Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton; Wilton, Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton [Editor]: The art of needle-work from the earliest ages: including some notices of the ancient historical tapestries (London: Henry Colburn Publishers, 1841)

INTRODUCTION.

3

femme est un animal produit par accident et par le
hasard.”*
Without touching upon this extreme assertion that
woman is but “ un monstre,” an animal produced
by chance, we may observe briefly, that women have
ever, with some few exceptions,! been considered as
a degraded and humiliated race, until the promulga-
tion of the Christian religion elevated them in so-
ciety : and that this distinction still exists is evident
from the difference at this moment exhibited be-
tween the countries professing Mohammedanism and
those professing Christianity.
Still, though in our happy country it is now pretty
generally allowed that women are “ des creatures
humaines,” it is no new remark that they are com-
paratively lightly thought of by the “ nobler” gen-
der. This is absolutely the case even in those coun-
tries where civilization and refinement have elevated
the sex to a higher grade in society than they ever
before reached. Women are courted, flattered,
caressed, extolled ; but still the difference is there,
and the “lords of the creation” take care that it
shall be understood. Their own pursuits—public,
* On aurait de la peine a se persuader qu’une pareille opinion eut
ete raise gravement en question dans un concile, et qu'on n’eut
decide en faveur des femmes qu’apres un assez long examen.
Cependant le fait est ties veritable, et ce fut dans le Concile de
Macon.
Probleme sur les Femmes, ou 1’on essaye de prouver que
les femmes ne sont point des creatures humaines.— Am-
sterdam, 1744.
f As, for instance, the ancient Germans, and their offshoots, the
Saxons, &c.
B 2