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INTRODUCTION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 March 2012

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Summary

After considering the historic page, and viewing the living world with anxious solicitude, the most melancholy emotions of sorrowful indignation have depressed my spirits, and I have sighed when obliged to confess, that either nature has made a great difference between man and man, or that the civilization which has hitherto taken place in the world has been very partial. I have turned over various books written on the subject of education, and patiently observed the conduct of parents and the management of schools; but what has been the result?—a profound conviction that the neglected education of my fellow-creatures is the grand source of the misery I deplore; and that women, in particular, are rendered weak and wretched by a variety of concurring causes, originating from one hasty conclusion. The conduct and manners of women, in fact, evidently prove that their minds are not in a healthy state; for, like the flowers which are planted in too rich a soil, strength and usefulness are sacrificed to beauty; and the flaunting leaves, after having pleased a fastidious eye, fade, disregarded on the stalk, long before the season when they ought to have arrived at maturity.—One cause of this barren blooming I attribute to a false system of education, gathered from the books written on this subject by men who, considering females rather as women than human creatures, have been more anxious to make them alluring mistresses than rational wives; and the understanding of the sex has been so bubbled by this specious homage, that the civilized women of the present century, with a few exceptions, are only anxious to inspire: love, when they ought to cherish a nobler ambition a and by their abilities and virtues exact respect.

Type
Chapter
Information
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
With Strictures on Political and Moral Subjects
, pp. 1 - 12
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010
First published in: 1792

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  • INTRODUCTION
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732034.003
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  • INTRODUCTION
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732034.003
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • INTRODUCTION
  • Mary Wollstonecraft
  • Book: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman
  • Online publication: 05 March 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511732034.003
Available formats
×