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BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

CONTENTS.

MY SPECULATIONS ARE DRAWING TOWARDS A POINT AT WHICH I MUST PROCEED TO EXPLAIN MY CONCEPTIONS CONCERNING A GOOD SYSTEM OF SOCIAL ORDER.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

My speculations on the moral constitution of mankind, and my indications of those errors in the actual formation of society, which occasion it, in various respects, discordantly to clash with that constitution, have now verged to a point at which it becomes requisite expressly to unfold, to the reader, my positive conceptions touching a system of social order, wherein the evils that I have pointed out would be avoided, owing to its being strictly moulded on the design of nature.

I shall, however, in exposing my ideas on this matter, confine myself to a meagre sketch of the outline of a scheme of social order, traced simply with the intent of conveying to the reader a notion of the general theoretic plan to which, as appears to me, the leaders of society should adapt their attempts to re-edify its structure, whenever the one at present subsisting, shall have mouldered away.

As to the mode of giving, in practice, life and firm substance to this outline, and filling it up in all its parts, this is a point of which mankind, I believe, can only acquire the knowledge, from positive, wary experiments.

Before, however, I begin to explain my general notion, concerning that type of social order to which nature intends that the nations upon earth,-still as they arrive at their highest perfection,-shall give a real form, I shall fill the remainder of this chapter with some preliminary observations.

§ 1.-Married women are certainly entitled to fill the highest rank among persons of their sex. Their position, too, in

VOL. III.

any given country, serves as a very sure criterion, by which to judge of the degree of consideration and power which women enjoy in it.

But, notwithstanding their composing the most conspicuous class of females, it is not with them that those influential persons of the community, who may, in a public capacity, seek to exert authority over women, for the sake of forming their character, and placing them, in society, in an elevated rank, it is not with married women that those persons ought to place themselves immediately in relation.

Married women are very well inclined to follow the direction given to society, and their husbands are willing that they should: but they must follow it freely; for they will not themselves, and still less will their husbands, consent to permit any authority, excepting that of a wedded lord, to prescribe to them, primarily, the line of conduct which the good of society requires them to pursue.

To the liberty to judge for themselves, of the behaviour becoming a wife, which couples bound in wedlock claim, and to the commanding position of married women, I attribute an historical fact, which I believe to exist; namely: that every relaxation, in society, of rules and customs, by which an increase of liberty was given to women, has been attended with some relaxation of morals.

As married women have been ever most forward to edge their way into a situation less restrained than the one in which their sex was, by custom, usually held, and as they had no need to obtain any consent to the innovations that they were introducing, but that of a wedded partner, whom they could wheedle into compliance, the gradual emancipation of females has hitherto resulted too much, as I think, from a wish, entertained by them, to indulge their individual caprices, and from their disposition to break loose from customs, which, owing to the power of habit, they at heart believed to be respectable.

The community cannot therefore charge itself, in a general, rational manner, with the obligation to fashion the female character, and amply enlarge its sphere of activity, without

giving single women particularly into the care of the most influential classes of society.

Single women, past the bloom of youth, if they be in easy circumstances, do not, in general, strictly owe obedience to any person in private life. Such a character can therefore easily be stamped on public institutions, as to convince them, that they will gain a needful protection, and become much more highly considered, by yielding a full submission to the persons chosen, in conformity to the polity of their country, to govern them, and inspect their conduct.

I may seem to indicate, to the leading classes in society, a very circuitous course, for arriving at the exercise of a salu. tary influence over the women whom it is most needful wisely to direct; namely: over the married ones. I am persuaded notwithstanding, that, whenever the means of establishing an orderly control over the female mind, and, at the same time, of allowing it to expatiate in the widest sphere that it is competent to fill, are taken duly into consideration, it will be found that the process, which I have suggested, must be gone through, to open to the wise guides of society, a way to attain to the character of married women, and fashion it to their mind. Nor will this way, where single women are numerous, and allowed to appear sufficiently in the world to become respected and influential in it, prove so very circuitous as may be imagined; enough of inducements may be held out to married women, to engage them to make their character approximate, as much as becomes their situation,-to that of single

ones.

Husbands will gladly encourage, in them, such a disposi

tion.

Unless ample incentives were offered to single women, to engage them to give a wide extension to their intellectual capacity, it would be impossible sufficiently to improve the understanding of females, to enable them clearly to discern, with one comprehensive glance, the whole combination of their duties, in their infinite variety of bearings. Women, it is true, ought to seek more eagerly to improve their moral qualities, than their intellectual faculties; but, if they allow the latter to lie torpid, they will make such mistakes in regard

to the virtues which it is their duty to practise, that they will only employ themselves in good works, superficially to adorn their character, while they will suffer it to be vitally distinguished, by an attachment to ostentatious pomp and frivolous baubles.

Married women have not, in general, time to attend much to the culture of their intellect. Nor is there any occasion that they should. "Tis enough that they willingly, when they have leisure, employ it in the study of well chosen books ;(a) and that the advice of judicious counsellors, along with their own reflections, qualify them for an exemplary discharge of their conjugal, maternal, and household duties. Where a ground-work of wisdom is thus laid within them, the lively interest that women naturally take in all affairs wherein persons of their sex act a conspicuous part; the influence over those wedded matrons that respectable single women will acquire; and the hope that ought to be held out to them, of obtaining, one day, by the suffrage of the guides of society, on account of their laudable conduct in private life, some honorable office that will put them more in relation with the mass of the inhabitants of their country; all these motives combined, will, without the aid of great literary knowledge, be sufficient to keep the spirit of married women braced to a high, patriotic tone, in harmony with the one that should warm a virtuous, magnanimous people. They will, in consequence, do their part to maintain, in full vigour, this fine public spirit, by rearing their children to be devoted citizens, and by resolutely refusing to hearken to the suggestions of private family interests, where they clash with the public weal.

The assertion that single women, of highly cultivated minds, enjoying the marked respect of the public, and imbued with just ideas concerning the duties of mankind, would obtain sufficient influence over their married female friends, greatly to contribute to induce them to assimilate to theirs their principles of conduct, this assertion, all my observations on womankind, lead me to consider well founded.

Wives and mothers, though they may, in some affecting circumstances, deeply sympathize together, are not usually near so much attracted by sincerely friendly dispositions towards

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each other as towards single persons of their own sex. latter be amiable they open their hearts to them with confidence, expecting them to take a full friendly interest in their concerns. They so anxiously expose to them the principles which guide them in the discharge of their family duties, that it appears that they are pushed by a mysterious instinct, to consult women, who have much more leisure and coolness than themselves, to make wide and accurate observations concerning the government of families, respecting the most enlightened manner of regulating theirs. Well informed single women, though they have not, usually, so much power as intelligent men to dilate the hearts of the married portion of their sex, by infusing into them abstract sentiments,-derived from a wide, scientific knowledge,—of the moral, intellectual and physical scheme of order of nature, have more opportunity of imbuing them with a practical, enlightened love of the particular obligations which the moral part of her scheme assigns to themselves.

The observations that, in confidential conversation, fall from enlightened women, concerning the mode in which,—in certain given circumstances,-it becomes persons of their sex to act, make, in various cases, a deeper impression on a female interlocuter, than do the remarks of the wisest men, on the same topic; both because she justly supposes that women have, commonly, a more finely discriminating eye clearly to investigate such matters; and that her mind is more fully absorbed in the interest which the subject excites in her, from being less divided by a kind wish to appear attentive to her companion, than it is, when she is engaged in chat with a male friend.

Married women, without any mortifying sense of inferiority, yield homage to a superior cultivation of mind, when they recognise it in a single one, being well aware that the sacred, important duties of their state render it meritorious, in them, not to accord much of their time specially to the improvement of their talents.

The influence, however, which a rational single woman naturally acquires over a well minded married one of her intimate acquaintance, is increased tenfold, when it appears that society, in general, treats her opinion with deference; when,

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