That women at present are by ignorance rendered foolish or
vicious, is, I think, not to be disputed; and, that the most
salutary effects tending to improve mankind might be expected
from a REVOLUTION in female manners, appears, at least, with a
face of probability, to rise out of the observation. For as
marriage has been termed the parent of those endearing charities
which draw man from the brutal herd, the corrupting intercourse
that wealth, idleness, and folly, produce between the sexes, is
more universally injurious to morality than all the other vices
of mankind collectively considered. To adulterous lust the most
sacred duties are sacrificed, because before marriage, men, by a
promiscuous intimacy with women, learned to consider love as a
selfish gratification- learned to separate it not only from
esteem, but from the affection merely built on habit, which mixes
a little humanity with it. Justice and friendship are also set at
defiance, and that purity of taste is vitiated which would
naturally lead a man to relish an artless display of affection
rather than affected airs. But that noble simplicity of
affection, which dares to appear unadorned, has few attractions
for the libertine, though it be the charm, which by cementing the
matrimonial tie, secures to the pledges of a warmer passion the
necessary parental attention; for children will never be properly
educated till friendship subsists between parents. Virtue flies
from a house divided against itself --
and a whole legion of devils take up their residence there.
