Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	woman_n	world_n	young_a	200	3	6.3135	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55529	The woman as good as the man, or, The equallity of both sexes written originally in French and translated into English by A.L.; De l'égalité des deux sexes. English. 1677	Poulain de La Barre, François, 1647-1723.; A. L.	1677 (1677)	Wing P3038; ESTC R35373	70,496	218

from us I confess there are some Sciences of which Women are not at all heard speak because they are not the Sciences of ordinary Vent nor Society Alegebra Geometry and the Opticks never or rarely leave Studies and Learned Academies to come into the Croud And as their greatest use is to give just Measures to our Thoughts they ought not to appear in ordinary Converse but secretly like hidden Springs that move and make great Machins Play my Meaning is that we should make such Application of them in the Subjects of Converse and Entertainment as to think and speak truly and Geometrically without making great shew of our Art All these Observations on the Qualities of the Mind may be easily gathered amongst VVomen of a middle Condition But if we advance as far as the Court and be admitted into the Entertainments of Ladies there is quite another thing to be Remarked It seems that their Genius is Naturally suited to their Quality their Quaintness and polite Discerning speaks a frame of Spirit delicate fine and easie and some-what Great and Noble which is their own We may say that Objects like Men approach them with Respect they alwayes see them in their best Dresse and speak of them with an Air beyond the Common In a word show a Man that has a taste two Letters of Ladies of a different Rank and he shall easily know which of them is Highest in Quality How many Ladies have there been and how many are there still who ought to be placed amongst the number of the Learned if we assigne them not a Higher Sphear The Age wherein we live hath produced more of these than all the past And as they have in all things run parallel with Men upon some Particular Reasons they ought more to be esteemed than they For it behoved them to surmount the Softness wherein their Sex is bred renounce the Pleasures and ness to which Custom had condemned them overcome certain publick Impediments that removed them from study and to get above those disadvantagious Notions which the Vulgar conceive of the Learned besides those of their own Sex in general All this they have performed And whether it be that these Difficulties have rendred their Wit more quick and penetrating or that these Qualities are the peculiar of their Nature they have proportionably made Progress and Advancements beyond Men. It may be said nevertheless without diminishing the Sentiments which are due to such famous Ladies that it is occasion and External means which hath advanced them to this State as well as the more Learned amongst us and that there are infinite numbers of Women which could have done no less had their Advantages been Equal And seeing it is great Injustice to believe that all Women are Indiscreet because we know five or six to be so we ought also to be so equitable as to judge their Sex capable of Sciences since we see many that have raised themselves to a perfection therein It is commonly believed amongst us that Turks Barbarians and wild Savages are not so proper for learning as the people of Europe though it be certain that if we found five or six of them here that had the capacity or title of Doctor which is not at all impossible they would correct our opinion and confess that these being men like to our selves they are capable of the same things and that if they had been taught they would not have yeilded to us in the least The Women with whom we live deserve surely as much as Barbarians and Savages to oblige us to entertain thoughts no less reasonable or advantagious for them But if the head-strong vulgar notwithstanding these observations will still stand upon it that the VVomen are not so fit for Arts and Sciences as we are they ought at least to acknowledge that they have less need of them For it is for two ends that we apply our selves to Learning The one that we may attain to a true knowledge of the objects of our Sciences and the other that by such knowledge we may rise to virtue So that in this our short life Knowledge being but the hand-Maid to Vertue and the Women in possession of this we may conclude that by a particular happiness they have gained the principal advantages of Sciences without having ever taken the pains to study them What we see daily is sufficient to convince us that they are no less Christians than men They receive the Gospell with Simplicity and Humility and in following the Rules and Maxims thereof are exemplary Their reverence towards Religion hath alwayes appeared so great that they are esteemed without contradiction more devout and pious than we or though it be true that their worship sometimes goes too far yet therein I cannot find them so culpable since the ignorance wherein they have been bred is the necessary cause of that excess If their Zeale be undiscreet their Perswasion is at least true And we may affirm that if they had a clearer sight of Vertue they would embrace it after another manner since they cleave to it so fast even through obscurity and darkness it self It seems that mercy and compassion which is the Vertue of the Gospel is in love with their Sex The calamity of their Neighbour no sooner touches their mind but it pierces their heart and brings teares in their eyes Is it not their hands that in publick afflictions distribute the largest Charity And is it not at this day the Ladys that take the particular care of the poor and sick in the parishes visit them in prisons and serve them in the Hospitals Is it not these Religious Nuns dispersed in every quarter who have the charge at certain hours of the day to carry to such their food and necessary remedies and have thereby deserved the name of that Charity which they have so worthily practised In fine If there were no other Women in the world that discharged this Vertue towards their Neighbours but those who attend the sick in that great Hospital the L'Hotel-Di●u of Paris I cannot think that with Justice men could pretend to the advantage above their Sex therein These are properly the Virgins with whom the Galleries of the Illustrious and Noble Women ought to be enriched Of their life it is that we should sing the highest Elogies and honour their death with the most excellent Panegyricks Since here it is that we may see the Christian Religion that is to say truly Heroicke Vertue practised up to the rigour both in it's precepts and counsels by young Virgins who Renouncing the World and themselves embrace a perpetual Chastity and Poverty take their Cross and that the most heavy Cross of the world and render themselves for the rest of their dayes under the Yoak of Jesus Christ VVho Consecrate themselves to an Hospital where the inffirm of all sorts of all countreys and Religions are indifferently received there to serve all without distinction and to change themselves

and America use their Wives as we do our Serving-Maids They are no where imployed in any thing but that which is esteemed low and base And because they only discharge the lesser care of Hus-wivery and Nurses Men commonly perswade themselves that for that end alone they are in the World and that they are uncapable of any thing else They cannot easily represent to themselves how matters could be other-wayes it appearing impossible to alter them what endeavour soever be used The wisest Law-givers in founding their Common-Wealths have established nothing on this Account in favour of Women All their Laws seem only to have been made to confirm Men in the Possession they have got Most part of Men who have passed for Learned have not said any thing to the advantage of Women And the Conduct of Men in all Ages and Places of the World appears so uniform in this case that it seems they have conspired or other-wayes as many imagine have been led thereunto by a secret Instinct that is to say Letters-Patent from the Author of Nature Men are still the more perswaded in this when they consider in what manner the Women themselves support this their Condition They look upon it as a thing natural to them whether it be that they reflect not upon what they are or that being born and bred in dependence they make the same Judgment thereon as Men do Now upon all these views the one and the other let themselves believe both That their Spirits are as different as their Bodies and that there ought to be as great distinction betwixt the two Sexes in all the Functions of Life as there is in those which are peculiar to either Whil'st in the mean-time that perswasion like the most part of those which we draw from Use and Custom is nothing but Prejudice formed in us by the appearances of things for want of closer Examination and of which we might easily undeceive our selves if we would but take the pains to return back to the Fountain-head and judge in many Occurrencies of that which hath been done in former times by what is practised at this day and of the Custom of the Antients by what we see in Vogue in our own times Had Men followed this Rule in many of their Sentiments they had not so easily fallen into mistakes And as to what concerns the present state of Women they would have acknowledged that they have not been subjected by any other Law than that of the stronger and that it hath not been for want of Natural Capacity or Merit that they have not shared with us in that which raises our Sex above theirs Indeed when we consider seriously the Affairs of this World both past and present we find that all agree in this That Reason hath alwayes been the weakest And it seems that Histories have only been composed to Demonstrate that which every one sees in his own time That ever since there hath been Men in the World force hath alwayes prevailed The greatest Empires of Asia in their beginnings have been the work of Usurpers and Thieves And the scattered Wracks of the Grecian and Roman Monarchies have not been gathered but by those who thought themselves strong enough to resist their Masters and domineer over their Equals This Conduct is no less visible in all other Societies And if Men behave themselves so towards their Fellows there is great likely-hood from stronger Reason That in the beginning they have done so every one towards his Wife And this is almost the manner how it hath happened Men observing that they were the stronger and that in relation of Sex they had some advantage of Body fancyed that they had the same in all the Consequence was not great for Women in the beginning of the World Affairs being in a Condition far different from what now they are when neither Government Science Office nor Religion were established the Notion of Dependence had in it nothing at all of Irksome I Imagine that Men lived then like little Children and all the Advantage that was was like that of Play Men and Women who then were simple and innocent were equally employed in labouring of the Land or Hunting as the Wild Indians do at this day The Man took his Course and the Woman her's And they that brought Home most Profit were commonly most esteemed The Inconveniencies that attend and follow the big-Belly weakening the Strength of the Female for some Intervenal of time and hindering them to labour as formerly required necessarily the Assistance of their Husbands and the more still whil'st they were taken up with the care of their young Children This produced some Regards of Esteem and Preferrence in Families which then were only composed of Father Mother and some little Babes But when Families began to be enlarged and that in the same House lived not only the Father but the Father's Mother the Children's Children with Brothers and Sisters Elder and younger Then did Dependence dilate it self and become more sensible Then was to be seen the Mistriss submitting to her Husband the Son honouring his Father and he commanding his Children And as it is most difficult for Brothers alwayes perfectly to agree we may easily conceive that they lived not long together before that some Difference hapned amongst them The Elder stronger than the rest would condescend to them in nothing So Force obliged the Lesser to bow under the Greater and the Daughters to follow the Example of their Mother It is easie to be imagined that in such Families there were then several different Functions That the Women being bound to stay at Home to bring up their Children took the Care within Doors The Men more free and strong charged themselves with the Affairs abroad and that after the Death of the Father and Mother the First-Born took upon him the Government The Daughters accustomed to the House had no thoughts of going abroad but some Younger Brothers discontented and more fierce than they refusing to submit to the Yoak were obliged to withdraw and set up for themselves And so several of the same Humour meeting together made a shift to live on their Fortunes and easily contracted Friendship VVho finding themselves without Estate sought out means to purchase what they wanted and seeing there was no other way but to take from their Neighbours they fell upon that which came next to hand And to confirm themselves in the Possession of their New Conquests at the same time made themselves Masters of the owners The voluntary Dependence which was before in Families ceased by this Invasion Fathers and Mothers with their Children being constrained to obey an unjust Usurper So that the Condition of VVomen became harder than before For as till then they had never been marryed but to Men of their own House and Family they were afterward forced to take Strangers and unknown Husbands who only considered them as the loveliest part of their Booty It is ordinary with Conquerours