BOOK FIVE

[1247:] Here we have reached the last act of youth's drama, but we are not yet at its final scene.

[1248:] Man should not be alone. Emile is now a man. We have promised him a companion; we must give her to him. That companion is Sophie. What kind of a home does she have? Where will we find her? In order to find her, we must be able to recognize her. So let us first know what she is, and then we can better judge where she lives. And when we have found her, still our task is not ended. "Our young gentleman," said Locke, "is about to marry, so it is time to leave him with his mistress," and with these words he ended his book. Since I do not have the honor of educating "a young gentleman," I will take care not to imitate him in this regard.

[1249:] SOPHIE, OR THE WIFE

[1250:] Sophie should be a woman as Emile is a man. That is to say, she should have everything that suits the constitution of her species and of her sex so as to take her place in the physical and moral order. Let us begin, therefore, by examining the similarities and differences between her sex and ours.

[1251:] In all that does not relate to sex , woman is man. She has the same organs, the same needs, the same faculties. The machine is constructed in the same manner, the parts are the same, the workings of the one are the same as the other, and the appearance of the two is similar. From whatever aspect one considers them, they differ only by degree.

[1252:] In all that does relate to sex, woman and man are in every way related and in every way different. The difficulty in comparing them comes from the difficulty of determining what in the constitution of both comes from sex and what does not. By comparative anatomy and even by mere inspection one can find general differences between them that seem to be unrelated to sex. However these differences do relate to sex through connections that we cannot perceive. How far such differences may extend we cannot tell. All we know for certain is that everything in common between men and women must come from their species and everything different must come from their sex. From this double point of view we find so many relations and so many oppositions that perhaps one of nature's greatest marvels is to have been able to make two beings so similar while constituting them so differently.

[1253:] These relations and differences must influence morals. Such a deduction is both obvious and in accordance with experience, and it shows the vanity of the disputes concerning preferences or the equality of the sexes. As if each sex, pursuing the path marked out for it by nature, were not more perfect in that very divergence than if it more closely resembled the other! In those things which the sexes have in common they are equal; where they differ they are not comparable. A perfect woman and a perfect man should no more be alike in mind than in face, and perfection admits of neither less nor more.

[1254:] In the union of the sexes, each alike contributes to the common end but not in the same way. From this diversity springs the first difference which may be observed in the moral relations between the one and the other. The one should be active and strong, the other passive and weak. It is necessary that the one have the power and the will; it is enough that the other should offer little resistance.

[1255:] Once this principle is established it follows that woman is specially made to please man. If man ought to please her in turn, the necessity is less urgent. His merit is in his power; he pleases because he is strong. This is not the law of love, I admit, but it is the law of nature, which is older than love itself.

[1256:] If woman is made to please and to be subjected, she ought to make herself pleasing to man instead of provoking him. Her strength is in her charms; by their means she should compel him to discover his strength and to use it. The surest way of arousing this strength is to make it necessary by resistance. Then amour-propre joins with desire, and the one triumphs from a victory that the other made him win. This is the origin of attack and defense, of the boldness of one sex and the timidity of the other, and even of the shame and modesty with which nature has armed the weak for the conquest of the strong.

[1257:] Who could imagine that nature arbitrarily prescribed the same advances to both, or that the first to feel desire should be the first to show it! What a strange perversion of judgment! The consequences of the act being so different for the two sexes, would it be natural for them to engage in it with equal boldness? How can any one not see that with such a great disparity in the common stakes, if reserve did not impose on one sex the moderation that nature imposes on the other, the result would be the destruction of both, and the human race would perish through the very means established for preserving it? With the facility women have of arousing men's senses and of awakening in the depths of their hearts feelings that were thought to have died, if there were some unlucky country where philosophy had introduced this custom (especially if it were a hot climate where more women are born than men), the men would be tyrannized over by the women. They would eventually become their victims and would find themselves dragged to their death without ever being able to defend themselves.

[1258:] Yet female animals are without this sense of shame and what is the result? Do they, like women, have the same unlimited desires that shame serves to curb? With female animals, their desire comes only with need. When the need is satisfied, the desire ceases and they no longer make a pretense of repulsing the male but do it for real.[Note 1] They do exactly the contrary of what the daughter of Augustus did; once the boat is filled with cargo, they refuse to take on more passengers. Even when animals are free the period of their willingness is very short and soon over; instinct gets them going and instinct stops them. What would substitute for this negative instinct in women if you were to rob them of their modesty? To wait for them to lose interest in men is to wait for them to be good for nothing.

[1259:] The Supreme Being has wanted to do honour to the human species. By giving man limitless impulses he has at the same time given him a law to regulate them so that man can be free and can control himself. While granting him immoderate passions, he joins reason to these passions as a means of governing them. While granting unlimited desires to women, the Supreme Being joins modesty to her desires as a means of restraining them. In addition, it has added an actual bonus for using these faculties well, which is the taste one develops for decency when one makes it the rule of one's actions. All of this is worth more, it seems to me, than the instincts of animals.

[1260:] Whether the human female shares the man's desires or not, whether she is willing or unwilling to satisfy them, still she always pushes him away and defends herself, though not always with the same force nor consequently with the same success. In order for the attacker to be victorious, the one attacked must permit it or order it -- for how many skillful ways are there to stimulate the efforts of the aggressor? The freest and sweetest of acts does not permit of any real violence; indeed both reason and nature are against it -- nature, in that it has given the weakest enough strength to resist when she pleases; reason, in that real violence is not only the most brutal of acts but the one most contrary to its own ends, not only because the man thus declares war against his companion and hence gives her a right to defend her person and her liberty even at the cost of the aggressor's life, but also because the woman alone is the judge of her condition, and a child would have no father if any man might usurp a father's rights.

[1261:] Here then is a third consequence of the constitution of the sexes, which is that the stronger is the master in all appearance and yet in effect depends on the weaker. And this is not due to any frivolous custom of gallantry nor to any prideful generosity on the part of the protector, but to an invariable law of nature which, by giving the woman more of a facility to excite desires than man has to satisfy them, makes him dependent on her whether she likes it or not and forces him in turn to please her in order to obtain her consent to let him be the strongest. Is it weakness which yields to force, or is it voluntary self-surrender? This uncertainty constitutes the chief charm of the man's victory, and the woman usually has enough guile to leave him in doubt. In this respect the woman's mind exactly resembles her body; far from being ashamed of her weakness, she is glories in it. Her soft muscles offer no resistance, she professes that she cannot lift the lightest weight; she would be ashamed to be strong. And why? It is not only in order to appear delicate; it is for the sake of a more clever precaution. She is providing herself beforehand with excuses and with the right to be weak when it is necessary.

[1262:] The progress of enlightenment acquired through our vices has considerably changed the the earlier opinions held among us on this point, and one hardly hears speak any more of cases of sexual violence since they are so seldom needed and because men no longer would believe them.* Yet such stories are common enough among the ancient Greeks and Jews, for such views belong to the simplicity of nature; it is only the experience of libertinage tha has been able to uproot them.[Note 2] If fewer acts of violence are cited in our days, it is surely not because men are more temperate. It is because they are less credulous, and a complaint which would have persuaded simple people would provoke only mocking laughter among ourselves. Therefore silence is the better course. In the Book of Deuteronomy in the Bible there is a law under which the abused maiden was punished along with her seducer if the crime were committed in a town, but if in the country or in a lonely place, the latter alone was punished. "For," says the law, "the maiden cried for help but was not heard." From this benign interpretation of the law, girls learned not to let themselves be surprised in well-frequented places.

[1263:] The effect of these divergent opinions on morals is obvious. The main result has been the appearance of modern gallantry. Having found that their pleasures depend more than they expected on the good will of the fair sex, men have secured this good will by attentions which have had their reward.

[1264:] See how the physical leads us unconsciously to the moral, and how from the gross union of the sexes gradually arise the sweet laws of love. Women have held onto their power not because men have wished it but because nature wishes it; the power was their's even before they appeared to have it. The same Hercules who believed he could violate all the fifty daughters of Thespis was nevertheless forced to spin wool for Omphale; and Samson the Strong was never as strong as Delilah. Women's power cannot be taken from them even when they abuse it; if they could ever have lost it they would have lost it long ago.

[1265:] There is no parity between the two sexes when it comes to the consequence of sex. The male is only a male in certain instances; the female is female all her life or at least all her youth. Everything reminds her of her sex, and to fulfill well her functions she needs a constitution that relates to them. She needs care during pregnancy and rest when her child is born; she must have a quiet, sedentary life while she nurses her children; their education calls for patience and gentleness, for a zeal and affection which nothing can dismay. She serves as a liasion between them and their father; she alone can make him love them and give him the confidence to call them his own. What tenderness and care is required to maintain a whole family as a unit! And finally all this must not come from virtues but from feelings without which the human species would soon be extinct.

[1266:] The severity to the duties relative to the two sexes is not and cannot be the same. When a woman complains in this regard about the unjust inequality in which men are placed, she is wrong. This inequality is not at all a human institution, or at least it is not the work of prejudice but of reason. The one to whom nature has entrusted children must answer for them to the other. No doubt it is not permitted to anyone to violate his faith, and every unfaithful husband who deprives his wife of the sole reward of the austere duties of her sex is an unjust and cruel man. But the unfaithful wife does more; she dissolves the family and breaks the bonds of nature. By giving the man children that are not his own she betrays all of them; she adds treachery to infidelity. It is hard to imagine any disorder or crime which would not follow from that. If there is one terrible position to be in it is that of a miserable father who cannot trust his wife, dares not give in to the sweetest sentiments of his heart, and who wonders while embracing his child whether he may be embracing the child of someone else -- a proof of his dishonor, a robber of his own children's inheritance. What is such a family if not a society of secret enemies armed against each other by a guilty wife who forces them to pretend to love each other?

[1267:] It is thus not only important that the wife be faithful but that she be judged so by her husband, by those near him, by everyone. She must be modest, attentive, reserved, and she must have in others' eyes as in her own conscience the evidence of her virtue. If it is important that a father love his children, it is important that he respect their mother. Such are the reasons that put appearance on the list of the duties of women and make honor and reputation no less indispensable to them than chastity. Along with the moral differences between the sexes these principles give rise to a new motive for duty and convenience, one that prescribes especially for women the most scrupulous attention to their conduct, to their manners, to their behavior. To maintain vaguely that the two sexes are equal and that their duties are the same is to get lost in vain speeches. One hardly need to respond to all that.

[1268:] Do you really think you are on solid ground when you try to find exceptions to such well-founded general laws? Women, you say, do not always have children. No, but their proper aim is to do so. Just because there are a hundred or so large cities in the world where women live licentiously and have few children[Note 3] can you claim that their role is to have few children? And what would become of your cities if the remote country districts, where women live more simply and more chastely, did not make up for the sterility of your fine ladies? There are plenty of country places where women with only four or five children are reckoned as being not very fertile. Finally, although here and there a woman may have few children, what difference does it make? Is it any the less a woman's role to be a mother? And do not the general laws of nature and morality make provision for this state of things?

[1269:] Even if there were these long intervals, which you assume, between the periods of pregnancy, can a woman suddenly change her way of life without danger and without risk? Can she be a nursing mother to-day and a warrior tomorrow? Will she change her tastes and her feelings as a chameleon changes its color? Will she pass at once from being sheltered and enclosed with household duties, to facing the harshness of the winds, the toils, the fatiques, the perils of war? Will she be first timid,**[Note 4] then brave, first fragile, then robust? If the young men raised in Paris have a hard time enduring a soldier's life, how would a woman who for fifty years has never been exposed to hot sun and can hardly walk on her own endure it? Would she take on this difficult profession at the age when men are retiring from it?

[1270:] There are countries, I grant you, where women bear children almost without pain and nurture them almost without worry, but in these same countries the men go half-naked in all weathers, they hunt down wild beasts, carry a canoe as easily as a knapsack, pursue game for 700 or 800 leagues, sleep in the open on the bare ground, bear incredible weariness and go many days without food. When women become strong, men become even stronger; when men become soft, women become softer. When the two terms change equally, the difference stays the same.

[1271:] I am quite aware that Plato in the Republicassigns the same gymnastics to women and men. Having rid his government of private families and knowing not what to do with the women, he was forced to make them into men. That great genius has figured out everything and foreseen everything; he has even thought ahead to an objection that perhaps no one would ever have raised; but he has not succeeded in meeting the real difficulty. I am not speaking of the alleged community of wives, the oft-repeated reproach concerning which only shows that those who make it have never read his works. I refer to the civil promiscuity which everywhere brings the two sexes in the same occupations, the same work, and could not fail to engender the most intolerable abuses. I refer to that subversion of all the tenderest of our natural feelings, which are sacrificed to an artificial sentiment that can only exist by their aid. As if a natural bond were not required in order to form conventional ties; or that love for one's relations were not the basis for the love that one owes to the state; or that it is not through one's attachment to the small society of the family that the heart becomes attached to the larger society of one's nation; or that it is not the good son, the good husband, the good father who makes a good citizen!

[1272:] Once it is demonstrated that men and women neither are nor ought to be constituted the same, either in character or in temperament, it follows that they ought not to have the same education. In following the directions of nature they ought to act together, but they ought not to do the same things. The purpose of their tasks is the same, but the tasks are different, as are also the feelings that direct them. After having tried to form the natural man, in order not to leave our work incomplete let us see how to also to form the woman who suits this man.

[1273:] Do you wish always to be guided well? Then always follow the path that nature indicates. Everything that characterizes sex ought to be respected as established by nature. You are always saying, "Women have such and such faults that we do not have." Your pride fools you. These may be faults for you, but they are qualities for them; and everything would go less well if they were without them. Take care that these so-called faults do not degenerate, but be sure not to destroy them.

[1274:] On their part women are always complaining that we educate them to be vain and coguettish, that we keep them amused with silly things so that we may remain their masters. We are responsible, so they say, for the faults we attribute to them. How insane! Since when do men bother with the education of girls? What is there to hinder their mothers educating them as they please? There are no colleges for girls; so much the better for them! Would to God that there were none for the boys; their education would be more sensible and more wholesome. Does anyone force your daughters to waste their time on silliness? Are they made, against their will, to spend half their time at their dressing table, following the example set them by you? Does anyone prevent you from teaching them, or having them taught, whatever seems good in your eyes? Is it our fault if we are pleased when they are beautiful, if their mincing ways seduce us, if the art that they learn attracts and flatters us, if we like to seen them tastefully dressed, if we let them display at leisure the weapons by which we are subjugated? Well then, decide to educate them like men; men will heartily consent. The more women ressemble men, the less influence they will have over them, and then the men will truly be the masters.

[1275:] All the faculties common to both sexes are not equally shared between, them, but taken as a whole they compensate for each other. Woman is worth more as a woman and less as a man. When she makes a good use of her own rights, she has the advantage; when she tries to usurp our rights, she stays beneath us. It is impossible to go against this general truth except by quoting exceptions, which is the usual manner of argumentation by partisans of the fair sex.

[1276:] To cultivate the masculine virtues in women and to neglect their own is obviously to do them an injury. Women are too clear-sighted to be thus deceived. When they try to usurp our privileges they do not abandon their own. But the result is that being unable to manage the two, because they are incompatible, they fall below their own potential without reaching our's and loose half of their worth. Believe me, wise mother, do not try to make your daughter a good man in defiance of nature. Make her a good woman, and be sure it will be better both for her and us.

[1277:] Does this mean that she must be brought up in ignorance and kept to housework only? Will man make a servant out of his companion, will he deprive himself in her presence of the greatest charm of society? To keep her a slave will he prevent her from feeling and knowing? Will he make an automaton of her? No, indeed, that is not the teaching of nature, which has given women such an agreeable and agile mind. On the contrary, nature means them to think, to judge, to love, to know things, to cultivate their minds as well as their persons; nature puts these weapons in their hands to make up for their lack of strength and to enable them to direct the strength of men. They should learn many things, but only such things as are suitable.

[1278:] When I consider the special purpose of woman, when I observe her inclinations or count her duties, everything combines to indicate the form of education that suits her. Men and women are made for each other, but their mutual dependence is not equal. Man is dependent on woman through his desires; woman is dependent on man through her desires and also through her needs. He could do without her better than she can do without him. For women to have what is necessary to them; for them to fulfill their role we must provide for them, we must want to provide for them, we must believe them to be worthy of it. They are dependent on our feelings, on the price we put upon their merits, and on the opinion we have of their charms and their virtues. By the law of nature women, for their own sakes as well as for the sake of their children, are at the mercy of the judgment of men. Worth alone will not suffice, a woman must be thought worthy; nor beauty, she must be admired; nor wisdom, she must he respected. Their honnor is not only in their conduct but in their reputation, and it is not possible that one who lets herself be seen as disreputable can ever be good. When a man does the right thing he only depends on himself and can defy public judgment, but when a woman does the right thing she has done only half of her task, and what people think of her is not less important than what she in effect is. Hence her education must, in this respect, be the contrary of our's. Public opinion is the grave of a man's virtue and the throne of a woman's.

[1279:] The children's health depends in the first place on the mother's, and the early education of man is also in a woman's hands. His morals, his passions, his tastes, his pleasures, his happiness itself, depend on her. Thus all the education of women must be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make oneself loved and honored by them, to raise them when they are young, to care for them when they are grown, to advise them, console them, make their life pleasant and sweet -- these are the duties of women at all times and what one ought to teach them from their childhood. The further we depart from this principle, the further we shall be from our goal, and all the precepts given her will fail to secure her happiness or our's.

[1280:] But although every woman wants to please men and ought to want to do so, there is a great difference between wanting to please a man of worth, a really lovable man, and wanting to please these little dandies who are a disgrace to their own sex and to the sex which they imitate. Neither nature nor reason can induce a woman to love an effeminate person, nor will she win love by imitating such a person.

[1281:] When thus she abandons the modest tone and pose of her sex and takes on the airs of such foolish creatures, she is not following her vocation, she is forsaking it. She is robbing herself of the rights to which she lays claim. "If we were different," she says, "men would not like us." She is mistaken. Only a fool likes folly; to wish to attract such men only shows her own poor taste. If there were no frivolous men, women would soon make them, and women are more responsible for men's follies than men are for theirs. The woman who loves real men and wants to please them will adopt means adapted to her ends. Woman's role is to be a coquette, but her coquetry varies with her aims. Let these aims be in accordance with those of nature, and a woman will receive a fitting education.

[1282:] Almost as soon as they are born little girls love dressing up. Not content to be pretty, they must be admired. You can see by their their little airs that this concern preoccupies them already, and even when they can barely understand you, you can control them by telling them what people will think of them. If you are foolish enough to try this way with little boys, it will not have the same effect. Give them their freedom and their sports, and they care very little what people think of them. It is only the work of time and much effort that one subjects them to this same law.

[1283:] From whatever source it comes, this first lesson in very good for girls. Since the body is born, so to speak, before the soul, the first nurturing must be that of the body. This order is common to the two sexes but the aim of this nurturing is different: in the one this aim is the development of strength, in the other of grace. Not that these qualities should he exclusive to either sex, but their order is reversed. Women should be strong enough to do anything gracefully; men should be skillful enough to do anything easily.

[1284:] The exaggeration of feminine delicacy leads to effeminacy in men. Women should not be strong like men but for them, so that their sons may be strong. Convents and boarding-schools, with their plain food and ample opportunities for activities, races, and games in the open air and in the garden, are better in this respect than the home, where the little girl is fed on delicacies, continually flattered or scolded, where she is kept sitting in a stuffy room, always under her mother's eye, afraid to stand or walk or speak or breathe, without a moment's freedom to play or jump or run or shout, or to be her natural, lively, little self. There is either harmful indulgence or misguided severity, and no trace of reason. This is how both the body and the mind of youth are ruined.

[1285:] In Sparta the girls used to take part in military sports just like the boys, not that they might go to war, but that they might bear sons who could endure hardship. That is not what I desire. To provide the state with soldiers it is not necessary that the mother should carry a musket and learn Prussian drills. Yet, on the whole, I think the Greeks were very wise in this matter of physical training. Young girls frequently appeared in public, not with the boys, but in groups apart. There was hardly a festival, a sacrifice, or a procession without its bands of maidens, the daughters of the chief citizens. Crowned with flowers, chanting hymns, forming the chorus of the dance, bearing baskets, vases, offerings, they presented a charming spectacle to the depraved senses of the Greeks, a spectacle well fitted to erase the evil effects of their indecent gymnastics. Whatever impression this custom may have made on the hearts of the men, it was well fitted to develop in the women a sound constitution by means of pleasant, moderate, and healthy exercise. Meanwhile the desire to please would develop a keen and cultivated taste without risk to character.

[1286:] As soon as Greek women married they were no longer seen in public. Within the four walls of their home they devoted themselves to the care of their household and family. This is the mode of life prescribed for the female sex both by nature and by reason. These women gave birth to the healthiest, strongest, and best proportioned men who ever lived, and except in certain islands of ill repute, no women in the whole world, not even the Roman matrons, were ever at once so wise and so charming, so beautiful and so virtuous, as the women of ancient Greece.

[1287:] It is admitted that their flowing garments, which did not cramp the figure, preserved in men and women alike the fine proportions which are seen in their statues. These are still the models of art, although nature is so disfigured that they are no longer to be found among us. The Gothic fetters, the innumerable bands which confine our limbs as in a press, were quite unknown. The Greek women were wholly unacquainted with those frames of whalebone in which our women distort rather than display their figures. It seems to me that this abuse, which is carried to an incredible degree of folly in England, must sooner or later lead to the production of a degenerate race. Moreover, I maintain that the charm which these corsets are supposed to produce is in the worst possible taste: it is not a pleasant thing to see a woman cut in two like a wasp; it offends both the eye and the imagination. A slender waist has its limits, like everything else, in proportion and suitability, and beyond these limits it becomes a defect. This defect would be a glaring one in the nude; why should it be beautiful under the costume?

[1288:] I dare not speculate on the reasons which induce women to incase themselves in these coats of mail. A sagging breast, a large waist, etc. are no doubt displeasing at twenty, but at thirty they cease to be shocking. And since in spite of ourselves we are bound at all times to be the way nature has made us, and since there is no deceiving the eye of man, such defects are less offensive at any age than the foolish affectations of a young thing of forty.

[1289:] Everything which cramps and confines nature is in bad taste; this is as true of the adornments of the person as of the ornaments of the mind. Life, health, common-sense, and comfort must come first. There is no grace in discomfort, languor is not refinement, there is no charm in ill-health. Suffering may excite pity, but pleasure and delight demand the freshness of health.

[1290:] The children of both sexes have many games in common, and this is as it should be. Do they not play together when they are grown up? They have also special tastes of their own. Boys want movement and noise, drums, tops, toy-carts; girls prefer things which appeal to the eye, and can be used for dressing-up -- mirrors, jewelry, finery, and especially dolls. The doll is the girl's special plaything; this very obviously shows her instinctive taste for her life's purpose. The physical aspect of the art of pleasing is found in one's dress, and this physical side of the art is the only one that the child can cultivate.

[1291:] Watch a little girl spend a day with her doll, continually changing its clothes, dressing and undressing it, trying new combinations of trimmings either well or poorly matched. Her fingers are clumsy, her taste is crude, but already a tendency is shown in this endless occupation. Time passes without her knowing it, hours go by, even meals are forgotten. She is more eager for adornment than for food. "But she is dressing her doll, not herself," you will say. Of course; she sees her doll, she cannot see herself; she cannot do anything for herself, she has neither the training, nor the talent, nor the strength. So far she herself is nothing, she is engrossed in her doll and all her coquetry is devoted to it. This will not always be so; in due time she will be her own doll.

[1292:] Here we thus can see a well-directed early inclination; you have only to follow it and train it. What the little girl would like with all her heart is to be able to dress her doll, to make its bows, its shawls, its flounces, and its lace. She is dependent on other people's kindness in all this, and it would be much easier to be able to do it herself. Here is a motive for her earliest lessons; they are not tasks prescribed, but favors bestowed. And in effect while most little girls only reluctantly learn to read and write, when it comes to sewing they learn gladly. They think they are grown up, and take pleasure in believing that these talents will one day serve them for their own adornment.

[1293:] This first open path is easy to follow; cutting out, embroidery, lace-making come naturally. Needlepoint is not popular, for furniture is too remote from the child's interests; it has nothing to do with the person, it depends on conventional tastes. Needlepoint is a woman's amusement; young girls never get real pleasure from it.

[1294:] These voluntary courses are easily extended to include drawing, an art which is closely connected with taste in dress; but I would not have them taught landscape and still less figure painting. Leaves, fruit, flowers, draperies, anything that will make an elegant trimming for her accessories and enable the girl to design her own embroidery if she cannot find a pattern to her taste -- that will be quite enough. Speaking generally, if it is desirable to restrict a man's studies to what is useful, this is even more necessary for women. For a woman's life, though less laborious, is, or should be, even more devoted to her responsibilities and more divided up into a variety of concerns, and does not permit them to give themselves over to any one chosen talent at the expense of her duties.

[1295:] Whatever may be said by the jokesters, good sense belongs equally to both sexes. Girls are usually more docile than boys, and they should be subjected to more authority, as I shall show later on, but that is no reason why they should be required to do things that seem to have no usefulness. The art of being a mother consists in showing the usefulness of everything she undertakes to do, and this is all the easier since the intelligence of girls is more precocious than that of boys. This principle eliminates, both for boys and girls, not only those idle studies that lead to nothing good and do not make those who pursue them more agreeable to others, but also those studies whose usefulness is beyond the student's present age and can only be appreciated in later years. If I object to little boys being made to learn to read, still more do I object to it for little girls until they are able to see the use of reading. And in our attempts to convince them of the usefulness of this art we generally think more of our own ideas than theirs. After all, why should a little girl know early on how to read and write? Dos she already have a house to manage? There are more who abuse this fatal knowledge than use it well, and girls are too full of curiosity not to learn on their own whenever they have the time and opportunity to do so. Possibly arithmetic should come first; there is nothing so obviously useful, nothing which needs so much practice or gives so much opportunity for error as keeping accounts. If the little girl will not get cherries for her lunch unless she does an arithmetical exercise, I asure you that she will soon learn to count.

[1296:] I once knew a little girl who learned to write before she could read, and she began to write with her needle. To begin with, she would write nothing but 0's; she was always making 0's, large and small, of all kinds and one within another, but always drawn backwards. Unluckily one day she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror while she was at this useful work, and thinking that the cramped attitude was not pretty, like another Minerva she threw away her pen and refused to make any more 0's. Her brother was no fonder of writing, but what he disliked was the constraint, not the look of the thing. She was brought back to her writing in the following way: the child was fastidious and vain; she could not bear her sisters to wear her clothes. Her things had been labeled; no one would agree to label them for her any more, so she had to learn to label them herself. You can imagine the rest of the story.

[1297:] Always justify the tasks you set your little girls, but keep them busy. Idleness and insubordination are two very dangerous faults, and very hard to cure when once established. Girls should be vigilant and hardworking, but this is not enough by itself; they should be accustomed to annoyances early on. This misfortune, if such it be, is inherent in their sex, and they will never escape from it, unless to endure much more cruel sufferings. For their entire life they will have to submit to the most continual and most severe annoyances, those of proper decorum. They must be trained to bear constraint from the first, so that it costs them nothing, to master their own fantasies in order to submit to the will of others. If they are always eager to be at work, they should sometimes be forced to do nothing. Dissipation, frivolity, inconstancy are faults that can easily arise from their first corrupted and unchecked tastes. To guard against this, teach them above all to control themselves. Under our insane institutions, the life of a good woman is a perpetual struggle against her self. It is only fair that woman should bear her share of the ills she has brought upon man.[See key note in OC p. 1638-9]

[1298:] Prevent young girls from getting bored with their tasks and infatuated with their amusements. This often happens under our ordinary methods of education, where, as Fénelon says, all the tedium is on one side and all the pleasure on the other. If the rules already laid down are followed, the first of these dangers will be avoided, unless the child dislikes the people around her. A little girl who is fond of her mother or her friend will work by her side all day without getting tired; the chatter alone will make up for any loss of liberty. But if her companion is unbearable to her, everything done under her direction will be distasteful too. Children who take no delight in their mother's company are not likely to turn out well; but to judge of their real feelings you must watch them and not trust to thcir words alone, for they are flatterers and deceitful and soon learn to conceal their thoughts. Neither should they be told that they ought to love their mother. Affection is not the result of duty, and in this respect constraint is out of place. Continual attachment, constant care, habit itself, all these will lead a child to love her mother as long as the mother does nothing to deserve the child's hate. The very control she exercises over the child, if well directed, will increase rather than diminish the affection, for women being made for dependence, girls feel themselves made to obey.

[1299:] For the same reason that they have, or ought to have, little freedom, they are apt to indulge themselves too fully with regard to such freedom as they do have. They carry everything to extremes, and they devote themselves to their games with an enthusiasm even greater than that of boys. This is the second difficulty to which I referred. This enthusiasm must be kept in check, for it is the source of several vices commonly found among women -- caprice and that extravagant admiration which leads a woman to regard a thing with rapture to-day and to be quite indifferent to it to-morrow. This fickleness of taste is as dangerous as exaggeration; and both spring from the same cause. Do not deprive them of mirth, laughter, noise, and romping games, but do not let them tire of one game and go off to another; do not leave them for a moment without restraint. Accustom them to interrupt their games and return to their other occupations without a murmur. Habit is all that is needed, since you have nature on your side.

[1300:] This habitual restraint produces a docility which woman requires all her life, for she will always be in subjection to a man, or to man's judgment, and she will never be free to set her own opinion above his. What is most wanted in a woman is gentleness. Formed to obey a creature so imperfect as man, a creature often vicious and always faulty, she should early learn to submit to injustice and to suffer the wrongs inificted on her by her husband without complaint. She must be gentle for her own sake, not his. Bitterness and obstinacy only multiply the sufferings of the wife and the misdeeds of the husband; the man feels that these are not the weapons to be used against him. Heaven did not make women attractive and persuasive that they might degenerate into bitterness, or meek that they should desire the mastery; their soft voice was not meant for hard words, nor their delicate features for the frowns of anger. When they lose their temper they forget themselves. Often enough they have just cause of complaint; but when they scold they always put themselves in the wrong. Each should adopt the tone that befits his or her sex. A too gentle husband may make his wife impertinant, but unless a man is a monster, the gentleness of a woman will bring him around and sooner or later will win him over.

[1301:] Daughters must always be obedient, but mothers need not always be harsh. To make a girl docile you need not make her miserable; to make her modest you need not terrify her. On the contrary, I should not be sorry to see her allowed occasionally to exercise a little ingenuity, not to escape punishment for her disobedience, but to evade the necessity for obedience. Her dependence need not be made unpleasant; it is enough that she should realise that she is dependent. Cunning is a natural gift of woman, and so convinced am I that all our natural inclinations are right, that I would cultivate this among others, only guarding against its abuse.

[1302:] For the truth of this I appeal to every honest observer. I do not ask you to question women themselves; our cramping institutions can compel them to sharpen their wits. I would have you examine girls, little girls, newly-born so to speak. Compare them with boys of the same age, and I am greatly mistaken if you do not find the little boys heavy, silly, and foolish, in comparison. Let me give one illustration in all its childish simplicity.

[1303:] Children are commonly forbidden to ask for anything at table, for people think they can do nothing better in the way of education than to burden them with useless precepts -- as if a little bit of this or that were not readily given or refused*[Note 5] without leaving a poor child dying of greediness intensified by hope. Every one knows about the little boy brought up in this way who when he had been overlooked at table asked for salt, etc. I do not suppose any one will blame him for asking directly for salt and indirectly for meat; the neglect was so cruel that I hardly think he would have been punished had he broken the rule and said plainly that he was hungry. But this is what I saw done by a little girl of six. The circumstances were much more difficult, for not only was she strictly forbidden to ask for anything directly or indirectly, but disobedience would have been unpardonable, for she had tasted every dish except one, and on this she had set her heart.

[1304:] This is what she did to repair the omission without laying herself open to the charge of disobedience. She pointed to every dish in turn, saying, "I've had some of that; I've had some of that." However she omitted the one dish so markedly that some one noticed it and said, "Have not you had some of this?" "Oh, no," replied the greedy little girl with soft voice and downcast eyes. I'll add nothing more; just compare: the latter trick shows the cunning of a girl, the other is the cunning of a boy..

[1305:] What is, is good, and no general law can be bad. The special skill with which the female sex is endowed is a fair equivalent for its lack of strength; without it woman would be man's slave, not his helpmeet. By her superiority in this respect she maintains her equality with man and rules in obedience. She has everything against her-- our faults and her own weakness and timidity. Her beauty and her wiles are all that she has. Should she not cuitivate both? Yet beauty is not universal; it may be destroyed by all sorts of accidents, it will disappear with years, and habit will destroy its influence. A woman's real resource is her wit, not that foolish wit which is so greatly admired in society, a wit which does nothing to make life happier, but that wit which is adapted to her condition, the art of taking advantage of our position and controlling us through our own strength. Words cannot tell how beneficial this is to man, what a charm it gives to the society of men and women, how it checks the petulant child and restrains the brutal husband. Wthout it the home would be a scene of strife; with it, it is the abode of happiness. I know that this power is abused by the sly and the spiteful; but what is there that is not liable to abuse? Do not destroy the means of happiness simply because bad people sometimes use them to hurt us.

[1306:] One may attract notice with one's dress, but it is the person that wins our hearts. Our finery is not us; its very artificiality often offends, and that which is least noticeable in itself often wins the most attention. The education of our girls is, in this respect, absolutely contradictory. Jewelry is promised them as a reward, and they are taught to delight in elaborate finery. "How lovely she is!" people say when she is most dressed up. On the contrary, girls should be taught that so much finery is only required to hide their defects, and that beauty's real triumph is to shine alone. The love of fashion is contrary to good taste, for faces do not change with the fashion, and while the person remains unchanged, what suits it at one time will suit it always.

[1307:] If I saw a young girl decked out like a little peacock, I would show myself anxious about her figure being so disguised, and anxious what people would think of her. I would say, "She is over-dressed with all those accessories; what a pity! Do you think she could do with something simpler? Is she pretty enough to do without all that?" Possibly she herself would be the first to ask that her finery might be taken off and that we should sec how she looked without it. In that case her beauty should receive such praise as it deserves. I would never praise her unless simply dressed. If she only regards fine clothes as an aid to personal beauty, and as a tacit confession that she needs their aid, she will not be proud of her finery, she will be humbled by it; and if she hears some one say, "How pretty she is," when she is smarter than usual, she will blush for shame.

[1308:] Moreover, though there are figures that require adornment there are none that require expensive clothes. Extravagance in dress is the folly of the class rather than the individual, it is merely conventional. Genuine coquetry is sometimes carefully thought out, but never sumptuous, and Juno dressed herself more magnificently than Venus. "Since you cannot make her beautiful you are making her rich," said Apelles to an unskilful artist who was painting Helen loaded with jewellery. I have also noticed that the smartest clothes proclaim the plainest women; no folly could be more misguided. If a young girl has good taste and a contempt for fashion, give her a few yards of ribbon, muslin, and gauze, and a handful of flowers, without any diamonds, fringes, or lace,[Note 6] and she will make herself a dress a hundredfold more becoming than all the smart clothes of La Duchapt.

[1309:] Since what is good is always good and since you should always look your best, women who know themselves well select a good style and keep to it. And since they are not always changing their style they think less about dress than those who can never settle on any one style. A genuine desire to dress becomingly does not require an elaborate preparation. Young girls rarely give much time to dress; needlework and lessons are the business of the day. Yet, except for the rouge, they are generally as carefully dressed as older women and often in better taste. Contrary to the usual opinion, the real cause of the abuse of fashion is not vanity but lack of occupation. The woman who spends six hours at her dressing table is well aware that she is no better dressed than the woman who spends half an hour, but she has gotten rid of many tedious hours and it is better to amuse oneself with one's clothes than to be sick of everything. Without the dressing table how would she spend the time between noon and 9 p.m.? With a crowd of women about her, she can at least cause them annoyance, which is amusement of a kind; better still she avoids a tête-á-tête with her husband who is only seen at that time. Also there are the tradespeople, the dealers in bric-ábrac, the fine gentlemen, the minor poets with their songs, their verses, and their pamphlets -- how could you get them together without the ritual of the dressing table? Its only real advantage is the chance of exposing oneself a bit more than when one is fully dressed. But perhaps this advantage is less than it seems and a woman gains less than she thinks. Do not be afraid to educate your women as women. Teach them a woman's business, that they be modest, that they may know how to manage their house and look after their family. At that point dressing table rituals will soon disappear, and women will be more tastefully dressed.

[1310:] Growing girls perceive at once that all this outside adornment is not enough unless they have charms of their own. They cannot make themselves beautiful, they are too young for coquetry, but they are not too young to acquire graceful gestures, a pleasing voice, a self-possessed manner, a light step, a graceful bearing, to choose whatever advantages are within their reach. The voice extends its range, it grows stronger and more resonant; the arms become plumper, the bearing more assured, and they perceive that it is easy to attract attention however dressed. Needlework and industry suffice no longer; fresh gifts are developing and their usefulness is already recognised.

[1311:] I know that stern teachers want us to refuse to teach little girls to sing or dance, or to acquire any of the pleasing arts. This strikes me as absurd. Who should learn these arts-our boys? Are these to be the favourite accomplishments of men or women? Of neither, say they; profane songs are simply so many crimes, dancing is an invention of the Evil One; tasks and her prayers are all the amusement a young girl should have. What strange amusements for a child of ten! I fear that these little saints who have been forced to spend their childhood in prayers to God will pass their youth in another fashion; when they are married they will try to make up for lost time. I think we must consider age as well as sex. A young girl should not live like her grandmother. She should be lively, merry, and eager; she should sing and dance to her heart's content, and enjoy all the innocent pleasures of youth. The time will come, all too soon, when she must settle down and adopt a more serious tone.

[1312:] But is this change in itself really necessary? Is it not merely another result of our own prejudices? By making good women the slaves of dismal duties, we have deprived marriage of its charm for men. Can we wonder that the gloomy silence they find at home drives them elsewhere, or inspires little desire to enter a state which offers so few attractions? Christianity, by exaggerating every duty, has made our duties impracticable and useless. By forbidding singing, dancing, and amusements of every kind, it makes women sulky, fault-finding, and intolerable at home. There is no other religion that imposes such strict duties upon married life, and none in which such a sacred engagement is so often profaned. We've done so much to prevent wives from being lovable that we've made their husbands indifferent. This should not be, I grant you, but it will be, since Christians are only men. I would like to see English maidens cultivate the talents that will delight their husbands as zealously as the Albanese cultivate the accomplishments of an Eastern harem. Husbands, you say, care little for such accomplishments. So I should suppose when they are used not for the husband but to attract young rakes who dishonour the home. But imagine a lovable and wise wife, adorned with such accomplishments and devoting them to her husband's amusement; will she not add to his happiness? When he leaves his office worn out with the day's work, will she not prevent him seeking recreation elsewhere? Have we not all seen happy families gathered together, each contributing to the common fun? Who would not admit that confidence and familiarity combined in this way, the innocence and the sweetness of the pleasures thus enjoyed, are more than enough to make up for the noisier pleasures of public entertainments?

[1313:] Pleasant talents have been reduced too much to a formal art. They have been too generalized, they have all been made into maxims and precepts; and what should be for young women only fun and silly games has been made into something extremely boring. Nothing can be more absurd than an elderly singing or dancing master frowning upon young people whose main desire is to laugh, and adopting a more pedantic and magisterial manner in teaching his frivolous art than if he were teaching the catechism. Take the case of singing; does this art really depend on reading music? Cannot the voice be made true and flexible, can we not learn to sing with taste and even to play an accompaniment without knowing a note? Does the same kind of singing suit all voices alike? Is the same method adapted to every mind? You will never persuade me that the same attitudes, the same steps, the same movements, the same gestures, the same dances will suit a lively little brunette and a tall fair maiden with languishing eyes. So when I find a master giving the same lessons to all his pupils I say, "He has his own routine, but he knows nothing of his art!"

[1314:] I am asked whether girls should have male or female teachers. I cannot say. I wish they could dispense with both. I wish they could learn of their own accord what they are already so willing to learn. I wish there were fewer of these dressed-up old ballet masters promenading our streets. I fear our young people will get more harm from intercourse with such people than profit from their instruction, and that their jargon, their tone, their airs and graces, will instill a precocious taste for the frivolities which the teacher thinks so important, and to which the scholars are only too likely to devote themselves.

[1315:] Where pleasure is the only end in view, any one may serve as teacher-father, mother, brother, sister, friend, governess, the girl's mirror, and above all her own taste. Do not offer to teach, let her ask. Do not make a task of what should be a reward, and in these studies above all remember that the wish to succeed is the first step. If formal instruction is required I leave it to you to choose between a master and a mistress. How can I tell whether a dancing master should take a young pupil by her soft white hand, make her lift her skirt and raise her eyes, open her arms and advance her throbbing bosom? But this I do know, nothing on earth would induce me to be that master.

[1316:] Taste is formed partly by industry and partly by talent. With taste the mind opens uncounsciously to ideas of beauty in all its forms and to the moral notions that relate to beauty. Perhaps this is one reason why ideas of decency and goodness are acquired earlier by girls than by boys, for to suppose that this early feeling is due to the teaching of the governesses would show little knowledge of their style of teaching and of the natural development of the human mind. The art of speaking stands first among the pleasing arts; it alone can add fresh charms to those which have been blunted by habit. It is the mind which not only gives life to the body, but renews, so to speak, its youth. The flow of feelings and ideas give life and variety to the countenance, and the conversation to which it gives rise arouses and sustains attention, and fixes it continuously on one object. I suppose this is why little girls so soon learn to chatter prettily, and why men enjoy listening to them even before the child can understand them; they are watching for the first gleam of intelligence and sentiment.

[1317:] Women have ready tongues; they talk earlier, more easily, and more pleasantly than men. They are also said to talk more. This may be true, but I am prepared to reckon it to their credit; eyes and mouth are equally busy and for the same cause. A man says what he knows, a woman says what will please; the one needs knowledge, the other taste. Utility should be the man's object; the woman speaks to give pleasure. There should be nothing in common but truth.

[1318:] You should not restrain a girl's chatter like a boy's by the harsh question, "What is the use of that?" but by another question at least as difficult to answer, "What effect will that have?" At this early age when they know neither good nor evil, and are incapable of judging others, they should make this their rule and never say anything which is unpleasant to those about them. This rule is all the more difficult to apply because it must always be subordinated to our first rule, " Never tell a lie."

[1319:] I can see many other difficulties, but they belong to a later stage. For the present it is enough for your little girls to speak the truth without grossness, and since they are naturally averse to what is gross, education easily teaches them to avoid it. In social intercourse I observe that a man's politeness is usually more official and a woman's more caressing. This distinction is natural, not artificial. A man seeks to serve, a woman seeks to please. Hence a woman's politeness is less insincere than ours, whatever we may think of her character; for she is only acting upon a fundamental instinct. But when a man professes to put my interests before his own, I detect the falsehood, however disguised. Hence it is easy for women to be polite, and easy to teach little girls politeness. The first lessons come by nature; art only supplements them and determines the conventional form which politeness shall take. The courtesy of woman to woman is another matter. Their manner is so constrained, their attentions so chilly, they find each other so wearisome, that they take little pains to conceal the fact, and seem sincere even in their falsehood, since they take so little pains to conceal it. Still young girls do sometimes become sincerely attached to one another. At their age good spirits take the place of a good disposition, and they are so pleased with themselves that they are pleased with every one else. Moreover, it is certain that they kiss each other more affectionately and caress each other more gracefully in the presence of men, for they are proud to be able to arouse their envy without danger to themselves by the sight of favours which they know will arouse that envy.

[1320:] If young boys must not be allowed to ask indiscrete questions, much more must they be forbidden to little girls. If their curiosity is satisfied or unskilfully evaded it is a much more serious matter, for they are so keen to guess the mysteries concealed from them and so skilful to discover them. But while I would not permit them to ask questions, I would have them questioned frequently, and pains should be taken to make them talk. Let them be provoked to make them speak freely, to make them answer readily, to loosen mind and tongue while it can be done without danger. Such conversation always leads to gaity, yet skilfully controlled and directed, would form a delightful amusement at this age and might instill into these youthful hearts the first and perhaps the most helpful lessons in morals which they will ever receive, by teaching them in the guise of pleasure and fun what qualities are esteemed by men and what is the true glory and happiness of a good woman.

[1321:] If male children are incapable of forming any true idea of religion, much more is it beyond the grasp of girls. It for this reason that I would speak of it all the sooner to little girls, for if we wait till they are ready for a methodical discussion of these deep subjects we should be in danger of never speaking of religion at all. A woman's reason is practical, and therefore she soon arrives at a given conclusion, but she fails to discover it for herself. The social relation of the sexes is a wonderful thing. From this society results a moral person of which woman is the eye and man the hand, but the two are so dependent on one another that it is from the man that the woman learns what must be seen and from the woman that the man learns what must be done. If women could discover principles and if men had as good minds for detail, they would be mutually independent, they would live in perpetual strife, and their society could no longer subsist. But in their mutual harmony each contributes to a common purpose, neither knows which one gives most of himself; each follows the initiative of the other, each one obeys and both are masters.

[1322:] Just as a woman's conduct is controlled by public opinion, so her is religion ruled by authority. The daughter should follow her mother's religion, the wife her husband's. Even when that religion is false, the docility which leads mother and daughter to submit to nature's laws would blot out the sin of error in the sight of God. Unable to judge for themselves they should accept the judgment of father and husband as that of the church.

[1323:] Not being able to draw from themselves the guidelines for their faith, neither can women assign limits to that faith by evidence or reason. Instead they let themselves be driven by a million external influences and are always either above or below the truth. Extreme in everything, they are either altogether reckless or altogether pious; you never find them able to combine virtue and piety. Their natural exaggeration is not wholly to blame; the ill-regulated control exercised over them by men is partly responsible. Loose morals bring religion into contempt; the terrors of remorse make it a tyrant. This is why women have always too much or too little religion.

[1324:] As a woman's religion is controlled by authority it is more important to show her plainly what to believe than to explain the reasons for belief. For faith attached to ideas half-understood is the main source of fanaticism, and faith demanded on behalf of what is absurd leads to madness or unbelief. Whether our catechisms tend to produce impiety rather than fanaticism I cannot say, but I do know that they lead to one or other.

[1325:] In the first place, when you teach religion to little girls never make it gloomy or tiresome, never make it a task or a duty, and therefore never give them anything to learn by heart, not even their prayers. Be content to say your own prayers regularly in their presence, but do not compel them to join you. Let their prayers be short, as Christ himself has taught us. Let them always be said with becoming reverence and respect. Remember that if we ask the Supreme Being to attend to our words, we should at least give put ourselves into what we mean to say.

[1326:] It does not much matter that a girl should learn her religion young, but it does matter that she should learn it thoroughly, and still more that she should learn to love it. If you make religion a burden to her, if you always speak of God's anger, if in the name of religion you impose all sorts of disagreeable duties on her, duties that she never sees you perform, what can she suppose but that to learn one's catechism and to say one's prayers is only the duty of a little girl, and she will long to be grown-up to escape, like you, from these duties. Example! Example! Without it you will never succeed in teaching children anything.

[1327:] When you explain the Articles of Faith let it be by direct teaching, not by question and answer. Children should only answer what they think, not what has been drilled into them. All the answers in the catechism are the wrong way about; it is the student who instructs the teacher. In the child's mouth they are a downright lie, since they explain what he does not understand and affirm what he cannot believe. Find me, if you can, an intelligent man who could honestly say his catechism.

[1328:] The first question I find in our catechism is as follows: "Who created you and brought you into the world?" To which the girl, who thinks it was her mother, replies without hesitation, "It was God." All she knows is that she is asked a question which she only half understands and she gives an answer she does not understand at all.

[1329:] I wish some one who really understands the development of children's minds would write a catechism for them. It might be the most useful book ever written, and, in my opinion, it would do its author no little honor. This at least is certain-if it were a good book it would be very unlike our catechisms.

[1330:] Such a catechism will not be satisfactory unless the child can answer the questions of her own accord without having to learn the answers. Indeed the child will often ask the questions herself. An example is required to make my meaning plain and I feel how ill equipped I am to furnish such an example. I will try to give some sort of outline of my meaning.

[1331:] To get to the first question in our catechism I suppose we must begin somewhat after the following fashion.

[1332:] Nurse:

Do you remember when your mother was a little girl?

Child:

No, nurse.

Nurse:

Why not, when you have such a good memory?

Child:

I was not alive.

Nurse:

Then you were not always alive?

Child:

No.

Nurse:

Will you live for ever?

Child:

Yes.

Nurse:

Are you young or old?

Child:

I am young.

Nurse:

Is your grandmamma old or young?

Child:

She is old.

Nurse:

Was she ever young?

Child:

Yes.

Nurse:

Why is she not young now?

Child:

She has grown old.

Nurse:

Will you grow old too?

Child:

I don t know.

Nurse:

Where are your last year's frocks?

Child:

They have had the stitching taken out of them.

Nurse:

Why?

Child:

Because they were too small for me.

Nurse:

Why were they too small?

Child:

I have grown bigger.

Nurse:

Will you grow any more?

Child:

Oh, yes.

Nurse:

An what becomes of big girls?

Child:

They grow into women.

Nurse:

And what becomes of women?

Child:

They are mothers.

Nurse:

And what becomes of mothers?

Child:

They grow old.

Nurse:

Will you grow old?

Child:

When I am a mother.

Nurse:

And what becomes of old people?

Child:

I don't know.[Note 7]

Nurse:

What became of your grandfather?

Child:

He died.

Nurse:

Why did he die?[Note 8]

Child:

Because he was so old.

Nurse:

What becomes of old people?

Child:

They die.

Nurse:

And when you are old-?

Child:

Oh nurse! I don't want to die!

Nurse:

My dear, no one wants to die, and everybody dies.

Child:

Why, will mamma die too?

Nurse:

Yes, like everybody else. Women grow old as well as men, and old age ends in death.

Child:

What must I do to grow old very, very slowly?

Nurse:

Be good while you are little.

Child:

I will always be good, nurse.

Nurse:

So much the better. But do you suppose you will lire for ever?

Child:

When I am very, very old-

Nurse:

Well?

Child:

When we are so very old you say we must die?

Nurse:

You must die some day.

Child:

Oh dear! I suppose I must.

Nurse:

Who lived before you?

Child:

My father and mother.

Nurse:

And before them?

Child:

Their father and mother.

Nurse:

Who will live after you?

Child:

My children.

Nurse:

Who will live after them?

Child:

Their children.

[1333:] In this way, by concrete examples, you will find a beginning and end for the human race like everything else-that is to say, a father and mother who never had a father and mother, and children who will never have children of their own.

[1334:] It is only after a long course of similar questions that we are ready for the first question in the catechism. Only then can we put the question and the child may be able to understand it. But what a gap there is between the first and the second question which is concerned with the definitions of the divine nature. When will this chasm be bridged? "God is a spirit." "And what is a spirit?" Shall I start the child upon this difficult question of metaphysics which grown men find so hard to understand? These are no questions for a little girl to answer. If she asks them, it is as much or more than we can expect. In that case I should tell her quite simply, "You ask me what God is. It is not easy to say; we can neither hear nor see nor handle God; we can only know Him by His works. To learn what He is, you must wait till you know what He has done."

[1335:] If our dogmas are all equally true, they are not equally important. It makes little difference to the glory of God that we should perceive it everywhere, but it does make a difference to human society, and to every member of that society, that a man should know and do the duties which are laid upon him by the law of God, his duty to his neighbour and to himself. This is what we should always be teaching one another, and it is this which fathers and mothers are specially bound to teach their little ones. Whether a virgin became the mother of her Creator, whether she gave birth to God, or merely to a man into whom God has entered, whether the Father and the Son are of the same substance or of similar substance only, whether the Spirit proceeded from one or both of these who are but one, or from both together -- however important these questions may seem, I cannot see that it is any more necessary for the human race to come to a decision with regard to them than to know what day to keep Easter, or whether we should tell our beads, fast, and refuse to eat meat, speak Latin or French in church, adorn the walls with statues, hear or say mass, and have no wife of our own. Let each think as he pleases. I cannot see that it matters to any one but himself. For my own part it is no concern of mine. But what does concern my fellow-creatures and myself alike is to know that there is indeed a judge of human fate whose children we all are, who bids us all be just, to love one another, to be kindly and merciful, to keep our word with all men, even with our own enemies and his. We must know that the apparent happiness of this world is nothing; that there is another life to come, in which this Supreme Being will be the rewarder of the just and the judge of the unjust. Children need to be taught these doctrines and others like them and all citizens require to be persuaded of their truth. Whoever sets his face against these doctrines is indeed guilty; he is the disturber of the peace, the enemy of society. Whoever goes beyond these doctrines and seeks to make us the slaves of his private opinions reaches the same goal by another way. To establish his own kind of order he disturbs the peace; in his rash pride he makes himself the interpreter of the Divine; and in his name he demands the homage and the reverence of mankind. So far as may be, he sets himself in God's place. He should receive the punishment of sacrilege if he is not punished for his intolerance.

[1336:] Disregard, therefore, all those mysterious doctrines which are words without ideas for us, all those strange teachings, the study of which is too often offered as a substitute for virtue, a study which more often makes men mad rather than good. Keep your children ever within the little circle of dogmas which are related to morality. Convince them that the only useful learning is that which teaches us to act rightly. Do not make your daughters into theologians and casuists; only teach them such things of heaven as conduce to human goodness. Train them to feel that they are always in the presence of God, who sees their thoughts and deeds, their virtue and their pleasures. Teach them to do good without ostentation and because they love it, to suffer evil without a murmur because God will reward them; in a word to be all their life long what they will be glad to have been when they appear in his presence. This is true religion; this alone is incapable of abuse, impiety, or fanaticism. Let those who will teach a religion more sublime, but this is the only religion I know.

[1337:] Moreover, it is as well to observe that until the age when reason becomes enlightened, when growing emotion gives a voice to conscience, what is wrong for young people is what those around them have decided to be wrong. What they are told to do is good; what they are forbidden to do is bad; that is all they ought to know. This shows how important it is for girls, even more than for boys, that the right people should be chosen to be with them and to have authority over them. Finally the time comes when they begin to judge things for themselves; then is the time to change your method of education.

[1338:] Perhaps I have said too much already. To what shall we reduce the education of our women if we give them no law but that of conventional prejudice? Let us not degrade so far the sex which rules over us and which does us honour when we have not debased it. There exists for the whole human race a rule anterior to that of public opinion. The inflexible direction of this rule is what all the others should relate to. It is the judge even of prejudice, and only in so far as the esteem of men is in accordance with this rule has it any authority for us.

[1339:] This rule is our interior sentiment. I will not repeat what has been said already; it is enough to point out that if these two laws clash, the education of women will always be imperfect. Sentiment without respect for public opinion will not give them that delicacy of soul which lends to right conduct the charm of social approval, while respect for public opinion without sentiment will only make false and wicked women who put appearances in the place of virtue.

[1340:] It is, therefore, important to cultivate a faculty which serves as judge between the two guides, which does not permit conscience to go astray and corrects the errors of prejudice. That faculty is reason. But what a crowd of questions arise at this word! Are women capable of solid reasoning? Should they cultivate it? Will they cultivate it successfully? Is this culture useful in relation to the functions laid upon them? Is it compatible with the simplicity that suits them?

[1341:] The different ways of envisaging and answering these questions means that given these two extremes some would limit women to sewing and spinning in the household with their maids and would make them nothing more than the chief servant of their master; others, not content to secure their rights, would lead them to usurp ours. For to make woman our superior in all the qualities proper to her sex, and to make her our equal in all the rest, what is this but to transfer to the woman the superiority which nature has given to the husband?

[1342:] The reason which teaches a man his duties is not very complex; the reason which teaches a woman hers is even simpler. The obedience and fidelity which she owes to her husband, the tenderness and care due to her children, are such natural and self-evident consequences of her condition that she cannot honestly refuse her consent to the inner voice which is her guide, nor disregard her duty in her natural inclination.

[1343:] I would not altogether blame those who would restrict a woman to the labours of her sex and would leave her in profound ignorance of everything else. But that would require either a very simple, very healthy public morality or a very isolated life style. In large cities, among immoral men, such a woman would be too easily seduced. Her virtue would too often be at the mercy of circumstances. In this philosophic century, virtue must be able to be put to the test. She must know in advance what people might say to her and what she should think of it.

[1344:] Moreover, having to submit to men's judgment she should merit their esteem. Above all she should obtain the esteem of her spouse. She should not only make him love her person, she should make him approve her conduct. She should justify his choice before the world, and do honour to her husband through the honour given to the wife. But how can she set about this task if she is ignorant of our institutions, our customs, our notions of what is proper, if she knows nothing of the source of man's judgment, nor the passions by which it is swayed? Since she depends both on her own conscience and on public opinion, she must learn to know and reconcile these two laws, and to put her own conscience first only when the two are opposed to each other. She becomes the judge of her own judges, she decides when she should submit to them and when she should refuse her obedience. Before she accepts or rejects their prejudices she weighs them; she learns to trace them to their source, to foresee what they will be, and to turn them in her own favour. She is careful never to give cause for blame if duty allows her to avoid it. This cannot be properly done without cultivating her mind and herreason.

[1345:] I always come back to my main principle and it supplies the solution of all my difficulties. I study what is, I seek its cause, and I discover in the end that what is, is good. I go to open houses where the master and mistress do the honours together. They are equally well educated, equally polite, equally well equipped with wit and good taste; both of them are inspired with the same desire to give their guests a good reception and to send every one away satisfied. The husband omits no pains to be attentive to every one; he comes and goes and sees to every one and takes all sorts of trouble; he is attention itself. The wife remains in her place; a little circle gathers round her and apparently conceals the rest of the company from her; yet she sees everything that goes on. No one goes without a word with her; she has omitted nothing which might interest anybody. She has said nothing unpleasant to any one, and without any fuss the least is no more overlooked than the greatest. Dinner is announced, they take their places. The man who knows the assembled guests will place them according to his knowledge; the wife, without previous acquaintance, never makes a mistake. Their looks and bearing have already shown her what is wanted and every one will find himself where he wishes to be. I do not assert that the servants forget no one. The master of the house may have omitted no one, but the mistress perceives what each likes and sees that he gets it. While she is talking to her neighbour she has one eye on the other end of the table; she sees who is not eating because he is not hungry and who is afraid to help himself because he is clumsy and timid. When the guests leave the table every one thinks she has thought only of him, everybody thinks she has had no time to eat anything, but she has really eaten more than anybody.

[1346:] When the guests are gone, husband and wife talk over the events of the evening. He relates what was said to him, what was said and done by those with whom he conversed. If the lady is not always quite exact in this respect, nevertheless she perceived what was whispered at the other end of the room. She knows what so-and-so thought, and what was the meaning of this speech or that gesture. There is scarcely a change of expression for which she has not an explanation in readiness, and she is almost always right.

[1347:] The same turn of mind which makes a woman of the world such an excellent hostess enables a flirt to excel in the art of amusing a number of suitors. Coquetry, cleverly carried out, demands an even finer discernment than courtesy. Provided a polite lady is civil to everybody, she has done fairly well in any case. But the flirt would soon lose her hold by such clumsy uniformity. If she tries to be pleasant to all her lovers alike, she will disgust them all. In society the manners adopted towards everybody are good enough for each; provided all are alike well received, no question is asked as to private likes or dislikes. But in love, a favor shared with others is an insult. A man of feeling would rather be singled out for ill-treatment than be caressed with the crowd, and the worst that can happen to him is to be treated like every one else. So a woman who wants to keep several lovers must persuade every one of them that she prefers him, and she must contrive to do this in the sight of all the rest, each of whom is equally convinced that he is her favorite.

[1348:] If you want to see a man in a quandary, place him between two women with each of whom he has a secret understanding, and see what a fool he looks. But put a woman in similar circumstances between two men, and the results will be even more remarkable. You will be astonished at the skill with which she cheats them both and makes them laugh at each other. Now if that woman were to show the same confidence in both, if she were to be equally familiar with both, how could they be deceived for a moment? If she treated them alike, would she not show that they both had the same claims upon her? Oh, she is far too clever for that! So far from treating them just alike, she makes a marked difference between them, and she does it so skilfully that the man she flatters thinks it is affection, and the man she ill uses think it is spite. So that each of them believes she is thinking of him, when she is thinking of no one but herself.

[1349:] A general desire to please suggests similar measures. People would be disgusted with a woman's whims if they were not skilfully managed, and when they are artfully distributed her slaves are more than ever enchained.

[1350:] What is the secret of this art if it is it not the result of a delicate and continuous observation which shows her what is taking place in a man's heart, so that she is able to encourage or to check every hidden impulse? Can this art be acquired? No; it is born with women; it is common to them all, and men never show it to the same degree. It is one of the distinctive characters of the sex. Self-possession, penetration, delicate observation, this is a woman's science. The skill to make use of it is her chief accomplishment.

[1351:] This is what is, and we have seen why it should be. It is said that women are false. They become false. They are really endowed with skill not duplicity; in the genuine inclinations of their sex they are not false even when they tell a lie. Why do you consult their words when it is not their mouths that speak? Consult their eyes, their colour, their breathing, their timid manner, their slight resistance; that is the language nature gave them for your answer. The lips always say "No," and rightly so; but the tone is not always the same, and that cannot lie. Has not a woman the same needs as a man, but without the same right to make them known? Her fate would be too cruel if at the time of her legitimate desires she did not have a language equivalent to the one she dare not have. Must her modesty make her unhappy? Does she not require a means of indicating her inclinations without open expression? What skill is needed to hold back from her lover what she is burning to give him! Is it not of vital importance that she should learn to touch his heart without showing that she cares for him? It is a pretty story that tale of Galatea with her apple and her clumsy flight. What more is needed? Will she tell the shepherd who pursues her among the willows that she is only running from him so that he will follow her? If she did, it would be a lie; for she would no longer attract him. The more reserve a woman has, the more art she needs, even with her husband. Yes, I maintain that by keeping coquetry within its limits a woman becomes modest and true, and out of it springs a law of honesty.

[1352:] One of my opponents has very truly asserted that virtue is a whole; you cannot disintegrate it and choose this and reject the other. If you love virtue, you love it in its entirety; and you close your heart when you can, and you always close your lips, to the feelings which you ought not to allow. Moral truth is not only what is, but what is good; what is bad ought not to be, and ought not to be confessed, especially when that confession produces results which might have been avoided. If I were tempted to steal, and in confessing it I tempted another to become my accomplice, the very confession of my temptation would amount to a yielding to that temptation. Why do you say that modesty makes women false? Are those who lose their modesty more sincere than the rest? Far from it; they are a thousandfold more deceitful. This degree of depravity is due to many vices, none of which is rejected, vices which owe their power to intrigue and falsehood.[Note 9] On the other hand, those who still feel shame, who take no pride in their faults, who are able to conceal their desires even from those who inspire them, those who confess their passion most reluctantly, these are the truest and most sincere, these are they on whose fidelity you may generally rely.

[1353:] The only example I know which might be quoted as a recognised exception to these remarks is MIle. de L' Enclos; and she was considered a prodigy. In her scorn for the virtues of women, she practised, so they say, the virtues of a man. She is praised for her frankness and uprightness; she was a trustworthy acquaintance and a faithful friend. To complete the picture of her glory it is said that she became a man. That may be, but in spite of her high reputation I should no more desire that man as my friend than as my mistress.

[1354:] This is not so irrelevant as it seems. I am aware of the tendencies of our modern philosophy which make a jest of female modesty and its so-called insincerity; I also perceive that the most certain result of this philosophy will be to deprive the women of this century of such shreds of honor as they still possess.

[1355:] On these grounds I think we may decide in general terms what sort of education is suited to the female mind and the objects to which we should turn its attention in early youth.

[1356:] As I have already said, the duties of their sex are more easily recognised than performed. They must learn in the first place to love those duties by considering the advantages to be derived from them -- that is the only way to make duty easy. Every age and condition has its own duties. We are quick to see our duty if we love it. Honor your position as a woman, and in whatever station of life to which it shall please heaven to call you, you will be well off. The essential thing is to be what nature has made you; women are only too ready to be what men would have them.

[1357:] The search for abstract and speculative truths, for principles and axioms in science, for all that tends to wide generalisation, is beyond a woman's grasp; their studies should be thoroughly practical. It is their business to apply the principles discovered by men, it is their place to make the observations which lead men to discover those principles. A woman's thoughts, beyond the range of her immediate duties, should be directed to the study of men, or the acquirement of that agreeable learning whose sole end is the formation of taste. For the works of genius are beyond her reach, and she has neither the accuracy nor the attention for success in the exact sciences. As for the physical sciences, to decide the relations between living creatures and the laws of nature is the task of that sex which is more active and enterprising, which sees more things, that sex which is possessed of greater strength and is more accustomed to the exercise of that strength. Woman, weak as she is and limited in her range of observation, perceives and judges the forces at her disposal to supplement her weakness, and those forces are the passions of man. Her own mechanism is more powerful than ours; she has many levers which may set the human heart in motion. She must find a way to make us desire what she cannot achieve unaided and what she considers necessary or pleasing. Therefore she must have a thorough knowledge of man's mind -- not an abstract knowledge of the mind of man in general, but the mind of those men who are about her, the mind of those men who have authority over her, either by law or custom. She must learn to intuit their feelings from speech and action, look and gesture. By her own speech and action, look and gesture, she must be able to inspire them with the feelings she desires, without seeming to have any such purpose. The men will have a better philosophy of the human heart, but she will read more accurately in the heart of men. Woman should discover, so to speak, an experimental morality; man should reduce it to a system. Woman has more wit, man more genius; woman observes, man reasons. Together they provide the clearest light and the profoundest knowledge which is possible to the unaided human mind -- in a word, the surest knowledge of self and of others of which the human race is capable. In this way art may constantly tend to the perfection of the instrument which nature has given us.

[1358:] The world is woman's book. If she reads it wrong, it is either her own fault or she is blinded by passion. Yet the genuine mother of a family is no woman of the world; she is almost as much of a recluse as the nun in her convent. Those who have marriageable daughters should do what is or ought to be done for those who are entering the cloisters: they should show them the pleasures they forsake before they are allowed to renounce them, lest the deceitful picture of unknown pleasures should creep in to disturb the happiness of their retreat. In France it is the girls who live in convents and the wives who flaunt in society. Among the ancients it was quite otherwise; girls enjoyed, as I have said already, many games and public festivals; the married women lived in retirement. This was a more reasonable custom and more conducive to morality. Girls may be allowed a certain amount of coquetry; to amuse themselves is their main business. A wife has other responsibilities at home, and she is no longer on the look-out for a husband. But women would not appreciate such reforms, and unluckily it is they who set the fashion. Mothers, let your daughters be your companions. Give them good sense and an honest heart, and then conceal from them nothing that a pure eye may observe. Balls, assemblies, sports, the theatre itself -- everything which viewed badly will charm an imprudent youth -- may be offered without risk to a healthy mind. The more they know of these noisy pleasures, the sooner they will be disgusted by them.

[1359:] I can imagine the outcry with which will be raised against me. What girl will resist such an example? Their heads are turned by the first glimpse of the world; not one of them is ready to give it up. That may be; but before you showed them this deceitful prospect, did you prepare them to see it without emotion? Did you tell them plainly what they would be presented with? Did you show it in its true light? Did you arm them against the illusions of vanity? Did you inspire their young hearts with a taste for the true pleasures which are not to be found with in this crowd? What precautions, what steps, did you take to preserve them from the false taste which leads them astray? Not only have you done nothing to preserve their minds from the tyranny of prejudice, you have fostered that prejudice; you have taught them to desire every foolish amusement they can get. Your own example is their teacher. Young people on their entrance into society have no guide but their mother, who is often just as silly as they are themselves, and quite unable to show them things except as she sees them herself. Her example is stronger than reason; it justifies them in their own eyes, and the mother's authority is an unanswerable excuse for the daughter. If I ask a mother to bring her daughter into society, I assume that she will show it in its true light.

[1360:] The evil begins still earlier. The convents are regular schools of coquetry, not that honest coquetry which I have described above, but a coquetry that is the source of every kind of misconduct, a coquetry that turns out girls who are the most ridiculous little madams. When they leave the convent to take their place in smart society, young women find themselves quite at home. They have been educated for such a life; is it strange that they like it? I am afraid what I am going to say may be based on prejudice rather than observation, but so far as I can see, one finds more family affection, more good wives and loving mothers in Protestant than in Catholic countries. If that is so, we cannot fail to suspect that the difference is partly due to the convent schools.

[1361:] The charms of a peaceful family life must be known to be enjoyed; their delights should be tasted in childhood. It is only in our father's home that we learn to love our own, and a woman whose mother did not educate her herself will not be willing to educate her own children. Unfortunately, there is no such thing as home education in our cities. Society is so general and so mixed there is no place left to retreat to, and even in the home we live in public. We live in company till we have no family, and we scarcely know our own relations. We see them as strangers; and the simplicity of home life disappears together with the sweet familiarity which was its charm. In this way do we draw with our mother's milk a taste for the pleasures of the age and the maxims by which it is controlled.

[1362:] Girls are made to assume an air of coolness so that men may be deceived into marrying them by their appearances. But study these young people for a moment; under a pretence of coyness they barely conceal the passion which devours them, and already you may read in their eager eyes their desire to imitate their mothers. It is not a husband they want, but the licence of a married woman. What need of a husband when there are so many other resources? But a husband there must be to act as a screen.[Note 10] There is modesty on the brow but libertinage in the heart; this sham modesty is one of its outward signs. They affect it that they may be rid of it once for all. Women of Paris and London, forgive me! There may be miracles everywhere, but I am not aware of them; and if there is even one among you who is really pure in heart, I know nothing of our institutions.

[1363:] All these different methods of education lead in similar ways to a taste for the pleasures of the great world and to the passions which this taste so soon kindles. In our great towns depravity begins at birth; in the smaller towns it begins with reason. Young women brought up in the country are soon taught to despise the happy simplicity of their lives, and hurry to Paris to share the corruption of ours. Vices, cloaked under the fine name of accomplishments, are the sole object of their journey. Ashamed to find themselves so much behind the noble licence of the Parisian ladies, they cannot wait to become worthy of the name of Parisian. Which is responsible for the evil -- the place where it begins, or the place where it is accomplished?

[1364:] I would not have a sensible mother bring her girl to Paris to show her these sights so harmful to others; but I assert that if she did so, either the girl has been badly brought up, or such sights have little danger for her. With good taste, good sense, and a love of what is right, these things are less attractive than to those who abandon themselves to their charm. In Paris you may see giddy young people hastening to adopt the tone and fashions of the town for some six months, so that they may spend the rest of their life in disgrace; but who pays any attention to those who, disgusted with the rout, return to their distant home and are contented with their lot when they have compared it with that which others desire. How many young wives have I seen whose good-natured husbands have taken them to Paris where they might live if they pleased; but they have shrunk from it and returned home more willingly than they went, saying tenderly, "Ah, let us go back to our cottage, life is happier there than in these palaces." We do not know how many there are who have not bowed down to idols, who scorn his senseless worship. Fools make all the noise; good women pass unnoticed.

[1365:] If so many women preserve a judgment which is proof against temptation, in spite of universal prejudice, in spite of the bad education of girls, what would their judgment have been had it been strengthened by suitable instruction, or rather left unaffected by evil teaching? For to preserve or restore the natural feelings is our main business. You can do this without preaching endless sermons to your daughters, without burdening them with your harsh morality. With both sexes, moralizing means the death of any good education. Dreary lessons only create an aversion both for what is said and for those who say it. In talking to a young girl you need not make her afraid of her duties, nor need you increase the yoke imposed upon her by nature. When you explain her duties speak plainly and pleasantly; do not let her suppose that the performance of these duties is a dismal thing -- no angry tones, no haughtiness. Every thought which we desire to arouse should find its expression in our pupils. Their catechism of conduct should be as brief and plain as their catechism of religion, but it need not be so serious. Show them that these same duties are the source of their pleasures and the basis of their rights. Is it so hard to win love by love, happiness by an amiable disposition, obedience by worth, and honour by self-respect? How fair are these woman's rights, how worthy of reverence, how dear to the heart of man when a woman is able to show their worth! These rights are no privilege of years; a woman's empire begins with her virtues. Her charms are only in the bud, yet she reigns already by the gentleness of her character and the dignity of her modesty. Is there any man so hard-hearted and uncivilised that he does not soften his pride and attend to his manners with a sweet and virtuous girl of sixteen, who listens but says little, whose bearing is modest, conversation honest, whose beauty does not lead her to forget her sex and her youth, whose very timidity arouses interest while she wins for herself the respect which she shows to others?

[1366:] These external signs are not devoid of meaning. They do not rest entirely upon the charms of sense; they arise from that conviction that we all feel that women are the natural judges of a man's worth. Who would be scorned by women? Not even he who has ceased to desire their love. And do you suppose that I, who tell them such harsh truths, am indifferent to their verdict? Reader, I care more for their approval than for yours; you are often more effeminate than they. While I scorn their morals, I will revere their justice. I care not if they hate me so long as I can compel their esteem.

[1367:] What great things might be accomplished by their influence if only we could bring it to bear! Too bad for the century whose women lose their ascendancy, and fail to make men respect their judgment! This is the last stage of degradation. Every virtuous nation has shown respect to women. Consider Sparta, Germany, and Rome -- Rome the throne of glory and virtue, if ever they were enthroned on earth. The Roman women awarded honour to the deeds of great generals, they mourned in public for the fathers of the country, their awards and their tears were equally held sacred as the most solemn utterance of the Republic. Every great revolution began with the women. Through a woman Rome gained her liberty, through a woman the plebeians won the consulate, through a woman the tyranny of the decemvirs was overthrown. It was the women who saved Rome when besieged by Coriolanus. What would you have said at the sight of this procession, you Frenchmen who pride yourselves on your gallantry, would you not have followed it with shouts of laughter? You and I see things with such different eyes, and perhaps we are both right. Such a procession formed of the fairest beauties of France would be an indecent spectacle; but let it consist of Roman ladies, you will all gaze with the eyes of the Volscians and feel with the heart of Coriolanus.

[1368:] I will go further and maintain that virtue is no less favourable to love than to other rights of nature, and that it adds as much to the authority of mistresses as to that of the wives or mothers. There is no real love without enthusiasm, and no enthusiasm without an object of perfection real or supposed, but always present in the imagination. What is there to kindle the hearts of lovers for whom this perfection is nothing, for whom the loved one is merely the means to sensual pleasure? No, it is not thus that the heart kindled, not thus that it abandons itself to those sublime transports which cause the rapture of lovers and the charm of love. Everything is only illusion in love, I admit, but its reality consists in the feelings it awakens in us for the true beauty which it makes us love. That beauty is not to be found in the object of our affections, it is the creation of our illusions. And why should this matter? Do we not still sacrifice all those baser feelings to the imaginary model? Do we not still feed our hearts on the virtues we attribute to the beloved? Do we not still withdraw ourselves from the baseness of the human self? Where is the true lover who would not give his life for his mistress, and where is the gross and sensual passion in a man who is willing to die? We scoff at the knights of old, and yet they knew the meaning of love while we know nothing but debauchery. When the teachings of romance began to seem ridiculous, it was not so much the work of reason as of immorality.

[1369:] Natural relations remain the same throughout the centuries, their good or evil effects are unchanged. Prejudices masquerading as reason can only change their outward seeming. Self-mastery, even at the mercy of fantastic opinions, will not cease to be great and good. And the true motives of honour will not fail to appeal to the heart of every woman with judgement who is able to seek her life's happiness in her own role. To a high-souled woman chastity above all must be a delightful virtue. She sees the whole world at her feet and she triumphs over herself and them; she erects in her own heart a throne to which all come to pay her hommage. The tender or jealous but always respectful sentiments of both sexes, the universal estime and her own self-estime, ceaselessly pay glorious tribute to a few passing struggles. The loss is fleeting, the gain is permanent. What a joy for a noble heart-- the pride of virtue combined with beauty. Let her be a heroine of romance; she will taste delights more exquisite than those of Lais and Cleopatra; and when her beauty is fled, her glory and her joys remain. She alone will be able to enjoy the past.

[1370:] The harder and more important the duties, the stronger and clearer must be the reasons on which they are based. There is a sort of pious talk about the most serious subjects which is drummed into the ears of young people without persuading them. From this talk, quite unsuited to their ideas and the small importance they attach to it in secret, comes the facility to yield to their inclinations, for lack of any reasons for resistance drawn from the facts themselves. No doubt a girl brought up to goodness and piety has strong weapons against temptation; but one whose heart, or rather whose ears, are merely filled with the jargon of piety, will certainly fall a prey to the first skilful seducer who attacks her. A young and beautiful girl will never despise her body; she will never really deplore sins which her beauty leads men to commit; she will never lament earnestly in the sight of God that she is an object of desire; she will never be convinced that the tenderest feeling is an invention of the Evil One. Give her other and more pertinent reasons for her own sake, for these will have no effect. It will be worse to instill, as is often done, ideas which contradict each other, and after having humbled and degraded her person and her charms as the stain of sin, to bid her reverence that same vile body as the temple of Jesus Christ. Ideas too sublime and too humble are equally ineffective and they cannot both be true. A reason adapted to her age and sex is what is needed. Considerations of duty are of no effect unless they are combined with some motive for the performance of our duty.

"Quæ quia non liceat non facit, illa facit."

[1371:] One would not suspect Ovid of such a harsh judgment.

[1372:] Do you wish to inspire young people with a love of good conduct? Then avoid saying, "Be good." Instead, make it their interest to be good; make them feel the value of goodness and they will love it. It is not enough to show this effect in the distant future; show it now, in the relations of the present, in the character of their lovers. Describe a good man, a man of worth; teach them to recognise him when they see him, to love him for their own sake. Convince them that such a man alone can make them happy as friend, wife, or mistress. Let reason lead the way to virtue. Make them feel that the power of their sex and all the advantages derived from it depend not merely on the right conduct, the morality, of women, but also on that of men; that the advantages of virtue have little hold over the vile and base, and that the lover is incapable of serving his mistress unless he can do homage to virtue. You may then be sure that when you describe the manners of our age you will inspire them with a genuine disgust; when you show them men of fashion they will despise them. You will give them a distaste for their maxims, an aversion to their sentiments, and a scorn for their empty gallantry. You will arouse a nobler ambition, to reign over great and strong souls, the ambition of the Spartan women to rule over men. A bold, shameless, intriguing woman, who can only attract her lovers by coquetry and retain them by her favors, wins a servile obedience in common things; in weighty and important matters she has no influence over them. But the woman who is both virtuous, wise, and charming, she who, in a word, combines love and esteem, can send them at her bidding to the end of the world, to war, to glory, and to death at her behest. This is a fine kingdom and worth the winning.[Note 11] This is the spirit in which Sophie has been educated. She has been trained carefully rather than strictly, and her taste has been followed rather than thwarted. Let us say just a word about her person, according to the description I have given to Emile and the picture he himself has formed of the wife in whom he hopes to find happiness.

[1373:] I cannot repeat too often that I am not dealing with prodigies. Emile is no prodigy, neither is Sophie. He is a man and she is a woman; this is all they have to boast of. In the present confusion between the sexes it is almost a miracle to belong to one's own sex.

[1374:] Sophie is well born and she has a good disposition. She has a very sensitive heart and this extreme sensitivity sometimes makes her imagination run away with her. Her mind is perceptive rather than accurate, her temper is pleasant but variable, her person pleasing though nothing out of the common, her countenance bespeaks a soul and it speaks true. You may meet her with indifference, but you will not leave her without emotion. Others possess good qualities which she lacks, others possess her good qualities in a higher degree, but in no one are these qualities better blended to form a .happy disposition. She knows how to make the best of her very faults, and if she were more perfect she would be less pleasing.

[1375:] Sophie is not beautiful; but in her presence men forget about beautiful women , and they are dissatisfied with themselves. At first sight she is hardly pretty; but the more we see her the prettier she is. She wins where so many lose, and what she wins she keeps. Her eyes might be finer, her mouth more beautiful, her stature more imposing; but no one could have a more graceful figure, a finer complexion, a whiter hand, a daintier foot, a sweeter look, and a more expressive countenance. She does not dazzle; she arouses interest. She delights us, we know not why.

[1376:] Sophie is fond of dress, and she knows how to dress; her mother has no other maid but her. She has taste enough to dress herself well; but she hates rich clothes. Her own are always simple but elegant. She does not like showy but becoming things. She does not know what colors are fashionable, but she makes no mistake about those that suit her. No girl seems more simply dressed, but no one could take more pains over her preparations; no article is selected at random, and yet there is no trace of artificiality. Her dress is very modest in appearance and very coquettish in reality; she does not display her charms, she conceals them, but in such a way as to enhance them. When you see her you say, "That is a good modest girl," but while you are with her, you cannot take your eyes or your thoughts off her, and one might say that this very simple adornment is only put on to be removed bit by bit by the imagination.

[1377:] Sophie has natural gifts. She is aware of them, and they have not been neglected, but never having had a chance of much training she is content to use her pretty voice to sing tastefully and truly; her little feet step lightly, easily, and gracefully. She can always make an easy graceful courtesy. She has had no singing master but her father, no dancing mistress but her mother. A neighbouring organist has given her a few lessons in playing accompaniments on the spinet, and she has improved herself by practice. At first she only wished to show off her hand on the dark keys; then she discovered that the thin clear tone of the spinet made her voice sound sweeter. Little by little she recognised the charms of harmony; as she grew older she at last began to enjoy the charms of expression, to love music for its own sake. But she has taste rather than talent; she cannot read a simple air from notes.

[1378:] Needlework is what Sophie likes best; and the feminine arts have been taught her most carefully, even those you would not expect, such as cutting out and dressmaking. There is nothing she cannot do with her needle, and nothing that she does not take a delight in doing; but lace-making is her favourite occupation, because there is nothing which requires such a pleasing attitude, nothing which calls for such grace and dexterity of finger. She has also studied all the details of housekeeping. She understands cooking and cleaning; she knows the prices of food, and also how to choose it; she can keep accounts accurately, she is her mother's housekeeper. Some day she will be the mother of a family; by managing her father's house she is preparing to manage her own. She can take the place of any of the servants and she is always ready to do so. You cannot give orders unless you can do the work yourself; that is why' her mother sets her to do it. Sophie does not think of that; her first duty is to be a good daughter, and that is all she thinks about for the present. Her one idea is to help her mother and relieve her of some of her anxieties. However, she does not like them all equally well. For instance, she likes dainty food, but she does not like cooking; the details of cookery offend her, and things are never clean enough for her. She is extremely sensitive in this respect and carries her sensitiveness to a fault; she would let the whole dinner boil over into the fire rather than soil her cuffs. She has always disliked inspecting the vegetable garden for the same reason. The soil is dirty, and as soon as she sees the manure heap she fancies there is a disagreeable smell.

[1379:] This defect is the result of her mother's teaching. According to her, cleanliness is one of the most necessary of a woman's duties, a special duty, of the highest importance and a duty imposed by nature. Nothing could be more revolting than a dirty woman, and a husband who tires of her is not to blame. She insisted so strongly on this duty when Sophie was little, she required such absolute cleanliness in her person, clothing, room, work, and toilet, that use has become habit, till it absorbs one half of her time and controls the other; so that she thinks less of how to do a thing than of how to do it without getting dirty.

[1380:] Yet this has not degenerated into mere affectation and softness; there is none of the over refinement of luxury. Nothing but clean water enters her room; she knows no perfumes but the scent of flowers, and her husband will never find anything sweeter than her breath. In conclusion, the attention she pays to the outside does not blind her to the fact that time and strength are meant for greater tasks. Either she does not know or she despises that exaggerated cleanliness of body which degrades the soul. Sophie is more than clean, she is pure.

[1381:] I said that Sophie was fond of good things. She was so by nature; but she became temperate by habit and now she is temperate by virtue. Little girls are not to be controlled, as little boys are to some extent, through their greediness. This tendency may have ill effects on women and it is too dangerous to be left unchecked. When Sophie was little, she did not always return empty handed if she was sent to her mother's cupboard, and she was not quite to be trusted with candies and sugar-almonds. Her mother caught her, took them from her, punished her, and made her go without her dinner. At last she managed to persuade her that candy was bad for the teeth, and that over-eating spoiled the figure. Thus Sophie overcame her faults; and when she grew older other tastes distracted her from this low kind of self-indulgence. With awakening feeling greediness ceases to be the ruling passion, both with men and women. Sophie has preserved her feminine tastes; she likes milk and sweets; she likes pastry and prepared food, but not much meat. She has never tasted wine or spirits; moreover, she eats sparingly; women, who do not work so hard as men, have less waste to repair. In all things she likes what is good, and knows how to appreciate it; but she can also put up with what is not so good, or can go without it.

[1382:] Sophie's mind is pleasing but not brilliant, and thorough but not deep. It is the sort of mind which calls for no remark, since she never seems cleverer or stupider than oneself. When people talk to her they always find what she says attractive, though it may not be highly ornamental according to modern ideas of an educated woman. Her mind has been formed not only by reading, but by conversation with her father and mother, by her own reflections, and by her own observations in the little world in which she has lived. Sophie is naturally happy; as a child she was even giddy; but her mother cured her of her silly ways, little by little, in case too sudden a change should make her self-conscious. Thus she became modes