A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral SubjectsWollstonecraft, Mary
Philosophy
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman: With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Feminism; Women -- Education -- Great Britain; Women -- History -- 19th century; Women's rights -- Great Britain
I must illustrate my assertion by a few examples. Mrs. Piozzi, who
often repeated by rote, what she did not understand, comes forward
with Johnsonian periods.
"Seek not for happiness in singularity; and dread a refinement of
wisdom as a deviation into folly." Thus she dogmatically addresses
a new married man; and to elucidate this pompous exordium, she
adds, "I said that the person of your lady would not grow more
pleasing to you, but pray let her never suspect that it grows less
so: that a woman will pardon an affront to her understanding much
sooner than one to her person, is well known; nor will any of us
contradict the assertion. All our attainments, all our arts, are
employed to gain and keep the heart of man; and what mortification
can exceed the disappointment, if the end be not obtained: There is
no reproof however pointed, no punishment however severe, that a
woman of spirit will not prefer to neglect; and if she can endure
it without complaint, it only proves that she means to make herself
amends by the attention of others for the slights of her husband!"
These are true masculine sentiments. "All our ARTS are employed to
gain and keep the heart of man:"--and what is the inference?--if
her person, and was there ever a person, though formed with
Medicisan symmetry, that was not slighted? be neglected, she will
make herself amends by endeavouring to please other men. Noble
morality! But thus is the understanding of the whole sex
affronted, and their virtue deprived of the common basis of virtue.
A woman must know, that her person cannot be as pleasing to her
husband as it was to her lover, and if she be offended with him for
being a human creature, she may as well whine about the loss of his
heart as about any other foolish thing. And this very want of
discernment or unreasonable anger, proves that he could not change
his fondness for her person into affection for her virtues or
respect for her understanding.
Whilst women avow, and act up to such opinions, their
understandings, at least, deserve the contempt and obloquy that
men, WHO NEVER insult their persons, have pointedly levelled at the
female mind. And it is the sentiments of these polite men, who do
not wish to be encumbered with mind, that vain women thoughtlessly
adopt. Yet they should know, that insulted reason alone can spread
that SACRED reserve about the persons which renders human
affections, for human affections have always some base alloy, as
permanent as is consistent with the grand end of existence--the
attainment of virtue.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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