the advantage is not so much on the other side as the men
think it is; and though it may be true that the men have but too
much choice among us, and that some women may be found
who will dishonour themselves, be cheap, and easy to come
at, and will scarce wait to be asked, yet if they will have women,
as I may say, worth having, they may find them as uncomeatable
as ever and that those that are otherwise are a sort of people
that have such deficiencies, when had, as rather recommend
the ladies that are difficult than encourage the men to go on
with their easy courtship, and expect wives equally valuable
that will come at first call.
Nothing is more certain than that the ladies always gain of the
men by keeping their ground, and letting their pretended
lovers see they can resent being slighted, and that they are not
afraid of saying No. They, I observe, insult us mightily with
telling us of the number of women; that the wars, and the sea,
and trade, and other incidents have carried the men so much
away, that there is no proportion between the numbers of the
sexes, and therefore the women have the disadvantage; but I
am far from granting that the number of women is so great,
or the number of men so small; but if they will have me tell
the truth, the disadvantage of the women is a terrible scandal
upon the men, and it lies here, and here only; namely, that the
age is so wicked, and the sex so debauched, that, in short, the
number of such men as an honest woman ought to meddle
with is small indeed, and it is but here and there that a man is
to be found who is fit for a woman to venture upon.
But the consequence even of that too amounts to no more
than this, that women ought to be the more nice; for how do
we know the just character of the man that makes the offer?
To say that the woman should be the more easy on this
occasion, is to say we should be the forwarder to venture
because of the greatness of the danger, which, in my way of
reasoning, is very absurd.
On the contrary, the women have ten thousand times the more
reason to be wary and backward, by how much the hazard of
being betrayed is the greater; and would the ladies consider
this, and act the wary part, they would discover every cheat
that offered; for, in short, the lives of very few men nowadays
will bear a character; and if the ladies do but make a little
inquiry, they will soon be able to distinguish the men and
deliver themselves. As for women that do not think they own
safety worth their though, that, impatient of their perfect state,
resolve, as they call it, to take the first good Christian that
comes, that run into matrimony as a horse rushes into the battle,
I can say nothing to them but this, that they are a sort of ladies
that are to be prayed for among the rest of distempered people,
and to me they look like people that venture their whole estates
in a lottery where there is a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.
No man of common-sense will value a woman the less for not
giving up herself at the first attack, or for accepting his proposal
without inquiring into his person or character; on the contrary,
he must think her the weakest of all creatures in the world, as
the rate of men now goes. In short, he must have a very
contemptible opinion of her capacities, nay, every of her
understanding, that, having but one case of her life, shall call
that life away at once, and make matrimony, like death, be a
leap in the dark.
I would fain have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in
this particular, which is the thing in which, of all the parts of
life, I think at this time we suffer most in; ’tis nothing but lack