Читать книгу Owen's Moral Physiology; or, A Brief and Plain Treatise on the Population Question онлайн

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I never could sympathize with this major domo delicacy; and if you can, my reader, you had better throw this book aside at once.

If you have travelled and observed much, you will already have learnt the distinction between real and artificial propriety. If you have been in Constantinople, you probably know, that when the grand seignor’s wives are ill, the physician is only allowed to see the wrist, which is thrust through an opening in the side of the room, because it is improper even for a physician to look upon another man’s wife; and it is thought better to sacrifice health than propriety.^[3]

If you have sojourned among the inhabitants of Turcomania, you know that they consider a woman’s virtue sacrificed for ever, if, before marriage, she be seen to stop on the public road to speak to her lover:^[4] and if you have read Buckingham’s travels, you may remember a very romantic story, in which a young Turcoman lady, having thus forfeited her reputation, is left for dead on the road by her brothers, who were determined their sister should not survive her dishonor.