A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume 2 | Page 7

of the charges in question. Nor can the society be blamed in
this case, who, by never asking them to become members, never entice
them to any objectionable repentance.
Of those again, who marry out of the society, there may be individuals,
so attached to its communion, that it was never imagined they would
have acted in this manner. Now of these, it may in general be said, that
they often bitterly repent. They find, soon or late, that the opposite
opinions and manners, to be found in their union, do not harmonize.
And here it may be observed, that it is very possible, that such persons
may say they repent without any crimination of their wives. A man, for
instance, may have found in his wife all the agreeableness of temper,
all the domestic virtue and knowledge, all the liberality of religious
opinion, which he had anticipated; but in consequence of the mixed
principles resulting from mixed marriages, or of other unforeseen
causes, he may be so alarmed about the unsteady disposition of his
children and their future prospects, that the pain which he feels on these
accounts may overbalance the pleasure, which he acknowledges in the
constant prudence, goodness, solicitude, and affection, of his wife. This
may be so much the case, that all her consolatory offices may not be

able to get the better of his grief. A man, therefore, in such
circumstances, may truly repent of his marriage, or that he was ever the
father of such children, though he can never complain as the husband of
such a wife.
The truth, however, is, that those who make the charge in question,
have entirely misapplied the meaning of the word repent. People are
not called upon to express their sorrow, for having married the objects
of their choice, but for having violated those great tenets of the society,
which have been already mentioned, and which form distinguishing
characteristics between Quakerism and the religion of the world. Those,
therefore, who say they repent, say no more than what any other
persons might be presumed to say, who had violated the religious tenets
of any other society to which they might have belonged, or who had
flown in the face of what they had imagined to be religious truths.
SECT. IV.
_Of persons, disowned for marriage, the greater proportion is said to
consist of women--Causes assigned for this difference of number in the
two sexes._
It will perhaps appear a curious fact to the world, but I am told it is true,
that the number of the women, disowned for marrying out of the
society, far exceeds the number of the men, who are disowned on the
same account.
It is not difficult, if the fact be as it is stated, to assign a reason for this
difference of number in the two sexes.
When men wish to marry, they wish, at least if they are men of sense,
to find such women as are virtuous; to find such as are prudent and
domestic, and such as have a proper sense of the folly and dissipation
of the Fashionable world; such in fact as will make good mothers and
good wives. Now if a Quaker looks into his own society, he will
generally find the female part of it of this description. Female Quakers
excel in these points. But if he looks into the world at large, he will in
general find a contrast in the females there. These, in general, are but
badly educated. They are taught to place a portion of their happiness in
finery and show: utility is abandoned for fashion: The knowledge of the
etiquette of the drawing-room usurps the place of the knowledge of the
domestic duties: A kind of false and dangerous taste predominates:
Scandal and the card-table are preferred to the pleasures of a rural walk:

Virtue and Modesty are seen with only half their energies, being
overpowered by the noxiousness of novel-reading principles, and by
the moral taint which infects those who engage in the varied rounds of
a fashionable life. Hence a want of knowledge, a love of trifles, and a
dissipated turn of mind, generally characterize those who are
considered as having had the education of the world.
We see therefore a good reason why Quaker-men should confine
themselves in their marriages to their own society. But the same reason,
which thus operates with Quaker-men in the choice of Quaker-women,
operates with men who are not of the society, in choosing them also for
their wives. These are often no strangers to the good education, and to
the high character, of the Quaker-females. Fearful often of marrying
among the badly educated women of their own persuasion, they
frequently address themselves to this society, and not unfrequently
succeed.
To this it