£*•

MISCELLANEOUS. 213
indulges in gallantries is " rather gay ;" " a little wild,
you know ;" "
sowing his wild oats ;" but is only the
more distinguished and caressed. Unless coarse, low,
and excessively profligate, his youthful gallantries are
no bar to marriage. The same conduct in a young
woman, if known, drives her from society, and plunges
her into a pit of infamy and despair. It is the same,
though in a less degree, of married men and women.
In the upper classes, men have less liberty after mar
riage, and women more ; still, there is far from being
an equality.
There seem to me to be certain simple, common-
sense rules, which may apply even amid our social
discordances and consequent immoralities.
There should be honesty.
Men and women should
no more deceive each other in love matters than in
business. If they do, are they swindlers and cheats.
A simple, frank honesty would do much to reform love
relations.
In point of fact, men and women are not on equal
terms, in the present form of marriage. Women have
no pecuniary independence, nor, except in rare cases,
the means of acquiring it. For the most part they are
dependent parasites; and though the cares of a family
and the bearing of children may be equal to any exer
tions of the husband, still the woman, by custom and
law, is made dependent upon man for support. As long
as a woman lives in this condition of acknowledged de
pendence, she must conform to her husband's wishes,
and can not exercise the rights of a sovereign individual.
A woman has, naturally, the supreme right of choos
ing who shall be the father of her child ; but she can