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
these, in his own times, and in his own presence, no other virtue,
it seems, appeared to have any merit. Knowledge, industry, valour,
and beneficence, trembling, were abashed, and lost all dignity
before them."
Woman, also, thus "in herself complete," by possessing all these
FRIVOLOUS accomplishments, so changes the nature of things,
--"That what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
All higher knowledge in HER PRESENCE falls
Degraded. Wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanc'd, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait."--
And all this is built on her loveliness!
In the middle rank of life, to continue the comparison, men, in
their youth, are prepared for professions, and marriage is not
considered as the grand feature in their lives; whilst women, on
the contrary, have no other scheme to sharpen their faculties. It
is not business, extensive plans, or any of the excursive flights
of ambition, that engross their attention; no, their thoughts are
not employed in rearing such noble structures. To rise in the
world, and have the liberty of running from pleasure to pleasure,
they must marry advantageously, and to this object their time is
sacrificed, and their persons often legally prostituted. A man,
when he enters any profession, has his eye steadily fixed on some
future advantage (and the mind gains great strength by having all
its efforts directed to one point) and, full of his business,
pleasure is considered as mere relaxation; whilst women seek for
pleasure as the main purpose of existence. In fact, from the
education which they receive from society, the love of pleasure may
be said to govern them all; but does this prove that there is a sex
in souls? It would be just as rational to declare, that the
courtiers in France, when a destructive system of despotism had
formed their character, were not men, because liberty, virtue, and
humanity, were sacrificed to pleasure and vanity. Fatal passions,
which have ever domineered over the WHOLE race!
The same love of pleasure, fostered by the whole tendency of their
education, gives a trifling turn to the conduct of women in most
circumstances: for instance, they are ever anxious about secondary
things; and on the watch for adventures, instead of being occupied
by duties.
A man, when he undertakes a journey, has, in general the end in
view; a woman thinks more of the incidental occurrences, the
strange things that may possibly occur on the road; the impression
that she may make on her fellow travellers; and, above all, she is
anxiously intent on the care of the finery that she carries with
her, which is more than ever a part of herself, when going to
figure on a new scene; when, to use an apt French turn of
expression, she is going to produce a sensation. Can dignity of
mind exist with such trivial cares?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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