d "neither do I
condemn thee" were to decide between the relative fitness of the two
for a place in His kingdom--is there any doubt in whose favor He would
speak? The law cannot decide as He would decide; and the world is right
in insisting upon the chastity of woman; but is the world right in
regarding chastity as the only female virtue, or at least in regarding
a lapse from continence as the only wrong which should exclude woman
from the pale of decent society, and deprive her of a right to earn her
living among other women? Is it right in asking only one question in
regard to a woman's conduct and in "receiving" a married woman, merely
because she is married, although she may make her home a little hell
for her husband and her children? We are not advocating looseness upon
the former point, but only comparing the world's treatment of natural
error with its treatment of essential and malicious wrong-doing. If the
one should be condemned--and it should be--what should be done in case
of the other? Motive gives every act its true character; and if we
teach women that a life filled with acts the motives of which are mean
and malicious may be "respectable," are we not subjecting them to a
daily discipline of moral degradation?

--And with it all there is such a foolish, deplorable, ruinous neglect
of the proper instruction of young women. They are taught heaps of
things that are of no possible use to them, and they are not taught
those which concern them most nearly. Here is this miserable
"Throop-Price" affair, as it is called, in which a young lady belonging
to a family of some culture and social position is actually taken
before a clergyman and half married before she knows it; but suspecting
that something is wrong, and being assured by the clergyman that the
ceremony he is performing solemnizes a real, binding marriage, she
flies off, but is immediately induced to go before the Mayor, and is
there married out of hand when she meant to do no such thing. It seems
incredible; but it is actually true. We make, as we should do, an awful
fuss about marriage, and a good marriage is, as it should be, the
desire of a young woman's heart, and yet in regard to all the
essentials of marriage as well as the duties and personal relations of
married life, we leave them in ignorance. There would seem to be but
two ways about this matter: one, the French way of keeping young girls
in seclusion and absolute ignorance, and then marry