Women then having necessarily some duty to fulfil, more
noble than to adorn their persons, would not contentedly be the
slaves of casual appetite, which is now the situation of a very
considerable number who are, literally speaking, standing dishes to
which every glutton may have access.
I may be told, that great as this enormity is, it only affects a
devoted part of the sex--devoted for the salvation of the rest.
But, false as every assertion might easily be proved, that
recommends the sanctioning a small evil to produce a greater good;
the mischief does not stop here, for the moral character, and peace
of mind, of the chaster part of the sex, is undermined by the
conduct of the very women to whom they allow no refuge from guilt:
whom they inexorably consign to the exercise of arts that lure
their husbands from them, debauch their sons and force them, let
not modest women start, to assume, in some degree, the same
character themselves. For I will venture to assert, that all the
causes of female weakness, as well as depravity, which I have
already enlarged on, branch out of one grand cause--want of
chastity in men.
This intemperance, so prevalent, depraves the appetite to such a
degree, that a wanton stimulus is necessary to rouse it; but the
parental design of nature is forgotten, and the mere person, and
that, for a moment, alone engrosses the thoughts.
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