The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders

by Daniel Defoe

his morals; his having been reproachedwith such-and-such women, and having a wife at Plymouth and in the WestIndies, and the like; and she asked him whether he could deny that shehad good reason, if these things were not cleared up, to refuse him,and in the meantime to insist upon having satisfaction in points tosignificant as they were.

  He was so confounded at her discourse that he could not answer a word,and she almost began to believe that all was true, by his disorder,though at the same time she knew that she had been the raiser of allthose reports herself.

  After some time he recovered himself a little, and from that timebecame the most humble, the most modest, and most importunate man alivein his courtship.

  She carried her jest on a great way. She asked him, if he thought shewas so at her last shift that she could or ought to bear suchtreatment, and if he did not see that she did not want those whothought it worth their while to come farther to her than he did;meaning the gentleman whom she had brought to visit her by way of sham.

  She brought him by these tricks to submit to all possible measures tosatisfy her, as well of his circumstances as of his behaviour. Hebrought her undeniable evidence of his having paid for his part of theship; he brought her certificates from his owners, that the report oftheir intending to remove him from the command of the ship and put hischief mate in was false and groundless; in short, he was quite thereverse of what he was before.

  Thus I convinced her, that if the men made their advantage of our sexin the affair of marriage, upon the supposition of there being suchchoice to be had, and of the women being so easy, it was only owing tothis, that the women wanted courage to maintain their ground and toplay their part; and that, according to my Lord Rochester,

  'A woman's ne'er so ruined but she can Revenge herself on her undoer, Man.'

  After these things this young lady played her part so well, that thoughshe resolved to have him, and that indeed having him was the main bentof her design, yet she made his obtaining her be to him the mostdifficult thing in the world; and this she did, not by a haughtyreserved carriage, but by a just policy, turning the tables upon him,and playing back upon him his own game; for as he pretended, by a kindof lofty carriage, to place himself above the occasion of a character,and to make inquiring into his character a kind of an affront to him,she broke with him upon that subject, and at the same time that shemake him submit to all possible inquiry after his affairs, sheapparently shut the door against his looking into her own.

  It was enough to him to obtain her for a wife. As to what she had, shetold him plainly, that as he knew her circumstances, it was but justshe should know his; and though at the same time he had only known hercircumstances by common fame, yet he had made so many protestations ofhis passion for her, that he could ask no more but her hand to hisgrand request, and the like ramble according to the custom of lovers.In short, he left himself no room to ask any more questions about herestate, and she took the advantage of it like a prudent woman, for sheplaced part of her fortune so in trustees, without letting him knowanything of it, that it was quite out of his reach, and made him bevery well content with the rest.

  It is true she was pretty well besides, that is to say, she had about#1400 in money, which she gave him; and the other, after some time, shebrought to light as a perquisite to herself, which he was to accept asa mighty favour, seeing though it was not to be his, it might ease himin the article of her particular expenses; and I must add, that by thisconduct the gentleman himself became not only the more humble in hisapplications to her to obtain her, but also was much the more anobliging husband to her when he had her. I cannot but remind theladies here how much they place themselves below the common station ofa wife, which, if I may be allowed not to be partial, is low enoughalready; I say, they place themselves below their common station, andprepare their own mortifications, by their submitting so to be insultedby the men beforehand, which I confess I see no necessity of.

  This relation may serve, therefore, to let the ladies see that theadvantage is not so much on the other side as the men think it is; andthough it may be true that the men have but too much choice among us,and that some women may be found who will dishonour themselves, becheap, and easy to come at, and will scarce wait to be asked, yet ifthey will have women, as I may say, worth having, they may find them asuncomeatable as ever and that those that are otherwise are a sort ofpeople that have such deficiencies, when had, as rather recommend theladies that are difficult than encourage the men to go on with theireasy courtship, and expect wives equally valuable that will come atfirst call.

  Nothing is more certain than that the ladies always gain of the men bykeeping their ground, and letting their pretended lovers see they canresent being slighted, and that they are not afraid of saying No.They, I observe, insult us mightily with telling us of the number ofwomen; that the wars, and the sea, and trade, and other incidents havecarried the men so much away, that there is no proportion between thenumbers of the sexes, and therefore the women have the disadvantage;but I am far from granting that the number of women is so great, or thenumber of men so small; but if they will have me tell the truth, thedisadvantage of the women is a terrible scandal upon the men, and itlies here, and here only; namely, that the age is so wicked, and thesex so debauched, that, in short, the number of such men as an honestwoman ought to meddle with is small indeed, and it is but here andthere that a man is to be found who is fit for a woman to venture upon.

  But the consequence even of that too amounts to no more than this, thatwomen ought to be the more nice; for how do we know the just characterof the man that makes the offer? To say that the woman should be themore easy on this occasion, is to say we should be the forwarder toventure because of the greatness of the danger, which, in my way ofreasoning, is very absurd.

  On the contrary, the women have ten thousand times the more reason tobe wary and backward, by how much the hazard of being betrayed is thegreater; and would the ladies consider this, and act the wary part,they would discover every cheat that offered; for, in short, the livesof very few men nowadays will bear a character; and if the ladies dobut make a little inquiry, they will soon be able to distinguish themen and deliver themselves. As for women that do not think their ownsafety worth their thought, that, impatient of their perfect state,resolve, as they call it, to take the first good Christian that comes,that run into matrimony as a horse rushes into the battle, I can saynothing to them but this, that they are a sort of ladies that are to beprayed for among the rest of distempered people, and to me they looklike people that venture their whole estates in a lottery where thereis a hundred thousand blanks to one prize.

  No man of common-sense will value a woman the less for not giving upherself at the first attack, or for accepting his proposal withoutinquiring into his person or character; on the contrary, he must thinkher the weakest of all creatures in the world, as the rate of men nowgoes. In short, he must have a very contemptible opinion of hercapacities, nay, every of her understanding, that, having but one caseof her life, shall call that life away at once, and make matrimony,like death, be a leap in the dark.

  I would fain have the conduct of my sex a little regulated in thisparticular, which is the thing in which, of all the parts of life, Ithink at this time we suffer most in; 'tis nothing but lack of courage,the fear of not being married at all, and of that frightful state oflife called an old maid, of which I have a story to tell by itself.This, I say, is the woman's snare; but would the ladies once but getabove that fear and manage rightly, they would more certainly avoid itby standing their ground, in a case so absolutely necessary to theirfelicity, that by exposing themselves as they do; and if they did notmarry so soon as they may do otherwise, they would make themselvesamends by marrying safer. She is always married too soon who gets abad husband, and she is never married too late who gets a good one; ina word, there is no woman, deformity or lost reputation excepted, butif she manages well, may be married safely one time or other; but ifshe precipitates herself, it is ten
thousand to one but she is undone.

  But I come now to my own case, in which there was at this time nolittle nicety. The circumstances I was in made the offer of a goodhusband the most necessary thing in the world to me, but I found soonthat to be made cheap and easy was not the way. It soon began to befound that the widow had no fortune, and to say this was to say allthat was ill of me, for I began to be dropped in all the discourses ofmatrimony. Being well-bred, handsome, witty, modest, and agreeable;all which I had allowed to my character--whether justly or no is notthe purpose--I say, all these would not do without the dross, which waynow become more valuable than virtue itself. In short, the widow, theysaid, had no money.

  I resolved, therefore, as to the state of my present circumstances,that it was absolutely necessary to change my station, and make a newappearance in some other place where I was not known, and even to passby another name if I found occasion.

  I communicated my thoughts to my