When, therefore, we read in the old canon of the Brahmins, “He who carefully guards his wife, preserves the purity of his offspring, virtuous conduct, his family, himself, and his means of acquiring merit”[220]; when we read “Day and night women must be kept in dependence by the males of their families ... her father protects her in childhood, her husband protects her in youth, and her sons protect her in old age, a woman is never fit for independence”;[221] we shall surely be taking a very heavy onus of responsibility upon our shoulders if we declare this policy madness and our own wisdom. Is there anything beyond our own prejudice to show that we are more wise than the Brahmins were? Is there anything in the organization of our society to show that it is more successful than that of the Brahmins? If we choose to interpret these texts merely as the unjust doctrines of a race “hostile” to women, it should be incumbent upon us to prove that, in point of fact, our women are happier in their anarchy than those women are or were in their Brahministic order. But, truth to tell, the Brahmins were a very wise race, a race that meant to last longer than we mean to last, and which, in fact, has achieved a degree of permanence far exceeding that which any European race has achieved, or can hope to achieve, unless it make a rapid _volte-face_ in almost all its most cherished beliefs. No. 5. Woman’s _Vanity_, I take it, is not open to question. If no other proof of its pre-eminence in her were available, we should find one in her universally reported modesty; for, who says modest, says also vain.[222] Since, therefore, no one has yet contested the modesty of women, I may take it that her vanity is by implication generally accepted too.