WEIGHTY MORAL QUESTION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 6, Issue 1699, 31 May 1884, Page 2

WEIGHTY MORAL QUESTION.

However we may like to think in the privacy of our hearts about woman's wrongs, all our social judgments tell immiatakeably on the side of the mail who wrongs them, In daily life it is only natural, perhaps, that we should allow the trend of public opinion, and give in to the verdict; but it might be expected that the instincts of justice and fair dealin® would color our matured and deliberate judgments. But nothing of the kind takes place. The victim of seduction is treated in the novel that we write about just as she is treated in the parlor or in the Btreet. The current opinion of the world is accepted instinctively as the proper test of her conduct ; and however young, guileless, and pure-souled the unhappy maiden is who is selected for tho sacrifice, no mercy is shown her. She may, like Ruth in Mrs Gaskell's very beautiful tale, err from the very gentleness of her. nature, and devote a livo of atoning endurance to the redemption of a character with only a single spot upon it, but the laws of good breeding require that her fate shall he allotted in strict accordance with the world's unfeeling ami (indiscriminate estimation. This is the popular method of keeping up the sense of**, sexual superiority that began Sw* Adam and Eve! Colonel Baker may be reinstated, but certainly not Mary Magdalene. Such is the dictilm of fashion, Mary is. turned into the streets, and the Colonel is clothed in gold lace and taken back to the bosom of hia Club, and feted as his highlydistinguished acts of penitence deserve. Not a single voice that we bave heard has been guilty ot the unfashionable folly of demanding a revision of the outrageous social oanon that denies all hopes of restitution to the woman while it sets the man who wrongs her upon his pedestal, and paints an aureole about his glorified head. The • very highest patronage is accorded to the Evangel which admits the excavalry officor to his mess table again, but no one is impolite enough to ask why Society should strain and reach at the prospect of welcoming his poor victim to the family hearth once more, And yet the story of Mary Magdalene is still read with teal's in the most respectable circles I—'Age.'