I. I Enter upon a serious and difficult undertaking; in the prosecution of which, it is not one ignorant vulgar person only I shall have to contend with, for setting about to defend all the women, amounts to pretty near the same thing as resolving to offend all the men, there being scarce one among them, who, in order to give precedence to his own sex, does not endeavour to bring the other into disesteem; and to such an extravagant length, has this custom of abusing and vilifying the women by common consent been carried, that in a moral sense they load them with defects, and in a physical one with imperfections, and willscarce allow them to possess a single good quality: but they lay the greatest stress on the scantiness or limitation of their understandings; for which reason, after briefly vindicating them in other respects, I shall discourse more at large on their aptitude, for attaining all sorts of science and sublime knowledge.
II. The false prophet Mahomed, denied the women entrance into that ill-laid-out and absurdly-disposed paradise, which he had devised and appropriated to be possessed by his followers, limiting the felicity of the females to beholding from without, the glory and happiness enjoyed by the men within; and it certainly must give the women great pleasure, to survey their husbands in that scene of delights, composed all of turpitudes, clasped in the arms of other consorts, which were feigned to be newly created for this particular purpose by that great artist in fabricating chimeras. Such a delirium being admitted and received by a great part of the world, sufficiently shews, to what a degree mankind are capable of running into error.
III. But it seems as if these, who deny the women almost every kind of merit in this life, do not differ much from those who deny them happiness in the next. The most vile among thevulgar, very frequently represent that sex as having a most horrible propensity to vice; and would insinuate, that the men are the sole repositories of virtue. It is certainly true, that you will find these species of sentiments loudly trumpeted forth in an infinite number of books; in some of which, the invective is carried to such a point, as scarcely to admit there is one good woman, and asserting, that their blush, which has been generally considered as an addition to their beauty, and a token of modesty, is the effect of the lewdness of their souls.
Aspera si visa est, rigidasque imitata SabinasVelle, sed ex alto dissimulare puta.
Aspera si visa est, rigidasque imitata SabinasVelle, sed ex alto dissimulare puta.
Aspera si visa est, rigidasque imitata SabinasVelle, sed ex alto dissimulare puta.
Aspera si visa est, rigidasque imitata Sabinas
Velle, sed ex alto dissimulare puta.
Instead of replying to such insolent malevolence, the best method is, to treat it with contempt and detestation. Not a few of those, who are most addicted to paint the sex in the blackest colouring, have been observed to be the most solicitous about obtaining their favour and good graces. Euripides, who was exceedingly satirical upon them in his tragedies, as Athenæus and Stobæus inform us, was excessively fond of them in private. He execrated them on the theatre, and idolized them in the chamber. Boccace, who was excessively addicted to women, wrote a satyr against them, entitled, The Labyrinth of Love.What was the mystery of this? Why it most probably was, that, under the disguise of having an aversion to them, he endeavoured to conceal his passion for them; or it might be, that the brutal satiety of the turpid appetite had brought on a loathing, which caused every thing appertaining to the other sex to appear hateful and disgusting. This sort of abuse, may also sometimes proceed from a refusal to lend a kind ear to entreaties and solicitations; for there are men so malevolent, as to be capable of saying a woman is not good, because she has refused to be bad. This unjust motive for complaint and resentment, has sometimes vented itself in the most cruel acts of revenge; an example of which, may be instanced in the unhappy fate of that most beautiful Irish lady madam Douglass, against whom, William Leout was blindly irritated, for having refused to comply with his lewd solicitations. To be revenged, he accused her of high treason; and procured the calumniating and false charge to be proved by suborned witnesses. She suffered capital punishment; and la Mothe de la Vayer, who (in his Opusc. Scept.) gives the relation, says, that Leout himself afterwards confessed the falsity of the accusation, and the wicked means used to prove her guilty.
To this instance, may be added that of a most virtuous and beautiful French lady, the marchioness of Gange. Her two brothers-in-law made dishonourable propositions to her, and successively tried many arts, to prevail on her to gratify their base inclinations; but, notwithstanding one of them, who was an extreme cunning man, and governed the marquis her consort entirely, threatened to instil into the mind of her husband suspicions of her fidelity, she vigorously rejected their entreaties. Finding themselves in spite of the menace, repeatedly repulsed with scorn and indignation, they resolved to carry the threat into execution; and, having prevailed on the credulous husband to entertain doubts of his wife’s honour and constancy, he consented that the two brothers should take away the life of the innocent marchioness; which they did in a barbarous and cruel manner, by first forcing her to swallow a poisonous draught, but afterwards, doubting of the efficacy of the potion, they gave her several desperate wounds. Although she survived both the wounds and the operation of the poison for the space of nineteen days, and, by means of her relation of the matter, which was corroborated by other circumstances, the officers of justice and the public were informed of the whole transaction, and measures were taken for apprehending the delinquents; yet they, finding themselves discovered, fled the kingdom,and escaped the punishment due to their crime. This tragical event happened in the year 1667, and is related by Gayot Piteval, in his fifth volume of Remarkable Cases.
IV. I don’t deny that many of them are vicious; but, alas! if we were to trace their slips and irregularities to their source, I fear we should find them originate in the obstinate and persevering impulse or solicitations of our sex. He, who would wish or endeavour to make all the women good, should begin with converting all the men. Nature implanted modesty in the sex, as a fence-wall to resist the attacks of appetite; and it very rarely happens, that a breach is made in this wall by force applied on the inside.
V. The declamations against the women, which we read in some parts of holy writ, should be understood, as pointed and levelled at the perverse ones, as there is no doubt but there are such; and, although they should be supposed to have an eye to the sex in general, nothing could be inferred from thence; because the physicians of the soul declaim against women, as the physicians of the body declaim against fruit, which, although it is good, beautiful, and useful in itself, the abuse or excess of it is pernicious: besides this, allowance should be made for the latitude permitted tooratory of magnifying the risque, when it is used to divert or turn people from dangerous courses.
VI. Let them, who suppose the female sex to be more vicious than ours, tell me, how they can reconcile this, with the church having in an especial manner, bestowed on them the epithet of devout? How with the words of many of the most grave and eminent doctors, who have declared it as their opinion, that there are more women saved than men, even having regard to the proportion, in which it is generally thought the number of females exceeds that of the males? Which opinion, they do not, nor cannot found on any other thing, than their having observed in them a greater inclination to piety.
VII. Methinks I already hear, in opposition to our undertaking, that proposition of much noise, and little or no truth, that the women are the cause of all evil; and, by way of proving it, the vulgar, down to the meanest and most contemptible of them, endeavour to inculcate at every turn, that La Caba occasioned the ruin of all Spain, and Eve that of all mankind.
VIII. But the first instance is absolutely a false one. The count Don Julian was the person who brought the Moors into Spain, but was not persuadedto it by his daughter, who did no more than make known to her father the affront and injury she had received. How unhappy is the lot of women, if, in the case of being trampled on by an insolent ravisher, they are to be deprived of the relief of unbosoming themselves to their fathers, or their husbands! The aggressors, in these cases, would gladly deprive them of this relief and benefit; though if at any time an unjust vengeance should be the consequence of the complaint, the fault would not lie at the door of the innocent offended person, but would rest with him who did the execution with the sword, and the man who committed the insult; and thus the whole blame and crime would be imputable to the men only.
IX. If the second example proves, that the women in general are worse than the men; by the same mode of reasoning it may be proved, that the angels in general are worse than the women; because, as Adam was induced to sin by a woman, the woman was seduced by an angel. It is not yet decided whose sin was the greatest, that of Adam, or that of Eve, because the fathers are divided in their opinions; and, in truth, the excuse which Cayetane makes in favour of Eve, that she was deceived by a creature of much superior intelligence and capacity to herself, is a circumstancethat cannot be urged on behalf of Adam, and greatly abates her crime in comparison with his.
X. But passing from the moral to the physical, which is more applicable to our present purpose, we shall find the preference of the robust over the delicate sex is a point settled, and any claim or pretensions to equality on the part of the women is set aside, and treated with contempt; and to such a length has depreciating the women been carried by some, that they have not scrupled to call them imperfect, and even monstrous animals, asserting, that Nature, in the work of generation, never intended to produce any thing but males, and that it was only by mistake, or in consequence of some defect in the matter or faculty, that females were produced.
XI. O admirable adepts in physics! It would follow from hence, that Nature conspired to work its own destruction, because, without the concurrence of both sexes, the species cannot be preserved. It would follow also, that Nature in this her principal work, is more frequently mistaken than right; because it is allowed, that she produces more women than men. Nor when we seefemales the offspring of parents who are healthy, robust, and in the flower of their age, can we attribute the formation of them to debility, want of vigour, or a defect in the matter; nor is it probable, that if man had preserved his original innocence, in which case there would have been none of these defects, we should have had no women born, and that the human lineage would have been kept up or continued without propagation.
XII. I know very well there was an author, who, for the sake of indulging his malice, and supporting his envious insinuations against the other sex, swallowed so palpable an absurdity. This was Almaricus, a Parisian doctor of the twelfth century, who, among other errors, asserts, that, if the state of innocence had continued, all the individuals of our species would have been males, and that God would have created them immediately himself as he did Adam.
XIII. Almaricus was a blind follower of Aristotle, insomuch that all, or very near all his errors, were produced by conclusions, which he had drawn from the doctrines of that philosopher; and, seeing that Aristotle, in more than one part of his works, gives it to be understood, that a female is a defective animal, its generation accidental,and out of the design of nature, he concluded, that there were no women in the state of innocence; and thus it comes to pass, that an heretical theology is very frequently occasioned by a mistake in physics.
XIV. But the great and avowed adherence of Almaricus to Aristotle, was rather unfortunate to them both; because the errors of Almaricus were condemned by a council held at Paris in 1209; and, in the same council, the reading the books of Aristotle were prohibited, which prohibition was afterwards confirmed by Pope Gregory IX. Almaricus had been dead a year when his dogmas were proscribed; but his bones were afterwards dug up, and thrown into a jake.
XV. This shews, that we should not lay any great stress upon the opinion of a few doctors, who, though they were in other respects discreet men, have asserted, that the female sex is defective, for no other reason, than because Aristotle whose followers they were had declared so; but they did not however proceed so far, as to precipitate themselves into the error of Almaricus. It is certain, that Aristotle’s treatment of the women proceeded from spite; for he not only proclaimed with vehemence their physical defects, but was more vehement still in blazoning their moralones; some instances of which, I shall point out in another place. Who would not suppose from all this, that his disposition inclined him to shun the sex? But nothing was so opposite to him, for he not only tenderly loved two wives which he married, but his affection for the first, named Pythais, who, as some say, was daughter, others niece of Hermias, tyrant of Atarneus, carried him so far beside himself, that he franticly offered incense to her as a deity. They also give us a relation of his loose amours with a little servant girl, though Plutarch does not incline to credit the tale; but in this business, the testimony of Theocritus Chio, who was contemporary with Aristotle, ought to have more weight than the opinion of Plutarch, who was much posterior to him; and Theocritus, in a lively epigram, lashed Aristotle for his obscenity. From this instance we may perceive, that men’s seeming malignity to, and inveterate abuse of women, is, as we have observed before, frequently accompanied with an inordinate inclination for them.
XVI. From the same physical error which condemned woman for an imperfect animal, there sprung another theological one, which is combated by St. Austin, in Lib. 22, de Civit. Dei cap. 17. The authors of this system say, that, at the universal resurrection, this imperfection is tobe remedied, by converting all the women into men; and that then, grace is to compleat and finish the work which nature had only begun.
XVII. This error is very like that of the infatuated Alchymists, who, relying on the maxim, that nature in the formation of metals, never intended to produce any thing but gold, and that it was only from some obstruction, or from some defect of vigour and virtue, that she fabricated other imperfect metals; also pretend, that art is afterwards capable of carrying the work to perfection, and making gold of that which was originally produced iron. But, after all, this error is the most sufferable of the two, because it does not interfere with matters of faith; and because also, let the intention of nature in the formation of metals, and the imaginary capacity of art, be what they will, it is a fact, that gold is the most noble of metals, and that the others are of a much inferior quality compared to it. But, in our present question, the assertion, that Nature always intended the production of males, and that her producing females was the effect of a bastard operation, is all false and erroneous; and much more so is the affirming, that this is to be amended at the resurrection.
XVIII. I would not, however, be understood to approve of what is thrown out by Zacuto Lusitano, in the introduction to his Treatise De Morbis Mulierum, where, with frivolous reasons, he attempts to give the preference to the women, and to persuade us, that their physical perfections greatly exceed those of the men. Such an opinion, might be supported by much more plausible arguments than are used by him; but my view is not to persuade a superiority, but only an equality.
XIX. And to begin, setting aside the question of their understandings, which I mean to discuss separately and more at large in this discourse, let us consider the three endowments, in which the men seem manifestly to have the advantage of the women, to wit, robustness, constancy, and prudence; but, although this should be granted by the women, they might pretend to a competition, by pointing out other three qualities, in which they excel the male sex, to wit, beauty, gentleness, and simplicity.
XX. Robustness, which is a bodily perfection, may be considered as counterpoised by beauty, which is so likewise. Many people are disposedto give the last the preference; and they would be right, if that was to be esteemed the most valuable, which is the most flattering or pleasing to the sight: but the consideration of which is most useful to the public, should, in the eye of sound judgment, weigh most in deciding the question; and, viewing the thing in this light, robustness must be preferred to beauty. The robustness of men, furnishes the world with three most essential benefits, which may not improperly be termed the three columns which support every state, to wit, arms, agriculture, and mechanics. From the beauty of women, I do not know what important advantage can accrue, unless it comes by accident. Some will argue, that beauty, so far from producing benefits, occasions serious mischiefs, by causing unruly amours, which inflame and excite competitions and strife, and which involve those who are charged with the custody of women, in cares, uneasiness, and anxiety.
XXI. But this accusation, as it originates from a want of reflection, is ill-founded; for supposing, for argument’s sake, that all the women were ugly, in those who were blemished with the fewest deformities, we should experience the same attraction, which we do at present in the handsome ones, and they would consequently occasion the same mischief. The least ugly placed in Greecewould have caused the burning of Troy, as Helen did; and placed in the palace of King Roderigo, would have been the ruin of Spain, as La Caba was. In those countries where the women are the least tempting, there are not fewer disorders than there are in those where they are more genteelly, and more admirably formed: even in Muscovy, which in number of handsome women exceeds all the other kingdoms of Europe, incontinence is not so unbridled as in other countries, and conjugal faith is observed there, with more exactness than it is in other places.
XXII. Beauty therefore of itself, is not the cause of the mischiefs which are attributed to it; notwithstanding which, in the present question, I must give my vote in favour of robustness, as I esteem it a much more important quality than beauty, and therefore, in this particular, must give the preference to the men. There is, however, saved and remaining to the women, if they chuse to avail themselves of it, an objection to this decision, which may be founded on the judgment of many learned men, and which was assented to and admitted by a whole illustrious school: this judgment, recognizes the will for a more noble faculty than the understanding, which is rather favourable to their cause; for if robustness, as being of the most consequence, is, in the general opinion,most prized and valued, beauty, as the more amiable quality, has most control over the will.
XXIII. The virtue of constancy, which ennobles the men, may be contrasted with docility, which is resplendent in the women. But it will be proper here to remark, that we do not treat of these or other qualities, as formally considering them in the state of virtues, because in this sense, they are not of the lineage of nature, but only as they are grafted into, and display themselves in the temperament or habit; and, as the embryo of information is indifferent to receive good or bad impressions, it would be better to call them flexibility, or inflexibility of disposition, than constancy or docility.
XXIV. I may be told, that the docility of women degenerates many times into levity; to which I answer that the constancy of men as frequently terminates in tenaciousness. I confess, that firmness in a good cause is productive of great benefits; but it can’t be denied, that obstinacy in a bad one is also productive of great evils. If it is argued, that an invincible adherence to good or evil is a quality appertaining to angels only: I answer, that this is not so certain, for many great theologians deny it; and many properties, which in superiorbeings spring from their excellence, in inferior ones proceed from their imperfection. The angels, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, are the more perfect, the fewer things they understand; in men, their knowledge being confined to a few particulars, is considered as a defect. In angels, study would be regarded as a diminution of, or a reflection upon their understandings; although it is known to be absolutely necessary, to illustrate and adorn those of men.
XXV. The prudence of the men, may be balanced by the simplicity or gentleness of the women; and I was even about to say more than balanced, for, in reality, simplicity or gentleness, is more beneficial to the human race, than the prudence of all its individuals; for nobody has ever described the golden age as composed of prudent, but of candid men.
XXVI. If it is objected, that much of that which is called simplicity in women, is thoughtlessness or inattention: I reply, that much of that which is called prudence in men, is fallacy, duplicity and treachery, which are much worse qualities. Even that very indiscreet frankness, with which they sometimes incautiously unbosom themselves, is a good token, considered as a symptom. No person is ignorant of his own vices; and whoever finds himself loadedwith them to a large amount, is very careful to shut the crevices of his heart, to prevent the pryings of curiosity: whoever commits criminal disorders within his house, does not leave his doors open at all hours, and by that means expose himself to be detected. Reserve is the inseparable companion of a bad heart; and you may conclude, that those who familiarly, and with ease, unbosom themselves, have little about them they are anxious of concealing. Considered then in this light, the simplicity or candour of the women, is always a valuable quality; but, when conducted with good sense, it approaches to a perfection; and, when it is not, it may always be looked upon as a favourable symptom.
XXVII. Over and above the good qualities we have specified, the women have another, which is the most beautiful and transcendent of all, to wit, their modesty; a grace so characteristic of the sex, that is does not forsake even their dead bodies; for Pliny remarks, that when the carcasses of drowned persons float on the water, those of the men swim with the face upwards, and those of the women with the face downward.
Veluti pudori defunctarum parcente natura.Lib. 7. Cap. 17.
Veluti pudori defunctarum parcente natura.Lib. 7. Cap. 17.
Veluti pudori defunctarum parcente natura.
Veluti pudori defunctarum parcente natura.
Lib. 7. Cap. 17.
XXVIII. A certain philosopher, being asked what tint gave the most graceful hue to a woman’s countenance, answered with much truth and perspicuity, modesty; and I am really of opinion, that it is the greatest advantage the women can claim over the men. Modesty is a screen or fence, which nature seems to have placed between virtue and vice, and is, as a discreet French author observes, the shield of fine souls, and the visible character of virtue: and St. Bernard extends the simile still farther, illustrating it with the epithets of the precious gem of manners, the torch of the chaste soul, and the sister of continence; the guardian of fame, honour and life, the foundation of virtue, the pride of nature, and the symbol of all honesty (Serm. 86, in Cant.) and Diogenes ingeniously and properly calls it the symbol of virtue. In fact, this is the great and formidable bulwark, which nature has raised, and placed in front, to oppose vice, and to serve as a shelter and covering to the whole fortress of the soul; and, as Nazianzenus said, when this is once subdued, no farther resistance can be made to every kind of vicious outrage.Protinus extincto subeunt mala cuncta pudore.
XXIX. It may be said, that modesty is a signal preservative against exterior assaults, but not against interior acquiescence; and thus a door alwaysis left open, at which vice may make a triumphal entry, which may be effected by the means of invisible attacks, in parts, that are not sheltered or protected by the wall of modesty. But even admitting that such a thing might happen, shame would ever remain a most valuable preservative, and be the cause of preventing an infinite deal of scandal, and the fatal consequences attending it. Upon serious reflection it will be found, that, if it does not defend totally, it is in a great measure a protection even against those silent and secret assaults, which scarce ever peep out or shew themselves beyond the occult recesses of the soul: for internal consentings are very rare, when they are not excited by some sort of attempts, for these are the things which radicate criminal affections in the soul, and also those which augment and strengthen propensities to vice. It is true, that without these stimulants, we now and then see turpitude introduce itself into the spirit; but he does not seem to lodge there as if he was at home, or like the master of the house, but only as a stranger or a sojourner.
XXX. The passions, without the aliment that nourishes them, lay very languid, and act very timidly, especially in persons who are much addicted to blush; and those, in whom there is such a frank and easy commerce between the bosom andthe countenance, are always under apprehensions, left the most secret operations of their breasts, should be exposed to public view on the parade of their faces. In fact, if upon every occasion, their most private or concealed affections are blazoned on their cheeks, the glow of the blush, seems the only tint, with which the images of invisible objects can be painted or described; and thus, the fear of being liable to have what is impressed in their minds read in their faces, becomes a rein, which confines and checks the dangerous sallies of desire.
XXXI. To this may be added, that the colour is so apt to rise in the countenances of some of them, that they will often blush at themselves. This heroic excellence, or type of modesty, which the ingenious father Viera celebrates in one of his sermons, is not, as some coarse spirits have termed it, purely ideal, but in persons of the most noble sentiments and dispositions, real, and natural. This was well known to Demetrius Phalereus, who, when he was instructing the youth of Athens, enjoined them, that at home they should behave with modesty to their parents, that abroad they should observe the same deportment to every one they saw, and that in private they should preserve a decency and a modest carriage even to themselves.
XXXII. I think I have pointed out as many advantages on the side of the women, as will balance, if not out-weigh, the qualities in which the men excel. Who now is to give sentence in this plea? If I had authority to do it, I might perhaps pronounce a short one, declaring, that the qualities in which the women excel, conduce to make them better in themselves; and that those in which the men excel, make them better for, or, to speak more properly, of greater use to the public; though as I am not exercising the office of a judge, but only that of an advocate, the cause must for the present remain undecided.
XXXIII. And even supposing I had the necessary authority to determine, I should be obliged to suspend giving judgment, as it might be urged on behalf of the men, that the good qualities which are attributed to the women are common to both sexes: I confess they are, but the same thing may be said with equal justice with respect to those of the men. In order not to confound the question, it will be necessary to point out the good qualities which are more frequently found in the individuals of one sex, and seldomer in those of the other. I grant then, that you meet with men who are docile,candid, and capable of blushing; and I will add, that blushing, which is a good symptom in women, is a better still in men, because it denotes a generous nature and much ingenuity; which John Barclay has more than once declared in his Satyricon; and it can’t be denied, that the opinion of a man of his subtile genius, is a vote of great consequence in such a question; and although this may not be an infallible sign, I myself have made so much observation in these matters as to be convinced, that no great expectations can be formed of a boy, who is audacious and forward.
XXXIV. I say then, that various individuals of our sex, may be observed to possess the fine qualities which enoble the other, though not with the same frequency; but this by no means inclines the balance in our favour, because, on the other hand, the perfections the men boast of, being communicated to many women, have equal weight in the opposite scale.
XXXV. There have been a thousand examples of princesses, who were expert and able politicians. No age will ever forget the first woman, whose true character history developed and rescued from the obscurity of fable: I mean Semiramis,queen of the Assyrians, who in her infancy was nursed by doves, but afterwards soared superior to the eagles: she not only knew how to make herself blindly obeyed by the subjects her husband had left her, but she also made subjects of all the neighbouring nations, and by extending her conquests, she likewise made neighbours of the most distant ones. Her empire extended on one side to Ethiopia, and on the other to India. Nor can Artemisia, queen of Caria, be forgotten, who not only maintained, during her long widowhood, the respect and adoration of that kingdom; but, being invaded by the Rhodians, she, in her own territories, by two singular stratagems, with two attacks only destroyed the troops of her enemies; and, passing suddenly from the defensive to the offensive, she invaded them in her turn, and conquered and triumphed over the island of Rhodes. The two Aspasias also will be ever remembered, to whose admirable management, Pericles the husband of one of them, and Cyrus the son of Darius Notho, gallant of the other, happily and successfully, confided the government of their states; as will likewise the most prudent Phile, daughter of Antipater, whom, while she was a child, her father advised with concerning the government of the kingdom of Macedonia, and who afterwards, by her wise stratagems and great address, extricated her husband, the precipitate and flighty Demetrius,from a thousand difficulties. Livia, of fertile invention, whose subtile cunning seems to have been too deep for the penetration of Augustus, is another instance of female ability, for she could never have had such dominion over his mind, if he had known her. The sagacious Agrippina is likewise another, although her arts, as she unhappily employed them in promoting her son Nero to the throne, were fatal to herself and the world. Amalethunsa also, is well deserving of being reckoned among the women of great talents, in whom, her understanding all the languages of every nation subject to the Roman empire, was esteemed an inferior accomplishment, compared to the great skill and address, which she displayed in governing the state during the minority of her son Athalaricus.
XXXVI. Nor, passing over many others, and approaching nearer to our own times, should we ever forget Elizabeth of England, in whose composition, the influx of the three Graces concurred equally with that of the three Furies. Her conduct as a sovereign, would ever remain the admiration of Europe, if her vices were not so interwoven with her maxims of government, as to make it impossible to separate them; and her political image, will ever present itself to posterity, coloured, or, to speak more properly, stained and blemished with the blood of the innocent Mary Stewart,queen of Scots. Neither should we forget Catharine of Medicis, queen of France, whose sagacity in negotiating and maintaining a balance between the opposite parties of Calvinists and Catholics, in order to save the crown from a precipice, resembled the dexterity of a rope-dancer, who, mounted on a cord, by his ready art and address at poising himself with the weights at the ends of his poles, secures himself from falling, and delights and amuses the spectators, by displaying the risque, at the same time that he dextrously avoids the danger. Our own queen Isabella, would not have been inferior to any of them in the business of administration and government, if, instead of a queen consort, she had been a queen-regent. Under all this disadvantage, when proper occasions presented themselves, she manifested by her actions, that she was a woman of consummate prudence and ability; and Lawrance Beyerlink in his eulogium of her, says, that no great thing was done in her time, in which she did not assist, or was wholly the author of.Quid magni in regno, sine illa, imo nisi per illam ferè gestum est?At least the discovery of the new world, which was an event the most glorious for Spain that had fallen out in the course of many ages, would certainly never have been effected or accomplished, but for the magnanimity of Isabella, who dispelled the fears, and vanquished the sloth of Ferdinand.
XXXVII. In fine, and what seems to have more weight than all the rest, it appears to me, although I am not very certain of the computation, that among the queens who have reigned for any length of time as absolute sovereigns, the greatest part of them, have been celebrated in history for excellent governors. But the poor women, are still so unhappy, as always to have trumped up against this train of illustrious examples, a Brunequilda, a Fredegunda, the two Joans of Naples, and a few others; but, by the way, the two first, although they abounded in mischief, did not want understanding.
XXXVIII. Nor is the world so universally persuaded as some may think, that a crown does not sit well on the head of a woman, because in an island or peninsula, which is formed by the Nile in Ethiopia, called Meroe, women, according to the testimony of Pliny, reigned for many successive ages. Father Cornelius Alapide, speaking of Saba, who was one of their queens, supposes, that her empire extended much beyond the limits of Meroe, and that it might possibly comprehend the greatest part of Ethiopia, grounding his opinion, upon an expression of our Saviour, who called her Queen of the South, which words seemed to imply, that she possessed vast dominions in that quarter. Thomas Cornelius also tells us, thatauthors were not wanting, who asserted, that Meroe was bigger than the island of Great Britain, and, if so, the territories of those queens were not very confined, though they did not extend beyond the limits of Meroe. Aristotle (Lib. 2. Polit. Cap. 7.) says, that among the Lacedemonians, the women had a great share in the political government; and that their being allowed it, is agreeable to the laws given them by Licurgus.
XXXIX. In Borneo also, according to the relation of Mandeslo, which may be seen in the second volume of Olearius, the women reign, and their husbands enjoy no other privilege, than that of being their most dignified subjects. In the island of Formosa, situated in the southern part of the Chinese sea, those idolaters who inhabit it, have such confidence in the prudent conduct of the women, that the Sacerdotal function, together with every thing which relates to religious matters, is confided wholly to them; and that, with regard to politics, they enjoy a power superior to that of the senators, they being considered as the interpreters of the will of their deities.
XL. Notwithstanding all this, the ordinary practice of nations is most conformable to reason, as it corresponds best with the divine decree notified to our first mother in Paradise, and to allher daughters in her name, which enjoins a subjection to the men; and we should only correct the impatience, which many people shew at submitting to female government, when according to the laws of the land they should obey; and we should also bridle that extravagant estimation for our own sex, which carries us such lengths, as to prefer the government of a weak child, to that of an able and experienced woman. The antient Persians were drawn by this prepossession to such a ridiculous extreme, that the widow of one of their princes happening to be left with child at the death of her husband, and being advised by their magi, that she had conceived a male, they crowned the belly of the queen, and before it was born, proclaimed the fœtus king by the name of Sapor.
XLI. We have hitherto treated of political prudence only, in the discussion of which point, we have contented ourselves with a few examples, and have omitted the many. It is needless to insist on the ability of women in point of œconomical prudence, as every day’s experience exhibits to us, houses and families extremely well governed by women, and very badly governed by men.
XLII. We shall next proceed to consider resolution as a property, which the men look upon as peculiarly annexed to, or inseparable from, their own sex. I admit that heaven has endowed them in comparison to the women, with a quadruple portion of this ingredient; but not that it was given them as an exempt property, peculiarly annexed to, and belonging to their sex only, and that the other was to be excluded from the least participation of it.
XLIII. Not an age has passed, which has not been ennobled and graced by women of eminence and worth; and without dwelling on the heroines of Scripture, and the martyrs to the law of grace, because actions, which are aided by the especial intervention of a supernatural hand, should be attributed to the divine power, and not to any natural virtue, or faculty of a sex: I say, without having recourse to these sort of examples, women of heroic valour, present themselves to the memory in crouds; and after the Semiramis’s, the Artamissas, the Thomyris, the Zenobias, there appears an Aretaphila, the wife of Nicrotatus, the sovereign of Cyrene in Libya, in whose incomparably generous nature, the greatest fortitude of mind, the most tender love of her country, and the most subtile and discerning understanding, contended for the pre-eminence; because, to deliver her country from the violent tyranny of her husband, and torevenge the murder, which, for the sake of possessing her he had perpetrated on her first consort, she made herself the leader of a conspiracy, and deprived Nicrotatus of the kingdom and his life. Leander, who inherited all his brother’s cruelty, having succeeded to the crown, she had the valour and address to rid the world of this second tyrant also; crowning in the end, all her heroic actions, by declining to accept the diadem, which from a grateful sense of the many benefits she had conferred on them, was offered to her by the Cyreneans. Denepetina, the daughter of the great Mithridates, and the inseparable companion and partner of her father, in all his dangerous undertakings and projects, in the execution of which she manifested upon every occasion, that strength of mind and body, which the singular circumstance of her coming into the world with double rows of teeth, seems to have foretold at her birth; after her father was defeated by the great Pompey, she was shut up and besieged in a castle by Manlius Priscus, where, finding it impossible to defend herself, she deprived herself of life, to avoid suffering the ignominy of being made a slave. An Arria, the wife of Cecinus Peto, whose husband having been concerned in the conspiracy of Camilus against the emperor Claudius, was for this crime condemned to death; and she, determined not to outlive her consort, having several timestried in vain to beat her head to pieces against a wall, procured at last to be introduced to her husband in prison, where she extorted from him a promise, to anticipate with his own hands the work of the executioner, and, by way of encouraging him to do it, immediately transfixed her own breast with a dagger. An Epponina, upon her husband Julius Sabinus having in Gaul arrogated to himself the title of Cæsar, endured, with rare constancy and fortitude, unspeakable toils; and being at last condemned to death by Vespasian, she frankly and openly told him, she should die contented, as death would deprive her of the disgust of seeing so bad an emperor as him on the throne.
XLIV. And, that it should not be thought the latter ages are inferior to the antient ones in resolute and courageous women, see the maid of Orleans present herself, and stand forth compleatly armed, as the pillar, which, in its greatest distress, supported the tottering monarchy of France; which she did so amazingly, that the English and French, who were as opposite in sentiments as in arms, imputed her extraordinary feats, the one to a diabolical compact, and the other to divine assistance. The English perhaps feigned the first, for the purpose of throwing an odium on their enemies; and those who had the management of affairs in France,suggested the other politically; for it was of vast importance, when the people and soldiers were so greatly dismayed, to raise their dejected spirits, by persuading them, that heaven had declared itself their ally, and introduced on the theatre of the world, a damsel of perspicuity and magnanimity, as an inspired instrument, which was equal to, and capable of effecting the miraculous succour. A Margaret of Denmark, in the fourteenth century, in her own person, headed an army, and conquered the kingdom of Sweden, taking king Albertus prisoner. The authors of those times, call her the second Semiramis. One Marulla, a native of Lemnos, an island in the Archipelago, when the fortress of Cochin was besieged, upon seeing her father slain, snatched up his sword and shield; and having prevailed on the whole garrison to follow her, she put herself at their head, and, encouraging them by her example, charged the enemy with such ardour, that she drove them from their trenches, and obliged the Basha Soliman to raise the siege: which action, the Venetian general Loredano, who was proprietor of the place, rewarded, by permitting her to chuse for a husband, whichever of the most illustrious captains of his army she liked best, promising at the same time, to settle on her and her consort, a fortune suitable to their rank, which he did in the name of the republic. One Blanca de Rossi, the wife of BaptistaPorta, a Paduan captain, who, after defending valorously a post on the walls of Bassano, a fortress in the march of Tresvina, finding the place suddenly taken by treachery, and her husband made prisoner and put to death by the tyrant Ezelinus, and perceiving she had no means left to escape falling a victim to the brutal passion of that ravisher, who was furiously enamoured with her beauty; she threw herself out of the window of an upper room; but being afterwards, against her inclination, cured of the bruises she received, and enduring with anguish and regret under that oppressive barbarian, the shame of having been forced, she, to relieve the bitterness of her grief, and to extricate herself from continuing in a state of violation to her conjugal faith, deprived herself of life in the sepulchre of her husband, which for the purpose of doing it there she had caused to be opened. We could instance many other women of heroic courage, and particularize the occasions on which they exerted it; but, to avoid the recital appearing prolix or tedious, we shall omit the relation of them.
XLV. The reason of my not having yet mentioned the Amazons, which is a case so applicable to this matter, is, because I think it will be better to treat of them separately. Some authors, in opposition to many others who affirm it, denytheir existence; but without engaging in this dispute, we must allow, that much fable has been mixed with the history of the Amazons; such as that they destroyed all their male children; that they lived in a total state of separation from the other sex, and only consorted with them once a year for the sake of becoming pregnant. Of a piece with these, are the tales of their encounters with Hercules and Theseus, and the succour given to afflicted Troy by the fierce Penthesilea, and perhaps that also, of the visit of queen Talestris to Alexander. But with all this, against the testimony and credit of so many antient authors, it would be rash to deny, that there was a formidable body of warlike women in Asia, who went by the name of Amazons.
XLVI. But in case this should be denied, in lieu of the Asiatic Amazonians they deprive us of, we should be supplied with another set, drawn from the other three parts of the globe, ready to stand forth and take their places. The Spaniards discovered American ones, navigating armed, on the river Maranon, which is the largest in the world, and to which, for this reason, they gave the name of the river of the Amazons. There are some of them in Africa, in a province of the empire of Monomotapa: and, it is said, they are the best soldiers in all that territory; there are not wantinggeographers, who made Monomotapa a distinct state from the country these warlike women inhabit.
XLVII. In Europe, although in no part of it the women are military people by profession, we may venture to give the name of Amazons to those who upon different occasions, have fought in such battalions or squadrons, as have defeated and triumphed over the enemies of their country. Such were the French women of Beauvais, who, when that city, in the year 1742, was besieged by the Burgundians, on the day of the assault, united themselves together under the conduct or command of Joan Hacheta, and vigorously repulsed the enemy; their captain Hacheta, having with her own hands, tumbled the person headlong from the walls, who attempted to erect the enemies’ standard there. To commemorate this transaction, they keep an annual festival in that city, and the women on the feast-day, have the singular privilege of walking in procession before the men. Such also, were the inhabitants of the islands Echinadas, called at present Bur-Solares, celebrated for the victory of Lepanto, which was gained in the sea of these islands. The year antecedent to this famous battle, the Turks having attacked the principal island, the Venetian governor Antonio Balbo, and all the men, were so terrified, that they betookthemselves to flight in the night, leaving the women behind them, who, at the instance of a priest named Antonio Rosoneo, resolved to defend the place; and, much to the honour of their own sex, and the disgrace of ours, they really did defend it.
N. B. With respect to the women who laid violent hands on themselves, we do not mean to propose their resolution as examples of virtue, but only to exhibit it, as a vicious excess of fierce courage, which is sufficient to answer the purpose intended.
XLVIII. After all this recital of magnanimous women, there still remains something to be said on a particular, which the men point out as their weak side, and with respect to which, they charge them with the greatest want of constancy; that is, their not being firm in keeping a secret. Cato the Censor in this instance, would not admit of any exception whatever with regard to them, and condemned the trusting a secret to any woman, be she who she would, as one of the greatest errors a man could run into; but Cato’s own great niece Porcia, daughter of Cato the younger, and wife of Marcus Brutus, gave the lie to this assertion, shehaving obliged her husband, to confide to her the grand secret of the conspiracy against Cæsar, by the extraordinary proof she exhibited to him of her valour and constancy, in the great wound she voluntarily gave herself with a knife in the thigh.
XLIX. Pliny, quoting the Magi as his authors, tells us, that the heart of a certain bird, applied to the breast of a woman when she is asleep, will make her reveal all her secrets. And in another place, he says, the tongue of a certain snake will have the same effect. The magicians being obliged to search among the hidden secrets of Nature, for keys to unlock the doors of their hearts, is no proof, of the women’s being so easily brought to reveal what has been confided to them. But let us laugh with Pliny at these inventions; and let us grant, if you please, that there are very few women strict observers of a secret; but, in return to this, it is confessed on the other hand by the most experienced politicians, that there are very few men also, to whom you can confide secrets of importance; and truly, if such men were not very scarce commodities, princes would not hold them in such high estimation, as to think scarce any of their richest moveables equal to them in value.
L. Nor are there examples wanting, of women of invincible constancy in the article of keeping asecret. Pythagoras, when he found himself near dying, delivered all his writings, in which were contained the most hidden mysteries of his philosophy, into the custody of his prudent and dutiful daughter Damo; directing her at the same time, never to permit them to be published, which injunction she so punctually obeyed, that, even when she found herself reduced to extreme poverty, and could have sold those books for a large sum of money, she chose rather to endure the anguish and pinchings of want, than be deficient in point of the confidence reposed in her by her father.
LI. The magnanimous Aretaphila, whom we have already mentioned, having attempted to take away the life of her husband by a poisonous draught before she entered into a conspiracy against him, which was to be carried into execution by force of arms, was surprized and detected in the fact, and being put to the torture to discover who were her comforters and abettors, the force of the torment was so far from extorting the secret, or depriving her of the possession of herself, or the use of her reason, that, after owning she intended to give him the poison, she had the address to persuade the tyrant it was a love-philter, and contrived for the purpose of increasing his passion for her. In fact, this ingenious fiction had the effect of a philter, for Nicotratus’s love of her was afterwardsgreatly increased from this persuasion, that she, who was solicitous to excite in him an arduous and excessive desire for her, could not do otherwise than entertain a sincere tenderness and affection for him.
LII. In the conspiracy set on foot by Aristogiton, and which was begun to be executed, by putting to death Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, a courtesan woman, who had been trusted with the secret, and knew all the accomplices, was put to the torture; but she, to convince the tyrant of the impossibility of extorting the secret from her, cut her tongue asunder with her teeth, and let the end drop before his face.
LIII. When the first indications of the conspiracy of Pison against Nero, began to shew themselves, many of the most illustrious men of Rome shrunk under, and gave way to the rigour of the torture. Lucan, for example, discovered his own mother as an accomplice, and many others their most intimate friends; and there was only one Epicharis, an ordinary and obscure woman, who was acquainted with the whole transaction, on whom neither whips nor fire, nor all the martyrdoms they could invent, had power to tear from her breast the least information.
LIV. I knew a certain one myself, who, being examined by the torture, touching an atrocious crime which had been committed by her master and mistress, resisted the force of that rigorous test, not to save herself, but only to skreen them; for so small a portion of the fault could be imputed to her, either on account of her ignorance of the magnitude of the crime, or from her having acted by the command of others, and from various circumstances of mitigation, that the law would not have condemned her to a punishment, any thing comparable to the severity of that she underwent.
LV. But of women, from whom the power of torture could not tear the secrets of their breasts, the examples are infinite. I heard a person who had been used to assist upon such occasions declare, that, although he had known many of them confess, rather than be stripped naked to prepare them for the execution of the punishment of the rack, the instances of their having confessed after undergoing this martyrdom of their modesty, were very rare. A truly great and shining excellence in the sex this, that the regard for their modesty, should have more weight with them than all the terrors of an executioner.
LVI. I do not doubt, but this parallel I have drawn of the sexes, may appear to many somewhatflattering to the women; but I shall reply to these, that Seneca, whose rigid Stoicism removes all doubts of his impartiality, and whose severity sets him at a great distance from all suspicion of flattery, has made a comparison not a jot less favourable to the side of the women, for he absolutely asserts them to be equal to the men, in all the valuable natural faculties and dispositions. These are his words:Quis autem dicat, naturam malignè cum muliebribus ingeniis egisse, & virtutes illarum in arctum retraxisse? Par illis mihi crede, vigor, par ad honesta (libeat) facultas est. Laborem, doloremque ex æquo si consuevere patiuntur.(in Consol. ad Marciam.)
LVII. We are come now to defend the great article of all, which is the question of the understanding; and, I must confess, if my reason does not assist me in arguing this point, that I expect but little help or resource from authorities; because all the authors who have touched upon the matter, with the exception of one or two particular ones only, have wrote so much on the side of the vulgar opinion, that they almost uniformly speak of the understandings of the women with contempt.
LVIII. And truly, I might reply to the authority of the greatest part of these books, with the fable of the lion and the man, inserted by Carducius in one of his dialogues, which is to this effect. A man and a lion travelling together, fell to dispute whether lions or men were the bravest animals: and as they proceeded on their road, they came to a fountain, at the top of which, there was exhibited carved in marble, a man tearing a lion in pieces; upon seeing this, the man turned short on the lion, and in the tone of a conqueror, asked, if he could make any reply to so convincing an argument; to which the lion answered with a smile, this is very pretty reasoning of yours, the carving was designed and executed by a man; we lions are none of us sculptors; if we had, and were capable of doing this sort of work, I will venture to assure you, the representation would have been made quite the reverse to what you there see it.
LIX. The case is, they were men who wrote those books, in which the understandings of the women are held so cheap; had they been written by women, the men would have been placed in the inferior class: and there has not been wanting a woman, who has done something of this sort; for Lucretia Marinella, a learned Venetian lady, among other works composed a bookwith this title,The Excellences of Women, compared with the Defects and Vices of Men; the sole object of which, was to prove a preference of her own sex to ours. The learned jesuit John of Carthagena says, that he saw and read this book with great pleasure at Rome, and that he saw it also in the royal library at Madrid; but the truth is, that neither she nor we can be judges in this plea, because we are parties to the suit; and therefore the sentence and decision must be confided to the angels, who being of no sex, are impartial.
LX. And in the first place, those who hold the understanding of women in such contempt, as hardly to allow they are endued with more than pure instinct, are unworthy to be admitted as parties in the controversy; neither are those, who maintain, that the greatest reach of a woman’s capacity, does not extend farther than to qualify her for managing a hen-roost.
LXI. Some prelate, who is quoted by Don Francisco Manuel in his Guide to Married People, said, that the understanding of the most knowing woman did not exceed the bounds of ordering how a chest of clean linen should be packed. Let those who adhere to such opinions, be as respectable as they will in other points of view, they do themselves no sort of credit by suchdeclarations; for the most favourable interpretation they admit of, is, that they were intended as hyperbolic jokes. It is a fact of public notoriety, that there have been women, who well understood the ordering and governing religious communities, and also women, who are equal to the government and direction of whole states.
LXII. These discourses against the women, are the works of superficial men; who, seeing they in general understand nothing but household business, which is commonly the only thing they are instructed in, or employed about, are apt to infer from thence, without being aware that they draw the inference from that circumstance, that they are unfit for, or incapable of any other matter. The most shallow logician knows, that it is not a valid conclusion, to suppose that because a person forbears to do an act, that he is unable to do it, and therefore, from the women in general knowing no more, it cannot be inferred, that they have not talents to comprehend more.
LXIII. Nobody understands radically and well, more than the subject he has studied; but you cannot deduce from hence, without incurring the note of barbarism, that his ability extends no farther. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, states the following question: suppose all men were todedicate themselves to agriculture, in so close and strict a manner, as to occasion their understanding nothing else; would this be a foundation whereon to argue and insist, that they were incapable of understanding any other thing? With the Druses, a people of Palastine, the women are the only repositories of the little learning that subsists among them, for almost all of these can read and write; in consequence of which, the little literature they can boast of, is treasured up in the heads of the women, and totally hidden from the men, who devote themselves solely to agriculture, war, and handy-craft business. If the same custom prevailed all the world over, the women would undoubtedly consider the men as unfit for, or incapable of literature, in which light, the men at present consider the women; and as such a judgment would certainly be erroneous, in the same manner is that mistaken, which we at present make, because it proceeds upon the same principle.
LXIV. And perhaps father Malebranche adopts the same mode of reasoning; for, although he was much more benign towards the women, and in his art of investigating truth acknowledges, that in the faculty of discerning sensible things, they are known to have the advantage ofthe men; still he insists, they are much inferior to them in the comprehension of abstract ideas; and assigns as the reason of it, the softness of their brains. It is very well known, that people search for these physical causes, and after some experience, when they are, or fancy they are sure of their effects, apply them in their own manner, to suit their own doctrines. This being the case, the consequence which results from hence is, that the author himself falls into the same intellectual disease, of which he had intended to cure all mankind. This error, is produced by common pre-occupations, and principles ill considered and digested. He without doubt made this judgment, either to avoid being led away by the common opinion, or from having observed, that women of ability, or those who are reputed such, reason with more facility, and talk more pertinently than the men, on such subjects as appertain to sensible things, and with no less precision than them (if in such cases they do not observe a total silence) on abstracted matters; but this proceeds, not from an inequality of talents, but from a difference of application and practice. Women employ themselves, and think much more than the men, about dainty eatables, setting out a table, ornaments of dress, and other things of this kind; from whence it happens, that they discourse and talk of them more pertinently, and with greater facility than those of the other sex.On the contrary, it is very rare, that any woman attends to questions of theory, or bestows the least thought on the subject of abstract ideas, and therefore it is no wonder they seem dull, when the conversation turns on such matters. If you observe them, you will find, that women who are informed, and are of a gay cast, and who sometimes take pleasure in discoursing on the delicacies of platonic love, whenever it happens that they argue with the men on this point, they greatly out-do even the most discreet ones, who have not applied themselves to explore these bagatels of fancy: this in a great measure confirms the remarks we have made above.
LXV. In general, any person whatever, be his capacity ever so great, will appear more rude than a man of little penetration, if he talks with him of such matters as the other has had experience in and he has never applied himself to understand. A labourer in husbandry, whom God has endowed with a most penetrating genius, which is no uncommon case, if it happens that his attention has never been fixed on any other thing but his work, would appear greatly inferior to the most heavy politician, if he should ever chance to converse with him about reasons of state; and the most wise politician, if he is merely a politician, who should set himself to talk about the disposition of troops, and the fighting of battles, would utter a thousandabsurdities; insomuch, that if a man skilled in military affairs was to hear him, he would be apt to conclude he was mad, as Hannibal thought the great Asiatic orator was, who, in the presence of king Antiochus and him, undertook to argue about the art and conduct of war.
LXVI. It happens exactly the same in the business we are now treating of. A woman of excellent understanding, whose thoughts are constantly occupied on domestic management and the care of her house, without scarce ever hearing matters of a superior nature talked of, or, if it does happen that she hears any such thing, she rarely pays much attention to it: her husband, though much inferior to her in talents, converses frequently abroad with able men of various professions, by communicating with whom, he acquires variety of knowledge, or he enters into public business, and receives important information. Instructed in this manner, if it happens at any time that in the company of his wife, these matters are talked of, she, who by the means and in the way we have just mentioned, can gain but little aid or assistance, if she happens to speak just what occurs to her on the subject, from the want of instruction, must appear a little defective in point of knowledge, let her be ever so acute and penetrating. Her husband, and the others who hear her, conclude from thence, thatshe is a fool; and he in particular, plumes himself on his superior talents and abilities.
LXVII. As it fared with this woman, so it fares with an infinity of others, who, though they may have much more sense than the men they happen to be in company with, are condemned by them as unfit to reason on any kind of subject: but the truth is, that their not being able to reason at all, or their reasoning ill on such matters, does not proceed from a want of talents, but from a want of being properly informed; and without this assistance, a person, endued with even an angelic understanding, could not discourse pertinently on any subject whatever. The men at the same time, although inferior to them in understanding, shine and triumph over them with an air of importance, because they happen to be better provided with information.
LXVIII. Over and above this advantage of being better informed, the men have another, which is of great moment, to wit, that they are much accustomed to meditate, discourse, and reason upon such matters, it being in a manner their daily practice; while the women hardly ever bestow a thought on them: on which account, whenever these things are started in conversation, the menare prepared to talk upon them, and the women are taken by surprize.
LXIX. Finally, men, by their reciprocal communication with each other upon such subjects, gain mutual instruction, each individual, receiving lights and information from the observations and experience of those we converse with; and therefore, when they argue upon these matters, they not only make use of their own understandings and improvements, but they likewise avail themselves of what they have acquired from their neighbours; so that many times, what is expressed and explained by the mouth of one man, is not the produce of one understanding only, but of many. The women, who in their ordinary conversations, don’t discourse on these sublime questions, but rather of their domestic amusements and employments, furnish to each other no reciprocal lights or assistance, with respect to these great points; in consequence of which, whenever they happen to be present when such subjects are agitated, you should add to their talking unprepared, the disadvantage, of each of them being confined to the use of no more than their own proper lights and ideas.
LXX. These advantages, by means of which, a man of very short penetration, may say much more, and much more to the purpose, upon noblesubjects, than a woman of great perspicuity, are of such moment, that one who has not attended to the above reflections, if he should happen to be present at a conversation of this sort, between a very keen woman and a very heavy man, might be apt to conclude, that he was a discreet person, and she a fool.
LXXI. In fact, the want of these reflections, has engendered in many men, and some of them in other respects wise and prudent ones, this great contempt for the understanding of women; but what is most laughable and ridiculous, they have exclaimed so much and so loudly against them, and have asserted with such confidence the poverty and scantiness of their understandings, that many, if not the bulk of the world, have been idle enough to believe them.