Page:Vindication Women's Rights (Wollstonecraft).djvu/262

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256
VINDICATION OF THE

But, to render her really virtuous and uſeful, ſhe muſt not, if ſhe diſcharge her civil duties, want, individually, the protection of civil laws; ſhe muſt not be dependent on her huſband's bounty for her ſubſiſtence during his life, or ſupport after his death—for how can a being be generous who has nothing of its own? or, virtuous, who is not free? The wife, in the preſent ſtate of things, who is faithful to her huſband, and neither ſuckles nor educates her children, ſcarcely deſerves the name of a wife, and has no right to that of a citizen. But take away natural rights, and there is of courſe an end of duties.

Women thus infallibly become only the wanton ſolace of men, when they are ſo weak in mind and body, that they cannot exert themſelves, unleſs to purſue ſome frothy pleaſure, or to invent ſome frivolous faſhion. What can be a more melancholy ſight to a thinking mind, than to look into the numerous carriages that drive helter-ſkelter about this metropolis in a morning full of pale-faced creatures who are flying from themſelves. I have often wiſhed, with Dr. Johnſon, to place ſome of them in a little ſhop with half a dozen children looking up to their languid countenances for ſupport. I am much miſtaken, if ſome latent vigour would not ſoon give health and ſpirit to their eyes, and ſome lines drawn by the exerciſe of reaſon on the blank cheeks, which before were only undulated by dimples, might reſtore loſt dignity to the character, or rather enable it to attain the true dignity of its nature. Virtue is not to be acquired even by ſpeculation, much leſs by the negative ſupineneſs that wealth naturally generates.

Beſides,