Chapter: >From the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned
fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such
a dreary scene to the contemplative mind.  For it is in the most
polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk
under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the
still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it
ripens into virtue.

One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure respect
on account of their property:  and property, once gained, will
procure the respect due only to talents and virtue.  Men neglect
the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like demi-gods;
religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial veil, yet
men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking, a den of
sharpers or oppressors.

There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that
whoever the devil finds idle he will employ.  And what but habitual
idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce?  For man is so
constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties
by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of
some kind, first set the wheels in motion.  Virtue likewise can
only be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the
importance of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the
being who is cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of
sycophants.  There must be more equality established in society, or
morality will never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will
not rest firmly even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind
are chained to its bottom by fate, for they will be continually
undermining it through ignorance or pride.  It is vain to expect
virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of
men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength of natural affection,
which would make them good wives and good mothers.  Whilst they are
absolutely dependent on their husbands, they will be cunning, mean,
and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning
fondness, of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for
love is not to be bought, in any sense of the word, its silken
wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in
kind is sought.  Yet whilst wealth enervates men; and women live,
as it were, by their personal charms, how, can we expect them to
discharge those ennobling duties which equally require exertion and
self-denial.  Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the
unfortunate victims to it, if I may so express myself, swathed from
their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind;
and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false
one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness
consist.  False, indeed, must be the light when the drapery of
situation hides the man, and makes him stalk in masquerade,
dragging from one scene of dissipation to another the nerveless
limbs that hang with stupid listlessness, and rolling round the
vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind at home.

I mean, therefore, to infer, that the society is not properly
organized which does not compel men and women to discharge their
respective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that
countenance from their fellow creatures, which every human being
wishes some way to attain.  The respect, consequently, which is
paid to wealth and mere personal charms, is a true north-east
blast, that blights the tender blossoms of affection and virtue.
Nature has wisely attached affections to duties, to sweeten toil,
and to give that vigour to the exertions of reason which only the
heart can give.  But, the affection which is put on merely because
it is the appropriated insignia of a certain character, when its
duties are not fulfilled is one of the empty compliments which vice
and folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of
things.

To illustrate my opinion, I need only observe, that when a woman is
admired for her beauty, and suffers herself to be so far
intoxicated by the admiration she receives, as to neglect to
discharge the indispensable duty of a mother, she sins against
herself by neglecting to cultivate an affection that would equally
tend to make her useful and happy.  True happiness, I mean all the
contentment, and virtuous satisfaction that can be snatched in this
imperfect state, must arise from well regulated affections; and an
affection includes a duty.  Men are not aware of the misery they
cause, and the vicious weakness they cherish, by only inciting
women to render themselves pleasing; they do not consider, that
they thus make natural and artificial duties clash, by sacrificing
the comfort and respectability of a woman's life to voluptuous
notions of beauty, when in nature they all harmonize.

Cold would be the heart of a husband, were he not rendered
unnatural by early debauchery, who did not feel more delight at
seeing his child suckled by its mother, than the most artful wanton
tricks could ever raise; yet this natural way of cementing the
matrimonial tie, and twisting esteem with fonder recollections,
wealth leads women to spurn.  To preserve their beauty, and wear
the flowery crown of the day, that gives them a kind of right to
reign for a short time over the sex, they neglect to stamp
impressions on their husbands' hearts, that would be remembered
with more tenderness when the snow on the head began to chill the
bosom, than even their virgin charms.  The maternal solicitude of a
reasonable affectionate woman is very interesting, and the
chastened dignity with which a mother returns the caresses that she
and her child receive from a father who has been fulfilling the
serious duties of his station, is not only a respectable, but a
beautiful sight.  So singular, indeed, are my feelings, and I have
endeavoured not to catch factitious ones, that after having been
fatigued with the sight of insipid grandeur and the slavish
ceremonies that with cumberous pomp supplied the place of domestic
affections, I have turned to some other scene to relieve my eye, by
resting it on the refreshing green every where scattered by nature.
I have then viewed with pleasure a woman nursing her children, and
discharging the duties of her station with, perhaps, merely a
servant made to take off her hands the servile part of the
household business.  I have seen her prepare herself and children,
with only the luxury of cleanliness, to receive her husband, who
returning weary home in the evening, found smiling babes and a
clean hearth.  My heart has loitered in the midst of the group, and
has even throbbed with sympathetic emotion, when the scraping of
the well known foot has raised a pleasing tumult.

Whilst my benevolence has been gratified by contemplating this
artless picture, I have thought that a couple of this description,
equally necessary and independent of each other, because each
fulfilled the respective duties of their station, possessed all
that life could give.  Raised sufficiently above abject poverty not
to be obliged to weigh the consequence of every farthing they
spend, and having sufficient to prevent their attending to a frigid
system of economy which narrows both heart and mind.  I declare, so
vulgar are my conceptions, that I know not what is wanted to render
this the happiest as well as the most respectable situation in the
world, but a taste for literature, to throw a little variety and
interest into social converse, and some superfluous money to give
to the needy, and to buy books.  For it is not pleasant when the
heart is opened by compassion, and the head active in arranging
plans of usefulness, to have a prim urchin continually twitching
back the elbow to prevent the hand from drawing out an almost empty
purse, whispering at the same time some prudential maxim about the
priority of justice.

Destructive, however, as riches and inherited honours are to the
human character, women are more debased and cramped, if possible by
them, than men, because men may still, in some degree, unfold their
faculties by becoming soldiers and statesmen.

As soldiers, I grant, they can now only gather, for the most part,
vainglorious laurels, whilst they adjust to a hair the European
balance, taking especial care that no bleak northern nook or sound
incline the beam.  But the days of true heroism are over, when a
citizen fought for his country like a Fabricius or a Washington,
and then returned to his farm to let his virtuous fervour run in a
more placid, but not a less salutary stream.  No, our British
heroes are oftener sent from the gaming table than from the plough;
and their passions have been rather inflamed by hanging with dumb
suspense on the turn of a die, than sublimated by panting after the
adventurous march of virtue in the historic page.

The statesman, it is true, might with more propriety quit the Faro
Bank, or card-table, to guide the helm, for he has still but to
shuffle and trick.  The whole system of British politics, if system
it may courteously be called, consisting in multiplying dependents
and contriving taxes which grind the poor to pamper the rich; thus
a war, or any wild goose chace is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a
lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is
the art of keeping himself in place.

It is not necessary then that he should have bowels for the poor,
so he can secure for his family the odd trick.  Or should some show
of respect, for what is termed with ignorant ostentation an
Englishman's birth-right, be expedient to bubble the gruff mastiff
that he has to lead by the nose, he can make an empty show, very
safely, by giving his single voice, and suffering his light
squadron to file off to the other side.  And when a question of
humanity is agitated, he may dip a sop in the milk of human
kindness, to silence Cerberus, and talk of the interest which his
heart takes in an attempt to make the earth no longer cry for
vengeance as it sucks in its children's blood, though his cold hand
may at the very moment rivet their chains, by sanctioning the
abominable traffick.  A minister is no longer a minister than while
he can carry a point, which he is determined to carry.  Yet it is
not necessary that a minister should feel like a man, when a bold
push might shake his seat.

But, to have done with these episodical observations, let me return
to the more specious slavery which chains the very soul of woman,
keeping her for ever under the bondage of ignorance.

The preposterous distinctions of rank, which render civilization a
curse, by dividing the world between voluptuous tyrants, and
cunning envious dependents, corrupt, almost equally, every class of
people, because respectability is not attached to the discharge of
the relative duties of life, but to the station, and when the
duties are not fulfilled, the affections cannot gain sufficient
strength to fortify the virtue of which they are the natural
reward.  Still there are some loop-holes out of which a man may
creep, and dare to think and act for himself; but for a woman it is
an herculean task, because she has difficulties peculiar to her sex
to overcome, which require almost super-human powers.

A truly benevolent legislator always endeavours to make it the
interest of each individual to be virtuous; and thus private virtue
becoming the cement of public happiness, an orderly whole is
consolidated by the tendency of all the parts towards a common
centre.  But, the private or public virtue of women is very
problematical; for Rousseau, and a numerous list of male writers,
insist that she should all her life, be subjected to a severe
restraint, that of propriety.  Why subject her to propriety--blind
propriety, if she be capable of acting from a nobler spring, if she
be an heir of immortality?  Is sugar always to be produced by vital
blood?  Is one half of the human species, like the poor African
slaves, to be subject to prejudices that brutalize them, when
principles would be a surer guard only to sweeten the cup of man?
Is not this indirectly to deny women reason? for a gift is a
mockery, if it be unfit for use.

Women are in common with men, rendered weak and luxurious by the
relaxing pleasures which wealth procures; but added to this, they
are made slaves to their persons, and must render them alluring,
that man may lend them his reason to guide their tottering steps
aright.  Or should they be ambitious, they must govern their
tyrants by sinister tricks, for without rights there cannot be any
incumbent duties.  The laws respecting woman, which I mean to
discuss in a future part, make an absurd unit of a man and his
wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as
responsible, she is reduced to a mere cypher.

The being who discharges the duties of its station, is independent;
and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves
as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as
citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother.  The rank
in life which dispenses with their fulfilling this duty,
necessarily degrades them by making them mere dolls.  Or, should
they turn to something more important than merely fitting drapery
upon a smooth block, their minds are only occupied by some soft
platonic attachment; or, the actual management of an intrigue may
keep their thoughts in motion; for when they neglect domestic
duties, they have it not in their power to take the field and march
and counter-march like soldiers, or wrangle in the senate to keep
their faculties from rusting.

I know, that as a proof of the inferiority of the sex, Rousseau has
exultingly exclaimed, How can they leave the nursery for the camp!
And the camp has by some moralists been termed the school of the
most heroic virtues; though, I think, it would puzzle a keen
casuist to prove the reasonableness of the greater number of wars,
that have dubbed heroes.  I do not mean to consider this question
critically; because, having frequently viewed these freaks of
ambition as the first natural mode of civilization, when the ground
must be torn up, and the woods cleared by fire and sword, I do not
choose to call them pests; but surely the present system of war,
has little connection with virtue of any denomination, being rather
the school of FINESSE and effeminacy, than of fortitude.

Yet, if defensive war, the only justifiable war, in the present
advanced state of society, where virtue can show its face and ripen
amidst the rigours which purify the air on the mountain's top, were
alone to be adopted as just and glorious, the true heroism of
antiquity might again animate female bosoms.  But fair and softly,
gentle reader, male or female, do not alarm thyself, for though I
have contrasted the character of a modern soldier with that of a
civilized woman, I am not going to advise them to turn their
distaff into a musket, though I sincerely wish to see the bayonet
converted into a pruning hook.  I only recreated an imagination,
fatigued by contemplating the vices and follies which all proceed
from a feculent stream of wealth that has muddied the pure rills of
natural affection, by supposing that society will some time or
other be so constituted, that man must necessarily fulfil the
duties of a citizen, or be despised, and that while he was employed
in any of the departments of civil life, his wife, also an active
citizen, should be equally intent to manage her family, educate her
children, and assist her neighbours.

But, to render her really virtuous and useful, she must not, if she
discharge her civil duties, want, individually, the protection of
civil laws; she must not be dependent on her husband's bounty for
her subsistence during his life, or support after his death--for
how can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or,
virtuous, who is not free?  The wife, in the present state of
things, who is faithful to her husband, and neither suckles nor
educates her children, scarcely deserves the name of a wife, and
has no right to that of a citizen.  But take away natural rights,
and there is of course an end of duties.

Women thus infallibly become only the wanton solace of men, when
they are so weak in mind and body, that they cannot exert
themselves, unless to pursue some frothy pleasure, or to invent
some frivolous fashion.  What can be a more melancholy sight to a
thinking mind, than to look into the numerous carriages that drive
helter-skelter about this metropolis in a morning, full of
pale-faced creatures who are flying from themselves.  I have often
wished, with Dr. Johnson, to place some of them in a little shop,
with half a dozen children looking up to their languid countenances
for support.  I am much mistaken, if some latent vigour would not
soon give health and spirit to their eyes, and some lines drawn by
the exercise of reason on the blank cheeks, which before were only
undulated by dimples, might restore lost dignity to the character,
or rather enable it to attain the true dignity of its nature.
Virtue is not to be acquired even by speculation, much less by the
negative supineness that wealth naturally generates.

Besides, when poverty is more disgraceful than even vice, is not
morality cut to the quick?  Still to avoid misconstruction, though
I consider that women in the common walks of life are called to
fulfil the duties of wives and mothers, by religion and reason, I
cannot help lamenting that women of a superiour cast have not a
road open by which they can pursue more extensive plans of
usefulness and independence.  I may excite laughter, by dropping an
hint, which I mean to pursue, some future time, for I really think
that women ought to have representatives, instead of being
arbitrarily governed without having any direct share allowed them
in the deliberations of government.

But, as the whole system of representation is now, in this country,
only a convenient handle for despotism, they need not complain, for
they are as well represented as a numerous class of hard working
mechanics, who pay for the support of royality when they can
scarcely stop their children's mouths with bread.  How are they
represented, whose very sweat supports the splendid stud of an heir
apparent, or varnishes the chariot of some female favourite who
looks down on shame?  Taxes on the very necessaries of life, enable
an endless tribe of idle princes and princesses to pass with stupid
pomp before a gaping crowd, who almost worship the very parade
which costs them so dear.  This is mere gothic grandeur, something
like the barbarous, useless parade of having sentinels on horseback
at Whitehall, which I could never view without a mixture of
contempt and indignation.

How strangely must the mind be sophisticated when this sort of
state impresses it!  But till these monuments of folly are levelled
by virtue, similar follies will leaven the whole mass.  For the
same character, in some degree, will prevail in the aggregate of
society:  and the refinements of luxury, or the vicious repinings
of envious poverty, will equally banish virtue from society,
considered as the characteristic of that society, or only allow it
to appear as one of the stripes of the harlequin coat, worn by the
civilized man.

In the superiour ranks of life, every duty is done by deputies, as
if duties could ever be waved, and the vain pleasures which
consequent idleness forces the rich to pursue, appear so enticing
to the next rank, that the numerous scramblers for wealth sacrifice
every thing to tread on their heels.  The most sacred trusts are
then considered as sinecures, because they were procured by
interest, and only sought to enable a man to keep GOOD COMPANY.
Women, in particular, all want to be ladies.  Which is simply to
have nothing to do, but listlessly to go they scarcely care where,
for they cannot tell what.

But what have women to do in society?  I may be asked, but to
loiter with easy grace; surely you would not condemn them all to
suckle fools, and chronicle small beer!  No.  Women might certainly
study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses.  And
midwifery, decency seems to allot to them, though I am afraid the
word midwife, in our dictionaries, will soon give place to
accoucheur, and one proof of the former delicacy of the sex be
effaced from the language.

They might, also study politics, and settle their benevolence on
the broadest basis; for the reading of history will scarcely be
more useful than the perusal of romances, if read as mere
biography; if the character of the times, the political
improvements, arts, etc. be not observed.  In short, if it be not
considered as the history of man; and not of particular men, who
filled a niche in the temple of fame, and dropped into the black
rolling stream of time, that silently sweeps all before it, into
the shapeless void called eternity.  For shape can it be called,
"that shape hath none?"

Business of various kinds, they might likewise pursue, if they were
educated in a more orderly manner, which might save many from
common and legal prostitution.  Women would not then marry for a
support, as men accept of places under government, and neglect the
implied duties; nor would an attempt to earn their own subsistence,
a most laudable one! sink them almost to the level of those poor
abandoned creatures who live by prostitution.  For are not
milliners and mantuamakers reckoned the next class?  The few
employments open to women, so far from being liberal, are menial;
and when a superior education enables them to take charge of the
education of children as governesses, they are not treated like the
tutors of sons, though even clerical tutors are not always treated
in a manner calculated to render them respectable in the eyes of
their pupils, to say nothing of the private comfort of the
individual.  But as women educated like gentlewomen, are never
designed for the humiliating situation which necessity sometimes
forces them to fill; these situations are considered in the light
of a degradation; and they know little of the human heart, who need
to be told, that nothing so painfully sharpens the sensibility as
such a fall in life.

Some of these women might be restrained from marrying by a proper
spirit or delicacy, and others may not have had it in their power
to escape in this pitiful way from servitude; is not that
government then very defective, and very unmindful of the happiness
of one half of its members, that does not provide for honest,
independent women, by encouraging them to fill respectable
stations?  But in order to render their private virtue a public
benefit, they must have a civil existence in the state, married or
single; else we shall continually see some worthy woman, whose
sensibility has been rendered painfully acute by undeserved
contempt, droop like "the lily broken down by a plough share."

It is a melancholy truth; yet such is the blessed effects of
civilization! the most respectable women are the most oppressed;
and, unless they have understandings far superiour to the common
run of understandings, taking in both sexes, they must, from being
treated like contemptible beings, become contemptible.  How many
women thus waste life away, the prey of discontent, who might have
practised as physicians, regulated a farm, managed a shop, and
stood erect, supported by their own industry, instead of hanging
their heads surcharged with the dew of sensibility, that consumes
the beauty to which it at first gave lustre; nay, I doubt whether
pity and love are so near a-kin as poets feign, for I have seldom
seen much compassion excited by the helplessness of females, unless
they were fair; then, perhaps, pity was the soft handmaid of love,
or the harbinger of lust.

How much more respectable is the woman who earns her own bread by
fulfilling any duty, than the most accomplished beauty!  beauty did
I say? so sensible am I of the beauty of moral loveliness, or the
harmonious propriety that attunes the passions of a well-regulated
mind, that I blush at making the comparison; yet I sigh to think
how few women aim at attaining this respectability, by withdrawing
from the giddy whirl of pleasure, or the indolent calm that
stupifies the good sort of women it sucks in.

Proud of their weakness, however, they must always be protected,
guarded from care, and all the rough toils that dignify the mind.
If this be the fiat of fate, if they will make themselves
insignificant and contemptible, sweetly to waste "life away," let
them not expect to be valued when their beauty fades, for it is the
fate of the fairest flowers to be admired and pulled to pieces by
the careless hand that plucked them.  In how many ways do I wish,
from the purest benevolence, to impress this truth on my sex; yet I
fear that they will not listen to a truth, that dear-bought
experience has brought home to many an agitated bosom, nor
willingly resign the privileges of rank and sex for the privileges
of humanity, to which those have no claim who do not discharge its
duties.

Those writers are particularly useful, in my opinion, who make man
feel for man, independent of the station he fills, or the drapery
of factitious sentiments.  I then would fain convince reasonable
men of the importance of some of my remarks and prevail on them to
weigh dispassionately the whole tenor of my observations.  I appeal
to their understandings; and, as a fellow-creature claim, in the
name of my sex, some interest in their hearts.  I entreat them to
assist to emancipate their companion to make her a help meet for
them!

Would men but generously snap our chains, and be content with
rational fellowship, instead of slavish obedience, they would find
us more observant daughters, more affectionate sisters, more
faithful wives, more reasonable mothers--in a word, better
citizens.  We should then love them with true affection, because we
should learn to respect ourselves; and the peace of mind of a
worthy man would not be interrupted by the idle vanity of his wife,
nor his babes sent to nestle in a strange bosom, having never found
a home in their mother's.

 In this chapter, Wollstonecraft attacks all the social problems that come from inequality in society and from wealth. For her, people who have a lot of wealth get a lot of respect that they don't really deserve. Only people who have virtue should get respect. Wollstonecraft insists that unless there is more equality in society, there will never be morality. Plus it is impossible to expect virtue from women until they achieve some sort of independence from men. According to Wollstonecraft, wealth tends to make women selfish, especially when they become mothers. Most wealthy mothers just pass their children off to babysitters and don't think about them again. They're too busy counting their jewels. The only way to help women develop as individuals is to give them the means they need to take care of themselves financially. Women must not depend on men for their food and shelter, but must be able to provide it for themselves. How is it, Wollstonecraft asks, that poor mechanics still pay taxes to help maintain the royal palace when they have barely enough to eat on their own? Wollstonecraft makes a pretty bold statement for her time when she insists that women should be allowed to train as doctors and healers of all sorts. They should also be allowed to study politics. In order for women to use their private goodness to help the public, they must be given some sort of public life, either through jobs or public political positions. If men would only take the chains off of women, they would find that women are great friends and partners in life. Women would probably be more affectionate, too, if they were given more independence.

