ks. They may carouse, blaspheme,
get drunk, and do what wickedness they please among themselves; if they
only keep straight in the ladies' presence, it is all that is asked. Now
there is by far too much of this low state of morality among young
women. I say among young women, because if their moral feelings were
what they should be, they would not associate with such young men. They
would not enroll them on their list of friends. They would not know
their names; would not recognize them when they met. I have no
confidence in the moral sense of young women who will acknowledge such
associates. The very first duty which women owe to young men is to
demand of them a higher standard of morality. I say _demand_. They
should peremptorily demand it. Young women should erect the standard for
young men which young men have erected for them. Young men who have any
respect for themselves will not associate with women that chew, and
smoke, and swear, and get drunk--those whose morals are low and base.
They spurn such associates from them. Let young women do the same. Let
them say to the young men, "You shall not do the things you prohibit us
from doing; you shall not, behind our backs, do things you would despise
us for doing; you shall not bring into our society characters from which
you know every honest and pure woman ought to recoil as she would from a
basilisk; you shall not breathe into our faces the pestiferous breath of
the drunkard, nor burden our ears with the hateful sound of the
blasphemer; you must be what you would have us, or you must be out of
our society." Let young women talk thus and act thus, and true young men
will respect them all the more. No woman is respected more for smiling
on the villain. He himself despises her for it. The truth is, our
society is corrupt on this subject. _Men_ are permitted to do with
impunity what would blast a woman's reputation for life. A man may be
coarse, vulgar, and wicked, and society admits him to all its
privileges, and good women will meet him on terms of equality. Society
can never be what it should be till the same standard of morality and
propriety is established for men and women. It is woman's duty to
establish such a standard--a duty she owes to man. She does man an act
of injustice when she accepts him as an associate at the sacrifice of
her moral dignity. It is her duty to rebuke his evil course. It is
kindness to him to do it.

Young women can not do a bad man a gre