This regard for reputation, independent of its being one of the
natural rewards of virtue, however, took its rise from a cause that
I have already deplored as the grand source of female depravity,
the impossibility of regaining respectability by a return to
virtue, though men preserve theirs during the indulgence of vice.
It was natural for women then to endeavour to preserve what once
lost--was lost for ever, till this care swallowing up every other
care, reputation for chastity, became the one thing needful to the
sex. But vain is the scrupulosity of ignorance, for neither
religion nor virtue, when they reside in the heart, require such a
puerile attention to mere ceremonies, because the behaviour must,
upon the whole be proper, when the motive is pure.
To support my opinion I can produce very respectable authority; and
the authority of a cool reasoner ought to have weight to enforce
consideration, though not to establish a sentiment. Speaking of
the general laws of morality, Dr. Smith observes--"That by some
very extraordinary and unlucky circumstance, a good man may come to
be suspected of a crime of which he was altogether incapable, and
upon that account be most unjustly exposed for the remaining part
of his life to the horror and aversion of mankind. By an accident
of this kind he may be said to lose his all, notwithstanding his
integrity and justice, in the same manner as a cautious man,
notwithstanding his utmost circumspection, may be ruined by an
earthquake or an inundation.
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