Numberless are the arguments, to take another view of the subject,
brought forward with a shew of reason, because supposed to be
deduced from nature, that men have used morally and physically, to
degrade the sex. I must notice a few.
The female understanding has often been spoken of with contempt,
as arriving sooner at maturity than the male. I shall not answer
this argument by alluding to the early proofs of reason, as well as
genius, in Cowley, Milton, and Pope,* but only appeal to experience to
decide whether young men, who are early introduced into company (and
examples now abound), do not acquire the same precocity. So
notorious is this fact, that the bare mentioning of it must bring
before people, who at all mix in the world, the idea of a number of
swaggering apes of men, whose understandings are narrowed by being
brought into the society of men when they ought to have been
spinning a top or twirling a hoop.
* Many other names might be added.
It has also been asserted, by some naturalists, that men do not
attain their full growth and strength till thirty; but that women
arrive at maturity by twenty. I apprehend that they reason on false
ground, led astray by the male prejudice, which deems beauty the
perfection of woman- mere beauty of features and complexion, the
vulgar acceptation of the word, whilst male beauty is allowed to
have some connection with the mind. Strength of body, and that
character of countenance, which the French term a physionomie, women
do not acquire before thirty, any more than men.
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