Sentence:  He was indeed as bitter an enemy to the savage authority too often exercised by husbands and fathers, over the young and lovely of the other sex, as ever knight-errant was to the barbarous power of <WSD>enchanters</WSD>; nay, to say truth, I have often suspected that those very <WSD>enchanters</WSD> with which romance everywhere abounds were in reality no other than the husbands of those days; and matrimony itself was, perhaps, the enchanted castle in which the nymphs were said to be confined. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  A spellcaster, conjurer, wizard, sorcerer or soothsayer who specializes in enchantments.