currence of such an inconvenience, as it would be highly
unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or
infliction, the men might agree to punish it with disgrace. The offence
is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable
to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known, but the
same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother. Where
the evidence of the offence was most complete, and the inconvenience to
the society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the
large share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to
maintain his children, the society would enforce, if there were
occasion; and the greater degree of inconvenience or labour, to which a
family would necessarily subject him, added to some portion of disgrace
which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness,
might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man.

That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an
offence which men commit nearly with impunity, seems to be undoubtedly
a breach of natural justice. But the origin of the custom, as the most
obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a
serious inconvenience to a community, appears to be natural, though not
perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, is now lost in the
new train of ideas which the custom has since generated. What at first
might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female
delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of society
where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there is
the least real occasion for it.

When these two fundamental laws of society, the security of property,
and the institution of marriage, were once established, inequality of
conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were born after the
division of property would come into a world already possessed. If
their parents, from having too large a family, could not give them
sufficient for their support, what are they to do in a world where
everything is appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would
result to a society, if every man had a valid claim to an equal share
of the produce of the earth. The members of a family which was grown
too large for the original division of land appropriated to it could
not then demand a part of the surplus produce of others, as a debt of
justice. It has appe