Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/152

146 is ineparable from their ex; nor do they ever throw it off but to uffer more cruel evils. They mut be ubject, all their lives, to the mot contant and evere retraint, which is that of decorum: it is, therefore neceary to accutom them early to uch confinement, that it may not afterwards cot them too dear; and to the uppreion of their caprices, that they may the more readily ubmit to the will of others. If, indeed, they are fond of being always at work, they hould be ometimes compelled to lay it aide. Diipation, levity, and incontancy, are faults that readily pring up from their firt propenities, when corrupted or perverted by too much indulgence. To prevent this abue, we hould learn them, above all things, to lay a due retraint on themelves. The life of a modet woman is reduced, by our aburd intitutions, to a perpetual conflict with herelf: not but it is jut that this ex hould partake of the ufferings which arie from thoe evils it hath caued us.'

And why is the life of a modet woman a perpetual conflict? I hould anwer, that this very ytem of education makes it o. Modety, temperance, and elf-denial, are the ober offspring of reaon; but when enibility is nurtured at the expene of the undertanding, uch weak beings mut be retrained by arbitrary means, and be ubjected to continual conflicts; but give their activity of mind a wider range, and nobler paions and motives will govern their appetites and entiments. 'The&ensp;