Woman physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce

Front matter

EX BIBLIOTHECA

CAR. I. TABORIS.

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Introduction

In this work the author has attempted to discuss philosophically the moral relations of the sexes, as founded on physiological principles. He has, therefore, sought to establish the truth ; and he has regarded as worthless and contemptible the common flatteries addressed to the female sex.

He has better, he believes, deserved that sex’s thanks by showing that nature, for the preservation of the human species, has conferred on woman a sacred character,

to which man naturally and irresistibly pays homage, to which he renders a true worship — that nature has, therefore, given to woman prompt and infallible instinct as a guide in all her gentle thoughts, her charming words, and her beneficent actions, while man has only slow and often erring reason to guide his cold and calculated conduct and that hallucination of mental supremacy which, vain as he may be, only enables him blindly to protect and support woman and makes him proud to promote her desires.

He believes that he has not less deserved thanks for having shown that man has erred from this natural principle , and has inflicted suffering both on himself and woman by nearly all his laws as to the sexes, which have been dictated by selfish feeling and a slender share of erring reason, and not; by this more natural, more safe, and more generous social sentiment.

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Rendering, then, all the homage and worship due to woman, and participating, perhaps, in the hallucination which he has described, he trusts to receive her approval ; and he cares not a straw for the outcry of those of his own sex whom cant and cowardice lead to oppress her.

He has endeavoured in this work to profit by most of the good writers on the subject ; and he has thought that he could not render the reader a greater service than by giving, in particular, an abridged and arranged view of Milton’s doctrine of divorce. — He has no objection, however, that the general originality of his work should be tried by a comparison with any work of the day.

The matters in it, which he supposes to be original, are the following : —

1. Sexual Differences in Brains.— The proving that there is a vast difference between the brain and mind of man and the brain and mind of woman — a sexual difference, not by a comparison of the heads of adults in which education and accident may be supposed to have effected this, but by a comparison of those of twins soon after birth in which tKe difference of sex can alone have acted ;

2. The showing that the sex of mind originates more especially in the vast superiority of sensibility in woman ;

3. The explanation why woman sometimes more quickly understands many reasoned statements than man does ;

4. The proving that the natural inferiority of intellect in woman is compensated by a vast superiority in instinct ;

5. The explanation of the nature and species of instinct, showing that there is no mystery in any of these, as mystics and impostors pretend ;

6. The pointing out the relations of consciousness and volition ;

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7. The showing how conscious, reasoned, and voluntary action becomes instinctive ;

8. The pointing out the importance of the acquisition of

new instinctive habits ;

9. The showing that the superiority of instinct in woman is connected with the greater development of her vital system and essential thereto ;

10. The further showing that love, impregnation, gestation, parturition, lactation, and nursing (the principal acts of woman’s life) being almost entirely instinctive, and all the other acts of woman being in close connexion and sympathy with these (being either powerfully modified or absolutely created by her instinctive vital system) — these, as well as her whole moral system, are more or less instinctive ;

11. The pointing out that her mental system has no power to rise above the instinctive influence of her vital system, but, on the contrary, contributes to aid it ;

12. The further pointing out that, on this superiority of instinct, depend her tact, promptitude, &c. — as well as the strange notions about her mind, soul, future life, &c. ;

13. The showing how this superiority of instinct affects all her other mental operations ;

14. The pointing out that on the smallGP cerebel of woman depends not only (as I have elsewhere shown) her feebler volition, but her feebler capability of attention and her muscular weakness ;

15. The showing that from all this and the varying states of her vital system result woman’s incapability of reasoning — generalizing, forming trains or connected ideas, judging, pec ■severing, as well as her greater tendency to insanity ;

16. The proving not merely that the power of reasoning is incompatible with the organization of woman, but that great

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Introduction.

mental exertion is injurious to her, and that a vast mental superiority would ensure her suffering and misery ;

17. The showing that woman’s perception of what is fitting, her politeness, her vanity, her affections, her sentiments, her dependence on and knowledge of man, her love, her artifice, her caprice, being chiefly instinctive, reach the highest degree of perfection ; whereas her friendship, her philanthropy, her patriotism, and her politics, requiring the exercise of reason, are so feeble as to be worthless ;

1 8. The explanation of the consequences of female representation ;

19. The illustration of female sovereignty in the character

of Queen Elizabeth ;

20. The proving that monogamy is a natural institution as to the human race ;

21. The showing that the indissolubility of marriage

is not justified by any physical changes taking place in woman after marriage ;

22. The further showing that even the duration of marriage for a time is justified chiefly by gestation, parturition, lactation, and the cares that the child requires reducing the woman to dependence on her husband, and by the other cares it may subsequently require from both ;

23. The pointing out that the duration of marriage or the expediency of divorce has been obscured by neglect of analytical examination ;

24. The showing that the consideration of children in relation to divorce can affect only the cases in which they exist ;

25. The suggestion that divorce or repudiation where children exist ought not to be permitted until the children have

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attained such age that they cannot materially suffer by the separation of those who have produced them ;

26. The more correct appreciation of the offence committed by both parties in adultery ;

27. The establishment of the truth that the vitiation of offspring by the woman must not be supposed, but proved ;

28. The pointing out the absurdity of divorce being made unattainable without legal offence, and of offence setting the parties free ;

29. The pointing out the reasonableness of marriage being the great object of woman’s early life ;

30. The showing how clothing becomes a natural duty of woman ;

31. The showing how cooking becomes a natural duty of woman ;

32. The proving that woman is almost everywhere a

Slave ; and that she is especially so in England ;

33. The further proving that legislation as to women in England, so far as relates to fortune, is a scheme of mean and dastardly robbery ;

34. The showing that woman, not merely in consequence of her more developed vital and reproductive system, rendering love more necessary to her than to man, and in consequence of man’s infidelity and her privation, but in consequence of her subjection to a state of slavery in regard to property, person, and progeny, is herself driven to extensive infidelity ;

35. The pointing out that man has no power to prevent this while his conduct is such as it is, and while woman excels him in senses and observing faculties ;

36. The proving that novelty is essential to the high enjoyment of every sensual pleasure ;

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Introduction.

37. The proving that, without reference to moral con sequences, sexual pleasure is perfectly innocent ;

38. The further proving that such pleasure is quite as natural, and more necessary to woman than to man;

39. The showing that, in the practice of love, the chief difference among* nations is its avowal among some, and its concealment among others — dependent on their having, with a larger vital system, greater observing faculties ;

40. The furnishing the test that the degree of the development of the glandular and secreting system always shows among which nations sexual wants and sexual errors most prevail ;

41. The application of this to England ;

42. The pointing out the origin and progress of these errors in individuals ;

43. The further pointing out that such errors rarely lead to permanent attachments ;

44. The showing that it is generally the jealousy of one of the parties that produces lasting estrangement, and that it is only when that passion and persecution ensue that sexual infidelity becomes the occasion of injury to the domestic affections ;

45. The further showing that sexual infidelity, though less to be blamed for irregular productiveness than for non-productiveness and waste of life, may thereby form the remaining cause of injury to the domestic affections ;

46. The pointing out that the aristocracy of love in England, and its general aristocracy, have the same origin, in expensive laws ;

47. The exposition of the fact that human nature, in its tendency to sexual infidelity, is much the same in modern Russia, Poland, England, Germany, Prussia, Austria, France,

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Italy, Spain, and Portugal, as in ancient Sparta and Athens — always excepting that nations with greatly developed vital systems are most loving and prolific, and, where subject to indissoluble marriage, most guilty of sexual infidelity, though among them that is always concealed ;

48. The shewing that one great means of aristocratic despotism in general, and of that which regards divorce in particular, is the careful distinction of the rich from the poor by means of barbarous and insolent laws, and the placing, justice, by its cost, quite out of the reach of the latter ;

49. The more complete exposition of the injustice of

polygamy ;

50. The showing that the great cause of COnCUbinag’e and courtezanism is indissoluble marriage ;

51. The proving that parents bequeath their errors to their children, and that consequently nothing can be more ignorant and savage than that they should also punish them.

EDITORIAL NOTE.

It must be noted that since this wovk was first published many alterations have been made in the law relating to man and tvife ; but the text has been left as it was , in the hope that the account of the grievances that have now been remedied will stand as a most interesting contribution to the history of the struggle of women for greater protection from the savagery of men.

It must be specially remembered in reading these pages that 'a decree of judicial separation may now be obtained for adultery or cruelty or for desertion for two years.

That Complete Divorce may be obtained , without any Act of Parliament , for adultery , if accompanied by cruelty , desertion , bigamy , or certain other offences.

And that the Married Women's Property Acts Maintenance Act (1886), also give greatly extended rights to women.

Indeed, there have been great changes , and yet one can see that many of the old evils are not remedied , and that further changes will have to be made.

Laws, however , have changed and will surely further change without destroying the peculiar charm of Walker's old contentions and marshalling of facts and anecdotes, and, after the evidence of the fact that for a great part of fifty years the book has been valued at double its present published price, it is with both confidence and pleasure that the publisher , in the hope of a good reception at the hands of the public, is now able to offer the work , as to printing , paper, and binding, in a more attractive style than it has ever before appeared.

PART I.— MARRIAGE, p. i

Marriage among the inferior animals.— Hume’s doctrine as to marriage. — The errors it involves — Monogamy shown to be a natural law, essential to domestic peace and social happiness. — This confirmed by the near equality of the sexes. — By the effects of monogamy on the moral, civil and political state of society. — Its consequent encouragement by states. — Interference of the priesthood with marriage. — Duration Of marriage. — Opinions of Shelley and Madame de Stael. — Opinion of Hume. — The circumstance of progeny neglected by both parties. — Shelley’s view of indissoluble marriage. — Dissolution of the marriage-tie among the Greeks and Romans. — Power of the archon at Athens. — Pericles and his wife. — Cato and Martia. — Corruptions of the empire. — Error of Dionysius Halycarnassseus. — Dissolution of marriage in Switzerland. — In republican France. — Consequences of its abrogation as slated by d’Herbouville and Bulwer. — Effects of a liberal system in some of the South Sea Islands. — Practice of the North Amerian savages. — What are the physical foundations of indissolubility in marriage? — Reply. — Advantages of experience.— The strongest argument for duration. — Montesquieu’s opinion — Hume’s opinion. — Madame de Stael’s lamentation. — Motive of the Canon and English law. — Equivocal and vague arguments. — The subject not analytically examined. — The consideration of children applicable only where children exist. — Subject first to be discussed without reference to Children. — Divorce divided into that properly so called, and repudiation. — Divorce, the affair only of two independent beings. — Repudiation requiring at most fair defence and attainment of justice. — But Milton referred to. — Both divorce and repudiation require temporary separation of parties. — Children enhance the difficulty of divorce and repudiation. — They demand the interference of a fourth party in society. — Divorce and repudiation not to be permitted until children shall not suffer by separation or desertion of parents. — The age to be attained by them a subject of due consideration. — Motive it should afford to parents. — Objection to this as an infliction on

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parents. — This, the consequence of their own act ; and its good effects. — Infidelity as facilitating divorce. — DiVOPCe Only fOP adultepy on the part of the wife, in the notion that she alone can vitiate offspring. — The offence, however, equal on both sides. — If a wife deceives her own husband, he deceives the husband of another. — When neither another family nor society considered, but solely the relations of husband and wife, the offence of the latter is only to the former, while that of the former is to another husband. — Where no offspring, no enhancement of offence, which is equal on both sides. —No difficulty as to parentage of children. — He whom a child does not resemble, not its father. — Punishment for such aggravation unjust until its commission proved. — Absurdity of legal offence making divorce easy. — The consequence of this, encouragement of such offence. — Such, the whole of the just and natural impediments to divorce. — Relation of husband and wife. — Man governing, woman obeying. — Qualities fitting woman for this.— Error of education unfitting her. — Woman Stoops to COnqueP. Beauty wedded to art. — Rousseau’s observations. — Feminine mind in men and masculine in women. — Mrs. Wolstonecraft’s notion of conspiracy to enslave women. — Reply. — Writers demanding for women what nature denies, mind having powerfully marked sexual character. — Madame Roland on rights <>f woman. — Relation of women to children. — In the case of girls. — In young women. — Feebleness of woman necessary in relation to children. — Observations of Cabanis. — Absurd complaint of Mrs. Wolstonecraft. — Occupations of women. — Domestic and sedentary occupations. The making of clothes. — Rousseau’s observations. — Personal neatness. — Mrs. Wolstonecraft’s remarks. — Preparing of food. — Its origin. — Consequences af neglecting these duties. — Consequences of performing them. — Anecdote by Captain Franklin. — Cause of woman’s easily excelling in these duties. — Homer’s opinion on the subject.

PART II.— MATRIMONIAL SLAVERY, p. 46

Women evepy where slaves. — The women of savage nations. — Of half-civilised nations. — Women in despotic countries. — In England. — In republics. — England not perhaps affording fair specimen of European treatment of women. — English women slaves as to fortune, person and children. — Heiresses may be bought. — Women, cannot impose as to fortune. — Men may. — Paraphernalia, the husband’s property. — Wife cannot prevent husband wasting personal estate. — Has little power over real estate. — Kissed or kicked out of previous settlement. — Jointure not always retained. — Can ill dispose of property by will. — Case. — No amends afforded by exemption from imprisonment. — Relative treatment of husband and wife under offence. — Wife by adultery fOPfeitS pight to maintenance and d ower. — Infamous proposal by a lawyer. —

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Wife punished in lieu of adulterous husband. — Iler treatment if she divorce him — Horrible case of Tomlinson v. Tomlinson. — Scheme of Fobbing* Wives ; and reply to the lawyer’s proposal. — Wife has no property in mental ability or personal industry. — Case. —Wife has no property in person, and may be mac^e prisoner for life. — Case. — Cruelty may be added to imprisonment. — Case. — That cruelty may be worse than death. — Case. — Consequences of swearing a breach of the peace. — Wife has no property in children. — Husband may exclude her from access to them.— Case. — May make this the means of extortion. — Cases. — Mother of illegitimate children has entire control. — Remedy for this. — Power of husband after death to injure wife in relation to children. — Remedies necessary. — Husband’s reward for tyranny, in dissimulation, deceit and ridicule. — In extensive infidelity. — Natural laws affording relief to the wife. — She triumphs in the contest between brute force and intelligence. — Ludicrous position of husbands.

PART III.— INFIDELITY, p. 66

Borrowing of Wives in Greece.— Opinions of Lycurgus.— Effect of his ordinances on the conduct of women. — Observation of Montesquieu.— The stoics and Lycurgus. — Motives of the latter ; and children in Sparta. — Liberty allowed to married women of Athens. — Its effects. — Socrates and Xantippe. — Even these authorities no excuse for the errors here involved. — Borrowing of wives in Rome. — Cato and Martia. — Error of Montesquieu. — Tertullian and St. Austin on this subject. — Reflection of a modern writer.— Extent of infidelity in our times ; and its foundation in nature. — Mind of women in that respect, and remarks of Montaigne and Pope. — Facts as to conjugal fidelity. — Sexual pretended morals.— Madame de Stael’s reflection on that subject. — Lord Byron’s. — Baseness of these morals. — Man punished by ridicule. — Conduct of the higher classes in France, England. &c. , as to infidelity; and circumstances which lead to this. — Laws Of Society, in some slight collision with those of nature. — Novelty essential to high sensual enjoyment. — As expressed in old anecdote, &c. — As proved philosophically. — Relation of this law of variety to circumstances and dispositions of the sexes. — As natural to woman as to man. — Chief difference among nations as to the indulgences of love. — Forms of women which betray tl*is.— Conduct Of the English in this respect. — Difference between the young and the more experienced woman. — Relative evils herewith connected. — Liberality of the higher classes. — Laxness of these classes.— The evil of sexual infidelity to be judged only by its consequences.— (1.) In relation to the domestic affections. —

History of domestic infidelity in this respect. — Very different fate of the husband and the wife in consequence. — Happier results of new associations.— Natural liberty favourable to fidelity according to Plutarch, <Xrc. —

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Temporary amours rarely dangerous. — Jealousy and persecution chiefly make them so. — Infidelity to be blamed as exciting jealousy. — May, in some cases, be blamable also on either accounts. — Happy effects of the absence of jealousy. — (2 ) In relation to irregular progeny. — Temporary amours rarely productive. — Perhaps more blamable for unproductiveness.— When most dangerous. — Some of the evils of infidelity. — Extent of infidelity in various nations. — Infidelity in Russia. — Poland. — Difference between the northern and southern nations further noticed. — Infidelity in England. — -De Biron and the English lady. — The aristocracy of love in England, a branch of the general aristocracy. — English, French, and Italian love contrasted in this respect. — Boniface, Archbishop of Mentz, on English nuns. — Latimer on breach of wedlock in England. — Of other women similarly having a large vital system. — Causes and examples given by men in England — Infidelity in Germany. — Prussia. — Austria. — France. — Domestic relations in France. — Character and temperament of French Women, by Moreau. — Their coldness and unfitness for love. — Superficial views of Mr. Buhver, &c. — Infidelity in Italy. — Early marriages necessary there. — Extensive and avowed infidelity, the result of indissoluble marriage. — The cicisbeato and cavalieri serventi. — Infidelity systematized. — Durability of these engagements. — Advantages attending them, —Their example followed by strangers. — Comparison between the Italians and English in this resoect, made in the “ Istoria Critica dei Cavalieri Ser-

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vend.” — This comparison in favour of the Italians. — Blunder of Bonstetten on this subject. — Infidelity in Spain from the same cause, indissoluble marriage. — Spanish America. — Portugal. — Portuguese Colonies. — Infidelity everywhere accompaning indissoluble marriage.

PART IV.— DIVORCE, p. 120

What constitutes marriage. — Marriage by men incapable of its duties, fraudulent. — Divorce divided into divorce properly so called, and repudiation. — In divorce without children, consent of parties alone necessary. — In repudiation without children, fair defence at most necessary. — Neither divorce nor repudiation admissible until after temporary separation.— Childless marriages the interest neither of individuals nor of society. — The existence of children ought to enhance the difficulty of divorce, and the interference of society in behalf of the new interests to be satisfied. — Divorce not to be permitted until children are secure from injury thereby. — Importance of this to society as well as to children. — So also even if there be children, provided we regard its effects only on offspring generally or in relation to society, and not to the one only of the particular male parents deceived. — Adultery has its offensive relation, where there is progeny, especially to the husband. — Qualifying circumstance. — Actual

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vitiation of offspring necessary to the enhancement of such offence. — In such vitiation be, it can be proved. — Not till then can the wife, as the more blamable, be justly punished for such aggravation. —Absurdity and illconsequences of legal Offence rendering easy divorce, when unattainable in common c^es. — Conclusion as to these vices. — Other causes than infidelity should operate divorce, as shown by Milton — Coleridge’s remarks on Milton. — Milton’s remarks on Bucer and Erasmus in this respect. — Selection, abridgment and arrangement of Milton’s views as to divorce. — As to the state or condition of marriage. — As to the cause of this state. — As to the injustice of this state. — As to the effects of this state. — As to the remedy of this state. — As to the greater importance of inind in such case. — As to the dictates of nature therein. — As to the end of marriage. — As to evil instead of good produced thereby. — As to other causes of divorce. — As to its prohibition being both useless and mischievous.— Milton’s replies to objections.— His opinion that the power of divorce should rest with the husband. — Milton grossly misrepresented on this great subject. — Milton’s only error, in not assigning to the wife the same right as to the husband. — State of English law on this subject. — The English, following the canon law, makes marriage indissoluble even by adultery. — Divorce a v/ensd et thoro, a mere separation, not permitting a second marriage. — No power but that of Parliament can enable a party to contract a second marriage while the parties to the first are living. — This both contrary to the law of the land, and encouraging perjury on the part of the husband. — This meant by its expense to exclude all but the rich from its benefit. — Divorce for adultery or desertion allowed by all reformed churches but the English. — Great facility botji for marriage and divorce in Scotland- — Injustice of the English law. — Its ill effects as exposing the wife to temptation and affording excuse for the husband’s profligacy. — Proof, from the example of Scotland, how easily this evil might be remedied. — Proof also of the mischief of divorce a inetisd et thoro. — Gross, daring and flagrant injustice of lordly legislation in granting divorce to a husband and refusing it to a wife. — A divorced wife forfeits maintenance and dower, and the husband in all cases retains nearly the whole of her property.— Even if the husband be divorced so far as the wife is allowed to divorce, he retains the greater part of her fortune, while she is allowed a pittance. — The husband has a property in the wife’s person; she, none in his. — Hence the wife rarely seeks divorce, unless cruelly treated, and thus proves that there are greater injuries than adultery. — The objection, that if complete divorce were granted, adultery would become common. — Answer. — Proof from the example of Scotland. — The objection that the adulterer would be benefited. — Answer. — Worthlessness

of English law on this subject. — Married people therefore seek relief from the law of Scotland. — Comparative number of divorces in Prussia, France, and Eng-

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land. — Their deficiency in England compensated by miserable couples, and by infidelity, concubinage and prostitution. — Sale of wives.

PART V. CONCUBINAGE AND COURTEZANISM, p. 174

These, the consequences of such oppressions.— Preliminary examination of polygamy. — Extent of polygamy. — Its state in Turkey. — Divorce in that country. — Retaking the divorced wife. — Injustice of polygamy.— Argument in its favour from climate and precocity. — Answer. — Argument from the proportion of the sexes. — Answer. — Polygamy never general. — Conclusion. — Polygamy always accompanied by slavery. — Eastern notion of the natural inferiority of woman. — Its sanction from religion. — Montesquieu's reasoning on this subject. — Answer. — Apology for polygamy. — Answer. — Relation of women to each other in the East.— Infidelity of eastern Women. — Hostility of this to friendship.— To female liberty. — Its injury to children.— Its effects on the parents, male and female. — As to civilization and freedom. —Montesquieu’s love of hypothesis. — Effects of indissoluble monogamy in Europe resemble those of polygamy. — These compared. — Natural causes of concubinage and courtezanism. — Their artificial and chief cause, indissoluble marriage. — Concubinage in ancient Greece. — In modern nations. — Its evil consequences. — Its insufficiency, as well as that of polygamy. — Courtezanism both unsatisfactory and vicious, however inevitable under indissoluble marriage. — The courtezans of Asiatic Greece. — Those of Corinth. — Phryne. — Aspasia. — Classes of Hetairai. — Their relation to the fine arts and to religion. — Their accomplishments. — Their influence. — Conduct of the cynics in regard to them. — The accuser of Phryne and Ilvperides. — Solon's permission of courtezans. — Cato’s and Cicero’s conduct in that respect. — Courtezanism in modern times. — In France. — Ninon de l'Enclos. — At the present time. — Courtezanism in England. — Reasonable freedom of divorce the Cure for it. — In Africa. — In the South Sea Islands. The Ehrioi. — The despotism of man, the first cause of these evils. — They have no dependence on natural and necessary law. — Mistake of Dr. Priestly on this subject. — Evils of courtezanism — Danger of exposure. — Ruinous expense — Disinclination to honourable connexion. — Impairment of constitution.— Peculiar disease. — Injury to women. — For all this, the legitimate offspring of indissoluble marriage and of the acts of man, woman additionally and severely punished by man.— The share which parents take in punishing their children on this account. — Conduct of women to each other.

PART VI.— MIND, p. 221

Knowledge of mind an essential preliminary. — Nature of mind.— The brain, its organ, not a material condition merely.— Size of the brain

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in woman less than in man. — This for the first time proved by examining twins at an early period, and by the development of the brain differing with difference of sex. — Caution in such examinations. — The organs of sense and observing faculties larger in woman. — Her sensibility excessive. — Her reasoning: faculties email. — Instinct her compensation for this. — First species of instinct. — Its first variety; the infant’s sucking explained. — Its second variety ; the duckling and Galen’s kid explained — Mr. Mayo’s mistakes as to instinct. — Second species of instinct. — Many conscious and voluntary action^ even of man become instinctive. — Third species of instinct ; acquired and communicated to progeny. — Instinctive faculties increase with the organs of sense and the vital system. — These faculties therefore predominate in woman. — All her other faculties either created or modified by these, and therefore receiving its essential character. —They accordingly can never rise above this instinctive influence. — All her actions more or less instinctive. — Hence her rapid tact, decision, See. — Error of Mrs. Woistonecraft as to reason in woman. — Absurd conclusions of mankind, from this predominance of instinct imperfectly observed. — Relative Value of instinct and reason. — Intellectual faculties of woman. — Her ideas, emotions and passions. — Her imagination. — Superstition. — Her volition. — Power of attention. — Muscular power. — Her reasoning. — Incapacity to generalise, to form trains of ideas, to judge. — Want of perseverance. — Accidents to her vital system opposed to reasoning. — Easy derangement of mental faculties. — Great exertion of these destructive of beauty, &c., — Character of female literature and science. — Unfitness of learned and philosophical ladies for natural duties. — Sphere of their accomplishments and natural duties. — Distinguished women neither the most beautiful nor the most gentle of their sex. — Mrs. Wolstonecraft’s error as to the degradation of woman. — Rousseau’s observations on female character being dependent on education. — Queen Mary’s remark on the wisdom of women. — That high intellect would insure the misery of woman. — Relative value of man’s and woman’s shares in life.