Would these men have laughed, think you, if they had been asked how many _pure wives_ could be found in their family circles? and, if _not_, would it have been because they were capable of estimating the value of womanly virtue? No: _he_ cannot estimate that who has never known the worth of manly purity. The spectres of illegitimacy and civil ruin are what would stare them in the face, and turn their very lips so white. In France, says the "Westminster Review," fidelity on the part of the husband is considered a sort of imbecility. What is thought of it in England? Does this scene in Parliament, printed for all our girls to read, suggest any higher view? "The frequenting of disreputable places," says Davis, "was once an indictable offence in a _man_; but that is now obsolete." Obsolete? and why? A lawyer once told me, that the most obscene publication he had ever read was a book upon divorce. I can well believe it. I thought I knew how corrupt modern society could be; but I did not know how unsoundness had darted to its very core, till I began to read law, and to understand the estimate which that puts upon woman and chastity. When I think of these things, I wonder that this platform is not thronged with the ghosts of dead and ruined women, crowding here to second my appeal to beseech you to grant human justice, to require human virtue! And all this sin is sheltered under the plea of protection! "How many delicious morsels I should miss if it were not for _thy_ care, O most excellent jackal!" "Lawyers," says Johnson in 1777,--"lawyers often pay women the high compliment of supposing them proof against all temptations combined." Certainly, whatever the _lawyers_ may do, the _law itself_ confidently expects of them a superhuman strength. It gives them no defence but immaculateness. It offers them no shelter but God's temple, no robe but spotless ermine; and then, turning the page, it says, "A _husband_ is expected to be vigilant, and so prevent his own dishonor:" as if his _vigilance_ and quick-wittedness could save the woman whom his _love_ had not blessed. Ah! these lawyers are but blind guides, after all. Centuries of discomfiture and defeat have not sufficed to teach them how little security is to be found in suspicion and scepticism. If I do not want my groceries stolen, I must leave my storeroom open. The very servant who would not scruple to pick my locks will know better than to pick that of her own heart. "A thorough-bred woman," says Mrs. Reid, "is good only so far as her husband suggests and allows;" and, so long as _this_ is the standard, woman's duplicity may well match man's utmost expectation, and there is not a privilege of his open vice that she will not secure by stealth.