Wharton, Edith — The Age of Innocence [484]

The affair, in short, had been of the kind that most of the young men of his age had been through, and emerged from with calm consciences and an undisturbed belief in the abysmal distinction between the woman one loved and respected and those one enjoyed—and pitied. In this view they were sedulously abetted by their mothers, aunts and other elderly female relatives, who all shared Mrs. Archer’s belief that when “such things happened” it was undoubtedly foolish of the man, but somehow always criminal of the woman. — Wharton, Edith, The Age of Innocence, 484

Note

The double standard is anatomized with icy economy: the man emerges ‘with calm consciences,’ and the aunts/elderly women collude in their own condemnation as ‘always criminal of the woman.’