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.
'This principle being established, it follows that woman is
expressly formed to please the man: if the obligation be reciprocal
also, and the man ought to please in his turn, it is not so
immediately necessary: his great merit is in his power, and he pleases
merely because he is strong. This, I must confess, is not one of the
refined maxims of love; it is, however, one of the laws of nature,
prior to love itself.
'If woman be formed to please and be subjected to man, it is her
place, doubtless, to render herself agreeable to him, instead of
challenging his passion, The violence of his desires depends on her
charms; it is by means of these she should urge him to the exertion of
those powers which nature hath given him.
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