after all the joking, a stain, and, amongst those who depend on character for a livelihood, it often produces ruin.  At the very least, it makes an unhappy and wrangling family; it makes children despise or hate their fathers, and it affords an example at the thought of the ultimate consequences of which a father ought to shudder.  In such a case, children will take part, and they ought to take part, with the mother:  she is the injured party; the shame brought upon her attaches, in part, to them:  they feel the injustice done them; and, if such a man, when the grey hairs, and tottering knees, and piping voice come, look round him in vain for a prop, let him, at last, be just, and acknowledge that he has now the due reward of his own wanton cruelty to one whom he had solemnly sworn to love and to cherish to the last hour of his or her life.

199.  But, bad as is conjugal infidelity in the husband, it is much worse in the wife:  a proposition that it is necessary to maintain by the force of reason, because the women, as a sisterhood, are prone to deny the truth of it.  They say that adultery is adultery, in men as well as in them; and that, therefore, the offence is as great in the one case as in the other.  As a crime, abstractedly considered, it certainly is; but, as to the consequences, there is a wide difference.  In both cases, there is the breach of a solemn vow, but, there is this great distinction, that the husband, by his breach of that vow, only brings shame upon his wife and family; whereas the wife, by a breach of her vow, may bring the husband a spurious offspring to maintain, and may bring that spurious offspring to rob of their fortunes, and in some cases of their bread, her legitimate children.  So that here is a great and evident wrong done to numerous parties, besides the deeper disgrace inflicted in this case than in the other.

200.  And why is the disgrace deeper?  Because here is a total want of delicacy; here is, in fact, prostitution; here is grossness and filthiness of mind; here is every thing that argues baseness of character.  Women should be, and they are, except in few instances, far more reserved and more delicate than men; nature bids them be such; the habits and manners of the world confirm this precept of nature; and therefore, when they commit this offence, they excite loathing, as well as call for reprobation.  In the countries where a plurality of wives is permitted, there is no plurality of husbands.  It is there thought not at all indelicate for a man to have several wives; but the bare thought of a woman having two husbands would excite horror.  The widows of the Hindoos burn themselves in the pile that consumes their husbands; but the Hindoo widowers do not dispose of themselves in this way.  The widows devote their bodies to complete destruction, lest, even after the death of their husbands,