It was not only that, from one generation to another, woman was without encouragement to use her higher mental qualities—that her life was lacking in the stimulus of emulation so far as they were concerned, that her own particular trade made very few demands upon them. As if these things in themselves were not discouragement enough, she was directly forbidden to cultivate the small share of intellect she was understood to possess. Science was closed to her and art degraded to a series of “parlor tricks.” It was not enough that she should be debarred from material possessions; from possessions that were not material, from the things of the spirit, she must be debarred as well. Nothing more plainly illustrates the fact that man has always regarded her as existing not for herself and for her own benefit, but for his use and pleasure solely. His use for her was the gratification of his own desire, the menial services she rendered without payment; his pleasure was in her flesh, not in her spirit; therefore the things of the spirit were not for her.
One wonders what it has meant for the race—this persistent desire of the man to despise his wife, this economic need of countless women to arrest their mental growth? It has amounted to this—that one of the principal qualifications for motherhood has been a low standard of intelligence. We hear a very great deal about the beauty and sanctity of motherhood; we might, for a change, hear something about the degradation thereof—which has been very real. To stunt one’s brain in order that one may bear a son does not seem to me a process essentially sacred or noble in itself; yet millions of mothers have instructed their daughters in foolishness so that they, in their turn, might please, marry and bear children. Most of those daughters, no doubt—humanity being in the main slothful and indifferent—endured the process with equanimity; but there must always have been some, and those not the least worthy, who suffered piteously under the systematic thwarting of definite instincts and vague ambitions. In every generation there must have been women who desired life at first hand, and in whom the crushing of initiative and inquiry and the substitution of servile for independent qualities, must have caused infinite misery. In every generation there must have been women who had something to give to those who lived outside the narrowing walls of their home; and who were not permitted to give it. They soured and stifled; but they were not permitted to give it.