THE GROWTH OF THE TIE 19 



In the main the confidence which women now 

 claim and receive is not misplaced. Chastity, like 

 benevolence and other virtues, has been much dis- 

 cussed by rival schools of philosophy, the adherents 

 of the Intuitive system believing it to be the out- 

 come of an innate consciousness of right and wrong 

 in the female nature, and the Utilitarians viewing 

 it as a matter of prudential calculation on the part of 

 the individual. Upon such questions the modern 

 theory of evolution, which treats instinct as an in- 

 herited custom, has thrown a flood of light. We now 

 know that the Intuitives and the Utilitarians alike 

 had some grasp of the truth. Chastity has become in- 

 stinctive among women in highly civilised races, and 

 it has done so precisely in the same way as honesty 

 becomes instinctive in a people who have been law- 

 abiding for many generations. Both virtues, which 

 are peculiar to the human race, grow up simultane- 

 ously with the notion of property, chastity being 

 demanded of women as soon as men develop the 

 desire to transmit property to their children. 



From very ancient times men have been uncom- 

 promising upon the subject of the adultery of their 

 wives, death being often the penalty attached to the 

 crime ; whereas it is quite a modern and academic 



