Surely nature never intended
that women, by satisfying an appetite, should frustrate the very
purpose for which it was implanted?
I have before observed, that men ought to maintain the women whom
they have seduced; this would be one means of reforming female
manners, and stopping an abuse that has an equally fatal effect on
population and morals. Another, no less obvious, would be to turn
the attention of woman to the real virtue of chastity; for to
little respect has that woman a claim, on the score of modesty,
though her reputation may be white as the driven snow, who smiles
on the libertine whilst she spurns the victims of his lawless
appetites and their own folly.
Besides, she has a taint of the same folly, pure as she esteems
herself, when she studiously adorns her person only to be seen by
men, to excite respectful sighs, and all the idle homage of what is
called innocent gallantry. Did women really respect virtue for its
own sake, they would not seek for a compensation in vanity, for the
self-denial which they are obliged to practise to preserve their
reputation, nor would they associate with men who set reputation at
defiance.
The two sexes mutually corrupt and improve each other. This I
believe to be an indisputable truth, extending it to every virtue.
Chastity, modesty, public spirit, and all the noble train of
virtues, on which social virtue and happiness are built, should be
understood and cultivated by all mankind, or they will be
cultivated to little effect.
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