is better half;
and the phrase, met with in French or Latin, looks not only true but
poetical, and in its foreign dress is cherished and quoted. She is not
the wiser--in a worldly sense--certainly not the stronger, nor the
cleverer, notwithstanding what the promoters of the Woman's Rights
movements may say; but she is the better. All must feel, indeed, that,
if the whole sins of the present world could be, and were, parceled into
two huge heaps, those committed by the men would far exceed those of the
women. We doubt whether any reflective man will deny this. On the other
hand, the active virtues of man, his benevolence and good deeds, might
equal those of woman; but his passive virtues, his patience and his
endurance, would be much smaller. On the whole, therefore, woman is the
much better half; and there is no good man but owes an immense deal to
the virtues of the good women about him. He owes, too, a considerable
deal of evil to their influence, not only of the absolutely bad, for
those a pure man shuns, but the half-good and respectably selfish women
of society--these are they who undermine his honesty, his benevolence,
and his purity of mind.

The influence man receives from woman is of a very mixed character. But
of all the influence which woman has over man, that which is naturally
most permanent, for good or evil, arises from the marriage tie. How we
of the cold North have been able to emancipate woman from the deplorable
depth into which polygamy would place her, it is not easy to say. That
it is a state absolutely countenanced--nay, enjoined--in the Old
Testament, it would be useless to deny. But custom and fair usance are
stronger than the Old Testament; and the Jews, who readily adopt the
laws of the country under which they live, forbid polygamy to their
brethren in Christian lands, whilst they permit and practice it where it
exists, as with the Mahometan and Hindoo. Under its influence the
character of woman is terribly dwarfed. She sinks to nothing where she
would be, as she should be, of half the importance of life at least.

To preserve her position, it will be necessary for all good women to try
and elevate the condition of their sisters. With all of us, "the world
is too much with us, day by day;" and worldly success plays so large a
part in the domestic drama, that woman is everywhere perceptibly
influenced by it. Hence, to return to the closer consideration of the
subject from our own point of vie