"'M.l'Abbe preaches for his own saint,for it was Jesus Christ who invented adultery,'said Comte Octave.'In the East,the cradle of the human race,woman was merely a luxury,and there was regarded as a chattel;no virtues were demanded of her but obedience and beauty.By exalting the soul above the body,the modern family in Europe--a daughter of Christ--invented indissoluble marriage,and made it a sacrament.'
"'Ah!the Church saw the difficulties,'exclaimed M.de Grandville.
"'This institution has given rise to a new world,'the Count went on with a smile.'But the practices of that world will never be that of a climate where women are marriageable at seven years of age,and more than old at five-and-twenty.The Catholic Church overlooked the needs of half the globe.--So let us discuss Europe only.
"'Is woman our superior or our inferior?That is the real question so far as we are concerned.If woman is our inferior,by placing her on so high a level as the Church does,fearful punishments for adultery were needful.And formerly that was what was done.The cloister or death sums up early legislation.But since then practice has modified the law,as is always the case.The throne served as a hotbed for adultery,and the increase of this inviting crime marks the decline of the dogmas of the Catholic Church.In these days,in cases where the Church now exacts no more than sincere repentance from the erring wife,society is satisfied with a brand-mark instead of an execution.
The law still condemns the guilty,but it no longer terrifies them.In short,there are two standards of morals:that of the world,and that of the Code.Where the Code is weak,as I admit with our dear Abbe,the world is audacious and satirical.There are so few judges who would not gladly have committed the fault against which they hurl the rather stolid thunders of their "Inasmuch."The world,which gives the lie to the law alike in its rejoicings,in its habits,and in its pleasures,is severer than the Code and the Church;the world punishes a blunder after encouraging hypocrisy.The whole economy of the law on marriage seems to me to require reconstruction from the bottom to the top.The French law would be perfect perhaps if it excluded daughters from inheriting.'