woman

[year2027]

God first

thanks everybody

I been reading from the East but a title for old Book called "woman"

dated 1792

i am enjoying it but I want to know it it long

I dedicate this volume to you; to induce you to reconsider

the subject, and maturely weigh what I have advanced respecting the

rights of woman and national education:......

Contending for the rights of woman, my main argument is built on

this simple principle, that if she be not prepared by education to

become the companion of man, she will stop the progress of knowledge

and virtue;

...............

To account for, and excuse the tyranny of man, many ingenious

arguments have been brought forward to prove, that the two sexes, in

the acquirement of virtue, ought to aim at attaining a very

different character: or, to speak explicitly, women are not allowed to

have sufficient strength of mind to acquire what really deserves the

name of virtue. Yet it should seem, allowing them to have souls,

that there is but one way appointed by Providence to lead mankind to

either virtue or happiness.

..............

Let us examine this question. Rousseau declares that a woman

should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she

should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a

coquetish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of

desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax

himself. He carries the arguments, which he pretends to draw from

the indications of nature, still further, and insinuates that truth

and fortitude, the corner stones of all human virtue, should be

cultivated with certain restrictions, because, with respect to the

female character, obedience is the grand lesson which ought to be

impressed with unrelenting rigour.

What nonsense! When will a great man arise with sufficient

strength of mind to puff away the fumes which pride and sensuality

have thus spread over the subject! If women are by nature inferior

to men, their virtues must be the same in quality, if not in degree,

or virtue is a relative idea; consequently, their conduct should be

founded on the same principles, and have the same aim.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/vind.txt

with love and a holy kiss Roy

Edited July 20, 2010 by year2027

[year2027]

God first

thanks everybody

i wanted to share more you but put every part in this

VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN

by Mary Wollstonecraft

I wanted to give the title but sorry for the Caps

To return from this apparent digression. It were to be wished that

women would cherish an affection for their husbands, founded on the

same principle that devotion ought to rest upon. No other firm base is

there under heaven- for let them beware of the fallacious light of

sentiment; too often used as a softer phrase for sensuality. It

follows then, I think, that from their infancy women should either

be shut up like eastern princes, or educated in such a manner as to be

able to think and act for themselves.

Why do men halt between two opinions, and expect impossibilities?

Why do they expect virtue from a slave, from a being whom the

constitution of civil society has rendered weak, if not vicious?

Still I know that it will require a considerable length of time to

eradicate the firmly rooted prejudices which sensualists have planted;

it will also require some time to convince women that they act

contrary to their real interest on an enlarged scale, when they

cherish or affect weakness under the name of delicacy, and to convince

the world that the poisoned source of female vices and follies, if

it be necessary, in compliance with custom, to use synonymous terms in

a lax sense, has been the sensual homage paid to beauty:- to beauty of

features; for it has been shrewdly observed by a German writer, that a

pretty woman, as an object of desire, is generally allowed to be so by

men of all descriptions; whilst a fine woman, who inspires more

sublime emotions by displaying intellectual beauty, may be

overlooked or observed with indifference, by those men who find

their happiness in the gratification of their appetites. I foresee

an obvious retort- whilst man remains such an imperfect being as he

appears hitherto to have been, he will, more or less, be the slave

of his appetites; and those women obtaining most power who gratify a

predominant one, the sex is degraded by a physical, if not by a

moral necessity.

This objection has, I grant, some force; but while such a sublime

precept exists, as, 'be pure as your heavenly Father is pure;' it

would seem that the virtues of man are not limited by the Being who

alone could limit them; and that be may press forward without

considering whether he steps out of his sphere by indulging such a

noble ambition. To the wild billows it has been said, 'thus far

shalt thou go, and no further; and here shall thy proud waves be

stayed.' Vainly then do they beat and foam, restrained by the power

that confines the struggling planets in their orbits, matter yields to

the great governing Spirit.- But an immortal soul, not restrained by

mechanical laws and struggling to free itself from the shackles of

matter, contributes to, instead of disturbing, the order of

creation, when, co-operating with the Father of spirits, it tries to

govern itself by the invariable rule that, in a degree, before which

our imagination faints, regulates the universe.

Besides, if women be educated for dependence; that is, to act

according to the will of another fallible being, and submit, right

or wrong, to power, where are we to stop? Are they to be considered as

viceregents allowed to reign over a small domain, and answerable for

their conduct to a higher tribunal, liable to error?

It will not be difficult to prove that such delegates will act

like men subjected by fear, and make their children and servants

endure their tyrannical oppression. As they submit without reason,

they will, having no fixed rules to square their conduct by, be

kind, or cruel, just as the whim of the moment directs; and we ought

not to wonder if sometimes, galled by their heavy yoke, they take a

malignant pleasure in resting it on weaker shoulders.

But, supposing a woman, trained up to obedience, be married to a

sensible man, who directs her judgment without making her feel the

servility of her subjection, to act with as much propriety by this

reflected light as can be expected when reason is taken at second

hand, yet she cannot ensure the life of her protector; he may die

and leave her with a large family.

A double duty devolves on her; to educate them in the character of

both father and mother; to form their principles and secure their

property. But, alas! she has never thought, much less acted for

herself. She has only learned to please* men, to depend gracefully

on them; yet, encumbered with children, how is she to obtain another

protector- a husband to supply the place of reason? A rational man,

for we are not treading on romantic ground, though he may think her

a pleasing docile creature, will not choose to marry a family for

love, when the world contains many more pretty creatures. What is then

to become of her? She either falls an easy prey to some mean

fortune-hunter, who defrauds her children of their paternal

inheritance, and renders her miserable; or becomes the victim of

discontent and blind indulgence. Unable to educate her sons, or

impress them with respect; for it is not a play on words to assert,

that people are never respected, though filling an important

station, who are not respectable; she pines under the anguish of

unavailing impotent regret. The serpent's tooth enters into her very

soul, and the vices of licentious youth bring her with sorrow, if

not with poverty also, to the grave.

* 'In the union of the sexes, both pursue one common object, but not

in the same manner. From their diversity in this particular, arises

the first determinate difference between the moral relations of

each. The one should be active and strong, the other passive and weak:

it is necessary the one should have both the power and the will, and

that the other should make little resistance.

with love and a holy kiss Roy

Edited July 21, 2010 by year2027