The greater number of
people take their opinions on trust to avoid the trouble of exercising
their own minds, and these indolent beings naturally adhere to the
letter, rather than the spirit of a law, divine or human. 'Women,'
says some author, I cannot recollect who, 'mind not what only heaven
sees.' Why, indeed, should they? it is the eye of man that they have
been taught to dread- and if they can lull their Argus to sleep,
they seldom think of heaven or themselves, because their reputation is
safe; and it is reputation, not chastity and all its fair train,
that they are employed to keep free from spot, not as a virtue, but to
preserve their station in the world.
To prove the truth of this remark, I need only advert to the
intrigues of married women, particularly in high life, and in
countries where women are suitably married, according to their
respective ranks, by their parents. If an innocent girl become a
prey to love, she is degraded for ever, though her mind was not
polluted by the arts which married women, under the convenient cloak
of marriage, practise; nor has she violated any duty- but the duty
of respecting herself. The married woman, on the contrary, breaks a
most sacred engagement, and becomes a cruel mother when she is a false
and faithless wife. If her husband have still an affection for her,
the arts which she must practise to deceive him, will render her the
most contemptible of human beings; and, at any rate, the
contrivances necessary to preserve appearances, will keep her mind
in that childish, or vicious, tumult, which destroys all its energy.
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