The truth is, were girls allowed the same freedom in the choice of amusements as boys, they would manifest an equal fondness for out-of-door sports, to the neglect of dolls and frivolous pastimes. But it is denied to them. Directors of their education have, as a rule, been blind adherents to the doctrine that whatever is, is right, and hence have argued that because women have always been brought up in a certain way they should continue to be so trained.
The worst of it is that the artificial delicacy of constitution thus produced is the cause of a corresponding weakness of mind; and women are in actual fact fair defects in creation, as they have been called. And yet, after having been unfitted for action, they are expected to be competent to take charge of a family. The woman who is well-disposed, and whose husband is a sensible man, may act with propriety so long as he is alive to direct her. But if he were to die how could she alone educate her children and manage her household with discretion? The woman who is ill-disposed is not only incapacitated for her duties, but, in her desire to please and to have pleasure, she neglects dull domestic cares.
“It does not require a lively pencil, or the discriminating outline of a caricature, to sketch the domestic miseries and petty vices which such a mistress of a family diffuses. Still, she only acts as a woman ought to act, brought up according to Rousseau’s system. She can never be reproached for being masculine, or turning out of her sphere; nay, she may observe another of his grand rules, and, cautiously preserving her reputation free from spot, be reckoned a good kind of woman. Yet in what respect can she be termed good? She abstains, it is true, without any great struggle, from committing gross crimes; but how does she fulfil her duties? Duties—in truth, she has enough to think of to adorn her body and nurse a weak constitution.
“With respect to religion, she never presumes to judge for herself; but conforms, as a dependent creature should, to the ceremonies of the church which she was brought up in, piously believing that wiser heads than her own have settled that business; and not to doubt is her point of perfection. She therefore pays her tithe of mint and cummin, and thanks her God that she is not as other women are. These are the blessed effects of a good education! these the virtues of man’s helpmate!”
At this point Mary, after having given the picture of woman as she is now, describes her as she ought to be. This description is worth quoting, but not because it contains any originality of thought or charm of expression. It is interesting as showing exactly what the first sower of the seeds of female enfranchisement expected to reap for her harvest. People who are frightened by a name are apt to suppose that women who defend their rights would have the world filled with uninspired Joans of Arc, and unrefined Portias. Those who judge Mary Wollstonecraft by her conduct, without inquiring into her motives or reading her book, might conclude that what she desired was the destruction of family ties and, consequently, of moral order. Therefore, in justice to her, the purity of her ideals of feminine perfection and her respect for the sanctity of domestic life should be clearly established. This can not be better done than by giving her own words on the subject:—
“Let fancy now present a woman with a tolerable understanding,—for I do not wish to leave the line of mediocrity,—whose constitution, strengthened by exercise, has allowed her body to acquire its full vigor, her mind at the same time gradually expanding itself to comprehend the moral duties of life, and in what human virtue and dignity consist. Formed thus by the relative duties of her station, she marries from affection, without losing sight of prudence; and looking beyond matrimonial felicity, she secures her husband’s respect before it is necessary to exert mean arts to please him, and feed a dying flame, which nature doomed to expire when the object became familiar, when friendship and forbearance take the place of a more ardent affection. This is the natural death of love, and domestic peace is not destroyed by struggles to prevent its extinction. I also suppose the husband to be virtuous; or she is still more in want of independent principles.
“Fate, however, breaks this tie. She is left a widow, perhaps without a sufficient provision; but she is not desolate. The pang of nature is felt; but after time has softened sorrow into melancholy resignation, her heart turns to her children with redoubled fondness, and, anxious to provide for them, affection gives a sacred, heroic cast to her maternal duties. She thinks that not only the eye sees her virtuous efforts from whom all her comfort now must flow, and whose approbation is life; but her imagination, a little abstracted and exalted by grief, dwells on the fond hope that the eyes which her trembling hand closed may still see how she subdues every wayward passion to fulfil the double duty of being the father as well as the mother of her children. Raised to heroism by misfortunes, she represses the first faint dawning of a natural inclination before it ripens into love, and in the bloom of life forgets her sex, forgets the pleasure of an awakening passion, which might again have been inspired and returned. She no longer thinks of pleasing, and conscious dignity prevents her from priding herself on account of the praise which her conduct demands. Her children have her love, and her highest hopes are beyond the grave, where her imagination often strays.
“I think I see her surrounded by her children, reaping the reward of her care. The intelligent eye meets hers, whilst health and innocence smile on their chubby cheeks, and as they grow up the cares of life are lessened by their grateful attention. She lives to see the virtues which she endeavored to plant on principles, fixed into habits, to see her children attain a strength of character sufficient to enable them to endure adversity without forgetting their mother’s example.
“The task of life thus fulfilled, she calmly waits for the sleep of death, and rising from the grave may say, Behold, thou gavest me a talent, and here are five talents.”
Truly, if this be the result of the vindication of their rights, even the most devoted believer in Rousseau must admit that women thereby will gain, and not lose, in true womanliness.