Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/65

Rh In order to fulfil the duties of life, and to be able to purue with vigour the various employments which form the moral character, a mater and mitres of a family ought not to continue to love each other with paion. I mean to ay, that they ought not to indulge thoe emotions which diturb the order of ociety, and engros the thoughts that hould be otherwie employed. The mind that has never been engroed by one object wants vigour—if it can long be o, it is weak.

A mitaken education, a narrow, uncultivated mind, and many exual prejudices, tend to make women more contant than men; but, for the preent, I hall not touch on this branch of the ubject. I will go till further, and advance, without dreaming of a paradox, that an unhappy marriage is often very advantageous to a family, and that the neglected wife is, in general, the bet mother. And this would almot always be the conequence if the female mind was more enlarged: for, it eems to be the common dipenation of Providence, that what we gain in preent enjoyment hould be deducted from the treaure of life, experience; and that when we are gathering the flowers of the day and revelling in pleaure, the olid fruit of toil and widom hould not be caught at the ame time. The way lies before us, we mut turn to the right or left; and he who will pas life away in bounding from one pleaure to another, mut not complain if he neither acquires widom nor repectability of character. Suppoing,&ensp;