Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/164

158 is fond of home, to be obliged to be always wrapped up in himelf, and to have nobody about him to whom he can impart his entiments.

'Beides, how hould a woman void of reflection be capable of educating her children? How hould he dicern what is proper for them? How hould he incline them to thoe virtues he is unacquainted with, or to that merit of which he has no idea? She can only ooth or chide them; render them inolent or timid; he will make them formal coxcombs, or ignorant blockheads; but will never make them enible or amiable.' How indeed hould he, when her huband is not always at hand to lend her his reaon?—when they both together make but one moral being. A blind will, 'eyes without hands,' would go a very little way; and perchance his abtract reaon, that hould concentrate the cattered beams of her practical reaon, may be employed in judging of the flavour of wine, decanting on the auces mot proper for turtle; or, more profoundly intent at a card-table, he may be generalizing his ideas as he bets away his fortune, leaving all the minutiæ of education to his help-mate or to chance.

But, granting that woman ought to be beautiful, innocent and illy, to render her a more alluring and indulgent companion;—what is her undertanding acrificed for? And why is all this preparation neceary only, according to Roueau's own account, to make her the mitres of her huband, a very hort time? For no man ever inited more on the tranient nature of love. Thus&ensp;