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