Note 13 — Volume I (continued 5)

In some countries, agreement in rank and fortune is held so far preferable to that of nature and of the heart, that an inequality in the former is judged sufficient to prevent or dissolve the most happy marriages, without any regard to the honour of the unfortunate lovers, who are daily made a sacrifice to such odious prejudices. I heard once a celebrated cause pleaded before the parliament at Paris, wherein the distinction of rank publicly and insolently opposed honesty, justice, and the conjugal vow; the unworthy parent, who gained his cause, disinheriting his son, because he refused to act the part of a villain. The fair sex are, in that polite country, subjected in the greatest degree to the tyranny of the laws. Is it to be wondered at, that they so amply avenge themselves in the looseness of their manners?