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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Maria, or the Wrongs of Woman by Mary Wollstonecraft: prevent my feeling hourly aversion.
"To force me to give my fortune, I was imprisoned--yes; in a
private mad-house.--There, in the heart of misery, I met the man
charged with seducing me. We became attached--I deemed, and ever
shall deem, myself free. The death of my babe dissolved the only
tie which subsisted between me and my, what is termed, lawful husband.
"To this person, thus encountered, I voluntarily gave myself,
never considering myself as any more bound to transgress the laws
of moral purity, because the will of my husband might be pleaded
in my excuse, than to transgress those laws to which [the policy
of artificial society has] annexed [positive] punishments.--While
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