omplete destruction, lest, even
after the death of their husbands, they should be tempted to connect
themselves with other men; and though this is carrying delicacy far
indeed, it reads to Christian wives a lesson not unworthy of their
attention; for, though it is not desirable that their bodies should be
turned into handfuls of ashes, even that transmutation were preferable
to that infidelity which fixes the brand of shame on the cheeks of their
parents, their children, and on those of all who ever called them
friend.

201. For these plain and forcible reasons it is that this species of
offence is far more heinous in the wife than in the husband; and the
people of all civilized countries act upon this settled distinction. Men
who have been guilty of the offence are not cut off from society, but
women who have been guilty of it are; for, as we all know well, no
woman, married or single, of _fair reputation_, will risk that
reputation by being ever seen, if she can avoid it, with a woman who has
ever, at any time, committed this offence, which contains in itself, and
by universal award, a sentence of social excommunication for life.

202. If, therefore, it be the duty of the husband to adhere strictly to
his marriage vow: if his breach of that vow be naturally attended with
the fatal consequences above described: how much more imperative is the
duty on the wife to avoid, even the semblance of a deviation from that
vow! If the man's misconduct, in this respect, bring shame on so many
innocent parties, what shame, what dishonour, what misery follow such
misconduct in the wife! Her parents, those of her husband, all her
relations, and all her friends, share in her dishonour. And _her
children_! how is she to make atonement to them! They are commanded to
honour their father and their mother; but not such a mother as this,
who, on the contrary, has no claim to any thing from them but hatred,
abhorrence, and execration. It is she who has broken the ties of nature;
she has dishonoured her own offspring; she has fixed a mark of reproach
on those who once made a part of her own body; nature shuts her out of
the pale of its influence, and condemns her to the just detestation of
those whom it formerly bade love her as their own life.

203. But as the crime is so much more heinous, and the punishment so
much more severe, in the case of the wife than it is in the case of the
husband, so the caution ought to be greater in making the