Chapter Four of
A Vindication of the Rights of Women continued. (due to its length it had to be divided into two nodes or part would have been cut off.)
Women have seldom sufficient serious employment to silence their
feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all
strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of
sense.- In short, the whole tenour of female education (the education of
society) tends to render the best disposed romantic and inconstant; and
the remainder vain and mean. In the present state of society this evil
can scarcely be remedied, I am afraid, in the slightest degree; should a
more laudable ambition ever gain ground they may be brought nearer to
nature and reason, and become more virtuous and useful as they grow more
respectable.
But, I will venture to assert that their reason will never acquire
sufficient strength to enable it to regulate their conduct, whilst the
making an appearance in the world is the first wish of the majority of
mankind. To this weak wish the natural affections, and the most useful
virtues are sacrificed. Girls marry merely to better themselves, to
borrow a significant vulgar phrase, and have such perfect power over
their hearts as not to permit themselves to fall in love till a man with
a superiour fortune offers. On this subject I mean to enlarge in a
future chapter; it is only necessary to drop a hint at present, because
women are so often degraded by suffering the selfish prudence of age to
chill the ardour of youth.
>From the same source flows an opinion that young girls ought to dedicate
great part of their time to needle-work; yet, this employment
contracts their faculties more than any other that could have been
chosen for them, by confining their thoughts to their persons. Men order
their thoughts to be made, and have done with the subject; women make
their own clothes, necessary or ornamental, and are continually talking
about them; and their thoughts follow their hands. It is not indeed the
making of necessaries that weakens the mind; but the frippery of dress.
For when a woman in the lower rank of life makes her husband's and
children's clothes, she does her duty, this is her part of the family
business; but when women work only to dress better than they could
otherwise afford, it is worse than sheer loss of time. To render the
poor virtuous they must be employed, and women in the middle rank of
life, did they not ape the fashions of the nobility, without catching
their ease, might employ them, whilst they themselves managed their
families, instructed their children, and exercised their own minds.
Gardening, experimental philosophy, and literature, would afford them
subjects to think of and matter for conversation, that in some degree
would exercise their understandings. The conversation of French women,
who are not so rigidly nailed to their chairs to twist lappets, and knot
ribands, is frequently superficial; but, I contend, that it is not half
so insipid as that of those English women whose time is spent in making
caps, bonnets, and the whole mischief of trimmings, not to mention
shopping, bargain-hunting, &c. &c.: and it is the decent, prudent women,
who are most degraded by these practices; for their motive is simply
vanity. The wanton who exercises her taste to render her passion
alluring, has something more in view.
These observations all branch out of a general one, which I have before
made, and which cannot be too often insisted upon, for, speaking of men,
women, or professions, it will be found that the employment of the
thoughts shapes the character both generally and individually. The
thoughts of women ever hover round their persons, and is it surprising
that their persons are reckoned most valuable? Yet sonic degree of
liberty of mind is necessary even to form the person; and this may be
one reason why some gentle wives have so few attractions beside that of
sex. Add to this, sedentary employments render the majority of women
sickly- and false notions of female excellence make them proud of this
delicacy though it be another fetter, that by calling the attention
continually to the body, cramps the activity of the mind.
Women of quality seldom do any of the manual part of their dress,
consequently only their taste is exercised, and they acquire, by
thinking less of the finery, when the business of their toilet is over,
that ease, which seldom appears in the deportment of women, who dress
merely for the sake of dressing. In fact, the observation with respect
to the middle rank, the one in which talents thrive best, extends not to
women; for those of the superior class, by catching, at least, a
smattering of literature, and conversing more with men, on general
topics, acquire more knowledge than the women who ape their fashions and
faults without sharing their advantages. With respect to virtue, to use
the word in a comprehensive sense, I have seen most in low life. Many
poor women maintain their children by the sweat of their brow, and keep
together families that the vices of the fathers would have scattered
abroad; but gentlewomen are too indolent to be actively virtuous, and
are softened rather than refined by civilization. Indeed, the good sense
which I have met with, among the poor women who have had few advantages
of education, and yet have acted heroically, strongly confirmed me in
the opinion that trifling employments have rendered woman a trifler.
Man, taking her* body the mind is left to rust; so that while physical
love enervates man, as being his favourite recreation, he will endeavour
to enslave woman:- and, who can tell, how many generations may be
necessary to give vigour to the virtue and talents of the freed
posterity of abject slaves?*(2)
* 'I take her body,' says Ranger.
*(2) 'Supposing that women are voluntary slaves- slavery of any kind is
unfavourable to human happiness and improvement.'- Knox's Essays.
In tracing the causes that, in my opinion, have degraded woman, I have
confined my observations to such as universally act upon the morals and
manners of the whole sex, and to me it appears clear that they all
spring from want of understanding. Whether this arise from a physical or
accidental weakness of faculties, time alone can determine; for I shall
not lay any great stress on the example of a few women* who, from having
received a masculine education, have acquired courage and resolution; I
only contend that the men who have been placed in similar situations,
have acquired a similar character- I speak of bodies of men, and that
men of genius and talents have started out of a class, in which women
have never yet been placed.
* Sappho, Eloisa, Mrs. Macaulay, the Empress of Russia, Madame
d'Eon, &c. 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.
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