to act, at once, in both these manners. The consequence is, that individuals of the stronger sex claim for themselves privileges of roving, which they will not accord to their female companions; and the dread lest they should take them, as they know them to be similarly constituted with themselves, often induces them to treat them with great rigour.

They hope by doing so, either to deprive them of the vivacity and leisure requisite for the indulgence of licentious thoughts; or else to render it physically impossible for them to yield to their impulsion.

Another motive which nature suggests to barbarous men, to excite in them a hostile spirit against the female sex, seems to arise, in them, from self-love and pride, which cause them to recognise, with indignation, that women, more than their own sex, stir them to take in them a lively interest. To a preference that appears to them so senseless and unjust, they determine not to yield. The more, then, that women warm their hearts in their favour, the more they determine to exert their volition to make all the affectionate regard with which they inspire them, rebound on their own sex. Their pride and self-love whisper to them that they ought to consider men alone as being of any importance; that women are weak, contemptible creatures, unworthy of being the objects of their kind concern; and possessing no other claims to their protection than what arise from their ministering to men's gratification.

As it is in the quality of wives that they can best promote the comfort of the lordly sex, their haughty masters determine, both to place them in absolute subjection to their husbands, and also, to watch, rigorously, over the latter, to prevent their weakly according to their wedded slaves, privileges which, were other husbands to follow their example, would soon introduce a fatal revolution in the customs of an entire community.

Nor is it difficult for the men of such a tribe to steel husbands against the influence of wives; the heart of the former is so indurated by early habit, and by the necessity which obliges them, after marriage, to attend to laborious, perilous occupations in the company of men, that they have little leisure to bestow on female dalliance, and little disposition to be

moved by it. Should they, however, when in company with a wife, chance to be melted by her into a more complying humour than accorded, agreeably to the apprehension of their companions, with a manly character, their dread of their censure would rouse them to stifle such disgraceful emotions of tenderness, before they could dishonour them in public.

Notwithstanding the abject thraldom in which, among savage nations in general, women are held, there seems to be, among several of them, a secret sense of honour in men, which causes it to be tacitly understood by them, that they would act unworthily, did they treat their wives with a greater degree of harshness than what they may find necessary for rendering them duly submissive. Thus, it appears, that, in some of those nations, men are never stimulated to strike women by a fit of brutal caprice. Should a husband thus wantonly ill use his wife, it is probable that he would be made blush for his unmanly conduct by those of his companions who were witnesses to it.

But whatever honorable sympathies may make the men of a savage tribe look on themselves as bound, in common, to restrain individuals of their own sex, from an unnecessary infliction of harsh treatment on women, it appears that their honorable sentiments, in favour of the weaker sex, are kept by them in such steady subordination to the principle that determines them to render wives the tame, submissive slaves of a husband, that it never introduces, into their thoughts or actions, the slightest inconsistency.

Wives dare not rebel against a wedded master, however tyrannically he may abuse his power, for they know that all the lords of the creation would approve of a mutinous disposition being punished in them, even though they might be conscious of its having been occasioned by cruel acts of injustice.

The spirit that the men of these savage communities wish to maintain in them, always pervades them exactly to the point which corresponds to their views; never does the influence of women, nor the tenderness that they inspire to men, derange, in the slightest degree, the system of usages established by the latter.

As long as they continue to treat women with the same even, inflexible severity, they are tolerably secure from their state being changed by any internal principle of revolution.*

§ 2-When we compare the maxims decisive of the destiny of women, that form an essential part of the principles of government of those barbarous people, whose mode of dealing with the weaker sex I have slightly sketched, with the notions that prevail, in these countries, respecting the relative station which men ought to permit their feeble companions to occupy, we shall find that civilized men retain enough of resemblance with barbarous ones, to wish, like them, to curb one another, by means of a sentiment of honour, and the dread which men, collectively, inspire to each individual of their own sex,—from either allowing themselves to be enervated by tenderness for a female, or from acting tyrannically by the women under their protection.

But here the resemblance, in these respects, ends: for when you look to the relative rank, in the breast of civilized men, of the sentiment which bids them uphold their own supremacy, and that which tells them to be kind to women, you find it to be totally different from what it is among savage men. The subordination in which the latter hold the sentiment that speaks to them in favour of women, to that which commands them to assert their own supremacy, almost entirely, in civilized countries, disappears on all ordinary occasions.

Every man knows well, that he is usually much more disgraced in the eyes of his own sex, if he be suspected of ill treating his wife or daughters, than he is for indulging, to a blameable excess, the tenderness that urges him to comply with their wishes.+

Though women are far from being, always, the cause of political revolutions, yet, I believe, that they rarely occur in states where men are only sensible to those few, steady feelings which, commonly, reign exclusively in them, in the countries where women are too much enslaved to have any influence over them.

† Women, ill used by a husband, are, sometimes, spoken of with unjust asperity by men, and accused by them, on insufficient grounds, of having totally disordered his mind by provocations which no husband could be expected to bear with patience. The men, however, guilty of this injustice, are not instigated to it by a wish to maintain the principle that a wife ought

Commonly speaking, every fault which a man can commit, that seems to argue that women-particularly those whom he ought to love-have too much power over him, is treated with extreme indulgence. The consequence is, that husbands are, in a manner, abandoned to their own feelings, which are confused, irresolute and fluctuating.

They know that they ought to be chiefs in their family, and they are, naturally, inclined to look to the opinions of society, to direct them in using their supreme power with discretion, so as to give all due honour and importance to the branches of their family, but, particularly, to a wife. However, where husbands consult, now, the opinions of society, in respect to the management of a wife, they only add greatly to their perplexities on this subject. This they plainly perceive, and therefore, as ill fitted as they are by nature, to act wisely and steadily in the capacity of wedded chiefs, without leaning for support on the public opinion, they are often induced greatly to disregard it, and to regulate, in many respects, by their own reason, their behaviour to a conjugal mate. But their own reason, even were they early trained to a judicious, speculative exercise of it, on this important matter, would be liable greatly to desert them, when they were endeavouring to make to their practice an application of those general principles, which they had treasured up to guide a husband's conduct. They would, in spite of them, yield too much to passion, both in resisting and indulging a wife. Their resistence would, in consequence, appear to her unjust and humoursome; for their indulgence she would proudly take merit to herself, as believing it owing, not to the general kindness of their disposition, but to her own irresistible, wheedling arts; the idea that her destiny called on her dexterously to withstand the encroachments of a husband's authority, and baffle his intention to go contrary to her will, would accordingly take root in her mind. Thus would a constant, secret conflict, be

to be the passive slave of even a cruel husband. They are induced to take, warmly, the part of the offenders of their own sex, by an idea that all men are involved in the disgrace of the man who, wantonly, ill treats his wife. They will not, therefore, suffer themselves to be persuaded that a delinquency of such a nature has occurred,

introduced between two beings who ought to be strictly united, and from whose concordant dispositions a stream of orderly sentiments ought to flow, to diffuse itself through the morals of the public.

But men, in their early youth, and previous to their marriage, are far from being prepared, by their training, to prove themselves, in their behaviour to a wife, endowed with good sense, and actuated by steady principles.

On the contrary, every error seems to me to be committed, relatively to the task of fitting youths and bachelors to make good husbands, into which, we can suppose, that an enlightened people, sincerely desirous of seeing the marriage state respec table and happy, could possibly be so blinded as to fall. Husbands, when they cannot, steadily, lean on maxims universally received in society, are obnoxious, from weakness, to the danger of forgetting their principles, and allowing themselves to fluctuate amongst a variety of contending passions.

Society, therefore, seeing that it has almost completely withdrawn its aid from them, leaving them, as I may say, to shift for themselves, ought, at least, to do its utmost to enlighten and fortify them beforehand, that they may be prepared, as fully as they can be, to go through their severe task with judg ment and unfaltering steadiness.

The way, properly, to enlighten them, would be, ere the passions of human nature expose men to the almost inevitable necessity of seeing women through a false medium, to accustom boys to mingle much in the society of the fair sex, that they may acquire clear perceptions into the constitution of women's mind, and that unnumbered delicate feelings, of a nature to enable their character gently to coalesce with, and imperceptibly to guide that of a female companion, may be called forth in their bosom.

This precaution is, by no means, sufficiently attended to. We do not, indeed, in Ireland, as it seems to me that they do in France, almost entirely banish boys from female society, from their early infancy till that age at which they are taught, by the wild tumults of passion, to delight in appearing captivating to women. But even, in this country, not nearly sufficient opportunity is given to individuals of different sexes, to