as
masters to us." The doctrine of female inferiority she considers "a
vulgar though ancient error," observing that until very recent ages
the sun was believed to revolve round the earth, and the notion of the
antipodes was "a heresy in philosophy"--that to assert the equality of
the sexes now was no greater paradox than to advocate either of those
theories but a short time ago. "But," she continues, "who shall the
matter be tried by?" and here we suspect she has reached the root of
the difficulty. Both men and women, she admits, are too much
interested to be impartial judges; therefore she appeals to "rectified
reason" as umpire. She considers in order the various claims to
predominance which men have put forward, and confutes them one by one.
"Man concludes that all other creatures were made for him because he
was not created until all were in readiness for him:" even granting
that to be unanswerable, she says it only proves that men were made
for women, and not _vice versa_: "they are our natural drudges.... Men
are magnified because they succeed in taming a tiger, an elephant or
such like animals;" therefore what rank must belong to woman, "who
spends years in training that _fiercer animal_, MAN?" She instances a
journeyman tailor she once saw belabor his wife with a neck of mutton,
"to make her know, as he said, her _sovereign lord and master_. And
this is perhaps as strong an argument as their sex is able to produce,
though conveyed, in a greasy light.... To stoop to regard for the
strutting things is not enough; to humor them more than we could
children with any tolerable decency is too little; they must be
served, forsooth!" It is grievous injustice to Sophia, but one almost
fancies one hears Madame George Sand. She allows that to please man
ought to be part of the sex's business if it were likely to succeed;
"but such is the fanatical composition of their natures that the more
pains is taken in endeavoring to please them, the less generally is
the labor successful; ... and surely _women_ were created by Heaven
for some better end than to labor in vain their whole life long." The
supercilious commendations of men are gall and wormwood to her: "Some,
more condescending, are gracious enough to confess that many _women_
have wit and conduct; but yet they are of opinion that even such of us
as are the most remarkable for either or both still betray something
which speaks the imbecility of our sex." She makes an excel