# Chapter XII explained — A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

> Chapter companion for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft.

## What happens

Wollstonecraft argues for coeducation and national day-schools to cultivate reason and virtue in both sexes, criticizing the frivolous education that produces vanity and domestic neglect. She contends that women's ignorance leads to vice and that true domestic taste and public virtue arise from shared education and early family affections.

## Themes in this chapter

### Women's Education and Reason

Wollstonecraft emphasizes that women must be educated alongside men to develop reason and virtue, enabling them to fulfill domestic duties properly.

### Independence and Self-Reliance

Argues that women's dependence on men and ignorance leads to vice and that education is key to moral and intellectual independence.

### Marriage and Domestic Life

Discusses how lack of education undermines domestic affections and family duties, advocating for coeducation to strengthen the marital bond.

## Character check-ins

### Mary Wollstonecraft

Author and narrator, advocating for coeducation and criticizing current educational practices.

### Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Criticized for his contradictory views on women and his relationship with Thérèse Levasseur.

### Thérèse Levasseur

Mentioned as Rousseau's companion, whose conduct after his death showed his mistaken idealization of her.

## Key lines

> I principally wish to enforce the necessity of educating the sexes together to perfect both, and of making children sleep at home, that they may learn to love home; yet to make private support instead of smothering public affections, they should be sent to school to mix with a number of equals, for only by the jostlings of equality can we form a just opinion of ourselves.

Wollstonecraft advocates for coeducation and day-schools where children live at home to foster family love, but attend school to interact with peers, as only through equal interaction can we develop self-awareness.

_Core argument for coeducation and balanced home-school influence._

> Whoever drew a more exalted female character than Rousseau? though in the lump he constantly endeavoured to degrade the sex. And why was he thus anxious? Truly to justify to himself the affection which weakness and virtue had made him cherish for that fool Theresa.

Rousseau created an idealized female character while generally demeaning women, to rationalize his attachment to Thérèse Levasseur, whom Wollstonecraft considers foolish.

_Critique of Rousseau's hypocrisy regarding women._

> It is the want of domestic taste, and not the acquirement of knowledge, that takes women out of their families, and tears the smiling babe from the breast that ought to afford it nourishment.

Women neglect their families not because of knowledge, but due to a lack of cultivated domestic appreciation, which education would provide.

_Refutes the idea that education harms domesticity._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_vindication_of_the_rights_of_woman_se/chapters/xii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_vindication_of_the_rights_of_woman_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/a_vindication_of_the_rights_of_woman_se/chapters