Page:Poet Lore, volume 34, 1923.djvu/84

 In analysing her Equality of Men and Women we find that Marie de Gournay has nothing good to say of those men who think women fit for the spinning wheel alone.

Marie de Gourney goes on to say that great men of all time have had faith in the ability of women. Socrates and Plato granted them equal rights with the men in their Republic, and elsewhere.

At this point, she concedes, however, that though some women have excelled, yet it is a fact that they are few in number compared to the men who have done great things in the world. Why is this true? And, here, to my mind, our author voices the great truth of her Essay, a truth not accepted in her age and generation, or indeed for several generations after. She cries out:

She concludes then, that if the difference in the bringing up, and the lack of opportunity of using gifts born in them, accounts for the difference among women, it is the difference in the education and opportunities of both sexes which is responsible for the divergence in the present ability of men and women.

Having reached this conclusion, Marie de Gournay strikes out boldly to her second principle, though she does not enlarge upon this either, as we wish that she had. Granted equal education with men, women will, she maintains, be as fit to occupy