prompt:
Chapter: To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious
arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes,
in the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very
different character:  or, to speak explicitly, women are not
allowed to have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really
deserves the name of virtue.  Yet it should seem, allowing them to
have souls, that there is but one way appointed by providence to
lead MANKIND to either virtue or happiness.

If then women are not a swarm of ephemeron triflers, why should
they be kept in ignorance under the specious name of innocence?
Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our
sex, when they do not keenly satirize our headstrong passions and
groveling vices.  Behold, I should answer, the natural effect of
ignorance!  The mind will ever be unstable that has only prejudices
to rest on, and the current will run with destructive fury when
there are no barriers to break its force.  Women are told from
their infancy, and taught by the example of their mothers, that a
little knowledge of human weakness, justly termed cunning, softness
of temper, OUTWARD obedience, and a scrupulous attention to a
puerile kind of propriety, will obtain for them the protection of
man; and should they be beautiful, every thing else is needless,
for at least twenty years of their lives.

Thus Milton describes our first frail mother; though when he tells
us that women are formed for softness and sweet attractive grace, I
cannot comprehend his meaning, unless, in the true Mahometan
strain, he meant to deprive us of souls, and insinuate that we were
beings only designed by sweet attractive grace, and docile blind
obedience, to gratify the senses of man when he can no longer soar
on the wing of contemplation.

How grossly do they insult us, who thus advise us only to render
ourselves gentle, domestic brutes!  For instance, the winning
softness, so warmly, and frequently recommended, that governs by
obeying.  What childish expressions, and how insignificant is the
being--can it be an immortal one?  who will condescend to govern by
such sinister methods!  "Certainly," says Lord Bacon, "man is of
kin to the beasts by his body: and if he be not of kin to God by
his spirit, he is a base and ignoble creature!"  Men, indeed,
appear to me to act in a very unphilosophical manner, when they try
to secure the good conduct of women by attempting to keep them
always in a state of childhood.  Rousseau was more consistent when
he wished to stop the progress of reason in both sexes; for if men
eat of the tree of knowledge, women will come in for a taste:  but,
from the imperfect cultivation which their understandings now
receive, they only attain a knowledge of evil.

Children, I grant, should be innocent; but when the epithet is
applied to men, or women, it is but a civil term for weakness.  For
if it be allowed that women were destined by Providence to acquire
human virtues, and by the exercise of their understandings, that
stability of character which is the firmest ground to rest our
future hopes upon, they must be permitted to turn to the fountain
of light, and not forced to shape their course by the twinkling of
a mere satellite.  Milton, I grant, was of a very different
opinion; for he only bends to the indefeasible right of beauty,
though it would be difficult to render two passages, which I now
mean to contrast, consistent:  but into similar inconsistencies are
great men often led by their senses:--

"To whom thus Eve with perfect beauty adorned:
My author and disposer, what thou bidst
Unargued I obey; so God ordains;
God is thy law, thou mine; to know no more
Is woman's happiest knowledge and her praise."

These are exactly the arguments that I have used to children; but I
have added, "Your reason is now gaining strength, and, till it
arrives at some degree of maturity, you must look up to me for
advice:  then you ought to THINK, and only rely on God."

Yet, in the following lines, Milton seems to coincide with me, when
he makes Adam thus expostulate with his Maker:--

"Hast thou not made me here thy substitute,
And these inferior far beneath me set?
Among unequals what society
Can sort, what harmony or delight?
Which must be mutual, in proportion due
Given and received; but in disparity
The one intense, the other still remiss
Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove
Tedious alike:  of fellowship I speak
Such as I seek fit to participate
All rational delight."

In treating, therefore, of the manners of women, let us,
disregarding sensual arguments, trace what we should endeavour to
make them in order to co-operate, if the expression be not too
bold, with the Supreme Being.

By individual education, I mean--for the sense of the word is not
precisely defined--such an attention to a child as will slowly
sharpen the senses, form the temper, regulate the passions, as they
begin to ferment, and set the understanding to work before the body
arrives at maturity; so that the man may only have to proceed, not
to begin, the important task of learning to think and reason.

To prevent any misconstruction, I must add, that I do not believe
that a private education can work the wonders which some sanguine
writers have attributed to it.  Men and women must be educated, in
a great degree, by the opinions and manners of the society they
live in.  In every age there has been a stream of popular opinion
that has carried all before it, and given a family character, as it
were, to the century.  It may then fairly be inferred, that, till
society be differently constituted, much cannot be expected from
education.  It is, however, sufficient for my present purpose to
assert, that, whatever effect circumstances have on the abilities,
every being may become virtuous by the exercise of its own reason;
for if but one being was created with vicious inclinations--that
is, positively bad-- what can save us from atheism? or if we
worship a God, is not that God a devil?

Consequently, the most perfect education, in my opinion, is such an
exercise of the understanding as is best calculated to strengthen
the body and form the heart; or, in other words, to enable the
individual to attain such habits of virtue as will render it
independent.  In fact, it is a farce to call any being virtuous
whose virtues do not result from the exercise of its own reason.
This was Rousseau's opinion respecting men:  I extend it to women,
and confidently assert that they have been drawn out of their
sphere by false refinement, and not by an endeavour to acquire
masculine qualities.  Still the regal homage which they receive is
so intoxicating, that, till the manners of the times are changed,
and formed on more reasonable principles, it may be impossible to
convince them that the illegitimate power, which they obtain by
degrading themselves, is a curse, and that they must return to
nature and equality, if they wish to secure the placid satisfaction
that unsophisticated affections impart.  But for this epoch we must
wait--wait, perhaps, till kings and nobles, enlightened by reason,
and, preferring the real dignity of man to childish state, throw
off their gaudy hereditary trappings; and if then women do not
resign the arbitrary power of beauty, they will prove that they
have LESS mind than man.  I may be accused of arrogance; still I
must declare, what I firmly believe, that all the writers who have
written on the subject of female education and manners, from
Rousseau to Dr. Gregory, have contributed to render women more
artificial, weaker characters, than they would otherwise have been;
and, consequently, more useless members of society.  I might have
expressed this conviction in a lower key; but I am afraid it would
have been the whine of affectation, and not the faithful expression
of my feelings, of the clear result, which experience and
reflection have led me to draw.  When I come to that division of
the subject, I shall advert to the passages that I more
particularly disapprove of, in the works of the authors I have just
alluded to; but it is first necessary to observe, that my objection
extends to the whole purport of those books, which tend, in my
opinion, to degrade one half of the human species, and render women
pleasing at the expense of every solid virtue.

Though to reason on Rousseau's ground, if man did attain a degree
of perfection of mind when his body arrived at maturity, it might
be proper in order to make a man and his wife ONE, that she should
rely entirely on his understanding; and the graceful ivy, clasping
the oak that supported it, would form a whole in which strength and
beauty would be equally conspicuous.  But, alas! husbands, as well
as their helpmates, are often only overgrown children; nay, thanks
to early debauchery, scarcely men in their outward form, and if the
blind lead the blind, one need not come from heaven to tell us the
consequence.

Many are the causes that, in the present corrupt state of society,
contribute to enslave women by cramping their understandings and
sharpening their senses.  One, perhaps, that silently does more
mischief than all the rest, is their disregard of order.

To do every thing in an orderly manner, is a most important
precept, which women, who, generally speaking, receive only a
disorderly kind of education, seldom attend to with that degree of
exactness that men, who from their infancy are broken into method,
observe.  This negligent kind of guesswork, for what other epithet
can be used to point out the random exertions of a sort of
instinctive common sense, never brought to the test of reason?
prevents their generalizing matters of fact, so they do to-day,
what they did yesterday, merely because they did it yesterday.

This contempt of the understanding in early life has more baneful
consequences than is commonly supposed; for the little knowledge
which women of strong minds attain, is, from various circumstances,
of a more desultory kind than the knowledge of men, and it is
acquired more by sheer observations on real life, than from
comparing what has been individually observed with the results of
experience generalized by speculation.  Led by their dependent
situation and domestic employments more into society, what they
learn is rather by snatches; and as learning is with them, in
general, only a secondary thing, they do not pursue any one branch
with that persevering ardour necessary to give vigour to the
faculties, and clearness to the judgment.  In the present state of
society, a little learning is required to support the character of
a gentleman; and boys are obliged to submit to a few years of
discipline.  But in the education of women the cultivation of the
understanding is always subordinate to the acquirement of some
corporeal accomplishment; even while enervated by confinement and
false notions of modesty, the body is prevented from attaining that
grace and beauty which relaxed half-formed limbs never exhibit.
Besides, in youth their faculties are not brought forward by
emulation; and having no serious scientific study, if they have
natural sagacity it is turned too soon on life and manners.  They
dwell on effects, and modifications, without tracing them back to
causes; and complicated rules to adjust behaviour are a weak
substitute for simple principles.

As a proof that education gives this appearance of weakness to
females, we may instance the example of military men, who are, like
them, sent into the world before their minds have been stored with
knowledge or fortified by principles.  The consequences are
similar; soldiers acquire a little superficial knowledge, snatched
from the muddy current of conversation, and, from continually
mixing with society, they gain, what is termed a knowledge of the
world; and this acquaintance with manners and customs has
frequently been confounded with a knowledge of the human heart.
But can the crude fruit of casual observation, never brought to the
test of judgment, formed by comparing speculation and experience,
deserve such a distinction? Soldiers, as well as women, practice
the minor virtues with punctilious politeness.  Where is then the
sexual difference, when the education has been the same; all the
difference that I can discern, arises from the superior advantage
of liberty which enables the former to see more of life.

It is wandering from my present subject, perhaps, to make a
political remark; but as it was produced naturally by the train of
my reflections, I shall not pass it silently over.

Standing armies can never consist of resolute, robust men; they may
be well disciplined machines, but they will seldom contain men
under the influence of strong passions or with very vigorous
faculties.  And as for any depth of understanding, I will venture
to affirm, that it is as rarely to be found in the army as amongst
women; and the cause, I maintain, is the same.  It may be further
observed, that officers are also particularly attentive to their
persons, fond of dancing, crowded rooms, adventures, and ridicule.
Like the FAIR sex, the business of their lives is gallantry.  They
were taught to please, and they only live to please.  Yet they do
not lose their rank in the distinction of sexes, for they are still
reckoned superior to women, though in what their superiority
consists, beyond what I have just mentioned, it is difficult to
discover.

The great misfortune is this, that they both acquire manners before
morals, and a knowledge of life before they have from reflection,
any acquaintance with the grand ideal outline of human nature.  The
consequence is natural; satisfied with common nature, they become a
prey to prejudices, and taking all their opinions on credit, they
blindly submit to authority.  So that if they have any sense, it is
a kind of instinctive glance, that catches proportions, and decides
with respect to manners; but fails when arguments are to be pursued
below the surface, or opinions analyzed.

May not the same remark be applied to women?  Nay, the argument may
be carried still further, for they are both thrown out of a useful
station by the unnatural distinctions established in civilized
life.  Riches and hereditary honours have made cyphers of women to
give consequence to the numerical figure; and idleness has produced
a mixture of gallantry and despotism in society, which leads the
very men who are the slaves of their mistresses, to tyrannize over
their sisters, wives, and daughters.  This is only keeping them in
rank and file, it is true.  Strengthen the female mind by enlarging
it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind
obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are
in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because
the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing.  The
sensualist, indeed, has been the most dangerous of tyrants, and
women have been duped by their lovers, as princes by their
ministers, whilst dreaming that they reigned over them.

I now principally allude to Rousseau, for his character of Sophia
is, undoubtedly, a captivating one, though it appears to me grossly
unnatural; however, it is not the superstructure, but the
foundation of her character, the principles on which her education
was built, that I mean to attack; nay, warmly as I admire the
genius of that able writer, whose opinions I shall often have
occasion to cite, indignation always takes place of admiration, and
the rigid frown of insulted virtue effaces the smile of
complacency, which his eloquent periods are wont to raise, when I
read his voluptuous reveries.  Is this the man, who, in his ardour
for virtue, would banish all the soft arts of peace, and almost
carry us back to Spartan discipline?  Is this the man who delights
to paint the useful struggles of passion, the triumphs of good
dispositions, and the heroic flights which carry the glowing soul
out of itself?  How are these mighty sentiments lowered when he
describes the prettyfoot and enticing airs of his little favourite!
But, for the present, I waive the subject, and, instead of severely
reprehending the transient effusions of overweening sensibility, I
shall only observe, that whoever has cast a benevolent eye on
society, must often have been gratified by the sight of humble
mutual love, not dignified by sentiment, nor strengthened by a
union in intellectual pursuits.  The domestic trifles of the day
have afforded matter for cheerful converse, and innocent caresses
have softened toils which did not require great exercise of mind,
or stretch of thought:  yet, has not the sight of this moderate
felicity excited more tenderness than respect?  An emotion similar
to what we feel when children are playing, or animals sporting,
whilst the contemplation of the noble struggles of suffering merit
has raised admiration, and carried our thoughts to that world where
sensation will give place to reason.

Women are, therefore, to be considered either as moral beings, or
so weak that they must be entirely subjected to the superior
faculties of men.

Let us examine this question.  Rousseau declares, that a woman
should never, for a moment feel herself independent, that she
should be governed by fear to exercise her NATURAL cunning, and
made a coquetish slave in order to render her a more alluring
object of desire, a SWEETER companion to man, whenever he chooses
to relax himself.  He carries the arguments, which he pretends to
draw from the indications of nature, still further, and insinuates
that truth and fortitude the corner stones of all human virtue,
shall be cultivated with certain restrictions, because with respect
to the female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought
to be impressed with unrelenting rigour.

What nonsense!  When will a great man arise with sufficient
strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality
have thus spread over the subject!  If women are by nature inferior
to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in
degree, or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct
should be founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.

Connected with man as daughters, wives, and mothers, their moral
character may be estimated by their manner of fulfilling those
simple duties; but the end, the grand end of their exertions should
be to unfold their own faculties, and acquire the dignity of
conscious virtue.  They may try to render their road pleasant; but
ought never to forget, in common with man, that life yields not the
felicity which can satisfy an immortal soul.  I do not mean to
insinuate, that either sex should be so lost, in abstract
reflections or distant views, as to forget the affections and
duties that lie before them, and are, in truth, the means appointed
to produce the fruit of life; on the contrary, I would warmly
recommend them, even while I assert, that they afford most
satisfaction when they are considered in their true subordinate
light.

Probably the prevailing opinion, that woman was created for man,
may have taken its rise from Moses's poetical story; yet, as very
few it is presumed, who have bestowed any serious thought on the
subject, ever supposed that Eve was, literally speaking, one of
Adam's ribs, the deduction must be allowed to fall to the ground;
or, only be so far admitted as it proves that man, from the
remotest antiquity, found it convenient to exert his strength to
subjugate his companion, and his invention to show that she ought
to have her neck bent under the yoke; because she as well as the
brute creation, was created to do his pleasure.

Let it not be concluded, that I wish to invert the order of things;
I have already granted, that, from the constitution of their
bodies, men seem to be designed by Providence to attain a greater
degree of virtue.  I speak collectively of the whole sex; but I see
not the shadow of a reason to conclude that their virtues should
differ in respect to their nature.  In fact, how can they, if
virtue has only one eternal standard?  I must, therefore, if I
reason consequentially, as strenuously maintain, that they have the
same simple direction, as that there is a God.

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
and palled upon the sense.  Let us eat, drink, and love, for
to-morrow we die, would be in fact the language of reason, the
morality of life; and who but a fool would part with a reality for
a fleeting shadow?  But, if awed by observing the improvable powers
of the mind, we disdain to confine our wishes or thoughts to such a
comparatively mean field of action; that only appears grand and
important as it is connected with a boundless prospect and sublime
hopes; what necessity is there for falsehood in conduct, and why
must the sacred majesty of truth be violated to detain a deceitful
good that saps the very foundation of virtue?  Why must the female
mind be tainted by coquetish arts to gratify the sensualist, and
prevent love from subsiding into friendship or compassionate
tenderness, when there are not qualities on which friendship can be
built?  Let the honest heart show itself, and REASON teach passion
to submit to necessity; or, let the dignified pursuit of virtue and
knowledge raise the mind above those emotions which rather imbitter
than sweeten the cup of life, when they are not restrained within
due bounds.

I do not mean to allude to the romantic passion, which is the
concomitant of genius.  Who can clip its wings?  But that grand
passion not proportioned to the puny enjoyments of life, is only
true to the sentiment, and feeds on itself.  The passions which
have been celebrated for their durability have always been
unfortunate.  They have acquired strength by absence and
constitutional melancholy.  The fancy has hovered round a form of
beauty dimly seen--but familiarity might have turned admiration
into disgust; or, at least, into indifference, and allowed the
imagination leisure to start fresh game.  With perfect propriety,
according to this view of things, does Rousseau make the mistress
of his soul, Eloisa, love St. Preux, when life was fading before
her; but this is no proof of the immortality of the passion.

Of the same complexion is Dr. Gregory's advice respecting delicacy
of sentiment, which he advises a woman not to acquire, if she has
determined to marry.  This determination, however, perfectly
consistent with his former advice, he calls INDELICATE, and
earnestly persuades his daughters to conceal it, though it may
govern their conduct:  as if it were indelicate to have the common
appetites of human nature.

Noble morality! and consistent with the cautious prudence of a
little soul that cannot extend its views beyond the present minute
division of existence.  If all the faculties of woman's mind are
only to be cultivated as they respect her dependence on man; if,
when she obtains a husband she has arrived at her goal, and meanly
proud, is satisfied with such a paltry crown, let her grovel
contentedly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal
kingdom; but, if she is struggling for the prize of her high
calling, let her cultivate her understanding without stopping to
consider what character the husband may have whom she is destined
to marry.  Let her only determine, without being too anxious about
present happiness, to acquire the qualities that ennoble a rational
being, and a rough, inelegant husband may shock her taste without
destroying her peace of mind.  She will not model her soul to suit
the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them:  his
character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue.

If Dr. Gregory confined his remark to romantic expectations of
constant love and congenial feelings, he should have recollected,
that experience will banish what advice can never make us cease to
wish for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expence of
reason.

I own it frequently happens, that women who have fostered a
romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste their lives in
IMAGINING how happy they should have been with a husband who could
love them with a fervid increasing affection every day, and all
day.  But they might as well pine married as single, and would not
be a jot more unhappy with a bad husband than longing for a good
one.  That a proper education; or, to speak with more precision, a
well stored mind, would enable a woman to support a single life
with dignity, I grant; but that she should avoid cultivating her
taste, lest her husband should occasionally shock it, is quitting a
substance for a shadow.  To say the truth, I do not know of what
use is an improved taste, if the individual be not rendered more
independent of the casualties of life; if new sources of enjoyment,
only dependent on the solitary operations of the mind, are not
opened.  People of taste, married or single, without distinction,
will ever be disgusted by various things that touch not less
observing minds.  On this conclusion the argument must not be
allowed to hinge; but in the whole sum of enjoyment is taste to be
denominated a blessing?

The question is, whether it procures most pain or pleasure?  The
answer will decide the propriety of Dr. Gregory's advice, and show
how absurd and tyrannic it is thus to lay down a system of slavery;
or to attempt to educate moral beings by any other rules than those
deduced from pure reason, which apply to the whole species.

Gentleness of manners, forbearance, and long suffering, are such
amiable godlike qualities, that in sublime poetic strains the Deity
has been invested with them; and, perhaps, no representation of his
goodness so strongly fastens on the human affections as those that
represent him abundant in mercy and willing to pardon.  Gentleness,
considered in this point of view, bears on its front all the
characteristics of grandeur, combined with the winning graces of
condescension; but what a different aspect it assumes when it is
the submissive demeanour of dependence, the support of weakness
that loves, because it wants protection; and is forbearing, because
it must silently endure injuries; smiling under the lash at which
it dare not snarl.  Abject as this picture appears, it is the
portrait of an accomplished woman, according to the received
opinion of female excellence, separated by specious reasoners from
human excellence.  Or, they (Vide Rousseau, and Swedenborg) kindly
restore the rib, and make one moral being of a man and woman; not
forgetting to give her all the "submissive charms."

How women are to exist in that state where there is to be neither
marrying nor giving in marriage, we are not told.  For though
moralists have agreed, that the tenor of life seems to prove that
MAN is prepared by various circumstances for a future state, they
constantly concur in advising WOMAN only to provide for the
present.  Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are,
on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of
the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one
writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be
melancholy.  She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and
it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses
to be amused.

To recommend gentleness, indeed, on a broad basis is strictly
philosophical.  A frail being should labour to be gentle.  But when
forbearance confounds right and wrong, it ceases to be a virtue;
and, however convenient it may be found in a companion, that
companion will ever be considered as an inferior, and only inspire
a vapid tenderness, which easily degenerates into contempt.  Still,
if advice could really make a being gentle, whose natural
disposition admitted not of such a fine polish, something toward
the advancement of order would be attained; but if, as might
quickly be demonstrated, only affectation be produced by this
indiscriminate counsel, which throws a stumbling block in the way
of gradual improvement, and true melioration of temper, the sex is
not much benefited by sacrificing solid virtues to the attainment
of superficial graces, though for a few years they may procure the
individual's regal sway.

As a philosopher, I read with indignation the plausible epithets
which men use to soften their insults; and, as a moralist, I ask
what is meant by such heterogeneous associations, as fair defects,
amiable weaknesses, etc.? If there is but one criterion of morals,
but one archetype for man, women appear to be suspended by destiny,
according to the vulgar tale of Mahomet's coffin; they have neither
the unerring instinct of brutes, nor are allowed to fix the eye of
reason on a perfect model.  They were made to be loved, and must
not aim at respect, lest they should be hunted out of society as
masculine.

But to view the subject in another point of view.  Do passive
indolent women make the best wives?  Confining our discussion to
the present moment of existence, let us see how such weak creatures
perform their part?  Do the women who, by the attainment of a few
superficial accomplishments, have strengthened the prevailing
prejudice, merely contribute to the happiness of their husbands?
Do they display their charms merely to amuse them?  And have women,
who have early imbibed notions of passive obedience, sufficient
character to manage a family or educate children?  So far from it,
that, after surveying the history of woman, I cannot help agreeing
with the severest satirist, considering the sex as the weakest as
well as the most oppressed half of the species.  What does history
disclose but marks of inferiority, and how few women have
emancipated themselves from the galling yoke of sovereign man?  So
few, that the exceptions remind me of an ingenious conjecture
respecting Newton:  that he was probably a being of a superior
order, accidentally caged in a human body.  In the same style I
have been led to imagine that the few extraordinary women who have
rushed in eccentrical directions out of the orbit prescribed to
their sex, were MALE spirits, confined by mistake in a female
frame.  But if it be not philosophical to think of sex when the
soul is mentioned, the inferiority must depend on the organs; or
the heavenly fire, which is to ferment the clay, is not given in
equal portions.

But avoiding, as I have hitherto done, any direct comparison of the
two sexes collectively, or frankly acknowledging the inferiority of
woman, according to the present appearance of things, I shall only
insist, that men have increased that inferiority till women are
almost sunk below the standard of rational creatures.  Let their
faculties have room to unfold, and their virtues to gain strength,
and then determine where the whole sex must stand in the
intellectual scale.  Yet, let it be remembered, that for a small
number of distinguished women I do not ask a place.

It is difficult for us purblind mortals to say to what height human
discoveries and improvements may arrive, when the gloom of
despotism subsides, which makes us stumble at every step; but, when
morality shall be settled on a more solid basis, then, without
being gifted with a prophetic spirit, I will venture to predict,
that woman will be either the friend or slave of man.  We shall
not, as at present, doubt whether she is a moral agent, or the link
which unites man with brutes.  But, should it then appear, that
like the brutes they were principally created for the use of man,
he will let them patiently bite the bridle, and not mock them with
empty praise; or, should their rationality be proved, he will not
impede their improvement merely to gratify his sensual appetites.
He will not with all the graces of rhetoric, advise them to submit
implicitly their understandings to the guidance of man.  He will
not, when he treats of the education of women, assert, that they
ought never to have the free use of reason, nor would he recommend
cunning and dissimulation to beings who are acquiring, in like
manner as himself, the virtues of humanity.

Surely there can be but one rule of right, if morality has an
eternal foundation, and whoever sacrifices virtue, strictly so
called, to present convenience, or whose DUTY it is to act in such
a manner, lives only for the passing day, and cannot be an
accountable creature.

The poet then should have dropped his sneer when he says,

"If weak women go astray,
The stars are more in fault than they."

For that they are bound by the adamantine chain of destiny is most
certain, if it be proved that they are never to exercise their own
reason, never to be independent, never to rise above opinion, or to
feel the dignity of a rational will that only bows to God, and
often forgets that the universe contains any being but itself, and
the model of perfection to which its ardent gaze is turned, to
adore attributes that, softened into virtues, may be imitated in
kind, though the degree overwhelms the enraptured mind.

If, I say, for I would not impress by declamation when reason
offers her sober light, if they are really capable of acting like
rational creatures, let them not be treated like slaves; or, like
the brutes who are dependent on the reason of man, when they
associate with him; but cultivate their minds, give them the
salutary, sublime curb of principle, and let them attain conscious
dignity by feeling themselves only dependent on God.  Teach them,
in common with man, to submit to necessity, instead of giving, to
render them more pleasing, a sex to morals.

Further, should experience prove that they cannot attain the same
degree of strength of mind, perseverance and fortitude, let their
virtues be the same in kind, though they may vainly struggle for
the same degree; and the superiority of man will be equally clear,
if not clearer; and truth, as it is a simple principle, which
admits of no modification, would be common to both.  Nay, the order
of society, as it is at present regulated, would not be inverted,
for woman would then only have the rank that reason assigned her,
and arts could not be practised to bring the balance even, much
less to turn it.

These may be termed Utopian dreams.  Thanks to that Being who
impressed them on my soul, and gave me sufficient strength of mind
to dare to exert my own reason, till becoming dependent only on him
for the support of my virtue, I view with indignation, the mistaken
notions that enslave my sex.

I love man as my fellow; but his sceptre real or usurped, extends
not to me, unless the reason of an individual demands my homage;
and even then the submission is to reason, and not to man.  In
fact, the conduct of an accountable being must be regulated by the
operations of its own reason; or on what foundation rests the
throne of God?

It appears to me necessary to dwell on these obvious truths,
because females have been insulted, as it were; and while they have
been stripped of the virtues that should clothe humanity, they have
been decked with artificial graces, that enable them to exercise a
short lived tyranny.  Love, in their bosoms, taking place of every
nobler passion, their sole ambition is to be fair, to raise emotion
instead of inspiring respect; and this ignoble desire, like the
servility in absolute monarchies, destroys all strength of
character.  Liberty is the mother of virtue, and if women are, by
their very constitution, slaves, and not allowed to breathe the
sharp invigorating air of freedom, they must ever languish like
exotics, and be reckoned beautiful flaws in nature; let it also be
remembered, that they are the only flaw.

As to the argument respecting the subjection in which the sex has
ever been held, it retorts on man.  The many have always been
enthralled by the few; and, monsters who have scarcely shown any
discernment of human excellence, have tyrannized over thousands of
their fellow creatures.  Why have men of superior endowments
submitted to such degradation?  For, is it not universally
acknowledged that kings, viewed collectively, have ever been
inferior, in abilities and virtue, to the same number of men taken
from the common mass of mankind--yet, have they not, and are they
not still treated with a degree of reverence, that is an insult to
reason?  China is not the only country where a living man has been
made a God.  MEN have submitted to superior strength, to enjoy with
impunity the pleasure of the moment--WOMEN have only done the same,
and therefore till it is proved that the courtier, who servilely
resigns the birthright of a man, is not a moral agent, it cannot be
demonstrated that woman is essentially inferior to man, because she
has always been subjugated.

Brutal force has hitherto governed the world, and that the science
of politics is in its infancy, is evident from philosophers
scrupling to give the knowledge most useful to man that determinate
distinction.

I shall not pursue this argument any further than to establish an
obvious inference, that as sound politics diffuse liberty, mankind,
including woman, will become more wise and virtuous.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: There are many men who have argued over the ages that women don't have enough mental strength to become morally good on their own: they need the guidance of men. But Wollstonecraft believes that if women have souls, then they must have the same rational powers as men. The only other option is for men to claim that women don't have souls, which even the worst misogynists in the world would hesitate to argue. The biggest challenge to women's education seems to be the belief that women should be kept innocent like children and taught nothing other than the skills for pleasing their future husbands. Wollstonecraft agrees that to some extent, young children should be kept innocent. But the same can't be said for women. There comes a time for all human beings when they should be encouraged to think for themselves. She thinks that parents should prepare their children for the day when they begin to think for themselves. But she also admits that to some extent, people are always products of the societies they live in. So all education should strive toward making the individual as independent a thinker as possible. Wollstonecraft blames the men of her time for promoting a type of education that makes women completely useless as members of society. Rousseau thinks that men are so perfectly rational that women should follow their guidance. But Wollstonecraft argues that many men are just overgrown children. In the current system, women are only able to learn about the world by looking at the surfaces of things. They are never taught how to figure out larger patterns from individual observations, so they all just end up being superficial and shallow. The same is true of military soldiers, who are taught only how to follow orders and who don't have any core reason or virtue guiding what they do. They live on the surface of life, according to Wollstonecraft. Wollstonecraft brings us back once again to the decision we have to make. Either women are so weak that they need to be guided completely by men, or they are rational people who are capable of thinking for themselves. Here, Wollstonecraft wants to clarify that she doesn't want to reverse the order of things and place women above men. She just wants women to have the independence they need to develop their minds fully. Even though it might anger some men, Wollstonecraft believes that women were made for something more than making men fall in love. Yes, there's a time for thoughtless love when a person is young. But those years should also be spent preparing for the more important and mature years of life, when reason is most important. Wollstonecraft next critiques the work of a guy named Dr. Gregory, who has written a book on how he chooses to raise his daughters. For starters, Dr. Gregory instructs his daughters to learn how to dress nicely. This actually seems like the most important thing in his books. Wollstonecraft finds it strange that Dr. Gregory thinks that liking dresses is "natural" for women, since this presupposes that the soul somehow possessed a love for dress before it entered a human body. The truth is that women like to dress nicely because looking good is where they get their power in society. The second piece of advice Dr. Gregory gives his daughters is for them to hide their true emotions whenever they can. It's a woman's duty not to let her frustrations show. The truest bond between men and women, according to Wollstonecraft, is not love. It's friendship. Love is something Wollstonecraft connects to sex and romance. But friendship is a bond between two people who respect one another's intellects. Besides, the shine wears off on love fairly quickly, but friendship lasts a lifetime. If we went nowhere after we died, then Wollstonecraft would agree that the only point of life is to pursue pleasure. But she believes in an afterlife, and therefore thinks that we have to spend our time on Earth doing the right thing. If Dr. Gregory's advice is right, then a woman's purpose in life ends the moment she gets married and has children. There is nothing left for her to accomplish. The truth is that we won't really know what women are capable of until we offer them all of the same social respect and education that we offer to men. In Wollstonecraft's time, society was still a long way from achieving this goal. If men are truly superior to women, then let them prove it by giving women an equal playing field. In a worst case scenario, you're still going to wind up with a bunch of women who are better than they used to be. Men have about as much right to oppress women as kings have to oppress men. And when Wollstonecraft was writing this text, men were definitely turning against the idea of political oppression. Notice here how she's capitalizing on a political movement for democracy by applying the same logic to women's rights.


prompt:
Chapter: Bodily strength from being the distinction of heroes is now sunk
into such unmerited contempt, that men as well as women, seem to
think it unnecessary:  the latter, as it takes from their feminine
graces, and from that lovely weakness, the source of their undue
power; and the former, because it appears inimical with the
character of a gentleman.

That they have both by departing from one extreme run into another,
may easily be proved; but it first may be proper to observe, that a
vulgar error has obtained a degree of credit, which has given force
to a false conclusion, in which an effect has been mistaken for a
cause.

People of genius have, very frequently, impaired their
constitutions by study, or careless inattention to their health,
and the violence of their passions bearing a proportion to the
vigour of their intellects, the sword's destroying the scabbard has
become almost proverbial, and superficial observers have inferred
from thence, that men of genius have commonly weak, or to use a
more fashionable phrase, delicate constitutions.  Yet the contrary,
I believe, will appear to be the fact; for, on diligent inquiry, I
find that strength of mind has, in most cases, been accompanied by
superior strength of body, natural soundness of constitution, not
that robust tone of nerves and vigour of muscles, which arise from
bodily labour, when the mind is quiescent, or only directs the
hands.

Dr. Priestley has remarked, in the preface to his biographical
chart, that the majority of great men have lived beyond forty-five.
And, considering the thoughtless manner in which they lavished
their strength, when investigating a favourite science, they have
wasted the lamp of life, forgetful of the midnight hour; or, when,
lost in poetic dreams, fancy has peopled the scene, and the soul
has been disturbed, till it shook the constitution, by the passions
that meditation had raised; whose objects, the baseless fabric of a
vision, faded before the exhausted eye, they must have had iron
frames.  Shakespeare never grasped the airy dagger with a nerveless
hand, nor did Milton tremble when he led Satan far from the
confines of his dreary prison.  These were not the ravings of
imbecility, the sickly effusions of distempered brains; but the
exuberance of fancy, that "in a fine phrenzy" wandering, was not
continually reminded of its material shackles.

I am aware, that this argument would carry me further than it may
be supposed I wish to go; but I follow truth, and still adhering to
my first position, I will allow that bodily strength seems to give
man a natural superiority over woman; and this is the only solid
basis on which the superiority of the sex can be built.  But I
still insist, that not only the virtue, but the KNOWLEDGE of the
two sexes should be the same in nature, if not in degree, and that
women, considered not only as moral, but rational creatures, ought
to endeavour to acquire human virtues (or perfections) by the SAME
means as men, instead of being educated like a fanciful kind of
HALF being, one of Rousseau's wild chimeras.

But, if strength of body be, with some show of reason, the boast of
men, why are women so infatuated as to be proud of a defect?
Rousseau has furnished them with a plausible excuse, which could
only have occurred to a man, whose imagination had been allowed to
run wild, and refine on the impressions made by exquisite senses,
that they might, forsooth have a pretext for yielding to a natural
appetite without violating a romantic species of modesty, which
gratifies the pride and libertinism of man.

Women deluded by these sentiments, sometimes boast of their
weakness, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the WEAKNESS of
men; and they may well glory in their illicit sway, for, like
Turkish bashaws, they have more real power than their masters:  but
virtue is sacrificed to temporary gratifications, and the
respectability of life to the triumph of an hour.

Women, as well as despots, have now, perhaps, more power than they
would have, if the world, divided and subdivided into kingdoms and
families, was governed by laws deduced from the exercise of reason;
but in obtaining it, to carry on the comparison, their character is
degraded, and licentiousness spread through the whole aggregate of
society.  The many become pedestal to the few.  I, therefore will
venture to assert, that till women are more rationally educated,
the progress of human virtue and improvement in knowledge must
receive continual checks.  And if it be granted, that woman was not
created merely to gratify the appetite of man, nor to be the upper
servant, who provides his meals and takes care of his linen, it
must follow, that the first care of those mothers or fathers, who
really attend to the education of females, should be, if not to
strengthen the body, at least, not to destroy the constitution by
mistaken notions of beauty and female excellence; nor should girls
ever be allowed to imbibe the pernicious notion that a defect can,
by any chemical process of reasoning become an excellence.  In this
respect, I am happy to find, that the author of one of the most
instructive books, that our country has produced for children,
coincides with me in opinion; I shall quote his pertinent remarks
to give the force of his respectable authority to reason.*

(*Footnote.  A respectable old man gives the following sensible
account of the method he pursued when educating his daughter.  "I
endeavoured to give both to her mind and body a degree of vigour,
which is seldom found in the female sex.  As soon as she was
sufficiently advanced in strength to be capable of the lighter
labours of husbandry and gardening, I employed her as my constant
companion.  Selene, for that was her name, soon acquired a
dexterity in all these rustic employments which I considered with
equal pleasure and admiration.  If women are in general feeble both
in body and mind, it arises less from nature than from education.
We encourage a vicious indolence and inactivity, which we falsely
call delicacy; instead of hardening their minds by the severer
principles of reason and philosophy, we breed them to useless arts,
which terminate in vanity and sensuality.  In most of the countries
which I had visited, they are taught nothing of an higher nature
than a few modulations of the voice, or useless postures of the
body; their time is consumed in sloth or trifles, and trifles
become the only pursuits capable of interesting them.  We seem to
forget, that it is upon the qualities of the female sex, that our
own domestic comforts and the education of our children must
depend.  And what are the comforts or the education which a race of
beings corrupted from their infancy, and unacquainted with all the
duties of life, are fitted to bestow?  To touch a musical
instrument with useless skill, to exhibit their natural or affected
graces, to the eyes of indolent and debauched young men, who
dissipate their husbands' patrimony in riotous and unnecessary
expenses:  these are the only arts cultivated by women in most of
the polished nations I had seen.  And the consequences are
uniformly such as may be expected to proceed from such polluted
sources, private misery, and public servitude.

"But, Selene's education was regulated by different views, and
conducted upon severer principles; if that can be called severity
which opens the mind to a sense of moral and religious duties, and
most effectually arms it against the inevitable evils of
life."--Mr. Day's "Sandford and Merton," Volume 3.)

But should it be proved that woman is naturally weaker than man,
from whence does it follow that it is natural for her to labour to
become still weaker than nature intended her to be?  Arguments of
this cast are an insult to common sense, and savour of passion.
The DIVINE RIGHT of husbands, like the divine right of kings, may,
it is to be hoped, in this enlightened age, be contested without
danger, and though conviction may not silence many boisterous
disputants, yet, when any prevailing prejudice is attacked, the
wise will consider, and leave the narrow-minded to rail with
thoughtless vehemence at innovation.

The mother, who wishes to give true dignity of character to her
daughter, must, regardless of the sneers of ignorance, proceed on a
plan diametrically opposite to that which Rousseau has recommended
with all the deluding charms of eloquence and philosophical
sophistry:  for his eloquence renders absurdities plausible, and
his dogmatic conclusions puzzle, without convincing those who have
not ability to refute them.

Throughout the whole animal kingdom every young creature requires
almost continual exercise, and the infancy of children, conformable
to this intimation, should be passed in harmless gambols, that
exercise the feet and hands, without requiring very minute
direction from the head, or the constant attention of a nurse.  In
fact, the care necessary for self-preservation is the first natural
exercise of the understanding, as little inventions to amuse the
present moment unfold the imagination.  But these wise designs of
nature are counteracted by mistaken fondness or blind zeal.  The
child is not left a moment to its own direction, particularly a
girl, and thus rendered dependent--dependence is called natural.

To preserve personal beauty, woman's glory! the limbs and faculties
are cramped with worse than Chinese bands, and the sedentary life
which they are condemned to live, whilst boys frolic in the open
air, weakens the muscles and relaxes the nerves.  As for Rousseau's
remarks, which have since been echoed by several writers, that they
have naturally, that is from their birth, independent of education,
a fondness for dolls, dressing, and talking, they are so puerile as
not to merit a serious refutation.  That a girl, condemned to sit
for hours together listening to the idle chat of weak nurses or to
attend at her mother's toilet, will endeavour to join the
conversation, is, indeed very natural; and that she will imitate
her mother or aunts, and amuse herself by adorning her lifeless
doll, as they do in dressing her, poor innocent babe! is
undoubtedly a most natural consequence.  For men of the greatest
abilities have seldom had sufficient strength to rise above the
surrounding atmosphere; and, if the page of genius has always been
blurred by the prejudices of the age, some allowance should be made
for a sex, who, like kings, always see things through a false
medium.

In this manner may the fondness for dress, conspicuous in women, be
easily accounted for, without supposing it the result of a desire
to please the sex on which they are dependent.  The absurdity, in
short, of supposing that a girl is naturally a coquette, and that a
desire connected with the impulse of nature to propagate the
species, should appear even before an improper education has, by
heating the imagination, called it forth prematurely, is so
unphilosophical, that such a sagacious observer as Rousseau would
not have adopted it, if he had not been accustomed to make reason
give way to his desire of singularity, and truth to a favourite
paradox.

Yet thus to give a sex to mind was not very consistent with the
principles of a man who argued so warmly, and so well, for the
immortality of the soul.  But what a weak barrier is truth when it
stands in the way of an hypothesis!  Rousseau respected--almost
adored virtue--and yet allowed himself to love with sensual
fondness.  His imagination constantly prepared inflammable fuel for
his inflammable senses; but, in order to reconcile his respect for
self-denial, fortitude and those heroic virtues, which a mind like
his could not coolly admire, he labours to invert the law of
nature, and broaches a doctrine pregnant with mischief, and
derogatory to the character of supreme wisdom.

His ridiculous stories, which tend to prove that girls are
NATURALLY attentive to their persons, without laying any stress on
daily example, are below contempt.  And that a little miss should
have such a correct taste as to neglect the pleasing amusement of
making O's, merely because she perceived that it was an ungraceful
attitude, should be selected with the anecdotes of the learned
pig.*

(*Footnote.  "I once knew a young person who learned to write
before she learned to read, and began to write with her needle
before she could use a pen.  At first indeed, she took it into her
head to make no other letter than the O:  this letter she was
constantly making of all sizes, and always the wrong way.
Unluckily one day, as she was intent on this employment, she
happened to see herself in the looking glass; when, taking a
dislike to the constrained attitude in which she sat while writing,
she threw away her pen, like another Pallas, and determined against
making the O any more.  Her brother was also equally averse to
writing:  it was the confinement, however, and not the constrained
attitude, that most disgusted him."
Rousseau's "Emilius.")

I have, probably, had an opportunity of observing more girls in
their infancy than J. J. Rousseau.  I can recollect my own
feelings, and I have looked steadily around me; yet, so far from
coinciding with him in opinion respecting the first dawn of the
female character, I will venture to affirm, that a girl, whose
spirits have not been damped by inactivity, or innocence tainted by
false shame, will always be a romp, and the doll will never excite
attention unless confinement allows her no alternative.  Girls and
boys, in short, would play harmless together, if the distinction of
sex was not inculcated long before nature makes any difference.  I
will, go further, and affirm, as an indisputable fact, that most of
the women, in the circle of my observation, who have acted like
rational creatures, or shown any vigour of intellect, have
accidentally been allowed to run wild, as some of the elegant
formers of the fair sex would insinuate.

The baneful consequences which flow from inattention to health
during infancy, and youth, extend further than is supposed,
dependence of body naturally produces dependence of mind; and how
can she be a good wife or mother, the greater part of whose time is
employed to guard against or endure sickness; nor can it be
expected, that a woman will resolutely endeavour to strengthen her
constitution and abstain from enervating indulgences, if artificial
notions of beauty, and false descriptions of sensibility, have been
early entangled with her motives of action.  Most men are sometimes
obliged to bear with bodily inconveniences, and to endure,
occasionally, the inclemency of the elements; but genteel women
are, literally speaking, slaves to their bodies, and glory in their
subjection.

I once knew a weak woman of fashion, who was more than commonly
proud of her delicacy and sensibility.  She thought a
distinguishing taste and puny appetite the height of all human
perfection, and acted accordingly.  I have seen this weak
sophisticated being neglect all the duties of life, yet recline
with self-complacency on a sofa, and boast of her want of appetite
as a proof of delicacy that extended to, or, perhaps, arose from,
her exquisite sensibility:  for it is difficult to render
intelligible such ridiculous jargon.  Yet, at the moment, I have
seen her insult a worthy old gentlewoman, whom unexpected
misfortunes had made dependent on her ostentatious bounty, and who,
in better days, had claims on her gratitude.  Is it possible that a
human creature should have become such a weak and depraved being,
if, like the Sybarites, dissolved in luxury, every thing like
virtue had not been worn away, or never impressed by precept, a
poor substitute it is true, for cultivation of mind, though it
serves as a fence against vice?

Such a woman is not a more irrational monster than some of the
Roman emperors, who were depraved by lawless power.  Yet, since
kings have been more under the restraint of law, and the curb,
however weak, of honour, the records of history are not filled with
such unnatural instances of folly and cruelty, nor does the
despotism that kills virtue and genius in the bud, hover over
Europe with that destructive blast which desolates Turkey, and
renders the men, as well as the soil unfruitful.

Women are every where in this deplorable state; for, in order to
preserve their innocence, as ignorance is courteously termed, truth
is hidden from them, and they are made to assume an artificial
character before their faculties have acquired any strength.
Taught from their infancy, that beauty is woman's sceptre, the mind
shapes itself to the body, and, roaming round its gilt cage, only
seeks to adorn its prison.  Men have various employments and
pursuits which engage their attention, and give a character to the
opening mind; but women, confined to one, and having their thoughts
constantly directed to the most insignificant part of themselves,
seldom extend their views beyond the triumph of the hour.  But was
their understanding once emancipated from the slavery to which the
pride and sensuality of man and their short sighted desire, like
that of dominion in tyrants, of present sway, has subjected them,
we should probably read of their weaknesses with surprise.  I must
be allowed to pursue the argument a little farther.

Perhaps, if the existence of an evil being was allowed, who, in the
allegorical language of scripture, went about seeking whom he
should devour, he could not more effectually degrade the human
character than by giving a man absolute power.

This argument branches into various ramifications.  Birth, riches,
and every intrinsic advantage that exalt a man above his fellows,
without any mental exertion, sink him in reality below them.  In
proportion to his weakness, he is played upon by designing men,
till the bloated monster has lost all traces of humanity.  And that
tribes of men, like flocks of sheep, should quietly follow such a
leader, is a solecism that only a desire of present enjoyment and
narrowness of understanding can solve.  Educated in slavish
dependence, and enervated by luxury and sloth, where shall we find
men who will stand forth to assert the rights of man; or claim the
privilege of moral beings, who should have but one road to
excellence? Slavery to monarchs and ministers, which the world will
be long in freeing itself from, and whose deadly grasp stops the
progress of the human mind, is not yet abolished.

Let not men then in the pride of power, use the same arguments that
tyrannic kings and venal ministers have used, and fallaciously
assert, that woman ought to be subjected because she has always
been so.  But, when man, governed by reasonable laws, enjoys his
natural freedom, let him despise woman, if she do not share it with
him; and, till that glorious period arrives, in descanting on the
folly of the sex, let him not overlook his own.

Women, it is true, obtaining power by unjust means, by practising
or fostering vice, evidently lose the rank which reason would
assign them, and they become either abject slaves or capricious
tyrants.  They lose all simplicity, all dignity of mind, in
acquiring power, and act as men are observed to act when they have
been exalted by the same means.

It is time to effect a revolution in female manners, time to
restore to them their lost dignity, and make them, as a part of the
human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world.
It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.  If
men be demi-gods, why let us serve them!  And if the dignity of the
female soul be as disputable as that of animals, if their reason
does not afford sufficient light to direct their conduct whilst
unerring instinct is denied, they are surely of all creatures the
most miserable and, bent beneath the iron hand of destiny, must
submit to be a FAIR DEFECT in creation.  But to justify the ways of
providence respecting them, by pointing out some irrefragable
reason for thus making such a large portion of mankind accountable
and not accountable, would puzzle the subtlest casuist.

The only solid foundation for morality appears to be the character
of the Supreme Being; the harmony of which arises from a balance of
attributes; and, to speak with reverence, one attribute seems to
imply the NECESSITY of another.  He must be just, because he is
wise, he must be good, because he is omnipotent.  For, to exalt one
attribute at the expense of another equally noble and necessary,
bears the stamp of the warped reason of man, the homage of passion.
Man, accustomed to bow down to power in his savage state, can
seldom divest himself of this barbarous prejudice even when
civilization determines how much superior mental is to bodily
strength; and his reason is clouded by these crude opinions, even
when he thinks of the Deity.  His omnipotence is made to swallow
up, or preside over his other attributes, and those mortals are
supposed to limit his power irreverently, who think that it must be
regulated by his wisdom.

I disclaim that species of humility which, after investigating
nature, stops at the author.  The high and lofty One, who
inhabiteth eternity, doubtless possesses many attributes of which
we can form no conception; but reason tells me that they cannot
clash with those I adore, and I am compelled to listen to her
voice.

It seems natural for man to search for excellence, and either to
trace it in the object that he worships, or blindly to invest it
with perfection as a garment.  But what good effect can the latter
mode of worship have on the moral conduct of a rational being?  He
bends to power; he adores a dark cloud, which may open a bright
prospect to him, or burst in angry, lawless fury on his devoted
head, he knows not why.  And, supposing that the Deity acts from
the vague impulse of an undirected will, man must also follow his
own, or act according to rules, deduced from principles which he
disclaims as irreverent.  Into this dilemma have both enthusiasts
and cooler thinkers fallen, when they laboured to free men from the
wholesome restraints which a just conception of the character of
God imposes.

It is not impious thus to scan the attributes of the Almighty:  in
fact, who can avoid it that exercises his faculties? for to love
God as the fountain of wisdom, goodness, and power, appears to be
the only worship useful to a being who wishes to acquire either
virtue or knowledge.  A blind unsettled affection may, like human
passions, occupy the mind and warm the heart, whilst, to do
justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God, is forgotten.  I
shall pursue this subject still further, when I consider religion
in a light opposite to that recommended by Dr. Gregory, who treats
it as a matter of sentiment or taste.

To return from this apparent digression.  It were to be wished,
that women would cherish an affection for their husbands, founded
on the same principle that devotion ought to rest upon.  No other
firm base is there under heaven, for let them beware of the
fallacious light of sentiment; too often used as a softer phrase
for sensuality.  It follows then, I think, that from their infancy
women should either be shut up like eastern princes, or educated in
such a manner as to be able to think and act for themselves.

Why do men halt between two opinions, and expect impossibilities?
Why do they expect virtue from a slave, or from a being whom the
constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?

Still I know that it will require a considerable length of time to
eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists have
planted; it will also require some time to convince women that they
act contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they
cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy, and to
convince the world that the poisoned source of female vices and
follies, if it be necessary, in compliance with custom, to use
synonymous terms in a lax sense, has been the sensual homage paid
to beauty:  to beauty of features; for it has been shrewdly
observed by a German writer, that a pretty woman, as an object of
desire, is generally allowed to be so by men of all descriptions;
whilst a fine woman, who inspires more sublime emotions by
displaying intellectual beauty, may be overlooked or observed with
indifference, by those men who find their happiness in the
gratification of their appetites.  I foresee an obvious retort;
whilst man remains such an imperfect being as he appears hitherto
to have been, he will, more or less, be the slave of his appetites;
and those women obtaining most power who gratify a predominant one,
the sex is degraded by a physical, if not by a moral necessity.

This objection has, I grant, some force; but while such a sublime
precept exists, as, "be pure as your heavenly father is pure;" it
would seem that the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who
alone could limit them; and that he may press forward without
considering whether he steps out of his sphere by indulging such a
noble ambition.  To the wild billows it has been said, "thus far
shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be
stayed."  Vainly then do they beat and foam, restrained by the
power that confines the struggling planets within their orbits,
matter yields to the great governing Spirit.  But an immortal soul,
not restrained by mechanical laws, and struggling to free itself
from the shackles of matter, contributes to, instead of disturbing,
the order of creation, when, co-operating with the Father of
spirits, it tries to govern itself by the invariable rule that, in
a degree, before which our imagination faints, the universe is
regulated.

Besides, if women are educated for dependence, that is, to act
according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right
or wrong, to power, where are we to stop?  Are they to be
considered as viceregents, allowed to reign over a small domain,
and answerable for their conduct to a higher tribunal, liable to
error?

It will not be difficult to prove, that such delegates will act
like men subjected by fear, and make their children and servants
endure their tyrannical oppression.  As they submit without reason,
they will, having no fixed rules to square their conduct by, be
kind or cruel, just as the whim of the moment directs; and we ought
not to wonder if sometimes, galled by their heavy yoke, they take a
malignant pleasure in resting it on weaker shoulders.

But, supposing a woman, trained up to obedience, be married to a
sensible man, who directs her judgment, without making her feel the
servility of her subjection, to act with as much propriety by this
reflected light as can be expected when reason is taken at second
hand, yet she cannot ensure the life of her protector; he may die
and leave her with a large family.

A double duty devolves on her; to educate them in the character of
both father and mother; to form their principles and secure their
property.  But, alas! she has never thought, much less acted for
herself.  She has only learned to please men, to depend gracefully
on them; yet, encumbered with children, how is she to obtain
another protector; a husband to supply the place of reason?  A
rational man, for we are not treading on romantic ground, though he
may think her a pleasing docile creature, will not choose to marry
a FAMILY for love, when the world contains many more pretty
creatures.  What is then to become of her?  She either falls an
easy prey to some mean fortune hunter, who defrauds her children of
their paternal inheritance, and renders her miserable; or becomes
the victim of discontent and blind indulgence.  Unable to educate
her sons, or impress them with respect; for it is not a play on
words to assert, that people are never respected, though filling an
important station, who are not respectable; she pines under the
anguish of unavailing impotent regret.  The serpent's tooth enters
into her very soul, and the vices of licentious youth bring her
with sorrow, if not with poverty also, to the grave.

This is not an overcharged picture; on the contrary, it is a very
possible case, and something similar must have fallen under every
attentive eye.

I have, however, taken it for granted, that she was well disposed,
though experience shows, that the blind may as easily be led into a
ditch as along the beaten road.  But supposing, no very improbable
conjecture, that a being only taught to please must still find her
happiness in pleasing; what an example of folly, not to say vice,
will she be to her innocent daughters!  The mother will be lost in
the coquette, and, instead of making friends of her daughters, view
them with eyes askance, for they are rivals--rivals more cruel than
any other, because they invite a comparison, and drive her from the
throne of beauty, who has never thought of a seat on the bench of
reason.

It does not require a lively pencil, or the discriminating outline
of a caricature, to sketch the domestic miseries and petty vices
which such a mistress of a family diffuses.  Still she only acts as
a woman ought to act, brought up according to Rousseau's system.
She can never be reproached for being masculine, or turning out of
her sphere; nay, she may observe another of his grand rules, and,
cautiously preserving her reputation free from spot, be reckoned a
good kind of woman.  Yet in what respect can she be termed good?
She abstains, it is true, without any great struggle, from
committing gross crimes; but how does she fulfil her duties?
Duties!--in truth she has enough to think of to adorn her body and
nurse a weak constitution.

With respect to religion, she never presumed to judge for herself;
but conformed, as a dependent creature should, to the ceremonies of
the church which she was brought up in, piously believing, that
wiser heads than her own have settled that business:  and not to
doubt is her point of perfection.  She therefore pays her tythe of
mint and cummin, and thanks her God that she is not as other women
are.  These are the blessed effects of a good education! these the
virtues of man's helpmate.  I must relieve myself by drawing a
different picture.

Let fancy now present a woman with a tolerable understanding, for I
do not wish to leave the line of mediocrity, whose constitution,
strengthened by exercise, has allowed her body to acquire its full
vigour; her mind, at the same time, gradually expanding itself to
comprehend the moral duties of life, and in what human virtue and
dignity consist.  Formed thus by the relative duties of her
station, she marries from affection, without losing sight of
prudence, and looking beyond matrimonial felicity, she secures her
husband's respect before it is necessary to exert mean arts to
please him, and feed a dying flame, which nature doomed to expire
when the object became familiar, when friendship and forbearance
take place of a more ardent affection.  This is the natural death
of love, and domestic peace is not destroyed by struggles to
prevent its extinction.  I also suppose the husband to be virtuous;
or she is still more in want of independent principles.

Fate, however, breaks this tie.  She is left a widow, perhaps,
without a sufficient provision:  but she is not desolate!  The pang
of nature is felt; but after time has softened sorrow into
melancholy resignation, her heart turns to her children with
redoubled fondness, and anxious to provide for them, affection
gives a sacred heroic cast to her maternal duties.  She thinks that
not only the eye sees her virtuous efforts, from whom all her
comfort now must flow, and whose approbation is life; but her
imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief, dwells on
the fond hope, that the eyes which her trembling hand closed, may
still see how she subdues every wayward passion to fulfil the
double duty of being the father as well as the mother of her
children.  Raised to heroism by misfortunes, she represses the
first faint dawning of a natural inclination, before it ripens into
love, and in the bloom of life forgets her sex--forgets the
pleasure of an awakening passion, which might again have been
inspired and returned.  She no longer thinks of pleasing, and
conscious dignity prevents her from priding herself on account of
the praise which her conduct demands.  Her children have her love,
and her brightest hopes are beyond the grave, where her imagination
often strays.

I think I see her surrounded by her children, reaping the reward of
her care.  The intelligent eye meets her's, whilst health and
innocence smile on their chubby cheeks, and as they grow up the
cares of life are lessened by their grateful attention.  She lives
to see the virtues which she endeavoured to plant on principles,
fixed into habits, to see her children attain a strength of
character sufficient to enable them to endure adversity without
forgetting their mother's example.

The task of life thus fulfilled, she calmly waits for the sleep of
death, and rising from the grave may say, behold, thou gavest me a
talent, and here are five talents.

I wish to sum up what I have said in a few words, for I here throw
down my gauntlet, and deny the existence of sexual virtues, not
excepting modesty.  For man and woman, truth, if I understand the
meaning of the word, must be the same; yet the fanciful female
character, so prettily drawn by poets and novelists, demanding the
sacrifice of truth and sincerity, virtue becomes a relative idea,
having no other foundation than utility, and of that utility men
pretend arbitrarily to judge, shaping it to their own convenience.

Women, I allow, may have different duties to fulfil; but they are
HUMAN duties, and the principles that should regulate the discharge
of them, I sturdily maintain, must be the same.

To become respectable, the exercise of their understanding is
necessary, there is no other foundation for independence of
character; I mean explicitly to say, that they must only bow to the
authority of reason, instead of being the MODEST slaves of opinion.

In the superior ranks of life how seldom do we meet with a man of
superior abilities, or even common acquirements?  The reason
appears to me clear; the state they are born in was an unnatural
one.  The human character has ever been formed by the employments
the individual, or class pursues; and if the faculties are not
sharpened by necessity, they must remain obtuse.  The argument may
fairly be extended to women; for seldom occupied by serious
business, the pursuit of pleasure gives that insignificancy to
their character which renders the society of the GREAT so insipid.
The same want of firmness, produced by a similar cause, forces them
both to fly from themselves to noisy pleasures, and artificial
passions, till vanity takes place of every social affection, and
the characteristics of humanity can scarcely be discerned.  Such
are the blessings of civil governments, as they are at present
organized, that wealth and female softness equally tend to debase
mankind, and are produced by the same cause; but allowing women to
be rational creatures they should be incited to acquire virtues
which they may call their own, for how can a rational being be
ennobled by any thing that is not obtained by its OWN exertions?

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Wollstonecraft opens this chapter by saying that bodily strength is so unnecessary in modern society that people have even started to look down on it. After all, we all know the stereotypes about how body builders are a bunch of dumb meatheads. Wollstonecraft wants to point out how unfair this kind of judgment is, though. Wollstonecraft is actually a big supporter of exercise, and she'd like to see it extended to women. It is even fashionable in Wollstonecraft's world for women to boast about how physically weak they are, because this is supposed to be a sign of delicacy. But Wollstonecraft wants women to have more access to exercise because she thinks that the body and the mind must be developed together. She's willing to admit that there are a lot of scrawny smart dudes out there, but she doesn't believe that developing the mind and the body together is therefore impossible. Once again, Wollstonecraft admits that men might have a natural advantage over women in terms of physical strength. But in terms of reason and intelligence, she's confident that both genders are equal. Besides, even if women are physically weaker than men, why do we value social customs that make them even weaker? Writers like Jean Jacques Rousseau always like to play the nature card when making their ridiculous arguments about women, saying that women are naturally gentle or that they naturally care about fancy dresses. But where do we draw the line, then? Is it natural for humans to use toilet paper ? Is it natural for us to work indoors? People tend to use "nature" as the basis for an argument whenever it's convenient for them. It's true that some women take pride in how weak they are and how small their appetite is. But this is all an empty sense of pride. They're like birds that feel proud for putting decorations on the cage that imprisons them. Just as men need to break the bonds of their slavery through education, so too do women. Let's not allow men to oppress women using the same arguments that kings and aristocrats have used to oppress common men for centuries. In case she's been subtle up until now, Wollstonecraft comes out and says that "It is time to effect a revolution in female manners--time to restore to them their lost dignity--and make them, as a part of the human species, labour by reforming themselves to reform the world" . At this point, Wollstonecraft turns to a more practical question. What will happen to a woman whose husband dies and leaves her with young children and no income? Without a good education , this woman is completely doomed, since she has no resources or skills to fall back on. Wollstonecraft is also worried that women are more likely to hate each other when they're constantly competing for the attention of men. She uses this logic to explain why women are often so mean to other women. On the other hand, Wollstonecraft can think of a woman who has an excellent education and who has some hope of supporting her family after her husband has died. Wollstonecraft's main point in these pages is that truth doesn't have a gender. Truth is truth regardless of whether a man or a woman is speaking it. Feminine "softness" and poor education tend to drag humanity down. Wollstonecraft thinks that wealth does much of the same. For her, excessive wealth makes a person lazy and immoral. Being a woman, similarly, confines a person to do nothing except sit around and look pretty.