es the passions of life. These three
spheres of existence, being almost equal in duration, might be employed
for the classification into equal groups of a given number of women.
Thus in a mass of six millions, omitting fractions, there are about
two million girls between one and eighteen, two millions women between
eighteen and forty and two millions of old women. The caprices of
society have divided the two millions of marriageable women into three
main classes, namely: those who remain spinsters for reasons which we
have defined; those whose virtue does not reckon in the obtaining of
husbands, and the million of women lawfully married, with whom we have
to deal.

You see then, by the exact sifting out of the feminine population, that
there exists in France a little flock of barely a million white lambs, a
privileged fold into which every wolf is anxious to enter.

Let us put this million of women, already winnowed by our fan, through
another examination.

To arrive at the true idea of the degree of confidence which a man ought
to have in his wife, let us suppose for a moment that all wives will
deceive their husbands.

On this hypothesis, it will be proper to cut out about one-twentieth,
viz., young people who are newly married and who will be faithful to
their vows for a certain time.

Another twentieth will be in ill-health. This will be to make a very
modest allowance for human infirmities.

Certain passions, which we are told destroy the dominion of the man over
the heart of his wife, namely, aversion, grief, the bearing of children,
will account for another twentieth.

Adultery does not establish itself in the heart of a married woman with
the promptness of a pistol-shot. Even when sympathy with another rouses
feelings on first sight, a struggle always takes place, whose duration
discounts the total sum of conjugal infidelities. It would be an insult
to French modesty not to admit the duration of this struggle in
a country so naturally combative, without referring to at least a
twentieth in the total of married women; but then we will suppose that
there are certain sickly women who preserve their lovers while they
are using soothing draughts, and that there are certain wives whose
confinement makes sarcastic celibates smile. In this way we shall
vindicate the modesty of those who enter upon the struggle from motives
of virtue. For the same reason we should not venture to believe that a
woman forsaken by