Silence Dogood, No. 5
I shall here present your Readers with a Letter
from one, who informs me that I have begun at the wrong End of my
Business, and that I ought to begin at Home, and censure the Vices
and Follies of my own Sex, before I venture to meddle with your’s:
Nevertheless, I am resolved to dedicate this Speculation to the
Fair Tribe, and endeavour to show, that Mr. Ephraim charges Women
with being particularly guilty of Pride, Idleness, &c.
wrongfully, inasmuch as the Men have not only as great a Share in
those Vices as the Women, but are likewise in a great Measure the
Cause of that which the Women are guilty of. I think it will be
best to produce my Antagonist, before I encounter him.
To Mrs. Dogood.
“My Design in troubling you with this Letter
is, to desire you would begin with your own Sex first: Let the
first Volley of your Resentments be directed against Female
Vice; let Female Idleness, Ignorance and Folly, (which are Vices
more peculiar to your Sex than to our’s,) be the Subject of your
Satyrs, but more especially Female Pride, which I think is
intollerable. Here is a large Field that wants Cultivation, and
which I believe you are able (if willing) to improve with
Advantage; and when you have once reformed the Women, you will find
it a much easier Task to reform the Men, because Women are the
prime Causes of a great many Male Enormities. This is all at
present from Your Friendly Wellwisher,
After Thanks to my Correspondent for his
Kindness in cutting out Work for me, I must assure him, that I find
it a very difficult Matter to reprove Women separate from the Men;
for what Vice is there in which the Men have not as great a Share
as the Women? and in some have they not a far greater, as in
Drunkenness, Swearing, &c.? And if they have, then it follows,
that when a Vice is to be reproved, Men, who are most culpable,
deserve the most Reprehension, and certainly therefore, ought to
have it. But we will wave this Point at present, and proceed to a
particular Consideration of what my Correspondent calls Female
Vice.
As for Idleness, if I should Quaere, Where are
the greatest Number of its Votaries to be found, with us or the
Men? it might I believe be easily and truly answer’d, With the
latter. For notwithstanding the Men are commonly complaining
how hard they are forc’d to labour, only to maintain their Wives in
Pomp and Idleness, yet if you go among the Women, you will learn,
that they have always more Work upon their Hands than they are
able to do; and that a Woman’s Work is never done,
&c. But however, Suppose we should grant for once, that we are
generally more idle than the Men, (without making any Allowance for
the Weakness of the Sex,) I desire to know whose
Fault it is? Are not the Men to blame for their Folly in
maintaining us in Idleness? Who is there that can be handsomely
Supported in Affluence, Ease and Pleasure by another, that will
chuse rather to earn his Bread by the Sweat of his own Brows? And
if a Man will be so fond and so foolish, as to labour hard himself
for a Livelihood, and suffer his Wife in the mean Time to sit in
Ease and Idleness, let him not blame her if she does so, for it is
in a great Measure his own Fault.
And now for the Ignorance and Folly which he
reproaches us with, let us see (if we are Fools and Ignoramus’s)
whose is the Fault, the Men’s or our’s. An ingenious Writer, having
this Subject in Hand, has the following Words, wherein he lays the
Fault wholly on the Men, for not allowing Women the Advantages of
Education.
“I have (says he) often thought of it as one of
the most barbarous Customs in the World, considering us as a
civiliz’d and Christian Country, that we deny the Advantages of
Learning to Women. We reproach the Sex every Day with Folly and
Impertinence, while I am confident, had they the Advantages of
Education equal to us, they would be guilty of less than our
selves. One would wonder indeed how it should happen that Women are
conversible at all, since they are only beholding to natural Parts
for all their Knowledge. Their Youth is spent to teach them to
stitch and sew, or make Baubles: They are taught to read indeed,
and perhaps to write their Names, or so; and that is the Heighth of
a Womans Education. And I would but ask any who slight the Sex for
their Understanding, What is a Man (a Gentleman, I mean) good for
that is taught no more? If Knowledge and Understanding had been
useless Additions to the Sex, God Almighty would never have given
them Capacities, for he made nothing Needless. What has the Woman
done to forfeit the Priviledge of being taught? Does she plague us
with her Pride and Impertinence? Why did we not let her learn, that
she might have had more Wit? Shall we upbraid Women with Folly,
when ’tis only the Error of this inhumane Custom that hindred them
being made wiser.”
So much for Female Ignorance and Folly, and now
let us a little consider the Pride which my Correspondent thinks is
intollerable. By this Expression of his, one would think he
is some dejected Swain, tyranniz’d over by some cruel haughty
Nymph, who (perhaps he thinks) has no more Reason to be proud than
himself. Alas-a-day! What shall we say in this Case! Why
truly, if Women are proud, it is certainly owing to the Men still;
for if they will be such Simpletons as to humble themselves
at their Feet, and fill their credulous Ears with extravagant
Praises of their Wit, Beauty, and other Accomplishments (perhaps
where there are none too,) and when Women are by this Means
perswaded that they are Something more than humane, what Wonder is
it, if they carry themselves haughtily, and live extravagantly.
Notwithstanding, I believe there are more Instances of extravagant
Pride to be found among Men than among Women, and this Fault is
certainly more hainous in the former than in the latter.
Upon the whole, I conclude, that it will be
impossible to lash any Vice, of which the Men are not equally
guilty with the Women, and consequently deserve an equal (if not a
greater) Share in the Censure. However, I exhort both to amend,
where both are culpable, otherwise they may expect to be severely
handled by Sir, Your Humble Servant,