Post
Rousseau writes that Sophie β the ideal woman in Emile β should be educated to please, to be useful, to make herself loved and honoured, to educate her children, to care for their father, to advise, to console, to render life agreeable and sweet. I have read this passage many times. Each time I find it more extraordinary. The man who wrote the most important theory of human freedom and natural goodness spent an entire volume explaining why this freedom and goodness do not apply to half of humanity.
The whole education of women ought to be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to make themselves loved and honoured by them, to educate them when young, to care for them when grown, to counsel them, to console them, and to make life agreeable and sweet to them β these are the duties of women at all times.
β Emile, or On Education, Book V (1762)β A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Chapter V (1792)
18th Century