The behaviour of many newly married women has often disgusted me. They 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 fuel. ↩
I allude to various biographical writings, but particularly to Boswell’s Life of Johnson. ↩
Smith. ↩
L’amour propre, L’amour de soi meme. ↩
Dr. Johnson makes the same observation. ↩
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? ↩
Treating this part of the subject, I have borrowed some hints from a very sensible pamphlet written by the late bishop of Autun on public education. ↩
The Bishop of Autun. ↩
I am not now alluding to that superiority of mind which leads to the creation of ideal beauty, when life surveyed with a penetrating eye, appears a tragicomedy, in which little can be seen to satisfy the heart without the help of fancy. ↩
Colophon
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
was published in 1792 by
Mary Wollstonecraft.
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