Women were simply unable to educate themselves due to men controlling them. Mills suggests that if women were allowed to educate themselves this would also improve and shape men's abilities: society class; and the select few of both as well as the other sex, who were qualified not only to understand what is done or thought by others, but to think or do something considerable themselves, would have had the same opportunity of improving and training their skills. their capabilities. in the one sex as in the other” (676-677). Mills is confirming the old adage that “you can't live with them and you can't live without them,” being men and women. Educating women allows them to better educate men because they can understand and respond to what the man says. Educating women during this period would also teach them to be self-sufficient; a characteristic that many of them lacked. Self-dependence, along with intelligence, was non-existent for women of the Victorian age. Even if a Woman wanted to be independent, she couldn't, or wouldn't be allowed to, or simply wouldn't know how. Mills suggests that during this period women knew nothing else, they were born with this thought: “A woman born with the present condition of women, and contented with it, how should appreciate the value of self-dependence; his destiny is to receive everything from others” (681). Mill's point is that, given the inequality of women during this era, they were unable to know anything other than codependency. Mills is keen to point out that without giving women the same rights as men, they will never improve. They will remain stuck in the same social class, as second class citizens;