A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
too, by a degree of other talents and virtues, which seems,
however, not to have been much above mediocrity, established this
prince in the esteem of his own age, and have drawn even from
posterity, a good deal of respect for his memory. Compared with
these, in his own times, and in his own presence, no other virtue,
it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry, valour,
and beneficence, trembling, were abashed, and lost all dignity
before them."
Woman, also, thus "in herself complete," by possessing all these
FRIVOLOUS accomplishments, so changes the nature of things,
--"That what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
All higher knowledge in HER PRESENCE falls
Degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait."--
And all this is built on her loveliness!
In the middle rank of life, to continue the comparison, men, in
their youth, are prepared for professions, and marriage is not
considered as the grand feature in their lives; whilst women, on
the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties. It
is not business, extensive plans, or any of the excursive flights
of ambition, that engross their attention; no, their thoughts are
not employed in rearing such noble structures. To rise in the
world, and have the liberty of running from pleasure to pleasure,
they must marry advantageously, and to this object their time is
sacrificed, and their persons often legally prostituted. A man,
when he enters any profession, has his eye steadily fixed on some
future advantage (and the mind gains great strength by having all
its efforts directed to one point) and, full of his business,
pleasure is considered as mere relaxation; whilst women seek for
pleasure as the main purpose of existence. In fact, from the
education which they receive from society, the love of pleasure may
be said to govern them all; but does this prove that there is a sex
in souls? It would be just as rational to declare, that the
courtiers in France, when a destructive system of despotism had
formed their character, were not men, because liberty, virtue, and
humanity, were sacrificed to pleasure and vanity. Fatal passions,
which have ever domineered over the WHOLE race!
The same love of pleasure, fostered by the whole tendency of their
education, gives a trifling turn to the conduct of women in most
circumstances: for instance, they are ever anxious about secondary
things; and on the watch for adventures, instead of being occupied
by duties.
A man, when he undertakes a journey, has, in general the end in
view; a woman thinks more of the incidental occurrences, the
strange things that may possibly occur on the road; the impression
that she may make on her fellow travellers; and, above all, she is
anxiously intent on the care of the finery that she carries with
her, which is more than ever a part of herself, when going to
figure on a new scene; when, to use an apt French turn of
expression, she is going to produce a sensation. Can dignity of
mind exist with such trivial cares?
In short, women, in general, as well as the rich of both sexes,
have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed
the useful fruit. It is not necessary for me always to premise,
that I speak of the condition of the whole sex, leaving exceptions
out of the question. Their senses are inflamed, and their
understandings neglected; consequently they become the prey of
their senses, delicately termed sensibility, and are blown about by
every momentary gust of feeling. They are, therefore, in a much
worse condition than they would be in, were they in a state nearer
to nature. Ever restless and anxious, their over exercised
sensibility not only renders them uncomfortable themselves, but
troublesome, to use a soft phrase, to others. All their thoughts
turn on things calculated to excite emotion; and, feeling, when
they should reason, their conduct is unstable, and their opinions
are wavering, not the wavering produced by deliberation or
progressive views, but by contradictory emotions. By fits and
starts they are warm in many pursuits; yet this warmth, never
concentrated into perseverance, soon exhausts itself; exhaled by
its own heat, or meeting with some other fleeting passion, to which
reason has never given any specific gravity, neutrality ensues.
Miserable, indeed, must be that being whose cultivation of mind has
only tended to inflame its passions! A distinction should be made
between inflaming and strengthening them. The passions thus
pampered, whilst the judgment is left unformed, what can be
expected to ensue? Undoubtedly, a mixture of madness and folly!
This observation should not be confined to the FAIR sex; however,
at present, I only mean to apply it to them.
Novels, music, poetry and gallantry, all tend to make women the
creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed during
the time they are acquiring accomplishments, the only improvement
they are excited, by their station in society, to acquire. This
overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the
mind, and prevents intellect from attaining that sovereignty which
it ought to attain, to render a rational creature useful to others,
and content with its own station; for the exercise of the
understanding, as life advances, is the only method pointed out by
nature to calm the passions.
Satiety has a very different effect, and I have often been forcibly
struck by an emphatical description of damnation, when the spirit
is represented as continually hovering with abortive eagerness
round the defiled body, unable to enjoy any thing without the
organs of sense. Yet, to their senses, are women made slaves,
because it is by their sensibility that they obtain present power.
And will moralists pretend to assert, that this is the condition in
which one half of the human race should be encouraged to remain
with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind
instructors! what were we created for? To remain, it may be said,
innocent; they mean in a state of childhood. We might as well
never have been born, unless it were necessary that we should be
created to enable man to acquire the noble privilege of reason, the
power of discerning good from evil, whilst we lie down in the dust
from whence we were taken, never to rise again.
It would be an endless task to trace the variety of meannesses,
cares, and sorrows, into which women are plunged by the prevailing
opinion, that they were created rather to feel than reason, and
that all the power they obtain, must be obtained by their charms
and weakness;
"Fine by defect, and amiably weak!"
And, made by this amiable weakness entirely dependent, excepting
what they gain by illicit sway, on man, not only for protection,
but advice, is it surprising that, neglecting the duties that
reason alone points out, and shrinking from trials calculated to
strengthen their minds, they only exert themselves to give their
defects a graceful covering, which may serve to heighten their
charms in the eye of the voluptuary, though it sink them below the
scale of moral excellence?
Fragile in every sense of the word, they are obliged to look up to
man for every comfort. In the most trifling dangers they cling to
their support, with parasitical tenacity, piteously demanding
succour; and their NATURAL protector extends his arm, or lifts up
his voice, to guard the lovely trembler--from what? Perhaps the
frown of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse; a rat, would be a
serious danger. In the name of reason, and even common sense, what
can save such beings from contempt; even though they be soft and
fair?
These fears, when not affected, may be very pretty; but they shew a
degree of imbecility, that degrades a rational creature in a way
women are not aware of--for love and esteem are very distinct
things.
I am fully persuaded, that we should hear of none of these
infantine airs, if girls were allowed to take sufficient exercise
and not confined in close rooms till their muscles are relaxed and
their powers of digestion destroyed. To carry the remark still
further, if fear in girls, instead of being cherished, perhaps,
created, were treated in the same manner as cowardice in boys, we
should quickly see women with more dignified aspects. It is true,
they could not then with equal propriety be termed the sweet
flowers that smile in the walk of man; but they would be more
respectable members of society, and discharge the important duties
of life by the light of their own reason. "Educate women like
men," says Rousseau, "and the more they resemble our sex the less
power will they have over us." This is the very point I aim at. I
do not wish them to have power over men; but over themselves.
In the same strain have I heard men argue against instructing the
poor; for many are the forms that aristocracy assumes. "Teach them
to read and write," say they, "and you take them out of the station
assigned them by nature." An eloquent Frenchman, has answered
them; I will borrow his sentiments. But they know not, when they
make man a brute, that they may expect every instant to see him
transformed into a ferocious beast. Without knowledge there can be
no morality!
Ignorance is a frail base for virtue! Yet, that it is the
condition for which woman was organized, has been insisted upon by
the writers who have most vehemently argued in favour of the
superiority of man; a superiority not in degree, but essence;
though, to soften the argument, they have laboured to prove, with
chivalrous generosity, that the sexes ought not to be compared; man
was made to reason, woman to feel: and that together, flesh and
spirit, they make the most perfect whole, by blending happily
reason and sensibility into one character.
And what is sensibility? "Quickness of sensation; quickness of
perception; delicacy." Thus is it defined by Dr. Johnson; and the
definition gives me no other idea than of the most exquisitely
polished instinct. I discern not a trace of the image of God in
either sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven, they are
still material; intellect dwells not there; nor will fire ever make
lead gold!
I come round to my old argument; if woman be allowed to have an
immortal soul, she must have as the employment of life, an
understanding to improve. And when, to render the present state
more complete, though every thing proves it to be but a fraction of
a mighty sum, she is incited by present gratification to forget her
grand destination. Nature is counteracted, or she was born only to
procreate and rot. Or, granting brutes, of every description, a
soul, though not a reasonable one, the exercise of instinct and
sensibility may be the step, which they are to take, in this life,
towards the attainment of reason in the next; so that through all
eternity they will lag behind man, who, why we cannot tell, had the
power given him of attaining reason in his first mode of existence.
When I treat of the peculiar duties of women, as I should treat of
the peculiar duties of a citizen or father, it will be found that I
do not mean to insinuate, that they should be taken out of their
families, speaking of the majority. "He that hath wife and
children," says Lord Bacon, "hath given hostages to fortune; for
they are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or
mischief. Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the
public, have proceeded from the unmarried or childless men." I say
the same of women. But, the welfare of society is not built on
extraordinary exertions; and were it more reasonably organized,