I have long been of the opinion, (and every observation that I have been able to make since I first formed it confirms me in it,) that woman is indebted to Christianity alone for the high rank she holds in society. Look into the writings of antiquity--into the works of the Greek and Latin poets--into the numberless panegyrics of the sex, to be found both in prose and verse--I can find little, very little indeed, where woman is treated with respect--there is no want of love, that is, of fondness, of beauty, of charms, of graces. But of woman as the equal of man, as a moral companion, travelling with him the road to felicity--as his adviser--his solace in misfortune--as a pattern from which he may sometimes copy with advantage;--of all this there is hardly a trace. Woman is always mentioned as an object of passion. Chastity, modesty, sober-mindedness, are all considered in relation to this single point; or sometimes as of importance in respect of economy or domestic quiet. Recollect the famous speech of Meteltellus Numidicus to the Roman people, when, as, Censor, he was recommending marriage. "Si fine uxore possemus Quirites esse, omnes eâ molestiâ careremus. Sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis commodè, nec fine illis ullo modo vivi posset, saluti perpetuæ potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum." _Aul. Gell. Noct. Att. I. 6._ * * * * * What does Ovid, the great panegyrist of the sex, say for his beloved daughter, whom he had praised for her attractions in various places of his Tristia and other compositions? He is writing her Epitaph--and the only thing he can say of her as a rational creature is, that she was--_Domisida_--not a Gadabout.--Search Apuleius, where you will find many female characters _in abstracto_--You will find that his little Photis (a cook-maid and strumpet) was nearest to his heart, after all his philosophy. Nay, in his pretty story of Cupid and Psyche, which the very wise will tell you is a fine lesson of moral philosophy, and a representation of the operations of the intellectual and moral faculties of the human soul, a story which gave him the finest opportunity, nay, almost made it necessary for him to insert whatever can ornament the female character; what is his Psyche but a beautiful, fond, and silly girl; and what are the whole fruits of any acquaintance with the sex?--Pleasure. But why take more pains in the search?--Look at their immortal goddesses--is there one among them whom a wise man would select for a wife or a friend?--I grant that a Lucretia is praised--a Portia, an Arria, a Zenobia--but these are individual characters--not representatives of the sex. The only Grecian ladies who made a figure by intellectual talents, were your Aspasias, Sapphos, Phrynes, and other nymphs of this cast, who had emerged from the general insignificance of the sex, by throwing away what we are accustomed to call its greatest ornament.