Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World Part 5

THE IDEA OF FEMALE INFERIORITY.

It is an opinion pretty well established, that in strength of mind, as well as of body, men are greatly superior to women.

Men are endowed with boldness and courage, women are not. The reason is plain, these are beauties in our character; in theirs they would be blemishes. Our genius often leads to the great and the arduous; theirs to the soft and the pleasing; we bend our thoughts to make life convenient; they turn theirs to make it easy and agreeable. If the endowments allotted to us by nature could not be easily acquired by women, it would be as difficult for us to acquire those peculiarly allotted to them. Are we superior to them in what belongs to the male character? They are no less so to us, in what belongs to the female character.

Would it not appear rather ludicrous to say, that a man was endowed only with inferior abilities, because he was not expert in the nursing of children, and practising the various effeminacies which we reckon lovely in a woman? Would it be reasonable to condemn him on these accounts?

Just as reasonable, as it is to reckon women inferior to men, because their talents are in general not adapted to tread the horrid path of war, nor trace the mazes and intricacies of science.

The idea of the inferiority of female nature has drawn after it several others the most absurd, unreasonable, and humiliating to the s.e.x. Such is the pride of man, that in some countries he has considered immortality as a distinction too glorious for women. Thus degrading the fair partners of his nature, he places them on a level with the beasts that perish.

As the Asiatics have, time immemorial, considered women as little better than slaves, this opinion probably originated among them. The Mahometans, both in Asia and Europe, are said, by a great variety of writers, to entertain this opinion.

Lady Montague, in her letters, has opposed this general a.s.sertion of the writers concerning the Mahometans; and says that they do not absolutely deny the existence of female souls, but only hold them to be of a nature inferior to those of men; and that they enter not into the same, but into an inferior paradise, prepared for them on purpose. Lady Montague, and the writers whom she has contradicted, may perhaps be both right. The former might be the opinion which the Turks brought with them from Asia; and the latter, as a refinement upon it they may have adopted by their intercourse with the Europeans.

This opinion, however, has had but few votaries in Europe: though some have even here maintained it, and a.s.signed various reasons for so doing.

Among these, the following laughable reason is not the least particular--"In the Revelations of St. John the divine," said one, whose wife was a descendant of the famous Xantippe,[1] "you will find this pa.s.sage: _And there was silence in heaven for about the s.p.a.ce of half an hour_. Now, I appeal to any one, whether that could possibly have happened, had there been any women there? And, since there are none there, charity forbids us to imagine that they are all in a worse place; therefore it follows that they have no immortal part: and happy is it for them, as they are thereby exempted from being accountable for all the noise and disturbance they have raised in this world."

In a very ancient treatise, called the Wisdom of all Times, ascribed to Hushang, one of the earliest kings of Persia, are the following remarkable words: "The pa.s.sions of men may, by long acquaintance, be thoroughly known; but the pa.s.sions of women are inscrutable; therefore they ought to be separated from men, lest the mutability of their tempers should infect others."

Ideas of a similar nature seem to have been at this time, generally diffused over the East. For we find Solomon, almost every where in his writings, exclaiming against women; and, in the Apocrypha, the author of Ecclesiasticus is still more illiberal in his reflections.

Both these authors, it is true, join in the most enraptured manner to praise a virtuous woman; but take care at the same time to let us know, that she is so great a rarity as to be very seldom met with.

Nor have the Asiatics alone been addicted to this illiberality of thinking concerning the s.e.x. Satirists of all ages and countries, while they flattered them to their faces, have from their closets scattered their spleen and ill-nature against them. Of this the Greek and Roman poets afford a variety of instances; but they must nevertheless yield the palm to some of our moderns. In the following lines, Pope has outdone every one of them:

"Men some to pleasure, some to business take; But every woman is at heart--a rake."

Swift and Dr Young have hardly been behind this celebrated splenetic in illiberality. They perhaps were not favorites of the fair, and in revenge vented all their envy and spleen against them. But a more modern and accomplished writer who by his rank in life, by his natural and acquired _graces_, was undoubtedly a favorite, has repaid their kindness by taking every opportunity of exhibiting them in the most contemptible light. "Almost every man," says he, "may be gained some way, almost every woman any way, can any thing exhibit a stronger caution to the s.e.x?" It is fraught with information; and it is to be hoped they will use it accordingly.

[1] Xantippe, was the wife of Socrates, and the most famous scold of antiquity.

FEMALE SIMPLICITY.

Would we conceive properly of that simplicity which is the sweetest expression of a well-informed and well-meaning mind, which every where diffuses tenderness and delicacy, sweetens the relations of life, and gives a zest to the minutest duties of humanity, let us contemplate every perceptible operation of nature, the twilight of the evening, the pearly dew-drops of the early morning, and all that various growth which indicates the genial return of spring. The same principle from which all that is soft and pleasing, amiable or exquisite, to the eye or to the ear, in the exterior frame of nature, produces that taste for true simplicity, which is one of the most useful, as well as the most elegant lessons, that _ladies_ can learn.

Infancy, is perhaps, the finest and most perfect ill.u.s.tration of simplicity. It is a state of genuine nature throughout. The feelings of children are under no kind of restraint, but pure as the fire, free as the winds, honest and open as the face of heaven. Their joys incessantly flow in the thickest succession, and their griefs only seem fleeting and evanescent. To the calls of nature they are only attentive. They know no voice but hers. Their obedience to all her commands is prompt and implicit. They never antic.i.p.ate her bounties, nor relinquish her pleasures. This situation renders them independent of artifice.

Influenced only by nature, their manners, like the principle that produces them, are always the same.

Genuine simplicity is that peculiar quality of the mind, by which some happy characters are enabled to avoid the most distant approaches to any thing like affectation, inconstancy, or design, in their intercourse with the world. It is much more easily understood, however than defined; and consists not in a specific tone of the voice, movement of the body, or mode imposed by custom, but is the natural and permanent effect of real modesty and good sense on the whole behavior.

This has been considered in all ages, as one of the first and most captivating ornaments of the s.e.x. The savage, the plebeian, the man of the world, and the courtier, are agreed in stamping it with a preference to every other female excellence.

Nature only is lovely, and nothing unnatural can ever be amiable. The genuine expressions of truth and nature are happily calculated to impress the heart with pleasure. No woman, whatever her other qualities may be, was ever eminently agreeable, but in proportion as distinguished by these. The world is good-natured enough to give a lady credit for all the merit she can possess or acquire, without affectation. But the least shade or coloring of this odious foible brings certain and indelible obloquy on the most elegant accomplishments. The blackest suspicion inevitably rests on every thing a.s.sumed. She who is only an ape of others, or prefers formality in all its gigantic and preposterous shapes, to that plain, unembara.s.sed conduct which nature unavoidably produces, will a.s.suredly provoke an abundance of ridicule, but never can be an object either of love or esteem.

The various artifices of the s.e.x discover themselves at a very early period. A pa.s.sion for expense and show is one of the first they exhibit.

This gives them a taste for refinement, which divests their young hearts of almost every other feeling, renders their tempers desultory and capricious, regulates their dress only by the most fantastic models of finery and fas.h.i.+on, and makes their company rather tiresome and awkward, than pleasing or elegant.

No one perhaps can form a more ludicrous contrast to every thing just and graceful in nature, than the woman whose sole object in life is to pa.s.s for a _fine lady_. The attentions she every where and uniformly pays, expects, and even exacts, are tedious and fatiguing. Her various movements and att.i.tudes are all adjusted and exhibited by rule. By a happy fluency of the most eloquent language, she has the art of imparting a momentary dignity and grace to the merest trifles. Studious only to mimic such peculiarities as are most admired in others, she affects a loquacity peculiarly flippant and teazing because scandal, routs, finery, fans, china, lovers, lap-dogs, or squirrels, are her constant themes. Her amus.e.m.e.nts, like those of a magpie, are only hopping over the same spots, prying into the same corners, and devouring the same species of prey. The simple and beautiful delineations of nature, in her countenance, gestures and whole deportment, are habitually arranged, distorted, or concealed, by the affected adoption of whatever grimace or deformity is latest or most in vogue.

She accustoms her face to a simper, which every separate feature in it belies. She spoils, perhaps, a blooming complexion with a profusion of artificial coloring, she distorts the most exquisite shape by loads or volumes of useless drapery. She has her head, her arms, her feet, and her gait, equally touched by art and affectation, into what is called the _taste_, the _ton_, or the _fas.h.i.+on_.

She little considers to what a torrent of ridicule and sarcasm this mode of conduct exposes her; or how exceedingly cold and hollow that ceremony must be, which is not the language of a warm heart. She does not reflect how insipid those smiles are, which indicate no internal pleasantry; nor how awkward those graces, which spring not from habits of good-nature and benevolence. Thus, pertness succeeds to delicacy, a.s.surance to modesty, and all the vagaries of a listless to the sensibilities of an ingenuous mind.

With her, punctilio is politeness; dissipation, life; and levity, spirit. The miserable and contemptible drudge of every tawdry innovation in dress or ceremony, she incessantly mistakes extravagance for taste, and finery for elegance.

Her favorite examples are not those persons of acknowledged sincerity, who speak as they feel, and act as they think; but such only as are formed to dazzle her fancy, amuse her senses, or humor her whims. Her only study is how to glitter or s.h.i.+ne, how to captivate and gratify the gaze of the mult.i.tude, or how to swell her own pomp and importance. To this interesting object all her a.s.siduities and time are religiously devoted.

How often is debility of mind, and even badness of heart concealed under a splendid exterior! The fairest of the species, and of the s.e.x, often want sincerity; and without sincerity every other qualification is rather a blemish, than a virtue, or excellence. Sincerity operates on the moral, somewhat like the sun on the natural world; and produces nearly the same effects on the dispositions of the human heart, which he does on inanimate objects. Wherever sincerity prevails and is felt, all the smiling and benevolent virtues flourish most, disclose their sweetest l.u.s.tre, and diffuse their richest fragrance.

Heaven has not a finer or more perfect emblem on earth than a woman of genuine simplicity. She affects no graces which are not inspired by sincerity. Her opinions result not from pa.s.sion and fancy, but from reason and experience. Candor and humility give expansion to her heart.

She struggles for no kind of chimerical credit, disclaims the appearance of every affectation, and is in all things just what she seems, and others would be thought. Nature, not art, is the great standard of her manners; and her exterior wears no varnish, or embellishment, which is not the genuine signature of an open, undesigning, and benevolent mind.

It is not in her power, because not in her nature, to hide, with a fawning air, and a mellow voice, her aversion or contempt, where her delicacy is hurt, here temper ruffled, or her feelings insulted.

In short, whatever appears most amiable, lovely, or interesting in nature, art, manners, or life, originates in simplicity. What is correctness in taste, purity in morals, truth in science, grace in beauty, but simplicity? It is the garb of innocence. It adorned the first ages, and still adorns the infant state of humanity. Without simplicity, woman is a vixen, a coquette, a hypocrite; society a masquerade, and pleasure a phantom.

The following story, I believe, is pretty generally known. A lady, whose husband had long been afflicted with an acute but lingering disease, suddenly feigned such an uncommon _tenderness_ for him, as to resolve on dying in his stead. She had even the address to persuade him not to outlive this extraordinary instance of her conjugal fidelity and attachment. It was instantaneously agreed they should mutually swallow such a quant.i.ty of a.r.s.enic, as would speedily effect their dreadful purpose. She composed the fatal draught before his face and even set him the desperate example of drinking first. By this device, which had all the appearance of the greatest affection and candor, the dregs only were reserved for him, and soon put a period to his life.

It then appeared that the dose was so tempered, as, from the weight of the princ.i.p.al ingredient, to be deadly only at the bottom, which she had artfully appropriated for his share. Even after all this finesse, she seized, we are told, his inheritance, and insulted his memory by a second marriage.

THE MILD MAGNANIMITY OF WOMEN.

A late eminent anatomist, in a professional discourse on the female frame, is said to have declared, that it almost appeared an act of cruelty in nature to produce such a being as woman. This remark may, indeed, be the natural exclamation of refined sensibility, in contemplating the various maladies to which a creature of such delicate organs is inevitably exposed; but, if we take a more enlarged survey of human existence, we shall be far from discovering any just reason to arraign the benevolence of its provident and gracious Author. If the delicacy of woman must render her familiar with pain and sickness, let us remember that her charms, her pleasures, and her happiness, arise also from the same attractive quality. She is a being, to use the forcible and elegant expression of a poet,

"Fine by defect, and admirably weak."

There is, perhaps, no charm by which she more effectually secures the tender admiration and the lasting love, of the more hardy s.e.x, than her superior endurance, her mild and _graceful_ submission to the common evils of life.

Nor is this the sole advantage she derives from her gentle fort.i.tude. It is the prerogative of this lovely virtue, to lighten the pressure of all those incorrigible evils which it cheerfully endures. The frame of man may be compared to the st.u.r.dy _oak_, which is often shattered by resisting the tempest. Woman is the pliant _osier_, which, in bending to the storm, eludes its violence.

The accurate observers of human nature will readily allow, that patience is most eminently the characteristic of woman. To what a sublime and astonis.h.i.+ng height this virtue has been carried by beings of the most delicate texture, we have striking examples in the many female martyrs who were exposed, in the first ages of christianity, to the most barbarous and lingering torture.

Nor was it only from christian zeal that woman derived the power of defying the utmost rigors of persecution with invincible fort.i.tude.

Saint Ambrose, in his elaborate and pious treatise on this subject, records the resolution of a fair disciple of Pythagoras, who, being severely urged by a tyrant to reveal the secrets of her s.e.x, to convince him that no torments should reduce her to so unworthy a breach of her vow, bit her own _tongue_ asunder, and darted it in the face of her oppressor.

In consequence of those happy changes which have taken place in the world, from the progress of purified religion, the inexpressible spirit of the tender s.e.x is no longer exposed to such inhuman trials. But if the earth is happily delivered from the demons of torture and superst.i.tion; if beauty and innocence are no more in danger of being dragged to perish at the stake--perhaps there are situations, in female life, that require as much patience and magnanimity, as were formerly exerted in the fiery torments of the virgin martyr. It is more difficult to support an acc.u.mulation of _minute_ infelicities, than any single calamity of the most terrific magnitude.

FEMALE DELICACY.

Where the human race has little other culture than what it receives from nature, the two s.e.xes live together, unconscious of almost any restraint on their words or on their actions. The Greeks, in the heroic ages, as appears from the whole history of their conduct, were totally unacquainted with delicacy. The Romans in the infancy of their empire, were the same. Tacitus informs us that the ancient Germans had not separate beds for the two s.e.xes, but that they lay promiscuously on reeds or on heath, spread along the walls of their houses. This custom still prevails in Lapland, among the peasants of Norway, Poland, and Russia; and it is not altogether obliterated in some parts of the highlands of Scotland and Wales.

In Otaheite, to appear naked or in clothes, are circ.u.mstances equally indifferent to both s.e.xes; nor does any word in their language, nor any action to which they are prompted by nature, seem more indelicate or reprehensible than another. Such are the effects of a total want of culture.

Effects not very dissimilar, are, in France and Italy, produced from a redundance of it. Though those are the polite countries in Europe, women there set themselves above shame, and despise delicacy. It is laughed out of existence, as a silly and unfas.h.i.+onable weakness.

But in China, one of the politest countries in Asia, and perhaps not even, in this respect, behind France, or Italy, the case is quite otherwise. No human being can be more delicate than a Chinese woman in her dress, in her behavior, and in her conversation; and should she ever happen to be exposed in any unbecoming manner, she feels with the greatest poignancy the awkwardness of her situation, and if possible, covers her face, that she may not be known.