BOOK III PART II
maintenance and education of their children,
by the persuasion that they are really their
own; and therefore it is reasonable, and even
necessary, to give them some security in this
particular. This security cannot consist entirely
in the imposing of severe punishments on any
transgressions of conjugal fidelity on the part
of the wife; since these public punishments
cannot be inflicted without legal proof, which it
is difficult to meet with in this subject. What re-
straint, therefore, shall we impose on women,
in order to counter-balance so strong a temp-
tation as they have to infidelity? There seems
to be no restraint possible, but in the pun-
ishment of bad fame or reputation; a punish-
ment, which has a mighty influence on the hu-
man mind, and at the same time is inflicted by
the world upon surmizes, and conjectures, and
proofs, that would never be received in any