A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
It follows then, that cunning should not be opposed to wisdom,
little cares to great exertions, nor insipid softness, varnished
over with the name of gentleness, to that fortitude which grand
views alone can inspire.
I shall be told, that woman would then lose many of her peculiar
graces, and the opinion of a well known poet might be quoted to
refute my unqualified assertions. For Pope has said, in the name
of the whole male sex,
"Yet ne'er so sure our passions to create,
As when she touch'd the brink of all we hate."
In what light this sally places men and women, I shall leave to the
judicious to determine; meanwhile I shall content myself with
observing, that I cannot discover why, unless they are mortal,
females should always be degraded by being made subservient to love
or lust.
To speak disrespectfully of love is, I know, high treason against
sentiment and fine feelings; but I wish to speak the simple
language of truth, and rather to address the head than the heart.
To endeavour to reason love out of the world, would be to out
Quixote Cervantes, and equally offend against common sense; but an
endeavour to restrain this tumultuous passion, and to prove that it
should not be allowed to dethrone superior powers, or to usurp the
sceptre which the understanding should ever coolly wield, appears
less wild.
Youth is the season for love in both sexes; but in those days of
thoughtless enjoyment, provision should be made for the more
important years of life, when reflection takes place of sensation.
But Rousseau, and most of the male writers who have followed his
steps, have warmly inculcated that the whole tendency of female
education ought to be directed to one point to render them
pleasing.
Let me reason with the supporters of this opinion, who have any
knowledge of human nature, do they imagine that marriage can
eradicate the habitude of life? The woman who has only been taught
to please, will soon find that her charms are oblique sun-beams,
and that they cannot have much effect on her husband's heart when
they are seen every day, when the summer is past and gone. Will
she then have sufficient native energy to look into herself for
comfort, and cultivate her dormant faculties? or, is it not more
rational to expect, that she will try to please other men; and, in
the emotions raised by the expectation of new conquests, endeavour
to forget the mortification her love or pride has received? When
the husband ceases to be a lover--and the time will inevitably
come, her desire of pleasing will then grow languid, or become a
spring of bitterness; and love, perhaps, the most evanescent of all
passions, gives place to jealousy or vanity.
I now speak of women who are restrained by principle or prejudice;
such women though they would shrink from an intrigue with real
abhorrence, yet, nevertheless, wish to be convinced by the homage
of gallantry, that they are cruelly neglected by their husbands;
or, days and weeks are spent in dreaming of the happiness enjoyed
by congenial souls, till the health is undermined and the spirits
broken by discontent. How then can the great art of pleasing be
such a necessary study? it is only useful to a mistress; the chaste
wife, and serious mother, should only consider her power to please
as the polish of her virtues, and the affection of her husband as
one of the comforts that render her task less difficult, and her
life happier. But, whether she be loved or neglected, her first
wish should be to make herself respectable, and not rely for all
her happiness on a being subject to like infirmities with herself.
The amiable Dr. Gregory fell into a similar error. I respect his
heart; but entirely disapprove of his celebrated Legacy to his
Daughters.
He advises them to cultivate a fondness for dress, because a
fondness for dress, he asserts, is natural to them. I am unable to
comprehend what either he or Rousseau mean, when they frequently
use this indefinite term. If they told us, that in a pre-existent
state the soul was fond of dress, and brought this inclination with
it into a new body, I should listen to them with a half smile, as I
often do when I hear a rant about innate elegance. But if he only
meant to say that the exercise of the faculties will produce this
fondness, I deny it. It is not natural; but arises, like false
ambition in men, from a love of power.
Dr. Gregory goes much further; he actually recommends
dissimulation, and advises an innocent girl to give the lie to her
feelings, and not dance with spirit, when gaiety of heart would
make her feet eloquent, without making her gestures immodest. In
the name of truth and common sense, why should not one woman
acknowledge that she can take more exercise than another? or, in
other words, that she has a sound constitution; and why to damp
innocent vivacity, is she darkly to be told, that men will draw
conclusions which she little thinks of? Let the libertine draw
what inference he pleases; but, I hope, that no sensible mother
will restrain the natural frankness of youth, by instilling such
indecent cautions. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth
speaketh; and a wiser than Solomon hath said, that the heart should
be made clean, and not trivial ceremonies observed, which it is not
very difficult to fulfill with scrupulous exactness when vice
reigns in the heart.
Women ought to endeavour to purify their hearts; but can they do so
when their uncultivated understandings make them entirely dependent
on their senses for employment and amusement, when no noble pursuit
sets them above the little vanities of the day, or enables them to
curb the wild emotions that agitate a reed over which every passing
breeze has power? To gain the affections of a virtuous man, is
affectation necessary?
Nature has given woman a weaker frame than man; but, to ensure her
husband's affections, must a wife, who, by the exercise of her mind
and body, whilst she was discharging the duties of a daughter,
wife, and mother, has allowed her constitution to retain its
natural strength, and her nerves a healthy tone, is she, I say, to
condescend, to use art, and feign a sickly delicacy, in order to
secure her husband's affection? Weakness may excite tenderness, and
gratify the arrogant pride of man; but the lordly caresses of a
protector will not gratify a noble mind that pants for and deserves
to be respected. Fondness is a poor substitute for friendship!
In a seraglio, I grant, that all these arts are necessary; the
epicure must have his palate tickled, or he will sink into apathy;
but have women so little ambition as to be satisfied with such a
condition? Can they supinely dream life away in the lap of
pleasure, or in the languor of weariness, rather than assert their
claim to pursue reasonable pleasures, and render themselves
conspicuous, by practising the virtues which dignify mankind?
Surely she has not an immortal soul who can loiter life away,
merely employed to adorn her person, that she may amuse the languid
hours, and soften the cares of a fellow-creature who is willing to
be enlivened by her smiles and tricks, when the serious business of
life is over.
Besides, the woman who strengthens her body and exercises her mind
will, by managing her family and practising various virtues, become
the friend, and not the humble dependent of her husband; and if she
deserves his regard by possessing such substantial qualities, she
will not find it necessary to conceal her affection, nor to pretend
to an unnatural coldness of constitution to excite her husband's
passions. In fact, if we revert to history, we shall find that the
women who have distinguished themselves have neither been the most
beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex.
Nature, or to speak with strict propriety God, has made all things
right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work.
I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's treatise, where he
advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her
sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution; and as
ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must be
transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant,
would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone, or the
grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally useless, or
rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is
friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that
rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer."
This is an obvious truth, and the cause not lying deep, will not
elude a slight glance of inquiry.
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place
of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of
mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the
emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion,
naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind
out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the
security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a
healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not
sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of
friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration,
and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature--friendship or indifference
inevitably succeeds love. And this constitution seems perfectly to
harmonize with the system of government which prevails in the moral
world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they
sink into mere appetites, become a personal momentary
gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind
rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was
struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it
graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband,
the dotard a prey to childish caprices, and fond jealousies,
neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should
excite confidence in his children are lavished on the overgrown
child, his wife.
In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to pursue
with vigour the various employments which form the moral character,
a master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love
each other with passion. I mean to say, that they ought not to
indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and
engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind
that has never been engrossed by one object wants vigour--if it can
long be so, it is weak.
A mistaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many sexual
prejudices, tend to make women more constant than men; but, for the
present, I shall not touch on this branch of the subject. I will
go still further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that
an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and
that the neglected wife is, in general, the best mother. And this
would almost always be the consequence, if the female mind was more
enlarged; for, it seems to be the common dispensation of
Providence, that what we gain in present enjoyment should be
deducted from the treasure of life, experience; and that when we
are gathering the flowers of the day and revelling in pleasure, the
solid fruit of toil and wisdom should not be caught at the same
time. The way lies before us, we must turn to the right or left;
and he who will pass life away in bounding from one pleasure to
another, must not complain if he neither acquires wisdom nor
respectability of character.
Supposing for a moment, that the soul is not immortal, and that man
was only created for the present scene; I think we should have
reason to complain that love, infantine fondness, ever grew insipid