iii. 6, 7.

[97] Gen. iv. 9.

[98] Rev. xi. 15.

[99] Matt. v. 8.

[100] Col. i. 12.

[101] Jer. ii. 19.

[102] Isa. xxxii. 19.

THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN ON SOCIETY.[103]

"Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, women always give
the tone to morals. Whether slaves or free, they reign, because their
empire is that of the affections. This influence, however, is more or
less salutary, according to the degree of esteem in which they are
held:--they make men what they are. It seems as though Nature had made
man's intellect depend upon their dignity, as she has made his happiness
depend upon their virtue. This, then, is the law of eternal
justice,--man cannot degrade woman without himself falling into
degradation: he cannot elevate her without at the same time elevating
himself. Let us cast our eyes over the globe! Let us observe those two
great divisions of the human race, the East and the West. Half the old
world remains in a state of inanity, under the oppression of a rude
civilization: the women there are slaves; the other advances in
equalization and intelligence: the women there are free and honoured.

"If we wish, then, to know the political and moral condition of a
state, we must ask what rank women hold in it. Their influence embraces
the whole life. A wife,--a mother,--two magical words, comprising the
sweetest sources of man's felicity. Theirs is the reign of beauty, of
love, of reason. Always a reign! A man takes counsel with his wife; he
obeys his mother; he obeys her long after she has ceased to live, and
the ideas which he has received from her become principles stronger even
than his passions.

"The reality of the power is not disputed; but it may be objected that
it is confined in its operation to the family circle: as if the
aggregate of families did not constitute the nation! The man carries
with him to the forum the notions which the woman has discussed with him
by the domestic hearth. His strength there realizes what her gentle
insinuations inspired. It is sometimes urged as matter of complaint that
the business of women is confined to the domestic arrangements of the
household: and it is not recollected that from the household of every
citizen issue forth the errors and prejudices which govern the world!

"If, then, there be an incontestable fact, it is the influence of women:
an influence extended, with various modifications, through the whole of
life. Such being the cas