I have watched young women taught to be pleasing ornaments rather than useful people. They learn to curtsy when a man enters the room instead of learning to think clearly about justice. A girl raised this way becomes rigid in her opinions, unable to distinguish between duty born of fear and duty born of reason. She cannot govern her own household with wisdom because she was never allowed to exercise judgment over her own body or mind.

I ask you to look at the women you know and see not children but potential citizens. Do not demand they be perfect wives until they are first granted the liberty to be rational beings. If a husband refuses to teach his daughter to reason, he rears a slave who will eventually destroy his own home through ignorance and petulance. True virtue requires the strength of an independent mind.