Chap. XIII.
Some Instances of the Folly Which the Ignorance of Women
Generates; with Concluding Reflections on the Moral Improvement
That a Revolution in Female Manners Might Naturally Be
Expected to Produce.
There are many follies, in some degree, peculiar to women: sins
against reason of commission as well as of omission; but all flowing
from ignorance or prejudice, I shall only point out such as appear
to be particularly injurious to their moral character. And in
animadverting on them, I wish especially to prove, that the weakness
of mind and body, which men have endeavoured, impelled by various
motives, to perpetuate, prevents their discharging the peculiar duty
of their sex: for when weakness of body will not permit them to suckle
their children, and weakness of mind makes them spoil their tempers-
is woman in a natural state?
SECT. I.
One glaring instance of the weakness which proceeds from
ignorance, first claims attention, and calls for severe reproof.
In this metropolis a number of lurking leeches infamously gain a
subsistence by practising on the credulity of women, pretending to
cast nativities, to use the technical phrase; and many females who,
proud of their rank and fortune, look down on the vulgar with
sovereign contempt, shew by this credulity, that the distinction is
arbitrary, and that they have not sufficiently cultivated their
minds to rise above vulgar prejudices.
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