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for them.

It is just matter of surprise to find a philosopher so judicious in other
respects, openly combating the most common and most natural maxims of
modesty and decency, virtues which are the principal ornament of the
female sex, and insisting so strongly upon a principle, sufficiently
confuted by the constant practice of all ages, and of almost all nations
in the world.

Aristotle, wiser in this than his master Plato, without doing the least
injustice to the real merit and essential qualities of the sex, has with
great judgment marked(1002) out the different ends to which man and woman
are ordained, from the different qualities of body and mind, wherewith
they are endowed by the Author of nature, who has given the one strength
of body and intrepidity of mind to enable him to undergo the greatest
hardships, and face the most imminent dangers; whilst the other, on the
contrary, is of a weak and delicate constitution, accompanied with a
natural softness and modest timidity, which render her more fit for a
sedentary life, and dispose her to keep within the precincts of the house,
and to employ herself in the concerns of prudent and industrious economy.

Xenophon is of the same opinion with Aristotle;(1003) and in order to set
off the occupation of the wife, who confines herself within her house,
agreeably compares her to the mother-bee, commonly called the queen-bee,
who alone governs and has the superintendence of the whole hive, who
distributes all their employments, encourages their industry, presides
over the building of their little cells, takes care of the nourishment and
subsistence of her numerous family; regulates the quantity of honey
appointed for that purpose, and at fixed and proper seasons sends abroad
the new swarms in colonies, to ease and disburthen the hive of its
superfluous inhabitants. He remarks, with Aristotle, the difference of
constitution and inclinations, designedly made by the Author of nature
between man and woman, to point out to each of them their proper and
peculiar offices and functions.

This allotment, far from degrading or lessening the woman, is really for
her advantage and honour, in confiding to her a kind of domestic empire
and government, administered only by gentleness, reason, equity, and good
nature; and in giving her frequent occasions of concealing the most
valuable and excellent qualities under the inestimable veil of modesty and
submission. For it must ingenuousl