RIGHTS.

1792
VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN
by Mary Wollstonecraft
DEDICATION
To
M. Talleyrand-Perigord,
Late Bishop Of Autun.

Sir,
Having read with great pleasure a pamphlet which you have lately
published, I dedicate this volume to you; to induce you to reconsider
the subject, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the
rights of woman and national education: and I call with the firm tone
of humanity; for my arguments, Sir, are dictated by a disinterested
spirit- I plead for my sex- not for myself. Independence I have long
considered as the grand blessing of life, the basis of every virtue-
and independence I will ever secure by contracting my wants, though
I were to live on a barren heath.
It is then an affection for the whole human race that makes my pen
dart rapidly along to support what I believe to be the cause of
virtue: and the same motive leads me earnestly to wish to see woman
placed in a station in which she would advance, instead of retarding,
the progress of those glorious principles that give a substance to
morality. My opinion, indeed, respecting the rights and duties of
woman, seems to flow so naturally from these simple principles, that
I think it scarcely possible, but that some of the enlarged minds who
formed your admirable constitution, will coincide with me.
In France there is undoubtedly a more general diffusion of knowledge
than in any part of the European world, and I attribute it, in a great
measure, to the social intercourse which has long subsisted between
the sexes. It is true, I utter my sentiments with freedom, that in
France the very essence of sensuality has been extracted to regale the
voluptuary, and a kind of sentimental lust has prevailed, which,
together with the system of duplicity that the whole tenour of their
political and civil government taught, have given a sinister sort of
sagacity to the French character, properly termed finesse; from
which naturally flow a polish of manners that injures the substance,
by hunting sincerity out of society.- And, modesty, the fairest garb
of virtue! has been more grossly insulted in France than even in
England, till their women have treated as prudish that attention to
decency, which brutes instinctively observe.
Manners and morals are so nearly allied that they have often been
confounded; but, though the former should only be the natural
reflection of the latter, yet, when various causes have produced
factitious and corrupt manners, which are very early caught, morality
becomes an empty name. The personal reserve, and sacred respect for
cleanliness and delicacy in domestic life, which French women almost
despise, are the graceful pillars of modesty; but, far from despising
them, if the pure flame of patriotism have reached their bosoms, they
should labour to improve the morals of their fellow-citizens, by
teaching men, not only to respect modesty in women, but to acquire it
themselves, as the only way to merit their esteem.
Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on
this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to
become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge
and virtue; for truth must be common to all, or it will be
inefficacious with respect to its influence on general practice. And
how can woman be expected to co-operate unless she know why she
ought to be virtuous? unless freedom strengthen her reason till she
comprehend her duty, and see in what manner it is connected with her
real good? If children are to be educated to understand the true
principle of patriotism, their mother must be a patriot; and the
love of mankind, from which an orderly train of virtues spring, can
only be produced by considering the moral and civil interest of
mankind; but the education and situation of woman, at present, shuts
her out from such investigations.
In this work I have produced many arguments, which to me were
conclusive, to prove that the prevailing notion respecting a sexual
character was subversive of morality, and I have contended, that to
render the human body and mind more perfect, chastity must more
universally prevail, and that chastity will never be respected in
the male world till the person of a woman is not, as it were,
idolized, when little virtue or sense embellish it with the grand
traces of mental beauty, or the interesting simplicity of affection.
Consider, Sir, dispassionately, these observations- for a glimpse
of this truth seemed to open before you when you observed, 'that to
see one half of the human race excluded by the other from all
participation of government, was a political phaenomenon that,
according to abstract principles, it was impossible to explain.' If
so, on what does your constitution rest? If the abstract rights of man
will bear discussion and explanation, those of woman, by a parity of
reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different
opinion prevails in this country, built on the very arguments which
you use to justify the oppression of woman- prescription.
Consider, I address you as a legislator, whether, when men contend
for their freedom, and to be allowed to judge for themselves
respecting their own happiness, it be not inconsistent and unjust to
subjugate women, even though you firmly believe that you are acting in
the manner best calculated to promote their happiness? Who made man
the exclusive judge, if woman partake with him the gift of reason?
In this style, argue tyrants of every denomination, from the weak
king to the weak father of a family; they are all eager to crush
reason; yet always assert that they usurp its throne only to be
useful. Do you not act a similar part, when you force all women, by
denying them civil and political rights, to remain immured in their
families groping in the dark? for surely, Sir, you will not assert,
that a duty can be binding which is not founded on reason? If indeed
this be their destination, arguments may be drawn from reason: and
thus augustly supported, the more understanding women acquire, the
more they will be attached to their duty- comprehending it- for unless
they comprehend it, unless their morals be fixed on the same immutable
principle as those of man, no authority can make them discharge it
in a virtuous manner. They may be convenient slaves, but slavery
will have its constant effect, degrading the master and the abject
dependent.
But, if women are to be excluded, without having a voice, from a
participation of the natural rights of mankind, prove first, to ward
off the charge of injustice and inconsistency, that they want
reason- else this flaw in your NEW CONSTITUTION will ever shew that
man must, in some shape, act like a tyrant, and tyranny, in whatever
part of society it rears its brazen front, will ever undermine
morality.
I have repeatedly asserted, and produced what appeared to me
irrefragable arguments drawn from matters of fact, to prove my
assertion, that women cannot, by force, be confined to domestic
concerns; for they will, however ignorant, intermeddle with more
weighty affairs, neglecting private duties only to disturb, by cunning
tricks, the orderly plans of reason which rise above their
comprehension.
Besides, whilst they are only made to acquire personal
accomplishments, men will seek for pleasure in variety, and
faithless husbands will make faithless wives; such ignorant beings,
indeed, will be very excusable when, not taught to respect public
good, nor allowed any civil rights, they attempt to do themselves
justice by retaliation.
The box of mischief thus opened in society, what is to preserve
private virtue, the only security of public freedom and universal
happiness?
Let there be then no coercion established in society, and the common
law of gravity prevailing, the sexes will fall into their proper
places. And, now that more equitable laws are forming your citizens,
marriage may become more sacred: your young men may choose wives
from motives of affection, and your maidens allow love to root out
vanity.
The father of a family will not then weaken his constitution and
debase his sentiments, by visiting the harlot, nor forget, in
obeying the call of appetite, the purpose for which it was
implanted. And, the mother will not neglect her children to practise
the arts of coquetry, when sense and modesty secure her the friendship
of her husband.
But, till men become attentive to the duty of a father, it is vain
to expect women to spend that time in their nursery which they,
'wise in their generation,' choose to spend at their glass; for this
exertion of cunning is only an instinct of nature to enable them to
obtain indirectly a little of that power of which they are unjustly
denied a share: for, if women are not permitted to enjoy legitimate
rights, they will render both men and themselves vicious, to obtain
illicit privileges.
I wish, Sir, to set some investigations of this kind afloat in
France; and should they lead to a confirmation of my principles,
when your constitution is revised the Rights of Woman may be
respected, if it be fully proved that reason calls for this respect,
and loudly demands JUSTICE for one half of the human race.
I am Sir,
Your's respectfully,
M. W.
ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisement.

When I began to write this work, I divided it into three parts,
supposing that one volume would contain a full discussion of the
arguments which seemed to me to rise naturally from a few simple
principles; but fresh illustrations occurring as I advanced, I now
present only the first part to the public.
Many subjects, however, which I have cursorily alluded to, call
for particular investigation, especially the laws relative to women,
and the consideration of their peculiar duties. These will furnish
ample matter for a second volume,* which in due time will be
published, to elucidate some of the sentiments, and complete many of
the sketches begun in the first.

* The second volume was never published, and so far as is known,
it was never written.- Ed.
INTRODUCTION
Introduction.

After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world
with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful
indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when
obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference
between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken
place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various
books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed
the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has
been the result?- a profound conviction that the neglected education
of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore;
and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a
variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion.
The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that
their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which
are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed
to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious
eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when
they ought to have arrived at maturity.- One cause of this barren
blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the
books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather
as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them
alluring mistresses than affectionate wives and rational mothers;
and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this
specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with
a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love, when they ought to
cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and virtues exact
respect.
In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works
which have been particularly written for their improvement must not be
overlooked; especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that
the minds of women are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books
of instruction, written by men of genius, have had the same tendency
as more frivolous productions; and that, in the true style of
Mahometanism, they are treated as a kind of subordinate beings, and
not as a part of the human species, when improveable reason is allowed
to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute
creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand.
Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose
that I mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the
equality or inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in my way,
and I cannot pass it over without subjecting the main tendency of my
reasoning to misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a
few words, my opinion.- In the government of the physical world it
is observable that the female in point of strength is, in general,
inferior to the male. This is the law of nature; and it does not
appear to be suspended or abrogated in favour of woman. A degree of
physical superiority cannot, therefore, be denied- and it is a noble
prerogative! But not content with this natural pre-eminence, men
endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring objects
for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men, under
the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a
durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the
fellow creatures who find amusement in their society.
I am aware of an obvious inference:- from every quarter have I heard
exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be
found? If by this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour
in hunting, shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the
cry; but if it be against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more
properly speaking, the attainment of those talents and virtues, the
exercise of which ennobles the human character, and which raise
females in the scale of animal being, when they are comprehensively
termed mankind;- all those who view them with a philosophic eye
must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every day grow
more and more masculine.
This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first
consider women in the grand light of human creatures, who, in common
with men, are placed on this earth to unfold their faculties; and
afterwards I shall more particularly point out their peculiar
designation.
I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable
writers have fallen into; for the instruction which has hitherto
been addressed to women, has rather been applicable to ladies, if
the little indirect advice, that is scattered through Sandford and
Merton, be excepted; but, addressing my sex in a firmer tone, I pay
particular attention to those in the middle class, because they appear
to be in the most natural state. Perhaps the seeds of
false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the
great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and
affections of their race, in a premature unnatural manner, undermine
the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole
mass of society! As a class of mankind they have the strongest claim
to pity; the education of the rich tends to render them vain and
helpless, and the unfolding mind is not strengthened by the practice
of those duties which dignify the human character.- They only live
to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in nature invariably
produces certain effects, they soon only afford barren amusement.
But as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of
society, and of the moral character of women, in each, this hint is,
for the present, sufficient; and I have only alluded to the subject,
because it appears to me to be the very essence of an introduction
to give a cursory account of the contents of the work it introduces.
My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational
creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing
them as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to
stand alone. I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and
human happiness consists- I wish to persuade women to endeavour to
acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the
soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and
refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of
weakness, and that those beings who are only the objects of pity and
that kind of love, which has been termed its sister, will soon
become objects of contempt.
Dismissing then those pretty feminine phrases, which the men
condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising
that weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet
docility of manners, supposed to be the sexual characteristics of
the weaker vessel, I wish to shew that elegance is inferior to virtue,
that the first object of laudable ambition is to obtain a character as
a human being, regardless of the distinction of sex; and that
secondary views should be brought to this simple touchstone.
This is a rough sketch of my plan; and should I express my
conviction with the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think of
the subject, the dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by
some of my readers. Animated by this important object, I shall disdain
to cull my phrases or polish my style;- I aim at being useful, and
sincerity will render me unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade
by the force of my arguments, than dazzle by the elegance of my
language, I shall not waste my time in rounding periods, or in
fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial feelings, which, coming
from the head, never reach the heart.- I shall be employed about
things, not words!- and, anxious to render my sex more respectable
members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction which
has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar
letters and conversation.
These pretty superlatives, dropping glibly from the tongue,
vitiate the taste, and create a kind of sickly delicacy that turns
away from simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of false sentiments and
over-stretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions of the heart,
render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten the
exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and immortal
being for a nobler field of action.
The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than
formerly; yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed
or pitied by the writers who endeavour by satire or instruction to
improve them. It is acknowledged that they spend many of the first
years of their lives in acquiring a smattering of accomplishments;
meanwhile strength of body and mind are sacrificed to libertine
notions of beauty, to the desire of establishing themselves,- the only
way women can rise in the world,- by marriage. And this desire
making mere animals of them, when they marry they act as such children
may be expected to act:- they dress; they paint, and nickname God's
creatures.- Surely these weak beings are only fit for a seraglio!- Can
they be expected to govern a family with judgment, or take care of the
poor babes whom they bring into the world?
If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the
sex, from the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of
ambition and those nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul;
that the instruction which women have hitherto received has only
tended, with the constitution of civil society, to render them
insignificant objects of desire- mere propagators of fools!- if it can
be proved that in aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating their
understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and made
ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is
over,* I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavouring
to persuade them to become more masculine and respectable.

* A lively writer, I cannot recollect his name, asks what business
women turned of forty have to do in the world?

Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear: there is little
reason to fear that women will acquire too much courage or
fortitude; for their apparent inferiority with respect to bodily
strength, must render them, in some degree, dependent on men in the
various relations of life; but why should it be increased by
prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound simple truths
with sensual reveries?
Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female
excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that
this artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives
birth to cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them
to play off those contemptible infantine airs that undermine esteem
even whilst they excite desire. Let men become more chaste and modest,
and if women do not grow wiser in the same ratio, it will be clear
that they have weaker understandings. It seems scarcely necessary to
say, that I now speak of the sex in general. Many individuals have
more sense than their male relatives; and, as nothing preponderates
where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium, without it
has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands without
degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern.
Chap. I.
The Rights and Involved Duties of Mankind Considered.

In the present state of society it appears necessary to go back to
first principles in search of the most simple truths, and to dispute
with some prevailing prejudice every inch of ground. To clear my
way, I must be allowed to ask some plain questions, and the answers
will probably appear as unequivocal as the axioms on which reasoning
is built; though, when entangled with various motives of action,
they are formally contradicted, either by the words or conduct of men.
In what does man's pre-eminence over the brute creation consist? The
answer is as clear as that a half is less than the whole; in Reason.
What acquirement exalts one being above another? Virtue; we
spontaneously reply.
For what purpose were the passions implanted? That man by struggling
with them might attain a degree of knowledge denied to the brutes;
whispers Experience.
Consequently the perfection of our nature and capability of
happiness, must be estimated by the degree of reason, virtue, and
knowledge, that distinguish the individual, and direct the laws
which bind society: and that from the exercise of reason, knowledge
and virtue naturally flow, is equally undeniable, if mankind be viewed
collectively.
The rights and duties of man thus simplified, it seems almost
impertinent to attempt to illustrate truths that appear so
incontrovertible; yet such deeply rooted prejudices have clouded
reason, and such spurious qualities have assumed the name of
virtues, that it is necessary to pursue the course of reason as it has
been perplexed and involved in error, by various adventitious
circumstances, comparing the simple axiom with casual deviations.
Men, in general, seem to employ their reason to justify
prejudices, which they have imbibed, they can scarcely trace how,
rather than to root them out. The mind must be strong that
resolutely forms its own principles; for a kind of intellectual
cowardice prevails which makes many men shrink from the task, or
only do it by halves. Yet the imperfect conclusions thus drawn, are
frequently very plausible, because they are built on partial
experience, on just, though narrow, views.
Going back to first principles, vice skulks, with all its native
deformity, from close investigation; but a set of shallow reasoners
are always exclaiming that these arguments prove too much, and that
a measure rotten at the core may be expedient. Thus expediency is
continually contrasted with simple principles, till truth is lost in a
mist of words, virtue, in forms, and knowledge rendered a sounding
nothing, by the specious prejudices that assume its name.
That the society is formed in the wisest manner, whose
constitution is founded on the nature of man, strikes, in the
abstract, every thinking being so forcibly, that it looks like
presumption to endeavour to bring forward proofs; though proof must be
brought, or the strong hold of prescription will never be forced by
reason; yet to urge prescription as an argument to justify the
depriving men (or women) of their natural rights, is one of the absurd
sophisms which daily insult common sense.
The civilization of the bulk of the people of Europe is very
partial; nay, it may be made a question, whether they have acquired
any virtues in exchange for innocence, equivalent to the misery
produced by the vices that have been plastered over unsightly
ignorance, and the freedom which has been bartered for splendid
slavery. The desire of dazzling by riches, the most certain
pre-eminence that man can obtain, the pleasure of commanding
flattering sycophants, and many other complicated low calculations
of doting self-love, have all contributed to overwhelm the mass of
mankind, and make liberty a convenient handle for mock patriotism. For
whilst rank and titles are held of the utmost importance, before which
Genius "must hide its diminished head," it is, with a few
exceptions, very unfortunate for a nation when a man of abilities,
without rank or property, pushes himself forward to notice.- Alas!
what unheard of misery have thousands suffered to purchase a
cardinal's hat for an intriguing obscure adventurer, who longed to
be ranked with princes, or lord it over them by seizing the triple
crown!
Such, indeed, has been the wretchedness that has flowed from
hereditary honours, riches, and monarchy, that men of lively
sensibility have almost uttered blasphemy in order to justify the
dispensations of providence. Man has been held out as independent of
his power who made him, or as a lawless planet darting from its
orbit to steal the celestial fire of reason; and the vengeance of
heaven, lurking in the subtile flame, like Pandora's pent up
mischiefs, sufficiently punished his temerity, by introducing evil
into the world.
Impressed by this view of the misery and disorder which pervaded
society, and fatigued with jostling against artificial fools, Rousseau
became enamoured of solitude, and, being at the same time an optimist,
he labours with uncommon eloquence to prove that man was naturally a
solitary animal. Misled by his respect for the goodness of God, who
certainly- for what man of sense and feeling can doubt it!- gave
life only to communicate happiness, he considers evil as positive, and
the work of man; not aware that he was exalting one attribute at the
expence of another, equally necessary to divine perfection.
Reared on a false hypothesis his arguments in favour of a state of
nature are plausible, but unsound. I say unsound; for to assert that a
state of nature is preferable to civilization, in all its possible
perfection, is, in other words, to arraign supreme wisdom; and the
paradoxical exclamation, that God has made all things right, and
that error has been introduced by the creature, whom he formed,
knowing what he formed, is as unphilosophical as impious.
When that wise Being who created us and placed us here, saw the fair
idea, he willed, by allowing it to be so, that the passions should
unfold our reason, because he could see that present evil would
produce future good. Could the helpless creature whom he called from
nothing break loose from his providence, and boldly learn to know good
by practising evil, without his permission? No.- How could that
energetic advocate for immortality argue so inconsistently? Had
mankind remained for ever in the brutal state of nature, which even
his magic pen cannot paint as a state in which a single virtue took
root, it would have been clear, though not to the sensitive
unreflecting wanderer, that man was born to run the circle of life and
death, and adorn God's garden for some purpose which could not
easily be reconciled with his attributes.
But if, to crown the whole, there were to be rational creatures
produced, allowed to rise in excellence by the exercise of powers
implanted for that purpose; if benignity itself thought fit to call
into existence a creature above the brutes,* who could think and
improve himself, why should that inestimable gift, for a gift it
was, if man was so created as to have a capacity to rise above the
state in which sensation produced brutal ease, be called, in direct
terms, a curse? A curse it might be reckoned, if the whole of our
existence were bounded by our continuance in this world; for why
should the gracious fountain of life give us passions, and the power
of reflecting, only to imbitter our days and inspire us with
mistaken notions of dignity? Why should he lead us from love of
ourselves to the sublime emotions which the discovery of his wisdom
and goodness excites, if these feelings were not set in motion to
improve our nature, of which they make a part,*(2) and render us
capable of enjoying a more godlike portion of happiness? Firmly
persuaded that no evil exists in the world that God did not design
to take place, I build my belief on the perfection of God.

* Contrary to the opinion of anatomists, who argue by analogy from
the formation of the teeth, stomach, and intestines, Rousseau will not
allow a man to be a carnivorous animal. And, carried away from
nature by a love of system, he disputes whether man be a gregarious
animal, though the long and helpless state of infancy seems to point
him out as particularly impelled to pair, the first step towards
herding.
*(2) What would you say to a mechanic whom you had desired to make a
watch to point out the hour of the day, if, to show his ingenuity,
he added wheels to make it a repeater, &c. that perplexed the simple
mechanism; should he urge, to excuse himself- had you not touched a
certain spring, you would have known nothing of the matter, and that
he should have amused himself by making an experiment without doing
you any harm: would you not retort fairly upon him, by insisting
that if he had not added those needless wheels and springs, the
accident could not have happened?

Rousseau exerts himself to prove that all was right originally: a
crowd of authors that all is now right: and I, that all will be right.
But, true to his first position, next to a state of nature, Rousseau
celebrates barbarism, and apostrophizing the shade of Fabricius, he
forgets that, in conquering the world, the Romans never dreamed of
establishing their own liberty on a firm basis, or of extending the
reign of virtue. Eager to support his system, he stigmatizes, as
vicious, every effort of genius; and, uttering the apotheosis of
savage virtues, he exalts those to demi-gods, who were scarcely human-
the brutal Spartans, who, in defiance of justice and gratitude,
sacrificed, in cold blood, the slaves who had shewn themselves
heroes to rescue their oppressors.
Disgusted with artificial manners and virtues, the citizen of
Geneva, instead of properly sifting the subject, threw away the
wheat with the chaff, without waiting to inquire whether the evils
which his ardent soul turned from indignantly, were the consequence of
civilization or the vestiges of barbarism. He saw vice tramping on
virtue, and the semblance of goodness taking place of the reality;
he saw talents bent by power to sinister purposes, and never thought
of tracing the gigantic mischief up to arbitrary power, up to the
hereditary distinctions that clash with the mental superiority that
naturally raises a man above his fellows. He did not perceive that
regal power, in a few generations, introduces idiotism into the
noble stem, and holds out baits to render thousands idle and vicious.
Nothing can set the regal character in a more contemptible point
of view, than the various crimes that have elevated men to the supreme
dignity.- Vile intrigues, unnatural crimes, and every vice that
degrades our nature, have been the steps to this distinguished
eminence; yet millions of men have supinely allowed the nerveless
limbs of the posterity of such rapacious prowlers to rest quietly on
their ensanguined thrones.*

* Could there be a greater insult offered to the rights of man
than the beds of justice in France, when an infant was made the
organ of the detestable Dubois!

What but a pestilential vapour can hover over society when its chief
director is only instructed in the invention of crimes, or the
stupid routine of childish ceremonies? Will men never be wise?- will
they never cease to expect corn from tares, and figs from thistles?
It is impossible for any man, when the most favourable circumstances
concur, to acquire sufficient knowledge and strength of mind to
discharge the duties of a king, entrusted with uncontrouled power; how
then must they be violated when his very elevation is an insuperable
bar to the attainment of either wisdom or virtue; when all the
feelings of a man are stifled by flattery, and reflection shut out
by pleasure! Surely it is madness to make the fate of thousands depend
on the caprice of a weak fellow creature, whose very station sinks him
necessarily below the meanest of his subjects! But one power should
not be thrown down to exalt another- for all power inebriates weak
man; and its abuse proves that the more equality there is
established among men, the more virtue and happiness will reign in
society. But this and any similar maxim deduced from simple reason,
raises an outcry- the church or the state is in danger, if faith in
the wisdom of antiquity is not implicit; and they who, roused by the
sight of human calamity, dare to attack human authority, are reviled
as despisers of God, and enemies of man. These are bitter calumnies,
yet they reached one of the best of men,* whose ashes still preach
peace, and whose memory demands a respectful pause, when subjects
are discussed that lay so near his heart-

* Dr. [Richard] Price.

After attacking the sacred majesty of Kings, I shall scarcely excite
surprise by adding my firm persuasion that every profession, in
which great subordination of rank constitutes its power, is highly
injurious to morality.
A standing army, for instance, is incompatible with freedom; because
subordination and rigour are the very sinews of military discipline;
and despotism is necessary to give vigour to enterprizes that one will
directs. A spirit inspired by romantic notions of honour, a kind of
morality founded on the fashion of the age, can only be felt by a
few officers, whilst the main body must be moved by command, like
the waves of the sea; for the strong wind of authority pushes the
crowd of subalterns forward, they scarcely know or care why, with
headlong fury.
Besides, nothing can be so prejudicial to the morals of the
inhabitants of country towns as the occasional residence of a set of
idle superficial young men, whose only occupation is gallantry, and
whose polished manners render vice more dangerous, by concealing its
deformity under gay ornamental drapery. An air of fashion, which is
but a badge of slavery, and proves that the soul has not a strong
individual character, awes simple country people into an imitation
of the vices, when they cannot catch the slippery graces, of
politeness. Every corps is a chain of despots, who, submitting and
tyrannizing without exercising their reason, become dead weights of
vice and folly on the community. A man of rank or fortune, sure of
rising by interest, has nothing to do but to pursue some extravagant
freak; whilst the needy gentleman, who is to rise, as the phrase
turns, by his merit, becomes a servile parasite or vile pander.
Sailors, the naval gentlemen, come under the same description,
only their vices assume a different and a grosser cast. They are
more positively indolent, when not discharging the ceremonials of
their station; whilst the insignificant fluttering of soldiers may
be termed active idleness. More confined to the society of men, the
former acquire a fondness for humour and mischievous tricks; whilst
the latter, mixing frequently with well-bred women, catch a
sentimental cant.- But mind is equally out of the question, whether
they indulge the horse-laugh, or polite simper.
May I be allowed to extend the comparison to a profession where more
mind is certainly to be found; for the clergy have superior
opportunities of improvement, though subordination almost equally
cramps their faculties? The blind submission imposed at college to
forms of belief serves as a novitiate to the curate, who must
obsequiously respect the opinion of his rector or patron, if he mean
to rise in his profession. Perhaps there cannot be a more forcible
contrast than between the servile dependent gait of a poor curate
and the courtly mien of a bishop. And the respect and contempt they
inspire render the discharge of their separate functions equally
useless.
It is of great importance to observe that the character of every man
is, in some degree, formed by his profession. A man of sense may
only have a cast of countenance that wears off as you trace his
individuality, whilst the weak, common man has scarcely ever any
character, but what belongs to the body; at least, all his opinions
have been so steeped in the vat consecrated by authority, that the
faint spirit which the grape of his own vine yields cannot be
distinguished.
Society, therefore, as it becomes more enlightened, should be very
careful not to establish bodies of men who must necessarily be made
foolish or vicious by the very constitution of their profession.
In the infancy of society, when men were just emerging out of
barbarism, chiefs and priests, touching the most powerful springs of
savage conduct, hope and fear, must have had unbounded sway. An
aristocracy, of course, is naturally the first form of government.
But, clashing interests soon losing their equipoise, a monarchy and
hierarchy break out of the confusion of ambitious struggles, and the
foundation of both is secured by feudal tenures. This appears to be
the origin of monarchical and priestly power, and the dawn of
civilization. But such combustible materials cannot long be pent up;
and, getting vent in foreign wars and intestine insurrections, the
people acquire some power in tumult, which obliges their rulers to
gloss over their oppression with a shew of right. Thus, as wars,
agriculture, commerce, and literature, expand the mind, despots are
compelled, to make covert corruption hold fast the power which was
formerly snatched by open force.* And this baneful lurking gangrene is
most quickly spread by luxury and superstition, the sure dregs of
ambition. The indolent puppet of a court first becomes a luxurious
monster, or fastidious sensualist, and then makes the contagion
which his unnatural state spread, the instrument of tyranny.

* Men of abilities scatter seeds that grow up and have a great
influence on the forming opinion; and when once the public opinion
preponderates, through the exertion of reason, the overthrow of
arbitrary power is not very distant.

It is the pestiferous purple which renders the progress of
civilization a curse, and warps the understanding, till men of
sensibility doubt whether the expansion of intellect produces a
greater portion of happiness or misery. But the nature of the poison
points out the antidote; and had Rousseau mounted one step higher in
his investigation, or could his eye have pierced through the foggy
atmosphere, which he almost disdained to breathe, his active mind
would have darted forward to contemplate the perfection of man in
the establishment of true civilization, instead of taking his
ferocious flight back to the night of sensual ignorance.
Chap. II.
The Prevailing Opinion of a Sexual Character Discussed.

To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious
arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in
the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very
different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to
have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the
name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls,
that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to
either virtue or happiness.
If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should they
be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence? Men
complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex,
when they do not keenly satirize our headstrong passions and groveling
vices.- Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of ignorance!
The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices to rest on,
and the current will run with destructive fury when there are no
barriers to break its force. Women are told from their infancy, and
taught by the example of their mothers, that a little knowledge of
human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness of temper, outward
obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a puerile kind of
propriety, will obtain for them the protection of man; and should they
be beautiful, every thing else is needless, for, at least, twenty
years of their lives.
Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells
us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace, I
cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan strain,
he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were beings
only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind obedience,
to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar on the wing of
contemplation.
How grossly do they insult us who thus advise us only to render
ourselves gentle, domestic brutes! For instance, the winning
softness so warmly, and frequently, recommended, that governs by
obeying. What childish expressions, and how insignificant is the
being- can it be an immortal one? who will condescend to govern by
such sinister methods! 'Certainly,' says Lord Bacon, 'man is of kin to
the beasts by his body; and if he be not of kin to God by his
spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature!' Men, indeed, appear to
me to act in a very unphilosophical manner when they try to secure the
good conduct of women by attempting to keep them always in a state
of childhood. Rousseau was more consistent when he wished to stop
the progress of reason in both sexes, for if men eat of the tree of
knowledge, women will come in for a taste; but, from the imperfect
cultivation which their understandings now receive, they only attain a
knowledge of evil.
Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is
applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness. For
if it be allowed that women were destined by Providence to acquire
human virtues, and by the exercise of their understandings, that
stability of character which is the firmest ground to rest our
future hopes upon, they must be permitted to turn to the fountain of
light, and not forced to shape their course by the twinkling of a mere
satellite. Milton, I grant, was of a very different opinion; for he
only bends to the indefeasible right of beauty, though it would be
difficult to render two passages which I now mean to contrast,
consistent. But into similar inconsistencies are great men often led
by their senses.

'To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorn'd.
'My Author and Disposer, what thou bidst
'Unargued I obey; So God ordains;
'God is thy law, thou mine: to know no more
'Is Woman's happiest knowledge and her Praise.'

These are exactly the arguments that I have used to children; but
I have added, your reason is now gaining strength, and, till it
arrives at some degree of maturity, you must look up to me for advice-
then you ought to think, and only rely on God.
Yet in the following lines Milton seems to coincide with me; when he
makes Adam thus expostulate with his Maker.

'Hast thou not made me here thy substitute,
'And these inferior far beneath me set?
'Among unequals what society
'Can sort, what harmony or true delight?
'Which must be mutual, in proportion due
'Giv'n and receiv'd; but in disparity
'The one intense, the other still remiss
'Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove
'Tedious alike: of fellowship I speak
'Such as I seek, fit to participate
'All rational delight-

In treating, therefore, of the manners of women, let us,
disregarding sensual arguments, trace what we should endeavour to make
them in order to co-operate, if the expression be not too bold, with
the supreme Being.
By individual education, I mean, for the sense of the word is not
precisely defined, such an attention to a child as will slowly sharpen
the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions as they begin to
ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body arrives
at maturity; so that the man may only have to proceed, not to begin,
the important task of learning to think and reason.
To prevent any misconstruction, I must add, that I do not believe
that a private education can work the wonders which some sanguine
writers have attributed to it. Men and women must be educated, in a
great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they live in.
In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion that has
carried all before it, and given a family character, as it were, to
the century. It may then fairly be inferred, that, till society be
differently constituted, much cannot be expected from education. It
is, however, sufficient for my present purpose to assert, that,
whatever effect circumstances have on the abilities, every being may
become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason; for if but one
being was created with vicious inclinations, that is positively bad,
what can save us from atheism? or if we worship a God, is not that God
a devil?
Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such
an exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen
the body and form the heart. Or, in other words, to enable the
individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it
independent. In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous whose
virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason. This was
Rousseau's opinion respecting men: I extend it to women, and
confidently assert that they have been drawn out of their sphere by
false refinement, and not by an endeavour to acquire masculine
qualities. Still the regal homage which they receive is so
intoxicating, that till the manners of the times are changed, and
formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to convince
them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain, by degrading
themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to nature and
equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction that
unsophisticated affections impart. But for this epoch we must wait-
wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason, and,
preferring the real dignity of man to childish state, throw off
their gaudy hereditary trappings: and if then women do not resign
the arbitrary power of beauty- they will prove that they have less
mind than man.
I may be accused of arrogance; still I must declare what I firmly
believe, that all the writers who have written on the subject of
female education and manners from Rousseau to Dr. Gregory, have
contributed to render women more artificial, weak characters, than
they would otherwise have been; and, consequently, more useless
members of society. I might have expressed this conviction in a
lower key; but I am afraid it would have been the whine of
affectation, and not the faithful expression of my feelings, of the
clear result, which experience and reflection have led me to draw.
When I come to that division of the subject, I shall advert to the
passages that I more particularly disapprove of, in the works of the
authors I have just alluded to; but it is first necessary to
observe, that my objection extends to the whole purport of those
books, which tend, in my opinion, to degrade one half of the human
species, and render women pleasing at the expense of every solid
virtue.
Though, to reason on Rousseau's ground, if man did attain a degree
of perfection of mind when his body arrived at maturity, it might be
proper, in order to make a man and his wife one, that she should
rely entirely on his understanding; and the graceful ivy, clasping the
oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and beauty
would be equally conspicuous. But, alas! husbands, as well as their
helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks to early
debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form and if the blind lead
the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the consequence.
Many are the causes that, in the present corrupt state of society,
contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and
sharpening their senses. One, perhaps, that silently does more
mischief than all the rest, is their disregard of order.
To do every thing in an orderly manner, is a most important precept,
which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a disorderly kind
of education, seldom attend to with that degree of exactness that men,
who from their infancy are broken into method, observe. This negligent
kind of guess-work, for what other epithet can be used to point out
the random exertions of a sort of instinctive common sense, never
brought to the test of reason? prevents their generalizing matters
of fact- so they do to-day, what they did yesterday, merely because
they did it yesterday.
This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful
consequences than is commonly supposed; for the little knowledge which
women of strong minds attain, is, from various circumstances, of a
more desultory kind than the knowledge of men, and it is acquired more
by sheer observations on real life, than from comparing what has
been individually observed with the results of experience
generalized by speculation. Led by their dependent situation and
domestic employments more into society, what they learn is rather by
snatches; and as learning is with them, in general, only a secondary
thing, they do not pursue any one branch with that persevering
ardour necessary to give vigour to the faculties, and clearness to the
judgment. In the present state of society, a little learning is
required to support the character of a gentleman; and boys are obliged
to submit to a few years of discipline. But in the education of women,
the cultivation of the understanding is always subordinate to the
acquirement of some corporeal accomplishment; even while enervated
by confinement and false notions of modesty, the body is prevented
from attaining that grace and beauty which relaxed half-formed limbs
never exhibit. Besides, in youth their faculties are not brought
forward by emulation; and having no serious scientific study, if
they have natural sagacity it is turned too soon on life and
manners. They dwell on effects, and modifications, without tracing
them back to causes; and complicated rules to adjust behaviour are a
weak substitute for simple principles.
As a proof that education gives this appearance of weakness to
females, we may instance the example of military men, who are, like
them, sent into the world before their minds have been stored with
knowledge or fortified by principles. The consequences are similar;
soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched from the
muddy current of conversation, and, from continually mixing with
society, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the world; and
this acquaintance with manners and customs has frequently been
confounded with a knowledge of the human heart. But can the crude
fruit of casual observation, never brought to the test of judgment,
formed by comparing speculation and experience, deserve such a
distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practice the minor virtues
with punctilious politeness. Where is then the sexual difference, when
the education has been the same? All the difference that I can
discern, arises from the superior advantage of liberty, which
enables the former to see more of life.
It is wandering from my present subject, perhaps, to make a
political remark; but, as it was produced naturally by the train of my
reflections, I shall not pass it silently over.
Standing armies can never consist of resolute, robust men; they
may be well disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men
under the influence of strong passions, or with very vigorous
faculties. And as for any depth of understanding, I will venture to
affirm, that it is as rarely to be found in the army as amongst women;
and the cause, I maintain, is the same. It may be further observed,
that officers are also particularly attentive to their persons, fond
of dancing, crowded rooms, adventures, and ridicule.* Like the fair
sex, the business of their lives is gallantry.- They were taught to
please, and they only live to please. Yet they do not lose their
rank in the distinction of sexes, for they are still reckoned superior
to women, though in what their superiority consists, beyond what I
have just mentioned, it is difficult to discover.

* Why should women be censured with petulant acrimony, because
they seem to have a passion for a scarlet coat? Has not education
placed them more on a level with soldiers than any other class of men?

The great misfortune is this, that they both acquire manners
before morals, and a knowledge of life before they have, from
reflection, any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human
nature. The consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they
become a prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on
credit, they blindly submit to authority. So that, if they have any
sense, it is a kind of instinctive glance, that catches proportions,
and decides with respect to manners; but fails when arguments are to
be pursued below the surface, or opinions analyzed.
May not the same remark be applied to women? Nay, the argument may
be carried still further, for they are both thrown out of a useful
station by the unnatural distinctions established in civilized life.
Riches and hereditary honours have made cyphers of women to give
consequence to the numerical figure; and idleness has produced a
mixture of gallantry and despotism into society, which leads the
very men who are the slaves of their mistresses to tyrannize over
their sisters, wives, and daughters. This is only keeping them in rank
and file, it is true. Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it,
and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience
is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the
right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the
former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing. The
sensualist, indeed, has been the most dangerous of tyrants, and
women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their
ministers, whilst dreaming that they reigned over them.
I now principally allude to Rousseau, for his character of Sophia
is, undoubtedly, a captivating one, though it appears to me grossly
unnatural; however it is not the superstructure, but the foundation of
her character, the principles on which her education was built, that I
mean to attack; nay, warmly as I admire the genius of that able
writer, whose opinions I shall often have occasion to cite,
indignation always takes place of admiration, and the rigid frown of
insulted virtue effaces the smile of complacency which his eloquent
periods are wont to raise, when I read his voluptuous reveries. Is
this the man, who, in his ardour for virtue, would banish all the soft
arts of peace, and almost carry us back to Spartan discipline? Is this
the man who delights to paint the useful struggles of passion, the
triumphs of good dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry
the glowing soul out of itself?- How are these mighty sentiments
lowered when he describes the pretty foot and enticing airs of his
little favourite! But, for the present, I wave the subject, and,
instead of severely reprehending the transient effusions of
overweening sensibility, I shall only observe, that whoever has cast a
benevolent eye on society, must often have been gratified by the sight
of a humble mutual love, not dignified by sentiment, or strengthened
by a union in intellectual pursuits. The domestic trifles of the day
have afforded matters for cheerful converse, and innocent caresses
have softened toils which did not require great exercise of mind or
stretch of thought: yet, has not the sight of this moderate felicity
excited more tenderness than respect? An emotion similar to what we
feel when children are playing, or animals sporting,* whilst the
contemplation of the noble struggles of suffering merit has raised
admiration, and carried our thoughts to that world where sensation
will give place to reason.

* Similar feelings has Milton's pleasing picture of paradisiacal
happiness ever raised in my mind; yet, instead of envying the lovely
pair, I have, with conscious dignity, or Satanic pride, turned to hell
for sublimer objects. In the same style, when viewing some noble
monument of human art, I have traced the emanation of the Deity in the
order I admired, till, descending from that giddy height, I have
caught myself contemplating the grandest of all human sights,- for
fancy quickly placed, in some solitary recess, an outcast of
fortune, rising superior to passion and discontent.

Women are, therefore, to be considered either as moral beings, or so
weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior faculties of
men.
Let us examine this question. Rousseau declares that a woman
should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she
should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a
coquetish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of
desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax
himself. He carries the arguments, which he pretends to draw from
the indications of nature, still further, and insinuates that truth
and fortitude, the corner stones of all human virtue, should be
cultivated with certain restrictions, because, with respect to the
female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought to be
impressed with unrelenting rigour.
What nonsense! When will a great man arise with sufficient
strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality
have thus spread over the subject! If women are by nature inferior
to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree,
or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be
founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.
Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral
character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those
simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should be
to unfold their own faculties and acquire the dignity of conscious
virtue. They may try to render their road pleasant; but ought never to
forget, in common with man, that life yields not the felicity which
can satisfy an immortal soul. I do not mean to insinuate, that
either sex should be so lost in abstract reflections or distant views,
as to forget the affections and duties that lie before them, and
are, in truth, the means appointed to produce the fruit of life; on
the contrary, I would warmly recommend them, even while I assert, that
they afford most satisfaction when they are considered in their
true, sober light.
Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man, may
have taken its rise from Moses's poetical story; yet, as very few,
it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the
subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of Adam's
ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground; or, only be
so far admitted as it proves that man, from the remotest antiquity,
found it convenient to exert his strength to subjugate his
companion, and his invention to shew that she ought to have her neck
bent under the yoke, because the whole creation was only created for
his convenience or pleasure.
Let it not be concluded that I wish to invert the order of things; I
have already granted, that, from the constitution of their bodies, men
seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater degree of
virtue. I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see not the
shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should differ in
respect to their nature. In fact, how can they, if virtue has only one
eternal standard? I must therefore, if I reason consequentially, as
strenuously maintain that they have the same simple direction, as that
there is a God.
It follows then that cunning should not be opposed to wisdom, little
cares to great exertions, or insipid softness, varnished over with the
name of gentleness, to that fortitude which grand views alone can
inspire.
I shall be told that woman would then lose many of her peculiar
graces, and the opinion of a well known poet might be quoted to refute
my unqualified assertion. For Pope has said, in the name of the
whole male sex,

'Yet ne'er so sure our passion to create,
'As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate.'

In what light this sally places men and women, I shall leave to
the judicious to determine; meanwhile I shall content myself with
observing, that I cannot discover why, unless they are mortal, females
should always be degraded by being made subservient to love or lust.
To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against
sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple language
of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart. To
endeavour to reason love out of the world, would be to out Quixote
Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense; but an endeavour
to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it should not
be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the sceptre
which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears less wild.
Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of
thoughtless enjoyment provision should be made for the more
important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation. But
Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed his steps,
have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of female education
ought to be directed to one point:- to render them pleasing.
Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion who have any
knowledge of human nature, do they imagine that marriage can eradicate
the habitude of life? The woman who has only been taught to please
will soon find that her charms are oblique sunbeams, and that they
cannot have much effect on her husband's heart when they are seen
every day, when the summer is passed and gone. Will she then have
sufficient native energy to look into herself for comfort, and
cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more rational to expect
that she will try to please other men; and, in the emotions raised
by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour to forget the
mortification her love or pride has received? When the husband
ceases to be a lover- and the time will inevitably come, her desire of
pleasing will then grow languid, or become a spring of bitterness; and
love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all passions, gives place to
jealousy or vanity.
I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice;
such women, though they would shrink from an intrigue with real
abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage of
gallantry that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands; or,
days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed by
congenial souls till their health is undermined and their spirits
broken by discontent. How then can the great art of pleasing be such a
necessary study? it is only useful to a mistress; the chaste wife, and
serious mother, should only consider her power to please as the polish
of her virtues, and the affection of her husband as one of the
comforts that render her task less difficult and her life happier.-
But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first wish should be to
make herself respectable, and not to rely for all her happiness on a
being subject to like infirmities with herself.
The worthy Dr. Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect his
heart; but entirely disapprove of his celebrated Legacy to his
Daughters.
He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a
fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to
comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently use
this indefinite term. If they told us that in a pre-existent state the
soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with it into a
new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I often do
when I hear a rant about innate elegance.- But if he only meant to say
that the exercise of the faculties will produce this fondness- I
deny it.- It is not natural; but arises, like false ambition in men,
from a love of power.
Dr. Gregory goes much further; he actually recommends dissimulation,
and advises an innocent girl to give the lie to her feelings, and
not dance with spirit, when gaiety of heart would make her feel
eloquent without making her gestures immodest. In the name of truth
and common sense, why should not one woman acknowledge that she can
take more exercise than another? or, in other words, that she has a
sound constitution; and why, to damp innocent vivacity, is she
darkly to be told that men will draw conclusions which she little
thinks of?- Let the libertine draw what inference he pleases; but, I
hope, that no sensible mother will restrain the natural frankness of
youth by instilling such indecent cautions. Out of the abundance of
the heart the mouth speaketh; and a wiser than Solomon hath said, that
the heart should be made clean, and not trivial ceremonies observed,
which it is not very difficult to fulfill with scrupulous exactness
when vice reigns in the heart.
Women ought to endeavour to purify their heart; but can they do so
when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely dependent on
their senses for employment and amusement, when no noble pursuit
sets them above the little vanities of the day, or enables them to
curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed over which every passing
breeze has power? To gain the affections of a virtuous man is
affectation necessary? Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man;
but, to ensure her husband's affections, must a wife, who by the
exercise of her mind and body whilst she was discharging the duties of
a daughter, wife, and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain
its natural strength, and her nerves a healthy tone, is she, I say, to
condescend to use art and feign a sickly delicacy in order to secure
her husband's affection? Weakness may excite tenderness, and gratify
the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a protector will
not gratify a noble mind that pants for, and deserves to be respected.
Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!
In a seraglio, I grant, that all these arts are necessary; the
epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apathy; but
have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with such a
condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of pleasure,
or the languor of weariness, rather than assert their claim to
pursue reasonable pleasures and render themselves conspicuous by
practising the virtues which dignify mankind? Surely she has not an
immortal soul who can loiter life away merely employed to adorn her
person, that she may amuse the languid hours, and soften the cares
of a fellow-creature who is willing to be enlivened by her smiles
and tricks, when the serious business of life is over.
Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind
will, by managing her family and practising various virtues, become
the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband; and if she,
by possessing such substantial qualities, merit his regard, she will
not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend to an
unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband's passions.
In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the women who
have distinguished themselves have neither been the most beautiful nor
the most gentle of their sex.
Nature, or, to speak with strict propriety, God, has made all things
right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work. I
now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's treatise, where he advises
a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her sensibility
or affection. Voluptuous precaution, and as ineffectual as absurd.-
Love, from its very nature, must be transitory. To seek for a secret
that would render it constant, would be as wild a search as for the
philosopher's stone, or the grand panacea: and the discovery would
be equally useless, or rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy
band of society is friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd
satirist, "that rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer."
This is an obvious truth, and the cause not lying deep, will not
elude a slight glance of inquiry.
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place
of choice and reason, is, in some degree, felt by the mass of mankind;
for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the emotions that
rise above or sink below love. This passion, naturally increased by
suspense and difficulties, draws the mind out of its accustomed state,
and exalts the affections; but the security of marriage, allowing
the fever of love to subside, a healthy temperature is thought
insipid, only by those who have not sufficient intellect to substitute
the calm tenderness of friendship, the confidence of respect,
instead of blind admiration, and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature.- Friendship or
indifference inevitably succeeds love.- And this constitution seems
perfectly to harmonize with the system of government which prevails in
the moral world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind;
but they sink into mere appetites, become a personal and momentary
gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind rests
in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was struggling for
a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it graces his brow;
and, when the lover is not lost in the husband, the dotard, a prey
to childish caprices, and fond jealousies, neglects the serious duties
of life, and the caresses which should excite confidence in his
children are lavished on the overgrown child, his wife.
In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to pursue with
vigour the various employments which form the moral character, a
master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love each
other with passion. I mean to say that they ought not to indulge those
emotions which disturb the order of society, and engross the
thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind that has never
been engrossed by one object wants vigour- if it can long be so, it is
weak.
A mistaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many sexual
prejudices, tend to make women more constant than men; but, for the
present, I shall not touch on this branch of the subject. I will go
still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an
unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that
the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother. And this would
almost always be the consequence if the female mind were more
enlarged: for, it seems to be the common dispensation of Providence,
that what we gain in present enjoyment should be deducted from the
treasure of life, experience; and that when we are gathering the
flowers of the day and revelling in pleasure, the solid fruit of
toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same time. The way lies
before us, we must turn to the right or left; and he who will pass
life away in bounding from one pleasure to another, must not
complain if he acquire neither wisdom nor respectability of character.
Supposing, for a moment, that the soul is not immortal, and that man
was only created for the present scene,- I think we should have reason
to complain that love, infantine fondness, ever grew insipid and
palled upon the sense. Let us eat, drink, and love, for to-morrow we
die, would be, in fact, the language of reason, the morality of
life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for a fleeting
shadow? But, if awed by observing the improbable powers of the mind,
we disdain to confine our wishes or thoughts to such a comparatively
mean field of action; that only appears grand and important, as it
is connected with a boundless prospect and sublime hopes, what
necessity is there for falsehood in conduct, and why must the sacred
majesty of truth be violated to detain a deceitful good that saps
the very foundation of virtue? Why must the female mind be tainted
by coquetish arts to gratify the sensualist, and prevent love from
subsiding into friendship, or compassionate tenderness, when there are
not qualities on which friendship can be built? Let the honest heart
shew itself, and reason teach passion to submit to necessity; or,
let the dignified pursuit of virtue and knowledge raise the mind above
those emotions which rather imbitter than sweeten the cup of life,
when they are not restrained within due bounds.
I do not mean to allude to the romantic passion, which is the
concomitant of genius.- Who can clip its wing? But that grand
passion not proportioned to the puny enjoyments of life, is only
true to the sentiment, and feeds on itself. The passions which have
been celebrated for their durability have always been unfortunate.
They have acquired strength by absence and constitutional melancholy.-
The fancy has hovered round a form of beauty dimly seen- but
familiarity might have turned admiration into disgust; or, at least,
into indifference, and allowed the imagination leisure to start
fresh game. With perfect propriety, according to this view of
things, does Rousseau make the mistress of his soul, Eloisa, love
St. Preux, when life was fading before her; but this is no proof of
the immortality of the passion.
Of the same complexion is Dr. Gregory's advice respecting delicacy
of sentiment, which he advises a woman not to acquire, if she have
determined to marry. This determination, however, perfectly consistent
with his former advice, he calls indelicate, and earnestly persuades
his daughters to conceal it, though it may govern their conduct;- as
if it were indelicate to have the common appetites of human nature.
Noble morality! and consistent with the cautious prudence of a
little soul that cannot extend its views beyond the present minute
division of existence. If all the faculties of woman's mind are only
to be cultivated as they respect her dependence on man; if, when a
husband be obtained, she have arrived at her goal, and meanly proud
rests satisfied with such a paltry crown, let her grovel
contentedly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal
kingdom; but, if, struggling for the prize of her high calling, she
look beyond the present scene, let her cultivate her understanding
without stopping to consider what character the husband may have
whom she is destined to marry. Let her only determine, without being
too anxious about present happiness, to acquire the qualities that
ennoble a rational being, and a rough inelegant husband may shock
her taste without destroying her peace of mind. She will not model her
soul to suit the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them:
his character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue.
If Dr. Gregory confined his remark to romantic expectations of
constant love and congenial feelings, he should have recollected
that experience will banish what advice can never make us cease to
wish for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expence of reason.
I own it frequently happens that women who have fostered a
romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste their* lives in
imagining how happy they should have been with a husband who could
love them with a fervid increasing affection every day, and all day.
But they might as well pine married as single- and would not be a
jot more unhappy with a bad husband than longing for a good one.
That a proper education; or, to speak with more precision, a well
stored mind, would enable a woman to support a single life with
dignity, I grant; but that she should avoid cultivating her taste,
lest her husband should occasionally shock it, is quitting a substance
for a shadow. To say the truth, I do not know of what use is an
improved taste, if the individual be not rendered more independent
of the casualties of life; if new sources of enjoyment, only dependent
on the solitary operations of the mind, are not opened. People of
taste, married or single, without distinction, will ever be
disgusted by various things that touch not less observing minds. On
this conclusion the argument must not be allowed to hinge; but in
the whole sum of enjoyment is taste to be denominated a blessing?

* For example, the herd of Novelists.

The question is, whether it procures most pain or pleasure? The
answer will decide the propriety of Dr. Gregory's advice, and shew how
absurd and tyrannic it is thus to lay down a system of slavery; or
to attempt to educate moral beings by any other rules than those
deduced from pure reason, which apply to the whole species.
Gentleness of manners, forbearance and long-suffering, are such
amiable Godlike qualities, that in sublime poetic strains the Deity
has been invested with them; and, perhaps, no representation of his
goodness so strongly fastens on the human affections as those that
represent him abundant in mercy and willing to pardon. Gentleness,
considered in this point of view, bears on its front all the
characteristics of grandeur, combined with the winning graces of
condescension; but what a different aspect it assumes when it is the
submissive demeanour of dependence, the support of weakness that
loves, because it wants protection; and is forbearing, because it must
silently endure injuries; smiling under the lash at which it dare
not snarl. Abject as this picture appears, it is the portrait of an
accomplished woman, according to the received opinion of female
excellence, separated by specious reasoners from human excellence. Or,
they* kindly restore the rib, and make one moral being of a man and
woman; not forgetting to give her all the 'submissive charms.'

* Vide Rousseau, and Swedenborg.

How women are to exist in that state where there is to be neither
marrying nor giving in marriage, we are not told. For though moralists
have agreed that the tenor of life seems to prove that man is prepared
by various circumstances for a future state, they constantly concur in
advising woman only to provide for the present. Gentleness,
docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground,
consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and,
disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has
declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was
created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his
ears whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.
To recommend gentleness, indeed, on a broad basis is strictly
philosophical. A frail being should labour to be gentle. But when
forbearance confounds right and wrong, it ceases to be a virtue;
and, however convenient it may be found in a companion- that companion
will ever be considered as an inferior, and only inspire a vapid
tenderness, which easily degenerates into contempt. Still, if advice
could really make a being gentle, whose natural disposition admitted
not of such a fine polish, something towards the advancement of
order would be attained; but if, as might quickly be demonstrated,
only affectation be produced by this indiscriminate counsel, which
throws a stumbling-block in the way of gradual improvement, and true
melioration of temper, the sex is not much benefited by sacrificing
solid virtues to the attainment of superficial graces, though for a
few years they may procure the individuals regal sway.
As a philosopher, I read with indignation the plausible epithets
which men use to soften their insults; and, as a moralist, I ask
what is meant by such heterogeneous associations, as fair defects,
amiable weaknesses, &c.? If there be but one criterion of morals,
but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny,
according to the vulgar tale of Mahomet's coffin; they have neither
the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of
reason on a perfect model. They were made to be loved, and must not
aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as
masculine.
But to view the subject in another point of view. Do passive
indolent women make the best wives? Confining our discussion to the
present moment of existence, let us see how such weak creatures
perform their part? Do the women who, by the attainment of a few
superficial accomplishments, have strengthened the prevailing
prejudice, merely contribute to the happiness of their husbands? Do
they display their charms merely to amuse them? And have women, who
have early imbibed notions of passive obedience, sufficient
character to manage a family or educate children? So far from it,
that, after surveying the history of woman, I cannot help, agreeing
with the severest satirist, considering the sex as the weakest as well
as the most oppressed half of the species. What does history
disclose but marks of inferiority, and how few women have
emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of sovereign man?- So
few, that the exceptions remind me of an ingenious conjecture
respecting Newton: that he was probably a being of a superior order,
accidentally caged in a human body. Following the same train of
thinking, I have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary
women who have rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit
prescribed to their sex, were male spirits, confined by mistake in
female frames. But if it be not philosophical to think of sex when the
soul is mentioned, the inferiority must depend on the organs; or the
heavenly fire, which is to ferment the clay, is not given in equal
portions.
But avoiding, as I have hitherto done, any direct comparison of
the two sexes collectively, or frankly acknowledging the inferiority
of woman, according to the present appearance of things, I shall
only insist that men have increased that inferiority till women are
almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures. Let their
faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength, and
then determine where the whole sex must stand in the intellectual
scale. Yet let it be remembered, that for a small number of
distinguished women I do not ask a place.
It is difficult for us purblind mortals to say to what height
human discoveries and improvements may arrive when the gloom of
despotism subsides, which makes us stumble at every step; but, when
morality shall be settled on a more solid basis, then, without being
gifted with a prophetic spirit, I will venture to predict that woman
will be either the friend or slave of man. We shall not, as at
present, doubt whether she is a moral agent, or the link which
unites man with brutes. But, should it then appear, that like the
brutes they were principally created for the use of man, he will let
them patiently bite the bridle, and not mock them with empty praise;
or, should their rationality be proved, he will not impede their
improvement merely to gratify his sensual appetites. He will not, with
all the graces of rhetoric, advise them to submit implicitly their
understanding to the guidance of man. He will not, when he treats of
the education of women, assert that they ought never to have the
free use of reason, nor would he recommend cunning and dissimulation
to beings who are acquiring, in like manner as himself, the virtues of
humanity.
Surely there can be but one rule of right, if morality has an
eternal foundation, and whoever sacrifices virtue, strictly so called,
to present convenience, or whose duty it is to act in such a manner,
lives only for the passing day, and cannot be an accountable creature.
The poet then should have dropped his sneer when he says,

'If weak women go astray,
'The stars are more in fault than they.'

For that they are bound by the adamantine chain of destiny is most
certain, if it be proved that they are never to exercise their own
reason, never to be independent, never to rise above opinion, or to
feel the dignity of a rational will that only bows to God, and often
forgets that the universe contains any being but itself and the
model of perfection to which its ardent gaze is turned, to adore
attributes that, softened into virtues, may be imitated in kind,
though the degree overwhelms the enraptured mind.
If, I say, for I would not impress by declamation when Reason offers
her sober light, if they be really capable of acting like rational
creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like the brutes
who are dependent on the reason of man, when they associate with
him; but cultivate their minds, give them the salutary, sublime curb
of principle, and let them attain conscious dignity by feeling
themselves only dependent on God. Teach them, in common with man, to
submit to necessity instead of giving, to render them more pleasing, a
sex to morals.
Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same
degree of strength of mind, perseverance, and fortitude, let their
virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for the
same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear, if
not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which admits of
no modification, would be common to both. Nay, the order of society as
it is at present regulated would not be inverted, for woman would then
only have the rank that reason assigned her, and arts could not be
practised to bring the balance even, much less to turn it.
These may be termed Utopian dreams.- Thanks to that Being who
impressed them on my soul, and gave me sufficient strength of mind
to dare to exert my own reason, till, becoming dependent only on him
for the support of my virtue, I view, with indignation, the mistaken
notions that enslave my sex.
I love man as my fellow; but his scepter, real, or usurped,
extends not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my
homage; and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.
In fact, the conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by
the operations of its own reason; or on what foundation rests the
throne of God?
It appears to me necessary to dwell on these obvious truths, because
females have been insulated, as it were; and, while they have been
stripped of the virtues that should clothe humanity, they have been
decked with artificial graces that enable them to exercise a
short-lived tyranny. Love, in their bosoms, taking place of every
nobler passion, their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion
instead of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the
servility in absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of
character. Liberty is the mother of virtue, and if women be, by
their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the
sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like
exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature.
As to the argument respecting the subjection in which the sex has
ever been held, it retorts on man. The many have always been
enthralled by the few; and monsters, who scarcely have shewn any
discernment of human excellence, have tyrannized over thousands of
their fellow-creatures. Why have men of superiour endowments submitted
to such degradation? For, is it not universally acknowledged that
kings, viewed collectively, have ever been inferior, in abilities
and virtue, to the same number of men taken from the common mass of
mankind- yet, have they not, and are they not still treated with a
degree of reverence that is an insult to reason? China is not the only
country where a living man has been made a God. Men have submitted
to superior strength to enjoy with impunity the pleasure of the
moment- women have only done the same, and therefore till it is proved
that the courtier, who servilely resigns the birthright of a man, is
not a moral agent, it cannot be demonstrated that woman is essentially
inferior to man because she has always been subjugated.
Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the science
of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers
scrupling to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate
distinction.
I shall not pursue this argument any further than to establish an
obvious inference, that as sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind,
including woman, will become more wise and virtuous.
Chap. III.
The Same Subject Continued.

Bodily strength from being the distinction of heroes is now sunk
into such unmerited contempt that men, as well as women, seem to think
it unnecessary: the latter, as it takes from their feminine graces,
and from that lovely weakness the source of their undue power; and the
former, because it appears inimical to the character of a gentleman.
That they have both by departing from one extreme run into
another, may easily be proved; but first it may be proper to
observe, that a vulgar error has obtained a degree of credit, which
has given force to a false conclusion, in which an effect has been
mistaken for a cause.
People of genius have, very frequently, impaired their constitutions
by study or careless inattention to their health, and the violence
of their passions bearing a proportion to the vigour of their
intellects, the sword's destroying the scabbard has become almost
proverbial, and superficial observers have inferred from thence,
that men of genius have commonly weak, or, to use a more fashionable
phrase, delicate constitutions. Yet the contrary, I believe, will
appear to be the fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I find that
strength of mind has, in most cases, been accompanied by superior
strength of body,- natural soundness of constitution,- not that robust
tone of nerves and vigour of muscles, which arise from bodily
labour, when the mind is quiescent, or only directs the hands.
Dr. Priestley has remarked, in the preface to his biographical
chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond forty-five.
And, considering the thoughtless manner in which they have lavished
their strength, when investigating a favourite science they have
wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of the midnight hour; or, when,
lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul has
been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the passions that
meditation had raised; whose objects, the baseless fabric of a vision,
faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron frames.
Shakspeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless hand, nor
did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the confines of his
dreary prison.- These were not the ravings of imbecility, the sickly
effusions of distempered brains; but the exuberance of fancy, that 'in
a fine phrenzy' wandering, was not continually reminded of its
material shackles.
I am aware that this argument would carry me further than it may
be supposed I wish to go; but I follow truth, and, still adhering to
my first position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give man
a natural superiority over woman; and this is the only solid basis
on which the superiority of the sex can be built. But I still
insist, that not only the virtue, but the knowledge of the two sexes
should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that women,
considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought to
endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the same
means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of half
being- one of Rousseau's wild chimeras.*

* 'Researches into abstract and speculative truths, the principles
and axioms of sciences, in short, every thing which tends to
generalize our ideas, is not the proper province of women; their
studies should be relative to points of practice; it belongs to them
to apply those principles which men have discovered; and it is their
part to make observations, which direct men to the establishment of
general principles. All the ideas of women, which have not the
immediate tendency to points of duty, should be directed to the
study of men, and to the attainment of those agreeable accomplishments
which have taste for their object; for as to works of genius, they are
beyond their capacity; neither have they sufficient precision or power
of attention to succeed in sciences which require accuracy: and as
to physical knowledge, it belongs to those only who are most active,
most inquisitive; who comprehend the greatest variety of objects: in
short, it belongs to those who have the strongest powers, and who
exercise them most, to judge of the relations between sensible
beings and the laws of nature. A woman who is naturally weak, and does
not carry her ideas to any great extent, knows how to judge and make a
proper estimate of those movements which she sets to work, in order to
aid her weakness; and these movements are the passions of men. The
mechanism she employs is much more powerful than ours; for all her
levers move the human heart. She must have the skill to incline us
to do every thing which her sex will not enable her to do herself, and
which is necessary or agreeable to her; therefore she ought to study
the mind of man thoroughly, not the mind of man in general,
abstractedly, but the dispositions of those men to whom she is
subject, either by the laws of her country or by the force of opinion.
She should learn to penetrate into their real sentiments from their
conversation, their actions, their looks, and gestures. She should
also have the art, by her own conversation, actions, looks, and
gestures, to communicate those sentiments which are agreeable to them,
without seeming to intend it. Men will argue more philosophically
about the human heart; but women will read the heart of man better
than they. It belongs to women, if I may be allowed the expression, to
form an experimental morality, and to reduce the study of man to a
system. Women have most wit, men have most genius; women observe,
men reason: from the concurrence of both we derive the clearest
light and the most perfect knowledge, which the human mind is, of
itself, capable of attaining. In one word, from hence we acquire the
most intimate acquaintance, both with ourselves and others, of which
our nature is capable; and it is thus that art has a constant tendency
to perfect those endowments which nature has bestowed,- The world is
the book of women.'- Rousseau's Emilius.
I hope my readers still remember the comparison, which I have
brought forward, between women and officers.

But, if strength of body be, with some shew of reason, the boast
of men, why are women so infatuated as to be proud of a defect?
Rousseau has furnished them with a plausible excuse, which could
only have occurred to a man, whose imagination had been allowed to run
wild, and refine on the impressions made by exquisite senses;- that
they might, forsooth, have a pretext for yielding to a natural
appetite without violating a romantic species of modesty, which
gratifies the pride and libertinism of man.
Women, deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their
weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weakness of men;
and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like Turkish
bashaws, they have more real power than their masters: but virtue is
sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the respectability of life
to the triumph of an hour.
Women, as well as despots, have now, perhaps, more power than they
would have if the world, divided and subdivided into kingdoms and
families, were governed by laws deduced from the exercise of reason;
but in obtaining it, to carry on the comparison, their character is
degraded, and licentiousness spread through the whole aggregate of
society. The many become pedestal to the few. I, therefore, will
venture to assert, that till women are more rationally educated, the
progress of human virtue and improvement in knowledge must receive
continual checks. And if it be granted that woman was not created
merely to gratify the appetite of man, or to be the upper servant, who
provides his meals and takes care of his linen, it must follow, that
the first care of those mothers or fathers, who really attend to the
education of females, should be, if not to strengthen the body, at
least, not to destroy the constitution by mistaken notions of beauty
and female excellence; nor should girls ever be allowed to imbibe
the pernicious notion that a defect can, by any chemical process of
reasoning, become an excellence. In this respect, I am happy to
find, that the author of one of the most instructive books, that our
country has produced for children, coincides with me in opinion; I
shall quote his pertinent remarks to give the force of his respectable
authority to reason.*

* 'A respectable old man gives the following sensible account of the
method he pursued when educating his daughter. "I endeavoured to
give both to her mind and body a degree of vigour, which is seldom
found in the female sex. As soon as she was sufficiently advanced in
strength to be capable of the lighter labours of husbandry and
gardening, I employed her as my constant companion. Selene, for that
was her name, soon acquired a dexterity in all these rustic
employments, which I considered with equal pleasure and admiration. If
women are in general feeble both in body and mind, it arises less from
nature than from education. We encourage a vicious indolence and
inactivity, which we falsely call delicacy; instead of hardening their
minds by the severer principles of reason and philosophy, we breed
them to useless arts, which terminate in vanity and sensuality. In
most of the countries which I had visited, they are taught nothing
of an higher nature than a few modulations of the voice, or useless
postures of the body; their time is consumed in sloth or trifles,
and trifles become the only pursuits capable of interesting them. We
seem to forget, that it is upon the qualities of the female sex that
our own domestic comforts and the education of our children must
depend. And what are the comforts or the education which a race of
beings, corrupted from their infancy, and unacquainted with all the
duties of life are fitted to bestow? To touch a musical instrument
with useless skill, to exhibit their natural or affected graces to the
eyes of indolent and debauched young men, to dissipate their husband's
patrimony in riotous and unnecessary expences, these are the only arts
cultivated by women in most of the polished nations I had seen. And
the consequences are uniformly such as may be expected to proceed from
such polluted sources, private misery and public servitude.
'"But Selene's education was regulated by different views, and
conducted upon severer principles; if that can be called severity
which opens the mind to a sense of moral and religious duties, and
most effectually arms it against the inevitable evils of life."' Mr.
Day's Sandford and Merton, Vol. III.

But should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man,
whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to become
still weaker than nature intended her to be? Arguments of this cast
are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion. The divine right
of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may, it is to be hoped,
in this enlightened age, be contested without danger, and, though
conviction may not silence many boisterous disputants, yet, when
any, prevailing prejudice is attacked, the wise will consider, and
leave the narrow-minded to rail with thoughtless vehemence at
innovation.
The mother, who wishes to give true dignity of character to her
daughter, must, regardless of the sneers of ignorance, proceed on a
plan diametrically opposite to that which Rousseau has recommended
with all the deluding charms of eloquence and philosophical sophistry:
for his eloquence renders absurdities plausible, and his dogmatic
conclusions puzzle, without convincing, those who have not ability
to refute them.
Throughout the whole animal kingdom every young creature requires
almost continual exercise, and the infancy of children, conformable to
this intimation, should be passed in harmless gambols, that exercise
the feet and hands, without requiring very minute direction from the
head, or the constant attention of a nurse. In fact, the care
necessary for self-preservation is the first natural exercise of the
understanding, as little inventions to amuse the present moment unfold
the imagination. But these wise designs of nature are counteracted
by mistaken fondness or blind zeal. The child is not left a moment
to its own direction, particularly a girl, and thus rendered
dependent- dependence is called natural.
To preserve personal beauty, woman's glory! the limbs and
faculties are cramped with worse than Chinese bands, and the sedentary
life which they are condemned to live, whilst boys frolic in the
open air, weakens the muscles and relaxes the nerves.- As for
Rousseau's remarks, which have since been echoed by several writers,
that they have naturally, that is from their birth, independent of
education, a fondness for dolls, dressing, and talking- they are so
puerile as not to merit a serious refutation. That a girl, condemned
to sit for hours together listening to the idle chat of weak nurses,
or to attend at her mother's toilet, will endeavour to join the
conversation, is, indeed, very natural; and that she will imitate
her mother or aunts, and amuse herself by adorning her lifeless
doll, as they do in dressing her, poor innocent babe! is undoubtedly a
most natural consequence. For men of the greatest abilities have
seldom had sufficient strength to rise above the surrounding
atmosphere; and, if the page of genius have always been blurred by the
prejudices of the age, some allowance should be made for a sex, who,
like kings, always see things through a false medium.
Pursuing these reflections, the fondness for dress, conspicuous in
women, may be easily accounted for, without supposing it the result of
a desire to please the sex on which they are dependent. The absurdity,
in short, of supposing that a girl is naturally a coquette, and that a
desire connected with the impulse of nature to propagate the
species, should appear even before an improper education has, by
heating the imagination, called it forth prematurely, is so
unphilosophical, that such a sagacious observer as Rousseau would
not have adopted it, if he had not been accustomed to make reason give
way to his desire of singularity, and truth to a favourite paradox.
Yet thus to give a sex to mind was not very consistent with the
principles of a man who argued so warmly, and so well, for the
immortality of the soul.- But what a weak barrier is truth when it
stands in the way of an hypothesis! Rousseau respected- almost
adored virtue- and yet he allowed himself to love with sensual
fondness. His imagination constantly prepared inflammable fewel for
his inflammable senses; but, in order to reconcile his respect for
self-denial, fortitude, and those heroic virtues, which a mind like
his could not coolly admire, he labours to invert the law of nature,
and broaches a doctrine pregnant with mischief and derogatory to the
character of supreme wisdom.
His ridiculous stories, which tend to prove that girls are naturally
attentive to their persons, without laying any stress on daily
example, are below contempt.- And that a little miss should have
such a correct taste as to neglect the pleasing amusement of making
O's, merely because she perceived that it was an ungraceful
attitude, should be selected with the anecdotes of the learned pig.*

* 'I once knew a young person who learned to write before she
learned to read, and began to write with her needle before she could
use a pen. At first, indeed, she took it into her head to make no
other letter than the O: this letter she was constantly making of
all sizes, and always the wrong way. Unluckily, one day, as she was
intent on this employment, she happened to see herself in the
looking-glass; when, taking a dislike to the constrained attitude in
which she sat while writing, she threw away her pen, like another
Pallas, and determined against making the O any more. Her brother
was also equally adverse to writing: it was the confinement,
however, and not the constrained attitude, that most disgusted
him.'- Rousseau's Emilius.

I have, probably, had an opportunity of observing more girls in
their infancy than J. J. Rousseau- I can recollect my own feelings,
and I have looked steadily around me; yet, so far from coinciding with
him in opinion respecting the first dawn of the female character, I
will venture to affirm, that a girl, whose spirits have not been
damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by false shame, will always
be a romp, and the doll will never excite attention unless confinement
allows her no alternative. Girls and boys, in short, would play
harmlessly together, if the distinction of sex was not inculcated long
before nature makes any difference.- I will go further, and affirm, as
an indisputable fact, that most of the women, in the circle of my
observation, who have acted like rational creatures, or shewn any
vigour of intellect, have accidentally been allowed to run wild- as
some of the elegant formers of the fair sex would insinuate.
The baneful consequences which flow from inattention to health
during infancy, and youth, extend further than is supposed- dependence
of body naturally produces dependence of mind; and how can she be a
good wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is employed to
guard against or endure sickness? Nor can it be expected that a
woman will resolutely endeavour to strengthen her constitution and
abstain from enervating indulgencies, if artificial notions of beauty,
and false descriptions of sensibility, have been early entangled
with her motives of action. Most men are sometimes obliged to bear
with bodily inconveniencies, and to endure, occasionally, the
inclemency of the elements; but genteel women are, literally speaking,
slaves to their bodies, and glory in their subjection.
I once knew a weak woman of fashion, who was more than commonly
proud of her delicacy and sensibility. She thought a distinguishing
taste and puny appetite the height of all human perfection, and
acted accordingly.- I have seen this weak sophisticated being
neglect all the duties of life, yet recline with self-complacency on a
sofa, and boast of her want of appetite as a proof of delicacy that
extended to, or, perhaps, arose from, her exquisite sensibility: for
it is difficult to render intelligible such ridiculous jargon.- Yet,
at the moment, I have seen her insult a worthy old gentlewoman, whom
unexpected misfortunes had made dependent on her ostentatious
bounty, and who, in better days, had claims on her gratitude. Is it
possible that a human creature could have become such a weak and
depraved being, if, like the Sybarites, dissolved in luxury every
thing like virtue had not been worn away, or never impressed by
precept, a poor substitute, it is true, for cultivation of mind,
though it serves as a fence against vice?
Such a woman is not a more irrational monster than some of the Roman
emperors, who were depraved by lawless power. Yet, since kings have
been more under the restraint of law, and the curb, however weak, of
honour, the records of history are not filled with such unnatural
instances of folly and cruelty, nor does the despotism that kills
virtue and genius in the bud, hover over Europe with that
destructive blast which desolates Turkey, and renders the men, as well
as the soil, unfruitful.
Women are every where in this deplorable state; for, in order to
preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth is
hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial
character before their faculties have acquired any strength. Taught
from their infancy that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind shapes
itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only seeks to
adorn its prison. Men have various employments and pursuits which
engage their attention, and give a character to the opening mind;
but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts constantly
directed to the most insignificant part of themselves, seldom extend
their views beyond the triumph of the hour. But were their
understanding once emancipated from the slavery to which the pride and
sensuality of man and their short-sighted desire, like that of
dominion in tyrants, of present sway, has subjected them, we should
probably read of their weaknesses with surprise. I must be allowed
to pursue the argument a little farther.
Perhaps, if the existence of an evil being were allowed, who, in the
allegorical language of scripture, went about seeking whom he should
devour, he could not more effectually degrade the human character than
by giving a man absolute power.
This argument branches into various ramifications.- Birth, riches,
and every extrinsic advantage that exalt a man above his fellows,
without any mental exertion, sink him in reality below them. In
proportion to his weakness, he is played upon by designing men, till
the bloated monster has lost all traces of humanity. And that tribes
of men, like flocks of sheep, should quietly follow such a leader,
is a solecism that only a desire of present enjoyment and narrowness
of understanding can solve. Educated in slavish dependence, and
enervated by luxury and sloth, where shall we find men who will
stand forth to assert the rights of man;- or claim the privilege of
moral beings, who should have but one road to excellence? Slavery to
monarchs and ministers, which the world will be long in freeing itself
from, and whose deadly grasp stops the progress of the human mind,
is not yet abolished.
Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments
that tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously
assert that woman ought to be subjected because she has always been
so.- But, when man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his natural
freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with him;
and, till that glorious period arrives, in descanting on the folly
of the sex, let him not overlook his own.
Women, it is true, obtaining power by unjust means, by practising or
fostering vice, evidently lose the rank which reason would assign
them, and they become either abject slaves or capricious tyrants. They
lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in acquiring power, and
act as men are observed to act when they have been exalted by the same
means.
It is time to effect a revolution in female manners- time to restore
to them their lost dignity- and make them, as a part of the human
species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world. It is
time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.- If men be
demi-gods- why let us serve them! And if the dignity of the female
soul be as disputable as that of animals- if their reason does not
afford sufficient light to direct their conduct whilst unerring
instinct is denied- they are surely of all creatures the most
miserable! and, bent beneath the iron hand of destiny, must submit
to be a fair defect in creation. But to justify the ways of Providence
respecting them, by pointing out some irrefragable reason for thus
making such a large portion of mankind accountable and not
accountable, would puzzle the subtilest casuist.
The only solid foundation for morality appears to be the character
of the supreme Being; the harmony of which arises from a balance of
attributes;- and, to speak with reverence, one attribute seems to
imply the necessity of another. He must be just, because he is wise,
he must be good, because be is omnipotent. For to exalt one
attribute at the expence of another equally noble and necessary, bears
the stamp of the warped reason of man- the homage of passion. Man,
accustomed to bow down to power in his savage state, can seldom divest
himself of this barbarous prejudice, even when civilization determines
how much superior mental is to bodily strength; and his reason is
clouded by these crude opinions, even when he thinks of the Deity.-
His omnipotence is made to swallow up, or preside over his other
attributes, and those mortals are supposed to limit his power
irreverently, who think that it must be regulated by his wisdom.
I disclaim that specious humility which, after investigating nature,
stops at the author.- The High and Lofty One, who inhabiteth eternity,
doubtless possesses many attributes of which we can form no
conception; but reason tells me that they cannot clash with those I
adore- and I am compelled to listen to her voice.
It seems natural for man to search for excellence, and either to
trace it in the object that he worships, or blindly to invest it
with perfection, as a garment. But what good effect can the latter
mode of worship have on the moral conduct of a rational being? He
bends to power; he adores a dark cloud, which may open a bright
prospect to him, or burst in angry, lawless fury, on his devoted
head he knows not why. And, supposing that the Deity acts from the
vague impulse of an undirected will, man must also follow his own,
or act according to rules, deduced from principles which he
disclaims as irreverent. Into this dilemma have both enthusiasts and
cooler thinkers fallen, when they laboured to free men from the
wholesome restraints which a just conception of the character of God
imposes.
It is not impious thus to scan the attributes of the Almighty: in
fact, who can avoid it that exercises his faculties? For to love God
as the fountain of wisdom, goodness, and power, appears to be the only
worship useful to a being who wishes to acquire either virtue or
knowledge. A blind unsettled affection may, like human passions,
occupy the mind and warm the heart, whilst, to do justice, love mercy,
and walk humbly with our God, is forgotten. I shall pursue this
subject still further, when I consider religion in a light opposite to
that recommended by Dr. Gregory, who treats it as a matter of
sentiment or taste.
To return from this apparent digression. It were to be wished that
women would cherish an affection for their husbands, founded on the
same principle that devotion ought to rest upon. No other firm base is
there under heaven- for let them beware of the fallacious light of
sentiment; too often used as a softer phrase for sensuality. It
follows then, I think, that from their infancy women should either
be shut up like eastern princes, or educated in such a manner as to be
able to think and act for themselves.
Why do men halt between two opinions, and expect impossibilities?
Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a being whom the
constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?
Still I know that it will require a considerable length of time to
eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists have planted;
it will also require some time to convince women that they act
contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they
cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy, and to convince
the world that the poisoned source of female vices and follies, if
it be necessary, in compliance with custom, to use synonymous terms in
a lax sense, has been the sensual homage paid to beauty:- to beauty of
features; for it has been shrewdly observed by a German writer, that a
pretty woman, as an object of desire, is generally allowed to be so by
men of all descriptions; whilst a fine woman, who inspires more
sublime emotions by displaying intellectual beauty, may be
overlooked or observed with indifference, by those men who find
their happiness in the gratification of their appetites. I foresee
an obvious retort- whilst man remains such an imperfect being as he
appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or less, be the slave
of his appetites; and those women obtaining most power who gratify a
predominant one, the sex is degraded by a physical, if not by a
moral necessity.
This objection has, I grant, some force; but while such a sublime
precept exists, as, 'be pure as your heavenly Father is pure;' it
would seem that the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who
alone could limit them; and that be may press forward without
considering whether he steps out of his sphere by indulging such a
noble ambition. To the wild billows it has been said, 'thus far
shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed.' Vainly then do they beat and foam, restrained by the power
that confines the struggling planets in their orbits, matter yields to
the great governing Spirit.- But an immortal soul, not restrained by
mechanical laws and struggling to free itself from the shackles of
matter, contributes to, instead of disturbing, the order of
creation, when, co-operating with the Father of spirits, it tries to
govern itself by the invariable rule that, in a degree, before which
our imagination faints, regulates the universe.
Besides, if women be educated for dependence; that is, to act
according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right
or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? Are they to be considered as
viceregents allowed to reign over a small domain, and answerable for
their conduct to a higher tribunal, liable to error?
It will not be difficult to prove that such delegates will act
like men subjected by fear, and make their children and servants
endure their tyrannical oppression. As they submit without reason,
they will, having no fixed rules to square their conduct by, be
kind, or cruel, just as the whim of the moment directs; and we ought
not to wonder if sometimes, galled by their heavy yoke, they take a
malignant pleasure in resting it on weaker shoulders.
But, supposing a woman, trained up to obedience, be married to a
sensible man, who directs her judgment without making her feel the
servility of her subjection, to act with as much propriety by this
reflected light as can be expected when reason is taken at second
hand, yet she cannot ensure the life of her protector; he may die
and leave her with a large family.
A double duty devolves on her; to educate them in the character of
both father and mother; to form their principles and secure their
property. But, alas! she has never thought, much less acted for
herself. She has only learned to please* men, to depend gracefully
on them; yet, encumbered with children, how is she to obtain another
protector- a husband to supply the place of reason? A rational man,
for we are not treading on romantic ground, though he may think her
a pleasing docile creature, will not choose to marry a family for
love, when the world contains many more pretty creatures. What is then
to become of her? She either falls an easy prey to some mean
fortune-hunter, who defrauds her children of their paternal
inheritance, and renders her miserable; or becomes the victim of
discontent and blind indulgence. Unable to educate her sons, or
impress them with respect; for it is not a play on words to assert,
that people are never respected, though filling an important
station, who are not respectable; she pines under the anguish of
unavailing impotent regret. The serpent's tooth enters into her very
soul, and the vices of licentious youth bring her with sorrow, if
not with poverty also, to the grave.

* 'In the union of the sexes, both pursue one common object, but not
in the same manner. From their diversity in this particular, arises
the first determinate difference between the moral relations of
each. The one should be active and strong, the other passive and weak:
it is necessary the one should have both the power and the will, and
that the other should make little resistance.
'This principle being established, it follows that woman i