Chapter: Parental affection is, perhaps, the blindest modification of
perverse self-love; for we have not, like the French two terms
(L'amour propre, L'amour de soi meme) to distinguish the pursuit of
a natural and reasonable desire, from the ignorant calculations of
weakness.  Parents often love their children in the most brutal
manner, and sacrifice every relative duty to promote their
advancement in the world.  To promote, such is the perversity of
unprincipled prejudices, the future welfare of the very beings
whose present existence they imbitter by the most despotic stretch
of power.  Power, in fact, is ever true to its vital principle, for
in every shape it would reign without controul or inquiry.  Its
throne is built across a dark abyss, which no eye must dare to
explore, lest the baseless fabric should totter under
investigation.  Obedience, unconditional obedience, is the
catch-word of tyrants of every description, and to render
"assurance doubly sure," one kind of despotism supports another.
Tyrants would have cause to tremble if reason were to become the
rule of duty in any of the relations of life, for the light might
spread till perfect day appeared.  And when it did appear, how
would men smile at the sight of the bugbears at which they started
during the night of ignorance, or the twilight of timid inquiry.

Parental affection, indeed, in many minds, is but a pretext to
tyrannize where it can be done with impunity, for only good and
wise men are content with the respect that will bear discussion.
Convinced that they have a right to what they insist on, they do
not fear reason, or dread the sifting of subjects that recur to
natural justice:  because they firmly believe, that the more
enlightened the human mind becomes, the deeper root will just and
simple principles take.  They do not rest in expedients, or grant
that what is metaphysically true can be practically false; but
disdaining the shifts of the moment they calmly wait till time,
sanctioning innovation, silences the hiss of selfishness or envy.

If the power of reflecting on the past, and darting the keen eye of
contemplation into futurity, be the grand privilege of man, it must
be granted that some people enjoy this prerogative in a very
limited degree.  Every thing now appears to them wrong; and not
able to distinguish the possible from the monstrous, they fear
where no fear should find a place, running from the light of reason
as if it were a firebrand; yet the limits of the possible have
never been defined to stop the sturdy innovator's hand.

Woman, however, a slave in every situation to prejudice seldom
exerts enlightened maternal affection; for she either neglects her
children, or spoils them by improper indulgence.  Besides, the
affection of some women for their children is, as I have before
termed it, frequently very brutish; for it eradicates every spark
of humanity.  Justice, truth, every thing is sacrificed by these
Rebekahs, and for the sake of their own children they violate the
most sacred duties, forgetting the common relationship that binds
the whole family on earth together.  Yet, reason seems to say, that
they who suffer one duty, or affection to swallow up the rest, have
not sufficient heart or mind to fulfil that one conscientiously.
It then loses the venerable aspect of a duty, and assumes the
fantastic form of a whim.

As the care of children in their infancy is one of the grand duties
annexed to the female character by nature, this duty would afford
many forcible arguments for strengthening the female understanding,
if it were properly considered.

The formation of the mind must be begun very early, and the temper,
in particular, requires the most judicious attention--an attention
which women cannot pay who only love their children because they
are their children, and seek no further for the foundation of their
duty, than in the feelings of the moment.  It is this want of
reason in their affections which makes women so often run into
extremes, and either be the most fond, or most careless and
unnatural mothers.

To be a good mother--a woman must have sense, and that independence
of mind which few women possess who are taught to depend entirely
on their husbands.  Meek wives are, in general, foolish mothers;
wanting their children to love them best, and take their part, in
secret, against the father, who is held up as a scarecrow.  If they
are to be punished, though they have offended the mother, the
father must inflict the punishment; he must be the judge in all
disputes:  but I shall more fully discuss this subject when I treat
of private education, I now only mean to insist, that unless the
understanding of woman be enlarged, and her character rendered more
firm, by being allowed to govern her own conduct, she will never
have sufficient sense or command of temper to manage her children
properly.  Her parental affection, indeed, scarcely deserves the
name, when it does not lead her to suckle her children, because the
discharge of this duty is equally calculated to inspire maternal
and filial affection; and it is the indispensable duty of men and
women to fulfil the duties which give birth to affections that are
the surest preservatives against vice.  Natural affection, as it is
termed, I believe to be a very weak tie, affections must grow out
of the habitual exercise of a mutual sympathy; and what sympathy
does a mother exercise who sends her babe to a nurse, and only
takes it from a nurse to send it to a school?

In the exercise of their natural feelings, providence has furnished
women with a natural substitute for love, when the lover becomes
only a friend and mutual confidence takes place of overstrained
admiration--a child then gently twists the relaxing cord, and a
mutual care produces a new mutual sympathy.  But a child, though a
pledge of affection, will not enliven it, if both father and mother
are content to transfer the charge to hirelings; for they who do
their duty by proxy should not murmur if they miss the reward of
duty--parental affection produces filial duty.



There seems to be an indolent propensity in man to make
prescription always take place of reason, and to place every duty
on an arbitrary foundation.  The rights of kings are deduced in a
direct line from the King of kings; and that of parents from our
first parent.

Why do we thus go back for principles that should always rest on
the same base, and have the same weight to-day that they had a
thousand years ago--and not a jot more?  If parents discharge their
duty they have a strong hold and sacred claim on the gratitude of
their children; but few parents are willing to receive the
respectful affection of their offspring on such terms.  They demand
blind obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service:
and to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding,
a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle;
for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying
vicious or weak beings, merely because they obeyed a powerful
instinct? The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which
naturally subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few
words:  The parent who pays proper attention to helpless infancy
has a right to require the same attention when the feebleness of
age comes upon him.  But to subjugate a rational being to the mere
will of another, after he is of age to answer to society for his
own conduct, is a most cruel and undue stretch of power; and
perhaps as injurious to morality, as those religious systems which
do not allow right and wrong to have any existence, but in the
Divine will.

I never knew a parent who had paid more than common attention to
his children, disregarded (Dr. Johnson makes the same
observation.); on the contrary, the early habit of relying almost
implicitly on the opinion of a respected parent is not easily
shaken, even when matured reason convinces the child that his
father is not the wisest man in the world.  This weakness, for a
weakness it is, though the epithet AMIABLE may be tacked to it, a
reasonable man must steel himself against; for the absurd duty, too
often inculcated, of obeying a parent only on account of his being
a parent, shackles the mind, and prepares it for a slavish
submission to any power but reason.

I distinguish between the natural and accidental duty due to
parents.

The parent who sedulously endeavours to form the heart and enlarge
the understanding of his child, has given that dignity to the
discharge of a duty, common to the whole animal world, that only
reason can give.  This is the parental affection of humanity, and
leaves instinctive natural affection far behind.  Such a parent
acquires all the rights of the most sacred friendship, and his
advice, even when his child is advanced in life, demands serious
consideration.

With respect to marriage, though after one and twenty a parent
seems to have no right to withhold his consent on any account; yet
twenty years of solicitude call for a return, and the son ought, at
least, to promise not to marry for two or three years, should the
object of his choice not entirely meet with the approbation of his
first friend.

But, respect for parents is, generally speaking, a much more
debasing principle; it is only a selfish respect for property.  The
father who is blindly obeyed, is obeyed from sheer weakness, or
from motives that degrade the human character.

A great proportion of the misery that wanders, in hideous forms
around the world, is allowed to rise from the negligence of
parents; and still these are the people who are most tenacious of
what they term a natural right, though it be subversive of the
birth right of man, the right of acting according to the direction
of his own reason.

I have already very frequently had occasion to observe, that
vicious or indolent people are always eager to profit by enforcing
arbitrary privileges; and generally in the same proportion as they
neglect the discharge of the duties which alone render the
privileges reasonable.  This is at the bottom, a dictate of common
sense, or the instinct of self-defence, peculiar to ignorant
weakness; resembling that instinct, which makes a fish muddy the
water it swims in to elude its enemy, instead of boldly facing it
in the clear stream.

>From the clear stream of argument, indeed, the supporters of
prescription, of every denomination, fly:  and taking refuge in the
darkness, which, in the language of sublime poetry, has been
supposed to surround the throne of Omnipotence, they dare to demand
that implicit respect which is only due to His unsearchable ways.
But, let me not be thought presumptuous, the darkness which hides
our God from us, only respects speculative truths-- it never
obscures moral ones, they shine clearly, for God is light, and
never, by the constitution of our nature, requires the discharge of
a duty, the reasonableness of which does not beam on us when we
open our eyes.

The indolent parent of high rank may, it is true, extort a show of
respect from his child, and females on the continent are
particularly subject to the views of their families, who never
think of consulting their inclination, or providing for the comfort
of the poor victims of their pride.  The consequence is notorious;
these dutiful daughters become adulteresses, and neglect the
education of their children, from whom they, in their turn, exact
the same kind of obedience.

Females, it is true, in all countries, are too much under the
dominion of their parents; and few parents think of addressing
their children in the following manner, though it is in this
reasonable way that Heaven seems to command the whole human race.
It is your interest to obey me till you can judge for yourself; and
the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection in me to
serve as a guard to you whilst your reason is unfolding; but when
your mind arrives at maturity, you must only obey me, or rather
respect my opinions, so far as they coincide with the light that is
breaking in on your own mind.

A slavish bondage to parents cramps every faculty of the mind; and
Mr. Locke very judiciously observes, that "if the mind be curbed
and humbled too much in children; if their spirits be abased and
broken much by too strict an hand over them; they lose all their
vigour and industry."  This strict hand may, in some degree,
account for the weakness of women; for girls, from various causes,
are more kept down by their parents, in every sense of the word,
than boys.  The duty expected from them is, like all the duties
arbitrarily imposed on women, more from a sense of propriety, more
out of respect for decorum, than reason; and thus taught slavishly
to submit to their parents, they are prepared for the slavery of
marriage.  I may be told that a number of women are not slaves in
the marriage state.  True, but they then become tyrants; for it is
not rational freedom, but a lawless kind of power, resembling the
authority exercised by the favourites of absolute monarchs, which
they obtain by debasing means.  I do not, likewise, dream of
insinuating that either boys or girls are always slaves, I only
insist, that when they are obliged to submit to authority blindly,
their faculties are weakened, and their tempers rendered imperious
or abject.  I also lament, that parents, indolently availing
themselves of a supposed privilege, damp the first faint glimmering
of reason rendering at the same time the duty, which they are so
anxious to enforce, an empty name; because they will not let it
rest on the only basis on which a duty can rest securely:  for,
unless it be founded on knowledge, it cannot gain sufficient
strength to resist the squalls of passion, or the silent sapping of
self-love.  But it is not the parents who have given the surest
proof of their affection for their children, (or, to speak more
properly, who by fulfilling their duty, have allowed a natural
parental affection to take root in their hearts, the child of
exercised sympathy and reason, and not the over-weening offspring
of selfish pride,) who most vehemently insist on their children
submitting to their will, merely because it is their will.  On the
contrary, the parent who sets a good example, patiently lets that
example work; and it seldom fails to produce its natural
effect--filial respect.

Children cannot be taught too early to submit to reason, the true
definition of that necessity, which Rousseau insisted on, without
defining it; for to submit to reason, is to submit to the nature of
things, and to that God who formed them so, to promote our real
interest.

Why should the minds of children be warped as they just begin to
expand, only to favour the indolence of parents, who insist on a
privilege without being willing to pay the price fixed by nature?
I have before had occasion to observe, that a right always includes
a duty, and I think it may, likewise fairly be inferred, that they
forfeit the right, who do not fulfil the duty.

It is easier, I grant, to command than reason; but it does not
follow from hence, that children cannot comprehend the reason why
they are made to do certain things habitually; for, from a steady
adherence to a few simple principles of conduct flows that salutary
power, which a judicious parent gradually gains over a child's
mind.  And this power becomes strong indeed, if tempered by an even
display of affection brought home to the child's heart.  For, I
believe, as a general rule, it must be allowed, that the affection
which we inspire always resembles that we cultivate; so that
natural affections, which have been supposed almost distinct from
reason, may be found more nearly connected with judgment than is
commonly allowed.  Nay, as another proof of the necessity of
cultivating the female understanding, it is but just to observe,
that the affections seem to have a kind of animal capriciousness
when they merely reside in the heart.

It is the irregular exercise of parental authority that first
injures the mind, and to these irregularities girls are more
subject than boys.  The will of those who never allow their will to
be disputed, unless they happen to be in a good humour, when they
relax proportionally, is almost always unreasonable.  To elude this
arbitrary authority, girls very early learn the lessons which they
afterwards practise on their husbands; for I have frequently seen a
little sharp-faced miss rule a whole family, excepting that now and
then mamma's anger will burst out of some accidental cloud-- either
her hair was ill-dressed,* or she had lost more money at cards, the
night before, than she was willing to own to her husband; or some
such moral cause of anger.

(*Footnote.  I myself heard a little girl once say to a servant,
"My mamma has been scolding me finely this morning, because her
hair was not dressed to please her."  Though this remark was pert,
it was just.  And what respect could a girl acquire for such a
parent, without doing violence to reason?)

After observing sallies of this kind, I have been led into a
melancholy train of reflection respecting females, concluding that
when their first affection must lead them astray, or make their
duties clash till they rest on mere whims and customs, little can
be expected from them as they advance in life.  How, indeed, can an
instructor remedy this evil? for to teach them virtue on any solid
principle is to teach them to despise their parents.  Children
cannot, ought not to be taught to make allowance for the faults of
their parents, because every such allowance weakens the force of
reason in their minds, and makes them still more indulgent to their
own.  It is one of the most sublime virtues of maturity that leads
us to be severe with respect to ourselves, and forbearing to
others; but children should only be taught the simple virtues, for
if they begin too early to make allowance for human passions and
manners, they wear off the fine edge of the criterion by which they
should regulate their own, and become unjust in the same proportion
as they grow indulgent.

The affections of children, and weak people, are always selfish;
they love others, because others love them, and not on account of
their virtues.  Yet, till esteem and love are blended together in
the first affection, and reason made the foundation of the first
duty, morality will stumble at the threshold.  But, till society is
very differently constituted, parents, I fear, will still insist on
being obeyed, because they will be obeyed, and constantly endeavour
to settle that power on a Divine right, which will not bear the
investigation of reason.

 When parents govern their children; they can tend to tyranny and relish power without restraint. If reason were to become the rule of duty in life, however, such tyrants would have cause to tremble. Some view parental affection as a "pretext to tyrannize when it can be done without impunity, for only good and wise men are content with the respect that will bear discussion." Since women are often slaves to prejudice, they can rarely exhibit enlightened maternal affection; rather, they either neglect or spoil their children. Sometimes their affection for their children is brutish. Since the care of children is a grand duty of the female sex, it only makes sense that there would be many arguments for "strengthening the female understanding." The formation of character begins early in children, and it can be problematic if a mother loves her children only out of duty or just because they are her own children. The lack of reason is what makes mothers run into the extremes and be careless or unnatural mothers. Meek wives are foolish mothers because they only desire their children's love and depict the father as the "scarecrow." A woman must have independence of the mind to be a good mother. The use of a nurse can be deleterious to the growth of parental affection, and it is only through parental affection that "filial duty" is produced. In the next chapter, Wollstonecraft discusses duty to parents. She deplores the fact that old principles and ways of doing things are rigidly adhered to; blind obedience is customary and "a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle; for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying vicious or weak beings merely because they obeyed a powerful instinct?" A reciprocal duty entails that parents raise children while they are young and helpless, and the children later assist their helpless and elderly parents. However, there is no reason to obey a parent only because they are a parent; this shackles the mind and leads to submission to "any power but reason." Parents who are blindly obeyed are usually obeyed out of sheer weakness that " the human character." A lot of the misery of the world stems from the negligence of parents, but these people will voraciously defend their natural right even though it is subversive of the birthright of man, which is to act according to his own wisdom. Indolent parents of high rank do extort a large degree of respect from their children, especially females. Females are particularly dependent on their families and their viewpoints; this is apparent in nearly every country. As John Locke points out in his Some Thoughts Concerning Education, "a slavish dependence to parents cramps every faculty of the mind." This is most commonly observed in females and may contribute to their weaknesses. The duties required of females are more intense, are arbitrary, and come from a sense of propriety, not reason. These women usually grow up to be tyrants in their own marriages. In contrast, a parent who works to form the heart and enlarge the understanding of her child, based on reason, discharges the correct type of duty to a child and will gain in return the correct type of parental affection. The child will listen to the parent's advice because it is reasonable and rational. Parents who set a good example for their children will commonly receive the natural effect of filial duty. Children cannot be taught too early how to submit to reason. Wollstonecraft believes that "it must be allowed that the affection which we inspire always resembles that we cultivate; so that natural affections, which have been supposed almost distinct from reason, may be found more nearly connected with judgment than is commonly allowed." Girls learned the lessons they will practice on their husbands from the way in which they were brought up as children. Of course, it is difficult to remedy all of these evils, for it almost would seem that girls must be taught to despise their parents until their parents prove their worth. Esteem and love must be blended together in the first affection, however, and "reason made the foundation of their first duty" so as to secure morality.

