But that they should be entitled to any part of our esteem for nursing the
children they bring forth for their pleasure, I see nothing in it.
What is it they do for infants which would not be much better done by the
men, if they were not called away from that meaner task to provide for the
safety and sustenance of them and their mothers?
Indeed they may save the expense of milk, which we cannot: but how much
more cheaply might this defect be supplied from a cow, a goat, or an ass than
from them?
And how few women of any condition in life have economy enough to save us
this superfluous expense! Too delicate themselves, to bestow on the fruits of
their own bowels the nutriment which heaven and nature design them, don't
they force us to hire a mercenary wretch, to starve her own babe to give
suck to ours? Pretty nurses indeed! Happy for man that the life of an infant
does not entirely depend on the liberality of woman in this particular!
And how much happier would it not be for all infants, were they snatched
from the arms of the women, in the instant they are born!
How much more healthy, wise, and comely would they grow! For 'tis notorious
that the longer a child sucks the more weakly and stupid it turns out; and that
those which suck at all are never so wise, so strong or well-formed as those
which are brought up by hand. The reason is plain: with the milk they suck in,
they generally imbibe a tincture of the follies, passions, and imbecillities of that
sex, besides having their various distempers entailed upon them.
However, as this is a means of humiliation pointed out to us by Nature, we are
not to condemn it, but to apply to it, when not to be avoided without danger to
the infant. The greater mischief is that which comes from the weakness of
woman in their manner of educating it.
With what innumerable follies, vices, and impertinencies do they not fill
children's heads, by their example and precepts, during the time of their
nursing them! To what secret crimes do they often make them privy; and to
what fanciful inconsistencies do they not publicly expose and encourage
them!
I can forgive a mother for putting a doll into the hands of her daughters
as soon as they are able to hold it. As the great end of their semi-creation
is the getting of children, it may not be absolutely improper to forward their
natural propensity to that duty, while they are but children themselves.
But for this diligence in an industrious parent, here and there one of them
might be so awkwardly innocent as not to know the essential difference of
her own sex from the opposite, till the period of her passing from a maid to a
mother.
Whereas, by this and other helps they are generally supplied with, they are
often as well versed as the most skilful matron, in the theory, if not in the
practical knowledge of propogation, long before they are ripe for the fruits of it.
A very useful science to some young Ladies, who have been able to instruct
an ignorant booby of a husband in the sacred and secret rites of wedlock,
in a much more familiar manner than the modest Albertus could pretend to.
But I can by no means be reconciled to their training up our boys, as they do,
from their earliest infancy, to folly, foppery, effeminacy, and vice. If little
master must be humoured into pride, idleness, or mischief; why should he be
taught to lie, cajole, dissemble to all above him, and domineer over all beneath
him?
If it is thought so necessary to acquaint him with the greatness of his birth
and fortune, with the handsomness of his person, or the acuteness of his
understanding, or any advantages he possesses above others designed by
Nature for his equals;
why must be he taught to make no better use of them than to disregard the
authority of those above him, to envy his equals, to despise his inferiors,
and render himself the contempt of all who know him, by an unlimited
gratification of his lawless passions? Let his fond, foolish mother think it
wonderfully pretty to initiate the little urchin in the mystery of intriguing
with the little miffes of his companions:
but let her not expose him to the danger of practising those intrigues in
her absence, by abandoning him to the corrupt company of the wanton
wenches, her servants.
And yet how many of our youth, by such shocking education, have been
utterly debauched at an age when we could scarce think it possible for
them to have parted with innocence! Have we not then the greatest
reason to esteem and revere that sex on account of the obligations we
have to them for our early advances in the knowledge of good and evil?
Must not we be lost to all reason, if we are not pleased with these eminent
services which the pretty creatures are so industrious to do us?
Or if not; must not Sophia be lost to all shame, should she again repeat
without a blush that what she has so inconsiderately advanced "that
their office of nursing our children entitles them to the first place in civil
society?" If I had a mind to be severe, I could tell them, that it is owing to our
own generosity that we give them any place at all; and that nothing, but the
want of power to annihilate them, or to create a lower degree for them, can
excuse our leaving them in possession even of the lowest place in society.
But I choose to drop a subject so much the more disagreeable as we are daily
made sensible of the truth of it. I shall therefore immediately pass to another
consideration.
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