know what I'd want my daughter to do, it seems to me, even
better than I could tell what I ought to do myself."

"Wouldn't that be a good way to decide your own conduct--to do only
those things which you'd be perfectly willing your daughter should do?"

"But, father, tell me why it's so much more important for girls to be
particular about what they do than for boys."

"It's not more important."

"Well, people seem to think it is. The other day Johnnie Webster was
going to a show and his little sister Carrie wanted to go, too, and he
told her it was no place for girls, and she said, 'Then it is no place
for boys'; and he said, 'But boys don't have to be as good as girls.'
And his father and mother both heard it and never said a word. They only
laughed."

"It is unfortunately quite a common idea that boys and men do not have
to be as good as girls and women; but it is not God's idea. He doesn't
have two standards of morals, and I think the time is coming when men
will be glad to live up to the highest level of purity."

"Don't you think it seems worse for girls to swear or drink or gamble
than for boys?"

"It does _seem_ worse, because we have had such high ideals for women;
but to God it must seem no worse, because he judges of us as _souls_,
not as men and women, and He has laid down only one rule of conduct for
all souls."

"I'd like to know how the idea ever grew that it was not so bad for men
to do wrong as for women."

"Perhaps we cannot now see all the reasons for this state of things, but
we can see at least one reason. Many, many years ago men bought their
wives, or took them by force from others, so they felt that they _owned_
their wives. Of course, each man liked to feel that his wife was above
reproach, that she really did belong to him; therefore, he held any lack
of fidelity as a great sin against himself. But he did not think that he
belonged to her. She had neither bought nor captured him, so she had no
power over him, except such as she could gain by her fascinations.

"Naturally, he didn't care to be bound by the same rigid ideas to which
he held her. He felt himself free to do what fancy dictated. The general
level of morals was low, so he followed the pleasures of sense, and the
wife could only submit, or try to be more fascinating to him than any
one else. But if he was great and influential or handsome, and was not
bound by any moral restraints, there would be other women desirous of
ga