Part 4

But how can a Man respect his Wife when he has a contemptible Opinion of her and her Sex? When from his own Elevation he looks down on them as void of Understanding, full of Ignorance and Passion, so that Folly and a Woman are equivalent Terms with him? Can he think there is any Gratitude due to her whose utmost Services he exacts as strict Duty? Because she was made to be a Slave to his Will, and has no higher End than to Serve and Obey him? Perhaps we arrogate too much to our selves, when we say this Material World was made for our Sakes: That its Glorious Maker has given us the Use of it is certain; but when we suppose any Thing to be made purely for our Sakes, because we have Dominion over it, we draw a false Conclusion. As he who should say the People were made for the Prince who is set over them, would be thought to be out of his Senses as well as his Politicks. Yet even allowing that _GOD_, who made every Thing in Number, Weight and Measure, who never acts but for some great and glorious End, an End agreeable to His Majesty; allowing that He created such a Number of Rational Spirits merely to serve their Fellow Creatures, yet how are these Lords and Masters help’d by the Contempt they shew of their poor humble Vassals? Is it not rather an Hindrance to that Service they expect, as being an undeniable and constant Proof how unworthy they are to receive it?

None of _GOD_’s Creatures, absolutely consider’d, are in their own Nature contemptible; the meanest Fly, the poorest Insect has its Use and Vertue. Contempt is scarce a Human Passion, one may venture to say it was not in innocent Man, for till Sin came into the World, there was nothing in it to be contemn’d. But Pride, which makes every Thing serve its Purposes, wrested this Passion from its only Use, so that instead of being an Antidote against Sin, it is become a grand Promoter of it, nothing making us more worthy of that Contempt we shew, than when, poor, weak, dependent Creatures as we are! we look down with Scorn and Disdain on others.

There is not a surer Sign of a noble Mind, a Mind very far advanc’d towards Perfection, than the being able to bear Contempt and an unjust Treatment from one’s Superiors evenly and patiently. For inward Worth and real Excellency are the true Ground of Superiority, and one Person is not in reality better than another, but as he is more Wise and Good. But this World being a Place of Trial, and govern’d by general Laws, just Retributions being reserv’d for hereafter, Respect and Obedience many times become due for Order’s sake, to those who don’t otherwise deserve them. Now tho’ Humility keeps us from over-valuing our selves or viewing our Merit through a false and magnifying _Medium_, yet it does not put out our Eyes, it does not, it ought not to deprive us of that pleasing Sentiment which attends our Acting as we ought to Act, which is, as it were, a Foretaste of Heaven, our present Reward for doing what is just and fit. And when a Superior does a mean and unjust thing, as all Contempt of one’s Neighbour is, and yet this does not provoke his Inferiors to refuse that Observance which their Stations in the World require, they cannot but have an inward Sense of their own real Superiority, the other having no Pretence to it, at the same Time that they pay him an outward Respect and Deference, which is such a flagrant Testimony of the sincerest Love of Order, as proves their Souls to be of the highest and noblest Rank.

A Man therefore for his own sake, and to give Evidence that he has a Right to those Prerogatives he assumes, should treat Women with a little more Humanity and Regard than is usually paid them. Your whifling Wits may scoff at them, and what then? It matters not, for they rally every Thing though ever so sacred, and rail at the Women commonly in very good Company. Religion, its Priests, and those its most constant and regular Professors, are the usual Subjects of their manly, mannerly and surprizing Jests. Surprizing indeed! not for the Newness of the Thought, the Brightness of the Fancy, or Nobleness of Expression, but for the good Assurance with which such Thread-bare Jests are again and again repeated. But that your grave Dons, your learned Men, and, which is more, your Men of Sense, as they would be thought, should stoop so low as to make Invectives against the Women, forget themselves so much as to jest with their Slaves, who have neither Liberty, nor Ingenuity to make Reprizals; that they should waste their Time, and debase their good Sense, which fits them for the most weighty Affairs, such as are suitable to their profound Wisdom and exalted Understandings! to render those poor Wretches more ridiculous and odious who are already in their Opinion sufficiently contemptible, and find no better Exercise of their Wit and Satire, than such as are not worth their Pains, though it were possible to Reform them, this, this indeed may justly be wonder’d at!

I Know not whether or no Women are allow’d to have Souls; if they have, perhaps it is not prudent to provoke them too much, lest, silly as they are, they at last recriminate, and then what polite and well-bred Gentleman, though himself is concern’d, can forbear taking that lawful Pleasure, which all who understand Raillery must taste, when they find his Jests who insolently began to peck at his Neighbour, return’d with Interest upon his own Head? And indeed Men are too Humane, too Wise, to venture at it, did they not hope for this Effect, and expect the Pleasure of finding their Wit turn to such Account: For if it be lawful to pry into a Secret, this is, without doubt, the whole Design of those fine Discourses which have been made against the Women from our great Fore-Fathers to this present Time! Generous Man has too much Bravery, he is too Just and too Good to assault a defenceless Enemy, and if he did inveigh against the Women, it was only to do them Service! For since neither his Care of their Education, his hearty Endeavours to improve their Minds, his wholesome Precepts, nor great Example could do them good, as his last and kindest Essay, he resolv’d to try what Contempt would do, and chose rather to expose himself by a seeming Want of Justice, Equity, Ingenuity and Good-nature, than suffer Women to remain such vain and insignificant Creatures as they have hitherto been reckon’d; and truly, Women are some Degrees beneath what I have thus far thought them, if they do not make the best Use of his Kindness, improve themselves, and, like Christians, return it.

Let us see then what is their Part, what must they do to make the Matrimonial Yoke tolerable to themselves as well as pleasing to their Lords and Masters? That the World is an empty and deceitful Thing, that those Enjoyments which appear’d so desirable at a Distance, which rais’d our Hopes and Expectations to such a mighty Pitch, which we so passionately coveted, and so eagerly pursued, vanish at our first Approach, leaving nothing behind them but the Folly of Delusion, and the Pain of disappointed Hopes, is a common Outcry; and yet, as common as it is, though we complain of being deceiv’d this Instant, we do not fail of contributing to the Cheat the very next. Though in reality it is not the World that abuses us, ’tis we abuse our selves; it is not the Emptiness of That, but our own false Judgments, our unreasonable Desires and Expectations that torment us; for he who exerts his whole Strength to lift a Straw, ought not to complain of the Burden, but of his own disproportionate Endeavour which gives him the Pain he feels. The World affords us all the Pleasure a sound Judgment can expect from it, and answers all those Ends and Purposes for which it was design’d; let us expect no more than is reasonable, and then we shall not fail of our Expectations.

It is even so in the Case before us; a Woman who has been taught to think Marriage her only Preferment, the Sum-Total of her Endeavours, the Completion of all her Hopes, that which must settle and make her Happy in this World, and very few, in their Youth especially, carry a Thought steadily to a greater Distance; She who has seen a Lover dying at her Feet, and can’t therefore imagine that he who professes to receive all his Happiness from her, can have any other Design or Desire than to please her; whose Eyes have been dazled with all the Glitter and Pomp of a Wedding, and, who hears of nothing but Joy and Congratulation; who is transported with the Pleasure of being out of Pupillage, and Mistress not only of her self, but of a Family too: She who is either so simple or so vain, as to take her Lover at his Word, either as to the Praises he gave her, or the Promises he made for himself; in sum, she whose Expectation has been rais’d by Courtship, by all the fine Things that her Lover, her Governess and Domestick Flatterers say, will find a terrible Disappointment when the Hurry is over, and when she comes calmly to consider her Condition, and views it no more under a false Appearance, but as it truly is.

I Doubt in such a View it will not appear over-desirable, if she regards only the present State of Things. Hereafter may make amends for what she must be prepar’d to suffer here, then will be her Reward, this is her Time of Trial, the Season of exercising and improving her Vertues. A Woman that is not Mistress of her Passions, that cannot patiently submit, even when Reason suffers with her, who does not practise Passive Obedience to the utmost, will never be acceptable to such an absolute Sovereign as a Husband. Wisdom ought to Govern without Contradiction, but Strength however will be obeyed. There are but few of those wise Persons who can be content to be made yet wiser by Contradiction; the most will have their _Will_, and it is right because it is theirs. Such is the Vanity of Human Nature, that nothing pleases like an intire Subjection; what Imperfections won’t a Man over-look where this is not wanting! Though we live like Brutes, we would have Incense offer’d us, that is only due to Heaven it self, would have an absolute and blind Obedience paid us by all over whom we pretend Authority. We were not made to Idolize one another, yet the whole Strain of Courtship is little less than rank Idolatry: But does a Man intend to give, and not to receive his Share in this Religious Worship? No such matter; Pride and Vanity, and Self-love have their Designs, and if the Lover is so condescending as to set a Pattern in the Time of his Addresses, he is so just as to expect his Wife should strictly Copy after it all the rest of her Life.

But how can a Woman scruple intire Subjection, how can she forbear to admire the Worth and Excellency of the Superior Sex, if she at all considers it! Have not all the great Actions that have been perform’d in the World been done by Men? Have not they founded Empires and overturn’d them? Do not they make Laws and continually repeal and amend them? Their vast Minds lay Kingdoms waste, no Bounds or Measures can be prescrib’d to their Desires. War and Peace depend on them; they form Cabals and have the Wisdom and Courage to get over all the Rubs, the petty Restraints which Honour and Conscience may lay in the Way of their desired Grandeur. What is it they cannot do? They make Worlds and ruin them, form Systems of universal Nature, and dispute eternally about them; their Pen gives Worth to the most trifling Controversy; nor can a Fray be inconsiderable if they have drawn their Swords in’t. All that the wise Man pronounces is an Oracle, and every Word the Witty speaks, a Jest. It is a Woman’s Happiness to hear, admire and praise them, especially if a little Ill-nature keeps them at any time from bellowing due Applauses on each other! And if she aspires no further, she is thought to be in her proper Sphere of Action; she is as wise and as good as can be expected from her!

She then who Marries, ought to lay it down for an indisputable Maxim, that her Husband must govern absolutely and intirely, and that she has nothing else to do but to Please and Obey. She must not attempt to divide his Authority, or so much as dispute it; to struggle with her Yoke will only make it gall the more, but must believe him Wise and Good, and in all respects the best, at least he must be so to her. She who can’t do this is no way fit to be a Wife, she may set up for that peculiar Coronet the antient Fathers talk’d of, but is not qualified to receive that great Reward which attends the eminent Exercise of Humility and Self-denial, Patience and Resignation, the Duties that a Wife is call’d to.

But some refractory Woman perhaps will say, how can this be? Is it possible for her to believe him Wise and Good, who by a thousand Demonstrations convinces her, and all the World, of the contrary? Did the bare Name of Husband confer Sense on a Man, and the meer being in Authority infallibly qualify him for Government, much might be done. But since a wise Man and a Husband are not Terms convertible, and how loth soever one is to own it, Matter of Fact won’t allow us to deny, that the Head many times stands in need of the Inferior’s Brains to manage it, she must beg leave to be excus’d from such high Thoughts of her Sovereign, and if she submits to his Power, it is not so much Reason as Necessity that compels her.

Now of how little Force soever this Objection may be in other respects, methinks it is strong enough to prove the Necessity of a good Education, and that Men never mistake their true Interest more than when they endeavour to keep Women in Ignorance. Could they indeed deprive them of their Natural good Sense at the same Time they deny them the true Improvement of it, they might compass their End; otherwise Natural Sense unassisted may run into a false Track, and serve only to punish him justly, who would not allow it to be useful to himself or others. If Man’s Authority be justly establish’d, the more Sense a Woman has, the more Reason she will find to submit to it; if according to the Tradition of our Fathers, (who having had _Possession_ of the Pen, thought they had also the best _Right_ to it) Womens Understanding is but small, and Man’s Partiality adds no Weight to the Observation, ought not the more Care to be taken to improve them? How it agrees with the Justice of Men we inquire not, but certainly Heaven is abundantly more Equitable than to injoin Women the hardest Task, and give them the least Strength to perform it. And if Men, learned, wise and discreet as they are, who have, as is said, all the Advantages of Nature, and without Controversy, have, or may have, all the Assistance of Art, are so far from acquitting themselves as they ought, from living according to that Reason and excellent Understanding they so much boast of, can it be expected that a Woman who is reckon’d silly enough in her self, at least comparatively, and whom Men take care to make yet more so; can it be expected that she should constantly perform so difficult a Duty as intire Subjection, to which corrupt Nature is so averse?

If the great and wise _Cato_, a _Man_, a Man of no ordinary Firmness and Strength of Mind, a Man who was esteem’d as an Oracle, and by the Philosophers and great Men of his Nation equal’d even to the Gods themselves; If he, with all his Stoical Principles, was not able to bear the Sight of a triumphant Conqueror, (who perhaps would have insulted, and perhaps would not) but out of a Cowardly Fear of an Insult, ran to Death, to secure him from it; can it be thought that an ignorant weak Woman should have Patience to bear a continual Outrage and Insolence all the Days of her Life? Unless you will suppose her a _very Ass_, but then remember what the _Italians_ say, to quote them once more, since being _very_ Husbands they may be presum’d to have some Authority in this Case, _An Ass, though slow, if provok’d, will kick_.

We never observe, or perhaps make Sport, with the ill Effects of a bad Education, till it comes to touch us home in the ill Conduct of a Sister, a Daughter, or Wife. Then the Women must be blam’d, their Folly is exclaim’d against, when all this while it was the wise Man’s Fault, who did not set a better Guard on those, who, according to him, stand in so much need of one. A young Gentleman, as a celebrated Author tells us, ought above all Things to be acquainted with the State of the World, the Ways and Humours, the Follies, the Cheats, the Faults of the Age he is fallen into; he should by degrees be inform’d of the Vice in Fashion, and warn’d of the Application and Design of those who will make it their Business to corrupt him, should be told the Arts they use, and the Trains they lay, be prepar’d to be Shock’d by some, and Caress’d by others; warn’d who are like to oppose, who to mislead, who to undermine, and who to serve him. He should be instructed how to know and distinguish them, where he should let them see, and when dissemble the Knowledge of them and their Aims and Workings. Our Author is much in the right, and not to disparage any other Accomplishments which are useful in their Kind, this will turn to more Account than any Language or Philosophy, Art or Science, or any other Piece of Good-breeding and fine Education that can be taught him, which are no otherwise excellent than as they contribute to this, as this does above all Things to the making him a wise, a vertuous and useful Man.

And it is not less necessary that a young Lady should receive the like Instructions, whether or no her Temptations be fewer, her Reputation and Honour however are to be more nicely preserv’d; they may be ruin’d by a little Ignorance or Indiscretion, and then though she has kept her Innocence, and so is secur’d as to the next World, yet she is in a great measure lost to this. A Woman cannot be too watchful, too apprehensive of her Danger, nor keep at too great a Distance from it, since Man, whose Wisdom and Ingenuity is so much Superior to hers! condescends for his Interest sometimes, and sometimes by way of Diversion, to lay Snares for her. For though all Men are _Virtuosi_, Philosophers and Politicians, in comparison of the ignorant and illiterate Women, yet they don’t all pretend to be Saints, and ’tis no great Matter to them, if Women, who were born to be their Slaves, be now and then ruin’d for their Entertainment.

But according to the rate that young Women are Educated, according to the Way their Time is spent, they are destin’d to Folly and Impertinence, to say no worse, and, which is yet more inhuman, they are blam’d for that ill Conduct they are not suffer’d to avoid, and reproach’d for those Faults they are in a Manner forc’d into; so that if Heaven has bestowed any Sense on them, no other Use is made of it, than to leave them without Excuse. So much, and no more, of the World is shewn them, than serves to weaken and corrupt their Minds, to give them wrong Notions, and busy them in mean Pursuits; to disturb, not to regulate their Passions; to make them timorous and dependant, and, in a Word, fit for nothing else but to act a Farce for the Diversion of their Governors.

Even Men themselves improve no otherwise than according to the Aim they take, and the End they propose; and he whose Designs are but little and mean, will be the same himself. Tho’ Ambition, as ’tis usually understood, is a foolish, not to say a base and pitiful Vice, yet the Aspirings of the Soul after true Glory are so much its Nature, that it seems to have forgot it self, and to degenerate, if it can forbear; and perhaps the great Secret of Education lies in affecting the Soul with a lively Sense of what is truly its Perfection, and exciting the most ardent Desires after it.

But, alas! what poor Woman is ever taught that she should have a higher Design than to get her a Husband? Heaven will fall in of course; and if she makes but an Obedient and Dutiful Wife, she cannot miss of it. A Husband indeed is thought by both Sexes so very valuable, that scarce a Man who can keep himself clean and make a Bow, but thinks he is good enough to pretend to any Woman; no matter for the Difference of Birth or Fortune, a Husband is such a Wonder-working Name as to make an Equality, or something more, whenever it is obtain’d.

And indeed, were there no other Proof of Masculine Wisdom, and what a much greater Portion of Ingenuity falls to the Men than to the Women’s Share, the Address, the Artifice, and Management of an humble Servant were a sufficient Demonstration. What good Conduct does he shew! what Patience exercise! what Subtilty leave untry’d! what Concealment of his Faults! what Parade of his Vertues! what Government of his Passions! How deep is his Policy in laying his Designs at so great a Distance, and working them up by such little Accidents! How indefatigable is his Industry, and how constant his Watchfulness not to slip any Opportunity that may in the least contribute to his Design! What a handsome Set of Disguises and Pretences is he always furnish’d with! How conceal’d does he lie! how little pretend, till he is sure that his Plot will take! And at the same Time that he nourishes the Hope of being Lord and Master, appears with all the Modesty and Submission of an humble and unpretending Admirer!

Can a Woman then be too much upon her Guard? Can her Prudence and Foresight, her early Caution, be reckon’d unnecessary Suspicion, or ill-bred Reserve by any but those whose Designs they prevent, and whose Interest it is to declaim against them? It being a certain Maxim with the Men, though Policy or good Breeding won’t allow them to avow it always, that the Women were made for their Sakes and Service, and are in all respects their Inferiors, especially in Understanding; so that all the Compliments they make, all the Address and Complaisance they use, all the Kindness they profess, all the Service they pretend to pay, has no other Meaning, no other End, than to get the poor Woman into their Power, to govern her according to their Discretion. This is all pure Kindness indeed, and therefore no Woman has Reason to be offended with it; for, considering how much she is expos’d in her own, and how safe in their Keeping, ’tis the wisest Thing she can do to put her self under Protection! And then if they have a tolerable Opinion of her Sense, and not their Vanity, but some better Principle disposes them to do something out of the Way, and to appear more generous than the rest of their Sex, they’ll condescend to dictate to her, and impart some of their Prerogative, Books and Learning. ’Tis fit indeed, that she should intirely depend on their Choice, and walk with the Crutches they are pleas’d to lend her; and if she is furnished out with some Notions to set her a prating, I should have said, to make her entertaining, and the Fiddle of the Company, her Tutor’s Time was not ill bestowed: And it were a diverting Scene to see her stript, like the _Jay_, of her borrowed Feathers, but he, good Man, has not ill Nature enough to take Pleasure in it! You may accuse him, perhaps, for giving so much Encouragement to a Woman’s Vanity, but your Accusation is groundless, Vanity being a Disease the Sex will always be guilty of; nor is it a Reproach to them, since Men of Learning and Sense are over-run with it.