Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/80

74 But, if trength of body be, with ome hew of reaon, the boat of men, why are women o infatuated as to be proud of a defect? Roueau has furnihed them with a plauible excue, which could only have occurred to a man, whoe imagination had been allowed to run wild, and refine on the impreions made by exquiite enes;—that they might, forooth, have a pretext for yielding to a natural appetite without violating a romantic pecies of modety, which gratifies the pride and libertinim of man.

Women, deluded by thee entiments, ometimes boat of their weaknes, cunningly obtaining power by playing on the weaknes of men; and they may well glory in their illicit way, for, like Turkih bahaws, they have more real power than their maters: but virtue is acrificed to temporary gratifications, and the repectability of life to the triumph of an hour.

Women, as well as depots have now, perhaps, more power than they would have if the world, divided and ubdivided into kingdoms and families, was governed by laws deduced from the exercie of reaon; but in obtaining it, to carry on the comparion, their character is degraded, and licentiounes pread through the whole aggregate of ociety. The many become pedetal to the few. I, therefore, will venture to aert, that till women are more rationally educated, the progres of human virtue and improvement in knowledge mut receive continual checks. And if it be granted that woman was not created merely to gratify the appetite of man, nor to be the upper ervant, who provides his meals and takes care of his&ensp;