A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

What does Wollenstone about the rich of both sexes, trained in folly and vice?

What is the effect?

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The author is strongly opposed to boarding schools, which she feels teach vice, folly, arbitrary direction, insincerity, debauchery, and "the system of tyranny and abject slavery which is established among the [students], to say nothing of the slavery of forms, which makes religion less than a farce." She admires day schooling because it can foster affection within the family—an affection that can expand into warmth for all humankind. Day schools allow students to live at home and develop through family relations, but also to mix with their peers of both sexes, to learn to "begin to think." Although she is personally against the inequities of marriage, Wollstonecraft, considering her less-radical audience ("the fear of innovation, in this country, extends to every thing"), urges a shared male-female curriculum and coeducation, because: If marriage be the cement of society, mankind should all be educated after the same model, or the intercourse of the sexes will never deserve the name of fellowship, nor will women ever fulfil [sic] the peculiar duties of their sex, till they become enlightened citizens … [and] are prepared to be [men's] companions rather than their mistresses.

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A Vindication of the Rights of Woman