“Because the world is too strong for us; because it is impious to risk a woman’s honor; because the bonds of society are too rigid.”
“And who forged these bonds of society?”
“Man.”
“Then cannot man break them also?”
“It demands too great a sacrifice of others; it outrages too grossly the hereditary instincts of the race.”
“Cannot a man free himself then from false ties?”
“Not always.”
“Because—”
“They are often of his own forging.”
“Yet he can break them.”