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. I do not mean to consider this question
critically; because, having frequently viewed these freaks of ambition
as the first natural mode of civilization, when the ground must be
torn up, and the woods cleared by fire and sword, I do not choose to
call them pests; but surely the present system of war has little
connection with virtue of any denomination, being rather the school of
finesse and effeminacy, than of fortitude.
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