Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft
page 53 of 304 (17%)
division of existence. If all the faculties of woman's mind are
only to be cultivated as they respect her dependence on man; if,
when she obtains a husband she has arrived at her goal, and meanly
proud, is satisfied with such a paltry crown, let her grovel
contentedly, scarcely raised by her employments above the animal
kingdom; but, if she is struggling for the prize of her high
calling, let her cultivate her understanding without stopping to
consider what character the husband may have whom she is destined
to marry. Let her only determine, without being too anxious about
present happiness, to acquire the qualities that ennoble a rational
being, and a rough, inelegant husband may shock her taste without
destroying her peace of mind. She will not model her soul to suit
the frailties of her companion, but to bear with them: his
character may be a trial, but not an impediment to virtue.

If Dr. Gregory confined his remark to romantic expectations of
constant love and congenial feelings, he should have recollected,
that experience will banish what advice can never make us cease to
wish for, when the imagination is kept alive at the expence of
reason.

I own it frequently happens, that women who have fostered a
romantic unnatural delicacy of feeling, waste their lives in
IMAGINING how happy they should have been with a husband who could
love them with a fervid increasing affection every day, and all
day. But they might as well pine married as single, and would not
be a jot more unhappy with a bad husband than longing for a good
one. That a proper education; or, to speak with more precision, a
well stored mind, would enable a woman to support a single life
with dignity, I grant; but that she should avoid cultivating her
DigitalOcean Referral Badge