t to impossible. If you begin in
grossness; if you couple yourself on to one with whom you have taken
liberties, infidelity is the natural and _just_ consequence. When a
_Peer of the realm_, who had not been over-fortunate in his matrimonial
affairs, was urging MAJOR CARTWRIGHT to seek for nothing more than
'_moderate_ reform,' the Major (forgetting the domestic circumstances of
his Lordship) asked him how he should relish '_moderate_ chastity' in a
wife! The bare use of the two words, thus coupled together, is
sufficient to excite disgust. Yet with this '_moderate_ chastity' you
must be, and ought to be, content, if you have entered into marriage
with one, in whom you have ever discovered the slightest approach
towards lewdness, either in deeds, words, or looks. To marry has been
your own act; you have made the contract for your own gratification; you
knew the character of the other party; and the children, if any, or the
community, are not to be the sufferers for your gross and corrupt
passion. '_Moderate_ chastity' is all that you have, in fact, contracted
for: you have it, and you have no reason to complain. When I come to
address myself to the _husband_, I shall have to say more upon this
subject, which I dismiss for the present with observing, that my
observation has convinced me, that, when families are rendered unhappy
from the existence of '_moderate_ chastity,' the fault, first or last,
has been in the man, ninety-nine times out of every hundred.

91. SOBRIETY. By _sobriety_ I do not mean merely an absence of _drinking
to a state of intoxication_; for, if that be _hateful_ in a man, what
must it be in a woman! There is a Latin proverb, which says, that wine,
that is to say, intoxication, _brings forth truth_. Whatever it may do
in this way, in men, in women it is sure, unless prevented by age or by
salutary ugliness, to produce a moderate, and a _very moderate_, portion
of chastity. There never was a drunken woman, a woman who loved strong
drink, who was chaste, if the opportunity of being the contrary
presented itself to her. There are cases where _health_ requires wine,
and even small portions of more ardent liquor; but (reserving what I
have further to say on this point, till I come to the conduct of the
husband) _young_ unmarried women can seldom stand in need of these
stimulants; and, at any rate, only in cases of well-known definite
ailments. Wine! '_only_ a _glass or two_ of wine at dinner, or so'! As
s