A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
your sex manly exercises are never graceful; that in them a tone
and figure, as well as an air and deportment, of the masculine
kind, are always forbidding; and that men of sensibility desire in
every woman soft features, and a flowing voice, a form not robust,
and demeanour delicate and gentle."
Is not the following portrait--the portrait of a house slave? "I
am astonished at the folly of many women, who are still reproaching
their husbands for leaving them alone, for preferring this or that
company to theirs, for treating them with this and the other mark
of disregard or indifference; when, to speak the truth, they have
themselves in a great measure to blame. Not that I would justify
the men in any thing wrong on their part. But had you behaved to
them with more RESPECTFUL OBSERVANCE, and a more EQUAL TENDERNESS;
STUDYING THEIR HUMOURS, OVERLOOKING THEIR MISTAKES, SUBMITTING TO
THEIR OPINIONS in matters indifferent, passing by little instances
of unevenness, caprice, or passion, giving SOFT answers to hasty
words, complaining as seldom as possible, and making it your daily
care to relieve their anxieties and prevent their wishes, to
enliven the hour of dulness, and call up the ideas of felicity:
had you pursued this conduct, I doubt not but you would have
maintained and even increased their esteem, so far as to have
secured every degree of influence that could conduce to their
virtue, or your mutual satisfaction; and your house might at this
day have been the abode of domestic bliss." Such a woman ought to
be an angel--or she is an ass--for I discern not a trace of the
human character, neither reason nor passion in this domestic
drudge, whose being is absorbed in that of a tyrant's.
Still Dr. Fordyce must have very little acquaintance with the human
heart, if he really supposed that such conduct would bring back
wandering love, instead of exciting contempt. No, beauty,
gentleness, etc. etc. may gain a heart; but esteem, the only
lasting affection, can alone be obtained by virtue supported by
reason. It is respect for the understanding that keeps alive
tenderness for the person.
As these volumes are so frequently put into the hands of young
people, I have taken more notice of them than strictly speaking,
they deserve; but as they have contributed to vitiate the taste,
and enervate the understanding of many of my fellow-creatures, I
could not pass them silently over.
SECTION 5.3.
Such paternal solicitude pervades Dr. Gregory's Legacy to his
daughters, that I enter on the task of criticism with affectionate
respect; but as this little volume has many attractions to
recommend it to the notice of the most respectable part of my sex,
I cannot silently pass over arguments that so speciously support
opinions which, I think, have had the most baneful effect on the
morals and manners of the female world.
His easy familiar style is particularly suited to the tenor of his
advice, and the melancholy tenderness which his respect for the
memory of a beloved wife diffuses through the whole work, renders
it very interesting; yet there is a degree of concise elegance
conspicuous in many passages, that disturbs this sympathy; and we
pop on the author, when we only expected to meet the--father.
Besides, having two objects in view, he seldom adhered steadily to
either; for, wishing to make his daughters amiable, and fearing
lest unhappiness should only be the consequence, of instilling
sentiments, that might draw them out of the track of common life,
without enabling them to act with consonant independence and
dignity, he checks the natural flow of his thoughts, and neither
advises one thing nor the other.
In the preface he tells them a mournful truth, "that they will
hear, at least once in their lives, the genuine sentiments of a
man, who has no interest in deceiving them."
Hapless woman! what can be expected from thee, when the beings on
whom thou art said naturally to depend for reason and support, have
all an interest in deceiving thee! This is the root of the evil
that has shed a corroding mildew on all thy virtues; and blighting
in the bud thy opening faculties, has rendered thee the weak thing
thou art! It is this separate interest-- this insidious state of
warfare, that undermines morality, and divides mankind!
If love has made some women wretched--how many more has the cold
unmeaning intercourse of gallantry rendered vain and useless! yet
this heartless attention to the sex is reckoned so manly, so
polite, that till society is very differently organized, I fear,
this vestige of gothic manners will not be done away by a more
reasonable and affectionate mode of conduct. Besides, to strip it
of its imaginary dignity, I must observe, that in the most
civilized European states, this lip-service prevails in a very
great degree, accompanied with extreme dissoluteness of morals. In
Portugal, the country that I particularly allude to, it takes place
of the most serious moral obligations; for a man is seldom
assassinated when in the company of a woman. The savage hand of
rapine is unnerved by this chivalrous spirit; and, if the stroke of
vengeance cannot be stayed--the lady is entreated to pardon the
rudeness and depart in peace, though sprinkled, perhaps, with her
husband's or brother's blood.
I shall pass over his strictures on religion, because I mean to
discuss that subject in a separate chapter.
The remarks relative to behaviour, though many of them very
sensible, I entirely disapprove of, because it appears to me to be
beginning, as it were at the wrong end. A cultivated
understanding, and an affectionate heart, will never want starched
rules of decorum, something more substantial than seemliness will
be the result; and, without understanding, the behaviour here
recommended, would be rank affectation. Decorum, indeed, is the
one thing needful! decorum is to supplant nature, and banish all
simplicity and variety of character out of the female world. Yet
what good end can all this superficial counsel produce? It is,
however, much easier to point out this or that mode of behaviour,
than to set the reason to work; but, when the mind has been stored
with useful knowledge, and strengthened by being employed, the
regulation of the behaviour may safely be left to its guidance.
Why, for instance, should the following caution be given, when art
of every kind must contaminate the mind; and why entangle the grand
motives of action, which reason and religion equally combine to
enforce, with pitiful worldly shifts and slight of hand tricks to
gain the applause of gaping tasteless fools? "Be even cautious in
displaying your good sense.* It will be thought you assume a
superiority over the rest of the company-- But if you happen to
have any learning keep it a profound secret, especially from the
men, who generally look with a jealous and malignant eye on a woman
of great parts, and a cultivated understanding." If men of real
merit, as he afterwards observes, are superior to this meanness,
where is the necessity that the behaviour of the whole sex should
be modulated to please fools, or men, who having little claim to
respect as individuals, choose to keep close in their phalanx.
Men, indeed, who insist on their common superiority, having only
this sexual superiority, are certainly very excusable.
(*Footnote. Let women once acquire good sense--and if it deserve
the name, it will teach them; or, of what use will it be how to
employ it.)
There would be no end to rules for behaviour, if it be proper
always to adopt the tone of the company; for thus, for ever varying
the key, a FLAT would often pass for a NATURAL note.
Surely it would have been wiser to have advised women to improve
themselves till they rose above the fumes of vanity; and then to
let the public opinion come round--for where are rules of
accommodation to stop? The narrow path of truth and virtue
inclines neither to the right nor left, it is a straight-forward
business, and they who are earnestly pursuing their road, may bound
over many decorous prejudices, without leaving modesty behind.
Make the heart clean, and give the head employment, and I will
venture to predict that there will be nothing offensive in the
behaviour.
The air of fashion, which many young people are so eager to attain,
always strikes me like the studied attitudes of some modern prints,
copied with tasteless servility after the antiques; the soul is
left out, and none of the parts are tied together by what may
properly be termed character. This varnish of fashion, which
seldom sticks very close to sense, may dazzle the weak; but leave
nature to itself, and it will seldom disgust the wise. Besides,
when a woman has sufficient sense not to pretend to any thing which
she does not understand in some degree, there is no need of
determining to hide her talents under a bushel. Let things take
their natural course, and all will be well.
It is this system of dissimulation, throughout the volume, that I
despise. Women are always to SEEM to be this and that--yet virtue
might apostrophize them, in the words of Hamlet--Seems! I know not
seems!--Have that within that passeth show!--
Still the same tone occurs; for in another place, after
recommending, (without sufficiently discriminating) delicacy, he
adds, "The men will complain of your reserve. They will assure you
that a franker behaviour would make you more amiable. But, trust
me, they are not sincere when they tell you so. I acknowledge that
on some occasions it might render you more agreeable as companions,
but it would make you less amiable as women: an important
distinction, which many of your sex are not aware of."
This desire of being always women, is the very consciousness that
degrades the sex. Excepting with a lover, I must repeat with
emphasis, a former observation--it would be well if they were only
agreeable or rational companions. But in this respect his advice
is even inconsistent with a passage which I mean to quote with the
most marked approbation.
"The sentiment, that a woman may allow all innocent freedoms,
provided her virtue is secure, is both grossly indelicate and
dangerous, and has proved fatal to many of your sex." With this
opinion I perfectly coincide. A man, or a woman, of any feeling
must always wish to convince a beloved object that it is the
caresses of the individual, not the sex, that is received and
returned with pleasure; and, that the heart, rather than the
senses, is moved. Without this natural delicacy, love becomes a
selfish personal gratification that soon degrades the character.
I carry this sentiment still further. Affection, when love is out
of the question, authorises many personal endearments, that
naturally flowing from an innocent heart give life to the
behaviour; but the personal intercourse of appetite, gallantry, or
vanity, is despicable. When a man squeezes the hand of a pretty
woman, handing her to a carriage, whom he has never seen before,
she will consider such an impertinent freedom in the light of an
insult, if she have any true delicacy, instead of being flattered
by this unmeaning homage to beauty. These are the privileges of
friendship, or the momentary homage which the heart pays to virtue,
when it flashes suddenly on the notice--mere animal spirits have no
claim to the kindnesses of affection.
Wishing to feed the affections with what is now the food of vanity,
I would fain persuade my sex to act from simpler principles. Let
them merit love, and they will obtain it, though they may never be
told that: "The power of a fine woman over the hearts of men, of
men of the finest parts, is even beyond what she conceives."
I have already noticed the narrow cautions with respect to