In treating this part of the subject, it will be necessary to make a rapid circumnavigation of the globe, touching at least at the most remarkable places.
Europe.
GREENLAND. The situation of females in this country might well justify the exclamation of an ancient philosopher, who thanked God that he was born a man and not a woman. The only employment of girls, till their fourteenth year, is singing, dancing, amusements, attending on children, and fetching water; [[57]] after which they are taught, by their mothers, to sew, cook, tan the skins of animals, construct houses, and navigate boats. It is common for the men to stand by as idle spectators, while the women are carrying the heaviest materials for building; the former never attempting to do any thing but the carpenter's work. Parents frequently betroth their daughters in infancy, and never consult their wishes respecting marriage; if no previous pledge be given, they are disposed of to the first suiter that chances to make the application. From their twentieth year, the usual period of marriage, the lives of the women, says Cranz, are a continued series of hardships and misery. The occupations of the men solely consist in hunting and fishing; but so far from giving themselves the trouble to carry home the fish they have caught, they would think themselves eternally disgraced by such a condescension.
The Greenlanders have two kinds of boats, adapted to procure subsistence. One of them is the great woman's boat called the umiak, from twelve to eighteen yards in length, and four or five in width. These boats are rowed by four women, and steered by a fifth, without any assistance from the men, excepting in cases of emergency. If the coast will not allow them to pass, six or eight women take the boat upon their heads, and carry it over land to a navigable place.
Mothers-in-law are absolute mistresses in the houses of their married sons, who frequently ill-treat them; and the poor women are sometimes obliged to live with quarrelsome favourites, and may be corrected or divorced at pleasure. Widows who have no friends, are commonly robbed of a considerable portion of their property by those who come to sympathize with them by an affected condolence; and can obtain no redress,--on the contrary, they are obliged to conciliate their kindness by the utmost obsequiousness. After a precarious subsistence in different families, and being driven from one hut to another, they are suffered to expire without help or notice. When widows have grown-up sons, their condition is much superior to that in which they formerly lived with their husbands. When aged women pretend to practise, or are suspected of witchcraft--if the wife or child of a Greenlander happen to die--if his fowling piece miss fire, or his arrow the mark at which it was shot--the supposed sorceress is instantly stoned, thrown into the sea, or cut in pieces by the angekoks or male magicians. There have even been instances of sons killing their mothers, and brothers their sisters. The infirmities of age expose women to violent deaths, being sometimes with their own consent, and sometimes forcibly, interred alive by their own offspring.
RUSSIA. Over this extensive empire, including sixteen different nations, the condition of women is such as equally to evince the degraded character of the men. Among the Siberians, an opinion is entertained that they are impure beings, and odious to the gods; in consequence of which, they are not permitted to approach the sacred fire, or the places of sacrifice. In the eastern islands, in particular, there exists tribes to whom the nuptial ceremony is unknown; and in cases where the daughters are purchased by goods, money, or services, their fathers never consult their children, and their husbands treat them as slaves or beasts of burden. In Siberia, conjugal fidelity is bartered for gain, or sacrificed at the shrine of imaginary hospitality. The sale of their wives is by no means uncommon, for a little train oil, or other paltry considerations. To this the women offer no objection, and at an advanced age frequently seek younger wives for their husbands, and devote themselves to domestic drudgery. [[58]] The same degrading facts apply to the Tungusians and other tribes. In some respects the Kamtschadales differ from the rest, but the extreme debasement arising from their libidinous brutality must not be described, and can scarcely be credited. [[59]]
Among all the Slavon nations of Europe, wives and daughters have ever been kept in a state of exclusion. Brides are purchased, and instantly become slaves. Formerly sons were compelled by blows to marry, and daughters dragged by their hair to the altars; and the paternal authority is still unbounded. The lower classes are doomed to incessant labour, and are obliged to submit to the utmost indignities. [[60]]
The picture of Russian manners varies little with reference to the prince or the peasant.... They are all, high and low, rich and poor, alike servile to superiors; haughty and cruel to their dependants, ignorant, superstitions, cunning, brutal, barbarous, dirty, mean. The emperor canes the first of his grandees; princes and nobles cane their slaves; and the slaves their wives and daughters. [[61]]
ITALY AND SPAIN. These two countries may be classed together, because the condition of the female sex is very similar in both: the education of woman is totally neglected, and they are not ashamed of committing the grossest blunders in common conversation. Such is their situation that they cannot intermeddle with the concerns of their husbands, without exciting their jealousy. Girls are in early years left to the care of servants who are both ill educated and immoral; the same may be said of their mothers, whose conversation and public conduct tend to perfect the growth of licentiousness in their uncultivated children.
PORTUGAL. Young women in this kingdom are not instructed in any thing truly useful or ornamental; and even those who belong to respectable families, are often ignorant of reading and writing. Parents keep their daughters in the most rigid confinement, frequently not allowing them even to go abroad to church to hear mass, and never unattended. They are secluded from all young persons of the other sex, who are not permitted to visit families where there are unmarried females. The consequence of this austerity is an extended system of intrigue, for the purpose of evading all this circumspection--by which means they are full of cunning and deceit.