softer sex

Warm-hearted friends watched and guarded him with intense and unwearied solicitude; the kindest hearted of the softer sex, the best of the best, seems to have been born only to anticipate his wants.

From Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 1. No 1, June 1850 by Various

While Mr. Dempsey hurried away to seek Mrs. Fumbally herself, the confusion and uproar increased; the loud, coarse laughter of the "Gentlemen" being added to the wrathful violence of the softer sex.

From The Knight Of Gwynne, Vol. II (of II) by Charles James Lever

And, as in the case made famous by Cowper, of the "softer sex" and the old-fashioned iron-cushioned arm-chairs, the old man had, as became his years, "'gan murmur."

From The Cruise of the Betsey or, A Summer Ramble Among the Fossiliferous Deposits of the Hebrides. With Rambles of a Geologist or, Ten Thousand Miles Over the Fossiliferous Deposits of Scotland by W. S. (William Samuel) Symonds

A prince, with eunuchs and the softer sex Shut up so long, would warlike nations vex, Provoke the German, and, neglecting heaven, Forget the truce for which his oath was given.

From Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham by Sir John Denham

I resolved to follow that rule of polite society, which extends priority to the softer sex.

From The Wild Huntress Love in the Wilderness by Mayne Reid