lied, that though in some respects it was as I had said, yet I
ought to consider that, as an equivalent to this, the man had all the
care of things devolved upon him; that the weight of business lay upon
his shoulders, and as he had the trust, so he had the toil of life upon
him; his was the labour, his the anxiety of living; that the woman had
nothing to do but to eat the fat and drink the sweet; to sit still and
look around her, be waited on and made much of, be served and loved and
made easy, especially if the husband acted as became him; and that, in
general, the labour of the man was appointed to make the woman live
quiet and unconcerned in the world; that they had the name of subjection
without the thing; and if in inferior families they had the drudgery of
the house and care of the provisions upon them, yet they had indeed much
the easier part; for, in general, the women had only the care of
managing--that is, spending what their husbands get; and that a woman
had the name of subjection, indeed, but that they generally commanded,
not the men only, but all they had; managed all for themselves; and
where the man did his duty, the woman's life was all ease and
tranquillity, and that she had nothing to do but to be easy, and to make
all that were about her both easy and merry.

I returned, that while a woman was single, she was a masculine in her
politic capacity; that she had then the full command of what she had,
and the full direction of what she did; that she was a man in her
separate capacity, to all intents and purposes that a man could be so to
himself; that she was controlled by none, because accountable to none,
and was in subjection to none. So I sung these two lines of Mr. ----'s:--

"Oh! 'tis pleasant to be free,
The sweetest Miss is Liberty."

I added, that whoever the woman was that had an estate, and would give
it up to be the slave of a great man, that woman was a fool, and must be
fit for nothing but a beggar; that it was my opinion a woman was as fit
to govern and enjoy her own estate without a man as a man was without a
woman; and that, if she had a mind to gratify herself as to sexes, she
might entertain a man as a man does a mistress; that while she was thus
single she was her own, and if she gave away that power she merited to
be as miserable as it was possible that any creature could be.

All he could say could not answer the force of this as to argument;
only this, that the other wa