A Vindication of the Rights of Woman / With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects

f reason, and to place every duty on an arbitrary foundation. The rights of kings are de

sonable service: and to render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding, a mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle; for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying vicious or weak beings, merely because they obeyed a powerful instinct? The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which naturally subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few words: The parent who pays p

ted parent is not easily shaken, even when matured reason convinces the child that his father is not the wisest man in the world. This weakness, for a weakness it is, though the epithet AMIABLE may be tacked to it, a reaso

he natural and accident

on to the whole animal world, that only reason can give. This is the parental affection of humanity, and leaves instinctive natural affection far behind.

ny account; yet twenty years of solicitude call for a return, and the son ought, at least, to promise not to marry

; it is only a selfish respect for property. The father who is blindly obeyed,

gligence of parents; and still these are the people who are most tenacious of what they term a natural right, th

roportion as they neglect the discharge of the duties which alone render the privileges reasonable. This is at the bottom, a dictate of common sense, or the instinct of self-def

ne of Omnipotence, they dare to demand that implicit respect which is only due to His unsearchable ways. But, let me not be thought presumptuous, the darkness which hides our God from us, only respects speculative truth

of their families, who never think of consulting their inclination, or providing for the comfort of the poor victims of their pride. The consequence is notori

at Heaven seems to command the whole human race. It is your interest to obey me till you can judge for yourself; and the Almighty Father of all has implanted an affection in me to serve as a guard to you

men are not slaves in the marriage state. True, but they then become tyrants; for it is not rational freedom, but a lawless kind of power, resembling the authority exercised by the favourites of absolute monarchs, which they obtain by debasing means. I do not, likewise, dream of insinuating that either boys or girls are always slaves, I only insist, that when they are obliged to submit to authority blindly, their faculties are weakened, and their tempers rendered imperious or abject. I also lament, that parents, indolently availing themselves of a supposed privilege, damp the first faint glimmering of reason rendering at the same time the duty, which they are so anxious to enforce, an empty name; because they will not let it rest on the only basis o

ity, which Rousseau insisted on, without defining it; for to submit to reason, is to submit

on a privilege without being willing to pay the price fixed by nature? I have before had occasion to observe, that a right al

r a child's mind. And this power becomes strong indeed, if tempered by an even display of affection brought home to the child's heart. For, I believe, as a general rule, it must be allowed, that the affection which we inspire always resembles that we cultivate; so that natural affections, which have been supposed

they relax proportionally, is almost always unreasonable. To elude this arbitrary authority, girls very early learn the lessons which they afterwards practise on their husbands; for I have frequently seen a little sharp-faced miss rule a whole family,

ly this morning, because her hair was not dressed to please her." Though this remark was pert, it w

to teach them virtue on any solid principle is to teach them to despise their parents. Children cannot, ought not to be taught to make allowance for the faults of their parents, because every such allowance weakens the force of reason in their minds, and makes them still more indulgent to their own. It is one of the most sublime virtues of maturity that

together in the first affection, and reason made the foundation of the first duty, morality will stumble at the threshold. But, till society is very differently constituted, parents, I