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Families
160. Battle of
the Sexes
"Women (says Dr. Johnson) give great offence by a contemptuous
spirit of non-compliance on petty occasions. The man calls his
wife to walk with him in the shade, and she feels a strange
desire just at that moment to sit in the sun: he offers to read
her a play, or sing a song, and she calls in the children to
disturb them, or advises him to sieze that opportunity of
settling the family accounts. Twenty such tricks will the
faithfullest wife in the world not refuse to play, and then look
astonished when the fellow fetches in a mistress."
Piozzi: Anecdotes
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220. Battle of the Sexes
"Where there is no education, as in savage countries, men will
have the upper hand of women. Bodily strength, no doubt,
contributes to this; but it would be so, exclusive of that; for
it is mind that always governs. When it comes to dry
understanding, man has the better."
Boswell: Life
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271. Battle of the Sexes;
Temptation
Mrs. Knowles affected to complain that men had much more liberty
allowed to them than women. Johnson: "Why, Madam, women
have all the liberty they should wish to have. We have all the
labour and the danger, and the women all the advantage. We go to
sea, we build houses, we do everything, in short, to pay our
court to the women." Mrs. Knowles: "The Doctor reasons
very wittily, but not convincingly. Now, take the instance of
building; the mason's wife, if she is ever seen in liquor, is
ruined; the mason may get himself drunk as often as he pleases,
with little loss of character; nay, may let his wife and
children starve." Johnson: "Madam, you must consider, if
the mason does get himself drunk, and let his wife and children
starve, the parish will oblige him to find security for their
maintenance. We have different modes of restraining evil.
Stocks for the men, a ducking-stool for women, and a pound for
beasts. If we require more perfection from women than from
ourselves, it is doing them honour. And women have not the same
temptations that we have: they may always live in virtuous
company; men must mix in the world indiscriminately. If a woman
has no inclination to do what is wrong being secured from it is
no restraint to her. I am at liberty to walk into the Thames;
but if I were to try it, my friends would restrain me in Bedlam,
and I should be obliged to them."
Boswell: Life
Link
272. Battle of the Sexes
Mrs. Knowles: "Still, Doctor, I cannot help thinking it a
hardship that more indulgence is allowed to men than women. It
gives a superiority to men, to which I do not see how they are
entitled." Johnson: "It is plain, Madam, one or the
other must have the superiority. As Shakespeare says, 'If two
men ride on a horse, one must ride behind.'"
Boswell: Life
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348. Battle of the Sexes
"Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore
they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think
so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as
themselves."
Boswell: Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
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557. Battle of the Sexes
"...I have found by long experience that a man will sometimes
rage at his wife, when in reality his mistress has offended him;
and a lady complain of the cruelty of her husband, when she has
no enemy other than bad cards. I do not suffer myself to be any
longer imposed upon by oaths on one side, or fits on the other;
nor when the husband hastens to the tavern and the lady retires
to her closet, am I always confident that they are driven by
their miseries; since I have sometimes reason to believe, that
they purpose not so much to sooth their sorrows as to animate
their fury."
Johnson: Rambler #18 (May 19, 1750)
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1,099. Battle of the Sexes
"When there is such a parity between two persons associated for
life, the dejection which the husband, if he be not completely
stupid, must always suffer for want of superiority sinks him to
submissiveness."
Johnson: Rambler #109 (April 2, 1751)
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1,141. Battle of the Sexes
"As, notwithstanding all that wit, or malice, or pride, or
prudence will be able to suggest, men and women must at last pass
their lives together, I have never therefore thought those
writers friends to human happiness, who endeavour to excite in
either sex a general contempt or suspicion of the other. To
persuade them who are entering the world, and looking abroad for
a suitable associate, that all are equally vicious or equally
ridiculous; that they who trust are certainly betrayed, and they
who esteem are always disappointed; is not to awaken judgment,
but to inflame temerity."
Johnson: Rambler #119 (May 7, 1751)
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1,570. Battle of the Sexes; Law
"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very
wisely given them little."
Johnson: Letter to Dr. Taylor
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1,821. Battle of the Sexes
There is, I think, no class of English women from
whom we are in any danger of Amazonian usurpation. The old maids
seem nearest to independence, and most likely to be animated by
revenge against masculine authority; they often speak of men with
acrimonious vehemence, but it is seldom found that they have any
settled hatred against them, and it is yet more rarely observed
that they have any kindness for each other. They will not easily
combine in any plot; and if they should ever agree to retire and
fortify themselves in castles or in mountains, the sentinel will
capitulate upon easy terms, if the besiegers have handsome sword-
knots, and are well supplied with fringe and lace.
The gamesters, if they were united, would make a
formidable body; and, since they consider men only as beings that
are to lose their money, they might live together without any
wish for the officiousness of gallantry or the delights of
diversified conversation. But as nothing would hold them together
but the hope of plundering one another, their government
would fail from the defect of its principles, the men would need
only to neglect them, and they would perish in a few weeks by
a civil war.
I do not mean to censure the ladies of England as
defective in knowledge or in spirit, when I suppose them unlikely
to revive the military honours of their sex. The character of
the ancient Amazons was rather terrible than lovely; the hand
could not be very delicate that was only employed in drawing the
bow and brandishing the battle-axe; their power was maintained by
cruelty, their courage was deformed by ferocity, and their
example only shews that men and women live best together.
Johnson: Idler #87 (December 15, 1759)
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