CH. III.] WIDOWS WITH YOUNG FAMILIES. 163 



ters, they have gained the privilege of choosing a 

 companion. 



The ties of marriage have become not only in- 

 dissoluble, but from the day when a man has 

 contracted them, his wife alone has a right to fix 

 his affection. Christianity has thus established 

 between man and woman an equality, which philo- 

 sophy had never even imagined. But since the 

 confiscation of the property and the destruction 

 of the religious orders, how large a proportion of 

 women have been brought even to regret their free- 

 dom from this ignominious yoke which Christianity 

 has thrown off, and still more for their children than 

 for themselves ! 



M 2 



