Part 13

XLVII. In Europe, although in no part of it the women are military people by profession, we may venture to give the name of Amazons to those who upon different occasions, have fought in such battalions or squadrons, as have defeated and triumphed over the enemies of their country. Such were the French women of Beauvais, who, when that city, in the year 1742, was besieged by the Burgundians, on the day of the assault, united themselves together under the conduct or command of Joan Hacheta, and vigorously repulsed the enemy; their captain Hacheta, having with her own hands, tumbled the person headlong from the walls, who attempted to erect the enemies’ standard there. To commemorate this transaction, they keep an annual festival in that city, and the women on the feast-day, have the singular privilege of walking in procession before the men. Such also, were the inhabitants of the islands Echinadas, called at present Bur-Solares, celebrated for the victory of Lepanto, which was gained in the sea of these islands. The year antecedent to this famous battle, the Turks having attacked the principal island, the Venetian governor Antonio Balbo, and all the men, were so terrified, that they betook themselves to flight in the night, leaving the women behind them, who, at the instance of a priest named Antonio Rosoneo, resolved to defend the place; and, much to the honour of their own sex, and the disgrace of ours, they really did defend it.

N. B. With respect to the women who laid violent hands on themselves, we do not mean to propose their resolution as examples of virtue, but only to exhibit it, as a vicious excess of fierce courage, which is sufficient to answer the purpose intended.

SECT. VIII.

XLVIII. After all this recital of magnanimous women, there still remains something to be said on a particular, which the men point out as their weak side, and with respect to which, they charge them with the greatest want of constancy; that is, their not being firm in keeping a secret. Cato the Censor in this instance, would not admit of any exception whatever with regard to them, and condemned the trusting a secret to any woman, be she who she would, as one of the greatest errors a man could run into; but Cato’s own great niece Porcia, daughter of Cato the younger, and wife of Marcus Brutus, gave the lie to this assertion, she having obliged her husband, to confide to her the grand secret of the conspiracy against Cæsar, by the extraordinary proof she exhibited to him of her valour and constancy, in the great wound she voluntarily gave herself with a knife in the thigh.

XLIX. Pliny, quoting the Magi as his authors, tells us, that the heart of a certain bird, applied to the breast of a woman when she is asleep, will make her reveal all her secrets. And in another place, he says, the tongue of a certain snake will have the same effect. The magicians being obliged to search among the hidden secrets of Nature, for keys to unlock the doors of their hearts, is no proof, of the women’s being so easily brought to reveal what has been confided to them. But let us laugh with Pliny at these inventions; and let us grant, if you please, that there are very few women strict observers of a secret; but, in return to this, it is confessed on the other hand by the most experienced politicians, that there are very few men also, to whom you can confide secrets of importance; and truly, if such men were not very scarce commodities, princes would not hold them in such high estimation, as to think scarce any of their richest moveables equal to them in value.

L. Nor are there examples wanting, of women of invincible constancy in the article of keeping a secret. Pythagoras, when he found himself near dying, delivered all his writings, in which were contained the most hidden mysteries of his philosophy, into the custody of his prudent and dutiful daughter Damo; directing her at the same time, never to permit them to be published, which injunction she so punctually obeyed, that, even when she found herself reduced to extreme poverty, and could have sold those books for a large sum of money, she chose rather to endure the anguish and pinchings of want, than be deficient in point of the confidence reposed in her by her father.

LI. The magnanimous Aretaphila, whom we have already mentioned, having attempted to take away the life of her husband by a poisonous draught before she entered into a conspiracy against him, which was to be carried into execution by force of arms, was surprized and detected in the fact, and being put to the torture to discover who were her comforters and abettors, the force of the torment was so far from extorting the secret, or depriving her of the possession of herself, or the use of her reason, that, after owning she intended to give him the poison, she had the address to persuade the tyrant it was a love-philter, and contrived for the purpose of increasing his passion for her. In fact, this ingenious fiction had the effect of a philter, for Nicotratus’s love of her was afterwards greatly increased from this persuasion, that she, who was solicitous to excite in him an arduous and excessive desire for her, could not do otherwise than entertain a sincere tenderness and affection for him.

LII. In the conspiracy set on foot by Aristogiton, and which was begun to be executed, by putting to death Hipparchus, the brother of Hippias, a courtesan woman, who had been trusted with the secret, and knew all the accomplices, was put to the torture; but she, to convince the tyrant of the impossibility of extorting the secret from her, cut her tongue asunder with her teeth, and let the end drop before his face.

LIII. When the first indications of the conspiracy of Pison against Nero, began to shew themselves, many of the most illustrious men of Rome shrunk under, and gave way to the rigour of the torture. Lucan, for example, discovered his own mother as an accomplice, and many others their most intimate friends; and there was only one Epicharis, an ordinary and obscure woman, who was acquainted with the whole transaction, on whom neither whips nor fire, nor all the martyrdoms they could invent, had power to tear from her breast the least information.

LIV. I knew a certain one myself, who, being examined by the torture, touching an atrocious crime which had been committed by her master and mistress, resisted the force of that rigorous test, not to save herself, but only to skreen them; for so small a portion of the fault could be imputed to her, either on account of her ignorance of the magnitude of the crime, or from her having acted by the command of others, and from various circumstances of mitigation, that the law would not have condemned her to a punishment, any thing comparable to the severity of that she underwent.

LV. But of women, from whom the power of torture could not tear the secrets of their breasts, the examples are infinite. I heard a person who had been used to assist upon such occasions declare, that, although he had known many of them confess, rather than be stripped naked to prepare them for the execution of the punishment of the rack, the instances of their having confessed after undergoing this martyrdom of their modesty, were very rare. A truly great and shining excellence in the sex this, that the regard for their modesty, should have more weight with them than all the terrors of an executioner.

LVI. I do not doubt, but this parallel I have drawn of the sexes, may appear to many somewhat flattering to the women; but I shall reply to these, that Seneca, whose rigid Stoicism removes all doubts of his impartiality, and whose severity sets him at a great distance from all suspicion of flattery, has made a comparison not a jot less favourable to the side of the women, for he absolutely asserts them to be equal to the men, in all the valuable natural faculties and dispositions. These are his words: _Quis autem dicat, naturam malignè cum muliebribus ingeniis egisse, & virtutes illarum in arctum retraxisse? Par illis mihi crede, vigor, par ad honesta (libeat) facultas est. Laborem, doloremque ex æquo si consuevere patiuntur._ (in Consol. ad Marciam.)

SECT. IX.

LVII. We are come now to defend the great article of all, which is the question of the understanding; and, I must confess, if my reason does not assist me in arguing this point, that I expect but little help or resource from authorities; because all the authors who have touched upon the matter, with the exception of one or two particular ones only, have wrote so much on the side of the vulgar opinion, that they almost uniformly speak of the understandings of the women with contempt.

LVIII. And truly, I might reply to the authority of the greatest part of these books, with the fable of the lion and the man, inserted by Carducius in one of his dialogues, which is to this effect. A man and a lion travelling together, fell to dispute whether lions or men were the bravest animals: and as they proceeded on their road, they came to a fountain, at the top of which, there was exhibited carved in marble, a man tearing a lion in pieces; upon seeing this, the man turned short on the lion, and in the tone of a conqueror, asked, if he could make any reply to so convincing an argument; to which the lion answered with a smile, this is very pretty reasoning of yours, the carving was designed and executed by a man; we lions are none of us sculptors; if we had, and were capable of doing this sort of work, I will venture to assure you, the representation would have been made quite the reverse to what you there see it.

LIX. The case is, they were men who wrote those books, in which the understandings of the women are held so cheap; had they been written by women, the men would have been placed in the inferior class: and there has not been wanting a woman, who has done something of this sort; for Lucretia Marinella, a learned Venetian lady, among other works composed a book with this title, _The Excellences of Women, compared with the Defects and Vices of Men_; the sole object of which, was to prove a preference of her own sex to ours. The learned jesuit John of Carthagena says, that he saw and read this book with great pleasure at Rome, and that he saw it also in the royal library at Madrid; but the truth is, that neither she nor we can be judges in this plea, because we are parties to the suit; and therefore the sentence and decision must be confided to the angels, who being of no sex, are impartial.

LX. And in the first place, those who hold the understanding of women in such contempt, as hardly to allow they are endued with more than pure instinct, are unworthy to be admitted as parties in the controversy; neither are those, who maintain, that the greatest reach of a woman’s capacity, does not extend farther than to qualify her for managing a hen-roost.

LXI. Some prelate, who is quoted by Don Francisco Manuel in his Guide to Married People, said, that the understanding of the most knowing woman did not exceed the bounds of ordering how a chest of clean linen should be packed. Let those who adhere to such opinions, be as respectable as they will in other points of view, they do themselves no sort of credit by such declarations; for the most favourable interpretation they admit of, is, that they were intended as hyperbolic jokes. It is a fact of public notoriety, that there have been women, who well understood the ordering and governing religious communities, and also women, who are equal to the government and direction of whole states.

LXII. These discourses against the women, are the works of superficial men; who, seeing they in general understand nothing but household business, which is commonly the only thing they are instructed in, or employed about, are apt to infer from thence, without being aware that they draw the inference from that circumstance, that they are unfit for, or incapable of any other matter. The most shallow logician knows, that it is not a valid conclusion, to suppose that because a person forbears to do an act, that he is unable to do it, and therefore, from the women in general knowing no more, it cannot be inferred, that they have not talents to comprehend more.

LXIII. Nobody understands radically and well, more than the subject he has studied; but you cannot deduce from hence, without incurring the note of barbarism, that his ability extends no farther. Sir Thomas More, in his Utopia, states the following question: suppose all men were to dedicate themselves to agriculture, in so close and strict a manner, as to occasion their understanding nothing else; would this be a foundation whereon to argue and insist, that they were incapable of understanding any other thing? With the Druses, a people of Palastine, the women are the only repositories of the little learning that subsists among them, for almost all of these can read and write; in consequence of which, the little literature they can boast of, is treasured up in the heads of the women, and totally hidden from the men, who devote themselves solely to agriculture, war, and handy-craft business. If the same custom prevailed all the world over, the women would undoubtedly consider the men as unfit for, or incapable of literature, in which light, the men at present consider the women; and as such a judgment would certainly be erroneous, in the same manner is that mistaken, which we at present make, because it proceeds upon the same principle.

SECT. X.

LXIV. And perhaps father Malebranche adopts the same mode of reasoning; for, although he was much more benign towards the women, and in his art of investigating truth acknowledges, that in the faculty of discerning sensible things, they are known to have the advantage of the men; still he insists, they are much inferior to them in the comprehension of abstract ideas; and assigns as the reason of it, the softness of their brains. It is very well known, that people search for these physical causes, and after some experience, when they are, or fancy they are sure of their effects, apply them in their own manner, to suit their own doctrines. This being the case, the consequence which results from hence is, that the author himself falls into the same intellectual disease, of which he had intended to cure all mankind. This error, is produced by common pre-occupations, and principles ill considered and digested. He without doubt made this judgment, either to avoid being led away by the common opinion, or from having observed, that women of ability, or those who are reputed such, reason with more facility, and talk more pertinently than the men, on such subjects as appertain to sensible things, and with no less precision than them (if in such cases they do not observe a total silence) on abstracted matters; but this proceeds, not from an inequality of talents, but from a difference of application and practice. Women employ themselves, and think much more than the men, about dainty eatables, setting out a table, ornaments of dress, and other things of this kind; from whence it happens, that they discourse and talk of them more pertinently, and with greater facility than those of the other sex. On the contrary, it is very rare, that any woman attends to questions of theory, or bestows the least thought on the subject of abstract ideas, and therefore it is no wonder they seem dull, when the conversation turns on such matters. If you observe them, you will find, that women who are informed, and are of a gay cast, and who sometimes take pleasure in discoursing on the delicacies of platonic love, whenever it happens that they argue with the men on this point, they greatly out-do even the most discreet ones, who have not applied themselves to explore these bagatels of fancy: this in a great measure confirms the remarks we have made above.

LXV. In general, any person whatever, be his capacity ever so great, will appear more rude than a man of little penetration, if he talks with him of such matters as the other has had experience in and he has never applied himself to understand. A labourer in husbandry, whom God has endowed with a most penetrating genius, which is no uncommon case, if it happens that his attention has never been fixed on any other thing but his work, would appear greatly inferior to the most heavy politician, if he should ever chance to converse with him about reasons of state; and the most wise politician, if he is merely a politician, who should set himself to talk about the disposition of troops, and the fighting of battles, would utter a thousand absurdities; insomuch, that if a man skilled in military affairs was to hear him, he would be apt to conclude he was mad, as Hannibal thought the great Asiatic orator was, who, in the presence of king Antiochus and him, undertook to argue about the art and conduct of war.

LXVI. It happens exactly the same in the business we are now treating of. A woman of excellent understanding, whose thoughts are constantly occupied on domestic management and the care of her house, without scarce ever hearing matters of a superior nature talked of, or, if it does happen that she hears any such thing, she rarely pays much attention to it: her husband, though much inferior to her in talents, converses frequently abroad with able men of various professions, by communicating with whom, he acquires variety of knowledge, or he enters into public business, and receives important information. Instructed in this manner, if it happens at any time that in the company of his wife, these matters are talked of, she, who by the means and in the way we have just mentioned, can gain but little aid or assistance, if she happens to speak just what occurs to her on the subject, from the want of instruction, must appear a little defective in point of knowledge, let her be ever so acute and penetrating. Her husband, and the others who hear her, conclude from thence, that she is a fool; and he in particular, plumes himself on his superior talents and abilities.

LXVII. As it fared with this woman, so it fares with an infinity of others, who, though they may have much more sense than the men they happen to be in company with, are condemned by them as unfit to reason on any kind of subject: but the truth is, that their not being able to reason at all, or their reasoning ill on such matters, does not proceed from a want of talents, but from a want of being properly informed; and without this assistance, a person, endued with even an angelic understanding, could not discourse pertinently on any subject whatever. The men at the same time, although inferior to them in understanding, shine and triumph over them with an air of importance, because they happen to be better provided with information.

LXVIII. Over and above this advantage of being better informed, the men have another, which is of great moment, to wit, that they are much accustomed to meditate, discourse, and reason upon such matters, it being in a manner their daily practice; while the women hardly ever bestow a thought on them: on which account, whenever these things are started in conversation, the men are prepared to talk upon them, and the women are taken by surprize.

LXIX. Finally, men, by their reciprocal communication with each other upon such subjects, gain mutual instruction, each individual, receiving lights and information from the observations and experience of those we converse with; and therefore, when they argue upon these matters, they not only make use of their own understandings and improvements, but they likewise avail themselves of what they have acquired from their neighbours; so that many times, what is expressed and explained by the mouth of one man, is not the produce of one understanding only, but of many. The women, who in their ordinary conversations, don’t discourse on these sublime questions, but rather of their domestic amusements and employments, furnish to each other no reciprocal lights or assistance, with respect to these great points; in consequence of which, whenever they happen to be present when such subjects are agitated, you should add to their talking unprepared, the disadvantage, of each of them being confined to the use of no more than their own proper lights and ideas.

LXX. These advantages, by means of which, a man of very short penetration, may say much more, and much more to the purpose, upon noble subjects, than a woman of great perspicuity, are of such moment, that one who has not attended to the above reflections, if he should happen to be present at a conversation of this sort, between a very keen woman and a very heavy man, might be apt to conclude, that he was a discreet person, and she a fool.

LXXI. In fact, the want of these reflections, has engendered in many men, and some of them in other respects wise and prudent ones, this great contempt for the understanding of women; but what is most laughable and ridiculous, they have exclaimed so much and so loudly against them, and have asserted with such confidence the poverty and scantiness of their understandings, that many, if not the bulk of the world, have been idle enough to believe them.

SECT. XI.

LXXII. And it seems to me, that not even those, who approaching nearer to reason, admit, that though the men in general excel the women in understanding, still own there are women of solid and perspicuous parts; I say, not even these have, to my satisfaction, established the inequality in point of understanding between the two sexes. If they had attended to the circumstances I have before-mentioned, and which frequently occur, they would have perceived, that, in the cases specified, women, of much better understandings than the men they conversed with, would appear greatly inferior to them.

LXXIII. Nor do I conceive, what other foundation this pretended inequality can be built on, than that I have mentioned, the equivocation and fallibility of which, I have just pointed out. For if I am told, the thing has been demonstrated by experience, I am prepared with a reply, and shall answer, that the experience they alledge is deceitful, and that I have exposed its fallacy in many instances; besides this, with regard to the matter of experience, I shall cite two witnesses of great credit in favour of the women. The first is, the sagacious and discreet Portugueze Don Francisco Manuel, who wrote a little treatise, called, A Guide to Married People.

LXXIV. In this Cavalier, all the circumstances that can be desired concur, to make his vote of singular weight in the question we are treating of; because, in addition to his being a man of remarkable knowledge and information, he had travelled through many countries, where he was generally charged with and negotiated important concerns; in consequence of which, and by means of his elevated genius and courteous deportment, he had opportunities of being introduced to, and conversing with, ladies of rank and fashion in all places, as may be seen by his writings.