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    A Political and Social Anomaly . 641

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    No . 69 , 2 Z

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    success in them , women are only educated to get married . That is the last chapter of the romance of their lives : there end the cares of the parent , the responsibilities of the governess , the exertions of the heroine , and the interest of the spectator . Their thoughts , acquirements , manners , ( we speak of the generality , ) have all this aim , or they are utterly aimless . Occupation , which is a man ' s ohject in existence , and the preparation for which developes his faculties , so far as they are developed , is onlv the

    dernier ressort of woman . Hence an imperfect character , factitious manners , and a false morality . We understand not why one-half «• of the community should have no other destiny than irremediable dependence upon the other half ; as long as women have nothing in the world to look to but marriage , they cannot become qualified , in the best manner , for a married life ; so long as the modes in

    which property is inherited , acquired , and distributed , leave them in utter dependence , they can never , in that institution , treat or be treated as independent parties , making a fair and equal contract for mutual benefit . Under the present order of things , a large proportion of them must remain as they are , fools to be cajoled , toys to be sported with , slaves to be commanded , and in ignorant pride that they are so , boasting that they know nothing , and care nothing , of matters which it behoves every rational being to have some acquaintance with , and about which every rational being should feel deeply interested . Meanwhile purer and loftier spirits

    will brood over the destiny which they cannot change , and which only the slow revolution of opinions , laws , and habits can improve , till something of bitterness will blend with their benevolence ; they will be impatient of having lived before their time ; and , in the indignant contemplation of petty despotism and slavery , be sometimes apt to forget that both are sacrificing to their common ignorance , errors , and prejudices , a large portion of what might be their common happiness .

    Now , as we before remarked , it does seem to us an egregious political anomaly that woman should be capable of inheriting the highest dignity , and filling the most important office known to this mighty empire , and yet be disqualified by her sex alone , notwithstanding her ample possession of every other requisite which the law demands , from discharging the humblest , simplest , and most elementary duty of civil life , the exercise of the elective franchise . But we do not attach any particular importance to

    the continuance or the cessation of this apparent absurdity . It is only one form of a far deeper and more extensive social anomaly . The condition of woman is full of incongruities . A description of it would be a tissue of antitheses ; of which the last and worst would be , that the sex would not fail to sacrifice the individual woman who should devote herself to its amelioration . Subordinate and helpless as they are , what might not women do for themselves and for mankind , could their spirit but be roused for the task ?

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Sept. 2, 1832, page 641, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1820/page/65/