The same influences which tended to rob man of the rights which God has given him, and produce cruelty and heartlessness in the general intercourse of life, also tended to degrade the female sex.  In the earlier age of the republic, when the people were poor, and life was simple and primitive, and heroism and patriotism were characteristic, woman was comparatively virtuous and respected; she asserted her natural equality, and led a life of domestic tranquillity, employed upon the training of her children, and inspiring her husband to noble deeds.  But under the Emperors these virtues had fled.  Woman was miserably educated, being taught by a slave, or some Greek chambermaid, accustomed to ribald conversation, and fed with idle tales and silly superstitions; she was regarded as more vicious in natural inclination than man, and was chiefly valued for household labors; she was reduced to dependence; she saw but little of her brothers or relatives; she was confined to her home as if it were a prison; she was guarded by eunuchs and female slaves; she was given in marriage without her consent; she could be easily divorced; she was valued only as a domestic servant, or as an animal to prevent the extinction of families; she was regarded as the inferior of her husband, to whom she was a victim, a toy, or a slave.  Love after marriage was not frequent, since woman did not shine in the virtues by which love is kept alive.  She became timorous or frivolous, without dignity or public esteem; her happiness was in extravagant attire, in elaborate hair-dressings, in rings and bracelets, in a retinue of servants, in gilded apartments, in luxurious couches, in voluptuous dances, in exciting banquets, in demoralizing spectacles, in frivolous gossip, in inglorious idleness.  If virtuous, it was not so much from principle as from fear.  Hence she resorted to all sorts of arts to deceive her husband; her genius was sharpened by perpetual devices, and cunning was her great resource.  She cultivated no lofty friendships; she engaged in no philanthropic mission; she cherished no ennobling sentiments; she kindled no chivalrous admiration.  Her amusements were frivolous, her taste vitiated, her education neglected, her rights violated, her sympathy despised, her aspirations scorned.  And here I do not allude to great and infamous examples that history has handed down in the sober pages of Suetonius and Tacitus, or that unblushing depravity which stands out in the bitter satires of those times; I speak not of the adultery, the poisoning, the infanticide, the debauchery, the cruelty of which history accuses the Messalinas and Agrippinas of imperial Rome; I allude not to the orgies of the Palatine Hill, or the abominations which are inferred from the paintings of Pompeii,—­I mean the general frivolity and extravagance and demoralization of the women of the Roman empire.  Marriage was considered inexpedient unless large dowries were brought to the husband.  Numerous were the efforts of Emperors to promote honorable