Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/132

126 to nature, apparently reaonable peculations mut yield. A further concluion obviouly preented itelf; if polygamy be neceary, woman mut be inferiour to man, and made for him.

With repect to the formation of the fœtus in the womb, we are very ignorant; but it appears to me probable, that an accidental phyical caue may account for this phenomenon, and prove it not to be a law of nature. I have met with ome pertinent obervations on the ubject in Forter's Account of the Iles of the South-Sea, that will explain my meaning. After oberving that of the two exes amongt animals, the mot vigorous and fiery contitution always prevails, and produces its kind; he adds,—'If this be applied to the inhabitants of Africa, it is evident that the men there, accutomed to polygamy, are enervated by the ue of o many women, and therefore les vigorous; the women, on the contrary, are of a warmer contitution, not only on account of their more irritable nerves, more enible organization, and more lively fancy; but likewie becaue they are deprived in their matrimony of that hare of phyical love which, in a monogamous condition, would all be theirs; and thus, for the above reaons, the generality of children are born females.'

'In the greater part of Europe it has been proved by the mot accurate lits of mortality, that the proportion of men to women is nearly equal, or, if any difference takes place, the males born are more numerous, in the proportion of 105 to 100.' The&ensp;