Chapter 6:
The effect that an early association of ideas has on the character

Educated in the enervating style recommended by the writers I have been criticising, and being deprived by their subordinate social status from recovering their lost ground, is it surprising that women everywhere appear to be a defect in nature? When we consider what a definite effect an early association of ideas has on the character, is it surprising that women neglect their understandings and turn all their attention to their persons? [see Glossary]

Storing the mind with knowledge naturally brings great advantages, as is obvious from the following considerations. The association of our ideas is either habitual or instantaneous; and instantaneous association seems to depend on the mind’s original temperature [MW’s word] rather than on the will. When the ideas and matters of fact are once taken in, they are stored for ·subsequent· use, until some chance happening makes the information dart into the mind with illustrative force—this being information that has been received at very different periods of our lives. Many recollections are like lightning: one idea assimilates and explains another, with astonishing rapidity. I am not now talking about the quick perception of truth which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and leaves us at a loss to discover whether what has opened the dark cloud is •reminiscence or •thinking which we don’t detect because of its speed. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power: when the mind is enriched in some way, the raw materials will to some extent arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe from the imagination the warm sketches of fancy; but the •animal spirits [see Glossary], the individual character, give the colouring. We have little power over this •superfine electric fluid, and our reason has little control over that power! These fine intractable spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and shining in its eagle eye they produce in the highest degree the happy energy of associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their fellow-creatures, forcing them to take an interest in objects reflected from the impassioned imagination—objects that they hadn’t attended to in nature.

Let me explain. Most people cannot see or feel poetically; they lack imagination, so they fly from solitude in search of objects they can sense; but when an author lends them his eyes, they can see as he saw, and be entertained by images that they couldn’t select ·for themselves·, although they were lying before them.

Education thus only supplies the man of genius with knowledge to give variety and contrast to his associations; but there is an habitual association of ideas that develops along with us, and has a great effect on the moral character of mankind. Such associations give the mind a slant that commonly remains throughout life. So ductile is the understanding, and yet so stubborn, that the associations that depend on chance happenings before the body arrives at maturity can seldom be disentangled by reason. One idea calls up another, its old associate, and memory—faithful to the first impressions, especially when the intellectual powers are not employed to cool our sensations—retraces them with mechanical exactness.

This habitual slavery to first impressions has a more harmful effect on the female character than on the male, because business and other dry employments of the understanding tend to deaden the feelings and break associations that do violence to reason. But females—who are •turned into women when they are mere children, and •brought back to childhood when they ought to leave the go-cart forever—haven’t enough strength of mind to erase the overlay of art that has smothered nature.

Everything they see or hear serves to fix impressions, call up emotions, and link ideas, giving the mind its feminine character. . . . And the first idea-associations that are forced on them by every surrounding object are allowed to run wild instead of being examined. ·Given how females are educated·, how could they attain the vigour that is needed to be able to throw off their factitious character [= ’free themselves from the character-traits that have been constructed for them’]? Where could they find the strength to resort to reason and rise above a system of oppression that blasts the fair promises of spring? This cruel association of ideas, which everything conspires to twist into all their habits of thinking (or, more accurately, of feeling) receives new force when they begin to act a little for themselves; for that’s when they see that their only route to pleasure and power is through their skill in arousing emotions in men. Besides, the first impressions on their minds come from •books that offer to instruct them, and •they all teach the same lessons. It is unreasonable as well as cruel to scold women for faults that they—educated as they are in worse-than-Egyptian bondage—can hardly avoid, unless there are some who have a degree of native vigour that very few among mankind are blessed with. [The idea is that native vigour would be built into the person’s constitution, making it safe from being undermined by education.]

For instance, the severest sarcasms have been levelled against the ·female· sex, ridiculing them for repeating ‘a set of phrases learnt by rote’ [Swift] when nothing could be more natural, considering •the education they receive, and •·the widespread opinion· that their ‘highest praise is to obey, unargued’ [Milton] the will of man. If they aren’t allowed to have enough reason to govern their own conduct then of course everything they learn must be learned by rote! And when they are led to spend all their ingenuity on their clothes, ‘a passion for a scarlet coat’ [Swift] is so natural that it never surprises me; and supposing that Pope’s summary of their character is just, namely ‘that every woman is at heart a rake’, why should they be bitterly censured for seeking a congenial companion and preferring a rake to a man of sense? [A rake is a person—usually a man—whose way of living is stylish and fashionable but also morally lax and dissolute.]

Rakes know how to work on women’s feelings, while the modest merit of reasonable men has less effect on their feelings and can’t reach their heart via the understanding, because they—·men and women·—have few sentiments in common.

It seems a little absurd to deny women the uncontrolled use of their reason while still expecting them to be more reasonable than men in their likings. When do men fall in love with sense? When do they, with their superior powers and advantages, turn from the person to the mind? And how can they then expect women, who are only taught to observe behaviour and to acquire manners rather than morals, to despise what they have spent their lives struggling to acquire? Where are they suddenly to find judgment enough to weigh patiently the sense of an awkward virtuous man, when. . . .his conversation is cold and dull because it doesn’t consist of pretty repartees or well-turned compliments? In order to admire or esteem anything for long, we must at least have our curiosity aroused by knowing something about it; we can’t estimate the value of qualities and virtues that are above our comprehension. When such a respect is felt, it may be very sublime; and the admirer’s confused feeling of humility may have some tendency to draw people to her; but human love must also have cruder ingredients, and the ·woman’s· person very naturally will come in for its share—and what a big share it usually is!

Love is to a large extent an arbitrary passion, and—like some other stalking mischiefs—it will reign by its own authority, without bringing in reason; and it’s easy to distinguish love from esteem—the foundation of friendship—because love is often aroused by fleeting beauties and graces; though love won’t have much energy unless something more solid deepens the impression made by those beauties and graces, setting the imagination to work to make the loveliest the best.

Common passions are aroused by common qualities. Men look for beauty and the simper of good-humoured docility; women are captivated by easy manners—a gentlemanly man seldom fails to please them, and their thirsty ears eagerly drink in the suggestive nothings of politeness, while they turn away from the unintelligible sounds of the ·other· charmer—reason—however wisely he produces his charm. When it comes to superficial •accomplishments, the rake certainly has the advantage; and females can form an opinion about •these because this is their own ground. Rendered gay and giddy by the whole tenor of their lives, the very look of wisdom or of the severe graces of virtue must strike them as gloomy, and produce a kind of restraint from which they and the playful child love naturally revolt. Without taste. . . ., which is the offspring of judgment, how can they discover that true beauty and grace must arise from the play of the mind? and how can they be expected to enjoy in a lover something that they so very imperfectly possess themselves? The sympathy that unites hearts and invites to confidence is so very faint in them that it can’t catch fire and thus rise to the level of passion. No, I repeat it, the love cherished by such minds must have cruder fuel!

The conclusion is obvious: until women are led to exercise their understandings, they shouldn’t be satirised for their attachment to rakes; nor even for being rakes at heart themselves, when that seems to be the inevitable consequence of their education. Those who live to please must find their enjoyments, their happiness, in pleasure! We never do anything well unless we love it for its own sake—a trite remark, but a true one.

Pretend for a moment that at some future time women will become what I sincerely wish them to be. Then love will acquire a more serious dignity, and be purified in its own fires; and because virtue will give true delicacy to women’s affections they will turn with disgust from a rake. When that time comes they will •reason as well as •feel—whereas feeling is all they can do at present—so that it will be easy for them to guard against surface graces, and learn to despise •the sensibility that had been aroused in the ways of women and then grown stale there, the sensibility whose trade is vice; and •allurement’s wanton airs. They will recollect that the flame. . . .they wanted to light up has been exhausted by lust, and that the sated appetite, losing all taste for pure and simple pleasures, can be aroused only by licentious arts of variety. What satisfaction could a woman of delicacy promise herself in a union with such a man, when the very artlessness [here = ‘sincerity’] of her affection might appear insipid?. . . . One grand truth women haven’t yet learned, though it would do them a lot of good if they acted on it, namely: In the choice of a husband they should not be led astray by the qualities of a lover—because a husband, even a wise and virtuous one, can’t remain a lover for long.

If women were more rationally educated and could take a more comprehensive view of things, they would be content to love only once in their lives; and after marriage calmly let passion subside into friendship—into that tender intimacy which is the best refuge from care. Friendship is built on such pure, calm affections that idle jealousies aren’t allowed to •disturb the performance of the sober duties of life or •take up thoughts that ought to be otherwise employed. This is a state in which many men live, but very few women. It is easy to explain this difference without recurring to a sexual character [i.e. without supposing that there are basic, natural psychological differences between the sexes]. [MW devotes the final two pages of this chapter to the explanation in question. It doesn’t add any content to things she has said already, except for this sad footnote about the fate of those ‘who have not sufficient mind to be amused by innocent pleasure’ and who, for one reason or another, have withdrawn from the scene of uninnocent pleasure:]

I have frequently seen this exemplified in women whose beauty could no longer be repaired. They have retired from the noisy scenes of dissipation; but, unless they became Methodists, the solitude of the select society of their family connections or acquaintance has presented only a fearful void; consequently nervous complaints and all the vapourish train of idleness rendered them quite as useless as, and far more unhappy than, they were when they joined the giddy throng.