children to the state; and it was ordered that old or infirm husbands should cede their young wives to strong men who could produce vigorous soldiers for the Spartan armies. Young men and women ran races, wrestled, and in a nude state bathed together; and it was adjudged that a man had the best right to a woman who was the most suitable to become the father of her children. Once, when a Spartan army had been absent for a long period, a delegation was selected and sent home to perform the duties of husbands for all."

"The Athenians bestowed no considerable posts, such as governors and ambassadors, on those who were unmarried, or who had not lands and possessions. January was the month when nuptials were mostly celebrated, and the fourth day was considered the most fortunate."

'Infidelity, among the orientals, consisted not in going with other women, but in the husband neglecting his own wife, and not discharging toward her conjugal duties. The state not only required that a man should be a husband, but also a father."

· Under Hadrian, A. D. 117, woman first obtained the power to make a will. Under Marcus Aurelius, in 171, the children of a woman inherited her property by law. Among the Mussulmans the husband is obliged to leave a dower to the wife he forsakes; if the marriage is broken by the death of the husband, his heirs are obliged to protect and support the widow. Manou first prohibited the buying of wives in India, and later the prohibition extended throughout Eastern Asia, and later still the same thing was effected in Western Asia. In the Talmud, as in the Koran, it was no longer to the father, but to the girl herself that the man gave presents when about to become her husband; and the price of a wife had been changed to a kind of dower for her good."

"In China, it used to be the custom for one of the public officers to cause to be assembled, in a public square, all men who were thirty years of age, and all women who were twenty, who were not married, and have them punished."

"Polygamy is an institution which has remained unchanged throughout the whole East, through all changes of time, races, religion, and climate. Those even who have given to Asia the purest laws-Zoroaster and Moses ever-were obliged to make their rigid doctrines conform with this custom. Polygamy is an institution characteristic of Asia, as monogamy is of Europe. Montesquieu seems to admit that in warm climates it is natural to have many wives, and this for the following reasons: In these countries more girls than boys are born; it costs less to support many wives and a numerous progeny. But that which proves that it exists in all climates and all zones, is, that it is found among the Indians of the two Americas, the Tartars of the two Russias, and Kamschatka, as well as in the heat of the

tropics." "It is not," remarks Paul Gide, "the result of climate and circumstances, but a certain state of civilization, or rather of barbarism."

"Under the law of Moses, marriage, even with polygamy, and the facility of divorce, might be insufficient to give heirs to a family; the union might be unfruitful through the fault of the husband." The Hebrews, however, claiming greater morality on the score of detesting adultery, but in reality feeling simply greater jealousy of their women than the people of India, did not allow sharing of conjugal rights, but if husbands, while living, could not give these rights to a brother, they transmitted them to this relative at death; the widow passed with the property into the hands of the brother, who, it was thought, should marry her, and give posterity to the departed. If he failed in this, and refused to marry the woman, he was dishonored in the eyes of the people, and forfeited his inheritance, which went to the next nearest relative. If a widower left no wire, but did leave a daughter, she went with the property, in the same way, and the first male child took the name of her father. Among the Romans," says the missionary Casalis, "the wife was the sister of the husband's children; when a father spoke of himself and children, the wife was always considered among the latter."

Captain Cook, after his voyage round the world, said of the natives of Oceanica, "that although they were religious, and believed in the immortality of the soul, they seemed strangers to all notions of marriage, or of family, or to even any feeling of modesty." Other travelers confirm this account. Among other savage tribes the women possess some authority. Among the tribes of the Tonga Islands, and among some of those of the West Indies, the children belong to their mother, and not to the father; the women participated in all manual labor: rowed the boats, waged war, and advised in council."

"The law of marriage among the Philistines was very crude and illy regulated, as appears from the fact that the father-in-law of Samson gave away his daughter Delilah to another husband, upon Samson being some time absent from her."

"The ancient Assyrians assembled together once every year all the marriageable girls, who were then put up for sale, one after another, by the public crier; the amount received from the sale of the prettier ones was divided up into dowries for those who, by deformity, or other reasons, could find no purchasers. These dowries, in turn, were employed by such unfortunates in the purchase of husbands, or in influencing men to marry them."

"Among all the nations of antiquity, marriage was looked upon as purely A Civil contract, no priest or prophet having any thing to do with its celebra tion."

"It used to be the practice of the Turks, during the festival of the Bayram,

to give their wives the privilege of going abroad closely veiled, and without an attendant. This liberty they improved very extensively in illicit intimacies with the Christians at taverns and other public places, as they managed, to take out under their clothes a change of attire, with which they disguised themselves. It is related that on one occasion a young Frenchman, whose acquaintance was thus formed by a Turkish lady of quality, was, by the aid of a bribed Jew, duly installed in woman's attire, in the household of the old Turk, as a servant, and while there, the favorite wife became a mother, much to the gratification of the husband, who had supposed himself incapable of becoming a father. When the young man's beard began to grow, he was compelled to escape to avoid detection, but, when he left, his mistress loaded him with jewels."

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'Formerly, it was a custom to examine into a person's procreative abilities, either in the presence of a spiritual or secular judge, and several surgeons and matrons; but it was abolished in France in 1677, after having been observed for nearly one hundred and twenty years. Justinian, one of the early emperors, felt called upon to forbid this and other such customs enacted for examining candidates for matrimony."

"Lacedæmonians were remarkable for their severity against those that deferred marriage, as well as those who abstained therefrom. No man among them could live singly beyond the time limited by their lawgiver, without incurring several penalties, as: first, the magistrates commanded such ones every winter to run around the public forum quite naked, and, to increase their shame, they sang a song, the words of which aggravated their crime, and exposed them to ridicule; another was to exclude them from those exercises in which, according to the Spartan custom, young virgins contended naked; a third penalty was inflicted upon a certain solemnity, wherein the women dragged them around the altar, beating them all the time with their fists."

"In Rome, during the empire, under the Cæsars, the Roman maidens could not walk through the streets without seeing temples raised to the honor of Venus; that Venus who was the mother of Rome, as the patroness of illicit pleasures; in every field, and in many a square, statues of Priapus, or, in other words, statues fashioned in the image of the procreative organs, presented themselves to view, often surrounded by pious matrons in quest of favor from the god."

"The Jews thought so strongly of the importance of marriage, that they counted neither man nor woman complete alone, and the man who did not produce offspring was in their view a homicide. Among the Brahmins, the first three castes chose their wives before they had arrived at puberty, and it was considered a disgrace among them to pass that period without being married. Among the American Indians, in early times, particularly those

located in Canada, and by Hudson's Bay, barrenness was considered the chief grounds for divorce. In China the increase of population was thought to be of so much importance to the state, that a bachelor of twenty was pointed at and ridiculed as an object of contempt. Throughout the whole history of marriage, we find, in all countries, the desire of fruitfulness held up as the chief end, until later civilization, with its accompanying education of the female sex, brought other tastes into play; it would seem that the sole end of woman was to bear children; thus, at the marriage ceremonies in many countries, brides were strewn with hops, and other flowers and plants noted for fruitfulness; and the heads of bridegrooms were decorated with figs and other fruits known to be prolific."

"In the Spanish dominions, in early times, females were reckoned marriageable at twelve, and males at fourteen; and nothing was more common in that country, than for a husband and wife to be met with, whose united ages would not exceed thirty. Every girl who had attained the age of twelve might compel a young man to marry her, provided he had reached his fourteenth year, and she could prove he had anticipated the rights of a husband with her."

Nearly a century ago, at Venice, the girls of pleasure received the protection of government. They belonged to the entertainments of the carnival which could not do well without them. Most of these unfortunate females were sold by their parents in their tender infancy: the agreement with the lovers or dealers in virginity was done before a notary public, and was considered valid in every court of justice. These nymphs observed most strictly their fasts, went daily to mass, and had their special tutelar saint, under whose auspices they exercised their profession with a good conscience. The courtesans had often the figure of the Virgin in their bedrooms, before whose face they drew a curtain previously to sleeping with their gallants. In the matrimonial market, matches were commonly made between persons who had never seen each other. Concubinage was a common custom, frequently ending, though, with marriage performed at the death-bed of one of the parties."

In ancient Peru the marriageable young maidens, nearly or distantly related to the Inca, were given in marriage by him, the age being eighteen to twenty for the maidens, and twenty-four for the men. This occurred annually on a certain day, after which the ministers appointed by him for the purpose in the same manner mated the sons and daughters of the inhabitants of Cuzco. The governors of provinces were obliged to follow the same rule in their own districts; the heir to the crown married his own sister; in default of one, he married his nearest female blood-relation. Among the ancient Peruvians a man felt himself injured if his wife had been chaste; similar feeling is said to have existed in Thibet, and some of

the South Sea Islands. Women were freely offered to strangers by their husbands, fathers, or themselves among the natives of Brazil, Pegu, Siam, Cochin China, Cambodia, coast of Guinea, and most groups of Polynesia Indeed, the inhabitants of the Pacific groups, separated from each other and from all the world, did not appear to have the least idea that chastity was a virtue, or its opposite a vice. If women were constant to it was simply from inclination, and not from the force of opinion. custom or law. These usages still exist to some extent among the peoples mentioned in the foregoing."

one man,

"Among the Tartars, a century ago, a woman never saw her husband till she was just about to become his wife; girls went to their marriage just about as culprits nowadays go to the gallows. Often they fainted, and so greatly did they dread marriage, they would run out of the room when it was mentioned."

"The Zaporog Cassocks used to live in separate communities, the males in one place and the females in another. The women were not allowed under penalty of death to visit the residence of the men; but each Zaporog had a right to go to the settlement of the women, and select those he chose. No man gave himself any trouble to ascertain who was the father of the children that were born; boys were early taken to the settlements of the men, and the girls retained in those set apart for the women. The women had no freedom in the selection of men, but were obliged to submit to the embrace of any free Zaporog who might take a fancy to cohabit with her. Four men always lived in the same hut together. If a man fell in love with a girl, he was allowed to marry her; but he lost all right to share in the produce of the chase, and was obliged to till the land, and pay a certain tribute, which was divided among the Zaporogs of the settlement, who styled themselves free and noble."

"Among the ancient Mexicans, marriages were solemnized by the priests, and a public instrument was drawn up giving an inventory of the possessions of the wife, which, in case of separation, were returned to her. The hearth or fire was looked upon by these people with religious veneration, and considered as a mediator in all domestic disputes; it answered to the domestic gods of the Romans. At Tlascalla they shaved the heads of both bride and groom, to signify that in the married state they must put off all personal adornments. Divorces were very common, the only law being

mutual consent."

"Perhaps the most remarkable instance in connection with the sale of women as wives was that of the Thracians, who put up their fairest virgins at public sale for the benefit of government, an important means of increasing the national revenue which has since been neglected."

"Among the Koreki, a people belonging to Russia in the seventeenth