Page:Essays, Moral and Political - David Hume (1741).djvu/74

 Sighs; but in return we shall hear no more imperious Commands. Love must for ever leave us; but he will carry Subjection along with him.

' regarded by some as an unlucky Circumstance, since the Women were resolved to main the Men, and deprive them of some of their Senses, in order to render them humble and dependent, that the Sense of hearing could not serve their Purpose, since 'tis probable the Females would rather have attack'd that than the Sight: And I think it is agreed among the Learned, that, in a married State, 'tis not near so great an Inconvenience to lose the former Sense as the latter. However this may be, we are told by modern Anecdotes, that some of the Scythian Women did secretly spare their Husbands Eyes; presuming, I suppose, that they could govern them as well by means of that Sense as without it. But so incorrigible and intractable were these Men, that their Wives were all obliged in a few Years, as their Youth and Beauty decay'd, to imitate the Example of their Sisters; which it was no difficult Matter to do in a State where the female Sex had once got the Superiority.