Yet, if defensive war, the only justifiable war, in the present
advanced state of society, where virtue can shew its face and ripen
amidst the rigours which purify the air on the mountain's top, were
alone to be adopted as just and glorious, the true heroism of
antiquity might again animate female bosoms.- But fair and softly,
gentle reader, male or female, do not alarm thyself, for though I have
compared the character of a modern soldier with that of a civilized
woman, I am not going to advise them to turn their distaff into a
musket, though I sincerely wish to see the bayonet converted into a
pruning-hook. I only recreated an imagination, fatigued by
contemplating the vices and follies which all proceed from a
feculent stream of wealth that has muddied the pure rills of natural
affection, by supposing that society will some time or other be so
constituted, that man must necessarily fulfil the duties of a citizen,
or be despised, and that while he was employed in any of the
departments of civil life, his wife, also an active citizen, should be
equally intent to manage her family, educate her children, and
assist her neighbours.
But, to render her really virtuous and useful, she must not, if
she discharge her civil duties, want, individually, the protection
of civil laws; she must not be dependent on her husband's bounty for
her subsistence during his life, or support after his death- for how
can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or, virtuous,
who is not free? The wife, in the present state of things, who is
faithful to her husband, and neither suckles nor educates her
children, scarcely deserves the name of a wife, and has no right to
that of a citizen.
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