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
Nature, or to speak with strict propriety God, has made all things
right; but man has sought him out many inventions to mar the work.
I now allude to that part of Dr. Gregory's treatise, where he
advises a wife never to let her husband know the extent of her
sensibility or affection. Voluptuous precaution; and as
ineffectual as absurd. Love, from its very nature, must be
transitory. To seek for a secret that would render it constant,
would be as wild a search as for the philosopher's stone, or the
grand panacea; and the discovery would be equally useless, or
rather pernicious to mankind. The most holy band of society is
friendship. It has been well said, by a shrewd satirist, "that
rare as true love is, true friendship is still rarer."
This is an obvious truth, and the cause not lying deep, will not
elude a slight glance of inquiry.
Love, the common passion, in which chance and sensation take place
of choice and reason, is in some degree, felt by the mass of
mankind; for it is not necessary to speak, at present, of the
emotions that rise above or sink below love. This passion,
naturally increased by suspense and difficulties, draws the mind
out of its accustomed state, and exalts the affections; but the
security of marriage, allowing the fever of love to subside, a
healthy temperature is thought insipid, only by those who have not
sufficient intellect to substitute the calm tenderness of
friendship, the confidence of respect, instead of blind admiration,
and the sensual emotions of fondness.
This is, must be, the course of nature--friendship or indifference
inevitably succeeds love. And this constitution seems perfectly to
harmonize with the system of government which prevails in the moral
world. Passions are spurs to action, and open the mind; but they
sink into mere appetites, become a personal momentary
gratification, when the object is gained, and the satisfied mind
rests in enjoyment. The man who had some virtue whilst he was
struggling for a crown, often becomes a voluptuous tyrant when it
graces his brow; and, when the lover is not lost in the husband,
the dotard a prey to childish caprices, and fond jealousies,
neglects the serious duties of life, and the caresses which should
excite confidence in his children are lavished on the overgrown
child, his wife.
In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to pursue
with vigour the various employments which form the moral character,
a master and mistress of a family ought not to continue to love
each other with passion. I mean to say, that they ought not to
indulge those emotions which disturb the order of society, and
engross the thoughts that should be otherwise employed. The mind
that has never been engrossed by one object wants vigour--if it can
long be so, it is weak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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