XX. The injustice of this opinion, and the evils arising from it, are most visible in the other sex. A woman by being chaste, thinks she has complied with, and fulfilled all the duties appertaining to virtue, and that, in consequence of her possessing this single good quality, she may without impeachment of her conduct, be allowed to commit every other vice with impunity. Thus having established the proofs of her chastity, she concludes she has a right to be arrogant, envious, passionate, and proud; and there even are women, whom the confirmation of their fame in point of chastity has made savage and insufferable. What plagues are such to their poor husbands, for they sell them that fidelity at an exorbitant price, which they owe to them as a just debt. Some authors have assigned this, as the motive of Paulus Æmilius having procured himself to be divorced from his first wife, the noble, chaste, beautiful, and prolific Papiria. Plutarch tells us of a Roman, who, when his friends blamed him for having got himself divorced from a chaste woman of great endowments, both of body and mind, pulled off one of his shoes, and shewing it to them, said, _You see this shoe is new, handsome, and well made; but perhaps that is the very reason why it wrings and pinches my foot_. By which he meant to insinuate, that the accomplishments of his wife made her proud and insufferable. XXI. I must confess, that I have no patience with the distinction the world makes between vices appertaining to the same species, only because of the different methods which are used in the execution of them. He is not only esteemed a thief, but a most vile and base man, who clandestinely enters another’s house, and robs it of money and goods; and why does not he deserve to be stigmatized with the same epithets, who by making an unjust demand, or by using frauds, usurps another’s property. The trader, for instance, who takes more than a fair profit on his goods, or deceives with regard to the quality of what he sells; or the man in office, who demands or receives more than his due, or than his trouble deserves; and, above all, the judge who suffers himself to be bribed; I say, what difference is there between this first and last class of people? They are all cheats and robbers; and God will punish them all in the same manner, not regarding the means they used to impose on, but in proportion to the injury they did their neighbours. Notwithstanding all this, vast numbers of these people pass for very good christians; and not only so, but if they pray much, and count over many rosaries, hear mass every day, and have the insolence to frequent the sacraments, they are venerated as illustrious patterns of virtue.