" And again: "One mother is more venerable than a
thousand fathers." But knowing what stormy and irrational elements there
are in this fragile and delightful creature, Manou concludes: "At no age
ought a woman to be allowed to govern herself as she pleases."
Up to the present day, in several contemporary and neighboring codes, a
woman is a minor all her life. Why? Because of her dependence upon
nature, and of her subjection to passions which are the diminutives of
madness; in other words, because the soul of a woman has something
obscure and mysterious in it, which lends itself to all superstitions
and weakens the energies of man. To man belong law, justice, science,
and philosophy, all that is disinterested, universal, and rational.
Women, on the contrary, introduce into everything favor, exception, and
personal prejudice. As soon as a man, a people, a literature, an epoch,
become feminine in type, they sink in the scale of things. As soon as a
woman quits the state of subordination in which her merits have free
play, we see a rapid increase in her natural defects. Complete equality
with man makes her quarrelsome; a position of supremacy makes her
tyrannical. To honor her and to govern her will be for a long time yet
the best solution. When education has formed strong, noble, and serious
women in whom conscience and reason hold sway over the effervescence of
fancy and sentimentality, then we shall be able not only to honor woman,
but to make a serious end of gaining her consent and adhesion.
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