fair sex

“A visitor to the city in 1744 was told by his guide “that to walk out after dusk upon this platform was a good way for a stranger to fit himself with a courtezan, for that place was the generall rendezvous of the fair sex of that profession after sun set with a good choice of pritty lasses among them, both English and Dutch.””

Simon & Schuster: Angel in the Whirlwind

“One of his would-be witticisms at the expense of the fair sex was: "The most Jesuitical Jesuit among the Jesuits is a thousand times less Jesuitical than the least Jesuitical woman.”

Balzac

“While Emperor Francis-Joseph is justly reputed to have played sad havoc with the hearts of the fair sex in his dominions, especially in his younger days, having inherited that frivolity with regard to women which is a traditional characteristic of the illustrious House of Hapsburg, he has never at any moment during his long reign permitted his susceptibility to feminine charms to go to the length of influencing his political conduct, or the action of his government.”

The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe

“In those days pupils of the fair sex were not admitted to the Hochschule, and Miss Shinner began to study under Herr Jacobsen.”

Famous Violinists of To-day and Yesterday

“I hope the gen'lmen and der fair sex will scuse my usin 'an or'nary sort o' 'parison.”

Uncle Tom's cabin, or Life among the lowly

“The extent to which the fair sex read the Physiology and were affected by it is illustrated by a story that Werdet tells of a hoax perpetrated at Balzac's expense by a number of his society friends, who had cause to complain of his uppishness towards them, a treatment based not merely on the belief he entertained in his literary superiority, but on his pretensions to aristocratic descent.”

Balzac