But man is permitted to forswear himself, even at the altar dedicated to the SUPREME BEING! He is allowed, even there, to consider the most sacred of ceremonies as merely a political institution, of which he may exclusively avail himself as far as it tends to the promotion of his interest, while neither the publicity, nor the number of his infidelities, attach the badge of worldly censure to his conduct. He is still the lordly reveller; the master of his pleasures; the tolerated breaker of his oath: he pleads the frailty of human nature, though he, as the stronger creature, is supposed to possess an omnipotent source of mental power; he urges the sovereignty of the passions, the dominion of the senses, the sanction of long established custom. He is a man of universal gallantry; he is consequently courted and idolized by the generality of women, though all his days and all his actions prove, that woman is the victim of his falsehood.
Now examine the destiny of the weaker sex, under similar circumstances. WOMAN is to endure neglect, infidelity, and scorn: she is to endure them patiently. She is not allowed to plead the frailty of human nature; she is to have no passions, no affections; and if she chance to overstep the boundaries of chastity, (whatever witcheries and machinations are employed to mislead her;) if she violates that oath, which, perhaps the pride of her kindred, family interest, ambition, or compulsion, extorted from her, CUSTOM, that pliant and convenient friend to man, declares her infamous. While women, who are accessaries to her disgrace, by countenancing her husband’s infidelities, condemn the wife with all the vehemence of indignation; because woman is the weaker creature, and most subjected to temptation! because man errs voluntarily; and woman is seduced, by art and by persecution, from the paths of Virtue.
There is scarcely an event in human existence, in which the oppression of woman is not tolerated. The laws are made by man; and self-preservation is, by them, deemed the primary law of nature. Hence, woman is destined to be the passive creature; she is to yield obedience, and to depend for support upon a being who is perpetually authorised to deceive her. If a woman be married, her property becomes her husband’s; and yet she is amenable to the laws, if she contracts debts beyond what that husband and those laws pronounce the necessaries of existence. If the comforts, or even the conveniences of woman’s life rest on the mercy of her ruler, they will be limited indeed. We have seen innumerable instances, in cases of divorce, where the weaker, the defenceless partner is allotted a scanty pittance, upon which she is expected to live honourably; while the husband, the lord of the creation, in the very plenitude of wealth, in the very zenith of splendour, is permitted openly to indulge in every dishonourable propensity. Yet, he is commiserated as the injured party; and she is branded with the name of infamous: though he is deemed the stronger, and she the weaker creature.
Frailty, through all the stages of social intercourse, appears to be most enormous in those who are supposed to have least fortitude to sustain the powers of self-resistance. Yet, such is the force of prejudice, the law of custom, against woman, that she is expected to act like a philosopher, though she is not allowed to think like one. If she pleads the weakness of her sex, her plea is not admitted; if she professes an equal portion of mental strength with man, she is condemned for arrogance. Yet, if a General be sent into the field of battle with a force inferior to that of the enemy, and is vanquished, the plea of inequality in resisting powers is admitted, and his honour is exonerated from every imputation: WOMAN encounters an all-commanding enemy; she is subdued; and she is eternally dishonoured!
The laws of man have long since decreed, that the jewel, Chastity, and the purity of uncontaminated morals, are the brightest ornaments of the female sex. Yet, the framers of those laws are indefatigable in promoting their violation. Man says to woman, without chastity you are declared infamous; and at the same moment, by a subtle and gradual process, he undermines the purity of her heart, by a bold defiance of all that tends to the support of religion and morality. Man thus commits a kind of mental suicide; while he levels that image to the lowest debasement, which he has ostentatiously set up for universal idolatry.
It is not by precept, but by example, that conviction strikes deeply into the thinking mind. Man is supposed to be the more wise and more rational creature; his faculties are more liberally expanded by classical education: he is supposed to be more enlightened by an unlimited intercourse with society. He is permitted to assert the dignity of his character; to punish those who assail his reputation; and to assume a superiority over all his fellow creatures. He is not accountable to any mortal for the actions of his life; he may revel in the follies, indulge the vices of his superior nature. He pursues the pleasures or the eccentricities of his imagination, with an avidity insatiable: and he perpetually proves that human passions subjugate him to the degradations of human frailty; while woman, the weaker animal, she whose enjoyments are limited, whose education, knowledge, and actions are circumscribed by the potent rule of prejudice, she is expected to resist temptation; to be invincible in fortitude; strong in prescient and reflecting powers; subtle in the defence of her own honour; and forbearing under all the conflicts of the passions. Man first degrades, and then deserts her. Yet, if driven by famine, insult, shame, and persecution, she rushes forth like the wolf for prey; if, like Milwood, she finds it “necessary to be rich” in this sordid, selfish world, she is shunned, abhorred, condemned to the very lowest scenes of vile debasement; to exist in misery, or to perish unlamented. No kindred breast will pity her misfortunes; no pious tear embalm her ashes: she rushes into the arms of death, as her last, her only asylum from the monsters who have destroyed her.
Woman is destined to pursue no path in which she does not find an enemy. If she is liberal, generous, careless of wealth, friendly to the unfortunate, and bountiful to persecuted merit, she is deemed prodigal, and over-much profuse; all the good she does, every tear she steals from the downcast eye of modest worth, every sigh she converts into a throb of joy, in grateful bosoms, is, by the world, forgotten; while the ingenuous liberality of her soul excites the imputation of folly and extravagance. If, on the contrary, she is wary, shrewd, thrifty, economical, and eager to procure and to preserve the advantages of independence; she is condemned as narrow-minded, mean, unfeeling, artful, mercenary, and base: in either case she is exposed to censure. If liberal, unpitied; if sordid, execrated! In a few words, a generous woman is termed a fool; a prudent one, a prodigal.
If WOMAN is not permitted to assert a majesty of mind, why fatigue her faculties with the labours of any species of education? why give her books, if she is not to profit by the wisdom they inculcate? The parent, or the preceptress, who enlightened her understanding, like the dark lantern, to spread its rays internally only, puts into her grasp a weapon of defence against the perils of existence; and at the same moment commands her not to use it. Man says you may read, and you will think, but you shall not evince your knowledge, or employ your thoughts, beyond the boundaries which we have set up around you. Then wherefore burthen the young mind with a gaudy outline which man darkens with shades indelible? why expand the female heart, merely to render it more conscious that it is, by the tyranny of custom, rendered vulnerable? Let man remember, that “A little learning is a dangerous thing.”
Let him not hope for a luxurious mental harvest, where the sun of cultivation is obscured by impenetrable prejudice; that cloud which has too long spread over the mind of woman a desolating darkness. So situated, woman is taught to discriminate just sufficiently to know her own unhappiness. She, like Tantalus, is placed in a situation where the intellectual blessing she sighs for is within her view; but she is not permitted to attain it: she is conscious of possessing equally strong mental powers; but she is obliged to yield, as the weaker creature. Man says, “you shall be initiated in all the arts of pleasing; but you shall, in vain, hope that we will contribute to your happiness one iota beyond the principle which constitutes our own.” Sensual Egotists! woman is absolutely necessary to your felicity; nay, even to your existence: yet she
must not arrogate to herself the power to interest your actions. You idolize her personal attractions, as long as they influence your senses; when they begin to pall, the magick is dissolved; and prejudice is ever eager to condemn what passion has degraded.
A French author, who wrote in the early part of the present century, says, “The empire we exercise over the fair sex is usurped; and that which they obtain over us is by nature. Our submission very often costs them no more than a glance of the eye; the most stern and fierce of mankind grow gentle at the sight of them. What a whimsical conduct it is to dispute with women the right of managing their own estates, while we give up our liberties at so cheap a rate.”
The same author, in the same work, says, “It rarely happens, that we share with women the shame of their errors, though we are either the authors, or the accomplices of them. On the other hand, how many follies have we, that are peculiar to ourselves; how many occasions are there where their modesty conceals more merit, than we can shew, with all our vanity!”
Supposing women were to act upon the same principle of egotism, consulting their own inclinations, interest, and amusement only, (and there is no law of Nature which forbids them; none of any species but that which is framed by man;) what would be the consequences? The annihilation of all moral and religious order. So that every good which cements the bonds of civilized society, originates wholly in the forbearance, and conscientiousness of woman.
I wish not to advise the sex against cultivating what modern writers term, the GRACES. I would have woman highly, eminently polished; she should dance, if her form be well proportioned; she should sing, if nature has endowed her with the power of conveying that harmony so soothing to the senses. She should draw, paint, and perform fanciful tasks with her needle; particularly if her frame be delicate, her intellects feminine. But if nature has given her strong mental powers, half her hours of study should be devoted to more important acquirements. She should likewise, if strong and active, be indulged in minor sports; such as swimming, the use of the ball, and foot racing, &c. We should then see British Atalantas, as well as female Nimrods.
However singular it may appear to a reflecting mind, hunting, certainly one of the most barbarous of masculine sports is, in Europe, tolerated as an amusement for the softer sex! There again, weakness is, by the humane ordinance of man, devoted to persecution. The harmless stag and timid hare are hunted to destruction, even by women! — Why, in this single instance, does man agree in the propriety of masculine pursuits? Why does the husband, without apprehension or disgust, permit the tender, weak and delicate partner of his cares to leap a quarry or a five-barred gate, at the same time that he would deem it the excess of arrogance, to offer an opinion, on any subject which MAN considers as exclusively adapted to his discussion. I can only conclude that a wife has full permission to break her neck; though she is forbid to think or speak like a rational creature.
Why are women excluded from the auditory part of the British senate? The welfare of their country, cannot fail to interest their feelings; and eloquence both exalts and refines the understanding. Man makes woman a frivolous creature, and then condemns her for the folly he inculcates. He tells her, that beauty is her first and most powerful attraction; her second complacency of temper, and softness of manners. She therefore dedicates half her hours to the embellishment of her person, and the other half to the practice of soft, languishing, sentimental insipidity. She disdains to be strong minded, because she fears being accounted masculine; she trembles at every breeze, faints at every peril, and yields to every assailant, because it would be unwomanly to defend herself. She sees no resemblance of her own character in the Portias and Cornelias of antiquity; she is content to be the epitome of her celebrated archetype, the good woman of St. Giles’s !
The embargo upon words, the enforcement of tacit submission, has been productive of consequences highly honourable to the women of the present age. Since the sex have been condemned for exercising the powers of speech, they have successfully taken up the pen: and their writings exemplify both energy of mind, and capability of acquiring the most extensive knowledge. The press will be the monuments from which the genius of British women will rise to immortal celebrity: their works will, in proportion as their educations are liberal, from year to year, challenge an equal portion of fame, with the labours of their classical male contemporaries.
In proportion as women are acquainted with the languages they will become citizens of the world. The laws, customs and inhabitants of different nations will be their kindred in the propinquity of nature. Prejudice will be palsied, if not receive its death blow, by the expansion of intellect: and woman being permitted to feel her own importance in the scale of society, will be tenacious of maintaining it. She will know that she was created for something beyond the mere amusement of man; that she is capable of mental energies, and worthy of the most unbounded confidence. Such a system of mental equality, would, while it stigmatized the trifling vain and pernicious race of high fashioned Messalinas, produce such British women, as would equal the Portias and Arrias of antiquity.
Had fortune enabled me, I would build an UNIVERSITY FOR WOMEN; where they should be politely, and at the same time classically educated; the depth of their studies, should be proportioned to their mental powers; and those who were incompetent to the labours of knowledge, should be dismissed after a fair trial of their capabilities, and allotted to the more humble paths of life; such as domestic and useful occupations. The wealthy part of the community who neglected to educate their female offspring, at this seminary of learning, should pay a fine, which should be appropriated to the maintenance of the unportioned scholars. In half a century there would be a sufficient number of learned women to fill all the departments of the university, and those who excelled in an eminent degree should receive honorary medals, which they should wear as an ORDER of LITERARY MERIT.
O! my unenlightened country-women! read, and profit, by the admonition of Reason. Shake off the trifling, glittering shackles, which debase you. Resist those fascinating spells which, like the petrifying torpedo, fasten on your mental faculties. Be less the slaves of vanity, and more the converts of Reflection. Nature has endowed you with personal attractions: she has also given you the mind capable of expansion. Seek not the visionary triumph of universal conquest; know yourselves equal to greater, nobler, acquirements: and by prudence, temperance, firmness, and reflection, subdue that prejudice which has, for ages past, been your inveterate enemy. Let your daughters be liberally, classically, philosophically, and usefully educated; let them speak and write their opinions freely; let them read and think like rational creatures; adapt their studies to their strength of intellect; expand their minds, and purify their hearts, by teaching them to feel their mental equality with their imperious rulers. By such laudable exertions, you will excite the noblest emulation; you will explode the superstitious tenets of bigotry and fanaticism; confirm the intuitive immortality of the soul, and give them that genuine glow of conscious virtue which will grace them to posterity.
There are men who affect, to think lightly of the literary productions of women: and yet no works of the present day are so universally read as theirs. The best novels that have been written, since those of Smollet, Richardson, and Fielding, have been produced by women: and their pages have not only been embellished with the interesting events of domestic life, portrayed with all the elegance of phraseology, and all the refinement of sentiment, but with forcible and eloquent, political, theological, and philosophical reasoning. To the genius and labours of some enlightened British women posterity will also be indebted for the purest and best translations from the French and German languages. I need not mention Mrs. Dobson, Mrs. Inchbald, Miss Plumptree, &c. &c. Of the more profound researches in the dead languages, we have many female classicks of the first celebrity: Mrs. Carter, Mrs.
Thomas, (late Miss Parkhurst;) Mrs. Francis, the Hon. Mrs. Damer, &c. &c.
Of the Drama, the wreath of fame has crowned
the brows of Mrs. Cowley, Mrs. Inchbald, Miss Lee, Miss Hannah More, and others of less celebrity. Of Biography, Mrs. Dobson, Mrs. Thickness, Mrs. Piozzi, Mrs. Montagu, Miss Helen Williams, have given specimens highly honourable to their talents. Poetry has unquestionably risen high in British literature from the productions of female pens; for many English women have produced such original and beautiful compositions, that the first critics and scholars of the age have wondered, while they applauded. But in order to direct the attention of my fair and liberal country-women to the natural genius and mental acquirements of their illustrious contemporaries, I conclude my Letter with a list of names, which, while they silence the tongue of prejudice, will not fail TO EXCITE EMULATION.
P.S. Should this Letter be the means of influencing the minds of those to whom it is addressed, so far as to benefit the rising generation, my end and aim will be accomplished. I am well assured, that it will meet with little serious attention from the MALE disciples of MODERN PHILOSOPHY. The critics, though they have liberally patronized the works of British women, will perhaps condemn that doctrine which inculcates mental equality; lest, by the intellectual labours of the sex, they should claim an equal portion of power in the TRIBUNAL of BRITISH LITERATURE. By the profound scholar, and the unprejudiced critic, this Letter will be read with candour; while, I trust, its purpose will be deemed beneficial to society.
Exeter, Nov. 7, 1798
LIST OF BRITISH FEMALE LITERARY CHARACTERS LIVING IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
Collected Poetical Works of Mary Robinson Page 52