Or should they be ambitious, they must govern their
tyrants by sinister tricks, for without rights there cannot be any
incumbent duties. The laws respecting woman, which I mean to
discuss in a future part, make an absurd unit of a man and his
wife; and then, by the easy transition of only considering him as
responsible, she is reduced to a mere cypher.
The being who discharges the duties of its station, is independent;
and, speaking of women at large, their first duty is to themselves
as rational creatures, and the next, in point of importance, as
citizens, is that, which includes so many, of a mother. The rank
in life which dispenses with their fulfilling this duty,
necessarily degrades them by making them mere dolls. Or, should
they turn to something more important than merely fitting drapery
upon a smooth block, their minds are only occupied by some soft
platonic attachment; or, the actual management of an intrigue may
keep their thoughts in motion; for when they neglect domestic
duties, they have it not in their power to take the field and march
and counter-march like soldiers, or wrangle in the senate to keep
their faculties from rusting.
I know, that as a proof of the inferiority of the sex, Rousseau has
exultingly exclaimed, How can they leave the nursery for the camp!
And the camp has by some moralists been termed the school of the
most heroic virtues; though, I think, it would puzzle a keen
casuist to prove the reasonableness of the greater number of wars,
that have dubbed heroes.
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