WOM'AN, the female of the human race, grown to an adult age. In the pa triarchal ages women were used agreea bly to that simplicity of manners which for a long time after pervaded all na tions. They drew water, kept sheep, and fed the cattle ; ns may he observed in what is related of Rebecca, the niece of Abraham, and Rachel, the daughter of Laban. Among the Greeks and Ro mans, women were employed in spinning, weaving, embroidery, and all sorts of needle-work ; their education being whol ly confined to their domestic duties. It is in the Christian home only that. woman reigns—the mother, sister, wife, and friend. The influence of Christianity gave woman a new station in society, broke her chains, and released her from the degrading restrictions in which she had idinost become the soulless thing which she had been represented to be. As man ceased to he is mere citizen of his own country, and felt himself to be a citizen of the world, so woman was restored to her natural rights. " in every age and country (says Gibbon,) the wiser, or at least the stronger, of the two sexes has usurped 11 powers of the state, soil confined the other to the cares rind pleasures of domestic life. In heredi
tary monnrchies. however, awl especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of chivalry. nnil the law of succes sion, have accustomed us to ;Wow a singular exception; and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. But ns the Roman emperors were still considered as the generals and magis trates of the republic, their wives' mothers, although distinguished by the name of Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors ; and a female reign would have appeared an inexpia ble prodigy in the eyes of those primitive Romans who married without love, or loved without delicacy and respect " born to feel and inspire the kind and tender affections, it is the fault of men if well-educated females become not the grace and ornament of society. This at least, is the rule; the reverse of this, the exception.