The education of girls requires, therefore,
important modifications in France. Up to this time French laws and
French manners instituted to distinguish between a misdemeanor and a
crime, have encouraged crime. In reality the fault committed by a
young girl is scarcely ever a misdemeanor, if you compare it with that
committed by the married woman. Is there any comparison between the
danger of giving liberty to girls and that of allowing it to wives?
The idea of taking a young girl on trial makes more serious men think
than fools laugh. The manners of Germany, of Switzerland, of England
and of the United States give to young ladies such rights as in France
would be considered the subversion of all morality; and yet it is
certain that in these countries there are fewer unhappy marriages than
in France.
LV.
"Before a woman gives herself entirely up to her lover, she ought to
consider well what his love has to offer her. The gift of her esteem
and confidence should necessarily precede that of her heart."
Sparkling with truth as they are, these lines probably filled with
light the dungeon, in the depths of which Mirabeau wrote them; and the
keen observation which they bear witness to, although prompted by the
most stormy of his passions, has none the less influence even now in
solving the social problem on which we are engaged.
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