes where men urinate on her face—blurring the line between political domination and sexual sadism.
Orchestrator of Filicide
For political gain, Catherine commissions Borchamps to murder her own son, stating that she does not want “sentimental attachment” to interfere with her ambitions. She not only authorizes the act but takes pleasure in the agonizing death of her child, underscoring her complete detachment from conventional morality.
In de Sade’s universe, women are portrayed in radically contrasting ways. There are a few clear examples where he illustrates this tension: virtuous women like Justine suffer immensely, while amoral women such as Juliette, Clairwil, and Olympia thrive in a world governed by cruelty and transgression. This contrast is not accidental—it reflects Sade’s philosophical view that resisting nature’s indifference leads to suffering, while embracing it leads to power and pleasure.
Sade does not simply hate women. In fact, he often portrays them as free, independent agents—capable of philosophical reasoning, strategic manipulation, and extreme acts of vice. His female libertines are not submissive; they are dominant, calculating, and often more ruthless than their male counterparts. He gives them agency, even if that agency is expressed through depravity.
The suffering of virtuous women in his work—especially Justine—is a deliberate critique of moral idealism. Sade punishes goodness not because he despises it, but because he sees it as incompatible with the laws of nature, which he views as amoral and indifferent. In his view, those who cling to virtue are crushed by a world that rewards vice.
So while Sade’s world is undeniably brutal, his portrayal of women is philosophically layered. He does not reduce them to mere objects; he elevates them as thinkers, rebels, and agents of chaos—whether they are punished for their virtue or celebrated for their vice.
