How admirable what Sir James Mackintosh says of Madame de
Maintenon!--that "she was as virtuous as the fear of hell and the fear
of shame could make her." The same might be said of the virtue of many
women I know, and of these, I believe, that more are virtuous from the
fear of shame than the fear of hell.--Shame is the woman's hell.
Who that has lived in the world, in society, and looked on both with
observing eye, but has often been astonished at the fearlessness of
women, and the cowardice of men, with regard to public opinion? The
reverse would seem to be the natural, the necessary result of the
existing order of things, but it is not always so. Exceptions occur so
often, and so immediately within my own province of observation, that
they have made me reflect a good deal. Perhaps this seeming discrepancy
might be thus explained.
Women are brought up in the fear of opinion, but, from their ignorance
of the world, they are in fact ignorant of that which they fear. They
fear opinion as a child fears a spectre, as something shadowy and
horrible, not defined or palpable. It is a fear based on habit, on
feeling, not on principle or reason. When their passions are strongly
excited, or when reason becomes matured, this exaggerated fear vanishes,
and the probability is, that they are immediately thrown into the
opposite extreme of incredulity, defiance, and rashness: but a man, even
while courage is preached to him, learns from habitual intercourse with
the world the immense, the terrible power of opinion. It wraps him round
like despotism; it is a reality to him; to a woman a shadow, and if she
can overcome the fear in her own person, all is overcome. A man fears
opinion for himself, his wife, his daughter; and if the fear of opinion
be brought into conflict with primary sentiments and principles, it is
ten to one but the habit of fear prevails, and opinion triumphs over
reason and feeling too.
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