. How much have things changed since Wollstonecraft?s day? Are
the problems that beset women in the eighteenth century completely
solved? Are you surprised at what Wollstonecraft says about the
situation of women?
2. The question of what a woman?s duties should be pervades
the selection and especially dominates paragraphs 15, 16, and 17.
As clearly as possible, clarify what Wollstonecraft feels a woman?s
duties are. Do you agree with her views?
3. Ironically, Wollstonecraft died in childbirth. Establish Wollstonecraft?s attitudes toward motherhood, particularly in reference to paragraphs 7 and 16. Have these attitudes changed radically in our time? Do you or your friends share her basic views? By using episodicalobservations, make a case for accepting or rejecting her views.
mary Wollstonecraft (1759?1797). A Vindication of the Rights of
Woman. 1792.
Chap. IX. Of the Pernicious Effects Which Arise from the
Unnatural Distinctions Established in Society.
FROM the respect paid to property flow, as from a poisoned
fountain, most of the evils and vices which render this world such
a dreary scene to the contemplative mind. For it is in the most
polished society that noisome reptiles and venomous serpents lurk
under the rank herbage; and there is voluptuousness pampered by the
still sultry air, which relaxes every good disposition before it
ripens into virtue. 1
One class presses on another; for all are aiming to procure
respect on account of their property: and property, once gained,
will procure the respect due only to talents and virtue. Men
neglect the duties incumbent on man, yet are treated like
demi-gods; religion is also separated from morality by a ceremonial
veil, yet men wonder that the world is almost, literally speaking,
a den of sharpers or oppressors. 2
There is a homely proverb, which speaks a shrewd truth, that
whoever the devil finds idle he will employ. And what but habitual
idleness can hereditary wealth and titles produce? For man is so
constituted that he can only attain a proper use of his faculties
by exercising them, and will not exercise them unless necessity, of
some kind, first set the wheels in motion. Virtue likewise can only
be acquired by the discharge of relative duties; but the importance
of these sacred duties will scarcely be felt by the being who is
cajoled out of his humanity by the flattery of sycophants. There
must be more equality established in society, or morality will
never gain ground, and this virtuous equality will not rest firmly
even when founded on a rock, if one half of mankind are chained to
its bottom by fate, for they will be continually undermining it
through ignorance or pride. 3
It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are, in some
degree, independent of men; nay, it is vain to expect that strength
of natural affection, which would make them good wives and mothers.
Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be
cunning, mean, and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the
fawning fondness of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy,
for love is not to be bought, in any sense of the words, its silken
wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in
kind is sought. Yet whilst wealth enervates men; and women live, as
it were, by their personal charms, how can we expect them to
discharge those ennobling duties which equally require exertion and
self-denial. Hereditary property sophisticates the mind, and the
unfortunate victims to it, if I may so express myself, swathed from
their birth, seldom exert the locomotive faculty of body or mind;
and, thus viewing every thing through one medium, and that a false
one, they are unable to discern in what true merit and happiness
consist. False, indeed, must be the light when the drapery of
situation hides the man, and makes him stalk in masquerade,
dragging from one scene of dissipation to another the nerveless
limbs that hang with stupid listlessness, and rolling round the
vacant eye which plainly tells us that there is no mind at home. 4
I mean, therefore, to infer that the society is not properly
organized which does not compel men and women to discharge their
respective duties, by making it the only way to acquire that
countenance from their fellow-creatures, which every human being
wishes some way to attain. The respect, consequently, which is paid
to wealth and mere personal charms, is a true north-east blast,
that blights the tender blossoms of affection and virtue. Nature
has wisely attached affections to duties, to sweeten toil, and to
give that vigour to the exertions of reason which only the heart
can give. But, the affection which is put on merely because it is
the appropriated insignia of a certain character, when its duties
are not fulfilled, is one of the empty compliments which vice and
folly are obliged to pay to virtue and the real nature of things.
5
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