rties have an equal interest. Any agreement thus
formed is imperfect, and is liable to disturbance; and the danger is
great in proportion to the degradation of the supposed weaker party. The
degree of the degradation of woman is as good a test as the moralist can
adopt for ascertaining the state of domestic morals in any country.

The Indian squaw carries the household burdens, trudging in the dust,
while her husband on horseback paces before her, unencumbered but by his
own gay trappings. She carries the wallet with food, the matting for the
lodge, the merchandize (if they possess any), and her infant. There is
no exemption from labour for the squaw of the most vaunted chief. In
other countries the wife may be found drawing the plough, hewing wood
and carrying water; the men of the family standing idle to witness her
toils. Here the observer may feel pretty sure of his case. From a
condition of slavery like this, women are found rising to the highest
condition in which they are at present seen, in France, England, and the
United States,--where they are less than half-educated, precluded from
earning a subsistence, except in a very few ill-paid employments, and
prohibited from giving or withholding their assent to laws which they
are yet bound by penalties to obey. In France, owing to the great
destruction of men in the wars of Napoleon, women are engaged, and
successfully engaged, in a variety of occupations which have been
elsewhere supposed unsuitable to the sex. Yet there remains so large a
number who cannot, by the most strenuous labour in feminine employments,
command the necessaries of life, while its luxuries may be earned by
infamy, that the morals of the society are naturally bad. Great
attention has of late been given to this subject in France: the social
condition of women is matter of thought and discussion to a degree which
promises some considerable amelioration. Already, women can do more in
France than anywhere else; they can attempt more without ridicule or
arbitrary hinderance: and the women of France are probably destined to
lead the way in the advance which the sex must hereafter make. At
present, society is undergoing a transition from a feudal state to one
of mutual government; and women, gaining in some ways, suffer in others
during the process. They have, happily for themselves, lost much of the
peculiar kind of observance which was the most remarkable feature of the
chivalrous age; and it has be