alked about." For in social judgments, the dictum that "people
talked about generally get what they deserve" is true, however unjust
it may appear to be.

Another class of married flirts scorn to make any apology, or any
pretence of mere friendship. They stand upon the emancipation of
women, and the right of one sex to as much liberty as the other.
This kind of siren boldly says, "she does not intend to be a slave
like her mother, and her grand-mother. She does not propose to tie
herself, either to a house or a cradle." She travels, she lives in
yachts and hotels, and she does not include a nursery in her
plans. She talks of elective affinities, natural emotions of the
heart, and contrasts the opportunities of such conditions with the
limitations and the monotony of domestic relations. She makes
herself valueless for the very highest natural duties of womanhood,
and then talks of her enfranchisement! Yes, she has her freedom, and
what does it mean? More dresses and jewelry, more visits and
journeys; while the whole world of parental duties and domestic
tendernesses lies in ruins at her feet.

The relegation of the married flirt to her proper sphere and duties is
beyond the power of any single individual. Society could make the
necessary protest, but it does not; for if Society is anything, it is
non-interfering. It looks well to it that the outside, the general
public appearance of its members is respectable; with faults not found
out it does not trouble itself. A charge must be definitely made
before it feels any necessity to take cognizance of it. And Society
knows well that these married sirens draw like magnets. Besides, each
entertainer declares: "I am not my sister's keeper, nor am I her
Inquisitor or Confessor. If her husband tolerates the pretty woman's
vagaries, what right have I, what right has any one, to say a word
about her?"

But it is a fact that, if Society frowned on wives who arrogate to
themselves the privileges both of young girls and of wives, the
custom would become stale and offensive. If it would cease to
recognize young married women who are on the terms with their husbands
described by Millamant in "The Way of the World,"--"as strange as if
they had been married a long time, and as well bred as if they had
never been married at all,"--young married women would behave
themselves better. It is generally thought that Mr. Congreve wrote his
plays for a very dissolute age; in reality, they seem