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Untitled Article
Jn Peroy ' t * " Reliques of Ancient Eogliah Poetry * " i ± ue * eas a story called " The patient Countess . ' Here , the Counters discovers that her husband has been unfaithful to her ; but mark the difference . There is no talk of hackings or defacing , or separating , but
• ' It grieved her not a little , though She seemed it well to beur . " and then she thinks . u How may I winne him to myself ? He is a man , and men Have imperfections ; it behoves Me pardon nature then . "
At last by a very ingenious contrivance she succeeds in winning him away from " the Damselle " back to herself , and » he is rewarded by his loving her more than ever , and especially for her patience and long suffering . The poem ends with , — - u So each wife Her husband may recal . "
Habit , custom , the law of society , all made it strictl y honourable of Mr . Frankford to treat his wife with the sort of kindUfcds which killed her ; and made it wise and sweet of the ** patient Countess" to feign ignorance of her husband ' s fault , in order to lead him back to her , his legal wife . The morality of the man is to guard his own honor and rights ; the morality of the woman is to practise devotion and self sacrifice .
Is this inequality of condition happy ? Ask every woman who has been made to feel on the subject , and ask a few men , and you will receive an answer in the negative ; but with scarcely a single exception you will be told , in addition , that 41
the purity 01 manners induced by this state of general reeling as to women , is a blessing to them , and one for which they ought to be very thankful . " Purity of manners proceeding from purity of heart , refinement of taste , power of imagination and capability of love , is a blessing ; but the world ' s purity is like the whited sepulchres that were " g lorious without , but within , full of dead men ' s bones and all manner of
uncleanness ' and it ia kept up at a fearful expense ; want of developement , ignorance , hypocrisy , deprivation of enjoyment , and much actual suffering in those who practise it ; and , the sacrifice of a large class of victims at its unhol y shrine . To those who pride themselves on the purity of Englishwomen , does it never occur as they pass one of those degraded , and
often intereatine ; beings " are not those too , Englishwomen ? The purity of society , such as it is , is provided for from the outset of life . Men and women are trained to their different moralitieg from infancy . A little girl as soon as she become * a conscious being , becotnes a creature living , moving and acting for others . Sh « wftlk *
Untitled Article
4 * 6 Dtvotio * < amd SdfiJSm * & » .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), July 2, 1836, page 426, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2659/page/34/
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