A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

in vanity and sensuality. In most of the countries which I had visited, they are taught nothing of an higher nature than a few modulations of the voice, or useless postures of the body; their time is consumed in sloth or trifles, and trifles become the only pursuits capable of interesting them. We seem to forget, that it is upon the qualities of the female sex, that our own domestic comforts and the education of our children must depend. And what are the comforts or the education which a race of beings corrupted from their infancy, and unacquainted with all the duties of life, are fitted to bestow? To touch a musical instrument with useless skill, to exhibit their natural or affected graces, to the eyes of indolent and debauched young men, who dissipate their husbands’ patrimony in riotous and unnecessary expenses: these are the only arts cultivated by women in most of the polished nations I had seen. And the consequences are uniformly such as may be expected to proceed from such polluted sources, private misery, and public servitude.

“But, Selene’s education was regulated by different views, and conducted upon severer principles; if that can be called severity which opens the mind to a sense of moral and religious duties, and most effectually arms it against the inevitable evils of life.”

—⁠Mr. Day’s Sandford and Merton, Volume 3

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

—⁠Rousseau’s Emilius

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Vide Milton. ↩

This word is not strictly just, but I cannot find a better. ↩

And a wit, always a wit, might be added; for the vain fooleries of wits and beauties to obtain attention, and make conquests, are much upon a par. ↩

Many other names might be added. ↩

“I take her body,” says Ranger. ↩

“Supposing that women are voluntary slaves⁠—slavery of any kind is unfavourable to human happiness and improvement.”

—⁠Knox’s Essays

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Sappho, Eloisa, Mrs. Macaulay, the Empress of Russia, Madame d’Eon, etc. These, and many more, may be reckoned exceptions; and, are not all heroes, as well as heroines, exceptions to general rules? I wish to see women neither heroines nor brutes; but reasonable creatures. ↩

Rousseau’s Emilius Volume 3 page 176. ↩

What is to be the consequence, if the mother’s and husband’s opinion should chance not to agree? An ignorant person cannot be reasoned out of an error, and when persuaded to give up one prejudice for another the mind is unsettled. Indeed, the husband may not have any religion to teach her though in such a situation she will be in great want of a support to her virtue, independent of worldly considerations. ↩

Rousseau’s Emilius. ↩

Can you?⁠—Can you? would be the most emphatical comment, were it drawled out in a whining voice. ↩

Let women once acquire good sense⁠—and if it deserve the name, it will teach them; or, of what use will it be how to employ it. ↩

“He is the free man, whom truth makes free!”

—⁠Cowper

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I mean to use a word that comprehends more than chastity, the sexual virtue. ↩

A person is not to act in this or that way, though convinced they are right in so doing, because some equivocal circumstances may lead the world to suspect that they acted from different motives. This is sacrificing the substance for a shadow. Let people but watch their own hearts, and act rightly as far as they can judge, and they may patiently wait till the opinion of the world comes round. It is best to be directed by a simple motive⁠—for justice has too often been sacrificed to propriety;⁠—another word for convenience. ↩

Coinciding in opinion with Mrs. Macaulay relative to many branches of education, I refer to her valuable work, instead of quoting her sentiments to support my own. ↩

See an excellent essay on this subject by Mrs. Barbauld, in Miscellaneous Pieces in Prose. ↩

I have sometimes, when inclined to laugh at materialists, asked whether, as the most powerful effects in nature are apparently produced by fluids, the magnetic, etc. the passions might not be fine volatile fluids that embraced humanity, keeping the more refractory elementary parts together⁠—or whether they were simply a liquid fire that pervaded the more sluggish materials giving them life and heat? ↩

“Such is the country-maiden’s fright,
When first a redcoat is in sight;
Behind the door she hides her face,
Next time at distance eyes the lace:
She now can all his terrors stand,
Nor from his squeeze withdraws her hand,
She plays familiar in his arms,
And every soldier hath his charms;
From tent to tent she spreads her flame;
For custom conquers fear and shame.”

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Modesty, is the graceful calm virtue of maturity; bashfulness, the charm of vivacious youth. ↩

The poor moth fluttering round a candle, burns its wings. ↩

I remember to have met