what business women turned of forty have to do in the world.)

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?

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.

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.


VINDICATION OF THE RIGHTS OF WOMAN.