VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN by Mary Wollstonecraft

[Callisto]

* The behaviour of many newly married women has often disgusted
me. The seem anxious never to let their husbands forget the
privilege of marriage; and to find no pleasure in his society unless
he is acting the lover. Short, indeed, must be the reign of love, when
the flame is thus constantly blown up, without its receiving any solid
fewel!

  The behaviour of young people, to each other, as men and women, is
the last thing that should be thought of in education. In fact,
behaviour in most circumstances is now so much thought of, that
simplicity of character is rarely to be seen: yet, if men were only
anxious to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly in the
mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exteriour mark, would
soon strip affectation of its flaunting plumes; because, fallacious as
unstable, is the conduct that is not founded upon truth!

  Would ye, O my sisters, really possess modesty, ye must remember
that the possession of virtue, of any denomination, is incompatible
with ignorance and vanity! ye must acquire that soberness of mind,
which the exercise of duties, and the pursuit of knowledge, alone
inspire, or ye will still remain in a doubtful dependent situation,
and only be loved whilst ye are fair! The downcast eye, the rosy
blush, the retiring grace, are all proper in their season; but
modesty, being the child of reason, cannot long exist with the
sensibility that is not tempered by reflection. Besides, when love,
even innocent love, is the whole employ of your lives, your hearts
will be too soft to afford modesty that tranquil retreat, where she
delights to dwell, in close union with humanity.

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Chap. VIII.

   Morality Undermined by Sexual Notions of the Importance of

                    a Good Reputation.

  It has long since occurred to me that advice respecting behaviour,
and all the various modes of preserving a good reputation, which
have been so strenuously inculcated on the female world, were specious
poisons, that incrusting morality eat away the substance. And, that
this measuring of shadows produced a false calculation, because
their length depends so much on the height of the sun, and other
adventitious circumstances.

  Whence arises the easy fallacious behaviour of a courtier? From
his situation, undoubtedly: for standing in need of dependents, he
is obliged to learn the art of denying without giving offence, and, of
evasively feeding hope with the chameleon's food: thus does politeness
sport with truth, and eating away the sincerity and humanity natural
to man, produce the fine gentleman.

  Women likewise acquire, from a supposed necessity, an equally
artificial mode of behaviour. Yet truth is not with impunity to be
sported with, for the practised dissembler, at last, becomes the
dupe of his own arts, loses that sagacity, which has been justly
termed common sense; namely, a quick perception of common truths:
which are constantly received as such by the unsophisticated mind,
though it might not have had sufficient energy to discover them
itself, when obscured by local prejudices. The greater number of
people take their opinions on trust to avoid the trouble of exercising
their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the
letter, rather than the spirit of a law, divine or human. 'Women,'
says some author, I cannot recollect who, 'mind not what only heaven
sees.' Why, indeed, should they? it is the eye of man that they have
been taught to dread- and if they can lull their Argus to sleep,
they seldom think of heaven or themselves, because their reputation is
safe; and it is reputation, not chastity and all its fair train,
that they are employed to keep free from spot, not as a virtue, but to
preserve their station in the world.

  To prove the truth of this remark, I need only advert to the
intrigues of married women, particularly in high life, and in
countries where women are suitably married, according to their
respective ranks, by their parents. If an innocent girl become a
prey to love, she is degraded for ever, though her mind was not
polluted by the arts which married women, under the convenient cloak
of marriage, practise; nor has she violated any duty- but the duty
of respecting herself. The married woman, on the contrary, breaks a
most sacred engagement, and becomes a cruel mother when she is a false
and faithless wife. If her husband have still an affection for her,
the arts which she must practise to deceive him, will render her the
most contemptible of human beings; and, at any rate, the
contrivances necessary to preserve appearances, will keep her mind
in that childish, or vicious, tumult, which destroys all its energy.
Besides, in time, like those people who habitually take cordials to
raise their spirits, she will want an intrigue to give life to her
thoughts, having lost all relish for pleasures that are not highly
seasoned by hope or fear.

  Sometimes married women act still more audaciously; I will mention
an instance.

  A woman of quality, notorious for her gallantries, though as she
still lived with her husband, nobody chose to place her in the class
where she ought to have been placed, made a point of treating with the
most insulting contempt a poor timid creature, abashed by a sense of
her former weakness, whom a neighbouring gentleman had seduced and
afterwards married. This woman had actually confounded virtue with
reputation; and, I do believe, valued herself on the propriety of
her behaviour before marriage, though when once settled to the
satisfaction of her family, she and her lord were equally
faithless,- so that the half alive heir to an immense estate came from
heaven knows where!

  To view this subject in another light.

[Callisto]

I have known a number of women who, if they did not love their
husbands, loved nobody else, give themselves entirely up to vanity and
dissipation, neglecting every domestic duty; nay, even squandering
away all the money which should have been saved for their helpless
younger children, yet have plumed themselves on their unsullied
reputation, as if the whole compass of their duty as wives and mothers
was only to preserve it. Whilst other indolent women, neglecting every
personal duty, have thought that they deserved their husbands'
affection, because, forsooth, they acted in this respect with
propriety.

  Weak minds are always fond of resting in the ceremonials of duty,
but morality offers much simpler motives; and it were to be wished
that superficial moralists had said less respecting behaviour, and
outward observances, for unless virtue, of any kind, be built on
knowledge, it will only produce a kind of insipid decency. Respect for
the opinion of the world, has, however, been termed the principal duty
of woman in the most express words, for Rousseau declares, 'that
reputation is no less indispensable than chastity.' 'A man,' adds
he, 'secure in his own good conduct, depends only on himself, and
may brave the public opinion: but a woman, in behaving well,
performs but half her duty; as what is thought of her, is as important
to her as what she really is. It follows hence, that the system of a
woman's education should, in this respect, be directly contrary to
that of ours. Opinion is the grave of virtue among the men; but its
throne among women.' It is strictly logical to infer that the virtue
that rests on opinion is merely worldly, and that it is the virtue
of a being to whom reason has been denied. But, even with respect to
the opinion of the world, I am convinced that this class of
reasoners are mistaken.

  This regard for reputation, independent of its being one of the
natural rewards of virtue, however, took its rise from a cause that
I have already deplored as the grand source of female depravity, the
impossibility of regaining respectability by a return to virtue,
though men preserve theirs during the indulgence of vice. It was
natural for women then to endeavour to preserve what once lost- was
lost for ever, till this care swallowing up every other care,
reputation for chastity, became the one thing needful to the sex.
But vain is the scrupulosity of ignorance, for neither religion nor
virtue, when they reside in the heart, require such a puerile
attention to mere ceremonies, because the behaviour must, upon the
whole, be proper, when the motive is pure.

  To support my opinion I can produce very respectable authority;
and the authority of a cool reasoner ought to have weight to enforce
consideration, though not to establish a sentiment. Speaking of the
general laws of morality, Dr. Smith observes,- 'That by some very
extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to be
suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and upon
that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part of his
life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident of this
kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his integrity and
justice, in the same manner as a cautious man, notwithstanding his
utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an earthquake or an
inundation. Accidents of the first kind, however, are perhaps still
more rare, and still more contrary to the common course of things than
those of the second; and it still remains true, that the practice of
truth, justice, and humanity, is a certain and almost infallible
method of acquiring what those virtues chiefly aim at, the
confidence and love of those we live with. A person may be easily
misrepresented with regard to a particular action; but it is scarce
possible that he should be so with regard to the general tenor of
his conduct. An innocent man may be believed to have done wrong: this,
however, will rarely happen. On the contrary, the established
opinion of the innocence of his manners will often lead us to
absolve him where he has really been in the fault, notwithstanding
very strong presumptions.'

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I perfectly coincide in opinion with this writer, for I verily
believe that few of either sex were ever despised for certain vices
without deserving to be despised. I speak not of the calumny of the
moment, which hovers over a character, like one of the dense morning
fogs of November, over this metropolis, till it gradually subsides
before the common light of day, I only contend that the daily
conduct of the majority prevails to stamp their character with the
impression of truth. Quietly does the clear light, shining day after
day, refute the ignorant surmise, or malicious tale, which has
thrown dirt on a pure character. A false light distorted, for a
short time, its shadow- reputation; but it seldom fails to become just
when the cloud is dispersed that produced the mistake in vision.

  Many people, undoubtedly, in several respects obtain a better
reputation than, strictly speaking, they deserve; for unremitting
industry will mostly reach its goal in all races. They who only strive
for this paltry prize, like the Pharisees, who prayed at the corners
of streets, to be seen of men, verily obtain the reward they seek; for
the heart of man cannot be read by man! Still the fair fame that is
naturally reflected by good actions, when the man is only employed
to direct his steps aright, regardless of the lookers-on, is, in
general, not only more true, but more sure.

  There are, it is true, trials when the good man must appeal to God
from the injustice of man; and amidst the whining candour or
hissings of envy, erect a pavilion in his own mind to retire to till
the rumour be overpast; nay, the darts of undeserved censure may
pierce an innocent tender bosom through with many sorrows; but these
are all exceptions to general rules. And it is according to common
laws that human behaviour ought to be regulated. The eccentric orbit
of the comet never influences astronomical calculations respecting the
invariable order established in the motion of the principal bodies
of the solar system.

  I will then venture to affirm, that after a man is arrived at
maturity, the general outline of his character in the world is just,
allowing for the before-mentioned exceptions to the rule. I do not say
that a prudent, worldly-wise man, with only negative virtues and
qualities, may not sometimes obtain a smoother reputation than a wiser
or a better man. So far from it, that I am apt to conclude from
experience, that where the virtue of two people is nearly equal, the
most negative character will be liked best by the world at large,
whilst the other may have more friends in private life. But the
hills and dales, clouds and sunshine, conspicuous in the virtues of
great men, set off each other; and though they afford envious weakness
a fairer mark to shoot at, the real character will still work its
way to light, though bespattered by weak affection, or ingenious
malice.*

  * I allude to various biographical writings, but particularly to
Boswell's Life of Johnson.

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With respect to that anxiety to preserve a reputation hardly earned,
which leads sagacious people to analyze it, I shall not make the
obvious comment; but I am afraid that morality is very insidiously
undermined, in the female world, by the attention being turned to
the shew instead of the substance. A simple thing is thus made
strangely complicated; nay, sometimes virtue and its shadow are set at
variance. We should never, perhaps, have heard of Lucretia, had she
died to preserve her chastity instead of her reputation. If we
really deserve our own good opinion we shall commonly be respected
in the world; but if we pant after higher improvement and higher
attainments, it is not sufficient to view ourselves as we suppose that
we are viewed by others, though this has been ingeniously argued, as
the foundation of our moral sentiments.* Because each by-stander may
have his own prejudices, beside the prejudices of his age or
country. We should rather endeavour to view ourselves as we suppose
that Being views us who seeth each thought ripen into action, and
whose judgment never swerves from the eternal rule of right. Righteous
are all his judgments- just as merciful!

  * Smith.

  The humble mind that seeketh to find favour in His sight, and calmly
examines its conduct when only His presence is felt, will seldom
form a very erroneous opinion of its own virtues. During the still
hour of self-collection the angry brow of offended justice will be
fearfully deprecated, or the tie which draws man to the Deity will
be recognized in the pure sentiment of reverential adoration, that
swells the heart without exciting any tumultuous emotions. In these
solemn moments man discovers the germ of those vices, which like the
Java tree shed a pestiferous vapour around- death is in the shade! and
he perceives them without abhorrence, because he feels himself drawn
by some cord of love to all his fellow-creatures, for whose follies he
is anxious to find every extenuation in their nature- in himself. If
I, he may thus argue, who exercise my own mind, and have been
refined by tribulation, find the serpent's egg in some fold of my
heart, and crush it with difficulty, shall not I pity those who have
stamped with less vigour, or who have heedlessly nurtured the
insidious reptile till it poisoned the vital stream it sucked? Can
I, conscious of my secret sins, throw off my fellow-creatures, and
calmly see them drop into the chasm of perdition, that yawns to
receive them.- No! no! The agonized heart will cry with suffocating
impatience- I too am a man! and have vices, hid, perhaps, from human
eye, that bend me to the dust before God, and loudly tell me, when all
is mute, that we are formed of the same earth, and breathe the same
element. Humanity thus rises naturally out of humility, and twists the
cords of love that in various convolutions entangle the heart.

  This sympathy extends still further, till a man well pleased
observes force in arguments that do not carry conviction to his own
bosom, and he gladly places in the fairest light, to himself, the
shews of reason that have led others astray, rejoiced to find some
reason in all the errors of man; though before convinced that he who
rules the day makes his sun to shine on all. Yet, shaking hands thus
as it were with corruption, one foot on earth, the other with bold
stride mounts to heaven, and claims kindred with superiour natures.
Virtues, unobserved by man, drop their balmy fragrance at this cool
hour, and the thirsty land, refreshed by the pure streams of comfort
that suddenly gush out, is crowned with smiling verdure; this is the
living green on which that eye may look with complacency that is too
pure to behold iniquity!

  But my spirits flag; and I must silently indulge the reverie these
reflections lead to, unable to describe the sentiments, that have
calmed my soul, when watching the rising sun, a soft shower
drizzling through the leaves of neighbouring trees, seemed to fall
on my languid, yet tranquil spirits, to cool the heart that had been
heated by the passions which reason laboured to tame.

[Callisto]

The leading principles which run through all my disquisitions, would
render it unnecessary to enlarge on this subject, if a constant
attention to keep the varnish of the character fresh, and in good
condition, were not often inculcated as the sum total of female
duty; if rules to regulate the behaviour, and to preserve the
reputation, did not too frequently supersede moral obligations. But,
with respect to reputation, the attention is confined to a single
virtue- chastity. If the honour of a woman, as it is absurdly
called, be safe, she may neglect every social duty; nay, ruin her
family by gaming and extravagance; yet still present a shameless
front- for truly she is an honourable woman!

  Mrs. Macaulay has justly observed, that 'there is but one fault
which a woman of honour may not commit with impunity.' She then justly
and humanely adds- 'This has given rise to the trite and foolish
observation, that the first fault against chastity in woman has a
radical power to deprave the character. But no such frail beings
come out of the hands of nature. The human mind is built of nobler
materials than to be easily corrupted; and with all their
disadvantages of situation and education, women seldom become entirely
abandoned till they are thrown into a state of desperation, by the
venomous rancour of their own sex.'

  But, in proportion as this regard for the reputation of chastity
is prized by women, it is despised by men: and the two extremes are
equally destructive to morality.

  Men are certainly more under the influence of their appetites than
women; and their appetites are more depraved by unbridled indulgence
and the fastidious contrivances of satiety. Luxury has introduced a
refinement in eating, that destroys the constitution; and, a degree of
gluttony which is so beastly, that a perception of seemliness of
behaviour must be worn out before one being could eat immoderately
in the presence of another, and afterwards complain of the
oppression that his intemperance naturally produced. Some women,
particularly French women, have also lost a sense of decency in this
respect; for they will talk very calmly of an indigestion. It were
to be wished that idleness was not allowed to generate, on the rank
soil of wealth, those swarms of summer insects that feed on
putrefaction, we should not then be disgusted by the sight of such
brutal excesses.

  There is one rule relative to behaviour that, I think, ought to
regulate every other; and it is simply to cherish such an habitual
respect for mankind as may prevent us from disgusting a
fellow-creature for the sake of a present indulgence. The shameful
indolence of many married women, and others a little advanced in life,
frequently leads them to sin against delicacy. For, though convinced
that the person is the band of union between the sexes, yet, how often
do they from sheer indolence, or, to enjoy some trifling indulgence,
disgust?

[Callisto]

 The depravity of the appetite which brings the sexes together, has
had a still more fatal effect. Nature must ever be the standard of
taste, the gauge of appetite- yet how grossly is nature insulted by
the voluptuary. Leaving the refinements of love out of the question;
nature, by making the gratification of an appetite, in this respect,
as well as every other, a natural and imperious law to preserve the
species, exalts the appetite, and mixes a little mind and affection
with a sensual gust. The feelings of a parent mingling with an
instinct merely animal, give it dignity; and the man and woman often
meeting on account of the child, a mutual interest and affection is
excited by the exercise of a common sympathy. Women then having
necessarily some duty to fulfil, more noble than to adorn their
persons, would not contentedly be the slaves of casual lust; which
is now the situation of a very considerable number who are,
literally speaking, standing dishes to which every glutton may have
access.

  I may be told that great as this enormity is, it only affects a
devoted part of the sex- devoted for the salvation of the rest. But,
false as every assertion might easily be proved, that recommends the
sanctioning a small evil to produce a greater good; the mischief
does not stop here, for the moral character, and peace of mind, of the
chaster part of the sex, is undermined by the conduct of the very
women to whom they allow no refuge from guilt: whom they inexorably
consign to the exercise of arts that lure their husbands from them,
debauch their sons, and force them, let not modest women start, to
assume, in some degree, the same character themselves. For I will
venture to assert, that all the causes of female weakness, as well
as depravity, which I have already enlarged on, branch out of one
grand cause- want of chastity in men.

  This intemperance, so prevalent, depraves the appetite to such a
degree, that a wanton stimulus is necessary to rouse it; but the
parental design of nature is forgotten, and the mere person, and
that for a moment, alone engrosses the thoughts. So voluptuous,
indeed, often grows the lustful prowler, that he refines on female
softness. Something more soft than woman is then sought for; till,
in Italy, and Portugal, men attend the levees of equivocal beings,
to sigh for more than female languor.

  To satisfy this genus of men, women are made systematically
voluptuous, and though they may not all carry their libertinism to the
same height, yet this heartless intercourse with the sex, which they
allow themselves, depraves both sexes, because the taste of men is
vitiated; and women, of all classes, naturally square their
behaviour to gratify the taste by which they obtain pleasure and
power. Women becoming, consequently, weaker, in mind and body, than
they ought to be, were one of the grand ends of their being taken into
the account, that of bearing and nursing children, have not sufficient
strength to discharge the first duty of a mother; and sacrificing to
lasciviousness the parental affection, that ennobles instinct,
either destroy the embryo in the womb, or cast it off when born.
Nature in every thing demands respect, and those who violate her
laws seldom violate them with impunity. The weak enervated women who
particularly catch the attention of libertines, are unfit to be
mothers, though they may conceive; so that the rich sensualist, who
has rioted among women, spreading depravity and misery, when he wishes
to perpetuate his name, receives from his wife only an half-formed
being that inherits both its father's and mother's weakness.

  Contrasting the humanity of the present age with the barbarism of
antiquity, great stress has been laid on the savage custom of exposing
the children whom their parents could not maintain; whilst the man
of sensibility, who thus, perhaps, complains, by his promiscuous
amours produces a most destructive barrenness and contagious
flagitiousness of manners. Surely nature never intended that women, by
satisfying an appetite, should frustrate the very purpose for which it
was implanted?

  I have before observed, that men ought to maintain the women whom
they have seduced; this would be one means of reforming female
manners, and stopping an abuse that has an equally fatal effect on
population and morals. Another, no less obvious, would be to turn
the attention of woman to the real virtue of chastity; for to little
respect has that woman a claim, on the score of modesty, though her
reputation may be white as the driven snow, who smiles on the
libertine whilst she spurns the victims of his lawless appetites and
their own folly.

[Callisto]

Besides, she has a taint of the same folly, pure as she esteems
herself, when she studiously adorns her person only to be seen by men,
to excite respectful sighs, and all the idle homage of what is
called innocent gallantry. Did women really respect virtue for its own
sake, they would not seek for a compensation in vanity, for the
self-denial which they are obliged to practise to preserve their
reputation, nor would they associate with men who set reputation at
defiance.

  The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I
believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue.
Chastity, modesty, public spirit, and all the noble train of
virtues, on which social virtue and happiness are built, should be
understood and cultivated by all mankind, or they will be cultivated
to little effect. And, instead of furnishing the vicious or idle
with a pretext for violating some sacred duty, by terming it a
sexual one, it would be wiser to shew that nature has not made any
difference, for that the unchaste man doubly defeats the purpose of
nature, by rendering women barren, and destroying his own
constitution, though he avoids the shame that pursues the crime in the
other sex. These are the physical consequences, the moral are still
more alarming; for virtue is only a nominal distinction when the
duties of citizens, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, and directors
of families, become merely the selfish ties of convenience.

  Why then do philosophers look for public spirit? Public spirit
must be nurtured by private virtue, or it will resemble the factitious
sentiment which makes women careful to preserve their reputation,
and men their honour. A sentiment that often exists unsupported by
virtue, unsupported by that sublime morality which makes the
habitual breach of one duty a breach of the whole moral law.

[Callisto]

Chap. IX.

     Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the Unnatural

             Distinctions Established in Society.

  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 be 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 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 words, 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.

[Callisto]

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, which 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 maid 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
oeconomy, 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.

[Callisto]

As soldiers, I grant, they can now only gather, for the most part,
vain glorious 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 plow; 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 shew 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 shew, 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 superhuman powers.

[Callisto]

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 woman 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 woman 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 shew 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
compared 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.

[Callisto]

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 duties become
null.

  Women then must be considered as only the wanton solace of men, when
they become 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 royalty 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.

[Callisto]

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, &c. 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 mantua-makers reckoned the next class? The few employments open to
women, so far from being liberal, are menial; and when a superiour
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 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
plow-share.'

[Callisto]

It is a melancholy truth; yet such is the blessed effect 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 akin 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 the babes
sent to nestle in a strange bosom, having never found a home in
their mother's.