Contraſting the humanity of the preſent age with the barbariſm of antiquity, great ſtreſs has been laid on the ſavage cuſtom of expoſing the children whom their parents could not maintain; whilſt the man of ſenſibility, who thus, perhaps, complains, by his promiſcuous amours produces a moſt deſtructive barrenneſs and contagious flagitiouſneſs of manners. Surely nature never intended that women, by ſatiſfying an appetite, ſhould fruſtrate the very purpoſe for which it was implanted!
I have before obſerved, that men ought to maintain the women whom they have ſeduced; this would be one means of reforming female manners, and ſtopping an abuſe that has an equally fatal effect on population and morals. Another, no leſs obvious, would be to turn the attention of woman to the real virtue of chaſtity; for to little reſpect has that woman a claim, on the ſcore of modeſty, though her reputation may be white as the driven ſnow, who ſmiles on the libertine whilſt ſhe ſpurns the victims of his lawleſs appetites and their own folly.
Beſides, ſhe has a taint of the ſame folly, pure as ſhe eſteems herſelf, when ſhe ſtudiouſly adorns her perſon only to be ſeen by men, to excite reſpectful ſighs, and all the idle homage of what is called innocent gallantry. Did women really reſpect virtue for its own ſake, they would not ſeek for a compenſation in vanity, for the ſelf-denial which they are obliged to practiſe to preſerve their reputation, nor would they aſſociate with men who ſet reputation at defiance.
