A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
conscious of my secret sins, throw off my fellow creatures, and
calmly see them drop into the chasm of perdition, that yawns to
receive them. No! no! The agonized heart will cry with
suffocating impatience--I too am a man! and have vices, hid,
perhaps, from human eye, that bend me to the dust before God, and
loudly tell me when all is mute, that we are formed of the same
earth, and breathe the same element. Humanity thus rises naturally
out of humility, and twists the cords of love that in various
convolutions entangle the heart.
This sympathy extends still further, till a man well pleased
observes force in arguments that do not carry conviction to his own
bosom, and he gladly places in the fairest light to himself, the
shows of reason that have led others astray, rejoiced to find some
reason in all the errors of man; though before convinced that he
who rules the day makes his sun to shine on all. Yet, shaking
hands thus, as it were, with corruption, one foot on earth, the
other with bold strides mounts to heaven, and claims kindred with
superiour natures. Virtues, unobserved by men, drop their balmy
fragrance at this cool hour, and the thirsty land, refreshed by the
pure streams of comfort that suddenly gush out, is crowned with
smiling verdure; this is the living green on which that eye may
look with complacency that is too pure to behold iniquity! But my
spirits flag; and I must silently indulge the reverie these
reflections lead to, unable to describe the sentiments that have
calmed my soul, when watching the rising sun, a soft shower
drizzling through the leaves of neighbouring trees, seemed to fall
on my languid, yet tranquil spirits, to cool the heart that had
been heated by the passions which reason laboured to tame.
The leading principles which run through all my disquisitions,
would render it unnecessary to enlarge on this subject, if a
constant attention to keep the varnish of the character fresh, and
in good condition, were not often inculcated as the sum total of
female duty; if rules to regulate the behaviour, and to preserve
the reputation, did not too frequently supersede moral obligations.
But, with respect to reputation, the attention is confined to a
single virtue--chastity. If the honour of a woman, as it is
absurdly called, is safe, she may neglect every social duty; nay,
ruin her family by gaming and extravagance; yet still present a
shameless front --for truly she is an honourable woman!
Mrs. Macaulay has justly observed, that "there is but one fault
which a woman of honour may not commit with impunity." She then
justly and humanely adds--This has given rise to the trite and
foolish observation, that the first fault against chastity in woman
has a radical power to deprave the character. But no such frail
beings come out of the hands of nature. The human mind is built of
nobler materials than to be so easily corrupted; and with all their
disadvantages of situation and education, women seldom become
entirely abandoned till they are thrown into a state of
desperation, by the venomous rancour of their own sex."
But, in proportion as this regard for the reputation of chastity is
prized by women, it is despised by men: and the two extremes are
equally destructive to morality.
Men are certainly more under the influence of their appetites than
women; and their appetites are more depraved by unbridled
indulgence, and the fastidious contrivances of satiety. Luxury has
introduced a refinement in eating that destroys the constitution;
and, a degree of gluttony which is so beastly, that a perception of
seemliness of behaviour must be worn out before one being could eat
immoderately in the presence of another, and afterwards complain of
the oppression that his intemperance naturally produced. Some
women, particularly French women, have also lost a sense of decency
in this respect; for they will talk very calmly of an indigestion.
It were to be wished, that idleness was not allowed to generate, on
the rank soil of wealth, those swarms of summer insects that feed
on putrefaction; we should not then be disgusted by the sight of
such brutal excesses.
There is one rule relative to behaviour that, I think, ought to
regulate every other; and it is simply to cherish such an habitual
respect for mankind, as may prevent us from disgusting a fellow
creature for the sake of a present indulgence. The shameful
indolence of many married women, and others a little advanced in
life, frequently leads them to sin against delicacy. For, though
convinced that the person is the band of union between the sexes,
yet, how often do they from sheer indolence, or to enjoy some
trifling indulgence, disgust?
The depravity of the appetite, which brings the sexes together, has
had a still more fatal effect. Nature must ever be the standard of
taste, the guage of appetite--yet how grossly is nature insulted by
the voluptuary. Leaving the refinements of love out of the
question; nature, by making the gratification of an appetite, in
this respect, as well as every other, a natural and imperious law
to preserve the species, exalts the appetite, and mixes a little
mind and affection with a sensual gust. The feelings of a parent
mingling with an instinct merely animal, give it dignity; and the
man and woman often meeting on account of the child, a mutual
interest and affection is excited by the exercise of a common
sympathy. Women then having necessarily some duty to fulfil, more
noble than to adorn their persons, would not contentedly be the
slaves of casual appetite, which is now the situation of a very
considerable number who are, literally speaking, standing dishes to
which every glutton may have access.
I may be told, that great as this enormity is, it only affects a
devoted part of the sex--devoted for the salvation of the rest.
But, false as every assertion might easily be proved, that
recommends the sanctioning a small evil to produce a greater good;
the mischief does not stop here, for the moral character, and peace
of mind, of the chaster part of the sex, is undermined by the
conduct of the very women to whom they allow no refuge from guilt:
whom they inexorably consign to the exercise of arts that lure
their husbands from them, debauch their sons and force them, let
not modest women start, to assume, in some degree, the same
character themselves. For I will venture to assert, that all the
causes of female weakness, as well as depravity, which I have
already enlarged on, branch out of one grand cause--want of
chastity in men.
This intemperance, so prevalent, depraves the appetite to such a
degree, that a wanton stimulus is necessary to rouse it; but the
parental design of nature is forgotten, and the mere person, and
that, for a moment, alone engrosses the thoughts. So voluptuous,
indeed, often grows the lustful prowler, that he refines on female
softness.
To satisfy this genius of men, women are made systematically
voluptuous, and though they may not all carry their libertinism to
the same height, yet this heartless intercourse with the sex, which
they allow themselves, depraves both sexes, because the taste of
men is vitiated; and women, of all classes, naturally square their
behaviour to gratify the taste by which they obtain pleasure and
power. Women becoming, consequently weaker, in mind and body, than
they ought to be, were one of the grand ends of their being taken
into the account, that of bearing and nursing children, have not
sufficient strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and
sacrificing to lasciviousness the parental affection, that ennobles
instinct, either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off
when born. Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who
violate her laws seldom violate them with impunity. The weak
enervated women who particularly catch the attention of libertines,
are unfit to be mothers, though they may conceive; so that the rich
sensualist, who has rioted among women, spreading depravity and
misery, when he wishes to perpetuate his name, receives from his
wife only an half-formed being that inherits both its father's and
mother's weakness.
Contrasting the humanity of the present age with the barbarism of
antiquity, great stress has been laid on the savage custom of
exposing the children whom their parents could not maintain; whilst
the man of sensibility, who thus, perhaps, complains, by his
promiscuous amours produces a most destructive barrenness and
contagious flagitiousness of manners. Surely nature never intended
that women, by satisfying an appetite, should frustrate the very
purpose for which it was implanted?
I have before observed, that men ought to maintain the women whom
they have seduced; this would be one means of reforming female
manners, and stopping an abuse that has an equally fatal effect on
population and morals. Another, no less obvious, would be to turn
the attention of woman to the real virtue of chastity; for to
little respect has that woman a claim, on the score of modesty,
though her reputation may be white as the driven snow, who smiles
on the libertine whilst she spurns the victims of his lawless
appetites and their own folly.
Besides, she has a taint of the same folly, pure as she esteems
herself, when she studiously adorns her person only to be seen by
men, to excite respectful sighs, and all the idle homage of what is
called innocent gallantry. Did women really respect virtue for its
own sake, they would not seek for a compensation in vanity, for the
self-denial which they are obliged to practise to preserve their
reputation, nor would they associate with men who set reputation at
defiance.
The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I
believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue.
Chastity, modesty, public spirit, and all the noble train of
virtues, on which social virtue and happiness are built, should be
understood and cultivated by all mankind, or they will be
cultivated to little effect. And, instead of furnishing the
vicious or idle with a pretext for violating some sacred duty, by
terming it a sexual one, it would be wiser to show, that nature has
not made any difference, for that the unchaste man doubly defeats
the purpose of nature by rendering women barren, and destroying his
own constitution, though he avoids the shame that pursues the crime
in the other sex. These are the physical consequences, the moral
are still more alarming; for virtue is only a nominal distinction
when the duties of citizens, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and
directors of families, become merely the selfish ties of
convenience.
Why then do philosophers look for public spirit? Public spirit
must be nurtured by private virtue, or it will resemble the
factitious sentiment which makes women careful to preserve their
reputation, and men their honour. A sentiment that often exists
unsupported by virtue, unsupported by that sublime morality which
makes the habitual breach of one duty a breach of the whole moral
law.
CHAPTER 9.
OF THE PERNICIOUS EFFECTS WHICH ARISE FROM THE UNNATURAL
DISTINCTIONS ESTABLISHED IN SOCIETY.
>From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned
fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such
a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most
polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk
under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the
still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it
ripens into virtue.
One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect
on account of their property: and property, once gained, will
procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men neglect