"
This seems to us hard. Men have, indeed, been, for more than a hundred
years, rating women for countenancing vice. But, at the same time,
they have carefully hid from them its nature, so that the preference
often shown by women for bad men arises rather from a confused idea
that they are bold and adventurous, acquainted with regions which
women are forbidden to explore, and the curiosity that ensues, than a
corrupt heart in the woman. As to marriage, it has been inculcated on
women, for centuries, that men have not only stronger passions than
they, but of a sort that it would be shameful for them to share or
even understand; that, therefore, they must "confide in their
husbands," that is, submit implicitly to their will; that the least
appearance of coldness or withdrawal, from whatever cause, in the wife
is wicked, because liable to turn her husband's thoughts to illicit
indulgence; for a man is so constituted that he must indulge his
passions or die!
Accordingly, a great part of women look upon men as a kind of wild
beasts, but "suppose they are all alike;" the unmarried are assured by
the married that, "if they knew men as they do," that is, by being
married to them, "they would not expect continence or self-government
from them.
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