It does not frequently even deserve the
name of error; for many innocent girls become the dupes of a
sincere, affectionate heart, and still more are, as it may
emphatically be termed, ruined before they know the difference between
virtue and vice:- and thus prepared by their education for infamy,
they become infamous. Asylums and Magdalenes are not the proper
remedies for these abuses. It is justice, not charity, that is wanting
in the world!
A woman who has lost her honour, imagines that she cannot fall
lower, and as for recovering her former station, it is impossible;
no exertion can wash this stain away. Losing thus every spur, and
having no other means of support, prostitution becomes her only
refuge, and the character is quickly depraved by circumstances over
which the poor wretch has little power, unless she possesses an
uncommon portion of sense and loftiness of spirit. Necessity never
makes prostitution the business of men's lives; though numberless
are the women who are thus rendered systematically vicious. This,
however, arises, in a great degree, from the state of idleness in
which women are educated, who are always taught to look up to man
for a maintenance, and to consider their persons as the proper
return for his exertions to support them. Meretricious airs, and the
whole science of wantonness, have then a more powerful stimulus than
either appetite or vanity; and this remark gives force to the
prevailing opinion, that with chastity all is lost that is respectable
in woman.
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