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Untitled Article
but never think together , wherefore they snap and snarl , till the empire is decided to the most energetic , commonly the male , as the physical force is on his side , and he exacts obedience with as little feeling , as King , Kaisar , or Conqueror , of ancient or modern days . For a tyrant to exist , it is necessary that there exist also a
slave , and in the breast of the slave , when human feelings are denied their legitimate channel , evil passions are sure to be generated , and evil results produced . The children resulting from such mischievous alliances can only tread in the same path , unless the keen vision of the philosopher shall devise an efficient remedy , and point it out to the sufferers . Nothing can well be worse , no state of
society could produce more national evil , more national debasement—of this class—than that which actually exists . t ^ But however immoral may be the condition of those classes already described , it is as nothing when compared with that of the great mass of the working classes of the community . Even when unhappily paired , the absence of poverty may still leave room for
refinement , but amongst the poor , refined love can scarcely exist at all ; the passion must become a merely sensual impulse ,, in many cases scarcely more delicate than that of the lower animals , in some instances more disgusting , as those , who are acquainted with the manufacturing towns , where huddled heaps of human beings earn low wages , will readily testify . There is perhaps
scarcely any thing which has so great a tendency to refine the tastes of human beings , as the capacity for love . In proportion as people recede from this , they become savages , for love is known to exist in its most perfect state , in countries of the highest civilization ;—I mean real civilization , not her bastard sister , luxury . It would therefore be a duty incumbent on all good and wise governments , to promote such physical arrangements amongst the
people , as might beget a taste for refinement . At present , there is no hope . Go amongst them ye who doubt , visit the frightful dens at Manchester and elsewhere , where human beings , male and female , young and old , are huddled one amongst the other in unseemly contiguity , like cattle in the shambles , and amongst whom the very idea of delicacy has long been destroyed . In the days of the cottage population , ere too great an increase had on all sides outrun their means , in some few districts still , sentimental love
might , and may still be found , amongst the poor , but the pauper population of the agricultural districts , and the crowded masses of the manufacturing towns , where prudence prevails nor , must be alike devoid of the delicacy upon which genuine love is based , and
consequently infinitely more regardless of the condition of the children they beget . This hardness , in many cases , amounts to absolute indifference to their offspring on the part of the fathers , and frequently on that of the mothers . Humanity shudders to think of it ! When a child , I had not been struck with the coarseness of our females of the manufacturing districts ; perhaps it wq *
Untitled Article
On the Condition of Women in England . 225
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1833, page 225, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2612/page/9/
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