I. I Enter upon a serious and difficult undertaking; in the prosecution
of which, it is not one ignorant vulgar person only I shall have to
contend with, for setting about to defend all the women, amounts to
pretty near the same thing as resolving to offend all the men, there
being scarce one among them, who, in order to give precedence to his
own sex, does not endeavour to bring the other into disesteem; and to
such an extravagant length, has this custom of abusing and vilifying
the women by common consent been carried, that in a moral sense they
load them with defects, and in a physical one with imperfections,
and will scarce allow them to possess a single good quality: but
they lay the greatest stress on the scantiness or limitation of their
understandings; for which reason, after briefly vindicating them in
other respects, I shall discourse more at large on their aptitude, for
attaining all sorts of science and sublime knowledge.
II. The false prophet Mahomed, denied the women entrance into that
ill-laid-out and absurdly-disposed paradise, which he had devised and
appropriated to be possessed by his followers, limiting the felicity of
the females to beholding from without, the glory and happiness enjoyed
by the men within; and it certainly must give the women great pleasure,
to survey their husbands in that scene of delights, composed all of
turpitudes, clasped in the arms of other consorts, which were feigned
to be newly created for this particular purpose by that great artist in
fabricating chimeras. Such a delirium being admitted and received by a
great part of the world, sufficiently shews, to what a degree mankind
are capable of running into error.
III. But it seems as if these, who deny the women almost every kind
of merit in this life, do not differ much from those who deny them
happiness in the next. The most vile among the vulgar, very frequently
represent that sex as having a most horrible propensity to vice; and
would insinuate, that the men are the sole repositories of virtue.
It is certainly true, that you will find these species of sentiments
loudly trumpeted forth in an infinite number of books; in some of
which, the invective is carried to such a point, as scarcely to admit
there is one good woman, and asserting, that their blush, which has
been generally considered as an addition to their beauty, and a token
of modesty, is the effect of the lewdness of their souls.
_Aspera si visa est, rigidasque imitata Sabinas_
_Velle, sed ex alto dissimulare puta._
Instead of replying to such insolent malevolence, the best method is,
to treat it with contempt and detestation. Not a few of those, who are
most addicted to paint the sex in the blackest colouring, have been
observed to be the most solicitous about obtaining their favour and
good graces. Euripides, who was exceedingly satirical upon them in his
tragedies, as Athenæus and Stobæus inform us, was excessively fond of
them in private. He execrated them on the theatre, and idolized them
in the chamber. Boccace, who was excessively addicted to women, wrote
a satyr against them, entitled, The Labyrinth of Love. What was the
mystery of this? Why it most probably was, that, under the disguise of
having an aversion to them, he endeavoured to conceal his passion for
them; or it might be, that the brutal satiety of the turpid appetite
had brought on a loathing, which caused every thing appertaining to the
other sex to appear hateful and disgusting. This sort of abuse, may
also sometimes proceed from a refusal to lend a kind ear to entreaties
and solicitations; for there are men so malevolent, as to be capable
of saying a woman is not good, because she has refused to be bad.
This unjust motive for complaint and resentment, has sometimes vented
itself in the most cruel acts of revenge; an example of which, may
be instanced in the unhappy fate of that most beautiful Irish lady
madam Douglass, against whom, William Leout was blindly irritated, for
having refused to comply with his lewd solicitations. To be revenged,
he accused her of high treason; and procured the calumniating and
false charge to be proved by suborned witnesses. She suffered capital
punishment; and la Mothe de la Vayer, who (in his Opusc. Scept.) gives
the relation, says, that Leout himself afterwards confessed the falsity
of the accusation, and the wicked means used to prove her guilty.
To this instance, may be added that of a most virtuous and beautiful
French lady, the marchioness of Gange. Her two brothers-in-law made
dishonourable propositions to her, and successively tried many arts, to
prevail on her to gratify their base inclinations; but, notwithstanding
one of them, who was an extreme cunning man, and governed the marquis
her consort entirely, threatened to instil into the mind of her husband
suspicions of her fidelity, she vigorously rejected their entreaties.
Finding themselves in spite of the menace, repeatedly repulsed
with scorn and indignation, they resolved to carry the threat into
execution; and, having prevailed on the credulous husband to entertain
doubts of his wife’s honour and constancy, he consented that the two
brothers should take away the life of the innocent marchioness; which
they did in a barbarous and cruel manner, by first forcing her to
swallow a poisonous draught, but afterwards, doubting of the efficacy
of the potion, they gave her several desperate wounds. Although she
survived both the wounds and the operation of the poison for the space
of nineteen days, and, by means of her relation of the matter, which
was corroborated by other circumstances, the officers of justice and
the public were informed of the whole transaction, and measures were
taken for apprehending the delinquents; yet they, finding themselves
discovered, fled the kingdom, and escaped the punishment due to their
crime. This tragical event happened in the year 1667, and is related by
Gayot Piteval, in his fifth volume of Remarkable Cases.
IV. I don’t deny that many of them are vicious; but, alas! if we were
to trace their slips and irregularities to their source, I fear we
should find them originate in the obstinate and persevering impulse
or solicitations of our sex. He, who would wish or endeavour to make
all the women good, should begin with converting all the men. Nature
implanted modesty in the sex, as a fence-wall to resist the attacks of
appetite; and it very rarely happens, that a breach is made in this
wall by force applied on the inside.
V. The declamations against the women, which we read in some parts
of holy writ, should be understood, as pointed and levelled at the
perverse ones, as there is no doubt but there are such; and, although
they should be supposed to have an eye to the sex in general, nothing
could be inferred from thence; because the physicians of the soul
declaim against women, as the physicians of the body declaim against
fruit, which, although it is good, beautiful, and useful in itself, the
abuse or excess of it is pernicious: besides this, allowance should be
made for the latitude permitted to oratory of magnifying the risque,
when it is used to divert or turn people from dangerous courses.
VI. Let them, who suppose the female sex to be more vicious than ours,
tell me, how they can reconcile this, with the church having in an
especial manner, bestowed on them the epithet of devout? How with the
words of many of the most grave and eminent doctors, who have declared
it as their opinion, that there are more women saved than men, even
having regard to the proportion, in which it is generally thought the
number of females exceeds that of the males? Which opinion, they do
not, nor cannot found on any other thing, than their having observed in
them a greater inclination to piety.
VII. Methinks I already hear, in opposition to our undertaking, that
proposition of much noise, and little or no truth, that the women are
the cause of all evil; and, by way of proving it, the vulgar, down to
the meanest and most contemptible of them, endeavour to inculcate at
every turn, that La Caba occasioned the ruin of all Spain, and Eve that
of all mankind.
VIII. But the first instance is absolutely a false one. The count Don
Julian was the person who brought the Moors into Spain, but was not
persuaded to it by his daughter, who did no more than make known
to her father the affront and injury she had received. How unhappy
is the lot of women, if, in the case of being trampled on by an
insolent ravisher, they are to be deprived of the relief of unbosoming
themselves to their fathers, or their husbands! The aggressors, in
these cases, would gladly deprive them of this relief and benefit;
though if at any time an unjust vengeance should be the consequence
of the complaint, the fault would not lie at the door of the innocent
offended person, but would rest with him who did the execution with the
sword, and the man who committed the insult; and thus the whole blame
and crime would be imputable to the men only.
IX. If the second example proves, that the women in general are worse
than the men; by the same mode of reasoning it may be proved, that
the angels in general are worse than the women; because, as Adam was
induced to sin by a woman, the woman was seduced by an angel. It is not
yet decided whose sin was the greatest, that of Adam, or that of Eve,
because the fathers are divided in their opinions; and, in truth, the
excuse which Cayetane makes in favour of Eve, that she was deceived by
a creature of much superior intelligence and capacity to herself, is
a circumstance that cannot be urged on behalf of Adam, and greatly
abates her crime in comparison with his.