<P> As part of her argument that women should not be overly influenced by their feelings, Wollstonecraft emphasises that they should not be constrained by or made slaves to their bodies or their sexual feelings . This particular argument has led many modern feminists to suggest that Wollstonecraft intentionally avoids granting women any sexual desire . Cora Kaplan argues that the "negative and prescriptive assault on female sexuality" is a "leitmotif" of the Rights of Woman . For example, Wollstonecraft advises her readers to "calmly let passion subside into friendship" in the ideal companionate marriage (that is, in the ideal of a love - based marriage that was developing at the time). It would be better, she writes, when "two virtuous young people marry...if some circumstances checked their passion". According to Wollstonecraft, "love and friendship cannot subsist in the same bosom". As Mary Poovey explains, "Wollstonecraft betrays her fear that female desire might in fact court man's lascivious and degrading attentions, that the subordinate position women have been given might even be deserved . Until women can transcend their fleshly desires and fleshly forms, they will be hostage to the body ." If women are not interested in sexuality, they cannot be dominated by men . Wollstonecraft worries that women are consumed with "romantic wavering", that is, they are interested only in satisfying their lusts . Because the Rights of Woman eliminates sexuality from a woman's life, Kaplan contends, it "expresses a violent antagonism to the sexual" while at the same time "exaggerat (ing) the importance of the sensual in the everyday life of women". Wollstonecraft was so determined to wipe sexuality from her picture of the ideal woman that she ended up foregrounding it by insisting upon its absence . But as Kaplan and others have remarked, Wollstonecraft may have been forced to make this sacrifice: "it is important to remember that the notion of woman as politically enabled and independent (was) fatally linked (during the eighteenth century) to the unrestrained and vicious exercise of her sexuality ." </P> <P> Claudia Johnson, a prominent Wollstonecraft scholar, has called the Rights of Woman "a republican manifesto". Johnson contends that Wollstonecraft is hearkening back to the Commonwealth tradition of the 17th century and attempting to reestablish a republican ethos . In Wollstonecraft's version, there would be strong, but separate, masculine and feminine roles for citizens . According to Johnson, Wollstonecraft "denounces the collapse of proper sexual distinction as the leading feature of her age, and as the grievous consequence of sentimentality itself . The problem undermining society in her view is feminized men". If men feel free to adopt both the masculine position and the sentimental feminine position, she argues, women have no position open to them in society . Johnson therefore sees Wollstonecraft as a critic, in both the Rights of Men and the Rights of Woman, of the "masculinization of sensitivity" in such works as Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France . </P> <P> In the Rights of Woman Wollstonecraft adheres to a version of republicanism that includes a belief in the eventual overthrow of all titles, including the monarchy . She also briefly suggests that all men and women should be represented in government . But the bulk of her "political criticism," as Chris Jones, a Wollstonecraft scholar, explains, "is couched predominantly in terms of morality". Her definition of virtue focuses on the individual's happiness rather than, for example, the good of the entire society . This is reflected in her explanation of natural rights . Because rights ultimately proceed from God, Wollstonecraft maintains that there are duties, tied to those rights, incumbent upon each and every person . For Wollstonecraft, the individual is taught republicanism and benevolence within the family; domestic relations and familial ties are crucial to her understanding of social cohesion and patriotism . </P> <P> In many ways the Rights of Woman is inflected by a bourgeois view of the world, as is its direct predecessor the Rights of Men . Wollstonecraft addresses her text to the middle class, which she calls the "most natural state". She also frequently praises modesty and industry, virtues which, at the time, were associated with the middle class . From her position as a middle - class writer arguing for a middle - class ethos, Wollstonecraft also attacks the wealthy, criticizing them using the same arguments she employs against women . She points out the "false - refinement, immorality, and vanity" of the rich, calling them "weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and affections of their race, in a premature unnatural manner (who) undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society". </P>

In this excerpt the author argues against which of the following rights for women