" Draw near, woman, and hear what I have to say. Turn
your curiosity for once towards useful objects, and consider
the advantages which nature gave you and society
ravished away. Come and learn how you were born the
companion of man and became his slave; how you grew
to like the condition and think it natural; and finally how
the long habituation of slavery so degraded you that you
preferred its sapping but convenient vices to the more
difficult virtues of freedom and repute. If the picture I
shall paint leaves you in command of yourselves, if you
can contemplate it without emotion, then go back to your
futile pastimes; ‘there is no remedy; the vices have
become the custom. "

― Pierre Choderlos de Laclos , De l'éducation des femmes