the
married couple. This system would rest upon foundations wider and
freer, if girls were subjected to a carefully calculated system of
disinheritance; or if, in order to force men to choose only those who
promised happiness by their virtues, their character or their talents,
they married as in the United States without dowry.

In that case, the system adopted by the Romans could advantageously be
applied to the married women who when they were girls used their
liberty. Being exclusively engaged in the early education of their
children, which is the most important of all maternal obligations,
occupied in creating and maintaining the happiness of the household,
so admirably described in the fourth book of _Julie_, they would be in
their houses like the women of ancient Rome, living images of
Providence, which reigns over all, and yet is nowhere visible. In this
case, the laws covering the infidelity of the wife should be extremely
severe. They should make the penalty disgrace, rather than inflict
painful or coercive sentences. France has witnessed the spectacle of
women riding asses for the pretended crime of magic, and many an
innocent woman has died of shame. In this may be found the secret of
future marriage legislation. The young girls of Miletus delivered
themselves from marriage by voluntary death; the senate condemned the
suicides to be dragged naked on a hurdle, and the other virgins
condemned themselves for life.

Women and marriage will never be respected until we have that radical
change in manners which we are now begging for. This profound thought
is the ruling principle in the two finest productions of an immortal
genius. _Emile_ and _La Nouvelle Heloise_ are nothing more than two
eloquent pleas for the system. The voice there raised will resound
through the ages, because it points to the real motives of true
legislation, and the manners which will prevail in the future. By
placing children at the breast of their mothers, Jean-Jacques rendered
an immense service to the cause of virtue; but his age was too deeply
gangrened with abuses to understand the lofty lessons unfolded in
those two poems; it is right to add also that the philosopher was in
these works overmastered by the poet, and in leaving in the heart of
_Julie_ after her marriage some vestiges of her first love, he was led
astray by the attractiveness of a poetic situation, more touching
indeed, but less useful than the truth which he wished to