She would, like any one else, be
very much better able to meet dangers of which she knew, than perils
whose extent had been concealed from her. And, moreover, is it
necessary for a girl to be any the less under the watchful eye of her
mother, because she is mistress of her own actions? Are we to count as
nothing the modesty and the fears which nature has made so powerful in
the soul of a young girl, for the very purpose of preserving her from
the misfortune of submitting to a man who does not love her? Again,
what girl is there so thoughtless as not to discern, that the most
immoral man wishes his wife to be a woman of principle, as masters
desire their servants to be perfect; and that, therefore, her virtue
is the richest and the most advantageous of all possessions?
After all, what is the question before us? For what do you think we
are stipulating? We are making a claim for five or six hundred
thousand maidens, protected by their instinctive timidity, and by the
high price at which they rate themselves; they understand how to
defend themselves, just as well as they know how to sell themselves.
The eighteen millions of human beings, whom we have excepted from this
consideration, almost invariably contract marriages in accordance with
the system which we are trying to make paramount in our system of
manners; and as to the intermediary classes by which we poor bimana
are separated from the men of privilege who march at the head of a
nation, the number of castaway children which these classes, although
in tolerably easy circumstances, consign to misery, goes on increasing
since the peace, if we may believe M.
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