Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/71



Know not whence it proceeds, that Women are so apt to take amiss every Thing that is said in Disparagement of the married State; and always consider a Satyr upon Matrimony as a Satyr upon themselves. Do they mean by this, that they are the Parties principally concerned, and that if a Backwardness to enter into that State should prevail in the World, they would be the greatest Sufferers? Or, are they sensible, that the Misfortunes and Miscarriages of the married State are owing more to their Sex than to ours? I hope they do not intend to confess either of these two Particulars, or to give such an Advantage to their Adversaries, the Men, as even to allow them to suspect it.