“I shall not allow you to be a fair judge in this case. You are so much used to live alone, that you do not know the value of a companion; and perhaps no man can be a good judge of the comfort a woman feels in the society of one of her own sex, after being used to it all her life.”
– Jane Austen
Emma, Chapter 5. When Mr. Knightley criticizes the intimacy between Emma and Harriet as a bad thing, Mrs. Weston defends their friendship. Presenting a woman’s view on the value female companionship, she speaks of how women without men develop their own society and get comfort from one another.