AUTHOR. Fie, Master! To contradict yourself thus is disgraceful to your reputation. It would be better to maintain that woman has not the same rights as man, because she is of a different species.
PROUDHON. Woman is bound to feel that she does not possess a dignity equal to that of man; in the association formed between them to produce justice, the notions of right and duty shall be no longer correlative. Man shall have all rights, and shall accept only such duties as it shall please him to recognize.
AUTHOR. Reflect that man, after having denied the dignity and the right of woman, will labor to stultify her more and more in the interest of his despotism!
PROUDHON. That does not concern me: the family should be immured: the husband is priest and king therein. If, as in the case with all liberty oppressed, the woman grows restive, we will tell her that she does not know herself, that she is incapable of judging and ruling herself; that she is a cypher; we will outrage her in her moral worth; we will deny her intellect and activity: and by dint of intimidating her, we will succeed in forcing her to be silent: for man must remain master, since he is the stronger!
AUTHOR. Deny and insult us, Master, this does us no harm: the lords of the Middle Age employed this method with their serfs, your sires ... we are now indignant at them. Slaveholders employed and still employ this method with the blacks, and the civilized world is indignant at them, slavery is restricted, and is on the way to disappear.
Meanwhile, I point out your contradictions to my readers; your authority over minds will be thereby lessened, I hope.
Those who claim, in accordance with the major of the preceding syllogisms, that you found right upon identity of species, an abstraction of individual qualities; that you believe right and duty correlative; that you desire equality and liberty, will be quite as nearly right as those who claim, in accordance with the conclusion of the same syllogisms, that you base right upon force, superiority of faculties; that you accept inequality and despotism, deny individual liberty and social equality, and do not believe in the correlation of right and duty.
If it is painful to you to have fallen into contradictions so monstrous, believe that it is not less painful to me to be forced, in the interest of my cause, to point them out to the world.
Having taken in hand the cause of my sex, I was under obligations to parry your attacks by turning against yourself your allegations against us.
It was necessary to do this, not by denials and declamations which prove nothing, or by affirmations without proofs, according to your method of proceeding; but by opposing to you science and facts; by making use only of the rational method which you extol without employing it, by charging you often with contradicting yourself when proofs de facto would have demanded too much detail and time.