Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World Part 3

AFRICAN WOMEN.

The Africans were formerly renowned for their industry in cultivating the ground, for their trade, navigation, caravans and useful arts.--At present they are remarkable for their idleness, ignorance, superst.i.tion, treachery, and, above all, for their lawless methods of robbing and murdering all the other inhabitants of the globe.

Though they still retain some sense of their infamous character, yet they do not choose to reform. Their priests, therefore, endeavor to justify them, by the following story: "Noah," say they, "was no sooner dead, than his three sons, the first of whom was _white_, the second _tawny_, and the third _black_, having agreed upon dividing among them his goods and possessions, spent the greatest part of the day in sorting them; so that they were obliged to adjourn the division till the next morning. Having supped and smoked a friendly pipe together, they all went to rest, each in his own tent. After a few hours sleep, the white brother got up, seized on the gold, silver, precious stones, and other things of the greatest value, loaded the best horses with them, and rode away to that country where his white posterity have been settled ever since. The tawny, awaking soon after, and with the same criminal intention, was surprised when he came to the store house to find that his brother had been beforehand with him. Upon which he hastily secured the rest of the horses and camels, and loading them with the best carpets, clothes, and other remaining goods, directed his route to another part of the world, leaving behind him, only a few of the coa.r.s.est goods, and some provisions of little value.

When the third, or black brother, came next morning in the simplicity of his heart to make the proposed division, and could neither find his brethren, nor any of the valuable commodities, he easily judged they had tricked him, and were by that time fled beyond any possibility of discovery.

In this most afflicted situation, he took his _pipe_, and begun to consider the most effectual means of retrieving his loss, and being revenged on his perfidious brothers.

After revolving a variety of schemes in his mind, he at last fixed upon watching every opportunity of making reprisals on them, and laying hold of and carrying away their property, as often as it should fall in his way, in revenge for that patrimony of which they had so unjustly deprived him.

Having come to this resolution, he not only continued in the practice of it all his life, but on his death laid the strongest injunctions on his descendants to do so, to the end of the world."

Some tribes of the Africans, however, when they have engaged themselves in the protection of a stranger, are remarkable for fidelity. Many of them are conspicuous for their temperance, hospitality, and several other virtues.

Their women, upon the whole, are far from being indelicate or unchaste.

On the banks of the Niger, they are tolerably industrious, have a considerable share of vivacity, and at the same time a female reserve, which would do no discredit to a politer country. They are modest, affable, and faithful; an air of innocence appears in their looks and in their language, which gives a beauty to their whole deportment.

When, from the Niger, we approach toward the East, the African women degenerate in stature, complexion, sensibility, and chast.i.ty. Even their language, like their features, and the soil they inhabit, is harsh and disagreeable. Their pleasures resemble more the transports of fury, than the gentle emotions communicated by agreeable sensations.

GREAT ENTERPRISES OF WOMEN IN THE TIMES OF CHIVALRY.

The times and the manners of chivalry, by bringing great enterprises, bold adventures, and extravagant heroism into fas.h.i.+on, inspired the women with the same taste.

The two s.e.xes always imitate each other. Their manners and their minds are refined or corrupted, invigorated or dissolved together.

The women, in consequence of the prevailing pa.s.sion, were now seen in the middle of camps and of armies. They quitted the soft and tender inclinations, and the delicate offices of their own s.e.x, for the courage, and the toilsome occupations of ours.

During the crusades, animated by the double enthusiasm of religion and of valor, they often performed the most romantic exploits. They obtained indulgences on the field of battle, and died with arms in their hands, by the side of their lovers, or of their husbands.

In Europe, the women attacked and defended fortifications. Princesses commanded their armies, and obtained victories.

Such was the celebrated Joan de Mountfort, disputing for her duchy of Bretagne, and engaging the enemy herself.

Such was the still more celebrated Margaret of Anjou, queen of England and wife of Henry VI. She was active and intrepid, a general and a soldier. Her genius for a long time supported her feeble husband, taught him to conquer, replaced him upon the throne, twice relieved him from prison, and though oppressed by fortune and by rebels, she did not yield, till she had decided in person twelve battles.

The warlike spirit among the women, consistent with ages of barbarism, when every thing is impetuous because nothing is fixed, and when all excess is the excess of force, continued in Europe upwards of four hundred years, showing itself from time to time, and always in the middle of convulsions, or on the eve of great revolutions.

But there were eras and countries, in which that spirit appeared with particular l.u.s.tre. Such were the displays it made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries in Hungary, and in the Islands of the Archipelago and the Mediterranean, when they were invaded by the Turks.

Every thing conspired to animate the women of those countries with an exalted courage; the prevailing spirit of the foregoing ages; the terror which the name of the Turks inspired; the still more dreadful apprehensions of an unknown enemy; the difference of _dress_, which has a stronger _effect_ than is commonly supposed on the imagination of a people; the difference of religion, which produced a kind of sacred horror; the striking difference of manners; and above all, the confinement of the female s.e.x, which presented to the women of Europe nothing but the frightful ideas of servitude and a master; the groans of honor, the tears of beauty in the embrace of barbarism, and the double tyranny of love and pride!

The contemplation of these objects, accordingly, roused in the hearts of the women a resolute courage to defend themselves; nay, sometimes even a courage of enthusiasm, which hurled itself against the enemy.--That courage, too, was augmented, by the promises of a religion, which offered eternal happiness in exchange for the sufferings of a moment.

It is not therefore surprising, that when three beautiful women of the isle of Cyprus were led prisoners to Selim, to be secluded in the seraglio, one of them, preferring death to such a condition, conceived the project of setting fire to the magazine; and after having communicated her design to the rest, put it in execution.

The year following, a city of Cyprus being besieged by the Turks, the women ran in crowds, mingling themselves with the soldiers, and, fighting gallantly in the breach, were the means of saving their country.

Under Mahomet II. a girl of the isle of Lemnos, armed with the sword and s.h.i.+eld of her father, who had fallen in battle, opposed the Turks, when they had forced a gate, and chased them to the sh.o.r.e.

In the two celebrated sieges of Rhodes and Malta, the women, seconding the zeal of the knights, discovered upon all occasions the greatest intrepidity; not only that impetuous and temporary impulse which despises death, but that cool and deliberate fort.i.tude which can support the continued hards.h.i.+ps, the toils, and the miseries of war.

OTHER PARTICULARS RESPECTING FEMALES DURING THE AGE OF CHIVALRY.

When a man had said any thing that reflected dishonor on a woman, or accused her of a crime, she was not obliged to fight him to prove her innocence: the combat would have been unequal. But she might choose a champion to fight in her cause, or expose himself to the horrid trial, in order to clear her reputation. Such champions were generally selected from her lovers or friends. But if she fixed upon any other, so high was the spirit of martial glory, and so eager the thirst of defending the weak and helpless s.e.x, that we meet with no instance of a champion ever having refused to fight for, or undergo whatever custom required, in defence of the lady who had honored him with the appointment.

To the motives already mentioned, we may add another. He who had refused, must inevitably have been branded with the name of coward: and, so despicable was the condition of a coward, in those times of general heroism, that death itself appeared the more preferable choice. Nay, such was the rage of fighting for women, that it became customary for those who could not be honored with the decision of their real quarrels, to create fict.i.tious ones concerning them, in order to create also a necessity of fighting.

Nor was fighting for the ladies confined to single combatants. Crowds of gallants entered the lists against each other. Even kings called out their subjects, to shew their love for their mistresses, by cutting the throats of their neighbors, who had not in the least offended.

In the fourteenth century, when the Countess of Blois and the widow of Mountford were at war against each other, a conference was agreed to, on pretence of settling a peace, but in reality to appoint a combat.

Instead of negotiating, they soon challenged each other; and Beaumanoir, who was at the head of the Britons, publicly declared that they fought for no other motive, than to see, by the victory, who had the fairest mistress.

In the fifteenth century, we find an anecdote of this kind still more extraordinary. John, duke de Bourbonnois, published a declaration, that he would go over to England, with sixteen knights, and there fight it out, in order to avoid idleness, and merit the good graces of his mistress.

James IV. of Scotland, having, in all tournaments, professed himself knight to queen Anne of France, she summoned him to prove himself her true and valorous champion, by taking the field in her defence, against his brother-in-law, Henry VIII. of England. He obeyed the romantic mandate; and the two nations bled to feed the vanity of a woman.

Warriors, when ready to engage, invoked the aid of their mistresses, as poets do that of the Muses. If they fought valiantly, it reflected honor on the Dulcineas they adored; but if they turned their backs on their enemies, the poor ladies were dishonored forever.

Love, was at that time, the most prevailing motive to fighting. The famous Gaston de Foix, who commanded the French troops at the battle of Ravenna, took advantage of this foible of his army. He rode from rank to rank, calling his officers by name, and even some of his private men, recommending to them their country, their honor, and, above all, to shew what they could do for their mistresses.

The women of those ages, the reader may imagine, were certainly more completely happy than in any other period of the world. This, however, was not in reality the case.

Custom, which governs all things with the most absolute sway, had, through a long succession of years, given her sanction to such combats as were undertaken, either to defend the innocence, or display the beauty of women. Custom, therefore, either obliged a man to fight for a woman who desired him, or marked the refusal with infamy and disgrace.

But custom did not oblige him, in every other part of his conduct, to behave to this woman, or to the s.e.x in general, with that respect and politeness which have happily distinguished the character of more modern times.

The same man who would have encountered giants, or gigantic difficulties, "when a lady was in the case," had but little idea of adding to her happiness, by supplying her with the comforts and elegancies of life. And, had she asked him to stoop, and ease her of a part of that domestic slavery which, almost in every country, falls to the lot of women, he would have thought himself quite affronted.

But besides, men had nothing else, in those ages, than that kind of romantic gallantry to recommend them. Ignorant of letters, arts, and sciences, and every thing that refines human nature, they were, in every thing where gallantry was not concerned, rough and unpolished in their manners and behavior. Their time was spent in drinking, war, gallantry, and idleness. In their hours of relaxation, they were but little in company with their women; and when they were, the indelicacies of the carousal, or the cruelties of the field, were almost the only subjects they had to talk of.

From the subversion of the Roman empire, to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, women spent most of their time alone. They were almost entire strangers to the joys of social life. They seldom went abroad, but to be spectators of such public diversions and amus.e.m.e.nts as the fas.h.i.+on of the times countenanced. Francis I. was the first monarch who introduced them on public days to court.

Before his time, nothing was to be seen at any of the courts of Europe, but long bearded politicians, plotting the destruction of the rights and liberties of mankind; and warriors clad in complete armor, ready to put their plots in execution.

In the eighth century, so slavish was the condition of women on the one hand, and so much was beauty coveted on the other, that, for about two hundred years, the kings of Austria were obliged to pay a tribute to the Moors, of one hundred beautiful virgins per annum.

In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, elegance had scarcely any existence, and even cleanliness was hardly considered as laudable. The use of linen was not known; and the most delicate of the fair s.e.x wore woollen s.h.i.+fts.

In the time of Henry VIII. the peers of the realm carried their wives behind them on horseback when they went to London; and, in the same manner, took them back to their country seats, with hoods of waxed linen over their heads, and wrapped in mantles of cloth, to secure them from the cold.

There was one misfortune of a singular nature, to which women were liable in those days: they were in perpetual danger of being accused of witchcraft, and suffering all the cruelties and indignities of a mob, instigated by superst.i.tion and directed by enthusiasm; or of being condemned by laws, which were at once a disgrace to humanity and to sense. Even the bloom of youth and beauty could not secure them from torture and from death. But when age and wrinkles attacked a woman, if any thing uncommon happened in her neighborhood, she was almost sure of atoning with her life for a crime it was impossible for her to commit.

FRENCH WOMEN.

Though the ladies of France are not very handsome, they are sensible and witty. To many of them, without the least flattery, may be applied the distich which Sappho ascribes to herself: