ill at ease; and, on the other hand, all the rules of female honor cannot prevent a certain sympathy with Clara in Egmont.  To carry this principle of female honor too far is to forget the end in thinking of the means—­and this is just what people often do; for such exaggeration suggests that the value of sexual honor is absolute; while the truth is that it is more relative than any other kind.  One might go so far as to say that its value is purely conventional, when one sees from Thomasius how in all ages and countries, up to the time of the Reformation, irregularities were permitted and recognized by law, with no derogation to female honor,—­not to speak of the temple of Mylitta at Babylon.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Heroditus, i. 199.]

There are also of course certain circumstances in civil life which make external forms of marriage impossible, especially in Catholic countries, where there is no such thing as divorce.  Ruling princes everywhere, would, in my opinion, do much better, from a moral point of view, to dispense with forms altogether rather than contract a morganatic marriage, the descendants of which might raise claims to the throne if the legitimate stock happened to die out; so that there is a possibility, though, perhaps, a remote one, that a morganatic marriage might produce a civil war.  And, besides, such a marriage, concluded in defiance of all outward ceremony, is a concession made to women and priests—­two classes of persons to whom one should be most careful to give as little tether as possible.  It is further to be remarked that every man in a country can marry the woman of his choice, except one poor individual, namely, the prince.  His hand belongs to his country, and can be given in marriage only for reasons of State, that is, for the good of the country.  Still, for all that, he is a man; and, as a man, he likes to follow whither his heart leads.  It is an unjust, ungrateful and priggish thing to forbid, or to desire to forbid, a prince from following his inclinations in this matter; of course, as long as the lady has no influence upon the Government of the country.  From her point of view she occupies an exceptional position, and does not come under the ordinary rules of sexual honor; for she has merely given herself to a man who loves her, and whom she loves but cannot marry.  And in general, the fact that the principle of female honor has no origin in nature, is shown by the many bloody sacrifices which have been offered to it,—­the murder of children and the mother’s suicide.  No doubt a girl who contravenes the code commits a breach of faith against her whole sex; but this faith is one which is only secretly taken for granted, and not sworn to.  And since, in most cases, her own prospects suffer most immediately, her folly is infinitely greater than her crime.