A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
in health should be more familiar with each other than men are,
when they boast of their superiour delicacy, is a solecism in
manners which I could never solve.
In order to preserve health and beauty, I should earnestly
recommend frequent ablutions, to dignify my advice that it may not
offend the fastidious ear; and, by example, girls ought to be
taught to wash and dress alone, without any distinction of rank;
and if custom should make them require some little assistance, let
them not require it till that part of the business is over which
ought never to be done before a fellow-creature; because it is an
insult to the majesty of human nature. Not on the score of
modesty, but decency; for the care which some modest women take,
making at the same time a display of that care, not to let their
legs be seen, is as childish as immodest.*
(*Footnote. I remember to have met with a sentence, in a book of
education that made me smile. "It would be needless to caution you
against putting your hand, by chance, under your neck-handkerchief;
for a modest woman never did so!")
I could proceed still further, till I animadverted on some still
more indelicate customs, which men never fall into. Secrets are
told--where silence ought to reign; and that regard to cleanliness,
which some religious sects have, perhaps, carried too far,
especially the Essenes, amongst the Jews, by making that an insult
to God which is only an insult to humanity, is violated in a brutal
manner. How can DELICATE women obtrude on notice that part of the
animal economy, which is so very disgusting? And is it not very
rational to conclude, that the women who have not been taught to
respect the human nature of their own sex, in these particulars,
will not long respect the mere difference of sex, in their
husbands? After their maidenish bashfulness is once lost, I, in
fact, have generally observed, that women fall into old habits; and
treat their husbands as they did their sisters or female
acquaintance.
Besides, women from necessity, because their minds are not
cultivated, have recourse very often, to what I familiarly term
bodily wit; and their intimacies are of the same kind. In short,
with respect to both mind and body, they are too intimate. That
decent personal reserve, which is the foundation of dignity of
character, must be kept up between women, or their minds will never
gain strength or modesty.
On this account also, I object to many females being shut up
together in nurseries, schools, or convents. I cannot recollect
without indignation, the jokes and hoiden tricks, which knots of
young women indulged themselves in, when in my youth accident threw
me, an awkward rustic, in their way. They were almost on a par
with the double meanings, which shake the convivial table when the
glass has circulated freely. But it is vain to attempt to keep the
heart pure, unless the head is furnished with ideas, and set to
work to compare them, in order, to acquire judgment, by
generalizing simple ones; and modesty by making the understanding
damp the sensibility.
It may be thought that I lay too great a stress on personal
reserve; but it is ever the hand-maid of modesty. So that were I
to name the graces that ought to adorn beauty, I should instantly
exclaim, cleanliness, neatness, and personal reserve. It is
obvious, I suppose, that the reserve I mean, has nothing sexual in
it, and that I think it EQUALLY necessary in both sexes. So
necessary indeed, is that reserve and cleanliness which indolent
women too often neglect, that I will venture to affirm, that when
two or three women live in the same house, the one will be most
respected by the male part of the family, who reside with them,
leaving love entirely out of the question, who pays this kind of
habitual respect to her person.
When domestic friends meet in a morning, there will naturally
prevail an affectionate seriousness, especially, if each look
forward to the discharge of daily duties; and it may be reckoned
fanciful, but this sentiment has frequently risen spontaneously in
my mind. I have been pleased after breathing the sweet bracing
morning air, to see the same kind of freshness in the countenances
I particularly loved; I was glad to see them braced, as it were,
for the day, and ready to run their course with the sun. The
greetings of affection in the morning are by these means more
respectful, than the familiar tenderness which frequently prolongs
the evening talk. Nay, I have often felt hurt, not to say
disgusted, when a friend has appeared, whom I parted with full
dressed the evening before, with her clothes huddled on, because
she chose to indulge herself in bed till the last moment.
Domestic affection can only be kept alive by these neglected
attentions; yet if men and women took half as much pains to dress
habitually neat, as they do to ornament, or rather to disfigure
their persons, much would be done towards the attainment of purity
of mind. But women only dress to gratify men of gallantry; for the
lover is always best pleased with the simple garb that sits close
to the shape. There is an impertinence in ornaments that rebuffs
affection; because love always clings round the idea of home.
As a sex, women are habitually indolent; and every thing tends to
make them so. I do not forget the starts of activity which
sensibility produces; but as these flights of feeling only increase
the evil, they are not to be confounded with the slow, orderly walk
of reason. So great, in reality, is their mental and bodily
indolence, that till their body be strengthened and their
understanding enlarged by active exertions, there is little reason
to expect that modesty will take place of bashfulness. They may
find it prudent to assume its semblance; but the fair veil will
only be worn on gala days.
Perhaps there is not a virtue that mixes so kindly with every other
as modesty. It is the pale moon-beam that renders more interesting
every virtue it softens, giving mild grandeur to the contracted
horizon. Nothing can be more beautiful than the poetical fiction,
which makes Diana with her silver crescent, the goddess of
chastity. I have sometimes thought, that wandering with sedate
step in some lonely recess, a modest dame of antiquity must have
felt a glow of conscious dignity, when, after contemplating the
soft shadowy landscape, she has invited with placid fervour the
mild reflection of her sister's beams to turn to her chaste bosom.
A Christian has still nobler motives to incite her to preserve her
chastity and acquire modesty, for her body has been called the
Temple of the living God; of that God who requires more than
modesty of mien. His eye searcheth the heart; and let her
remember, that if she hopeth to find favour in the sight of purity
itself, her chastity must be founded on modesty, and not on worldly
prudence; or verily a good reputation will be her only reward; for
that awful intercourse, that sacred communion, which virtue
establishes between man and his Maker, must give rise to the wish
of being pure as he is pure!
After the foregoing remarks, it is almost superfluous to add, that
I consider all those feminine airs of maturity, which succeed
bashfulness, to which truth is sacrificed, to secure the heart of a
husband, or rather to force him to be still a lover when nature
would, had she not been interrupted in her operations, have made
love give place to friendship, as immodest. The tenderness which a
man will feel for the mother of his children is an excellent
substitute for the ardour of unsatisfied passion; but to prolong
that ardour it is indelicate, not to say immodest, for women to
feign an unnatural coldness of constitution. Women as well as men
ought to have the common appetites and passions of their nature,
they are only brutal when unchecked by reason: but the obligation
to check them is the duty of mankind, not a sexual duty. Nature,
in these respects, may safely be left to herself; let women only
acquire knowledge and humanity, and love will teach them modesty.
There is no need of falsehoods, disgusting as futile, for studied
rules of behaviour only impose on shallow observers; a man of sense
soon sees through, and despises the affectation.
The behaviour of young people, to each other, as men and women, is
the last thing that should be thought of in education. In fact,
behaviour in most circumstances is now so much thought of, that
simplicity of character is rarely to be seen; yet, if men were
only anxious to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly
in the mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exteriour
mark, would soon strip affectation of its flaunting plumes;
because, fallacious as unstable, is the conduct that is not founded
upon truth!
(Footnote. The behaviour of many newly married women has often
disgusted me. They seem anxious never to let their husbands forget
the privilege of marriage, and to find no pleasure in his society
unless he is acting the lover. Short, indeed, must be the reign of
love, when the flame is thus constantly blown up, without its
receiving any solid fuel.)
Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty, ye must remember
that the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible
with ignorance and vanity! ye must acquire that soberness of mind,
which the exercise of duties, and the pursuit of knowledge, alone
inspire, or ye will still remain in a doubtful dependent situation,
and only be loved whilst ye are fair! the downcast eye, the rosy
blush, the retiring grace, are all proper in their season; but
modesty, being the child of reason, cannot long exist with the
sensibility that is not tempered by reflection. Besides, when
love, even innocent love, is the whole employ of your lives, your
hearts will be too soft to afford modesty that tranquil retreat,
where she delights to dwell, in close union with humanity.
CHAPTER 8.
MORALITY UNDERMINED BY SEXUAL NOTIONS OF THE IMPORTANCE OF A GOOD
REPUTATION.
It has long since occurred to me, that advice respecting behaviour,
and all the various modes of preserving a good reputation, which
have been so strenuously inculcated on the female world, were
specious poisons, that incrusting morality eat away the substance.
And, that this measuring of shadows produced a false calculation,
because their length depends so much on the height of the sun, and
other adventitious circumstances.
>From whence arises the easy fallacious behaviour of a courtier?
>From this situation, undoubtedly: for standing in need of
dependents, he is obliged to learn the art of denying without
giving offence, and, of evasively feeding hope with the chameleon's
food; thus does politeness sport with truth, and eating away the
sincerity and humanity natural to man, produce the fine gentleman.
Women in the same way acquire, from a supposed necessity, an
equally artificial mode of behaviour. Yet truth is not with
impunity to be sported with, for the practised dissembler, at last,
becomes the dupe of his own arts, loses that sagacity which has
been justly termed common sense; namely, a quick perception of
common truths: which are constantly received as such by the
unsophisticated mind, though it might not have had sufficient
energy to discover them itself, when obscured by local prejudices.
The greater number of people take their opinions on trust, to avoid
the trouble of exercising their own minds, and these indolent
beings naturally adhere to the letter, rather than the spirit of a
law, divine or human. "Women," says some author, I cannot
recollect who, "mind not what only heaven sees." Why, indeed
should they? it is the eye of man that they have been taught to