Page:Sexology.djvu/40

 national style of courtship. A very young lady, herself just "engaged," pointed out as a defect in this representation, that the lady's hair and dress were too smooth and unruffled for the hour and the occasion. "0, times! 0, manners!" Really, our American courtships are but little better than "bundlings." Under all these circumstances it is not surprising that a broken engagement should seriously compromise a young lady's matrimonial prospects, and that young men should be shy of one whose charms, they are well assured, have been already freely lavished on another. "We know of young ladies, very pretty and attractive girls, who shine as belles in society year after year, who are unable to obtain husbands wholly from the circumstance that they are too well known to the young men as girls by whom the most daring freedoms have been not only unrebuked but encouraged. Long drives and walks in solitary pairs, unchaperoned at balls and parties, even the sacred edifice polluted by flirtations scandalous to behold—of what are the fathers and mothers of America thinking, to afford these allurements and temptations? Should not their own experience lead them to protect those dependent on them from such dangers? If those whose authority is unasserted or unheeded, do not restrain them, let them listen to instruction from one who knows thoroughly the weakness of women and the perfidy of men.

Young women of America, if you knew how lightly you are estimated by those who so earnestly and passionately seek your favors, you would certainly deny them, if the effort cost your lives. There are degrees in libertinism: the affectionate caress, the wanton impropriety, the deliberate seduction; and, however humiliating, the assertion may be, it is nevertheless a fact, that these several stages are at the command of him to whom you surrender the out-