Quotes / Reformed Rakes

The "Reformed Rake." We are often told that "a reformed rake makes the best husband," and many really believe this. But if there were no other objection to this theory, there is the important one that it is difficult to tell when a rake is really reformed. What passes for reformation way be only a temporary satiety or physical exhaustion. A man given to dissipation at one period of his life is rarely perfectly free from the liability to relapses. Indeed, I would sooner look for an abandoned woman, the same chances being given her that are extended to a man under like circumstances, to arrive at a thorough and permanent reformation and make a faithful and desirable wife, than I would for a male profligate to become a reformed man and a good husband. She who, confiding in the truth of the adage I have quoted above, gives her hand to such a man, may live to shed bitter tears over her folly.

— What Women Should Know (1879) by Eliza Bisbee Duffey

"Frank has lost a good many jobs and he hasn’t been, perhaps, what most people would call very steady. But it will be different now. I think one can do so much by influence, don’t you, M. Poirot? If a man feels a woman expects a lot of him, he tries to live up to her ideal of him."
Poirot sighed. But he did not argue. He had heard many hundreds of women produce that same argument, with the same blithe belief in the redeeming power of a woman’s love. Once in a thousand times, he supposed, cynically, it might be true.
[...]
It was not as though he had any particular belief in, or liking for, Frank Carter. Carter, he thought dispassionately, was definitely what the English call a ‘wrong ’un’. He was an unpleasant young bully of the kind that appeals to women, so that they are reluctant to believe the worst, however plain the evidence.

—One, Two, Buckle My Shoe