It may be so; but imagination is a
power which it is temerity to brave; and its antipathy is more
difficult to conquer than its preference." [Footnote: Madame Necker de
Saussure.]
Among ourselves, the exhibition of such a repugnance from a woman who
had been given in marriage "by advice of friends," was treated by an
eminent physician as sufficient proof of insanity. If he had said
sufficient cause for it, he would have been nearer right.
It has been suggested by men who were pained by seeing bad men
admitted, freely, to the society of modest women,--thereby encouraged
to vice by impunity, and corrupting the atmosphere of homes,--that
there should be a senate of the matrons in each city and town, who
should decide what candidates were fit for admission to their houses
and the society of their daughters. [Footnote: See Goethe's Tasso. "A
synod of good women should decide,"--if the golden age is to be
restored.]
Such a plan might have excellent results; but it argues a moral
dignity and decision which does not yet exist, and needs to be induced
by knowledge and reflection. It has been the tone to keep women
ignorant on these subjects, or, when they were not, to command that
they should seem so.
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