LVII. We are come now to defend the great article of all, which is the
question of the understanding; and, I must confess, if my reason does
not assist me in arguing this point, that I expect but little help or
resource from authorities; because all the authors who have touched
upon the matter, with the exception of one or two particular ones only,
have wrote so much on the side of the vulgar opinion, that they almost
uniformly speak of the understandings of the women with contempt.
LVIII. And truly, I might reply to the authority of the greatest part
of these books, with the fable of the lion and the man, inserted by
Carducius in one of his dialogues, which is to this effect. A man and a
lion travelling together, fell to dispute whether lions or men were the
bravest animals: and as they proceeded on their road, they came to a
fountain, at the top of which, there was exhibited carved in marble, a
man tearing a lion in pieces; upon seeing this, the man turned short on
the lion, and in the tone of a conqueror, asked, if he could make any
reply to so convincing an argument; to which the lion answered with a
smile, this is very pretty reasoning of yours, the carving was designed
and executed by a man; we lions are none of us sculptors; if we had,
and were capable of doing this sort of work, I will venture to assure
you, the representation would have been made quite the reverse to what
you there see it.
LIX. The case is, they were men who wrote those books, in which the
understandings of the women are held so cheap; had they been written by
women, the men would have been placed in the inferior class: and there
has not been wanting a woman, who has done something of this sort;
for Lucretia Marinella, a learned Venetian lady, among other works
composed a book with this title, _The Excellences of Women, compared
with the Defects and Vices of Men_; the sole object of which, was to
prove a preference of her own sex to ours. The learned jesuit John of
Carthagena says, that he saw and read this book with great pleasure at
Rome, and that he saw it also in the royal library at Madrid; but the
truth is, that neither she nor we can be judges in this plea, because
we are parties to the suit; and therefore the sentence and decision
must be confided to the angels, who being of no sex, are impartial.
LX. And in the first place, those who hold the understanding of
women in such contempt, as hardly to allow they are endued with more
than pure instinct, are unworthy to be admitted as parties in the
controversy; neither are those, who maintain, that the greatest reach
of a woman’s capacity, does not extend farther than to qualify her for
managing a hen-roost.
LXI. Some prelate, who is quoted by Don Francisco Manuel in his Guide
to Married People, said, that the understanding of the most knowing
woman did not exceed the bounds of ordering how a chest of clean
linen should be packed. Let those who adhere to such opinions, be as
respectable as they will in other points of view, they do themselves
no sort of credit by such declarations; for the most favourable
interpretation they admit of, is, that they were intended as hyperbolic
jokes. It is a fact of public notoriety, that there have been women,
who well understood the ordering and governing religious communities,
and also women, who are equal to the government and direction of whole
states.
LXII. These discourses against the women, are the works of superficial
men; who, seeing they in general understand nothing but household
business, which is commonly the only thing they are instructed in, or
employed about, are apt to infer from thence, without being aware that
they draw the inference from that circumstance, that they are unfit
for, or incapable of any other matter. The most shallow logician knows,
that it is not a valid conclusion, to suppose that because a person
forbears to do an act, that he is unable to do it, and therefore, from
the women in general knowing no more, it cannot be inferred, that they
have not talents to comprehend more.
LXIII. Nobody understands radically and well, more than the subject
he has studied; but you cannot deduce from hence, without incurring
the note of barbarism, that his ability extends no farther. Sir Thomas
More, in his Utopia, states the following question: suppose all men
were to dedicate themselves to agriculture, in so close and strict a
manner, as to occasion their understanding nothing else; would this
be a foundation whereon to argue and insist, that they were incapable
of understanding any other thing? With the Druses, a people of
Palastine, the women are the only repositories of the little learning
that subsists among them, for almost all of these can read and write;
in consequence of which, the little literature they can boast of, is
treasured up in the heads of the women, and totally hidden from the
men, who devote themselves solely to agriculture, war, and handy-craft
business. If the same custom prevailed all the world over, the women
would undoubtedly consider the men as unfit for, or incapable of
literature, in which light, the men at present consider the women; and
as such a judgment would certainly be erroneous, in the same manner is
that mistaken, which we at present make, because it proceeds upon the
same principle.