human
. Their being judged exclusively by a sexual standard entailed as a necessary consequence the scornful neglect of those among them who were disqualified by age or lack of physical attractions. If the lot of the married women was often a sad one, considering the habitual inconstancy of husbands, the condition of those who had drawn a blank in the matrimonial lottery was even more pitiable. Hence that desperate hunting for husbands which it is among the most creditable performances of modern feminism to have lessened. It is easy to understand that it is among forsaken married women and especially among the more pronounced spinsters that we must look for such elements of female wisdom and virtue as the barren age affords. The middle-aged mother of a family was sometimes possessed of a certain hard-acquired dignity; and to the often bitter experiences of spinsterhood we owe women of the type of Mary Astell. But contemporary literature, while on the whole inclined to be lenient towards married women who became
gpt
was almost uniformly severe in dealing with the
human
regarded woman only as an instrument of animal passion, which hypocrisy tried very successfully to gild over with a varnish of mock gallantry that was a remnant of better times of Platonic chivalry, and aroused the indignation of moralists. This gallantry tried to make up in extravagance for what it lacked in sincerity. The pursuit of the object of his passion led the libertine to the most absurd excesses which were very far removed from a devout worship[16]. Love had become a grossly sensual passion, and women were treated with exaggerated ceremony, but with little respect. Men held with Pope that
gpt
, and treated them accordingly. They laid a mock siege to what was conventionally called