Female extravagance wastes, in superfluous adornment of the body, and in frequent attention to the toilette, time which should be given to works of piety and mercy, and to the care of the household; it calls its votaries from home to brilliant assemblages, to public places, and to theatres; it causes them, under pretext of complying with the requirements of society, to pay numerous visits, and thus to waste hours in news-seeking and in scandalous conversation; it attracts sinful desire; it wastes the patrimony of children and deprives poverty of needful assistance; frequently it separates those who are married; more frequently, it prevents marriages, for there are but few men who are willing to incur such heavy expenses. As Tertullian wrote, "In a little casket of jewels women display an immense fortune; they place on a single string of pearls ten millions of sesterces; a slender neck upbears forests and islands; beautiful ears expend the income of a month; and every finger of the left hand plays with the contents of a bag of gold. Such is the strength of vanity; for it is vanity that enables the delicate body of woman thus to walk beneath the weight of enormous wealth." Experience shows that this aversion to marriage fosters and increases immorality. In the family, it is almost impossible in the midst of so many distracting vanities to cultivate domestic love by means of domestic intercourse, or to give to religion even what ordinary custom requires. The education of children is neglected, household affairs do not receive proper attention and fall into disorder, and the words of the apostle become applicable, "If any one have not care of his own, and especially of those of his household, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." As a city is composed of families, and a province of cities, and a country of provinces, the family thus vitiated disorders the whole of society, and step by step brings upon us those calamities which to-day we behold on every side. We trust, therefore, that many will unite with you to remove from themselves, their families, and their fatherland the cause of so many evils. We trust, also, that their example will induce others to lay aside whatever goes beyond the just limits of neatness. Oh! that women would believe that the esteem and love of their husbands is to be won, not by magnificent dress or costly adornments, but by cultivation of the mind and of the heart and of every virtue. For the glory of woman is from within, and she that is holy and modest is grace added unto grace, and she alone shall receive praise who feareth the Lord. We trust and believe, therefore, that your undertaking will meet with the happiest success. As a presage of which, and a pledge of our paternal good will, with the tenderest affection, we impart to you our apostolic benediction. Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on the eighth day of July, 1868, in the twenty-third year of our pontificate.