ON THE COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE SEXES. 



THE question has been repeatedly propounded for discussion 

 whether the greatest proportion of human happiness falls to the lot 

 of man or woman, taking each of the sexes in the aggregate. Our 

 conviction is, that the male enjoys a greater measure of happiness 

 than the female portion of mankind. 



In enumerating a few of the grounds on which we rest our hypo- 

 thesis, we shall advert to both sexes in the two great divisions of 

 human life the single and the married. 



An unmarried woman, when mingling in society, invariably ap- 

 pears in an assumed character. She is bound hand and foot by those 

 arbitrary laws of propriety which pass current in society. If she 

 venture to express her indignation in ordinary terms at any real or 

 supposed unjust usage she has received, she is looked on as a virago, 

 and is pronounced a second Xantippe. She is restrained in the in- 

 finite majority of cases from divulging to any of her acquaintances 

 those feelings which most powerfully actuate her bosom, lest in so doing 

 she should be reposing confidence in a treacherous friend. Even 

 in the ordinary matters of eating and drinking she frequently labours 

 under an unpleasant restraint. The cravings of nature must be im- 

 molated on the shrine of a misnamed propriety. And when she con- 

 stitutes one of a party for whose enjoyment the toddy bowl is placed 

 on the table, or any kind of ardent spirits are to be quaffed, it is 

 doubly necessary she should be on her guard, lest by gratifying her 

 taste she should violate the rules which society has established on such 

 occasions ; and one slight abrogation of these rules in the instance 

 in question. In other words, were she to evince the least'symptom of 

 intoxication, it would prove ruinous of her character and utterly de- 

 structive of her prospects in life ; no extenuating plea would be ad- 

 mitted on her behalf. Girls are duly aware of all this ; and hence 

 are in a state of perpetuaKfear of falling into such error, and conse- 

 quently must feel so unremitting an attempt to conduct themselves 

 in consonance with the regulations of society a work at once of great 

 difficulty and of much unpleasantness. 



From these sources of unhappiness men are comparatively ex empted. 

 A man does not in any sensible degree lower himself in the estima- 

 tion of society by expressing himself in any company with perfect 

 freedom, provided there be nothing exceptionable in the terms them- 

 selves which he makes use of, respecting any actual or imagined 

 just treatment he may have received at the hands of another. Nor 

 does he endure a twentieth part of the infelicity which falls to the lot 

 of the other sex from misplaced confidence, or from being obliged 

 to conceal in his own mind what it would have afforded him relief to 

 have revealed to a friend or acquaintance ; for, in the first place, he 

 has not a twentieth part of the secrets to communicate which woman 

 Ijias; nor, secondly, when he does make a confidant of another, is the 



