Chapter 4:
The state of degradation to which woman is reduced by various causes

It is clear, I think, that woman is •naturally weak or •degraded by a combination of circumstances. I shall lay this alongside a conclusion that I have often heard sensible men assert in favour of an aristocracy, namely:

The mass of mankind are a sort of nothing; if they weren’t—·if there anything to them·—the obsequious slaves who patiently allow themselves to be imprisoned would have a sense of their own worth and would throw off their chains. Men everywhere submit to oppression, when they have only to lift up their heads to throw off the yoke; yet, instead of asserting their birthright, they quietly lick the dust and say ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die’.

Women, I argue from analogy, are degraded by the same inclination to enjoy the present moment and eventually to despise the freedom that they haven’t enough virtue [see Glossary] to struggle to get. But I must be more explicit.

·WHAT THE NEXT PARAGRAPH SEEMS TO MEAN·

As regards people’s ability to manage and develop their feelings, no-one thinks that males are ahead of females, or vice versa. But we do have to reckon with the view that males are ahead of females when it comes to intellectual powers.¹ The only positive feature that woman is credited with having absolutely is loveliness; as for rationality, the fraction of that that’s conceded to her is a tiny one; for when she has been denied high-level intellect and judgment, what is there left to count as her intellect?

·WHAT MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT ACTUALLY WROTE:·

With respect to the culture of the heart, it is unanimously allowed that sex is out of the question; but the line of subordination in the mental powers is never to be passed over. [footnote] Only ‘absolute in loveliness’ [Milton’s phrase], the portion of rationality granted to woman is, indeed, very scanty; for, denying her genius [see Glossary] and judgment, it is scarcely possible to divine what remains to characterize intellect.

What immortality is for is the perfectibility of human reason. If man were created perfect, or if when he reached maturity a flood of knowledge broke in on him and preserved him from error, I’m not sure that his existence would continue after the death of his body. But as things are, every difficulty in morals that eludes human solution—that baffles the investigation of profound thinking and the lightning glance of genius—is part of my case for believing in the immortality of the soul. Thus, reason is the simple power of improvement—or, more accurately, of recognising truth. . . . The nature of reason must be the same in everyone, if reason is an emanation of divinity, the tie that connects the creature with the Creator; can •a soul be stamped with the heavenly image if •it isn’t perfected by the exercise of its own reason? Yet. . . .the soul of woman is not allowed to have this distinction; with man always placed between her and reason, she is always represented as only created to see through a fog and to believe what she is told. But. . . .if woman has reason, which for a moment I will take for granted, she wasn’t created merely to be the solace of man, and her sexual character should not destroy her human character.

Men have probably been led into this error by viewing education [see Glossary] in a false light, seeing it not as •the first step in forming a being who will advance gradually toward perfection (not strictly the right word, but I can’t find a better one), but rather as merely •a preparation for life. That is the basis on which the false system of female manners been built, robbing the whole sex of its dignity and classing women with the smiling flowers that only adorn the land. This has always been the language of men, and even highly intelligent women adopt the same sentiments for fear of departing from the character they are supposed to have just as women. Thus understanding strictly so-called has been denied to woman; and instinct—refined into wit and cunning for the purposes of life—has been put in its place.

The power of generalizing ideas, of drawing comprehensive conclusions from individual observations, is the only thing an immortal being can have that really deserves to be called ‘knowledge’. Merely to observe, without trying to explain anything, may serve (very incompletely) as everyday common sense; but where is the store laid up that is to clothe the soul when it leaves the body?

Women have been said not to have this power, and some writers have insisted that it is nearly always inconsistent with their sexual character. Let men prove this and I’ll admit that woman only exists for man. In fact the power of •generalizing ideas to any great extent is not very common among men or women. But •this activity is the true cultivation of the understanding; and everything works together to make the cultivation of the understanding harder in the female than in the male world.

This remark naturally leads into the main subject of the present chapter: I shall now try to point out some of the causes that degrade the ·female· sex and prevent women from generalizing their observations.

I shan’t go back to ancient times to trace the history of woman. All I need to say is that she has always been either a slave or a despot, and that both these roles hold back the progress of reason. It has always seemed to me that the great source of female folly and vice is narrowness of mind; and the very constitution of civil governments has put almost insuperable obstacles in the way of developing the female understanding ·and thus curing the narrowness of the female mind·; yet virtue can be built on no other foundation! The same obstacles are thrown in the way of the rich, with the same results.

The proverb has it that necessity is the mother of invention; it is also the mother of virtue. Virtue is an acquisition to which pleasure must be sacrificed; and no-one sacrifices available pleasure unless his or her mind has been opened and strengthened by adversity, or the pursuit of knowledge goaded on by necessity. It is a good thing for people to have the cares of life to struggle with; for these struggles prevent them from becoming a prey to enervating vices purely through idleness! If men and women are born into a tropical zone, where the mid-day sun of pleasure shines directly down on them, how can they adequately brace their minds to discharge the duties of life, or even to enjoy the affections that carry them out of themselves?

Pleasure is the business of a woman’s life, according to society’s present estimate; and for as long as that continues to be so, not much can be expected from such weak beings. Inheriting the sovereignty of beauty in a lineal descent from ·Eve·, the first ‘fair defect’ in nature, they have maintained their power by resigning the natural rights that the exercise of reason might have given them, and chosen to be shortlived queens rather than labour to have the sober pleasures that arise from equality. Exalted by their inferiority (this sounds like a contradiction) they constantly demand homage as women, though experience should teach them that the men who pride themselves on the scrupulous exactness with which they pay this insolent respect to the sex are the ones who are most inclined to tyrannize over and despise the very weakness they cherish. They often repeat Hume’s sentiments, when he alludes to women in the course of comparing the French and Athenian characters:

But what is more singular in this whimsical nation, ·the French·, (I say to the Athenians) is that a frolic of yours during the Saturnalia when the slaves are served by their masters is seriously continued by them through the whole year, and through the whole course of their lives. . . . Your sport elevates for only a few days those whom fortune has thrown down, and whom she might in sport really elevate forever above you. But the French gravely exalt those whom nature has made subject to them, and whose inferiority and infirmities are absolutely incurable. The women, though without virtue [see Glossary], are their masters and sovereigns.

Ah! why do women (I write with affectionate solicitude) lower themselves to receive attention and respect from strangers? I mean: attention and respect that goes beyond the two-way civility that the dictates of humanity and the politeness of civilization authorise between man and man. . . . Confined in cages, like birds, they have nothing to do but to plume themselves and stalk with mock-majesty from perch to perch. They are provided with food and clothing and don’t have to work to get them, but they give up health, liberty and virtue in exchange. But ·actually it isn’t surprising that women do this·. Who among mankind has ever had enough strength of mind to give up these adventitious prerogatives, rising with the calm dignity of reason to a level above that of common opinion, and daring to be proud of the privileges inherent in man? [That sentence contrasts benefits that are •‘adventitious’, i.e. are available because of facts about one’s circumstances, with benefits that are •‘inherent in man’, and thus available to every human being in any circumstances.] And there’s no point in waiting for this to change—not while hereditary power chokes the affections and nips reason in the bud.

In this way men’s passions have placed women on thrones; and until mankind become more reasonable women will avail themselves of the power •that they get with the least exertion, and •that is the most indisputable. They will smile; yes, they will smile even if they are told that

In beauty’s empire is no mean,

And woman either slave or queen,

Is quickly scorn’d when not ador’d’.

But the adoration comes first, and the scorn is not anticipated.

Louis XIV, in particular, spread artificial manners and used their glitter to catch the whole nation in his web: establishing a carefully contrived chain of despotism, he brought it about that it was the in the interests of each French person to respect his position and support his power. And women, whom he flattered by a childish attention to the whole sex, obtained during his reign the prince-like distinction that is so fatal to reason and virtue.

A king is always a king, and a woman always a woman. . . . His authority and her sex always stand between them and rational discourse. She should be like this with a lover, I agree, and in that relationship her sensibility will naturally lead her to try to arouse emotion to gratify not her vanity but her heart. I don’t count this as coquetry; it is the uncalculated impulse of nature; I exclaim against the sexual desire for conquest only when the heart doesn’t come into it.

This desire isn’t confined to women; ‘I have endeavoured’, says •Lord Chesterfield, ‘to gain the hearts of twenty women whose persons [see Glossary] I would not have given a fig for.’ The libertine who in a gust of passion takes advantage of ·some woman’s· unsuspecting tenderness is a saint when compared with •this cold-hearted rascal. . . . Yet only taught to please, women are always on the watch to please, and with true heroic ardour they try to gain hearts that they will give up or kick aside once it is clear that they have won the victory.

Now I must get into the details of the subject.

I lament the fact that women are systematically degraded by receiving the trivial attentions that •men think it manly to pay to the ·female· sex, when in fact •they are insultingly supporting their own superiority. There is nothing graceful about bowing to an inferior, ·which is what a man must think he is doing when he bows to a woman·. Indeed, these ceremonies strike me as so ludicrous that I can hardly control my muscles [= ‘can hardly stop myself from laughing’] when I see a man jump up with eager and serious solicitude to lift a handkerchief or shut a door, when the lady could have done it herself if she moved a pace or two.

A wild wish has just flown from my heart to my head, and I won’t stifle it although it may arouse a horse laugh [= ‘may make you roar with laughter’]. Except in cases where love animates the behaviour, I do earnestly wish to see the distinction of sex confounded in society—·that is, I wish things could be managed in such a way that it was usually not clear whether a given person was male or female·. For this sorting into two sexes is, I am firmly persuaded, the basis for the weakness of character ascribed to woman; is the cause why •the understanding is neglected while accomplishments [see Glossary] are acquired with care, and why women prefer the graceful virtues to the heroic ones.

Every human being wishes to be loved and respected for something; and the common herd will always take the shortest road to the fulfillment of their wishes. The respect paid to wealth and beauty is the surest and least ambiguous road, and as a matter of course it will always attract the eye of common minds. For men to rise from •the middle rank of life into •prominence, they absolutely must have abilities and virtues; and this explains the well-known fact that the middle rank contains most virtue and abilities. In one social rank at least, men have therefore an opportunity to exert themselves with dignity, and to rise by efforts of kinds that really do improve a rational creature; but the whole female sex are, until their character is formed, in the same condition as the rich: for they are born. . . .with certain sexual privileges, and while those are freely available to them not many of them will ever think of works of supererogation as a means to getting the esteem of a small number of superior people. [Works of supererogation are acts of benevolence or charity that go above and beyond the call of duty.]

When do we hear of women who begin in obscurity and boldly claim respect on account of their great abilities or daring virtues? Where are they to be found? ‘To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, satisfaction and approval are all the advantages that they seek.’ True! my male readers will probably exclaim; but before they draw any conclusion they should remember that this was written originally as descriptive not of women but of the rich! In Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments I have found a general characterisation of •people of rank and fortune that I think very thoroughly applies to •the female sex. . . . Let me quote a passage from that book, to add strength to an argument that I intend to insist on as the most conclusive argument against a sexual character [i.e. against there being any such thing as female nature or male nature, as distinct from human nature]. ·The argument goes like this·:

Apart from warriors, no great men of any sort have ever appeared among the nobility. From this fact we can reasonably infer that their local situation swallowed up the man, and produced a character similar to that of women, who are localised, so to speak, by the rank they are placed in as a matter of courtesy. [An unstated premise in MW’s argument about nobles is that pretty often someone gets a noble rank because of something excellent that he has done. Then the fact that we don’t find excellence among the nobility is evidence that •the excellence was extinguished by •the circumstances of having that rank—i.e. •the man was swallowed up by •the local situation.] Women, commonly called Ladies, are not to be contradicted in company, are not allowed to exert any manual strength. When any virtues are expected from them they are negative ones—patience, docility, goodhumour, and flexibility—virtues incompatible with any vigorous exercise of intellect. Besides, by living more with each other and seldom being absolutely alone, they are more under the influence of sentiments than of passions. Solitude and reflection are necessary to give wishes the force of passions, enabling the imagination to enlarge the object and make it the most desirable. The same holds for the rich; they don’t deal in general ideas, collected by level-headed thinking or calm investigation—don’t deal with them enough to acquire the strength of character on which great resolves are built.

But now hear what an acute observer, ·Adam Smith·, says about the great.

·ADAM SMITH ON ‘THE GREAT’·

Do the great seem unaware of how easily they can get the admiration of the public? or do they seem to think that, for them as for anyone else, their rank must have been purchased either by sweat or by blood? If the young nobleman is instructed in how to support the dignity of his rank, and to make himself worthy of the superiority over his fellow-citizens that he has acquired through the virtue of his ancestors, what accomplishments is he told to acquire for this purpose? Is he to make himself worthy of his rank by knowledge, hard work, patience, self-denial, or any other kind of virtue? Because his least move is noticed, he acquires a habit of care over every detail of ordinary behaviour, and tries to perform all those small duties with the most exact propriety. Being conscious of how much he is observed, and of how much people are disposed to allow him to have whatever he wants, he acts—even in utterly ordinary situations—with the freedom and loftiness that are naturally inspired by the thought of how the populace view him. Everything about his conduct marks an elegant and graceful sense of his own superiority—something that those who are born lower down the social scale can hardly ever achieve. These are the arts [here = ‘the devices’ or even ‘the tricks’] by which he proposes to make mankind more easily submit to his authority and govern their inclinations according to his wishes; and in this he usually succeeds. . . . During most of his reign Louis XIV ·of France· was widely regarded as the most perfect model of a great prince. What were the talents and virtues by which he acquired this great reputation? The scrupulous and inflexible rightness—the danger and difficulty—the tireless energy—of everything he did? His broad knowledge, his exquisite judgment, his heroic valour? It was none of these. What he did have was the status of the most powerful prince in Europe, which gave him the highest rank among kings; and then, says his historian. . . [and Smith gives a long quotation (MW includes some of it) about Louis XIV’s grand and imposing personal manner, his fine voice, his handsomeness, and so on. Then:] These trivial accomplishments—supported by his rank and no doubt by some degree of other talents and virtues, though not an outstanding degree—established this prince in the esteem of his own age and later generations’ respect for his memory. Compared with this kingly manner, no other virtue appeared to have any merit. . . . Knowledge, industry, valour, and beneficence were abashed, trembling, and lost all dignity before them.

·END OF QUOTATION FROM ADAM SMITH·

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; whereas women 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. . . . To rise in the world and be free to run from pleasure to pleasure, they must marry advantageously, and their time is sacrificed and their persons [see Glossary] often legally prostituted [MW’s word] to this objective. When a man enters a profession, he 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. . . .he regards pleasure as mere relaxation; while women seek pleasure as the main purpose of existence. In fact, from the education they receive from society, the love of pleasure may be said to govern them all; but does this prove that there is a sex [see Glossary] in souls? It would be just as rational to declare that the courtiers in France, where 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 that always domineered over the whole race!

The same love of pleasure, encouraged by the over-all trend of their education, has a trivialising effect on women’s conduct in most circumstances: for instance, they are always anxious about secondary things, and on the watch for adventures instead of being occupied by duties.

[MW develops this thought in a contrast between a man’s thoughts and a woman’s at the start of a journey: he is thinking about the journey’s purpose, she is thinking about clothes, how she will impress people, troubles that may be met on the road. She continues:] In short, women in general and the rich of both sexes have acquired all the follies and vices of civilization, and missed its useful fruit. (Here as always in my generalisations about women, I mean to be allowing for a few exceptions.) Their senses are inflamed and their understandings neglected; so they become the prey of their senses—delicately called their ‘sensibility’—and are blown around by every momentary gust of feeling. Thus, civilised women are so weakened by false refinement that their moral condition is much lower than it would have been if they had been left in a state nearer to nature, ·i.e. in a less ‘civilised’ state·. Always restless and anxious, their over-used ‘sensibility’ makes them not only uncomfortable in themselves but also troublesome (to put it mildly) to others. All their thoughts are about things that are likely to arouse emotion; their conduct is unstable because they feel when they should reason; and their opinions are wavering because of contradictory emotions (quite different from the wavering produced by deliberation or development in one’s thinking). By fits and starts they are eager in many pursuits, but this eagerness is never concentrated into perseverance, and soon exhausts itself. Sometimes it just wears itself out; sometimes it meets with some other fleeting passion to which reason has never given any specific gravity, so that neutrality ensues. [That is a joke involving physics. When one moving body collides with another, their post-collision movements depend in part on their specific gravities; but a trivial passion doesn’t have any specific gravity—reason hasn’t supplied it with one—so that when two of them collide they both come to a halt right there.] Miserable, indeed, must someone be whose cultivation of mind has tended only to inflame his or her passions! (Don’t confuse inflaming passions with strengthening them.) When the passions are pampered in this way while the judgment is left unformed, what can be expected to ensue? Undoubtedly, a mixture of madness and folly!

These remarks don’t apply only to the ‘fair’ sex; but at present I am talking only about them.

Novels, music, poetry and gallantry all tend to make women the creatures of sensation, and their character is thus formed during the time they are acquiring accomplishments [see Glossary], the only improvements that their place in society motivates them to acquire. This overstretched sensibility naturally relaxes the other powers of the mind, preventing the intellect from achieving the sovereignty that it needs to attain to make a rational creature useful to others and content with his or her own role in life; because as one grows older the only natural method for calming the passions is through the exercise of reason. . . .

Will moralists claim that this is the condition in which half the human race should be encouraged to remain, with listless inactivity and stupid acquiescence? Kind instructors! what were we created for? ‘To remain innocent’ they may say—meaning to remain in a state of childhood. We might as well never have been born, unless our creation was needed for man to be able to acquire the noble privilege of •reason, •the power of distinguishing good from evil, while we lie in the dust from which we were taken, never to rise again.

It would take for ever to trace the variety of meannesses, cares, and sorrows that women are plunged into by the prevailing opinion that they were created to feel rather than to reason, and that the only way they can obtain any power is through their charms and weakness: ‘Fine by defect, and amiably weak’! [Pope, Of the Characters of Women] And having been made by this ‘amiable weakness’ entirely dependent. . . .on man not only for protection but also for advice, is it surprising that women,

neglecting the duties that only reason points out and shrinking from trials that would be likely to strengthen their minds, exert themselves only to give their defects a graceful covering that may serve to •heighten their charms in the eye of the voluptuary, though it sinks them below the scale of moral excellence?

Fragile in every sense of the word, they’re obliged to look up to man for every comfort. In the most trivial dangers they cling to their support with a parasite’s grip, piteously demanding help; and their natural protector extends his arm or raises his voice to guard the lovely trembler—from what? Perhaps the frown of an old cow, or the jump of a mouse; a rat would be a serious danger! In the name of reason and even of common sense, what can save such beings from contempt, even if they are soft and fair?

When these fears are genuine they may be very pretty, but they show a degree of imbecility that degrades a rational creature in a way women are not aware of—for love is a very different thing from esteem.

I’m sure that we would hear no more of these infantile airs if girls were allowed to have enough ·physical· exercise and weren’t confined in close rooms until their muscles are relaxed and their powers of digestion destroyed. I would go further: if fear in girls, instead of being valued and perhaps created, were treated in the same way as cowardice in boys, we would quickly see women looking more dignified. It’s true that they couldn’t then be described as ‘the sweet flowers that smile in the walk of man’, but they would be more respect-worthy members of society, performing the important duties of life by the light of their own reason. ‘Educate women like men,’ says Rousseau, ‘and the more they resemble our sex the less power will they have over us.’ That is exactly the point I am making; I don’t want women to have power over men; I want them to have power over themselves.

Similarly, I have heard men argue against instructing the poor. . . . ‘Teach them to read and write,’ they say, ‘and you take them out of the role in life assigned them by nature.’ An eloquent Frenchman has answered them; I will borrow from him. They don’t realise that if they make man a lower animal they can expect to see him at any moment transformed into a ferocious beast. [An aristocrat named Riqueti, who supported the revolution, said in the Constitutional Assembly: ‘You have loosed the bull—do you expect that he won’t use his horns?’] Without knowledge there can be no morality!

Ignorance is a frail basis for virtue! Yet woman was built to be ignorant, according to the writers who have most energetically argued in favour of the superiority of man. They mean this to be a superiority in essence, ·in kind·, not merely in degree; though to soften the argument they have tried with chivalrous generosity to prove that the sexes ought not to be compared:

man was made to reason, woman to feel; and together—spirit and flesh—they make the most perfect whole, by happily blending reason and sensibility into one character.

And what is sensibility? ‘Quickness of sensation; quickness of perception; delicacy.’ That is how Dr. Johnson defines it; and all I get from the definition is an idea of the most exquisitely polished instinct. I don’t see a trace of the image of God in either sensation or matter. Refined seventy times seven, they are still material; intellect dwells not there. and fire won’t turn lead into gold!

I come around to my old argument; if woman has an immortal soul she must have—as the employment of her life—an understanding to improve. And when. . . .she is incited by present gratification to forget her grand destination, then •nature is counteracted or else •woman was born only to procreate and to rot. [In that sentence, ‘to rot’ is a vivid way of saying ‘to be mortal’ (see Glossary).] Or here is another possibility:

All the lower animals have a soul, though not a reasonable one; and their use of instinct and sensibility is the step they have to take in this life towards the attainment of reason in the next.

When I discuss the special duties of •women in the way that I would discuss the special duties of a •citizen or a •father, you’ll see that I don’t mean to imply that women in general should be taken out of their families. Bacon says:

He who has •wife and •children has given hostages to fortune; for •they are impediments to great enterprises, good and bad. Certainly the achievements that have done the most public good have been the work of unmarried or childless men.

I say the same of women. But the welfare of society isn’t built on extraordinary efforts; and if society were more reasonably organized there would be still less need for great abilities or heroic virtues. In running a family and educating children one has a special need for strength both of body and of mind. . . ., and yet the men who in their writings have worked hardest to domesticate women have tried. . . .to weaken their bodies and cramp their minds. But even if these writers really persuaded women—by working in an underhand way on their feelings—to stay at home and fulfil the duties of a mother and mistress of a family, this would be a bad way of getting women to do the right thing—bad because it would be an insult to reason. I appeal to experience to confirm that if by neglecting the understanding women are actually more detached from these domestic duties than they could be by the most serious intellectual pursuit. . . ., I may be allowed to infer that reason is absolutely necessary to enable a woman to perform any duty properly, and I’ll say it again: sensibility is not reason.

The comparison with the rich still occurs to me: when men neglect the duties of humanity, women will follow their example; a common stream hurries them both along with thoughtless speed. Riches and honours prevent a man from enlarging his understanding, and slacken all his powers by reversing the order of nature, which has always made true pleasure the reward of labour. Pleasure—enervating pleasure— is similarly within woman’s reach without earning it. But until hereditary possessions are distributed throughout society, how can we expect men to be proud of virtue? And until they are, women will govern them by the most direct means, neglecting their dull domestic duties so as to catch the pleasure that is on the wing of time. . . .

Another argument that has had a great weight with me, must, I think, have some force with every considerate benevolent heart. Girls who have been thus weakly educated are often cruelly left by their parents without any provision [MW means that through a cruelty of fate they become penniless orphans], and of course are then dependent not only on the reason but also on the generosity of their brothers. In the best cases these brothers are good men, and they give as a favour what children of the same parents had an equal right to. An easy-going female may fairly comfortably remain for some time in this ambiguous and humiliating situation; but when the brother marries, as he probably will, the sister will move from being considered as the mistress of the family to being viewed as an intruder, an unnecessary burden on the benevolence of the master of the house and his new partner. Who can describe the misery that many unfortunate beings, whose minds and bodies are equally weak, suffer in such situations—unable to work and ashamed to beg? The wife is likely to be a cold-hearted, narrow-minded woman; for the present style of education doesn’t tend to enlarge the heart any more than to enlarge the understanding. This wife will be jealous of the little kindness that her husband shows to his relations; and because her sensibility doesn’t rise to the level of humanity, she will be displeased at seeing her children’s property being lavished on a helpless sister.

These are matters of fact that I have seen for myself again and again. The upshot is obvious: the wife resorts to cunning to undermine the habitual affection ·of her husband for his sister·, which she is afraid to oppose openly; she uses tears and caresses relentlessly, until ‘the spy’ is worked out of her home, and •thrown on the world, unprepared for its difficulties; or—as a great effort of generosity, or from some regard to propriety—•sent with a small pension and an uncultivated mind into joyless solitude.

These two women—·the sister and the wife·—may be much on a par with regard to reason and humanity; and it may be that if their situations had been switched so would their behaviour have been. But if they had been differently educated [see Glossary] the upshot would also have been very different. The wife wouldn’t have had the sensibility of which self is the centre, and reason might have taught her not to expect—and not even to be flattered by—her husband’s affection if it led him to violate pre-existing duties. She would want to love him not merely because he loved her but on account of his virtues; and the sister might have been able to struggle for herself instead of eating the bitter bread of dependence.

I am convinced that the heart, as well as the understanding, is opened by cultivation [i.e. has its scope widened by being developed and attended to], and also by strengthening the organs, though that is less obvious. I’m not talking of momentary flashes of sensibility, but of ·durable· affections. And in the education of both sexes it may be that the most difficult task is to adjust the instruction in such a way that ·the understanding and the affections are in a proper balance. That involves· not letting the understanding

•be narrowed while the heart is warmed by the generous juices of spring. . . ., or

•engage itself in investigations that are remote from life, thereby drying up the feelings.

When women get a careful education, they come out of it either as •fine ladies, brimful of sensibility, and teeming with capricious fancies, or as •mere notable women. [This uses ‘notable’ in a now obsolete sense in which it means ‘capable and industrious in household management’.] The latter are often friendly, honest creatures, and have a shrewd kind of good sense joined with worldly prudence—a combination that often makes them more useful members of society than the fine sentimental lady although they don’t have any greatness of mind or of taste. The intellectual world is shut against them; take them out of their family or neighbourhood and they come to a halt, finding nothing for their minds to do; for they have never tried to enjoy the fund of amusement that literature provides; often they have despised it. The sentiments and taste of more cultivated minds appear ridiculous, even in those whom chance and family connections have led them to love; but in mere acquaintance they think it all affectation.

If a man of sense [see Glossary] loves a woman like that, it can only be on account of her sex, and if he respects her it is because she is a trusty servant. To preserve his own peace he lets her scold the servants, and go to church in clothes made of the best materials. A man with only her level of understanding would probably not suit her so well, because he might wish to encroach on her territory and manage some domestic concerns himself. Yet women, whose minds are not enlarged by cultivation, or in whom the natural selfishness of sensibility hasn’t been expanded by reflection, are very unfit to manage a family, because they always stretch their power and use tyranny to maintain a superiority that rests on nothing but the arbitrary distinction of fortune. The evil is sometimes more serious than that, and domestic servants are deprived of innocent pleasures and made to work beyond their strength, in order to enable the notable woman to keep a better table, and outshine her neighbours in finery and parade. If she attends to her children, it is usually to dress them expensively—and whether she does this out of vanity or out of fondness for the children, it is pernicious either way.

Many women of this sort pass their days, or at least their evenings, discontentedly. Their husbands acknowledge that they are good managers, and chaste wives; but they leave home to seek for more agreeable and stimulating society; and the patient drudge who fulfils her task like a blind horse in a mill is defrauded of her just reward, for the wages due to her are the caresses of her husband; and women who have so few resources in themselves don’t patiently bear being deprived of a natural right in this way.

A fine lady on the other hand has been taught to look down with contempt on common vulgar [see Glossary] employments of life; though ·she is in no position to be so haughty, because· the only accomplishments she has been motivated to acquire are ones with next to no intellectual content; for even bodily accomplishments can’t be acquired with any precision unless the understanding has been strengthened by exercise. Without a foundation of principles, taste is superficial; and grace must arise from something deeper than imitation.. . . .

[In case you are interested, the ellipsis at the end of that paragraph replaces the sentence: ‘The imagination, however, is heated, and the feelings rendered fastidious, if not sophisticated; or, a counterpoise of judgment is not acquired, when the heart still remains artless, though it becomes too tender.’]

These women are often amiable; and their hearts are more sensitive to general benevolence, more alive to the feelings that civilize life, than the sturdy family drudge; but because they are deficient in reflection and self-government, they only inspire love; and for as long as they have any hold on their husbands’ affections it is as their mistresses. . . . These women are the ‘fair defects’ in nature—the women who seem to be created not to enjoy the fellowship of man, but •to save him from sinking to the merely animal level by •rubbing off the rough angles of his character; and •to give some dignity to the appetite that draws man to them by •playful teasing. Gracious Creator of the whole human race! have you created such a being as woman—who can trace your wisdom in your works, and feel that you alone are by your nature exalted above her—for no better purpose than this? Can she believe that she was made only to submit to man, who is her equal—a being sent into the world to acquire virtue, as she was? Can she consent to be wholly occupied in pleasing him; merely to adorn the earth when her soul is capable of rising to you? And can she slackly depend on man for reason, when she ought to climb the difficult slopes of knowledge alongside him?. . . .

To fulfil domestic duties one needs a serious kind of perseverance that requires a firmer support than emotions can give, however lively and true to nature they are. Order is the soul of virtue; to give an example of it a person has to adopt some austerity of behaviour, and this can hardly be expected from a being who, from his or her infancy, has been made the weathercock of his or her own sensations. Whoever rationally means to be useful must have a plan of conduct; and in performing the simplest duty we are often obliged to act against the present impulse of tenderness or compassion. Severity is often the clearest. . . .proof of affection; and the lack of this power over the feelings, and of the dignified affection that makes a person prefer the future good of the beloved object to a present gratification, is the reason why so many fond mothers spoil their children. Which is more damaging—negligence or indulgence? I am inclined to answer ‘Indulgence’.

Mankind seem to agree that children should be left under the management of women during their childhood. Judging by what I have seen, women of sensibility—·i.e. women in whom feelings are uppermost·—are the least fit for this task because they are bound to be carried away by their feelings, and spoil a child’s temperament. The management of the temperament, the first and most important branch of education, requires the sober steady eye of reason ·so as to form and stick with· a plan of conduct that is equally distant from •tyranny and •indulgence. Yet •these are the extremes that people of sensibility fall into—first on one side, then on the other, always shooting beyond the mark. These thoughts and the further development of them that I have gone through lead me to conclude that a person of genius [see Glossary] is the least suitable person to be employed in education, whether public or private. Minds of this rare species see things too much in masses, and seldom if ever have a good temperament. The habitual cheerfulness that we call ‘good humour’ is perhaps as seldom united with great mental powers as it is with strong feelings. And people who admiringly follow the flights of •genius, or with cooler approval drink in the instruction elaborately prepared for them by •a profound thinker, ought not to be upset if they find •the former bad-tempered and •the latter gloomy; because liveliness of imagination and a tenacious comprehension of mind are hardly compatible with the smooth politeness which leads a man at least to •bend to the opinions and prejudices of others instead of •roughly confronting them.

[MW now switches abruptly from thoughts about highly intelligent people as teachers to the question of what should be done about them as pupils.] When we are thinking about education or manners, minds of a superior class can be left to take care of themselves. It is the middlingly able multitude who need instruction and ·are at risk because they· catch the colour of the atmosphere they breathe [those eight words are MW’s]. This body of men and women should be respected, and should not have their sensations heightened in the hot-bed of luxurious idleness at the expense of their understanding; for unless there’s a ballast of understanding they will never become virtuous or free. ·Why won’t they be free? Because· an aristocracy based on property or on solid talents will always overwhelm the alternately timid and ferocious slaves of feeling.

I now switch to look at our topic from a different angle. Men have used countless arguments in support of morally and physically degrading the · female· sex. The arguments are brought forward with a show of reason, because they are supposed to be derived from nature. I must discuss a few of them.

The female understanding has often been spoken of with contempt, as reaching maturity sooner than the male. I shan’t answer this argument by mentioning the early proofs of reason—and indeed genius—in Cowley, Milton, Pope and many others. I merely appeal to experience to decide whether young men who are early introduced into company. . . .don’t acquire the same precocity. . . .

Some natural scientists have said that men don’t attain their full growth and strength until thirty, whereas women reach maturity by twenty. I think they are reasoning on false premises, having been led astray by the male prejudice that regards beauty as the perfection of woman, taking ‘beauty’ in the everyday sense in which it refers only to features and complexion, while male beauty is regarded as having some connection with the mind. Strength of body, and the facial character that shows maturity and moral strength, is something that women don’t acquire before thirty, any more than men do. The artless little tricks of children are indeed particularly pleasing and attractive; but when the pretty freshness of youth has worn off, these ‘artless’ graces become careful poses, and they disgust every person of taste. In the faces of girls we look only for vivacity and bashful modesty; but when the springtide of life is over we look for a more sober sense in the face, and for traces of passion, instead of the dimples of animal spirits, expecting to see individuality of character, which is the only thing that can fasten the affections.² We then want to converse, not to fondle; to give scope to our imaginations as well as to the sensations of our hearts.

. . . .The French, who admit more mind into their notions of beauty, give the preference to women of thirty. This means that they allow women to be in their most perfect state when vivacity gives way to reason and to the majestic seriousness of character which signifies maturity. . . . Between twenty and thirty the solid parts of the body become denser and the flexible muscles grow more rigid, giving character to the face; i.e. they trace the operations of the mind with the iron pen of fate, and tell us not only what powers the person has but how they have been employed.

Animals who arrive slowly at maturity are the longest lived, and of the noblest species. But men can’t claim any natural superiority from the grandeur of longevity, for in this respect nature has not distinguished the male.

Polygamy is another physical degradation, a custom that blasts every domestic virtue; and a plausible argument for it is drawn from the well-attested fact that in the countries where polygamy is established more females are born than males. [This was widely believed at MW’s time; it isn’t true.] Nature seems to be telling us something here, and apparently reasonable theories must yield capitulate to nature. And a further conclusion obviously presents itself: if polygamy is necessary, woman must be inferior to man, and made for him.

We know very little about the formation of the foetus in the womb, but it seems to me probable that an accidental physical cause may explain this phenomenon ·of the unbalanced birth ratio·, proving it not to be a law of nature. [She quotes a writer who says that the birth ratio results from polygamy, not vice versa: it comes from the fact that in the countries in question ‘the men are enervated by the use of so many women’, and the women have a ‘hotter’ constitution partly because they are aggrieved at not having their husbands to themselves. ‘So the necessity of polygamy does not appear’, MW writes, and then in mid-sentence she launches on a new aspect of the degradation of women, namely seduction.]

When a man seduces a woman, I think this should be called ‘a left-handed marriage’, and the man should be legally obliged to support the woman and her children unless adultery—a natural divorce—cancels the obligation. And this law should remain in force for as long as women’s weakness causes the word ‘seduction’ to be used as an excuse for their frailty and lack of principle—indeed, for as long as they depend on man for subsistence, instead of earning it by the use of their own hands or heads. But these women shouldn’t be called ‘wives’ in the full sense of that word; otherwise the very purpose of marriage will be subverted, and all those endearing charities that flow from personal fidelity would melt into selfishness. [MW builds into that sentence that the ‘endearing charities’ in question ‘give the marriage tie a sanctity even where there is neither love nor friendship between the parties’.] A woman who is faithful to the father of her children demands respect, and shouldn’t be treated like a prostitute; though I readily grant that if it is necessary for a man and woman to live together in order to bring up their offspring, nature never intended any man to have more than one wife.

Still, highly as I respect marriage as the foundation of almost every social virtue, I can’t help feeling the most lively compassion for the unfortunate females who are broken off from society, and by one error torn from all those affections and relationships that improve the heart and mind. In many cases it doesn’t even deserve to be called an ‘error’; because many innocent girls become the dupes of a sincere affectionate heart, and even more girls are—to put it vigorously—ruined before they know the difference between virtue and vice. Their education has prepared them to become infamous, and that is exactly what they do. Refuges and shelters are not the proper remedies for these abuses. What the world is short of is not charity but justice!

A woman who has lost her honour imagines that she can’t fall any lower, and as for recovering her former status—that is impossible; no exertion can wash away this stain. Losing thus every motivation, and having no other means of support, prostitution becomes her only refuge, and her character is quickly depraved by circumstances over which the poor wretch has little power unless she is uncommonly intelligent and high-spirited. Necessity never makes prostitution the business of men’s lives, but countless women are rendered systematically vicious in this way. But this arises largely from the state of idleness in which women are educated— always taught to look up to man for maintenance, and to consider their persons [see Glossary] as the proper payment for his exertions to support them. . . . It is usually thought that when chastity is lost everything worthy of respect in a woman is lost. Her character depends on one virtue, but the only passion fostered in her heart is love.

Indeed, a woman’s honour is not even made to depend on her will. When ·in his novel Clarissa· Richardson makes Clarissa tell Lovelace that ·by raping her· he has robbed her of her honour, he must have strange notions of honour and virtue. The condition of someone who could be degraded without his or her [see Glossary] own consent is miserable beyond all names of misery!. . . .

Most of life’s evils arise from a desire for present enjoyment that gallops out of control. The obedience required of women in the marriage state comes under this description. [That is verbatim MW: she presumably means that a wife’s obedience consists in reining in her desires for present enjoyment.] A mind that is naturally weakened by depending on authority never exerts its own powers, so that the obedient wife is turned into a weak, idle mother. And even if this doesn’t happen, ·there is a different kind of moral degradation inherent in this situation·. When only negative virtues are cultivated, almost no thought is given to a future state of existence, ·i.e. to life after death·. Writers on morals, especially when writing about women, have too often considered virtue in a very limited way, basing it solely on what will produce benefits in this life; indeed, the stupendous structure that is virtue has been given an even more fragile base, in that the wayward fluctuating feelings of men have been made the standard of virtue.. . . .

[MW writes now about the ‘vain absurdities ’ of men who degrade the sex that they claim is the source of their chief pleasure. She targets men who—turning away from prostitutes either because they •prudently want to avoid diseases or because they •are worn out from all their uses of prostitutes—get married in order to have ‘a safe companion’, viewing their wives (MW implies) as merely safer and more convenient prostitutes.]

Love considered as an animal appetite can’t feed on itself for long without dying. This extinction in its own flame could be called the violent death of love. But a wife who has been made licentious in this way will probably try to fill the void left by the loss of her husband’s attentions; because after being treated like a goddess she won’t settle for becoming merely an upper servant. She is still handsome, and instead of transferring her fondness to her children she only dreams of enjoying the sunshine of life. Besides, many husbands are so lacking in sense and parental affection that during the first effervescence of voluptuous fondness they refuse to let their wives breast-feed their children. . . .

Personal attachment is a fine basis for friendship; but when two young people marry—even virtuous ones—it might also be fine if some circumstance checked their passion; if the memory of some prior attachment or disappointed affection made it, on one side at least, a match based on esteem rather than love. That would have them looking beyond the present moment, trying to make the whole of life worthwhile by making plans to regulate a friendship which ought to last until death.

Friendship is a serious affection; the most sublime of all affections, because it is based on principle and cemented by time. The very reverse may be said of love. In a great degree, love and friendship can’t exist together in the same heart: even when it’s love for one person and friendship for someone else, they weaken or destroy each other; and for just one person you can’t have love and friendship at the same time—they have to take turns. The vain •fears and foolish •jealousies—when managed with wisdom or cunning they are the winds that fan the flame of love—are •both incompatible with the tender confidence and sincere respect of friendship.

·A PARAGRAPH ABOUT LOVE AS PORTRAYED BY GENIUS·

Love of the kind that the glowing pen of genius has described doesn’t exist anywhere on earth except perhaps in the exalted, feverish imaginations that have sketched such dangerous pictures. Dangerous? Yes, because they not only •provide a plausible excuse for the voluptuary who disguises sheer sensuality under a sentimental [see Glossary] veil, but also •spread insincerity and detract from the dignity of virtue. •Virtue should have an appearance of seriousness, if not austerity; and to try to doll •her up in the garb of pleasure because ‘virtue’ has been used as another name for pleasure, is to raise •her up on a foundation of quicksand; a most underhand attempt to hasten her fall by apparent respect. Virtue and pleasure are not in fact as closely related in this life as some eloquent writers have tried to prove. Pleasure prepares the fading wreath, and mixes the intoxicating cup; but the fruit that virtue gives is the reward for hard work; and when it is seen as it gradually ripens, all it provides is calm satisfaction—indeed, appearing to be the result of the natural tendency of things, it is hardly noticed. Bread, the common food of life and seldom thought of as a blessing, supports the constitution and preserves health; but feasts delight the heart of man although disease and even death lurk in the cup that elevates the spirits or the morsel that tickles the palate. The lively heated imagination likewise. . . .draws the picture of love, as every other picture, with the glowing colours stolen from the rainbow by a daring hand that is directed by a mind condemned, in a world like this, to prove its noble origin by panting after unattainable perfection; always pursuing what it admits to be a fleeting dream. An imagination of this vigorous cast can give existence to unsubstantial forms, and stability to the shadowy day-dreams which the mind naturally falls into when it is bored by reality. It can then depict love with heavenly charms, and dote on the grand ideal object; it can imagine

a degree of mutual affection that will refine the soul. . . .and make it absorb every less noble affection and desire. In each other’s arms, as though in a temple with its summit lost in the clouds, the world is to be shut out and along with it every thought and wish that doesn’t nurture pure affection and permanent virtue.

Permanent virtue! alas! Rousseau, good visionary! your paradise would soon be violated by the entrance of some unexpected guest. Like Milton’s, it would contain only angels and men sunk below the dignity of rational creatures. Happiness is not material, it cannot be seen or felt! Yet the eager pursuit of the good that everyone imagines for himself proclaims man to be the lord of this lower world, and to be a thinking creature whose role is not to •be given happiness but to •acquire it. So those who complain of the delusions of passion forget that they are exclaiming against a strong proof of the immortality of the soul.

I shall leave superior minds to correct themselves, and pay dearly for their experience! What I want to guard the female heart against by ·getting women to· exercise the understanding is not •strong, persevering passions but •romantic, wavering feelings—daydreams that result from idleness more often than from a lively imagination.

[MW blames women’s education for their tendency to be ‘romantic and inconstant’, because it takes them away from ‘nature and reason’. But, she continues:] their reason will never be strong enough to be able to regulate their conduct while the first wish of the majority of mankind is to make an appearance in the world. [Note: the majority of mankind.] The natural affections and the most useful virtues are sacrificed to this weak wish. Girls marry merely to ‘better themselves’ (to borrow a significant common phrase), and they have such perfect power over their hearts that they don’t allow themselves to ‘fall in love’ until a wealthy man shows up. I’ll say more about this in a later chapter; at present I need only to drop a hint. . . .

From the same source comes the opinion that young girls ought to spend much of their time on needle-work, though this contracts their faculties more than any other that could have been chosen for them, by confining their thoughts to their bodies. Men order their clothes to be made, and have done with the subject; women make their own clothes—both the •necessary and the •ornamental—and are continually talking about them; and their thoughts follow their hands. What weakens the mind is not the making of •necessaries but the •frippery of dress. When a woman in the lower rank of life makes her husband’s and children’s clothes, she is doing her duty: this is part of her business. But when women sew only so that they can dress better than they could otherwise afford, it is worse than sheer loss of time. For the poor to become virtuous, they must be employed, and •women in the middle rank of life could employ them while •they managed their families, instructed their children, and exercised their own minds. They could, but they don’t, because they are aping the fashions of the nobility without having the nobility’s means to have those fashions easily. Gardening, experimental science and literature would provide them with subjects to think and talk about—subjects that would give some exercise to their understandings. French women are not so rigidly nailed to their chairs. . . .; their conversation is often superficial but it’s not half as insipid as the conversation of those English women who spend their time making caps, bonnets, and the whole nonsense of trimmings, not to mention shopping, bargain-hunting, etc. These practices are most degrading to decent, prudent women, because the motive of the practices is simply vanity. The wanton, who exercises her taste to make her person alluring, has something more in view. [To make sure that these two sentences are understood: Martha and Mary are both making clothes for themselves. Martha is a prudent decent woman, doing something whose only point is to satisfy vanity—a thin, trivial project, unworthy of her. Mary is a promiscuous woman who is doing something to make herself sexually more attractive—a more contentful motive than mere vanity, and a better fit for Mary than vanity is for Martha.]

[Admitting that she is repeating herself, MW says that how a person thinks affects his or her character. Her present topic has been one special case of this general truth, namely the harm that women do to themselves by spending so much time thinking about ‘their persons’, e.g. what sort of effect they will have when they next appear in public.] Women of quality [MW’s phrase] seldom do any of the actual dress-making: all they exercise is their taste. And because they think less about the finery, when the business of their toilet is over they can ·put it behind them and· be at ease in a way that is usually not open to women who dress merely for the sake of dressing. In fact, the observation that the middle rank ·of society· is the one in which talents thrive best doesn’t apply to women. [If MW means her own observation here, then she isn’t quite accurate. What she referred to back there was the well-known fact that ‘the middle rank contains most virtue and abilities’.] Women of the superior class do at least pick up a smattering of literature, and they converse more with men on general topics, so they acquire more knowledge than the women who ape their fashions and faults without sharing their advantages. As for virtue (using the word in a comprehensive sense): I have seen most virtue in low life. Many poor women maintain their children by the sweat of their brow, and keep together families that the vices of the fathers would have scattered; but gentlewomen are too lazy to be actively virtuous, and are softened rather than refined by civilization. Indeed the good sense I have met with among poor women who have had few advantages of education yet have acted heroically has strongly confirmed my opinion that trivial activities have made women trivial. . . .

In tracing the causes that I think have degraded woman, I have confined myself to ones that universally act on the morals and manners of the whole sex; and it seems clear to me that they all arise from lack of understanding. Does this weakness of the faculties arise from physical or from accidental causes? [That is: is it causally determined by the constitutions of women as such, or is it caused by their circumstances?] Time alone can tell. I shan’t lay any great stress on the example of a few women³ who were given a masculine education from which they acquired courage and resolution; I only contend that men who have been placed in similar situations have acquired a similar character. . . .

NOTES

¹ What inconsistencies men fall into when they argue without a compass! Women, weak women, are ·teasingly· compared with angels; yet a superior order of beings ·such as angels· should be supposed to have more intellect than man—if they don’t, what makes them superior? In a similar spirit, and not teasingly, women are credited with having more goodness of heart, piety, and benevolence ·than men·. This is meant as a compliment, but I doubt that it is true, unless ignorance is the mother of invention! I am quite convinced that people’s virtue is nearer than is usually thought to being (on average) proportional to their knowledge.

² The strength of an affection is generally proportional to the extent to which, in the beloved object, the character of the •species is lost in the character of the •individual.

³ Sappho, Héloise, Catherine Macaulay, Catherine the Great of Russia, Madame d’Eon, etc. These and many more can be counted as ‘exceptions’; and aren’t all heroes and heroines exceptions to general rules? I want to see women neither as heroines nor as lower animals, but as reasonable creatures. [Catherine Macaulay was a contemporary of MW’s, a much respected thinker and writer; Madame d’Eon was in fact a man who passed as a woman through most of his life.]