A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods;
religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet
men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of
sharpers or oppressors.
There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that
whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual
idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so
constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties
by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of
some kind, first set the wheels in motion. Virtue likewise can
only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the
importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the
being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of
sycophants. There must be more equality established in society, or
morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will
not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind
are chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually
undermining it through ignorance or pride. It is vain to expect
virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of
men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection,
which would make them good wives and good mothers. Whilst they are
absolutely dependent on their husbands, they will be cunning, mean,
and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning
fondness, of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for
love is not to be bought, in any sense of the word, its silken
wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in
kind is sought. Yet whilst wealth enervates men; and women live,
as it were, by their personal charms, how, can we expect them to
discharge those ennobling duties which equally require exertion and
self-denial. Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the
unfortunate victims to it, if I may so express myself, swathed from
their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind;
and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false
one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness
consist. False, indeed, must be the light when the drapery of
situation hides the man, and makes him stalk in masquerade,
dragging from one scene of dissipation to another the nerveless
limbs that hang with stupid listlessness, and rolling round the
vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind at home.
I mean, therefore, to infer, that the society is not properly
organized which does not compel men and women to discharge their
respective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that
countenance from their fellow creatures, which every human being
wishes some way to attain. The respect, consequently, which is
paid to wealth and mere personal charms, is a true north-east
blast, that blights the tender blossoms of affection and virtue.
Nature has wisely attached affections to duties, to sweeten toil,
and to give that vigour to the exertions of reason which only the
heart can give. But, the affection which is put on merely because
it is the appropriated insignia of a certain character, when its
duties are not fulfilled is one of the empty compliments which vice
and folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of
things.
To illustrate my opinion, I need only observe, that when a woman is
admired for her beauty, and suffers herself to be so far
intoxicated by the admiration she receives, as to neglect to
discharge the indispensable duty of a mother, she sins against
herself by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally
tend to make her useful and happy. True happiness, I mean all the
contentment, and virtuous satisfaction that can be snatched in this
imperfect state, must arise from well regulated affections; and an
affection includes a duty. Men are not aware of the misery they
cause, and the vicious weakness they cherish, by only inciting
women to render themselves pleasing; they do not consider, that
they thus make natural and artificial duties clash, by sacrificing
the comfort and respectability of a woman's life to voluptuous
notions of beauty, when in nature they all harmonize.
Cold would be the heart of a husband, were he not rendered
unnatural by early debauchery, who did not feel more delight at
seeing his child suckled by its mother, than the most artful wanton
tricks could ever raise; yet this natural way of cementing the
matrimonial tie, and twisting esteem with fonder recollections,
wealth leads women to spurn. To preserve their beauty, and wear
the flowery crown of the day, that gives them a kind of right to
reign for a short time over the sex, they neglect to stamp
impressions on their husbands' hearts, that would be remembered
with more tenderness when the snow on the head began to chill the
bosom, than even their virgin charms. The maternal solicitude of a
reasonable affectionate woman is very interesting, and the
chastened dignity with which a mother returns the caresses that she
and her child receive from a father who has been fulfilling the
serious duties of his station, is not only a respectable, but a
beautiful sight. So singular, indeed, are my feelings, and I have
endeavoured not to catch factitious ones, that after having been
fatigued with the sight of insipid grandeur and the slavish
ceremonies that with cumberous pomp supplied the place of domestic
affections, I have turned to some other scene to relieve my eye, by
resting it on the refreshing green every where scattered by nature.
I have then viewed with pleasure a woman nursing her children, and
discharging the duties of her station with, perhaps, merely a
servant made to take off her hands the servile part of the
household business. I have seen her prepare herself and children,
with only the luxury of cleanliness, to receive her husband, who
returning weary home in the evening, found smiling babes and a
clean hearth. My heart has loitered in the midst of the group, and
has even throbbed with sympathetic emotion, when the scraping of
the well known foot has raised a pleasing tumult.
Whilst my benevolence has been gratified by contemplating this
artless picture, I have thought that a couple of this description,
equally necessary and independent of each other, because each
fulfilled the respective duties of their station, possessed all
that life could give. Raised sufficiently above abject poverty not
to be obliged to weigh the consequence of every farthing they
spend, and having sufficient to prevent their attending to a frigid
system of economy which narrows both heart and mind. I declare, so
vulgar are my conceptions, that I know not what is wanted to render
this the happiest as well as the most respectable situation in the
world, but a taste for literature, to throw a little variety and
interest into social converse, and some superfluous money to give
to the needy, and to buy books. For it is not pleasant when the
heart is opened by compassion, and the head active in arranging
plans of usefulness, to have a prim urchin continually twitching
back the elbow to prevent the hand from drawing out an almost empty
purse, whispering at the same time some prudential maxim about the
priority of justice.
Destructive, however, as riches and inherited honours are to the
human character, women are more debased and cramped, if possible by
them, than men, because men may still, in some degree, unfold their
faculties by becoming soldiers and statesmen.
As soldiers, I grant, they can now only gather, for the most part,
vainglorious laurels, whilst they adjust to a hair the European
balance, taking especial care that no bleak northern nook or sound
incline the beam. But the days of true heroism are over, when a
citizen fought for his country like a Fabricius or a Washington,
and then returned to his farm to let his virtuous fervour run in a
more placid, but not a less salutary stream. No, our British
heroes are oftener sent from the gaming table than from the plough;
and their passions have been rather inflamed by hanging with dumb
suspense on the turn of a die, than sublimated by panting after the
adventurous march of virtue in the historic page.
The statesman, it is true, might with more propriety quit the Faro
Bank, or card-table, to guide the helm, for he has still but to
shuffle and trick. The whole system of British politics, if system
it may courteously be called, consisting in multiplying dependents
and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich; thus
a war, or any wild goose chace is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a
lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is
the art of keeping himself in place.
It is not necessary then that he should have bowels for the poor,
so he can secure for his family the odd trick. Or should some show
of respect, for what is termed with ignorant ostentation an
Englishman's birth-right, be expedient to bubble the gruff mastiff
that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very
safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light
squadron to file off to the other side. And when a question of
humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop in the milk of human
kindness, to silence Cerberus, and talk of the interest which his
heart takes in an attempt to make the earth no longer cry for
vengeance as it sucks in its children's blood, though his cold hand
may at the very moment rivet their chains, by sanctioning the
abominable traffick. A minister is no longer a minister than while
he can carry a point, which he is determined to carry. Yet it is
not necessary that a minister should feel like a man, when a bold
push might shake his seat.
But, to have done with these episodical observations, let me return
to the more specious slavery which chains the very soul of woman,
keeping her for ever under the bondage of ignorance.
The preposterous distinctions of rank, which render civilization a
curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants, and
cunning envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of
people, because respectability is not attached to the discharge of
the relative duties of life, but to the station, and when the
duties are not fulfilled, the affections cannot gain sufficient
strength to fortify the virtue of which they are the natural
reward. Still there are some loop-holes out of which a man may
creep, and dare to think and act for himself; but for a woman it is
an herculean task, because she has difficulties peculiar to her sex
to overcome, which require almost super-human powers.
A truly benevolent legislator always endeavours to make it the
interest of each individual to be virtuous; and thus private virtue
becoming the cement of public happiness, an orderly whole is
consolidated by the tendency of all the parts towards a common
centre. But, the private or public virtue of women is very
problematical; for Rousseau, and a numerous list of male writers,
insist that she should all her life, be subjected to a severe
restraint, that of propriety. Why subject her to propriety--blind
propriety, if she be capable of acting from a nobler spring, if she
be an heir of immortality? Is sugar always to be produced by vital
blood? Is one half of the human species, like the poor African
slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalize them, when
principles would be a surer guard only to sweeten the cup of man?
Is not this indirectly to deny women reason? for a gift is a
mockery, if it be unfit for use.
Women are in common with men, rendered weak and luxurious by the
relaxing pleasures which wealth procures; but added to this, they
are made slaves to their persons, and must render them alluring,