el 
SEGUR ON THE CONDITION AND INFLUENCE OF WOMEN. 
who, in all ages, and all countries, are ac- 
cused of having kept them in subjection, 
by keeping them in ignorance. How- 
ever we may ridicule certain absurdities 
in the schemes and suggestions of these 
visionary reformers, some of their hints 
are worthy of attention, and have been 
attended to. Whether the female mind 
is capable of those eagle flights into the 
regions of philosophy and science, which 
a Bacon and a Newton took, is a ques- 
tion scarcely worth the trouble of de- 
bating ; a thousand instances have al- 
ready been adduced by various writers, 
to disprove the mental inferiority of fe- 
males, aad it is universally acknowledg- 
ed, that their minds are capable of inti- 
nitely higher cultivation than it has 
usually been their lot to receive. 
The affections of the female are far 
stronger and more lively than those of 
our sex; the thousand instances of their 
heroic conduct during the French revo- 
lution, have settled this fact forever. No 
personal fatigue could overcome them, 
no personal danger could for one instant 
deter them from seeking in the foulest 
dungeons, the father or the child, the 
husband, or the lover. Months after 
months have they been known to secrete 
from revolutionary vengeance, some ob- 
ject of their affection, when the discovery 
~ of the concealment would have been in- 
evitable and immediate death. Were a 
friend arrested, their ingenuity never re- 
laxed a moment in contrivances for his 
escape: were he naked, they clothed 
“him; were he hungry, they fed him; 
were he sick, they visited him ; and, when 
all efforts were unavailing for his deli- 
verance, often did they infuse into his 
sinking soul, their own courage to meet 
death with fortitude, and even with 
cheerfulness. In infancy they nourish 
us, in old age they cherish and console 
us; and on the bed of sickness, the ex- 
quisite delicacy of their attentions, the 
avatchings they will undergo without a 
_tmaurmur, the fretting querulousness they 
will bear with complacency, the offensive, 
the nauseous offices which they are at all 
times ready to perform, demand from us 
more than every return of attachment, 
kindness, and gratitude, which it is in 
our power to confer. 
These qualities are not the offspring 
of civilization; they are characteristic 
of the sex, and proudly distinguish it in 
every quarter of the globe. This is that 
excelling beauty which nature gives to 
woman, m ample recompense for infe- 
663 
rior deprivations; this is that beauty 
which indeed turns the edge of the 
sword, and makes the spear fall point- 
less. Every traveller through inhospita- 
ble wilds and pathless deserts, confirms 
. the grateful testimony of Ledyard to the 
compassion, and sympathy, and tender- 
ness of woman, and authorises us to esti- 
mate the degree of civilization in an 
country, by the degree of respect an 
kindness which the female sex receives. 
M. Segur begins his work by consi- 
dering the state of women in the age of 
the patriarchs, and illustrates the cus- 
toms of these ancient shepherds, by the 
marriages ef Jacob with the daughters 
of Laban. He then proceeds to their 
situation among the /gyptians and 
Chinese, the most early civilized people 
in the world: among the former, not- 
withstanding the climate, females were 
extricated from their bondage sooner 
than in the neighbouring countries ; the 
customs of the Chinese are as immutable 
as the laws of the Medes and the Persians, 
and they are scarcely less jealous of their 
females at the present day than they 
were in the remotest antiquity. The 
Egyptians used great care in formin 
the minds of their daughters; the Chi- 
nese, on the contrary, have always left 
them in a state of ignorance, well adapt- 
ed for that obscurity to which their ex- 
cessive jealohsy would confine them.— 
Idolaters of beauty, the Chinese are for 
ever at the feet of the beings whom they 
persecute.” Authors, however, differ 
so much in their accounts, as to the situa- 
tion of women in ancient Egypt, that it 
is not safe to draw any positive conclu- 
‘sions concerning them. $ 
* Greece was broken into small repub- 
lics, and the state of the women varied 
according to the precepts of moralists 
and the decrees of legislators : in Athens, 
while matrons were confined to domés- 
tic offices, and were guarded from the 
eyes of men, moralists, legislators, and 
orators, alike bowed to the graces and 
accomplishments of an Aspasia. ‘The 
severe laws of Lycurgus inured women 
to athletic exercises, and by exposing 
their beauties without the disguise of 
dress, he flattered himself that youn 
men would resist the fascination to ‘which 
they yielded, where concealment gave 
an edge to desire. 
Women obtained considerable defer- 
ence in Rome, during the early ages of 
the republic; 2 Roman matron gives 
us, to this day, an idea of every thing, 
Uy 
