Note 61 — Chapter I · LEARNED LADIES IN ENGLAND BEFORE 1650

Notes and Queries, 4th Series, vol. IV, p. 195. For many years the superior advantages accorded English women was a stock subject of national self-congratulation. In the light of this fact we read with interest a comment by De Segur in 1803: "The English women live much in the same manner as those of Turkey, with the exception of walls and keepers. Without being so much overlooked, they suffer equal constraint. However great the superiority they may be sensible they possess above their husbands, they are obliged to respect and to fear them; and they endeavor to acquire their love as a matter of necessity. Such is also the lesson they give to their children, and it may be remarked that they recommend it to them rather as a political measure than as a duty. In fact, they can command only by obeying; and when it is said that a woman is happier in England than in any other country, it is only saying that she is prepared, by her education, to be more satisfied than another woman with a mediocrity of happiness." (Hill, Georgiana: Women in English Life, vol. II, p. 89.)