Gentleman, a proxy is chosen freely, and is not imposed on an individual; I do not accept you as proxies: I am intelligent enough to transact my business myself, and I pray you to restore to me, as well as to all the women who think as I do, an authority which you use unworthily. If married women, to have peace, are willing to continue you as their authority, it is their business; but none of you can legitimately retain that of widows and unmarried women who have attained majority.
7. Woman has not the same rights as man, because she has no more time than capacity to exercise them.
Has woman less time and capacity than your working men, pinned twelve hours a day to their petty and stultifying tasks? Affirm it if you dare!
Does it need less time and capacity to make a deposition in a criminal suit, as woman does, than to witness a civil act or a notarial contract, a right that woman has not.
Does it need less time and capacity to be the guardian of sons and to administer their fortune, as woman does, than to be the guardian of a stranger or of a nephew, and administer their property, a right that woman has not.
Does it need less time and capacity to superintend a manufactory, a commercial establishment, workmen, as do so many women, than to be at the head of an office, or of a public administration, and to superintend its officials, a right that woman has not?
Does it need less time and capacity to devote one's self to instruction in a large boarding school, as do so many women, than in the chair of a professorship, as man alone has the right to do?
Woman proves, by her works, that she lacks capacity and time no more than you. Facts stifle affirmations for which you should blush. Fie! I am glad that I am not a man, lest I might say like things and be led to pretend that an instructress, a literary woman, a woman artist, an experienced female merchant has not the capacity of a porter or a rag-picker because she has not a beard on her chin.
8. The rights of woman are in her beauty and in the love of man.
Rights, based on beauty, and on that fragile thing styled man's love! What are these worth, I ask you, gentlemen?