Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notesFranklin, Benjamin
General
Benjamin Franklin : $b Representative selections, with introduction, bibliograpy, and notes
Franklin, Benjamin
Franklin, Benjamin, 1706-1790
I shall here present your Readers with a Letter from one, who informs me
that I have begun at the wrong End of my Business, and that I ought to
begin at Home, and censure the Vices and Follies of my own Sex, before I
venture to meddle with your's: Nevertheless, I am resolved to dedicate
this Speculation to the Fair Tribe, and endeavour to show, that Mr.
_Ephraim_ charges Women with being particularly guilty of Pride,
Idleness, &c. wrongfully, inasmuch as the Men have not only as great a
Share in those Vices as the Women, but are likewise in a great Measure
the Cause of that which the Women are guilty of. I think it will be best
to produce my Antagonist, before I encounter him.
_To Mrs._ DOGOOD.
_Madam_,
My Design in troubling you with this Letter is, to desire you
would begin with your own Sex first: Let the first Volley of
your Resentments be directed against _Female_ Vice; let
Female Idleness, Ignorance and Folly, (which are Vices more
peculiar to your Sex than to our's,) be the Subject of your
Satyrs, but more especially Female Pride, which I think is
intollerable. Here is a large Field that wants Cultivation,
and which I believe you are able (if willing) to improve with
Advantage; and when you have once reformed the Women, you
will find it a much easier Task to reform the Men, because
Women are the prime Causes of a great many Male Enormities.
This is all at present from
_Your Friendly Wellwisher,_
Ephraim Censorious.
After Thanks to my Correspondent for his Kindness in cutting out Work
for me, I must assure him, that I find it a very difficult Matter to
reprove Women separate from the Men; for what Vice is there in which the
Men have not as great a Share as the Women? and in some have they not a
far greater, as in Drunkenness, Swearing, &c.? And if they have, then it
follows, that when a Vice is to be reproved, Men, who are most culpable,
deserve the most Reprehension, and certainly therefore, ought to have
it. But we will wave this point at present, and proceed to a particular
Consideration of what my Correspondent calls _Female Vice_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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