“When I exhorted my husband to economy, I referred to himself.  I was obliged to practise the most rigid, or contract debts, which I had too much reason to fear would never be paid.  I despised this paltry privilege of a wife, which can only be of use to the vicious or inconsiderate, and determined not to increase the torrent that was bearing him down.  I was then ignorant of the extent of his fraudulent speculations, whom I was bound to honour and obey.

“A woman neglected by her husband, or whose manners form a striking contrast with his, will always have men on the watch to soothe and flatter her.  Besides, the forlorn state of a neglected woman, not destitute of personal charms, is particularly interesting, and rouses that species of pity, which is so near akin, it easily slides into love.  A man of feeling thinks not of seducing, he is himself seduced by all the noblest emotions of his soul.  He figures to himself all the sacrifices a woman of sensibility must make, and every situation in which his imagination places her, touches his heart, and fires his passions.  Longing to take to his bosom the shorn lamb, and bid the drooping buds of hope revive, benevolence changes into passion:  and should he then discover that he is beloved, honour binds him fast, though foreseeing that he may afterwards be obliged to pay severe damages to the man, who never appeared to value his wife’s society, till he found that there was a chance of his being indemnified for the loss of it.

“Such are the partial laws enacted by men; for, only to lay a stress on the dependent state of a woman in the grand question of the comforts arising from the possession of property, she is [even in this article] much more injured by the loss of the husband’s affection, than he by that of his wife; yet where is she, condemned to the solitude of a deserted home, to look for a compensation from the woman, who seduces him from her?  She cannot drive an unfaithful husband from his house, nor separate, or tear, his children from him, however culpable he may be; and he, still the master of his own fate, enjoys the smiles of a world, that would brand her with infamy, did she, seeking consolation, venture to retaliate.

“These remarks are not dictated by experience; but merely by the compassion I feel for many amiable women, the outlaws of the world.  For myself, never encouraging any of the advances that were made to me, my lovers dropped off like the untimely shoots of spring.  I did not even coquet with them; because I found, on examining myself, I could not coquet with a man without loving him a little; and I perceived that I should not be able to stop at the line of what are termed innocent freedoms, did I suffer any.  My reserve was then the consequence of delicacy.  Freedom of conduct has emancipated many women’s minds; but my conduct has most rigidly been governed by my principles, till the improvement of my understanding has enabled me to discern the fallacy of prejudices at war with nature and reason.