A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
strong sexual attachment, and that reason must cement friendship;
consequently I allow, that more friendship is to be found in the
male than the female world, and that men have a higher sense of
justice. The exclusive affections of women seem indeed to resemble
Cato's most unjust love for his country. He wished to crush
Carthage, not to save Rome, but to promote its vain glory; and in
general, it is to similar principles that humanity is sacrificed,
for genuine duties support each other.
Besides, how can women be just or generous, when they are the
slaves of injustice.
SECTION 13.5.
As the rearing of children, that is, the laying a foundation of
sound health both of body and mind in the rising generation, has
justly been insisted on as the peculiar destination of woman, the
ignorance that incapacitates them must be contrary to the order of
things. And I contend, that their minds can take in much more, and
ought to do so, or they will never become sensible mothers. Many
men attend to the breeding of horses, and overlook the management
of the stable, who would, strange want of sense and feeling! think
themselves degraded by paying any attention to the nursery; yet,
how many children are absolutely murdered by the ignorance of
women! But when they escape, and are neither destroyed by
unnatural negligence nor blind fondness, how few are managed
properly with respect to the infant mind! So that to break the
spirit, allowed to become vicious at home, a child is sent to
school; and the methods taken there, which must be taken to keep a
number of children in order, scatter the seeds of almost every vice
in the soil thus forcibly torn up.
I have sometimes compared the struggles of these poor children who
ought never to have felt restraint, nor would, had they been always
held in with an even hand, to the despairing plunges of a spirited
filly, which I have seen breaking on a strand; its feet sinking
deeper and deeper in the sand every time it endeavoured to throw
its rider, till at last it sullenly submitted.
I have always found horses, an animal I am attached to, very
tractable when treated with humanity and steadiness, so that I
doubt whether the violent methods taken to break them, do not
essentially injure them; I am, however, certain that a child should
never be thus forcibly tamed after it has injudiciously been
allowed to run wild; for every violation of justice and reason, in
the treatment of children, weakens their reason. And, so early do
they catch a character, that the base of the moral character,
experience leads me to infer, is fixed before their seventh year,
the period during which women are allowed the sole management of
children. Afterwards it too often happens that half the business
of education is to correct, and very imperfectly is it done, if
done hastily, the faults, which they would never have acquired if
their mothers had had more understanding.
One striking instance of the folly of women must not be omitted.
The manner in which they treat servants in the presence of
children, permitting them to suppose, that they ought to wait on
them, and bear their humours. A child should always be made to
receive assistance from a man or woman as a favour; and, as the
first lesson of independence, they should practically be taught, by
the example of their mother, not to require that personal
attendance which it is an insult to humanity to require, when in
health; and instead of being led to assume airs of consequence, a
sense of their own weakness should first make them feel the natural
equality of man. Yet, how frequently have I indignantly heard
servants imperiously called to put children to bed, and sent away
again and again, because master or miss hung about mamma, to stay a
little longer. Thus made slavishly to attend the little idol, all
those most disgusting humours were exhibited which characterize a
spoiled child.
In short, speaking of the majority of mothers, they leave their
children entirely to the care of servants: or, because they are
their children, treat them as if they were little demi-gods, though
I have always observed, that the women who thus idolize their
children, seldom show common humanity to servants, or feel the
least tenderness for any children but their own.
It is, however, these exclusive affections, and an individual
manner of seeing things, produced by ignorance, which keep women
for ever at a stand, with respect to improvement, and make many of
them dedicate their lives to their children only to weaken their
bodies and spoil their tempers, frustrating also any plan of
education that a more rational father may adopt; for unless a
mother concurs, the father who restrains will ever be considered as
a tyrant.
But, fulfilling the duties of a mother, a woman with a sound
constitution, may still keep her person scrupulously neat, and
assist to maintain her family, if necessary, or by reading and
conversations with both sexes, indiscriminately, improve her mind.
For nature has so wisely ordered things, that did women suckle
their children, they would preserve their own health, and there
would be such an interval between the birth of each child, that we
should seldom see a house full of babes. And did they pursue a
plan of conduct, and not waste their time in following the
fashionable vagaries of dress, the management of their household
and children need not shut them out from literature, nor prevent
their attaching themselves to a science, with that steady eye which
strengthens the mind, or practising one of the fine arts that
cultivate the taste.
But, visiting to display finery, card playing, and balls, not to
mention the idle bustle of morning trifling, draw women from their
duty, to render them insignificant, to render them pleasing,
according to the present acceptation of the word, to every man, but
their husband. For a round of pleasures in which the affections
are not exercised, cannot be said to improve the understanding,
though it be erroneously called seeing the world; yet the heart is
rendered cold and averse to duty, by such a senseless intercourse,
which becomes necessary from habit, even when it has ceased to
amuse.
But, till more equality be established in society, till ranks are
confounded and women freed, we shall not see that dignified
domestic happiness, the simple grandeur of which cannot be relished
by ignorant or vitiated minds; nor will the important task of
education ever be properly begun till the person of a woman is no
longer preferred to her mind. For it would be as wise to expect
corn from tares, or figs from thistles, as that a foolish ignorant
woman should be a good mother.
SECTION 13.6.
It is not necessary to inform the sagacious reader, now I enter on
my concluding reflections, that the discussion of this subject
merely consists in opening a few simple principles, and clearing
away the rubbish which obscured them. But, as all readers are not
sagacious, I must be allowed to add some explanatory remarks to
bring the subject home to reason--to that sluggish reason, which
supinely takes opinions on trust, and obstinately supports them to
spare itself the labour of thinking.
Moralists have unanimously agreed, that unless virtue be nursed by
liberty, it will never attain due strength--and what they say of
man I extend to mankind, insisting, that in all cases morals must
be fixed on immutable principles; and that the being cannot be
termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority but that of
reason.
To render women truly useful members of society, I argue, that they
should be led, by having their understandings cultivated on a large
scale, to acquire a rational affection for their country, founded
on knowledge, because it is obvious, that we are little interested
about what we do not understand. And to render this general
knowledge of due importance, I have endeavoured to show that
private duties are never properly fulfilled, unless the
understanding enlarges the heart; and that public virtue is only an
aggregate of private. But, the distinctions established in society
undermine both, by beating out the solid gold of virtue, till it
becomes only the tinsel-covering of vice; for, whilst wealth
renders a man more respectable than virtue, wealth will be sought
before virtue; and, whilst women's persons are caressed, when a
childish simper shows an absence of mind--the mind will lie fallow.
Yet, true voluptuousness must proceed from the mind--for what can
equal the sensations produced by mutual affection, supported by
mutual respect? What are the cold or feverish caresses of
appetite, but sin embracing death, compared with the modest
overflowings of a pure heart and exalted imagination? Yes, let me
tell the libertine of fancy when he despises understanding in
woman--that the mind, which he disregards, gives life to the
enthusiastic affection from which rapture, short-lived as it is,
alone can flow! And, that, without virtue, a sexual attachment
must expire, like a tallow candle in the socket, creating
intolerable disgust. To prove this, I need only observe, that men
who have wasted great part of their lives with women, and with whom
they have sought for pleasure with eager thirst, entertain the
meanest opinion of the sex. Virtue, true refiner of joy! if
foolish men were to fright thee from earth, in order to give loose
to all their appetites without a check--some sensual wight of taste
would scale the heavens to invite thee back, to give a zest to
pleasure!
That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or vicious,
is, I think, not to be disputed; and, that the most salutary
effects tending to improve mankind, might be expected from a
REVOLUTION in female manners, appears at least, with a face of
probability, to rise out of the observation. For as marriage has
been termed the parent of those endearing charities, which draw man
from the brutal herd, the corrupting intercourse that wealth,
idleness, and folly produce between the sexes, is more universally
injurious to morality, than all the other vices of mankind
collectively considered. To adulterous lust the most sacred duties
are sacrificed, because, before marriage, men, by a promiscuous
intimacy with women, learned to consider love as a selfish
gratification--learned to separate it not only from esteem, but
from the affection merely built on habit, which mixes a little
humanity with it. Justice and friendship are also set at defiance,
and that purity of taste is vitiated, which would naturally lead a
man to relish an artless display of affection, rather than affected
airs. But that noble simplicity of affection, which dares to
appear unadorned, has few attractions for the libertine, though it
be the charm, which, by cementing the matrimonial tie, secures to
the pledges of a warmer passion the necessary parental attention;
for children will never be properly educated till friendship
subsists between parents. Virtue flies from a house divided
against itself--and a whole legion of devils take up their
residence there.
The affection of husbands and wives cannot be pure when they have
so few sentiments in common, and when so little confidence is
established at home, as must be the case when their pursuits are so
different. That intimacy from which tenderness should flow, will
not, cannot subsist between the vicious.
Contending, therefore, that the sexual distinction, which men have
so warmly insisted upon, is arbitrary, I have dwelt on an
observation, that several sensible men, with whom I have conversed
on the subject, allowed to be well founded; and it is simply this,
that the little chastity to be found amongst men, and consequent
disregard of modesty, tend to degrade both sexes; and further, that