at that time have thought it a great presumption to claim any share
in the king's sovereign authority. The case of women is now the only
case in which to rebel against established rules is still looked upon
with the same eyes as was formerly a subject's claim to the right of
rebelling against his king. A woman who joins in any movement which
her husband disapproves, makes herself a martyr, without even being
able to be an apostle, for the husband can legally put a stop to her
apostleship. Women cannot be expected to devote themselves to the
emancipation of women, until men in considerable number are prepared
to join with them in the undertaking.

[Footnote 1: Especially is this true if we take into consideration
Asia as well as Europe. If a Hindoo principality is strongly,
vigilantly, and economically governed; if order is preserved without
oppression; if cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous,
in three cases out of four that principality is under a woman's rule.
This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have collected from a
long official knowledge of Hindoo governments. There are many such
instances: for though, by Hindoo institutions, a woman cannot reign,
she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir;
and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so
often prematurely terminated through the effect of inactivity and
sensual excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never
been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their
own family except from behind a curtain, that they do not read, and
if they did, there is no book in their languages which can give them
the smallest instruction on political affairs; the example they
afford of the natural capacity of women for government is very
striking.]

[Footnote 2: "It appears to be the same right turn of mind which
enables a man to acquire the _truth_, or the just idea of what is
right, in the ornaments, as in the more stable principles of art. It
has still the same centre of perfection, though it is the centre of a
smaller circle.--To illustrate this by the fashion of dress, in which
there is allowed to be a good or bad taste. The component parts of
dress are continually changing from great to little, from short to
long; but the general form still remains: it is still the same
general dress which is comparatively fixed, though on a very slender
foundation; but it is on this which fashion