as she ought to have understood him before she ever dared to stand up
at an altar and promise to love him and live with him until death did
them part?

A broken engagement ought to be considered a blessed thing as a
preventive of further and worse ills. But it is not. It militates
seriously against a girl. Not so much with men as with women. That is
one of the times, and there are many others, when men are broader and
more just than women. The ordinary man, taken at random, will say,
"Probably he was a worthless fellow." The ordinary woman will say,
"She ought to have known her own mind better."

The odd part of all this is that, even if you men, as a body, should
say to all the girls: "Go ahead. Encourage us to the top of your bent.
Let us propose without any knowledge based on your past actions or
words as to whether we are going to be accepted or not, and we will
take the result cheerfully and won't rage or howl about it"--that not
one of us would do it.

"How conscience doth make cowards of us all!" We might consider that
you were only giving us our rights in love. We might theorize
beautifully about it, and even vow we were going to take you at your
word and do it. But we couldn't. It simply isn't in us. We could not
be so unjust to you--so untrue to ourselves. The great maternal heart
of woman, which bears the greater part of all the sufferings in this
world that the men and little children may go free, prevents us from
taking any such so-called rights from you, at the cost of suffering on
your part. Women have tenderer hearts than men for a purpose, and if
they are hurt oftener than men's, why, that is for us to bear. We
cannot make ourselves over and turn Amazons at your expense.