A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
how few women aim at attaining this respectability, by withdrawing
from the giddy whirl of pleasure, or the indolent calm that
stupifies the good sort of women it sucks in.
Proud of their weakness, however, they must always be protected,
guarded from care, and all the rough toils that dignify the mind.
If this be the fiat of fate, if they will make themselves
insignificant and contemptible, sweetly to waste "life away," let
them not expect to be valued when their beauty fades, for it is the
fate of the fairest flowers to be admired and pulled to pieces by
the careless hand that plucked them. In how many ways do I wish,
from the purest benevolence, to impress this truth on my sex; yet I
fear that they will not listen to a truth, that dear-bought
experience has brought home to many an agitated bosom, nor
willingly resign the privileges of rank and sex for the privileges
of humanity, to which those have no claim who do not discharge its
duties.
Those writers are particularly useful, in my opinion, who make man
feel for man, independent of the station he fills, or the drapery
of factitious sentiments. I then would fain convince reasonable
men of the importance of some of my remarks and prevail on them to
weigh dispassionately the whole tenor of my observations. I appeal
to their understandings; and, as a fellow-creature claim, in the
name of my sex, some interest in their hearts. I entreat them to
assist to emancipate their companion to make her a help meet for
them!
Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with
rational fellowship, instead of slavish obedience, they would find
us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more
faithful wives, more reasonable mothers--in a word, better
citizens. We should then love them with true affection, because we
should learn to respect ourselves; and the peace of mind of a
worthy man would not be interrupted by the idle vanity of his wife,
nor his babes sent to nestle in a strange bosom, having never found
a home in their mother's.
CHAPTER 10.
PARENTAL AFFECTION.
Parental affection is, perhaps, the blindest modification of
perverse self-love; for we have not, like the French two terms
(L'amour propre, L'amour de soi meme) to distinguish the pursuit of
a natural and reasonable desire, from the ignorant calculations of
weakness. Parents often love their children in the most brutal
manner, and sacrifice every relative duty to promote their
advancement in the world. To promote, such is the perversity of
unprincipled prejudices, the future welfare of the very beings
whose present existence they imbitter by the most despotic stretch
of power. Power, in fact, is ever true to its vital principle, for
in every shape it would reign without controul or inquiry. Its
throne is built across a dark abyss, which no eye must dare to
explore, lest the baseless fabric should totter under
investigation. Obedience, unconditional obedience, is the
catch-word of tyrants of every description, and to render
"assurance doubly sure," one kind of despotism supports another.
Tyrants would have cause to tremble if reason were to become the
rule of duty in any of the relations of life, for the light might
spread till perfect day appeared. And when it did appear, how
would men smile at the sight of the bugbears at which they started
during the night of ignorance, or the twilight of timid inquiry.
Parental affection, indeed, in many minds, is but a pretext to
tyrannize where it can be done with impunity, for only good and
wise men are content with the respect that will bear discussion.
Convinced that they have a right to what they insist on, they do
not fear reason, or dread the sifting of subjects that recur to
natural justice: because they firmly believe, that the more
enlightened the human mind becomes, the deeper root will just and
simple principles take. They do not rest in expedients, or grant
that what is metaphysically true can be practically false; but
disdaining the shifts of the moment they calmly wait till time,
sanctioning innovation, silences the hiss of selfishness or envy.
If the power of reflecting on the past, and darting the keen eye of
contemplation into futurity, be the grand privilege of man, it must
be granted that some people enjoy this prerogative in a very
limited degree. Every thing now appears to them wrong; and not
able to distinguish the possible from the monstrous, they fear
where no fear should find a place, running from the light of reason
as if it were a firebrand; yet the limits of the possible have
never been defined to stop the sturdy innovator's hand.
Woman, however, a slave in every situation to prejudice seldom
exerts enlightened maternal affection; for she either neglects her
children, or spoils them by improper indulgence. Besides, the
affection of some women for their children is, as I have before
termed it, frequently very brutish; for it eradicates every spark
of humanity. Justice, truth, every thing is sacrificed by these
Rebekahs, and for the sake of their own children they violate the
most sacred duties, forgetting the common relationship that binds
the whole family on earth together. Yet, reason seems to say, that
they who suffer one duty, or affection to swallow up the rest, have
not sufficient heart or mind to fulfil that one conscientiously.
It then loses the venerable aspect of a duty, and assumes the
fantastic form of a whim.
As the care of children in their infancy is one of the grand duties
annexed to the female character by nature, this duty would afford
many forcible arguments for strengthening the female understanding,
if it were properly considered.
The formation of the mind must be begun very early, and the temper,
in particular, requires the most judicious attention--an attention
which women cannot pay who only love their children because they
are their children, and seek no further for the foundation of their
duty, than in the feelings of the moment. It is this want of
reason in their affections which makes women so often run into
extremes, and either be the most fond, or most careless and
unnatural mothers.
To be a good mother--a woman must have sense, and that independence
of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely
on their husbands. Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers;
wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in
secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow. If they
are to be punished, though they have offended the mother, the
father must inflict the punishment; he must be the judge in all
disputes: but I shall more fully discuss this subject when I treat
of private education, I now only mean to insist, that unless the
understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more
firm, by being allowed to govern her own conduct, she will never
have sufficient sense or command of temper to manage her children
properly. Her parental affection, indeed, scarcely deserves the
name, when it does not lead her to suckle her children, because the
discharge of this duty is equally calculated to inspire maternal
and filial affection; and it is the indispensable duty of men and
women to fulfil the duties which give birth to affections that are
the surest preservatives against vice. Natural affection, as it is
termed, I believe to be a very weak tie, affections must grow out
of the habitual exercise of a mutual sympathy; and what sympathy
does a mother exercise who sends her babe to a nurse, and only
takes it from a nurse to send it to a school?
In the exercise of their natural feelings, providence has furnished
women with a natural substitute for love, when the lover becomes
only a friend and mutual confidence takes place of overstrained
admiration--a child then gently twists the relaxing cord, and a
mutual care produces a new mutual sympathy. But a child, though a
pledge of affection, will not enliven it, if both father and mother
are content to transfer the charge to hirelings; for they who do
their duty by proxy should not murmur if they miss the reward of
duty--parental affection produces filial duty.
CHAPTER 11.
DUTY TO PARENTS.
There seems to be an indolent propensity in man to make
prescription always take place of reason, and to place every duty
on an arbitrary foundation. The rights of kings are deduced in a
direct line from the King of kings; and that of parents from our
first parent.
Why do we thus go back for principles that should always rest on
the same base, and have the same weight to-day that they had a
thousand years ago--and not a jot more? If parents discharge their
duty they have a strong hold and sacred claim on the gratitude of
their children; but few parents are willing to receive the
respectful affection of their offspring on such terms. They demand
blind obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service:
and to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding,
a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle;
for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying
vicious or weak beings, merely because they obeyed a powerful
instinct? The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which
naturally subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few
words: The parent who pays proper attention to helpless infancy
has a right to require the same attention when the feebleness of
age comes upon him. But to subjugate a rational being to the mere
will of another, after he is of age to answer to society for his
own conduct, is a most cruel and undue stretch of power; and
perhaps as injurious to morality, as those religious systems which
do not allow right and wrong to have any existence, but in the
Divine will.
I never knew a parent who had paid more than common attention to
his children, disregarded (Dr. Johnson makes the same
observation.); on the contrary, the early habit of relying almost
implicitly on the opinion of a respected parent is not easily
shaken, even when matured reason convinces the child that his
father is not the wisest man in the world. This weakness, for a
weakness it is, though the epithet AMIABLE may be tacked to it, a
reasonable man must steel himself against; for the absurd duty, too
often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being
a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish
submission to any power but reason.
I distinguish between the natural and accidental duty due to
parents.
The parent who sedulously endeavours to form the heart and enlarge
the understanding of his child, has given that dignity to the
discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only
reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and
leaves instinctive natural affection far behind. Such a parent
acquires all the rights of the most sacred friendship, and his
advice, even when his child is advanced in life, demands serious
consideration.
With respect to marriage, though after one and twenty a parent
seems to have no right to withhold his consent on any account; yet
twenty years of solicitude call for a return, and the son ought, at
least, to promise not to marry for two or three years, should the
object of his choice not entirely meet with the approbation of his
first friend.
But, respect for parents is, generally speaking, a much more
debasing principle; it is only a selfish respect for property. The
father who is blindly obeyed, is obeyed from sheer weakness, or
from motives that degrade the human character.
A great proportion of the misery that wanders, in hideous forms
around the world, is allowed to rise from the negligence of
parents; and still these are the people who are most tenacious of