Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/123

Rh burden on the benevolence of the mater of the houe, and his new partner.

Who can recount the miery, which many unfortunate beings, whoe minds and bodies are equally weak, uffer in uch ituations—unable to work, and ahamed to beg? The wife, a cold-hearted, narrow-minded, woman, and this is not an unfair uppoition; for the preent mode of education does not tend to enlarge the heart any more than the undertanding, is jealous of the little kindnes which her huband hews to his relations; and her enibility not riing to humanity, he is dipleaed at eeing the property of her children lavihed on an helples iter.

Thee are matters of fact, which have come under my eye, again and again. The conequence is obvious, the wife has recoure to cunning to undermine the habitual affection, which he is afraid openly to oppoe; and neither tears nor carees are pared till the py is worked out of her home, and thrown on the world, unprepared for its difficulties; or ent, as a great effort of generoity, or from ome regard to propriety, with a mall tipend, and an uncultivated mind, into joyles olitude.

Thee two women may be much upon a par, with repect to reaon and humanity; and changing ituations might have acted jut the ame elfih part; but had they been differently educated, the cae would alo have been very different. The wife would not have had that enibility, of which elf is the centre, and reaon might have taught her not to expect, and not even to be flattered, by the affection of her huband, if it led him to Rh