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 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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