c**********h
发帖数: 496 | 1 每天包办家务，老公还不给办身份的家庭妇女，还有征婚的女同胞们，尤其注意了哦！
英国封建社会的一个女人尚且能有这样的思想，写出这样的文章。而在现代民主的美国
，我们受过的教育胜她百倍，还不能为女权站起来做些力所能及的事情吗？
AFTER considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with
anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation
have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that
either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the
civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very
partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of
education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management
of schools; but what has been the result?—a profound conviction that the
neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery
I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by
a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The
conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are
not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich
a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting
leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the
stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.—
One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education
, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering
females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make
them alluring mistresses than wives; and the understanding of the sex has
been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the
present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire love,
when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition, and by their abilities and
virtues exact respect.
1
In a treatise, therefore, on female rights and manners, the works which
have been particularly written for their improvement must not be overlooked;
especially when it is asserted, in direct terms, that the minds of women
are enfeebled by false refinement; that the books of instruction, written by
men of genius, have had the same tendency as more frivolous productions;
and that, in the true style of Mahometanism, they are only considered as
females, and not as a part of the human species, when improvable reason is
allowed to be the dignified distinction which raises men above the brute
creation, and puts a natural sceptre in a feeble hand.
2
Yet, because I am a woman, I would not lead my readers to suppose that I
mean violently to agitate the contested question respecting the equality or
inferiority of the sex; but as the subject lies in my way, and I cannot pass
it over without subjecting the main tendency of my reasoning to
misconstruction, I shall stop a moment to deliver, in a few words, my
opinion.—In the government of the physical world it is observable that the
female, in general, inferior to the male. The male pursues, the female
yields—this is the law of nature; and it does not appear to be suspended or
abrogated in favour of woman. This physical superiority cannot be denied—
and it is a noble prerogative! But not content with this natural pre-
eminence, men endeavour to sink us still lower, merely to render us alluring
objects for a moment; and women, intoxicated by the adoration which men,
under the influence of their senses, pay them, do not seek to obtain a
durable interest in their hearts, or to become the friends of the fellow
creatures who find amusement in their society.
3
I am aware of an obvious inference:—from every quarter have I heard
exclamations against masculine women; but where are they to be found? If by
this appellation men mean to inveigh against their ardour in hunting,
shooting, and gaming, I shall most cordially join in the cry; but if it be
against the imitation of manly virtues, or, more properly speaking, the
attainment of those talents and virtues, the exercise of which ennobles the
human character, and which raises females in the scale of animal being, when
they are comprehensively termed mankind;—all those who view them with a
philosophical eye must, I should think, wish with me, that they may every
day grow more and more masculine.
4
This discussion naturally divides the subject. I shall first consider
women in the grand light of human creatures, who, in common with men, are
placed on this earth to unfold their faculties; and afterwards I shall more
particularly point out their peculiar designation.
5
I wish also to steer clear of an error which many respectable writers have
fallen into; for the instruction which has hither been addressed to women,
has rather been applicable to ladies, if the little indirect advice, that is
scattered through Sanford and Merton be excepted; but, addressing my sex in
a firmer tone, I pay particular attention to those in the middle class,
because they appear to be in the most natural state. Perhaps the seeds of
false refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great.
Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and affections of
their race, in a premature unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation
of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society! As a
class of mankind they have the strongest claim to pity; the education of the
rich tends to render them vain and helpless, and the unfolding mind is not
strengthened by the practice of those duties which dignify the human
character.—They only live to amuse themselves, and by the same law which in
nature invariably produces certain effects, they soon only afford barren
amusement.
6
But as I purpose taking a separate view of the different ranks of society,
and of the moral character of women, in each, this hint is, for the present
, sufficient; and I have only alluded to the subject, because it appears to
me to be the very essence of an introduction to give a cursory account of
the contents of the work it introduces.
7
My own sex, I hope, will excuse me, if I treat them like rational
creatures, instead of flattering their fascinating graces, and viewing them
as if they were in a state of perpetual childhood, unable to stand alone. I
earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness
consists—I wish to persuade women to endeavour to acquire strength, both of
mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility
of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost
synonimous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings who are only the
objects of pity and that kind of love, which has been termed its sister,
will soon become objects of contempt.
8
Dismissing then those pretty feminine phrases, which the men
condescendingly use to soften our slavish dependence, and despising that
weak elegancy of mind, exquisite sensibility, and sweet docility of manners,
supposed to be the sexual characteristics of the weaker vessel, I wish to
show that elegance is inferior to virtue, that the first object of laudable
ambition is to obtain a character as a human being, regardless of the
distinction of sex; and that secondary views should be brought to this
simple touchstone.
9
This is a rough sketch of my plan; and should I express my conviction with
the energetic emotions that I feel whenever I think of the subject, the
dictates of experience and reflection will be felt by some of my readers.
Animated by this important object, I shall disdain to cull my phrases or
polish my style;—I aim at being useful, and sincerity will render me
unaffected; for, wishing rather to persuade by the force of my arguments,
than dazzle by the elegance of my language, I shall not waste my time in
rounding periods, nor in fabricating the turgid bombast of artificial
feelings, which, coming from the head, never reach the heart.—I shall be
employed about things, not words!—and, anxious to render my sex more
respectable members of society, I shall try to avoid that flowery diction
which has slided from essays into novels, and from novels into familiar
letters and conversation.
10
These pretty nothings—these caricatures of the real beauty of sensibility
, dropping glibly from the tongue, vitiate the taste, and create a kind of
sickly delicacy that turns away from simple unadorned truth; and a deluge of
false sentiments and overstretched feelings, stifling the natural emotions
of the heart, render the domestic pleasures insipid, that ought to sweeten
the exercise of those severe duties, which educate a rational and immortal
being for a nobler field of action.
11
The education of women has, of late, been more attended to than formerly;
yet they are still reckoned a frivolous sex, and ridiculed or pitied by the
writers who endeavor by satire or instruction to improve them. It is
acknowledged that they spend many of the first years of their lives in
acquiring a smattering of accomplishments: meanwhile strength of body and
mind are sacrificed to libertine notions of beauty, to the desire of
establishing themselves,—the only way women can rise in the world,—by
marriage. And this desire making mere animals of them, when they marry they
act as such children may be expected to act:—they dress; they paint, and
nickname God's creatures.—Surely these weak beings are only fit for a
seraglio!—Can they govern a family, or take care of the poor babes whom
they bring into the world?
12
If then it can be fairly deduced from the present conduct of the sex, from
the prevalent fondness for pleasure which takes place of ambition and those
nobler passions that open and enlarge the soul; that the instruction which
women have received has only tended, with the constitution of civil society,
to render them insignificant objects of desire—mere propagators of fools!
—if it can be proved that in aiming to accomplish them, without cultivating
their understandings, they are taken out of their sphere of duties, and
made ridiculous and useless when the short-lived bloom of beauty is over, 1
I presume that rational men will excuse me for endeavouring to persuade them
to become more masculine and respectable.
13
Indeed the word masculine is only a bugbear: there is little reason to
fear that women will acquire too much courage or fortitude; for their
apparent inferiority with respect to bodily strength, must render them, in
some degree, dependent on men in the various relations of life; but why
should it be increased by prejudices that give a sex to virtue, and confound
simple truths with sensual reveries?
14
Women are, in fact, so much degraded by mistaken notions of female
excellence, that I do not mean to add a paradox when I assert, that this
artificial weakness produces a propensity to tyrannize, and gives birth to
cunning, the natural opponent of strength, which leads them to play off
those contemptible infantile airs that undermine esteem even whilst they
excite desire. Do not foster these prejudices, and they will naturally fall
into their subordinate, yet respectable station, in life.
15
It seems scarcely necessary to say, that I now speak of the sex in general
. Many individuals have more sense than their male relatives; and, as
nothing preponderates where there is a constant struggle for an equilibrium,
without it has naturally more gravity, some women govern their husbands
without degrading themselves, because intellect will always govern. |
|
