CHAPTER I. A short sketch of the Antediluvian History of Women.

BY the Mosaic history of the creation it appears, that the males and females of all the other animals, except man, were formed, not only of the same materials, and in the same manner, but also at the same time. When the sacred historian, how­ever, describes the creation of the human genus; he informs us, that the female was distinguished from the male by being formed not of the dust of the earth, as he was, but of a part of the body of the male himself^*. Such as have been fond of [Page 28] maintaining the superiority of women pretend, that from this circumstance of having been made of dou­ble refined matter, they have derived their superior beauty and excellence.

Not long after the creation, the deception of the first woman by the serpent, and the fatal conse­quences arising from that deception, furnish the most interesting story in the whole history of the sex. But as that story is already so well known, we shall pass over it in silence, and proceed to relate those few anecdotes which have been handed down to us concerning the antediluvian women.

In the sacred history we are told, that when Cain and Abel, the two sons of Adam, brought their offerings to the Lord, the offering of Cain was re­jected, and that of Abel accepted; a circumstance for which Moses does not assign any reason. If tradition, however, deserves any credit, an oriental tradition supplies this defect; and informs us, that Cain and Abel having each of them a twin sister, when they were all become marriageble, Adam pro­posed to them, that Cain should marry the twin sister of Abel, and Abel the twin sister of Cain; alleging as his reason for this proposal, that as their circum­stances obliged them to marry their sisters, it was proper that they should marry those that were seem­ingly the least related to them. To this proposal Cain would not agree, and insisted on having his own twin sister, because she was fairer than the other. Adam, displeased at this act of disobedience, referred the dispute to the decision of the Lord; ordered his sons to bring each an offering before him; and told them, that the offering which had the preference, would be a declaration in favour of him who presented it. On the offerings being brought, [Page 29] and that of Abel accepted, Cain, stimulated by re­sentment and love, began to revolve in his mind how he could get rid of so dangerous a rival, and not being able to fix upon any other method than his destruction, as soon as they were come down from the Mount where they had been sacrificing, fell upon him and slew him. And thus a woman became the cause, not only of the first quarrel, but of the first introduction of death.

Cain and his posterity being, for this barbarous deed, separated and exiled from the rest of the hu­man race, began to abandon themselves to every species of wickedness; and it is supposed were, on that account, at length denominated Sons and Daughters of Men: while the posterity of Seth, under the care and tuition of Adam, having as re­markably distinguished themselves for virtue, and a regard to the divine precepts, at length also acquired the appellation of Sons and Daughters of God. This family of Seth, according to the oriental writers, fixed its habitation on the mountain where Adam their progenitor was buried; and from the sacred dust deposited there, called it the Holy Mountain: while Cain and his posterity inhabited the valley be­low^*, and there constantly rioted in every species of lewdness and debauchery. In the time of Jared, when the family of Seth was much increased, one hundred and twenty of the sons of that family, or as they were called, the Sons of God, hearing the found of music, and the noise of festivity in the val­ley below, agreed for once to descend from their mountain, and partake of the amusement. On their arrival, they were so delighted with the novelty of the scene, and so captivated with the beauty of the [Page 30] women, who appeared naked, that they yielded to their charms, and defiled themselves with them: having gone this le [...]gth, it was not likely they should stop on the very threshold of pleasure: accordingly, returning from time to time to visit these women, they at last ventured to intermarry with them; and hence, probably, arose the story of the commerce between the Sons of God, and the Daughters of Men: a story which gave birth to an opinion, that by the Sons of God were meant Angels, who had so far deviated from the digni [...]y of their incorporeal and celestial nature, as to debase themselves by a carnal knowledge of terrestrial women. To this absurd and ridiculous n [...]ion, no little strength has been added by a forgery, called the Prophecy of Enoch; a prophecy, which, like too many others, is long, obscure and unintelligible^*; evident marks of [Page 31] its not having been dictated by that divine spirit, who is light and perspicuity.

But though we cannot positively ascertain the precise meaning of Moses, when he says, the Sons of God defiled themselves with the daughters of men, we may venture to affirm, that the expression was made use of to characterise some peculiar species of wickedness, which, with other debaucheries, had become so enormous, that the Author of Nature is said to have repented that he had made man; al­most the whole race of whom he was obliged to de­stroy by the flood, in order that he might raise up a new and more perfect generation; which could not have been done, had the wicked been left to have mixed with and contaminated the righteous.

From the flood, there is a chasm in the history of women till the time of the patriarch Abraham, when they began to be more frequently introduced into the sacred story, several of their actions to be record­ed; the laws, customs, and usages by which they were governed to be exhibited; all of which, join­ed to some anecdotes of their public and private life, enable us to give a more perfect account of the an­cient Israelitish women, than can be given of those of any other nation, till we come to the Greeks. In exhibiting this account, we have, however, judg­ed it proper, not to take the incidents in the order in which they are related, but to reduce them un­der different heads, for the sake of method and re­gularity.

CHAPTER II. Of Female Education.

IF we can form any idea of the general state of mankind in the infancy of the world, from the state in which they appear in the infancy of every nation, we may suppose that they were originally destitute of every thing which depends on civiliza­tion and society, and of almost every species of know­ledge, but that of procuring a precarious subsistence from the rivers and forests around them.

Necessarily impelled to employ the greatest part of their time in this manner, they would have but little leisure, and perhaps less inclination, to cultivate their minds. The inhabitants of the woods, and of the waves, were only to be caught by force or fraud: in either of which ways, strong exertions, or long and painful watchings, were requisite; and to these exertions, and other efforts, the constant calls of nature for sustenance kept up an unremitted at­tention: hence it would be long before the human mind began to extend its ideas beyond that circle which had been formed by necessity, and continued by custom; that course of study and discipline, that application to various languages and arts, which we now call education, was then totally unknown; and in after ages only sprung up by degrees, according as incidents gave occasion to thinking on new pro­jects, and acting in new employments.

A considerable part of education is the study of languages; but as all mankind spoke originally the same, this laborious part had then no existence. When a diversity of tongues were introduced, what [Page 33] little communication and commerce was then carried on, could not be properly managed, unless the par­ties understood one another▪ and hence the first ef­forts to study languages. In some of the milder cli­m [...]tes of Asia, the earth spontaneously yielded as much food as simple unpampered nature required; and the inhabitants supinely enjoyed her gifts, with­out troubling themselves with painful exertions of mind or of body: but when the human race had multiplied so much, that they were obliged to dis­perse themselves into climates less indulgent, exer­tion became necessary to procure food, and inven­tion to remedy the inconveniences, and provide against the accidents of climate and situation: thus in Egypt, the annual inundation of the Nile obliged them to raise houses on pillars, and to apply to Astronomy, that they might know the seasons when these inun­dations were to come upon them. The rigour of seasons, in places more remote from the sun, obliged them to cover themselves with [...]kins, and to build houses: and the same cause, perhaps, at first, gave birth to the use of fire. Were we thus to trace almost every human invention to its source, we should generally find that source to have been necessity.

In the patriarchal ages, and some time after, even among people considerably removed from barbarity, we have hardly the least vestige of education among the men^*, and would therefore in vain look for it among the women. In climates where the sponta­neous productions of the earth were few, and where men were become too numerous to be maintained by hunting and fishing, necessity would stimulate to pas­turage, [Page 34] and perhaps to some rude efforts in agricul­ture; but as these could not be carried on without some kind of instruments, it was possibly to furnish such, that Tubal Cain began first to work in iron and in brass. Such rude instruments as he first con­structed, might upon trial suggest to him, the im­provements necessary for making others more adapted to the purpose: and these again, might lead on to works of fancy, which were probably the first exercises which opened and expanded the powers of the human mind, giving birth to carving and gilding, and several other works of taste, which the Israelites had carried to no inconsiderable degree of perfection in the time of Solomon; and even to chemistry, of which Moses must have had no incompetent skill, to enable him to stamp the golden calf to powder. Into such ex­ercises and trades, were the men, in the times we are speaking of, initiated; but it is in vain, that we endeavour to discover what was taught to the women: whether they were regularly instructed in any thing, or left to learn what they could from nature, or from chance; which last we are inclined to think was the case, as writing and reading were not then invented; as the sciences were but few, and these few only in their infancy; and as women were not valued for any mental qualifications, but only for their personal charms.

Of all the nations which present themselves in the periods we are considering, the Egyptians most deserv­edly claim our attention; as it was from them that we derived the first principles of all our arts, sciences, and cultivation. It was the Egyptians who first taught the rude and uninstructed Greeks: the Greeks transmitted their knowledge to the Romans: and the Romans carried their knowledge, and their chains, half over the globe. In whatever light we view the Egyptians, [Page 35] they do more honour to human nature than any of the ancients, as they excelled them all in laws, in arts, and in government; sciences in which they believed, or pretended to believe, they had been improving themselves during a period of no less than one hundred thousand years; though this must un­doubtedly appear fabulous, it is certain that they were allowed by most of the ancients, to have been one of the first people who were civilized and formed into a nation governed by laws, mostly founded on equity and wisdom; in short, they were, even in the distant periods we are speaking of, a people not much inferior to many of those, which in our times make no despicable figure in the present civilized system of Europe.

It is among the Egpytians only, that, in the pe­riods under review, we meet with any thing resem­bling a system of study and education; their magi­cians, in whom most of their learning centered, stu­died, and taught, such sciences as were then known; the most distinguished of which was Astronomy, from which it appears, that women were not altogether excluded; for we are told that Athyrte, the daughter of Sesostris, encouraged her father to undertake his chimerical scheme of conquering the world, by assur­ing him of success, from her divinations, from her dreams in the temples, and from the prodigies she had seen in the air. Almost every writer on an­cient Egypt mentions, that the women managed the greatest part of such business as was transacted with­out doors, and that the commerce of the nation was peculiarly allotted to them; it is therefore highly probable, that they were taught the use of numbers and figures, as far as they were then known: a science without the use of which trade must have been exceedingly imperfect and irregular. As writing [Page 36] also was known at an early period in Egypt, and as it is hardly less necessary in commerce than the use of figures, it is probable also, that the women were taught the writing then in use. As the soft­ness and sentimental feelings of the female heart seem excellently well adapted to the soothing strains of music, music has therefore been a part of the edu­cation of the sex from the remotest ages of anti­quity: Moses frequently mentions singing men and singing women, and we shall afterwards meet with singing women among a variety of the nations we shall have occasion to mention. The Egyptians, however, were in this respect singular; the same reason which determined other nations to teach wo­men that pleasing art, determined the Egyptians to debar them from it ^*; because, said they, it softens and relaxes the mind. But when we recollect what we just now related of the employment of women, it will in a great measure elucidate this singularity: it was probably the opinion of the legislature, that too much softness and delicacy would disqualify them for managing the affairs of trade and commerce; and that though a certain softness of the sex was encouraged in all other countries, it would but ill have suited the Egyptian women, who were gene­rally occupied in such employments as were every where else destined to the men. However this be, when we survey the accounts given us by the an­cients, of the arts, sciences, laws; and, above all, of the culture, and wisdom of the Egyptians; when we consider the high estimation, in which women were held, and the powers with which they were invested; when, to these, we add the literary fame of the na­tion, we have the strongest reasons to conclude, that though we are at this period unacquainted with their [Page 37] system of female education, it certainly was such as suited the dignity of so wise a people, and of a sex so loved and respected.

It is not easy to determine whether the Phoeni­cians at first borrowed their learning from the Egyp­tians, but, however that be, they were in the times we are considering, little behind them in know­ledge. They cultivated Arithmetic and Astronomy, and applied them to the purposes of trade and navi­gation. Moschus, a Sydonian, before the Trojan war, taught the philosophical doctrine of atoms; and Abdomeneus of Tyre undertook to dispute with Solomon, king of Israel; in those days reckoned the most redoubtable champion of learning and of wis­dom. Tyre and Sydon were at this time renowned for the sciences and for philosophy.

Man, in his rude and uncultivated state, forms his connections with woman from a regard to the beauty of her person only; when he becomes ci­vilized, he regards the qualities of her mind, as well as the charms of her body. We can hardly there­fore suppose, that the Phoenicians, a people, who, in commerce and navigation excelled all others, and were second to none in politeness and learning, would totally neglect to instil into the minds of their women, any of that knowledge which was in so much national esteem and veneration; but we only offer this as conjecture, as the history of these people is entirely silent on the subject: and indeed history in general throws but a faint gleam of light on the ages under review; which, among many other reasons, may in part be owing to that peace and quiet which we may suppose the world then enjoyed for many ages; for history passes in silence over whole cen­turies of peace, and takes notice only of wars, con­quests, [Page 38] and revolutions; as if nothing were worthy of the ear of posterity, but the crimes and follies of their ancestors.

What we have observed of the Phoenicians, may, in a great measure, be equally applied to the Baby­lonians; they are acknowledged by all antiquity, to have been the first who made use of writing in their public and judicial acts; but though the exact period in which they began this invention is not known, we are nevertheless certain, that they were early distin­guished for their politeness and learning. We shall have occasion afterwards, to relate the care and pains they took in adorning the persons of their women; from which we may conclude, that they did not leave their minds without cultivation and improvement. The nations which were contemporary with, or for several ages succeeded to those we have now men­tioned, were, when compared to them, as the rest of the world now is, when compared to Europe; hardly just entering on the threshold of knowledge: and Europe, which now appears with such distin­guished lustre, was then involved in ignorance and barbarity; nor had its scattered and wretched inha­bitants discovered any symptoms of that genius which now eclipses all other countries. It was by some colonies from Asia, that the sciences were first intro­duced among them. And such is the fate of human affairs, that from the time these sciences were first transplanted, they seemed to abandon their native soil, and attach themselves entirely to Europe. The Asiatics either lost their taste for them, or, in pro­secuting them, had already exhausted their utmost powers; the Europeans acquired that taste, and continue still to cultivate and extend it, by stretches of genius and invention, to which no limits can be fixed.

[Page 39]When, from Europe, we again return to the East, we cannot help lamenting, that antiquity has hardly left any traces of the manner in which their women were educated; and it is from scattered hints only, that we can discover any thing concerning them. One of these hints informs us, that some of the nations whom Cyrus conquered had taught their women music; for Cyrus gave two female musicians, who were his captives, as a present to his uncle Cyaxares; and female, as well as male musicians, were, in those times, frequently retained by the great to amuse them in their hours of relaxation and festi­vity, by their skill in playing upon such instruments as were then in use, by the melody of their voices, and by the various gestures which they practised in dancing. If, in the times we are considering, the plan of female education comprehended any thing farther, we may suppose that it took in only such other arts of attraction as the eastern women have always been famous for, and which the men have always regarded as their principal qualification. In a few cases, however, it is probable, they were in­structed in some of the useful learning of the times; for the education of the children of the kings of the Medes and Persians was for many ages committed to the women. Dejoces, their first king, began the custom; and it was continued till some ages after the reign of Cyrus, and is at this day practised in many places of the East. As these young monarchs were entirely entructed to the care of women till the age of fifteen or sixteen, one would naturally conclude, that the women must have been capable of reaching, at least a part of, the fashionable learning of the times: but if it was the same among the ancient Medes and Persians, as it is now among their de­scendants, they were not capable of doing so; for the education which the young eastern princes at [Page 40] present receive from their women, is little else than the first principles of effeminacy and debauchery, with hardly even a small tincture of that learning be­stowed on their subjects: and hence so many of the eastern monarchs dedicate their lives to cruelty and debauchery. Even Cyrus himself, though trained up in a better manner, and almost in every respect superior to the herd of eastern monarchs, stained his memory with the foulest infamy, by perverting the education of the Lydians, for no other crime than endeavouring to regain their liberty, of which he had unjustly deprived them. Cyrus had intrust­ed the gold which he had found in the treasury of Croesus, king of Lydia, to Pactyas, one of his fa­vourites; who seeing himself master of so much wealth, thought he could not better employ it, than in instigating the Lydians to place him at their head, and shake off the yoke of the conqueror. Cyrus, in revenge, determined to carry off the whole o [...] the people, and sell them for slaves; a resolution which he made known to Croesus, his prisoner; who fearing the utter destruction of his country, advised Cyrus only to take vengeance on Pactyas; and in order to prevent any future attempt of the same nature, to forbid the Lydians the use of arms, and oblige them to to be educated in the most de­bauched and effeminate manner. Cyrus followed this advice, and the Lydians soon became the most infamous and abandoned people in the world. His­tory affords but too many examples of monarchs, and of parents, having winked at the improper educa­tion of their subjects and children: this is the only instance where the source of every virtue was avow­edly contaminated by public authority; an instance in which we are at a loss to determine, whether the character of Cyrus, or of Croesus, appears the most despicable and infamous.

[Page 41]Were we to indulge in idle speculation; were we to form conjectures without proper authority to sup­port them; we might relate many plausible opinions concerning the education of women among the an­cients; but as the subject, from the time of the Egyptians and some other nations we have men­tioned, to those of Greece and Rome, is involved in the gloom of obscurity, we rather chuse to pass over it in silence, than to hazard opinions, when we are uncertain whether the scale of probability pre­ponderates for or against them.

We shall see afterward, when we come to treat of the rank and condition of women, that in Greece, even in its most flourishing and cultivated state, they were little better than slaves: nor indeed was it possible, that they could in any place ever arrive at that importance seemingly designed them by nature, while their genius was not cultivated, nor their latent qualities called forth into view. Other qualities, such as beauty, and the art of shewing it to advan­tage, may, in those moments when the heart is soft­ened by love, or the spirits elevated by wine, give to the women a temporary ascendency over the men, and enable them to bend them at pleasure; as in the case of Thais and Alexander. Such an ascendency, however, is commonly but fleeting and transient; cool reason soon resumes the place which passion had usurped, and the empire which had been built on passion, tumbles like the baseless fabric of a vision; while that which is supported by education and sense, stands the test of time, and the various inci­dents of life. It is, however, to be lamented, that a proper education has seldom fallen to the lot of women; even in the politest countries, it is either too much neglected, or conducted on a frivolous and mistaken plan. The education of the Greek [Page 42] women, during what are called the heroic ages ^*, seems to have been of this nature; for we find Pe­leus, in the Andromache of Euripides, reproaching Menelaus, father of the famous Helen, for being the occasion of the dissolute conduct of that lady, by the bad education he had given her: nor have we reason to believe, that in those times bad education was confined to this single instance only, but rather that it was a general evil, and never after properly remedied; a conjecture which the subsequent history of Greece will but too amply verify.

There is not a subject which ancient history takes less notice of, than that of education, and particu­larly of the education of women. In early periods, and among uncultivated people, the sex do not seem to have been of consequence enough to employ the attention of the public, nor the pen of the historian: a few sketches of the plan of education settled by Solon, the famous Athenian lawgiver, are the most ancient that have been handed down to our times; and they serve to corroborate an opinion, which we have always entertained, that the education of the ancients was more directed to improve the body than the mind. Solon ordained, that youth in general should be first taught to swim, and to imbibe the rudiments of literature; that the poor should be in­structed in trades, mechanic arts, and agriculture; but that such as could afford a genteel education should learn to play on musical instruments, to ride, to hunt, and be expert in every kind of exercise; to all which they were to add the study of philosophy. Such was his system of male education; a system more calculated to strengthen the body to than to [Page 43] cultivate the mind. Such gleanings of his female system as have reached our times, are still more ex­traordinary: young women were ordered to exercise themselves in running, wrestling, throwing quoits, darts, and other masculine amusements; which must have tended in the strongest manner to destroy every seed of delicacy that nature had implanted in the female mind; and which, in all probability, gave birth to that boldness and effrontery, for which the Athenian women at last were so remarkable.

If Solon, in his scheme of legislation, instituted that any culture should be bestowed on the female mind, such institutions have not reached our times: and when we consider how the Greek women were treated, and that healthful and robust bodies were reckoned their chief qualifications, as enabling them to give strong and healthful children to the state; we have reason to believe, that no such institutions ever existed. Lycurgus, the no less famous Spartan legislator, seems to have thought women almost be­low his notice: nor need we wonder at this, when we consider, that his whole intention, and the con­stant scope of all his laws, was to divest mankind of all that was implanted in them by nature; and, upon the principles of art, to form a race of heroes, who should be insensible to every feeling but the love of their country. Women, he found, were but ill calculated for this purpose: patriotism is a principle seldom so strong in them as in men, and humanity is generally much stronger: the acuteness of their feelings made them less able to bear all the pains and difficulties of eradicating whatever is natural, and the weakness of their bodies disqualified them for becoming heroines: they were therefore unfit sub­jects for carrying the ideas of Lycurgus into execution; and on that account, it seems probable, he gave [Page 44] himself little other trouble about them, than to take care that their company should neither effeminate nor debauch his men.

That the Grecian women had not the least tinc­ture of polite education, even in the most flourishing periods of their states, appears from the respect and esteem which public prostitutes acquired, merely by having the advantage over them in this accomplish­ment. We shall have occasion to mention this sub­ject afterwards; and therefore at present shall only observe, that many of the greatest of their philoso­phers publicly visited these prostitutes, and even sometimes carried their wives to be instructed by their lessons. Besides what we have already men­tioned, we find that a few of the Greek women were instructed in music; and that such only were admitted to some of their public feasts; their mothers, or other female relations, also taught them the com­mon female employments and customs of their coun­try, and instilled into the minds of such as would receive it, a tincture of that Stoical pride and hero­ism for which their men were so much renowned: in every thing else, they were miserably deficient, and their constant confinement, to their want of educa­tion, added want of knowledge of the world; so that, on the whole, never were women found so ignorant, in a nation so much famed for knowledge.

If we except the Egyptians, the whole history of antiquity exhibits to us a scene in which we find women groaning under the hard hand of oppression, deprived of many rights of nature; and, till we arrive at the Romans, never attaining to any natural or political consequence. In Rome, however, we find them not only emerging from slavery, but starting up at once into real importance. In the earlier periods [Page 45] of this great republic the Romans had but few laws, and no intercourse but with rude and ferocious neigh­bours like themselves: hence the only education of men was that of war, rigid oeconomy, and inflexi­ble patriotism; which are all virtues of necessity in the infancy of almost every state. The education of women consisted in learning the duties and employ­ments of domestic life; such as cookery, spinning, weaving, and sewing; which were taught them by their mothers or relations. In those days, children were not suckled in the hut of a mercenary nurse, but by the chaste mother who bore them; their edu­cation, during nonage, was in her hands; and it was her chief care to instil into them every virtuous prin­ciple: in her presence, every loose word, or impro­per action, were strictly prohibited; she superin­tended not only their serious studies, but even their amusements, which were always conducted with de­cency and moderation. But by degrees, as the Romans became rich with the plunder of their neigh­bours, as the taste for the arts and sciences became more general, the education of the women began to be extended on a larger scale; and to the domestic duties taught them by their mothers, were added such parts of polite education, as were thought necessary for cultivating their minds: this education we know, from the story of Virginia, they received at public schools; where sciences and literature, no longer confined to rigid philosophers only, began to assume a softer form, and to suit themselves to female talents and genius.

It has long been alleged by the men, that the women, when learned, are generally pedants; how far this opinion is just, we shall not pretend to de­termine; but should it really be so, we may natu­rally enough account for it: the knowledge of wo­men, [Page 46] in general, is much less extensive than that of the me [...]; on this account, when any individual among them finds that she is possessed of a considerable share of knowledge, she considers herself as thereby so much elevated above the rest of her sex, that she cannot help taking every opportunity of shewing this elevation.

Juvenal exhibits some of the Roman ladies of his time in this light: ‘They fall, says he, on the praises of Virgil; they weigh in the same ba­lance the merit of that poet and of Homer; they find excuses for Dido's having stabbed her­self, and determine of the beautiful, and of the sovereign good.’ Whether the satire her [...] ex­hibited be true or false, it affords a proof, that▪ [...] the days of this poet, learning was not neglecte [...] by the women of Rome: but this is not the o [...]y [...]roo [...] we can bring to support this fact; others are fre­quently to be met with in the Roman history. Cicero mentions, with encomiums, several ladies, whose taste in eloquence and philosophy did honour to their sex; and Quintilian, with no small applause, has quoted some of the letters of Co [...]eli [...]; besides which, we h [...]ve fortunately a speech of Hortensia preserved by App [...]an; which for elegance of l [...]n­guage, a [...]d justness of thought, would ha [...]e [...]on [...] honou [...] to a Cicero, o [...] a Demosthene [...] ^* What [Page 47] gave occasion to the speech was, the Triumvirs of Rome wanting a large sum of money for carrying on a war, and having met with great difficulties in raising it, they drew up a list of fourteen hundred of the richest of the ladies, whom they intended to tax. These ladies, after having in vain tried every method to evade so great an innovation, at last having chosen Hortensia for their speaker, went along with her to the market-place, where she ad­dressed the Triumvirs while they were administering justice. The Triumvirs being offended at the bold­ne [...] of the women, ordered them to be driven away; but the populace growing tumultuous, they were afraid of an insurrection; and reduced the list of women to be taxed to four hundred.

[Page 48]As we do not propose to write the history of learned women, but only to give a general detail of the care bestowed on the education of that sex; we return to observe, that the Romans were at great pains in teaching their young men. Those who could afford it, commonly kept in their own houses preceptors to instruct them; and those who could not, sent them to public schools, where they were generally instructed by Grecian masters: besides these methods, such fathers as were capable, taught their own chil­dren, not only the literature of the times, but also morality, and their duty to their country. Cato instructed his son in such a variety of arts and exer­cises, as seem almost improbable; and Augustus, though sovereign of the world, taught his grand­children to write. When such were the teachers, when such the love of learning, we may assure our­selves that women, who had now attained no small importance, were not neglected: and it is probable, from the greatness of mind, which many of them in a variety of instances displayed, that their education had always a tendency, not only to inspire them with sentiments of morality, but likewise with that inflex­ible constancy and firmness of mind, so exceedingly necessary in a state, whose agitations and convulsions were so frequent, that every member stood in need of the utmost fortitude to sustain the shock.

Such a mode of education, however, we imagine was counteracting nature, and robbing the sex of that softness, and timidity, in which consists half their charms; and such, though in a few instances it succeeded, never had any general influence; for the Roman women, though they boasted while in security of all the heroism of their husbands, were in such a consternation when Hannibal approached [...]he gates of Rome, that they were forbid to appear [Page 49] in the streets, lest their cries should dispirit the sol­diers, aad spread a general panic through the city.

As we are able only to give so imperfect an ac­count of the female education of the Romans, a peo­ple whose history we are almost as well acquainted with, as with that of our own times; it is not to be expected that we can throw much light upon that subject, among the nations that were contemporary with them, as they were in a state of too much ig­norance to have any historical records; and as we have no complete detail of their manners and customs, but only some sketches in Tacitus, and a few of the other Roman writers.

If by education we mean the culture of letters, of arts, and of sciences; in vain will we look for it among the ancient inhabitants of the North. The Scandinavians, and other tribes, who, in those times, possessed the greatest part of Europe, were hardly acquainted with the slightest rudiments of literature, or of science^*. In the savage state in which they were, no ideas are entertained of the necessity, or utility of any thing, but what immedi­ately contributes to the sustenance or clothing of the body; no honour to procuring these, by any other methods, than rapine and plunder; hence their men were trained to gaining their subsistence by feats of arms, and wasting it in thoughtless fes­tivity. Their women, who frequently accompanied the men in their plundering expeditions, and who besides had every labour and drudgery to perform, could not have much time for attaining knowledge; as they were not, however, always of these parties, [Page 50] but sometimes left at home; if there were any glimmerings of knowledge; if there was any wis­dom, it was mostly to be found among them; and they acquired it, not by a laborious course of edu­cation, but by experience and reflection upon the contingencies which happened in those hours of solitude, when the human mind is most susceptible of instruction.

What they had thus learned, of arts, of improve­ments, or oeconomy, they taught to their daugh­ters; hence women were generally more enlight­ened than men; and hence also they acquired an extraordinary degree of esteem, and were often consulted as oracles. Besides the few arts and do­mestic occupations known among a people so rude and simple, the mothers also exerted themselves in teaching their daughters the virtues of prudence and chastity; which they did no less by example than by precept; and both being united, had so happy an effect, that the ancient Scandinavian wo­men were not only among the first who attained to that esteem due to their sex, but who laid the foun­dation of that honour and regard, which Europe at present pays as a tribute to beauty and merit.

During the long and successful reign of chivalry in Europe; as women were the constant objects of romantic heroism and extravagant adoration, we may naturally conclude, that their education tend­ed chiefly to enable them to shew themselves in such a manner, as to excite heroes to fight for, and lovers to adore them. Even so late as the beginning of the fourteenth century, there was hardly any learn­ing among the men; the Greek was so entirely neg­lected, that the celebrated Petrarch could not in Italy, nor France, find one person capable of in­structing [Page 51] him in it: the Latin was known in a rude and imperfect manner only to a few; and hardly was there to be found a woman, who could read the language of her own country; and if such a one was here and there to be met with, she was reckoned a prodigy.

When the men, who before had spent their days in tournaments and feats of arms, began to turn their attention towards the arts of peace, the women were likewise laid under the necessity of varying their mode of education; as they found that the same arts which effectually captivated a knight clad in armour and ignorance, were in vain practised upon the enlightened scholar and philosopher. Am­bitious still to retain the power they already posses­sed, and conscious that the way to please the men was to seem fond of what they approved of and dis­liked; they applied themselves to letters and to phi­losophy, hoping to keep possession by their talents, of what they had gained by their charms. Though these measures were not calculated to inspire love, and attract the heart, and consequently did not pro­duce the effects which the ladies intended, yet they raised them in that period to a pitch of learning, un­known in any other. They preached in public, supported controversies, published and defended Theses, filled the chairs of philosophy and law, harangued the popes in Latin, wrote Greek, and read Hebrew: nuns became poetesses, women of quality divines, and young girls, with a softness of eloquent enthusiasm, publicly exhorted the Christian princes to take up arms for the recovery of the Holy Land. The learned languages were now considered as indispensably necessary; they were taught not only to men, but to women of almost all ranks and conditions; who, not content with Latin only, often [Page 52] read the Old Testament in Hebrew, and the New in Greek. In this manner was female genius turned into a wrong channel; it was diverted from the du­ties of domestic life; it was either soured by study, or rendered petulant by learning; and while it ac­quired empty words and false philosophy, it lost much of its native sprightliness, and became daily more an object of admiration, and less an object of love.

It has been often observed, that violent exertions of mi [...]d, as well as of body, constantly leave a lan­guo [...] behind them, in proportion to the efforts that have b [...]en made. This was remarkably the case with female literature; every mental power had been for a long time over-stretched, and the greatest relaxation soon followed of consequence: from their knowledge of Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; from their skill in the empty disputations of the Aristotelian philosophy, and of divinity, women began at last to discover, that they acquired only an empty fame; and that in proportion as they gained the esteem of the head, they became less objects of the heart. On this discovery, it was necessary for them to change their plan; they therefore began by degrees to abandon learning, and attach themselves again to those female arts, which were more likely to be productive of love, than of fame and applause.

While this change of female manners was taking place, the greatest part of Europe exhibited a scene of seeming inconsistency; enthusiasm and gallantry, religion and licentiousness, were constantly practised by the same persons, and seemed as if perfectly re­conciled to each other. Learning, however, declined so fast, that in a short time women became as famous for ignorance of their own language, as they had [Page 53] been formerly for their knowledge of others; inso­much, that during a great part of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, there was hardly a woman to be found in the politest countries of Europe, who could dictate a tolerable letter in her own tongue, or spell it with decent propriety: the only little read­ing which they at this period commonly concerned themselves with, was a few receipts in cookery to bring on, and a few receipts in physic to take off, diseases; together with the wrangling and unintelli­gible theology of the times; a science to which wo­men of all ages and countries have been peculiarly addicted, as it greatly interests their passions; and, perhaps, consoles them in the many solitary moments in which they are left alone, and as it were excluded from business and from the world. But even these favourite studies, and every other part of female amusement and oeconomy, not being sufficient to fill up all their vacant hours, they now applied them­selves assiduously to various kinds of needle-work; and many women of the first rank were themselves taught and instructed their daughters in, the arts of flowering and embroidery; which they practised so well in their leisure hours, that much of the furni­ture of their houses was decorated in this manner with their own hands.

After the discovery and conquest of America, im­mense treasures had been constantly imported from thence into Europe. From the trade carried on to the East and West Indies, to Africa, and other parts of the globe, perhaps still greater wealth had been accumulated; these at last beginning to operate, turned the minds of the greatest part of Europe from that sober and oeconomical plan of life, to which their poverty and imperfect knowledge of trade and agriculture had subjected them; and [Page 54] substituted in its place, gaiety, expence, and parade. Numbers of people, who, perhaps, not in the most rigid paths of justice, had acquired immense for­tunes in the East, transported themselves back to Europe, bringing along with them all the arrogance of wealth, effeminacy of manners, and love of pageantry and show, for which the eastern nations have ever been remarkable. These, and several other causes combining together, totally changed the manners of Europe; and instead of sober fru­gality, and other domestic virtues of the women, introduced luxury and dissipation; with a taste for all the [...]insel glare of unsubstantial trifles.

The French, who have always been remarkably distinguished for vivacity and show, took the lead in this new mode of life, and soon disseminated it all over Europe; which, for at least these two centu­ries past, has aukwardly imitated every light fashion and frippery of that volatile people, with little better success than a Bear dances a hornpipe, or a Monkey puts on the gravity of an alderman.

In France, women were first introduced to court; their education, which before that introduction, consisted in reading their own language, in learning needle-work, and the offices of domestic life, was then by degrees changed to vocal and instrumental music, drawing, dancing, and dressing in the most fashionable manner; to which we may add▪ the art of captivating and governing their men. This flimsy pattern was copied by every other nation: some strokes of improvement were from time to time ad­ded by the French; till at last almost every thing useful was boldly struck out from the plan of female education; and the women of the present age there­by robbed of more than half their native excellence, [Page 55] and rendered objects more sought after to divert a melancholy hour, or satisfy a l [...]wless passion, than to become the social partners of a life directed by reason and religion. We must, however, allow, that the French ladies are not all so much devoted to fashion and pleasure, as to neglect every thing else. France has produced several women distinguished for their judgment and learning; and even in the pre­sent dissipated age, while female coteries commonly meet for diversion, or for gaming, there are in Paris societies of women, which meet at stated times to determine the merit of every new work; and happy is the author who meets their approbation; the French being too polite to set themselves in open op­position to the judgment of their ladies, whether they may think it right or wrong.

Should this imperfect attempt, to write the His­tory of the Fair, survive the present, and be read in any future generation, when this frivolous mode of female education shall have given place to a bet­ter, that our readers may then have some idea of what it was towards the close of the eighteenth cen­tury, we shall just sketch the outlines of it as now practised in the politest coun [...]es of Europe. Among the first lessons, which a mother teaches her daugh­ter, is that important article, according to the mo­dern phrase, of holding up her head, and learning a proper carriage: this begins to be inculcated at the age of three or four at latest; and is strenu­ously insisted on for many years afterward. When the young lady has learned imperfectly to read her own language, and sometimes even sooner, she is sent to a boarding-school, where she is instructed in the most flimsy and useless parts of needle-work; while of those, which she must need, if ever she enters into domestic life, she is left entirely ignorant. [Page 56] While she is here, some part of her time is also al­ [...]ed to learning to read either her own language, or the languages of some of the neighbouring king­doms; all of which are too frequently taught with­out a proper attention to Grammar or Orthogrophy. Writing and Arithmetic, likewise employ a part of her time; but these, particularly the last, are only considered as auxiliary accomplishments, which are not to be carried into life, and consequently deserve but little attention; the grand effort is generally made to teach the girl what the woman will relin­quish; such as drawing, music, and dancing; these, as they are arts agreeable to youthful sprightliness, often engage the young lady so much, as to make her neglect, or forget every thing else. To these are added, the modes of dressing in fashion, the punctilios of behaving in company; and we are sorry to say, that into some schools have been introduced masters to teach the fashionable games at cards; a dissipation, if not a vice, which already prevails too much among both sexes, and may perhaps still gain ground by this early initiation.

Such, in general, is the education of female boarding-schools; in some, indeed, there may be a few other things taught besides those we have men­tioned; but whatever be taught, or however they be conducted, it is too true, that the girl, after having been there for some years, comes home to her parents quite a modern fine lady; with her head full of scraps of French, names of great people, and quotations from romances and plays; and quite dis­gusted at the antiquated virtues of sober frugality, order, or oeconomy. We cannot cast our eyes on the picture we have drawn, without a secret wish, that it were less just; nor shall we drop the curtain before it, without mentioning with pleasure, tha [...] [Page 57] some parents adopt a better plan; and that some young ladies, even thus educated, have had unde [...] ­standing enough to lay aside the greatest part of the abovementioned frippery, and cultivate such know­ledge, and such virtues, as were ornamental to soci­ety, and useful to themselves.

Such, with a few trifling variations, is the com­mon course of European education; a course, which seems almost entirely calculated to cultivate the per­sonal graces, while the care of the head, and of the heart, is little, if at all, attended to; and the useful duties of domestic life, but too often turned into ridicule, as the obsolete employments of such silly women as lived a century or two ago, unacquaint­ed with fashion and with pleasure. Women so educated, may be sought after to help in trifling away an idle hour; but whatever progress their per­sonal charms may make on the passions, when the hours of trifling and passion are over, they must in­fallibly be neglected, if not despised. With the fop and beau, creatures still more insignificant than them­selves, they may perhaps expect a better fate; but let them consider, how little pleasure they generally take in the company and conversation of their own sex; and that the fop, and the beau, are only women in breeches. Let such also, as never entertained an idea but of conquests and admirers, consider, that when youth and beauty shall be on more, when the crowd of flatterers and admirers shall have ceased to attend, something will then be necessary to fill up the void, and prevent the pee­vishness and disgust which it so often occasions; that the natural source of this something, is friend­ship; and that friendship cannot exist, unless it is built upon the foundation of reason and of sense.

[Page 58]If the history of the education of women in Europe, where they are objects so interesting, and so much esteemed by the men, has given but little pleasure in the recital, it will give still less in Asia, Africa, and Ame­rica, where they are commonly either enslaved or disregarded: in both which cases nothing is so neces­sary as ignorance; nor would any thing so effectu­ally spoil them for their slavery, as education and knowledge; which, by opening and expanding their minds, would soon discover to them, that our sex assumed a power not founded in nature; and treated them with a severity inconsistent with gentleness and humanity: for these reasons, it is the interest of the men, that almost no culture should be bestowed on their minds, lest it should teach them to assert the rights of nature, and refuse to submit to the yoke of bondage.

In several of the warmer regions of Asia and Africa, where women are considered merely as instruments of animal pleasure, the little education bestowed upon them, is entirely calculated to debauch their minds and give addtional charms to their persons. They are instructed in such graces, and alluring arts as tend to inflame the passions; they are taught vo­cal and instrumental music, which they accompany with dances, in which every movement, and every gesture, is expressively indecent: but they receive no moral instruction; for it would teach them that they were doing wrong: no improvement; for it would shew them that they were degrading them­selves, by being only trained up to satisfy the plea­sures of sense. This, however, is not the practice of all parts of Asia and Africa: the women of Hin­dostan are educated more decently; they are not allowed to learn music or dancing; which are only [Page 59] reckoned accomplishments fit for ladies of pleasure: they are, notwithstanding, taught all the personal graces; and particular care is taken to instruct them in the art of conversing with elegance and vivacity: some of them are also taught to write, and the gene­rality to read, that they may be able to read the Koran; instead of which, they more frequently de­dicate themselves to tales and romances; which, painted in all the lively imagery of the East, seldom fail to corrupt the minds of creatures shut up from the world, and consequently forming to themselves extravagant and romantic notions of all that is trans­acted in it.

In well regulated families, women are taught by heart some prayers in Arabic, which at certain hours they assemble in a hall to repeat; never being allowed the liberty of going to the public mosque. They are enjoined always to wash themselves before praying; and, indeed, the virtues of cleanliness, of chastity, and obedience, are so strongly and constantly incul­cated on their minds, that, in spite of their general debauchery of manners, there are not a few among them, who, in their common deportment, do credit to the instructions bestowed upon them; nor is this much to be wondered at, when we consider the tempting recompence that is held out to them; they are, in paridise, to flourish forever, in the vigour of youth and beauty; and however old, or ugly, when they depart this life, are there to be immediately transformed into all that is fair, and all that is grace­ful.

In China, where education is in greater esteem than in any part of the world; where it is almost the only road to preferment, and where the men are consequently at the greatest pains to acquire it, we might naturally expect, that as their women possess [Page 60] a considerable share of esteem and regard, they also should not be neglected in their education: but whe­ther they are even taught to read or write their own language, which is a work of many years, we are not informed by any of the voyages and travels that have fallen within our observation; as the task of learning to read or to write the Chinese language is so long and laborious; and as among the men it seems chiefly confined to such as aspire after employ­ments of state, we are of opinion, that women are seldom or never instructed in it. We are told, however, that such as are rich learn music, the modes of behaviour, and ceremonial punctilios of the country; which last they cannot possibly be with­out; as a failure in the least circumstance, as the number of bows to a superior, or manner of making them, would infallibly stamp the mark of ignorance on the person so failing: women are in general also taught a bashfulness and modesty of behaviour, not to be met with in any other country: this, however, is too often but a semblance; a mere outside virtue, which the wearer can occasionally put on, or shake off, as she has occasion to appear virtuous, or to yield to the temptations of vice.

Such, with very little variation, is the education of women all over Asia. When we turn towards Africa, we find the men still more brutish and igno­rant, and the women consequently more abused and neglected. But however ignorant and brutish the present inhabitants of Africa are, their country was, in the time of the Roman empire, the seat of the sciences, and produced no small number of scholars, as well as heroes. The African love of learning was then so great, that in Egypt a library was collected; which, for its number of books, equalled almost any of our modern times; and, for costliness, much ex­celled all that we are now acquainted with; being [Page 61] most of them wrote in letters of gold, by dissolving it in some liquid, which, among them, is a peculiar secret, and writing with the solution as we do with ink. When the Turks made themselves masters of Egypt, this famous library was, by superstition, con­demned to the flames; avarice, however, a passion much less destructive, saved a part of what supersti­tion had devoted to ruin: the Sultan had ordered all the books to be burned, but such as treated of Mahomedism; the minister, who executed his or­ders, burned only all that were old and in bad order, saving all the new and elegant which he privately sold among the officers of the court. Since this pe­riod, the faith of Mahomet has spread itself over the greatest part of Africa; literature has daily de­clined, and, at the present time, almost the whole of its people, of whatever religion, have hardly any vestige of learning, of arts, or of sciences left among them. Agriculture is consigned entirely to the wo­men, and managed in the most rude and slovenly manner; the few trades and arts practised among them, are only the result of necessity, and carried on with a slowness and want of invention, which strongly marks their deficiency of genius.

Among people, in such a condition, it would be in vain to expect any female learning; all the care that is taken to instruct that miserable sex, is only in teaching them to bear the load of oppression laid on their shoulders by their lazy and imperious masters, which we shall afterward have occasion to mention; while, from one another, they learn the tawdry modes of dressing and ornamenting themselves as practised in their country. This slavery of the per­sons of women, and total neglect of their minds, na­turally excites our indignation; but to account for it, we must consider, that it has been a custom from the [Page 62] earliest antiquity in these regions; and that custom is stronger than reason and humanity joined toge­ther; that the Africans, and even the Mahomedans in Asia and in Europe, never make companions of their women, nor associate with them, but in the moments dedicated to love and dalliance; hence the women have no opportunity of practising upon the men those arts, by which, in other countries, they gain an ascendency over the heart, and interest even reason, as well as humanity, in their favour.

The education of the various tribes of savages, who inhabit the vast [...]ontinent of America, seems in general better adapted to their mode of life than that of Europe; the whole scope of it being well calculated to make them patient of every possible evil and suffering, which may befal them in the course of a life destined almost to one continued scene of dangers and fatigues: nor is this plan of education confined to boys only; it is extended to girls also, who are taught to bear the rigors of the climate, the fatigues of labour, the cravings of ex­treme hunger, and other vicissitudes of fortune, not only with patience, but with resolution and fortitude. In a great part of North America, it is a fundamen­tal rule in education, never to beat their children of either sex; which▪ say they, would only weaken and dispirit their m [...]nds, without producing any good effects; and, therefore, whenever a mother sees her daughter behave ill, instead of having recourse to the rod, she falls a crying; the daughter naturally enquires the cause; the mother answers, because you disgrace me; a reproach which seldom fails to produce an amendment; but, should it happen otherwise, the mother, as a last resource, throws a little water on her face; a disgrace with which she is commonly so much affected, that she seldom ven­tures [Page 63] to do any thing that may subject her to a re­petition of it.

In Japan, the same gentleness must be used in the education of children; the punishments inflicted in most other nations, only make them more stubborn and refractory; and sometimes there, as well as in America, have drove them to commit suicide; a crime to which the Japanese are addicted on the most [...]rifling affront; and which the Americans coolly and deliberately perpetrate, when tired of life.—This stubborness of temper is not peculiar to Japan, or to America; it seems either to depend on savage­ness of manners, or perhaps to be peculiar to some distinct kinds of the human race; as we may find it also in Greenland, and several other places; even where the people have but little resemblance to each other in manners, customs, or diposition.

Of all the ancient inhabitants of America, the Peruvians seem to have been the most enlightened; it has been supposed, that this was owing to their first Inca being an European, accidentally ship­wrecked on their coast. However this be, it is certain, that they greatly surpassed all their coun­trymen in arts, in manners, and even in learning; their Virgins of the Sun, in particular, were brought up in the temple dedicated to that lumina­ry, with great care; and instructed by women, ap­pointed for the purpose, in every female art and accomplishment known among them; and in the practice of the virtues of chastity, honesty, and be­nevolence; virtues for which the ancient Peruvians were eminently distinguished. In Mexico, also, their young women of quality were educated by matrons, who overlooked their conduct with great circumspection. From these instances it appears, [Page 64] that in South America, where they enjoy a milder climate, whose spontaneous productious preclude the necessity of procuring subsistence by the perilous occupations of fishing and hunting, their education too, is of a softer nature than in North America; where tenderness would effectually disqualify them for bearing the fatigues of their occupation, and the severities of their climate. But while North Ameri­cans educate their young women in the hardy man­ner we have mentioned, they seem at the same time to blend this education in such a manner, as if they wish to throw into the female composition, some of that softness of manners and person which men in all ages and nations have at least had some faint ideas of in the other sex. While their male children are young, they lay them on the skins of panthers, that they may thereby acquire the strength, cunning, and agility of that animal. Their females they lay on the skins of fawns, and other mild animals, that, like them, they may become soft, gentle, and en­gaging.

When we take a retrospective view of these sketches of the education of women, it affords matter of astonishment, that a sex, who are the sharers of our nature, and destined to be the com­panions of our lives, should have been constantly either shamefully neglected, or perverted by what was meant to serve as instruction. In Europe, their education seems only calculated to inspire them with love of admiration, of trifling, and of amusement. In most other places of the globe, it goes a step farther; it tends to eradicate every moral sentiment, and introduce vice dressed up in the garb of volup­tuous refinement. Scarcely has there ever appeared in any period, or in any nation, a legislator, who has made it the subject of his serious attention; and the [Page 65] men in general, who are greatly interested, that women should be sensible and virtuous, seem, by their conduct towards that sex, to have entered into a conspiracy to render them otherwise.

When such is the hard fate of women, we cannot wonder that the want of literary knowledge has in all ages marked the female character: there has, however, in all ages, and among all nations, been some particular women, who, either by being en­dowed with more genius, or by turning it into an­other channel, have acquired no incompetent share of the learning of the times in which they lived; thus, though we have already seen that the Greek women were in general extremely ignorant, there were some exceptions to that common character. Arete, the daughter of Aristippus, taught philoso­phy, and the sciences to her son; who, on that account, was called Me [...]rodidactos; i. e. taught by his mother. Corinna, a Theban poetess, no less than five times bore away the palm in triumph from the celebrated Pindar; and Aspasia, a noble Mile­sian lady, instructed Pericles, the famous Athenian philosopher. We have already mentioned some of the learned Roman ladies. France and England have had a Decier, a Carter, and many others too tedious to mention. In Italy, where poets, a few centuries ago, were revered as divinities, several wo­men have arrived at no mean degree of reputation in that art; and our own times have seen the cere­mony of a poetess being solemnly crowned with lau­rel at Rome.

These particular instances, however, have no in­fluence on the women in general. A genius of either sex, will infallibly soar above the common level; but the herd of mankind, who feel not the same [Page 66] impulse, nor are actuated by the same fire, will still jog on in the ordinary track; while our warmest wishes are, that female education were an object more considered by the legislature, and better plan­ned by parents and guardians. We would not have it understood as our opinion, that women should pore out their fair eyes in becoming adepts in literature. Nature seems not to have intended them for the more intense and severe studies; besides, should they pro­ceed so far as to rival, or even equal us in learning, we should perhaps grudge them the laurels of fame, as much as we do the breeches: and the gaining of these laurels would rob their brows of many of those charms, which to them are more valuable, as they are by us more esteemed. We pretend not to chalk out the plan in which women should be educated; only, this we venture to affirm, that it should, if possible, be such as to avoid ignorance on the one hand, and pedantry on the other: ignorance makes a female companion contemptible, pedantry makes her ridiculous; nor is it easy to say which of the two is most disgusting.

CHAPTER III. Of the Employments and Amusements of Women.

IN every country, where civilization and culture have begun to take place, and where the inhabitants are not obliged to be continually em­ployed in procuring the necessaries of life, women are considered, not so much as the partners of our toil and labour, as the sweetners of our pleasures and enjoyments: while we exert ourselves abroad, in cultivating the fields, carrying on trades, and working at manufactures, we leave them at home to enjoy the fruits of our industry; when we return, we lay these fruits at their feet, happy ourselves, if we can contribute to their happiness.

Women, being thus exempted from the labour of procuring their subsistence, have a great deal of time upon their hands, which the domestic duties that fall to their share are not sufficient to fill up; such is human nature, especially when the spirits are active, and the imagination lively, that time of this kind is of all others the most disagreeable: in order, therefore, to fill up this blank, as well as to vary the scene of human life, a variety of little employ­ments, diversions, and amusements, have been con­trived; many of them adapted to both sexes, and some of them to the fair sex only.

In states of the most savage barbarity, or in those but a few degrees removed from it, women being considered only as the slaves and drudges of the men, and as the means of perpetuating their race, are destined only to labour in their fields, or in their [Page 68] houses, and to bring up their children. Thus, con­stantly employed, they have but little time; and constantly depressed, they have but little inclination for amusement: in such states and conditions of hu­man nature, we shall therefore meet with few female diversions, and these too, only such as seem to have arisen from nature, or from chance, and not from any exertion of genius, or refinement in the pursuit of pleasure.

In the East, where women are exempted from labour; not because they are esteemed and regarded, but because it would render them less delicate instru­ments of those voluptuous pleasures in which the Easterns place their chiefest happiness; they are con­fined to seraglios and harams, where neither their employments nor amusements can admit of much variety; and where a large portion of their time is consumed in regret, or slumbered away in that soft indolence and relaxation of body and mind, which the inhabitants of the banks of the Ganges reckon the highest felicity that can be attained in this world, and the chief ingredient in the beatitude of that which is to come.

As the necessities of nature must be satisfied before any other appetite can be formed, or object fixed upon, employments must therefore have been every where prior to amusements, which could only come in as secondary considerations. Accordingly we ad­vance many centuries into the history of the world, before we have any account of amusements, and many of the first ages of barbarity; the subsequent ones of care and simplicity, after the first foundation of states, generally pass away, before they have time to think of, or inclination to almost any diversion or amusement. Private and trifling diversions may arise [Page 69] from merriness of heart; public ones are only founded on idleness and affluence.

In the earlier ages of antiquity, it was not incon­sistent with the highest dignity, to act in what we would reckon the meanest of menial employments. Gideon and Arunah assisted in the various labours of husbandry. Abraham went and brought a calf from the flock, skinned it, and gave it to his wife, who dressed it: then he himself took butter and milk, and the calf which he had dressed; set them before the angels, and stood by them under a tree; a custom to this day continued among many of the eastern nations, especially in the Levant; where nothing is more common than to see their princes fetch home from their flocks, and kill, whatever they have pitched upon for the use of their families; while the princesses their wives, or daughters, pre­pare a fire, and perform the office of an European cook-maid. We shall have occasion to see afterward, that such employments were not peculiar to the peo­ple, nor to the ages we are considering.

Another part of female employment in the earlier ages, was grinding of corn: the ancients had not, and in many countries, they still have not, mills so constructed as to go by wind or water: theirs were only two small stones, the uppermost of which was turned by the hand, a task generally performed by two women. Such were used in Egypt in the time of Pharaoh; for Moses, in the relation of the plagues which infested that country on account of the Israelites, says, that the first-born, throughout all the land died, from the first-born of Pharaoh who was upon the throne, to the first-born of the maid-servant that was behind the mill. They were used in the time of our Saviour, who says, ‘two [Page 70] women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left.’ They are used at this day, all over the Levant, and even in the north of Scotland; where the women who turn them, have a particular song which they then sing, intended perhaps to divert them from thinking on the severity of their labour. When the women had ground the corn into meal, it was likewise their pro­vince to make it into bread. Sarah was ordered by her husband, when he entertained the angels, to make cakes for them. Cakes, among many of the ancients, were offered on the altars of their gods, from which custom even the Israelites did not alto­gether abstai [...] [...]s the scriptures frequently inform us, that [...] baked cakes to the Queen of Heaven.

Pasturage was almost the only method of subsist­ence in the times we are speaking of; and the wo­men of every rank and condition, as well as the men, were not exempted from attending on the flocks, drawing water for them to drink, and doing all the other offices which the nature of such an employment required. Pasturage obliged the ancient Israelites, and other inhabitants of the East, to embrace a wandering life, that they might procure fresh food for their flocks. Instead, therefore, of dwelling in houses, as we do, they erected only tents, for the convenience of frequent removals: these tents were made of camel's hair and wool, the spinning and weaving of which was a part of the occupation of their women; and from the time that cloth was substituted as a covering for the body, instead of the skins of animals, the whole operation of making it devolved also on the women, who weaved it in the most simple manner, by conducting the woof with their fingers, instead of a shuttle.

[Page 71]In countries where the arts are but in their in­fancy, every man is generally his own artificer. The men make the various instruments which they employ in their work, and the women make the cloth for covering themselves and their families: but in the days of Moses, the Israelites seem to have been advanced a few degrees beyond this state. Metallurgy seems to have made a considereble pro­gress: even in the time of Abraham, they had in­struments, probably of steel, for sheering their sheep: Abraham had a sabre, which he drew to sa­crifice his son Isaac. And they had even arrived to works of taste in gold and silver: they must, there­fore have been at this period more advanced in the arts, than the Greeks at the time of the siege of Troy, whose arms and shields were only made of copper; or than many savage nations at this time, whose arms are only hardened wood, sometimes pointed with flints, or bones of animals.

Such only is the imperfect account we are enabled to give of female employments in the patriarchal ages. Their amusements and diversions, if [...] had any, are still involved in deeper obscurity. [...] most in every period, and among every [...] however wild and uncultivated, we find some [...] of singing and dancing: poems, contain [...] the principal circumstances of the history of their country, and the praise of their gods and heroes, were in use among the ancient Phoenicians, Arabi­ans, Chinese, Greeks, Mexicans, &c. It is pro­bable, therefore, that the ancient Israelitish women amused themselves with singing the songs of their poets; which, among them as well as among their neighbours, were chiefly composed either in praise of the Deity, to thank him for some remarkable de­liverance, or to celebrate some martial atchievement [Page 72] of themselves or their ancestors. And that these poems were not always composed, nor always sung, by the men only, appears evident from the song of Barak and Deborah, handed down to us by Moses. Jubal, the brother of Tubal Cain, had long before this time invented musical instruments: it is not, therefore, improbable, that the Israelitish women accompanied their songs with instrumental music; a custom we often meet with in early ages, and among uncultivated people.

Besides the recital of songs and poems, we may reckon dancing among the female diversions of the times we are reviewing. David danced before the ark of the Lord; and we find old Barzilai bewail­ing his incapacity for that exercise, in a manner that shewed how much it was the favourite, and perhaps the religious, diversion of the times in which he lived. As women are generally at all times, and particularly while in the bloom of youth and beauty, more cheerful, light-hearted, and given to the sportive amusements than men; it is highly proba­ble, that they did not sit inactive spectators of a diversion so much in use: and on some festival oc­casions, especially sheep-sheering, we have the strongest reasons to believe, that there were pro­miscuous meetings, where both sexes rejoiced, made merry, and perhaps danced together. Dan­cing i [...] perhaps not less ancient than songs, nor less practised by savage nations, over whom music has commonly a power, to which even the most deli­cate Italian ear is a stranger. It elevates them to extacy, and often prompts them to exert themselves till they fall down breathless. Even the wre [...]he [...], who, in America, smart under the rod of European slavery, though so dispirited, as in appearance to have bid an eternal farewell to [Page 73] happiness and pleasure, start up at the power of music, and dance as if their bodies were strangers to pain, and their hearts to sorrow.

In the times we are considering games of chance were not known, and even in the days of Solomon, who with an unheard-of degree of magnificence and libertinism had indulged himself in every vanity, and in every delight, neither games nor theatrical entertainments seem to have been introduced. If we may credit the commentators on the Talmud, all kinds of games and spectacles were not only for­bid, but abhorred by every good Israelite, on ac­count of the judgments which had fallen upon such as had ventured to be present at them among the neighbouring nations. The comment on the book of Ruth introduces old Naomi dissuading her daugh­ter-in-law from returning into the land of Israel, be­cause women were not there allowed to go to the theatres, as among the Gentiles. The Jewish com­ment on the Lamentations of Jeremiah, introduces the church of that people expostulating with God, that she had never indulged herself in entering into such prophane places; and the Talmud itself express­ly forbids, that they should enter them on any con­sideration whatever.

On this, and some other accounts, it would seem that the amusements of the women, in the times we are speaking of, were but few and simple. Perhaps one of the most common was, regaling themselves in the open air, as the scripture expresses it, ‘every one under his own vine, and under his own fig-tree;’ a custom as ancient as Abraham, and at this day almost the only amusement practised in the East; where the heat of the climate disposes more to relaxation in the shade, than to the sportive di­versions [Page 74] used by the active inhabitants of colder regions.

We are informed by Herodotus, that in Egypt, the employments of the women, like most of the other customs of that people, were totally different from what they were in other countries. We have already mentioned, that the Egyptian women were occupied abroad in trade, merchandise, and agri­culture; and we now add, that according to this au­thor, they left all the domestic employments and cares to their men. We are, however, rather of opinion, that this was not strictly the case: the mercantile caravans, which travelled in places so rude and un­hospitable as the neighbourhood of Egypt, were probably not composed of women; the fine linen, for which Egypt was so remarkable, was probably not spun by men, who seem by nature to have an abhorrence at the distaff. But as the division of the employments of life between the two sexes, in this country, is by the disagreement of authors involved in so much doubt and obscurity, at a period so distant, we cannot pretend to throw any light upon the subject.

From the faint glimmerings of ancient history it would seem, that the public amusements and diver­sions of the Egyptians were only a kind of religious festivals, which they celebrated with singing, danc­ing, feasting, and pompous processions; in which the women bore a great part, and being adorned with a variety of flowers and garlands, carried in their hands things symbolical of the festival they were celebrating. Besides the joining in these pub­lic processions, women of distinction used to keep their birth-days with feasting and rejoicing. On the birth-day of a queen, or of a daughter of Egypt, the whole court was treated in a magnificent man­ner, [Page 75] and paid their compliments to the lady on whose account they were assembl [...]. Great men followed the example of their prince, called together their friends and dependants, and spent the birth-days of their wives and daughters in mirth and festivity. With regard to the private amusements of the Egyp­tian women, history is entirely silent. It is probable, however, that among a people so highly cultivated, they were not altogether without some of those spor­tive diversions, which tend to invigorate the body by unbending the mind.

From the Egyptians till we come to the heroic ages, we only meet with a few scattered hints con­cerning the manner in which women employed or amused themselves. The Phoenician women, whose husbands were famous for trade and navigation, are said to have spent much of their time in writing and keeping of those accounts, without which trade cannot be properly managed. The Lybian women, warlike as their husbands, dedicated a great part of their time to feats of arms, and to the chace: even their amusements were some of them calculated to instil a martial spirit: one tribe, in their country, annually celebrated a festival in honour of Minerva, in which the young women divided into two parties, and fought with sticks and stones, till one of the parties was defeated. As this annual conflict was fought in honour of the goddess, they imagined that all the wounds received in it were under her peculiar care; and that she interested herself so much in their cure, that she suffered none to die of them, but such as had forfeited their title to her favour by the loss of their virginity. It is probable, that these wounds were seldom of consequence enough to be­come mortal; and when they were, it was easy to fix this stigma of female levity on the unhappy suf­ferer, [Page 76] who could not raise from the dead to vindicate her injured reputation. Thus, though we can con­sider the institution in no other light than a piece of state policy, it was excellently calculated to preserve chas [...]ity: not to join in th [...] engagement was a tacit acknowledgment of unchastity; to be wounded in it, was considered as certain death to her who was so. Few women, therefore, would risque them­semselves, who were conscious of being gulty; few women would dare to be guilty, when it was reck­oned so impossible to avoid a discovery.

In what manner the women of the Syrians, Babylonians, Medes, and Persians, who are almost the only nations which make any figure in the peri­ods we are reviewing, were employed, is nearly all conjecture. We may, howe [...]er, venture to affirm, that among the opulent they were not put to any servile or laborious tasks; as such would have been altogether inconsistent with the delicacy in which they were brought up, and the extraordinary finery with which they were decorated. As the Babylo­nians were famous for their manufactures of rich embroidery, sumptuous vestments, fine linen, mag­nificent carpets and hangings; and as weaving em­broidery, and other works of the like nature, were a principal part of the occupation of women, in the periods we are considering, we may reasonably con­jecture, that they were employed in fabricating of these, as well as in preparing that finery with which they ornamented their persons. We have reason also to suppose, that in nations so rich and luxurious as those we have mentioned, where women were brought up in the lap of ease and indulgence, they would have several public as well as private amusements; but what these were, or how conducted, it is in vain for us at this period, to attempt to discover. We are [Page 77] informed, that the Babylonians had a great variety of musical instruments; and as music is a recreation well adapted to the sentimental feelings of the female heart, it is probable their women did not neglect it. The Medes and Persians were also famous for music and dancing. Music, among them, was called in to heighten the pleasure of the festive board; at which they sung, and played upon instruments, the monarchs themselves sometimes taking a part in this, as well as in every other thing which promoted mirth and joillity. We are inclined to believe, that it was among the Medes and Persians that custom was first introduced of bringing in singing and dancing women, in order to divert a company.

Among the nations that have been hitherto men­tioned, we could do little more than observe in gene­ral, that such was the employment, and such the amusement of the fair sex. Descending to periods less remote, we meet with descriptions more parti­cular. In the Lesser Asia, where it would seem that women were far from being so much despised and neglected, as in many other parts of the world, even those of the first quality were not ashamed to per­form the office of a washerwoman. We shall after­wards have occasion to take notice of the same custom in Greece. The Grecian wives and daughters, of what­ever quality, were not, in the heroic ages, brought up in idleness. Penelope, queen of the famous Ulysses, is so frequently introduced by Homer at her loom, that almost every one has heard the story of Penelope's web, a story which has been frequently applied to the slow and thriftless operations of the women of our modern times. The famous Helen, while con­fined by the besiegers of Troy, employed herself in an extraordinary piece of embroidery, which repre­sented most of the battles fought between the Greeks [Page 78] and Trojans: and Andromache, when she heard of the death of Hector, embroidered a representation of that tragical scene, and adorned it with [...]lowers. But such soft employments, such works of taste, were not the sole occupations of the women in the times we are delineating. The same Andromache, who with her needle painted [...] the fall of the hero of her country, was not ashamed to feed, and take care of, the horses of that hero when living.

Besides the arts of weaving and embroidery, which were not unknown to the women in the times of Moses, the Grecian fair ones employed them­selves in spinning, which they performed standing, and in every other branch of the manufacture of cloth; a custom which was not obliterated even in the most polished times of their states. Alexander the Great, and many others of their heroes and statesmen, wore garments, spun and woven by their wives and sisters: and this appears to have been the practice of the earliest antiquity, and we find Solomon, in his praises of a virtuous woman, enu­merating, among other qualities, that of clothing her husband in purple and scarlet. The Greek wo­men had particular rooms allotted to their work, near the apartments where they lodged. When they were respected by their husbands, and not given to intriguing, the provision and management of all ne­cessaries within doors were committed to them.

As the Greek ladies were almost constantly em­ployed, and as voluntary employment often banishes even every wish of pleasure and dissipation, we have reason to believe that they had few, if any, private diversions or amusements; which are generally the offspring of idleness, as appears plainly from the difference, in this respect, between the women and [Page 79] the men; the former, as we have observed, being fully employed, had no need of amusements; the latter being frequently, and, in Sparta, even by law obliged to be constantly idle, were thereby induced to have recourse to games and sports of various kinds to fill up their vacant hours, and prevent that un­comfortable tedium which so constantly attends idle­ness: to some of these public sports the women were admitted, and from others excluded by the severest penalties. Their legislator possibly imagined, that should they be indiscriminately admitted to all the amusements of the men, they would acquire an un­suitable boldness, and neglect the several duties and offices required of them at home. To what we have here observed the Spartan women are, however, an objection: we have already seen, that they amused themselves with the masculine exercises of wrestling, throwing darts, &c. But this is not all: they were obliged to appear naked at some of their solemn feasts and sacrifices, and to dance and sing, while the young men stood in a circle around them; an amusement highly indelicate, or, if a religious cere­mony, only worthy of the Cyprian goddess.

In the earlier periods, while the Greeks found abundance of employment in procuring subsistence, in plundering their neighbours, or avenging their own quarrels; they had but few gods, and, hardly perhaps, any festivals besides that of the vintage, when they used to make merry together with the fruits they had gathered. In the latter, when they became idle, by devolving all their labour upon slaves, and their gods had increased almost to the number of their men, the festivals celebrated in ho­nor of them became also nearly innumerable and were many of them accompanied with dancings, revellings, pompous processions, and other ostenta­tious [Page 80] ceremonies: into almost all of them the wo­men were not only admitted, but in several of them acted a principal part as singers, dancers, priest­esses, &c. When, therefore, the institutions of a religion are in this manner more calculated to attract the eye, than to amend the heart; when instead of social and moral duties, they prescribe gaudy pro­cessions, and ostentatious ceremonies; these in a great measure supply, and are actually turned into public diversions and amusements. This seems to have been remarkably the case in Greece; where, though every one of their numerous festivals was instituted in honour of some god, or in commemo­ration of something which they fancied was con­nected with religion, they often lost sight of the original institution amid the glare of ostentatious ceremony with which it was celebrated.

Another cause, which contributed to make the re­ligious festivals of the Greeks be considered as amuse­ments and diversions, was that ridiculous buffoonery that constituted so great a part of them: it would be tedious to enumerate one half of these buffoone­ries; let a few serve as a specimen. At a festival held in honour of Bacchus, the women ran about for a long time seeking the god, who, they pre­tended, had run away from them: this done, they passed their time in proposing riddles and questions to each other, and laughing at such as could not answer them; and at last often closed the scene with such enormous excesses, that at one of these festivals, the daughters of Minya, having, in their madness, killed Hippasus, had him dressed and served up to table as a rarity. At another, kept in honour of Venus and Adonis, they beat their breasts, tore their hair, and mimicked all the signs of the most extra­vagant grief, with which they supposed the goddess [Page 81] to have been affected on the death of her favourite paramour. At another, in honour of the nymph Cotys, they addressed her as the goddess of wanton­ness with many mysterious rites and ceremonies▪ At Corinth, these rites and ceremonies, being per­haps thought inconsistent with the character of modest women, this festival was only celebrated by harlots. Athenaeus mentions a festival, at which the women laid hold on all the old bachelors they could find, and dragged them round an altar; beating them all the time with their fists, as punishment for their neglect of the sex. We shall only mention two more; at one of which, after the assembly had met in the temple of Ceres, the women shut out all the men and dogs, themselves and the bitches remaining in the temple all night: in the morning, the men were let in, and the time was spent in laughing together at the frolic. At the other, in honour of Bacchus, they counterfeited frenzy and madness; and to make this madness appear the more real, they used to eat the raw and bloody entrails of goats newly slaughtered. And, indeed, the whole of the festivals of Bacchus, a deity much worshipped in Greece, were celebrated with rites either ridiculous, obscene, or madly extravagant. There were others, however, in honour of the other gods and goddesses, which were more decent, and had more the appear­ance of religious solemnity, though even in these, the women dressed out in all their finery; and adorned with flowers and garlands, either formed splendid processions, or assisted in performing ceremonies; the general tendency of which was to amuse rather than instruct.

Wherever women are advanced a few degree▪ above the most abject slavery, nothing is more natu­ral [Page 82] to them than a constant endeavour to attract the attention of our sex, by a display of their native charms, set off to the b [...]st advantage by dress and ornament. But it is only in states polished to excess, that they have imagined, that to dress and display all their charms, are the only things with which they have any business or concern in this world. Such, as we have now seen, were not the antient Greeks, nor such were the Romans in the early period of their empire. Tanaquil, the queen of Tarquin, one of the first and best kings of Rome, was admitted to public honours on account of the use she had made of her distaff; and Lucr [...]ia, whose tragical story is so well known in the Roman history, when her husband and some friends with him, unexpectedly arrived from the army in the middle of the night, was found with her maids spinning and working in wool; and the general practice of this period, as well among the Romans as the Greeks and other nations, was, that the women manufactured all the cloaths used by their husbands and families; not thinking the useful and necessary arts of life so incom­patible with elegance and grandeur as they began to do afterwards, and as they unfortunately do still in our modern times: but while their husbands and relations were labouring for, or defending them abroad, they at home were providing them with cloaths and other necessaries, according to their rank, and the fashion of their country, and thus mutually forwarding one common interest; but in subsequent periods, when luxury, with its numerous train of attending evils, had crept into Rome, the women became by degrees less useful, and ceased to be em­ployed in proportion as they were diverted and amused.

[Page 83]History, so far as we know, ha [...] not acquainted us, whether the Roman ladies had any private diver­sions: their public ones were such as were common to both sexes; as bathing, theatrical representations, horse-races, snows of wild beasts, fighting with one another; and sometimes with men, whom the empe­rors in the plenitude of their despotic power ordered to engage them; naval battles, and gladiators hack­ing one another to pieces. The Romans, of both sexes, spent a great deal of time at the baths; which at first, perhaps, were interwoven with their religion, at last, were only considered as refinements in luxury; they were places of public resort, where all the news of the times were to be heard, where people met with their acquaintances and friends, where public libraries were kept for such as chose to read, and where poets recited their works to such as would hear. In the earlier periods of Rome, separate baths were appropriated to each sex; but luxury beginning by degrees to thrust out decency, they at last came to bathe promiscuously together; the men, however, being dressed and undressed by the men; and the women, following the example, by those of their own sex only. The emperor Adrian prohibited this indecent manner of bathing, and re-established the separate baths; inclination, by degrees, over­came the prohibition, and Marcus Aurelius renewed it. Heliogabolus, the patron of gluttony and inde­corum, formally abolished it; and it was again renewed under Alexander Severus. But debauchery was by this time become too powerful to be restrained by law; and in spite of every effort, promiscuous bathing continued till the time of Constantine; who finally annulled it, by adding the precepts of Chris­tianity to the legislative authority. There were likewise at Rome public walks, planted on each side [Page 84] with rows of trees, as in modern times; to which both sexes resorted in the evenings, to walk and amuse themselves. The emperors sometimes also gave lotteries; in which the women had tickets, that entitled them to prizes. In short, so much did the Roman women recede from the custom of antiquity, in mixing themselves with the men, that at last there was hardly an amusement, a business, or debauchery, in which they were not engaged, either as parties or spectators.

CHAPTER IV. The same Subject continued.

MEN, though in many respects exactly similar in all ages and countries, in others are so dissimilar, that they can hardly be considered as the same kind of beings; their similarity is in all times and places, the effect of nature; their dissimilarity the effect of art, and of the habits and customs which have arisen from it. These every where govern and direct more than one half of their thoughts and actions, lay them under obligations stronger than the laws of their country; and, in many cases, obli­terate even the laws of nature. Such was the case with the Roman women at the public baths; such is the case at present in Russia, and many other parts of the world; where female modesty not only gives place to custom, but, by custom, is in time entirely eradicated.

[Page 85]As the other articles, which we mentioned in the list of diversions and amusements of the Roman ladies, are already so well known, we shall not enter into a particular detail of them. When from the Romans we turn our eyes towards those nations, who afterwards overturned their empire, we find them, though by the Romans denominated barba­rians, in many circumstances, less deserving of that contemptible epithet than these insolent depopulators of the world. We find their women placing no small share of female excellence in the exercise of the domestic, and still more in that of the conjugal vir­tues: we find that their mothers had early instilled into their minds that modesty, which more than any ornaments adorned; and that frugality and industry which in a barren climate, and almost unassisted by the men, maintained them. Their employment was not only to take care of, and manage all the domestic concerns of the family, but also to provide whatever could be obtained by peaceful industry; for their husbands, inclined only to occupy themselves in war and hunting, left every thing else to the con­duct and direction of their wives.

The Celtes, Gauls, Germans, and perhaps every other northern people, deemed agriculture an ignoble profession; only fit for slaves and women: even the Visigoths, on the coasts of Spain, devolved the care of their flocks and their fields on their women, and encouraged them to support the fatigue of managing them, by establishing annual assemblies, in which those women who had most distinguished themselves in agriculture received public applause. The men, in all the nations we have mentioned, counted it only glorious to live by the sword and the bow, and con­sequently, when not engaged in war, or in the chase, [Page 86] sunk into slothful indolence; and could only be said to live, because they ate, drank, and slept. Every necessary work being thus left to the women, they were perhaps so fully employed as to have no time for any thing else; if they had any diversions or amusements, as they had no historians, and as those of other nations were but imperfectly acquainted with their manners, we have no account of them.

We shall afterwards have occasion to relate, that the far greater part of the female sex in Asia, Africa, and America, are in a state of the most abject slavery and employed only in the execution of every slavish and laborious task. We shall not therefore now take up the dismal tale, but content ourselves with mentioning a few particulars only, and these chiefly such as relate to women, who are the least exposed to feel the oppressive effects of despotism. The Hin­doo women, the Mahommedans of Bengal, Nauga­racut, Lahor, and several other places of the East, are, in general, not so much oppressed by slavery, as in many parts of Africa and America; because, in the former places, they are considered only as an article of delicacy and pleasure; in the latter only as the slaves of their lords, and the breeders of children. To the woman of Hindostan, we owe a great part of those works of taste so elegantly executed on the manufactures of the East; the beautiful colourings and exquisite designings of their printed cottons; all the embroidery, and a part of that filligree work, which so much exceeds any thing in Europe. The deficiency of taste therefore, with which we so com­monly charge them, does not seem to be so much a defect of nature as of education: brought up in luxurious indolence, excluded from all the busy scenes of life, and like children provided with all [Page 87] those things, the acquisition of which calls forth the powers of the mind and body, they seldom have any motive to exert themselves; but when such a motive exists, they have often exhibited the most convincing proofs of their ability. Mherul-Nissa, who was afterward the favourite Sultana of Jehangire, empe­ror of Hindostan, being, with several female slaves, at first shut up in a despicable apartment of the serag­lio, on the comfortless allowance of two shillings per day, in order to raise her own reputation, and to support herself and slaves in a better manner than that scanty pittance would admit of, began to call forth the powers of taste and invention, which had hitherto lain dormant: she produced some admirable pieces of tapestry and embroidery, painted silks, with the most exquisite delicacy; and invented a variety of female ornaments, superior to those in common use; these being bought up with avidity over all the city of Delhi, made her so famous, that the Sultan paid her a visit; and captivated with her sense and her charms, from that moment became her slave.

Such are the female employments of the East; they are nearly the same among the Turks now settled in Europe; every Turkish seraglio or haram has a garden adjoining to it, and in the middle of this garden a large room, more or less decorated, according to the wealth of the proprietor; here the ladies spend most of their time with their attendant nymphs around them, employed at their music, embroidery, or loom; nor should we wonder, if in these retreats we find more real pleasure and enjoy­ment, than in the unbounded freedom of Europe, where love, interest, and ambition, so often destroy their peace; and where scandal, with her envenomed shafts, too often strikes equally at guilt and innocence.

[Page 88]So little do the writers of voyages and travellers know what passes in the penetralia of the harams of the East, and so private are these recesses kept even from the eye of speculative intrusion, that our know­ledge of what is going forward within them is exceed­ingly imperfect: this only in general seems certain, that the ladies of the great, spend their time lolling on silken sophas, bathing in rose water, perfuming themselves with costly essences, and adorning their persons, solicitous by every method to attract the attention, and obtain the greatest share of the con­jugal favour of their lord. Public amusements they have none; as these would necessarily expose them to be seen; a thing which, through custom, the women themselves seem little less afraid of than the jealous tyrants who confine them.

In the empire of the Mogul, the women are often called into the apartments of the men after supper, where they spend the remainder of the evening in regaling themselves with betel^*, with a few of the liquors of the country, and in conversation; but in these cases they are constantly veiled; and to offer to unveil, or even to touch one of them, would be considered as the greatest rudeness; and perhaps punished with immediate stabbing. At court they are frequently admitted into a gallery, with a curtain before them, through which, without being seen, they can see and hear whatever passes. It has some­times happened, that the throne has been occupied by a women, who never appearing in open court, issued her imperial mandates from behind this curtain; like an invisible being producing the greatest effects, [Page 89] while the cause of them was wrapt in darkness and obscurity.

At Constantinople, where the inhabitants still retain the manners of the Asiatics, and in most places of the Levant, the Turks, who love indecent amusements, chuse out in the evening a green spot, in some thick shade, in which they spread a carpet; and sitting down cross-legged together, men and women, upon it, divert themselves with drinking coffee and sher­bet, while their female slaves attend round them to play, sing, or dance, as they shall direct; the mis­tress, or lady, of the first quality in the party, often leading the dance, in the same manner as Diana is said to have done with her Nymphs on the banks of the Eurotas. But though women of rank, at Con­stantinople, may lead off a dance, such does not seem to be the general practice of the Asiatics, from whom they are descended; at least, they do not dance for amusement; it is true, the Mogul emperors often make their wives and concubines dance before them, and the other great men imitate their example; but this is not a voluntary act of the women; it is what they are obliged to by the command of a superior; and when this superior retires, they exercise the same authority over their own slaves, who are also obliged to dance for their amusement. We have already seen, in the beginning of this chapter, that dancing was practised at an early period in the East; and we find that it still prevails among all nations, rude and cultivated; only with this difference, that the rude dance to shew their strength and agility; the cultivated for exercise, and to shew the gracefulness of their persons and motions; and so much are man­kind almost every where delighted with dancing, that the indigent in many places have converted it [Page 90] into a trade, from which they derive no uncomfort­able subsistence.

In the neighbourhood of Surat, the Hindoos have many magnificent temples; and in every temple are a number of Bramins or priests, dedicated to the service of the god there worshipped. A part of that service consists in dancing on religious assem­blies, and other solemn occasions; and these dances are performed by young women, the most handsome and beautiful in the country.^* These reside in the temple, and are by the Bramins carefully collected from every place, where their own influence, or the veneration of their temple reaches. In order to induce them to enter into this service, besides the immense rewards held out to them in the world to come, they have some peculiar privileges in this. They may leave the temple when they please; and being accounted holy, they are then eagerly sought after in marriage, and have the preference in this respect to all other women. While in the temples, they are entirely under the direction of the Bramins; and it is by many supposed, that they are also entirely appropriated to their pleasures; but how­ever this be, they are hardly ever allowed, like the other female dancers of the country, to perform for the amusement of the public.

Besides these religious dancers, there is almost in every large city, companies of dancing girls, called Balliaderes; who, in the manner of our strolling players, go about for the amusement of the public; [Page 91] and who will exhibit their performances at the house of any person, who is able to pay what they demand; or may be seen by any one for a trifle at their public assemblies. These beautiful girls are constantly fol­lowed by an old deformed musician, who beats time with a brazen instrument, called a Tom; and continually at every stroke repeats the word Tom with such vociferation, that he soon works himself into a kind of phrenzy; the Balliaderes, at the same time eager to please, and intoxicated with the music, and the smell of the essences with which they are perfumed, soon after begin to be in the same state: their dances are in general expressive of the passion of love, and they manage them so as to give, even the most ignorant, tolerable ideas of that passion in all its different situations and circumstances; and so great is their beauty, so voluptuous their figure, so rich and ingeniously contrived their dress, that they seldom perform without drawing together a nume­rous croud of spectators.

Strolling female dancers, who live by that profes­sion, are not, however, peculiar to the East Indies; they have of late been met with in Otaheite, and several other places; but beside their strolling dancers in Otaheite, they have a dance called Timoradee, which the young girls perform, when eight or ten of them can be got together; it consists in every motion, gesture, and tone of voice that is truly lascivious; and being brought up to it from their childhood, in every motion, and in every gestur [...], they keep time with an exactness scarcely excelled by the most expert stage-dancers of Europe. But though this diversion is allowed to the virgin, it is prohibited to the wife; who, from the moment of marriage, must abstain from it forever.

[Page 92]That such women a [...] have rather been the outcasts of fortune, and are consequently obliged to exert themselves, in order to gain a subsistence, should make dancing a profession, and exhibit their per­formances for money, has nothing in it extraordi­nary; but that both men and women, who reckon themselves so far above want, as to be ashamed to perform for hire, should become strolling dancers from choice, in some degree excites astonishment, as being perfectly inconsistent with the ideas which we entertain in Europe. Such, however, in the island of Ulietea, were met with by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, who have given the following description of them: ‘In the course of our walk, we met with a company of strolling dancers, who detained us two hours; and during all that time afforded us great entertainment; the company consisted of two women dancers, and six men, with three drums: they were some of the most considerable people of the island, and though they were continually going from place to place, they did not, like the strolling companies of Otaheite, take any gratuity from the spectators. The women had upon their heads a considerable quantity of plaited hair, which was brought several times round their head, and adorned in many parts with the flowers of the Cape Jessamine, which were stuck in with much taste, and made a head­dress truly elegant; their necks, shoulders, and arms, were naked; so were their breasts, as low as the parting of the arm; below that they were covered with black cloth, which fat close to the body; at the side of each breast, next the arm, was placed a small plume of black feathers; upon their hips rested a quantity of cloth, plaited very full; it reached up to the breast, and fell down below into long petticoats; these quite concealed [Page 93] their feet; which they managed with as much dexterity as our opera-dancers could have done; the plaits above the waist were brown and white alternately, the petticoats below were all white.’

‘In this dress they advanced sideways in a mea­sured step, keeping excellent time to the drums, which beat briskly and loud; soon after they be­gan to shake their hips, giving the folds of cloth that lay upon them a very brisk motion, which was in some degree continued through the whole dance; though the body was thrown into various postures, sometimes standing, sometimes sitting, and sometimes resting on their knees and elbows; the fingers also being moved, at the same time, with a quickness scarcely to be imagined. Much of the dexterity of the dancers, however, and the entertainment of the spectators, consisted in the wantonness of their attitudes and gestures; which was indeed such as exceeds all description.’

From the earliest ages, dancing appears to have been either a religious or an imitative exercise; David danced before the ark of the Lord, the Philis­tines danced before Dagon, many of the contempo­rary nations frequently danced at their solemn meet­ings, in their groves, and on their high places; the Greeks did the same at some of the festivals celebra­ted in honour of their gods; and the travellers of our own times give us numberless accounts of the dancings of the savages before their idols. So different, however, are the ideas we have formed of religion, that we are apt to consider dancing as altogether inconsistent with its solemnity; but, per­haps, those who thought otherwise, introduced it as a sign of gratitude and thankfulness, for health, vigour, and agility; and, to show the gods, that they were [Page 94] cheerful and happy in the enjoyment of their blessings, and under the administration of their government; and proceeding from such sentiments in the worshippers, it could not be to the gods an unacceptable service. It has likewise been much used in an imitative or symbolical manner. The Indians dance their war-dance, to shew their strength, the agility, and ferocity they can exert in battle; and the women we have mentioned indecently dance, what may be called their love-dance, to shew how well they are qualified for the rapturous enjoyments of that passion; and it is only in the polite countries of Europe that we dance purely for the sake of dancing. If rude and barbarous nations make their dances expressive of their employments and their feelings; it is worth considering, whether we might not improve on the plan, and add sentiment and expression to what we at present only look upon as frolic and amusement.

Besides dancing, which does not as in Europe seem an amusement voluntarily practised by all ranks and conditions of women; in the east they have the diversion of bathing, which is so closely interwoven with their religion as well as with their pastime, that we can hardly say to which of them it belongs. In warm countries, where cleanliness is so absolutely necessary to the health and sweetness of the body, as almost to deserve a place among the moral virtues; there is scarcely a religious system into which frequent bathing has not been introduced, as a ceremony without which the gods would not accept the prayers and sacrifices of men, and hence both sexes are more accustomed to bathe than among us, who by religion are not enjoined any such duty. But there are in the East other causes, which perhaps even more forcibly prompt to the use of the bath than religion [Page 95] itself. The first is inclination, which must operate in the strongest manner in climates scorched by a vertical sun; to give us some idea of the strength of this inclination, in such climates, we need only reflect on what we sometimes feel in the scorching summer months on entering into a cool shade, or viewing a pool of water; the second is the love of liberty, every bathing-place set apart for the use of the women is a kind of public rendezvous, where the sex in general meet to talk over the news, the scandal, and the fashions; it is a sacred asylum, where no man dare enter, and where women are conse­quently free from the tyranny of their husbands and guardians; and besides, in going to and coming from it, they sometimes manage so as to be seen by their lovers, or make an assignation with their gallants: on all these accounts, we are not to wonder that bathing is so much practised in the East; and especi­ally by the fair sex, who have hardly any other liberty than that which they enjoy on this occasion.

We have already mentioned the indecent manner in which the Romans of both sexes bathed promis­cuously together; the Greeks in the heroic ages did the same, with this difference only, that the places they used were not so confined, being commonly some river, or the sea itself. To the indelicacy of these two nations, so famous in history, we shall oppose the practice of the Turkish Ladies at Adri­anople, as related by lady Mary Wortley Montague. ‘I went, says she, to the bagnio about ten o'clock; it was already full of women, I was in my travel­ling habit, which is a riding-dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them, yet there was not one of them that shewed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity, but received m [...] with all the obliging civility possible. I know no Europe [...] [Page 96] court where the ladies would have behaved them­selves in so polite a manner to such a stranger: I b [...]lieve there were two hundred women, and yet none of those disdainful smiles and satirical whispers that never fail in our assemblies, when any body appears that is not dressed exactly in the fashion; they repeated over and over to me, charming, very charming; the first sophas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second their slaves, behind them, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature; that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed; yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture among them. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes our general mother with; there were many among them as exactly propor­tioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pen­cil of a Guido or a Titian—and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair divided into many tresses, hanging on their shoulders, braided, either with pearl or ribbon, perfectly representing the figures of the graces.’

‘I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection I have often made, that if it were the fashion to go naked the face would be hardly observed I per­ceived that the ladies of the most delicate [...] and finest shapes had the greatest share of my admira­tion, though their faces were sometim [...]s l [...]ss beau­tiful than those of their companio [...]s; [...]o tell you the truth, I had wickedness enough to wish secretly that Mr. Gervais could have been there invisible; I fancy it would have much in proved [...] art to s [...]e so many fine women naked, in [...] postu [...]s, som [...] in convers [...]tion, some wo [...]ing, other [...] drin [...] ing [Page 97] coffee or sherbet; and many, negligently lying on their cushions, while their slaves (generally pretty girls of seventeen or eighteen) were em­ployed in braiding their hair in several pretty fancies.—They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours without getting cold, by immediate coming out of the hot bath into the cool room.—I was charmed with their civility and beauty, and should have been very glad to pass more time with them, but was in haste to see the ruins of Justinian's church, which did not afford me so agreeable a prospect as I had left, being little more than a heap of stones.’

As we have hitherto met with but little diversity in the employments of women, as their amusements have not been numerous in the countries we have surveyed, we now proceed to take a view of Europe; where, though we may not perhaps be able to find the scene of female employments enlarged according to our wishes, we shall at least find a long and ample list of female diversions and amusements.—If by employment we understand being occupied in such things as are useful to society, in that case women of ra [...]k and quality, in most of the polite countries of Europe, may be struck entirely out, as having no employment at all; and should we even admit works of fancy and taste into our list of useful employments, such is the lo [...]e of dissipation, that even few of these are at present executed by ladies of fashion. Desce [...]ding from the most elevated ranks of female life, to those placed in a middle station, who neither have reason to b [...] uplif [...]ed wi [...]h the pride [...]f wealth, made gid [...]y with the glare of pre­f [...]m [...]nt▪ nor depressed by the pinching hand of pov [...]r [...]ty▪ such we sh [...]uld na [...]urally expect to [...]ind [...] themselves and to [Page 98] their families; such we could heartily wish the im­partiality of historians would allow us to paint them. But even in this most eligible of all human conditions, where their time is not devoured by the giddy vortex of pomp and ceremony, where it is not wrested from them by the labours necessary to procure daily bread; to what is it dedicated? seldom! we are afraid, to useful purposes; but, rather to copying the examples of the superior ranks, and to gadding abroad after every fashionable folly and amusement: nor in saying this have we acted the part of de­claimers; the portrait we have drawn is only too faithful a representation of the times, and naturally points out to us that we are to look for the useful and the beneficial, only among such women as are obliged to gain a subsistence for themselves, and per­haps for their children, by their own industry. The whole human race is perhaps naturally averse to labour. From this general view of women, it would seem that they are particularly so, especially in Europe, where the softness of their frame, of their education, and the common indulgence they meet with from our sex, teach them to look up to us as to beings not only obliged to supply all their wants, but even to minister to all their pleasures, seldom con­sidering how far such a ministration is agreeable to our inclination; and even sometimes insisting on run­ning the giddy round of amusement, when conscious that it is out of our power to supply the means of its useless extravagance. But this is not all; in many companies, especially of the politer sort of women, we have heard the inconsiderate assembly, as with one voice, exclaim against the marriages of such as were poor, why, say they, should such people marry? they can only fill the country with beggars! never recollecting, that if such only were to marry, as could afford to bring up their children in idleness, they themselves would want servants to do for them [Page 99] those offices they think so much beneath their dig­nity, and that the strength of a hive does not consist in the drones that devour, but in the bees that col­lect the honey.

But to return to our ladies of rank and fashion, there are still to be found among them several, who bestow no inconsiderable share of time and attention on the concerns of their families, as also upon the cultivation of some of the fine arts, as music paint­ing, drawing, &c. To run through the long and va­ried list of occupations, in which women of the mid­dling and lower conditions of life employ themselves for pleasure, or for profit, would be tedious to our female readers, who know them much better than we do; we shall therefore only observe in general, that in all the polite countries of Europe, the proper office of women of middling fortune is the care, inspection, and management of every thing belong­ing to the family, while that of the men is to pro­vide by their labour and industry what the women are to manage with care and frugality. When we descend to the lower and more useful classes of wo­men, who not having been cast into the lap of for­tune, are obliged to work that they may live; we find their employments various and extensive: most of the manufactures of Europe, which do not depend so much upon strength as upon delicacy, are in a great measure, carried on by women, and many of those which are even of a rougher kind, receive a last polish from their softer touch. It is to their patient industry and ductile hands, that we owe our finest linens, cambries, and lawns: it is to them also that we are indebted for a great part of our gold and silver laces, our embroideries, and a variety of other works of taste and elegance, too tedious to mention. Another part of them, whose lot is cast in a different, though not less useful manner, employ [Page 100] themselves in assisting the husbandman in a variety of the less laborious branches of agriculture; and, not a few there are, who even toil in reaping and gathering in the harvest: but what we ought to value above every thing, is that cleanness, which by their means we enjoy in our houses and cloaths; benefits which we could hardly, or at least auk­wardly, procure for ourselves.

It may perhaps be thought strange, that in descri­bing the various employments of women, we have not hitherto mentioned that which of all others is their most natural and common office, the nursing and bringing up of children; a subject which we have reserved entirely for this place, that we might not be under the necessity of so frequent a repetition, as we should have been otherwise led to by its occur­ring in every period, and in every country we have had occasion to mention.

The most tender care and anxious solicitude for their infant offspring is an innate idea throughout the wide extent of animal nature, much more strongly imprinted on the minds of females than of males: a wise institution of Providence, for which various reasons will easily occur to the intelligent reader, and which we need not therefore take the trouble of pointing out.

A little attention to the nature and oeconomy of the brute animals will convince us, that the care of their young is an innate principle, and not the effect of reasoning; but we shall be still more con­vinced of this, if we attentively consider the females of the human genus, in savage and in civil life; a consideration that will uniformly point out to us, [...] this innate care and anxious solicitude diminish [Page 101] gradually, in proportion as women advance more toward that perfection, or rather imperfection of politeness, to which several nations have now arisen; where folly, and fashion, and the love of pleasure, have so much engrossed their affection, as in most cases greatly to weaken, and in some totally to obliterate, a passion hardly less natural than that of self-preservation.

That women were, as well as other animals, intended by nature to nurse and bring up their own children, is a truth which we presume nobody will deny; hence rigid philosophers, in dogmatizing on this subject, have as usual shewn their cynical moroseness, by branding such of the sex as did otherwise, with every indignant epithet; never considering that ill-humour, particularly when exer­ted against a woman, seldom serves to reclaim; nor that nature in many cases seems to have left some­thing in such a situation that art might have room to improve it; nor that they themselves, while they are railing from their studies at the women for deviating from nature, are at the same time deviating most widely from her in almost every action of their lives. But let us consider the matter a little more attentively, and we shall find that nature gave to horses tails: convenience directs us to cut them: she gave to men hair and beards, but we reckon it no crime to crop the one and shave the other: she gave to women breasts, and furnished them with milk, the natural food of infants; but that they should be thereby constantly obliged to nurse them, would be almost as whimsical as that we should be obliged to let our hair and beards remain in a state of nature; especially as it now appears, by many repeated trials, that children can in some cases be brought up better by the milk of another woman than by that of the [Page 102] mother, and that they frequently do exceedingly well without any milk at all: every thing else, there­fore, being equal, we are of opinion that there is no such preference due to the milk of the mother, as physicians and philosophers would willingly make us believe; nor can they from experience, the only sure guide in such enquiries, deduce any such inference; all young animals, we imagine, may naturally thrive best upon the milk of animals of the same spe [...]ies, but to carry this idea to individuals, is giving a limited and narrow view of the operations of nature, and we might almost with an equal degree of credibility suppose, that a young plant could▪ no where grow so well as in the same hot-bed which nourished its parent, as that a child could not thrive as well by the milk of any healthful woman, as by that of its mother.

To suppose, therefore, that a child does not equally thrive by good milk from any other person, is establishing a specific quality in the milk of every mother, adapted to the constitution of her own child only; and putting the important business of rearing children on such a footing, that when the mother chances to die, the poor infant must either expire soon after, or, at best, live a feeble monument of improper nourishment; and so perpetually point out a blunder in the constitution of nature. Nor do the young of the human species only, thrive equally on the milk of the species; it is the same with the young of all other animals; at least of the domestic animals with which we are acquainted. The calf and the lamb do just as well when they suck another cow or ewe, as when they suck the dam which brought them forth; provided the animals be health­ful, and the quantity of milk sufficient to maintain the young ones committed to their care; nay, we [Page 103] have never, in some of the best breeding counties in England, been able to observe any difference, if they had plenty of milk, whether they received it by sucking or lapping.

From these observations it appears, that what has hitherto been alleged of the mother's milk being the only proper nourishment for her own child, has only been the vision of theory, and not the result of experience. We would not, however, on that account, endeavour to dissuade women from this most pleasant task of nursing; we persuade ourselves, that it is in most cases their duty; and if their minds are not corrupted by pursuits less natural, we flatter ourselves, that, in all cases, they will find it their greatest pleasure; especially when they consider, that by so doing they have the dear pledges of their connubial love constantly under their own care and direction; whereby they are safe from the severity, carelessness, and inattention of the female mercenary, who is but seldom one of the best of her sex; such being, with difficulty, prevailed upon to quit the care of their own infants, for the sake of money, unless urged to it by lawless necessity.

There are a variety of other arguments, which offer themselves in favour of this practice; but as they have been so frequently mustered, by almost every author who has wrote on nursing, we shall not now intrude them on our fair readers: we cannot, however, quit the subject, without making one ob­servation, which we do not recollect to have met with. In every place, where the practice of giving out children to nurse is common, the state is thereby a considerable loser; because it is the idle▪ and wealthy only who can afford to give them out, and the poor only who are obliged to take them in▪ [Page 104] whence it evidently follows, that the number of the children of the rich is increased, and of the poor decreased; for a woman who sends her child to nurse as soon as it is born, has, or may have, a child every year; whereas she, who, after having suckled her own child, is obliged to take in another, cannot again bring forth a child in less than twenty-seven months, or perhaps three years. But a state is not so much enriched by the children of wealthy and independent parents, as by those of the poor; as the number required to govern and direct are few, in proportion to those who are governed and direct­ed. May not this be one of the causes, why Great Britain sends abroad so many poor young gentle­men, resolutely determined to be rich? May it not also be one of the causes, why, at home, she is sometimes at a loss for labourers, and often for able-bodied men to man her fleets and recruit her armies? May it not, in time, produce such an increase of children to the rich, and so much decrease the poor, that we may become like the Spaniards? almost all gentlemen; too proud to work, and too poor to be idle.

Were we to judge whether every woman should nurse her own children, from the practice of the females of other animals, we should certainly find it to be a duty from which she could hardly find any excuse to exempt herself; as almost the whole of the birds and the beasts perform this task to their own young^*. Were we to judge of it from the history of man, we should find, that in almost all nations it [Page 105] has been the common practice; though to that prac­tice, like all other general rules, there have been many exceptions. We have reason to believe, that the wives and concubines of the patriarchs constantly suckled their own children; the same custom ob­tained among the Egyptians, the Canaanites, the Scythians, the Medes and Persians; and it invariably takes place at this day in every nation, where cul­ture has not degenerated into vice, and where the voice of nature is stronger than that of pleasure.

What at first gave rise to the custom of one woman suckling the [...]ild of another, must have been the death or sickness of the mother: indolence taking the hint from this, and willing to be excused from the toil of tending and suckling, devolved the important offices on slaves, and on mercenaries. When, or where, this became at first the practice, history has not informed us; we find it, however, to have been pretty general during many of the most flourishing ages of the Grecian states; almost every nation, and often every province, is peculiarly remarkable for some produce of its soil, or qualifi­cation of its inhabitants; the Spartan matrons had acquired the glory of being famous for nursing; they laid aside the use of swaddling-bands; a custom which had prevailed from the remotest antiquity; they used children to eat every sort of food; taught them not to be afraid when alone, or in the dark; and to relinquish those peevish and fretful humours, which often render them so troublesome and disagreeable: on these accounts, Spartan nur­ses were eagerly sought after, and hired by such as could afford them, into all the other states of Greece: several of the most eminent warriors and statesmen gloried in having been nursed by the matrons of Sparta. It was not, however, a general custom [Page 106] for the Grecian women to give their children out to nurse; their poets, as well as those of the Romans, frequently introduce their ladies of the first quality suckling, and taking care of their children; but as the Romans imitated the Greeks in almost all their manners and customs, as they became more alive to the feelings of luxury, and less to those of nature, they copied them also, in giving their infants to be suckled and taken care of by slaves and hired nurses, while they themselves rioted in all the pomp and extravagance of the richest and most extravagant city in the world.

When the frozen regions of the North poured out swarms of barbarians into the Roman empire, they overturned not only the whole system of Roman government, but also that of luxury and of plea­sure; these being dissipated, nature resumed her empire, and instigated the women again to apply themselves to the task of suckling and rearing their own children. Several centuries elapsed amid the depopulations of war, and marked by ferocity of manners; when these gave place to the arts of peace and cultivation, luxury, and the love of pleasure, began to creep in, and women resum [...]d the practice of putting their children to nurse, th [...]t they might have more time to bestow upon pleasure [...]nd amuse­ment. The French and Italians, who have always taken the lead in fashion, set the first example; they were soon followed by Britain, and the other neigh­bouring nations, with such exactness, that at present, there is scarcely to be found in Europe a woman of family and fashion who will take the trouble of nursing her own child; but happy were it, if the contagion ended among these, and did not spread itself to the middling ranks of life; who, fond of imitating their superio [...]s, relinquish likewise the task [Page 107] of nursing, on various pretensions, that, like these superiors, they may dedicate themselves more freely to the rage of pleasure.

Such are the present employments of our women; but employment is not the mode of the times. In all the polite countries of Europe, those of rank and fashion, as well as those in decent circumstances, having an extraordinary portion of time upon their hands, with an almost irresistible inclination to plea­sure in whatever form it offers itself, are more often to be met with at the shrine of amusement than of industry: and hence it has been commonly observed, that wherever there is a show, an entertainment, or a crowd, the women are more numerous than the men: but theatrical entertainments of all kinds; balls, assemblies, operas, ridottos, and particularly reviews, seem to be the scenes of their peculiar de­light; because, perhaps, at these, they can not only indulge their natural propensity for show and osten­tation, but find them also convenient places for love, or for intrigue. Riding, walking, sailing, and, in some countries of Europe, even skaiting, and being drawn on the ice in sledges, are female amusements. Besides these, and many others too tedious to mention, the women of fashion, in most parts of Europe, spend a great part of their time in receiving and returning visits; and, in some of the politer nations, modern visiting is not spending a social hour together; it consists only in her ladyship ordering her coachman to drive to the doors of so many of her acquaintances, and her footman, at each of them, to give in a card with her name, while the lady of the house, though in the polite phrase, not at home, is looking through the window all the time to see what passes; and, in some convenient [Page 108] time after, returns the visit, and is sure to be re­ceived in the same manner.

Shopping, as it is called, is another fashionable female amusement, in order to which, two, three, or sometimes more ladies, accompanied by their gallants, set out to make a tour through the most fashionable shops, and to look at all the most fashion­able goods, without any intention of laying out one single sixpence. After a whole forenoon spent in plaguing mercers and milliners, they return home, either thoughtless of their folly, or which, perhaps, is worse, exulting at the thoughts of the trouble and disturbance they have given.

But of all the happy inventions discovered by modern ingenuity for the killing of time, card-play­ing is justly entitled to the pre-eminence. With an immoderate itch for this amusement, which we are at a loss whether to reckon public or private, both sexes, and all ranks and degrees of people are deeply infected; particularly indolent clergy, and women, who, having little to do, dedicate them­selves so assiduously to play, that the habit is in many become so strong, as to be foolishly reckoned even necessary to their existence. To cards, when made use of only to unbend the mind fatigued with study, or to pass away an idle hour, we have no objection, nor do we flatter ourselves, that any thing we can say on the subject will, in the least, influence the conduct of such as are habituated to them. We would only, therefore, as we pass along, recommend to the ministers of religion, to set a watch over their tongues, while playing with bad success, lest an unguarded oath, or a few silly exclamations at a card-table, should do more hurt to religion, and to their sacred character, than they are aware of. To [Page 109] the fair, to the lovely virgins of this favourite island, when thus engaged, we would recommend the strictest care of their temper, lest something should escape from their lips, that may belie the soft, the bewitching appearance, with which nature has painted their exterior forms.

To the female diversions and amusements now mentioned, we might add many more; but as a bare recital of names, makes a dry and unentertain­ing page, and as a description of each would be tedious and insipid, we shall only observe, in general, that such is human, and particularly female nature, when tutored by European art, that it constantly shews a greater proclivity to the gay and the amusive, than to the sober and useful scenes of life; and loves better to sport away time amid the flowers that strow the path of pleasure, than to be entangled among the briars and thorns which perplex the path of care. But notwithstanding this, we must do jus­tice to the sex, in asserting, that as their attachments are always stronger than those of the men, such of them as attach themselves to oeconomy and industry, pursue their plan with a steady and inflexible con­stancy, which male nature perhaps is incapable of arriving at; and are neither to be tempted to deviate from it by the hope of pleasure, nor by the fear of danger and of pain.

CHAPTER V. Of the Treatment and Condition of Women, and the various Advantages and Disadvantages of their Sex, in savage and civil Life.

THERE is in the fate of women some­thing exceedingly singular; they have at all periods, and almost in all countries, been, by our sex, con­stantly oppressed and adored. And what renders their case still more extraordinary, is, that we have not oppressed, because we hated, but because we loved them. We have not in Asia and Africa con­fined them, because, like the lion, and the tyger, we were afraid of their depredations; but because we were unwilling that any body should share with us the pleasure and enjoyment of their company. We have not in Europe assumed almost the sole manage­ment of affairs, because we were afraid that they would manage them to our prejudice, but only to save them the trouble of thought and of labour, and to enable them to live in ease and elegance.

Such, however, is not the condition of women in those states approaching the nearest to savage barba­rity; there they have not attained consequence enough even to merit confinement; and far less, to merit that exemption from labour and perpetual guardianship, by which, in Europe, they are com­plimented and chained. As strength and courage are in savage life the only means of attaining to power and distinction, so weakness and timidity are the certain paths to slavery and oppression: on this account, we shall almost constantly [...]nd women among savages condemned to every species of servile, [Page 111] or rather, of slavish drudgery; and shall as con­stantly find them emerging from this state, in the same proportion as we find the men emerging from ignorance and brutality, and approaching to know­ledge and refinement; the rank, therefore, and condition, in which we find women in any country, mark out to us with great precision, the exact point in the scale of civil society, to which the people of such country have arrived; and were their history entirely silent on every other subject, and only men­tioned the manner in which they treated their women, we should, from thence, be enabled to form a tolerable judgment of the barbarity, or culture of their manners.

There is hardly any thing more natural to the rude and uncultivated mind, than to consider strength as giving unlimited right to whatever it can con­quer; it is one of the first ideas which is derived from attention to the whole of the brute animals; every one of which constantly appropriates to itself, any thing it can take from a weaker being of the same, or any other species. Whether the human mind has in its rude and barbarous state the same innate idea of right, or whether it has borrowed that idea from the other animals, is uncertain; but it appears from history, that every savage people either have it from nature or from imitation; and thence undoubtedly arose at first the barbarous custom of enslaving and treating with the utmost severity that sex which nature had formed, not to force, but to charm us into a proper behaviour towards them: but though among people of savage and uncultivated manners, this natural weakness of the sex, has sub­jected them to almost every species of indignity and ill usage; among the civil and polite, it has had a very different effect: these, disdaining to take the [Page 112] advantage of weakness, and rather considering it as intitled [...]o their protection and indulgence, have, from generosity of principle, raised women to a rank and condition, in many cases superior even to that enjoyed by themselves; and this merely in condescen­sion to their weakness: but as we shall have occasion afterwards to mention the causes of the ill treatment of the sex, we shall at present proceed [...]o take a view of their progress from slavery to freedom, and to mark the various causes which have more or less accelerated or retarded that progress.

This enquiry we shall begin with the condition of women among the antient patriarchs, a condition which we shall find to have been but extremely indifferent. When Abraham entertained the angels sent to denounce the destruction of Sodom, he appears to have treated his wife as a menial servant: ‘Make ready quickly,’ said he to her, ‘three measures of fine meal, knead it, and make cakes on the hearth.’ And from the sequel of the story it is plain, that she was not admitted to partake of the entertainment she had dressed: In ages so remote as those we are now considering, the imperfect and mutilated accounts from which alone we can draw any information, sometimes relate incidents which have so little resemblance to the manners and cus­toms of our times, that we are altogether at a loss how to account for them. Though Sarah officiated as a servant in preparing this entertainment, she had at the same time one, or rather, perhaps, several hand-maids or maid-servants under her, but in what they were employed, or how they served their mis­tress, we can only conjecture.

We have already observed, that among nations but little cultivated, power is constantly made use of [Page 113] as a means to enslave; and from this principle we must derive the ill-treatment of the Israelitish women, and the abuse of their captives. In the whole early history of that people, there is hardly one instance of a woman having been treated with indulgence, or of a captive having experienced humanity.

In many parts of the East, water is only to be met with deep in the earth, and the drawing of it from the wells consequently fatiguing and laborious. Such, however, was the task of the daughters of Jethro the Midianite, to whom so little regard was paid, either on account of the rank of their father, as high-priest of the country, or on account of their own sex, that the neighbouring shepherds not only insulted them, but forcibly took from them the water they had drawn. Such was the task of Rebecca, who not only drew water for Abraham's servant, but for his camels also; while the servant stood an idle spectator of the toil; and what makes his behaviour appear the more extraordinary is, that his circumstances at that time were those, in which men who have any sensibility generally exert their utmost efforts to please and become acceptable: he was on an embassy to court the damsel for Isaac his master's son. When he had concluded his bargain, and was carrying her home, we meet with another circumstance which strongly marks the inferiority of women in the times we are now considering. When she first approached Isaac, who had walked out into the fields to meet them, she did it in the most sub­missive manner, as if she had been approaching a lord and master rather than a fond and passionate lover; from which, as well as from several other parts of the sacred history, it would seem that wo­men, instead of endeavouring, as in modern times, to persuade the world that they confer an immense [Page 114] favour on a lover by deigning to accept of him; made no difficulty of confessing that the obligation was conferred on themselves ^*. When Jacob went to visit his uncle Laban, a man of considerable property, he met Rachel, Laban's daughter, in the fields, attending on the flocks of her father; and in a much later period, Tamar, one of the daughters of king David, was sent by her father to perform the servile office of making cakes for her brother Amnon. And still later than this, the queen of Jeroboam king of Israel, went in person, perhaps on foot or on an ass, to consult an old prophet. The simplicity of the times in which these things hap­pened, take off a great deal from their weight, and make them prove less than they would otherwise do; but in spite of that simplicity, they still make it appear, that women were not then treated even with the rudiments of that delicacy they have happily experienced in ages, and among people more polished and refined.

But should the simplicity of the times be admitted as a full excuse for what we have now mentioned, there are other proofs that women were treated in an indignant manner, which can admit of no such excuse, as they appear to have been deliberation enforced by law. Husbands had a discretionary power of divorcing th [...]ir wives, without assigning any other reason for it than that they were not agree­able to them: and as if such a power over the bodies of women had not been a circumstance sufficiently humiliating to the sex, they had another power of [Page 115] an extraordinary nature over their minds also. Hus­bands and fathers were authorised to annul and make void even the most solemn vows of their wives and daughters, provided such vows were not made in the hearing of these husbands and fathers; in which case, if they did not immediately enter their dissent, they were considered as parties who had approved of [...]hese vows, and could not set them aside afterward. Was not this plainly declaring that wo­men were beings of a nature so inferior as not to be capable of entering properly into any solemn or reli­gious engagements for themselves? That in some cases a kind of public contempt was thrown on the sex, seems to appear from the law concerning child­bed purification, by which it was enacted, That she who had brought forth [...] [...]emale child, should not be accounted clean in less than sixty-six days; whereas she [...] had brought forth a male was clean in half th [...] time. As no natural reason can be assigned for such a law, it has generally been thought expressive of that contempt and degradation which, in the times we are delineating, was thrown on the sex, as an inferior order of beings.

To the proofs we have already brought of the despicable condition of women among the nations we have mentioned, we may add the universal custom of polygamy and concubinage, both of them imposi­tions, contrary to the inclination of the sex, and practices which wound so deeply the delicacy of their feelings, that we cannot suppose any woman volun­tarily to agree to them, even where they are sancti­fied by custom and by law. Wherever, therefore, they take place, we may assure ourselves that women have but little or no authority, and have scarcely arrived at any consequence in society. In such a condition of the sex we do not expect to find any of [Page 116] them rising into great esteem, and far less to the supreme power; circumstances which, however even contrary to all appearances, we sometimes meet with. A wise woman, as she is called in scripture, saved the city of Abel, by prevailing on the inhabit­ants to cut off the head of Sheba, and throw it over the wall to Joab, who thereupon retired with his army. And Deborah, a prophetess, had been raised to the dignity of judging Israel, a dignity which she maintained for several years; the exaltation of these, and of others, into conditions so different from the rest of their sex, is, perhaps, not to be accounted for upon any other principle than the power of superstition, which readily believed that every glim­mering of knowledge, and every superior attainment, were inspirations of the divinity; and taught the people that to the direction of those, whom they supposed thus inspired, they should yield themselves up to be governed with the most implicit conf [...]ence.

From the ancient people of Israel, and the nations around them, where women were treated with so much indignity and contempt; let us turn our eyes towards the Egyptians whom we shall find, on the contrary, using them with a complaisance and humanity which would have done honour to the most enlightened ages. As these people were situ­ated in the midst of nations, who in this parti­cular shewed them so ill an example, before we proceed to the facts, let us enquire into the causes which produced them.

Wherever the human race live solitary and uncon­nected with each other, they are savage and barba­rous; wherever they associate together, that association becomes productive of softer manners, and a more engaging deportment. While people in the neigh­bourhood [Page 117] of Egypt were allowed, by their situation, in every season, to roam about at pleasure, and while their woods and their rivers afforded them the means of constantly subsisting themselves by hunting and fishing; the Egyptians, from the nature of their country, annually overflowed by the Nile, had no wild beasts to hunt, nor could then procure any thing by fishing; on these accounts they were under a necessity of applying themselves to agriculture, a kind of life which naturally brings mankind together for mutual convenience and assistance; but, besides, they were every year, during the inundation of the river, obliged to assemble themselves together, and take shelter either on the rising grounds, or in the houses which were raised upon piles above the reach of the waters; here the men and the women being constantly in the company of each other, and almost every employment totally suspended, a thousand inducements, not to be found in a solitary state, would naturally prompt them to render themselves agreeable to each other, and hence their manners would begin more early to assume a softer polish, and more elegant refinement, than those of the other nations who surrounded them.

From this early society, where the men first became acquainted with the intrinsic merit of the sex, and where they on their part had an opportunity of exerting every power, and displaying every charm that could please; they soon came to be treated in a manner widely different from the women of any of the neighbouring nations. We have already related from Herodotus, that they were employed in agricul­ture, and in merchandise; but there is great reason to believe, that if any of them were employed in agriculture, it was only those of the meanest condition, and that in general they were exempted from per­forming [Page 118] any of the laborious tasks, commonly assigned them by barbarians; a thing which to us appears to be demonstrated from the whole of the conduct of their men towards them, and which receives an additional proof from the story of Psammenitus, one of their kings; who, being made prisoner at the reduction of Memphis, was with the chief of his nobility placed on an eminence near the city, while his own daughter, and the rest of the captive women were ordered to bear water in pitchers from the river; which so mortified the king, that he is said to have felt more on that occasion than for the loss of his liberty and kingdom; but, had this been a common custom in Egypt, as we have already seen it among all the neighbouring nations, it could not have been chosen as the most eligible mode of adding to the sorrows of the distressed monarch. What we every day see or perform loses all power of affecting us, however degrading in its nature; while something which we have not been used to, though less degrading, awakes our keenest sensations, and stings our hearts with the sharpest affliction.

We shall afterwards have occasion to mention, that in a very early period the practice of confining women was introduced into the East; this practice, however, instituted by the rage of jealousy, and maintained by unlawful power, was never adopted by the Egyptians, as appears from the story of Pharaoh's daughter, who was going with her train of maids to bathe in the river, when she found Moses hid among the reeds; and also from that of the wife of Potiphar, who, if consined in the manner of the East, could not have found the opportunities she did to solicit Joseph to her adulterous embrace. To these testimonies of the sacred scripture we may add the authority of Herodotus, and some of the [Page 119] other writers on ancient Egypt, who, besides men­tioning several anecdotes which could not have hap­pened to women in harams and seraglios, generally agree that they were equal, if not superior, in autho­rity to the men; and if they were, it would be inconsistent to think that they allowed themselves to be shut up and deprived of society, by beings who neither had, nor claimed any superiority over them.

The men in Egypt were not allowed to indulge in polygamy, a state which always presupposes women to be slaves. The chastity of virgins was protected by a law of the severest nature; he who committed a rape on a free woman, had his privities cut off, that it might be out of his power ever to perpetrate the like crime, and that others might be terrified by so dreadful a punishment. Concubinage, as well as polygamy, seems either not to have been lawful, or at least not fashionable; it was a liberty, however, in which their kings were sometimes indulged, for we find when Sesostris set out on his expedition to conquer the world, he left the government of the kingdom to his brother, with full power over every thing, ex [...]ept the royal diadem, the queen, and royal concubines. The queens of Egypt are said to have been much honoured, as well as more readily obeyed than the kings; and it is also related, that the husbands were in their marriage-contracts obliged to promise obedience to their wives; a thing which in our modern times we are often obliged to per­form, though our wives entered into the promise.

But nothing can exhibit the power and conse­quence of the Egyptian women in a stronger light than a law, by which it was ordained, That daugh­ters and not sons should provide for their parents, when they became aged or indigent. And we shall only add further, that the honour and respect paid [Page 120] to them, above those of other nations, likewise [...] from the behaviour of Solomon to Pharaoh's [...]. Solomon had many other wives besides this [...], and was married to several of them before her, which, according to the Jewish law, ought to have entitled them to a kind of preference; but such was not the case, for we hear of no particular palace having been built for any of the others, nor of the worship of any of their gods having been introduced into Jerusalem; while for Pharaoh's daughter a magnificent palace was erected, and she permitted, though expressly contrary to the Jewish law, to worship the gods of her own country; cir­cumstances which we cannot believe would have happened, had not the regard of the Egyptians for their women, prompted them to have stipulated with Solomon in the marriage agreement. But loaded with all the honors and preferments we have men­tioned, invested often with the sovereign power, as well as the management of their own families; the fair sex were sometimes reached by superstition, that phrenzy of the human mind, which neither regards the laws of nature nor of nations; a virgin was at certain times sacrificed to Annubis.

Besides the privilege of succeeding to the throne itself, in default of male issue, the Egyptian daugh­ters had a right of succession to the paternal inherit­ance of their fathers; a right hardly to be met with in any of the neighbouring countries, where women were too much despised to be admitted to inherit what they could not defend. With this rule the inheritance of the sovereign authority was not thought so inconsistent, as every subject is concerned in de­fending his country in general, while the defence of private property rests more immediately on the arm of the proprietor. In an early period of the history [Page 121] of the Assyrians and Babylonians, we also find wo­men creeping into such consequence as to share with their husbands, and sometimes to assume to them­selves the whole of the royal authority; though we have reason to believe, that, at the same time, they could not inherit the estates of their ancestors.

While Ninus, king of Assyria, was besieging Bactria, it is said that the attempt would have failed, had it not been for the assistance of Semiramis, then wife of one of his principal officers, who plan­ned a method of attacking the city, with such supe­rior skill, that he soon became master of it. Ninus being attracted by the beauty and art of this virago, soon became passionately fond of her; in the mean time, her husband foreseeing that this passion would end in his destruction, to avoid falling a victim to licentious despotism, privately put an end to his life. The main obstacle being thus removed, Ninus took the adultress to wife, an action which, accord­ing to some authors, he had soon reason to repent, for she having first brought over to her interest the principal men of the state, next prevailed on her silly husband to invest her, for the space of five days, with the sovereign power; a decree was accordingly issued, that all the provinces should implicitly obey her during that time; which having obtained, she began the exercise of her sovereignty, by putting to death the too indulgent husband who had con­ferred it on her, and so securing to herself the king­dom. Other authors have denied that Ninus com­mitted this rash, or Semirami [...] this execrable deed, but all agree that she succeeded her husband at his death, in whatever manner it happened. Seeing herself at the head of a mighty empire, and struck with the love of magnificence and fame, she proposed to render her name immortal, by performing some­thing [Page 122] that should far surpass all that had been done by her predecessors; the scheme she fell upon, was to build, in the space of one year, the mighty city of Babylon; which being finished within the proposed time, greatly exceeded in magnificence any thing the world had ever seen: two millions of men are said to have been constantly employed on it, during the time it was erecting.

From the advancement of Semiramis to the Assy­rian empire, it would seem that, at least, some de­cent degree of personal liberty was one of the pre­rogat [...]ves of the women of that country; for where­ever the sex are strictly confined by their fathers and husbands, we can hardly suppose their political exis­tence to be such as could form a party sufficient to bring about a total revolution of state; and in the Past they are commonly considered as beings too w [...]ak and insignificant, ever to be allowed the pri­vilege of mounting a throne, unless aided by the power of superstition, or the notion of a right derived from their gods. But though the Assyrian women seem, in general, to have enjoyed some liberty, yet their monarchs, according to the custom of their neighbours, had seraglios, where such ladies as belonged to them were probably more strictly con­fined than the other women of the country.

That seraglios were a part of the magnificence of the Assyrian monarchs, appears from several anec­dotes in their history, and particularly from the story of Sardanapalus, who, instead of employing his time in the affairs of government, dedicated himself entirely to debauchery among his women, affecting not only the softness and effeminacy of their voice and manners, but learning also to handle the distaff, and amuse himself by working in the other trifles with which they were employed. As we have [Page 123] already seen that, in the earlier ages, women of the greatest rank and quality were not ashamed to perform those offices, which, in our times, would be considered as beneath the dignity of their waiting-maids, we are not to be surprised, that the women of the august monarch of Assyria should employ themselves in spinning; but that the effeminate monarch himself, who had business and pleasure, in so many shapes, at his command, should take up the distaff for his amusement, not only excites our asto­nishment, but our contempt; and strongly marks the littleness of that mind, which, surrounded with such a variety, could select a diversion so insignifi­cant, as well as unbecoming. We may, perhaps, account for this, by observing that women of talents, superior to the rest of their sex, generally associate with men, and despise the company of women as trifling and insignificant; and that men of inferior talents, finding themselves generallly despised by the men; on that account associate with women. This observation, besides pointing out the reason why Sardanapalus confined himself, almost altogether, to the seraglio, likewise discovers the reason why Semi­ramis arrived at the royal diadem of Assyria; an elevation which, though it did honor to the sex in general, yet did not prove, that they had, in general, attained to that importance to which they are enti­tled, by the place which they hold in the scale of rational beings; for, throughout the whole conti­nent of Asia, women have been, from time imme­morial, and still are, considered either as public or private property, and sold to such husbands as would give the highest price for them: in Assyria, the former of these was the custom; women being there the property of the state, and by the magistrates disposed of in marriage to the best bidder, by way of public auction. We are of opinion, that this [Page 124] custom, or law, took place after the reign of Semi­ramis; so that though, in her time, the sex might be on a more respectable footing, it seems that the privileges they then enjoyed, were afterward almost entirely wrested from them by the men.

In an early period of the world, while as yet women had attained to little dignity and consequence, we find an universal notion of female, as well as of male deities, had obtained among mankind; this notion did not arise solely from the polytheism of the times, but also from an opinion that the gods propagated their species, which mortals could not conceive them capable of doing in any other way than that of mortal men. All antiquity demonstrates it to have been a general opinion, that the gods often cohabited with, and had children by the daughters of men; which children were reckoned partakers of a divine nature in their life-time; and after their death were worshipped as real deities. But Semiramis is the first woman, we believe, who had influence enough, without pretending to any divine original, to procure the honour of deification after her death; to have temples erected, and the worship of a goddess addressed to her, by a nume­rous crowd of adorers. By what means she pro­cured this distinction, in a period, and a country where women were not considered as of much im­portance, we are not told: while alive, an absolute monarch may easily command the obedience of sub­jects in civil matters, but in those of religion, even the severest despot is often incapable of introducing any change. It is, therefore, the more extraordi­nary, that Semiramis had influence enough to intro­duce, after her death, what few monarchs have attempted with success when living. We are aware, that when the custom of paying divine honours to [Page 125] illustrious persons after death, became universal, it was no very difficult matter to be ranked among the gods; but to introduce the custom of conferring that dignity on a sex, which were then so little distin­guished, must have been owing to superior talents and abilities.

Among the Babylonians, who were at first a part of the Assyrian empire, and afterwards became their own masters, women were, probably, of much greater importance than in Assyria. The whole history of mankind, as well as what we see among the uncultivated nations of our own times, assures us, that where women have attained to little or no importance in society, and are only considered as the servile instruments of supplying our wants, and gra­tifying our passions, there is but little care taken, either to adorn their minds, or their bodies. Among the Babylonians, though we are not informed what care was taken of the female mind, from a variety of scattered hints, which particularly abound in the prophets of the Old Testament, we may infer, that the greatest attention was bestowed in decorating and adorning their bodies, with every costly orna­ment which fondness could invent, and affluence supply: incontestible proofs that they were objects of no small importance, and the peculiar care of the men. But further, the Babylonians were a wise and cultivated people; and we may with truth assert, that proper culture of the human mind has never yet existed, without extending itself to the interests and conveniences of the fair sex.

That some of the queens of Babylon were more regarded, and of greater consequence than is com­mon to the herd of women confined in the seraglios of eastern monarchs, appears from the story of [Page 126] Nitocris, consort of Nabonadius, known in scripture by the name of Evil Merodach: while Nabonadius, neglecting the affairs of his kingdom, dovoted him­self entirely to scenes of the most voluptuous de­bauchery, Nitocris took upon her the care of the state, and managed it so as to give universal satis­faction; a circumstance, which was not likely to have happened, had not women possessed a tolerable share of public esteem and confidence; which, when we consider the influence of female society among the Babylonians; and that their women were admitted to convivial meetings, where they lived in a free and unrestrained manner, with more frequent oppor­tunities than their neighbours of exerting the various arts of pleasing; and, consequently, of gaining that ascendency which will ever fall to the share of beauty and of sense, will appear not to have been so difficult for them to attain, as for the women of the sur­rounding nations. But notwithstanding this general importance, such of the Babylonish women as were poor, like the poor of every country, were destined to attend on, and minister to the various pleasures of the rich; who, at their regular meals, were served by a great number of Eunuchs, and singing and dancing girls, carefully selected from the fairest and handsomest of the country. When the Baby­lonians became poor, by the ruin of their metropolis, fathers prostituted their daughters for gain, and husbands, who had formerly been hindered from using their wives ill, by a particular law, then broke through every restraint; and, it is said, even com­pelled them to offer themselves to strangers for hire.

Concerning the condition of the Scythian women we know little; only that they, as well as those of the Gauls and Germans, were anciently held in great esteem for their skill in divination: we know not [Page 127] whether it was on account of this esteem, or because they were thought weak and inoffensive, that in some cases the Scythian women were treated with more lenity than the men. By one of their laws, when a father was put to death, all his sons suffered the same fate along with him, while the daughters escaped with impunity. These people, the most plain and simple of all antiquity, being reproached with cowardice, for retreating from their desert frontiers, before an army much superior to their own: ‘In those desolate wastes, said they, we have nothing worth fighting for; but when you arrive at the tombs of our ancestors, and the habitations of our women, you shall see whether we can defend them.’

From the accounts handed down to us of the Phoenicians, they appear to have been long a flou­rishing and prosperous people, who had acquired great riches by their superior skill in commerce and navigation; we may therefore reasonably suppose, that, in a country, whose inhabitants were so far advanced in the arts of civil life, the women had attained to that importance we generally find them possessed of in such countries; especially when we consider the attention that was paid to ornamenting them, by all the finery that an extensive trade could purchase from every part of the globe. But though the Phoenicians spared no cost in adorning their women with all the elegance of the times, they appear to have stamped upon them one mark of inferiority and subordination; they did not allow them to wear the Tyrian purple, so famous in those days; not only on account of its high price, but also as a badge of distinction solely appropriated to men; and to such of them only as were of the first rank and dignity, though not then, as it was afterwards, [Page 128] altogether confined to royalty. In the Balearic Isle [...], of whose history we have now but a few scattered hints in some of the Greek writers, so far were they from fixing any mark of inferiority on the fair sex, that when any of their women were taken captive, they gave three or four men in exchange for her; a conduct so singular, that some particular reason for it must have existed, of which we are not informed; perhaps it was only done at the first planting of some colony, while the women, as in the origin of Rome, were few and valuable. Among the Lycians, a people of the Lesser Asia, a custom also obtained▪ which, at first view, seems to exalt the women to a consequence much superior to that of the men. In their sex alone was the fountain of honour and nobility, insomuch that if a woman of quality mar­ried a plebeian, their issue were noble; but if a nobleman married a foreigner or peasant, the chil­dren, in that case were only plebeians. But this custom, when more nearly examined, will be found to have originated from a different motive than love or esteem; it is at this day practised in some parts of America; and the reason there given for it is, because they are sure who is the mother of a child; and that the noble or royal blood of a family may, on her side, be easily preserved; whereas they have no certainty who is the father; and by the inconti­nence of a wife, the noble or royal blood may, on the male side be totally extinguished.

If the Phoenicians treated their women with pro­priety, we may reasonably expect to find nearly the same customs concerning them transplanted into Carthage; as the Carthaginians were originally a co­lony from Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia. As there was something uncommon in the origin of this colony, and as it was founded by a woman, whose name [Page 129] has been immortalised by Virgil, and not unknown even to the generality of female readers, we hope it will not be deemed altogether foreign to our sub­ject to give a short account of it.

While Tyre flourished in all the pomp of magni­ficence, as the capital of the Phoenician empire, and the most renowned commercial city in the world, Pygmalion, being king, had a sister, called Eliza, but known to us by the name of Dido; which sister he married to Sichaeus, one of their own relations. Sichaeus was possessed of great riches, which Pyg­malion avariciously coveting, put him to death, that they might fall into his hands. Dido, detesting this execrable deed of her brother, and desirous to disappoint him of that wealth, which had been the cause of it, cunningly amused him, till she had got all things in readiness; and then privately eloped with the most valuable effects of her murdered husband. After a long series of disastrous events, she at last landed on the coast of the Mediterranean, at a little distance from the place where the piratical city of Tunis now stands: there, having purchased some land of the natives, she settled a colony of such as had adhered to, and followed her fortune.

Soon after this settlement, the inhabitants of the country, invited by a prospect of gain, resorted to the strangers with the necessaries of life, and such other commodities as were most wanted: finding themselves always civilly treated, they at last gradu­ally incorporated with them into one people. The citizens of Utica, being their ancient neighbours, began also to consider them as countrymen; and sent embassadors, with considerable presents, exhor­ting them to build a city on the place where they had first landed; this proposal being agreeable to [Page 130] the secret wishes of Dido, and her infant colony, the city was begun, and called Carthada, or Car­thage; which, in the Phoenician language, signifies the New City.

What Virgil has related concerning this first queen of Carthage, is only to be considered as a poetical fiction; for it appears that she lived at least two hundred years before the time of his hero Aeneas, and at last finished her days, not as he repre­sents, a victim to love, but to that kind of conjugal fidelity then in fashion, which considered it as crimi­nal to marry a second husband; for, being courted by Jarbas, king of Getulia, and threatened with war in consequence of a refusal; and having bound herself by an oath to Sichaeus, never to consent to a second marriage, and unwilling to bring a powerful invasion on her infant colony; to extricate herself from the difficulty, she ascended and leapt into a funeral pile which she had caused her subjects to erect, unconscious of the purpose to which she intended to apply it.

Among a people whose political existence was owing to a woman, and to one who in her life had conducted them with so much prudence, and at her death made so disinterested a sacrifice to procure their safety; it is natural to imagine that the sex would be treated with more deference and regard, than was common in the periods we are reviewing. Ac­cordingly, we have several reasons to believe, that the women of Carthage were not, as in many other countries, obliged to do all the servile drudgery which naturally belonged to the men; nor to submit themselves to any kind of slavish subjection under that sex. That the Carthaginians on the contrary had sentiments of a more elevated nature concerning [Page 131] their women, appears from a story related of them by Diodorus, the Sicilian. When the city of Tyre was besieged by Alexander the Great, the Tyrians being reduced to the utmost extremity, sent an embassy to the Carthaginians, imploring their assist­ance; the Carthaginians being at the same time engaged in a war with the Athenians, and scarcely in a condition to make head against Agathocles, the Athenian general, were not able to grant that assist­ance they so earnestly wished to give; and to soften the refusal, they agreed to receive into Carthage all the wives and children of their friends the Tyrians; that they, at least, might escape the outrages which their sex generally suffer at the plundering of a city.

It is the characteristic of the men in every enlight­ened nation to treat the weaker sex with lenity and indulgence; to this they are prompted, not only by the softer sensations instilled by nature, but also by that additional humanity, and those finer feelings, which are commonly the result of knowledge; and which raise the mind above what is mean, and inspire it only with what is generous and noble. Hence, whenever we find a people treating their women with propriety, we may, without any fur­ther knowledge of their history, conclude that their minds are not uncultivated. When we find them cultivated, we may conclude, that they treat their women with propriety. We shall only add, there­fore, concerning the Carthaginians, that the cha­racter they bore for wisdom, for learning, and the arts, leave us no room to doubt that they behaved to the fair-sex in general, as became a people so highly distinguished.

Some of the Greek and several of the Roman his­torians, in mentioning the ancient Persians, have [Page 132] dwelt with peculiar severity on the manner in which they treated their women; jealous almost to distrac­tion, though not under the influ [...]nce of a vertical sun, they confined the whole sex with the strictest attention, and could not bear that the eye of a stranger should behold the beauty whom they adored. Their monarchs placed almost the whole of their grandeur, and of their enjoyment, in the number and beauty of the women of their seraglios; which they carefully selected from among the fairest, either taken captive in war, or produced by their own dominions, and purified them for their use by a long and tedious preparation, tending to heighte [...] the beauties of nature, and to give an agreeable relish to their persons; a preparation luxuriously voluptuous, beyond any thing that modern refine­ment has ever suggested. Agreeable to an observa­tion we made in the beginning of this chapter, every circumstance in the Persian history tends to persuade us, that the motive which induced them to confine their women with so much care and solicitude, was only exuberance of love and affection; in the enjoy­ment of their smiles, and their embraces, the hap­piness of the men consisted, and their approbation was an incentive to deeds of glory and of heroism; for these reasons, they are said to have been the first who introduced the custom of carrying their wives and concubines to the field, ‘That the sight, said they, of all that is dear to us, may animate us to fight more valiantly in their defence.’ To offer the least violence, even in appearance, to a Persian wo­man, was to incur certain death from her husband or guardian: nay, even their kings, though the most absolute in the universe, could not alter the manners or customs of the country which concerned them, as appears from Cabas, a licentious monarch, who, not satisfied with the numerous beauties of his [Page 133] seraglio, thought he could introduce the community of women, which would afford him an ample oppor­tunity of satiating his unbounded lust; and therefore issued a decree, commanding the promiscuous use of all the women of his dominions, whether married or unmarried; upon which his subjects rose in a rebellion that ended in expelling him from the throne. Upon the whole, we may infer that the Persians loved their women with the utmost violence of animal appetite; but had not learned to treat them with that softness and good nature, which culture and civilization can only dictate.

Notwithstanding this private jealousy and confine­ment of the sex, it would seem that there were at the Persian court women who were introduced on certain occasions, and with whom every freedom might be used, as we learn from the story of Megabysus, one of the governors of Darius; who having sent some Persian noblemen to Amintas, king of Macedon, to require him to do homage to his master, Amintas having complied with the request, gave them a splendid entertainment. Towards the conclusion of it, they desired that, according to the custom of their country, the women might be brought in, to which, though contrary to the custom of the Greeks, the king consented. The Persians heated with wine, and thinking they might behave to the Grecian princesses as to the women of Persia, began to take some indecent freedoms; the son of Amintas, affron­ted at the treatment of his sisters, told the Persians, that if they would allow the women, in compliance with the custom of Greece, to retire and habit themselves in a loose manner, they would then return, and every one might chuse his partner for the night. The Persians gladly consented to this proposal, the women retired, the prince dressed [Page 134] some of the most comely of his young warriors in loose female habits, with poniards under their cloaths, and brought them into the room instead of the women, as soon as the Persians had each fixed upon his partner, on a signal from the prince, every one drew his poniard, and slaughtered the whole of them on the spot.

Before we take leave of these dark and unenlight­ened periods, we have been running over, where the historic page hardly affords even the glimmering of a taper to direct us on our way, we must observe, that there are many other ancient people and nations whom we might have mentioned, but have passed over them in silence, because we are hardly ac­quainted with any thing but their names; or, at most, with a few of their warlike explotsi and remarkable revolutions. We cannot help, however, making a few obsarvations on the Sybarites, the most remarkable people of antiquity.

The Sybarites, from the imperfect accounts we have of them, placed the whole of their happiness in indolence, eating, finery, and women. Their bodies were so much relaxed with sloth, and their minds with voluptuousness, that the greatest affront that could be offered to any one, was to call him a Sybarite, an appellation, which comprehended in it almost every human crime, and every human folly. In grottoes, cooled with fountains, their youth spent a great part of their time in scenes of debauchery, amid women, either elegantly adorned by art, or sometimes reduced to a state of nature. Women of the first quality, though not disposed of by auction, were treated in a manner somewhat similar; they were given as a reward to him who, in contending for them, shewed the greatest splendour and mag­nificence. When any great entertainment was [Page 135] designed, the women, who were to make a part of the company, were invited a year before, that they might have time to appear in all the lustre of beauty and of dress; a circumstance which plainly proves that they did not, as some other nations, value the sex only as objects of sensual pleasure, but as objects which added elegance to their scenes of magnificence and grandeur; and, perhaps, because they excelled the men in softness and effeminacy, qualities upon which they set the greatest value, and cultivated with the utmost assiduity.—These people, after having been for many centuries the contempt of the universe, were at last shamefully driven from their country, and entirely dispersed by the Crotonians.

CHAPTER VI. The same Subject continued.

IN the last chapter we finished the few cursory observations we could make on those ages which lie hid in the darkness of the most remote antiquity. We now come to those of the Greeks; a people whose fame has been so much trumpeted, that we are apt to annex the idea of every virtue to their name, to consider them as highly polished and civil­ized, and consequently to expect that, amongst them, the fair sex were treated with that indulgence, and raised to that dignity, which they commonly enjoy in nations the farthest advanced in the arts of cul­ture and refinement: But here we shall be much mistaken; for though the Greeks were a people severely virtuous in whatever regarded their country, they were far from being tender and humane, and hardly knew any of those soft blandishments which smooth the asperity of rugged male nature; and which, while they render us more agreeable to the women, are only to be acquired in their company.

It is observed by an able panegyrist for the fair, that one of the greatest proofs of their intrinsic worth and excellence is, that the greatest esteem and respect has always been paid them by the wisest and best of nations. Granting this to be a fact, it follows, that the Greeks forfeited one great claim to that wisdom which has always been attributed them; for we have good reason to believe, that they regarded their women only as instruments of raising up members to the state: considering them [Page 137] in the same cool, dispassionate, and we may add, unsocial light, as they considered their fields which produced the corn whereby the members of that state were fed. But lest we should be suspected of partiality, let us attend to some of the proofs of what we have advanced.

The animal appetite towards the other sex, is implanted in ours by nature, and arises at sight; but in order to esteem, to regard women, we must do more than see, we must, by social intercourse and mutual reciprocation of good offices, become ac­quainted with their worth and excellence: this, to the Greeks, was a pleasure totally unknown; cus­tom had introduced, and law had established, the mode of obliging women to live retired in their own apartments, scarcely ever allowing them to appear in public, or have any open intercourse with men; so that, if they had any amiable qualities, they were buried in perpetual obscurity: even their husbands being in some of the ^* states limited as to the times and duration of the visits made to their wives, and it being the custom at meals for the two sexes always to eat separately.

The apartments destined for the women, in order to keep them more private, were always in the back, and generally in the upper part of the house. The famous Helen is said to have had her chamber in the loftiest part of it, and so wretched were their dwellings, that even Penelope queen of Ulysses seems to have descended from hers by means of a ladder; within these, however, women, especially such as had no husbands, whether maids or widows, were c [...]osely confined; the former in so strict a manner [Page 138] that they could not pass without leave from one part of the house to another, lest they should be seen; which, as we learn from the story of Antigone, would have been a reflection on their honour, as well as on the care and integrity of their guardians. New-married women were almost as strictly confined as virgins; for we find Hermione severely reproved by her old duenna, for appearing out of doors; a freedom, which, she tells her, was not usually taken by women in her situation, and which would endanger her reputation, should she happen to be seen; and we are further informed by Menander, that the door was the utmost limit allowed to the freedom of a married woman: it appears, however, from some other authors, that after they had brought forth a child, this severity was a little relaxed; but it was then owing only to the indulgence of their husbands, who, perhaps, thought them now either more pru­dent or less the objects of temptation; and might still, if they pleased, retain them in the same rigorous con­finement, as we learn from Aristophanes; who in­troduces an Athenian lady, loudly complaining, because women were confined to their chambers, under lock and key, and guarded, says she, by mas­tiffs, goblins, or any thing that can frighten away admirers.

Though the Grecian women lived thus separated from the men, yet they were not, like those of Asia, confined to seraglios, and obliged to share among a great number the scanty favours of one man. Nor does their confinement appear in some cases to have been so much the effect of jealousy, as of indiffer­ence; the men did not think them proper compa­nions; and that ignorance, which is the common result of a recluse life, gave them too good reason to think so. Nothing in Greece was held in estima­tion, [Page 139] but valour and eloquence; nature had disquali­fied the fair sex for both; they were therefore con­sidered as mean and contemptible beings, much beneath the notice of heroes and of orators, who seldom favoured them with their company, unless prompted by nature, or by the desire of propagating future orators and heroes like themselves. Thus deserted by a sex, which ought to be the source of knowledge, the understandings of the wnmen were but shallow, and their company uninteresting; a case which invariably happens in every country where the two sexes have little communication with each other.

But confinement was not the greatest evil which the Grecian women suffered; by other customs and laws they were still more oppressed: it was not in their power to do any judicial act without the con­sent of a tutor or guardian; and so little power, even over themselves, did the legislature devolve upon women, though ripened by age and experi­ence, that when the father died, the son became the guardian of his own mother. When a woman was cited into court, she was incapable of answering without her guardian; and therefore the words of the proclamation were, We cite A. B. and her guardian. In making a will, it was not only neces­sary that the guardian should give his consent, but that he should be a party. These facts shew, that the Greek women were under the most complete tutelage, whereby they were deprived of almost all political existence; and teach us to consider a guar­dian and his pupil as the substance and the shadow, the latter of which could not exist without the for­mer. But this is not all; we have already men­tioned some of the slavish employments to which they were put, and shall now add, that, in the heroic [Page 140] ages, the women did all the slavish and domestic offices, even such as were inconsistent with the delicacy and modesty of the sex; they conducted the men to bed, dressed and undressed them, attended them while in the baths, dried and perfumed them when they came out of them; nor were these, and such other offices only allotted to servants or slaves, no rank was exempted from them. The princess Naussica, daughter of Alcinous, carried her own linen to the river in a chariot, and having washed and laid it on the bank, sat down by it, and dined on the provision she had brought along with her. When such was the employment of their own women of rank, we cannot expect that their captives should share a happier fate; accordingly, we find Hector lamenting, that, should Troy be taken, his wife would be condemned to the most slavish drudgery; and Hecuba bewailing, that, like a dog, she was chained at the gate of Agamemnon.

In the state of wedlock, a state of all others the most delicate, the Lacedemonians seem to have been destitute of all the finer feelings; for, despising that principle of mutual fidelity, which in some degree appears to have been cherished by every people only a single degree removed from the rudest barbarity, they, without any reluctancy, borrowed and lent wives with each other; a kind of barter totally in­consistent with that sympathetic union of souls, which always does, or ought to take place, between husband and wife: but the matter did not end here; for, by the laws of Solon, a lusty well-made young fellow might, when he pleased, demand permission to cohabit with the wife of any of his fellow-citizens, who was less handsome and robust than himself, under pretence of raising up children to the state, who should, like the father, be strong and vigorous; [Page 141] and such an unreasonable demand, the husband was not at liberty to reject: what still further shews how little delicacy existed in their connections with their wives, is their conduct in a war with the Myssinians; when, having bound themselves by a solemn oath, not to return to their own city till they had revenged the injury they had received, and the war having been unexpectedly protracted for the space of ten years, they began to be afraid that a longer absence would tend greatly to depopulate their state; to prevent which, they sent back a certain number of those who had joined the army, after the above-mentioned oath had been taken, with full power to cohabit with all the wives, whose husbands were absent. Nothing can more plainly discover the des­picable condition of the Grecian women: the state, as a body politic, regarded them only as instru­ments of general propagation; and their husbands indelicately acquiesced in the idea, which they never could have done, had they been actuated by any thing but animal appetite, and had not that appetite been fixed more on the sex than the individual.

Whichever way we turn us in the Grecian history, we find the most convincing proofs of the low con­dition of their women. Homer considers Helen, the wife of Menelaus, as of little other than a part of the goods which were stolen along with her; and the restitution of these, and of her, are commonly mentioned in the same sentence, in such a manner, as to shew, that such restitution would have been considered as a full reparation of the injury sustained; so that Menelaus did not place the crime of Paris in having debauched his wife, but in having stolen from him to the amount of so much value. And the same author, in celebratng Penelope, the wife of Ulysses, for refusing in his absence so many [Page 142] suitors, does not appear to place the merit of her conduct in a superior regard to chastity, or in love to her husband; but in preserving to his family the dowry she had brought along with her, which, on a second marriage, must have been restored to her father Icarius: and though Telemachus is always represented as a most dutiful son, we find him reproving his mother in a manner, which shews that the sex in general were not treated with softness and delicacy however dignified, or with whatever authority invested.

From the celebration of some of their public games, women were prohibited by the severest penalty: to the festival at Eleusis, they were not to go in cha­riots: in some laws, they were classed with slaves; women and slaves were forbid to practise physic. It was a custom in Greece to expose such children as they thought themselves not able to maintain, or likely to derive any advantage from: daughters, according to Possidippus, being more costly in their education, and less likely to be beneficial afterward, were more frequently treated in this manner than sons.

A custom which we shall have occasion to take notice of, in the course of this work, as prevailing in several nations, sunk in ignorance and barbarity. Of all the Greeks, the Thebans were the only peo­ple who had a positive law against this horrid custom.

Let us now turn our eyes to the other side of the picture, and take a view of the privileges bestowed [Page 143] by law or custom on the Greek women: though we no where find that they were ever admitted to public authority, nor even to share, as in some coun­tries, the rank and power of their husbands; yet, in the earlier ages, they had a vote in the public assemblies, which was afterwards taken from them. They succeeded equally with brothers to the inheri­tance of their fathers; and to the whole of that in­heritance, if they had no brothers. But to this last privilege was also annexed a clog, which must have been extremely disagreeable to every woman of sentiment and feeling; an heiress was obliged, by the laws of Greece, to marry her nearest relation, that the estate might not go out of the family; and this relation, in case of her refusal, had a right to sue for the delivery of her person, as we do for goods and chattels: but, on the other side, as it sometimes happened that this claimant was old or impotent, it was provided by law, that if he did not, in a conve­nient time, impregnate his wife, she might apply to any one she pleased for that purpose.

He who divorced his wife, was obliged either to return her dowry, or pay her so much per month by way of maintenance. He who ravished a free woman, was constrained in some states to marry her, in others to pay a hundred, and in others, again, a thousand drachmas. But what reflects more honour on the Greeks than any thing we find in their be­haviour toward women, is the care they took of female orphans. ‘He who is the next in blood (says their law) to an orphan virgin, who hath no fortune, shall marry her himself, or settle a fortune upon her, according to his quality; if there be many relations, all equally allied, all of them, according to their several qualities, shall contribute something towards her fortune.’ After all, when [Page 144] we impartially consider the good and ill treatment of the Grecian women, we find that the balance was much against them, and may therefore conclude, that though the Greeks were eminent in arts, though they were illustrious in arms, in politeness, and elegance of manners, the highest pitch to which they ever arrived, was only a few degrees above savage barbarity.

In more early periods of the Roman republic, as in the infancy of almost all the ancient nations, we find every thing involved in fable and absurdity: immortality and mortality hardly distinguishable from each other; heroes, demigods, and goddesses, performing almost every action, and residing in every grove. Such ridiculous notions, wherever we meet with them, afford the most infallible proofs of igno­rance and barbarity, and constantly vanish in pro­portion to the increase of reasoning and know­ledge.

Agreeably to this observation, the earliest ac­counts of the Romans exhibit a rude and unculti­vated people, but little acquainted with decency, and entire strangers to that delicacy which takes place between the two sexes in nations tolerably advanced in civilization and society. Their first appearance, as an independent state, was as an handful of robbers, or banditti; and one of the first of their memorable actions, was the capture of some young women, to enable them to raise up members to the state they had erected: to these women, however, they behaved in a manner that we have seldom an opportunity of observing among a people so little cultivated. They treated them with so much kindness, and had the address so to [...] them, that they absolutely refused to be res­cued [Page 145] from their ravishers; but as many of our female readers may not be acquainted with this history, we shall give them a short sketch of it.

When Romulus, the founder of Rome, had formed his infant republic, finding that he had no women, and that none of the neighbouring nations would give their daughters in marriage to men whom they considered as a set of lawless banditti; he was obliged by stratagem to procure for his citizens, what he could not obtain for them by intreaty. Accordingly, having proclaimed a solemn feast, and an exhibition of games in honour of Equestrian Nep­tune, and by that means gathered a great number of people together; on a signal given, the Romans, with drawn swords in their hands, rushed among the strangers, and forcibly carried away a great number of their daughters to Rome. The next day Romulus himself distributed them as wive [...] to those of his citizens, who had thus by violence car­ried them away^*. From so rude a beginning, and among a people so severe and inflexible as the Ro­mans, it is not unnatural for the reader to expect to find, that women were treated in the same indig­nant, if not in a worse manner, than they were among the nations we have already mentioned. In this, however, he will be mistaken; it was the Ro­mans who first gave to the sex public liberty▪ who first properly cultivated their minds, and thought it as necessary as to adorn their bodies: among them were they first fitted for society, and for becoming rational companions; and among them, was it first demonstrated to the world, that they were capable of great actions, and deserved a better fate than to [Page 146] be shut up in seraglios, and kept only as the pageant [...] of grandeur, or instruments of satisfying illicit love; truth [...] which the sequel of the history of the Sabine women will amply confirm.

The violent capture of these young women by the Romans, was highly resented by all the neighbour­ing nations, and especially by the Sabines, to whom the greatest part of them belonged; they sent to demand restitution of their daughters, promising, at the same time, an alliance, and liberty of intermar­rying with the Romans, should the demand be com­plied with. But Romulus not thinking it expedient to part with the only pos [...]ible means he had of rais­ing citizens, instead of granting what they asked, demanded of the Sabines▪ that they should confirm the marriages of their daughters with the Romans. These conferences, at last, produced a treaty of peace; and that, like many others of the same na­ture, ended in a more inveterate war. The Ro­mans having in this gained some advantages, the Sabines retired; and h [...]ving [...]eathed a while [...]ent a second embassy to demand their daughters, were again refused, and again commenced hostilities. Being this time mo [...] suc [...]essful, they besieged Ro­mulus in his citadel of Rom [...] and threatened imme­diate destruction to him and all his people, unless their daughters were restored. In this ala [...]ng situation, Hers [...]a, wife o [...] Romulus, demanded an audience of th [...] senate, and [...] [...]fore them a desig [...], which the women had formed among themselves, without the knowledge of their husbands, which was, to act the part of mediators between the contending parties. The proposal being approved, a decree was immediately passed, per [...]ting the women to go on the proposed negociation; and only [...]quiring, that each of them should leave one of her children, [Page 147] as a security that she would return; the rest, they were all allowed to carry with them, as objects which might more effectually move the compassion of their fathers and relations. Thus authorised, the women laid aside their ornaments, put on mourning, and carrying their children in their arms, advanced to the camp of the Sabines, and threw themselves at the feet of their fathers. The Sabine king, having assembled his chief officers, ordered the wo­men to declare for what purpose they were come; which Hersilia did in so pathetic a manner, that she brought on a conference between the chiefs of the two nations, and this conference, by her mediation, and that of the other women, soon ended in an ami­cable alliance.

As a reward for this most important service of the Sabine women, several privileges and honourable marks of distinction were granted them by the senate; all immodest and licentious discourses were forbid in their presence, and no indecent objects were to be brought before them; every one was ordered to give way to them in the street. In capital cases, they were exempted from the juris­diction of the ordinary judges. And lastly, their chi [...]dren were allowed to wear a golden ball hanging at their breast, and to be cloathed with a particular robe, called Pretexta. But all these honours and priveleges not being thought sufficient, some time after a festival was instituted, and called Matronalia, in honour of the Sabine matrons. During this festival, the Roman matrons served their slaves at table, and received presents from their husbands; sacrifices were then also offered to Juno Lucina, to induce her to assist them in child-bearing.

[Page 148]From a service so signal, conferred by women on an infant republic, and from the peculiar notice taken of that service, we should naturally conclude that the Romans were then a cultivated people, and that their women were treated with all that softness and indulgence due to the tenderness of their sex. Such a conclusion, however, would be erroneous, for the Romans were at this period strangers to every softness and refinement of manners, and the honours bestowed on the Sabine women were only sudden and indigested effusions of gratitude, which did not operate uniformly on the whole of their conduct towards a sex that nature and obligation ought to have rendered dear to them.

The Roman women, as well as the Greeks, were under perpetual guardianship, and at no age, nor in any condition, were ever trusted with the manage­ment of their own fortunes; they were in case of wills, and perhaps in other cases, not admitted as evidence; every father had a power of life and death over his daughters; but this power was not restricted to females only, it extended to sons as well as daughters. Sumptuary laws, generally more grievous to women than to men, as they restrain their most darling passions, were long in force at Rome: the Oppian law prohibited them from having more than half an ounce of gold employed in orna­menting their person, from wearing cloaths of divers colours, and from riding in chariots either in the city or a thousand paces around it. They were strictly forbid the use of wine, or even to have in their possession the key of any place where it was kept, for either of which faults they were liable to be divorced by their husbands; and so careful were the Romans in restraining their wom [...]n from wine, that they are supposed to have first introduced the [Page 149] custom of saluting their female relations and acquain­tance, on entering into the house of a friend or a neighbour, that they might discover by their breath whether they had tasted any of that liquor. This strictness, however, began in time to be relaxed, till at last, luxury and debauchery becoming too strong for every law, the women indulged themselves in equal liberties with the men. But such was not the case in the earlier ages of Rome, Romulus even permitted husbands to kill their wives, if they found them drinking wine; and if we may believe Valerius Maximus, Egnatius Metellus, having detected his wife drinking wine out of a cask, actually made use of this permission, and was by Romulus acquitted. And Fabius Pictor relates, that a Roman lady hav­ing picked the lock of a chest, in order to come at the key of a place where some wine was kept, her parents shut her up and starved her to death.

Women were liable to be divorced by their hus­bands almost at pleasure▪ provided the portion was returned which they had brought along with them. They were also liable to be divorced for barrenness, which, if it could be construed into a fault, was at least the fault of nature, and might sometimes be that of the husband. Such were the disadvantages attending the Roman women, but they were not all that they laboured under; a few sumptuary laws, a subordination to the men, and a total want of authority, do not so remarkably affect the sex, as to be coldly and indelicately treated by their hus­bands and lovers. Such a treatment is touching them in the tenderest part; but such, however, we have reason to believe, they often met with from the Romans, who had not yet learned, as in modern times, to blend the severities of the patriot, and [Page 150] roughness of the warrior, with that soft and indulg­ing behaviour, so conspicuous in our modern patriots and heroes. But husbands not only themselves be­haved roughly to their wives, they even sometimes permitted their servants and slaves to do the same; the principal Eunuch of Justinian the Second, threatened to chastise the Empress, his master's wife, in the manner that children are chastised at school, if she did not obey his orders.

But to dwell no longer on the grievances of the Roman women. We have already mentioned some of their honours and privileges; and the following, which we shall add, will shew, that upon the whole, their condition was much preferable to that of the women of any people we have hitherto mentioned.

In endeavouring to point out some of the parti­cular honours conferred on the Roman ladies, in periods posterior to those we have already run over, we shall not introduce the story of Lucretia, whose tragical exit was productive of so much blood and devastation; nor of Virginea, whose end, if possible, still more tragical, almost overturned the empire of Rome. These effects were, perhaps, more the result of an honest indignation against ravishers and murderers, than proofs of general regard paid to the sex. Beauty in every country has had a power of commanding love, and private friendships between individuals of the different sexes have every where been productive of regard; but when public honours and privileges are granted to the sex by a legislative body, not under the influence of beauty, nor the con [...]roul of passion, as was the case with the senate of Rome, they are the strongest proofs which can possibly be adduced of female merit.

[Page 151]The public honours conferred on the Sabine wo­men we have already mentioned; but the Romans did not confine honorary rewards to them only, but indiscriminately bestowed them on the sex whenever merited. They hung up the distaff of Tanaqui [...], the consort of Tarquin, in the temple of Hercules; not only as a public reward for the proper use she had made of it, but also to encourage others to fol­low so laudable an example. When Coriolanus, in revenge for some affront offered him at Rome, was ready at the head of a victorious army of the Volsci to lay that city in ashes; when the tears and prayers of his friends, of the nobility, and even of the vene­rable senate, were insufficient to divert the storm; Veturia his mother, by the persuasion of the Ro­man matrons, having prevailed on him to lay aside his resentment; the senate desired that the women engaged in this affair should ask any favour they thought proper; when, unambitious of rewards, they only begged that they might be allowed to build, at their own expence, a temple to the fortune of women. The senate, surprised at so much disinter­estedness, ordered the temple to be immediately built on the very spot where Coriolanus had been prevailed upon to sacrifice his resentment to the love of his country; which being completed, Veturia was consecrated priestess. A Dictator of Rome having vowed to dedicate a golden vase of a certain weight to Apollo, and the senate not being able to procure a sufficient quantity of gold to make it, the ladies voluntarily parted with many of their trinkets for that purpose. The senate, struck with the unsoli­cited generosity, decreed that funeral orations should thenceforth be made for the women as well as for the men, and that they should be allowed to ride in chariots at the public games.

[Page 152]The sacred function of ministering at the alt [...]rs of the gods has, in most countries, been wholly reser­ved for the men; but this was not the case at Rome, they had priestesses as well as priests, who officiated in several of their temples. Besides these, they had a pecular order of priestesses, called Vestals, who resided in the temple of Vesta, and whose office was to keep the palladium^*, which was considered as the security of the empire, and to preserve the sacred fire of the goddess in perpetual vigour. The pre­rogatives of this order demonstrate not only the confidence which the Romans had in their women, but also the regard they paid to their religion. When the principal magistrates, even though con­suls, met a vestal, they gave way to her; any insult offered to a vestal was punished with death; if any of the order happened to meet a criminal carrying to execution▪ he was immediately released, provided the vestal affirmed the meeting was accidental. They were the only women whose evidence was received in courts of justice; they were the umpires of the dif­ferences which happened between persons of the first rank; they were allowed the liberty of being inter­red in the city, a liberty seldom granted even to their greatest heroes; and in their hands, as in an invio­lable asylum, were deposited the wills and testaments of such as were afraid that frauds and forgeries might be committed by their relations. When the deifi­cation of emperors and of heroes became fashionable at Rome, the women soon also insinuated themselves into this species of honour; their statues were set up in the temples, and public sacrifices were offered to, and incens [...] burnt before them. The highest honour that could be conferred on a Roman hero, [Page 153] who had been slain in the defence of his country, was to be buried in the field of Mars; an honour which, in length of time, came also to be shared by illustrious women. Among the Romans, women generally ate and drank with the men, and in later times were even admitted to their convivial meet­ings; liberties, which in so full an extent we have not found them hitherto enjoying; they also shared the honours and even titles of their husbands, and at one period honours of a nature not usually bestow­ed on the sex were instituted for them only.^*

But amid all these honours, and all these public testimonies of approbation, we have reason to believe that the Romans sacrificed more to merit than to love; and that while their women shared with them almost every honour and every privilege, they were in general treated at home rather with the cool esteem of friendship, than with the warm indulgence of tenderness and affection. If the whole tenor of their conduct gives us reason to think that such was their behaviour to their own women, we have but too many undoubted proofs to assure us, that their captives of the fair sex were often treated even with the most horrid barbarity; their political virtue was so rigid and severe, that it never suffered humanity in the least to interfere where the interest of their country was concerned. Hence, in order to ag­grandize the Roman name, and stike terror into conquered nations, they often dragged beauty and [Page 154] grandeur at the wheels of their triumphal chariots, and exposed queens and princesses, without regard of rank or of sex, to degradations, and to tortures that even a savage would blush for. Not contented with ravishing, they also scourged the daughters of the British queen Boadicea. After they had over­come the army of the Ambrones, their women being in a fortified camp, for some time defended them­selves; but finding they could not be able to hold out, desired to capitulate, and required no other condition than that their chastity should not be vio­lated; but even this single condition was not granted by the cruel and libidinous Romans. But we will not proceed to blacken the historic page with a list of such enormous crimes.

CHAPTER VII. The same Subject continued.

THE Celtes, Gauls, Germans, and other northern nations, upon whom Tacitus and his cotemporary writers so liberally bestow the epithet of Barbarians, were, in several respects, less so than the Romans, who, at that time, thought themselves the only polished people upon the globe; the great­est part of these nations treated their women, if not with a politeness, at least with a regard superior to that of those very Romans who gave them so horrid an appellation.

In Germany, when the regal dignity descended to a woman, they allowed her to enjoy it, and women often governed with a steadiness and sagacity which did honour to the sex, and excited the admi­ration of the neighbouring nations; the greatest heroes neither disdained to fight under their banners, nor be r [...]lated by their councils, as they imagined them to be endowed with a kind of oracular wisdom, and a prudence more than human. In their treaties with one another, female hostages were given by the ancient Germans; and by these they reckoned themselves more firmly engaged than by an equal, or even a superior number of the other sex. In their warlike excursions, they carried their women along with them, and sometimes even to the field of battle, where their cries and shouts served to intimidate their enemies, and to animate their friends with martial ardour; and even sometimes to inflame and support them, when ready to yield to superior [Page 156] numbers, or more steady discipline. The approba­tion of the fair they esteemed as the most honour­able reward of their bravery, and for them, as being what they valued most, they fought with the most determined resolution. When they had turned their backs on the enemy, their wives often painted so pathetically the horrors of captivity, that they were prevailed upon, with double fury, to return to the charge, rather than submit themselves to such indig­nity. A civil war having once arisen among the Gauls, to decide the quarrel, two armies were drawn out into the field, extended front to front, and just ready to commence a dreadful carnage, when the women with dishevelled hair rushing in between them, put a stop to the work of destruction, and had the address to reconcile them to each other. From that time forward, the Gauls admitted the women to their councils, when peace or war was to be deba­ted; and from that time also, such differences as arose between them and their allies were terminated by female negociation; and, agreeably to this custom, we find it stipulated in their treaty with Hannibal, that should the Gauls have any complaint against the Carthaginians, the matter should be settled by the Carthaginian general; but should the Carthaginians have any complaint against the gauls, it should be refered to the Gaulish women. The Goths obliged him who debauched a virgin to marry her, if she was equal to him in rank; if not, he was constrained to give her a fortune equal to his own condition; if he could not give her such a fortune, he was con­demned to death; because a woman thus dishonoured, had no chance of obtaining a husband without a fortune; and because it was by marriage only that a state could be properly peopled.

[Page 157]To these proofs of the regard, and even of the veneration, which the ancient inhabitants of the North paid to their women, we shall add, that they considered them as having something sacred in their character, endowed with a foresigh [...] of future events, as interpreters of the Divine will in this world, and as a part of the reward of the blessed in the next. ‘The Cimbri,’ says Strabo, ‘when they took the field, were accompanied by venerable hoary-headed prophetesses, clothed in long white linen robes.’ ‘A crowd of beautiful virgins,’ says the Edda ^*, ‘wait the heroes in the hall of Odin, and fill their cups as fast as they empty them.’ It is worth remarking in this place, that many of the ancient eastern religions, and Mahometism, which was co­pied from them, taught, that a great part of the joys of Paradise consisted in beautiful women. But then they were to enjoy them as such; whereas the Northerns were satisfied with having their cups quickly replenished by them: a circumstance, which plainly shews, that the predominant passion of the East was love; that of the North, drinking.

The ancient Britons appear not to have been behind any of the other northern nations in the veneration and regard paid to their women; they had tamely submitted to every reiterated evil, and to every species of oppression which the cruel and avari­cious Romans had laid upon them; but when these lawless destroyers scourged their queen, and ravished her daughters, their resentment was kindled, they arose to revenge the cause of the sex; and had their discipline been equal to their valour, they would at that time have put an end to the Roman insults, and extirpated them from the British isles.

[Page 158]Though it appears from what has been related, that the ancient inhabitants of the North valued and esteemed their women, yet their conduct towards them was far from being all of a piece; while they revered them as beings inspired with a ray of the Divinity, according to the custom of Asia, from whence they originally came, they at the same time treated them as servants, or rather as slaves. The wives and children were not allowed to eat with the husbands, but waited upon them at their meals, and afterward ate up what they had left. Among the ancient Danes, and several of their northern neighbours, convivial feasting was more frequent than perhaps among any other people; almost every occurrence and business was productive of a feast, where eating and drinking was carried to the most abominable excess. But to such feasts, we have reason to believe, the women were only admitted as servants; and that they stood behind their husbands and friends, supplying them with meat and drink, and took care of them at last when their drunkenness had rendered them incapable of doing any thing for themselves. The German women, like those of the Greeks and Romans, were under perpetual guardi­anship; but it was generally to the care of some per­son of prudence and experience they were committed, and not to their own sons, as in Greece. When any person was murdered, the laws of their states took no notice of it; the ideas of civil society were not then so much perfected, as to consider every indivi­dual as, in some degree, the property of the commu­nity; the relations of the party murdered were only supposed to have sustained a loss, and, therefore, to the relations only it belonged to revenge the death, or to agree with the murderer for a sum of money by way of compensation. Neither of these privileges were, however, vested in the women; they were [Page 159] not allowed to take vengeance, because, perhaps, cruelty and bloodshed did not suit with the softness of their nature; they were not to take the compen­sation, because they were considered as too weak and feeble to extort it.

In general the women of the North seem not to have been indulged with much property. The Visi­goths were bound by a law not to give more to a wife than the tenth part of their substance. The German women anciently succeeded not to any in­heritance, though afterwards they were permitted to succeed after the males of the same degree of kin­dred. But the most subordinate of all female condi­tions seems among them to have been that of a wife to her husband. The husband of an adulteress was allowed to assemble her relations, in their presence to cut off her hair, strip her naked, turn her out of his house, and whip her from one end of the village to the other. A woman thus publicly exposed could never wipe away the stain of so foul an infamy; the most circumspect behaviour could never call back her lost character, nor could any motive ever prevail on another to marry her, though youth, beauty, for­tune, and every advantage, combined to allure him.

We have already mentioned, that a law among the Goths obliged a man to marry or give a portion to the woman he had debauched. Among the Angles, and many other of the northern nations, wounds and injuries were fixed by law at a certain price; and a wound given to a virgin was estimated at double the value which was set upon it when given to a man of the same rank. If this law originated from a sense of the weakness and inability of the sex to defend themselves, it demonstrated a legislature [Page 160] not inattentive to their interest: if from humanity▪ or from love, it shewed in the men a degree of civili­zation, which the histories of those ages in many cir­cumstances seem to contradict.

The mythology of all antiquity is full of female as well as male deities. The Hebrews, and many of their neighbouring nations, worshipped the Queen of Heaven; the Phoenicians adored Astarte; the Scythians, Apia; and the Scandinavians, F [...]igga, the consort of Odin. Wherever female deities have obtained a place in the religion of a people, it is a sign that women are of some consequence; for we find in those modern nations where women are held in the most despicable light, that even their deities are all of the masculine gender. As there were in the North female deities, so they had priestesses who ministered in their groves, and at their altars. The Egyptians, Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and many other of the ancients, offered to their gods human victims; some­times of the male, and sometimes of the female gen­der: the Northerns followed their example, only with this difference, that we have reason to believe they never sacrificed any females. Whether they were not thought victims of sufficient importance to be offered to their gods; whether they spared them from lenity and indulgence; or from the considera­tion of the loss that population would sustain by their death, is uncertain. But when we take a view of the whole of their conduct towards the sex, we are much inclined to attribute it to indulgence and affec­tion.

As the inhabitants of the North were not distin­guished by a quickness of sensibility, as they devoted most of their time to a passion for arms, and to the pleasures of the table, we may conclude that love [Page 161] held [...]o violen [...] dominion over them; and yet they esteemed and regarded their [...]men, forming, in this particular, a striking contrast to the Asiatics and other southern people, who have ever been dis [...] ­guished by the warmest love, entirely divested of the smallest degree of regard or esteem. An Asiatic, while he approaches his mistress as if she were a divinity, treats her as a criminal, and considering her as entirely made for his pleasures; he is at the same time her tyrant and her slave: while the North­erns did not seem to have looked on the sex as des­tined for their pleasures, so much as for their conve­nience and assistance: they did not view them as the slaves of their power, and the panders of their lust, but as their friends and companions; nor did they approach them with the fawning submission of inferiors, and at the same time treat them with the haughty disrespect of superiors.

In tracing the history of the treatment and con­dition of women downwards from the periods already reviewed, our chief business will be among the descendants of those northern nations, of whom we have been now speaking; who at length dissatis­fied with the cold and barren regions they inhabited, where, on a scanty and hard-earned pittance, they dragged out a miserable existence; and convinced, as every uncultivated people were, that the sword gave a right to whatever they could conquer by it; set out in swarms towards the south, and in process of time over-ran all Europe, propagated their race, and diffused their manners and customs as far as they extended their arms.

We have already seen, that they carried their wives and children with them into the field; which being a scene not only adapted to the growth of [Page 162] riot and debauchery, but where these vices may more easily elude the vigilance of justice; many of the strictest laws became necessary for their preser­vation, and several of this nature were enacted by the Franks. When in the field, their operations were from time to time settled in a council, of which their wives made a part; and when in danger of being defeated, they were more afraid of their reproaches than of the swords of their enemies. The men, constantly employed in war or in drink­ing, had neither time nor inclination to acquire useful knowledge. The women, more at leisure, from the little they became acquainted with, were by the men considered as oracles: they were suppo­sed to be able to interpret dreams, and had actually learned the virtues of a few simples. Hence both virgins and matrons were employed in dressing the wounds of their lovers and husbands. With all these acquisitions, at that time so extraordinary as well as useful; with all that majestic beauty, for which they were so famous in the songs of their bards; is it any wonder, that the daughters of the North were the first who inspired the men with sen­timental feeling, and with ideas little short of adoration? But such is the nature of man, especially when he is but a few degrees removed from bar­barity, that while he adores a woman for her beauty, he scruples not to attack and ruin her virtue. Such was not the complexion of the times we have already delineated; but it became the complexion of these we are now considering. An universal spirit of piracy and emigration had crept into the North: one half of its inhabitants were constantly wandering in quest of new adventures, and of new settlements. Wanderers, who have neither property nor pos­sessions to serve as hostages for their good behaviour, are generally licentious in their manners: hence it [Page 163] became necessary for those who had acquired settle­ments, not only to secure their property, but also their wives and children, from these lawless wan­derers, in castles, and in strong fortifications.

In this manner women became first subject to a species of confinement in the North, not because they were, as is alleged in the South, wicked and libidinous, but because they were beautiful, weak and defenceless. This confinement, however, not being the effect of jealousy, as in Asia, but of pru­dence, and desire of securing their women from the insults of licentious banditti; when a woman found a lover, or a husband, to protect her from the rude­ness and barbarity of the times, she could then ven­ture abroad with impunity in his company. Hence every woman naturally wished to engage such a champion; and every man of spirit, fond of the honour arising from it, as naturally inlisted himself in the service. And in this manner arose the insti­tution of chivalry; an institution, which, though it owed its birth to chance and the necessity of the times, made so rapid a progress, that in a little while it was sufficient for a fair lady to have it pub­licly known, that such a gallant warrior was her declared champion, and would revenge every wrong done to her, whether in his presence or absence: this enlarged still the circle of her liberty, and more restrained the hand of insult and violence.

Besides the title a young warrior had to the approbation and favour of her whom he thus de­fended, there was another, and, if possible, a still more prevailing motive, the love of glory; in these times, the most anxiously coveted, and most inti­mately connected with such generous and disinter­ested actions as defending the weak, and rescuing [Page 164] the oppressed. All these considerations prompted the youthful warrior to take upon him an office, which, while it flattered his love, at the same time, by its acquisition of fame, no less fed and nourished his vanity: and as the man acquired honour, and the name of valour, by undertaking to defend an inno­cent and helpless woman; so the woman acquired an additional lustre, and the name of beauty, by being thus distinguished by a gallant champion. Thus the honour and interest of the two sexes became mutually blended together, and they reflect­ed additional lustre and reputation upon each other; a truth to which all the historical records of these times bear the most ample testimony.

It is not a little remarkable, that in the same periods in which women were gradually rising into consequence in one part of Europe, they should be losing it altogether in another. While the spirit of chivalry made them objects almost of adoration in the North, Mahomet had established a religion in Asia, which divested them almost of every privilege, and of all political consequence: this religion, brought over into Europe, and established in the West by the conquering arms of his successors, not only sunk the power of beauty almost to nothing, but con­demned the whole of the sex to perpetual subordi­nation and imprisonment.

This is a striking proof, that the actions of men are regulated by no fixed principle: but, in the ages we are considering, another not less striking is, that human nature endeavoured to assume the most con­tradictory appearances; it endeavoured to blend the meek and forgiving spirit of the religion of Jesus, with the fierce and intolerant spirit of war and bloodshed. It endeavoured to mix the soft sen­timents [Page 165] of love, with the revengeful dictates of affronted honour; and the same tender sentiment which bound a lover to his mistress, instigated him, in the most savage manner, to cut the throats of all those who openly professed either to love or hate her. In short, nothing had at this time acquired any con­sistency: religion was a mixture of paganism and superstition, and law was a compound of weakness and injustice. While the pilgrim travelled to Jeru­salem to obtain forgiveness of his sins, he was adding daily to the load, by pillaging and debauchery on the way. Religion thus reduced to penance and cere­mony, was too weak to combat the passions; and law, if ridiculous in its modes of investigation, was still more conspicuous for being feeble in its power of execution. In such a crisis, something distinct from both became necessary. The men had already begun to glory in being the protectors of such women, as they were attached to by love and friendship: it was but carrying the idea one step farther, from being the champion of a single woman, to become the champion of the whole sex, and thereby establish a more complete system of chivalry; a thing which actually happened, after the spirit of crusading had been entirely obliterated by a repetition of unsuccess­ful attempts.

Such is the imperfection of our nature, that to chance and necessity we owe the far greater part of our use­ful discoveries, as also the further improvement of such as are already but imperfectly known. This was the case with chivalry: it originated from love, ho­nour, and the necessiity of defending women in the time of lawless depredation, and had at first for its ob­ject the defence of one woman only: afterward it ex­tended to the protection of the whole sex; and by de­grees stretching itself still wider, its object became dis­tressed [Page 166] innocence, wherever it was found suffering by the hard hand of injustice and oppression. Arrived at this period, it was considered as the most honourable and exalted of all professions; was eagerly courted by all ranks of mankind; nor were any candidates, however elevated in their station, admitted into it, without the fullest credentials of valour, honour, and probity, or a long train of previous discipline; and even the admission itself was calculated to inspire a love of glory and of benevolence; it was performed at the altar by ceremonies no less awful than pom­pous, and well calculated to instil into the mind of the young hero, the most enthusiastic love of honour, disinterestedness, and truth.

The effects of this institution, which at last be­came so rididculously whimsical, as to be finally laughed out of the world by the inimitable Cer­vantes, were in the beginning highly beneficial to society: even war was divested of half its horrors, when it was carried on by men trained up in the principles of honour and humanity: weakness, which before had every thing to fear from power, and hardly any protection by law, now began to enjoy itself in security, when it found strength and fidelity engaged to defend it; and as weakness was more peculiarly the lot of women, they were also objects of the peculiar care and attention of this institution. H [...]nce they now began to feel a consequence, to which they had hitherto been strangers; they were politely treated by all, because it was known that their cause was the cause of chivalry. They were approached with submission by the brave; they were the judges even of bravery itself, and entrusted with the distribution of the rewards bestowed on it at public tournaments; where a smile of approba­tion on the knight to whom they delivered them, [Page 167] was often considered by him as a greater reward than all the glory he had acquired by his invincible arm. The men considered tournaments as the thea­tres where they were to gain applause; and lovers, as those of acquiring the esteem of the fair. ‘No­thing (says a French historian) was longed for by the ladies with so much impatience; and this not so much from the pleasure of beholding a magnifi­cent spectacle, as from the glory of presiding there: it was by them that the prize of these shows was always distributed; they were the soul and capital ornament of them: to animate the courage of the champions, they used to give them a token, which was sometimes a scarf, a veil, a coif, a sleeve, a bracelet, a knot, a detached piece of their attire, and sometimes, a curious piece of work of their own doing; and with these, the knight decorated the top of his helmet or of his spear, his shield, his coat of arms, or some other part of his armour.’

To such a pitch of enthusiastic veneration of the fair sex did the institution of chivalry carry the ages in which it flourished, that the least contemptuous word uttered concerning any of them, disqualified a knight for the duties and privileges of his profes­sion: and a lady having cause of complaint against a knight, used to touch the helmet or shield of his arms, as a token of applying to the judges, for a trial of his crime; when, after proper inquiry, if the delinquency was proved, the hapless culprit immediately suffered the penalty of exclusion, and could never again be restored to his dignity, but by the intercession of the fair and most solemn promises of better behaviour for the future. As the greatest part of the nobility and gentry were, in the times we are considering, of the order of chivalry, this [Page 168] institution was in that order a sufficient barrier against indecent liberties and scandalous reports. But the lower orders of men were not to be bound by the silken cords of honour: to keep them, there­fore, within the limits prescribed by decency, other motives were devised: the laws of the Thuringians ordained, that he who stole the clothes of a woman while bathing, or at any time threw dirty water upon her, should be severely fined; and that all compositions for injuries should be doubled, when the injury was done to a woman. The laws of the Franks enacted, that he who squeezed the hand of a free woman should pay fifteen sols, twice as much if he laid hold of her arm, and four times as much if he touched her breast. These were powerful restraints on indecorum; and though they strongly mark the character of the times, yet they shew the influence of women, or rather, perhaps, the atten­tion of the men to preserve their delicacy, as well as chastity, from every rude invader.

Arts, sciences, and learning had, at the subver­sion of the Roman empire, been almost totally era­dicated; a people brought up to obtain every thing by the sword, had no idea of gaining a subsistence by the still peaceful means of labour and oeconomy. Learning, and every art thereon depending, was for several centuries despised, as mean and contemptible; and a gentleman who had stooped to become a scholar, or to learn any thing useful in civil life, was considered as having degraded himself for ever. Among people thus circumstanced, nothing was so difficult as to make any improvement: accordingly we find, that many of the middle ages were more stationary than, perhaps, any period in the history of mankind.

[Page 169]Among the nations who conquered the Roman empire the Christian religion had been early intro­duced; but its peaceful precepts, and even all the coercive powers with which it was armed, were but feeble and unavailing, when opposed to customs sanctified by time, and to minds grown haughty and intolerant by success; and it was many ages before it could [...]ame that wild and romantic rage for fight­ing, with or without cause, for which the inhabi­tants of the north had been so remarkably distin­guished. This religion had, however, another good effect: differences of opinion arose concerning it; disputes were carried on to decide these differences; disputes necessarily gave rise to emulation, and emu­lation to some degree of learning. When the facul­ties of the human mind have been exerted on a few subjects of enquiry, these subjects began to multiply; and still as they increase, the avidity of the mind in pursuing them increases also: hence, in some mea­sure, we may see the reason, why, toward the beginning of the twelfth century, learning began to be cultivated with so much assiduity, though it had been totally neglected before. With the revival of learning, a new and more rational importance was added to women: their former importance had been derived from superstition, and a wild and romantic spirit of honour: their present, began to erect itself on the foundation of tenderness and sense. What­ever tends to aggrandize the mind, and to add to the stock of knowledge and sensibility, is in favour of the fair sex, and makes ours lavish fresh endear­ments and fresh dignities upon them. Accordingly, in tracing the history of the middle ages a little downwards, we shall find that women, by the re­mains of chivalry, and the introduction of real politeness, arrived at a consequence to which they never attained in any other period.

[Page 170]The professors of the Christian religion, one sect only excep [...]d,^* never admitted women to the dig­nity [...] priesthood; but in the times we are speaking of, they made great strides toward it. While Charlemagne swayed the sceptre in France, confession was considered as so absolutely necessary to salvation, that, in several cases, and particularly at the point of death, when no priest or man could [...]e had, it was by the church allowed to be made to a woman. And in the sixteenth century, it was no uncommon thing for church-livings, the revenues of abbeys, and even of bishoprics, to be given away with young ladies as a marriage-portion. Thus women exercised a kind of sacerdotal function; and though they did not actually officiate at the altar, they enjoyed what many of the priests themselves would have been glad of; the emoluments of the altar, without the drudgery of its service.

When any material difference happened between man and man, or when one accused another of a crime, the decision, according to ancient custom, established by law, was, to be by single combat, or by the ordeal trial; from both of which ridiculous manners of appealing to heaven, women were ex­empted. When a man had said any thing that reflected dishonour on a woman, or accused her of a crime, she was not obliged to fight him to prove her innocence; the combat would have been unequal; nor was she obliged to submit to the ordeal trial; it was inconsistent with the delicacy of the female cha­racter and constitution; but she might chuse a cham­pion to fight in her cause, or expose himself to the horrid trial, in order to clear her reputation: such champions were generally selected from her lovers [Page 171] or friends: but if she fixed upon any other, so high was the spirit of martial glory, and so eager the thirst of defending the weak and helpless sex, that we meet with no instance of a champion ever having refused to fight for, or undergo whatever custom required in defence of the lady who had honoured him with the appointment. To this we may add another motive; he who had refused, must inevi­tably have been branded with the name of coward; and so despicable was the condition of a coward, in those times of general heroism, that death itself appeared the most preferable choice, nay, such was the rage of fighting for women, that it became cus­tomary for those, who could not be honoured with the decision of their real quarrels, to create f [...]ictitious ones concerning them, in order to create also a neces­sity of fighting. Thus when, from its primitive laudable intention, of succouring the distressed, chi­valry had degenerated to a kind of finical fighting madness, it was no uncommon thing for a knight to post himself in some public place, and there, by his doughty weapons, and formidable appearance, force every passenger, either to acknowledge the superior charms of his Dulcinea, or fight him on the spot. The latter of which seldom happened, unless, per­chance, he met with some person as mad as himself.

However much this may have the air and appear­ance of romantic fiction, it is nevertheless, verified by a number of historical facts. Nor was fighting for the ladies confined to single instances, crouds of gal­lants entered the lists against each other; and even kings called out their subjects, at the commands of their mistresses, to shew their love to them, by cut­ting the throats of their neighbours, who had not in the least offended them. In the fourteenth cen­tury, when the countess of Blois, and the widow [Page 172] of Montfort, were at war against each other, a conferrence had been agreed on, upon pretence of settling a peace, but in reality to appoint a combat, for deciding which of the two ladies was the most handsome: instead of negociating, they soon chal­lenged each other; and Beaumanoir, who was at the head of the Britons, publicly declared, that they fought from no other motive than to see by the victory, who had the fairest mistress. In the fif­teenth century, we find an anecdote of this kind still more extraordinary. John duke de Bourbonnois published a declaration, that he would go over to England, with sixteen knights, and there fight it out, in order to avoid idleness, and merit the good graces of his mistress: and, to crown all, James IV. of Scotland having, in all tournaments, professed himself knight to queen Anne of France, she sum­moned him to prove himself her true and valorous champion, by taking the field in her defence, against his brother-in-law, Henry VIII. of England. He obeyed the romantic mandate; and the two nations bled to feed the vanity of a woman. War­riors, when ready to engage, even invoked the aid of their mistresses, as poets do that of the Muses. If they fought valiantly, it reflected honour on the Dulcineas they adored; but if dastardly, they turned their backs on their enemies; the poor ladies were dishonoured for ever. However different in their natures are love and fighting, the former was then the most prevailing motive to the latter. The famous Gaston de Foix, who commanded the French troops at the battle of Ravenna, took advantage of this foible of his army: he rode from rank to rank, calling by name his officers, and even some of his private men, recommending to them their country, and their honour; and above all, to shew what they could do for the love of their mistresses. The [Page 173] same spirit which led the men to so extravagant an adoration of women, when in happiness and pros­perity, dictated to them, that even their punishments, when absolutely necessary, should not offend against decency. In the ninth century, women by the laws of Kenneth, king of Scots, were punished by drown­ing, or burying alive.

From what has been now related, many of our fair readers may, perhaps, imagine, that in the times we have been delineating, women were more completely happy, than in any other period of the world: but this was not in reality the case; custom, which governs all things with the most absolute sway, had, through a long succession of years, given her sanction to such combats as were undertaken, either to defend the innocence, or display the beauty of women. Custom, therefore, either obliged a man to fight for a woman who desired him, or marked the refusal with eternal infamy; but custom did not oblige him in every other part of his deportment, to behave to this woman, or to the sex in general, with that respect and politenss, which have happily distinguished the character of more modern times. The same man, who, in the middle ages, would, at the command, or for the defence of a woman, have encountered giants, or gigantic difficulties, had but little idea of adding to her happiness, by supplying her with the comforts and elegancies of life; and would have thought himself affronted, had she asked him to stoop and ease her of a part of that domestic slavery, which almost in every country falls to the lot of women. But, besides, men had in those ages nothing but that kind of romantic gallantry to recom­mend them; ignorant of letters, of arts, sciences, and of every thing that refines human nature, they were in every thing, where gallantry was not con­cerned, [Page 174] rough and unpolished in their manners and behaviour: their time was spent in drinking, war, gallantry, and idleness; and in their hours of relax­ation, they were but little in company with their women; and when they were, the indelicacies of the carousal, or the cruelties of the field, were almost the only subjects they had to talk of. Hence they could not be proper companions for a sex, who, shrinking with reluctance from indelicacy and barba­rity, generally turn their thoughts to softer sub­jects.

In the sixth century, while the persons and cha­racters of women were defended with a romantic enthusiasm, incredible in our days, they were, at the same time, considered as beings contaminated with a certain degree of pollution; which, at par­ticular periods, was so great, that it rendered every thing unclean which they approached; hindered the operation of medicines, the effects of churning and brewing, and even stopped the growth of vegeta­bles. The surest road to paradise was to abstain from women; they were not suffered to approach the altar, nor to touch the pall which covered it, unless when, by the priests, it was delivered to them to be washed. The eucharist was too holy to be touched by their naked hands; they were, there­fore, ordered by the canons of the church, to have a white linen glove upon the hand into which they received it.

From the subversion of the Roman empire, to the fourteenth or fifteenth century, women spent most of their time alone; almost entire strangers to the joys of social life; they seldom went abroad, but to be spectators of such public diversions and amusements as the fashion of the times countenanced. [Page 175] Francis the First was the first who introduced women on public days to court; before his time, nothing was to be seen at any of the courts of Europe, but long-bearded politicians, plotting the destruction of the rights and liberties of mankind; and warriors clad in complete armour, ready to put their plots in execution. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centu­ries, elegance had scarcely any existence, and even cleanliness was hardly considered as laudable. The use of linen was not known; and the most delicate of the fair sex wore woollen shifts. In Paris, they had meat only three times a week; and one hun­dred livres (above five pounds) was a large portion for a young lady. The better sort of citizens used splinters of wood, and rags dipped in oil, instead of candles; which in those days, were hadly to be met with. Wine was only to be had at the shops of the apothe­caries, where it was sold as a cordial; and to ride in a two-wheeled cart, along the dirty rugged streets, was reckoned a grandeur of so enviable a nature, that Philip the Fair, prohibited the wives of citizens from enjoying it. In the time of Henry VIII. of England, the peers of the realm carried their wives behind them on horseback, when they went to London; and, in the same manner, took them back to their country-seats, with hoods of waxed linen over their heads, and wrapped in man­tles of cloth to secure them from the cold. Many of those things, we now suppose, must have been hard and disagreeable to the delicacy of female nature. Custom, however, must have reconciled them to what would appear to us almost intolerable. But there was one misfortune, even beyond the power of custom to alleviate; they were in perpe­tual danger of being accused of witchcraft, and suffering all the cruelties and indignities of a mob, instigated by supersttion and enthusiasm; or being [Page 176] condemned by laws, which were at once a disgrace to humanity and to sense; even the bloom of youth and beauty, could not save from torture, and from death; but when age and wrinkles attacked a woman, if any thing uncommon happened in her neighbourhood, she was almost sure of atoning with her life, for a crime which she never committed.

When we take a retrospective view of these sketches, when we compare the times in which wo­men were only treated with romantic gallantry, and strangers almost to every enjoyment which did not flow from that source; with these, in which they share our friendship, and partake of almost all our joys, we cannot hesitate a moment to declare, that the present condition of the fair sex, every thing impartially considered, is greatly preferable to what it was while they were approached as demigoddesses, and in the scale of political society treated as cyphers.

CHAPTER VIII. The same Subject continued.

IN the last chapter, we traced the condi­tion of women down almost to our own times, and shall now resume the subject, by endeavouring to give some account of the present rank and conse­quence of the sex. But as it would be a task much too tedious, and subject us to many useless repeti­tions, to consider this subject in every particular state and kingdom of the world, we shall divide it into three distinct heads. In the first, we shall treat of the most savage and uncultivated states of human life. In the next, of those holding a middle degree be­tween barbarity and cultivation. And in the last, of those where civil society is arrived to the greatest perfection.

Man, in that rude and uncultivated state in which he originally appears in all countries, before he has been formed by society, and instructed by experience, is an animal, differing but little from the wild beasts that surround him; like them, so great a part of his time is employed in procuring food, that he has but little left for any other purpose; and like them too, his ideas seldom extend farther than to a few sensual gratifications, in which he indulges without reason, and without oeconomy: thoughtless of the wants and hardships of to-morrow, and, consequently, but ill provided against them. Among his few sensual gratifications, we may reckon the pleasure arising from his commerce with the other sex: if, in savage life, we can call such commerce a pleasure, where, [Page 178] entire strangers to every reciprocal affection, and intellectual feeling arising therefrom men are totally indifferent what sentiments their fem [...]le partners en­tertain of them, provided they submit tamely to satisfying their appetites; and wher [...] [...] regard the men as lords and masters, whom, in all things, they are obliged implicity to obey.

As women are, by nature, weaker than men, their rank and condition must every where be inva­riably regulated, by the esteem and regard of that sex. The esteem and regard of the men must be founded on their own susceptibility of nature; and that susceptibility must be called forth into action by the mental qualifications and personal beauties of the women. In savage life, unless when urged by revenge, or delighted with the chace, men are dull, phlegmatic, and almost destitute of susceptibility: women have hardly any mental qualifications; nursed in dirt and slovenliness, with but little ornament, and still less art in disposing of it; burnt with the sun, and bedaubed with grease, they are objects rather of disgust than desire; hence they are not the objects of love, but of animal appetite only; are seldom admitted to any distinguishing rank, and as seldom exempted from any distinguishing slavery.

As in savage states, where hunting, fishing, and war are the only employments, vigorous exertions of strength and courage are necessary: were women sufficiently endowed with these, they might supply every deficiency, and greatly enhance their value in the eyes of the men. By these, however, they can conciliate no affection, nor arise to any consequence; they are qualities denied them by nature, and they cannot reap the fruit of what she has not planted. In civilized countries, women have a thousand arts [Page 179] to supply this deficiency of strength and courage, and maintain a balance of power against the men; arts which, with a tolerable assistance from nature, they have brought to such perfection, that they can often engage the heart in their favour, while the [...] is against them: but in savage life, cast as it [...] the lap of naked nature, exposed to every har [...]p, with every bleak wind of heaven blowing on their head, their forms are but little engaging; with nothing that can be called culture, their latent qualities, if they have any, are like the diamond while inclosed in the rough flint, incapable of shew­ing any lustre: thus destitute of every thing by which they can excite love, or acquire esteem; destitute of beauty to charm, or art to sooth, the tyrant man; they are by him destined to perform every mean and servile office, a fate which con­stantly attends the weak, where power and not rea­son dictates the law. In this the American and other savage women differ widely from those of Asia, who, if they are destitute of the qualifications necessary to gain esteem, have beauty, ornament, and the art of exciting love.

Among the brute animals all are equal, and supe­rior strength only can acquire superior power: thus the bull or the stag who has beaten the whole herd, in consequence becomes their leader. Exactly the same thing takes place among savages; he who has given the most signal proofs of his courage and strength, assumes the right of being chief of the warriors of his own tribe or nation; a situation in which he is often not distinguished by personal ornaments, or by that pageantry and shew, in Europe and Asia reckoned so necessary an appendage of authority, but by the authority itself. But this right, however firmly he was established in it, does [Page 180] not descend to any of his family: if his son aspires at it, he must acquire it in the same manner as his father. Their women, as we have hinted above, being by nature disqualified from arriving at emi­nence in war, are, consequently, for ever debarred from arriving at superior rank or power. In civil­ized countries, a woman acquires some power by being the mother of a numerous family, who obey her maternal authority, and defend her honour and her life. But even as a mother, a female savage gains little: her children daily accustomed to se [...] their father treat her nearly as a slave, soon begin to imitate his example, and either pay little regard to her authority, or shake it off altogether. Of this the young Hottentots afford a remarkable proof; the boys are brought up by their mothers till about the age of puberty, when they are taken from them, and with several ceremonies initiated into the society of the men; after which it is reck­oned manly for them to take the earliest opportunity of returning to the hut of their mother, and beating her in the most barbarous manner, to shew that they are now out of her jurisdiction: nor is this a private act, for should the mother complain to the men of the Kraal, they would only applaud the boy, for shewing so laudable a contempt of the society and authority of women.

To support this single evidence of the wretched condition of women in savage life, we have unhap­pily too many collateral proofs. The most rude and barbarous states of human existence, are those em­ployed wholly in fishing, hunting, and war; and wherever we find the men altogether employed in this manner, we find the women either totally neglected, or destined to every slavish, and to every laborious office. In the Brazils, women are obliged [Page 181] to follow their husbands to war, and, supplying the place of beasts of burden, to carry their children, provisions, hammocks, and every thing wanted in the field, on their backs. And in the isthmus of Darien, they send their women along with warriors and travellers, to answer every purpose of our bag­gage-horses.

In every despotic state slavery is a chain; the prince at the head of it oppresses his courtiers, they oppress the inferior officers, the inferior officers oppress the whole of the subjects, and every subject oppresses the women; and so contemptible is the sex, in some countries, that even an alliance with the first despot of it, confers on them neither dignity nor privilege. The sovereign of Giaga in Africa, does not exempt his own wives from the slavish cus­toms of the country; one carries his bow, another his arrows, a third his provisions, &c.; and when he eats or drinks, they are obliged all to fall down on their knees in token of respect. The wives and daughters of his subjects are condemned in the fields to toil along with the slaves, while the men, not less cruel than idle, many times to stimulate them to labour, bestow an equal degree of correction upon both. Mamood the Second, emperor of Hindostan, at that time one of the richest and most extensive monarchies on the globe, contrary to the custom of his country, had only one wife, whom he obliged to do every part of his household drudgery. One day having complained, that she had burnt her fingers in baking his bread, and desired that he would allow her a maid to assist her, ‘I am,’ said he, ‘only a trustee for the state, and determined not to burden it with needless expences;’ a speech more adapted to the patriotic pride of a Greek or Roman, than to the luxurious effeminacy of the East; as it [Page 182] demonstrated, that every spark of love, and even of humanity, were lost in attention to his country.

The fondness of a woman for her offspring is so remarkable, that in Scripture it is represented as the most powerful of all human feelings: ‘Can a wo­man forget her sucking child?’ Yet, to such a degree is the ill-usage of the sex carried in some savage countries, that it even obliterates this feeling, and induces them to destroy the female children of their own body, that they may thereby save them from that wretchedness to which they themselves are subject. Father Joseph Gumill [...], reproving one of the female inhabitants of the banks of the Oronooko, for this inhuman crime, received the following an­swer: ‘I wish to God, Father, I wish to God, that my mother had, by my death, prevented the manifold distresses I have endured, and have yet to endure as long as I live; had she kindly stifled me in my birth, I should not have felt the pain of death, nor the numberless other pains to which life has subjected me. Consider, Father, our deplorable condition, our husbands go to hunt with their bows and arrows, and trouble themselves no far­ther; we are dragged along with one infant at our breast, and another in a basket: they return in the evening without any burden, we return with the burden of our children; and though tired with long walking, are not allowed to sleep, but must labour the whole night in grinding maize to make chica for them: they get drunk, and in their drunkenness beat us, draw us by the hair of the head, and tread us under foot: and what have we to comfort us for slavery, perhaps of twenty years?—A young wife is brought in upon us, and per­mitted to abuse us and our children. Can human nature endure such tyranny?—What kindness can [Page 183] we shew to our female children, equal to that of relieving them from such servitude, more bitter a thousand times than death? I repeat again, Would to God, my mother had put me under ground the moment I was born^*!’ Perhaps this complaint may be a little exaggerated; but should even the great out­lines of it be true, they fully evince the deplorable condition of savage women: and that they may be true, appears from many similar instances among barbarous nations.

[Page 184]The Greenlanders, who live mostly upon seals, think it sufficient to catch and bring them on shore, and would rather almost submit to starve, than assist their women in dragging the cumbrous animals home, in skinning, or dressing them. In some parts of America, when the men kill any game in the woods, they fix a mark to a tree, at the root of which they lay it, and travelling many miles home, send their women to bring it to their habitation; a task which their own laziness and pride equally forbid. Among many of the tribes of wandering Arabs, the women are not only obliged to do every domestic and every rural work; but also, to take care of the horses, which they are obliged to feed, to dress, to bridle and saddle for the use of their husbands. The Moorish women, besides being obliged to do all the same kinds of drudgery, have also some few fields to cultivate; the whole of that labour likewise falls upon them, while their husbands stand idle spectta­tors of the toil, or sleep inglorious beneath a neigh­bouring shade. In few savage countries are women admitted to the honour of eating and drinking with the men; but are obliged to stand and wait upon them while at meals, to serve them with whatever they call for, and, after all, to sit down themselves and eat up the refuse of what they have left; which, unless in times of great plenty, is commonly but a penurious repast. In Madura, the husband generally speaks to his wife in the most imperious and con­temptuous tone; while she, with fear and trembling, approaches him, and pronounces not his name, but with the addition of every dignity and title she can devise; while, in return for all this submission, he frequently beats and abuses her in the most barba­rous manner. Being asked the reason of such a beha­viour, one of them answered, ‘As our wives are so much our inferiors, why should we allow them [Page 185] to eat and drink with us? If they commit faults, why should they not suffer correction? It is their business only to bring up our children, pound our rice, make our oil, and do every other kind of drudgery, purposes to which only their low and inferior natures are adapted.’

Among some of the negroes on the coast of Gui­nea, a wife is never allowed to appear before her husband, nor to receive any thing from his hand, but in a kneeling posture. In some parts of America women are not allowed to be present at their temples, or join in their religious assemblies; and in the houses where the chiefs meet to consult on affairs of state, they are only suffered to enter and seat themselves on the floor, on each side of the passage. In Hindos­tan they are not allowed to give evidence in any court; and so difficult is it to shake off the customs of barbarity, that this privilege was but lately granted them in Scotland. Some of the Caribs, who are remarkable for the slavery of their women, being asked, why they held them in subjection? ‘We subject our women,’ said they, ‘because they are weaker than us, while in Europe a whole nation of you submit to one man, who is perhaps not so strong as any of you; and even sometimes, we are told, to one woman, a thing of which we have no idea.’ In the kingdom of Potany, so low is the condition of women, that numbers of female slaves are kept by the great, not to satisfy the appe­tite of their master, nor to do his necessary business, but to be hired out to strangers for the purposes of prostitution. Many of our readers we presume, are not ignorant of the Circassian custom of breeding young girls, on purpose to be sold in the public mar­ket to the highest bidder. But we decline the sub­ject, afraid that if the matter be scrupulously exa­mined [Page 186] into, it will be found, that women are in some degree bought and sold in every country whether savage or civilized.

To all these indignities offered to the sex, we may add the general custom in many savage countries, of presenting their wives and young women indis­criminately to strangers for hire; of making them dance naked before them; and of divorcing, and even in some places of Tartary^*, of destroying their wives almost at pleasure. Such, in general, is the picture of savage life; more particular figures might easily be added to the group of which it is composed, but we are afraid that it is already sufficiently dis­gusting to our fair readers, and would not willingly make it more so. Women so oppressed with slavery and irritated by ill usage, can have no affection for their husbands, and but little for their children; and when an opportunity of shaking off the yoke is offered, it is no wonder that they betray the one, and leave to fortune, or trample upon, the other. This was verified in the women of South America. When the Spaniards first arrived in those regions, the sex soon discovered that they treated them in a very different manner from that of the natives, and while the unfortunate remains of the men were en­deavouring to separate themselves from the sword [Page 187] that pursued them, by immense deserts, and almost impenetrable forests; the women ran in crowds over the bodies of their murdered husbands and children, to enjoy a consequence and kindness in the arms of the Spaniards, which so much the more delighted them, as they had never been accustomed to it. To the attachment of these women we may, in a great measure, ascribe the conquest of the New World; they usually served the Spaniards as guides, fre­quently procured them subsistence, and sometimes betrayed the conspiracies formed against them.

Although such in general is the behaviour of sava­ges toward their women, yet, like all other human actions, that behaviour is not so uniformly of a piece, as not to admit, now and then, of being chequered with something which has more the appearance of softness and of humanity. This inconsistency of behaviour, more or less, takes place in all nations, and is an incontestible proof that manners and cus­toms are every where more the offspring of chance, than of systematic arrangement. Among the Hurons, and Iroquois, though women are in every other respect treated as slaves, such is the power of matrons over their own families, that they can pre­vail upon them to go to war, or desist from it, as they please; and, if a matron even wishes to engage in a war party, any one who is not connected with her, either with a view to appease the ghosts of any of her slain relations, or to procure prisoners to sup­ply their places, she has only to make him a present of a collar, or a necklace of shells, which operates as the mandate of a fair lady did in the times of chivalry, and seldom fails of engaging the champion to take up the hatchet in her favour.

[Page 188]When the Iroquois return from war, if they have taken any prisoners, they constantly set apart some of them for the use of the public, and these the council of the nation dispose of as they think proper. But such, in this particular, is the power of the mothers of families, that they may, if they please, invalidate this determination of the council, and dis­pose of the prisoners otherwise, or become sole arbi­tresses of the life or death of such as have been ab­solved or condemned by it. We have already ob­served that the dignity of a chief among savages, depending upon personal prowess, is commonly elec­tive. Among the Hurons it is, however, not only hereditary, but descends in the female line, so that it is not the son of the chief, but his sister's son who succeeds him; and if this whole line be extinct, then the sole power of chusing another chief is vested in the noblest matron. Every Huron chief is assisted by a council, and one of this council must be chosen out of every distinguished family; this choice too is the prerogative of the women, and they may, and even sometimes do, appoint one of their own sex. It is farther related by some authors, that every thing among this people is transacted in the name of the women; but those who have had the best opportunities of being acquainted with their politics assure us, that this authority is no more than nominal, and that the men acquaint the women only with such affairs as they think proper, and make use of their names as in other countries one does the seal of an office.

Among the Natches the supreme authority is also hereditary, and descends not only in the female line, but seems to devolve equally on a male and female of that line; the male is called the man chief, and the female the woman chief. The woman chief [Page 189] is not the wife, but the sister, or other nearest female relation of the man chief. She is attended by as numerous a retinue, and has the same a [...]tho­rity, deference, and respect, as the man chief; but these are not all, she has, besides, the most singular female privilege that history gives any account of: when she dies, not only her husband, but even all her retinue, are obliged to follow her into the other world, that she may there be served and attended upon by them, in the same manner as in this. We shall have occasion to mention afterward, that in the East it has been a custom time immemorial, for wives to burn themselves on the funeral pile of their deceased husbands, and for the slaves, and even horses of the great, to be buried with them, in order to serve them in the other world; but this is the only instance we find of a husband being obliged to sacrifice himself to the manes of his wife; and even this instance will not so much excite our amaze­ment, when we consider that the Natches worship the sun, and that the woman chief is by them held as a descendant of that luminary; while the man to whom she is married is but a common, and generally an inferior mortal, that she may the more easily govern and enslave him in life, as well as at death, and in the world to come. Something similar to this is practised by the Africans about Zaara, where birth and rank impart to some women a right of chusing a husband, whom they keep in extreme subjection, and even condemn to the most abject slavery, when dissatisfied with his conduct or con­descension. The sisters of the Grand Seignior are also generally married to the officers of that tyrant, whom they govern with the most absolute sway. From this honour and deference paid to the woman chief among the Natches, we should naturally ima­gine that the condition of their women should be [Page 190] in general preferable to what it is among other savages; and we meet with a few anecdotes in their history, which seem to hint that some other females, besides the great woman chief, have particular pri­vileges and honours conferred on them; but how­ever this be, it is certain that the sex are in general condemned to the same slavery as in other parts of America.

Among the few female privileges which glimmer through the horrid scene of savage life, that of per­sonal liberty is undoubtedly the greatest; the love of savages is seldom directed so much to any indivi­dual as to the sex in general; hence they have lit­tle jealousy, at least not enough to prompt them to confine their women: but, though in many savage countries they are so far from being jealous of, that they will even offer their wives to strangers; in others, they seem tenacious of the rights of the husband, and afraid of every strange invader. Cap­tain Wallace, in his passage through the straights of Magellan, having sent out a boat to go on shore, some of the natives who were on board his ship, leaped into their canoes and paddled after her, shout­ing and making a great noise; the people in the ship could not understand the meaning of this, those in the boat were as much at a loss, till they approached the shore, when they discovered some women ga­thering muscles among the rocks, who, on hearing the alarm from their countrymen, ran away as fast as they could scour. No people seem more rude and barbarous than the inhabitants of this coast, and yet, from this fear, it seems they are not en­tirely strangers to jealousy; a passion, which, though far from being the general characteristic of savages, is yet in several other places to be found among them. But then, it is commonly the paroxysm of an hour [Page 191] which rages violently and again subsides, till a new occasion call it forth, and not that settled and cau­tious suspicion of warmer regions, and half civilized people, to whom,

That women should have much property, among a people who hardly possess any thing but the provi­sions of the present hour, and the empty walls of a miserable hut, is not to be expected; of what little there is, they have, however, commonly a share; but the clothes, arms, and utensils belonging to sa­vages, being often buried along with them, and the land, for the most part, the property of the commu­nity, there is seldom any thing to inherit that is worth transmitting from one generation to another. Dignity is hereditary only among the Hurons and Natches; in almost every other barbarous country it is but imperfectly known. Authority is derived solely from personal strength and courage, and hardly attended with any badges of distinction. In polite countries, women share in some degree the autho­rity, and generally the honour of their husbands; in savage life they share in neither. It is, however, of some little advantage to be married to a war chief, and in some places to be the mother of a numerous family, who can provide for, or defend them when necessary. The privilege of precedency, which in Europe has the power of fascinating almost every female mind, does not disturb the peace of savages, nor kindles up a spark of envy in their breasts. What we formerly observed of the women of the ancient Germans, Celtes, and Gauls, may be equally applied to the savage women of the present times; they are commonly their only physicians and surgeons, and, in some cases are possessed of secrets, [Page 192] by which they have cured diseases that have baffled the skill of expert European physicians. This some­times procures them a little more regard, and gives them a greater consequence than they would other­wise enjoy, but they derive still a greater degree of consequence from a superstitious source; many of them are supposed to be endowed with a supernatu­ral, or magical power of curing diseases, and mak­ing discoveries in futurity; ignorance often applies to these, to recover what it has lost, or to procure what it desires; and, however they may be treated at others times, they are sure, on these occasions, to have the liberty of doing and directing as they please.

From these rude scenes of uncultivated nature, where the ills attend on female life are so numerous, and its privileges so few; let us now turn our eyes towards such people as, in their progressive state, have shook off the rudeness of the most savage bar­barity, and are beginning to advance to a social and civil condition.

The first step which a people sunk in brutality of manners commonly make towards cultivation, is by beginning to bestow some attention on the future, as well as on the present hour, and to provide against those times of scarcity, whose severity their own neglect and inattention has brought upon them so often, and with such accumulated misery; this, a little consideration easily points out to them to be most readily accomplished, by turning from the pre­datory to the pastoral state; and so having constantly in their possession a stock of tame animals, any of which they can take and use at such times and sea­sons when they cannot find a supply of provisions in the rivers and forests around them. In this state [Page 193] are the greatest part of the wandering hordes of Tartars and Arabs, who, by pasturage alone, pro­cure to themselves no uncomfortable subsistence. As this is but one step in the progress from savage to civil life, the progress of female improvement has among them advanced but one step also; the passion for dress, a passion so natural to the sex, wherever they meet with the least kind indulgence, begins to shew itself; while among the rudest savages, it is repressed by unkindness, and often obliterated by oppression. Women only dress to give an addi­tional lustre to their charms, and only wish to be charming to please the men; but, where the love of the men is directed more to the sex than the indi­vidual, a woman has no motive to excite even a wish of being superiorly beautiful. On the contrary, where love is directed more to the individual than to the sex, where the men distinguish by a peculiar attention and regard her, who has the art, by or­nament and dress, to appear more charming than her companions, who are not less beholden to na­ture; there, the most powerful motive to appear beautiful is held out. The passion for ornament among the Tartars and Arabs proceeds from this source: the men are fond of seeing their wives loaded with finery, and will undergo any hardship, or part almost with any thing but their horses, to procure it for them.

There are a variety of places in Africa, and even some in Asia, where, although the inhabitants have arrived at the pastoral state, they appear but a little removed from the barbarity of the mere fisher and hunter; but, where they have carried the ideas of association and civilization so far, as to apply them­selves to agriculture, they are in general somewhat more humane, and the effects of that humanity shew [Page 194] themselves, in some parts of their behaviour, to the fair sex; we are not, however, to imigine that this rule is general, but, like all others, liable to many exceptions.

On some parts of the coast of Guinea, the women are even so far distinguished as to have a vote in their public assemblies; while in many others, their condition is wretched beyond our ima­gination. On the banks of the Niger, the women are generally handsome, if beauty can consist in symmetry of features, and not in colour; they are modest, affable, and faithful, and an air of inno­cence appears in their looks and in their language, which is inexpressibly soft; their men, not insen­sible of these perfections, treat them with a friend­ship, and a softness of love beyond the reach of the frigid ideas of a northern. When we approach more towards the East, the complexion and cha­racter of the Africans become worse. Situated in an ungrateful soil, hardly improvable by culture, they are obliged to subsist mostly upon the produce of their bow and of their hook; their wemen have not the amiable modesty, nor engaging beauty of those on the banks of the Niger; their language, like the soil they inhabit, is harsh and dsagreeable; and they are to the men objects of but little love, and have almost no political consequence.

In the island of Formosa, and among some tribes of the Peruvians, daughters are more regarded than sons, because, as soon as a woman is married, con­trary to the custom of other countries, she brings her husband home with her to her father's house, and he becomes one of the family; so that parents derive support and family-strength from the mar­riage of a daughter; whereas sons, on their marriage, [Page 195] leave the family for ever. Besides the inhabitants of the banks of the Niger, there are several other people in Africa who do not treat their women with that rudeness and barbarity, which we should natu­rally expect from a people so little cultivated. In particular there is one tribe distinguished by the name of Pholeys, whose constant maxim is, if possible, to live in peace; who are no indifferent proficients in some of the arts of civil life; and, perhaps, second to no people on earth in benevo­lence and humanity: their women have all the advantages of society, and all the indulgence of friendship and love.

Though pasturage, agriculture, and every thing that brings mankind into society, is generally in favour of women; yet the first efforts of a people in agriculture commonly lay an additional load of labour on the shoulders of that sex; so that they lose, at first, by an institution, which afterwards turns greatly to their advantage. This is the case in many parts of Asia and Africa; imperfectly acquainted with the cultivation of the ground, it yields them but an indifferent increase; to cultivate it is, therefore, con­sidered as an employment not worthy of the time of men, but only fit for women, who cannot in any other thing employ themselves to greater advantage. Hence, to all the labours to which they had formerly been accustomed, is added those of digging the ground, sowing the seed, and reaping the harvest; toils which, in a sultry climate, must be exceedingly disagreeable to the delicate constitutions of a sex, which nature seems to have formed for softer pur­poses. But we have already had occasion to enume­rate too many of the evils to which [...] s [...]x are sub­jected; we shall therefore no [...] [...] their im­provement towards the that state [...] find them [Page 196] in polished society, than backwards to that savage one, over which, for the sake of humanity, we would wish to throw a veil.

Though politeness teaches us to consider the con­finement of women as an unlawful exertion of supe­rior powe [...], and to shudder at it as an unmerited severity; yet we find it practised almost all over Asia, Africa, and even in some parts of Europe: but what seems rather extraordinary, is, that wherever it takes place, it affords a demonstrative proof of the inhabitants being arrived some degrees farther in civilization than mere savages, who have hardly any love, and, consequently, as little jealousy; who, not regarding their women so much as to be solici­tous about their good behaviour, give loose to their freedom, and are unconcerned about their con­duct.

This confinement of the sex, which we shall have occasion to discuss more fully afterward, does not appear to be extremely rigid in the empire of the Mogul; it is, perhaps less so in China, and in Japan hardly exists. In the dominions of the Grand Sig­nior, women are more strictly guard [...]d; and in Per­sia have, time imm [...]morial, hardly enjoyed the least degree of lib [...]ty, so powerful [...]s the rage of jealousy, and so rooted the opinion of female frailty. But though [...]men are confined in the Turkish empire, they [...]xperience every other in [...]ulgence; they are all [...]w [...]d, at stated times, to go to the public baths; their apartments are richly, if not elegantly furnished; they have a train of female slaves to serve and amuse them▪ and their persons are ado [...]ned with evey costly ornament▪ which their fa [...]hers or husbands can [...] short, the [...]r [...], upon the whole, seems so eligib [...], that lady M [...]ague scrup [...], not [...] [Page 197] affirm, that they are the only free and happy women on the globe; though we rather suspect, that her ladyship would not have changed her English freedom for all the finery and gloom of the first Haram, or even of the seraglio of Constantinople. Notwith­standing the strictness of confinement in Persia, their women are treated with several indulgences; perhaps to divert their attention from brooding on the wretchedness of their situation, they are loaded with the finest silks, and ornamented with the jewels of the East; but all these trappings, however elegant, or however gilded, are only like the golden chains sometimes made use of to bind a royal prisoner.

The Mahomedan women, in the empire of the Mogul, are rather of more consequence than either in Turkey or Persia. Among the lower and mid­dling ranks, they are not strictly confined; and in the seraglio, they sometimes acquire no small influ­ence over the despot, at whose frown so extensive an empire trembles. Noor-Jehan, whom we formerly mentioned by the name of Mher-ul-Ni [...]sa, having become the favourite wife of the emperor Jehangire, soon afterward placed her own relations in almost all the principal employments of the empire, introduced such luxury and magnificence, that to use the words of an oriental writer, ‘expensive pageants, and sump­tuous entertainments, became the whole business of the court; the voice of music never ceased by day in the street, and the sky was enlightened at night with fire-works and illuminations: her name was joined with that of the emperor on the current coin; she was the spring which moved the ma­chine of the state; her family took rank immedi­ately after the princes of the blood and were admit­ted even to the most secret apartments of the serag­lio.’ Such, however, was only the influence of [Page 198] superior beauty, and superior sense; it was not com­mon for women to govern in this manner; though they frequently moved in degrees of inferior conse­quence. The seraglios of people of rank are guard­ed with a stricter severity than those of the lower or­der; such people, every where, have a mixture of pride and jealousy, which far surpasses the simple feelings of the clown: besides the disagreea­bleness of perfidy in his women, the grandee adds to it, the stain which his honour would suffer, should any of them be corrupted by one of inferior qua­lity; and even the women themselves are said to glory in their confinement, as it conceals them from vulgar eyes; and there have been instances, where they rather chose to be burned to death, when their apartments had accidentally taken fire, than submit to the indelicacy of being exposed to public view.

Where so great a number of wives and concu­bines are allowed, an almost unlimitted power is necessary to restrain them from the utmost disorder and confusion. This power is the same despotism in miniature, which prevails in the state; and has the same effect upon the passions, reducing them all un­der the dominion of fear. Even female jealousy, which, in other countries, transports the soul into the regions of fury and despair, is curbed within the walls of a Haram; the women may there repine in secret, but they must clothe their features with cheerfulness when their lord appears; contumacy only draws down on them immediate punishment; they are degraded, chastised, divorced; and even put to death, according to the degree of their crime, or the indignation they have excited: their friends may murmur in secret at their fate; but there is no redress in the laws of their country, nor does pub­lic justice take any cognizance of the affairs of the [Page 199] Haram. Though the laws of Hindostan suffer wo­men thus to be abused, yet so sacred are their per­sons, that they must not in the least be violated, nor even looked at by any one but their husbands. This f [...]ale privilege has given an opportunity of executing many conspiracies; warriors, in such car­riages as are usually employed to convey women, have been often conveyed, without examination, into the apartments of the great; from whence, instead of issuing forth in the smiles of beauty, they have rushed out in the terror of arms, and laid the tyrant at their feet.

The concealment of their women is a sacred tenet among the Mahomedans of Hidostan; even brothers cannot visit their sisters in private; and strangers must, upon no account, see them; for another to be conscious of the existence of a man's wives seems even a crime; and he looks surly and offended if their health is enquired after: in every country, honour consists in that which a man is most solicitous to secure; this, in Hindostan, is the chastity of his wives; a point, without which, the Asiatic must not live. This opinion the despot always encoura­ges; as the possession of the women of his most powerful subjects, is the best pledge of their fidelity, when without the reach of his immediate chastise­ment: when the governor of a province falls under the suspicion of his prince, the first step taken against him, is, an order that he shall send his women to court: if he sends but one, though far from being his greatest favo [...]rite, she is considered as the most inviolable security for his good behaviour: if he he­sitates, or promises obedience at some future period, when it shall be more convenient, he is immediately declared a rebel; his affection for the woman whom he sent as a hostage, is not considered as the tie which binds him to fidelity, but his honour is [Page 200] placed in her person; and that honour, in case of disloyalty, would be in the power of his sovereign to violate. So sacred are women in India, that, even in the midst of slaughter and devastation, the com­mon soldier leaves them unmolested; the Haram is a sanctuary against all the licentiousness of victory; and ruffians, covered with the blood of a husband, shrink back with veneration from the secret apart­ment of his wives. Whether this depends upon custom, or on religion, is uncertain; but it is not altogether confined to India. At Constantinople, when the Sultan sends an order to strangle a state-criminal, and to seize on his effects; the ruffians, who execute it, enter not into the Haram, nor touch any thing belonging to the women.

But in spite of all this seeming veneration, this sacredness of person, the women of Asia are, in ge­neral, only a kind of cyphers, held up to be the sport of fortune; subjected, not only to the nod of a tyrant lord, but also to his eunuchs, still more merciless and tyrannical. Educated in a manner which tends only to debase their minds, by obliterating their vir­tues; torn with jealousy and chagrin, even their pleasures are joyless; and in a very few years, their period of youth and beauty being over, that of neg­lect, which is long and unsupportable, commences. Solomon had threescore queens, and fourscore con­cubines; but a petty Hindoo chief has been known to have two thousand women confined within the walls of his Haram; and appropriated to his plea­sure only. Strange that the rights of humanity and of population should be so publicly violated! but they are not violated by the Asiatics alone; the Europeans, caught with the contagion, have imitated their example. The Portugueze, after their first settlement in India, became so debauched, that [Page 201] many of them had seven or eight concubines; which they did not confine like the natives, but obliged them to labour, and forced from them the money they had earned; nor have other Europeans re­frained from debaucheries, which disgraced their religion and their humanity.

The whole of the ancient inhabitants of Hin­dostan, distinguished by the name of Hindoos, are divided into classes, or casts, every one of which rises gradually in rank and dignity above another; and every one of which most rigidly keeps within itself, nor ever mixes, either by marriage or any kind of connection, with those beneath it: hence women have not, as in other countries, an opportu­nity of advancing themselves by marriage; being obliged to marry into the cast to which they belong: the Hindoo women are not, however, guarded with that strictness and severity, which is exercised over the Mahomedans. In some places, even those of considerable rank appear publicly in the street. In Ethiopia, the women are of more consequence than among the Mahomedans, or Hindoos of Asia. Pon­cet tells us, that the sister of the reigning emperor, while he was there, had a palace of her own, appeared frequently in public, mounted on a mule richly caparisoned, and surrounded by four or five hundred women, sounding tabors and singing verses in her praise. In China, which, for politeness of manners, is little inferior to any part of Europe, women seem to enjoy the same rank, and to share in the honours and dignities of their husbands. The emperor may raise to the dignity of empress, any one of his women whom he pleases; and we are informed by Duhalde, that on an occasion of this nature, ‘after all the great officers and man­dari [...]s had paid their compliments to the emperor▪ [Page 202] the princesses of the blood, and all the ladies of the first quality, with the wives of the great man­darins, went to the palace; into which being introduced, according to their rank, by a mistress of the ceremonies, the first eunuch presented him­self, whom the mistress of the ceremonies thus addressed: I humbly beseech the empress, in be­half of this assembly, to vouchsafe her presence, and place herself on the throne; which she having done, all the ladies made two curtsies, fell on their knees, and struck their foreheads against the ground; then stood up, in the same order, in the profoundest silence, while the empress descended from the throne and withdrew.’ Though honours of such a nature are paid to a Chinese empress, and to every woman according to her rank, yet the fair sex are hardly entrusted with any property, and have no fortunes. Circumstances which, though at first view we may consider as an affront and indig­nity, are, notwithstanding, among the Chinese, symptoms of love and regard. That wise people, solicitous of their own happiness, and of that of the sex, endeavour, by this means, to prevent a woman from being chosen as a wife, on the sordid motives of interest and avarice. A wife, therefore, being constantly chosen from love, and having no separate interest from that of her husband, nor any indepen­dence to render her undutiful and impertinent, the chain of matrimony, which in many other countries is made of iron, is, in China, only a silken cord. In Japan, the women of the Deyario, or great hereditary emperor and high priest, seem to be venerated and honoured in a degree not much infe­rior to himself. And in Siam, we have an account, by Kempfer, of a funeral of one of their queens; so magnificent, as to leave no room to doubt that [Page 203] the women are not considered there in a despicable light.

Before we take our leave of Asia, it may not be improper to observe, that the account here given of the condition of their women; an account strangely chequered with good and evil, but in which the evil, for the most part, greatly predominates, may be materially different from the ideas conceived of it by our fair readers, who have formed their opinions from eastern tales and romances; which, if not contradicted by facts, would impose upon us a belief, that their women were the most beautiful, and the most happy beings in the creation; because the men constantly approach them in the most submissive manner, while every flowery epithet, for which the eastern language is so remarkable, hangs upon their tongue; and every promise they make, is to last for life, or for eternity. But the reverse of the picture shews us, that they keep in the cruelest subjection and confinement, the beings they seem to adore; and while they appear to humble themselves at their feet, are actually the jailors who confine, and the tyrants who enslave them. Even among the Chinese, whom we may reckon the politest of the Asiatics, wives are sometimes strangled at the death of their husbands, that they may go and serve them in the other world.

Such as we have described, is the condition of women, among many of those people who hold a kind of middle rank, between savage barbarity and civilization; but as the culture of manners, and of the social principle among mankind, does not always proceed upon an uniform plan, but is varied, accord­ing to the genius, to the necessities, and to a thou­sand other circumstances, we find one nation often [Page 204] excelling another in one or two points of refinement, while in every other point of the same kind, it is greatly behind it. Thus, in Otaheite, an island lately discovered in the South Sea, the inhabitants, though hitherto unacquainted with any part of the globe, but a few more islands scattered around them; though sons of pure nature, and almost entirely fed and clothed by her hand; though without the least knowledge of art, or glimmering of science, are, nevertheless, social among themselves, civil and po­lite to the fair sex, allowing them every rank and dignity, and even the supreme authority of the island, when it is their birth-right; treating them with a deference and indulgence, which the weakness and softness of their nature seems to require; and yet, though they have carried their politeness thus far; though the two sexes constantly live together in promiscuous society; at meals, which bring the peo­ple of polite nations together, the sexes in Otaheite are separated. The women sometimes serve the men at their repasts; but never eat with them, or in their company; so that it is presumable, the action of eating or drinking is, in this island, ranked among the number of female indelicacies: we, who are constantly used to other manners and customs, reck­on it extraordinay that women should refuse to eat in the presence of men; but it is still more extraor­dinary, that some of the chiefs of this people, either from a principle of pride, or for some other reason that we are not acquainted with, will not deign to put any thing into their own mouths, but, like chil­dren, must be constantly fed by their women. Per­haps the same cause, which induces the Otaheitean to this slabbering dignity, operating in Europe, would induce a man to be served in plate, or to ride in his coach; in the East, to burn costly perfumes, add more beauties to those already languishing in his [Page 205] seraglio, and more slaves to those who attend on his person; and, in America, to hang more of the ghastly spoils of war round his body, and add to the natural ferocity of his visage, by painting himself frightful.

It is somewhat remarkable, that over the greatest part of America, which, at present, may be called the native country of savage barbarism, the men have in general but one wife; while in Asia and Africa, where they are commonly a little more civi­lized, an unrestrained polygamy should still take place; and that, while in many other respects they treat their women better, this custom, which gives them their rivals for their inseparable companions, should not have been abolished. But so permanent and unalterable are the customs of the East, and particularly this of a plurality of wives, that, in all probability, it will be among the last of the chains of female slavery that will be broken; and if we can believe many of the missionaries, who were sent to propagate Christianity among them, there were none of the precepts of that religion, which they found so much difficulty of making them conform to, as that of confining themselves to one wife; a thing which they thought so absurd and unreasonable, that they could not believe it to be agreeable to the will of the great Lord of the universe.

CHAPTER IX. The same Subject continued.

IN these imperfect sketches, which we have already given of the rank and condition of an­cient and modern women, we are sorry to say, that it was long before we found them getting into pos­session of the common rights of mankind; that at present, in more than one quarter of the globe, they are the most abject slaves; and in much more than another, perpetual prisoners: while in that little corner of it, called Europe, they only possess the consequence to which they seem entitled by na­ture, in the scale of intelligent beings. It is, there­fore, with pleasure we now arrive at that part of our history, which leads us to consider their condi­tion in polished and civil society; which, in other words, is considering it only in Europe; after hav­ing seen it in a [...]ght, which does so little honour to our sex, and adds so much wretchedness to theirs, in every other part o [...] the globe.

But though the fair sex are, in Europe, com­monly treated with an affection and indulgence, which in other parts they are either quite strangers to, or only enjoy on particular occasions; yet, as all Europe is not equally cultivated in manners, the condition of women is not in every part of it equally eligible.

Russia, which we consider as an European na­tion, though comprehending in its dominions a part of Asia, has only begun a few years ago to assume the [Page 207] polish of the Europeans; and is as yet far from hav­ing attained that softness of behaviour, which must distinguish every people before they can treat, with propriety, a sex, whose acute feelings, both of body and of mind▪ demand lenity and indulgence. The condition of women in Russia is, therefore, much less desirable than it is in England, France, or Italy. A late empress of Russia, as a punishment for some female frailties, ordered a most beautiful young lady of family to be publicly knouted, in a manner which was hardly less indelicate than severe. The same empress, at another time, allowed several la­dies of the first quality to suffer the punishment of the knout publicly, and afterwards to have their tongues cut out: while these cruel sentences were executing, they were exposed on the backs of men, with no covering, but a scanty petticoat. Such were the Russians only a few years ago; when in every other part of Europe, and even among people whom we call barbarians, the law, when necessarily obliged to inflict punishment on female delinquents, never violated the rules of decency. It has been as­serted by many travellers, that a Russian bride, on her wedding-night, presented the bridegroom with a whip of her own making, in token of her subjec­tion; and thought herself much slighted, if he did not immediately make a trial of it upon her person. Later travellers, however, assure us, that if ever such custom did exist, they could find no remaining traces of it at present.

Though the women at Petersburg are not confined to their apartments, they go little abroad, being but just emerging from a state of barbarity. In their conversation, and their actions, there is hardly any thing of that softness and delicacy which distinguishes the sex in other parts of Europe; even their exer­cises [Page 208] and diversions have more of the masculine than the feminine. The present empress, with the ladies of her court, sometimes divert themselves by shoot­ing at a mark. Drunkenness, the vice of almost every cold climate, they are so little ashamed of, that not many years ago, a lady would have returned to the house of her friend the next day, to thank her for doing her the pleasure of making her drunk the day before; nor is it long since the regulations for the assemblies, at the court of Petersburgh, con­tained this remarkable article; an article which, perhaps, is still extant: ‘And it is further ordered, that ladies shall not get drunk upon any pretence whatever, nor gentlemen before nine o'clock.’

However unfavourable this account of the Russian women may appear, their condition is far from be­ing so despicable, as we might from thence naturally imagine. They share the rank and splendour of the families of which they are sprung, and of the hus­bands with whom they marry, and even the supreme authority; which at present is enjoyed by an em­press, whose head does honour to her nation and to her sex; although on some occasions the virtues of her heart have been much suspected. In the mili­tary, the widows and daughters, as well as sons of officers, are provided for by government; the wi­dows, if young, are allowed one year's pay, accord­ing to the rank of their husbands, by way of a por­tion; if old, they have a fourth of the pay of their husbands during life, and their daughters have the same till the age of fifteen; when they are supposed to be fit to marry, or otherwise to provide for them­selves. In civil life, the sex are protected from in­sult by several salutary laws, and, except among the peasants, are exempted from every kind of toil and slavery, enjoy such portions as are given them, or [Page 209] fall to their share by heritage; and, upon the whole, seem approaching fast to the enjoyment of that consequence to which they have already arrived in several parts of Europe.

In the other northern countries of Europe, the state of women is, in many respects, but mean and con­temptible. In Lapland, Norway, and Poland, they have hardly even separate apartments, except in some houses of their first nobility. Estates, as well those that are acquired, as those that are hereditary, descend to the children in the following proportions: in Poland, a son has always two shares, and a daughter one; nor can a father dispose of his for­tune otherwise, without a judicial sentence to enable him so to do. In Denmark, women may succeed as heirs to any inheritance, but no female of what­ever rank or condition, can sell, dispose of, or in any other manner alienate any land, but must leave it to the heir at law, who, on her demise, is em­powered to take possession of it; notwithstanding any devise, bargain, or sale that she may have made in her lifetime to the contrary. In Britain, daugh­ters are excluded from inheriting hereditary estates, so long as there are any sons alive; but such estates as the fathers have acquired, they may give to their daughters, or leave to them by will, though they have sons at the same time living. In Piedmont, females cannot inherit a fief as long as any of the male line are alive. Though the British ladies sel­dom enjoy titles or honours in their own right, yet they constantly share in those of their husbands, wives of bishops and judges only excepted; and further, a man of the highest quality, by marrying a woman from the very lowest of the people, confers upon her the same rank and quality as he enjoys himself; whereas no man, however mean, can again [Page 210] altogether reduce her to her original state; the title she had once acquired by her noble husband she re­tains by the complaisance of her acquaintance, till death, though she should again be married to the meanest plebeian. English women have never had any power conferred on them to ennoble their hus­bands, but of late it has not been uncommon to bestow titles and honours on women, in their own right, with a power of transmitting them to their male posterity. In Germany, female honours run in a channel something different from that of Britain, they are only the property of birth, or attainable by marriage, and on the decease of a husband the wife, if she was his inferior, descends to that rank in life which she occupied before marriage. Some writers on the Germanic constitution have alleged that this is a political institution to encourage matrimony among the great; but, as women are seldom averse to this state, to place the loss of being unmarried on their side, is putting the weight into the wrong scale.

As being vested with the management and dis­posal of property, whether in goods or estates of inheritance, is a privilege from which women, in most ages and countries, have either been entirely debarred, or enjoyed under a great variety of limi­tations and restrictions; and as this privilege is one of those which confers the greatest power and dignity, and upon which mankind set the greatest value, we shall endavour to give our readers some idea how far it has been granted or denied to the sex, whose history we are now considering.

To give portion to women at the time of their marriage was an ancient custom amongst some nations; Pharaoh gave the city of Gazer as a por­tion [Page 211] to his daughter when she became the wife of Solomon king of Israel; but we have great reason to believe that, in such early times, [...] the management nor disposal of the portions [...] were vested in the person of the wife, but that she, and the dowry which came along with her, were almost equally considered as the property of the husband. Almost the whole history of remote antiquity pre­sents us with a scene, in which women appear too inconsiderable to have acquired any of the goods of fortune, or to have been trusted with them when acquired by their parents or relations. Among the ancient inhabitants of Chaldea and Arabia, we are told, that women could not hold the possession of any inheritance; and the decision of this matter by Moses, shews that, in his time, no precedent had existed of females having any such privilege. The daughters of Zelophe had brought before Moses, the priests, the princes, and the congregation, a petition, setting forth, that their father, after having always demeaned himself properly, had died in the wilder­ness, having no sons; on which account they thought themselves entitled to a possession among the brethren of their father, which Moses, by the commandment of the Lord, not only granted them, but also or­dained, that in future, when a man died, having no sons, his inheritance should become the property of his daughters. A decision, which seems to be the basis on which the succession of women is, in many countries, founded at this day.

As the Egyptians had the greatest esteem and veneration for their women, and even in many things submitted themselves to their direction, we have great reason to believe that they allowed them property, and the succession to the estates of their ancestors; especially when we consider that the [Page 212] Greeks, who were originally a colony from Egypt, were, besides the Hebrews, the only people of anti­quity, whom we find indulging them with this pri­vilege. The ancient Romans, trained up to war and to arms, to take by conquest the land of their neighbours, and to retain by force what they had thus conquered, had no idea that women should in­herit what they could neither conquer nor defend; but fathers, in time, thinking it hard that their sons should be rich in possessions, while their daugh­ters had none; and that more distant male relations should take the estates as heirs at law, contrived to make such provisions for their daughters, as rendered the estates so taken of little value. The people, irritated at this proceeding, and convinced from the relics of barbarity still lurking in their minds, that women ought not to have any inheritance, passed the Voconian law, by which it was ordained, That no woman should be left heiress to an estate, even though an only child; a law, which continued in force till the Romans became more refined and soft­ened in their sentiments, when a regard to the weaker sex broke through the unjust restraint laid upon them, and granted them a right of succession, after the death of brothers, both in moveables and in land.

Barbarity of manners is almost every where pro­ductive of the same customs. So little did the Lom­bards think women qualified to inherit estates, that, by their law, even the natural children, distant male relations, and the public treasury, might share the inheritance with daughters. This law was softened among the Saxons, where the father and mother were bound to leave their estate to their sons, and to their daughters if they had no son. Among the Burgundians, daughters were neither allowed to [Page 213] be heirs in conjunction with sons, nor to succeed to the crown. The Salique lands among the Franks seem to have been of a tenure similar to those in the times of the feodal system, held under a lord, for which the tenant was to perform military service; women were not admitted as inheritors, or tenants of such lands, for a plain reason, because they were not qualified to perform the military service by which they were held; but methods were afterwards dis­covered to elude this prohibition: he who wanted to make his daughter equal to his son, carried her before the commissary, and said, ‘My dear child, an ancient and impious custom bars a young woman from succeeding to her father; but as all my children are equally given me by God, I ought to love them equally; therefore, my dear child, my will is, that my effects shall be shared equally between you and your brethren.’ This Salique law, which in mo­dern France seems little if at all regarded by the subject, is still in force with regard to the crown, no woman ever being allowed to inherit it. But though the French will not suffer a woman to sway the scep­ter, they cannot hinder her from ruling the monarch which holds it; a case which has so often happened, that, in spite of their Salique law, they have been more under the direction of women than any of the neighbouring kingdoms.

The laws which preclude females from enjoying property and inheritance have, perhaps, in every other country, beside France, been confined to the subject. Among many of the nations of antiquity, among the present Asiatics, and even in some parts of America, where women in general have no pro­perty, and almost no political existence; where it was never heard that they enjoyed any land, nor were even trusted with the management of their own [Page 214] persons, they have been allowed, in failure of male issue, to mount the throne, and manage the affairs of a state; a practice so inconsistent with reason, that the only cause we can assign for it is superstition.

From the mean and servile condition of the fair sex in barbarous countries, they seem to be rendered incapable of property. Whatever they acquire by their labour, whatever they take in the chace, is entirely under the administration of the male relations and friends, by whom they are protected, and from whom they receive a scanty and precarious subsist­ence. Wherever polygamy is countenanced, wo­men cannot possibly enjoy much property: property creates independence; and a woman who is indepen­dent would not submit to so many rivals, and so scanty a share of the favours of a husband. Where­ever women are strictly confined, they can have no property; any thing further than food and raiment, to them would be unnecessary; and any thing that could not be brought within the walls of a Haram, they could not manage. Wherever the sex are publicly bought and sold, whether as wives or as slaves, they can have but little property; they are in such cases the property transferred themselves, and consequently in a state too mean to be trusted with other property, perhaps reckoned more valu­able than they are. When we meet with so great a variety of causes which deprive women of property, when we consider how widely these causes are dis­seminated, we shall find that it is only in a few of the politer countries of Europe that they are possessed of this privilege, and even there, with such restric­tions, that in many cases they can hardly be said to enjoy what they possess; but as we shall have occa­sion afterwards to treat more fully of the rights and privileges of the British women, which are in a [Page 215] great measure similar to those of the other polished countries in the neighbourhood, we shall not at present anticipate that part of our subject.

In those stages of human society that intervene between the most uncultivated state of nature and a taste for elegance and refinement of manners, pa­geantry and show seem to employ the utmost atten­tion, and to be considered as the only proper appen­dages of grandeur, strong proofs of which are afforded us by almost all the nations of the East, and by Poland in the North; the Polish women of fashion seldom go to visit one another without being attended by the most numerous train of servants, carriages, and flambeaus they can muster; but when we follow them home, we meet with nothing ade­quate to this parade; their apartments are but poorly furnished, and but hardly clean, and them­selves are the mean and fawning slaves of ther hus­bands, who, except in the articles of equipage and dress, scarcely treat them as rational beings. In Germany, where the taste is in general less formed, the women are more fond of family pageantry, and more crammed with family pride than in France or England. In Italy, of a warmer temperament, they aim more at captivating the heart than the eyes, and have there, as well as in France, attained almost to an absolute dominion over the men; a prerogative which in Portugal seems much on the decline; for though, in the time of Alphonso, when the Portu­gueze were an honour to human nature, the man who insulted a woman, or broke any promise he had made to her, was degraded from whatever rank he enjoyed; at present, the false gallantry intro­duced, authorises him to commit every perfidy of that nature with impunity.

[Page 216]In England, France, Italy, and those other parts of Europe which have arrived nearly at the same degree of politeness; prompted by a mixture of humanity and love, the men have entirely exempted the women from every species of labour, except what is absolutely necessary among the poor for ob­taining their daily bread; and even there, it is with pleasure we often see the rustic clown, while he wipes the sweat from his brow, endeavouring to lighten the burden and alleviate the task of the sun­burnt daughter of labour who toils by his side.

So extensive are the effects of politeness in Europe, that it has not only softened the actions and manners of him who, tutored in the lap of ease, has received the polish of a good education; but of him also who, left to nature, has nothing to boast of but what he received from her hand. This spirit of sympathetic indulgence, or of polite gallantry, does not stop at endeavouring to ease the load of female toil, or to mitigate the severity of that labour for which their natural weakness seems to have incapacitated the sex; it expands itself to every part of the conduct of the men which has any relation to them. We give to a woman, even though of inferior quality, the right hand, shew her every token of respect, and place her in every situation of honour. We lavish our substance upon ornaments for our wives and daugh­ters, and reckon, that when they appear in elegance and taste, they reflect a lustre and credit upon us. We are hurt when they behave improperly, and on the contrary, persuade ourselves that their good con­duct adds a dignity to our character and reputation. In short, we are so deeply interested in every thing that relates to them, that they may be considered as the arbiters of our fate, and the spring which sets in motion, and continues to direct, almost every [Page 217] action of our lives; such is the indulgence we shew them, and such the power we put into their hands, that a proverbial saying has from thence arisen, that England is the heaven of women, and the hell of horses.

In France, Italy, and Spain, the deference paid to women is still greater than in England, and gene­rally proceeds from different motives; here, the honours we confer upon them flow from a mixture of love for their persons, and esteem of their vir­tues; there, it arises, for the most part, only from a kind of customary gallantry, which seems directed more to the sex than the individual. A Frenchman, the moment he is in the company of a woman, whe­ther young or old, beautiful or otherwise, declares himself her admirer, talks of flames and darts, and pays her a thousand compliments on her beauty. An Italian, when he is introduced to a lady, ap­proaches her in the most humble and submissive manner, kisses her hand, and if she is handsome, and of quality, considers her a sublime being, an angel in a human form, and consequently never to be approached but with the greatest reverence. The Spaniard goes yet a step farther, the whole [...]ex is to him an object of little less than adoration; he retains still a tincture of the spirit of knight-errantry in every thing relating to women, and will readily ven­ture his life to save any of them from trouble or from danger; the object of his love is never less than a goddess, whom he always mentions with all the extravagance that metaphor and hyperbola can dictate, and to a woman above the rank of a pea­sant, he never presents any thing but in a kneeling posture.

[Page 218]These improvements, in the condition of the fair sex of Europe, seem naturally to point out to us, that they are there the most happy, as well as the most deserving of beings; but the external appear­ance of things is but an unfaithful mirror, whose representation we cannot altogether depend on. Women are in some degree every where the slaves of superior power; in Asia, imprisoned, and con­stantly reduced to act by the impulse of another, without any will or any inclination which they can gratify, their triumphs lasting only a few moments; their rivalry, animosities, and confinement, till death. In Africa and America, the mere drudges of their proud tyrants, they labour to procure subsistence for themselves and husbands, and when they have done, are treated little better than our dogs; they receive only chastisement and crumbs. In Europe, for the most part, but improperly, or slightly edu­cated; and at all times kept in a state of dependence, by the restrictions of a severe legislation, which, in the management and disposal of what property is allowed them, commonly cramps the freedom of their will. Dishonoured and disgraced beyond all possibility of redemption, by the commission of faults, which in the men are hardly considered as any thing but acts of gallantry; and even in the state of matri­mony, a state to which they naturally aspire, more indissolubly bound than their husbands. The law affords them no relief, unless the cruel partner to whom they are tied, has attempted to take away their life; and while he may riot with impunity in adulterous amours, if the wife retaliates, by copy­ing his example, he immediately procures a divorce, and may turn her out without subsistence to the scorn and contempt of her own sex, who, in such cases, seldom look with pity even on a repenting sinner.

[Page 219]Though we have marked, as we came along, several of the causes of the good and ill-treatment of women, yet we flatter ourselves it may not be improper to conclude this chapter with a more accu­rate view of them. Were we on this subject to reason from analogy, we should not hesitate to say, that there is in nature a principle, which strongly prompts us to behave with lenity and indulgence to the fair sex; as almost the whole of the irrational creation presents us with a picture of such behavi­our: the cock, when he has found any provision, calls his hens together to partake of it; and the males of all the feathered kind, for the most part, provide for the females while hatching. Among quadrupeds, though there appears less indulgence, and even less assistance on the part of the male, yet the former is in many cases very distinguishable, and the latter not altogether unknown to the diligent observers of nature. No male of any spe­cies of animals we are acquainted with, will fight with, or use a female of the same species rudely, unless highly provoked; and even then, he will cor­rect her with lenity and seeming reluctance. But while we reason on this subject, if we trust to analogy, it will certainly mislead us. And when we turn ourselves from reasoning upon principles, to the observation of facts, a slight survey of man, in his savage state, will soon convince us, that he has no natural propensity, nor instinct, which determines him to use the females of his species with tenderness and indulgence; or if he has, it is, like many other natural instincts, totally obliterated in his youth by habit and education. We are told, indeed, by Charlevoix, that some of the savages of North America will, by no means, be prevailed upon to strike, and hardly even to defend themselves against a woman; but should this be true, it is only a local [Page 220] custom; for we are assured almost by every travel­ler, that savages, in a variety of parts of the world, on the most trifling occasions, beat and abuse their women without mercy.

We have already observed, that power, when not influenced by humanity, is commonly made use of only to enslave. On this principle, we may assert, that the most general and extensive cause of the ill treatment of women, is the imbecillity of their constitutions, and the impossibility of asserting the rights of nature against a sex so much their su­periors in strength. The next cause, is the insen­sibility of the men, or that savageness of disposition, which not only eradicates humanity, but prompts only to animal appetite, instead of the sentimental feelings of love; a cause which, more or less, pre­vails in almost every country, and particularly in those, where society and the various refinements thereon depending, are but little and imperfectly known. Men constantly accustomed to gain their subsistence by fishing and hunting, are trained up in the exer­cise of every cruelty against the brute creation: hence in their wars, the same cruelty diffuses itself upon their antagonists and prisoners; and hence too, even the tender and inoffending fair sex are subjects upon which they exercise that ferocious and unfeeling temper, which, from their earliest infancy, has been nourished by their employments and their difficul­ties; and which neither religion, admonition, nor example, have ever conspired to restrain; nor the sympathetic feelings of the heart revolted against, as barbarous and inhuman. Whatever be the original difference in the feelings of the human heart, we know they are capable of being altered, and made better or worse by education and example; an incon­testible proof of which arises from the behaviour of [Page 221] the genteel, and common people of England, who must be nearly alike by nature; and yet by educa­tion, the employments of life, and the example of low company, the latter are often brutal and feroci­ous in their manners, while the former are distin­guished for humanity, and the more exalted feel­ings of the soul.

A third cause of the ill-treatment of the sex is, their general want of proper education and instruc­tion. In savage life, without any engaging quali­fication of mind, and destitute of every ornament of body, except only a few things which render them more disagreeable, they have nothing but sex to engage the attention, and soften the rugged nature of the male. In countries a little more cultivated, as in Asia, though they lavish every ornament on their persons, their minds commonly present a blank; scarcely even here and there shaded with the outlines of knowledge and sensibility. In moderate cli­mates, women acquire sense and experience, as their charms and beauty expand. In Asia, if they ever become sensible and intelligent, it is at an age when their short and fleeting beauty, which commonly be­gins to fade at eighteen, is all over. This is one of the strongest reasons why the women of the East are so little esteemed. In countries, where the man­ners are finished by the last touches of polish and refinement; the levities, expensive follics, and irrestrainable propensity to pleasure and admiration, frequently procure to the softer sex ill-treatment from ours; and force us even to despise and con­demn the heart, which is lodged in the form we adore.

A fourth cause of the ill-treatment of women is, often, their taking too little care to make them­selves [Page 222] agreeable. This is commonly the case in savage life, where, if nature has denied them charms, they have no other way of attracting the heart; and where, if she has not denied them, the possessors have not learned to set a proper value upon them, nor to improve their power by correspondent quali­fications of the mind. But this is not a case only to be met with in savage countries; in the most culti­vated states of society, we often meet the careless slattern, who disgusts us with her indelicacy; the conceited beauty, who, trusting to the favours she has received from nature, exacts from us the tribute she thinks due to them, with a petulant presump­tion, which frustrates all its own intentions; and the hapless wanderer from the paths of virtue, who, lost to honour and to shame, lays aside every thing pleasing in the manners of the best of her own sex, and adopts every thing disgusting in the worst of ours. To these characters we may add the unthink­ing wife; who, as soon as she has stepped over the threshold of matrimony, leaves behind her every de­licacy, and every soft and engaging art, by which she attracted the lover.

In polite countries, women reckon themselves ill-treated, if they are not beloved, accosted with respect, and even their wishes prevented by all the nameless little offices of good-breeding: accustomed to be constantly approached, with an air of submis­sion that borders on adoration, to be constantly flat­tered, on account of their beauty and accomplish­ments, and wanting sagacity to distinguish mere gallantry from the real sentiments of the heart, they at last become pert and assuming, and often rude and ill-natured to such as they think do nor offer a sufficient quantity of the incense of praise at the shrine of their beauty: having arrived this length, [Page 223] they soon become objects of contempt, and some­times of ill-treatment. No class of females are so apt to fall into this tract as those called beauties; who, though their company is eagerly coveted at every place of public amusement, are not so eagerly selected to retire with into that private scene of do­mestic life, where the mask must be laid aside, and the train of flatteries discarded.

The power of appropriating entirely to ourselves what we love and esteem, is so strongly rooted in our nature, that it has given birth to jealousy, one of the strongest passions that convulse the soul; and from this jealousy arises another fruitful source of the ill-treatment of women; it is the cause that has, time immemorial, shut them up in the gloom of per­petual imprisonment in the East, and debarred them from every joy that can flow from friendship, and from society. It is the cause which, in Hindostan, and more particularly in Persia, has subjected them not only to the chastisement of an enraged husband, but even to death itself for an offence no greater than looking at a stranger. But we turn from such scenes of horror, to view the other side of the pic­ture.

The general causes of the proper treatment of women are simple, and may be all comprehended in the education of the one sex, and the beha­viour of the other. It is want of education and instruction that makes the savage; and it is the pro­per application of them, that form the man of soci­ety and the gentleman. A man brought up in any of the polite countries of Europe, is, from his ear­liest infancy, taught to do a thousand good offices to the fair sex; to honour and indulge them; and, as he grows up, to provide for, and defend them: [Page 224] hence every kindness, and every duty he can perform to them, are so imperceptibly interwoven with his nature, that he takes them for nature itself: but lest this attachment of education should not be strong enough to form a kind of balance of power between the two sexes, the Author of nature has wisely pro­vided, that, at a certain age, love should spring up to lend its assistance, and add a motive still more powerful, than even custom and education, to induce us to do the fair sex every kind and indulgent office, which the delicacy of their situation, and the weak­ness of their nature, may stand in need of. But we must here carefully distinguish between that love, which, in civil life, is a mixture of animal appetite and sentimental feeling; and that which, in savage life, is animal appetite only. The last, tho' it may prompt men, when immediately under its impulse, to be fawning and complaisant, must be but short and inconstant in its operations; and, consequently, unable to restrain the common rudeness and oppression of the men, or raise the women to any degree of consequence and dignity. The first, more steady and uniform, inspires with an unremitting attention to do good offices, to protect, and screen from op­pression the weakness which savages despise; with a generosity of sentiment, which does honour to politeness and to humanity. Nor are the fair regar­ded and defended only by such individuals as are connected with them by love, friendship, and other motives of passion and interest, but by the generality of men in civil life, from sentiments of gallantry; and by every wise legislature, which, in proportion to the weakness of that sex, exerts itself the more strenuously to protect their persons and interest.

Such, and many more, are the happy effects which the fair sex experience from education and from love; [Page 225] but in the individuals, with whom they are more nearly connected, good sense, and humanity of tem­per, are likewise necessary, in order to establish their security from ill-usage. There are in domestic life, a thousand little incidents where sentiments will una­voidably jar; but should even this happen so fre­quently, as to interrupt all peace, and be produc­tive of a constant acrimony of temper, a man of sense, when connected with a woman whom he cannot love in his heart, will never degrade himself so as to use her ill; and will be sorry that he is obliged to pity, where he would wish to love.

That propriety of female behaviour, which inclines the men to favour, and treat the sex with the greatest indulgence, which the manners and customs of the country they reside in will admit of, is of va­rious kinds, and would be tedious to run over. In savage countries, it consists mostly in performing the tasks of labour assigned them; in yielding the most abject submission to their husbands; and taking pro­per care of the children they have by them. In the East, it consists in resigning themselves with a seeming alacrity to confinement; being perfectly skilled in all the arts of pleasing, and avoiding, with the utmost circumspection, every cause of jealousy. In Europe it is more unlimited; it consists in good-nature, sen­sibility, delicacy, chastity, the domestic virtues, and a thousand other qualities; which, when joined to a competent share of beauty and female softness, are almost sufficient to sooth the most rugged nature, and change the cruellest temper into gentleness and humanity.

CHAPTER X. Of the Character and Conduct of Women.

AS the circle of female action is com­monly more narrow and circumscribed than that of the other sex, so their good or bad character is also for the most part, comprised under fewer virtues and vices: and in the East, where they are by confin [...] ­ment totally excluded from action and observation, we may say with Pope, That they have hardly any character at all.

At the head of the qualities, which make up the good or bad character of each sex, there is generally placed some cardinal virtue, or vice; which is set, as it were, in the fore-ground; and to which all the rest of the figures in the groupe are subordinate. Thus what is the most highly estimated in men, is courage and sensibility; and what gives the highest lustre and polish to the women, is modesty, and that soft and gentle temper, which is [...]ver ready to sooth affliction, and to pity distress. As these two vir­tues form the great outlines of the character of the fair sex, a large portion of what we have to say on the present subject, will necessarily be employed in enquiring, how far they have followed the paths that lead to them, or deviated into those that lead to their opposite vices, from the earliest ages of anti­quity to the present time.

From the very beginning almost of time, as we may learn from some hints thrown out by Moses, and conjecture from the rude and uncultivated state [Page 227] of society, we have no great reason to believe, that modesty and chastity were among the favourite vir­tues. The reasons assigned for the destruction of the world by the deluge; those assigned for the posterior destruction of Sodom; and the conduct of Lot's d [...]ghters, are all too evident proofs of our assertion. Proceeding forward to the patriarchal ages, the scene is but little altered; for we there find, that when Abraham had gone down into Egypt to avoid a famine, he had such an opinion of the dissoluteness of the people of that country, that he was afraid they would murder him, in order to get possession of his wife; and to avoid that danger, ag [...]eed with her to say, that she was his sister: a falsity and meanness, which he again repeated, when he afterwards journeyed with her in Gerar, in the land of the Philistines; a meanness, which plainly points out, that he would rather have suf­fered her tamely to have been debauched, by the people of any country into which he went, than run any risk on her account. This pusillanimous example was likewise copied by his son Isaac, when he went with Rebecca, his wife, into the same country of Gerar; and the speech of Abimelech to him, on finding that he had deceived him, plainly points out the ideas they then entertained of debau­chery; ‘one of the people might lightly have with her.’

The severe revenge, however, taken on the Sechemites, for the rape of Jacob's daughter, seems to insinuate, that the men paid no little regard to the chastity of their women; at least to those that were of her rank and condition; though the answer these avengers made to their father Jacob, when he reproved them for their cruel perfidy, plainly shews us, that public prostitution was in that simple and [Page 228] early period far from being unknown. ‘Should he deal with our sister (said they) as with an harlot?’ And we are sorry to observe, from the relation of the adventure of Judah, with Tamar, his daughter-in-law, who had personated a harlot, in order to force him to procure her a second husband, that in his days, that profession seems neither to have been uncommon, nor attended with any great degree of in­famy. In periods so exceedingly remote as those we are now delineating, the general conduct of the Hebrew women, with regard to chastity, seems extremely uncertain. We may, however, with great propri­ety lay it down as a rule, that the virtues and vices of the two sexes always keep nearly an equal pace with each other; and as we find the patriarchs themselves no way famous for continence, we can­not reasonably expect that their women were distin­guished by this virtue: a conjecture, which is but too well confirmed by the ancient history of the Jew­ish nation; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, had all of them several concubines as well as wives. David rioted in concubinage, and even in adultery; nor seems to have been checked in either, till he also became a murderer. Solomon set no bounds to his voluptuous appetite; and, from every neighbour­ing nation, selected a numerous train of women; among whom he spent a great part of his time in lewdness and debauchery.

If the women, in the times we are speaking of, were not remarkable for chastity, we have scarcely any better reason to think they were more conspicuous for the sympathetic tenderness of the sex. Sarah, in a cruel manner, turned out the concubine and child of her husband, almost without provision, and in a desert country, where they had both nearly perished of hunger; nor was she instigated by jealousy to the [Page 229] barbarous deed; it was the common custom to have concubines, and she herself had given Hager to her husband. Jael, in cool blood, drove a nail into the temple of Sisera, to whom she had promised protec­tion, and perfidiously slew him as he lay asleep in her tent. Delilah, a Philistine, who was married to Samson, treacherously betrayed the husband of her bosom to her countrymen. But not to draw the character of a people from single instances, it was customary among the nations which surrounded the Israelites, in those times, to offer human victims to their idols; a custom which they also sometimes imitated, when the parents of both sexes attended, while their children passed through the fire to Moloch. These, and several other instances we could give, but too plainly shew that mankind in general were then immersed in rudeness and cruelty, vices from which even the softer sex were not in the least exempt.

The character of some of the other nations, in the remote periods we are now considering, was, perhaps, still less famous for purity of female man­ners than that of the Hebrews. In Egypt, the story of Potiphar's wife presents us with an almost unparalleled instance of female effrontery; but as it would be unjust to stigmatize a whole nation from the impudence and lewdness of one woman, let us look into their history; a history which will but too well convince us that the proofs of female manners being debauched in Egypt, are far from being con­fined to this single instance.

Pheron, successor to Sesostris, the first king of Egypt, having become blind, was told by an oracle, that he should recover if he washed his eyes with the urine of a woman who had never known any [Page 230] man besides her own husband; he began by making trial by that of his own wife, and afterwards of that of many other women, to no purpose, and was at last happily restored to fight by the urine of an obscure woman; upon which he bestowed upon her great rewards, and ordered, that all those who had given him such proof of their incontinence should be put to death. Chemmis, another of their kings, who is said to have erected the largest Egyptian pyra­mid, being at a loss how to procure materials for carrying on so extraordinary a work, at last, con­sidering how much the people were given to debau­chery, ordered his own daughter to become a pros­titute, and to demand that each of her paramours should bring a large stone to be employed in the building carried on by her father; these stones she collected in such numbers, that they were found not only sufficient to finish the great pyramid already begun, but with the remainder she erected a small one to her own memory. Though both these stories carry along with them the most evident marks of fable; yet, as fable was so frequently made use of in the East, to convey instruction or reproof, they might nevertheless be highly characteristic of the manners of the times: but, besides, if we may form any judgment of the character of a nation from its customs and religious ceremonies, which, if we may be allowed the expression, are the truest pictures of its heart, they will teach us to entertain but a low opinion of the decency and decorum of the ancient Egyptian women.

They had a custom in Egypt of going several times every year to celebrate a festival of Diana at Bu­baste; as they commonly went by water, the boats were promiscuously crouded with men and women, and when they passed near any town or village, they [Page 231] stopped, in order to give an opportunity to the wo­men on board to make a kind of trial of skill with those on shore, in the most obscene language and gesticulations; when, at last, after a variety of these indecent skirmishes, they arrived at the place of their destination, they celebrated the festival in honour of their goddess, by rites which would hove dishonoured the vilest of the race of mortality, by drinking, riot­ing, and committing such debaucheries that ancient authors were ashamedfully to describe them. Among other nations we find but too many examples of men endeavouring to debauch their women when living; the Egyptians afford us the only one we meet with, where they sacrilegiously defiled themselves with them when dead. It was a custom in this country, immediately after death, to deliver the body to the embalmers, to be by them prepared for burial; but young women of great beauty were at last, contrary to this custom, obliged to be kept till the symptoms of putrefaction began to appear, lest the embalmers, as had sometimes happened, should abuse their dead bodies.

Notwithstanding this public licentiousness, the laws of Egypt seem not to have been in the fault, but the constitutions of the people appear to have been warm and libidi [...]ous beyond measure; no [...] were the civil laws only well calculated for the preserva­tion of chastity, and securing the weaker sex from every insult upon their honour, but those of religion also conspired to assist them. The Egyptians seem to have been the first among the ancients who paid a proper respect to the temples of their gods; the neighbouring nations polluted them with every species of lust and intemperance; the Egyptians hal­lowing them, ordained that men should religiously abstain from women within their sacred walls, and [Page 232] that ablutions, similar to those instituted by Moses, should be used after the commerce between the sexes.

We have already observed that tenderness for their own offspring is one of the most powerful feel­ings of the female heart; but that, powerful as it is, a variety of causes have often weakened, and sometimes totally obliterated it. To these already taken notice of, we shall now add, that this has in Egypt been done by superstition, in Greece and Rome, by a romantic patriotism; the Egyptian wo­men rejoiced when their children were devoured by their sacred crocodiles; the Greeks and Romans, when they were slain in the wars, undertaken to defend or enlarge their country: would we were able to say, that in modern times maternal tenderness did not often cease to shew itself on account of causes more frivolous and not less culpable. The religious character of the Egyptian women can only be drawn from that of their men; those were superstitious beyond almost a possibility of belief, they worshipped animals of every kind, and even paid an extrava­gant degree of adoration to the vilest of reptiles and insects; and what is not a little extraordinary, the animal that was adored and worshipped in one dis­trict, was frequently held in the utmost abomination in another. As women have been in all countries less apt to examine and reason upon matters, than men, they have ever been more credulous and super­stitious; we may therefore suppose that every whim­sical extravagance in the Egyptian religion had the women in general as its vo [...]ari [...]s.

In no country was there ever such powerful mo­tives devised to oblige people to preserve an untain­ted character as in Egypt; it is well known to our [Page 233] learned readers how much the honours of sepulture were valued among the ancients, and the horrid ideas they annexed to the situation of that soul whose body lay unburied. The Egyptian legislature, avail­ing itself of this universal prejudice, ordained, That no person should obtain burial till a rigorous exami­nation had passed into his conduct when living; for this purpose the corpse was ordered to be carried into an island in the lake Moeris, where the people sat as judges upon it, and decreed, or denied it burial, according as the character came out good or bad. The boatman who was first employed in carrying dead bodies over to this solemn trial, being named Charon, has given origin to the poetical fable of Charon ferrying souls over the Styx, or from this world to the next. From the few scattered hints only which we have remaining of ancient Egypt, we can with little certainty say any more of their cha­racter or conduct; so different are the accounts we meet with concerning them, some affirming that the women did all the business without doors, while the men confined themselves within; others asser­ting, that the men confined all their women from jealousy, and never allowed them the use of shoes, that they might not be able to walk abroad; but these accounts may relate to different periods, or to different districts of the same country.

That modesty and chastity, which we now esteem as the chief ornament of the female character, does not appear in times of remote antiquity to have been much regarded by either sex. At Babylon, the capital of the Assyrian empire, it was so little valued, that a law of the country even obliged every woman once in her life to depart from it. This abominable law, which, it is said, was promulgated by an oracle, ordained, That every woman should once in her life [Page 234] repair to the temple of Venus; that on her arrival there, her head should be crowned with flowers, and in that attire she should wait till some stranger performed with her the rites sacred to the goddess of debauchery.

This temple was constructed with a great many winding galleries appropriated to the reception of the women, and the strangers who, allured by de­bauchery, never failed to assemble there in great numbers, being allowed to chuse any woman they thought proper from among those who came there in obedience to the law. When the stranger accos­ted the object of his choice, he was obliged to present her with some pieces of money, nor was she at liberty to refuse either these, or the request of the stranger who offered them, whatever was the value of the money, or however mean or disagreeable the donor. These preliminaries being settled, they re­tired together to fulfil the law, after which the woman returned and offered the goddess the sacrifice prescribed by custom, and then was at liberty to return home. Nor was this custom entirely confi­ned to the Babylonians; in the island of Cyprus they sent young women at stated times to the sea­shore, where they prostituted themselves as a tribute to Venus, that they might be chaste the rest of their lives. In some other countries, a certain number only were doomed to prostitution, as it is supposed, by way of a bribe, to induce the goddess of debau­chery to save the rest.

When a woman had once entered the temple of Venus, she was not allowed to depart from it till she had fulfilled the law: and it frequently hap­pened that those to whom nature had been less indulgent than to others, remained there a long time before any person offered to perform with [Page 235] them the condition of their release. A custom, we think, sometimes alluded to in scripture, and ex­pressly delineated in the book of Baruch: ‘The women also, with cords about them, sitting in the ways, burn bran for perfume; but, if any of them, drawn by some that passeth by, lie with him, she reproached her fellow that she was not thought as worthy as herself, nor her cord bro­ken.’ Though this infamous law was at first strictly observed by all the women of Babylon, yet it would seem that, in length of time, they grew ashamed of, and in many cases dispensed with it; for we are informed that women of the superior ranks of life, who were nor willing literally to ful­fil the law, were allowed a kind of evasion; they were carried in litters to the gates of the temple, where, having dismissed all their attendants, they entered alone, presented themselves before the statue of the goddess, and returned home. Possibly this was done by the assistance of a bribe, to those who had the care of the temple.

It has been alledged dy some of those authors, who can find nothing in antiquity but virtue and excellence, that the oracle which instituted this law, considering Venus as a goddess who delighted in debauchery, not only meant to satisfy her by this public act of prostitution, but also to induce her to preserve, during the rest of their lives, the innocence of such women as had thus shewn that they were her votaries, by voluntarily dedicating themselves for once to her service; as also to raise in the minds of their women a detestation of unchastity, by the shame they must have suffered in exposing themselves to so public a prostitution. But whatever may be said in its justification, a law of this kind is in its nature indefensible, and, from whatever motive it [Page 236] proceeded, must have been ill calculated to pro­mote virtue and morality; as it is obvious, even almost to the slightest observer, that such is the dis­position of human nature, that the barrier, which separates between vice and virtue, once overleaped, it from that moment loses half its restrictive power, and in a little time becomes no barrier at all. It appears, therefore, that no great degree of credit is due to Herodotus, when he affirms that the Baby­lonish women having once fulfilled the obligation imposed upon them by this law, could never after be prevailed upon to deviate from modesty and vir­tue; nor to Aelian, who says, that the Lydians and inhabitants of the isle of Cyprus, who had similar laws, which these last carried even farther than the Babylonians, obliging every woman to abstain from marriage till she had gained a fortune suitable to her by prostitution, were ever after inflexibly v [...]rtuous.

Such assertions are too gross to be swallowed by an impartial observer of human nature; and, besides, are every where falsified by the conduct of the Baby­lonish women. The sacred writings of the prophets are almost in every page filled with reproaches against them for their lewdness and debauchery; but not to rest the validity of what we have said entirely on that foundation, the same Herodotus, who had told us of the inviolable chastity of the Babylonian women, informs us a little after, that when their city was taken by Cyrus, such was the licentiousness of the place, that fathers, without any scruple pros­tituted their own daughters for hire. And Quintus Curtius not only confirms the same thing, but adds, that even husbands were not ashamed on that occa­sion to deliver their wives to strangers for m [...]ney; actions which are in no respect consonant to the vir­tuous character pretended by some to be derived from [Page 237] the vicious source of public prostitution. Were it necessary to multiply proofs of the licentious charac­ter of the Babylonian women, we could instance the prodigious number of courtezans, which were among them, whose profession did not render them con­temptible in the public opinion, as it always does where virtue and modesty prevail. The drunken­ness of the sex, who used frequently to attend the convivial meetings of the men, where, themselves not less convivial, they often ate, drank, and made merry, till by degrees divesting themselves of all modesty, they sometimes finished the debauch in the original state of mother Eve; nor was this the prac­tice of the meanest of the sex only, nor of the most lewd and abandoned, it was that of women of all ranks and conditions; but we cannot wonder at find­ing a people lewd and abandoned, when the cere­monies of their religion, and the divinities they wor­shipped, taught them the hopeful lesson.

When error and absurdity have the sanction of religion to support them, our own times afford us too many proofs of what mischiefs they may be pro­ductive; and were we not daily convinced of this by experience, we should hardly be able to give credit to what has been now related of the Babylonians. But they were not the only people of antiquity led astray in this manner; there scarcely existed one single religion, in the times we are speaking of, the rites of which were not solemnized either with cru­elty or debauchery, or both; and scarcely was there one god or goddess adored, who was not famous for lust and intrigue; such, in a notorious degree, was Jupiter, the greatest of their deities, such was Vulcan, such was Venus, and such the great Syrian goddess, whose temples were crowded with the vota­ries of lust, who disseminated that vice among the [Page 238] people, greatly to the corruption of the manners of both sexes. But rites of cruelty and debauchery were naturally enough suggested as proper modes of worshipping divinities, who delighted in uncleanness and in blood.

This corruption of manners reigned but too uni­versally among the ancients. The Messagetae, a people of Scythia, being confined to one wife, while the nations around them were indulged with the liberty of polygamy and concubinage; in order to put themselves in some degree on a footing with their neighbours, introduced a kind of community of wives, and a man who had an inclination to the wife of his friend, only carried her into his waggon or hut, and hung up a quiver while she was there, as a sign, that they might not be interrupted. In this manner were decency and the most sacred ties of matrimony publicly violated; but what decency, what regard to the most solemn institutions can we expect in a people who were so rude and barbarous, that when any of their relations became old, they met together, and along with some cattle set apart for the purpose sacrificed them to their gods; then having boiled together the flesh of the human and the more ignoble victims, they devoured it as a most delicious repast? The Lydians were still more de­bauched than the Messagetae. In the reign of Jar­danes, so ungovernable was their lust, that Omphale, the king's only daughter, could scarcely, even within the walls of the royal palace, find shelter from the licentious multitude. Omphale at length succeeding to the throne of her father, punished with the utmost severity such as had formerly abused her; on the women, whom it appears she considered as not less criminal than the men, she revenged her­self in a singular manner; she ordered, that, over [Page] all her kingdom, they should be shut up with their slaves.

The Scythians, whose character is far from being the most abandoned of the ancients, seem not to have much cause to boast of the chastity and fidelity of their women; the greatest part of their men hav­ing on some occasion made an expedition into Asia, were detained there much beyond their expectation, when their wives, either impatient of their long ab­sence, or despairing of their return, took their ser­vants and slaves, and invested them in all the privi­leges of their absent husbands. These, sometime after hearing that their masters were about to return, fortified and intrenched themselves, in order to hin­der them from entering into their own country, and claiming their wives and possessions. The Scythians having advanced to their slaves, several skirmishes were fought between them, with doubtful success, when one of their leaders advised his countrymen not to fight again with their own slaves as with equals, nor to attack them with warlike weapons, which were signs of freedom, but with such whips and scourges as they had formerly been accustomed to make them feel. This advice being put in execu­tion, the whips recalled their ideas of slavery, and all the pusillanimity naturally attending it; they threw down their arms and fled in confusion, many of them were taken and put to death, and not a few of the unfaithful wives destroyed themselves, to avoid the resentment of their injured husbands. Though this story has been by different authors va­ried in several of its circumstances, yet as so many have agreed in relating it, we have not the least doubt of its authenticity, especially as we are assured that the Novogorodians, whose city stands in Sar­matian Scythia, had formerly a coin stamped in me­mory [Page 240] of it, with a man on horseback shaking a whip in his hand; and it is supposed that the ancient custom in Russia, which is now happily forgot, of the bride presenting the bridegroom on the nuptial night with a whip, originated from this story of the Scythian wives.

We have already related the manner in which the Babylonish women were admitted to the riot­ous feastings of the men; a custom which, only with a few more restrictions, took place also in Media and Persia, as appears from the story of Amintas, king of Macedon, already also related; a story which incontestibly proves that, in the times we are considering, the Persian women were of as easy virtue as the men could wish them; but the voluptuous and libidinous character of that court, cannot be better delineated, nor painted in stronger colours, than we find it in the book of Esther, where we have a relation of Ahasuerus, one of their mo­narchs, carrying his refinements in debauchery to such a length as we have no instance of any where else on record.

‘Now when every maiden's turn was come to go in unto king Ahasuerus, after that she had been twelve months, according to the manner of the women, for so were the days of their purification accomplished; viz. six months with oil of myrrh, and six months with sweet odours, and with other things for the purifying of the women.’

‘Then thus came every maiden unto the king; whatsoever she desired was given her to go with her out of the house of the women into the king's house.’

[Page 241] ‘In the evening she went out, and on the mor­row she returned into the second house of the wo­men, to the custody of Shaasgaz, the king's cham­berlain, which kept the concubines; she came unto the king no more, except the king delighted in her, and that she were called by name.’

Such was the expence, and such the refinement necessary to fit women for the arms of the Persian monarch; and such was the perpetual imprisonment and continence to which he condemned the hapless wretches, who, with all this parade of voluptuous­ness were destined for one night only to the hateful pre-eminence of his bed; in short, it was in the court of Persia, where we may properly say, that lawless love reigned triumphant, where mothers mixed in incestuous commerce with their sons, daugh­ters with their fathers, and sisters with their bro­thers. Artaxerxes Memnon, having fallen in love with his own daughter Atossa, and himself enter­taining some scruples, his passion was fomented, and his scruples dissipated by his mother: ‘Are you not, said she, set by the gods over the Persians, as the only rule of what is becoming or unbecom­ing, virtuous or vicious?’ A speech, which strongly indicates that daring spirit of woman, which when urged by any of the more violent passions, has often overleaped every barrier, and borne down every difficulty, from which male nature has shrunk back with trembling and reluctance. Another of the Persian kings, entertaining some scruples on an occasion of a similar nature, convened the magi to give him their opinion: ‘We can find no law, said they, in Persia, to authorise a man to marry his own daughter, but our laws authorise a king to do whatever he pleases.’

[Page 240]In countries where there is, as in Persia, an unli­mited liberty of polygamy and concubinage, jealousy in the fair sex is a passion much weakened by the variety of objects that divide it, and the restraint laid on it by the despotism of the men; we should not therefore expect to find it operating very strongly. But even here, where the king is the severest despot of the country, and women only the tools of his lust, and slaves of his power, we meet with instances of this passion exerting itself in the most cruel manner. Xemes, among many other amours, had conceived a passion for the wife of his brother Masistus, which he prosecuted for a long time by promises and threa­tenings, without any success, when, quite tired of so many fruitless efforts, he at last changed his attack from the mother to her daughter, who, with much less opposition, yielded herself to his wishes.—Amestris, his queen, having discovered the amour, and imagining that the daughter only acted by the direction of her mother, from that moment resolved on the severest revenge. By ancient custom in Per­sia, the queen had a right, on the king's birth-day, to demand of him any favour that she thought pro­per; Amestris asked that the wife of Masistus should be delivered into her hands, whom she had no sooner received than she ordered her breasts, nose, tongue, and lips to be cut off, and thrown to the dogs, and that she should be detained to see her own flesh de­voured by them.

Among a people so abandoned, and so much the slaves of cruelty and lust, a people who made every thing subservient to voluptuousness and debauchery, it is natural to think that modesty among the fair sex could scarcely have any existence.—This, how­ever, was not universally the case; a few women, even in Persia, were far from being destitut [...] of that [...] [Page 243] modesty and sensibility which are the ornament of their sex, and the delight of ours. Atossa, the daughter of Cyrus, and the wife of Darius, being attacked with a cancer in her breast, and thinking it inconsistent with the modesty of her sex to discover the diseased part, suffered in silence till the pain became intolerable, when, after many struggles in her own mind, she at last prevailed on herself to shew it to Democedes, her physician. We might mention more particular instances of the modesty of the Persian women, but we pass over them, to take notice of an anecdote of a lady in a neighbouring kingdom, which shews, that, in the times under review, there were some women susceptible of sen­timent and feeling; things which are not frequently met with in the East. Tygranes and his new-mar­ried wife being taken prisoners by Cyrus, Tygranes offered a great ransom for her liberty; Cyrus generously released them both without any reward; as soon as they were alone, the happy couple, natu­rally falling into a discourse concerning their bene­factor; What do you think, said Tygranes, of his aspect and deportment? I did not observe either, answered the lady. Upon what then did you fix your eyes, said Tygranes? Upon the man, returned she, who generously offered so great a ransom for my liberty [...]

So little was modesty and chastity cultivated among the ancients, that many nations seem to have had no idea of either. The Ausi, a people of Lybia, cohabited so promiscuously with their women, that the whole of the children of the state were consi­dered as a community till they were able to walk alone, when, being brought by their mothers into a public assembly of the people, the man to whom a child first spoke was obliged to acknowledge himself [Page 244] its father. The wives of the Bactrians were, through a long series of years, famed for licentious­ness; and custom had given such a sanction to their crimes, that the husbands had not only lost all power of restraining them, but even durst hardly venture to complain of their infidelity. In Cyprus, an island sacred to Venus, the very rites of their religion were all mingled with debauchery and prosti­tution. And the Lydians, and many other nations, publicly prostituted their daughters, and other fe­male relations, for hire. But to multiply instances of the depravity of ancient manners would be end­less; mankind, even when bridled by the strongest penal laws, and restricted in their passions by the sacred voice of religion, are but too often, in the pursuit of unlawful pleasures, apt to disregard both; what then must they have been before society, before laws existed, and when religion lent its sanc­tion to encourage the vices and deprave the heart? In those times we have the greatest reason to believe that debauchery reigned with but little controul over two-thirds of the habitable globe.

CHAPTER XI. The same Subject continued.

AS the history of the nations we have hitherto been considering is so enveloped in those clouds of darkness which obscure antiquity, we shall leave it, to make some observations on the character and conduct of the women of Greece.

Of this so much distinguished, so much admired people, who, for many ages, shone so illustrious in arts and arms, and whose panegyric has been sounded so loud in ancient and in modern history: we sincerely wish that a regard for truth did not oblige us to give so indifferent a character. But when we have said that they shone in arts and arms, we have completed their eulogium. When we consider them as patriots, they appear distinguishable; when we consider them as men, and as citizens of the world, they almost ex­cite our horror. Other nations made laws to m [...]e nature better, and to enforce humanity. Th [...]se of some of the Grecian states were calculated to [...] nature and humanity from the human heart. In short, [...] whatever view we contemplate this [...] we find them remarkable only for an unnatur [...]l austerity of manners, for the mo [...] inflexible sev [...]rity, and a life hardly softened by one agreeable shade in the whole picture.

The character we have hither [...]o drawn of the fair sex is calculated to excite but f [...]w of these pleasing emotions; we would wish to war [...] our bosoms when­ever [Page 246] we contemplate objects so dear to us, but we write the history of Women, not their panegyric; truth, therefore, still obliges us to exhibit to view characters hardly more amiable or engaging than those we have already drawn.

In a preceding chapter we have observed that, during the whole of what are called the heroic ages, the history of Greece is nothing but a compound of the most absurd fable; from that fable it however appears, that their gods an [...] men employed much of their time and ing [...]nuity in seducing, stealing, and forcibly debauching their young women, circum­st [...]nces which naturally suggest an idea that those [...]omen who could not be obtained by any other means must have been virtuous; nor indeed does it appear that they were then much less so than in those succeeding periods, when the Greeks flourished in all their splendour, and were reckoned a highly polished people; nay, they were perhaps, more so, for infant coloni [...]s and kingdoms commonly display [...]ore virtu [...] than th [...]e already arrived at maturity; the re [...]on is plain, the first have not yet attained ri [...]es, the sources of idleness and debauchery, the [...]ast have attained them, and are corrupted. But the Greeks, even in the infancy [...] thei [...] existence as a people, seem to have [...]een remarkably vicious, for w [...] hardly meet with any thin [...] in their early history but murd [...]r, [...]pes, and usurpa [...]ions; witness the [...] of the kingdom of Mycene, of Pelops, and his descendants. The rapes of Io, Proserpine, Hel [...]a, &c. all of which stain the character of their gods [...]d men with the foulest infamy; and as it ha [...] never happened in any nation that the one sex has [...]en ex [...]dingly vicious, and the other not par­ [...]icip [...]ted of its crim [...]s, we may conclude that the Greek women were, in the heroic ages, far fro [...] [Page 247] being famous for any of the moral virtues. The greatest part of the Grecian princes who assembled at the siege of Troy, were guilty of many of the most enormous crimes, while their wives, not less flagitious, murdered almost the whole of them after their return; a thing nearly incredible, when we consider that in those times custom had condemned the wife who had lost a husband to perpetual widow­hood; but even custom, though often more regarded than all the laws of heaven and earth, must in time yield to a general corruption of manners.

But to proceed to times of which we are better informed. The women of other nations were inde­cent through the strength of their ungovernable pas­sions; some of the Greek women were obliged to be indecent by law. In Sparta, what virtue, what deco­rum can we expect, when even the strongest tempta­tions to vice had the public sanction of the legis­lature? In the heroic ages, while ignorance and brutality of manners prevailed, we are not much sur­prised to find the women conducting the men to the baths, undressing them, and attending to dress and rub them when they came out; but in Sparta, famed for its salutary laws, and when Greece was in its most polished condition, we are amazed to find that both sexes resorted to, and bathed together in the public baths. And this amazement is still height­ened, when we are assured that here also plays were acted by order of the legislator, where young people of both sexes were obliged to fight, and to dance naked on the stage, that the m [...]n, according to his ideas, might be thereby ex [...]ited to matrimo [...]y. What were the consequences or the inde [...]ncie [...] we have now mentioned? The intent [...] o [...] Lyc [...]gus if he really had any such intenti [...] [...] but [...]ittl [...] at­tended to, and it is agreed [...] [Page 248] sexes went to those plays only for the sake of debau­chery; and further, that, disgusted by this shameless exposure, the men paid less regard to the women, and the women became less virtuous, and at last grew dissolute to such a degree as to be thereby distin­guished from all the other women of Greece. Euri­pides, and some others of the Greek authors, bestow upon them epithets which decency will not allow us to translate, nor were these epithets the overflowings of the gall of satyric poets and violent declaimers only, but the cool and considerate reflections of the impartial historian; but we would not be understood as altogether confining dissoluteness and debauchery to the women of Sparta, those of many of the other states were little inferior to them. In Thracia and Boeotia they every third year held a festival in me­mory of the expedition of Bacchus into India, at which both married women and virgins, with jave­lins in their hands and dishevelled hair, ran about like furies bellowing the praises of the god, and com­mitting every disorder suggested by madness and folly.

Wherever public prostitution becomes so fashion­able that it is attended with no disgrace in the opinion of the male, and with exceedingly little in that of the female sex, there, we may assure our­selves, the morals of the women are highly contami­nated; a circumstance of which Athens afforded the most glaring proof. In that city courtezans were not only kept in a public manner by most of the young men of fashion, but greatly countenanced, and even publicly visited by Solon their lawgiver, who applauded such young men as were found in the stews, because their going to these places ren­dered them less apt to attempt the virtue of modest women. But Athenian courtezans were not only [Page 249] visited by their great lawgiver, but also by the cele­brated Socrates, and most of their other philoso­phers, who, not content with going frequently to see them themselves, even sometimes carried their wives and daughters along with them; a circum­stance of which we do not recollect to have heard in any other country, and which could not but tend to give these wives a mean opinion of virtue, when they saw the preference that was given to vice; and when such of their own sex as thus publicly deviated from the paths of chastity were so openly esteemed and regarded, it was natural for those of a different character to pay the less regard to that chastity, the practising of which gained them no superior privi­lege nor advantage.

The whole history of ancient Greece presents us with courtezans enjoying uncommon reputation and honour; to account for this, we must lay it down as a fundamental principle, that our sex has a natural inclination to the company and conversation of the other. Now, in Greece, modest women were all so strictly confined, that none were allowed to see or converse with them but their nearest relations; and from this confinement it naturally followed, that they were uncultivated, and ignorant of learn­ing, and of almost every thing that was transacting in the world; they were, therefore, but ill quali­fied to entertain or amuse the men with their conver­sation. The Grecians had a natural taste for the beautiful, a taste which was greatly improved by their statuaries and painters; but the beauties of their modest women were rendered invisible by veils, and unengaging by aukwardness. The very reverse was the case with the courtezans, they im­proved their charms by every art, shewed them unveiled in every public place, and all had access to [Page 250] their company and to their houses. Not ignorant of the disadvantages that other women laboured under, they availed themselves of, and improved, their own more happy situation; they dedicated a great part of their time to the arts and sciences, to the knowledge of public affairs, to speaking with elegance and pro­priety, and above all to the arts of pleasing, which, whenever properly managed by women of beauty, have an ascendancy over us that they them­selves seem but half acquainted with. Hence it is not difficult to see how the Grecian prostitutes crept into such consequence; they had art and nature on their side, and modest women being all imprisoned, they had no rivals to contend with.

The present inhabitants of Geece seem to have pretty nearly copied the pattern of antiquity; un­chastity, with them, and even the trade of prosti­tution, are considered but as very trifling affairs, which any woman may be guilty of without losing her character. A Greek girl will agree with a Frank for any limited time he pleases: the Subasci will as easily grant them a licence to live together for that time; and should any one be caught with her, during the continuance of it, they would both be fined, and exhibited through the nearest city, mounted together on an ass. At Venice, the cour­tezans of the present time seem nearly on a footing with those of ancient Greece. By the strongest sumptuary laws, the Venetian nobility are restrained from spending their money almost on any thing but their mistresses: and while the modest women feel their inclinations curbed in almost every article of luxury and expence by these laws, the courtezans, either above or below their notice, evade them altogether.

[Page 251]As the female form is of a softer and more delicate nature than that of the male, so their minds are generally more finely attuned to the gentler feelings of tenderness and humanity; but the Grecian wo­men, either by nature, or more probably by custom, were in this respect miserably [...]eficient. At an annual festival, celebrated in honour of Diana, all the children of Sparta were whipt till the blood ran down on the altar of the goddess. Under this cruel ceremony, which was inflicted, as they pretended, to accustom them to bear pain without murmuring, some, almost every year, expired. The inhuman barbarity was performed in the presence of the whole city; the fathers, and what our female readers will hardly credit, even the mothers, beholding their children bathed in blood, and ready to expire with pain, stood exhorting them to suffer the number of lashes assigned them, without a groan or a com­plaint. It may be alleged here, that women being spectators and encouragers of a cruel ceremony, is no proof of their want of proper feelings, but only an instance of the power of custom. A doctrine to which we cannot altogether assent, being persuaded, that there are many of the fair-sex, of a composition so humane and tender, that even custom could not reconcile them to barbarity; but allowing it to have that power, what folly were the men guilty of in instituting such a ceremony? they were robbing the women of every thing valuable in the female mind, and labouring to make them what they were not intended to be by nature.

But this inhuman custom was not the only proof that the Greek women were divested of that female tenderness which we so much admire in the sex. There was in Greece a custom, if possible, still more barbarous; as soon as a boy was born at Sparta, he [Page 252] was visited by a deputation of the elders of each tribe; if he appeared to be of a weakly constitution, and not [...]kely to become a stout and healthful mem­ber of their state, they judged him not to be worth the trouble of rearing; and therefore ordered him to be thrown into a quagmire, at the bottom of the Mountain Taygeta. This was valuing human be­ings, exactly as we would do an ox or an ass; and entirely setting aside all the moral turpitude of mur­der. It was only, however, practised at Sparta; and we should have hoped, that, even there, it was contrary to the inclination, and without the consent of the women; were we not assured by a variety of authors that the Spartan dames, in every cir [...]um­stance, almost entirely governed their husbands. To the barbarous customs, now mentioned, we shall add only one more. To so weak and expiring a state was the paternal instinct of nature reduced among the Greeks, that they frequently, as we have already related, exposed such children as they were not able, or did not chuse, to maintain.^* A bar­barity, which, more or less, prevailed in all the Gre­cian states; except at Thebes, a city, where, to the immortal honour of the inhabitants, it was so much abhorred, that, by their laws, it was capitally pun­ished. We shall finish this subject, by observing, that the Spartan matrons received the news of their sons having been slain in battle, not only without any signs of grief, but even with an appearance of extravagant joy and satisfaction, which they took the most early opportunity of shewing in public. Those same women, however, who pretended to have imbibed so much heroism, that they were [Page 253] strangers to every fear, but such as arose on account of their country, when they saw Epaminondas, after the battle of Leuctra, marching his victorious army towards Sparta, testified by their behaviour, that they were subject to fears of another nature; and that all their joys and sorrows arose not solely from the prosperity or adversity of their country. They ran up and down the streets in terror and des­pair, filling the air with shrieks, and transfusing their own timidity into the men, caused more dis­order than the approach of the victorious army.

When we come to the history of the matrimonial compact, we shall see how the Grecian women behaved to their husbands; and shall at present sum up the rest of their character, by observing, that at Athens, even drunkenness seems to have been among the number of their vices; as is evident by a law of Solon, in which it is enacted, that no woman shall be attended by more than one servant when she goes abroad, unless when she is drunk. It would seem that the Athenian women also made use of the darkness of the night to screen them in their in­trigues; for another law of Solon ordains, that no woman shall walk abroad at night, unless she inte [...] to play the whore; and from several other ordinances of this legislator, it plainly appears, that to keep women within the bounds of that decorum proper to their sex, was a matter of no small difficulty; for, to the laws we have just now mentioned, he was obli­ged to add others, which shew that the sex were only to be governed by coercive measures. He or­dained, that no woman should go out of the city with more provisions than could be purchased for an obolus, nor with a basket higher than a cubit; and if a woman went abroad at night, she was to be car­ried in a waggon, preceded by a flambeau: from all [Page 254] which it seems evident, that the design of Solon was to make the Athenian women decent and virtuous. If Lycurgus had the same intention in the laws that he gave the Lacedemonians, we cannot help think­ing that he had but ill studied human nature; for as a learned author of the present age has observed, though nakedness of both sexes is no incentive to lust, and though the inhabitants of countries where no cloths are used, are not on this account less virtu­ous than their neighbours, where they are used, yet there may be modes of clothing which more pow­erfully excite the passions, than the most absolute nakedness. Of this kind, in our opinion, was the dress of Sparta. We shall have occasion afterward to describe it, and at present shall only observe, that it has been exclaimed against by a variety of the writers of antiquity.

Though such is the general character of the Greeks, we have happily no instance of a corrup­tion of manners having spread itself over a whole nation, in such a manner as to leave nobody free from the contagion. In the midst of licentiousness and barbarity, at least in those periods, that were subsequent to the siege of Troy, the Grecian women afford us several instances of chastity, conjugal fide­lity, and maternal affection. In the heroic ages, or those periods when their states were in infancy, they appear to have been abandoned almost to every spe­cies of wickedness; but when we turn to the Ro­mans, we find the case quite otherwise. In the ear­lier periods of the Roman republic, before the wealth poured in from innumerable conquests, had introduced luxury and dissipation, no women were more famous for their virtues, none more infamous afterward for their vices. The whole history of Rome, for several ages after its foundation, bears [Page 255] testimony to the tenderness, frugality, and chastity of her women. Of this nothing can be a stronger proof, than the long period that intervened between the foundation of the republic and the first divorce; a period of five hundred and twenty years, though the men had a power of divorcing their wives almost at pleasure. To this proof we could add a great variety of others, but shall only mention the story of the rape of Lucretia, which in the strongest manner demonstrates the value which the Roman women set upon the most unspotted chastity. Lucretia, being violated in secret, could not have found the smallest difficulty in concealing what had happened; and be­sides, should it have been discovered, the fraud and force made use of against her were sufficient to have quieted her conscience, and exculpated her to her husband and the public from every imputation of criminality: yet, so exalted were her ideas of chas­tity, that she was resolved not to give back to the arms of her husband, a body even involuntarily pol­luted, nor to survive the guiltless stain which her honour had suffered; but calling together her friends in the presence of her husband, she revealed to them the secret of the rape that had been committed upon her; and while conjuring them to revenge her in­jured name, she stabbed herself in the breast with a dagger she had concealed under her garments for that purpose.

The care taken by women to preserve their chas­tity will always be in proportion to the value set upon it by the men. When the women find that the men pay but little regard to this virtue, that they are as much caressed, and have as good a chance for a husband after they trespassed the rules of it as before; the strongest obligation laid upon them to preserve it, is then taken off. In the earlier periods [Page 256] of the Roman republic, this seems to have been the cause of such inviolable chastity: the men had the highest regard for it; they not only avoided any thing inconsistent with purity of manners, any thing that could give offence to modsty, in their serious hours; but even in their gay and sportive humours, when the watch is apt to slip aside from the door of the lips, never transgressed the bounds of decency, nor indulged in frolic and dalliance, even with their own wives, before a third person: they slighted and despised the woman who had voluntarily yielded herself to an unlawful embrace; nor did any thing hurt their honour so much, as to have a wife or a daughter violated; and methods of the most extraor­dinary nature were often taken to prevent or revenge such insults.

Husbands and fathers, valuing chastity more than life, several times killed their wives and daughters, when they had no other means of preventing them from being ravished; and women themselves, fired by this example, not unfrequently sacrificed their lives to preserve their honour. Virgineus, when he had tried every possible method to save his hapless and beloved daughter Virginea from the tyrant Claudius, who, under pretence of claiming her for his slave, wanted only to have her in his own power, that he might debauch her; having obtained leave to speak to her before she should be delivered to the tyrant by the judgment of the court, took her in his arms, and wiping the tears from her eyes, drew near to some butchers' shops, which stood in the Forum, where causes were publicly tried, and where Virginea had just been adjudged the property of Claudius. There, snatching up a knife, and turning to his daughter, ‘My dear child, (said he) this is the only way left to save thy liberty and thy [Page 257] honour. Go, Virginea! go to thy ancestors whilst thou art yet free and undefiled!’ Thus saying, he plunged the fatal knife into her breast; and such was the regard of the Romans to chastity, that almost the whole of the people rose in arms, to revenge the injured father, and the murdered daughter.

Could any thing more forcibly demonstrate the manner in which the Romans exerted themselves to preserve the delicacy, as well as the honour of their women, it would be the following circumstances:—Manlius, a patrician and Senator of Rome, having inadvertently saluted his wife in the presence of his daughter, and being by the Censors accused of an indecency; the Senate, after solemnly considering the matter, struck him off the list of their order. Julius Caesar, having heard some indecent reports of his wife, immediately divorced her, without en­quiring whether she was guilty or innocent; and being asked the reason of so severe a treatment, ‘I would not (answered he) have the wife of Caesar even suspected.’ When several of the vestal vir­gins had been at one time corrupted, the Romans reared a temple to Venus Verticordia, or the turner of hearts; and worshipped her with such ceremo­nies, as they imagined would incline her to turn the hearts of the Roman women to that chastity which they were in danger of forsaking. When such were the private, such the public instances of the regard shewn to chastity by the men; when the women for­feited every thing that was dear and interesting to their sex; if they deviated from it, can we wonder, that the Roman ladies, while this was the case, were remarkable beyond any thing that history has handed down to us, for this most exalted of female virtues?

[Page 258]Such was the state of chastity in Rome, till the Romans extended their conquests into Asia; and returning, brought along with them the amazing wealth, as well as voluptuous manners, of the nations they had plundered; when all the boasted patriotism of the one sex began to give way to the most shameful venalty, and all the chastity of the other, to the force of the fashionable vices just intro­duced among them. This venalty of the men was whetted by the now luxurious manner of living, and extravagant taste for pageantry and show, and gratified by getting into offices of the state, and plundering the provinces, or selling the interests of their country. Women too, not less fond of being publicly conspicuous, had no other method of acquir­ing money to become so, than prostitution. Such an innovation of manners altogether overturned every sober plan of frugal oeconomy, and turned the ideas of both sexes entirely upon riches, and the parade of the public shews and diversions, which these enabled them to give and to attend. This im­moderate desire of shews brought a low and shame­less freedom into fashion, and women contended with each other, who should bribe highest to obtain the favours of a player. Debauchery reduced fertility; but as fertility was not their wish, they learned to procure abortions, that their pleasures might suffer the less interruption; at last, jaded even with these pleasures, which they had tried the most unnatural means to vary, their lewdness become too powerful to be restrained by law, and bore down every obsta­cle that opposed its course. The men, tinged with the licentious manners of Asia, and contaminated with every crime, now paid nearly the same respect to her who had forfeited her title to chastity, as to her who had not. Hence lewdness and debauchery, neither afraid of shame nor of punishment, became [Page 259] fashionable among every rank and condition of wo­men, while chastity was considered only as an anti­quated virtue.

Courts are but too frequently the seminaries of vice. This was evidently the case at Rome. The em­presses generally took the lead in lawless indulgence: the example of the great is commonly followed by the little: from the court, a scene of the most shameless libertinism, hardly to be paralleled in his­tory, disseminated itself all over Rome. Women danced naked on the stage, bathed promiscuously with the men, and, with more than masculine effrontery, committed every sort of irregularity. By the unbounded licence thus given to unlawful plea­sures, matrimony became unfashionable, and was considered as a confinement and a burden, not con­sistent with Roman freedom and independence. To these ideas also the conduct of the married women did not a little contribute, and raised in the husbands such a disgust at marriage, that even Metellus the Censor, who ought to have been the protector of that institution, made the following speech to the people against it: ‘If it were possible for us to do without wives, we should deliver ourselves from this evil; but as nature has ordained, that we can­not live very happily with them, nor without them, we ought to have more regard to our own preservation, than to transient gratifications.’ Rome is the only place that ever furnished an instance of a general conspiracy among the married women to poison their husbands.

A variety of laws were from time to time devised by the Romans to stop the progress of public prosti­tution. Among others it was ordained, that all courte­zans should take out a licence from the court of the [Page 260] Aediles; which they should renew once every year, and without which they should not be allowed to carry on their trade; that their names, and the price of their favours, should be wrote upon the doors of their houses. These, one would have ima­gined, were such conditions as no women who had the least remaining spark of sensibility would have agreed to. But the torrent of vice was not to be stopped so easily: women, who were wives and daughters to Roman knights, were not ashamed to apply for such licences; and the infection was even reaching higher. Vistilla, a lady of a Praetorian family, with an unparalleled effrontery appeared in public court before the Aediles, and declaring her­self a prostitute, demanded a licence to enable her to exercise her trade. Debauched as the Romans then were, under a prince so dissolute as Tiberius, their fears were alarmed; and the senate enacted several laws to restrain at least women of rank from degrading themselves and families by a conduct so infamous: they ordained, no women whose father, grandfather, or husband, was a Roman knight, or of any higher quality, should be allowed to take upon her the trade of prostitution. The debau­chery of the women was also the occasion of the Voconian law, which we have already mentioned; but when corruption had interwoven itself so dexter­ously into the manners and customs of the Romans, laws became too feeble to bring on a reformation. The emperor Titus prohibited all public stews: the prohibition was but little regarded. When Severus mounted the throne, he found on the roll of causes to be tried, no less than three thousand prosecutions for adultery: he had formed a scheme of reformation; from that moment he abandoned it as impossible.

[Page 261]But it was not the manners and customs of the Romans only, that were tinged with debauchery: that vice at last insinuated itself into their religious ceremonies also. Fond of imitating the Greeks, the Bacchanalian mysteries, which they celebrated, were at length introduced into Rome, and filled the city with a scene of horror and prosligacy, as appears from Livy, hardly equalled in the annals of any country. ‘An obscure Greek (says he) came from Etruria, but brought with him none of those arts which that most accomplished people have introduced, to improve our minds and persons; a little paltry priest and fortune-teller, not one that shocked the minds of the people, by publicly pro­fessing to make a gain and a trade of some religious ceremonies which he openly taught, but he was the minister of secret rites; he had his mysteries, in which but few were at first initiated, but which were afterwards communicated to men as well as women, without distinction or restraint. To these rites an entertainment of [...] finest wines and most exquisite dainties was ad [...], to entice the greater numbers to become members of the society.’

‘When drinking had deprived them of their sen­ses, and when the night, with the mixed company of young and old, and of men and women, had put an end to all modesty, every sort of vice began at once to be practised, as every one found the means of those lusts at hand, to which he was by nature most addicted. Nor were these crimes confined to one species only, the promiscuous debauchery of men and women of rank and family; but from thence issued false witnesses, false seals, false oaths, and false deeds; and even poisons, and assassinations, so secret, that they could not some­times find the bodies to bury them. Many crimes [Page 262] were perpetrated by fraud, many by force, which no person knew of: for amid such a scene of de­bauchery and slaughter, attended with the howling of the people, and the noise of the trumpets and cymbals, it was impossible to hear the cries of those who were calling for assistance. At first, the extent of the city, and a willingness to endure an evil of this sort, made it pass unnoticed; but Posthumus the Consul was at last informed of it.’

‘At first their chapel was appropriated to women only, no man being on any account admitted into it: there were three days set apart in each year for initiation into the Bachanalian mysteries; and the women, in their turn, were usually created priest­esses. Paculla Minia Campana altered every thing, as if directed by the gods so to do: she first initiated men, Menius and Herennius, her own sons; and instead of confining the time of initiation to three days in the year, she extended it to five times every month, and fixed the time in the night. By this means the sacred rites became common, the men and women made but one company, and the darkness increased their licentiousness: no wick­edness, no abomination, was left unpractised. If there was any one who resented their insults, or came behind them in wickedness, he was sacrificed as a victim; nor did they blush to glory in this as the height of their religion.’

‘The men prophesied with fanatical tossing of their bodies, as if they were possessed; and the women, with their hair dishevelled, and dressed after the manner of Bacchanals, ran to the Tyber with burn­ing torches, which they plunged into the water, and drew out still in a flame. Whoever refused [Page 263] to join with them, or partake of their guilt, or submit to their indecencies, they bound on a ma­chine, and hurried out of sight to some unfre­quented wood, pretending that the gods had taken him. There were among them many of the first quality of both sexes; and after two years they made a rule, that no person should be initiated who was more than twenty years of age; judging, that such were most likely to be seduced to their errors, and submit to their debaucheries.’

To all these instances of the flagitious character of Roman women, we may add, that they appear to have been the first who practised the trade of prosti­tution in their own country; it seems to have been a custom from the earliest antiquity, that the prosti­tutes of every nation, were women who resorted to them from other nations, and were called strangers; hence a strange woman, and an harlot, generally sig­nify the same thing in scripture; and hence the re­peated injunctions which Solomon laid upon his son, not to give his strength to strange women. This custom of women betaking themselves to another country when they became prostitutes, we have reason to believe, was universal among the ancients; whether it was, that every people, willing to have it believed that their own women were more virtu­ous than those of their neighbours, would not suffer them to prostitute themselves at home; or whether such women as took upon them this shameful trade, were instigated by some little remains of modesty, to leave their own country and practise it among stran­gers; we shall not take upon us to determine: but we are assured, that the Greeks, however debauch­ed and licentious, commonly adhered to this custom, while the Romans, who broke through every re­straint, paid no regard to it.

[Page 264]But lewdness and debauchery were not the only vices of the Roman women; through the whole of their existence as a nation, the Romans were re­markable for their cruelty. Several of their laws, as that which gave to fathers a power of life and death over their children, and to husbands a power hardly less extensive over their wives, are a proof of this: but it appears in a still stronger light, when we con­sider the barbarous treatment of the slaves, by whips and tortures; and the deluges of blood which were shed almost by every usurper of the empire, some­times from suspicion, oftener perhaps from mere wantonness and barbarity of nature, the spectacles of wild beasts, tearing criminals and captives to pieces, and gladiators hacking one another down for the amusement of the public; and last of all, their be­haviour towards those unhappy nations who were conquered by their arms. Nor was Roman cruelty only a male vice, the softer sex were far from being proof against the contagion. In the 220th year of Rome, Tullia, the daughter of Severus, then king of the Romans, having, with her husband Tarqui [...], conspired to assassinate her father, and place them­selves on the throne in his stead; the order for the atrocious deed being given in a tumult of the people, the infamous Tullia, mounted her chariot with an air of triumph to return to her house; in the street through which she was drove, the murderers had just left the king's body bleeding and hardly breath­less; the dismal spectacle struck the charioteer with horror, he checked his horses, and petrified with amazement, could not proceed! Why do not you go on, cries Tullia, what stops you? Alas! said he, turning about to her as he spoke, That is the body of the king, your father! At these words, snatch­ing up a stool that was in the chariot, and throwing it at his head, Go on, cried she, and do not be afraid [Page 265] of driving over a dead body. The driver obeyed, and the blood of the father is said to have stained the chariot and the cloathes of the inhuman daugh­ter. Antony having ordered Cicero to be beheaded, and the head to be brought to him, when it arrived, his wife, Fulvia, laid hold of it, struck it on the face, uttered many bitter execrations, and placing it between her knees, drew out the tongue, and pierced it with a bodkin. To these we might easily add many more instances of the cruelty of the Roman women, but we drop a subject so disagree­able.

After the Romans became acquainted with Asia, in whatever light we view their women, they scarcely exhibit any amiable qualities, except some imperfect relics of their ancient patriotism, a virtue, which unless exercised with the greatest moderation, scarcely ever adorns the female character. As wives, we have seen that the Roman matrons were frequently unchaste; as mothers, not less frequently careless and unnatural, luxurious and extravagant beyond measure; at last, they became almost entirely the creatures of ambition, and of pleasure; even reli­gion, which almost in every age and country, seems to have been more devoutly cultivated by the women than the men, does not appear at Rome to have had any superior power over the female heart; their women attended at processions, when any public calamity was to be averted, and were sometimes made priestesses of certain temples; but we read of few peculiar acts of their piety, and of few sacrifices which they offered to propitiate the gods of their country.

[Page 266]Such is the general character of the Roman women; were we to descend to more particulars, we might give instances almost without end of their depravity, and not a few of their virtue. Before the Republic was contaminated with the riches, which from every quarter of he plundered globe flowed to Rome, they were in general the best of wives, of mothers, and of citizens; having by their mediation, advice, and money, several times saved the sinking state; and it is with pleasure we remark, that even amid the general depravity we have been delineating, there still appeared many amiable and virtuous characters, who bravely stemmed the tide of popular corruption, and in ages overrun with every vice, stood forth the advocates of virtue, of maternal tenderness, and of conjugal fidelity; preserving their children and husbands, from falling victims to the horrid proscriptions of Octavius, Antony, Lepidus, Nero, and many others, who, with a barbarity which can hardly be equalled in history, caused to be murdered in cool blood one half of the nobility of Rome.

CHAPTER XII. The same Subject continued.

LEAVING the Romans, and proceeding in our enquiry, we again descend into the regions of historical obscurity, where we are presented with a group of nations and people, now hardly distinguish­able from each other, and of many of whom, we scarcely know any thing but the names. Of such people it would be vain, as well as ridiculous, to attempt a minute and circumstantial character; we shall, therefore, content ourselves with sketching the outlines of it among that group of northern nations, which we have no authentic accounts to enable us to delineate more distinctly.

Though in a state of the utmost uncultivation of manners, and attached to religions which inculcated but few of the precepts of morality; and in many cases directly contradicted them; the women of the ancient northern nations were not destitute of virtue and of excellence; early in life, they learned that modesty which adorned their character; and that industry which often maintained themselves and their husbands, when these failed to procure subsistence by their hunting, or their depredations: educated by chaste mothers, and fortified in female virtue by every example around them, chastity became almost an innate principle in their minds, and daily ac­quired strength by the contempt which was thrown by the men upon those who disregarded it; a con­tempt so great, that no woman could violate her chas­tity, [Page 268] without precipitating herself into the most dis­mal certainty of perpetual celibacy, as none could in this case entertain even a distant hope of pardon, or of a husband, who was not, as in modern times, to be obtained by riches, nor the alliance of the great, but only by personal attractions, most strictly attached to unspotted personal virtue.

Tacitus draws a beautiful picture of ancient Ger­man simplicity and chastity, in the following words. ‘A strict regard for the matrimonial state charac­terises the Germans, and deserves our highest applause. Among them female virtue runs no hazard of being debauched by the outward objects of the senses, or of being corrupted by such social gaieties as inflame the passions; chastity once for­feited is never forgiven; vice is not made the ob­ject of mirth and raillery, nor is fashion pleaded as an excuse for being corrupt, or for corupting others; good customs and manners avail more among these barbarous people, than good laws among such as are more refined.’ We are apt to place the greatest purity of manners in particular states of cultivation and refinement; experience, however, shews us that we are often in the wrong. From this account of Tacitus, the ancient Germans appear to have exceeded in some points of morality, the most polished and instructed nations of Europe; nor were the Goths behind them, they deemed purity of manners their distinguishing characteristic, and therefore they said, ‘Though we punish forni­cation in our own countrymen, we pardon it in the Romans, as they are by nature and education weak, and incapable of reaching to our sublimity of virtue.’

[Page 269]By an ancient law of Iceland, any one who kissed a woman against her inclination, was condemned to exile; and even he who obtained her consent, sub­jected himself thereby to a fine of three marks of sil­ver. We have in a former chapter taken notice of some laws of this nature among the northern nations, and shall here add, that they were in general so soli­citous of the honour of their women, and took such care that no indecency should be offered to them, that their laws in most places prescribed the manner in which the two sexes should behave to each other. The Goths prohibited even a surgeon from bleeding a free woman, unless in the presence of her father, mother, brother, son, or some other near relation; and fixed a fine upon a man who presumed to touch a woman against her will, according to her quality, and the part of her body he touched. In other places, a fine was also imposed on him who kissed a woman, except in sporting, at convivial meetings, or on returning from a long journey. These, and many other laws of the same nature, among the inhabitants of the north, not only stood as so many centinels on the threshold of virtue, but by rendering all access to the fair sex so exceedingly difficult, and even dangerous, taught men to look up to them as a kind of superior beings, and stamped upon them a value which arose nearly to adoration; a value, which they never can attain to, where modern free­dom and gallantry make the access to them so easy; and, where their own vanity prompts them to appear constantly in every public place, and cheapen them­selves by a visible fondness to be disposed of. There is not perhaps in nature a more general law, than that which induces us to value every thing in propor­tion to the pains and labour it has cost us. The wo­men of the nations we are considering, naturally chaste, proud, and difficult of access, both by custom [Page 270] and by law, were not to be gained by every slight attack, nor did they yield to every pretended admi­rer: nothing but a lover's rendering himself worthy of his mistress by valour, and every other acquisition then in estimation, could make her propitious to his wishes; hence he seldom got possession of the object of his heart, but after a long train of labours and difficulties; and the value he had for her, was mea­sured by the retrospective view of all that he had gone through on her account. But a further discus­sion of this subject will fall more naturally under the head of courtship.

An historian endeavouring to delineate the charac­ters of people so little known, as many of those we have already mentioned, as well as those we are now considering, may be compared to an antiqua­rian, solicitous about discovering the real size of our ancestors, in the times when they were said to be gigantic; but not being able any where to find an entire statue, or skeleton, can only find the foot or hand of a statue, or the bone of an arm or leg of a skeleton; when calculating that such parts of a regu­larly formed body, bear such proportions to the whole, he can discover with a tolerable degree of precision what the size of the whole was. In like manner, though the historian has only broken and interrupted sketches of the character of a people, he may, by carefully comparing them together, and tracing the relations they bear to the virtues and vices that make up the whole of a human character, be able to form a tolerable conjecture concerning the people to whom they belong. Thus from every anecdote handed down to us of the women of the north, we may delineate them to have been chaste, frugal, industrious, and possessed of some little share of knowledge, which gave them in many respects a [...] [Page 272] occasion formerly to mention, that the worship of polluted deities, and celebration of religious cere­monies remarkable for impurity, have greatly con­tributed to contaminate the manners; and we can­not help here observing, that though the object of christian adoration, and the rights of the christian religion, are by far the most pure and holy, the ministers of that religion were, in the times we are speaking of, quite the reverse. When almost every priest, who should have taught by example as well as by precept, gave himself up to lewdness, and pub­licly kept often a variety of loose women about him, what can we expect from the people? When the priests and the people were licentious, the women could not escape the contagion; every rank was whirled into the vortex of lewdness, and the rudest of manners. The queen of Navarre published a volume of Tales, too indelicate for the ear of a courtezan. Queen Elizabeth of England was not only much ad­dicted to swearing, but even to the most vulgar and familiar kind of oaths, which she uttered in a vulgar and indelicate manner. About her time, however, the manners of Europe were beginning to assume that chastity and elegance for which we are now so happily distinguished. But before we survey the character and conduct of the present European wo­men, it is necessary for us to take a view of the other parts of the globe, and proceed gradually from those states approaching the nearest to nature, to those where the human species has received the highest polish from art.

The nearer that mankind approach to a savage state, the less difference in every age and in every country is perceivable among them: in this state, their observations, their pursuits, are narrow and limited; their attachments few, but strong; and [Page 272] [...] [Page 273] their resentments lasting and implacable. Beyond these, their condition admits of little variation; consequently their character, which in polished nations is formed and influenced by a thousand dif­ferent circumstances and situations, having but few of these to operate upon it, is marked with much stronger, though sewer and more uniform appearances.

In savage life, female delicacy has no existence▪ the most absolute nakedness raises not a blush; no [...] can any action excite the idea of shame: and as chastity itself has not, in many places, the same value stamped upon it as in civil society, deviations from it are either considered as no fault, or at most as a fault of a very trifling nature, which neither draws down on a delinquent the ridicule and con­tempt of her own sex, nor the neglect and desertion of ours. The instances we could give of this would be almost endless. Among the Natches, husbands vo­luntarily lend their wives to each other, and married as well as unmarried women, without the least ceremony, offer themselves to strangers; nay, in some places, they even complain to their country­men, and desire them to revenge the indignity they have suffered, when refused by a stranger. In the district of the Hurons, not the least degree of of criminality is fixed upon her who offers herself to prostitution: it is a practice, into which girls are early initiated by their parents, and in which the custom of their country continues them through life. In many parts of South America, so little restraint is laid on the commerce of the sexes, that it plainly appears to be considered as an object not worthy of legislation. Don Ulloa reports, that the ancient Peruvians did not knowingly marry such women as were virgins, and if on trial they found them such, were highly affronted at being imposed upon: an [...] [Page 274] it is said, that in the kingdom of Thibet, no woman who has not been deflowered is reckoned fit for matrimony.

The Brazilian women are so far from paying any regard to chastity, that they even violate every prin­ciple of decency; not being in the least ashamed to prepare and administer to the men stimulating po­tions, to create or increase their natural desires; which when they wish to raise to an extravagant height, the potions sometimes prove mortal. At Mindanao, as soon as a stranger arrives, the natives flock about him, and eagerly invite him to their houses: the person whose invitation he accepts, is sure to offer him a female companion, whom he is obliged to accept, and to return a genteel present for the unsolicited favour. This custom, which, besides implying an absolute and disposing power in the male, likewise supposes female unchastity to be a matter of no consideration, is observed at Pulo Condore, Pegu, Siam, Cochin-China, Cambodia, in some places of the east-Indies, and on the coast of Guinea. In Otaheite, chastity does not seem to be considered as one of the virtues, nor is the most public violation of it looked upon either as criminal or indecent. The women not only readily and openly trafficked with the English sailors for personal favours, but were brought by their fathers and brothers for that pur­pose, as to a market; and those who brought them were always abundantly conscious of the superior value of youth and beauty.

Besides a strict regard to chastity, there is in the female character a certain softness of temper and disposition, mixed with a kind of timidity and incli­ [...]ation to pi [...]y, which may vie with delicacy, beauty, and even with modesty itself, in rendering a woman [Page 275] amiable in the eyes of every beholder. But of this quality savage women in every climate are almost entirely destitute. Brought up amid the storms of rough and unhospitable climates; exposed to the vicissitudes of hunger and of cold; obliged to pro­cure most of their food by carnage and destruction; and constantly accustomed to scenes of cruelty; their hearts are steeled against every soft sensation; and pity, one of the most engaging ornaments of the female mind, reckoned a weakness, which it is in­cumbent on them to subdue. We have therefore no reason to expect in them any of that engaging softness, which constitutes the essence of female friendship, and forcibly engages the heart: nay, so far are they, in general, from being susceptible of any of the compassionate sensations, that the very reverse is their character.

Among many of the tribes of North Americans the women commonly go out to meet the warriors on their return home; and though these warriors have treated their captives, from the moment they fell into their hands, with an inhumanity of which we can hardly form any idea; yet the period of their real sufferings may be said only to commence at the time they are met by the women. It is almost incredible to believe, with what degree of transport and rage these furies attack them; and he only can form any conception of it, who has fre­quently witnessed the power of the passions over the female mind, and their concentrated power over the female savage; where, being but few in number, their whole strength is collected, as it were, into a focus. Has any woman among those who go out to meet the warriors, lost a husband, a son, a bro­ther, or near relation; though thirty or forty long years have conspired to blot him out of her remem­brance, [Page 276] they have conspired in vain. Frantic with revenge, she falls on the first captive she meets, and violates decency, humanity, and mercy, at every wound. Nor is this short-lived effort of a sudden passion: she goes on till her bodily strength is quite exhausted; but the same insatiable thirst of revenge urging her implacable mind, she no sooner recovers herself a little, than she renews the horrid task; a task, which, with no other interruption than what is absolutely necessary to refresh the ferocious tor­mentors, generally continues in the camp, through the whole of the first night after the arrival of the women: and when the prisoners are afterward finally condemned, when they are led out to suffer, such a scene of torture as the history of no other people ever yet paralleled, and which we think too shocking to describe, the women are the principal executioners, or rather relentless fiends, who inflict tortures that even hell might shudder at.

To those accustomed to softer manners, and to nations less sullied by such inhuman crimes, this female barbarity must appear as unaccountable as it is shocking: but it must be still more so, when we inform our readers, that captive women, though they have not taken up the hatchet, nor come out in an hostile manner, are treated with the same in­discriminate rage of cruelty as the men, and fall at last victims to the lingering tortures inflicted by their own sex.

Such is the state of chastity, such that of huma­nity, among the savage women of North America. But from these unpromising specimens we are not rashly to conclude, that they are destitute of every virtue, and of every excellence. Their inhumanity is not so much the effect of nature, as of education. [Page 277] Revenge is a principle, which, from the earliest periods of antiquity, has operated strongly on every ignorant and unlettered people. The Israelites hardly treated their captives with less cruelty than the Americans; they made them pass through the brick-kilns, and under saws and harrows of iron. The practice of almost all the ancients was nearly the same: every country had its tutelar deities; and it was imagined, that a more acceptable service could not be rendered to these, than to stain their altars with the blood of the enemies of that country which they patronised; thus, cruelty to captives was almost in every country a religious ceremony, which took such hold of the human mind, that the thoughts of the sufferings of the victims, were totally absorbed in those of the service done to the deity. But, be­sides this, there was among the ancients another prin­ciple, which powerfully urged them to inflict various torments on their captives; the manes, or ghosts, of those who had fallen in battle, were supposed to to roam about in a kind of melancholy mood, till their blood was avenged on their enemies; and, they were even sometimes supposed to appear to, and solicit their surviving friends to this vengeance; which was the more fully accomplished, the more horrid the tortures that were inflicted. Strongly excited by the latter, if not also by the former of these motives, we discover that an exuberance of friendship to their deceased relations, is the source from whence arises that variety of torments with which they execute their enemies.

Were this horrid barbarity of the American wo­men congenial to their nature, or what they de­lighted in from mere wantonness, we should reckon them the most execrable of all human beings; but we pity them, when we consider it as the effect of [Page 278] the most unbounded, though mistaken friendship; and indeed, of all the marks which most peculiarly characterise savage life, friendship and hatred are the strongest. As an injury done to a savage, is never to be fo [...]iven; so a good action is held in everlasting remembrance, and commonly attaches him to you in a [...]ship, which adversity cannot shake, which danger cannot terrify, nor even death itself turn aside from your interest. In places where chastity is required of the sex, this quality makes them the most faithful and inviolable of all wives. Where chastity is not required, if they are but tole­rably well used by their husbands, it binds them in an attachment to their interests and persons, far surpassing every thing that we ever meet with in civil society. As to their other qualities, they are sub­missive and obedient to their husbands; patient suf­ferers of hunger, cold, pain, and all that variety of wretchedness to which their lives are daily exposed; strenuous exerters of their powers, when stimulated by want, but seldom blessed with a talent for unre­mitting industry; and still seldomer, perhaps, with foresight enough to be productive of oeconomy. Like all other ignorant people, the most absolute dupes of superstition, by which constantly deceived themselves, they constantly deceive one another, and still more deceive their men, who take the ravings of a distempered female brain, for the infalliible sug­gestions of the Great Spirit.

In ascending from these scenes, where we are pre­sented with nature in her most rude and uncultivated shape, to those where she is just beginning to put on an appearance something less disgusting, we naturally turn our eyes from the frozen regions and trackless wastes of North America, to the more indulgent climates of Africa and Asia; though we are sorry to [Page 279] say, that, even in many parts of these, we find the progress of civil society and cultivation of manners, to have advanced but a very few degrees beyond the Americans.

In travelling over [...] vast peninsula of Africa, we naturally expect to [...] among so many different people, a great diversit [...] [...] manners and of character; in this, however, we [...] much disappointed, for notwithstanding the great variety of climates that the Africans inhabit, and different forms of government to which they are subjected, they are every where nearly the same kind of people; a general sameness and uniformity of sentiments and usages, running through the whole of those immense regions they pos­sess, with some trifling difference only in the degrees of the same qualities; and with this remarkable coin­cidence of the whole, that these qualities are com­monly the worst of those which have disgraced hu­man nature; insomuch that among their neighbours it is a proverb, that all the inhabitants of the globe have a mixture of good and evil in them, except the Africans.

When we take a survey of the ancient, and the present Africans, it is with some surprise, that while we find their manners and customs to be nearly the same, we discover at the same time, that every spark of genius, and every idea of moral rectitude, seem almost entirely dissipated from among them. The names of Hannibal, of Asdrubal, and Terence, shew that they were formerly famous for heroes, and for poets; and after the introduction of the Christian religion among them, the names of Cyprian, Augustine, and Tertullian, do credit to their divi­nity; they were in old time renowned for their indus­try in cultivating the ground, for their trade, navi­gation, [Page 280] caravans, and useful arts; at present they are infamous for their idleness, ignorance, supersti­tion, treachery; and above all, for their lawless methods of robbing and murdering all the other in­habitants of the globe, as the piratical states of Tunis and Algiers every day demonstrate.

It would seem, that lost as they are to almost every virtue, they still retain some sense of their own flagitiousness of character; but as they do not chuse to amend, their priests, or Marabouts, endeavour to justify them by the following story: ‘Noah, say they, was no sooner dead, than his three sons, the first of whom was white, the second tawny, and the third black, agreed upon dividing among them his goods and possessions: after having come to this resolution, the greatest part of the day was spent in sorting that variety of goods which their father had left, so that they were obliged to adjourn the division of them till the next morning: having sup­ped, and smoaked a friendly pipe together, they all went to rest, each in his own tent. After a few hours sleep, the white brother got up, seized on the gold, silver, precious stones, and other things of the greatest value, loaded the best horses with them, and rode away to that country where his white posterity have been settled ever since. The tawny awaking soon after, and with the same cri­minal intention, was surprised when he came to the storehouse, to find that his brother had been before­hand with him, but resolving to make the best of a bad bargain, hastily secured the rest of the horses and camels, and loading them with the best car­pets, cloaths, and other remaining goods directed his route to another part of the world, leaving behind him only a few of the coarsest of the goods, and some provisions of little value. When the [Page 281] third, or black brother, came next morning, in the honesty of his heart, to make the proposed division, and could neither find his brethren, nor any of the valuable commodities, he easily judged that they had tricked him, and were by that time fled beyond any possibility of a discovery. In this most afflicting situation, he took his pipe, and set him down to consider on the most effectual means of retrieving his loss, and being revenged on his persi­dious brothers. After revolving a variety of schemes in his mind, he at last fixed upon watching every opportunity of making reprisals on them, and laying hold of, and carrying away their pro­perty as often as it should f [...]ll in his way, in revenge for the loss of that patrimony of which they had so unjustly deprived him: having come to this resolution, he not only continued in the practice of it all his life, but on his death-bed laid the strongest injunctions on his descendants to do so to the end of the world.’

From this short sketch of the general character of the Africans, the prospect before us, when we descend to particulars, is but unpromising, though in some places the gloomy scene is here and there chequered with a few of the virtues. Some of the tribes of wandering Arabs are remarkable for fide­lity, when they have engaged themselves in the pro­tection of a stranger. Many of them are conspicu­ous for their temperance and hospitality, and their women, upon the whole, are far from being indeli­cate or unchaste. In Egypt, they never appear un­veiled, and at public assemblies sit also behind a cur­tain, that they may not be seen by the men. Among the Hottentots, though they have no claim to deli­cacy, they are simple and inoffensive, chaste and submissive to their husbands. On the banks of the [Page 282] Niger, they are tolerably industrious, have a consi­derable share of vivacity, and, at the same time, a female reserve, which would do no discredit to a politer country: they are modest, affable, and faith­ful, and an air of innocence appears in their looks, in their language, and gives a beauty to their whole deportment. When from the Niger, we approach toward the east, the African women degenerate in stature, complexion, and sensibility, as well as in chastity, that chief of the female virtues; even their language, like their features, and like the soil they inhabit, is harsh and disagreeable, and their plea­sures resemble more the transports of fury, than the gentle emotions communicated by agreeable sensa­tions. Upon the western coasts of Africa, are ex­tended for a considerable way, a people called Zafe Ibrahims, or offspring of Abraham; they have long flowing hair, and are much fairer than any other of the Africans; but what is most remarkable, they are not like the rest of their countrymen, addicted to plundering, nor to murder, being of a free, libe­ral, and hospitable spirit, much given to dancing and to songs, of which love is constantly the subject; and while in many other parts of Africa, both men and women paint in such a manner as to add to their deformity, the women here paint after nature, and improve the charms she has given, by such colours as have the nearest resemblance to her in her most beautiful appearance: to all this we may add, that they are strictly taken care of by their parents, and on that account difficult of access to strangers.

One peculiar custom of this people, though not properly belonging to our subject, we cannot help mentioning: none but the chief lords of their coun­try have the privilege of killing any animal, which they always do with a great deal of ceremony; nor [Page 283] would any of the people, though urged by the strongest necessity, eat that which was killed by any other person. Another custom hardly less singular, is, that all children born on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, are reckoned accursed, and exposed in the woods to die of cold and hunger, or meet with a more merciful death from the jaws of the wild beasts; but so compassionate are the women, that in spite of the punishments threatened against them by the men, and of the more tremendous terrors held over them by superstition, they frequently steal, and bring up these children privately at the hazard of their own lives. On the banks of the Gambia, this female character is reversed; though they put on an appearance of modesty, it is in fact nothing but an appearance, and when opportunity offers, they will very readily grant any favour for a little coral, a silk handkerchief, or some trifle of a similar nature.

Besides the places now mentioned, several of which we have only lame and imperfect accounts of, there are in Africa many others, of which we know little more than the names. Ethiopia, Lybia, Zanguebar, and some others, have hitherto been almost impervi­ous to European travellers; and the only people who have dared to enter them, have been Jesuits; whose relations, wherever religion or interest were concerned, have gained no great credit among man­kind; and mercantile adventurers, so hot in the pursuit of gain, that they never examined any thing which had not a relation to that subject.

Beyond the river Volta, in the country of Benin, and almost every where upon the Gold Coast, the women, though far from being famous for any of the virtues, would not be disagreeable in their looks, were it not for the abominable custom of marking [Page 284] their faces with scars, for the same purposes as our European ladies lay on paint. Though in few re­spects better than savages, there is a particular opi­nion over all this country, which tends to humanize the mind: this is a firm persuasion, that to whatever place they remove themselves, or are by any acci­dent removed, they shall after death return to their own country, which they consider as the most de­lightful in the universe. This fond delusive hope not only softens the slavery to which they are often condemned in other countries, but also induces them to treat such strangers as come among them with much civility; being persuaded, that they are come there to enjoy paradise, and receive the reward of virtuous actions done in other bodies. The peo­ple who border upon Zaara are the most peaceable and good-natured of the Africans; their food is sim­ple, and they bestow little labour in procuring it; they spend a great deal of their time in public amuse­ments; but neither to these, nor to any other places of common resort, are the women ever admitted; assembled together in houses by themselves, they spend the time in female employments and amuse­ments, and no men are ever admitted into their soci­ety. This confinement, though not of so strict a nature as in many places of the world, has the effect that confinement generally has upon beings who ought to be free, it renders them less virtuous.

As we cannot give a minute and circumstantial character of the African women, we shall conclude what we have to say on that subject, by observ­ing, that when we look back upon this general and particular character we have drawn, we find the former, which, like all national characters, is drawn from the men, much worse than the latter, which we have chiefly taken from the women; and [Page 285] perhaps even that former is not so bad as it is repre­sented, being sketched out almost entirely, either by declaiming priests of their own nation, or by Euro­peans, who are strongly prejudiced against the Afri­cans, on account of the losses they have sustained by their plunderings and depredations. These things, no doubt, justly excite our indignation, and extort from us every ungracious epithet; but were we to have the character of the Europeans drawn by an African, would he have more reason to be indulgent to us? No; he might treat us with still greater severity; what a horrid scene would he probably paint? he would delineate a people, who profess a religion, the precepts of which breathe nothing but gentleness and humanity, in spite of nature, and in spite of that religion, carrying away by fraud and force, every year, thousands of his helpless country­men into slavery; he would tell how their merciless masters exact from them a labour superior to their strength, and even suffer that strength to fail for want of sustenance; he would tell of the whips, the tortures, and the deaths inflicted on his country­men, should they ever happen to consider themselves as human beings, or venture to assert the rights of nature and of humanity!—he would tell—but we desist from the dismal tale, as we feel ourselves almost transformed into Africans while we relate it.

In our progress from America to Africa, we meet with but little improvement in the manners and cha­racter of the people; and when from Africa we pass into Asia, we find that they have only left the Afri­cans a very few degrees behind them, almost in every thing but peacefulness of disposition and gentle­ness of manners. While the African, like the tyger of his forests, lies in wait to plunder and destroy; the Asiatic, contented with a little rice, and some of [Page 286] the simplest productions of nature, reclines beneath the shade, and gives labour and luxury to the winds; let him but enjoy his rice, his women, and his ease, and he asks no more.

The beautiful scenes which present themselves on the banks of the Ganges, and along the plains of Hindostan, are almost beyond description; the air is perfumed at some seasons with the most delicious fra­grance, arising from a variety of flowers, and no less a number of fruits, which yield a wholesome and refreshing nourishment. The trees form a shade impenetrable to the rays of the sun: here bountiful Nature has left the Asiatic nothing to pursue but pleasure; and hardly any thing else do the Hindoos, who are the ancient inhabitants of the country, pur­sue. Relaxed by the climate, more than half of this pleasure consists in ease and indolence; which has taken such hold of them, that a saying from one of their favourite authors is frequently in their mouths: ‘It is better to sit still than to walk; better to sleep than to awake; but death is best of all.’ If we may credit some modern travellers, so extravagant is their love of rest, that the women of Allahabad can hardly be prevailed upon to reach out their hands to save their own children, when in danger of being trod to death by carriages passing along the street. Such is the picture of the Hindoos. The Mahom­medans have more activity, stronger passions, and a cruelty and ambition which are hardly to be restrained within any bounds.

In considering the character of the Asiatic women, there are two things which claim our utmost attention. The first is, that the narrow and limited sphere in which they move, almost entirely divests them of every thing that arises from liberty and society, and [Page 187] consequently of much of their characteristic distinc­tion. The second, that they are so closely shut up from the observation of all Europeans, that our ac­counts of them are extremely mutilated and imper­fect, as well as in many points false and ridiculous. We may, however, observe of them in general, that as a spring bent by an external force is constantly endeavouring to restore itself; so they, unjustly deprived of their liberty, are constantly exerting all the cunning they are masters of, in order to deceive the tyrants who have secluded them from the world and the sweets of society; and by long custom, assisted by nature, and urged by necessity, they are become great adepts in those arts of deception, which tend to procure them a temporary liberty, or favour an intrigue.

Chastity and unchastity are almost the only things that can characterise the women of the East. Shut up for ever in impenetrable Harams, they can hardly be called creatures of the world, having no inter­course with it, and no use for the social and oecono­mical virtues which adorn its citizens. If being good wives consists in care, frugality and industry, these are all things entirely out of their power: if being such, consists in loving their husbands, and tender­ness to their children; the first of these is also ren­dered next to impossible by the behaviour of those tyrants who style themselves husbands; and the last is much weakened by transferring upon the children some part of that dislike they have to the father. To the joys of friendship they are, perhaps, entire stran­gers: the men treat them in such a manner, that it is impossible they can esteem them; the women are their constant rivals. The only virtues, then, which the Asiatic fair can put in practice, are such as relate to their religion, and their chastity; but even in the [Page 288] exercise of religion they are circumscribed. As they are not allowed to attend on the public worship of the gods of their country, they can have no other reli­gion than the silent adoration of the heart; and as to chastity, the manner in which they are disposed of to, or forcibly taken by husbands, and the behaviour of these husbands to them through life, are the most unlikely methods in the world to make them famous for that virtue.

But though these observations may be pretty gene­rally applied to the Asiatic women, there are some exceptions. The Bramins, or priests of India, though they confine their women like the rest of their countrymen, yet, by treating them with lenity and indulgence, they secure their virtue by attach­ing their hearts. Married to each other in their in­fancy, they have the greatest veneration for the nuptial tie: their mutual fondness increases with their strength; and in riper years, all the glory of the women consists in pleasing their husbands; a duty which they consider as one of the most sacred of their holy religion, and which the gods will not suffer them to neglect with impunity. While the rest of the Hindoo women take every opportunity to elude their keepers, these voluntarily confine them­selves, at least from the company and conversation of all strangers, and in every respect copy that sim­plicity of life and manners, for which their husbands are so remarkable.

If we except these we have now mentioned, of all the other Asiatics the Chinese have perhaps the best title to modesty. Even the men wrap themselves closely up in their garments, and reckon it indecent to discover any more of their arms and legs than is necessary: the women, still more closely wrapped [Page 289] up, never discover a naked hand even to their near­est relations, if they can possibly avoid it. Every part of their dress, every part of their behaviour, is calculated to preserve decency, and inspire respect; and what adds the greatest lustre to their charms, is that uncommon modesty which appears in every look, and in every action. Charmed, no doubt, with so engaging a demeanour, the men behave to them in a reciprocal manner; and that their virtue may not be contaminated by the neighbourhood of vice, the legislature takes care that no prostitutes shall lodge within the walls of any of the great towns in China. Such are the Chinese women represented by some travellers; but it is by others doubted, whether this semblance of modesty be any thing else than the custom of the country; and alleged, that notwithstanding of so much seeming decency and decorum, they have their peculiar modes of in­triguing, and embrace every possible opportunity of putting them in practice; and that, in these in­trigues, they frequently scruple not to stab the para­mour they had invited to their arms, as the surest method of preventing detection and loss of character. A few, perhaps, of the most flagitious may be guilty of such enormous crimes; but we persuade our­selves, that they are only very few; and we are happy in having it in our power to inform our fair readers, that such relations are not to be found in any of our modern travellers, whose veracity is most to be relied on.

So different over all the world are the sects of saints, as well as of sinners, that besides the Bra­mins, a set of innocent and religious priests, who have rendered their women virtuous by treating them with kindness and humanity, there are another sect of religio-philosophical drones, called Fakiers, [Page 290] who contribute as much as they can to debauch the sex, under a pretence of superior sanctity. These hypocritical saints, like some of the ridiculous sects which formerly existed in Europe, wear no clothes; considering them only as proper appendages to sinners, who are ashamed, because they are sensible of guilt; while they, being free from every stain of pollution, have no shame to cover. In this original state of nature, these idle and pretended devotees, assemble together sometimes in armies of ten or twelve thousand, and under a pretence of going in pilgrimage to certain temples, like locusts devour every thing on their way; the men flying before them, and carrying all that they can out of the reach of their depredations; while the women, not in the least afraid of a naked army of lusty saints, throw themselves in their way, or remain quietly at home to receive them.

It has long been an opinion, well established all over India, that there is not in nature so powerful a remedy for removing the sterility of women, as the prayers of these sturdy naked saints. On this ac­count, barren women constantly apply to them for assistance; which when the good-natured Fakier has an inclination to grant, he leaves his slipper, or his staff, at the door of the lady's apartment with whom he is praying; a symbol so sacred, that it effectually prevents any one from violating the secrecy of their devotion: but, should he forget this signal, and at the same time be distant from the protection of his brethren, a sound drubbing is fre­quently the reward of his pious endeavours. But though they will venture sometimes, in Hindostan, to treat a Fakier in this unholy manner; in other parts of Asia and Africa, such is the veneration in which these lusty saints are held, that they not only have access when they please, to perform private [Page 291] devotions with barren women, but are accounted so holy, that they may at any time, in public or in private, confer a personal favour upon a woman, without bringing upon her either shame or guilt; and no woman dare refuse to gratify their passion. Nor indeed, has any one an inclination of this kind; because she, upon whom this personal favour has been conferred, is considered by herself, and by all the people, as having been sanctified and made more holy by the action.

So much concerning the conduct of the Fakiers in debauching women, seems certain. But it is by travellers further related, that wherever they find a woman who is exceedingly handsome, they carry her off privately to one of their temples; but in such a manner, as to make her and the people believe, that she was carried away by the god who is there worshipped; who being violently in love with her took that method to procure her for his wife. This done, they perform a nuptial ceremony, and make her further believe, that she is married to the god; when, in reality, she is only married to one of the Fakiers who personates him. Women who are treated in this manner are revered by the people as the wives of the gods, and by that stratagem secured solely to the Fakiers, who have cunning enough to impose themselves as gods upon some of these wo­men, through the whole of their lives. In countries where reason is stronger than superstition, we almost think this impossible: where the contrary is the case, there is nothing too hard to be credited. Something like this was done by the priests of ancient Greece and Rome; and a few centuries ago, tricks of the same nature were practised by the monks, and other libertines, upon some of the visionary and enthusi­astic [Page 292] women of Europe. Hence we need not think it strange, if the Fakiers generally succeed in attempts of this nature; when we consider, that they only have to deceive a people brought up in the most consum­mate ignorance; and that nothing can be a more flattering distinction to female vanity, than for a woman to suppose herself such a peculiar favourite of the divinity she worships, as to be chosen, from all her companions, to the honour of being admitted to his embraces; a favour, which her self-admiration will dispose her more readily to believe than examine.

Besides this method of decoying women into the temples, for the sake of debauchery, there are other temples, where they are supplied with them in a more open manner; being voluntarily offered by their parents, and dedicated by the priests while infants, with great pomp and solemnity, to the ser­vice of their gods; they dance and sing before the chief idol on solemn festivals, with all the wanton­ness of venal charms, and temptation of loose attire, in order to attract the spectators, to whom they after­wards prostitute themselves for the benefit of the temple to which they belong; and at the expence of which they were brought up. When such is the religion of the East, when such are the deities there worshipped, can we expect chastity to be a virtue much regarded among the women, or that the men can secure it by any other methods than locks, bars, and eunuchs?

But it is not the religion of the Hindoos only, that is unfavourable to chastity; that of Mahomet, which now prevails over a great part of India, is unfavour­able to it likewise. Mahomedism every where indul­ges the men with a plurality of wives, while it ties [Page 293] down the women to the strictest conjugal fidelity; hence, while the men riot in unlimited variety, the women are in great numbers confined to share among them the scanty favours of one man only. This unnatural and impolitic conduct induces them to seek by art and intrigue what they are denied by the laws of their prophet. As polygamy prevails over all Asia, this art and intrigue follow as the conse­quence of it; some have imagined, that it is the result of climate, but it rather appears to be the result of the injustice which women suffer by poly­gamy; for it seems to reign as much in Constantino­ple, and in every other place where polygamy is in fashion, as it does on the banks of the Ganges, or the Indus. The famous Montesquieu, whose system was, that the passions are entirely regulated by the climate, brings as a proof of this system, a story from the collection of voyages for the establishment of an East-India Company, in which it is said, that at Patan, ‘the wanton desires of the women are so outrageous, that the men are obliged to make use of a certain apparel to shelter them from their de­signs.’ Were this story really true, it would be but a partial proof of the effect of climate, for why should the burning suns of Patan only influence the passions of the fair? Why should they there transport that sex beyond decency, which in all other climates is the most decent? And leave in so cool and defensive a state, that sex, which in all other climates is apt to be the most offensive and indecent? To whatever length the spirit of intrigue may be car­ried in Asia and Africa, however the passions of the women may prompt them to excite desire, and to throw themselves in the way of gratification, we have the strongest reasons to reprobate all these sto­ries, which would make us believe, that they are so lost to decency as to attack the other sex: such a sys­tem [Page 294] would be overturning nature, and inverting the established laws by which she governs the world.

In Otaheite, an island lately discovered in the great Southern Ocean, we are presented with wo­men of a singular character. As far as we can recol­lect, we think it is a pretty general rule, that where­ever the sex are accustomed to be constantly clothed, they are ashamed to appear naked: those of Ota­heite seem however to be an exception to this rule; to shew themselves in public, with or without cloth­ing, appears to be to them a matter of equal indiffer­ence, and the exposition of any part of their bodies, is not attended with the least backwardness or reluc­tance; circumstances from which we may reasonably infer, that, among them, clothes were not originally invented to cover shame, but either as ornaments, or as a defence against the cold. But a still more striking singularity in the character of these women, and which distinguishes them not only from the females of all other nations, but likewise from those of almost all other animals, is, their performing in public those rites, which in every other part of the globe, and almost among all animals, are performed in privacy and retirement: whether this is the effect of innocence, or of a dissoluteness of manners to which no other people have yet arrived, remains still to be discovered; that they are dissolute, even beyond any thing we have hitherto recorded, is but too certain. As polygamy is not allowed among them, to satisfy the lust of variety, they have a society called Arreoy, in which every woman is common to every man; and when any of these women happens to have a child, it is smothered in the moment of its birth, that it may not interrupt the pleasures of its infamous mother; but in this juncture, should nature relent at so hor [...]id a deed, even then the mother is [Page 295] not allowed to save her child, unless she can find a man who will patronise it as a father; in which case, the man is considered as having appropriated the wo­man to himself, and she is accordingly extruded from this hopeful society. These few anecdotes suffi­ciently characterise the women of this island. In some of the adjacent ones, which were visited by his Majesty's ships upon this discovery, if the women were not less unchaste, they were at least less flagi­tious and indelicate.

As the Turks, who now inhabit a part of Europe, were originally Asiatics, and still retain the manners and customs which they brought from that country, their women are much given to secret gallantry and intrigue; vices which seem however to be the worst part of their character: when we view them in the other departments of female life, we see many ami­able qualities conspiring to adorn them, such as bene­volence, charity, and a tenderness of feeling, and softness of disposition, to which they have hardly ever reached in the most polished parts of the Chris­tian world. In Lady Montague's description of the visit she made to the lady of the Grand Vizer of Constantinople, her humility, meekness, and charity, are delineated in a manner which does honour to the sex. In her visit to the fair Fatima, while we find the person of an angel, engaged in all the tender offi­ces of a mother, we must be insensible to every feel­ing, if our hearts do not glow with the description. We are indeed but too apt to throw a veil over every virtue which appears in a people professing a religion so different from our own, and which have always been taught to consider with partiality, and to look upon with horror; than which, nothing can more certainly indicate weakness of mind and want of urba­nity. People of all religions have in them a mixture [Page 296] of vice and virtue; and, on a strict enquiry, we shall find, that vice oftener flows from a bad educa­tion and improper customs, than from a bad religion: but should the Mahometans, or any other people, with a religion less pure and holy than that of the Christians, be found to excel them in many of the moral virtues, they certainly on that account deserve the more praise, and we the more reprehension; espe­cially when it is considered what they would probo­bly have done, had they been in our situation.

When we take a retrospective view of these imperfect sketches of the character of the American, African, and Asiatic women, when we see almost the whole of it comprised in unremitting endeavours to satisfy a voluptuous appetite, when we see the sex every where abused by slavery or confinement, we cannot help breathing a wish, that both the one and the other were rectified; and from the inter­course that has long subsisted between Europe and many of the countries we have been considering, some amendment in the condition, and reformation in the manners of the women might reasonably have been expected. But the Europeans who have gone abroad, instead of carrying along with them that spirit of moral rectitude, taught by the religion of Jesus, which ought to have demonstrated their supe­rior virtue as well as superior knowledge, seem in general, t [...]e moment they left their own country, to have thrown aside every principle, and every idea, but that of amassing wealth, though at the expense of probity, and of conscience; and instead of intro­ducing more order and regularity among the igno­rant people they visited, have but too often given a loose to every voluptuous app [...]ite, and outdone in every species of debauchery, those who were neither restrained by their laws, nor their religion; nor ha [...] [Page 297] this flagitious conduct been peculiar to one European nation only, all those who have planted colonies, and extended their commerce, have been almost equally infamous for cruelty, oppression, and debau­chery.

Soon after the Portuguese had conquered India, laying aside that martial spirit for which they were then so famous, they gave themselves up to all those excesses which render the human race odious, and became such monsters, that poison, conflagration, and assassination, with every other crime, grew fami­liar to them. They massacred the natives; they destroyed one another; and while they raised the hatred of these natives, they lost the courage to make themselves feared. In the island of Amboyna a Portuguese had, at a public festival, seized upon a beautiful woman, and regardless of decency, pro­ceeded to offer her the greatest outrage. One of the islanders, highly resenting such a conduct, first armed his fellow-citizens, and afterward calling together the Portuguese, addressed them in the fol­lowing manner: ‘To revenge affronts of so cruel a nature as those we have received from you, would require actions, not words; yet we will speak to you. You preach to us a Deity, who delights, you say, in generous actions; but theft, murder, obscenity, and drunkenness, are your common prac­tices. Your hearts are inflamed with every vice; our manners can never agree with yours. Nature foresaw this, when she separated us by immense oceans, but ye have overleaped her barriers: this audacity, of which you are not ashamed to boast, is a proof of the corruption of your hearts. Take my advice, leave to their repose these nations that resemble you so little: go, fix your habitations among those who are brutal as yourselves. An [Page 298] intercourse with you would be more fatal to us, than all the evils which it is in the power of your god to inflict upon us. We renounce your alliance for ever. Your arms are superior to ours, but we are more just than you, and we do not fear you; the Itons are from this day your enemies, fly from their country, and beware how you approach it any more.’

Such were the sentiments of one whom we call a savage, on the behaviour of the Portuguese. When a governor of sense and humanity happened to pre­side over their colonies, he endeavoured to reform the manners, and restrain the rapacity, of his coun­trymen; but his single virtue was always feeble and unavailing, when opposed to the vices of a contami­nated people. The Spaniards, who in many places succeeded them, not only copied, but even in time fairly exceeded, the original example. Few of our readers can be strangers to the cruelties and debau­cheries they committed in Mexico and Peru, where they built churches, endeavoured to explain the mys­teries of the Christian religion to the natives, in a language of which they did not understand one word; and afterward piously slaughtered them as hereties, for not believing what had been so clearly demon­strated to them. When they had conquered the island of Hispaniola, they made peace with the natives, on condition that they should cultivate all the land for their use, and furnish them with a cer­tain quantity of gold every month. The poor wretches, finding the task insupportable, as well as impossible, took shelter in their mountains, where they hoped to maintain themselves till the Spai [...]rds should be obliged by famine to evacuate their island. But the Spaniards, in the mean time receiving a supply of provisions from Europe, pursued them to [Page 299] their fastnesses to revenge, as they said, the injus­tice they had suffered; trained their dogs to hunt and destroy them, in places which to themselves were inaccessible; and, fired with superstition and a thirst of blood, some of them made a vow to destroy twelve Indians every day, in honour of the twelve Apostles. What uneasiness would it have given to men so mild and benevolent, had they thought that their names would have been prostituted to such infa­mous purposes!

Humanity recoils at this dismal recital, and sin­cerely wishes, that the other powers who have usur­ped a right in the Indies could be absolved from similar crimes; but the immense plunder lately brought to England from the plains of Hindostan and banks of the Ganges, are but too evident proofs of what our countrymen have there committed. Such loads of treasure are not the produce of the paths of peace, nor even of the fields stained with blood, and disfigured by the horrors of war; unless that war, like a deluge, indiscriminately levels friend and enemy as it goes along. Avarice, fordid ava­rice, seems alone to have occupied the breasts of the greatest part of those who have travelled from Europe to the Indies, and from so fruitful a source has sprung up almost every other crime. An English­man who was shipwrecked on the coast of Africa, being taken and condemned to death by the natives, was saved by a woman of some distinction in the country; who on a promise that he would marry her contrived to escape along with him. The wretch had no sooner arrived in an European settlement, than he sold his deliverer for a slave, and abandoned her forever. But the vices are not solely attached to the men who have left Europe in pursuit of gain: even the women who have accompanied them, leaving [Page 300] behind them the gentleness of European manners and of female nature, have been often hardly less distinguished for debauchery and cruelty than the men. A virago of this sort in the East or West Indies, seldom meeting with any opposition to her whim and caprice, assumes at last a spirit of presumption and tyranny; and lost to feeling and humanity, wields the whip with such dexterity, as to fetch at every stroke blood from the back of the naked and unresisting slave; whose only fault was, that he did not anticipate the wishes of his mistress, or because he let fall some hints, that he was a crea­ture of the same genus as herself.

CHAPTER XIII. The same Subject continued.

AFTER having traced the character of the fair sex through so many countries, where we have found the vicious and the disagreeable too frequently to be predominant; we now, with the utmost pleasure, turn towards Europe, where the beauties of their character, like those of their per­sons, will not only engage our attention, but also attract our hearts. We cannot, however, extend our plan so far as to hold up to view every beauty and every blemish, which gives a lustre or deformity to the fair, through all the different countries of Europe; we shall therefore only endeavour to draw the outlines of characters, to various and compli­cated for us to finish with any tolerable degree of precision.

We have already observed, that chastity has, in all polished nations, been ever esteemed the princi­pal ornament of the female character; and we now aver, that this was never more remarkably the case, in any part of the world, than at present in Europe. Here we worship no deities that delight in debau­chery, as among the ancients; nor such as, regard­less of moral good and evil, concern not themselves about human actions, as in some part of the world, among the moderns. Hence the conduct of our wo­men, besides being influenced by the superior regard paid to chastity among us, is still further influenced by a veneration for that purity of manners and of [Page 302] character, so strongly inculcated by the precepts of the Christian religion; and hence, though declaim­ers and satirists in every nation of Europe paint their own women as the most lewd and abandoned in the world, we boldly affirm, that Europe in general is more famous for the chastity and other good qualities of its women, than any other part of the globe; for the truth of which we need only appeal to the per­sonal experience of the traveller, and to the reading of the historian; both of which afford an ample de­monstration of our assertion. We must, however, observe here, that the virtues of modesty and chas­tity do not flourish most, where they are endeavoured to be forced upon the women by locks, bolts, and gouvernantes, as in Spain; nor where unrestrained liberty and politeness are carried to the greatest length, as in France and Italy; but rather, where, with no other [...]rb on their personal freedom than what decency requires, they have not carried the refinements of politeness to such an excess, as to reckon every restraint upon inclination a mark of rust [...]ation and ill-breeding.

In endeavouring to sketch some rude draughts of the character of the European women, we shall take a view of them as they appear in the principal nations [...] [...]mposed; and as the French reckon themselves of all other people the most conspicuous, we shall begin with them; a distinction to which we reckon them justly entitled, as they are the fruitful source of half the fashions that embellish, and per­haps of more than half the foibles that disgrace, Europe.

As chastity is a virtue which does not seem to flourish in a soil, where too much or too little cul­ture is bestowed upon it, we must not expect to find [Page 303] it remarkably vigorous among the French, where politeness is the first of all the virtues, and where chastity would hardly be entitled to a place as the second. When travellers, who have always been accustomed to countries where women are much on the reserve, enter France, where the very reverse in almost every particular is the case; before they have coolly considered the customs of different coun­tries, they are apt to conclude that the French have no decency and no chastity among them. Such con­clusions are, however, by much too hasty: we must not be led by appearances: a French woman of the most unblemished reputation will, in compliance with the customs of her country, act with a levity and freedom, both of words and actions, which in England would be an almost infallible indica­tion of a strumpet; while in France it only indi­cates, that a woman has seen the world. We would not, however, insinuate from this, that chas­tity is among the French a prevailing virtue: the number of mistresses kept by the married as well as the single; the little discredit thrown on the pro­fession of a prostitute, especially if she is an Opera girl, are proofs of this; and we may add, the ge­neral desire of intrigue among the women, and the little notice taken of it by the men; both of which have at length established it as a fashion; and in France, not to be fashionable, is a condition much more dreaded, than not to be virtuous.

In every country in the world, women have always a little to do, and a great deal to say. In France, not­withstanding of the Salique law, they dictate almost every thing that is said, and direct every thing that is done: they are the most restless set of beings in the world; ever in the hurry of action, either about their own affairs, or those of other people; and [Page 304] equally busy and solicitous about settling the affairs of the nation, or sticking a pin in its proper place: to fold her hands in idleness and impose silence on her tongue, would be to a French-woman worse than death: the sole joy of her life is to be engaged in the prosecution of some scheme, the more intricate and arduous the better; and so much the better still, if fashion, ambition, or love be the subject. Nor is their activity confined to the gay and the pleasant, they even enter sometimes into the most serious and momentuous concerns of life; the profoundest depths of politics are not hid from them, and the most solemn councils have often been summoned, and affairs of the utmost consequence debated, when the decision had been previously settled by their address and artifices. Among the rich and opulent, they are entirely the votaries of pleasure, which they pursue through all her labyrinths, at the expense of fortune, reputation, and health. Giddy and extra­vagant to the last degree, they leave to their hus­bands oeconomy and care, which would only spoil their complexions, and furrow their brows. When we descend to tradesmen and mechanics, the case is reversed; the wife manages every thing in the house and shop, while the husband lounges in the back­shop an idle spectator, or struts about in his sword and bag-wig.

Matrimony is in France a thing entirely different from what it is in all other parts of Europe; it does not there subject the helpless female to obedience, to duty, or even to fidelity, but gives her a right to an unbounded liberty and the fortune of her husband, while it confers on the husband hardly any right but that of calling her his wife. In fashionable life, and indeed among all ranks, as all aspire at being fashionable, it seems to be a bargain entered into by [Page 305] a male and female to bear the same name, live in the same house, and pursue their separate pleasures with­out restraint or controul: and so religiously is this part of the bargain kept, that both parties shape their course exactly as convenience or inclination may dictate, spurning the joys of friendship at home, and contemning the censure of the world abroad; they live in the same house, but seldom see each other, having different apartments, different sets of acquaintance, different servants, a different equi­page, and different tables. Jealousy is not to be expected [...], it is a monster which springs from love; but as a French couple come together with­out love, they live without jealousy, and commonly jog through life together, enjoying but little happi­ness, and feeling perhaps no misery on account of each other.

In the midst of every levity and fashionable folly, there is no part of the world where literature is more cultivated by the fair sex than in France, nor any part where the company of men of letters is by them more coveted; a circumstance, which while it dif­fuses knowledge among the women, gives an ele­gance and cheerfulness to the men, and renders them men of the world as well as of letters; and a circumstance, which has taught many of the French-women the valuable secret of reconciling pleasure to improvement: but a secret so valuable, and so rare in the female world, is not entirely owing to this circumstance, education also has a share in it; brought up for the most part in convents, books are often the only means they have of beguiling the tedious hours of inactivity and silence, and a fond­ness for them once contracted, the habit frequently remains for life. Such is female influence over literature, as well as over every other thing in France, [Page 306] that by much the greatest part of the productions of the press are calculated for their capacity; and hap­py is the author who meets with their general appro­bation, it is the ladder by which he must climb [...] fame, and the fountain which will assuredly yield him profit.

It is the property of real and unaffected politeness to banish all the stiffness, and throw aside those airs of reserve, which in every country appear more con­spicuous as the inhabitants approach more towards barbarism; in no country does this politeness manifest itself more than in France, where the company of the women is accessible to every man who can recommend himself by his dress, and by his address. To affectation and prudery the French women are equally strangers; easy and unaffected in their per­sons and manners, their politeness has so much the appearance of nature, that one would almost believe no part of it to be the effect of art. An air of sprightli­ness and gaiety sits perpetually on their countenances, and their whole deportment seems to indicate, that their only business is to strew the path of life with flowers. Persuasion hangs on the [...]r lips, and though their volubility of tongue is inde [...]tigable, so soft is their accent, so lively their expression so various their attitudes, that they fix the attention for hours toge­ther on a tale of nothing. In short, if a man is not too far gone in the spleen, there is no cure so certain as the company of a lively French-woman; but if he is totally over-run with that disease, her company will augment every symptom, and he will paint her as a late snarling traveller did, all folly and imperti­nence.

The peculiar province of beauty is to captivate at the first sight, and to retain the captive in chains, [Page 307] only for the short time that is necessary to discover they were forged by beauty alone. The French-women in general, not being remarkable for beauty, seldom jump into the affections of a man all at once, but gain upon him by degrees, and practise every female art to retain him in their service as long as inclination or convenience shall dictate; but the wind or the fashions which she follows, are hardly more inconstant than a French lady's mind; her sole joy is in the number of her admirers, and her sole pride in changing them as often as possible; over the whole of them she exercises the most absolute power, and they are zealously attentive even to prevent her wishes, by performing whatever they think she has any inclination to, their time, their interest, and activity, become wholly devoted to her will, or rather to her caprice, and they must not presume to exempt any talent or power from the most slavish servitude to her pleasure; even the purse, that most inaccessi­ble thing about a Frenchman, must pour out its last sou [...], at the call of his mistress; and should he fail in this particular, he would be immediately discarded from her train, with a stigma of preferring Mercury to Venus, which would effectually prevent him from ever gaining admittance into the train of any other of the fair; a mortification which being exceedingly unfashionable, would to a Frenchman be almost into­lerable.

The French-women reckon themselves the only females in the world who can dress with elegance, and behave with genuine and unaffected ease, notions which are diffused so much over all Europe, that these women lead every fashion, and dictate to every people the manner of behaviour; hence they have contracted a national pride, which is apt to make them look down on the inhabitants of every other [Page 508] country as miserable beings, but a few degrees above savage barbarity. Such absolute votaries of plea­sure, they have but little time for any other pur­suit, even religion must give place to this darling passion; while a French-woman is able to drink at the stream of pleasure, she is generally an atheist; as her taste for that diminishes, she becomes gradu­ally religious, and when she has lost it altogether, is the most bigotted devotee. Maternal affection must not interrupt the business of pleasure. Few women in France, who can afford to do otherwise, nurse, or take much care of their children when young; but for this neglect they make some repa­ration, by solicitously using all their interest to pro­vide for them when they become capable of entering into the army or the church. But to conclude, on comparing the different accounts of the French fe­males with each other, we are of opinion, that they rather sacrifice too much of their delicacy to wit, and of their chastity to good-breeding; that they pay too little regard to character, and too much to a ridi­culous opinion, that fashionable people are above it; that in fine, they are too much the creatures of art, and have almost discarded nature as much from their feelings as from their faces.

If chastity is none of the most shining virtues of the French, it is still less so of the Italians. Almost all the travellers who have visited Italy, agree in describing it as the most abandoned of all the coun­tries of Europe. At Venice, at Naples, and indeed in almost every part of Italy, women are taught from their infancy, the various arts of alluring to their arms, the young and unwary, and of obtain­ing from them, while heated by love or wine, every thing that flattery and false smiles can obtain in these unguarded moments; and so little infamous is the [Page 309] trade of prostitution, and so venal the women, that hardly any rank or condition sets them above being bribed to it, nay, they are frequently assisted by their male friends and acquaintances to drive a good bargain; nor does their career of debauchery finish with their unmarried state: the vows of fidelity which they make at the altar, are like the vows and oaths made upon too many other occasions, only considered as nugatory forms, which law has obliged them to take, but custom absolved them from per­forming. They even claim and enjoy greater liber­ties after marriage than before; every married wo­man has a cicisbeo, or gallant, who attends her to all public places, hands her in and out of her car­riage, picks up her gloves or fan, and a thousand other little offices of the same nature; but this is only his public employment, as a reward for which, he is entitled to have the lady as often as he pleases at a place of retirement sacred to themselves, where no person, not even the most intrusive husband must enter, to be witness of what passes between them. This has been considered by people of all other na­tions, as a custom not altogether consistent with chastity and purity of manners; the Italians them­selves, however, endeavour to justify it in their con­versations with strangers, and Baretti has of late years published a formal vindication of it to the world. In this vindication he has not only deduced the original of it from pure Platonic love, but would willingly persuade us that it is still continued upon the same mental principles; a doctrine which the world will hardly be credulous enough to swallow, even though he should offer more convincing argu­ments to support it than he has already done.

If the French women are remarkable for a national pride, which induces them to look with a mixture of [Page 310] pity and contempt upon every female who is unfor­tunate enough to belong to any other country, the Italians are not less remarkable for a family pride, which instigates them to despise, as beings beneath their notice, every one who cannot reckon up a long line of illustrious ancestors; and indeed they often behave as if they were persuaded, that a descent of this kind conferred upon them a dignity and worth, which all their own worthless insignificance could not possibly stain or destroy. The Spaniards carry this family pride even farther than the Italians, and the Germans, perhaps, still farther than they. It is a remainder of Gothic barbarity, wherever we meet with it, and one of the most certain appendages of narrow and little minds. Viewing it in this light, some have confined it almost entirely to the female sex: but its limits are not so circumscribed; in almost every country, it diffuses itself in a greater or less degree even among the men; but reigns triumphant in the ideas of the women, supplies the want of personal merit, and too often betrays itself in every look and in every action of their lives. In other respects the women of Italy approach nearer to the French, than those of any of the European king­doms; they are not quite so gay and volatile, nor do they so much excite the organs of risibility; but by the softness of their language, and their man­ner, they more forcibly engage the heart: they are not so much the cameleon or the weather-cock, but have some decent degree of permanency in their con­nections, whether of love or friendship; not, like French, careless and divested of jealousy, but often suffering it to transport them to the most unwarrant­able actions.

As we have almost in every other particular cha­racterised the women of Italy, in our sketches of [Page 311] those of France, we shall now pass on to Spain; a country which, though almost in our neighbourhood, we are less acquainted with, and less able to give the proper character of its inhabitants, than of the Hot­tentots, or Indians on the banks of the Ganges; a circumstance owing to the Spaniards having formerly almost totally shut up their country from the intru­sion of strangers; and from the genius of some of the most modern travellers, who, in passing through it, have hardly deigned to take notice of any thing that was not stamped at least with the rust of a thousand years. From the little, however, which we learn of the travellers who have visited Spain, that people have no great reason to boast of the security in which they suppose they have placed the chastity of their women, by the assistance of locks, bars, and old duennas. Chastity cannot be properly secured but by virtue, and virtue never yet was instilled by force. The Spaniards have at last attained sensibility enough to see this: their locks and bars are falling into dis­use, and their women do not become less chaste; and whatever may be the conduct of particulars, when we view them as a nation, they rank much higher in this respect than either the French or Ita­lians, though not so high as some of the other nations of Europe. A Spanish lady of rank discour­sing with some of her countrymen on gallantry, said that she would heartily despise the man, who, having a proper opportunity, did not strenuously solicit every favour she could grant. Every Spanish woman reckons this as a tribute due to her charms; and though she has no inclination to grant all the favours that a man can ask of her, she is not the less affronted if he does not ask them.

There is in the Spaniards a native dignity and pride, which far surpasses that of any other nation; [Page 312] which, though the source of many inconveniencies, has nevertheless this salutary effect, that it sets them above almost every species of meanness and infidelity. Nor is this a quality peculiar to the men; it diffuses itself in a great measure among the women also; and its effects are visible, both in their constancy in love and in friendship, in which respects they are the very reverse of the French women. Their affections are not to be gained by a bit of sparkling lace or a taw­dry set of liveries; nor are they to be lost by the appearance of still finer. Their deportment is rather grave and reserved; and, on the whole, they have much more of the prude than the coquette in their composition. Being more confined at home, and less engaged in business and in pleasure, they take more care of their offspring than the French, and have a becoming tenderness in their disposition to every thing but heretics.

The Spaniards are indulgent almost beyond mea­sure to their women, and there are several situations in which they take every advantage of this indul­gence. A kept mistress, by indisputable custom, has a right to a new suit of clothes, according to the qaulity of her keeper, as often as she is blooded; and it is only feigning a slight illness, and being on a proper footing with the Doctor, to procure this as often as she pleases. A lady to whom a Cavallero pays his addresses, is sole mistress of his time and money; and should he refuse her any request, rea­sonable or capricious, it would reflect eternal dis­honour upon him among the men, and not only ruin his suit, but make him the detestation of all the women. But in no situation does their character ap­pear so whimsical, or their power so conspicuous, as when they are breeding. In this case, whatever they long for, whatever they ask, or whatever they [Page 313] have an inclination to do, they must be indulged in. Some even of the lowest station have taken it into their heads to see the king, have sent to him, and he has gratified their curiosity. But this whimsical indulgence is sometimes used improperly; for it has been known, that young men who could not gain admittance to the wives of others, whom they want to debauch, have dressed themselves like women with child, and in this disguise carried on their in­trigues unsuspected.

It would greatly exceed the limits we have pre­scribed to ourselves, were we to give a minute detail of the character and conduct of the women in every country of Europe; we shall therefore confine our subject to a few observations of a more general nature than those we have just now exhibited. Though the Germans are rather a dull and phlegmatic people, and not much addicted to the warmer passions, yet at the court of Vienna they are much given to in­trigue; and an affair of this kind is so far from being scandalous, that a woman gains credit by the rank of her gallant, and is reckoned silly and unfa­shionable, if she scrupulously adheres to the virtue of chastity. But this, as well as some things which have been related above, it is hoped, is more the manners of courts, than of places less exposed to temptation, and consequently less dissolute; and we are well assured, that in all the nations we have men­tioned, there are many women who do honour to humanity, not by chastity only, but also by a vari­ety of other virtues.

The greatest part of the other European nations, not having yet arrived at that point in the scale of politeness, where nature begins to be discarded, and religion obliterated, their women are of course less [Page 314] the votaries of the Cyprian goddess. In Great-Bri­tain, most parts of Germany, Holland, Switzerland, Prussia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, and Russia, chastity is still a fashionable virtue, and the other female virtues attend in her train. Indelicacy is not substituted for wit, nor are double entendres almost ever heard from the lips of any female above an oyster-wench or a prostitute. Some women, indeed, of the higher ranks in England have of late set scan­dal at defiance, and laughed at character: but they have commonly found themselves engaged in an un­equal contest; the lash of satire has made them smart, in spite of their seeming indifference; and their want of a good character has excluded them almost from every company, and of course from more than half the joys of life. Their pernicious example is, however, in our opinion, not widely diffused. Our women are, in general, chaste and delicate; and while we do not give improper coun­tenance to those who have acted otherwise, will continue to be so. But should the unhappy period ever arrive, when our men should not distinguish between her who is virtuous, and her who is not, the character we have here given of our women will no longer exist, and we shall have ourselves to blame for having destroyed it.

But besides the virtues of modesty and chastity, in which the women of Europe far surpass all others, they are not less distinguishable for many other good qualities both of the head and of the heart. It is in some of the politer European nations only, where we meet with that inexpressible softness and delicacy of manners, which, cultivated by education, ap­pears as much superior to what it does without it, as the polished diamond appears superior to that which is rough from the mine. In all other parts of the [Page 315] world, women have attained to so little knowledge, and so little consequence, that we can only consider their virtues as of the negative kind. In Europe they are of another nature; they consist not only in abstinence from evil, but in doing good: we see wo­men every day exerting themselves in acts of bene­volence and charity, in relieving the distresses of the body, and binding up the wounds of the mind; in reconciling the differences of friends, and preventing the strife of enemies; and, to sum up all, in that care and attention to their offspring, which is so necessary and essential a part of their duty.

But, as impartial historians, we hold not up the fair side of the picture only, but shall turn to the other also. This less lovely side, however, we shall present to our female readers, without any of the sourness of the declaimer, or the sarcastical sneering of the satirist; being fully sensible, especially when we address ourselves to the softer sex, that a reproof is half lost, where ill-nature is joined; and having only in our view, the improvement of their under­standings, and leading them by gentle arts to those paths of rectitude and decorum, from which some of them have deviated.

Though we have declared it as our opinion, that there is in most parts of Europe more female virtue than in any other place on the globe, yet even here, we find women liable to a variety of foibles and fail­ings. As chastity is so highly valued in almost all the nations of our continent, we meet often with women who are foolish enough to persuade them­selves, and endeavour to persuade the world, that the possession of it can atone for the want of every other thing amiable and virtuous; and if any one is hardy enough to hint at their faults, they answer [Page 316] with no small severity, in the cant phrase, ‘I am an honest woman, at least.’

There is amongst us another female character, not uncommon, which we denominate the outrageously virtuous. Women of this stamp never fail to seize all opportunities of exclaiming, in the bitterest manner, against every one upon whom even the slightest sus­picion of indiscretion or unchastity has fallen; taking care, as they go along, to magnify every mole-hill into a mountain, and every thoughtless freedom into the blackest of crimes. But besides the illiberality of thus treating such as may frequently be innocent, you may credit us, dear countrywomen, when we aver, that such a behaviour, instead of making you appear more virtuous, only draws down upon you, by those who know the world, suspicions not much to your advantage. Your sex are in general sus­pected by ours, of being too much addicted to scan­dal and defamation; a suspicion, which has not arisen of late years, as we find in the ancient laws of England a punishment, known by the name of duck­ing-stool, annexed to scolding and defamation in the women, though no such punishment nor crime is taken notice of in the men. This crime, however, we persu [...]de ourselves, you are less guilty of, than is commonly believed: but there is another of a nature not more excusable, from which we cannot so much exculpate you; which is, that harsh and for­bidding appearance you put on, and that ill-treat­ment, which you no doubt think necessary, for the illustration of your own virtue, you should be­stow on every one of your sex who has deviated from the path of rectitude. A behaviour of this nature, besides being so opposite to that meek and gentle spirit which should distinguish female nature, is in every respect contrary to the charitable and forgiving [Page 317] temper of the Christian religion, and infallibly shuts the door of repentance against an unfortunate sister, willing, perhaps, to abandon the vices into which heedless inadvertency had plunged her, and from which none of you can promise yourselves an abso­lute security.

We wish not, fair countrywomen, like the declaimer and satirist, to paint you all vice and im­perfection, nor, like the venal panegyrist, to exhi­bit you all virtue. As impartial historians, we con­fess that you have, in the present age, many virtues and good qualities, which were either nearly or alto­gether unknown to your ancestors; but do you not exceed them in some follies and vices also? Is not the levity, dissipation, and extravagance of the wo­men of this century arrived to a pitch unknown and unheard-of in former times? Is not the course which you steer in life, almost entirely directed by vanity and fashion? And are there not too many of you, who, throwing aside reason and good conduct, and despising the counsel of your friends and rela­tions, seem determined to follow the mode of the world, however it may savour of folly, and how­ever it may be mixed with vice? Do not the gene­rality of you dress, and appear, above your station, and are not many of you ashamed to be seen perform­ing the duties of it? To sum up all, do not too, too many of you act as if you thought the care of a family, and the other domestic virtues, beneath your attention, and that the sole end for which you were sent into the world, was to please and divert yourselves, at the expence of those poor wretches the men, whom you consider as obliged to support you in every kind of idleness and extravagance? While such is your conduct, and while the contagion is every day increasing, you are not to be surprised if [Page 318] the men, still fond of you as playthings, in the hours of mirth and revelry, shun every serious connection with you; and while they wish to be possessed of your charms, are so much afraid of your manners and conduct, that they prefer the cheerless state of a batchelor, to the numberless evils arising from being tied to a modern wife.

We shall conclude this chapter with a few general observations on the characteristic differences of the past and present ages of the world. Such, among many, is the proclivity to admiring whatever is past and despising whatever is present, that every thing stamped with the rust of remote antiquity must infallibly be all good and virtuous, and every thing of a modern date as unquestionably be vice and folly. According to such, the times of the patriarchs were the best and happiest periods of the world, even so much so, that they were distinguished by the splen­did title of golden age, while our modern times are branded with the epithet of the age of iron. To give us some idea of this golden age, many authors of considerable merit have laboured to persuade us, that the earth brought forth her fruit spontaneously, that the lion and the tyger were harmless as the lamb, and that mankind, free from pride, ambition, ava­rice, and all the vicious and tumultuous passions of the mind, lived in the most happy security and sim­plicity; and some have even gone so far as to repre­sent these times as exempted from those infirmities to which nature, folly, and climate, have always sub­jected humanity. These and other fables of the like nature, though they may do credit to the song of the poet, disgrace the record of the historian; but in forming our judgment of past events, we are not to be directed by the poet, the declaimer, the panegy­rist, nor the satirist; we must listen to facts only, [Page 319] and we must also consider the general complexion of the times in which they happened.

Such authors as we have mentioned would make us believe, that avarice and ambition were unknown to the happy beings they have placed in the first ages of the world; but all that remains of the history of these ages▪ teaches quite another doctrine, and de­monstrates that, almost from the remotest antiquity, there were wars, entered into with the most flagrant injustice, and carried on with the most shocking inhu­manity▪ murders and robberies constantly commit­ted, and the most wanton cruelties often executed without any provocation; that brother cheated in the most solemn manner his brother; that the fair sex were maltreated and abused; and in fine, that a savage barbarity of manners subjected every thing to superior strength. They would likewise persuade us, that pomp and luxury were then altogether un­known; but these are only comparative, not abso­lute terms; as what might well deserve the name of luxury in one period, would be the utmost simpli­city in another. We grant indeed, that those ele­gant pleasures which are the result of knowledge, industry, and a perfection of the arts, had then no existence; but they had a pomp and a luxury pro­portioned to their powers, and the means they had of shewing them, and in these they exerted, nay even overstretched themselves perhaps as much as in our modern times, as we shall see more fully in the sequel of this work. Let us then no longer continue to ascribe so many chimerical virtues to those ages, when the plainness and simplicity of manners which then prevailed, was evidently owing more to their rude and uncultivated state, than to their better principles; and when the virtues for which they are [Page 320] [...], were more of the negative than the [...].

Those abandoned cities which were consumed by fire from heaven, need not be brought as examples of the total corruption of ancient manners. We have unhappily too many other proofs of it, and of these the diffidence that every one then entertained of his neighbour, is not the weakest. Abraham and Isaac, both apprehended that they should be slain for the sake of their wives; and it was no un­common thing for a man to require an oath of his neighbour that he would do him no harm. The sto­ries of Judah and Tamar, his daughter-in-law, and of the rape of Dinah, give us some idea of the debau­chery and injustice which then reigned upon the earth. Judah condemned Tamar to suffer death for the crime that he had committed with her, and the perfidious sons of Jacob slew the Sechemites after they had ratified a treaty of peace with them in the most solemn manner. Nor were fidelity and honour more respected in private than in public life; Jacob bargained with his uncle to serve him seven years for his daughter Rachel; when the service was accom­plished, Laban shamefully imposed upon him Leah, and had even the effrontery to justify what he had done, and exact another seven years service for Ra­chel. Jacob deceived his brother Esau; the sons of Jacob sold Joseph their brother as a slave; an old prophet, by a pretended commission from the Lord, decoyed a brother prophet to his house, and made him eat bread and drink water, contrary to the com­mandment that had been given him, and for the dis­obedience of which he was slain by a lion. Such were mankind in the patriarchal ages.

[Page 321]When we trace their character through the subse­quent periods mentioned in the Old Testament, we meet with a numerous list of the same enormities and crimes. When from this sacred record, we turn towards the traditions and fragments of the history of other nations, they give us no more favourable idea of those primitive times; from them we learn, that men lived at first without government, and without law, without mutual confidence, or mutual friendship; passion and appetite dictated what they should do, and they were not solicitous about the justice, but only about the convenience and utility of their actions. The whole of the political history of ancient Egypt is a scene of slaughter and injustice. The cruelty and other crimes of Semiramis excite our indignation, and the mad exploits of Alexander, were they not so much marked with blood, would almost excite our laughter. The heroic ages of Greece exhibit little besides rape, murder, and adultery; and the subsequent periods are full of ty­ranny, proscription, and oppression.

The Romans were at first a set of lawless banditti: after they had formed themselves into a community, and peopled Rome, they became famous for mode­ration and justice, wherever the concerns of their republic were not in question, and at last turned the most venal and profligate of mankind. When the Roman empire was destroyed, were the crimes of the people extirpated; or does history paint mankind as meliorated by so great an event? The reverse we are afraid is the case; gloomy superstition now start­ed up, persecution stalked terrible behind her, and drenched Europe in blood. Rome erected a spiri­tual, when she had lost a temporal, authority, and indiscriminately trampled on the rights of heaven and earth; scarcely was there a nation among us, whose [Page 322] roads were not infested with gangs of lawless assassins, who robbed and murdered the traveller as he went along, and the laws were too feeble to bring these, or even single offenders, to justice. Nor was a man's own house even an asylum, where his life and property could be secure; his stronger neigh­bour often entered it in the night, and bereaved him at once of property and of life. Such was the pic­ture of Europe till the beginning of the sixteenth cen­tury, when, by a variety of causes, which it is not our province to enumerate, the manners began to soften, justice to triumph over oppression, and the whole to assume that order and security in which we now behold it.

CHAPTER XIII. Of the Influence of Female Society.

OF all the various causes which tend to influence our conduct and form our manners, none operate so powerfully as the society of the other sex. If perpetually confined to their company, they infal­libly stamp upon us effeminacy, and some other of the signatures of their nature; if constantly excluded from it, we contract a roughness of behaviour, and slovilenliness of person, sufficient to point out to us the loss we have sustained. If we spend a reasonable portion of our time in the company of women, and another in the company of our own sex, it is then only that we imbibe a proper share of the softness of the female, and at the same time retain the firmness and constancy of the male.

Women in all ages have set the greatest value on courage and bravery in the men; and men, in all civilized ages and countries, have placed the chiefest female excellence in beauty, chastity, and a cer­tain nameless softness and delicacy of person and behaviour. The cause of this will unfold itself in considering the nature of the different sexes. Wo­men, in themselves weak, timid, and defenceless, stand in the greatest need of courage and bravery, to defend them from the assaults that may be made on their bodies, or advantages that may be gained over their minds; men, on the other hand, enter­prising and robust, have the greatest need of female softness, to smooth their rugged nature, to wear off [Page 324] the asperities they daily contract in their business and connections with one another, and by the lenient balm of endearment, to blunt the edge of corrosive care.

We have just now observed, that men secluded from the company of women, become slovenly in their persons, and rough and untractable in their manners; but this is not all, even their gait assumes a more uncouth appearance, and their voice a hoarser and less musical tone; their sensations be­come less delicate, their sentiments less religious, and their passions seem to have more of the brutal, than those of the rest of their sex; circumstances which appear but too conspicuous in sailors, miners, and other people who either spend the greatest part of their time altogether without women, or in the company of such as have lost every female excellence. Should it be alleged, that those alterations are owing to the horrid trade of war, in which sailors are so often engaged, the same thing should then be ob­served in soldiers. Should we have recourse to the surliness of the winds and waves, against which they maintain a perpetual combat, though these may in some measure account for their behaviour, yet it will appear to an accurate observer, that the ulti­mate cause is not to be found only in the want of that social intercourse with the other sex, which of all things has the most powerful tendency to soften and humanize the mind.

Though men secluded from the company of wo­men, become the most rude and uncultivated of ani­mals, yet women almost entirely secluded from the company of men, do not, in some particular cases, lose almost any thing of their softness and delicacy. In nunneries, for instance, we often persuade our­selves, [Page 325] that these qualities rather increase; but here we are to consider, that women so placed, are not altogether excluded from the company of men, having frequent opportunities of seeing and con­versing with them through a grate; and besides, the melancholy reflections on the sweets of society, of friendship, and above all, of love which they have for ever lost, give them an air of pensive softness, which never fail to make the sex appear more lovely, and to raise our pity, a passion which, we may say, when it has beauty for its object, is more than sister to love, and inspires us with the strongest partiality.

But though women who are shut up by themselves preserve their native softness and delicacy, yet those of them, who, abandoned by, or despising the com­pany of their own sex, associate only with ours, soon become the roughest and most uncultivated of the human species; a fact which the experience of every one must have abundantly demonstrated to him, and which affords the strongest possible proof of the salu­tary influence of female society. But in order to shew more particularly the benefits arising from this source, let us take a short view of the state of soci­ety among the ancients, and then turn our eyes towards those countries, where, at present, men and women live almost constantly separated from each other, and where the men seldom or never deign to visit the women but to shew authority, or to gratify animal appetite.

When we look back to the more early ages of antiquity, we find but little social intercourse be­tween the two sexes, and that, in consequence thereof, both were less amiable in their persons and manners. In the patriarchal ages, it would seem, that the women generally resided by themselves, in [Page 326] apartments allotted to them in the back-parts of the tents of their parents and husbands; a custom long after continued, and in some places at this day ob­served, among the descendants of the patriarchs; the effects of which, on the tempers and dispositions of the men, and even upon those of the women, were apparent. Neither of the sexes were lively nor cheerful; the men were cruel, gloomy, trea­cherous, and revengeful; the women, in a lesser degree, shared all these unsocial vices. Many ages elapsed after the times we are speaking of, before women arose into consequence enough to become the companions of an hour devoted to society, as well as of that devoted to love. Even the Babylonians, who appear to have allowed their women more liberty than any of the ancients, seem not to have lived with them in a friendly and familiar manner; but the little intercourse the sexes had with each other, being still greater than that of the neighbour­ing nations, they acquired thereby a polish and refinement unknown to any of the people who sur­rounded them. The manners of both sexes were softer, and better calculated to please, and to clean­liness and dress they paid more attention. Such were the effects of female society on the Babylonians; but they had not carried it far enough to become properly cultivated. The Sybarites, who had car­ried it by much too far, in a series of years lost by it, all that firmness of body and of mind peculiar to the men, and contracted, if we may be allowed the expression, a more than female effeminacy.

What a rude and barbarous people the Greeks were, during the heroic ages, we have already seen: when we trace them downward to those periods in which they become famous for their knowledge of the arts and sciences, we find their rudeness but a [Page 327] little altered, and their manners softened only a few degrees; it is not therefore arts, sciences, and learning, but the company of the other sex only, that forms the manners, and renders the men agree­able. But the company and conversation of that sex, as we have before related, was among the Greeks shamefully neglected; and particularly among the Lacedemonians, who, on that account, were the most rude and uncivilized of all their neighbours. In their more early periods, the Romans were scarcely behind the Greeks in rudeness and barba­rity; but they were sometime a community without women, and consequently without any thing to soften the ferocity of male nature. The Sabine virgins, whom they had stolen, appear to have in­fused into them the first ideas of politeness; but as they spent the greatest part of their time in the field, or in the Forum, and in general did not make com­panions of their wives and daughters, it was many ages before the roughness of the warrior, and clown­ishness of the farmer, began to give place to the po­liteness of the gentleman; a revolution of manners, which did not begin to shew itself till about the time when th [...] Caesars assumed the Empire; and from that time the intercourse between the sexes became so easy, and gallantry grew so much into fashion, that the hardy Roman was at length softened down to the delicate voluptuary.

The same causes existed among the nations con­temporary with the Romans, and they produced the same effects. None of the fierce inhabitants of the North had either time or inclination for the com­pany of their women; and on that account they were destitute of ornaments and graces, and equally uncultivated in body and in mind. Were we to proceed on our survey of antiquity, we should find, [Page 328] that it was only a few centuries ago that the fair sex began in Europe to be considered in a rational light. Before the introduction of chivalry, they were looked upon as beings unworthy of the com­pany or attention of the men: by that institution, they were raised to the rank of divinities, approach­ed with reverence, and considered as moving in a sphere too exalted for the familiarity of mortal men; and it was only upon the decline of this romantic turn of mind, that they began to take that place in the scale of rational beings, for which nature seems to have intended them; to be social companions, to enhance the value of all the pleasures, and alleviate all the pains and ills, of life.

From this slight survey of antiquity, let us turn our eyes towards the present state of mankind in the East; where jealousy, that tyrant of the soul, has excluded all the joys and comforts of mixed soci­ety: there, we shall not only find the men gloomy, suspicious, cowardly, and cruel, but divested of almost all the finer sentiments that arise from friend­ship and from love. There we shall find, that roughness and barbarity have settled their empire, and triumph over the human mind: but there, shall we hardly be able to discover the tender parent, or the indulgent husband; there, shall we with diffi­culty find any of the social virtues, or the sentimen­tal feelings: all these are commonly the offspring of mixed society; and though men may improve their heads in the company of their own sex, we may affirm, that the company and conversation of wo­men alone is the proper school for the heart. Should any one doubt the truth of this, let him turn over a few volumes of the history of any of those nations, where the sexes live excluded from each other, and he will meet with the most ample conviction.

[Page 329]When from those unsocial regions, where, by being deprived of the company of the fair, life is deprived of more than half its joys, we turn ourselves to Europe, we easily discover, that in proportion to the time spent in the conversation of their women, the people are polished and refined; and less so, in proportion as they neglect or despise them. The Russians, Poles, and even the Dutch, pay less atten­tion to their females than any of their neighbours, and are of consequence less distinguished for the graces of their persons, and the feelings of their hearts. The Spaniards, when they formerly had not the benefits of female society, were remarkable for their cruelties: at this period, when locks, bars, and duennas are becoming unfashionable, and wo­men mixing among them, they are fast assuming the culture and humanity of the neighbouring nations. So powerful, in short, is the company and conver­sation of the fair, in diffusing happiness and hilarity, that even the cloud which hangs on the thoughtful brow of an Englishman, begins, in the present age, to brighten, by his devoting to the ladies, a larger share of time, than was formerly done by his an­cestors.

But if we would contemplate the influence of female society in its greatest perfection, we must take a view of the Italians and French; in the last of which, we are constantly presented with tempers so gay and cheerful, that we are almost tempted to think them superior to all the ills and accidents of life: among them only we find happiness smiling amid want and poverty, and pleasure and amusement, with all their sportive train, not only attending on the rich and affluent, but on the humble villager, and dancing around the rustic cot. For this forti­tude of the French in supporting their spirits through [Page 330] all the adverse circumstances of the world, for their vivacity and cheerfulness of temper, various reasons have been assigned, as the lightness of their food, and salubrity of their air; causes to which a great deal may be justly attributed, but which are un­doubtedly much assisted in their operations by the constant mixture of the young and old, and by the levity and sprightliness of female conversation; for we scruple not to assert, that this vivacity of the French ladies, and the constant attendance paid them by the men, are the chief causes why the cares and ills of life sit lighter on the shoulders of that fantas­tic people, than on those of any other country in the wor [...] ▪

In all other countreis, the men make excursions, and form parties of pleasure, by themselves: The French reckon that an excursion is dull, and that a party of pleasure cannot deserve that name, without a mixture of both sexes join to compose it. The French women do not even withdraw from the table after meals; nor do the men discover that propen­sity to have them dismissed, which we so often meet with in England, and which is a certain indication, that they either want to debauch themselves with liquor, or indulge in those indecencies of discourse, which the company of women always restrains. It is alleged by those who have no relish for the con­versation of the fair sex, that their company curbs the freedom of speech, and restrains the jollity of mirth: but if the conversation and the mirth are de­cent, and the company are capable of relishing any thing but wine, the very reverse is the case; at least it is always remarkably so among the French: nor is any thing more natural; for, the fair sex in general being less disturbed by the cares and anxieties of life, [Page 331] are not only themselves more cheerful, but more eager to promote mirth and festivity.

But the advantages of female society are not alto­gether confined to the circumstances we have now related; they extend themselves much farther, and spread their influence over almost every custom and every action of social life. It is to the social inter­course with women, that the men are indebted for every effort they make to please and be agreeable; and it is to the ambition of pleasing they owe all their elegance of manners, as well as all the neatness and ornaments of dress. It is to the same cause, also, that they frequently owe their sobriety and tempe­rance, and consequently their health; for to drun­kenness and irregularity, nothing is so effectual a check, as the company of modest women; inso­much that it is but seldom we find a man so lost to shame, as to get drunk when he is in, or to go into their company. To them wer are not less frequently indebted for the calming of violent disputes, and preventing of quarrels, which, with every other species of rudeness, are happily reckoned so indecent in their presence, that we often postpone them till another opportunity; and in the interim, reason resumes the rein which passion had usurped. But this is not all: many disputes and quarrels, already begun, have been amicably settled by the interposi­tion of their good offices, or, at least, the fatal ef­fects of them prevented by their tears and media­tion. Fond of the softer scenes of peace, they have often had the address to prevent, by their arguments and intercession, the direful effects of war; and, afraid of losing their husbands and relations, they have sometimes rushed between two hostile armies ready to engage, and turned the horrid scenes of destruction into those of friendship and festivity.

[Page 332]In our sex, there is a kind of constitutional or masculine pride, which hinders us in yielding, in points of knowledge or of honour, to eah other. Though this may be designed by nature for several useful purposes, yet it is often the source also of a variety of evils, the most dangerous to the peace of society; but we lay it entirely aside in our connec­tions with women, and with pleasure submit to such dictates and behaviour from their sex, as from our own would call up every irascible particle of our blood, and inflame every ungovernable passion. This accustomed submission gives a new and less im­perious turn to our ideas, teaches us to obey where we were used to command, and to reason where we used to be in a passion; to consider as only good breeding and complaisance, that which before we looked upon as the most abject and unbecoming meanness: and thus the stern severity of the male is softened and rendered agreeable by the gentleness peculiar to the female nature. Hence we may rest assured, that it is the conversation of virtuous and sensible women only, that can properly fit us for society; and that, by abating the ferocity of our more irascible passions, can lead us on to that gen­tleness of deportment, distinguished by the name of humanity. The tenderness we have for them softens the ruggedness of our natue; and the virtues we assume, in order to make a better figure in their eyes, sometimes become so habitual to us, that we never afterward lay them aside.

We are aware, that in this country it is too much the fashion to suppose that books, and the company of men only, are necessary to furnish every qualifi­cation requisite for the scholar and the gentleman; but we would desire such as are of this opinion to compare the generality of the gentlemen of this [Page 333] country, to those of France and Italy, and they find, that though we perhaps excel them in the deepness of thought and solidity of judgment, we are gratly their inferiors in urbanity, in address, and knowledge of the world; for though books may furnish ideas, and experience improve the under­standing, it is only the company and acquaintance of the ladies, which can bestow that easiness of address, by which the fine gentleman is distinguished from the mere scholar, and man of business. The French and Italians educate their nobility in the drawing-room, at the toilette, and palces of public amuse­ment, where they are constantly in the company of women. The English educate theirs at the college, and at New-market, where books, grooms, and jockies, are their only companions: the former are often the most fantastical of beings; the latter, the most ignorant, imperious, and surly: something be­tween these two extremes of education, while it preserved the dignity and firmness of the man, might infuse a proper quantity of the softness and address of the woman.

When we look a few centuries backward to those periods, when, even in Europe, there was but little intercourse between the two sexes, we find that the men were hardly ruder in their manners than in their persons; they wore long beards, which totally covered the chin, and often hung a great way down the breast. Beards are the work of nature, and however troublesome and uncouth, had no moral turpitude, nor tendency to debauch the manners; but the man had, in those times, other modes of dressing which violated every idea of decency. As the ladies began to have more influence, beards were mutilated down to mustachoes, though the learned exclaimed against the horrid innovation, as [Page 334] discovering a taste which tended more to gratify the women, than to keep up the dignity of the mas­culine countenance; and though the church consi­dered the mutilation as little short of apostacy, be­cause Moses and Jesus were always painted with long beards. As the gentlemen found that the ladies had no great relish for mustachoes, which were the relics of a beard, they cut and curled them into various fashions, to render them more agreeable; and at last finding that such labour was in vain, gave them up altogether. But as the gentlemen of the three learned professions were supposed to be endowed with, or at least to stand in need of, more wisdom than other people, and as the longest beard had always been supposed to sprout from the wisest chin, to supply this mark of distinction, which they had lost, they contrived to smother up their heads in enormous quantities of frizzled hair, that they might bear the greater resemblance to an owl, the bird sacred to wisdom and Minerva. Such pro­fessional wigs, however, were long an object of the ridicule of wits, and the dislike of the women, who, to the honour of their taste and influence, have, in the present age, banished by far the greater part of them.

Man, secluded from the company of women, is not only a rough and uncultivated, but a dangerous animal to society; for, in such a situation, the ani­mal appetite is daily gathering strength, till at last it becomes almost quite ungovernable; a fact well known to the inhabitants of sea-ports who have too frequent opportunities of seeing the force of that ungovernable passion, with which sailors returned from a long voyage, commonly dedicate themselves to the worthless women who attend on account of their money. And a fact which also appears evi­dent [Page 335] from the conduct of the men in all countries, where women are kept as the miser does his gold: in such countries, the passions of the men are so rais­ed by partial glances, and by brooding over the thoughts of ideal beauty, and ideal happiness, in the enjoyment of it, and so inflamed with almost insurmountable obstacles to that enjoyment, that if they ever happen to find a woman alone, they attack her in the most furious and licentious man­ner; nor have the women here such a power of resistance as they have in countries where they are accustomed to the company of the men; secluded from them by a barbarous custom, they naturally form notions of the happiness they would derive from them, of the most wild and romantic nature: these notions disarm their virtue, and make them fall an easy prey to the first rude invader. From this cause it happens, that, in spite of cautious pa­rents, and jealous husbands, and of locks, bars, and eunuchs, the chastity of women is less secure in such countries, than where the sexes live free and easy together: we may therefore assert, that the benefits of mixed society are not confined to the men alone, but extend to the women also; infuse into their minds a power of checking the attacks of inso­lence, and by making man the object of their daily converse, make him less valuable, and consequently less dangerous, either to their virtue or their happi­ness; and we may further aver, that this society teaches the men to regulate and govern their passions with greater propriety, as nothing can be more cer­tain, than that rape, adultery, and every evil that follow them, are more common in countries where the sexes live separate, than where they enjoy the company of each other.

[Page 336]There is nothing by which the happiness of indi­viduals and of society is so much promoted, as by constant efforts to please; and these efforts are in a great measure only produced by the company of women; for men, by themselves, relax in almost every particular of good-breeding and complaisance, and appear the creatures of mere nature: but no sooner does a woman appear, than the scene is chan­ged, and they become emulous to shew all their good qualifications. It is by the arts of pleasing only, that women can attain to any degree of consequence or power; and it is by pleasing only, that they can hope to become objects of love and affection; attain­ments which, as they are of all others the most dear to them, prompt them to cultivate most assiduously the arts of pleasing; arts for which they are well qualified by nature. In their forms lovely, in their manners soft and engaging, such are they by nature and by art, that they can infuse by their smiles, by their air and address, a thousand nameless sweets into society, which without them would be insipid, and barren of sentiment and of feeling. But to enjoy any pleasure in perfection, we must never be satiated with it; and therefore it requires more than com­mon prudence in a woman, to be much in company, and still retain that deference and respect which we would voluntarily pay to her, were we seldomer indulged with her presence. A few centuries ago women were rarely accessible, but, shut up in houses and castles, lived retired from the bustle of the world. When they deigned to shew themselves, they were approached as divinities: a transient view of them often set the heart on fire; and their smiles conferred a happiness, and raised an enthusiastic ardour, of which at this period we can hardly form any idea. By degrees, as manners became more free, and the sexes mixed together with less cere­mony, [Page 337] women began to be seen with less trepida­tion, approached with less deference, and sunk in their value as they became objects of greater famili­arity. Nor was this peculiar to the times we are delineating: the same effect always has, and always will happen from the same cause; let the other sex, therefore, learn this instructive lesson from it, that half the esteem and veneration we shew them, is owing to their modesty and reserve, and that a con­trary conduct may make the most enchanting god­dess deg [...]erate in our eyes to a mere woman, with all the frailties of mortality about her. The forward beauty, whose face is known in every walk, and in every public place, may be given as a toast, and have her name inscribed on the windows of a tavern, but she rarely ever becomes an object of esteem, or is solicited to be a companion for life.

We shall conclude what we had to say on the ad­vantages of female society, by observing, that it seems not only to be the cause of the rise and pro­gress of polite manners, and of sentimental feelings, but also of the fine arts. When we view the coun­tries where women are confined, we find the inhabi­tants of them distinguished for barbarity of manners; when we view the same countries in the periods when the women begin to have their liberty, we immedi­ately perceive the manners begin to soften and im­prove. In no country can this be more strongly exemplified than in Spain; they had formerly less communication with the fair sex than any other peo­ple of Europe, and were consequently greatly behind all of them in politeness and elegance of manners; but since their women have been under less restraint, the progress of manners has been so rapid, that they are hardly behind any of their neighbours. To the society of women we are indebted for the emulation [Page 338] of pleasing, and conferring happiness on others; and to this emulation we certainly owe the greater part, if not the whole of the fine arts. If any one doubts of this, let him consider the condition of those countries, where men have no such motives of emu­lation, and let him there discover the fine arts if he can; he may indeed say, that in the East he finds some of those arts in as great perfection as in Europe; but he discovers also, that they have existed there time immemorial, without the least advance or im­provement: and why? because the Eastern has no motive to render him emulous of pleasing; has he a rival in love, he is under no obligation to succeed in preference to him by shewing preferable accomplish­ments; does he court a coy fair, who shews reluct­ance in accepting of him? he is not desirous to gain her affections by good offices, and by inventions to render her life easy and comfortable, but at once buys her of her sordid parents or relations. Widely different is the case in Europe; women of sense judge of the men by the elegance of their persons, of their manners, and by their intellectual faculties; hence the men have constantly occasion to shew all these to the best advantage, and hence, even the fine arts, which we cultivate to please and to render us amiable, may be rationally considered as an effect of female society and of love.

Were we inclined to write the panegyric, instead of the history of the fair sex, we might enumerate several other advantages arising from their company and conversation; but, contenting ourselves with what we have already related on this head, we shall now mention some of the disadvantages arising from our intercourse with them. By the learned and studious, it has often been objected to female company, that it so enervates and relaxes the mind, [Page 339] and gives it such a turn for trifling, levity, and dis­sipation, as renders it altogether unfit for that appli­cation which is necessary in order to become eminent in any of the sciences. In proof of this they allege, that the greatest philosophers seldom or never were men who enjoyed, or were fit for the company or conversation of woman. Sir Isaac Newton hardly ever conversed with any of the sex, and it is believ­ed, died at last as much a stranger to the joys of love, as he had lived a stranger to the fair objects that awaken it in the heart; Bacon, Boyle, Des Cartes, and a variety of others, conspicuous for their learn­ing and application, were but indifferent companions to the fair. Whether these, and many other instan­ces of the same nature which might be adduced, are sufficient to establish a general rule, we pretend not to determine. Nothing however seems more certain than that the youth who devotes his whole time and attention to female conversation and the little offices of gallantry, never distinguishes himself in the lite­rary world; but without the fatigue and application of severe study, such a man often obtains by female interest, what is denied to the merited improvements acquired by the labour of many years.

But besides this idleness and neglect of study, so much complained of as a consequence of the com­pany of the women, such company also often leads the men into a scene of expensive amusements, into a love of finery and ostentatious show, which they are not able to afford; while regardless of every thing but to please the giddy and unthinking fair, they rush forward with thoughtless unconcern on the ruin of their fortunes, and awake not from their dream of folly till they find themselves plunged into poverty, become the jest of their acquaintances, and even perhaps sneered at by the very females who [Page 340] led them into the snare. Against such weakness we sincerely wish to caution the young and unexperi­enced part of our sex, and we advise them to be careful how they associate with any of the other, who are not endowed with sense as well as virtue; for it is not always to vicious, but frequently to gay and thoughtless women, that men owe their ruin.

Such as are enthusiastically zealous for the liber­ties of mankind, have imagined that the only way to continue a brave, free, and independent people, is to avoid as much as possible the company of wo­men, the soft strains of music, and all the luxuries of the table and of dress; and as a proof of their opinion, they tell us, that the Lydians, the Syba­rites, and even the hardy Romans themselves, were debauched, and at length lost their liberty by their attention to women.

That all these people were greatly debauched in their manners, history has left us no room to doubt; but that the company of women was the cause of this debauchery, is far from being certain; at least if we take a view of the world as it exists in the present period, it teaches us a different lesson; it points out to us, in the most clear and distinct manner, that liberty and independence, the most inestimable bles­sings of mankind, are no where at so low an ebb, as in the countries where the women have no political influence, and where the men keep almost no com­company with them: it shews us, that the men of such countries, instead of being the bravest and the most independent, are the most dastardly and ensla­ved of the human race; and that on the contrary, in the wilds of America, where liberty and indepen­dence exist in the most extensive sense of the words, the freedom which the women enjoy in mixing with, [Page 341] and in some places even of governing along with the men, has not in the least contributed to destroy these native rights of mankind. That in Europe, where liberty is generally founded on social and rational principles, calculated for the good of the community the company of the women has not hitherto so ener­vated the men as to induce them to part with it, rather than rouse themselves from the lap of indo­lence and ease. About two hundred and fifty years ago, when Francis the First had not introduced wo­men to court, the French were not half so much in the company of their women as at present, and yet were not then a more free and independent people; on the contrary, though we suppose them to have been sinking in effeminacy ever since that period, we have seen them at different times make such efforts against arbitrary power as have rather increased than diminished their privileges. Were the Italians less slaves to their princes, and to the see of Rome in former times, when they were scarcely employed in any thing but arts of superstitious devotion, than at present, when they almost entirely resign themselves to music and to women? Or were the Spaniards more free under the gloomy reign of Philip the Second, when, from motives of jealousy and reli­gion, their women were constantly locked up, than they are at present when they converse with them? In short, wherever we meet with a nation of slaves, other causes besides the company of their women must have contributed to bring them into, and to continue them in, that despicable state.

Such are the general influences of female society; the particular influence which every woman of an agreeable person, and a tolerable share of good sense, has over every man, we cannot pretend minutely to describe; a task of this kind would be better execu­ted [Page 342] by some female, versant in the exercise of such a power. When we consider the two sexes into which the human genus are divided, it appears in the most conspicuous manner, that the Author of nature has placed the balance of power on the side of the male, by giving him not only a body more large and robust, but also a mind endowed with greater resolution, and a more extensive reach. But are these qualities altogether without their coun­terpoise? Are women left without any thing on their side to balance this superiority of our nature? Have they no powers to exert, whereby they can reduce this seeming superiority to a more equal foot­ing? If they have not, they may justly complain of the partiality of nature, and the severity of their lot. But let us attentively consider this matter, and we shall find, that the Author of our being is no such partial parent: we shall discover, that to each sex he has given its different qualifications; and these, upon the whole, when properly cultivated and exerted, put men and women nearly on an equal footing with each other, and share the advantages and disadvanta­ges of life impartially between them. To bend the haughty stubborness of man, he has given to women beauty, and to that beauty has added an inexpressi­ble softness and persuasive force both of words and actions, [...]hich but few of the sex themselves know the extent of, and which still fewer of ours have the power of resisting. Thus, an insinuating word, a kind look, or even a smile, often conquered Alex­ander, subdued Caesar, and decided the fate of em­pires and of kingdoms; thus the intercession of the mother of Coriolanus saved the city of Rome from impending destruction, and in one hour brought about a happy event, which the senate and people had despaired of ever seeing accomplished. This power of the women, in bending the stronger sex to [Page 343] their will, is no doubt, greatly augmented when they have youth and beauty on their side: but even with the loss of these it is not always extinguished; of which this last circumstance is an indubitable proof.

But this power of the women does not altogether consist in smiles, words, and actions: it often effects its purposes by means less visible, and impossible to be described: but these means must constantly have for their basis softness and good nature; they must ever be such as throw a veil over the pride of our supposed superiority, and make us believe, that we are exerting that sovereign power, which we consi­der as our right, when in reality we are yielding it up. The least appearance of the contrary alarms our pride; and she who discovers to us her intention to govern by her power, or by her ill-temper, produ­ces an effect upon us the other sex is not sufficiently aware of, by raising a disgust, which all our efforts can never conquer, besides, for the most part, fail­ing in her attempt. In short, such a conduct in a woman is the same thing as it would be in a lion to fight with his hinder legs, or for a hare to face about and defy the teeth of the pursuing pack; it is neg­lecting to make use of what nature has furnished, and endeavouring to use what she thought proper to deny.

We could point out here, were it necessary, a great variety of instances, where women have govern­ed men by the influence of good nature and insinu­ating manners; but we defy history to furnish one single instance of this ascendancy having ever been obtained over a man of sense, by brawling, ill-humour, and a visible contest for superiority. No man of feeling is proof against the softer arts of a sensible woman: such arts are armed with an irresist­ible [Page 344] power. Every man, almost, is proof against her open attacks; they are the attacks of a bee without a sting. The daughter of Sesostris prevailed upon him by the arts of persuasion, to undertake the conquest of the world: Attossa, the wife of Darius, by the same means, engaged him to carry an expe­dition he had planned against the Scythians, into Greece. In the empire of the Mogul, where wo­men in general have but little influence, Noor-Je­han, a favourite Sultana, prevailed on the emperor her husband, to delegate almost the whole of the sovereign power into her hands. But a much more noble instance of the exertion of female influence occurs in the queen of Pythius, a prince of Lydia; who, cruel and avaricious beyond measure, kept the greater part of his subjects so constantly employ­ed digging in the gold mines, that they had no time for agriculture, and were consequently in danger of perishing by famine. Oppressed by this tyranny, they took an opportunity of his being abroad, and assembled in great numbers, with tears in their eyes, to lay their complaints before his queen; who, commiserating their condition, after much revolving in her mind how to relieve them, bethought herself of the following method: On the return of her hus­band, she ordered a magnificent entertainment to be served up to him; but to his great surprise, when he uncovered the dishes, none of them contained any thing but gold. Sensible at once of his misconduct, and struck with the propriety of the method his wife had made use of, in order to open his eyes, that he might see his folly, and fully convinced that gold could not satisfy his own hunger, nor save his sub­jects from famine, he immediately gave orders that in future, no more than one-fifth part of them should be employed in procuring gold from the mines, and [Page 345] that the other four parts should betake themselves to agriculture and the useful arts.

It would be easy to multiply instances, both anci­ent and modern, of this ascendency which women of sense have gained over men of feeling; but we shall confine ourselves to a few. Among these, the empress Livia may justly claim the first notice; having attained such an influence over her husband Augus­tus, that there was hardly any thing he could refuse her. Many of the married ladies of Rome being anxious to know the means that she had used to attain this end, one of them at last venturing to ask her, she replied, ‘By being obedient to all his com­mands; by not endeavouring to discover his secrets; and by concealing my knowledge of his amours.’ Henry the Fourth of France, one of the greatest and most amiable of princes, affords a most remarkable instance of the power women may, by gentle me­thods, acquire over the men. Tender and compas­sionate in his nature, he could hardly refuse any thing to softness, intreaties, and tears: sensible at the same time, and jealous of his honour and power, there was hardly any thing he would grant, when attempted to be forced from him by different me­thods. Hence he was constantly governed by his mistresses, and at variance with his wives. The Salique law ordains, that the crown of France shall never fall to the distaff: but the French wom [...]n have amply revenged themselves for this affront; by con­triving to govern almost every monarch, they have constantly governed that great kingdom, from the apparent management of which the law had so po­sitively excluded them.

From scripture, and from education, almost every man has imbibed an idea of the superiority of his [Page 346] own sex; he is therefore zealous to maintain that superiority, and jealous of every attack made upon it; but he is at the same time endowed with a sen­timental tenderness for the other sex, and a strong inclination to promote their happiness; which with regard to them, may be called his weak side, and which women of sense easily discover, and as easily take the advantage of. This being the state of things between the two sexes, nothing seems more plain, than that though men govern by law, women may almost always govern by the arts of gentleness and soft persuasion. ‘The empire of woman (says a French author) is an empire of sweetness, ad [...]ress, and complaisance; her commands are caresses; her menaces are tears:’ and [...]e may add, that the power of such commands and of such menaces is like that of faith, which [...] remove mountains: it is a power which has nature on its side; the principle by her implanted within us, pleads in favour of the sex, and more than half performs the task of making us obey all the commands they lay upon us, [...]hen they are laid with gentleness of [...]anners▪ and an [...]n­sinuating behavi [...]ur. But though men of sensibility and good nature m [...]y infallibly be governed by soft­ness and addres [...], [...]her [...] are [...]ther [...] cast in a rougher mould, whose he [...]ts are strangers to the sinc [...] sensa­tions, and whose st [...]bborn feelings bend [...] even to prayers and intrea [...]ies. Women jo [...]ned to [...] sit down in silence▪ and deplo [...] [...]heir mi [...]fortune; a misfortune which is beyond their [...]wer to remedy; for we have but too good [...]eason to affirm, that the temper, upon which gentle [...] and go [...]d-nature are lost, can never be me [...]ied by ill-nature. Men of sense will often, for th [...] sake [...] peace, submit to be ill-treated by a woman; me [...] destitute [...]f sense, will retort that treatment with double violence.

CHAP. XV. Sketches of Ceremonies and Customs, for the most part observed only by Women.

AS the manners and customs of a nation, besides being the most entertaining part of its his­tory, serve also to characterise and distinguish it from all others, by pointing out the various pursuits to which the genius of its people are directed; the whims and caprices which climate, chance, or ne­cessity has introduced; the force that the intellectual powers have exerted, in contriving or adopting cere­monies and customs agreeable to reason; in resisting superstition, and discarding whatever is ridiculous in manners, unbecoming in religion, or tyrannical in government; so the customs more peculiar to women, were we enabled by history to give a par­ticular detail of them, on comparing them with those of the men, would greatly assist us in forming a judgment of the comparative merit of the two sexes, in discovering the solid and the flimsy of each, and pointing out which is most directed, in its various pursuits and pleasures, by reason; and which most follows the dictates of custom, or the suggestions of fancy.

But, unhappily, of all other parts of the female history, that of their manners and customs is invol­ved in the greatest obscurity: almost all the writers of antiquity have eit [...]er passed over them in silence, or blended them so intimately with the ceremonies and customs of the men, that we are often at a loss [Page 348] to discover, with any degree of certainty, what is peculiar to each. Nor is the subject better elucida­ted by the moderns, who, in their voyages and travels, for the most part, only inform us of the dress, complexion, and behaviour of the women in the countries they have visited; which, indeed, is commonly all that is in their power; for their igno­rance of the language of the people they are describ­ing, precludes them from every species of informa­tion, but what they receive by their eyes. The jea­lousy of the men, in many places, hinders them from all access to the women; and the short stay made by a traveller affords not the necessary time for infor­mation. Hence, among the present inhabitants of the globe, we have but imperfect sketches of what is peculiar to the one sex, and what to the other.

It has been observed by all who have attentively considered human nature, that fashion and custom are powers which exercise the most extensive autho­rity over weak and little minds, either because such are not properly qualified to examine the causes from which they arise, nor the effects of which they are productive; or because, after having examined and found them ridiculous, they have not fortitude enough to prefer singularity to custom, though the former be founded on reason, and the latter on folly or caprice: and as women in all ages have been sup­posed to be more the slaves of fashion, ceremony, and custom, than the men, this slavery has con­stantly been made use of to prove weakness and infe­riority of their understandings. We allow, indeed, that if the fact were established, the proof would be undeniable: but we think it is far from being esta­blished; for we challenge any man of sense and im­partiality, to look around him into the fashions of Europe, and to say whether those of our sex are not [Page 349] as whimsical and ridiculous as those of the other, and whether our whole deportment does not declare, that we are as inviolably attached to them.

As the subject of female ceremonies and customs is of the most delicate nature, and requires to be touched by the softest pencil, it may on that account have been the more generally passed over in silence: and on that account, also, we find ourselves obliged to run over it more slightly than is consistent with the nature of historical information. But we lay it down as a rule, that we would rather stop something short of the information we could give, than offend the most delicate ear. As the subject of ceremonies and customs is so intimately connected with several of those of which we have already treated, and shall hereafter have occasion to treat in the course of this work, we shall here only mention a few of those which appear the most remarkable, and which are either altogether, or for the most part, practised only by women.

One of the earliest ceremonies peculiar to the sex which we meet with in history, is the bewailing of virginity. This was practised among the Israelites, Phoenicians, and several of the neighbouring nations, by all women who were obliged to relinquish life before they had entered into the state of wedlock; or who, by any particular vow being devoted to per­petual celibacy, were, in consequence of that vow, cut off from all hopes of enjoying the sweets of love, or of raising up posterity. These last not only con­tinued through life, at stated times, to deplore the unhappiness of their own fate, but, on some occa­sions, assembled their female friends and relations, to assist them in performing the mournful ceremony. It is supposed, that the reason why the Israelitish virgin [...] [Page 350] bewailed their virginity, was, because every woman flattered herself with the hope of being mother to the Messiah that was to come: but among the neigh­bouring nations, the custom must have originated from other causes; but what these were, it is impos­sible for us now to discover: we can only conjecture that as a numerous posterity was reckoned, among the ancients, one of the greatest blessings, and a par­ticular mark of the divine favour, that she who was excluded from a possibility of this blessing, and of this distinguishing favour, might on these accounts suppose herself peculiarly wretched.

Besides this ceremony of bewailing virginity, there is another, perhaps not less ancient, which was likewise practised by the women of Israel, of Phoenicia, and also by those of Greece and of some other nations: this was the annual lamentation for the death of Adonis, or, as the scripture calls him, Thammuz, performed by the Phoenician women, on the banks of the river Adonis, and by those of other nations, in their cities and houses: but before we proceed to describe this ceremony, we think it necessary to give some account of its origin.

Adonis, according to some of the ancients, was a most beautiful boy; Venus on this account admired him so much from his earliest infancy, that she wish­ed to have him educated according to her own mind, and therefore committed the care of him to Proser­pine. When he was grown up to a man, Venus demanded him as her right, but Proserpine, who by this time had also become fond of him, refused the demand; upon which a violent dispute arose between the two goddesses, which, after long alter­cation, was at last referred to the decision of Jupi­ter. On hearing both parties, Jupiter decreed, that [Page 351] he should spend one-third of every year with Proser­pine, another with Venus, and during the remain­ing third, should dispose of himself according to his own inclination. Adonis, having spent his portion of his year with Proserpine, went to Venus, and being greatly captivated with her charms, she had the address to detain him the whole remaining part of it; upon which Diana, who was also desperately in love with him, and had flattered herself that he would come and live with her that third part of the year in which he was a liberty, being highly affronted at the preference he had given Venus, in the first transport of her resentment, sent a wild boar to de­stroy him.

According to others, Adonis being an incestuous child, begot by Cynarus king of Cyprus on his own daughter, was on that account exposed on the moun­tains, and nourished by the nymphs, where Venus accidentally seeing him, fell so much in love with him, that Mars, jealous of the growing connection, transformed himself into a wild boar and slew him. Others again say, that while he was hunting in the Idalian grove, a boar which he was pursuing, tur­ned upon him, and tore him to pieces; that Venus, commiserating his fate, transformed him into a flower of a bloody colour, and called it by his name; or that being unspeakably grieved for the loss of her paramour, and resolving that she would not tamely relinquish her hopes, she followed him to the shades below, and, demanding him of Proserpine, at length so far succeeded, as to p [...]evail on her infernal ma­jesty to allow him to return and spend one half of every year with her upon earth; which having accomplished, she joyfully ascended from the shades and relating her success to her companions, instituted a festival in memory of having brought back from [Page 352] the regions of the dead, the swain whom she adored.

Such are the stories related of Adonis, and such is said to have been the institution of the ceremo­nies with which he was honoured. But though the occasion of this institution, as well as every other thing that has been handed down to us con­cerning him, bears the most indubitable marks of fable; yet that there was such a person as Adonis, and that ceremonies were performed by the women of several nations, to commemorate his untimely death, and extraordinary restitution to life, the sa­cred and profane history of antiquity have equally contributed to confirm.

The Phoenician women performed the ceremonies sacred to Adonis in the following manner. Through their country runs the river of Adonis, the channel of which is, for many miles towards its source, a kind of red earth; this earth tinges its waters of a bloody colour, as often as it is washed down from its banks and the adjacent country by the rain. Superstition, instead of attributing this to the natu­ral cause, supposed that the waters were at those times tinged with the blood of Adonis, or rather that they put on that bloody appearance, to express their sorrow for the tragical exit he made upon their banks. This appearance was therefore reck­oned a signal by the gods, appointing the proper time for the celebration of the rites instituted to call to remembrance that exit. Accordingly the women, at this signal, assembled on the banks of the river, and began their lamentations, which were of the loudest and most lugubrious nature, and such as they commonly uttered upon the loss of their most near and dear relations. The lamentations, [Page 353] ended, they disciplined themselves with whips, then offered a sacrifice, and on the day following, pre­tending that Adonis was revived, and had ascended through the air to the upper regions, they shouted for joy, shaved their heads, and obliged all who would not comply with this custom to prostitute themselves in the temple of Venus, as a recom­pence to that goddess, for having neglected a part of the ceremony sacred to the memory of her belo­ved paramour.

The women of Byblus also performed the first part of his ceremony with mourning and lamenta­tion, during which the priests of Osiris in Egypt wrote to them that they had found the god whom they were seeking, sent the letter in a small ark made of papyrus, which is said to have gone by sea of its own accord, and performed its voyage in seven days. As soon as it arrived in the port, the women who were met together to mourn and to lament, changed the scene to dancing, feasting, and rejoicing, because he was found alive whom they had mourned as being dead.

The Israelitish women also celebrated these rites; for Ezekiel tells us, that on being brought to the door of the Lord's house, he saw their women weeping for Thammuz. They are supposed to have observed them in the following manner. They laid an image of Adonis on a bed, and having for some time lamented over it, a light was brought in by the priest, who anointed the mouths of the mour­ners, and whispered to them that salvation was come, that deliverance was brought to pass; upon which the image was taken as from a sepulchre, and they rejoiced at its restitution to life, with a [Page 354] joy no less extravagant than their sorrow had been on account of its death.

These mysteries were also celebrated by the Greeks, in the following manner: All their cities put themselves into mourning, coffins were exposed at every door, the statues of Venus and Adonis were carried in procession, with all the pomp and cere­mony practised at funerals, the women tore their hair, beat their breasts, and counterfeited all the actions and gestures usual in lamenting the dead. Along with the procession were carried shells filled with earth, in which were raised several sorts of herbs, especially lettuces, in memory of Adonis being laid out by Venus upon a bed of lettuces. After this a sacrifice was offered, and the following day spent in expressing their joy, that Proserpine, at the solicita­tion of Venus, had consented to allow Adonis to return from the shades to the regions above.

Ceremonies and customs, even though they are of a religious nature, like all other things, are frequently obliterated by devouring time; such, however, is not the fate of that we have been now describing. It is said that it still exists in some places of the Levant, with little variation from the manner in which it was practised by the ancient Greeks.

Deities, whether they were supposed to be of the masculine or feminine gender, were generally wor­shipped indiscriminately by both sexes; but to this rule there were some few exceptions. Among the Syrians there was a female deity called the great Sy­rian goddess, who seems chiefly to have been wor­shipped by priests, who had emasculated themselves, to render them fit for her service, and by frantic wo­men. In spite of every pretension to the contrary, we must all be sometimes sensible of a natural parti­ality [Page 355] to that sex to which we belong, and feel our­selves prone to excuse its faults and pity its infirmities as incidents to which we ourselves are more liable. Among people, therefore, who suppose that their deities like themselves, are of different sexes, it will be impossible not to suppose them also susceptible of the different propensities and feelings of those sexes; hence nothing could be more natural than for women to address themselves to, and imagine they would be more readily heard by, a female deity than a male; and hence arose among that sex, the peculiar worship and adoration they paid to some of the goddesses. Juno, otherwise called Luci [...], who had herself felt the pains of child-bearing, and was on that account supposed to be more susceptible of feeling for those in a like condition, was constituted the patroness of lying-in women, and by them constantly invoked to procure a safe and easy delivery. Vesta, because she had always retained her virginity, was on that account supposed to be a proper patroness for chastity, and therefore worshipped in a temple at Rome, and in some other countries by virgins only. But of all the kinds of adoration paid by women to a female deity that of the Roman ladies to the good goddess, seems the most unaccountable and extraordinary, as it originated, so far as we know, from no particular cause, and tended to no particular purpose, as it was conducted with the utmost secrecy, and scrupulously concealed from the eyes of every thing of the mascu­line gender.

As early as the birth of the Roman republic, it had been customary for the women at the expiration of every consular year, to celebrate, in the house of the consul or praetor, certain religious rites and ceremonies in honour of the good goddess; but what these ceremonies were, or how conducted, we [Page 356] can give no account, as no man was ever allowed to be present at them, and no man was ever made acquainted with their nature and tendency. All we can say is, that when the time appointed for cele­brating these rites came, the Vestal virgins repaired to the house appointed for that purpose, and offered sacrifices to the good goddess; but the sacrifices offered, and the manner of offering them, were secrets which to this day remain impenetrable, and strongly contradict the common opinion, that no secret is safe in the breast of a woman.

Our own times fu [...]ish us with an instance of a ceremony from which all women are carefully exclu­ded; ^* but the Roman ladies, in performing the rites sacred to the good goddess, were even more afraid of the men than our masons are of women; for we are told by some authors, that so cautious were they of concealment, that even the statues and pic­tures of men and other male animals were hoodwin­ked with a thick veil. The house of the consul, though commonly so large that they might have been perfectly secured against all intrusion in some remote apartment of it, was obliged to be evacuated by all male animals, and even the consul himself was not suffered to remain in it. Before they began their ceremonies, every corner and lurking-place in the house was carefully searched, and no caution omitted to prevent all possibility of being discovered by im­pertinent curiosity, or disturbed by presumptive in­trusion. But these cautions were not all the guard that was placed around them; the laws of the Ro­mans made it death for any man to be present at the solemnity.

Such being the precautions, and such the penal­ties for insuring the secrecy of this ceremony, it was [Page 357] only once attempted to be violated, though it existed from the foundation of the Roman empire till the introduction of Christianity▪ and this attempt was made, not so much perhaps with a view to be present at the ceremony, as to fulfil an assignation with a mistress. Pompeia, the wife of Caesar, having been suspected of a criminal correspondence with Claudius, and so closely watched that she could find no opportunity of gratifying her passion, at last, by the means of a female slave, settled an assignation with him at the celebration of the rites of the good goddess. Claudius was directed to come in the habit of a singing-girl, a character he could easily personate, being young and of a fair complexion. As soon as the slave saw him enter, she ran to inform her mistress. The mistress eager to meet her lover, immediately left the company, and threw herself into his arms, but could not be prevailed upon by him to return so soon as he thought necessary for their mu­tual safety; upon which he left her, and began to take a walk through the rooms, always avoiding the light as much as possible. While he was thus walk­ing by himself, a maid-servant accosted him, and desired him to sing; he took no notice of her, but she followed and urged him so closely, that at last he was obliged to speak. His voice betrayed his sex; the maid-servant shrieked, and running into the room where the rites were performing, told that a man was in the house. The women, in the utmost con­sternation, threw a veil over the mysteries, ordered the doors to be secured, and with lights in their hands, ran about the house searching for the sacrile­gious intruder. They found him in the apartment of the slave who had admitted him, drove him out with ignominy, and, though it was the middle of the night, immediately dispersed, to give an account to their husbands of what had happened. Claudius [Page 358] was soon after accused of having profaned the holy rites; but the populace declaring in his favour, the judges, fearing an insurrection, were obliged to acquit him.

In a country where the women were less regarded than at Rome, and where less confidence was repos­ed in their probity and honour, the men would pro­bably have supposed, that ceremonies so carefully concealed from their knowledge, were either inimi­cal to virtue, or to the state. But that no such sus­picions were entertained by the Romans, we learn from Cicero, who speaking of these mysteries, says, ‘What sacrifice is there so ancient, as that which has been handed down to us from our first kings, and is coeval with Rome herself? What sacrifice is there so private and secret, as that which is concealed, not only from the eye of the curious and inquisitive, but from the sight of all men, and where neither the most profligate wickedness nor impudence ever yet presumed to enter? This sacrifice no man ex­cept Claudius was ever so impious as to violate; no man but Claudius ever thought, without the utmost horror, of assisting at it. This sacrifice, which is performed by the Vestal virgins, which is performed for the prosperity of the Roman peo­ple, which is performed in the house of the chief magistrate, celebrated with unknown ceremonies, and in honour of a goddess, whose very name to know is sacrilege; this sacrifice Claudius pro­phaned.’

In subsequent periods, it has been alleged by some, that whatever opinion the Romans themselves entertained of the rites and ceremonies performed in honour of this good goddess, they must have been at least of an indelicate nature; else why all this care [Page 359] and solicitude of the women to conceal them from the men? But we think it is more natural, as well as charitable, to suppose, that as the Romans had a deity to preside almost over every particular circum­stance and action, this good goddess must either have been considered as the patroness of the sex in general, or the particular patroness of some of their affairs and concerns; and that on this account the women imagined nothing could be so acceptable to her, as rites and ceremonies performed only by that sex, and for the prosperity of those affairs which she patronised.

This being probably the case, we have the strong­est reason to suppose, that the worship of this god­dess was not in the least inconsistent with decency of manners, or modesty of character. But this was not the case every where; in other countries, there were rites performed by the women incompatible with either; such were those of the women in the temple of Venus, those of the priests and priestesses of Cybele. Such were the mad and licentious revel­ries in honour of Bacchus; such are the frantic ges­ticulations and howlings of the women of California, while sacrificing to their idols; and such also are the dances of the women of modern Egypt, and of some other places which we have already described.

In the religion of the modern Jews, there are some ceremonies peculiar to their women, at the com­mencement of their sabbath, which is on the Friday evening at half an hour before the sun sets. Every conscientious Jew must have a lamp lighted in his house, even though he should borrow the oil of his neighbour. The lighting of these lamps is a kind of religious rite, invariably assigned to the women, in order to recal to their memory the crime by which [Page 360] their original mother first extinguished the lamp of righteousness, and to teach them, that they ought to do every thing in their power to attone for that crime, by rekindling it. Instead of the scape-goat, which this people formerly loaded with their s [...]ns, and sent into the wilderness, they now substitute a fowl. Every father of a family takes a white cock, and the mother of the family a white hen, which she strikes upon the head, repeating at every stroke, ‘Let this hen atone for my sins; she shall die, but I shall live.’ This done, she twists her neck, and cuts her throat, to signify, that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin. If a woman, however, happens to be pregnant at the time of this ceremony, as she cannot ascertain whether the infant is a male or a female, that its sins, of what­ever gender it be, may not be unexpiated, she takes both a hen and a cock, that she may be assured of having performed the ceremony as required by their law.

In the religions of the present times, and particu­larly that of christianity, which teaches us, that the Supreme Being is the common and impartial father and governor of both sexes, there are but few cere­monies peculiar either to the men or to the women; we shall therefore only take notice of one more, which is practised by the women of Chinese Tartary, assisted by their Bonzes, or priests, who turn the credulity of their sex to their own emolument. In many places of this country, there are assemblies of women, who, to the number of ten or fifteen, meet together at stated times, and out of this number an­nually elect a directress of their society. An aged Bonze presides at the meeting, and sings anthems in praise of the God Fo. On their more solemn days, they adorn the house where they meet with many [Page 361] images and grotesque paintings, representing the miseries and torments of the damned. These meet­ings continue for seven days, during which they em­ploy themselves in laying up treasure for the world to come: this consists in a little paper house, which having painted and gilded, they fill with a great number of paper boxes, varnished and painted; in these they deposit pieces of paper formed into the shape of ingots, and done over with gold or silver leaf; of which several hundreds are supposed neces­sary to redeem the soul from the cruelties and tor­tures which Gen-vang, the king of hell, inflicts on those who have nothing to bribe him into lenity. The rest, as well as the house which contains them, are designed to procure the soul a comfortable lodg­ing, with such victuals and drink as are necessary in the other world.

Every thing thus prepared, to the doors of these paper houses, the women fasten paper padlocks, and lock them with paper keys; and when the lady who was at the expence of building that destined for her­self dies, the survivors meet, and with great solem­nity burn the whole; imagining in the next world she shall find, that from its ashes her house has arisen with every thing in it for her use; only the paper ingots, instead of remaining what they were, turned into gold or silver, according to the metal with which they were gilded.

Wherever politeness has stamped a real value up­on beauty of features and elegance of person, there is hardly any circumstance powerful enough to in­duce the fair sex to injure, [...]or even for a time to submit to have the lustre of either the one or the other eclipsed: but where these natural advantages scarcely entitle the possessor to any superior atten­tion [Page 362] or regard, they are of consequence cultivated with less assiduity, and preserved with less solicitude. Women, in the politer countries of Europe, even when obliged to dress themselves in the weeds of sorrow and affliction, never lose sight of the idea of appearing lovely, and usually contrive matters so as that even their weeds may add something to their charms, by giving them a languishing and melan­choly air; circumstances which often render beauty more irresistible, than when it is arrayed in all the tinsel glare of show, and frippery of fashion. The women in the ruder ages of antiquity, and those of many modern nations, into whose plan of life ele­gance and politeness have not yet entered, in the melancholy moments dedicated to mourning, re­gardless of every thing but the custom of their coun­try, or rather, perhaps, of the impulses of their heart, not only eclipse the present lustre of their charms, but, by the wounds and slashes which they make upon their bodies, cruelly deface them for­ever.

It was throughout all antiquity a prevailing opi­nion, that no offended deity would grant forgiveness without blood; hence almost every people upon earth stained the altars of their gods with the blood of human or of more ignoble victims. But blood was not only necessary to appease a god when offend­ed, it was also the most effectual means of rendering him propitious, and procuring from him any favour; and hence, almost in every nation, those who ap­proached a deity to ask any particular favour of him, mangled and tore their own flesh, as the surest me­thod of obtaining their request. Nor was it their deities alone, which the ancients supposed were de­lighted with blood; the ghosts, also of their de­ceased relations approaching in their separate state nearer to the nature of these deities, likewise resem­bled [Page 363] them in this particular. It is therefore not im­probable, that the custom of wounding and tearing the flesh in mourning, was first introduced to appease the ghosts of deceased friends; to supplicate them for some particular favour; to shew them how much they were loved and lamented by those whom they had left behind them on earth; or to feast them with human blood, upon which they were supposed by the Greeks and some of the neighbouring nations to regale themselves with a peculiar pleasure. But from whatever cause this custom proceeded, we are well assured that the women of Egypt, Syria, Phoenicia, Greece, and perhaps of many other nations, mangled and disfigured themselves by wounds, on the death of their friends and relations.

But this custom was not peculiar to antiquity; it has been handed down even to our times. In Ota­heite, and in several of the other islands around it, the women, either in compliance with the custom of their country, or rather, perhaps, when the idea of some departed friend stole into their memory, though in the height of a fit of jollity and mirth, immedi­ately assumed the appearance of the deepest sorrow, wounded their heads with the tooth of a shark, till the blood ran down their faces; and as soon as the ceremony was ended, or perhaps the idea of the departed friend drove out by another of a more plea­surable nature, the transition from sorrow to joy was as instantaneous as it had before been from joy to sorrow.

This ceremony, however, of our modern savages, although cruel in its nature, and unavailing in its consequences, is only of a short duration, and gives but little interruption to the more cheerful sensations. But the mourning of the Grecian women was long, [Page 364] and, while it lasted, struck out of existence every thing that could be called joyous or amusing. They not only beat their breasts, and tore their faces with their nails, but also divested themselves of all their gold, and whatever was rich and precious in appa­rel, sequestered themselves from company, and refu­sed all the comforts and conveniences of life, shun­ned the light as odious, and courted dark shades and melancholy retirement; they also tore or cut off their hair, and either cast it into the funeral pile, to be consumed along with the body of the person for whom they mourned, or into the tomb, to be bu­ried along with it. Cutting off the hair was not, however, an invariable custom. Some ran about with it dishevelled, clothing themselves in the coars­est garments, throwing dust upon their heads and faces, and even sometimes prostrating themselves upon the earth, and rolling in the dust; customs which seem to have been practised from the earliest antiquity, as expressive of the deepest sorrow and affliction.

Besides the ceremonies already mentioned, the women in ancient times, as directed by fancy or instigated by regard, decked the tombs of their deceased friends; they hung lamps upon them, and adorned them with a variety of herbs and flowers; a custom at this time observed by the inhabitants of Constantinople and its neighbourhood, who not only adorn the tombs of their dead, but plant their bury­ing-grounds with rosemary, cypress, and other odo­riferous shrubs and flowers; but whether with a view to please the manes of the dead, or preserve the health of the living, is uncertain. There were other ornaments besides these we have now menti­oned, used by the women of antiquity to deck the tombs. Among the Greeks, the tomb of a deceased [Page 365] lover was frequently hung round with locks of the hair of his mistress. They likewise made offerings, and poured out libations to the ghosts, whom they supposed to smell, to eat, and to drink as they did while upon earth. This was not only a prevailing opinion among the ancients, but has not as yet been totally obliterated. It is still believed by the Chiri­guanes; and at Narva, one of the principal towns of Livonia, they celebrate a remarkable festival sacred to the manes of the dead. On the eve of Whitsun-tide, the women assemble in the church­yard, and spreading napkins on the graves and tomb­stones, cover them with a variety of dishes of broiled and fried fish, custards, and painted eggs; and to render them more agreeable to the ghosts, the priest while he is praying over them, perfumes them with frankincense, the women all the time howling and lamenting in the most dismal manner, and the intel­ligent clerk not less assiduously employed in defraud­ing the ghosts, by gathering up all the viands for the use of the priest.

There are few, if any, customs that have been more generally diffused among mankind, than that of mourning for the dead; and there are few na­tions where the women have not, either from custom or the tenderness of their nature, acted a principal part in these mournings. There are however, some nations, who, instead of reckoning death a subject of lamentation, rejoice at it, as a happy deliverance from pain and adversity; and others, who, though they commonly mourn at the death of their friends and relations, rejoice at it whenever attended with particular circumstances. Thus the Greek and Roman fathers, and what is more extraordinary, even the mothers rejoiced when their sons fell in de­fence of their country; and thus the Christians, in [Page 366] several periods and countries, rejoiced when their friends, being put to death by persecutors, were numbered among those who were reckoned worthy of the crown of martyrdom. Thus also the women of modern Egypt, though on other occasions they lament over the dead with the most dismal outcries, when a Sheick departs this life, demonstrate the most extravagant joy and satisfaction, because, they say, a Sheick must, at death, infallibly enter into the paradise of the blessed.

Besides these ceremonies of religion and of mourn­ing, which the women have appropriated to them­selves, there are others observed by them, which, arising from their nature, and the circumstances attending it may, for that reason, be denominated sexual. In Chirigua, when a girl arrives at a cer­tain age, her female relations inclose her in a ham­moc, and suspend it at the end of her cottage. Having remained in this hammoc for one month, they let it down half way, and at the end of another month, the neighbouring women assemble, and hav­ing armed themselves with clubs and staves, enter the cottage in a frantic manner, striking furiously upon every thing within it. Having acted this farce for some time, one of them declares that she has killed the serpent which had stung the girl; upon which she is liberated from her confinement, the wo­men rejoice for some time together, and then depart every one to her own home. Among some of the Tartarian tribes, when a girl arrives at the same period of life, they shut her up for some days, and afterward hang a signal on the top of her tent, to let the young men know that she is become marri­ageable. Among others of these tribes, the parents of the girl make a feast on this occasion, and having invited their neighbours, and treated them with [Page 367] [...]ilk and horse flesh, they declare their daughter is [...]ecome marriageable, and that they are ready to dispose of her as soon as a proper opportunity shall offer. In Circassia and Georgia, where parents are sometimes obliged to marry their daughters while infants, to prevent their being violently taken from them by the rich and powerful, the circumstance of a girl being arrived at the time of puberty, is fre­quently concealed for some time, as the husband has then a right to demand her, and the parents perhaps think her too young for the matrimonial state.

Among the circumstances which gave rise to these customs which we have called sexual, child-bearing is one of the most particular. As in child-bearing some little assistance has generally been necessary in almost all countries; to afford this assistance, the women have commonly employed midwives of their own sex. The Athenians were the only people of antiquity who did otherwise. They had a law which prohibited women and slaves from practising physic; as midwifery was accounted one of the branches of this art, many lives had been lost, because the deli­cacy of the women would not submit to be delivered by a man. A woman called Agnodice, in order to rescue her country-women from this difficulty, dres­sed herself in the habit of a man, and having studied the art of physic, revealed herself to the women, who all agreed to employ no other. Upon this the rest of the physicians, enraged that she should monopo­lize all the business, arraigned her before the court of Areopagus, as only having obtained the prefer­ence to them by corrupting the chastity of the wives whom she delivered. This obliging her to discover her sex, the pysicians then prosecuted her for viola­ting the laws of her country. The principal matrons of the city, now finding her in such danger, assem­bled [Page 368] together, came into the court, and petitioned the judges in her favour. The petition of the ma­trons was so powerful, and the reasons which they urged for having employed her, so conducive to the preservation of female delicacy, that a law was made, allowing women to practise midwifery. The sex availed themselves of this law, and the assistance of the men soon became quite unfashionable.

Among the Romans, and the Arabians, who after them cultivated the science of medicine with great assiduity, the women, in cases of difficulty, sometimes submitted to be delivered by a man; but this was far from being a matter of choice or a ge­neral practice: nor was it till the latter end of the last century, and beginning of this, when excess of politeness in France and Italy had begun to eradicate delicacy, that the sex began to give so much into the mode of being delivered by male practitioners; a mode which now so commonly prevails, that there is scarcely to be found in Europe, a woman so un­fashionable as to be delivered by one of her own sex, if she can afford to pay for the assistance of a man.—How far the women may be safer in this fashionable way than in the other, we shall not take upon us to determine, but of this we are assured, that the cus­tom is less consistent with delicacy.

In ages unenlightened by science and philosophy, in moments so perilous to the sex as those of child-bearing, we are not surprised to find them using seve­ral ridiculous and unavailing methods to secure them­selves from danger; but our astonishment is excited when we find that, in our own times, they are still the dupes of others not less inconsistent with reason and experience.

[Page 369]The Greek and Roman women imagined that the palm-tree possessed a power of easing pain and facilitating labour; they therefore at these times grasped pa [...]m branches in their hands, and devoutly supplicated the goddess Lucina. The ancient Ger­mans, destitute of more rational methods, placed all their hopes in magical girdles, which they tied about their women, and which, according to them, had the virtues of procuring immediate ease, and promoting a speedy delivery. But the power of these girdles did not terminate here, it extended even to the child as well as to the mother; and a son born by their assistance, was undoubtedly to be brave and a daughter to be chaste: hence such girdles were ca [...]efully kept in the repositories of kings and of other great personages. Till within these few years some of them were to be met with, in the families of the chieftains in Scotland. They were marked with many mystical figures, and the ceremony of binding them about the women in labour, attended with cer­tain mystical words and gestures, which only some particular women were supposed to understand; a circumstance by which it appeared that their pre­tended utility depended more upon magic, than on their intrinsic virtues. Every age and country has its peculiar follies and absurdities; ours has many nostrums to prevent the pain necessarily attendant on child-bearing, and they are just as well calculated to perform an impossibility, as the methods we have been now describing.

In some climates, where the constitution is relaxed by the heat, and at the same time not vitiated by those habits which in politer nations destroy man­kind, women are said to be delivered with but little pain, and frequently without any assistance; nor is this singularity altogether peculiar to warm countries [Page 370] but seems to depend more on living agreeably to nature, than on climate, or any other circumstance; for we have heard it asserted by several people who have be [...] in Canada, that a savage woman, when she feels the symptoms of labour coming on her, steals silently to the woo [...]s, lays herself down in a coppice, and is delivered alone; which done, she goes to the nearest river or pool, washes herself and the child, and then returns home to her hut.

While ignorance and superstition disturbed the human mind with groundless terrors and apprehen­sions, it was a prevailing opinion over all Europe, that [...]ing-in women were more subject to the power of [...] and witches than people in any other [...], and that new-born infants, if not care­fully watched▪ and secured by ceremonies and spells, were frequently carried away by them: on this account various ceremonies and spells were commonly made use of; and even so lately as our times, we remember to have seen in the west of Scotland, a horse-shoe nailed upon the door, in an inverted manner, to secure a lying-in woman from the power of witch-craft. But this opinion was not confined to Europe; it pervaded at least half the globe. The Nogais Tartars are the particular dupes of it; when one of their women is in labour, the relations of the family assemble at her door, and make a pro­digious noise by beating on pots and kettles, in order to fright away the devil, who, they suppose would, if he did not find them on their guard, do some mischief to the mother or child, or to both.

But the time of laying-in is not the only period of human life in which evil spirits are supposed to have a more than ordinary power; they are imagined by many nations to have the same at the time of mar­riage. [Page 371] The Livonians make the sign of the cross with a naked sword upon the door of the bride-groom's house, and afterwards stick it in a beam over his head, as a charm to prevent the power of malignant spirits; and the bride on the same ac­count, scatters red rags along the high-ways, and upon the graves of unbaptized infants.

In countries where the virtue of the sex is supposed to be secured by their sense of moral rectitude, mar­ried women are under no particular restraint in the absence of their husbands; but in Hindostan, when the husband is from home, the wife must appear chearful, must not eat delicate victuals, nor dress herself in fine cloaths, nor sit at the window of her apartment, nor in short do any thing but such as indicates sorrow and subjection. In France and Italy, the case is almost in every particular the re­verse, and in England the ladies are too fast following the fashionable example.

In Poland the women of middling condition are not allowed to marry, till they have wrought with their own hands three basketsful of cloaths, which they are obliged to presen [...] to the guests who attend them on their wedding-day. In Wallachia, the bride wears a veil on the day before, and on that of her marriage; whoever unveils her is entitled to a kiss; but to prevent too much impertinence, the bride may in return demand a present, and the re­quest must be complied with. The ancient Germans had, and their descendants continue to this day, a ceremony called Morgengabe, or morning-gift, which the husband is obliged to present to the bride on the morning after their marriage, and which be­comes her sole and absolute property, and she may dispose of it in her lifetime or at her death. Some [Page 372] traces of a like custom are to be met with among us, but it is here only voluntary, there it is enforced by a law. Formerly among the peasants of Britain, when a bride was brought to the door of the bride-groom's house, a cake was broken over her head, for the fragments of which the attendants scrambled: these fragments were laid under the pillows of the young men and maidens, and supposed to be endow­ed with a power of making them dream of their future wives and husbands.

In Adrianople and the neighbouring cities, the women have public baths, which are a part of their religion and of their amusement, and a bride, the first time she appears there after her marriage, is received in a particular manner. The matrons and widows being seated round the room, the virgins immediately put themselves into the original state of Eve. The bride comes to the door richly dressed and adorned with jewels; two of the virgins meet her, and soon put her in the same condition with themselves; then filling some silver pots with per­fume, they make a procession round the rooms, singing an epithalamium, in which all the virgins join in chorus; the procession ended, the bride is led up to every matron, who bestows on her some trifling presents, and to each she returns thanks, till she has been led round the whole. We could add many more ceremonies arising from marriage▪ but as they are for the most part such as make a part of the [...]arriage ceremony itself, we shall have occasion to mention them with more propriety afterwards.

Of all the passions which subvert reason and de­form the mind, jealousy is the most credulously ridi­culous, and in order to clear themselves from its sus­picions, has subjected the fair sex to some of the [Page 373] most unaccountable expurgatory ceremonies. Such was that of the waters of jealousy of the ancient Jews, and such also was another of a similar nature practised by the Greeks, among whom, when a woman was accused of unchastity, a tablet with the form of an oath, which she was to take, written upon it, was hung about her neck; bearing it in this manner, she went into the water till it reached the calf of her leg, then she stood and solemnly repeated the oath, which, if false, the water, we are told, as if agi­tated with rage at her perfidy, swelled till it rose over the tablet, that it might cover from the sun the per­petration of so foul a deed; if true, it remained quiet, and the woman was cleared from all suspicion. Might not the ordeal trial, which was used for so many ages, and for the discovery of so many crimes, be a relic of this? But be that as it will, it was not founded upon more rational principles.

To trials of this kind the single as well as the mar­ried women were subject; but of the chastity of the latter there were other circumstances, which the Greeks reckoned the most convincing proofs. Pain and difficulty in bringing forth their young, are unavoidable evils, to which the females of all vivi­parous animals are more or less subject. But it was supposed by this people, that their gods, in commi­seration of the case of a woman who was unjustly suspected of infidelity to her husband, wrought a miracle in her favour, by exempting her from those peculiar evils annexed to the lot of female life; and she who brought forth a child without a sigh or a groan, and declared that she felt no pain, was in consequence accounted as chaste as Vesta. Hence it is obvious, that it only required a tolerable degree of fortitude in the wife, and a large share of credulity in the husband, to adjust all matrimonial differences of this [Page 374] kind to the satisfaction of both. But this was not the only proof the Greeks had of the conjugal fide­lity of their wives: a numerous offspring was among the ancients reckoned one of the greatest of blessings; and to have it increased by two children a birth, was considered as one of those favours, which the gods only bestow upon superior virtue and chastity. The wife, therefore, who brought forth twins, was by that circumstance fully cleared of every foul aspersion. So little, however, is the consistency among mankind, that this very circumstance, which the Greeks reckoned the strongest proof of the chas­tity of their wives, is, by the Hottentots of the present time, reckoned the most infallible proof of the contrary. We have given the reason of the Greeks for their opinion, but that of the Hotten­tots is rather too indelicate to be related.

On St. Valentine's day, it is customary, in many parts of Italy, for an unmarried lady to chuse, from among the young gentlemen of her acquaintance, one to be her guardian or gallant; who, in return for the honour of this appointment, presents to her some nosegays, or other trifles, and thereby obliges himself to attend her in the most obsequious man­ner in all her parties of pleasure, and to all her pub­lic amusements, for the space of one year, when he may retire, and the lady may chuse another in his place. But in the course [...]f this connection it fre­quently happens, that they contract such an inclina­tion to each other, as prompts them to be coupled for life. In the times of chivalry we have seen, that the men gloried in protecting the women, and the women thought themselves safe and happy when they obtained that protection. It is probable, there­fore, that this custom, though now more an affair of gallantry than of protection, is a relic of chivalry [Page 375] still subsisting among that romantic and sentimental people.

But the observation of some peculiar customs on St. Valentine's day is not confined to Italy; almost all Europe has joined in distinguishing it by some particular ceremony. As it always happens about that time of the year, when the genial influences of the spring begin to operate, it has been believed by the vulgar, that upon it the birds invariably chuse their mates for the ensuing season. In imitation, therefore, of their example, the vulgar of both sexes, in many parts of Britain, meet together; and hav­ing upon slips of paper wrote down the names of all their acquaintances, and put them into two different bags, the men drew the female names by lot, and the women the male; the man makes the woman who drew his name some trifling present, and in the rural gambol becomes her partner; and she consi­ders him as her sweetheart, till he is otherwise dis­posed of, or till next Valentine's day provide her with another.

From shedding the blood, or taking away the life of any animal, both sexes of the Hindoos are strictly prohibited by their religion. Foreigners, in a sneer­ing manner, frequently take notice, that, in Eng­land, gentlemen of property are only allowed by law to butcher hares, patridges, and pheasants.—Among the Wallachians, though there is no posi­tive institution to the contrary, yet the women never destroy the life of any creature. Whether this custom was founded by some of their ancient legis­lators, or whether it originated from incidental cir­cumstances, is uncertain; but however that be, nothing can be more suitable to the gentleness and timidity, which forms the most beautiful and engag­ing [Page 376] part of the female character, and which, if imi­tated in other countries, might take away some of that masculine ferocity, which distinguishes many of the lower classes of women in Britain, and which they perhaps, in a great measure, contract from be­ing constituted butchers of all the lesser animals used in our kitchens. How different is this custom of the Wallachian women from that observed by some of those in America, who assist in taking away the lives of their aged parents, when they are become of no further use to the community; and from that of the Moxes in particular, who, when delivered of twins, are said to bury one of them alive, from an ill-found­ed opinion, that it is impossible for one woman to nurse two children at the same time!

Feasting upon particular occasions is of the greatest antiquity, and, among every rude and uncultivated people, longed for with the utmost avidity, as it calls together their friends and acquaintances, whom at other times they have but few opportunities of seeing and gives a stimulus to their torpid natures, by the intoxicating liquors then made use of. In Egypt, when, upon some particular occasion, a banquet is given, the guests are invited by a company of wo­men hired for that purpose. The company, com­monly about ten or twelve in number, is preceded by some eunuchs, and on each side guarded by seve­ral Moors with long staffs: in going along, they frequently amuse themselves and the spectators with a song adapted to the occasion, and expressive of their satisfaction at the approaching feast. As the Egyptian women are in general confined, it seems probable, that those employed in this manner are like their strooling dancers, under regulations less severe. But though this confinement is as scrupu­lous as jealousy can dictate, or eunuchs practise, such [Page 377] is the veneration shewn to their great prophet Ma­homet, that at Cairo even the doors of harams, which are all the rest of the year watched by eunuchs, and fastened by bolts and chains, fly open on his birth-day, and allow the joyful prisoners to sally out, in order to celebrate a festival to the foun­der of their religion, and the destroyer of their liberty.

It has generally been observed, that those human beings who enjoy the smallest share of liberty, ma­nage even that scanty portion which they have, with the least degree of prudence and discretion; because, fond of crowding too many incidents into the duration of their limited freedom, they have neither time to arrange them into any order, nor to relish them as they pass. Such is the case with the women of Cairo. On this festival, they fly from one amusement to another, and in the evening, disgusted with the whole, retire to their harams less impatient of their confinement, and with a less extra­vagant idea of the pleasures of liberty, than they entertained in the morning.

CHAPTER XVI. Of Delicacy and Chastity.

OF all the virtues which adorn the female character, and enable the sex to steal imperceptibly into the heart, none are more conspicuous than that unaffected simplicity and shyness of manners which we distinguish by the name of delicacy. In the most rude and savage states of mankind, however, deli­cacy has no existence; in those where politeness and the various refinements connected with it are carried to excess, delicacy is discarded, as a vulgar and unfashionable restraint on the freedom of good breeding.

To illustrate these observations, we shall adduce a few facts from the history of mankind. Where the human race have little other culture than what they receive from nature, and hardly any other ideas but such as she dictates; the two sexes live together, unconscious of almost any restraint on their words or on their actions: Diodorus Siculus mentions several nations among the antients, as the Hylo­phagi, and Icthiophagi, who had scarcely any cloath­ing, whose language was exceedingly imperfect, and [Page 6] whose manners were hardly distinguishable from those of the brutes which surrounded them. The Greeks, in the heroic ages, as appears from the whole history of their conduct, delineated by Homer and their other poets and historians, were totally unacquainted with delicacy. The Romans, in the infancy of their empire, were the same. Tacitus informs us, that the ancient Germans had not sepa­rate beds for the two sexes, but that they lay pro­miscuously on reeds or on heath along the walls of their houses; a custom still prevailing in Lapland, among the peasants of Norway, Poland, and Russia; and not altogether obliterated in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland and of Wales. In Terra del Fuego, on several places of the Gold Coast, in the Brazils, and a variety of other parts, the inhabi­tants have hardly any thing to cover their bodies, and scarcely the least inclination to canceal any natu­ral action from the eyes of the public. In Otaheite, to appear naked, or in cloaths, are circumstances equally indifferent to both sexes: nor does any word in their language, nor any action to which they have an inclination, seem more indelicate or reprehensible than another. Such are the effects of a total want of culture: and effects not very dissimilar are in France and Italy produced from a redundance of it; delicacy is laughed out of existence as a silly and unfashionable weakness.

Among people holding a middling degree, or rather perhaps something below a middle degree, between the most uncultivated rus [...]city, and the most refined politeness, we find female delicacy in its highest perfection. The Japanese are but just emerged some degrees above savage barbarity, and in their history we are presented by Kempfer, with an instance of the effect of delicacy, which perhaps has not a parallel in any other country. A lady [Page 7] being at table in a promiscuous company, in reaching for something that she wanted, accidentally broke wind b [...]ckwards, by which her delicacy was so much wounded, that she immediately arose, laid hold on her breasts with her teeth, and tore them till she expired on the spot. In Scotland, and a few other parts of the north of Europe, where the inhabitants are some degrees farther advanced in politeness than the Japanese; a woman would be almost as much ashamed to be detected going to the temple of Cloa­cina, as to that of Venus. In England, to go in the most open manner to that of the former, hardly occasions a blush on the most delicate cheek. At Paris, we are told that a gallant frequently accom­panies his mistress to the shrine of the goddess, stands centinel at the door, and entertains her with bon mots, and protestations of love all the time she is worshipping there; and that a lady when in a carri­age, whatever company be along with her, if called upon to exonerate nature, pulls the cord, orders the driver to stop, steps out, and having performed what nature required, resumes her seat without the least ceremony or discomposure. The Parisian wo­men, as well as those in many of the other large towns of France, even in the most public companies make no scruple of talking concerning those secrets of their sex, which almost in every other country are reckoned indelicate in the ears of the men: nay, so little is their reserve on this head, that a young lady on being asked by her lover to dance, will without blush or hesitation, excuse herself on account of the impropriety of doing so in her present circumstances. The Italians, it is said, carry their indelicacy still farther: women even of character and fashion, when asked a favour of another kind, will with the utmost composure decline the proposal on account of being at present under a course of medicine for the cure of [Page 8] a certain disorder. When a people have arrived at that point in the scale of politeness, which entirely discards delicacy, the chastity of their women must be at a low ebb; for delicacy is the centinel that is placed over female virtue, and that centinel once over-come, chastity is more than half conquered.

From these observations, a question of the most difficult determination arises. Is the female delicacy natural or artificial? if natural, it should be found in the highest perfection in those states where man­kind approach the nearest to nature; if artificial, it should be most conspicuous in states the most artifi­cially polished, But notwithstanding what we rela­ted in the last section, it appears to be regulated by no general or fixed law in either. The inhabitants of the coast of New Zealand are perhaps as little cultivated as any on the globe, and yet their women were ashamed to be seen naked even at a distance by the English. In Otaheite, where they are considerably more polished, we have already seen that they are conscious of no such shame. ‘With the most innocent look,’ says Hawkesworth, ‘Obe­rea their queen and several others, on going to meet another chief of the island, first uncovered their heads, and then their bodies as low as the waist.’ Nor can privacy,' adds he, ‘be much wanted among a people who have not even an idea of indecency, and who gratify every appetite and passion before witnesses, with no more sense of impropriety than we feel when we satisfy 'our hunger at the social board.’ We have seen that in France and Italy, which are reckoned the politest couniries in Europe, women set themselves above shame and despise delicacy; but in China, one of the politest countries in Asia, and perhaps not even in this respect behind France or Italy, the case is [Page 9] quite otherwise: no being can be so delicate as a women, in her dress, in her behaviour, and conver­sation; and should she ever happen to be exposed in any unbecoming manner, she feels with the great­est poignancy the aukwardness of her situation, and if possible covers her face that she may not be known. In the midst of so many discordant appear­ances, the mind is perplexed, and hardly can fix upon any cause to which delicacy, that chiefest orna­ment of the fair sex, can be ascribed: should we ascribe it to custom only, we would do violence to our own inclinations, as we would willingly trace it to a nobler source. In prosecuting this attempt, let us attend to the whole of the animal creation; let us consider it attentively, and wherever it falls under our observation, it will discover to us that in the female there is a greater degree of delicacy or coy reserve than in the male: is not this a proof that through the wide extent of the creation, the seeds of delicacy are more liberally bestowed upon females than on males? And do not the facts which we have mentioned prove, that in the human genius these seeds require some culture to expand, and still more to bring them to perfection; whereas, on the other hand, too much culture actually destroys them altogether; as plants may be destroyed in a hot bed by too much heat, which by a moderate degree of it would have arrived to the highest perfection.

Allowing then, that delicacy is a virtue planted by the hand of nature in the female mind, let us take a view of the progress of this virtue, which makes so distinguishing a part of the character of that sex whose history we are endeavouring to elucidate.

In the remotest periods of which we have any his­torical account, we find that the women had a deli­cacy [Page 10] to which the other sex were strangers. Re­becca veiled herself when she first approached to Isaac her future husband, and in those ages it would seem that even prostitution was too delicate to shew itself openly, for Tamar, when she personated an harlot, covered herself with a veil, which appears from the story to have been a part of the dress worn in those days by women of that profession. Many of the fables of antiquity, while they paint in the most striking colours the profligacy of manners, point out at the same time that delicacy was a latent principle in the female mind, which often shewed itself in spite of manners, customs, and every other disadvantage under which it laboured. Of this kind is the fable of Actaeon and Diana. Actaeon being a famous hunter, was in the woods with his hounds beating for some game, when accidentally spying Diana and her nymphs bathing in a river, he stole silently into a neighbouring thicket that he might have a nearer view of them; when the goddess discovering him, was so affronted at his audacity, and so much ashamed to have been seen naked, that she is revenge imme­diately transformed him into a stag, and set his own hounds upon him, who soon overtook and devoured him.

Even among the Lydians, a people who were highly debauched, it appears that female delicacy was far from being totally extinguished; Candaules, one of their kings, being married to a lady of exqui­site beauty, was perpetually boasting of her charms to his courtiers, and at last, to satisfy his favourite Gyges that he had not exaggerated the description, he took the dangerous and indelicate resolution of giving him an opportunity of seeing her naked. To accomplish this, Gyges was conveyed by the king into a secret place, where he might see the queen [Page 11] dress and undress, from whence, however, as he retired, she accidentally spied him, but taking no notice of him for the present, she only set herself to consider the most proper method of revenging her injured modesty, and punishing her indelicate hus­band; having resolved how to proceed, she s [...]nt for Gyges, and told him that as she could not [...]amely submit to the stain which had been offered to her honour, she insisted that he should expiate his crime either by his own death or that of the king, that two men might not be living at the same time who had thus seen her in a state of nature. Gyges, after some fruitless remonstrances, performed the latter, married the queen, and mounted the throne of Ly­dia. Besides the fables and historical anecdotes of antiqu [...]y, their poets seldom exhibited a female character in its loveliest form, without adorning it with the graces of modesty and delicacy; hence we may infer, that these qualities have not only been always essential to virtuous women in civilized coun­tries, but have been also constantly praised and esteemed by men of sensibility.

Plutarch, in his treatise, entitled, The virtuous Actions of Women, mentions several anecdotes which strongly favour our idea of delicacy being an innate principle in the female mind; the most strik­ing is that of the young women of Milesia, many of whom, about that time of life, when nature giving birth to restless and turbulent desires inflames the imagination, and astonishes the heart at the sensa­tion of wants which virtue forbids to gratify, to free themselves from the conflict between nature and vir­tue, laid violent hands on themselves; the conta­gion becoming every day more general, to put a stop to it, a law was made, ordaining that every one who committed that crime should be brought naked to [Page 12] the market place and publickly exposed to the peo­ple; and so powerfully did the idea of this idelicate exposure, even after death, operate on their minds, that from thenceforth not one of them ever made an attempt on her own life.

There are so many evils attending the loss of vir­tue in women, and so greatly are minds of that sex depraved when they have deviated from the path of rectitude, that their being generally contaminated may be considered one of the greatest misfortunes that can befal a state, as it in time destroys almost every public virtue of the men. Hence all wise legislators, especially of republics, have strictly en­forced upon the sex a particular purity of manners; and not satisfied that they should abstain from vice only, have required them even to shun every appear­ance of it. Such, in some periods, were the effects of the laws of the Romans, and such were the effects of these laws, that if ever female delicacy shone forth in a conspicuous manner, we are of opinion it was among those people, after they had worn off much of the barbarity of their first ages, and before they become contaminated by the wealth and manners of the na [...]ions which they plundered and subjected: then it was that we find many of their women surpas­sing in modesty almost every thing related by fable; and then it was that their ideas of delicacy were so highly refined, that they could not even bear the secret consciousness of an involuntary crime, and far less of having even tacitly consented to it. Of this nothing can be a stronger proof than the custom men­tioned by Moses, of exposing to public view the tokens of a bride's virginity on the morning after her wedding night, to which we shall only add, that the price demanded by Saul for his daughter, when he gave her to David in marriage; a price the mo [...]t [Page 13] highly characteristic of the indelicate manners of the times. The G [...]eeks themselves, who considered all the rest of the world as barbarians, were in delicacy hardly a few [...]egrees above the in [...]tances just now mentioned; one can scarcely determine whether the comedies of Aristophanes or of Euripides are the most shocking to a modest ear. Martial, and even Horace, among the Romans were scarcely less inde­licate, but they flourished at Rome during these periods when false refinement of manners had ban­ished delicacy as a silly and unprofitable virtue, and when even law was so repugnant to decency, that a women taken in adultery was prostituted in the public street to all comers, who were invited by the ringing of a bell to the abominable ceremony.

After the subversion of the Roman Empire, there arose among the barbarians an institution, which, as it was in a great measure directed to the defence and protection of women, created in them a dignity and delicacy unknown to any other age or people, and which perhaps will ever remain unparalleled in the history of mankind, unless chivalry or some simi­lar institution be again revived; but as chivalry began to decline, delicacy declined also along with it, till at last both sexes assumed a rudeness of man­ners and of dress, which for several centuries dis­graced Europe, and required a series of ages and of efforts to rub off and polish to any decent degree of refinement.

Such as we have now seen was the state of delicacy among the antients, and among the inhabitants of Europe; when we leave Europe, and colonies set­tled by Europeans, we find it a virtue in most other places hardly taken notice of or cultivated; we shall therefore turn our attention from delicacy, which we [Page 14] consider only as an out-work to chastity, and make a few observations on chastity itself. But as we have already shewn the state and situation of this virtue among the greater part both of the ancients and moderns, we shall not again enter upon that subject, but confine ourselves to pointing out the various methods which in divers places and periods have been, and still are made use of to preserve, encou­rage, and defend that virtue.

Such has always been the constitution of human nature, and mode of governing, that the legislators of every country, except China, have constantly held out terrors to hinder from the commission of vice, but seldom or never offered rewards for the practice of virtue; the reason may be, that the vicious are few in number, and punishments cheap; whereas the virtuous are many, and premiums so costly, that no government could afford to bestow a reward on each of them; and, besides the moral virtues, not only reward us themselves with peace of mind in this world; but have annexed to them the promises of a still more ample reward in that which is to come. When we consider these reasons, it is not surprising to find that chastity, upon which all polished states have set the hig [...]est value, has never been encoura­ged by any positive institution in its favour; while its opposite vice has, by every well regulated govern­ment, been branded with a greater or less degree of infamy, according to the ideas which such govern­ment had, of the duties of religion and morality▪ and to the love which it entertained of rectitude and order. Wherever good laws are established, tend­ing to enforce a decent propriety of manners, every woman, who deviates from chastity, forfeits almost entirely the society of her own sex, and of the most worthy and regular part of ours; and, what is of [Page 15] infinitely greater consequence, she forfeits almost all chance of entering into that state, which women have so many natural, as well as political reasons, to determine them to wish for more than the men; and if she has any small degree of chance left of entering into it, she must do it with a partner be­low her rank and station in life; and even thus matched, she is liable to have the follies and frailties of her former conduct thrown up to her on every occasion, which gives birth even to the slightest matrimonial difference.

These and others of the same nature, are the punishments which every wise legislature has inflict­ed on the breach of chastity in unmarried women. We shall see afterward, that almost every people, whether civilized or savage, have treated this crime in married women with much greater severity; sub­jecting them not only to several kinds of public shame and indignity, but even to a variety of corporal, and often to capital punishments. But as every severity and every punishment, has been found too weak to prevail against the vice of incontinence; especially among people of soft and voluptuous manners, un­der the influence of a warm sun, and professing a reli­gion, which lays no restraint upon the passions; the Easterns, where these causes most powerfully operate, have time immemorial endeavoured to secure the chastity of their women, by eunuchs and confine­ment.

At what period, or in what part of the world, some of the males of our species were first emascu­lated, in order to qualify them for guarding the objects of pleasures of the rest, is not perfectly known. The institution of a custom so barbarously unnatural, has, by some, been attributed to the in­famous [Page 16] Semiramis; but we are of opinion, that it was more likely to originate from the men than the women; and, besides, we have reason to believe, that it was invented long before the time of Semi­ramis; for Moses, in his code of legislation, ex­pressly prohibits eunuchs from entering into the con­gregation; and Manetho says, that the father of Sesostris, who lived near two hundred years before Moses, was assassinated by his eunuchs. In the days of Samuel, it seems to have been a general custom for the kings of the nations, who lived in the neigh­bourhood of the Israelites, to have eunuchs; for we find this prophet, among the other reasons that he made use of to dissuade his people from chusing a king, telling them, ‘that he would take their ennuchs to guard his women.’ The nature of our undertaking does not permit us to enquire, how it was first discovered that emasculation would fit men for the despicable employments to which such muti­lated beings have generally been destined: it is suf­ficient for us to observe, that all the voluptuous na­tions of the East have constantly considered such beings, as so envious of the joys, which themselves were incapable of tasting, that they would exert every power to hinder others from tasting them also; and hence have fixed upon them as the most proper guardians of female chastity: nor has their choice been improperly made; for these wretches, losing every tender feeling for the other sex, along with the power of enjoying them, to ingratiate themselves with their jealous masters, not only debar them from every species of pleasure, under pretence of hindering them from that which is unlawful; but treat them too often with the utmost severity.

While the empires and kingdoms of the East have been the most unsettled, and subject to the most fre­quent [Page 17] and s [...]dden revolutions, the manners and cus­toms, like the mountains and rocks of the country, have been, time immemorial, permanent and un­changeable; and, at this day, exhibit nearly the same appearance that they did in the patriarchal ages; nor have these customs in any thing remained more fixed and unalterable, than in the use of eunuchs: every Eastern potentate, and every other person who can defray the expence, employs a num­ber of those [...]retches to superintend his seraglio, and guard the chastity of his women; not only from every rude invader, but also from the effects of female association and intrigue: nor need we wonder at this, when we consider that into the women of this country are instilled no virtuous principles to enable them to defend themselves; that the men are taught by fashion and prompted by restraint to attack them as often as they have opportunity; that the women may therefore be considered in the same situation with regard to the men, as the defenceless animals of the field are to the beasts of prey which prowl around them; and that on these accounts, while the present constitution of the country remains unaltered, to guard the sex by this species of neutral beings, may not be so unnecessary as we in this country are apt to consi­der it.

There is in the human mind, a reluctance at shar­ing with another what we think necessary for our­selves, or what we greatly love and admire; hence, perhaps, arose the custom of fencing a field round with a ditch or a wall; and hence also, that of secu­ring women by confinement, and guarding them by eunuchs. At what period of the world, or in what part of it, women were first put under confinement, is uncertain; we have, however, some reasons to believe, they were so used among the Philistines as [Page 18] early as the patriarchal ages; and even among the patriarchs themselves, we are told that the women had apartments in the back parts of the tents, into which it would seem that the men, or at least stran­gers, [...] allowed to enter, and to which the women [...] when any stranger approached. But though th [...]e might be some restraint upon the sex in these ages, it did certainly not amount to absolute confinement; for we are informed, that all ranks and conditions of them were employed in the fields, and went out of the cities in the evenings to draw water; and though separate apartments were con­trived in the back parts of the tents for the women, as we have no accounts of their being confined to them, it is probable, that they served rather as re­treats for decency, than as places of imprisonment.

Such was the state of women among the Israel­ites; nor do they seem to have wanted their liberty at this time among the Egyptians, as appears from the story of the wife of Potiphar; and in a subse­quent period from that of Pharaoh's daughter, who was going with her train of attending nymphs to bathe in the Nile, when she found Moses among the reeds.

Were we to reason from principles only, on the origin of female confinement, we would most natu­rally derive it from jealousy; if we reason from facts, it may have arisen from experience of the lit­tle security there was for the chastity of a weak and helpless woman, in the ages of rudeness and lawless barbarity; thus many are of opinion, that the rape of Jacob's daughter by the Sechemites induced that patriarch to cause all his own women and those of his dependents to be shut up, lest another accident of the same nature should befal any of them. The [Page 19] rapes of Io, and of Proserpine, gave birth perhaps to the confinement of women among the Greeks, and similar misfortunes might be followed by similar con­sequences among other nations. But whether the confinement of women originated from the rape of Dinah, we pretend not to determine; of this, how­ever, we are certain, that in length of time it be­came a custom among the Jews as well as their neigh­bours. King David had his wives confined; for we are told that they went up to the house-top to see him march out against his son Absalom, which at this day is all the liberty allowed the women of the East, when they wish to be indulged with the sight of any public procession or show.

But though the women of Kings were at this period generally shut up, it would seem that those of private persons enjoyed more liberty; for the same David sent and brought the wife of Uriah to his house, which all the authority with which he was invested could not have done without a tumult, had she been as strictly guarded, and the persons of women as sacred and inviolable as they are now in the East. When we come to the history of Solomon, we have plain accounts of a seraglio for the confinement of his women; and in that of Ahasuerus, king of Persia, we learn that his seraglio was constituted not only on a plan of the severest confinement, but also of the most voluptuous sensuality. It would be needless to trace this custom downward to later periods, as it is well known that it became the common practice of almost all nations to the time of the Romans, who perhaps, were the first people who totally discard­ed it.

CHAPTER XVII. The same Subject continued.

THE same causes which at first introduced particular manners and customs, are not always the only ones which continue or augment them; thus though seraglios and harams for the confinement of women probably originated from jealousy, or from the danger of exposing weak and defenceless beauty to men heated with lust and unrestrained by law, yet they soon after became an article of luxury and osentation. The Asiatic monarchs and grandees vied with each other in having the most numerous and beautiful set of women, which conferred upon their master a lustre and dignity of the same nature as in modern times we suppose we obtain by a splen­did equipage and a numerous retinue; but the Asiatics carried this matter still farther, and not content with having such a number of women in their possession, they made use of them to add to the long list of high-sounding titles, of which the East­erns are so exceedingly fond. The king of Bisnagar among the rest of his pompous titles, is stiled the husband of a thousand wives. In this country where we are accustomed to make a show and parade of every thing which we imagine gives a lustre to our rank, or an addition to our fame, we cannot con­ceive what dignity an Eastern can derive from a number of beauties, while they are secluded from every mortal eye but his own; it is not, however, the displaying of these in all their charms that gives him this dignity; it is only necessary to have it known that they are in his seraglio, as it is in this country [Page 21] not requisite that a miser should shew his store to acquire the reputation of being rich, but only that it be known that he has it in his possession.

In justification of seraglios and harams it has been by some alleged, that they are not so much places of confinement as of voluntary retreat from the rude­ness and indecorum of the men; but those who argue in this manner must be but ill acquainted with the history of the East, and less with human nature; for we cannot suppose it consistent with those ideas and feelings with which we are endowed, that wo­men should voluntarily shut up and seclude them­selves from all the pleasures of liberty, and of social life, from the hope and joy of public admiration, without any other recompence than a small share of the favours of one man. Every human being has by nature an equal right to personal liberty, and none seem more tenacious of this right than the rude and uncultivated; it is probable, therefore, that the first efforts to confine women were resisted with all their strength and cunning; but the struggle proving ineffectual, custom at last stamped the sanction of justice upon what was at first only an illegal exertion of power; and now the sex, almost over half the world, tamely submit to be imprisoned like criminals, only because force and custom have barbarously com­bined against their liberty.

If jealousy was the original source of female con­finement, when a wife really gave her husband cause to be jealous, he had at least a tolerable pretence for shutting her up; but to imprison wives in general, because some of them were found unfaithful, or young women in general, because upon some few individuals a rape had been committed, was a strange and unlawful exertion of power. The learned Mon­tesquieu, [Page 22] in endeavouring to justify this exertion, says, ‘That such is the force of climate in subliming the passions to an ungovernable height in countries where women are confined, that were they allow­ed their liberty, the attack upon them would always be certain, and the resistance nothing.’ Allowing to this reasoning all its force, does not justice demand that the attacker rather than the attacked should be confined? But we venture to affirm, though in con­tradiction to so celebrated a genius, that such reason­ing is not founded on nature; for this so much dreaded attack, and this feeble resistance, are neither of them the effect of climate only, but of restraint also, and would take place nearly in the same manner in Lap­land as in Asia, were the sexes there as carefully kept asunder, and were there no other security for virtue but want of opportunity to be vicious; for such plainly is the disposition of human nature, that the greater obstacles thrown in the way of gratifica­tion, the greater are the efforts to overcome them; hence a woman who is masked or veiled more strongly attracts our attention, than one who is clothed in the ordinary manner, because, in the former case, we only see a small part of her charms, and creative fancy forms the most extravagant idea of all that is hid: hence, also men and women perpetually kept asunder, are for ever brooding over the joys which they would have tasted in the company of each other, and on this account, a man who perhaps in his whole life never has an opportunity of being alone with one of the other sex, if such an opportu­nity should perchance happen, never fails to make use of it by attacking her virtue; whereas were he to have frequent opportunities of this nature, his fancy would be less heated, he would set less value upon them, and use them with more moderation. These inferences are much strengthened by the fol­lowing [Page 23] facts: a native of China, who lately resided some years in England, acknowledged, that, for some time after he arrived here, he had much diffi­culty in restraining himself from attacking every wo­man with whom he was left alone; and a Nun, who had esaped from a convent, imagined that every man who had an opportunity would assault her virtue, and though she had no inclination to have yielded, even sometimes felt a secret chagrin that she was dis­appointed.

In civilized nations, where the principles of mora­lity are cultivated, when a mutual compact has been entered into between a man and a woman to abide by each other, the faith of this woman, and the sense of the obligation she has laid herself under, are con­sidered as the securities of her virtue, without the use of any restrictive methods. This compact, how­ever, is commonly a mutual one; whereas in coun­tries where women are confined, the compact entered into between husband and wife, if it can be called a compact, is only an act of power on the part of the husband and parents of the bride, and of passive obedience on her part. The husband, therefore, has no great reason to expect that she will pay the same regard to this compact, as if it had been made by the voluntary agreement of all parties; sensible on this account, that her mind may be differently dis­posed of from her body, he secures the latter by per­petual confinement; which is all he can do. But this mode of treating women is the vilest indignity that can be offered to human beings, as it presup­poses them neither endowed with virtue nor free agency, and places them in the same point of view with an unoccupied field, which yields itself indiffer­ently to the possession of any one, who will be at the pains to secure and fence it. It likewise presupposes [Page 24] the men to be with regard to the women, what they are to the wild b [...]asts of the field, absolutely masters of every one whom they can lay hold of and detain in their custody. Idea [...] which we reprobate as inconsistent with human nature, when not warped by custom, or led astray by art.

It is natural to imagine, that we love and admire, and what, on these accounts, we cannot suffer to see in the company of others, we should be as much as possible in company with ourselves; but the reverse is the case with the Asiatics; though they will not allow their women the company of other men, they are seldom with them themselves: such conduct is, doubtless, one of those inconsistencies which too fre­quently mark the character of man; nor is it less inconsistent, that one of the principal enjoyments of the paradise promised by Mahomet, should consist in the company of beautiful women; while, in this world, the mussulmen scarcely ever keep any com­pany with the sex. But we are to consider, that where women are, from their infancy, confined as prisoners, they must be ignorant almost of every thing▪ and, consequently, but illy qualified for the pleasures of conversation and of company; and hence they are never treated as rational companions, nor as equals; but as inferiors and children. The Per­sian women, according to Sir John Chardin, are not even consulted in the choice of their own clothes, nor in the propriety of their having new ones; but are furnished with such as are thought necessary for them, in the same manner as we treat children.

In Turkey, Persia, and several other parts of Asia and Africa, the monarchs, having an absolute power, generally take from their subjects by force, such women as they find handsome, without any [Page 25] regard to their rank, or their being married or sin­gle. The Grand Signior has a tribute of young girls annually paid to him by the Greeks, and some other of his tributary provinces; these are placed in apartments of the palace, which are separated from all intercourse with the rest, and are called the Se­raglio; where they are guarded in the strictest man­ner by eunuchs. The gardens of this seraglio, which are fenced with high walls, and planted with rows of trees, to obstruct the sight, are the utmost limits to which they are allowed to go; except when some of them are carried along with their master, if he makes any excursion, or goes to war against an ene­my; in which case, they are placed in close ma­chines, on the backs of camels, and as much hid as if in the inmost recesses of the seraglio.

Besides the seraglio of the sultan, private persons have apartments in their houses, where they confine their women, called Harams. The Haram is in Turkey, as it was in ancient Greece; always in the back part of the house, and all the windows of it look into the garden. The apartments of the ladies, when the husband can afford it, are always elegantly furnished after their manner; and they want nothing to make life comfortable but society: they have numbers of beautiful female slav [...]s to attend them, who divert them with vocal and instrumental music, dancing, and other amusements. [...] these Harams, women are not so closely confined as in the seraglio; they are sometimes suffered to go out; but then they must always be veiled and covered from head to foot with a long robe, called a forigee; which no wo­man of any rank is allowed to appear in the street without; and which is so exactly alike in all, that it is absolutely impossible to distinguish the features or person of one woman from another. The most [Page 26] jealous husband cannot know even his own wife; and no man dare touch, or follow a woman in the street; so that the confinement of the women at Constantinople is not so rigid as some of our travel­lers would make us believe.

In a variety of parts of the Mogul empire, when the women are carried abroad, they are put into a kind of machine, like a chariot, and placed on the backs of camels, or in covered sedan chairs, and sur­rounded by a guard of eunuchs, and armed men, in such a manner, that a stranger would rather suppose the cavalcade to be carrying some desperate villain to execution, than employed to prevent the intrigues or escape of a defenceless woman. At home, the sex are covered with gauze veils, which they dare not take off in the presence of any man, except their husband, or some near relation. Over the greatest part of Asia, and in some places of Africa, women are guarded by eunuchs, made incapable of violating their chastity. In Spain, where the na­tives are the descendants of the Africans, and whose jealousy is not less strong than that of their ancestors, they, for many centuries, made use of padlocks to secur [...] the chastity of their women▪ but finding these ineffectual, they frequently had recourse to old women, called Gouvernantes. It had been disco­vered, that men deprived of their virility, did not sometimes guard female virtue so strictly, as to be incapable of bring bribed to allow another a taste of those pleasures they themselves were incapable of en­joying. The Spaniards, sensible of this, imagined, that vindictive old women were more likely to be in­corruptible; as envy would stimulate them to prevent the young from enjoying those pleasures, which they themselves had no longer any chance for; but [Page 27] all powerful gold soon overcame even this obstacle; and the Spaniards, at present, seem to give up all restrictive methods, and to trust the virtue of their women to good principles, instead of rigour and hard usage.

Where there is no public virtue to confide in, be­sides the methods of Duennas, locks, eunuchs, and confinement, several others have been, and still are, practised in different countries, to preserve female chastity. Mr. More relates a singular method used for this purpose in the interior parts of Africa; it is a figure to which they give the name of Mumbo Jumbo, in the shape of a man, and dressed in a long coat, made of the bark of a tree, and on its head a large tuft of straw: into this figure, which is usu­ally about nine feet high, a man is introduced, who makes it walk along, speak what he pleases, or make such a horrid and frightful noise, as he thinks will best answer his purpose. This figure is kept care­fully concealed by the men, and never comes abroad but in the night, when they want to settle some dis­pute with, or frighten the women into chastity and obedience. They persuade the women that it knows every thing; they refer every thing to its decision, and it always decides in favour of the men; but this is not all, it has a power of inflicting punishments on female delinquents, which it frequently does, by or­dering them to be whipped. They are taught to believe, that it is particularly offended with them when they violate their chastity; a crime which it will certainly discover, and as certainly punish. As soon as they hear it coming, they generally run away and hide themselves; but are obliged by their husbands to return, though in fear and trembling, to its presence, and to do or suffer whatever it pleases to order them. How despicable must the under­standing [Page 28] of these women be, if they are really thus deceived by so bungling a trick.

In almost all countries, where female chastity has been an object much regarded, some methods have been contrived to awaken the fears of the inconti­nent, as well as to flatter and reward the hopes of those who persevered in virtue; even the Jewish legislator, not thinking that the positive laws he had enacted against unchastity, and the punishments he had annexed to them, were fully strong to overcome every vicious inclination, instituted a mode of alarm­ing their fears of a discovery, even when such dis­covery was above the power of mortal agency: this was the waters of jealousy, which a husband, who suspected the fidelity of his wife, obliged her, with some solemn ceremonies, to drink; and which she firmly believed would make her belly to swell and her thigh to rot, if she was guilty. When such was her belief, and when the husband had it con­stantly in his power to put her to the dreadful trial, a barrier was thereby formed against unchastity, stronger than all the other laws human and divine; and yet not so strong, but it was frequently by these daring women overleaped and disregarded.

Where jealousy is the ruling passion, and the men have no ideas that the incontinence of their women can be restrained by principle, by the hope of reward or the fear of punishment; and where the unsettled manner in which they live, does not allow them an opportunity of putting the sex under confinement; they practise other methods of a most despicable and odious nature, to secure the body, regardless per­haps how much the mind be contaminated. As soon as a female child is born, they unite by a kind of suture those parts which nature has separated, leav­ing [Page 29] just space enough for the natural discharges; as the child grows, the parts adhere so closely, that at marriage they are obliged to be separated by an inci­sion. Sometimes they only make use of a ring, and the married women as well as the virgins are subject to this outrage; with this difference only, that the ring worn by the young women cannot be taken off, whereas that of the married women has a kind of padlock, of which the husband keeps the key. This custom obtains almost in every part of Arabia, but is most generally practised in that part of it known by the name of Petraea. The ancient Germans, and several other northern nations, sen­sible that chastity was most likely to be preserved inviolate by a decency of behaviour between the two sexes; and supposing that this decency could not be properly maintained where familiarity was allowed, prohibited the men even from touching the women, and laid a fine upon them according to the part touched; and in Great Britain, we find that there were laws of this nature even so late as the ninth century.

It is not a little curious to survey the various me­thods made use of in different parts of the world to accomplish the same end. In Poland, the chastity of young girls is endeavoured to be secured by a contrivance hardly less singular, though not so hu­miliating as some of those we have now mentioned: most of the young women belonging to the peasants have little bells fastened to various parts of their cloaths, to give notice to their mothers and other female gurdians where they go, that those may always have it in their power to detect them should they attempt to intrigue or secrete themselves from their view. Where women are no farther regarded than as the means of gratifying animal love, methods [Page 30] like the forgoing may be necessary, or at least attend­ed with little mischief to society or the peace of indi­viduals; but where they are intended for the more exalted purposes of being friends and companions, they should be managed in a very different manner. Locks, spies, and bodily restrictions then become highly improper, as they tend only to debase their minds, corrupt their morals, and render them des­picable; circumstances which ought to be guarded against with the utmost attention, as, where the mind is debased and contaminated, the body is not worth the trouble of preserving.

In all countries where the religion of Rome is established, chastity, and every female virtue which has any relation to it, are endeavoured to be preser­ved by the artifice of auricular confession; the in­stitutors of which probably imagined, that unchas­tity was a crime which female delicacy would never allow any woman to divulge; and as damnation was infallibly annexed to the concealing any crime from the fa [...]her confessor, it was consequently a crime which no woman would ever commit. But how­ever well contrived this plan may appear, experi­ence has fully demonstrated its futility, and that the professors of the catholic religion, notwithstanding this additional impediment in the way of incontinence, are in that respect nearly on a footing with the rest of their neighbours, who have no such stumbling block in their way.

This institution of auricular confession, in the light which we have just now considered it, lays an obstacle in the way of unchastity, by exposing it to public shame, which in all civilized countries is one of the strongest passions which mark the female cha­racter. But women are now become too cunning [Page 31] to fall into the snare; and while their actions of this kind remain private, it is presumable they seldom confess them. But as the exposure to public shame is one of the most powerful methods of laying hold of the minds of the sex, the laws of society, as well as those of religious institutions, have availed them­selves of it, and made it, among every polished people, one of the severest parts of the punishment to which the female delinquent, who has departed from the path of rectitude, is exposed; and conse­quently one of the great [...] obstacles which can be thrown in the road to unchastity. This appears from the conduct of the women of Iceland, when the public shame attending incontinency was suspended on the following occasion. In the year one thou­sand seven hundred and seven, a great part of the inhabitants of Iceland having died of a contagious distemper, the king of Denmark, in order to re­people the country in a more expeditious manner than the common rules of procreation admit [...]ed of▪ made a law, authorising all young women to have each six bastards, without being exposed to any shame, or suffering the loss of reputation. This succeeded beyond the expectation of the monarch; and the young women employed themselves so sedu­lously in the affair of population, that, in a few years, it was thought necessary to abrogate the law, lest the country should be overstocked with inhabi­tants, and that sense of shame annexed to unchastity, so much obliterated from the female breast, that neither law nor custom would be able afterwards to revive it. Were it not almost self-evident to every one, that this public shame attending female indis­cretion, is one of the strongest motives to secure their chastity, we might prove it more fully from other circumstances. Nothing can be more certain, than that in those countries where no shame is fixed [Page 32] to any action, there is no public chastity; and that this virtue flourishes the most, where its contrary vices are branded with the very greatest degree of infamy.

But this public shame is only one of the many me­thods which we in this country make use of to secure the chastity of the sex. We call religion and mora­lity to our aid; religion holds out in the one hand rewards of the most glorious nature, and punish­ments not less dreadful in the other. Morality points out how much the order, peace, and good government of society are influenced by female chas­tity; and how each of them are unhinged and de­stroyed by incontinence. Honour, likewise, comes in as an auxiliary, and holds up to their view the lustre and reputation which themselves and their fa­milies derive from their decency and regulatity of conduct, and the stain and infamy which they bring upon both by lewdness and debauchery. Thus ter­rified by shame, by the loss of society, and by the forfeiting all chance of a husband suitable to their rank, and encouraged by religion, by morality, and honour, we trust such women as have arrived at the years of discretion to themselves, and experience fully demonstrates, that we place not our trust im­properly; and that those methods are far more pre­valent than locks, bars, eunuchs, and all the other barbarous expedients that have been fallen upon, by nations who have not attained to sensibility enough to clap the padlock on the female mind instead of the body. But though we suffer women of experience to be the guardians of their own virtue, over the young and the giddy who have not attained to that degree of reason requisite for governing their pas­sions, nor to that experience sufficient to direct them in the choice of a husband, custom has placed mo­thers, [Page 33] and other female relations, who by time and observation have acquired more knowledge of the world, whereby they are enabled to steer their young pupils with safety over the dangerous rocks of youthful passion and inexperience.

The inhabitants of the southern and northern regions of the globe are in nothing more distinguish­able from each other than the different methods of securing the chastity of their women. In the south, while every possible restriction is laid on the body, they have hardly made use of one single precept to bind the mind. In the north, while they have laid every possible restriction on the mind, the body is left entirely at liberty; and it is remarkable, that none of the religious systems of the south either offer rewards to encourage female chastity, or threaten punishments to deter them from incontinence.—While almost every religious system of the north has issued the most positive precepts against the indiscre­tion of the sex, and to a disobedience of these precepts annexed the most dreadful punishment; even Maho­medism, which is a compound of the religions of both hemispheres, terrifies not the female sinner with hell, or any future state where she shall suffer for her levi­ties; all that she has to fear on this head, is the dis­pleasure and correction of her husband. While in the Edda, or sacred records of the ancient Scandi­navians, future punishments of the most tremendous nature are held over the head of the delinquent, ‘there is a place,’ says that book, ‘remote from the sun, the gates of which face the north; poison rains there through a thousand openings; this place is all composed of the carcases of serpents. There run certain torrents, in which are plunged the bodies of the perjurers, assassins, and those who [Page 34] seduce married women. A black-winged dragon flies incessantly round, and devours the bodies of the wretched who are there imprisoned.’ So far their religion; the laws of almost all the northerns constantly breathed the same spirit, and not satisfied that their women should refrain from real unchastity only, they would not even allow of any thing that had the slightest appearance of indecorum, or that might raise improper ideas in the mind.

It would be an endless task to enumerate the laws which in every well-regulated country have the same tendency; suffice it to say, that in all such, every violent attempt on the virtue of women is punishable either by death, corporal punishment, or loss of mo­ney. It would be needless, we presume, to enume­rate to our fair readers, the various interdictions against unchastity almost every where to be met with in the rules of the Christian religion, interdictions which none of them, we hope, are unacquainted with, and to which few only do not pay a proper regard, both from duty and inclination. When we therefore consider that almost all laws human and divine have so strongly inculcated this virtue, when the ingenuity of every nation has been so strongly exerted in preserving it, we hope we need not join our feeble efforts in recommending it to our country­men in particular, and to the sex in general, as the greatest ornament of their character.

CHAPTER XVIII. Of the various opinions entertained by different Na­tions concerning Women.

IN every age and country, have started up men distinguished by the singularity, and not unfre­quently by the absurdity, of their opinions. The present times have given birth to some philosophers, who have degraded human nature to the lowest pitch of insipidity, and placed it below the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. According to them, man was at first endowed with nothing but an imitative faculty, and was obliged to employ it in learning ar­ticulate sounds, and afterwards music from the birds, industry from the ants and bees, architecture from the beaver, and almost all the other arts from some of the animals which he saw at work around him. By which scheme they have dropt a man at first from the hands of his Creator, by far the most un­finished of all his works; and have gradually traced his advancement to the exalted rank which he at pre­sent holds in the scale of beings, through a long se­ries of exertions and improvements of his own.—What an extraordinary animal has their fancy thus formed? while the condition of all the other animals is so stationary, that they remain at this day nearly the same as at the creation, they have given to man a power of forming his own intellectual powers, and of fabricating his own fortunes.

When such are the general ideas that some have entertained of our species, and when such, as we sometimes see it, is the pride and arrogance of male [Page 36] nature, we need not wonder at the mean and des­picable opinions we shall find in the prosecution of this subject, entertained of a sex, whom satirical wit­lings and morose philosophers have employed every talent to vilify and abuse.

The human genus has, with no small degree of probability, been divided by naturalists into several distinct species, each marked with corporal differ­ences, which could hardly arise from custom or from climate, and with intellectual powers scarcely less indicative of this division than the marks of their bo­dies. These species, like those of most other animals are again divided into sexes, with different sentiments and faculties, adapted to the different purposes for which they were intended. So far the distinctions are plain; but although we find in general through the whole of animated nature the males of every spe­cies endowed with a degree of bodily strength, supe­rior to the females, yet we have no plain indication of any superiority conferred upon these males in the powers, faculties, and instincts with which their minds are furnished. Among the brute animals we do not recollect that any one has been hardy enough to contend for this male superiority; among human beings, however, it has been, and is still so strongly contended for, that we shall give a short view of this contention, as the history of one of the most material peculiarities of opinion that has been en­tertained concerning the sex.

Whether this supposed superiority is, in civil life, owing to any arrogance inherent in male nature, or to the pride of more numerous acquisitions, we shall not at present examine; in savage life we may ac­count for it upon another principle. We have already seen, that among the rudest savages, and in [Page 37] the earlier ages of antiquity, when the bulk of man­kind were only a few degrees removed from that state, that bodily strength was the only thing held in particular estimation; and women having rather a less portion of this than men, were on that account never so much esteemed, nor rated at so high a value from the body it was easy to make a transition to the mind, and suppose its powers less extensible, because for want of opportunities they were less extended, hence an inferiority, which arose only from circum­stances, was supposed to have arisen from nature, and the sex were accordingly treated as beings of an infe­rior order. But in savage life the difference of bodily strength between the two sexes is less visible than in civil life. Captain Wallis informs us that Obereah, queen of Otaheite, lifted him over a marsh, when she gallanted him to her house, with as much ease as he could have done a little girl; and it is probable that there is still less difference in the faculties of the mind, and if there is any, it arises not so much from nature as from want of exertion.

Whether the idea of female inferiority arose solely from the causes we have now mentioned is not alto­gether certain, but from whatever source it arose, we have the most undoubted proofs of its being so widely disseminated, that except among the Egyptians, and a few other nations which borrowed their customs and culture from Egypt, it was from the most remote antiquity firmly established among every people; for women were almost by all the ancients bought and sold, by some of them borrowed, lent, or given away at pleasure, and constantly treated as the pri­vate property of the men; circumstances which could not have happened had not the ideas entertained of them given rise to such indignant treatment.

[Page 38]This indignant treatment of the females of our own species is a singularity of behaviour peculiar to man and has not originated from any thing he could ob­serve around him; for the males of the brute animals do not, so far as we can discover, ever pretend to govern, direct, or dispose of their females; nor, unless in the strength of their bodies, can we discern that they are any way superior to them. The female of those animals that hunt for prey, are as segacious in discovering and catching it as the males. The mare and the grey-hound bitch are as swift as the horse or the dog, of their species. The females of the feathered kind seem to be universally more intel­ligent than the males, particularly in rearing and taking care of their young. Hence it appears, that we cannot have learned from analogy to consider women as so much our inferiors; and if we examine our claim of superiority with impartiality, we shall perhaps find, that unless with respect to the corpo­real powers it is but ill-founded. But partiality and self-love in this examination generally give a bias to our judgments, and a fondness for the pursuits and studies in which we are engaged makes us under-va­lue all such as are directed to different ends and pur­poses, though in themselves not less useful: thus men set the greatest value upon the martial abilities which distinguish them in the field, or upon the literary ones which make them conspicuous as statesmen and orators, while they hardly ever consider the excel­lence of female sprightliness and vivacity, qualities which diffuse gaiety and cheerfulness around them; nor those pains which the sex patiently suffer, and powers they exert, in raising up a generation to suc­ceed us when we shall be no more. Are these less useful than the desolating arts of war, or even than the speculations of the statesman and improvements of [Page 39] the philosopher; or are the women less distinguish­ed in them than the men are in the other?

But let us take a still clearer view of the matter, and we shall find that this boasted pre-eminence of the men is at least as much the work of art as of na­ture, and that women in those savage states, where both sexes are alike unadorned by culture, are, per­haps, not at all inferior in mind to the other sex, and even scarcely inferior to them in strength of bo­dy. This subject is, however, of the most difficult nature; to investigate with precision the powers and propensities of women, it is necessary to be a wo­man; to investigate those of men, it is necessary to be a man; to compare them impartially, to be some­thing different from either.

In order, however, to obtain the most clear and comprehensive view of the corporeal and mental dif­ference of the two sexes that our faculties will admit of, we shall begin by considering them in those states where they approach the nearest to nature. In such states, the difference is much less than in civil society, where, nourished by art, and formed by culture, both sexes assume appearances which are entirely the offspring of that culture; and especially the men, upon whom a far greater share of it is bestowed.—And in such states we find the female endowed with the same patient endurance of hunger, thirst, cold, and fatigue, as the male; inured from their infancy to toil, hardship, and an inclement sky, their bodies acquire nearly the same hard and robust appearance, and they are capable of efforts nearly as great as the men; nor are the faculties of their minds visibly different. Hunting and fishing are the chief employ­ment of the men, and in these arts, when we consi­der the materials they have to work with, we cannot [Page 40] help owning that they shew no despicable share of ingenuity; proofs of which are every where to be met with among them; such proofs, are the fishing-nets that our late discoverers found they employed in the South Sea, which were much larger and bet­ter contrived than any other hitherto made in Eu­rope. Such are fish-hooks which they make of shells and other materials, which in the hand of an European artist, would be useless; and such are the various methods of decoying and snaring wild beasts. Proofs of their genius may likewise be drawn from the manner in which they discover on the ground the tracks of these wild beasts, or of their enemies whom they are pursuing; from their saga­city in finding their way across long and pathless de­serts, covered with wood, and from a variety of other circumstances: but this ingenuity extends itself only to the narrow circle of hunting, fishing, and war, beyond which their ideas have hardly ever reached; in many places not even so far as to shelter them­selves from the weather by cloaths and by houses, or to save any of the provisions of a present hour, for a time of future scarcity.

Such are men in savage life. In considering wo­men, we shall see, that in the province to which they are confined, they at least equal their men in art and ingenuity. In some countries they have carried the art of dyeing certain colours to no incon­siderable degree of perfection; in others, that of making trinkets and ornaments of such materials as in Europe we could not [...]rn to any possible use; and their method of bringing up children is almost every where more agreeable to nature, and conse­quently preferable to that of the more polished na­tions; but here their progress is at an end; and like the men, their little span of knowledge and inven­tion [Page 41] is confined within a narrow circle, which from the beginning of time, like the sea, has had its 'hitherto shalt thou come, but no farther.'

On comparing the aggregate of the corporeal and intellectual powers of the two sexes in savage life, the difference will appear much less than it generally does on a superficial view. Though in the hunting, fishing, and warlike excursions of the men, there appears a considerable share of art and ingenuity; yet these arts have among them been time immemo­rial in a stationary condition, and time immemorial have also been taught by fathers to their sons, with­out the sons ever having deviated from the road chalked out by their fathers, or thinking of adding any improvements to what they perhaps considered as already perfect. Though, in the dyeing and making of trinkets as practised by the women, there is also an appearance of art, we have not the least doubt, that they are rather customary operations, which they have for many ages performed without the smallest improvement or variation, this we the more readily believe, when we consider, that in many places the domestic employments and oeconomy of savages, is nearly the same as in the patriarchal ages.

When, from savage life, we proceed to consider the share that each sex has had in the progress of those improvements, which lead to civilization, it appears, that each, in its proper sphere, has con­tributed nearly, in an equal proportion, to this great and valuable purpose. The art of spinning, one of the most useful that ever was invented, is, by all antiquity, ascribed to women: the Egyptians give the honour of it to [...] ▪ the Chinese, to the consort of their [...] This, and the art [Page 42] of sewing, an art hardly less necessary, the fables and traditions of almost all nations ascribe to the fair sex. The Lydians ascribed them to Arachne; the Greeks to Minerva; the antient Peruvians to Mama-Oella, wife to Manco-capac, their first sovereign; and the Romans gave the invention, not only of spinning and sewing, but also of weaving, to their women. Such, and perhaps many many others of a similar nature, were the contributions of female genius towards the utility and convenience of life; contributions which at least equal, if not rival, what­ever has been done by the boasted ingenuity of man.

When we survey the vast continent of Africa and America, where almost every thing but fishing and hunting devolves on the women, we there find pas­turage and agriculture, with the other arts which contribute to the convenience of life, in the same rude state in which they were in the days of Homer; the arts and sciences hardly known, letters totally disregarded, and domestic oeconomy extremely rude and imperfect; and such, in general, is the con­ditions of all countries, where almost every thing is left to the management of their women. But even this is no absolute sign of their inferiority, or want of genius; they are here taken out of that sphere, which nature marked out for them, and introduced into another, to which she neither adapted their talents nor abilities; and we may with equal reason blame the men for not improving the arts of spinning and of nursing; as the women for not improving agri­culture and the other arts, to which male talents and abilities only are adapted.

When from these countries we turn towards Eu­rope, where almost every thing is [...] and directed by the men, a different scene presents itself: [Page 43] there we not only find a great variety of improvements already far advanced, but also a laudable spirit of emulation, and a thirst after new discoveries, univer­sally prevailing; and frequently producing fresh acquisitions to the stock of knowledge, and to the conveniences of life. These, at first view, seem plain indications, that the genius of men in leading the human species from an uncultivated to a cultivated state, is superior to that of women; but, on more deliberate consideration, they prove no more than that each sex has its particular qualities, and is fit­ted by the Author of nature for accomplishing differ­ent purposes.

What we have now advanced, points out to us the reason, why women have seldom or never con­tributed to the improvement of the abstract sciences: but there is still another reason; the sex are almost every where neglected in their education, and in some degree slaves; and it is well known, that sla­very throws a damp on the genius, clouds the spirits, and takes more than half the worth away from every human being. The history of every period, and of evey people, presents us with some extraordinary women, who have soared above all these disadvan­tages, and shone in all the different characters, which render men eminent and conspicuous. Syria furnishes us with a Semiramis, Af [...]ca with a Zeno­bia; both famous for their heroism and skill in go­vernment. Greece and Rome, wit [...] many who set public examples of courage and forti [...]de; Germany and England have exhibited queens, whose talents in the field, and in the cabinet, would have done honour to any sex; but it was reserved for Russia, in the person of the present Empress, to join both ta­lents, and to add to them, what is still more noble, an inclination to favour the sciences, and restore [Page 44] the natural rights of mankind; rights which almost every other sovereign has endeavoured to destroy. Upon the whole, we may conclude, that though in the progress of mankind from ignorance to know­ledge, women have, for the reasons already assigned, seldom taken the lead. Yet they have not been backward to follow the path to utility or improve­ment, when pointed out to them.

We have just now seen, that, in savage life, the sexual difference, as far as it regards strength and activity of body, is not very considerable; as society advances, this difference becomes more perceptible; and in countries the most polished, is so conspicuous as to appear even to the slightest observer. In such countries, the women are, in general, weak and delicate; but these qualities are only the result of art, otherwise they would uniformly mark the sex, however circumstanced; but as this is not the case, we may attribute them to a sedentary life, a low abstemious diet, and exclusion from the fresh air; but these causes do not stop here; their influence reachs farther, and is productive of that laxity of the female fibres, and sensibility of nerves, which while it gives birth to half their foibles, is the source also of many of the finer feelings, for which we value and admire them; and of which bodies of a firmer texture, and of stronger nerves, are entirely destitute. However paradoxical this may appear to those who have not attended to the subject, we scruple not to affirm, that such is the effect of want of exer­cise, confined air, and low diet, that they will soon reduce, not only the robust body, but the most resolute mind, to a set of weaknesses and feelings similar to these of the most delicate and timorous female.—This being granted, we lay it down as a general rule, that to the difference of education, and the [Page 45] different manner of living which the sexes have adop [...], is owing a great part of their corporeal difference, as well as the difference of their intellec­tual faculties and feelings; and we persuade ourselves that nature, in forming the bodies and minds of both sexes, has been nearly alike liberal to each; and that any apparent difference in the exertions of the strength of the one, or the reasonings of the other, are much more the work of art than of nature.

We know it is a generally established opinion, that in strength of mind, as well as of body, men are greatly superior to women; an opinion into which we have been led, by not duly considering the pro­per propensities and paths chalked out to each by the Author of their nature, and the powers given them to follow these paths and propensities. Men are en­dowed with boldness and courage, and women are not; the reason is plain, these are beauties in our character, in theirs they would be defects. Our genius often leads us to the great and the arduous; theirs to the soft and the pleasing: we bend our thoughts to make life convenient; they turn theirs to make it easy and agreeable. Would it be difficult for women to acquire the endowments allotted to us by nature? It would be as much so for us to acquire those peculiarly allotted to them. Are we superior to them in what belongs to the male character? they are no less so to us in what belongs to the female. But whether are male or female endowments most useful in life? This we shall not pretend to deter­mine; and till it be determined, we cannot decide the claim which men or women have to superior ex­cellence. But to pursue this idea a little further; Would it not be highly ridiculous to find fault with the snail, because she cannot run as fast as the hare, [Page 46] or with the lamb, because he is not so bold as the lion? Would it not be requiring from each an exer­tion of powers that nature had not given, and de­ciding of their excellence, by comparing them to a wrong standard? would it not appear rather ludi­crous to say, that a man was endowed only with in­ferior abilities, because he was not expert in the nursing of children, and practising the various effe­minacies, which we reckon lovely in a woman? Would it be reasonable to condemn him on these ac­counts? Just as reasonable is it, to reckon women inferior to men, because their talents are in general not adapted to tread the horrid path of war, nor to trace the mazes and intricacies of science. Horace, who is by all allowed to have been an adept in the knowledge of mankind, says, ‘In vain do we en­deavour to expel what nature has planted.’ And we may add, In vain do we endeavour to cultivate what she has not planted. Equally absurd is it to compare women to men, and to pronounce them inferior, because they have not the same qualities, and in the same perfection.

We shall finish this subject, by observing, that if women are inferior to men, they are the most so in nations highly polished and refined; there, in point of bodily strength, for the reasons already assigned, they are certainly inferior; and such is the influence of body upon mind, that to this laxity of body we may fairly trace many, if not all the weaknesses of mind, which we are apt to reckon blemishes in the female character. Those who have been constantly blessed with a robust constitution, and a mind not delicately susceptible, may laugh at this assertion as ridiculous; but to those, in whom accidental weakness of body has given birth to nervous feelings, with which they [Page 47] were never before acquainted, it will appear in ano­ther light. But there is a further reason for the greater difference between the sexes in civil, than in savage life, which is the difference of education; while the intellectual powers of the males are gra­dually opened and expanded by culture, in a variety of forms: those of females are commonly either left to nature, or, which is worse, warped and biassed by frippery and folly, under the name of education.

This idea of the inferiority of female nature, has drawn after it several others the most humiliating to the sex, as well as absurd and unreasonable. Such is the pride of man, that wherever the doctrine of immortality has obtained footing, he has confined that immortality entirely to his own genus, and con­sidered it as a prerogative much too exalted for any other beings. And in some countries, not stopping here, he has also considered it as a distinction too glo­rious to be expected by women, whom he looks upon in too low and diminutive a light to deserve it. And thus degrading the fair partners of his nature, he places them on a level with the beasts that perish. When, or where this oppinion first began, is uncer­tain: it could not, however, be of very ancient date; as the b [...]lief of immortality never obtained much footing till it was revealed by the Gospel. As the Asiatics have time immemorial regarded women only as instruments of animal pleasure, and in every other respect treated them as beings beneath their notice, it probably originated among them, which we the more firmly believe, when we consider, that the Mahometans, both in Asia and in Europe, are said, by a great variety of writers, to entertain this opi­nion. Lady Montague, in her letters, has opposed this general assertion of the writers concerning the Mahometans, and says, that they do not absolutely [Page 48] deny the existence of female souls, but only hold them to be of a nature inferior to those of men, and that they enter not into the same, but into an infe­rior paradise prepared for them on purpose. We pretend not to decide the dispute between Lady Montague and the other writers, whom she has con­tradicted, but think it possible that both may be right; as the former might be the opinion of Turks brought with them from Asia; the latter, as a re­finement upon it, they may have adopted by their intercourse with the Europeans. Or it may be the effect of the dawning of human reason, which at present seems to be expanding itself with greater vigour than it has done for many centuries past.

This opinion, that women were a sort of mecha­nical beings, only created for the pleasures of the men, whatever votaries it may have had in the East, has had but few in Europe; a few, however, have even here maintained it, and assigned various and sometimes laughable reasons for so doing: among these, a story we have heard of a Scots clergyman is not the least particular. This peaceable son of Levi, whose wife was, it seems, a descendant of the fa­mous Xantippe, ^* in going through a course of lec­tures on the Revelations of St. John, first took up the opinion, that the sex had no souls, and were incapable of future rewards and punishments. It was no sooner known in the country that he main­tained such a doctrine, than he was summoned be­fore a presbytery of his brethren, to be dealt with according to his delinquency. When he appeared at their bar they asked him, If he really held so he­retical [Page 49] an opinion? He told them plainly, that he did. On desiring to be informed of his reasons for so doing, ‘In the Revelations of St. John the Di­vine,’ said he, 'you will find this passage; ‘And there was silence in heaven for about the space of half [...]n hour: And I appeal to all of you, to tell me, whether that could possibly have happened had there been any women there? And since there are none there, charity forbids us to imagine that they are all in a worse place; therefore it follows, that they have no immortal part; and happy is it for them, as they are thereby exempted from be­ing accountable for all the noise and disturbance they have raised in this world.’

Some tribes of the Asiatic Tartars are of the same opinion with this reverend gentleman. ‘Women,’ say they, ‘were sent into the world only to be our servants, and propagate the species, the only pur­poses to which their natures are adapted;’ on this account their women are no sooner past child-bear­ing, than believing that they have accomplished the design of their creation, the men no farther cohabit with, or regard them. The ancient Chinese carried this idea still farther; women, according to some of them, were the most wicked and malevolent of all the beings which had been created; and a few of their ancient philosophers advised, that on this account they ought always to be put to death as soon as past child-bearing, as they could then be of no farther use, and only contributed to the disturbance of soci­ety. Ideas of a similar nature seem to have been at this time generally diffused over the East; for we find Solomon, almost every where in his writings, exclaiming against the wickedness of women; and in the Apocrypha, the author of the Ecclesiasticus, is still more illiberal in his reflections: ‘From gar­ments,’ [Page 50] says he, ‘cometh a moth, and from wo­men wickedness.’ Both these authors, it is true, join in the most enraptured manner to praise a virtu­ous woman, but take care at the same time to let us know, that she is so great a rarity as to be very sel­dom met with.

Nor have the Asiatics alone been addicted to this illiberality of thinking concerning the sex. Satirists of all ages and countries, while they flattered them to their faces, have from their closets most profusely scattered their spleen and ill-nature against them. Of this the Greek and Roman poets afford a variety of instances; but they must nevertheless yield the palm to our doughty moderns. In the following lines, Pope has outdone every one of them.

Swift and Dr. Young have hardly been behind this celebrated splenetic in illiberality. They perhaps were not favourites of the fair, and in revenge vented all their envy and spleen against them. But a more modern and accomplished writer, who, by his rank in life, by his natural and acquired graces was undoubtedly a favourite, has repaid their kind­ness by taking every opportunity of exhibiting them in the most contemptible light. ‘Almost every man,’ says he, ‘may be gained some way; almost every woman any way.’ Can any thing exhibit a stronger caution to the women! It is fraught with information, and we hope they will use it accord­ingly.

CHAPTER XIX. The same Subject continued.

BESIDES the opinions which have been entertained of women, in consequence of their sup­posed inferiority, there is one scarcely less ancient or less universal, which has originated from a very different source; and which supposes the sex always to have been peculiarly addicted to hold a communi­cation with invisible beings, who endowed them with powers superior to human nature; the exer­cise of which has been distinguished by the name of witchcraft.

That a notion of this kind prevailed in an early period of the world, we learn from the story of Saul the first king of Israel, who went to consult the witch of Endor concerning his own fate, and the fate of the war in which he was engaged; and from that time downward, both sacred and prophane history make it plainly appear, that this belief of witches, or dealers with familiar spirits, as they are called, was almost universally disseminated over the whole world; insomuch that we are hardly ac­quainted with the history of any people, either an­cient or modern, among whom it has not gained some degree of credit. Even the inhabitants of the sequestered islands in the South Sea, who have not, perhaps, from the beginning of time, had any com­munication with the rest of mankind, have imbibed the general opinion; for we are told, that the mak­ing of their mahie, or common beverage, is gene­rally [Page 52] the work of old women, who observe several superstitious ceremonies, which they reckon abso­lutely necessary to the success of their operation, and guard against several things which they suppose would as absolutely spoil it; among which none can be more fatal than the touch of any person not actu­ally concerned in the work.

In our times this superstitious idea of witchcraft is the most prevalent among nations the most ignorant and uncultivated. In some periods, at least, of an­tiquity, it appears to have been the reverse; for the Greeks, even in their most flourishing and enlight­ened periods, were almost in every circumstance the dupes of it; and the Romans following their exam­ple were, perhaps, still more so. Nothing either sportive or serious, trifling or consequential, was un­dertaken in Greece or Rome, without the perform­ance of some superstitious ceremonies, reckoned ab­solutely necessary to insure its success.

All the ancient inhabitants of the North paid the greatest regard both to the persons and dictates of such women as were reckoned witches, and their opinion of the existence of such beings was transmit­ted down to their posterity, who▪ after the conquest of the Roman empire, had now peopled all Europe; but the doctrines of christianity, which many of these began by degrees to embrace, changed their former veneration for witches into the utmost hatred and detestation; and instead of the honours that were formerly heaped upon them, such unhappy beings as were now suspected of that crime, became subject to the most horrid barbarities that a blinded legislature and a furiously enthusiastic populace could inflict.

[Page 53]Though this suspicion of having intercourse with invisible beings has in most ages and countries fallen chiefly, it has not falle [...] [...]ltogether, on the women. The Egyptians had their magicians, the Babyloni­ans their soothsayers, and the Persians their magi, who were all of the masculine gender; among almost all other nations the females have been for the most part consulted as witches, or dealers in the secrets of futurity. How the original idea of witches was at first suggested to mankind, is not easily accounted for; it is still more difficult to assign a reason, why this idea was in all ages so intimately connected with women, and particularly with old women. The witch of Endor is introduced as an old woman, and in every subsequent period historians, painters, and poets, have all exhibited their witches as old wo­men; nor can we without pain relate, that a majo­rity of those unhappy creatures condemned a few centuries ago in all the criminal courts of Europe, were old women. Might we hazard a conjecture on this subject, we would suppose that in the earlier ages of the world, while women were only kept as instruments of animal pleasure, and only valued while they had youth and beauty, as soon as these were over, they [...] deserted by society and left to languish in solitude; a situation which is of all others that in which the human mind is most sus­ceptible of wisdom, which wisdom soon making them more conspicuous than the ignorant crowd from which they had been exiled, might give birth to a notion, that they were assisted by invisible agents.

This may in some measure explain to us the origin of the idea of witches, so far as it relates to old wo­men, but leaves the origin of the general idea still involved in the same obscurity. We flatter our­selves, however, that some light may be thrown [Page 54] even on the general idea by the following observa­tions: we are told in scripture, that in the earlier periods of the world, a communication between celestial and human beings, was not uncommon.—God appeared to our first parents in the garden of Eden; the angels came to Lot, to warn him of the destruction of Sodom; to Abraham, to intimate to him the birth of a son in his old age; and Moses is said to have seen God face to face, when he receiv­ed from him the tables upon the mount. Nor was this opinion peculiar to the Israelites, the gods of the other nations were said almost constantly to live with them, to appear in a familiar manner and com­municate their orders to them, and even to beget children with their women. Bacchus taught man­kind the use of the grape, and Ceres, a female di­vinity, instructed them in the use of corn; even Ju­piter, their supreme deity, frequently came down to the earth, and cohabited with their women; when such were the ideas generally disseminated, that good beings of all denominations frequently appeared to, and communicated some of their knowledge and their power to mortals, it was but carrying them one step farther, and supposing that evil beings, likewise, did the same thing for the purposes of mischief; and hence those who were supposed to communicate with good beings probably were called prophets, and those who communicated with evil ones, witches, wizzards, &c.; nor does this seem altogether conjecture, for mention is made in the sacred writings of evil spirits, who had their false prophets, to whom they dictated lies, in order to lead to destruction those who listened to them.

Such possibly might be the origin of witchcraft; and such the reasons why old women were most commonly suspected of it. But i [...] still remains to be [Page 55] considered why the sex in general were thought to have been more addicted to it than the men▪ the reasons of this also may, perhaps, be discovered in the different habitudes and ways of life of the two sexes. From the remotest antiquity the men inured to hunting, fishing, and pasturage, were constantly abroad in the open air; they were consequently healthful and robust, and not subject to these nervous weaknesses and spasmodic fits which so strongly cha­racterise modern ages, and have often been supposed the effect of witchcraft. The women on the con­trary, of a more delicate frame, more confined by their domestic and sedentary employments, and the jealousy of their husbands and relations, and per­haps, even more simple than the men in their diet, would be much more subject to nervous weaknesses, and all the uncommon appearances that sometimes attend them; in the paroxysms of these nervous dis­orders, they would frequently utter the most strange and incoherent language, and as the ancient manner of conveying instruction and predicting future events was commonly in this unconnected allegorical strain, accompanied with extraordinary gestures and contor­sions of the body, such rhapsodical effusions, the mere effect of nervous irritability, might be easily mista­ken for the inspiration either of good or evil beings, and therefore women, being more subject to such fits than men, might be more commonly denominated prophetesses, or witches, according to the nature of the spirit with which it was supposed they were agi­tated.

That this appears at least no improbable account of the matter, we have reason to believe, from the ancient manner of initiating men into the mysteries of prophecying, and women into the trade of deli­vering, oracles. Men were of old initiated into the [Page 56] number of prophets by long and severe watchings, fas [...]ings, and by every species of mortification. The Bramins of the East, at this day admit none to their religious mysteries, till they have prepared them­selves by many years of discipline, abstinence, and mortification; and even the Angekots, or priests of Greenland, when they pretend to go to visit the land of souls for the purpose of revealing what they are doing or suffering, prepare themselves by fasting for their journey, and set out on it by dancing and howling themselves into a temportry frenzy. It were easy to give more instances, but we rather pro­ceed to the effects of such a conduct on the body and mind; effects which every one who has been redu­ced to we [...]kness by similar causes, will more readily conceive from his own feelings than from any de­scription; we shall, therefore, only observe in gene­ral, that they are those diseases of the vapourish kind, which are constantly accompanied with a train of the most indigested and tumultuary ideas. Wo­men were likewise initiated into the mystery of deli­vering oracles, by methods similar to those we have now related, and when they actually delivered them, were wrought up into a state of convulsive enthusi­asm; the Pythoness, who gave the answers of the Delphian oracle, the most famous of all antiquity, washed herself and ate some laurel leaves, a plant well known for its intoxicating powers, before she ascended the tripod. Thus prepared and seated, a prodigious noise was made in the hollow body of the tripod beneath her, which added to the effect of the laurel, and an empty stomach, soon threw her into convulsions and a temporary madness; when, from the ambiguous rhapsodies that she uttered, the de­luded consultors were obliged either to deduct some meaning, or depart in the same ignorance in which they came.

[Page 57]As the sacred writings so frequently mention witches, wizzards, and dealers with familiar spirits, we might from thence imagine that such ideas existed among the Jews only; were not the other writings of antiquity every where as full of them, a circum­stance we cannot wonder at, when we consider that such ideas were much more favoured by the polythe­ism of the Gentiles, than by the belief of one Su­preme Almighty Being, as taught among the Jews. Among the Gentiles also as well as among the Jews, it is probable there were female enchantresses, though we do not recollect to have met with any account of them till we come to the Greeks, who exhibit them every where in their fables and mythology, as beings possessed of the most astonishing and supernatural powers. Medea is said to have taught Jason to tame the brazen-footed bulls, and the dragons which guarded the golden fleece. Hecate, and several others are said to have been so skilful in spells and incantations, that among their other feats, they could turn the most obdurate hearts to love, as we shall have occasion to mention afterward in our his­tory of courtship. Circe, we are told, detained even the sage Ulysses in her enchanted island, and transformed his sailors into swine. Besides these, there were many others who, like the witches of our modern times, could bring on diseases, raise tem­pests in the air, and ride on the clouds from one country to another. Nor were the Romans less the dupes of this pretended art than the Greeks; the whole of their historians and poets are full of the fol­lies and absurdities to which it reduced them; Horace frequently mentions a Canidia, who was reckoned a most powerful enchantress; and Virgil makes one of his shepherds declare, that such was the power of charms, that they could draw down the moon from the sky. But the Romans were not the only people [Page 58] of antiquity who carried their ideas thus far; the Babylonians boasted that all the contingencies of fate were in their hands, [...] [...]hat they were able to avert every evil, and proc [...]e every good by their magi­cal ceremonies. And doctrines of a nature not much dissimilar appear to have been spread over other countries in the East; for about Calcutta they for­merly consulted sorcerers concerning the destiny of their children, and if the prediction promised hap­piness they were spared to live, but if the contrary, they were put to death as soon as born. The Japa­nese at this day pay the most unlimited credit to sor­ceries, incantations, lucky and unlucky days, and publish every year the almanac, pointing them out to the public, lest upon the unlucky ones they should transact any business, which they imagine in that case could not possibly prosper.

Almost every ignorant people are the dupes of su­perstition, which in nothing displays itself more than in fruitless attempts to become acquainted with the secrets of futurity; hence the Greeks and Ro­mans, and perhaps all antiquity, from the number of oracles every where resorted to, were much given to divination; but the northern nations still much exceeded all others, and carried this spirit to the most unaccountable lengths. The Scandinavians, Germans, Gauls, Britons, &c. were of all people perhaps the most ignorant, and of all, the greatest slaves to superstition; their druids and druidesses ex­ercised an authority over them which even the most absolute monarch of the present times would not dare to attempt, but not to those only did they yield an implicit obedience, they obeyed, esteemed, and even venerated every female who pretended to deal in charms and incantations, and the dictates of such, as they were supposed to come from the invisible pow­ers, [Page 59] were more regarded than the laws of nature, of humanity, or of their country. The life of their warriors was such as secured them a firmness of nerves, and freedom from nervous hypochondriac disorders; their women being more subject to them by nature, and by their manner of life, were, in all their fits, considered as inspired by some divinity, and regarded accordingly.—Women in the North have almost solely appropriated to themselves the trade of divination, men have had the largest share of it in the South; the reason is, men in the South are by the climate and their low diet of rice and fruit, subject to all the diseases of women, and wo­men are precluded from all communication with the public.

Among the ancient inhabitants of the North, noth­ing was held in so much estimation as poetry and divination. A troop of poets, called Bards, com­monly attended on the great; not to grace their train but in the effusions of frantic doggerel, to celebrate exploits, and praise their victories. Besides these, there was generally in the train of the rich and pow­erful some venerable prophetesses, who directed their councils, and to whom they paid a deference and respect, at present almost incredible; as will appear from the story of Thorbiorga, a Danish en­chantress, reckoned famous for her knowledge of fu­turity. The kingdom of Denmark, being much dis­tressed by a famine, ‘Earl Thorchil, who had the greatest authority in that country, and was most desirous to know when the famine and sickness, which then raged, would come to an end, sent messengers to invite Thorbiorga to his house.—After he had made all the preparations which were usual for the reception of such an honourable guest, in particular, a seat was prepared for the prophet­ess, [Page 60] raised some steps above the other seats, and covered with a cushion, stuffed with hen-feathers: when she arrived, on an evening, she was dressed in a gown of green cloth, buttoned from top to bottom, had a string of glass beads about her neck, and her head covered with the skin of a black lamb, lined with the skin of a white cat; her shoes were made of calf-skin, with the hair on it, tied with thongs, and fastened with brass but­tons; on her hands she had a pair of gloves of a white cat-skin, with the fur inward; about her waist, she wore an Hunlandic girdle, at which hung a bag containing her magical instruments; and she supported her feeble limbs, by leaning on a staff, adorned with many knobs of brass. As soon as she entered the hall, the whole company rose, as it became them, and saluted her in the most re­spectful manner, which she returned as she thought proper. Earl Thorchil then advanced, and taking her by the hand, conducted her to a seat prepared for her; after some time spent in conversation, a table was set before her covered with many dishes; but she ate only a pottage of goat's milk, and of a dish which consisted of the hearts of various ani­mals. When the table was removed, Thorchil humbly approached the prophetess, and asked her, What she thought of his house, and of his family? And when she would be pleased to tell him what they desired to know? To this she replied, That she would tell them nothing that evening, but would satisfy them fully next day. Accordingly the day after, when she had put all her imple­ments of divination in proper order, she command­ed a maiden, named Godreda, to sing the magical song called Wardlokur; which she did with so clear and sweet a voice, that the whole company were ravished with her music, and none so much [Page 61] as the Prophetess; who cried out, Now I know many things concerning this famine and sickness, which I did not know before. This famine will be of short continuance, and plenty will return next season; which will be favourable, and the sickness also will very shortly fly away. After this the whole company approached the goddess, one by one, and asked her what questions they pleased, and she told them every thing they desired to know.’ A variety of instances of this kind might be adduced, to shew the veneration in which deal­ers in futurity were held amongst the ancient north­erns. We shall only mention another: ‘There was a certain old woman, named Heida, famous for her skill in divination, and the art of magic; who frequented public entertainments, predicted what sort of weather would be the year after, and told men and women their fortunes; she was con­stantly attended by thirty men-se [...]vants, and wait­ed upon by fifteen maidens.’ Such was the venera­tion of our ancestors for beings, whom their descend­ants, in a few centuries afterwards, began to exe­crate, to condemn to the flames, to whips, to tor­tures, horse-ponds, and every other species of cruel indignity. Upon a change so important in sentiment and behaviour, the following considerations will, we hope, throw some light.

Every system of theology, from the beginning of time, had been filled with the doctrine of a commu­nication between celestial and terrestrial beings.—The Jewish religion was remarkably full of it: the Jews, therefore, greatly venerated such human be­ings as they thought were thus dignified with the correspondence of spiritual essences. The polythe­ism of the Gentiles, their different ranks and degrees of gods, and the few degrees of distinction between [Page 62] their gods and their heroes, made it no great won­der, that this communication among them was still supposed to be more common. Among the Jews it would seem, that some small degree of inferiority was affixed to those who were supposed to draw their knowledge of future events from evil spirits; but among most of the neighbouring nations, they had hardly any such distinction as evil and good spi­rits; they had indeed Dii Infernales, or infernal gods; but they made so little difference between these infernal gods and their celestial ones, that they paid to each of them almost an equal share of wor­ship and adoration; hence those who foretold events by a communication with the one kind, were hardly less esteemed, than those who foretold them by a communication with the other. But when the Chris­tian religion was introduced, which taught that all future events were only known to God, or to such only of his creatures as he chose to discover them to; and that in all others, it was impious to endeavour to find out what he had concealed: such as still pre­tended to deal in them, instead of being accounted false imposters, as they ought to have been, were supposed to have drawn their information from evil spirits: hence the trade of predicting, which before was thought the most honourable, while its know­ledge was derived from an honourable source; now, when that knowledge came from a dishonourable one, likewise became not only dishonourable, but criminal. Every one who pretended to that trade, was denominated witch or wizzard; and against all such, the obsolete Jewish law, which says, Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live, was revived; and the same profession, which we have before seen rais­ing prophets and prophetesses to the highest venera­tion and dignity, now subjected them to the flames.

[Page 63]From the twel [...]th to the sixteeth century, almost all Europe was one scene of highly ridiculous opini­ons; to maintain which, kings led forth their ar­mies, piously to cut the throats of their neighbours; and priests condemned to flames in this world, and threatened eternal fire in the world to come. Many of those opinions were, however, but local; and many sunk into oblivion with the authors, who first broached them; but the notion of females being addicted to witchcraft had taken deep root, and spread itself all over Europe. It had been gather­ing strength from the days of Moses; and it subsist­ed till the enquiring spirit of philosophy, demonstra­ted by the plainest experiments, that many of those things which had always been supposed the effect of supernatural, were really the effect of natural causes. No sex, no rank, no age, was exempted from the suspicion [...] of, and punishments inflicted on the per­petrators of this supposed crime; but old women were, of all other beings, the most liable to be sus­pected of it. Poets had delineated, and painters had drawn all their witches as old women, with haggard and wrinkled countenances, withered hands and tottering limbs; these, which were only cha­racteristic symptoms of old age, had, by an unhappy assemblage of unconnected ideas, become also the characteristic symptoms of witchcraft. And hence every old woman, bowed down with age and infir­mity, was commonly dubbed with the appellation of witch; and when any event happened in her neighbourhood; for which the ignorance of the times was not able to account, she was immediately sus­pected as the cause; and in consequence committed to jail by an ignorant magistrate, and condemned by as ignorant a judge, or what, perhaps was worse than either, made the sport of a ruffian multitude, heated by enthusiasm, and led on by folly; which [Page 64] a few centuries ago ran to such a pitch of extrava­gance, that Livonia, and some other parts of the North, it is said, that not many women who had ar­rived at old age were suffered to die peaceably in their beds, but were either hurried to an untimely execution, or so much abused by a licentious popu­lace, that death was frequently the consequence.

But the suspicions of witchcraft were neither alto­gether confined to age nor to poverty; the bloom of youth and beauty, and the dignity of rank could afford no safety. In France, England, and Ger­many, ladies of the highest quality were condemned to the stake for crimes of which it was impossible they could be guilty; but when crimes are either highly improbable or altogether impossible, the proof required to be brought against those who are sup­posed to have commited them, is on that account generally sustained as valid, though much less clear than in other cases. Thus it was with witchcraft, while the fixing of every other crime required some degree of rational and consistent evidence, this was fixed by idle and ridiculous tales, or, in short, by any shadow of evidence whatever. Such being the case, statesmen often availed themselves of witchcraft as a pretence to take off persons who were obnoxious to them, and against whom no other crime could be proved: this was the pretence made use of for con­demning the Maid of Orleans, well known in the history of England and of France; who, by her personal courage, and the power she assumed over the minds of a superstitious people, by persuading them that Heaven was on their side, delivered her country from the most formidable invasion which had ever threatened its subversion. Such was the pretence for destroying the Dutchess de Conchini; who, being asked by her judges, What methods she [Page 65] had practised to fascinate the Queen of France? boldly replied, ‘Only by that ascendency which great minds have over little ones.’ Nothing was too absurd in these times to gain credit; and proofs only became the more valid as they were the more ridiculous. Under Manuel Comnenus, one of the Greek emperors at Constantinople, an officer of high rank was condemned for parctising secrets that rendered men invisible. And another had like to have shared the same fate, because he was caught reading a book of Solomon's, the bare perusal of which, they said, was sufficient to conjure up whole legions of devils. The Dutchess of Gloucester, with Mary Gurdemain, and a priest, were accused of having made a figure of Henry VI. in wax, and roasted it before the fire; though the action itself was ridiculous, and though there was no proof of it nor possibility of the consequences which they imagi­ned were to arise from it, they were all three found guilty; the priest was hanged, Gurdemain was burnt in Smithfield, and the Dutchess condemned to penance and perpetual imprisonment. The Duke of Gloucester, who was regent to Edward V. shewed an emaciated arm in the council-chamber; and his really having an arm withered, was deemed a suffi­cient proof, not only that it was done by sorcery, but that the sorcerers were the wife of his brother, and Jane Shore. To what a low ebb was human rea­son reduced, when from such premises it could draw such conclusions?

Such was the condition of women in Europe for several centuries, constantly liable to be accused of and punished for, crimes which had no existence; till philosophy at last came to rescue them from their danger, by dissipating the gloom of ignorance which had for ages enveloped the human mind; and teach­ing [Page 66] men to prefer reason to opinion, however the latter might be sanctified by time, or strengthened by the celebrated names from which it had origina­ted. But the struggle between reason and opinion was not the struggle of a day or a year, it lasted for several ages, and is not at this hour completely deci­ded; as there are some people stil to be found, who have more faith in in ancient sayings and opinions, than in the fullest demonstration of which reason is capable.

What reason and philosophy had atchieved in Eu­rope, was accomplished in America by shame and remorse. In the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, some of the most gloomy bigots of several nations, and particularly of England, to avoid the persecutions to which their own tenets, and the intolerant spirit of the times subjected them, had emigrated to the inhospitable deserts of America; these carried along with them into that New World, the same ideas of sorcery which they had imbibed in Europe, and the same intolerant spirit from which they had fled. Though they had accounted it exceedingly hard, that in Europe they should have been persecuted for religious opinions, yet they soon imposed the same hardships upon others, from which they them­selves had fled with so much horror and reluctance; and had but just begun to breath from a cruel perse­cution against the Quakers and Anabaptists, when a new suppositious danger alarmed their fears, and set the whole country of New England in a ferment. A minister in Salem had two daughters, one of whom falling into a hysteric disorder, attended with convulsions, the father concluded she was bewitched. An Indian maid-servant was suspected of the crime; and so often beat and otherwise cruelly treated by her wrong-headed master, that she at last confessed [Page 67] herself guilty, and was committed to prison; from whence, after a long confinement, she was at last released to be sold for a slave.

The idea, however, was now started; nor was it so easy a matter to lay it again to rest. Every similar complaint was supposed to proceed from a similar cause, and the affected naturally cast their eyes upon such as either were in reality, or were supposed to be their enemies; and those they accus­ed as the causes of the evils they suffered. Every evil that befel the human body, was in a little time asserted to be the effect of witchcraft; and every enemy to the afflicted was accused, and every accu­sation certainly proved. In default of rational proof, an evidence called by them spectral, and never be­fore heard of, was admitted; on the validity of which, many were condemned to suffer death. The most common and innocent actions, were now con­strued to be magical ceremonies, and every one filled with horror, and diffident of his neighbours, was forward to accuse all around him: neither age, sex, nor charaster, afforded the least protection. Wo­men were stripped in the most shameful manner to search for magical teats. Scorbutic or other stains on the skin, were called the devil's pinches; and these pinches afforded the most undeniable evidence against those upon whom they were discovered. But if any thing was wanting in evidence, it was amply supplied by the confession extorted by tortures, of so cruel a nature, and so long continuance, that they forced the unhappy sufferers to acknowledge them­selves guilty of whatever their tormentors chose to lay to their charge. Women owned various and ridiculous correspondencies with infernal spirits, and even that such had frequently cohabited with them. No [...] were the wretches under torture more pressed [Page 68] to discover their own guilt than that of others; when it [...]quently happened that, unable to give any account of real criminals, they were forced by torture to name people at random, who being imme­ [...]iately taken up, were treated in the same manner, and obliged, in their turn, to name others, not more guilty than themselves.

The phrenzy was now become universal, the near­est ties of blood, and the most sacred friendships, were no more regarded, the gibbets every where exhibited to the people their friends and their neigh­bours hanging as malefactors, the cities were filled with terror and amazement, and the prisons so crouded that executions were obliged to be made [...]very day, in order to make room for more of the supposed criminals. Magistrates who refused to com­mit to jail, and juries which brought in a verdict for acquittance, were on that account suspected and accused; accusations were also at last brought against the judges themselves, and the torrent had reached even to the palace of the governor, when a general pause ensued; conscious of his dangerous situation, every man trembled on looking around him, and every man resolved to cease from prosecuting his neighbour, as the only method of procuring his own safety. Shame and remorse arose from reflection, reason resumed the rein, and the storm that had threatened a total depopulation of the country sub­sided at once into peace. In this paroxysm expired a spirit which for time immemorial had been a scourge to the human race, and particularly to that fair part of it whose history we are now delineating.

Another opinion nearly related to that which we have now been discussing, and scarcely, perhaps, less ancient, is the possession by devils. This [Page 69] through a long succession of ages had been consi­dered as common to both sexes, and consequently not falling properly within our plan. But as the priests of the Romish church have adopted, and still maintain it now, when it is nearly exploded by every other set of men, and as they almost entirely confine it to women, we shall give a short account of it.

So delicate is the sensibility, or rather irritability, of the female constitution, that they are thereby subjected to several diseases, whose symptoms and appearances are more extraordinary than those with which the men are commonly afflicted. Such, it is highly probable, were those diseases which in the New Testament are called the possession of devils, and from persons thus affected, when they were healed by our Saviour, devils were said to be cast out.

Every one who has had an opportunity of seeing diseases of the spasmodic kind, must have been sensi­ble that persons so affected, frequently exerted a force which at other times they were totally incapa­ble of. Hence, in ages of ignorance and supersti­tion, it is no great wonder that such exertions, and such symptoms of torture as accompanied them, were attributed to the agency or possession of evil spirits. But medical philosophers, beginning to throw aside every prejudice, and attach themselves only to truth, at last discovered, that symptoms which had formerly been supposed to arise from the agency of malevolent s [...]irits which had entered into the human body, in reality arose from natural causes; and this doctrine, as being more consonant to reason, as well as confirmed by observation, was at last pretty ge­nerally received. But as every improvement of the [Page 70] human understanding is attended with inconveniency to such as fatten upon human ignorance, the priests of the Romish religion, arrogating to themselves the same powers as the author of Christianity; had always pretended to cast out devils; and finding that if there were no devils for them to cast out, their revenue and reputation would not only be diminish­ed, but an instrument of managing the people and supporting their own power, would also be wrested out of their hands, strongly opposed this new doc­trine as impious and discordant to the scripture; and to carry on the farce with the greater probabi­lity, they carefully sought out such women as were endowed with a cunning, superior to the rest of their sex, and bribed them to declare themselves possessed, that they might have the credit of dispos­sessing them, and thereby shewing to the world, that it had been misled by a belief of natural causes, and that they had actually derived from their great mas­ter, a power over the legions of darkness. That their scheme might be the more complete, they la­boured to instil a notion into mankind, that as evil spirits were no doubt so intelligent as to understand every language, those possessed by them were also endowed with the same gift. Women, therefore, who feigned this possession, were, by the priests appointed to exorcise them, taught by rote, answers to such questions in several languages, as they should ask them. The multitude, when they thus observed women whom they knew to be without education speaking a variety of languages, were convinced that it was really the devil who spoke out of them.

Though the populace were deluded by this trick, yet the sensible part of mankind still silently despised the authors of such an imposition on human credulity; but as in Catholic countries nothing is more dange­rous [Page 71] than contradicting or finding fault with the church, it was long before any one had the hardi­ness openly to attack this palpable absurdity; such an attack was, however, at last successfully made by a physician in Sardinia. ‘A young girl in Turin being troubled with hysteric fits, which threw her body into such postures and agitations as seemed supernatural, the Jesuits, who are always attentive to every thing that has a tendency to promote them­selves, or turn to their advantage, soon flocked about her, attended by a physician in their interest, who alleged that she was actually possessed, and conse­quently not to be cured by medicine. Accordingly the exorcists were assembled, and the girl previously instructed for the better carrying on the imposture; the affair made a great noise, people came from all parts, and the old tales of witchcraft and sorceries were revived. Dr. R. nobly opposed these proeed­dings, and declared the girl's case was entirely ow­ing to natural causes, supporting his opinion by rea­sons and instances which he had heard of in Holland and England, where he had resided many years. The Jesuits furiously attacked him as an infidel, whom they would infallibly confute from the testi­mony of his own senses. The Doctor consented to attend them, and while they were performing their prayers and exorcisms appeared devout; when they had finished, he desired the two ecclesiastics who were entrusted with the managemement of the affair, that they would order their patient to answer him a few questions, which they granted, on condition he asked nothing unlawful, and commanded the devil to answer. Accordingly the Doctor said to her in English, What is my name? This being a language to which both the girl and the Jesuits were strangers she answered in plain Piedmontese, that she did not understand the question; but according to the recei­ved [Page 72] opinion, as well as the ritual, the knowledge of all languages, the supernatural strength of body, and foretelling things to come, are the proper crite­ria of a real satanical possession, the devil therefore ought to understand all languages, and it is easily conjectured that this ignorance did not a little mor­tify the Jesuits; they, however, did all in their pow­er to elude the consequence, by pretending that the Doctor had put an unlawful question to the evil spi­rit, and they had forbid him to answer any of that kind; but he soon confuted their allegations by ex­plaining the question he had asked, and immediately repeated it in Piedmontese; but the possessed, to whom he was unknown, could say as little to this as be­fore, when the same question was proposed in English. The Doctor highly pleased at his success, ran to court in triumph, where he ridiculed the ignorance of their devil; the king and the prince of Piedmont joined in the laugh, and the latter for the more effec­tuall [...] silencing this Jesuitical devil, fetched a Chi­nese psalter from his closet, sent him by the cardi­nal Tournon as a curiosity; this psalter has, indeed, a Latin translation, but the Chinese leaves could be taken out separately from those containing the trans­lation; with one of these leaves Dr. R. was again dispatched to ask the devil the contents, and in what language it was written. The fathers, who did not desire any more of Dr. R.'s visits, were for keeping out of his way, and the devil threatened if he came again, to expose the minutest transactions of his life. A Theatine, who was an accomplice of the Jesuits, acquainted the Doctor's sister with this circumstance; and she, from an implicit veneration for the clergy, was very urgent with her brother not to have any further concern with this devil, but to no purpose. The Doctor, however, had no great opinion of the devil's omniscience, and told the king, that if the [Page 73] devil knew all things present or absent, there would be no necessity for princes being at such immense expences in envoys, agents, and spies▪ they need only maintain a possessed person or two, from whom they might constantly have immediate intelligence of every transaction. After this remark, the Doctor hastened to the house of the possessed, where he found the Jesuits with the girl. On entering the room, after the usual compliments, he acquainted them, that having been informed that a detail was to be given of every transaction of his life, he was desirous of hearing it himself; and began to defy and challenge the devil to begin his story; adding, that if he did not, he would brand him and all who favoured his pretended possession, as knaves and fools. This resolute speech thunder-struck both the patient and the Jesuits; but the latter pretending to shew the Doctor the nearest way out of the house, he soon silenced them, by producing the commission; and insisted, in the name of the prince, that the possessed should declare what was written on the leaf he exhibited, and what language it was written in? The two Jesuits, who were, doubtless, not the most artful of their order, pretended, that the characters might be diabolical, and therefore refused to answer the questions. D. R. answered, that it did not become them to violate the respect due to their prince by such a scandalous suspicion; and insist­ed, in the name of the king and prince, that they should no longer amuse him with such weak subter­fuges. The two Jesuits, after whispering to them­selves, answered, That an affair of this kind must be introduced by prayer, and a long series of devotion▪ wherefore it was necessary to defer it to a more con­venient opportunity. The Doctor replied, There was now time sufficient for the purpose, and that he would pray with them. So that they were at last, [Page 74] notwithstanding their evasions, obliged to begin their ceremonies. During the exorcism, the girl threw her body into strange contortions, and hideous looks which the Jesuits insisted upon were supernatural; but the Doctor promising to mimic her actions, in a manner still more horrible, orders were given her to answer truly to all the various interrogatories. Accordingly, the leaf was laid before her, with the above mentioned questions: upon this she screamed in a terrible manner, desiring it might be taken away, for she could not bear it. At last, after the most pressing arguments, she said it was Hebrew; and that it was a blasphemous writing against the Holy Trinity. This was sufficient for the Doctor; who, after shewing them plainly how ignorant their devil was, returned to court to give an account of his proceedings. The two Jesuits were banished; the two physicians recanted in public; and the pa­rents and relations were enjoined, on pain of being sent to the gallies, never to mention this affair as a diabolical possession; with regard to the girl, she was soon cured by proper medicines. Thus ended this imposture▪ and with it all notions of sorceries, witchcrafts, and satanical possessions, with which the minds of the people were infected.’

As this triumph over priestcraft was, however, only local; and as the multitude are still prone to believe what they do not understand; the clergy, in some places, still continue to propagate the doc­trine of evil spirits entering into female bodies, and keeping possession of them till properly exorcised by the church; an opinion, long since, totally eradi­cated in Protestant countries, and only laughed at in secret by the sensible of the Romish faith.

[Page 75]Before we take our leave of this subject, it may not be improper to observe, that the notions of witchcraft, and of possession, have not only been almost universal among mankind, but have had al­most the same ideas every where annexed to them. In Hindostan, an old woman, who had taken upon her the name and character of a witch, raised a re­bellion against her sovereign; and to draw the mul­titude to her standard, she circulated a report, which was eagerly credited, That on a certain day of the moon, she used to cook, in the skull of an enemy, a [...], composed of owls, bats, snakes, lizards, human f [...]esh, and other horrid ingredients, which she distributed to her followers; and which, it was believed by the rabble, had a power not only of rendering them void of fear, but also of making them invisible in the day of battle, and transfusing terror into their enemies. Would not one suppose she had read the histories of Greece and Rome, and the plays of Shakespear? Voyages and travels present us with several histories of uncommon diseases among savages, whose appearances they at­tributed to the agency of evil spirits; but from what source they derived these ideas, would be foreign to our purpose to endeavour to determine.

Besides the opinions which have been already mentioned, it has been alleged against women, that they are either incapable of attending to, or at least deaf to reason and conviction. This, however, we venture to affirm, is an error of partiality, or inat­tention; for the generality of women can reason in a cool and candid manner on any subject, where none of their interests or passions are concerned▪ but such appears to be the acuteness of the female feelings, that wherever passion is opposed to reason, it operates so strongly, that every reasoning power [Page 76] and faculty is, for a time, totall [...] suspended: the same thing, in a lesser degree, happens to men; and the only difference between the [...] in this par­ticular, arises from the different degree [...] of feeling and sensibility.

Women have likewise been charged by the men with inconstancy and a love of change. However justly this may characterise the sex in their pursuit of the fashions and follies of the times, we are of opi­nion, that in their attachments to the men, it is false. The fair sex are, in general, formed for love; and seem impelled by nature, to fix that passion on some particular object; as a lover, husband, or children; and for want of these, on some darling animal: and this attachment, instead of being changeable, com­monly gains strength by time and possession. So strong is this peculiarity of female nature, that many instances have been known, where nuns, for want of any other object, have attached themselves to a particular sister, with a passion little inferior to love; and history affords many instances of women, who, in spite of reason, reflection and revenge, have been inviolably attached to the person of their first ravisher, though they hated, and had been ruined by his conduct.

Among all the signatures of female inferiority, few have been more insisted on, than their want of that courage and resolution so conspicuous in the men. We have already given it as our opinion, that this is no defect in their character; as the Author of nature has, for the most part, placed them in circumstances which do not demand these qualities; and when he has placed them otherwise, he has not withheld them.

[Page 77]Such are the circumstances▪ of the generality of women in savage life, where the countries are thinly inhabited, and commonly infested with wild beasts; and the men, for days and weeks together, abroad on their hunting excursions; in which intervals the women, liable to be attacked by the beasts of prey, and by their enemies, would be in a miserable situa­tion, were they the same weak and timid animals they are in polished society.

Among the Esquimaux, and several other savage people, the women go out to hunt and fish along with the men. In these excursions, it is necessary for them not only to have courage to attack whatever comes in their way, but to encounter the storms of a tempestuous climate, and endure the hardships of fa­mine, and every other evil, incident to such a mode of life, in so inhospitable a country. In some places, where the woods afford little game for the subsistence of the natives, and they are consequently obliged to procure it from the stormy seas which surround them, women hardly show less courage, or less dexterity, in encountering the waves, than the men. In Green­land, they will put off to sea in a vessel; and in a storm, which would make the most hardy Europe­an tremble. In many of the islands of the South Sea, they will plunge into the waves, and swim through a surf, which no European dare attempt. In Himia, one of the Greek islands, young girls, before they be permitted to marry, are obliged to fish up a certain quantity of pearls, and dive for them at a certain depth. Many of the other pearl-fish­eries are carried on by women, who, besides the danger of diving, are exposed to attacks of the vo­racious shark, and other ravenous sea-animals, who frequently watch to devour them.

[Page 78]Should it be objected here, that this kind of cou­rage is only mechanical or customary, we would ask such objectors, Whether almost all courage is not of the same nature? Take the most undaunted mor­tal out of the path which he has constantly trod, and he will not shew the same resolution. A sailor, who unconcernedly steers his bark through the most tre­menduous waves, would be terrified at following a pack of hounds over hedge and ditch upon a spirited horse, which the well-accustomed jockey would mount with pleasure, and ride with ease. A soldier, who is daily accustomed to face death, when armed with all the horrors of gun-powder and steel, would shrink back with reluctance from the trade of gather­ing eider down as practised by the simple peasants of Norway, who, for this purpose, let themselves down the most dreadful precipices by the means of a rope. A thousand other instances might be addu­ced to prove this truth; but as many of them must have fallen under the observation of every one, we shall not enlarge upon them.

That savage women are more generally endowed with courage than those in civil life, appears from what we have now mentioned, as well as from the whole history of mankind; yet it does not from thence follow, that those in civil life are less conspi­cuous for it, when it is required by the circumstances in which they are placed. And though it is not our intention to give a minute history of every female, who, throwing aside the softness of the sex, has sig­nalized herself in scenes of devastation and fields of blood, we think it incumbent on us to give a few instances, to shew how far the sex have been enabled to exert courage when it became necessary.

[Page 79]In ancient and modern history, we are frequently presented with accounts of women, who, preferring death to slavery or prostitution, sacrificed their lives with the most undaunted courage to avoid them. Apollodorus tells us, that Herculus having taken the city of Troy, prior to the famous siege of it celebra­ted by Homer, carried away captive the daughters of Laomedon then king. One of these, named Eu­thira, being left with several other Trojan captives on board the Grecian fleet, while the sailors went on shore to take in fresh provisions, had the resolution to propose, and the power to persuade her compa­nions, to set the ships on fire, and to perish them­selves amid the devouring flames. The women of Phoenicia met together before an engagement which was to decide the fate of their city, and having agreed to bury themselves in the flames, if their husbands and relations were defeated, in the enthusiasm of their courage and resolution, they crowned her with flowers who first made the proposal. Many instan­ces occur in the history of the Romans, of the Gauls and Germans, and of other nations in subsequent periods; where women being driven to despair by their enemies, have bravely defended their walls, or waded through fields of blood to assist their country­men, and free themselves from slavery or from ravishment. Such heroic efforts are beauties, even in the character of the softer sex, when they proceed from necessity: when from choice, they are ble­mishes of the most unnatural kind, indicating a heart of cruelty, lodged in a form which has the ap­pearance of gentleness and peace.

It has been alleged by some of the writers on hu­man nature, that to the fair sex the loss of beauty is more alarming and insupportable than the loss of life; [Page 80] but even this loss, however opposite to the feelings of their nature, they have voluntarily consented to sustain, that they might not be [...]he objects of temp­tation to the lawless ravisher. The nuns of a con­vent in France, fearing they should be violated by a ruffian army, which had taken by storm the town in which their convent was situated, at the recom­mendation of their abbess, mutually agreed to cut off all their noses, that they might save their chastity by becoming objects of disgust instead of desire. Were we to descend to particulars, we could give innumerable instances of women, who, from Se­miramis down to the present time, have distin­guished themselves by their courage. Such was Pen­thesilea, who, if we may credit ancient story, led her army of viragoes to the assistance of Priam king of Troy; Thomyris, who encountered Cyrus king of Persia; and Thalestris, famous for her fighting, as well as for her amours with Alexander the Great. Such was Boadicea, queen of the Britons, who led on that people to revenge the wrongs done to herself and her country by the Romans. And in later peri­ods, such was the Maid of Orleans, and Margaret of Anjou; which last, according to several histori­ans, commanded at no less than twelve pitched bat­tles. But we do not choose to multiply instances of this nature, as we have already said enough to shew, that the sex are not destitute of courage when that virtue becomes necessary; and were they possessed of it, when unnecessary, it would divest them of one of the principal qualities for which we love, and for which we value them. No woman was ever held up as a pattern to her sex, because she was intrepid and brave; no woman ever conciliated the affections of the men, by rivalling them in what they reckon the peculiar excellencies of their own character.

[Page 81]Although it appears, from what we have related, that an opinion has been pretty generally diffused among mankind that the female sex are in body and in mind greatly inferior to the male; yet that opi­nion has not been so universal as to exclude every exception; for whole nations, in some periods, and some individuals in every period, have held a con­trary one. We have already given some account of the veneration in which the ancient Egyptians held their women; a veneration which seems at least to have continued to the days of Cleopatra. We have seen other nations placing the fountain of honour in the sex, and others again valuing every single wo­man at the rate of six men. We have seen the Ger­mans admitting them to be present at, and to direct their councils. The Greeks, Romans, and ancient Britons, consecrating them to the sacred function of ministring at the altars of their gods. We have seen the institution of chivalry raising them almost above the level of mortality. But in Italy, even in a period when chivalry had nearly expired, we find them risen in the opinion of the men to a height, at which they had never arrived before. In Rome, when it became so venal, that every thing could be purchased for money, it was no uncommon thing for the wives or mistresses of the rich and opulent to be deified after their death. In modern Italy, this ridi­culous dignity was conferred, while living, upon Joan of Arragon, who was one of the most extraor­dinary women of the sixteenth century, in conse­quence of a decree passed at Venice, in the year one thousand five hundred and fifty-one, in the acade­my of the Dubbiosi. Upon her sister, the Marchio­ness de Guast, they conferred the title of a divinity; and proposed building a temple, in which they should both be worshipped together. But some of [Page 82] the academicians observing, that two divinities, especially of the feminine gender, would probably not agree together in the same temple; it was at last resolved, that the Marchioness should be worshipped by herself, and that to her sister, Joan of Arragon, should be erected a temple, of which she should have the sole possession. It was accordingly raised, and stood for some time the most demonstrative proof of human folly that history has any where re­corded.

CHAPTER XX. Of Dress, Ornament, and the various other Methods whereby Women endeavour to render themselves agreeable to the Men.

THE mutual inclination of the sexes to each other, is the source of many of the useful arts, and perhaps of all the elegant refinements; by con­stantly exerting itself in strenuous endeavours to please; to be agreeable, and even to be necessary, it gives an additional flavour to the rational pleasures, and multiplies even the conveniences of life.

In the articles of convenience and necessity, we have greatly the advantage over the women, who, weak and helpless in themselves, naturally rely on us for whatever is useful and whatever is necessary. In the articles of pleasure and of refinement, they have as much the advantage of us, and we as natu­rally look up to them as the source of our pleasures, as they do to us as the source of their sustenance and their fortunes; but besides the advantages of being so necessary to the women on account of procuring them convenience and subsistence, men, by nature bold and intrepid, have a thousand ways of ingratiat­ing themselves into the favour of the sex, and may practise them all with openness and freedom; whereas, women must endeavour to work themselves into our affections by methods silent and disguised; for, should the mask be thrown off, their intentions would not only be frustrated, but the very attempt would fix upon them the character of forwardness, [Page 84] and want of that modesty which custom has made so essential a part of female excellence. Nothing ap­pears more evident, than that we all wish women to be agreeable, and to insinuate themselves into our favour, but then we wish them to do so only by na­ture, and not by art, or at least that the little art they employ, should look as like nature as possible.

Compelled to act under these disadvantages, the sex are obliged to lay a perpetual restraint on their behaviour, and often to disclaim by their words, and even their actions, such honest and virtuous attach­ments as they approve in their hearts. When they, however, direct their attacks upon no particular in­dividual, but only strive to cultivate their minds and adorn their bodies, that they may become the more worthy of being honourably attacked by us, we not only pardon, but love them for those arts, which, by embellishing nature, render her still more agree­able.

Nature has given to men strength, and to women beauty; our strength endears us to them, not only by affording them protection, but by its laborious efforts for their maintenance; their beauty endears them to us, not only by the delight it offers to our senses, but also by that power it has of softening and composing our more rugged passions. Every animal is conscious of its own strength, and of the proper mode of employing it; women, abundantly consci­ous that theirs lies in their beauty, endeavour with the utmost care to heighten and improve it. To give some account of the many and various methods which have been and still are made use of for this purpose, is the subject upon which we would wish at present to turn the attention of our fair readers.

[Page 85]Next to the procuring of daily food for the suste­nance of our bodies, that of clothing them seems the most essentially necessary, and there are few inven­tions in which more ingenuity has been displayed, or more honour done to the human understanding. The art of clothing ourselves with decent propriety, is one of those improvements which strongly distin­guish us from the brutes; that of clothing ourselves with elegance, is one of those which perpetually whet the invention, and distinguish the man of taste from the mere imitator.

Though the use of clothes may appear essentially necessary to us who inhabit the northern extremities of the globe, yet as they could not be so in the warmer climates where they were first invented, some other cause than merely that of securing the body from the injuries of the air must have given birth to them. There are in Asia, which we suppose to have been first inhabited, a variety of places where clothes would not only have been altogether useless, but also burdensome; yet over all this extensive country and in every other part of the world, except among a few of the most savage nations, all mankind have been, and still are, accustomed to use some kind of covering for their bodies. Had clothes been origi­nally intended only for defending the body against cold, it would naturally follow, that they must have been invented and brought to the greatest perfection in the coldest regions, and that the inhabitants of every cold country, impelled by necessity, must at least have discovered the use of them long before the present time; but neither of these is the case, for the art of making garments was invented before any of the colder countries were inhabited, and the inhabi­tants of some of the most inhospitable regions of the [Page 86] globe, particularly about the streights of Magellan, are at this day naked.

From these instances it seems plain, that necessity was not the sole cause which first induced men to cover their bodies; some other reason at least must have co-operated with it, to make the custom so universal; shame has been alleged as this other rea­son, and by some said to have been the only cause of the original invention of clothing; but this opinion is not supported by facts, for shame does not seem natural to mankind; it is the child of art, and the nearer we approach to nature, the less we are ac­quainted with it. We have already seen that the natives of Otaheite have no such feelings, or at least if they have, that it is not called forth into action by the same circumstances and situations as among us. It would be endless to enumerate the various coun­tries in which both sexes are entirely naked, and consequently insensible on that account of shame; or which is still a stronger proof of our assertion, to enumerate those, in which, though clothes are com­monly made use of, yet no shame is annexed to u [...]covering any part of the body. But that we may not build our hypothesis entirely upon the customs of savage life, let us consider the state of infancy and youth in the most polished society. There nothing is more obvious, than that neither of the sexes have any shame on account of being naked when several years old, and that even at the age of seven or eight, exposing those parts of the body that are not usually exposed, is a circumstance to which they pay so little regard, that mothers, and other people who have the care of them, often find great difficulty in teaching them to conform in this particular to the customs of their country, and are frequently obliged even to make use of correction before they can obtain their [Page 87] purpose. To this teaching, and to this correction, we owe the first sensations of shame, on exposing our­selves otherwise than the mode of our country pre­scribes, and custom keeps up the sensation ever after; for shame is not excited upon deviating from custom by doing things only which have a real turpitude in their nature, but also by deviating from it in those things that are innocent or indifferent.

If from the foregoing reasons it should appear, that the origin of clothing was neither altogether owing to necessity, nor to shame, then the cause still remains to be discovered; and this cause we sup­pose to have been a kind of innate principle, especi­ally in the fair sex, prompting them to improve by art those charms bestowed on them by nature. The reasons which induce us to be of this opinion are, because, as we observed above, clothes were inven­ted in a climate where they were but little wanted to defend from the cold, and in a period when the hu­man race were too innocent, as well as too rude and uncultivated, to have acquired the sense of shame; because, also, in looking over the history of mankind it appears, that an appetite for ornament, if we may so call it, is universally diffused among them, where­ever they have the least leisure from the indispensable duty of procuring daily food, or are not depressed with the most absolute slavery; every savage people, even though totally naked, shew their love of orna­ment by marks, stains, and paintings of various kinds upon their bodies, and these frequently of the most shining and gaudy colours. Every people, whose country affords any materials, and who have acqui­red any art in fabricating them, shew all the ingenu­ity they can in decking and adorning themselves to the best advantage, with what they have thus fabri­cated. These circumstances strongly demonstrate, [Page 88] that the love of ornament is a natural principle, which shews itself in every climate, and in every country, almost without one single exception. But further, were clothes intended only to defend from the cold, or to cover shame, the most plain and sim­ple would serve these purposes; at least as well, if not better, than the most gay and ornamental; but the plain and the simple, every where give way to the gay and the ornamental. Ornament, therefore, must have been one of the causes which gave birth to the origin of clothing.

As there is in human nature a strong propensity to the love of variety, this might likewise contribute to the use of clothing: absolute nakedness is the most destructive of variety, having nothing to present but the same object, in the same shape and colour, and without any other variations of circumstances than what arise from change of attitude: such uniform and unvaried objects, as they make no new impres­sions on the senses, are not likely to excite, and still less likely to continue the passion of love; to do either of which, it is necessary that our senses should be struck with a variety of appearances. In countries where women are constantly in the original dress of nature, they are much less objects of desire, than where they are enabled by dress to vary their figure and their shape, constantly to strike us with some new appearance, and to shew, or conceal from us, a part of their charms, as it shall best answer their purpose. It is probable that women became early acquainted with all the disadvantages of appearing perpetually the same; and that to remedy them, they contrived, by degrees, to alter themselves by the assistance of dress and ornament.

[Page 89]Because savage life is the state that approaches the nearest to nature; and because, in this state, wo­men sometimes neglect every kind of dress and orna­ment, it has therefore been concluded, that to dress▪ and to ornament themselves, is a passion not natural to the sex: but this conclusion will be found to be improperly drawn, by considering, that wherever women totally neglect ornament and dress, it is ei­ther where they have no materials for these purpo­ses, as in the Streights of Magellan; or where they are so depressed with slavery and ill usage, as on the banks of the Oroonoko, that even a passion so natu­ral, is totally suppressed by the severity of their fate; for even in the most savage states of mankind, if the women are not depressed with abject slavery, they make every effort, and strain every nerve to get materials of finery and of dress. On the coast of Patagonia, where the natives of both sexes are almost entirely naked, the women, in point of orna­ment, were much on an equality with the men, and painted nearly in the same manner; and one of them, finer than any of her male or female compa­nions, had not only bracelets on her arms, but strings of beads also interwoven with her hair.— Among many of the tribes of wandering Tartars, who are almost as rude and uncultivated as imagina­tion can paint them, the women, even though in a great measure confined, are loaded with a profusion of the richest ornaments their husbands or relations can procure for them. But it would be needless to adduce any more proofs in support of our opinion; the whole history of mankind, ancient and modern, is so full of them, that unless we draw general con­clusions from particular instances, we cannot enter­tain a doubt, that the love of finery is more natural to the other sex than to ours.

[Page 90]Taking it then for granted, that the love of dress is a natural appetite, we may reasonably conclude, that it began to shew itself in a very early period of antiquity; but in what manner it was first exerted, and what materials originally offered themselves for its gratification, are subjects of which we know but little: the first garment mentioned by history, was composed of leaves sewed together, but with what they were sewed, we have no occount; from this hint, it is reasonable to presume, that mankind, in the first ages, made use of such materials for dress as nature presented, and needed the least preparation. Strabo tells us, that some nations made use of the bark of trees, others of herbs or reeds, rudely wo­ven together: but of all other materials, the skins of animals seem to have been the most universally used in the ages we are considering: but being then ig­norant of the method of making these skins flexible by the art of tanning, or of separating the hair from them, they wore them in the same state in which they came from the bodies of the animals: finding them, however, cumbersome and inconvenient in this condition, it is natural to suppose, that they soon applied themselves to discover some method of ren­dering them more pliable, and better adapted to their purposes; but when, or where they discover­ed this method is uncertain. The ancient annals of China inform us, that Tchifang, one of their first kings, taught them to prepare the skins of animals for garments, by taking off the hair with a wooden roller; but even after the skins of animals were, by the various methods practised in different countries, rendered something more convenient, they were not naturally adapted to form a neat and commodious covering for the human body; many of them were too little, others too large; those that were too large, it was an easy matter to make less at pleasure; [Page 91] but those that were too little, could not be enlarged without the art of sewing them together; an art, which a great part of mankind were long in disco­vering. Thread does not appear to have been among the most early inventions, as we may sup­pose from finding many savage nations at this day without it, and without thread they could do no­thing. Hesiod tells us, That, instead of thread, the ancients used the sinews of animals dried, and split into small fibres. Thorns, sharp bones, and the like, supplied the place of needles; and of those rude materials, and in this rude manner were the clothes, or rather coverings, of the first ages made; but we must observe, that they were not fitted to the body as at present; but all loose, and nearly of an equal size; a circumstance strongly proved by the many changes of raiment which were in the posses­sion of the great, and of which they made presents to such as they were inclined to honour, and in which they used to clothe the guests who came to visit them; purposes which they never could have an­swered, had they been all exactly fitted to the body of the original owner; but this circumstance is also further proved from the clothing of those nations which retain still the strongest traces of antiquity. The garments of the Welch, and Scotch Highland­ders, are, at this day, so wide and loose, that they may easily be applied to the use of any wearer.

As society began to improve, and the sexes be­came more ambitious of rendering themselves agree­able to each other, they endeavoured to discover such materials as could be made into garments of a more commodious and agreeable nature than the leaves or bark of trees, or the skins of animals; and their first efforts were probably made upon camel's hair; a material which they still work into clothing [Page 92] in the East. From camel's hair the transition to wool was easy and natural; and it would soon be found, that either of them formed a covering, not only more pliable, warm, and substantial; but also more elegant, than any thing they had before been accus­tomed to. At what period they first invented the art of converting these materials into garments is un­certain: all we know is, that it was very early; for in the patriarchal ages, we are told of the great care taken by the inhabitants of Palestine and Mesopota­mia, in sheering ther sheep; the wool of which they, no doubt, had the art of making into covering and to ornament. The uses which were now made of wool and of camel's hair, might possibly suggest the first ideas of separating into distinct threads the fibres of plants, so as to convert them into the same uses: however that be, it is certain, that this art was early cultivated. In the plagues which were sent to dis­tress Egypt, on account of the Israelites, we read of the destruction of the flax; and in periods a little posterior, we have frequent mention made of the fine linen of Egypt. Such were the materials in which men clothed themselves in the first ages. We shall now take a short view of what they had for orna­ment and show.

In the days of Abraham, the art of ornamenting the body with various materials was far from being unknown to many of the Asiatic nations; they had then jewels of several kinds, as well as vessels of gold and silver. Eliezar, Abraham's servant, when he went to court Rebecca, for Isaac his master's son, carried along with him jewels of gold, and silver, and bracelets, and rings, as pre­sents to procure him a favourable reception. We find the same Rebecca afterwards in possession of perfumed garments, which she put on her son Jacob, [Page 93] to enable him to cheat his father, by passing him­self upon him for his brother Esau. Perfumes and odours must then have been introduced; and when they had arrived at the luxury of perfuming their apparel, we may conclude, that the modes of dres­sing in those days were not so plain and simple as some would endeavour to persuade us. Jacob gave his beloved son Joseph a coat of divers colours sup­posed to be made of cotton, and finer than those of his brethren; which was the cause of their selling him for a slave into Egypt. But notwithstanding all this finery, the people of the primative ages were not acquainted with the art of dressing gracefully; their upper garment was only a piece of cloth, in which they wrapped themselves; nor had they any other contrivance to keep these firm about them, than by holding them round their bodies. Many uncultivated nations at this time exhibit the same rude appearance. We have a striking instance of it in Otaheite, where the people wrap themselves in pieces of cloth of a length almost incredible; and the higher the rank of the wearer, so much the more is the length of his cloth augmented. In the patri­archal ages, the Israelites had advanced a few steps beyond the simplicity we have now described; they had garments made with sleeves, and cloaks which they threw over all; but their shoes were like those of the neighbouring nations, only composed of pie­ces of leather, to defend the soles of their feet, and fastened on with thongs. So slightly defended, they never could travel on [...]oot, nor hardly stir abroad, without having their feet much defiled; it was therefore always necessary to wash them when they got home, a ceremony often mentioned in the scripture, which the servant generally performed to his master, and the master often to his visitors and guests.

[Page 94]Amid all these anecdotes of the dress of the first ages, it is not a little surprising, that we have no account of what was worn by the women, except the few ornaments we have already mentioned being given to Rebecca. But though we connot now con­jecture what was their dress, we are assured, that it differed on account of different circumstances.—For Tamar, when she went to sit by the way-side, to impose herself upon Judah for an harlot, was habit­ed in the garments peculiar to a widow, which she put off, and dressed herself in such as were peculiar to an harlot. Whence it appears, that not only widows and harlots, but perhaps several other con­ditions were distinguished from one another by par­ticular dresses; a strong proof that dress was in these periods a circumstance of no small importance, and greatly attended to; for, where dress is only in its infancy, it is not made use of as a badge to distin­guish one person from another; but in polished na­tions, it is not only made use of to distinguish rank, but even professions and circumstances are marked out by it.

Some of the neighbouring nations, and particularly the Midianites, had, in the primitive ages, carried their attention to dress still farther than the Israelites; for we read in the book of Judges, of their gold chains, bracelets, rings, tablets, purple ornaments of their kings, and even gold chains or collars for the necks of their camels. Though the dress of the common people of Egypt seems to have been simple, yet the great made use of a variety of decorations. They had changes of raiment. Joseph gave changes of raiment to each of his brethren. They wore gar­ments made of cotton, and costly chains about their necks. As to the dress of the women, all we know of it is, that they had only one kind, whereas the [Page 95] men had more; whether by one kind of dress only, is meant, that all their variety of changes were made in one fashion, or of the same sort of materials, is uncertain; but however this be, they had, besides their clothes, a variety of ornaments; for Moses tells us, that when the Israelites finally departed from Egypt, they were ordered to borrow jewels of gold and jewels of silver, to put them on their sons and daughters, and to spoil the Egyptians. Nor need we wonder, that they were possessed of these things at the period when the Israelites went out from them, for even in the days of Joseph, luxury and magnifi­cence were carried to a great height; they had, be­sides their jewels, vessels of gold and silver, rich stuffs and perfumes; were waited upon by a great number of slaves, and drawn in chariots, of which they had several sorts; they had embroideries of various kinds which were also used among the neighbouring nations; for Moses mentions works of embroidery, with an agreeable variety; and Pliny tells us, that they painted linen by laying certain drugs upon it.—From all these anecdotes, as well as from the im­mense sums which we have already taken notice of being allotted to the toilette of the queens of Egypt, we may conclude, that the dress of their women was at least costly, if not elegant. We shall finish what we had to say on this subject by observing, that what most particularly distinguished this people, was their attention to cleanliness; they not only kept their garments exceedingly neat, but the opulent had them washed every time they put them on.

That beauty was in all ages the subject of praise and of flattery, we may infer from the nature of man as well as learn from the songs of the ancient bar [...]s. When women were praised, when they were flat­tered on this subject, it was natural for them to wish [Page 96] to see those charms of which they had heard so much; but what all their ingenuity could not discover, they were directed to by chance. Some person, looking on the clear surface of a smooth pool, saw his own image in the water; whether this furnished the first hint that every polished surface would have the same effect, or whether chance directed to that discovery also, is uncertain, but we find the use of mirrors in a very early period in Egypt; and from them, pro­bably, the Israelites first borrowed that art; for mir­rors were common among them in their passage through the wilderness, as appears from Moses having made his laver of brass, of the mirrors offered by the women who attended at the door of the tabernacle. The art of making mirrors of glass was not known in these days. The first and best are said to have been made long after, of a sand found on the coasts of the Tyrian sea; those then in use were made of highly polished metal. In Egypt, and in Palestine, they were of brass. When the ancient Peruvians were first discovered, their mirrors were of brass: and, at this day, in the East, they are commonly made of that, or some other metal, capable of receiving a fine polish.

The use of mirrors, among the Egyptians and Israelites, is a proof that the ages under review, were not so rude and simple as some would insinuate. Many nations at this period have not arrived to the knowledge of mirrors. The people of New Zea­land were surprised at this mode of viewing their own faces, and behaved on the occasion with a mix­ture of the most ridiculous grimace and merriment. Almost every writer of voyages into savage countries, presents us with histories of a similar nature. How rapid is the progress of human genius in some coun­tries? How slow in othrs? Whence arises this diver­sity? [Page 97] Is it from climate, from necessity, or from a difference in the original powers and faculties of the mind? Is it possible that savages never have seen themselves in the water? If they have, why should they be so surprised at seeing themselves in a look­ing-glass?

The face is the part of the body where female charms and graces are most conspicuously placed; but as none could see her own face without the assistance of art; before the use of mirrors, a wo­man must have entirely depended on the relation of others, whether she was beautiful or otherwise; on her own dexterity, or the word of her hand-maid, she must have rested the important affair of having her head-dress properly adjusted, and the colour suited to her complexion; points in which she might often be deceived, but which the use of a mirror put in her own power to discover. Mirrors, therefore, with regard to their utility in female life, may be justly reckoned among the most valuable of human inventions. What kind of dress was used for the head in the primitive ages we know not; all that we have any account of concerning it is, that on some occasions the women used veils. If the dress of the head was however as simple in its con­struction, as that of the body, the adjusting of it would require but little time, and still less inge­nuity.

CHAPTER XXI. The same Subject continued.

IN periods so remote as these we are now considering, it is as impossible for us to give any distinct detail of the various dresses used for the body, as of those used for the head; we have neither descriptions nor monuments left to elucidate so dark a subject; nor, if we had, is it our intention to give a minute and circumstantial detail of every article used at the female toilette: we only mean to point out how far dress has been an object of general attention, and in what manner this attention has exerted itself; and we shall leave our readers to make their own reflec­tions, how far a knowledge of the care bestowed on this article may elucidate the manners of the times, and how these manners might influence the modes of dressing.

Among other subjects of popular declamation, the present luxury of dress affords a constant opportuni­ty of endeavouring to persuade us, that our own times surpass in this article every thing that has gone before us; and that our own country surpasses all the world. But this is no more than mere declama­tion; for if we look back even to very remote peri­ods of antiquity, we shall find that the same thing was then the subject of declamation as well as at pre­sent. The third chapter of Isaiah presents us with an account of the finery of the daughters of Babylon, which no modern extravagance has hitherto equal­led. Homer dresses several of his heroes and hero­ines [Page 99] with a magnificence to which we are strangers; and Cleopatra exhibited an extravagance in her dress and entertainments, which in our times would beggar the most wealthy potentate on the globe. Even in the days of Moses, they were acquainted with the art of polishing precious stones; and not only knew how to set, but what appears more ex­traordinary, were also acquainted with the art of engraving them. The ephod of Aaron was adorned with two onyxes set in gold, on each of which the names of six tribes of Israel were engraved. The breast-plate of judgment, shone with twelve precious stones of different colours, upon every one of which was the name of one of the twelve tribes. We might easily multiply instances to shew the splendour and magnificence of the ancients; but those already given are sufficient to teach us how little reason there is for declaimers to vilify the present times, nor have they more reason to exclaim against this country; whoever has seen the splendour and magnificence of the East, must laugh at every satire on that of Europe.

Notwithstanding all the precious stones made use of by the ancients, it is probable, that they were un­acquainted with the diamond, which modern refine­ment has stamped with such an immense value; some have imagined, that Homer and Hesiod have men­tioned this stone by the name of Adamas and Ada­mantinos; but it has been more judiciously supposed that these Greek terms have not the least relation to it; and Pliny, who has taken much pains to investi­gate the discovery of precious stones, can find no mention of this till a period near the beginning of the Christian aera. But long after the discovery of dia­monds, they did not, for want of being properly polished, display half the lustre they do at present; [Page 100] the art of giving them this lustre by polishing th [...]m with their own dust, is but a late invention, and ascribed to Lewis de Berquen, a native of Bruges, who lived only about three hundred years ago.

A desire of attracting the public attention, natu­rally first prompted the human race to ornament themselves with the most shining and brilliant things which nature could supply. Among all these, the diamond, after it was discovered, held the first rank; it was, therefore, natural, that the mines which produce it should be sought after with avidity, and preserved with care. The oldest diamond mine that we know of, is in the river Gouel, which is one of those that empty themselves into the Ganges. The chain of mountains which runs between Cape Como­ri [...] and Bengal has yielded a large quantity of dia­monds; they are there found in clusters, lying at from six to twelve feet below the surface of the ground. The isle of Borneo, according to some tra­vellers, produces a few diamonds; more are found in Visapour and Golconda; the mines of Visapour have been known about three hundred years, and those of Golconda not above half that time. About the be­ginning of the present century some slaves, who were condemned to look for gold at Sierra-do-frio in Bra­zil, used to find some little bright stones, which they threw away as of no consequence; a few of these, however, being preserved, and shown to the gover­nor-general of the mines, he had them examined by able artists, who declared that they were fine dia­monds. Soon after this, search was made for them with such success, that in a few years the Rio-Jan [...]iro fleet brought to Lisbon eleven hundred and forty-six ounces of them. This produced such a plenty, that their price was considerably diminished; but the Por­tuguese ministry, in order to reinstate them in their [Page 101] origin [...] value, conferred on a company the exclusive privilege of searching for and selling them; and lest the avidity of the company should frustrate the inten­tion of the ministry, it was stipulated, that no more than six hundred slaves should be employed in the mines, and that all diamonds exceeding a certain weight should be the property of the king. Avarice tramples upon every right human and divine. It was not thought sufficient that death should be the consequence of encroaching on this privilege of the company; but, as a further security, it was thought necessary to depopulate all the places that lay in the neighbourhood of the mines, and turn the whole into a solitary waste, inaccessible to human foot. This waste at present comprehends a space of three hun­dred miles, in which there is only one large village, inhabited entirely by the slaves of the company. So short an account of this the most important of all bagatelles, we hope our readers will not consider as foreign to our subject, especially as it is now not only such an article of commerce and luxury, but also the ornament which, of all others, is most eagerly sought after by the fair sex, and the badge which distin­guishes opulence and quality from the lower and more humble ranks of life.

Individuals of the human species, like those of all others, grow old, and suffer by decay; but the spe­cies itself, always the same, is constantly dististin­guished by the same propensities, and actuated by the same passions; it treads in the same path that it did five thousand years ago; dignity and power were then, as well as now, in many places conferred by opulence, and distinguished by ornament and dress; and beauty was fond of adding to nature by all the decorations and embellishments of art. Aaron, as [Page 102] we have already seen, was distinguished by a great profusion of ornaments; the greatest part of the he­roes of Homer were distinguished by the richness and brilliancy of their armour; and the kings of the an­cient Medes and Persians, and of many of the neigh­bouring nations, had golden scepters, as ensigns of their power and authority.

But to return from the subject of badges of distinc­tion, to the dress and ornament of common life. In ancient Babylon, the men wore stuffs wrought with gold and silver, ornamented with costly embroidery, and enriched with rubies, emeralds, saphires, pearls, and other jewels, of which the East has always been remarkably productive; collars of gold were also a part of their finery▪ such was the dress of their men; that of their women has not been so particularly des­cribed; but when we consider the rank which wo­men held among them, and the natural propensity of the sex to dress and ornament, we have reason to be­lieve it was still more costly and magnificent, especi­ally as we so frequently find the prophets reproving the daughters of Babylon for their pride, and the vanity which they displayed in the variety and splen­dour of their attire. To the costliness of the materi­als of their garments, the Babylonish women fre­quently added the expense of the most precious per­fumes, with which they perfumed not only their ap­parel, but also their bodies; and as it is well known that the perfumes of Babylon where every where famous for their superior excellence, and bore an exceeding high price, this luxurious article must have added greatly to the expence of the female toi­lette.

Dress and ornament did not less excite the atten­tion of the Medes and Persians than of the Babylo­nians; [Page 103] the women of their kings were habited in all the pomp of Eastern magnificence, and the revenues of whole provinces were frequently employed in de­corating her who happened to be the greatest favour­ite. The queens had certain districts set apart for maintaining their toilette and wardrobe, one for the veil, and another for the girdle, &c. and these dis­tricts took their names from the different parts of the dress to which they were appropriated, as the queen's [...], the queen's mantle, &c. The Medes, when a distinct nation, appear to have paid the greatest attention to dress, for the luxury and magnificence of which, they are very frequently ex­claimed against by the writers of antiquity. They wore long flowing robes with large hanging sleeves; these robes were interwoven with a variety of dif­ferent colours, all of the most gaudy and shining nature: and besides, they were richly embroidered with gold and silver. They were likewise loaded with bracelets, gold chains, and necklaces adorned with precious stones, and wore upon the head a kind of tiara or high pointed cap, exceedingly magnifi­cent; nay, so far had they carried their attention to every species of decoration, that they even tinged their eyes and eye-brows, painted their faces, and mingled artificial with their natural hair. Such, in the articles of dress and ornament, was the care and attention of the men; antiquity has left us in the dark concerning that of their women, and has only informed us in general, that they were exceed­ingly beautiful. We may, therefore, reasonably suppose, that in a country where dress was so much cultivated, they did not leave those charms of na­ture unassisted, but strove to improve them by every ornament of art.

[Page 104]Notwithstanding what we have now mentioned, in looking over the history of antiquity, we are apt at first view to imagine, that the ancient heroes des­pised dress, as an effeminacy in which it was below their notice to indulge themselves. Hercules had only a lion's skin flung over his shoulders, and a va­riety of the heroes of Homer, and the other ancient writers, are wrapped in those of the different ani­mals they had destroyed; but this seems only to have been the mode in which they clothed themselves in ordinary life, or perhaps rather when they went to war, or to hunting, in order to make them appear more terrible; for on public occasions, when cere­mony was thought necessary, they had other gar­ments of a very different nature. The mantle of Ulysses is described by Homer as an extraordinary piece of finery, and several of the rest of his heroes are now and then introduced in the utmost magnifi­cence of dress that gods and men could fabricate for them; even in the heroic ages, the Greeks wore clothes adorned with gold and silver, and ladies of distinction had long flowing robes fastened with clasps of gold, and bracelets of the same metal, adorned with ambe [...]; nor were they then inconsci­ous that nature might be improved by art, for they endeavoured to improve their complexions by several sorts of paint, in composing and laying on of which, they were scarcely less dexterous than the ladies of the first rank and fashion at Versailles. But with all these loads of finery, the ancients were strangers to elegance, and even to convenience, in their dress. In the times we are speaking of, the Greeks had no shoes, but only a kind of sandals, which they put on when they went out; neither did they know the use of breeches, stockings, nor drawers, nor pins, nor buckles, nor buttons, nor pockets; they had not invented the art of lining clothes, and when [Page 105] cold, were obliged to supply the defect of lining, by throwing one garment over another.

As the Greeks emerged from the barbarity of the heroic ages, among other articles of culture, they began to bestow more attention on the convenience and elegance of dress. At Athens, the ladies com­monly employed the whole morning in dressing themselves in a decent and becoming manner; their toilette consisted in paints and washes, of such a na­ture as to clean and beautify the skin, and they took great care to clean their teeth, an article too much neglected: some also blackened their eye-brows, and, if necessary, supplied the deficiency of the vermil­lion on their lips, by a paint said to have been ex­ceedingly beautiful. At this time the women in the Greek islands make much use of a paint which they call Sulama, which imparts a beautiful redness to the cheeks, and gives the skin a remarkable gloss. Possibly this may be the same with that made use of in the times we are considering; but however that be, some of the Greek ladies at present gild their faces all over on the day of their marriage, and con­sider this coating as an irresistible charm; and in the island of Scios, their dress does not a little resemble that of ancient Sparta, for they go with their bo­soms uncovered, and with gowns which only reach to the calf of their leg, in order to shew their fine garters, which are commonly red ribbons curiously embroidered. But to return to ancient Greece, the ladies spent likewise a part of their time in compo­sing head-dresses, and though we have reason to suppose that they were not then so preposterously fantastic as those presently composed by a Parisian milliner, yet they were probably objects of no small industry and attention, especially as we find that they then dyed their hair, perfumed it with the most [Page 106] costly essences, and by the means of hot irons dispo­sed of it in curls, as fancy or fashion directed. Their clothes were made of stuffs so extremely light and fine as to shew their shapes, without offending against the rules of decency. At Sparta, the case was widely different; we shall not describe the dress of the women, it is sufficient to say, that it has been loudly complained of by almost every ancient author who has treated on the subject.

From what has now been related it appears, that the women of antiquity were not less solicitous about their persons than the moderns, and that the mate­rials for decorating them, were neither so few, nor so simple, as has been by some imagined; facts which, in the review of the Romans, will appear still more conspicuous. In the more early periods of that great republic, the Romans, in their persons as well as in their manners, were simple and unadorned; we shall, therefore, pass over the attire of these times, and confine our observations to those when the wealth of the whole world centered within the walls of Rome.

The Roman ladies went to bathe in the morning, and from thence returned to the toilette, where wo­men of rank and fortune had a number of slaves to attend on and do every thing for them, while them­selves, looking constantly in their glasses, practised various attitudes, studied the airs of negligence, the smiles that best became them, and directed the plac­ing of every lock of the hair, and every part of the head-dress. Coquettes, ladies of morose temper, and those whose charms had not attracted so much notice as they expected, often blamed the slaves who dressed them for this want of success; and if we may believe Juvenal, sometimes chastised them for it with the most unfeeling severity. At first, the maids who [Page 107] attended the toilette were to assist in adjusting every part of the dress, but afterward each had her proper task assigned her; one had the combing, curling, and dressing of the hair; another managed the perfumes; a third disposed of the jewels, as fancy or fashion directed; a fourth laid on the paint and cosmetics: all these, and several others, had names expressive of their different employments: but besides these, whose business it was to put their hands to the labour of the toilette, there were others, who, acting in a station more exalted, only attended to give their opi­nion and advice, to declare what colours most suited the complexion, and what method of dressing gave the greatest additional lustre to the charms of nature. To this important council of the toilette we have no account of the male sex being ever admitted: this useful, though perhaps indelicate invention was re­served for the ladies of Paris, who wisely considering, that as they dress only for the men, the men must be the best judges of what will please themselves.

As the loves and the graces more particularly reside in the face, the Roman ladies were hardly more at­tentive to the face itself, than to the decorations that surrounded it; they had combs of box and of ivory for the hair, the curls of which they fastened with gold and silver pins; besides these, they commonly stuck into their hair, pins set with pearl, and plait­ed it with chains and rings of gold, or with purple or white ribbons, shining with jewels and precious stones; they had also in their ears, rings of gold, loaded with pearl, or other jewels. The modern gigantic head-dress of the present time, with all its combs, and wool, and curls, is not the invention of this age; it is at least as old as the times we are deli­neating: the Roman ladies, by the assistance of bor­rowed hair or wool, decorated their heads with [Page 108] tresses, knots, and curls, all so variously disposed, and in so many different stories one above another, that the whole looked like a regular piece of archi­tecture: nor was it always necessary that a lady should spend her precious time in sitting to have her upper apartments built upon in this manner; the Romans, as well as the moderns, knew how to min­gle convenience with folly, they could purchase in the shops, as at present, a head-dress ready built, which they had only the trouble to clap on. It would be tedious to mention the various forms in which these voluminous head-dresses were construct­ed; suffice it to say, that there were some modes of dressing the head which were considered as distin­guishing marks of modesty and virtue, while others were as strong indications of lewdness and debau­chery.

But the disposing of the hair in various forms and figures; the interweaving it with ribbons, jewels, and gold; were not the only methods they made use of to make it agreeable to taste; light-coloured hair had the preference of all others; both men and women therefore dyed their hair of this colour, then perfumed it with sweet-scented essences, and pow­dered it with gold dust; a custom of the highest ex­travagance, which the Romans brought from Asia, and which, according to Josephus, was practised among the Jews. White hair-powder was not then invented, nor did the use of it come into fashion till towards the end of the sixteenth century; the first writer who mentions it is L'Etoile, who relates, that in the year 1593, the Nuns walked the streets of Paris curled and powdered; from that time the cus­tom of powdering has become so common, that in most places of Europe, but especially in France, it [Page 109] is used by both sexes, and by people of all ages, ranks and conditions.

Such were the ornaments with which the Roman ladies surrounded the face; those of the face itself consisted of cosmetics, paints, and even pastes; of the cosmetics, it would be superfluous to give any ac­count, as it is presumed modern invention has fur­nished the present times with such as are much pre­ferable. Chalk and white lead were then used as paints, for we are told by Martial, that Fabula was afraid of the rain, on account of the chalk on her face; and Sabella of the Sun, because of the ceruse with which she was painted: the famous Poppaea, who was first the mistress, and afterwards the wife of Nero, made use of an unctuous paint which harden­ed upon the face, and was left there till she chose to take it off by warm milk; its effects were to soften the skin, and improve the complexion; and as it originated from an empress, it soon became so fashion­able at Rome, that it was used almost by every wo­man when at home, and, in the common phrase of the times, was called the domestic face, and if we may credit Juvenal, the only one which frequently was known to the husband, the natural, or more charm­ing one which it covered, being reserved for occasi­onal lovers. In order also to rectify what they sup­posed nature had made amiss, they had depilatory plaisters to take off superfluous hairs from the eye-brows, or other parts of the face, where they judg­ed that they were imperfections; nor was the art of painting, and otherwise making artificial eye-brows, unknown to them. The teeth, we may readily be­lieve, were also an object of much attention; they were not only cleaned and whitened by a variety of methods, but artificial ones were placed in the room of such as age or accident had destroyed; but the [Page 110] materials of which they were made seem not to have been judiciously chosen. ‘Thou hast only three teeth,’ says Martial to Maxima, ‘and these are of box, varnished over.’ But with all this art, there were some defects for which they were not provided with any remedy: 'If,' says the same poet to Lae­lia, 'thou art not ashamed to make use of borrowed teeth and hair, yet still thou must be embarrassed; What wilt thou do for an eye, there are none to be bought? Had the unfortunate Laelia lived in our more inventive days, even this defect might have been supplied; though perhaps an eye made by the Ba­ron de Wensel, is not altogether so killing as one fabricated by nature. To sum up all, the Roman ladies took great care that their skins should be kept perfectly clean and sweet, by a constant practice of bathing; and some of them, not contented with cammon water for this purpose, used to mix it with a variety of detergent or sweet-scented ingredients: Poppaea, whom we have before mentioned, had every day the milk of five hundred asses made into a bath, which she supposed gave her skin a softness and polish beyond that of any other woman.

In the earlier periods of the Roman republic, as among every uncultivated people, there was but lit­tle difference between the dress of the men and the women, the toga being the common garment of both; at length, however, a difference was introduced, and the garment called Stola became the distinction of the women, as the toga was of the men. It would be dry and insipid to give a minute detail of the form and fashion of these and several other kinds of dress used by the Romans, a much more adequate idea of which can be formed by a single glance at a bust or drawing, than by the most accurate descrip­tion. We shall, therefore, only observe, that the [Page 111] most common materials of which their clothes were composed, were wool and flax; materials less fine indeed than those we have at present, but to supply that defect, they were richly embroidered, and fre­quently loaded with different kinds of jewels. Lin­nen only became known to the Romans in the time of the Emperors; and, perhaps, nearly about the same time, the use of silk was introduced among them; but it was long so scarce and expensive▪ that a small quantity of it was only mixed with wool or flax in the composition of their finest stuffs. Heliogabalus is the first on record who had a robe made entirely of silk. At that time it must have been exceedingly dear, for even more than fifty years afterwards it was sold for its weight in gold; as we learn from the answer of Aurelian to his wife, when she desired him to let her have a silk mantle, ‘I shall take care,’ said he, ‘not to buy threads for their weight in gold.’

As silk is the most beautiful and elegant material which has ever been made use of to adorn their fair forms whose history we are writing, we hope our rea­ders will not consider a short account of it as foreign to our purpose. Silk is said to have been brought from Persia into Greece three hundred and twenty-three years before Christ, and from India to Rome in the year two hundred and seventy-four after Christ. During the reign of Tiberius, a law was made in the senate, forbidding men to debase themselves by wear­ing silk, which was fit only for women. It was in these days supposed to grow like cotton upon trees. In the year five hundred and fifty-five, two monks brought from Cerinda, in the East Indies, to Con­stantinople, the eggs of some silk-worms, which ha­ving hatched in a dunghill, they fed the young insects with mulberry leaves, and by this management they [Page 112] soon multiplied to such a degree, that manufactures of silk were erected at Constantionple, at Athens, at Thebes, and at Borinth. In the year eleven hun­dred and thirty, Roger, king of Scicily, brought manufacturers of silk from Greece, and settled them at Palermo, where they taught the Sicilians the art of breeding the silk worms, and of spinning and weaving the silk. From Sicily, the art was carried into Italy, from thence to Spain: and a little before the time of Francis the first, it was brought to the south of France. Henry the Fourth of France was at great pains to introduce manufactures of silk into his kingdom, contrary to the advice of his favourite minister the Duke de Sully, and by his perseverance, at last brought them to a tolerable perfection. In the year twelve hundred and eighty-six, the ladies of some noblemen first appeared in silk mantles in England, at a ball in Kennelworth Castle in War­wickshire. In the year sixteen hundred and twenty, the art of weaving silk was first introduced into Eng­land, and in the year seventeen hundred and nine­teen, Lombe's machine for throwing silk was erected at Derby, a piece of mechanism which well deserves the attention and applause of every beholder; it contains twenty-six thousand five hundred and eighty-six wheels, the whole of which receive their motion from one wheel that is turned by water. Such was the introduction of silk, but it continued long too scarce and dear to be applied to common use. Henry the Second of France was the first in Europe who wore silk stockings; in the reign of Henry the Se­venth, no silk stockings had ever appeared in Eng­land; Edward the Sixth, his son and successor, was presented by Sir Thomas Gresham with the first pair that ever were worn in this country; and the pre­sent was at that time much talked of as valuable and uncommon. Queen Elizabeth was also presented [Page 113] with a pair of black silk stockings by her silk-woman, and was so fond of them, that we are told by Hol­well, she never wore any other kind afterwards.—From these times, however, silk has, in every shape, become so uncommon in this country, that it is now no longer, as formerly, the distinguishing badge of rank a [...]d op [...]lence, but to be found among people of every station, from the throne to the dung-hill.

But to return to our subject. The most common, as well as most honourable colour among the Ro­mans, except the purple, only allotted to their emperors, was white. It was long before the fashion of wearing garments of various colours was intro­duced among them; white was not only the common colour of the garments worn by the ladies, but also of their shoes, during the time of the republic. Aurelian granted them a power of wearing red ones; and, at the same time, prohibited all the men from that privilege, except himself and successors in the empire.

Shoes, with high heels, were first invented at Rome; Augustus wore them, in order to make himself appear taller; the priests put them on at their solemn sacrifices, and ladies of distinction at balls and public meetings. The shoes of great men were adorned with gold, and we have reason to believe, though it is not recorded, that the ladies copied their example. Heliogabalus adorned his shoes with precious stones, finely engraved by the greatest artists: the succeeding emperors, imitating the pattern he had shewn them, loaded their shoes with a variety of ornaments; and had the Roman eagle, for the most part, embroidered on them, studded round with pearls and diamonds; but we shall cease to wonder at this foolish extravagance of [Page 114] the emperors, when we are told, that even private citizens of Rome, besides the ornaments on the upper parts of their shoes, had the soles of them sometimes made of gold.

We have already seen, that the ancient inhabi­tants of the North had a much greater regard for their women than any other people, who were equally rude and uncultivated: it would, therefore, be offering an indignity to these women, to suppose, that they, in their turn, did not endeavour to please and become agreeable to the men, by such arts of dress and ornament as were then known among them, as well as by the virtues of chastity and obe­dience, for which they were so remarkably distin­guished. We are not, however, to suppose, that in these articles we shall find them equal to many of the ancient nations we have hitherto mentioned. The countries they inhabited, in themselves barren and unhospitable, hardly afforded any thing to pam­per luxury: all the necessary arts were either totally unknown, or only in a state of infancy; of the ele­gant ones, the northerns were entirely ignorant. They were constantly, it is true, at war; but these wars were not, like those of Rome, undertaken to subdue neighbouring nations; and by plundering them, to accumulate the means of splendour and magnificence; but generally either to revenge pri­vate quarrels, or carry home with them a load of provisions to be wasted in riotous festivity. From all these causes, the materials which furnished the female toilette must have been but few and inele­gant. The hair, which when properly managed is, without any ornament, one of the greatest beauties of the sex, seems to have been the object of their chief attention. It was sometimes tied and knotted on the crown of their heads, from whence falling [Page 115] down, it hung negligently on their backs and shoul­ders. Among some tribes, they had acquired the art of curling it; but among the greatest part, it flowed loose and carelessly in the wind. A linen shift, without any sleeves, and over this a cloak of the skins of such animals as their husbands had killed in hunting, seems to have been their most magnificent finery. Where nature has been liberal, she requires but little assistance from art. Such was the case with the women of the nations we are now consider­ing; they were generally beautiful, having lively blue eyes, large but regular features, a fine com­plexion, and a skin, which, for whiteness, equalled the snow upon their mountains. Their stature was tall, their shape easy and majestic; and, to crown the whole, this majesty was blended with all that softness which so peculiarly characterises the sex, and which renders them at once the objects of our ad­miration and our love. So accomplished, they had little occasion for the toilette, and they made as lit­tle use of it; where nature had done so much, art would only have spoiled the work.

We shall not endeavour to develope the various modes of dress, which were the offspring of fancy, fashion, or necessity, among the descendants of these northern nations, of whom we have now been speak­ing, in those periods, called the Middle Ages, or after they had overturned the Roman Empire, and made themselves masters of the greatest part of Eu­rope. In the history of France we have the follow­ing sketches of it, after enumerating the various changes which the dress of the men had undergone. ‘The dress of the ladies, it may be supposed, says the Author, had likewise its revolutions. They seem, for near nine hundred years, not to have been much taken up with ornaments; nothing [Page 116] could require less time or nicety than their head­dress, and the disposition of their hair. Every part of their linen was quite plain, but at the same time, extremely fine. Laces were long unknown. Their gowns, on the right side of which was em­broidered their husbands' coat of arms, and on the left that of their own family, were so close, as to shew all the delicacy of their shape, and came up so high, as to cover their whole breast up to the neck. The habit of widows had very much that of our nuns. It was not until Charles the sixth that they began to expose their shoulders.—The gallantry of Charles the Seventh's court bro' [...] in the use of bracelets, necklaces, and rings.—Queen Ann de Bretagne despised those trinkets, and Catherine de Medicis made it her whole busi­ness to invent new. Caprice, luxury, and vanity, have at length brought them to their present enor­mity.’

To this account we shall add some remarks on the dress of the Anglo-Saxons and Danes. They con­sidered their hair as one of their greatest personal beauties, and took great care to dress it to the ut­most advantage. Young ladies wore it loose, and flowing in ringlets over their shoulders; but after marriage they cut it shorter, tied it up, and covered it with a head-dress, according to the fashion of the times; but to have the hair cut entirely off, was a disgrace of such a nature, that it was even thought a punishment not in adequate to the crime of adul­tery: so great, in the Middle Ages, was the value set upon the hair by both sexes, that, as a piece of the most peculiar mortification, it was ordered by the canons of the church, that the clergy should keep their hair short, and shave the crown of their head; and that they should not, upon any pretence [Page 117] whatever, endeavour to keep the part so shaved from the public view. Many of the clergy of these times, finding themselves so peculiarly mortified, and perhaps so easily distinguished from all other people by this particularity, as to be readily detected when they committed any of the follies or crimes to which human nature is in every situation sometimes liable, endeavoured to persuade mankind, that long hair was criminal, in order to reduce the whole to a similarity with themselves. Amongst these, St. Wulstan eminently distinguished himself; ‘He rebu­ked,’ says William of Malmsbury, ‘the wicked of all ranks with great boldness; but was particularly severe upon those who were proud of their long hair. When any of these vain people bowed their heads before him, to receive his blessing; before he gave it he cut a lock from their hair, with a sharp penknife, which he carried about him for that pur­pose; and commanded them, by way of penance for their sins, to cut all the rest in the same manner: if any of them refused to comply with his command, he reproached them for their effeminacy, and denounced the most dreadful judgments against them.’ Such, however, was the value of the hair in those days, that many rather submitted to his censures, than part with it; and such was the folly of the church, and of this saint in particular, that the most solemn judgments were denounced against multiudes, for no other crime than not mak­ing use of penknives and scissars, to cut off an orna­ment bestowed by nature.

We have already seen, that the French ladies, in the time of Charlemagne, were acquainted with the use of linen; nor were the Anglo-Saxons strangers to it, as appears from several anecdotes of their his­tory; and particularly from this, That the clergy [Page 118] frequently ordered the most obstinate sinners to wear woollen shirts next to their bodies, as an extraordi­nary penance; it would seem, however, that stock­ings, and other kinds of covering for the legs, were then but little used; as the clergy, who had the wealth, as well as power of these times in their hands, frequently, with naked legs approached the altar, and celebrated mass; till the year 785, when a canon was made in these terms: ‘Let no minister of the altar presume to approach it, to celebrate mass, with naked legs, lest his filthiness appear, and God be offended.’ Some persons of condition, however, had, in these times, a kind of covering for their legs, which was fastened on with bandages, wrapped about the leg, from the foot to the knee, as appears from the figures of Edward the Confes­sor, Guido, count of Ponthieu, and some others, in the famous tapestry of Bayeux; one of the most va­luable monuments of the times we are considering. But though many of the figures of this tapestry are without stockings; yet neither in this, nor any other of the monuments, which represent the dress of these times, are there any without shoes; though it would seem, that mankind were then so little acquainted with the proper materials for this purpose, that they generally made them of wood. That the common people should not be able to afford any other than wooden shoes, in periods so distant, does not sur­prise us; but we are rather astonished, when we are told, that in the ninth and tenth centuries, some of the greatest princes in Europe, were only equipped in this manner; sure indications, that the invention of the times had not then discovered any thing that was more proper for the purpose.

The distinguishing the two sexes from each other, by the materials and fashion of their dress, is a cer­tain [Page 119] sign, that cultivation is arrived at no inconside­rable length: among the ancient Germans there was, in this article, but little difference. Among the Anglo-Saxons, it consisted only of a few particulars; the most material of which was, that the mantles of the women flowed down almost to the ground, whereas those of the men were considerably shorter. Those people, as well as the Danes, seem to have been fond of every kind of ornament, and particu­larly of gold chains and bracelets: gold chains were worn by officers of high rank as well civil as military, and being given by the sovereigns, these sovereigns were on that account frequently called by the poets, givers of gold chains. Bracelets of gold, or other precious materials, are an ornament now solely ap­propriated to women. Among the Danes, however, they were indiscriminately the ornaments of either sex; Earl Goodwin presented king Hardicanute with gold bracelets for his arms, and so sacred were orna­ments of this kind then estemeed, that they frequently swore by them, and are said to have held an oath of this [...]ature as tremenduous and inviolable, as the gods of the pagans did that which was sworn by the Styx.

In the Middle Ages there prevailed among man­kind such an universal distrust of each other, owing to the frequency of crimes and the weakness of laws, that there was but little mutual intercourse or social communication among the inhabitants of Europe. Neighbours were frequently as much afraid of each other as the people of different nations are at present when engaged in a war. On this account there were none of those social meetings which have since called great numbers of both sexes together; hence neither sex had then any other motive to induce them to dress than the love of cleanliness, and the [Page 120] innate desire of finery. When the institution of chivalry started up, it gave a happy turn to this rudeness of manners; it a [...]forded more protection to the women, and consequently enabled them to see more company; it introduced numerous meetings at tilts and tournaments, where the ladies were consti­tuted the judges of valour and rewarders of the vali­ant, where their charms were supposed to add cou­rage to the hearts, and great strength to the arms of their admirers, and where they were con­sequently furnished with the very strongest mo­tives to decorate and embellish their persons. But besides tilts tournaments, in the Middle Ages, there arose also in Europe another kind of public meet­ings, called Fairs, to which both sexes, and all ranks resorted.—While a mutual diffidence and the greatest distrust diffused their baleful influence, and there was hardly any security from rapine and murder, but in the castles and strong holds of the barons, trade and commerce were of consequence in the most languid state; to revive them in some mea­sure, fairs were first instituted, where merchants and traders brought their commodities and exposed them to sale; but a bare sale of goods for which there was but little demand, and still less money to purchase with, did not at first answer the end of drawing many people together▪ the venders in time, to allure the multitude, besides the exposure of their goods, entertained them with a variety of public shows and diversions, and from that time their fairs became the fashionable places of rendezvous, and were not only another motive for the sex to dress and endeavour to appear to advantage, but also afforded them the materials for that important purpose.

CHAPTER XXII. The same Subject continued.

WE have already, in treating on the subject of dress, had occasion to give some account of the ancient splendour and magnificence of the Easterns; let us now take a short view of their pre­sent condition, which we shall see is still governed by the same customs, and influenced by the same principles; for we find them at this day fond of that supine indolence, and of that pageantry and show, which so strongly marked their character from the earliest periods in which history gives an account of them.

Such is the constitution of the two sexes, that the whole of their actions are guided and influenced by each other. The women dress and use every means to appear beautiful and engaging in order to please the men, and the men assume bravery and every masculine accomplishment in their power in order to please and render themselves acceptable to the women. In countries where the sexes are allow­ed in a free and unrestrained manner to keep com­pany with each other, such mutual efforts on both sides, as they appear to be the effects of that com­pany, pass without, exciting any wonder; but when we consider that in the East women should take the trouble to decorate and adorn themselves, when they are certain that these decorations and orna­ments cannot be seen by the other sex, we are asto­nished. That women, however, do so, is an in­contestible [Page 122] fact; and so powerful in the female breast is the passion of being admired, that should a woman, as it frequently happens in Asia, have only once in twenty years a chance of being seen and exciting that passion, she would every day du­ring that time, use every possible endeavour to put herself in a condition to do so. The Abbe Lambert, in his account of the manners and customs of the East, observes of the Chinese women, that though they are certain that they can be seen by none but their female domestics, yet they every morning pass several hours in dressing and adorning themselves.

Though the Chinese are perhaps the most regu­larly oeconomical people on the globe, yet the dress of their women, and particularly the ornaments of their heads, are strong instances of that love of finery and show which has ever prevailed in the East. The head-dress of their ladies commonly consists of seve­ral ringlets of hair variously disposed, and every where ornamented with small bunches of gold or silver flowers. Some of them adorn their heads with the figure of a fabulous bird made of gold or silver, according to the quality of the person, which has a grotesque though magnificent appearance. Ladies of the first rank sometimes have several of those birds fastened together so as to form the figure of a crown, the workmanship of which is exquisitely curious.—Young ladies generally wear a kind of crown made of pasteboard, covered with silk, and ornamented with pearls, diamonds, and other jewels; and on the top of the head a bunch of flowers, either natural or artificial, in the middle of which is stuck small wires with sparkling jewels fastened on their points. Such is the attention these women pay to the dress of their heads, though secluded from all communica­tion with the greater part of that sex whom they [Page 123] would naturally wish to please by it. The dress of their bodies is of all others the most clumsy and ine­legant, though often made of the richest materials, and decorated, or rather loaded, with the most costly ornaments; our readers, however, will form a bet­ter idea of it, by looking at a Chinese figure, than we could convey by the most laboured description.

In that extensive part of the East Indies formerly subject to the Moguls, though women are, perhaps, more rigidly confined than in China, yet we find the same passion for ornament; their garments are made of the finest silks, richly flowered with gold and sil­ver, and fitted to the shape with a degree of ease and elegance, which shews, that while they have taken nature for their model, their taste in imitating her is far from being contemptible. About the middle they wear a girdle exquisitely embroidered, at the end of which, where it is fastened before, there hangs a globe of gold, or a large pearl; but their greatest attention seems to be paid to their hair, which they dress in a variety of forms, as pyramids, triangles, crescents, or in the figure of some favour­ite flower or shrub; this is done by gold buckles and wires intermixed with diamonds, and is a work of much time and no less dexterity, though after all, more easily demolished than an head-dress of any other fashion. Besides these tedious and expensive methods, they have a less difficult and more common way of dividing their hair into tresses, which flow with careless ease upon their shoulders, and to which they tie precious stones, and little plates of gold; when thus dressed, to be able to move the head in such a manner as to shew to the best advantage all its splendour and magnificence, is a female art not less difficultly attained, than the proper management of the fan was formerly in Europe, or the taking [Page 124] snuff with such an air as to display in the most en­chanting manner a fine hand, and a finer diamond ring.

It has been a custom time immemorial, for wo­men over the greatest part of the world to pierce their ears, in order to hang to them some trinket, which either gratified their vanity, or was supposed to add some additional lustre to their charms; but this custom of giving torture by a ridiculous incision, and adding a superfluous load to nature, has not been confined to the ears only, the ancient inhabitants of the East had nose as well as ear jewels, and in seve­ral parts of the world we find the custom continued to this day. In some parts of the Indies they pierce one nostril, and put into it a gold ring, in which is set the largest and finest diamond they can procure. Our late adventurers in quest of discoveries to the South Sea, met a few instances of men who had something like a feather stuck across through both nostrils; and in New South Wales it was almost common for the men to thrust the bone of some ani­mal, five or six inches long, and nearly as thick as one's finger, through their noses, which so filled the nostrils, that they not only snuffled disagreeably, but were also obliged constantly to keep their mouths open for breath.

To us Europeans, who have hardly left any part of the body except the nose without its particular ornaments and decorations, a nose embellished with jewels, or other trinkets, has an exceedingly gro­tesque appearance; but this is only the effect of custom, from which the mind generally imbibes the ideas of beauty, elegance, and even of utility and necessity. Thus the Hottentot is persuaded that beauty is greatly augmented by a proper quantity [Page 125] of grease and urine. At Smyrna, the women ima­gine it consists in a large plump fat body, with pro­minent breasts; to obtain all which, they take a va­riety of medicines, and use a variety of superstitious ceremonies. The Dutchman finds elegance in a large pair of trunk breeches, the [...]iser utility in that hoarded store which, even though starving, he dares not make use of, and the man of fashion thinks his coach almost as necessary as the porter does his legs and shoulders. That these things really happen, we need but reflect on what we feel, on any remarka­ble change of fashion; how uncouth, how unbe­coming does the new one commonly appear, till it is familiarized by custom, and as soon as that hap­pens, should even the fashion we thought so much preferable to it return, we should stand in need of the aid of custom to revive our former opinion of it.

But though both sexes in some parts of the East Indies adorn their noses, the ladies do not forget their ears also, which they generally pierce as in Europe, and load with gold and jewels; they like­wise wear various kinds of necklaces, bracelets, and rings, many of which are of immense value there, and would be still more so among us; nor are they content with such kinds of dress and ornament as cannot be mistake [...] for nature, they apply them­selves likewise to s [...]ch as nearly resemble her, and may easily be taken [...] her work. They have a va­riety of paints, whic [...] they mix and lay on with such dexterity, that it is exceedingly difficult to discover them; these they [...]ommonly apply to their cheeks, and to their eyes; they likewise paint the extremi­ties of their nails, but in this instance, departing entirely from nature, they lay on a fine red so thick that on the slightest view it appears to be the work of art. But besides the arts of ornament and dress, [Page 126] they have here, as in all other parts of the world, various other methods of rendering themselves agree­able, and attracting attention. In Europe, a fine lady sometimes draws the eye upon her by the bril­liancy of her snuff-box; in Asia, she frequently ac­complishes the same end by a most liberal use of betel, which is a root chewed by all ranks and conditions, as in Europe we do tobacco, and with which the more highly a lady is scented, the more agreeable she becomes to her admirers.

But betel is not the only thing which the ladies depend on to render themselves grateful to the sen­ses, they use for this purpose also a great variety of the most costly essences and perfumes, whose aroma­tic flavour is brought [...] to the highest perfection by an indulgent climate and vertical sun. Of these they are so exceedingly fond, that the expence of per­fumes often exceeds that of clothes and jewels; for they are seldom without some perfumed flower, or fruit, in their hands; when they have none of these, they hold a phial of precious essence, which they, from time to time, sprinkle on their garments, al­though they are perfumed afresh every time they put them on. They have likewise in the East a parti­cular mode of attracting our sex by the voluptuous­ness of their figures, by their manners, and by their conversation; all of which are calculated to excite passion and desire. Among the Balliaderes, or dan­cing girls of the East, we meet with a piece of dress or ornament, of a very particular nature. To pre­vent their breasts from growing to large, or ill-shaped, they enclose them in cases made of exceeding light wood, which are joined together, and buckled be­hind; these cases are so smooth and pliable, that they yield to the various attitudes of the body with­out being flattened, or injuring the delicacy of the [Page 127] skin; the outside of them is covered with gold leaf, and studded with diamonds. This ornament is well calculated to prevent the laxity induced by a hot climate, and while it thus preserves the beauties of nature, it does not so much conceal them as to hin­der the heavings and palpitations of the bosom from being perceived.

Were we to survey all Asia, almost the whole of it would afford the strongest proofs of Eastern splen­dour and magnificence; but we shall finish what we had to say of it by a relation of the state in which the Portuguese originally found Ormus, when they first sailed into the Gulph of Persia. ‘The streets were covered with mats, and in some places with car­pets; and the linen awnings, which were suspend­ed from the tops of the houses, prevented any in­convenience from the heat of the sun. Indian ca­binets, ornamented with gilded vases, or china filled with flowering shaubs, or aromatic plants, adorned their apartments; camels, laden with water, were stationed in the public squares; Per­sian wines, perfumes, and all the delicacies of the table, were furnished in the greatest abundance, and they had the music of the East in its highest perfection. Ormus was crowded with beautiful women from all parts of Asia, who were instruct­ed from their infancy in all the arts of varying and heightening the pleasures of voluptuous love: universal opulence, an extensive commerce, a re­fined luxury, politeness in the men, and gallantry in the women, united all their attractions to make this city the seat of pleasure.’

Striking as this picture of Asiatic magnificence may appear, in that part of it which relates to female dress and ornament, it may be equalled, if not surpassed, [Page 128] by the inhabitants of Constantinople; who, being originally Asiatic, brought with them from that coun­try the manners and customs which at present pre­vail among them. The Turkish dress of Lady Mon­tague, which we shall not describe, as we presume the generality of our fair readers have read her Let­ters, shews, that the ladies of Constantinople are far from being destitute of taste, and that they know how to join the elegant with the splendid and useful; a circumstance which appears still more plain in the description of the dress of the fair Fatima. But in that which she gives of the habit of the Sultana, who had formerly been the favourite mistress of the Grand Signior, while we are struck with the most costly magnificence, we rather form an idea of a woman loaded with the pageantry of state, than dressed with ease or propriety.

Though we have now mentioned the Turks who inhabit a part of Europe, yet before we proceed to that continent in general, it will be necessary to take a short view of the article of dress in America. Of all the people with which we are as yet acquainted, the inhabitants of this extensive continent seem to be in general the least favoured by nature, and to have made themselves the least assistance by art. In many places, seemingly but a little raised in the faculties of their minds above the beasts of their forests, they have scarcely as yet become acquainted with the use of fire, of houses, or of clothing; and where they are acquainted with them, it is only in so imperfect a manner, that they do not derive from them half the advantages they do in other countries. In such a condition, and situated in regions inhospitably bar­ren, they have few materials for dress, and still less ingenuity to make use of them with propriety; as the appetite for dress, however, is visible among [Page 129] them, it frequently exerts itself in forming the most grotesque appearances; even the women of Terra del Fuego, though content to be naked, are ambitious to be fine, and for this purpose paint their faces with a variety of colours; a circle of white commonly sur­rounds the eyes, and the rest of the face is streaked with red and black, so variously disposed, that scarcely any two are to be found alike; and besides this, they wear bracelets of shells and bones upon their wrists and ankles. Either content with these unavailing trifles, or unconscious of the use of any thing else, ‘they seemed,’ says Lieutenant Cook, ‘to have no wish for any thing more than they possessed; nor did any thing which we offered appear acceptable, but beads, as an ornament of superfluity.’

As the Americans are more the children of untu­tored nature, and consequently have a greater simi­larity in their dress and ornaments than any other people, we shall only give a short and general de­scription of them, without descending into the differ­ences which distinguish the various tribes and nations from each other. There are few American orna­ments in more esteem than garters; these the women make of buffaloe's hair, and adorn them as highly as they can with beads and shells, taking care at the same time to dispose their other garments so as to shew them to the best advantage; besides these, they wear also pieces of deerskin, which they tie to the outsides of their legs, and hang to them tortoise-shells, pebbles, and beads of various colours and sizes. But the legs are not the only parts of the body decorated with this kind of finery; both sexes are fre­quently seen so loaded with shells from head to foot, as to excite the laughter of an European. This cus­tom of adorning themselves with beads and shells may, however, not be altogether the effect of osten­tation [Page 130] and love of finery; beads and shells are their current money, and a person thus adorned, perhaps, carries his whole property about him, the better to secure it from being stolen or plundered.

Before they were supplied with other ornaments from Europe, the Americans of both sexes used such shining stones as were the produce of their own coun­try, tying them to their hair, to their noses and ears, with the fibres of a deer's sinew; but since our inter­course with them, they have used brass and silver rings for their ears and their fingers; besides which, they fasten large buttons and knobs of brass to vari­ous parts of their attire, so as to make a tinkling when they walk or run. Both sexes esteem these ornaments of the most distinguishing nature, and load themselves with them in the utmost proportion of their rank and ability; so that our European traders judge of the fortune of an American by the trinkets on the crown of his head, at his ears, wrists, fingers, &c.; by the quantity of red paint daubed on his face, and by the finery at the collar of his shirt, if he hap­pens to have one, which is far from being always the case.

Although the same attire and the same ornaments are indiscrimi [...]a [...]ely used both by the male and female savages, yet they are not without their sexual distinc­tions of dress, as well as the inhabitants of civilized nations. The women bore small holes in the lobes of the ears for their ear-rings as in Europe; the hole which the men make extends almost from one extremity of the external ear to the other. The men are frequently decorated with plumes of feathers and ensigns of war on their heads; the women, though they sometimes make use of feathers, seldom or never wear them in this manner. The men are [Page 131] not frequently seen without some of their warlike weapons, or the trophies of their victory fastened to various parts of their bodies; the women scarcely ever appear armed but in cases of necessity, and as rarely wear any of the spoils of the hain.

Some nations of savages, not contented with such ornaments as are loose and easily detached from the body, have contrived to ornament, or rather to dis­figure, the body itself by incisions, stainings, and paint. In several of the islands lately discovered in the Great Southern Ocean, a variety of indelible stains are made in different parts of the body, by certain materials which sink into small punctures made in the skin. In Otaheite, this operation is call­ed tattowing, and reckoned so essentially necessary, that none of either sex must be without it, especially the women, who are generally marked in the form of a Z on every part of their toes and fingers. But the part on which these ornaments are lavished with the greatest profusion, is the breech, which, in both sexes is stained with a deep black; and above that, as high as the short rib, are drawn arches which take a lighter shade as they arise, and seem to be distin­guishing marks of honour, as they are shown by both sexes with an ostentatious pleasure.

Such is almost the only mode of ornamenting in this formerly unknown part of the globe; as to the dress, it differs little in the two sexes, and consists mostly of loose garments, such as we have already seen were used by almost all nations in their rude and unpolished state. People of condition, however, in Otaheite are distinguished, not as among the an­cients, by their great variety of changes of raiment, but by the quantity which they wear at once; some of them having around them several webs of their [Page 132] cloth, each of eight or ten yards long, and two broad, and throwing a large piece loosely over all, by way of a cloak, or even two of these pieces, if they wish to appear in an extraordinary state. Thus the magnificence of unpolished nations seems always to have exerted itself in quantity only. Abraham dressed a whole calf, and served it up at an enter­tainment to two angels. Joseph helped his brother Benjamin to five times as much victuals as his bre­thren; and the same idea of quantity only, seems to have been regarded in all the feastings of the heroes of Homer, and some other of the ancients. As these distinctions of rank by the quantity of dress only, must be exceedingly troublesome in hot coun­tries, the ladies of Otaheite always uncovered them­selves as low as the waist in the evening, throwing off every thing with the same ease and freedom as our ladies would lay aside a glove, cloak, or super­numerary handkerchief.

Singular as this mode of dressing and of undressing may appear to us, that of decorating their heads is hardly less so. They sometimes wear upon them little turbans, but their more common dress, and what they chiefly pride themselves in, is long threads of human hair plaited so as hardly to be thicker than sewing silk, and often a mile or more in length, without a single knot: these they wind round their heads in a manner that shows they are neither void of taste nor elegance, sticking flowers and sprigs of evergreen among them, to give them the greater variety. European satirists are apt to declaim against our ladies for the time they spend under the opera­tion of a French hair-dresser, while even these un-tutored people cannot be supposed to employ much less in twisting so many yards of rope round their heads, and giving it the necessary decorations.

[Page 133]We left our ske [...]ches of the dress of Europe at those periods of time, called the Middle Ages; and shall now resume them at these ages, which have only a little preceded our own. Were we to endea­vour a minute description of the present dress of Eu­rope, the attempt would be like painting the colour of a camelion, or the shape of a Proteus; both of which would be changed long before we could finish our task. We shall, therefore, content ourselves with a few general observations on the subject.

As women never were slaves, nor had their spirits broken by ill usage and oppression in Europe, as in several other parts of the world, that love of finery, so natural to the sex, must have constantly operated in inducing them to decorate themselves in the best manner that the circumstances of the times could afford, or the fashion of them dictate. But when the revival of arts and sciences began to polish the minds of our ancestors, and to give birth to new ideas; when trade and commerce began to furnish new materials, for the more elegant modes of deco­ration, the passions of the sex for dress began also to assume new and unrestrainable powers, and often hurried them to such unjustifiable lengths, deaf to reason, the embellishments which they thought were wanting, in order to make the same brilliant appear­ance as their neighbours, could not be dispensed with; though purchased at the price of reputation, and the ruin of fortune. Greece and Rome had of­ten suffered by the same evil; and had often enacted sumptuary laws to restrain it: such laws now became absolutely necessary in Europe, and several of them were published by Henry Fourth of France; who saw, with regret, the women of his exhausted kingdom, exhausting themselves still more in the love of finery and emulation of their superiors. He was not, how­ever, [Page 134] the first potentate who had recourse to this method; several, both before and after him, had published edicts, ascertaining the utmost limits of fine­ry to which every rank and condition of life might proceed; and beyond which they were not to go, without subjecting themselves to a severe penalty.

When we consider, how much greater the value of money was in the times we are speaking of, than at present, it will appear, that women were then much more costly in their dress than at this period, so much declaimed against. In the fifteenth century Laura, the celebrated mistress of the no less celebra­ted Petrarch, wore on her head a silver coronet, and tied up her hair with knots of jewels. ‘Her dress, says the Author of the life of Petrarch, was mag­nificent; but, in particular, she had silk gloves brocaded with gold;’ though at this time silk was so scarce, that a pound of it sold for near four pounds sterling, and none but the nobility were allowed to wear it. Women of inferior rank wore crowns of flowers, and otherwise dressed themselves with all the magnificence which circumstances and sumptuary laws would allow.

A most extensive acquisition to the materials of the toilette, as well as to the cleanness and convenience of the men, had now been introduced; this was linen, which had been known in Europe before, only as a curiosity; or at most as a decoration of the most elevated and opulent, but now was coming into general use: cambrics and lawns soon followed, as an improvement; and after these, fine laces were invented, of which women, almost ever since, have so much availed themselves. The art of weaving silk, so as to make garments, had, for some time, been known; but that of making it into ribands, [Page 135] seems not to have been yet invented; they have since, however, become so general, that they make an indispensable part of the dress of every female, from the highest to the lowest station. Diamonds had long been known in the East, and some centu­ries before this, had been introduced into Europe; but they had not attained the art of polishing them; and in their natural state, or with the little skill they had in dressing them, they did not show half their lustre.^* It was not long after, however, that the art of polishing them, by means of their own dust, and so giving them all their distinguishing brilliancy, was discovered. All these, and some others of less importance, were acquisitions to the stock of female ornament, and rendered the business of the toilette a matter that required more time, as well as more taste, than it had ever done before. From the fif­teenth century, to the present time, the variations of female dress and ornament have been more owing to the inconstancy of manners, and the instability of fashion, than to the addition of any new materials. From America, scarcely any thing has been added, but feathers and furs; the last of which, as one of the best defences from the cold, have been used in all northern countries time immemorial. Though, in milder climates, they are now introduced as an [Page 136] article of luxury; and a value set upon some of them as imaginary as that of the diamond or the pearl.

Though it is not our intention to give an account of all the changes that have happened in dress, from the fifteenth to the present century; yet there was one revolution which happened to it, under the pro­tectorship of Oliver Cromwell, that we cannot pass by. Almost every religion, which had been pro­mulgated, previous to that of Christianity, had in­terwoven, in its very essence, a number of ceremo­nies, where grandeur and magnificence were osten­tatiously displayed. These religions, therefore, in­stead of discouraging, rather encouraged ornament and finery. But the Author of the Christian system having taught by his example, as well as his doc­trine, the utmost plainness and simplicity, it, in time, became fashionable for such of the members of that system, as had more zeal than understanding, to exclaim, in the bitterest terms, against every species of dress that had any other object in view than to cover shame, and defend them from the cold. This rage of turning all things into the most primitive sim­plicity, seemed rising to the zenith of its glory, about the time that the Protector began to make some figure in England. During his administration, it triumph­ed over sense, reason, and even decency. Women were then in so much disgrace, that they were deni­ed all kinds of ornament; and even the beauties be­stowed by nature, were considered as criminal dis­advantages to the fair possessors, and sufficient mo­tives to induce every Christian to shun their com­pany; because it was impossible to be in it without [...]inning.

The pulpits often echoed the following sentiments, that man being conceived in sin, and brought forth [Page 137] in iniquity, is a slave to the flesh, till regenerated by the spirit; that it was his complaisance for woman that first wrought his debasement, that he ought not therefore to glory in his shame, nor love the foun­tain of his corruption; that he should not marry on account of love, affection, or the social joys of wed­lock, but purely to increase the number of the saints, which he should never occupy himself in doing with­out prayer and humiliation, that his offspring might thereby avoid the curse. Such being the notions instilled into the people, the most virtuous emotions of nature were considered as arising from original guilt, and beauty avoided as an instrument in the hands of Satan, to seduce the hearts of the faithful; even the women themselves caught with the unnatu­ral contagion, laid aside the ornaments of their sex, and endeavoured to make themselves appear disgust­ing by humiliation and fasting; nay, some of them were so much afraid of ornaments, that they even considered clothes of any kind as tending to that pur­pose, and one, full of that idea, came into the church where Cromwell sat, in the condition of our original mother before she plucked the fig-leaf, that she might be, as she said, a sign to the people.

But as the human passions, like springs, fly the more violently in the opposite direction, the more forcibly they have been bent, the restoration was no sooner brought about, than all this public enthusiasm vanished, and elegance of dress and levity of manners soon became more the fashion than slovenliness and puritanism had been before. Pleasure became the universal object, and the pleasure of love took the lead of all others; but beauty unconnected with vir­tue was the object of this love, it was therefore void of honour or morality, in consequence of which, [Page 138] female virtue, robbed of its reward, became less inflexible, and a total degeneracy of manners ensued.

In every country where dress is under the direc­tion of taste and judgement, it is so contrived as nei­ther altogether to conceal, nor altogether to discover, the beauties of the female form. This general rule, however, has not been without exceptions; in every country enthusiastic priests, antiquated prudes, and women outrageously virtuous, have muffled them­selves like Egyptian mummies, and exclaimed in the bitterness of their hearts against the nakedness of the rest of the world;^* while on the other hand, women of less rigid principles, and those abandoned to pros­titution, throwing aside all decency, seem to wish that the whole female toilette were reduced to the original fig-leaf: some nations too are less delicate in this respect than others; the Italians and French have ever been remarkably so, while the Spanish have fallen into the opposite extreme. At Venice, the ladies in the beginning of the last century dressed in such light thin stuffs, that not only the shape of the body, but even the colour of the skin might easily be seen through them; and at this day, perhaps owing to the heat of their climate, the dress of their modest women is hardly more decent than that of our common prostitutes. The French ladies are but lit­tle less distinguished for their looseness of dress than their neighbours the Italians; almost the only dif­ference is, that more light and fantastic, they have flown with greater rapidity from one fashion to ano­ther. [Page 139] In the fourteenth century, they appeared half naked at public assemblies, and in the public walks dressed so much like the men, that they could hardly be distinguished from them but by the voice and complexion; such have long been the modes of dressing in Italy and France, as to endeavour to show every charm which can with any tolerable degree of decency be displayed. While in Spain, where the spirit of chivalry is hardly yet extinguished, and where the women consequently still retain a little of the romantic dignity which was annexed to it, so far from showing their nakedness, they have hardly as yet condescended even to show their faces to the other sex.

Though the French have now taken the lead of the Italians in all the fantastic fripperies of fashion, it would seem that the Italians were formerly not less noted for it. ‘Petrarch describing their dress in his time says, who can behold the shoes with pointed toes, so long that they will reach to the knee, head-dresses with wings to them, the hair put into a tail, the foreheads of the men furrowed with those ivory needles, with which the women fastened their hair, and their stomachs squeezed by machines of iron.’ The pointed shoes and machines of iron were more unnatural, and consequently more ridi­culous, than any fantastic fashion which has appear­ed in this fantastic age.

As the ornamental part of dress is evidently meant to heighten the beauties of nature, nothing can be more evident than that it should always coincide with her designs, wherever she is not defective or luxuriant. Such, we presume, are the ideas of true taste; but such, however, have not always been those adopted by the leaders of fashions. Towards [Page 140] the beginning of the present century, it seems to have been the prevailing opinion, that nature had made the female waist greatly too large; to remedy which the stiffest stays were laced on in the tightest man­ner, lest the young ladies should become clumsy, or grow crooked. Towards the middle of the century, it began to be discovered, that besides the uneasiness of such a situation, it frequently produced the very effects it was intended to prevent; physicians and philosophers now declaimed against stays, and they were by many laid aside with such abhorrence, that the fashion took quite a different turn. We disco­vered that our mothers had been all in the wrong, and that nature had not made the female waist near­ly so large as it ought to have been; but the ladies supplied this defect so well with clothes that about the years 1759 and 1760 every woman, old and young, had the appearance of being big with child. In ten or twelve years the fashion began to take the opposite direction again, and small waists are now esteemed so great a beauty, that, in endeavouring to procure them, women have outdone all the efforts of their grandmothers in the beginning of the cen­tury. Such have been the revolutions of the waist within these fifty years, those of the form in general we pretend not to delineate; we cannot help, how­ever, observing, that were we to copy nature, we should think the gentle tapering and uprightness of a female, contributed not a little to the beauty and elegance of her figure; but as nature, it seems, has erred here also, our ladies endeavour as much as they can, to destroy this kind of elegance, by whale-bone and cork.

The revolutions of the breasts and shoulders have not been less conspicuous than those of the waist: about the beginning of the century, it was highly [Page 141] indecent to be naked two inches below the neck; about the middle of it, she was dressed in the high­est taste who showed the greatest part of her breasts and shoulders; some years afterward, every female of whatever condition was muffled up to the chin; at present that mode is discarded, and the naked breasts and shoulders begin again to appear. As we have already seen, that in all countries women have been particularly solicitous about the ornament and dress of their heads, so in ours these have been an object of so much attention, that the materials em­ployed, and the variations produced by them, are beyond our power to describe; we shall only, there­fore, observe in general, that the head-dress of the present times has a near resemblance to that which we have already delineated as used by the ladies of ancient Rome, and consists of so much wool, false hair, pomatum, paste, quilts, combs, pins, curls, ribbons, laces, and other materials, that the head of a modern lady in full dress is, when standing, com­monly something more than one-third of the length of her whole figure; we must, however, observe, in justice to the sex, that such preposterous modes of dressing are not peculiar to them alone; the men have not been less rapid in their changes, nor have these changes been proofs of a more elegant taste, or a more solid judgment.

We shall conclude these observations on dress and ornament with one of the most extraordinary instances of legislative superstition that ever contributed to de­monstrate human absurdity. We have already seen that long hair was frequently declaimed against from the pulpit, and that it was in the days of Cromwell considered as a subject of disgrace. The gloomy emi­grants who fled from England and other parts about that period, to seek in the wilds of America a retreat [Page 142] where they might worship God according to their consciences, among other whimsical tenets, carried to their new settlements an antipathy against long hair, and when they became strong enough to pub­lish a code of laws, we find the following article as a part of it: ‘It is a circumstance universally ac­knowledged, that the custom of wearing long hair, after the manner of immoral persons, and of the sa­vage Indians, can only have been introduced into England, but in sacrilegious contempt of the express command of God, who declares, that it is a shame­ful practice for any man who has the least care for his soul to wear long hair: as this abomination excites the indignation of all pious persons, we the magis­trates, in our zeal for the purity of the faith, do ex­pressly and authentically declare, that we condemn the impious custom of letting the hair grow, a custom which we look upon to be very indecent and dis­honest, which horribly disguises men, and is offen­sive to modest and sober persons, in as much as it corrupts good manners; we, therefore, being justly incensed against this scandalous custom, do desire, advise, and earnestly request all the elders of our con­tinent zealously to shew their aversion from this odi­ous practice, to exert all their power to put a stop to it, and especially to take care that the members of their churches be not infected with it; in order that those persons who, notwithstanding these rigorous prohibitions, and the means of correction that shall be used on this account, shall still persist in this cus­tom, shall have both God and man at the same time against them.’

But besides the methods of ornament and dress common almost to all nations, the women of Europe have a variety of other [...] ▪ by which they endeavour [Page 143] to attract the attention and attach the heart. Among these we may reckon every genteel and polite female accomplishment, such as music drawing, dancing, to all which we may add that correspondent softness of body and of mind, the radiance that sparkles in their eyes, and the melody that flows from their tongue, their unaffected modesty, and the nameless other qualities which so eminently distinguish them from all the women who are educated only to become slaves, and ministers of pleasure, to the tyrant man.

CHAPTER XXIII. Of Courtship.

OF all that variety of passions which so differently agitate the human breast, none work a greater change on the sentiments, none more dulcify and expand the feelings, than love; while anger transforms us into furies, and revenge metamorpho­ses us into fiends, love awakes the most opposite sen­sations. While benevolence warms our hearts, and charity stretches out our hands, love, being com­pounded of all the tender, of all the humane and disinterested virtues, calls forth at once all their soft ideas, and exerts all their good offices.^* The de­claration of this social and benevolent passion to the object that inspires it, is what we commonly call courtship, and the time of this courtship, notwith­standing the many embarrassments and uneasinesses which attend it, is generally considered as one of the happiest periods of human life, at least so long as it is supported by hope, that pleasant delirium of the soul.

Though the declaration of a passion so virtuous, so benign and gentle, as that which we have now [Page 145] described, seems to reflect so much honour on the breast in which it is harboured, that neither sex can possibly have any occasion to be ashamed of it; yet the great Author of Nature, throughout the wide extent of his animated works, appears to have placed the privilege of asking in the male, and that of re­fusing in the female. Nor, when we except man, has it ever been known among the most savage and ferocious animals, that a rape has been committed on the female, or that she has been attempted by any other methods than such as were gentle and soothing. Man, however, that imperious lord of the creation, has often departed from this rule, and forced a reluctant female to his hated embrace; and though he has not any where by law, deprived wo­men from resisting such illicit attempts, yet he has gone very near to it; he has in many nations, from the earliest antiquity, deprived them of the power of refusing such a husband as their fathers or other re­lations chose for them; thereby taking from them what the Creator of all things had given them, as a common right with the females of all other animals, and dashing, at once, courtship, and all the deli­cate feelings and pleasures attending it, out of ex­istence.

Though it is presumable, that the mutual inclina­tion of the sexes to each other, is, in each, nearly equal; yet, as we constantly see the declaration of that inclination made by the men, let us enquire, whether this is the effect of custom, or of nature? If what we have just now observed be a general fact, that only the males of all animals first discover their passion to the females, then it will follow, that this is the effect of nature: but if, on the other hand, it be true, as some travellers affirm, that, in several savage countries, the female sex not only declare [Page 146] their passions with as much ease and freedom as the male, but also frequently endeavour to force the male to their embraces, th [...]n it will seem to be the effect of custom. Custom, however, that whimsi­cal and capricious tyrant of the mind, seldom arises out of nothing; and in cases where nature is concern­ed, frequently has nature for her basis. Allowing then, that it is custom, which in Europe, and many other parts of the world, has placed the right of asking in men, by a long and uninterrupted possession; yet that very custom, in our opinion, may be fairly traced; for nature, it is plain, has made man more bold and intrepid than woman, less susceptible of shame, and devolved upon him almost all the more active scenes of life; it is, therefore, highly proba­ble, that, conscious of these qualities, he at first assumed the right of asking; a right to which cus­tom has at last given him a kind of exclusive pri­vilege.

Taking it for granted then, that the declaration of the sentiment of love, is a privilege of the men, founded on nature, and sanctified by custom, the various modes of making that declaration by them, and of accepting or refusing it by the women, were we able to give a perfect account of it, would make one of the most curious and entertaining parts of this history, and equally furnish matter of speculation for the fine lady and the philosopher. We can, how­ever, exhibit but little of this entertainment, while we treat of the ancient inhabitants of the East; who, strangers to sentiment and delicacy of feeling, bought a bride with the same dispassionate coolness and deli­beration, as they would have done an ox or an ass; and even in the review of the other nations, historical information does not enable us to make it so com­plete as we could wish.

[Page 147]When Abraham sent Eliezer, his servant, to court a bride for his son Isaac, it appears from the story, that sentiment was entirely excluded; that Abraham had never seen Rebecca, knew not whe­ther her person and temper were agreeable, nor whe­the young couple would be pleased with each other; and that the only motive which determined his choice was, because she was his relation. We do not so much as hear, that Isaac was consulted in the mat­ter; nor is there even a suspicion, that he might refuse or dislike the wife which his father had select­ed for him; circumstances which afford the strong­est proof that, in those days, love and regard had little or no existence: they likewise teach us, that the liberty of choice in matrimony was more restrict­ed among the Israelites than the neighbouring na­tions; for Laban, the brother of Rebecca, did not seem to chuse for his sister, as Abraham had done for his son; but asked her, after Eliezer had made his proposal, Whether she would go with the man? And the manner in which she consented, shews us, that it is to art and refinement we owe the seeming reserve of modern times; and not to honest and un­tutored nature, which is never ashamed to speak the sentiments of virtue. ‘I will go,’ answered she.

From this story, of the manner in which Rebecca was solicited, we learn two things, which throw much light on the courtship of antiquity: the first is, that women were not courted in person by their lovers, but by a proxy; whom he, or his parents, deputed in his stead: the second, that these proxies did not, as in modern times, endeavour to gain the affections of the ladies they were sent to, by enlarg­ing on the personal properties, and mental qualifica­tions of their lovers; but by the richness and magni­ficence [Page 148] of the presents made to them and their rela­tions. Presents have been from the earliest ages, and are to this day the mode of transacting all kinds of business in the East. If you go before a superior, to ask any favour, or even to require what is your due, you must carry a present with you, if you wish to succeed; so that courtship having been anciently negociated in this manner, it is plain, that it was only considered in the same light as any other nego­ciable business, and not as a matter of sentiment, and of the heart.

It appears, however, that Jacob did not, accord­ing to the custom of the times, and after the example of Isaac his father, court a bride by proxy: he went to visit her in person, and their first meeting has in it something very remarkable. Lovers, generally, either are cheerful, or endeavor to assume that ap­pearance; but Jacob drew near, and kissed Rachel, and lift up his voice and wept. How a behaviour of this kind suited the temper of an Israelitish virgin, in the times of primitive simplicity, we know not; but may venture to affirm, that a blubbering lover would make but a ridiculous and unengaging figure in the eyes of a modern lady of the ton. In the courtship, however, or rather purchase of a wife by Jacob, we meet with something like [...]entiment; for when he found that he was not possessed of money or goods, equal to the price which was probably set upon her, he not only condescended to purchase her by labour and servitude, but even seemed much dis­appointed, when the tender-eyed Leah was faithlessly imposed upon him, instead of the beautiful Ra­chel; for whom he again submitted to the same term of servitude he had done before. In the courtship of Sechem also, we find that his choice was strongly determined by love; but then his passion did not, [Page 149] as one would have thought the most natural, effuse itself into the bosom of the object beloved. He ap­plied to the brethren of Dinah, making them advan­tageous offers for the possession of the person of their sister, regardless, to all appearance, of her heart. ‘Ask me never so much dowry, said he, and I will give according as you shall say unto me.’ But when we consider, that in the times we are deli­neating, wives were only looked upon as a kind of superior slaves, and not as the social companions of life, and the equal sharers of good and bad fortune; we shall easily perceive, that sentiment in the choice, and reciprocal affection in the bargain, were not so necessary as in our times, when the case is happily reversed.

We laid it down before as a general rule, that the declaration of love was at all times, and in all countries, the peculiar privilege of the men; but as all general rules are liable to some exceptions, there are also a few to this. An Israelitish widow had, by law, a power of claiming in marriage the brother of her deceased husband; in which case, as the privelege of the male was transferred to the female, so like­wise that of the female was transferred to the male, he had the power of refusing; the refusal, however, was accampanied with some mortifying circumstances, the woman whom he had thus slighted was to come unto him in the presence of the elders of the city, and to loose the shoe from his foot, and spit in his face. To man, by nature bold and intrepid, and invested with unlimited power of asking, a refusal was of little consequence; but to woman, more timid and modest, and whose power of asking was limited to the brethren of her deceased husband, it was not only an affront, but a real injury, as every one would conclude, that the refusal arose from [Page 150] some well-grounded cause, and every one would therefore so neglect and despise the woman, that she could have but little chance for a future husband; hence, perhaps, it was thought necessary to fix some public stigma on the dastard who was so ungal­lant as not to comply with the addresses of a woman. A custom something similar to this obtains at present among the Hurons and Iriquois; when a wife dies, the husband is obliged to marry the sister, or, in her stead, the woman whom the family of his deceased wife shall chuse for him: a widow is also obliged to marry one of the brothers of her deceased husband, if he has died without children, and she is still of an age to have any. Exactly the same thing takes place in the Caroline islands; and there, as well as among the Hurons, the women may demand such brother to marry her, though we are not informed whether they ever exercised that power.

In the Isthmus of Darien, we are told that the right of asking is lodged in, and promiscuously ex­erted by both sexes; who each, when they feel the passion of love, declare it without the least hesita­tion or embarrassment; and in the Ukrain, the same thing is said to be carried still farther, and the women more generally to court than the men. When a young woman falls in love with a man, she is not in the least ashamed to go to his father's house, and reveal her passion in the most tender and pathetic manner, and to promise the most submissive obedi­ence, if he will accept of her for a wife. Should the insensible man pretend any excuse, she tells him she is resolved never to go out of the house till he gives his consent, and accordingly taking up her lodging, remains there; if he still obstinately refuses her, his case becomes exceedingly distressing; the church is commonly on her side, and to turn her [Page 151] out would provoke all her kindred to revenge her honour: so that he has no method left but to betake himself to flight till she is otherwise disposed of.

From the story of Sampson and Delilah, it would seem that the power of asking a female in marriage was even denied to the young men of Israel; Samp­son saw in Timnah a woman of the daughters of the Philistines who was beautiful, and he came and told his father and mother, and said, ‘I have seen a woman of the daughters of the Philistines; [...]ow, therefore, get her for me to wife.’ Upon his father and mother starting some objections, he did not say, I will make use of the power lodged in my own hands to obtain her, but repeated, ‘Get her for me, for she pleaseth me well.’ Had it been a custom for their young men in those days to have courted for themselves, it is highly probable, that on their first objection, he would have applied to Delilah in per­son, instead of applying again to his father and mo­ther after a refusal; nor was his application to his parents for their advice and consent only, otherwise he would not have said, Get her for me, but allow me to get her for myself.

From the ages we have now been delineating, where the sacred records have afforded us these few hints concerning courtship, we have scarcely any thing more on the subject, till we come to the histo­ry of the Greeks. Among the ancient inhabitants of the East, women were so little seen by the men, that they had but few opportunities of raising in their bosoms that composed sentimental feeling which we moderns denominate love, and which cannot pro­perly arise from a transient glance; when they were accidentally seen, they only raised that animal appe­tite, which naturally rages so strongly where it is [Page 152] inflamed by the climate, and whetted by a thousand obstacles, and which, in such circumstances, scarcely has any choice in its object; hence all the obliging offices of gallantry, and the tender sensations of courtship, were in those periods entirely unknown; and as marriage was for the most part an act of bar­gain and sale, where the woman, in consideration of a price paid for her to her relations, was made a slave to her husband, the men did not study to please, but to command and enjoy. If, in the periods we are now considering, we meet with any thing like sentiment between the two sexes, it was in those illi­cit amours which depended solely on the parties themselves; in such cases, they sometimes attempted little flights of gallantry, and used mutual endea­vours to please, because neither party was a slave to the other, and their connection was the result of their own choice, and not of a bargain made for them without their consent, and perhaps without their knowledge.

Although scarcely any of the brute animals will fight in order to force their females to their embrace, yet all of them, even the most weak and timid, will exert every nerve in order to drive away or destroy a successful rival. Whether this is properly the pas­sion of revenge, or of self-love, is not our province here to enquire; we only observe that it seems to be a principle so universally diffused through anima­ted nature, and so peculiarly ingrafted in man, that the history of all ages bears the most ample testimony of its existence.

During the rude and uncultivated state of society in the early ages, property was hardly to be gained but by fighting to acquire, or kept but by fighting to maintain it; and a woman being considered as [Page 153] property, it was no uncommon mode of courtship, when there was a plurality of lovers, to fight for the possession of her also. As society began to im­prove▪ and fighting became less fashionable, this barbarity began to decline, and, instead of one lover being [...]bliged to fight all his rivals before he could get possession of his mistress, it became the custom for the competitors to give a public testimony of their powers and qualifications in the games and spectacles instituted for that purpose; a custom which, as we shall have occasion to see afterwards, continued long to govern the manners of uncivilized nations; and in compliance with which, it was common for kings and other great people, when they had a daughter to dispose of, to give notice to all such young men of quality, as designed to be competitors, that they might repair to their courts and castles, to shew their skill and dexterity in exercises and in arms; when the prize of beauty was generally awarded to him who had excelled all the others. But as this method was frequently productive of feuds and ani­mosities, which ended not with the lives of those be­tween whom they first began, but were handed down from one generation to another, stained with mur­der and with blood, treaties of marriage by bargain [...]nd sale, agreed to by the relations of the parties, marked the further progress of civil society; many revolving ages saw the social partners of our joys and sorrows trafficked for in this cool and dispassion­ate manner, and many parts of the world, yet stran­gers to friendship and to love, still retain the despi­cable method; and it is only where the joys of liberty and of freedom shed their benign influence, that courtship is an act of inclination and of choice, end­ing in the joining together the hearts as well as the hands of the contracting parties.

[Page 154]What we have now observed concerning the manner of courtship, was too much the case with the Greeks. In the earlier periods of their history, their love, if we may call it so, was only the animal appe­tite, impetuous and unrestrained either by cultiva­tion of manners, or precepts of morality; and almost every opportunity which fell in their way prompted them to satisfy that appetite by force, and to revenge the obstruction of it by murder. When they be­came a more civilized people, they shone much more illustriously in arts and in arms, than in delicacy of sentiment and elegance of manners: hence we shall find, that their method of making love was more di­rected to compel the fair sex to a compliance with their wishes by charms and philtres, than to win them by the nameless assiduities and good offices of a lover.

As the two sexes in Greece had but little commu­nication with each other, and a lover was seldom favoured with an opportunity of telling his passion to his mistress, he used to discover it by inscribing her name on the walls of his house, on the bark of the trees of a public walk, or the leaves of his his books; it was customary for him also to deck the door of the house, where his fair one lived, with garlands and flowers, to make libations of wine be­fore it, and to sprinkle the entrance with the same liquor, in the manner that was practised at the tem­ple of Cupid. Garlands were of great use among the Greeks in love affairs; when a man untied his garland, it was a declaration of his having been sub­dued by that passion; and when a woman composed a garland, it was a tacit confession of the same thing: and though we are not informed of it, we may pre­sume that both sexes had methods of discovering by [Page 155] these garlands, not only that they were in love, but the object also upon whom it was directed.

Such were the common methods of discovering the passion of love, the methods of prosecuting it were still more extraordinary, [...]nd less reconcilable to civi­lization and to good principles; when a love affair did not prosper in the hands of a Grecian, he did not endeavour to become more engaging in his manners and person, he did not lavish his fortune in presents, or become more obliging and assiduous in his addres­ses, but immediately had recourse to incantations and philtres; in composing and dispensing of which, the women of Thessaly were reckoned the most famous, and drove a traffic in them of no inconsiderable ad­vantage. These potions were given by the women to the men, as well as by the men to the women, and were generally so violent in their operation as for some time to deprive the person who took them, of sense, and not uncommonly of life: their composi­tion was a variety of herbs of the most strong and vi­rulent nature, which we shall not mention; but herbs were not the only things they relied on for their purpose, they called the productions of the animal and mineral kingdoms to their assistance; when these failed, they roasted an image of wax before the fire, representing the object of their love, and as this became warm, they flattered themselves that the person represented by it would be propor­tionally warmed with love. When a lover could obtain any thing belonging to his mistress, he ima­gined it of singular advantage, and deposited it in the earth beneath the threshold of her door. Be­sides these, they had a variety of other methods equally ridiculous and unavailing, and of which it would be trifling to give a minute detail; we shall, therefore, just take notice as we go along, that such [Page 156] of either sex as believed themselves forced into love by the power of philtres and charms, commonly had recourse to the same methods to disengage them­selves, and break the power of these enchantments, which they supposed operated involuntarily on their inclinations; and thus the old women of Greece, like the lawyers of modern times, were employed to defeat the schemes and operations of each other, and like them too, it is presumable, laughed in their sleeves, while they hugged the gains that arose from vulgar credulity.

In this manner were the affairs of love and gal­lantry carried on among the Greeks, but we have great reason to apprehend that this was the manner in which unlawful amours only were conducted, for the Greek women, as we have already seen, had not a power of refusing such matches as were provided for them by their fathers and guardians; and conse­quently a lover who could secure these on his side, was always sure of obtaining the person of his mis­tress; and from the complexion of the times, we have little reason to suppose that he was solicitous about her esteem and affection. This being the case, courtship between the parties themselves could have little existence; and the methods we have now de­scribed, with a variety of others too tedious to men­tion, must have been those by which they courted the unwary female to her shame and disgrace, and not those by which they solicited the chaste bride to their marriage-bed.

The Romans, who borrowed most of their cus­toms from the Greeks, also followed them in that of endeavouring to conciliate love by the power of phil­tres and of charms; a fact of which we have not the least room to doubt, as there are in Virgil and [Page 157] some other of the Latin poets so many instances that prove it. But it depends not altogether on the tes­timony of the poets; Plutarch tells us, that Lucul­lus, a Roman general, lost his senses, by a love po­tion; ^* and Caius Caligula, according to Suetonius, was thrown into a fit of madness by one which was given him by his wife Caesonia; Lucretius too, ac­cording to some authors, fell a sacrifice to the same folly. The Romans, like the Greeks, made use of these methods mostly in their affairs of gallantry and unlawful love; but in what manner they ad­dressed themselves to a lady they intended to marry has not been handed down to us, and the reason as we suppose is, that little or no courtship was practi­sed among them; women had no disposing power of themselves, to what purpose was it then to apply to them for their consent? They were under perpe­tual guardianship, and the guardian having the sole power of disposing of them, it was only necessary to apply to him. In the Roman authors, we frequently read of a father, a brother, or a guardian, giving his daughter, his sister, or his ward, in marriage, but we do not recollect one single instance of being told that the intended bridegroom applied to the lady for her consent; a circumstance the more extraordi­nary, as women in the decline of the Roman empire had arisen to a dignity, and even to a freedom, hardly equalled in modern times.

[Page 158]Though wives were not purchased among the Celtes, Gauls, Germans, and neighbouring nations of the North as they are in the East, they were nevertheless a kind of slaves to their husbands; but this slavery was become so familiar by custom, that the women neither lost their dignity by submitting, nor [...] men their regard by subjecting them to it; an [...] as they often received portions with their wives, and had so much veneration for the sex in general, we shall be the less surprised to find, that in court­ship they behaved with a spirit of gallantry, and showed a degree of sentiment to which the Greeks and Romans, who called them Barbarians, never arrived; not contented with getting possession of the person of his mistress, a northern lover was never satisfied withou [...] the sincere affection of her heart, nor was his mistress ever to be gained but by such methods as plainly indicated to her, the tenderest attachment from the most respectable man.

The ancient Scandinavian women were naturally chaste, proud, and scarcely less emulous of glory than the men, being constantly taught to despise such as spent their youth in peaceful obscurity, they were not to be courted but by the most assiduous at­tendance, seconded by such warlike atchievements as the custom of the country had rendered necessary to make a man deserving of his mistress. On these accounts, we frequently find a lover accosting the object of his passion by a minute and circumstantial detail of all his exploits, and all his accomplishments. King Regner Lodbrog, in a beautiful ode composed by himself, in memory of the deeds of his former days, gives a strong proof of this.

"We fought with swords, says he, that day, wherein I saw ten thousand of my foes rolling in the [Page 159] dust near a pro [...]tary of England. A dew of blood distilled from our swords, the arrows which flew in search of the helmets, bellowed through the air. The pleasure of that day, w [...] equal to that of clasping a fair virgin in my arms.

"We fought with swords: a young man should march early to the conflict of arms, man should at­tack man, or bravely resist him; in this hath always consisted the nobility of the warrior. He who as­pires to the love of his mistress, ought to be dauntless in the clash of swords.

‘We fought with swords in fifty and one battles under my floating banners. From my early youth I have learned to dye the steel of my lance with blood, but it is time to cease. Odin hath sent his goddesses to conduct me to his palace, I am going to be placed on the highest seat, there to quaff goblets of beer with the gods; the hours of my life are rol­led away.’

Such, and many of the same kind, are the ex­ploits sung by king Regner. In another ode of Ha­rold the valiant, of a later date, we find an enume­ration of his exploits and accomplishments joined to­gether, in order to give his mistress a favourable idea of him, but from the chorus of his song we learn that he did not succeed.

"My ships have made the tour of Sicily; there were we all magnificent and splendid: my brown vessel, full of mariners, rapidly rowed to the utmost of my wishes; wholly taken up with war, I thought my course would never s [...]acken, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

[Page 160]"In my youth, I fought with the people of Dron­theim, their troops exceeded ours in number. It was a terrible conflict, I left their young king dead on the field, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

"One day, we were but sixteen in a vessel, a storm arose and swelled the sea, it filled the loaded ship, but we diligently cleared it out; thence I formed hopes of the happiest success, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

"I know how to perform eight exercises, I fight valiantly, I sit firmly on horseback, I am innured to swimming, I know how to run along the skates, I dart the lance, and am skilful at the oar, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

"Can she deny, that young and lovely maiden, that on that day, when posted near a city in the southern land, I joined battle; that then I valiantly handled my arms, and left behind me lasting monu­ments of my exploits, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.

‘I was born in the high country of Norway, where the inhabitants handle their bows so well; but I preferred guiding my ships, the dread of pea­sants, among the rocks of the ocean, and far from the habitations of men. I have run through all the seas with my vessels, and yet a Russian maiden scorns me.’

Besides these methods of courting, or aspiring to the good graces of the fair, by arms and by arts, the ancient Northerns had several others; and among these it would seem charms and incantations were reckoned not the least powerful. Odin, who first [Page 161] taught them their mythology, and whom they after­wards worshipped as their supreme deity, says, in one of his discourses:

"If I aspire to the love and the favour of the chastest virgin, I can bend the mind of the snowy armed maiden, and make her yield wholly to my desires.

"I know a secret which I will never lose, it is to render myself always beloved of my mistress.

‘But I know one which I will never impart to any female except my own sister, or to her whom I hold in my arms. Whatever is known only to one's self is always of great value.’

In the Hava-Maal, or sublime discourses of Odin, we have some sketches of directions how to proceed in courtship, so as to be successful without the assist­ance of any charm or secret:

‘He who would make himself beloved of a mai­den, must entertain her with fine discourses, and offer her engaging presen [...]s; he must also incessantly praise her beauty. It requires good sense to be a skilful lover—If you would bend your mistress to your passion, you must only go by night to see her; when a thing is known to a third person, it never succeeds.’

The young women of the nations we are consider­ing, not relying upon what fame had reported con­cerning the acquisitions of their lovers, frequently desired to be themselves the witnesses of them, and the young men were not less eager in seizing every opportunity to gratify their desires. This is abun­dantly [Page 162] proved by an anecdote in the history of Charles and Grymer, two kings of Sweden:

‘Grymer, a youth early distinguished in arms, who well knew how to dye his sword in the blood of his enemies, to run over the craggy mountains, to wrestle, to play at chess, trace the motions of the stars, and throw far from him heavy weights, fre­quently shewed his skill in the chamber of the dam­sels, before the king's lovely daughter; desirous of acquiring her regard, he displayed his dexterity in handling his weapons, and the knowledge he had attained in the sciences he had learned; at length he ventured to make this demand: Wilt thou, O fair princess, if I may obtain the king's consent, accept of me for a husband? To which she prudently re­plied, I must not make that choice myself, but go thou and offer the same proposal to my father.’

The sequel of the story informs us, that Grymer accordingly made his proposal to the king, who an­swered him in a rage, that though he had learned indeed to handle his arms, yet as he had never gained a signal victory, nor given a banquet to the beasts of the field, he had no pretentions to his daughter, and concluded by pointing out to him, in a neighbouring kingdom, a hero renowned in arms, whom, if he could conquer, the princess should be given him: that on waiting on the princess to tell her what had passed, she was greatly agitated, and felt in the most sensible manner for the safety of her lover, whom she was afraid her father had devoted to death for his presumption; that she provided him with a suit of impenetrable armour and a trusty sword, with which he went, and having slain his adversary, and the most part of his warriors, return­ed victorious, and received her as the reward of his [Page 163] valour. Singular as this method of obtaining a fair lady by a price paid in blood may appear, it was not peculiar to the northerns: we have already taken notice of the price which David paid for the daugh­ter of Saul, and shall add, that among the Sacae, a people of ancient Scythia, a custom something of this kind, but still more extraordinary, obtained; every young man who made his addresses to a lady, was obliged to engage her in single combat; if he vanquished▪ he led her off in triumph, and became her husband and sovereign; if he was conquered, she led him off in the same manner, and made him her husband and her slave.

From the preceding observations, it appears, that the ancient northerns placed their principal felicity in the enjoyments of courtship and of love, as they compared even the pleasures of vanquishing their enemies to this last, as to the highest possible stand­ard of pleasure. It likewise appears, that, instiga­ted by sentiment, and actuated by freedom, they made application first to the object of their wishes, to know whether they would be agreeable to her, before they would proceed to solicit the consent of parents or relations; sentiments which shone with no small degree of lustre, even through that scene of horrid barbarity in which they were constantly im­mersed.

As nothing could be more humble and complai­sant than the men when they presented their addres­ses to the fair, so nothing could be more haughty or determined than the answers and behaviour of such ladies as did not approve of their suitors. Gida, the daughter of a rich Norwegian lord, when courted by Harald Harfagre, sternly answered, that if he aspired to the merit of her love, he must signalize [Page 164] himself by exploits of a more extraordinary nature than any he had yet performed; nor was such a re­ception peculiar to her; it was the custom of the times; and the manners, in a great measure, con­tributed to render such a custom necessary; for [...]e­sides the personal safety of a wife, dependin [...] so much on the prowess of the man she married, valour was the only road to riches and to honours, and even subsistence frequently depended in a great mea­sure upon the spoils taken in the excurs [...]ons of war. But their haughty behaviour was not entirely con­fined to words; it is supposed, though we do not venture to affirm it, that when a suitor had gone through the exercise of his arms before them, and when displeased with his performance, they wanted to put a negative upon his wishes, instead of a verbal reply, they sometimes arose hastily, snatched the arms from his hands, and shewed him that they could handle them with more dexterity than himself; a proof which not only mortified all his vanity, but imposed eternal silence on his pretensions to love.

CHAPTER XXIV. The same Subject continued.

FROM this account of the courtship of the inhabitants of the North, it is easy to see, that they were, in this respect at least, far advanced be­yond the savage barbarity of many nations now ex­isting; among whom marriages are commonly con­tracted with little previous attachment, and as little regard to the mutual inclination of the parties for each other. Savages, in general, no [...] being deter­mined to marry for any attachment to a particular woman; but because they find that state necessary to their comfortable subsistence, and conformable to the fashion of their country, are not solicitous who shall become their wives; and, therefore, commonly leave the choice of them to their parents and rela­tions; a method which excludes all the joys, and all the pains of courtship, from their system. But as this is not universally the case in savage life, we shall give a short account of the manner in which they address the females, whom they have selected as the objects of their love.

The method of asking in courtship, as well as that of refusing, among some of the tribes of American Indians, is the most simple that can possibly be divi­sed. When the lover goes to visit his mistress, he only begs leave to enter her hut by signs; which having obtained, he goes in, and sits down by her in the most respectful silence; if she suffers him to remain there without interruption, her doing so is [Page 166] consenting to his suit; and they go to bed together without further ceremony: but if the lover has any thing given him to eat or drink, it is a refusal; though the woman is obliged to sit by him till he has finished his repast; after which he retires in silence. In Canada, courtship is a stranger to that coy reserve, and seeming secrecy, which politeness has introduced among the inhabitants of civilized nations. When a man and woman meet, though they never saw each other before, if he is captivated with her charms, he declares his passion in the politest manner; and she, with the same honest simplicity, answers, Yes, or No, without further deliberation. It was for­merly a custom, among the Brazilians, that as soon as a man had slain an enemy, he had a right to court a bride; but that custom is now abolished; and the suitor is now obliged to ask the consent of the girl's parents; which he no sooner obtains, than he hastens to the bride, and forces her to his embrace. In Formosa, they differ so much from the simplicity of the Canadians, that it would be reckoned the great­est indecency in the man to declare, or the woman to hear, a declaration of the passion of love. The lover is therefore, obliged to depute his mother, sis­ter, or some female relation; and from any of them the soft ta [...]l may be heard, without offence to deli­cacy or to custom.

Such are the customs which, among some savage nations, regulate the affairs of courtship; customs which shew, that, even in the most rude and uncul­tivated state, men are hardly more uniform in their ideas and actions, than when polished by civilization and society. The lower class of the people, who inhabit Massachusetts Bay, and have borrowed their ideas, perhaps, from the Indians, or brought them from some of those countries from which they emi­grated, [Page 167] have a remarkable method of Courtship. When a man falls in love with a woman, he first pro­poses his conditions to her parents, without whose consent no marriage in the colony can take place; if they approve of him, he repairs to their house in the evening, in order to make his court to the young woman. At their usual hour, the old people, and the rest of the family, go to bed, leaving the lovers together also. Some time after, they go to bed to­gether also; but without stripping themselves naked, to avoid scandal: if they are pleased with each other, the bans are published, and they are married with­out dely; if not, they part, and perhaps never see one another more; unless, as it sometimes happens, the woman should be with child; when the man is obliged to marry her, under pain of excommunica­tion. This has a great resemblance to a custom used in some places by the savages, where a lover goes in the night to the hut of his mistress, steals silently in, lights a match at the fire, and cautiously ap­proaches her bed, holding the m [...]tch before him; if she blows it out, it is a sign of her approbation; and shews that she wishes the affair to be transacted in darkness and secrecy: he takes the hint, and im­mediately lays himself down by her side. If she suffers the light to remain burning, it is a denial, and he is obliged to retire.

Before we take leave of the European colonies in America, we shall mention another singularity in the behaviour of lovers in Pennsylvania; which shews that the women have not even that degree of delicacy, which we have just now seen them possessed of in savage life: when two Pennsylvanian lovers meet with any remarkable opposition from their friends, they go off together on horseback; the lady riding before, and the man behind her. In this [Page 168] situation, they present themselves before a magis­ [...]rate; to whom she declares, that she has run away with her lover, and has brought him there to be married: so solemn an avowal, the magistrate is not at liberty to reject, and they are married accord­ingly.

It has long been a common observation among mankind, that love is the most fruitful source of in­vention; and that in this case the imagination of a woman is still more fruitful of invention and expedi­ent than that of a man; agreeably to this, we are told, that the women of the island of Amboyna, be­ing closely watched on all occasions, and destitute of the art of writing; by which, in other places, the sentiments are conveyed at any distance, have me­thods of making known their inclinations to their lovers, and of fixing assignations with them, by means of nose-gays, and plates of fruit so disposed, as to convey their sentiments in the most explicit manner: by these means their courtship is generally carried on, and by altering the disposition of symbols made use of, they contrive to signify their refusal, with the same explicitness as their approbation. In some of the neighbouring islands, when a young man has fixed his affection, like the Italians, he goes from time to time to her door, and plays upon some musical instrument; if she gives consent, she comes out to him, and they settle the affair of matrimony between them: if, after a certain number of these kind of visits, she does not appear, it is a denial; and the disappointed lover is abliged to desist.

We shall see afterward, when we come to treat of the matrimonial compact, that, in some places, the ceremony of marriage consists in tying the gar­ments of the young couple together, as an emblem [Page 169] of that union which ought to bind their affections and interests. This ceremony has afforded a hint for lovers to explain their passion to their mistresses, in the most intelligible manner, without the help of speech, or the possibility of offending the nicest de­licacy. A lover in these parts, who is too modest to declare himself, seizes the first opportunity he can find, of sitting down by his mistress, and tying his garment to hers, in the manner that is practised in the ceremony of marriage: if she permits him to finish the knot, without any interruption, and does not soon after cut or loose it, she thereby gives her consent; if she looses it, he may tye it again on some other occasion, when she may prove more pro­pitious; but if she cuts it, his hopes are blasted for­ever.

Both these last mentioned customs are peculiar to the East; and they are almost the only ones we can find in these extensive regions, concerning courtship, that are worth relating; for where the two sexes are denied all communication with each other, it is im­possible there should be any courtship; where the venal bride is bought from her still more venal pa­rents to be the slave not the companion, of her hus­band; neither are they possessed of feelings necessary for the delicately sentimental prelude of the social state of wedlock.

It is observable in courtship, that wherever wo­men are free and independent, they are addressed by the men in the manner that is supposed will be most pleasing to them; where they are not free, the only care of the men is to get possession of their persons. The Author of Nature having made the female form beautiful and engaging, man is fre­quently captivated with it at first sight: but as man [Page 170] is a less comely and less [...]ttractive animal, he does not so commonly insinuate himself into the heart of a woman at his first appearance, but must do it by a long train of little assiduities, and attention to pro­mote her happiness and pleasure. According to this observation, we find the courtship of almost every people, in whatever degree they stand in the scale of civil society, constantly tendering to the fair sex those objects and amusements in which they take the greatest delight. In many of the politer coun­tries of Europe, and elsewhere, these are prece­dency, titles, pomp, and pageantry. In America, they are beads, shells, and enormous quantities of red paint; and among the frigid Laplanders, brandy supplies the place of all. A Lapland lover is said to pay little regard to beauty, virtue, or accomplish­ments, but only to the quantity of rein-deer possessed by the object of his choice; and she and her rela­tions pay as little regard to any thing concerning him, but the quantity of brandy with which he treats them during the courtship.

The delicacy of a Lapland lady, which is not in the least hurt by being drunk as often as she can pro­cure liquour, would be wounded in the most sensi­ble manner, should she deign at first to listen to the declaration of a lover; he is therefore obliged to em­ply a match-maker to speak for him; and this match-maker must never go empty-handed; and of all other presents, that which most infallibly secures him a favourable reception, is brandy. Having, by the eloquence of this, gained leave to bring the lover along with him, and being, together with the lover's father or other nearest male relation, arrived at the house where the lady resides, the father and match-maker are invited to walk in, but the lover must wait patiently at the door till further solicited. The [Page 171] parties, in the mean time, open their suit to the other ladies of the family, not forgetting to employ in their favour their irresistable advocate brandy, a liberal distribution of which is reckoned the strongest proof of the lover's affection. When they have all been warmed by the lover's bounty, he is brought into the house, pays his compliments to the family, and is desired to partake of their cheer, though at this in­terview seldom indulged with a sight of his mistress; but if he is, he salutes her, and offers her presents of rein-deer skins, tongues, &c.; all which, while surrounded with her friends, she pretends to refuse; but, at the same time giving her lover a signal to go out, she soon steals after him, and is no more that modest creature she affected to appear in company. The lover now solicits for the completion of his wishes: if she is silent, it is construed into consent; but if she throws his presents on the ground with disdain, the match is broke off for ever.

It is generally observed, that women enter into matrimony with more willingness, and less anxious care and solicitude, than men, for which many rea­sons naturally suggest themselves to the intelligent reader. The women of Greenland are, however, in many cases, an exception to this general rule. A Greenlander, having fixed his affection, acquaints his parents with it; they acquaint the parents of the girl; upon which two female negociators are sent to her, who, lest they should shock her delicacy, do not enter directly on the subject of their embassy, but launch out in praises of the lover they mean to recommend, of his house, of his furniture, and whatever else belongs to him, but dwell most parti­cularly on his dexterity in catching of seals. She, pretended to be affronted, runs away, tearing the ringlets of her hair as she retires; after which the [Page 172] two females, having obtained a tacit consen [...] from her parents, search for her, and, on discovering her lurking-place, drag her by force to the house of her lover, and there leave her. For some days she sits with dishevelled hair, silent and dejected, refusing every kind of sustenance, and at last, if kind intrea­ties cannot prevail upon her, is compelled by force, and even by blows, to complete the marriage with her husband. It sometimes happens, that when the female match-makers arrive to propose a lover to a Greenland young woman, she either faints, or es­capes to the uninhabited mountains, where she re­mains till she is discovered and carried back by her relations, or is forced to return by hunger and cold; in both which cases, she previously cuts off her hair; a most infallible indication, that she is determined never to marry.

This peculiar disposition of the Greenland women is not nature; her dictates are every where nearly the same; it is the horror which arises at the slavish and dependent state of the wives of that country, and the still more abject and deserted state of its widows; for the wives, besides being obliged to do every servile office, are frequently subjected to the merciless correction of their husbands. The widows, when they have no longer a husband to hunt and fish for them, are destitute of every resource, and frequently perish of hunger: hence matrimony, which in most places makes the condition of women more independent and comfortable, among them renders it truly wretched; and hence they enter into it with so much reluctance and regret.

Women were formerly treated little better in some parts of Europe. In Spain, they had scarcely any power in bestowing themselves on, or refusing [Page 173] the offers of, a lover. As the empire of common sense began to extend itself, they began to claim a privilege, at least of being consulted in the choice of the partners of their lives. Many fathers and guar­dians, however, hurt by this female innovation, and puffed up with Spanish pride, still insisted on forcing their daughters to marry according to their pleasure, by means of duennas, locks, hunger, and even sometimes poison and daggers: but as nature will revolt against every species of oppression and injus­tice, the ladies have for some time begun to triumph; the authority of fathers and guardians begins to de­cline, and lovers find themselves obliged to apply to the affections of the fair, as well as to the pride and avarice of her relations. As women of fashion are, however, seldom allowed to go abroad, and never to receive male visitors at home, unless with the consent of their relations, or by the contrivance of a duenna, this application is commonly made in a manner almost peculiar to the Spaniards themselves: the gallant sets himself to compose some love sonnets, as expressive as he can, not only of the situation of his heart, but of every particular circumstance between him and the lady, not forgeting to lard them every here and there with the most extravagant encomiums on her beauty, and her merit: these he sings in the night below her window, accompanied with his lute, or sometimes with a whole band of music. The more piercingly cold the air, the more the lady's heart is supposed to be thawed with the patient sufferance of her lover, who, from night to night, frequently continues this exercise for many hours, heaving the deepest sighs, and casting the most piteous looks to­ward the window; at which, if his goddess at last deigns to appear, and drop him a curtesy, he is su­perlatively paid for all his watching; but if she bles­ses him with a smile, he is ready to run distracted.

[Page 174]In most of the countries we have hitherto men­tioned, love, if we may call it so, is carried on without sentiment or feeling: in Spain it is quite the reverse; there, it flows in an uninterrupted course of intellectual sensations, expressing almost in an infi­nite variety of different ways. A Spanish lover hardly thinks, speaks, or even dreams, of any thing but his mistress; when he speaks to her, it is with the utmost respect and deference; when he speaks of her, it is in the most hyperbolically romantic style; and when he approaches her, you would think that he was approaching a divinity. But all this de­ference to her godship, all this patient sufferance under her window, is not enough; and as none but the brave can deserve the fair, he is ready at all times, not only to fight all her enemies, and his own rivals, but to seek every opportunity of signalizing his courage, that he may shew himself able to pro­tect her. Among all these opportunities, none are [...]o eagerly courted as the fighting with bulls; a hor­rid amusement, for which Spain is remarkable, where the ladies sit as spectators, while the cavaliers en­counter these furious animals, previously exasperated, and turned loose upon them, and where, according to the sarcastic phrase of Butler,

Some of the human passions are so nearly allied to each other, that the transition from this to that, is hardly perceptible to the mind, and seems as easy and natural as it is to step from the threshold into the house. Of this kind is friendship with woman, which has been called sister to love; and we may add, that to pity a woman, who is tolerably hand­some and deserving, and at the same time to guard [Page 175] against every softer sensation, is absolutely impossi­ble. The Spaniards, transposing the persons acted upon by this emotion, and finding that the same causes must produce the same effects on the tender and compassionate natures of women, endeavour, instead of attaching them by pleasure, as in other countries, to secure them by exciting their pity and compassion, not only through every part of the courtship we have now related, but still more forci­bly in a custom, which they practised some time ago at Madrid, and in other parts of Spain; when a company of people, who called themselves discipliants or whippers, partly instigated by superstition, and partly by love, paraded the streets every Good Friday, attended by all the religious orders, several of the courts of judicature, all the companies of trades, and sometimes the king and all his court.—The whippers were arrayed in long caps in the form of a sugar loaf, with white gloves, and shoes of the same colour; a waistcoat, the sleeves of which were tied with ribbons of such colours as they thought most agreeable to the fancy of the ladies they ador­ed; and in their hands were whips made of small cords, [...]o the ends of which were cemented little bits of wax stuck with pieces of broken glass; with these they whipped themselves as they went along, and he who shewed the least mercy to his carcase, was sure of the greatest pity from his dulcinea. When they happened to meet a handsome woman in the street, some one of them took care to whip himself so as to make his blood spurt upon her; an honour for which she never failed humbly to thank him. When any of them came opposite to the window of his mistress, he began to lay upon himself with re­doubled fury, while she, from her balcony, looked complacently on the horrid scene, and knowing it was acted in honour of her charms, thought herself [Page 176] greatly obliged to her lover, and seldom failed to reward him accordingly.

Not less singular, and much of the same nature, is a method of courtshi [...] which Lady Montague saw at a procession in Con [...]tantinople, when the Grand Signior was going [...] to [...]ake the command of an army.

‘The rear, says she, was closed by the volun­teers, who came to beg the honour of dying in his service; they were all naked to the middle, some had their arms pierced through, with arrows left stick­ing in them, others had them sticking in their heads, the blood trinkling down their faces: some slashed their arms with sharp knives, making the blood spring out on the bye-standers; and this is looked on as an expression of their zeal for glory. And I am told, that some make use of it to advance their love; and when they came near the window where their mistress stands, all the women being vailed to see this spectacle, they stick another arrow for her sake, who gives some sign of approbation and en­couragement to this kind of gallantry.’

We cannot help condemning customs so barba­rous in the severest terms; but while we condemn them, we have the strongest hopes that they no longer exist; while in Scotland, one of a somewhat similar nature, scarcely less ridiculous, or less dan­gerous, is not yet obliterated. At a concert annu­ally held on St. Cecilia's day in Edinburgh, most of the celebrated beauties are assembled; when the concert is ended, their adorers retire to a tavern, when he that drinks the largest quantity to the health of his mistress, according to the phrase they make use of, saves her, and dubs her a public toast for the [Page 177] ensuing year; while the hapless fair, who is belov­ed by one of a more irritable system and less capaci­ous stomach, according to the same cant, is damned, and degraded by the bucks from being ranked among the number of beauties. In tracing general princi­ples, one often meets with many discordant and contradictory facts; it is a general law of nature, that when the male makes love to the female, he en­deavours to put himself into the most agreeable pos­tures and attitudes, and to gain her affection by shewing, if we may be allowed the expression, his best side, and most agreeable accomplishments: but the instances we have now related are exceptions to this general law; they tend, however, to establish this truth, that the actions of men are more fre­quently directed by whim and caprice, than by any fixed and permanent principles.

Among the various methods which we have in this inquiry seen practised by the men, of introdu­cing themselves into the good g [...]aces of the fair, fighting has not been the least common; and several tolerably good reasons may be assigned why this should so successfully accomplish its purpose. No­thing, however, seems less natural than to endea­vour to engage the female heart by unavailing cru­elty to one's own flesh: this has in itself no merit, nor distinguishes the man for any thing but a wrong head, and an insensibility of nerves. Whoever, therefore, gets drunk, or commits any outrage upon himself for the sake of his mistress, should be trusted by the women with caution, as the same causes which prompted him to this folly, may prompt him to others in which his own person is less likely to suffer.

[Page 178]Before we take our leave of the Spaniards, we must do them the justice to say, that though their ideas of the ladies, and their manner of addressing them, is strongly tinctured with the wild and the romantic, it is at the same time directed by an honour and fidelity scarcely to be equalled by any other peo­ple. In Italy, the manner of courtship pretty nearly resembles that of Spain; in one circumstance, how­ever, this people seem particular; they protract the time of courtship for many months, and even some­times for years, well knowing, that this period, with all the little ills attending it, is one of the sweet­est of human life; while it lasts, the lady expects to see her lover at least once a day.

To the difference of the climate of one country from another, philosophers have generally attributed the different disposition of the inhabitants. But France and Spain are kingdoms bordering on each other, and yet nothing can be more dissimilar than a Frenchman and a Spaniard, especially in affairs of love. A French lover, with the word sentiment perpetually in his mouth, seems by every action, to have excluded it from his heart. He places his whole confidence in his exterior air and appearance. He dresses for his mistress, dances for her, flutters constantly about her, helps her to lay on her rouge, and place her patches; attends her round the whole circle of amusements, chatters to her perpetually, and by making her acquainted with his own conse­quence and qualifications, every now and then drops a hint of the honour he confers upon her; whatever be his station, every thing gaudy and glittering within the sphere of it, is called in to his assistance, particularly splendid carriages and taudry liveries; but if by the help of all these, he cannot make an impression on the fair one's heart, it costs him nothing [Page 179] at last but a few shrugs of his shoulders, and two or three silly exclamations; and, as it is impossible for a Frenchman to live without an amour, he immedi­ately betakes himself to another.

Among people of fashion in France, courtship begins to be totally annihilated, and marriages made by parents and guardians are become so common, that a bride and bridegroom not unfrequently meet together for the second time on the day of their mar­riage. In a country where complaisance and form seem so indispensable, it may appear extraordinary, that a few weeks at least should not be allowed a young couple to gain the affections of each other, and to enable them to judge whether their tempers were formed for their mutual happiness; but this delay is commonly thought unnecessary by the pru­dent parents, whose views extend no farther than interest and convenience. In many countries, to be married in this manner would be reckoned the great­est of misfortunes; in France, it is little regarded, as in the fashionable world few people are greater strangers to, or more indifferent about, each other, than husband and wife; and any appearance of fond­ness between them, or their being seen frequently together, would infallibly make them forfeit the reputation of the ton, and be laughed at by all polite company. On this account, nothing is more common than to be acquainted with a lady, without knowing her husband, or visiting the husband, with­out ever seeing his wife.

An historian, who has read how the French have been, time immemorial, governed by their women, and a traveller, who has seen the attention that every one pays to them, will be apt to reckon all we have now said as falsehood and misrepresentation: [Page 180] but to the first, we would recommend to consider, that the women, who have commonly governed France, have been the mistresses of their kings or other great men, who, trained up in every alluring mode of their profession, have become artful beyond conception, in insinuating themselves by all the ave­nues that lead to the male heart; the second, we would wish to consider, that this constant attention is more the effect of fashion and custom than of sen­timent or regard; and that even the frequent duels which in France are fought on account of women, are not a proof of the superior love or esteem of the men for that sex, nor undertaken to defend their virtue or reputation; they are only a mode of com­pliance with what is falsely called politeness, and of supporting what is falsely esteemed honour.

Formerly, while the manners introduced by the spirit of chivalry were not quite evaporated among the French, before the too great progress of polite­ness had destroyed the virtues of honest simplicity, and tongue had learned by rote, to make every day a thousand protestations of friendship, to which the heart was a stranger; the behaviour of this people, though mixed with romantic extravagance, was nevertheless replete with feeling and with sentiment. During the regency of Anne of Austria, fighting and religion were the most successful ways by which a lover could recommend himself to his mistress; the bombastic verses of the Duke of Rochefoucault shew what a lover then promised with his sword;^* and the number of women of rank who turned Carme­lites, in compliance with the spirit of their gallants and of the times, point out what was expected from [Page 181] devotion; but as politeness began to push forward beyond the standard of nature and of utility, it dissi­pated not only all these romantic ideas, but also in time thrust out sentiment and affection, and left the French in their present situation—the creatures of art. The avidity however of the other European nations in copying their manners and customs is so great, that such as they now are, all their neigh­bours will probably in less than a few centuries be.

As mankind advance in the principles of society, as interest, ambition, and some of the other sordid passions begin to occupy the mind, nature is thrust out. Nothing surely can be more natural than that love should direct us in the choice of a partner for life, and that the parties contracting in wedlock, should enter into that compact with the mutual ap­probation of each other. This right of nature, however, begins to be wrested from her in every polite country. The poor are the only class who still retain the liberty of acting from inclination and from choice, while the rich, in proportion as they rise in opulence and rank, [...]nk in the exertion of the natural rights of mankind, and must sacrifice their love at the shrine of interest or ambition.

Such now begins to be the common practice in Britain; courtship, at least that kind of it which proceeds from mutual inclination and affection is, among the great, nearly annihilated, and the matri­monial bargain, not less sordid than that of the East, is made between the relations of the two families, with all the care and cunning that each is master of, to advance its own interest by over-reaching the other. Were we to descend to the middling and lower ranks of life, where freedom of the mind still exists; were we to describe their various modes of [Page 182] addressing and endeavouring to render themselves agreeable to the fair, we should only relate what our readers are already acquainted with; we shall there­fore just observe, in general, that such is the power of love, that it frequently prompts even an Englishman to lay aside some part of his natural thoughtfulness, and appear more gay and sprightly in the presence of his mistress; that on other occasions, when he is doubtful of success, it adds to his natural peevish­ness and taciturnity, an air of melancholy and em­barrassment, which exposes him to the laughter of all his acquaintance, and seldom or never contributes any thing to advance his suit. But this last is not peculiar to the inhabitants of Britain; for, when a few singularities are excepted, which arise from manners and customs, in every other respect the courtship of all polished people is nearly the same, consists chiefly in the lover's endeavouring, by every art, to make his person and temper appear as agree­able to his mistress as possible; to persuade her, that his circumstances are at least such as may enable him to indulge her in every thing becoming her sta­tion, and that his inclinations to do so, are not in the least to be doubted. These great points being gained, the lover has commonly little else left to do, but to enter into the possession of his hopes, unless where each party, urged by separate interests, pro­poses unreasonable conditions of settlement, which frequently break off a match where every other ar­ticle has been agreed on.

In the course of this enquiry we have seen, that of all the methods practised by the men to insinuate themselves into the affections of the fair, none have been more common than fighting. In ancient times, heroes encountered one another to render themselves acceptable to the ladies they adored. Saxo-Gram­maticus [Page 183] gives an account of many duels that were fought between private persons to determine which of them should be the successful lover, a practice common among the Scandinavians before they be­came Christians: princes then led their armies into the field, to fight with each other on the same ac­count; and so rude were the manners, that a king when he fell in love, instead of endeavouring to gain the object by gentle and pacific methods, frequently sent to demand her by threatening fire and sword on a refusal. The Spaniards fight the most ferocious bulls to promote their love; and a few centuries ago, the cavaliers of that and many other nations com­menced knights-errant, and rode about the country fighting every thing that opposed them, for the ho­nour of their mistresses. We have already seen, that in some countries, the fairest and most noble vir­gins were allotted as a reward to the greatest virtue, that in others they were basely sacrificed to the wretch who was able to give the highest price for them. But among the ancient Saxons, at Magde­burgh, they had an institution still more singular, the greatest beauties were, at stated times, with a sum of money as the portion of each, deposited in the hands of the magistrates, to be publicly fought for, and fell to the lot of those who were most famous at tilting.

That the soft and compassionate temper of women, naturally averse to scenes of horror and blood, should be the most easily gained by him who has most distin­guished himself in scenes of that nature; appears at first sight an inexplicable paradox, but on a nearer inspection, the difficulty vanishes, when we consider, that in rude and barbarous times, the wea [...]eness of the sex made their property, and their beauty made [Page 184] their persons, a prey to every invader; and that it was only by sheltering themselves in the arms of the hero, that they could attain to any safety, or to any importance. Hence the hero naturally became the object of their ambition, and their gratitude for the protection of his power, obliterated the idea of his crimes, magnified all his virtues, and held him up as an object of love. But besides, in the times of general rapine and devastation, it was only valour and strength that could defend a man's property from being lawlessly carried away, and his family ruined for want of subsistence; and it was only by valour and martial atchievements that ambition could be gratified by rising to grandeur and to power. When we survey all these reasons, our surprise that so many warriors in former times fought themselves into the arms of their mistresses, will be much abated.

We have seen in the course of this work, that wo­men have been by authority exposed publicly to sale, we have seen that they have, by order of the magis­trates, been publicly fought for, and that, in the extensive regions of the East, which compose almost half the globe, they are bought by a husband as his ox or his ass, and in many respects treated by him worse than these animals. Such a treatment of the objects which nature has taught us to love, and po­liteness to respect, excites our astonishment and in­dignation, and we exult in the happier state of our own country, when we consider it as not degraded by any such instances of despotic power, exercised over a sex which nature meant us to cherish and de­fend; but our exultation on this head is not perhaps so well founded, as we imagine; the matrimonial bargains every day concluded by all the cunning of [Page 185] relations, and chicanery of lawyers, are a proof that we not only sell the fair sex, but dispose even of our­selves for the sake of their fortunes. Such a spirit of venality in either sex, is a strong symptom of the approaching ruin of the people among whom it is found. Let us remember that wherever the women are the slaves of the men, the men themselves are the slaves of a despot, and that wherever the men have become the slaves of women, luxury and effeminacy have brought them to ruin.

CHAPTER XXV. Of Matrimony.

SOME regulation of the commerce be­tween the sexes, or the joining of males and females together by mutual ties and obligations, in order to preserve the peace of society, and encourage po­pulation, seems either to have been an innate prin­ciple in the human mind, or to have arisen early from necessity; as we find it, in one shape or ano­ther, existing all over the habitable world.

Antiquarians, who have solicitously endeavoured to trace the manners and customs of past ages; and voyagers and travellers, who have depicted those of the present, have indiscriminately given the name of marriage to every legal or customary junction of the sexes, which they met with in the countries, whose records they have searched or which they have visited in person; and European readers, be­ing accustomed only to one kind of marriage, have generally annexed the same idea, which the word conveys in their own country, to the marriages of the people of all other nations. Marriage, how­ever, is so far from having been an institution, fixed by permanent and unalterable laws, that it has been continually varying in every period, and in every country; and its present indissoluble nature among us, hardly bears the least resemblance to what it was among many of the ancients, or to what it is at present in several parts of the world.

[Page 187]It has long been the opinion of the learned, and many of the most respectable authors are quoted to prove it, that several nations, during their most rude and barbarous state, had not attained to any idea of matrimony, nor had any regulation of the com­merce between the sexes; if this is a fact, which, notwithstanding what has been alleged to the con­trary, by a learned author of the present age, we have little reason to doubt, it is intimately connected with another; which is, that the dawnings of civi­lization no sooner began to appear, than these very people discovered the necessity of such a regulation, and carried it into execution, upon the best plans which their limited capacities were capable of invent­ing; and we scruple not to affirm, that, without it, there could be no safety for the individual; the natural progress of multiplication must be retarded, and no people could ever arrive at any perfection in government or civilization.

Preservation of the individual, and propagation of the species, as they are two of the great ends of our existence, are so intimately connected with our nature, that in a very early period of the world, it must have been discovered, that preservation could not properly be attained, unless individuals appro­priated to themselves the produce of their hunting, and certain parcels of ground, from whence the means of that preservation might be derived; and if men could not draw their subsistence so conveniently from the ground, while it was in common, they must, by the same reasoning have discovered, that propagation could not be so properly carried on, un­less individuals also of the two sexes were appropria­ted to each other by some tie or obligation, which should hinder them from being considered as com­mon to the whole species; but of what kind these [Page 188] ties and obligations were, or how entered into, we can now only conjecture; from the complexion of the times, however, we may suppose, that they were simple, and not entered into with any remark­able pomp or ceremony. This we the more readily believe, when we consider, that in the Mosaic history of the creation, our original mother is introduced as the wife of Adam, without taking notice of any ceremony performed to make her such: and that there was none, appears plain from the circumstan­ces of her case. Every marriage ceremony is only a mutual agreement of the contracting parties, to be faithful to each other, and the calling in of some persons to confirm, or to witness this agreement—But while only one man, and one woman existed, they had no third person to witness their engagement, nor could they possibly prove unfaithful to each other; consequently could have no use of any mutual engagement to fidelity; unless we can suppose, that when their own posterity became of age, such en­gagement should become necessary on their account; but here, if we mistake not, nature has interposed her authority, by raising a horror at all incestuous commerce.

In the primitive ages of the world, every thing was done in the most plain and simple manner; a man set up a stone, or erected a pillar, to mark the spot of ground he had appropriated to his own use; and he took unto himself a wife; that is, carried her home to his house, and perhaps made her pro­mise to adhere to him only, and to assist him in bring­ing up the children they might have together; which seems to be the only mode in which marriages were originally contracted; at least it was the mode during the patriarchal ages. Lamech, one of the sons of Adam, took unto himself two wives. Abra­ham [Page 189] took unto himself a wife; the other patriarchs and people followed the example; and, for many ages, the Israelitish women, and perhaps those of other nations, were appropriated to their husbands in this simple manner.

But besides these marriages, by simple appropri­ation, there appear to have been others of a nature still more simple. Accidental circumstances some­times brought a man and a woman together; and when any children were the produce of their cor­respondence, natural affection excited them to re­main together, and unite their endeavours for the preservation and maintenance of their offspring. A strong proof, that such marriages existed in ancient times, is, that they were much in use among the Romans, and are to be found at this day among some uncultivated people. The most ancient kind of marriage among the Romans, was that in which a man and woman had come together without any previous bargain; and having lived together for some time, became at last unwilling to part, as they found themselves insensibly become necessary to each other: and, among the Kalmuc Tartars, a young couple agreeing between themselves, retire for one year as husband and wife; if, in that time, the wo­man brings forth a child, they remain together; if not, they either make trial of another year, or agree to part. In the island of Otaheite, the inhabitants pursue incontinent gratifications, wherever inclina­tion leads them; but when a woman becomes preg­nant, the father of her child thereby becomes her husband.

Before the laws of Moses were given to the Israel­ites, as the rule of their conduct and manners, it is asserted by the Jewish rabbies, that a woman, who [Page 190] was neither betrothed nor married, might bestow her favours either gratis, or for reward, on any one she pleased, without incurring the least scandal, or confining herself entirely to him, though she lived with him as his wife; but the assertions of these people are far from deserving the greatest degree of credit; for though it seems evident, from the sacred records, that little or no ceremony was used in tak­ing a wife previous to the patriarchal ages, they have particularly described the ceremonies then made use of on that occasion, which we shall take notice of afterwards.

As the number of the human race increased, and the number of incitements to conjugal infidelity were, consequently, increased also, the simple modes of ap­propriating a woman, by carrying her home, or by having lived with her for some time, were, perhaps, found insufficient, either to check her own inclina­tion to infidelity, or secure her from the attacks of the licentious; hence methods of a more public and solemn nature were fallen upon, and the marriage ceremony probably converted into a covenant, with similar ceremonies to the covenants that were made at the establishing of peace, or securing of property. Many and various were the contrivances made use of to establish and perpetuate the memory of those cove­nants: Abraham presented Abimelech, king of the Philistines, with sheep and oxen; which he desired him, before witnesses, to accept of as a token, that he should have the property of a well which he had digged. The Phoenicians set up a stone, or a pillar, or raised a heap of stones, as a memorial of any pub­lic agreement; a practice which was followed by ma­ny other nations. The Scythians, in their alliances and ceremonies, poured wine into an earthen vessel; and having mixed it with the blood of the contract­ing [Page 191] parties, they dipped a scymiter, some arrows, a bill, and a javelin into the vessel; and after many imprecations on the party who should break the agreement, they themselves first drank of the mix­ture, and the rest of the company as witnesses fol­lowed their example. The ancient Arabians took an oath by cutting the hands of the contracting parties with a sharp stone, then pulling a tuft from the gar­ment of each, dipped them in the blood which flow­ed from the wounds, and sprinkled the blood upon seven stones set up between them, invoking in the mean time Bacchus and Urania. The ancient Medes and Lycians, in making public agreements, wounded themselves in the arm, and the parties mutually suck­ed the blood of each other. The Nasamones, in pledging their faith to each other, mutually present­ed a cup of liquor, and if they had none, they took up dust and put it in their mouths. The Carians and Ionians, in the army of Psamenitus, when they fought against Phanes, slew the sons of the latter, and receiving their blood into a bowl, and mixing it with wine and water, drank it as a pledge of their steady adherence to each other. The other Greeks, and the Romans, in their public contracts joined their hands together, and swore by their gods, by the tombs of their ancestors, or by any other object of awe and reverence.

To these ancient methods of covenanting we shall add a similar one practised at this time at Madagas­car. They put into a large vessel filled with brandy, some gold, silver, gun flint in powder, and, if pos­sible, some of the dust of the tombs of their ancestors, to all which they add, blood from the arms of the contracting parties; while this mixture is preparing, their weapons are laid on the ground in form of a cross, soon after, both parties take them up, and [Page 192] with the points of them in the vessel constantly keep stirring its contents till the agreement is concluded, when the contracting parties, and all who are pre­sent, drink till the cup is emptied; after which, they embrace each other and retire. Such were the cere­monies attending covenants and alliances in the pri­mitive ages; and as marriage was an alliance not only between the two parties, but their families and relations, it is probable that some of these ceremo­nies were made use of to ratify and confirm it.

But though matrimonial agreements were not only made public, but solemnly confirmed by some of the above ceremonies; such is the frailty of human na­ture, that even these were found insufficient to secure female fidelity; and hence, perhaps, arose the cus­tom of purchasing a wife from her relations for a sti­pulated price, and a few presents made to the bride herself; a custom also of great antiquity, for we find that Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and Sec­hem told the brethren of Dinah that he would give whatever dowry they should ask for their sister.—This method of marrying, as it augmented the pow­er of a husband over his wife, gave him greater secu­rity for her good behaviour; for by the purchase she became his slave, and on the least suspicion he could confine her, or turn her away at pleasure, upon proof of her guilt.

But whatever were the ceremonies of marriage in the primitive ages, it appears plain that the commerce between the sexes began early to be regulated, as all the most ancient traditions agree in ascribing that regu­lation to their first sovereigns and law-giver. Menes, who is said to have been the first king of Egypt, is also said to have been the first that introduced matrimony [Page 193] and fixed the laws concerning it. The Greeks give the honour of this institution to Cecrops; the Chi­nese to Fo Hi, their first sovereign; the Peruvians to Manco-capac, and the Jews to God Almighty himself; nor does it only seem that matrimony was early introduced, but that its first introduction among most nations, was that of one woman only being des­tined to one men, as the fables of antiquity when traced as far back as possible seem to hint; Jupiter had only his Juno; Pluto his Proserpine; Osiris his Isis, and the stolen amours of the gods and heroes of antiquity, and the conduct of their wives upon disco­vering them, seem all plainly to evince that their legal right of commerce with the sex extended only to one woman. The case, however, seems to have been otherwise among the Jews, for as early as the days of Adam, Lamech, once of his sons, introdu­ced the practice of marrying a plurality of wives; a practice which was imitated by the neighbouring nations, till in time it became almost universal.

From the earliest ages of antiquity men were accus­tomed to feast and rejoice together on memorable events, and on the acquisition of any thing they rec­koned valuable: setting aside the value stamped on a woman by love, which we have reason to believe had not, in the times we are speaking of, arisen to any great degree of refinement, she was a valuable acquisition, as she stood in the quality of a servant as well as a wife; in which last quality she gave her hus­band also a prospect of raising up children, to perpe­tuate his name, and assist him in old age, circumstan­ces greatly valued in the primitive ages: but besides these, a wife was valuable on another account; while society was in its infancy, almost every family supported feuds and animosities against, and was at war with, its neighbours, about the distribution and [Page 194] defence of property, and it was only by the alliance of several families together, that they could some­times be able to support themselves against their more powerful rivals; such alliances, and such additional strength to families, came generally by marrying, and on all these accounts, marriage was considered as an important transaction, and feasts were early instituted at its celebration; which feasts, we have reason to believe, were frequently the whole of the ceremony; served to make the contract public, and also in place of those writings which in our times as­certain the right and privileges of the parties. La­ban gathered his friends together and made a marri­age-feast, when he deceived Jacob by giving him Leah instead of Rachel; but as this feast is not men­tioned as any thing new or uncommon, we have rea­son to suppose they had been used long before that time. Sampson, when he married Delilah, made a feast which lasted seven days, for so used the young men to do. The Babylonians carried marriage-feasts to such an extravagant length, that many peo­ple having ruined their families by the expence, a sumptuary law was made to restrain them. Among the ancient Scandinavians, almost every public trans­action was attended with a feast, and that at the celebration of a marriage was a scene of revelry and drunkenness, which was frequently productive of the most fatal effects. The Phrygians too had sump­tuous entertainments on these occasions; entertain­ments also of a like nature were common among the Jews in the time of our Saviour; and they are at this day given almost by all nations, but more par­ticularly by those among whom the excess of polite­ness has not banished merriment and rustic hospi­tality.

[Page 195]In an early period of the world, the interest, or sometimes the inclination, of parents, when they had lived in a friendly manner with, and contracted a regard for, their neighbours, naturally prompted them to wish, that a marriage between their children might take place to strengthen the alliance of the families; and as this wish was frequently formed before the parties were of an age proper for such a junction, they fell upon a method of securing them to each other; by what is called in the sacred wri­tings, betrothing, which was agreeing on a price to be paid for the bride, the time when it should be paid, and when she should be delivered into the hands of her husband. There were, according to the Talmudists, three ways of betrothing: the first, by a written contract; the second, by a verbal agree­ment, accompanied with a piece of money; and the third, by the parties coming together and living as husband and wife; which last they could not pro­perly call betrothing, it was marriage itself. The written contract was in the following words:

‘On such a day, month, and year, A. the son of B. has said to D. the daughter of E. be thou my spouse according to the law of Moses and of the Israelites, and I will give thee as a dowry for thy virginity the sum of two hundred Suzims, as it is ordered by our law; and the said D. hath promised to be his spouse upon the conditions aforesaid, which the said A. doth hereby bind himself, and all that he hath, to the very cloak upon his back; engages himself to love, honour, feed, clothe, and protect her, and to perform all that is generally implied in favour of the Israelitish wives.’

[Page 196]The verbal agreement was made in the presence of a sufficient number of witnesses, by the man, say­ing to the woman, Take this money as a pledge, that at such a time, I will take thee to be my wife. A woman who was by any of these methods betroth­ed or bargained for, was almost in every respect by the law considered as already married, bound nearly by the same ties and obligations, and enjoyed nearly the same privileges and immunities, as she who ac­tually lived and cohabited with her husband.

CHAPTER XXVI. The same Subject continued.

HITHERTO our observations on the origin and progress of the matrimonial compact have, for the most part, been either general, or confined to periods enveloped in the darkness of the remotest antiquity: we shall now endeavour to trace the cere­monies and usages of that compact in a more parti­cular manner, as well as through periods which be­gin to be better known, and where, being furnished with more historical facts, we shall have the less oc­casion to supply their place by probability and con­jecture.

Though, from what we have already observed, it is highly presumable, that the Israelites had no marriage-ceremony before the legislation of Moses, except sending a few presents, or feasting together, to make the affair public; yet the Rabbies, ever fertile in imagination, have told us the contrary:

‘Marriages, say they, were even then agreed upon by the parents and relations of both sides; which being done, the bridegroom was introduced to his bride, presents were mutually exchanged, the contract sign [...]d before witnesses; and the bride, hav­ing remained some time with her relations, was sent away to the habitation of her husband in the night; with singing, dancing, and the sound of musical instruments.’

[Page 198]This ceremonial bears so strong a resemblance to that which the same Rabbies tell us was instituted by Moses, that it is plain they have either taken it from that, or Moses, if he really did institute any ceremony, must have taken his pattern from the ancient usages and customs of his country; as we may see by the following ceremonial, which they have ascribed to that legislator. When the day appointed for celebrating the wedding was come, which was generally Friday for a maid, and Thursday for a widow, the contract of marriage was read in the presence of, and signed by at least ten witnesses, who were free and of age. The bride who had taken care to bathe herself the night before, appear­ed in all her splendour, but veiled, in imitation of Rebecca, who veiled herself when she came in sight of Isaac; she was then given to the bridegroom by her parents, in words to this purpose: ‘Take her, according to the law of Moses;’ and he received her, by saying, ‘I take her according to that law.’ Some blessings were then pronounced upon the young couple, both by the parents and the rest of the company.^* The virgins sung a marriage-song; the company then partook of a repast, the most mag­nificent that the parties could afford; after which the parties began a dance, the men round the bride­groom, the women round the bride; and this dance they pretended, was of divine institution, and an [Page 199] essential part of the ceremony. The bride was then carried to the nuptial bed, and the bridegroom left in the chamber with her; when the company again returned to their feasting and rejoicing, and the Rab­bies inform us, that this feasting, when the bride was a widow, lasted only three days, but seven if she was a virgin; a law, which was so obligatory, that if a man married several wives in one day, he was bound to allow a feast of seven days to each of them, exactly in the order in which they were mar­ried.

In periods later than these we are now considering the ceremonies of marriage were, according to the Rabbies, considerably changed. Both the man and woman were led to the house of marriage by their nearest friends, where ten at least were to be pre­sent; there the bill of dowry being publicly ratified, the man spoke thus to the woman: ‘Be thou a wife to me, according to the law of Moses, and I will worship and honour thee, according to the word of God, and will feed and govern thee, according to the custom of those who worship, honour, and go­vern their wives faithfully. I give thee, for dowry of thy virginity, fifty shekels.’

Having given this account of the state of matri­mony among the Israelites, let us now turn to the other nations of antiquity, which flourished in the same periods we have been reviewing. It has been already mentioned, that the Egyptians attributed the introduction of matrimony, and the regulation of it by laws, to Menes, said to have been the Cham of the scripture, who was one of the sons of Noah, and their first sovereign. That matrimony was early instituted among a people who took the lead in almost every thing that tended to improve society, we have [Page 200] little room to doubt: but though, as will appear afterward, we have some account of the several ties and obligations of the married state among them, we are entirely ignorant of the manner in which their marriages were solemnized. In this article, the his­tory of the Philistines, Canaanites, Carthaginians, and many other nations, is involved in the same ob­scurity. Of the Philistines, however, we may ob­serve, that their ideas of marriage must have been exceedingly crude and indigested, as the father-in-law of Sampson gave away his wife Delilah to ano­ther, upon his being some time absent from her.

The ancient Assyrians seem more thoroughly to have settled and digested the affairs of marriage, than any of their contemporaries. Once in every year they assembled together all the girls that were marriageable, when the public crier put them up to sale, one after another. For her whose figure was agreeable, and whose beauty was attracting, the rich strove against each other, who should give the highest price; which price was put into a public stock, and distributed in portions to those whom nature had less liberally accomplished, and whom nobody would accept without a reward. After the most beautiful were disposed of, these were also put up by the public crier, and a certain sum of money offered with each, proportioned to what it was thought she stood in need of to bribe a husband to accept her. When a man offered to accept of any of them, on the terms upon which she was exposed to sale, the crier proclaimed, that such a man had proposed to take such a woman, with such a sum of money along with her, provided none could be found who would take her with less; and in this manner the sale went on, till she was at last allotted to him who offered to take her with the smallest portion.— [Page 201] When this public sale was over, the purchasers of those that were beautiful were not allowed to take them away, till they had paid down the price agreed on, and given sufficient security that they would marry them; nor, on the other hand, would those who were to have a premium for accepting of such as were less beautiful, take a delivery of them, till their portions were previously paid. It is probable, that this sale brought together too great multitudes of people from inconvenient distances, to the detri­ment, perhaps, of agriculture and commerce, and that strangers could not give sufficient security to fulfil the bargains they had made; for a law was af­terwards issued, prohibiting the inhabitants of dif­ferent districts from intermarrying with each other, and ordaining, that husbands should not use their wives ill; a vague kind of ordonnance, which shews how imperfectly legislation was understood among those people.

History has not, so far as we know, given us any account of what was meant farther by marrying the woman, after having thus publicly bargained for her: if we may judge, however, from the customs of the times, and of the neighbouring nations, we may suppose, that their further marriage consisted only in taking home to their houses the wives they had bought, and calling their friends together to feast with them, and be witnesses of their fulfilling the engagement they had entered into. If, between the time of the sale and this public solemnization, the parties happened to differ, or if they could not agree afterwards, the man was obliged to refund the money he had received, and they parted with mu­tual consent. This being the case with those who received money with their wives, it has likewise been supposed, that those who paid money for them, had [Page 202] a power of demanding it again, on disagreement and separation: but of such power we have no account, nor is it probable that it existed; for the money so paid, being put into a public stock, and distributed to such a variety of hands, became thereby totally irredeemable. These hints concerning matrimony among the Assyrians plainly prove, that the proper regulation of it was an object of their most serious attention; but another circumstance proves this in a still stronger manner. The Assyrians had a court, or tribunal, whose only business was to dispose of young women in marriage, and to see the laws of that union properly executed. What these laws were, or how the execution of them was enforced, are circumstances which have not been handed down to us; but the erecting a court solely for the purpose of taking cognizance of them, suggests an idea that they were many and various.

We have already seen the manner in which the ancient Scythians, so much famed for natural affec­tion and fidelity, ratified their covenants with each other, and have reason to suppose, that marriage was one of the covenants so ratified: when we turn to the other nations, in the times under review, we find no account of their marriage-ceremonies till we come to the Greeks; and this silence on the subject gives us reason to suppose, that in many countries they really had no other than the simple mode of carrying home a bride, and making a feast for her reception; which we are the more inclined to believe, when we consider the circumstantial detail we have, of many of the public ceremonies of Da­rius, of Cyrus, and of Alexander; that we are not only told of their being married, but have also an account of the time when, and the persons to whom, but not the least account of the manner how; which [Page 203] the historians of the times would scarcely have omit­ted, had their marriages been celebrated with pomp and public ceremony.

Though Cecrops, the first king of the Greeks, is supposed to have lived nearly about the time of Mo­ses, and to have instituted marriage among his peo­ple; yet during the whole of the heroic ages, which lasted many centuries after Moses, they appear to ha [...] been so rude and uncultivated, that we cannot suppose they had brought this institution to any per­fection, either in its ceremonies or its laws. Whe­ther Cecrops ordained that the Greeks should follow the customs of the Egyptians in marrying, or went a step farther, and fixed new ceremonies o his own invention, we know not: we are, however, infor­med, that at a marriage, even in the heroic ages, there was a meeting of relations and of neighbours; who, in order to recall to memory the times of sim­plicity, when their ancestors lived almost entirely on the spontaneous productions of the earth, presented the new-married couple with a basket of acorns mix­ed with bread; a custom, which, perhaps, gave birth to the nuptial scattering of nuts among the Romans, who borrowed almost every usage of the Greeks. At this meeting, the Greeks, according to the hospitality of uncultivated people, had feastings and rejoicings; as appears from Theseus being invi­ted to the nuptials of Pirithous, when he helped him to kill a g [...]eat number of Centaurs, who in their cups had offered violence to the female guests at the wed­ding; from the story of Attis, the son of Cybele, who was by Midas to have been married to his daughter, had not Cybele, prevented it by breaking into the city, and causing a frenzy to f [...]ll upon all those who assisted at the ceremony of the nuptials. Some are of opinion, that pledges and securities [Page 204] were, by the institution of Cecrops, mutually inter­changed between the parties; but this, and almost every other circumstance relative to the mode of mar­rying in the heroic ages, is only conjecture; we shall, therefore, proceed to give some account of that mode, in periods when the history of the Greeks, being less involved in fable is more distinctly known.

As soon as the consent of the parents and relations was obtained, the parties were sometimes betrothed, in these words: ‘I give you this my daughter to make you the father of legitimate children.’ After which the young couple plighted their faith to each other by a kiss, or joining together of their right hands, a custom observed by the Grecians in all pub­lic agreements. The Thebans plighted their faith to each other at the monument of Iolaus, who, after he had been advanced to heaven was supposed to take care of the affairs of love. The Athenian virgins, when marriageble, presented baskets of little curiosi­ties to Diana, to obtain leave to depart from her trains, she being esteemed the peculiar patron of maidens; and before her shrine at Brauron, an Athe­nian village, in order to appease her for intending to depart from the st [...]e of virginity in which she so much delighted. The Boeotians and Locrians of both sexes offered, before their nuptials, a sacrifice to Euclia, or Diana, to avert her resentment against them, for changing from a single to a married life. These sacrifices consisted in consecrated wafers, cakes, and animals, which were slain on her altars. Seve­ral other of the gods and goddesses had sacrifices of­fered at their altars on this occasion, as Jupiter, Ju­no, Minerva, and Venus, who was generally invo­ked with peculiar fervency, as being the goddess of love. The Lacedaemonians had an ancient statue of this goddess, to whom it was incumbent upon all [Page 205] mothers to offer sacrifices on the marriage of their daughters. The multiplicity of male and female deities among the Greeks, who were concerned in the affair of love, made the invocations and sacrifices on this occasion a tedious affair. Even the Fates were by no means to be forgot, but the favour of the Graces was purchased by the most ample offer­ings.

The time appointed for these ceremonies was commonly the day before marriage, when the par­ties having cut off some of their hair, presented it to such deities as they most regarded, or to whom they thought themselves under the greatest obligations.

Besides these sacrifices preparatory to the marria­ges, other victims were offered at the solemnization of it; and on this occasion, as soon as the victims were slain, they were opened, the gall taken out, and thrown behind the altar, to intimate that all gall and bitterness should be thrown behind the par­ties, before they enter into the married state. The entrails were then carefully inspected by the sooth­sayers, if they declared that any thing unlucky ap­peared in them, the nuptials were either delayed or broke off; and the same thing took place if any ill omen happened, during the celebration of them, as was the case at the marriage of Clitophon with Cal­ligone, where, an eagle having snatched a piece of the flesh of the victim from the altar, the whole company dismissed full of terror and consternation. Fortunate omens gave great joy, and the most for­tunate of all others, was a pair of turtles seen in the air, as those birds were reckoned the truest emblem of conjugal love and fidelity; but if one of them was seen alone, it infallibly denoted separation and all the ills attending an unhappy marriage. We cannot [Page 206] help observing here, to what a train of groundless fears and apprehensions superstition subjects her vo­taries, and how easily they may be deceived, in taking for the denunciations of heaven, the frauds and tricks of their enemies, as sometimes happened to the Greeks; if what is reported be true, that such as were averse to marriage, or wished the par­ties to be unhappy, sometimes took a single turtle along with them, and letting it fly, either put an end to the ceremony, or filled the hearts of the con­tracting parties with terror and astonishment; but we must remark also, that those who wished well to the young couple, sometimes carried a pair of turtles along with them, and by their flight diffused joy and gladness into all the company, and particularly to those who were the most interested in the fate of the marriage.

The bride and bridegroom were dressed, and adorned with garlands of herbs and flowers, and cakes made of sesame, a plant remarkable for its fruitful­ness, were plentifully distributed among the com­pany. The house of the bridegroom was likewise adorned with garlands: a pestle was tied to the door of it, a maid carried a sieve, and the bride an ear­then vessel with barley, all of which were emblems of her future employment. She was conducted in the evening to the house of her husband in a chariot, seated between the husband and one of his relations; servants carrying lighted torches immediately before, and singers and dancers preceding the whole caval­cade: and when the bride alighted from the cha­riot, the axle-tree of it was burnt, to signify that there was no method left for her to return back.—As soon as the young couple entered the house, figs and other fruits were thrown upon their heads, to denote plenty; and a sumptuous entertaiment was [Page 207] ready for them to partake of, to which all the rela­tions on both sides were invited; during the feast, the deities that presided over marriage were invoked, and honoured with music and dancing. The chief intention of this feast, according to the Greek au­thors, was to make the marriage publickly known, and on that account was an essential part of the ceremony.

The dancing ended, the married couple were conveyed to their bed; previous to which, the bride bathed her feet in water, always brought from the fountain Callirhoe, on a superstitious opinion of some secret virtues it contained; this done, she was lighted to bed, by a number of torches, according to her quality; round one of these torches, the bride's mother tied her own hair-lace. All the relations of both parties assisted at these ceremonies, and to be absent from them was considered as the greatest mis­fortune. It was also the privilege of the mother to light the torches, a privilege of which the Grecian matrons were exceedingly tenacious. The young couple being now left together, were, by the laws of Athens, obliged to eat a quince, after which the bridegroom proceeded to loose the bride's girdle, the young men and maidens standing at the door singing epithalamia, the men making a great noise with their feet and voices to drown the cries of the bride. This done, the company retired, and re­turned in the morning, to salute the new married couple, to sing epithalamia again at the door of their bed-chamber.

These ceremonies being finished, the bride pre­sented to her husband a garment, and presents were made both to the bridegroom and bride, by their relations, which consisted in such kinds of household [Page 208] furniture as was then made use of, and were carri­ed in great state to their house by a company of wo­men, preceded by a boy in white apparel, with a lighted torch in his hand, and between him and the women, a person with a basket of flowers, as cus­tomary at the Grecian processions.

Such were the most material ceremonies at the celebration of a Greek marriage. A variety of others are frequently alluded to in their authors; but as they would be tedious to relate, and seemed to have been less essential, we shall pass over them in silence, only remarking, that in some of their states, they invoked the crow, to put them in mind of the affection they ought to bear to each other, and it was a common proverb among them, when they heard that such a woman was married to a man whom they presumed would not use her well, to say, She will need to invoke the crow.

At Sparta, marriages were conducted in a very different manner. When the preliminaries were settled by a female match-maker, she shaved the bride, dressed her in men's clothes, and left her sitting upon a mattrass; the bridegroom stole pri­vately to her, and having staid a short time, stole as privately away, a conduct which the laws of that republic obliged a married couple to observe, in their intercourse with each other, through the whole of their lives.

Having thus far traced the rites of marriage, we think it necessary to observe, that the detail we have given has not been solely with a view to exhi­bit the ceremonies with which it is in different coun­tries celebrated, but also with an intention to disco­ver, whether it is of divine or human institution.

[Page 209]In the course of our narration we have seen, that the Jews attributed the institution of marriage to the Almighty himself, when he gave Adam a female for his companion; but as the scriptures mention no such institution, we may with equal reason suppose, that he instituted marriage among the other animals, when he created them male and female. We have further seen, that the Rabbies attributed the cere­monial to be observed at matrimonial engagements, to Moses, who was divinely inspired; but Moses himself mentions no such thing, and has only in his code of legislation promulgated a few laws for the better regulation of the conduct of married people towards each other; and as no legislator issues his laws to regulate what is properly regulated already, we may suppose from the laws which Moses made upon this occasion, that, before his time, marriage was in so imperfect a state, that we cannot reason­ably conceive it to have been the institution of an all-perfect Being.

In the prosecution of our enquiry among the other primitive nations, we have scarcely discovered al­most any of them even pretending, that marriage was the institution of their gods; but of their first legisla­tors, as Menes in Egypt, and Cecrops in Greece; nor have we found, even among the Jews themselves, that either prophet, or priest, were concerned in the celebration of marriage, though they managed every thing that was considered as sacred, or of divine institution: the same was the case among the other primitive nations; they had priests, to whom the cele­bration of every holy rite was committed; but their magistrates, and the relations of the contracting par­ties, were the only people who concerned themselves about marriage; a strong presumption, that it was [Page 210] not considered in any other light than as a civil compact.

Having premised thus much at present, on a sub­ject which we shall have occasion to discuss more ful­ly afterwards, before we proceed any farther in our endeavours to investigate the ceremonies by which men and women were joined together in matrimony, we shall take a veiw of the duties, obligations, and customs of that state; and as the manner in which wives are acquired, often determines the manner in which they are used by their husbands, let us inquire into the former, before we proceed to the latter.

Wherever the rights of nature remain unviolated by oppression, women have a power of disposing of themselves in matrimony; where these rights are a little infringed, the consent of parents, relations, or guardians is necessary; where they are totally oblit­erated, they are disposed of by their kindred, or even by the magistrates, to the highest bidder. The legislature of almost every country has interdicted such women as are not of age from disposing of themselves; and it is only in Europe, where the rights of nature remain so far untouched, that even such women as are of age enjoy this power. It is true, that a woman who is more than fourteen, if she get married without the consent of her parents, is so bound, that the parents cannot render the en­gagement void; but they may hinder it from taking place, if they are informed of her intention, till she has completed her twenty-first year, which they cannot do afterwards, although their consent is even then generally asked from paternal duty and affection. Among the Greeks, Romans, and several other nations, a woman never obtained any power of chusing for herself a partner in wedlock, but was through life entirely at the disposal of her parents [Page 211] and guardians. When the Roman empire was overturned, and the feudal system erected on its ruins, that system ordained, that no daughter of a vassal could be given in marriage without the consent of the liege lord, as well as of her own parents; and, at this day, the daughters of the great, even in the politest countries of Europe, can scarcely be said to enjoy any disposing power of themselves, being fre­quently stipulated for in a treaty of peace, or court­ed and even married by proxy [...] a man whom they never saw, and consequently cannot tell whether they shall approve of or not.

But of all the modes of getting possession of a wife, after the first ages of barbarity were over, that of purchasing her was the most common; it was the practice of the East from time immemorial, and con­tinues so to this day. We have seen that Abraham bought Rebecca for his son; that Jacob, destitute of any thing to give, served Laban fourteen years for his two daughters; and that Sechem, when in love with Jacob's daughter, was determined not to break off the match for whatever price her friends might fix upon her: and we now add, the same custom is mentioned in a variety of places of Homer; that it was practised in Thrace, in India, Spain, Germany, and Gaul, and at this day in Hindostan, China, Tartary, Tonquin, Pegu, Turkey; by the Moors of Africa, and the savages in a variety of other parts of the world. In Gaul, during the fifth century, the princess Clotilda, daughter of Gondebaud, king of the Burgundians, being married to Clovis by proxy, the proxy presented her with a sol and a de­nier, as the price of her virginity, a custom which existed among that people long afterward. This custom, though under a different [...]orm, maintained itself still longer in England; in the time of Edward [Page 212] the Third, Richard de Neville gave twenty palfreys to the king to obtain his request to Isola Bisset, that she should take him for a husband; and Roger Fitz-Walter gave three good palfreys, to have the king's letter to Roger Bertram's mother, that she should marry him. In those times, when the kings of Eng­land exercised so unlimited a power over their sub­jects, the king's request, or his letter, amounted to an absolute command, and the money paid to obtain these, was as literally the purchase of a wife, as if it had been paid for at a public sale.

In Timor, an island in the Indian Ocean, it is said, that parents sell their children in order to purchase more wives. In Circassia, women are reared and improved in beauty and every alluring art, only for the purpose of being sold. The prince of the Cir­cassians demanded from the prince of Mingrelia an hundred slaves loaded with tapestry, an hundred cows, as many oxen, and the same number of hor­ses, as the price of his sister. In New Zealand, we meet with a custom which may be called purchasing a wife for a night, and which is a proof that those must also be purchased who are intended for a longer duration; and what to us is a little surprising, this temporary wife, insisted upon being treated with as much deference and respect, as if she had been mar­ried for life; but in general, this is not the case in other countries, for the wife who is purchased, is always trained up in the principles of slavery; and, being innured to every indignity and mortification from her parents, she expects no better treatment from her husband.

There is little difference in the condition of her who is put to sale by her sordid parents, and her who is disposed of in the same manner by the [Page 213] magistrates, as a part of the state's property. Besides those we have already mentioned in this work, the Thracians put the fairest of their virgins up to public sale, and the magistrates of Crete had the sole power of chusing partners in marriage for their young men; and, in the execution of this power, the affection and interest of the parties was totally overlooked, and the good of the state the only ob­ject of attention; in pursuing which, they always allotted the strongest and best made of the sex to one another, that they might raise up a generation of warriors, or of women fit to be the mothers of warriors.

In the primitive ages, when the number of the human race was but few, and when every one might consequently appropriate to himself, and cultivate such grounds as lay most convenient for his use; when his wife and children, as soon as they were able, assisted in this and every other kind of labour; a wife was rather an advantage than otherwise, and therefore she was bought, both as an instrument of propagation, and an assistant in the occupations of life. But as societies were formed, lands and goods of every kind appropriated, and women became, perhaps, less industrious, every addition to a family became an additional expence; hence, instead of a man paying a price for his wife, it was necessary he should receive something along with her: marriage, therefore, became a compact between a man and one or more women, according to the custom of the country; to join their stocks, interests, and persons together, that they might be the better ena­bled to bring up a family, and carry on the trade or business by which they were to acqu [...]e subsistence; and the stock or fortune of a woman so married, was called her portion or dowry, and in pro [...]ess of time [Page 214] came to be settled upon her as a security from want, if her husband should die before her.

As the Egyptians were supposed to be the first people who arrived at any degree of cultivation, among them we meet with the first account of por­tions. Pharaoh gave the city of Gazer, as a por­tion with his daughter, to Solomon king of Israel. We do not recollect any account of portions given by any other of the ancients, till we come to the Greeks; when we find Phares of Chalcedon, ordering, by a law, that the rich should give portions with their daughters to the poor, but receive none with such wives as were married to their sons; a law, which he had founded on the custom of his country; for Helen brought to Menelaus the kingdom of Sparta, and afterwards, in default, we suppose, of male heirs, the daughters of several Grecian kings car­ried the kingdoms of their fathers, as dowries to their husbands. But although this was the case with regard to kingdoms, yet the contrary seems in other cases to have been the general practice, as we learn from the story of Danaus, whose daughters having rendered themselves infamous, their father caused a proclamation to be made, that he would not demand any presents from those who should marry them; and from the conduct of Agamemnon to Achilles, when he tells him, that he will give him one of his daughters in marriage, without requiring any pre­sents. The presents here mentioned were of two kinds; the first was given to the father of the lady, as a bribe or price to engage him to give his daugh­ter to the suitor; the second, to the lady herself, in order to gain her affection: and some authors are of opinion, that the presents thus made to the father and the daughter, were joined together to compose the fortune of the latter, which was settled upon her [Page 215] as her dower; so that if the husband did not lite­rally purchase a bride, he bribed her to his arms, and to an independence, with his own money.

As the principles of equity and of justice began to be understood, it was easy to discover, that women who had assisted their fathers and husbands in acquir­ing the goods of fortune, should not be given in marriage by the first without portions, nor left by the last at death without settlements as an equivalent for these portions; hence the custom of receiving a fortune with a bride, and settling at least an equiva­lent upon her and her heirs, insinuated itself into every country, in proportion as its inhabitants be­came civilized, and acquainted with the natural rights of mankind.

CHAPTER XXVII. The same Subject continued.

BESIDES the methods of purchasing wives, and agreeing with them by a mutual compact, polygamy and concubinage are circumstances which greatly influence the conduct of a husband towards them. Polygamy, or the custom of marrying a plurality of women, began in a very early period of the world. Lamech, one of the sons of Adam, took two wives, and from that time forward it is probable, that all the inhabitants of the East follow­ed his example, and took as many as their inclina­tions and circumstances would allow of. From the manners of the primitive ages, we may suppose, that concubinage followed soon after polygamy, though we have no distinct account of it till the time of Abraham, in whose history we are presented with the ceremony of making a concubine; a ceremony which to us at this period appears not less singular than unnatural. Sarai, Abraham's wife, being bar­ren, takes her handmaid Hagar, presents her to her husband, and prays him to go in unto her, and raise up seed to Sarai. Although we are not here told of any compulsion on the part of Abraham, it would, nevertheless, seem that this was not altogether a voluntary act of his wife, as it is so natural for wo­men to submit with reluctance, to allow another to share the embraces of their husbands, which even now in Hindostan, where the practise has subsisted time immemorial, they are brought to with the greatest difficulty; as we find by one of the laws of [Page 217] that people, which ordains, ‘that wherever a hus­band, on his contracting second marriage, may give his wife to pacify her, is to be reckoned her own property.’

Polygamy and concubinage having in process of time become fashionable vices, the number of wo­men kept by the great became at last more an article of grandeur and state, than a mode of satisfying the animal appetite: Solomon had threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, and virgins without num­ber. Maimon tells us, that among the Jews a man might have as many wives as he pleased, even to the number of a hundred, and that it was not in their power to hinder him, provided he could maintain, and pay them all the conjugal debt once a week; but in this duty he was not to run in arrear to any of them above one month, though with regard to con­cubines he might do as he pleased.

It would be an endless task to enumerate all the nations which practised polygamy; we shall, there­fore, only mention a few, where the practice seemed to vary something from the common method. The ancient Sabaeans are not only said to have had a plu­rality, but even a community of wives; a thing strongly inconsistent with that spirit of jealousy which prevails among the men in most countries where polygamy is allowed. The ancient Germans were so strict monogamists ^*, that they reckoned it a species of polygamy for a woman to marry a second husband, even after the death of the first. ‘A woman, say they, has but one life, and one body, therefore should have but one husband;’ and be­sides, they added, ‘that she who knows she is ne­ver [Page 218] to have a second husband, will the more value and endeavour to promote the happiness and preserve the life of the first.’ Among the Heruli this idea was carried farther, a woman was obliged to stran­gle herself at the death of her husband, lest she should afterwards marry another; so detestable was polygamy in the North, while in the East it is one of these rights which they most of all others esteem, and maintain with such inflexible firmness, that it will probably be one of the last of those that it will wrest out of their hands.

The Egyptians, it is probable, did not allow of polygamy, and as the Greeks borrowed their insti­tutions from them, it was also forbid by the laws of Cecrops, though concubinage seems either to have been allowed or overlooked; for in the Odyssey of Homer we find Ulysses declaring himself to be the son of a concubine, which he would probably not have done, had any great degree of infamy been annexed to it. In some cases, however, polygamy was allowed in Greece, from a mistaken notion that it would increase population. The Athenians, once thinking the number of their citizens diminished, decreed that it should be lawful for a man to have children by another woman as well as by his wife; besides this, particular instances occur of some who transgressed the law of monogamy. Euripides is said to have had two wives, who, by their constant disagreement, gave him a dislike to the whole sex; a supposition which receives some weight from these lines of his in Andromache:

[Page 219] Socrates too had two wives, but the poor culprit had as much reason to repent of his temerity as Eu­ripides.

Polygamy seems not to have been entirely eradi­cated among the Christians in the sixth century, as we find it then enacted in the canons of one of their councils, that if any one is married to many wives he shall do penance. Even the clergy themselves, in this period, practised bigamy,^* as we find it or­dained by another council held at Narbonne, that such clergymen as were bigamists, should only be presbyters and deacons, and should not be allowed to marry and consecrate. But our astonishment is still more excited, to find instances of bigamy and polygamy so late as the sixteenth century. The Ger­man reformers, though their declared intention was to conform literally to the precepts of the gospel, were, nevertheless, inclined to introduce bigamy as not inconsonant with these precepts. Philip, Land­grve of Hesse Cassel, wanted, in the lifetime of his wife, to marry a young lady, named Catharine Saal, and having some scruples of conscience, though in every other respect a man of good sense, he seemed to believe, that, with the approbation of Luther and his brethren, the moral turpitude, if there was any in marrying two wives, might be set aside; he, therefore, represented to them his case, and told them, that his wife, the princess of Savoy, was ugly, had bad smells about her, and often got drunk; and that his constitution was such as laid him under the frequent necessity of gratifying his appetite; and concluded with some artful hints, that unless they granted him a dispensation to marry ano­ther [Page 220] wife, he would ask it of the pope. Luther, upon this, convoked a synod of six reformers, who found that polygamy had been practised by a Roman emperor, and by several of the kings of the Franks; that marriage was only a civil compact, and that the gospel had no where in express terms command­ed monogamy. They therefore signed a permission for Philip to marry another wife, which he did soon after, with the seeming consent of his first wife, the princess of Savoy; and thus Luther exercised an authority which not even the most enterprising of the popes, in the plenitude of their temporal and apos­tolic power, had ever dared to attempt.

The famous Jack of Leyden, who is so well known in history, pretending himself to be a prophet and a king, thought that in the article of women he had a right to follow the example of the kings of Israel, by taking as many wives as he thought proper, and actually proceeded so far as to marry seventeen, and had he not been cut short in the career of his glory and fanaticism, would probably have married twice that number.

As the men have almost in all countries arrogated to themselves the power of making laws and of go­verning the women, they have in a great variety of places indulged in a plurality of wives, but almost en­tirely debarred the women of a plurality of husbands; there are, nevertheless, a few instances of their en­joying this privilege, in places where their credit and influence seem equal, if not superior to their hus­bands. We have already taken notice, that in some provinces of ancient Media, the women had a plu­rality of husbands, as the men in others had a plu­rality of wives. On the coast of Malabar, a woman may have to the number of twelve husbands; and in [Page 221] some cantons of the Iroquois in North America, she may have several. Father Tanchard reports, that in the neighbourhood of Calicut, the women of the superior casts may have a variety of husbands, and that some of them actually have ten, all of whom they consider as so many slaves subject to their charms. A gentleman who has lately visited the kingdoms of Bautan and Thibet, observes, that all the males of a family are frequently served by one wife. Such institutions, as they militate against the jurisdiction of the men, and are deviations from the custom of almost all countries, must have originated from extraordinary and uncommon circumstances; but what these were, or when they took place, are among the desiderata of history, which are lost in the abyss of antiquity.

It would only be treading the path, which hundreds have trod before us, should we attempt here to recite all the arguments that have been used for and against polygamy: the greatest part of those against it, have always turned upon this hinge, that all men are by nature equal, and have consequently an equal right to a wife; that the two sexes are nearly equal in number; and where one man marries a va­riety of women, there can be none left for several others. We pretend not to favour polygamy, as we think it far from being either natural or political; but we cannot help observing one circumstance, which we do not recollect to have met with, that in the countries where it is practised, it becomes in some degree necessary, on account of the great num­ber of eunuchs, which make the number of women greatly exceed that of the men; so that while the infamous practice of making eunuchs is allowed, polygamy must be allowed also, otherwise many wo­men must for ever want husbands.

[Page 222]Wherever women are considered in so mean a light as to be purchased for money; wherever they have not influence or power to prevent their hus­bands from the practices of polygamy and concubi­nage, the treatment they receive from these hus­bands is regulated by the methods of acquiring them. [...] man thinks it hard, if he has not the liberty of disposing of what he purchased, when he is no lon­ger pleased with it: hence, wherever wives are bought, they are generally divorced at pleasure; and what seems still less natural, they are sometimes bor­rowed and lent, like a piece of money, or of fur­niture. The Spartans lent a wife with as much in­difference, as they would have done a horse, or an ass; and the elder Cato is said to have philosophised himself into the same custom. Where polygamy takes place, a husband is naturally deafened with the jealousies and contentions of his wives; and on that account finds it necessary to rule them more with the iron rod of a tyrant, than the love and affection of an husband.

Matrimony, in all nations, being a compact be­tween a male and female, for the purpose of conti­nuing the species, the first and most necessary obli­gation of it has been thought fidelity; but, by va­rious people, this fidelity has been variously under­stood: almost all nations, however, ancient and modern, have agreed in requiring the most absolute unconditional fidelity on the part of the woman; while, on that of the man, greater latitude has been given. Thus we have seen, that though among the Jews a woman was strictly confined to one man, the man was allowed as many wives and concubines as inclination dictated, and circumstances allowed: nor was this the case only among the Jews, but among the Babylonians, Assyrians, Medes, [Page 223] Persians, and indeed among the greatest part of the inhabitants of the East, where it continues to this day: but its present existence is not confined to the East; it spreads itself over several other parts of the globe, and is found even in North America; where the Moxes indulge in polygamy and concubinage, and at the same time punish, with the most exem­plary severity, the least appearance of unchastity in their wives. Civilians, who have endeavoured to assign a reason for this difference, tell us, that the hand of severity is held so closely over the inconti­nence of married women, and so much latitude given to the men, because the men generally have the care of providing for the offspring; and it would be hard that a man should be obliged to provide for, and leave his estate to children, which he could never with certainty call his own, were the same indulgence given to the women as to the men. A shorter way of explaining the matter, would have been, to have said, that men are generally the framers and explain­ers of the law. Where women have shared in the legislations they have put their own sex on a more equal footing with ours.

Where civil society has made little or no progress, the distinguishing characteristic of power is to tyran­nize over weakness, wherever it is found, or how­ever it is circumstanced; nature having given to men stronger bodies, and, in some respects, per­haps, stronger minds than to women, till taught by culture, and softened by politeness, they have always made use of that strength to enslave them. Of the truth of this, the whole history of every sa­vage period and people is a proof; but we shall de­scend to some particular instances; and the first is, the almost unlimited power vested in the Jewish hus­bands, of divorcing their wives at pleasure, without [Page 224] assigning any tolerable reason for so doing. Ano­ther proof, was the trial of jealousy, which we have already mentioned; a ceremony, the most arbitrary and extraordinary that we are presented with in the annals of history. When to these we add their power of annulling the most solemn vows of their wives, and of turning them into menial servants, there remains not the least shadow of a doubt, that their conduct was unequitable and tyrannical.—But we should be happy to have it in our power to say, that they were the only people who behaved to their wives in this manner; which, however, was far from being the case; wives are confined by all the tyrants of the East, enslaved by all the savages of America and elsewhere; and the reader need only turn back to the chapter on the rank and condition of women, to have the most ample conviction of these, and many other illegal practices, to which they were obliged to submit.

But besides the illegal advantages, which power is ever apt to assume, when opposed to weakness; as men were almost every where the lawgivers, most of the legal advantages of matrimony were also on their side. Whoever among the Jews had married a wife, could, not, on any account, be forced to leave her for the space of one year. Almost every where, to command and to rule, are powers placed in the hands of the husband. Among the Romans, even in their most polished state, in certain cases, the hus­band might proceed so far as to punish his wife by death. Amongst almost every savage people, whip­ping, and even death itself, are frequently inflicted by an enraged husband. In a council of the Chris­tian prelates and clergy, held in the year 400, it was decreed, that if any clergyman's wife had sinned, [Page 225] her husband should keep her bound, and fasting in his house; only he should not take away her life.

The Brazilians take as many wives as they think proper, dismiss them when they find it convenient, and punish their incontinence with death. In Eu­rope, the power of a husband is considerably exten­ded by the laws of the gospel, and of the constitution, both over the person and property of his wife; but this power is generally executed with so much lenity and indulgence that a stranger, on seeing a spouse and his loving rib together, would be apt to imagine it was placed on her side. This is owing, in some measure, to politeness, as well as to fortune; for such is the power of fortune and property over the conduct of the human species to each other, that they constantly command at least the external appear­ance of deference to the possessor: wherever, there­fore, portions become fashionable, they obliterate the slavery of a wife to her husband, put a stop to poly­gamy, and discountenance concubinage; for what woman will volantarily purchase a tyrant, or give the whole of her fortune for the share only of a hus­band; which share she must maintain against an un­limited number of rivals. While an European wife, therefore, bringing an acquisition of wealth along with her, is treated by her husband as his equal, and frequently honoured with superior notice, the wife o [...] an Eastern, being purchased, is considered as his s [...]ve; is never allowed to eat with, or in the presence of her husband; seldom to sit down in his company, and always obliged to him as to a master and superior: and not even content with her paying him all these testimonies of respect in his presence, she is obliged to submit to a variety of mortifications in his absence.

[Page 226] ‘If a man, says the Shaster,^* goes on a journey, his wife shall not divert herself, nor play, nor shall she see any public show, nor shall laugh, nor shall dress herself in jewels and fine clothes, nor shall she see dancing, nor hear music, nor shall sit in the window, nor shall ride out, nor shall behold any thing choice and rare; but shall fasten well the house-door, and remain private, and shall not blacken her eyes with eye-powder, and shall not view her face in a mirror; she shall never exercise herself in any agreeable employment during the ab­sence of her husband.’

For all these mortifications, one would naturally expect some kind treatment and indulgence from the husband, when he returns home: but the contrary is the case; for we are also informed by the Shaster, that if she scolds him, he may turn her away; that he may do the same, if she quarrels with any body else, spoils his or her own property, or even if she presumes to eat before he has finished his meal; and that he may cease from any further conjugal duty, if she is barren, or always brings forth daughters.

Although the men have constantly assumed the power of making human, and explaining divine, laws, yet they have not left such women as entered into the state of matrimony entirely without privileges. Among the Jews, when a man married an additional wife, the food, raiment, and duty of a husband, he was in noways to diminish to those he had before.—Mahomet, when he permitted every man to have four wives, easily foreseeing that some of them would be neglected, while others were greater favourites, positively instituted, that every thing, as provisions, [Page 227] dress▪ and the duty of a husband, should be equally divided among them. In the Maldivian isles, a man is allowed to marry three wives, and is obliged to observe the same law. This law appears to have been among the Jews, in order to prevent the in­crease of polygamy, which was every day becoming more common; and it seems to have been well cal­culated for that purpose, especially in the last clause, as it will readily be agreed, that no husband was able to render the same duty of marriage to a plura­lity of wives, that he had done to one. Among this people, also, a bond servant-maid was liable at any time to be sold; but by being betrothed to the son of her master, he could not afterwards sell her, though he might turn her away, without performing the promised marriage.

At what period, or by whom, the laws of the Egyptians were first promulgated, is uncertain; but if what has been asserted by some ancient authors be true, that the men, in their marriage-contracts, pro­mised obedience to their wives, we may suppose that the women had no inconsiderable share in their legis­lation, otherwise they could hardly have obtained so singular a privilege. But, singular as this privi­lege may appear, it is yet exceeded by the power of wives in the Marian islands: there, a wife is abso­lutely mistress of every thing in the house, not the smallest article of which can the husband dispose of without her permission; and if he proves ill-humour­ed, obstinate, or irregular in his conduct, the wife either corrects him, or leaves him altogether, car­rying all her moveables, property, and children along with her. Should a husband surprise his wife in adultery, he may kill her gallant, but by no means must use her ill. But should a wife detect her husband in infidelity, she may inflict upon him [Page 228] what punishment she pleases; to execute which, she never fails to assemble all the women in the neighbourhood, who, with their husband's caps on their heads, and armed with lances, march to the house of the culprit, tear up all his plants, de­stroy his grain, and having ruined every thing with­out doors, fall like furies upon his house, and de­stroy it, together with the owner, if he is not alrea­dy fled. But besides this punishment inflicted on his incontinence, if the wife does not like her husband, she complains that she cannot live with him, and ga­thers together her relations, who, glad of the op­portunity, plunder his house, and appropriate to the wife and to themselves the spoil. Such privileges, however, we cannot suppose to be legal, as the inhabitants of the Marian islands are too rude to have many laws, and too little under the subjection of their governors, to observe those they have.

Such of the officers of the Grand Signior as are married to his daughters or sisters, are honoured in public, but in private debased by the alliance; for they are not allowed to come into the presence of their wives, nor to sit down by them, without their permission, and almost in every particular are obliged to act in a character little less subordinate than the meanest of their slaves. Among the Natches, the daughters of noble families are by law obliged to marry only into obscure families, that they may exert a governing and directing power over their hus­bands; which they do so effectually, that they turn them away when they please, and replace them by others of the same station. Such is their punishment for the slighter offences against the majesty of their wives; but when any of them are unfaithful to the marriage-bed, those wives have a power of life or death over them. Wives who are of the blood of [Page 229] their great sun, or chief, may have as many gallants as they please, nor must their dastardly husbands so much as seem to see it. But this is not all: such husbands must, while in the presence of their wives, stand in the most respectful posture, accost them in the same submissive tone as their domestics, and are not allowed to eat with them, nor derive any privi­lege from so exalted an alliance, but exemption from labour, which is more than counterbalanced by every species of debasement and mortification. The Moxes, a people also of North-America, are said to be obliged by law to yield a most obsequious obedience to their wives, and to shift their habita­tions, and follow them, when, and to what place they shall direct.

Among the ancient Germans, and other north­ern nations, we have seen that women were in general honoured and esteemed, but we have no account of their wives being distinguished by any particular privilege. Among a few of their tribes, however, who allowed of polygamy, one of the wives always claimed and exercised a superiority over the rest; but her prerogative was dearly pur­chased, if she survived her husband, for she was obli­ged to burn herself on his funeral pile. In Turkey, where the most unlimited polygamy and concubinage are allowed, the privilege of the lawful wives is, that they can claim the husbands every Friday night; but every other night he may, if he pleases, dedi­cate to his concubines. Even among the Hindoos, where women have little regard paid to them but as the instruments of animal pleasure, the property of a wife is secured from her husband; and we are told by their laws, that he may not take it without her consent, unless on account of sickness, or to satisfy the demands of a creditor, who has confined [Page 230] him without victuals; and that if, on any other account, he should seize on it, he shall be obliged to repay it with interest.

As fidelity to the marriage-bed, especially on the part of the woman, has always been considered as one of the most essential duties of matrimony, all wise legislators, in order to secure that fidelity, have annexed some punishment to the breach of it; these punishments, however, have generally some refe­rence to the manner in which wives were acquired, and to the value stamped upon women by civilization and politeness of manners. It is ordained by the Mosaic code, that both the man and the woman taken in adultery shall be stoned to death; whence it would seem, that no more latitude was given to the male than to the female. But this was not the case; such an unlimited power of concubinage was given to the men, that we may suppose him highly licentious indeed, who could not be satisfied there­with, without committing adultery. The Egyptians, among whom women were greatly esteemed, had a singular method of punishing adulterers of both sexes; they cut off the privy parts of the man, that he might never be able to debauch another woman; and the nose of the woman, that she might never be the object of temptation to another man.

Punishments nearly of the same nature, and per­haps nearly about the same ti [...], were instituted in the East Indies against adulterers; but while those of the Egyptians originated from a love of virtue and of their women, those of the Hindoos probably arose from jealousy and revenge. It is ordained by the Shaster, that if a man commit adultery with a woman of a superior cast, he shall be put to death; if by force he commit adultery with a woman of an [Page 231] equal or inferior cast, the magistrate shall confiscate all his possessions, cut off his genitals, and cause him to be carried round the city, mounted on an ass. If by fraud he commit adultery with a woman of an equal or inferior cast, the magistrate shall take his possessions, brand him in the forehead, and banish him the kingdom. Such are the laws of the Shaster, so far as they regard all the superior casts, except the Bramins; but if any of the most inferior casts commit adultery with a woman of the casts greatly superior, he is not only to be dismembered, but tied to a hot iron plate, and burnt to death; whereas the highest casts may commit adultery with the very lowest, for the most trifling fine; and a Bramin, or priest, can only suffer by having the hair of his head cut off; and, like the clergy of Europe, while under the dominion of the Pope, he cannot be put to death for any crime whatever. But the laws, of which he is always the interpreter, are not so favourable to his wife; they inflict a severe disgrace upon her, if she commit adultery with any of the higher cast; but if with the lowest, the magis­trate shall cut off her hair, anoint her body with Ghee, and cause her to be carried through the whole city, naked, and riding upon an ass; and shall cast her out on the north side of the city, or cause her to be eaten by dogs. If a woman of any of the other casts goes to a man, and entices him to have crimi­nal correspondence with her, the magistrate shall cut off her ears, lips and nose, mount her upon an ass, and drown her, or throw her to the dogs. To the commission of adultery with a dancing-girl, or pros­titute, no punishment nor fine is annexed.

It is worth remarking here, that the word adul­tery, which among all other nations is understood to mean an illicit correspondence between married [Page 232] people, among the Hindoos is extended to every species of illicit commerce between the sexes; nor is it less remarkable, that among this people, the passions are so warm and ungovernable, that every opportunity of committing this crime, is considered as an actual commission of it: thus they have three distinct species of adultery; the first is, when in a place where there are no other men, a person holds any conversation with a woman, and winks, and gallantries and smiles pass on both sides; or the man and woman hold conversation together in the morn­ing, or in the evening, or at night, or the man dal­lies with the woman's clothes; or when they are together in the garden, or an unfrequented place, or bathe together in the same pool. The second is, when a man sends sandal wood, or a string of beads, or victuals and drink, or clothes, or gold, or jew­els, to a woman. The third is, when a man and woman sleep and dally upon the same carpet, or in some retired place, kiss and embrace, and play with each other's hair; or when the man carries the wo­man into a retired place, and the woman says no­thing. Such are the definitions of adultery in the laws of the Hindoos; but in the punishments annex­ed to them, it appears that their legislature was not directed so much by the moral turpitude of the crime, as by the dignity of the several casts, and by that revenge which so naturally results from jealousy, in a climate where animal love is the predominant passion.

By the laws of Moses, when a man caught a betrothed virgin in the field, and lay with her, he only was put to death, as the law in that case sup­posed, she had cried and there was none to help her; but in the city, if any one lay with a betrothed virgin, they were both stoned; for then the law [Page 233] supposed, that if she had cried, she would have found assistance to save her from the ravisher: and so great was the abhorrence of adultery in the first ages, that most of the ancient legislators prohibited it by the severest penalties; and there are still extant some Greek copies of the Decalogue, where this prohi­bition is placed before that against murder, supposing it to be the greater crime.

In the heroic ages, while revenge was almost the only principle that actuated the Greeks, adultery was frequently punished by murder. In the Italian states, in Spain and Portugal, though they have proper laws for the punishment of this crime, re­venge considers them as too mild, and cruelly watches an opportunity of stabbing the offender. In no case has the principle of revenge operated more strongly on the human mind than punishment of this crime. When the Levite's wife was defiled, it instigated the Israelites to take arms, and almost destroy the whole tribe of Benjamin, because they refused to give up the adulterers. Thyestes having debauched the wife of his brother Atreus, Atreus invited him to a feast, and in revenge entertained him with the flesh of his own son. Margaret of Burgundy, Queen to Lewis Hutin, king of France, was hanged for adultery; but not contented with the death of her gallants, they were ordered to be flead alive.

So greatly does a man reckon himself dishonoured and affronted by the infidelity of his wife, and so strong is the principle of revenge, that the punish­ment of female adulterers will frequently not wait for the cool and dilatory sentence of the law, which does not keep pace with the vengeance which the husband reckons due to the crime. In some places, the execution of this law is left to the husband. The [Page 234] Novels of Justinian gave a husband a right to kill any person whom he suspected of abusing his bed, after he had given him three times warning in writ­ing before witnesses, not to converse with her.—Among the ancient Swedes and Danes, if a husband caught his wife in the act of adultery, he might kill her, and castrate her gallant. And among some of the tribes of Tartars, it was not uncommon for a husband to destroy his wife even upon suspicion.—Some of the eastern chiefs, on suspicion of the infi­delity of their wives and concubines, order them to be buried up to the chin, and left to expire in the utmost agony. The Grand Signior, if he suspects any of his women, orders her to be sewed in a sack, and thrown into the next river. Among the anci­ent Germans, the husband had a power of instantly inflicting punishment on his adulterous wife; he cut off her hair in the presence of her relations, drove her naked out of his house, and whipped her out of the city. In the kingdom of Benin, the husband exercises a similar power. Somewhat less severe is the punishment of an adulteress in several other countries, where the sense of honour is less acute, and the injuries done to it less stimulating. The Chinese, a phlegmatic kind of people, sell an adul­teress for a slave. Their neighbours of Laos do the same. And in old times, even the king of Wales thought that a full reparation was made for the dis­honour of defiling his bed, by obliging the offender to pay a rod of pure gold, of the thickness of the finger of a ploughman, who had ploughed nine years, and which would reach from the ground to the king's mouth when sitting.

In what has been now observed, we see the gra­dation of the ideas concerning adultery. Among some people it is thought a crime not to be expiated [Page 235] but with death; among others whipping is thought a sufficient punishment; some again think a fine fully compensates for it; while in some savage countries, it is not considered as having the smallest degree of criminality. In Louisiana, Pegu, Siam, Cambodia, and Cochin-china, it is even looked upon as an honour; they present to strangers their wives and daughters, and think it a disgrace to their beauty and merit if they are refused.

Where the punishment of adultery is vested in the laws of the country, it is commonly less severe, than where vested in the hands of the party offended; and even when in the hands of the offended, it is commonly more or less severe according to the ideas entertained of women, and to the power assumed over them; where it is vested in the hands of the women, though it may not be more severe than when in those of their husbands, yet as their passions and jealousies are stronger, they are apt to inflict it where the certainty of the guilt is not so well ascer­tained.

Of all the modes which have been adopted for the punishment of adultery, with the greatest efficacy, and at the same time with the least seeming severity, we give the preference to these which follow; Ed­gar, kind of England enacted, that an adulterer of either sex should, for the space of seven years, live three days every week upon bread and water; Ca­nute, in the beginning of his reign, finding that the punishment then in use of cutting off the nose and the ears, did not answer the purpose; decreed, that such as broke their conjugal vow should be condem­ned to perpetual celibacy. A similar idea for the punishment of the same crime, has suggested itself to the Muskohge Americans, a people noway famous [Page 236] for ingenuity in legislation; they oblige the adultress to observe the strictest continence during four full moons from the time that her crime was discovered. Perhaps this idea of a mild and efficacious punishment was more perfectly conceived by the Greeks, than any of the foregoing instances; in some of their states, a woman offending in this manner, was never after allowed to adorn herself with fine clothes, and if she did, any one might tear them off, and beat her, so as not to destroy or disable her; adultresses were subject to the same treatment if they were found in the temples of the gods, [...]nd their husbands were forbid ever to cohabit with them under the pain of being declared infamous.

We might easily insert here, a variety of other methods of punishing adulterers, but as these few convey a tolerable idea of the sentiments entertained of this crime in different periods, and by different people, we shall proceed to observe, that the canon law, following rather the footsteps of Moses than of Jesus, always condemned adulterers to death: one of the canons has these remarkable words: ‘Let adulterers be stoned, that they may cease to increase, who will not cease to be defiled.’ And Pope Six­tus Quintus, not content with the death of adulter­ers themselves, ordained, that such husbands as knew their wives to be unfaithful, and did not com­plain to him, should be put to death also. Amidst all this seeming regard for conjugal fidelity and sanc­tity of manners, we are sorry to observe, that the clergy of the middle ages, while they enacted canons against, and punished adultery with excommunica­tion, were themselves a kind of licensed adulterers: debarred from marriage, regardless of character, and exempted from the punishments inflicted on the laity, their debaucheries were often carried to such [Page 237] lengths as we could scarcely credit, were we not assured of them by the most authentic records.

Before we leave the subject of adultery, we shall just observe, that, among some nations, there were methods devised for such women as were accused of that cr [...]me to clear themselves; among these the waters of jealousy is the first we meet with. In Sicily, Japan, and on the coast of Malabar, the accused is obliged to swear that she is innocent; the oath is taken in writing, and laid on water, and if it does not sink, the woman is held to be innocent. These and such like are the ridiculous exculpatory proofs required in countries overspread with igno­rance and superstition; in these that are more en­lightened, those who are accused of this crime can only invalidate the evidence brought against them by the testimony of witnesses.

In the primitive ages, before laws of matrimony were properly understood and digested, and before the rights of women were settled upon any other basis than the pleasure of their parents and husbands, the felicity of divorcing or putting away a wife, was almost equal to that of obtaining her. The ancient Israelites had a power of divorcing their wives at pleasure. ‘When a man,’ says Moses, ‘hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found in her some uncleanness, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it into her hand, and send her out of his house.’ This vague expres­sion of uncleanness gave occasion among the Jews to the most frequent divorces, even upon every trifling occasion, insomuch that one of their rabbies tells us, it was lawful, and sometimes practised by a husband, if a wife spoiled his dinner in cooking; and by ano­ther, [Page 238] that a husband might give his wife a bill of di­vorce, if he met with a woman who pleased him bet­ter, or looked handsomer in his eyes. A privilege which gave this fickle people such an unlimited right of getting rid of their wives when disagreeable, was highly valued, and reckoned one of their distin­guishing prerogatives: but he who deflowered a vir­gin forfeited it, and the law obliged him, in com­pensation for that injury, not only to pay her father fifty shekels of silver, but to marry and retain her for life. Was it possible to devise a law that more strongly protected female chastity?

But this facility of obtaining or rather of giving, a divorce, was not peculiar to the Jews; it seems to be the result of the nature of the matrimonial engage­ment; for when a man must purchase his wife as he does a slave, it naturally follows, that he may turn her off when he finds that she does not answer the purpose for which he intended her; a rule, which will be found to obtain pretty universally among all nations. The negroes purchase their wives, and turn them away when they think proper; in China and Monomatapa, they observe the same custom; all the savages of South America, who live near the Oroonoko, purchase as many wives as they can maintain, and divorce them at pleasure; and even in the isthmus of Darien, and on the banks of Hud­son's river, they purchase a plurality of wives, and dispose of them according to the dictates of conveni­ency and inclination.

In such places, the bargain a man makes for his wife, is on his part absolute and unconditional; but in countries where the natural rights of women are established, where the bargain is between the man and his wife, is conditional, and the fortunes of [Page 239] both are joined in one common stock; the nature of this bargain implies, that neither of them are privi­leged to dismiss the other, without a just cause; in many parts of the world, this cause has been con­strued to be a mutual dislike of the parties, and a mutual consent of separation; in others, barrenness of the woman is thought a sufficient cause. In Eu­rope, no cause has been deemed valid, unless adulte­ry in the woman, and impotence in the man. Seve­ral of the primitive councils enjoined a husband, for the salvation of his soul, and on pain of spiritual cen­sure, to put away an adulterous wife, which was putting into the hands of the husband a power of divorce; but the council of Trent afterwards decreed, that the marriage-bond was indissoluble, and could not be broken on any account: notwithstanding this, the Pope, who frequently arrogated to himself a power of trampling on all the laws of heaven and earth, readily enough granted divorces, with or without cause, to such as were able to pay for them, either in money, or by adding to the power and ter­ritory of the church; while the poor plaintiff could not gain a hearing at the chair of him who styles himself, servant of servants.

English lawyers, ever fond of verbosity and end­less distinctions, have divided divorces into two dis­tinct kinds; the first, when the party is divorced from bed and board, but not allowed to marry another; the second, when he or she is divorced or loosened from the chains of matrimony, and al­lowed to marry again at pleasure: but neither of these kind of divorces can be obtained by any other means than a proof of adultery. Milton, and seve­ral other writers who have followed him, galled by the indissoluble chain which they thought themselves intitled to break, have endeavoured, by a variety of [Page 240] arguments, to shew, that equity, natural justice, and sound policy, all dictate, that the matrimonial compact ought to be dissolved from a variety of other causes besides adultery. The legislature has, however, hitherto taken no notice of these argu­ments; when philosophy and reason have still far­ther enlightened the human mind, they may perhaps undergo a scrutiny, and from that scrutiny, some new regulations may arise.

In rude and uncultivated states of society, we have seen that the power of divorce is placed in the husband; in civil society, it is vested in the laws: but in some states it appears to have been occupied by, and in others formerly vested in, the women. Jo­sephus tells us, that Salmone, sister to Herod the Great, was the first who took upon her to repudi­ate her husband, and that her example was soon fol­lowed by many others. Among the Cherokees, the women are said to marry as many husbands as they think proper, and to change and divorce them at pleasure; a custom, which, with little variation, we have already seen practised by the women of several other countries. In the Wallian laws it is decreed, that a wife may leave her husband, and demand her portion again, if he has as offensive breath: what is remarkably whimsical, the same laws ordain, that, on a divorce, the woman shall divide the substance into two equal parts, and the man shall have choice of the lots; but in particu­lar, the man shall have all the swine, and the woman all the poultry.

CHAPTER XXVIII. The same Subject continued.

THOUGH we have seen, in the course of our enquiry, that the ideas of the matrimonial compact, and of the duties and privileges of the par­ties entering into it, have been very different in dif­ferent periods, and among different people; yet, as any kind of regulation of the commerce between the sexes is better than a vague and undetermined com­merce, every well regulated state has solicitously endeavoured either to promote that kind of matri­mony already in use, or to rectify its errors, and model it in a new and better manner; and such is the prevalence of nature, that though the powers and privileges of a husband are so enormous, it is only in a few places that we have met with any backwardness in the women to trust themselves in their hands.

By the story of Jephtha's daughter, we are in­formed, that it was customary among the Jews, for a woman, who, on account of a vow or any other reason, was condemned to perpetual celibacy, to bewail her virginity; the reason assigned for which, by commentators, is, that the Jews having a pro­mise that the Messiah should be born of one of their women, every woman among them flattered herself, that she might arrive at that honour, from all pros­pect of which she was entirely cut off, if she died a virgin. But the Israelitish damsels were not the only wom [...]n of ancient or modern times, who reckoned [Page 242] perpetual virginity a misfortune. The ancient Per­sians were of opinion, that matrimony was so essen­tially necessary to man, that such of either sex as died single, must infallibly be unhappy in the next world. This opinion gave birth to the most singular custom we meet with in history; when any one died unmarried, a relation, or, in default of such, a per­son hired for the purpose, was solemnly married to the deceased, as soon as it could conveniently be done after death, as the only recompence now left for having neglected it in life.

The Turks of this present period at Constantino­ple, reckoning, perhaps, the first great command, "Increase and multiply," the most necessary of all others, entertain the same opinion of virginity, though they take no such ridiculous methods of en­deavouring to obviate the effects of it on their future happiness. ‘Every woman, say they, was made to have as many children as she can, she therefore, who dies unmarried, dies in a state of reprobation.’ Virginity was likewise reckoned a disgrace by the Greek women; Sophocles makes Electra bewail bitterly her hard fate in not being married; and Polycrates, tyrant of Samos, being angry with his daughter for dissuading him from going to meet Orates, governor of Sardis, threatens her, that should he return in safety, he would defer giving her in marriage for a long time. But this female dislike to living single, has not been peculiar to any period or people, it has universally prevailed among the sex. In many nations, laws have been promulgated to prompt the men to enter into matrimony, to prompt the women none have ever been needed.— ‘Young women, says the celebrated Montesquieu, who are conducted by marriage alone to liberty and pleasure, who have a mind which dares not think, a [Page 243] heart which dares not feel, eyes which dare not see, ears which dare not hear; who appear only to shew themselves silly; condemned without intermission to trifles and precepts; have sufficient inducements to lead them on to marriage: it is the young men that want to be encouraged.’

A variety of encouragements have accordingly been offered by the wisest legislators to tempt young men into matrimony; but not content with these, disagreeable circumstances, and even punishments, have been also annexed to the state of a batchelor. The Lacedemonians were not only severe against those who abstained from, but also always against those who deferred, entering into the conjugal state: no man among them could live single beyond the time appointed by the laws of his country, without incurring several penalties, the first of which was, old batchelors we [...]e obliged once every winter to run naked round the market place, singing a song which pointed out their crime, and exposed them to ridicule. They were excluded from the games where the Spartan virgins, according to the custom of their country, danced naked. And, on a certain solemnity, the women, in revenge for the contempt which was shewn them, were allowed to drag these despisers of matrimony round an altar, beating them all the time with their fists; and lastly, they were deprived of all that honour and respect which the young men of Greece were obliged to pay to their seniors. One of their old captains coming into an assembly, when he expected that a young man by whom he stood wo [...]ld have risen to give him his seat, received this rebuke from him: ‘Sir, you must not expect that honour from me, being young, which cannot be returned to me by a child of yours when I am old.’

[Page 244]The Jews were of opinion, that marriage was an indispensible duty implied in the words "Increase and multiply;" a man, therefore, who did not marry at or before the age of twenty, was consider­ed as accessary to every irregularity which the young women for want of husbands might be tempted to commit; and hence there is a proverb in the Talmud: ‘Who is he that prostitutes his daughter, but he who keeps her too long unmarried, or gives her to an old man.’ Among the ancient Persians, though there was no positive law for the encouragement of matrimony, yet their kings frequently proposed an­nual prizes as a reward to those who were fathers of the greatest number of children.

While the Romans retained their primitive sim­plicity and integrity, no laws were requisite to en­courage their young men to matrimony; when they became debauched with the love of pleasure, and expensive in the pursuit of it; when their wives re­quired immense sums to uphold their extravagance, and their children scarcely less to give them a pro­per education, neither threatenings nor encourage­ments could sometimes prevail on them to enter into that state. In no country was there ever a legisla­ture more forward in attempting to encourage ma­trimony, in none were the subjects ever less forward in seconding these attempts.

As soon as luxury and expence had begun to frighten, and licentious pleasures to decoy the Ro­man citizens from marriage, to counterbalance these, it was thought necessary to deny such men as had not entered into that alliance the privilege of giving evidence in courts of justice; and the first question asked by the judge was, Upon your faith, have you a wife, whereby you may have children? If he [Page 245] answered in the negative, his evidence was refused. And so intent were the Roman consuls at one time upon multiplying their citizens, that they extorted from all the men an oath, that they would not marry with any other view than that of increasing the subjects of the republic, and that whoever had a barren wife should put her away and marry another. But the men, who had other opportunities of satis­fying their appetites than that of marriage, conti­nued still fond of celibacy, which obliged the censors, upon finding that population was decreasing, to extort another oath from them, that they would marry with all convenient speed.

As it commonly happens that oaths extorted by compulsion are but ill observed, unless the same com­pulsatory power also enforces obedience to them, those imposed upon the Romans had but little effect; to remedy which, new honours were heaped upon the married, and fines and punishments were laid upon the batchelors. It was ordained, That such of the plebeians as had wives, should have a more honourable place in the theatres than such as had none: that the married magistrates and patricians should have the precedency of such of the same rank as were unmarried; that the fines which had been first levied by Camillus and Posthumus upon batche­lors, should be again exacted.

When Caesar had subdued all his competitors, and most of the foreign nations which made war against him, he found that so many Romans had been destroyed in the quarrels in which he had often engaged them, that, to repair the loss, promised rewards to fathers of families, and forbade all Ro­mans who were above twenty, and under forty years of age▪ to go out of their native country▪ [Page 246] Augustus, his successor, to check the debauchery of the Roman youth, laid heavy taxes upon such as continued unmarried after a certain age, and encou­raged with great rewards the procreation of lawful children. Some years afterwards, the Roman knights having pressingly petitioned him that he would relax the severity of that law, he ordered their whole body to assemble before him, and the married and unmarried to arrange themselves in two separate parties, when, observing the unmarried to be the much greater company, he first addressed those who had complied with his law, telling them, That they alone had served the purposes of nature and society; that the human race was created male and female to prevent the extinction of the species; and that marriage was contrived as the most proper me­thod of renewing the children of that species. He added, that they alone deserved the name of men and fathers, and that he would prefer them to such offices as they might transmit to their posterity. Then turning to the batchelors, he told them, That he knew not by what name to call them; not by that of men, for they had done nothing that was manly; not by that of citizens, since the city might perish for them; nor by that of Romans, for they seemed determined to let the race and name become extinct; but by whatever name he called them, their crime, he said, equalled all other crimes put toge­ther, for they were guilty of murder, in not suffer­ing those to be born who should proceed from them; of impiety, in abolishing the names and honours of their fathers and ancestors; of sacrilege, in destroy­ing their species, and human nature, which owed its original to the gods, and was consecrated to them; that by leading a single life they overturned, as far as in them lay, the temples and altars of the gods; dissolved the government, by disobeying its laws; [Page 247] betrayed their country, by making it barren. Hav­ing ended his speech, he doubled the rewards and privileges of such as had children, and laid a heavy fine on all unmarried persons, by reviving the Po­paean law.

Though by this law all the males above a certain age were obliged to marry under a severe penality, Augustus allowed them the space of a full year to comply with its demands; but such was the back­wardness to matrimony, and perversity of the Ro­man knights, and others, that every possible method was taken to evade the penalty inflicted upon them, and some of them even married children in the cra­dle for that purpose; thus fulfilling the letter, they avoided the spirit of the law, and though actually married, had no restraint upon their licentiousness, nor any incumbrance by the expence of a family.

Such were the methods the Romans were obli­ged to make use of, in order to prevent matrimony from falling almost into disuse. In succeeding peri­ods, scarcely any thing compulsatory has been attempted. It has been generally thought sufficient to stain, with some degree of infamy and dishonour, all kinds of illicit connection between the sexes, to make the way to the enjoyment of lawful love as easy and accessible as possible, and to trust the rest to nature. In this last respect, the English legislature seems of late to have acted contrary to the common maxim, and thrown a variety of obstacles in the way of matrimony; but should decrease of people be the consequence, that body, it is presumable, are too wise to persist in a voluntary error.

As every regulation of the commerce between the sexes seems plainly to tend towards the salutary pur­pose [Page 248] of population and continuance of the species, so every wise legislature, not solely contented with en­couraging or even enforcing matrimony, has like­wise endeavoured to correct all those errors and abu­ses which frustrated the main intention of it, and to oblige the sexes to join themselves together in such a manner as might tend to the increase and multipli­cation of their species; thus the Jewish laws forbade eunuchs to marry. Lycurgus enjoined the coupling together of such men and women as were strong and healthful, and gave a liberty of prosecuting such men as did not marry at all, as deferred marrying till they were too old, or married improperly; and thus in Rome, it was ordained, That no woman under fifty might marry a man above sixty, and that no man above sixty should marry a woman who was not, like himself, far advanced in life; laws of this nature, though evidently tending to promote the great end and design of marriage, have in sub­sequent periods been but little attended to.

If what has been advanced by naturalists be true, that crossing the breed, either of animals or vegeta­bles, tends greatly to improve their strength and vigour; then it will follow, that such political rea­sons, as regard strength and population, have like­wise prompted all wise legislators to interdict the marriages of near kind [...]ed. Among the Jews, the degrees of consanguinity, within which it was unlaw­ful to marry, were accurately marked by the code of Moses. Among other ancient nations, the affair was subject to much variation. The Egyptians were allowed to marry their sisters. The Scythians were even said to have married their mothers, grandmo­thers, and sisters. The Medes and Persians marri­ed their sisters; and, among the Tartars, a man might marry his daughter, but a mother might not [Page 249] marry her son. Among the Hunns, the men mar­ried whoever they pleased, without the least regard to consanguinity; a son even married the widow of his father: something of the same nature seems to have been practised by the kings of Israel; for Absa­lom is said to have gone in unto the wives and con­cubines of David, his father, when he rebelled against him. In Peru, the Inca, or king, was always married to his sister; or, if he had no sisters, to his nearest female relation: and, in Otaheite, we are told, that their young king was designed as a husband to his sister, when he became marriageable. At Athens, a man might marry the sister of his father, but not the sister of his mother.

The natural advantages arising from crossing the breed of men, as well as other animals, in order to preserve the species from degenerating, must have been the result of experience and observation; it would therefore be long before they were attended to; and hence, though Moses, who was inspired by the Divinity, appears to have been acquainted with them, the other nations, whom we have mentioned, were not; and, consequently, long indulged them­selves in marrying, as inclination, or convenience, dictated. But another political reason may be given, why the marriage of near kindred was prohibited. Before mankind were thoroughly civilized, and brought under the government of laws, families were frequently at war with one another; either on account of property, which was then unsettled, or from their natural inclination to rapine and plunder; in this state every acquisition of strength to a family, was an addition of its security; instead, therefore, of marrying in his own family, or among his own kindred, who were already in his interest, a man would, from motives of policy, rather wish to take [Page 250] a wife from a neighbouring [...]amily, and by that means bring it into an alliance with his, a circum­stance which would tend greatly to the security of both; and hence the practice of marrying of kindred would fall into disuse.

But besides these, and other political reasons that might be given against near kindred and relations intermarrying with each other, there are also natu­ral reasons that strongly counteract such alliances. The marriage of a father with his daughter would, in most cases, be preposterous; as the husband would generally be past the age of propagation long before his wife. The marriage of a son to his mo­ther, besides being liable to the same objection of inequality of age, would likewise confound the na­ture of things; as the son ought to have an unlimi­ted respect for his mother, and the wife an unlimited respect for her husband. But though similar reasons do not militate against the marriage of brothers and sisters with each other, yet nature herself seems here to have interposed her authority; she seems not to have given to brothers and sisters, the same power of raising the passions and emotions of love in each other, as she has given to those who are less known, and nowise related. The emotions, which pass between a brother and a sister, are friendship; in the same circumstances, between a young man and woman, not related to each other, they would be love.

With respect to the prohibitions, concerning the marriage of relations to each other, it is a thing ex­tremely delicate to fix exactly the point at which the laws of nature stop. The greater part of civilized na­tions seem, in this respect, not to have differed widely from the directions of Moses. the Christian world had been entirely governed by the rules of [Page 251] that lawgiver, except in some periods, when a spi­rit of greater sanctity extended it still wider. In a council, held by pope Honorius, in the year 1126. marriages were proscribed between all relations, till after the seventh generation; and all who had mar­ried within that degree, were ordered to put their wives away: such were the laws the see of Rome imposed upon mankind; but as, in other cases, it reserved to itself a power of dispensing with them; and, like the English, who will not allow any body to abuse their kings but themselves, the popes would not suffer any but themselves to infringe the laws of the pentateuch or of the gospel.

But besides the restrictions laid upon marriage, by consanguity and politics, there are others affecting certain classes of mankind, which seem to have ari­sen solely from opinion or caprice. Such are those which custom has imposed almost every where, on people of the same religion, and of the same rank and condition of life, restricting them from marrying those of a different religion,^* or of an inferior con­dition; such are those that the laws of Brama have imposed on the Hindoos, whereby both the men and women, of every particular cast, are prohibited from marrying into any other cast; but what we have more particularly in view, is the restrictions which, in this particular, have been laid upon the clergy of a variety of nations. While the Israelitish laity were at liberty to marry whom they pleased, the priests were prohibited from marrying a woman that was a whore, or that had been put away from her hus­band: or, in short, any other but a virgin. The Egyptians, though they indulged their laity in poly­gamy, [Page 252] would not grant the same liberty to their priests. After the introduction of the Christian reli­gion, the clergy were in marriage restricted by almost the same laws as those of Moses; and if the wife of a clergyman, particularly of a bishop, died before him, hew as never allowed to take another. In process of time it became unlawful, according to the canons of the church, for a clergyman to marry upon any pretence whatever; a scheme which, as we shall see afterward, was the source of much wrangling among the priests, and of much mischief to society.

Though, by the Mosaic law, the whole body of the Israelites were strictly prohibited from intermar­rying with other nations; yet, in the twenty-first chapter of Deuteronomy, we find an allowance given them to make wives of the captives taken in war; and the preparation of these captives, to fit them for so near an alliance with their captors, was such as would not a little disgust a modern lover: the bride was to be brought to the house of her future hus­band, and there to shave her head; a circumstance of the most mortifying nature to a woman, as the loves and the graces wanton in waving ringlets; be­sides this, she was to put the raiment of captivity upon her, and to wear it a month, and comply with some other ceremonies; of the intention of which, we are, at this period, entirely ignorant.

We return now to take a further view of the ceremonies of marriage, and to trace the progress of that institution, from the ancient Greeks, where we left it, to the present times.

There were three different kinds of marriage among the Romans, distinguished from each other [Page 253] by the names of Conferration, Coemption, and Use; Conferration was the manner in which only the pon­tiffs and other priests were married, and was always celebrated by a priest; and we call the attention of our readers to this remarkable circumstance, that, in the marriages of the Roman pontiffs, we discover the first [...] of priests having celebrated the rites of that institution. The ceremony consisted in the young couple eating a cake together, made only of wheat, salt, and water; part of which, along with other sacrifices, were, in a solemn manner, offered to the gods of marriage.

The second kind of marriage, called Coemption, was celebrated by the parties solemnly pledging their faith to each other, by giving and receiving a piece of money; a ceremony which was the most common way of marrying among the Romans, and which continued in use even after they became Christians. When writings were introduced to testify that a man and woman had become husband and wife, and also, that the husband had settled a dower upon his bride, these writings were called Tabulae Dotales, dowry tables; and hence, perhaps, the words in our mar­riage ceremony, I thee endow.

The third kind of marriage, denominated Use, was when the accidental living together of a man and [...]oman had been productive of children, and they found it necessary, or convenient, on that, and other accounts, to continue together; when, if they agreed on the matter between themselves, it became a valid marriage, and the children were considered as legitimate. Something similar to this, is the present custom in Scotland; where, if a man and woman have lived together till they have children, if the man marry the woman, even upon his death-bed, all the [Page 254] antinuptial children become thereby legitimated, and inherit the honours and estates of their father. The case is the same in Holland; with this difference only, that all the children to be legitimated must appear with the father and mother in church, at the ceremony of their marriage.

When a marriage was celebrated, in any of the two first methods, in order to know the pleasure of the gods, the auspices were first of all consulted, and the days which they held unfortunate avoided.—When the contract was drawn up, it was sealed with the seals of the parents, and the portion sometimes deposited with the augur; the bridegroom sent to the bride a plain iron ring. On the wedding-day, while the bride's head was dressing, it was customary to divide her hair into six tresses, with the point of a spear, after the manner of the vestals; to teach her that she was to be a vestal to all but her husband. She was then crowned with a wreath of vervain, and other herbs, gathered by her own hands; over the wreath they sometimes threw a veil; and put on her feet a pair of shoes, of the same colour as the veil, and so high as to make her appear taller. In ancient Rome, when the couple were ready for the ceremony, they put a yoke upon their necks, called Conjugium; and hence our word conjugal, or yoked together, is derived: a ceremony which is more em­blematical of the matrimonial state, than any we have hitherto met with. That the bride might seem reluctantly to part with her virgin state, they feign­ed to force her from the arms of her mother; which was done by the light of five torches carried by five boys, previously washed and perfumed, in honour of the five divinities of marriage, Jupiter, Juno, Venus, Diana, and the goddess Persuasion. The bride was led by two young children to the house of [Page 255] her husband; a distaff was carried behind her, with a spindle, and a trunk or basket, in which was her toilette; she was sprinkled with lustral water, in order that she might enter holy into the house of her husband; when she arrived at the door, which was adorned with garlands of flowers and evergreens, fire and water were presented to her, and she was at the same time asked her name; to which she an­swered, Caia, to signify that she would be as good a wife as Caia Caecilia, who was famous for the domes­tic and conjugal virtues.

Before the bride entered the house, she put wool upon the door, and rubbed it with oil, or with the fat of some animal; she was then carried over the threshold, which the augurs reckoned exceedingly unlucky for her to touch, on her first entrance: im­mediately after, the keys of all things in the house were delivered to her, and she was set upon a sheep's skin with the wool on it, to teach her, that she was from that to provide clothes for her family. After the young couple were conducted to their chamber, immediately before the company took their leave of them, the bridegroom scattered nuts to the children, and the men sung verses, to obviate charms and incantations. Care was taken that there should be no light in the nuptial chamber, to spare the modesty of the bride, and prevent the bridegroom from dis­covering her blemishes: on the next day, the hus­band gave a public entertainment, when the bride, appearing on the same couch with him at table, lean­ed upon him with an air of familiarity, and in her discourse seemed to glory so much in having thrown off her virgin modesty, that it became a proverb in Rome, when a woman talked indecently, to say, she talks like a bride.

[Page 256]Such were the ceremonies by which a husband and wife were joined together, and such the addi­tional ceremonies that served to give solemnity to their junction. In the early periods of Rome, Ro­mulus ordered, that no woman should pretend to direct her husband, but that a husband might dis­card his wife, if she poisoned the children, counter­feited the keys, or committed adultery: after-periods gave him a power to inflict a suitable punishment upon her, if she acted perversely, dishonestly, or drank wine; and even to kill her, if he surprised her in infidelity to his bed. But all the privileges were not on the side of the husband; some of a very extra­ordinary nature belonged to the wives, or rather to the widows, of Romans. Children born ten months after the death of the husband were reckoned legiti­mate; and Hadrian, thinking this period too short, extended it to eleven.

Among the northern nations who were contempo­rary with the Romans, and who afterwards overtur­ned their empire, a surprising similarity of manners was every where observable. Wherever fighting was concerned, they were universally distinguished by a brutal ferocity almost inconceivable; while, in regard to the fair sex, they carried their politeness in many particulars to a degree hardly known even among the most civilized nations. From the remo­test antiquity, they confined themselves to one wife, to whom they were married in a manner more solemn than we commonly meet with among a people so rude and uncultivated. The father, or guardian, gave away his daughter in words to this effect: ‘I give thee my daughter in honourable wedlock, to have the half of thy bed, the keeping of the keys of thy house, one-third of the money thou art at present possessed of or shalt possess hereafter, and [Page 257] to enjoy the other rights appointed to wives by law.’ The husband then made his bride a present, by way of dowry: the relations of both parties were witnesses of what he gave; which were not things adapted to flatter the vanity, or adorn the person of the bride, but commonly consisted of some oxen, a bridled horse, or a shield, spear, or sword; in return for which, the bride, too, made her husband a present of some arms; and the mutual interchange of these presents they esteemed the most indissoluble tie, as they were given and received before witnesses the most nearly connected with them, and before the connubial gods.

As modes and customs are perpetually changing with the times and circumstances, this simple cere­mony among the descendants of these people became more complicated; the bridegroom sent all his friends and relations to the house of the bride's father, who attended also with her relations, conducted her from thence to that of her future husband, being led by a matron, and followed by a company of young maidens. On her arrival, she was received by the bridegroom, who proceeded along with her to the church, where a priest performed the nuptial bene­diction. When the bride was a virgin, this was commonly done beneath a large canopy, to save her blushes: when a widow, it was thought unneces­sary. Among the Franks, instead of the church, marriages were to be performed in a full court, where a buckler had been three times lifted up, and three causes at least openly tried: otherwise it was not valid. When it was done in the church, the priest afterward crowned the young couple with flowers: and in this manner they went home, and spent the afternoon in drinking and dancing; and at night, the whole of the company having seen the [Page 258] bridegroom and bride in bed together, drank to them, and retired.

It is a melancholy truth, that the improvement of society improves also the arts of fraud and of cun­ning, and renders a far greater number of laws and of ceremonies necessary, in order to bind mankind to [...] faith and duty, than are among the less culti­vated part of the species. This is one reason why the ceremonies of marriage were obliged to be made more solemn and binding; but besides this, there are others not less powerful. The laws of Moses, as well as those of almost all antiquity, had given to the men a liberty of polygamy, of concubinage, and had made divorces a matter of the greatest faci­lity: hence the yoke of matrimony to them not only felt light, but was easily shaken off. But the introduction of Christianity brought with it laws of a different nature; it destroyed all these privileges, and having joined only one man and one woman to­gether, required the same absolute and unconditional fidelity from both, and bound the yoke of matri­mony so hard upon them, that death only could break it. Hence the men not only violated their faith to their wives in secret, but, when opportu­nity offered, also denied their marriage; and hence religion was at first called in to overawe the consci­ence, and make the compact more solemn.

We have already mentioned, that the first cele­bration of marriage by priests was among the ancient Romans; and as the Christian religion was almost at its very origin introduced into Rome, from them the Christian priests, perhaps, borrowed the cus­tom of celebrating marriages also. But it was some ages before mankind began to consider those as the only legal marriages, which were solemnized by a [Page 259] priest, or before the priests themselves thought of appropriating this privilege entirely to their order. The Franks and [...] other Christians were married in their courts of justice, by their relations or ma­gistrates. Whether Christian priests first performed the ceremonies of marriage, with a view to give an additional solemnity to them, and, by so doing, to induce the parties more strictly to observe their ob­ligations, or with a view to add to the importance and revenues of the church, is at this period uncer­tain. But however that be, Soter, the fifteenth bishop who had filled St. Peter's Chair (for they had scarcely then assumed the name and authority of Popes,) finding that the appropriation of marriage solely to the clergy was likely to bring in no incon­siderable revenue, ordained, that no woman should be deemed a lawful wife, unless formally married by the priest, and given away by her parents.—Though this was a great innovation on the ancient customs, and perhaps encroachment on the right of civil power, we do not find that any resistance was made to it at Rome. In other parts of the Christian world, however, where the successor of St. Peter had less influence, parents and magistrates still con­tinued to exert the power of marrying; but this power seems, in process of time, to have been almost entirely wrested out of their hands, especially in R. Catholic countries, where the clergy were obli­ged to make marriage a sacrament, in order to keep the profane laity entirely from administering it; but at what time they fell upon this expedient is not cer­tainly known.

Among nations which had shaken off the autho­rity of the church of Rome, the priests still retained almost an exclusive power of joining men and women together in marriage. This appears rather, how­ever, [Page 260] to have been by the tacit consent of the civil power, than from any defect in its right and autho­rity; for in the time of Oliver Cromwell, marriages were solemnized frequently by the justices of the peace; and the clergy neither attempted to invalidate them, nor to make the children proceeding from them illegitimate; and when the province of New England was first settled, one of the earliest laws of the colo­ny was, that the power of marrying should belong to the magistrates. How different was the case with the first French settlers in Canada! For many years a priest had not been seen in that country, and a magistrate could not marry: the consequence was natural; men and women joined themselves together as husband and wife, trusting to the vows and pro­mises of each other. Father Charlevoix, a Jesuit, at last travelling into those wild regions, found many of the simple, innocent inhabitants living in that manner; with all of whom he found much fault, enjoined them to do penance, and afterwards mar­ried them. After the Restoration, the power of marrying again reverted to the clergy. The magis­trate, however, had not entirely resigned his right to that power; but it was by a late act of parlia­ment entirely surrendered to them, and a penalty annexed to the solemnization of it by any other per­son whatever.

Whence it originated is not easy to say, but a notion pretty generally prevails in this and several other countries, that the clergy, and they only, are vested with a power from heaven, of licensing men and women to come together for the purposes of pro­pagation;^* whereas nothing can be more evident, [Page 261] than that the two sexes being made for each other, have from nature, the right of coming together for this purpose, and of disposing of themselves to each other; so that a clergyman, in performing a marri­age ceremony, does not confer any right or privi­lege on the parties, which they had not before, but only in a public manner, and as appointed by the legislature of his country, witnesses and authenticates the public declaration they make of having entered into a matrimonial agreement according to the laws and customs of that country; to which bargain or agreement, this solemn and public authentication obliges the parties to stand, and becomes their secu­rity for the fidelity of each other: thus, whether the marriage ceremony be performed as it now is in most parts of the Christian world, by a clergyman, or, as it formerly was, and still is in many parts of the globe, by a civil magistrate; neither the act of the clergyman, nor of the magistrate, convey any right, but only enter on public record, the recog­nizance of such parties entering with mutual consent on the exercise of a right they have by nature; in the same manner, as when an heir at law succeeds to an estate, the ceremonies customary in the coun­try where he resides at entering him heir, do not convey to him any new right [...]o that estate, but only publicly declare and manifest to his country, that he has entered on the use of that estate by vir­tue of his inherent right as heir to it by nature.

[Page 262]There are many people, and particularly of our fair readers, who imagine, that if marriage were only considered as a civil ceremony, it would lose much of its validity; but a little reflection will disco­ver this to be an error. When two or more people make an agreement to do such and such offices, and to abstain from the doing of others, if they take an oath, on the Bible, on the Koran, or the Talmud, at the altar, or in the open field, the oath is not by any of these additional circumstances rendered more or less binding, unless to superstitious minds; its force and obligatory power is derived from another source: from our ideas of moral rectitude and fidelity, and its obligation upon us would be as strong, and a breach of it as immoral and dishonourable, if we made it in our closet, as if before witnesses, and in any of the methods we have mentioned. Every per­son whose mind is not warped by superstition, consi­ders himself to be as firmly bound by a civil as a reli­gious oath, and with an equal degree of conscienti­ousness performs what he swore to, at the bar, as at the altar; and were this not the case, we should either be obliged to call in the aid of religion to every kind of obligation, or to put an end to all mu­tual trust and confidence in every civil transaction. Marriage, therefore, stands exactly in the same light as all other transactions of a nature interesting to the public, it is not allowed that every one should enter into it according to his own whim and caprice, but according to all the forms and ceremonies pre­scribed by the laws of this country. In Japan, she is only a lawful wife who is given by their great re­gal pontiff. By the laws of Mahomet, she is only so, who is married by the judge; and in a great many parts of the world, she cannot be so unless given by her parents.

[Page 263]Marriage is a word which, in different countries, admits of a very different signification; among the greatest part of the ancients, it implied a sort of a ba [...]gain entered into by one man and several women, that they should serve and obey him, and be liable to be turned off at his pleasure; in the East it im­plies nearly the same thing at this day: in the Greek islands, and a variety of other places, it signifies a temporary agreement between a man and a woman to cohabit together so long as they can agree or find it convenient. On the coast of Guinea, and in almost all savage countries, it is a legal method of condemn­ing women to be the slaves of their husbands, who consider them only as made to earn their subsistence, and rear their children. In Europe, it is a mutual and almost indissoluble agreement between one man and one woman, to live and cohabit together for life, and abide by one another in every circumstance of prosperous or adverse fortune.

But Europe is not the only country where marria­ges are for life; they are so wherever men are po­lished by society, and the marriage rites and cere­monies in such places generally have a regard to the liberties and privileges of the woman as well as of the man. But in countries little civilized, and where the sex, from the cradle to the grave, are slaves to their parents, relations, or husbands, the marriage ceremonies are for the most part someway expressive of that abject condition. There are, however, many exceptions to these general rules, and the marriage ceremonies in many countries seem to have been contrived with no other view, than to make the marriage publicly known, by exhibiting some pom­pous rite in the presence of a great number of people, which indeed, besides the private engagements of [Page 264] the parties, is all that can reasonably be wanted in any marriage agreement whatever.

Over the greater [...] of Europe, and in countries peopled by European colonies, the marriage c [...]e­mony expresses the duty of the parties, as we [...] as their interests, and the regard they ought to have for the happiness of each other; and the general laws of the country, as well as the particular stipu­lations of the matrimonial bargain, take care of the freedom and immunities of the woman, and will nei­ther suffer her person nor property to be abused by the arbitrary will of a husband.^* But we have already seen, that among the Jews, and other anci­ent nations, the laws securing either the persons or property of married women were but few and weak, and that both were too much left at the mercy of their husbands. The same matrimonial powers are vested in the husbands of Asia and Africa at this day. The Moguls, who marry as many women as they please, have their wives of several different ranks, and may always advance any of them to one of the higher ranks, or degrade them to one of the lower at pleasure. In Russia, it was formerly a part of the marriage ceremony for the bride to present the bridegroom with a whip, made with her own hands, in token of subjection; among the sava­ges of Canada, a strap, a kettle, and a faggot, are put into the bride's apartment as symbols of her sub­mission and slavery; in the island of Java, the bride washes the bridegroom's feet; on the coast of Gui­nea, [Page 265] the bride solemnly vows love and constancy, whatever usage or returns she may meet with from her husband.

To these instances, we might add many others, where the marriage ceremonies are expressive of the condition of the wife; but we leave the ungrateful task, and proceed to take notice of those, where, on the part of the bridegroom, they express his acknow­ledgment of having attained something he esteems, values, and wishes to cherish and protect.

CHAPTER XXIX. The same Subject continued.

THE customs we have just now related, are only to be met with among savages, or such as are a few degrees removed from that state. Those we now proceed to, mark a people either considera­bly removed from ferocity of manners, or far advan­ced in a state of cultivation and politeness. Among the ancient Peruvians, the bridegroom carried a pair of shoes to the bride, and put them upon her feet with his own hands. At Laos, the marriage cere­mony is not only rational, but expressive of the value the bridegroom has for his bride; their mutual engagements are attested by two witnesses, selected from among those who have lived the longest and most lovingly together. In Siam, the bridegroom makes a present of betel to his bride, in the most respectful manner. In Lapland she is presented with brandy, rein-deer, and trinkets. In countries more civilized, a dower is settled upon her, and presents made her on her going home to the house of her hus­band. In England, she is treated with [...]very cir­cumstance of honour and respect, and the words of the marriage ceremony are carried to the most foolish and unmeaning length: ‘With my body I thee wor­ship, and with my worldly goods I thee endow.’ —Much more simple, and at the same time more sen­sible, were the marriage ceremonies of the ancient Mexicans, and inhabitants of Ceylon, who tied the garments of the bride and bridegroom together, thereby signifying that they had bound themselves to [Page 267] each other through all the prosperous and adverse circumstances of life.

But besides these ceremonies of marriage, which seem plainly to be expressive of the low or of the high condition of women, there are others which have no regard to either, and seem only calculated to give a public notoriety and firmness to the com­pact. Such is that said to have been anciently prac­tised in Canada, where the bride and bridegroom held a rod between them, while the old men pro­nounced certain prayers over them, after which they broke the rod into as many pieces as there were wit­nesses, and gave to each a piece, who carried it home, and deposited it as a testimony of the marriage that had happened. Such is the ceremony of tying the garments publicly together, and such are those of inviting friends and neighbours to feast, and to be witnesses of the matrimonial engagements. As the natural modesty of the sex always supposes that a woman shall with some reluctance relinquish her state of virginity, the marriage ceremony is fre­quently expressive of this reluctance. In some coun­tries, the bride hides herself; in others, she must seemingly be fought for; in others, the ceremony must be performed while she is covered with a veil, or under a canopy to save her blushes. But what seems more extraordinary, there are instances where the man is seemingly to be forced to accept of what almost in all countries he eagerly seeks after. In a province of Old Mexico, the bridegroom was carri­ed off by his relations, that it might be thought he was forced into the state of wedlock, a state so per­plexed with thorns and cares. In almost all coun­tries, the day of marriage is dedicated to mirth and to festivity, and every thing that can cloud the brow, or damp the general joy, is carefully avoided. In [Page 268] Muscovy, however, the case was different; as a part of the ceremony they crowned the young couple with wormwood, as an emblem of the bitterness of those anxieties and cares upon which they were entering.

If the laws we have formerly mentioned, forbid­ding the marriage of nea [...] relations with each other, originated from the political view of preserving the human race from degeneracy they are the only laws we meet with on that subject, and exert almost the only care we find taken of so important a matter. The Asiatic is careful to improve the breed of his elephants, the Ara [...]ian of his horses, and the Lap­lander of his rein-deer. The Englishman, eager to have swift horses, staunch dogs, and victorious cocks, grudges no care, and spares no expence, to have the males and females matched properly; but since the days of Solon, where is the legislator, or since the times of the ancient Greeks, where are the private persons, who take any care to improve, or even to keep from degeneracy the breed of their own species? The Englishman who solicitously attends the training of his colts and puppies, would be ashamed to be caught in the nursery; and while no motive could prevail upon him to breed horses or hounds from an improper or contaminated kind, he will calmly, or rather inconsiderately, match him­self with the most decrepid or diseased of the human species; thoughtless of the weaknesses and evils he is going to entail on posterity, and considering no­thing but the acquisition of fortune he is by her alli­ance to convey to an offspring, by diseases rendered unable to use it. The Muscovites were formerly the only people, besides the Greeks, who paid a proper attention to this subject. After the preliminaries of a marriage were settled between the parents of a [Page 269] young couple, the bride was stripped naked, and carefully examined by a jury of matrons, when, if they found any bodily defect, they endeavoured to cure it; but if it would admit of no remedy, the match was broke off, and she was considered not only as a very improper subject to breed from, but improper also for maintaining the affections of a husband, after he had discovered the imposition she had put upon him.

In England, the marriage ceremony is not to be performed but in the church, and between the hours of eight and twelve o'clock in the forenoon. In Scotland, this is deemed incompatible with morality and sound policy, as it hinders the valetudinarian from doing all the justice in his power to the mistress he has lived with and debauched; he may therefore marry her at any hour, or in any place, and by that marriage, legitimate all the children he has by her, whether they be present at the marriage or not.— Nearly the same thing takes place all over Germany, only in some parts of it, the children to be legitima­ted are required to be present, to be acknowledged by the father, and to hold the lappet of his gar­ment, during the performance of the marriage ceremony.

In Prussia, though their code of laws seems in general to be as reasonable, and as consistent with sound policy as any in Europe, yet we still find in it, an allowance given for a species of that concubinage, which has long since been expelled from almost all the western world. A man may there marry what is called a left-handed wife, to whom he is married for life, and by the common ceremony;^* but with [Page 270] this express agreement, that neither she nor her chil­dren shall live in the house of her husband, nor shall take his name, nor bear his arms, nor claim any dower or donation usually claimed by every other wife, nor dispose of any part of his property, exert any authority over his servants, nor succeed to his estates or his titles; but shall be contented with what was agreed on for their subsistence during his life, and with what he shall give them at his death. This privilege, however, is always in the power of the king to deny, and is seldom granted to any but such of the nobility as are left with large families, and from the smallness of their fortunes cannot afford to marry another legal wife, and rear up another family of the same rank with themselves.

Though the laws of almost every civilized coun­try have required the consent of parents to the mar­riage of their children, yet when such children marry without it, the evil is considered as incapable of any remedy. The Prussian law, however, thinks other­wise: and in this case gives the parents a power of applying to the consistory, which separates the par­ties, and obliges the man to give the woman a portion for the loss of her virginity, and contribute to the maintenance and education of the child or children of the marriage. Promises of marriage to a woman, have, in all well regulated states, been considered as sacred, and the breach of them punished by a va­riety of methods; but the Prussian laws proceed in another manner; they do not endeavour so much to punish the breach of the promise, as to enforce the performance of it, which they do by the admonitions of religion, by imprisonment, by a fine of half the man's fortune, or a certain part of what he earns by his daily labour; or if he runs away to evade the marriage, by marrying the woman to him by [Page 271] proxy, and allowing her a maintenance out of his effects.

Before we take leave of the subject of matrimony, it may not be improper to take a view of the opposi­tions that have been made to it; oppositions which have arisen chiefly on pretence of religion, but which, when thoroughly examined, will, we persuade our­selves, appear to have been founded on a very dif­ferent motive. The two sexes were evidently intend­ed for each other, and "increase and multiply" was the first great command given them by the Author of nature; but suppose no such command had been given, how it first entered into the mind of man, that the propagation or continuation of the species was criminal in the eye of heaven, is not easy to conceive. Ridiculous, however, as this notion may appear, it is one of those which early insinuated itself among mankind; and plainly demonstrated, that reasoning beings are the most apt to deviate from nature, and not only to disobey her plainest dictates, but, on pretence of pleasing her Author, to render themselves forever incapable of obeying them.

As the appetite towards the other sex is one of the strongest and most ungovernable in our nature; as it intrudes itself more than any other into our thoughts, and frequently diverts them from every other purpose or employment; it may, at first, on this account, have been reckoned criminal when it interfered with worship and devotion; and emascu­lation was made use of in order to get rid of it, which may, perhaps, have been the origin of eunuchs. But however this be, it is certain, that there were men of various religions, who made themselves inca­pable of procreation on a religious account, as we are told that the priests of Cybele constantly castra­ted [Page 272] themselves; and by our Saviour, that there are eunuchs who make themselves such for the kingdom of heaven's sake.

However absurd it may appear to reason and to philosophy, it is certainly a fact, that religionists of various kinds had early got an idea, that the propa­gation of their species was, if not criminal, at least derogatory to their sacred functions. Thus the priests of ancient Egypt were obliged, by the rules of their order, to abstain from women, though in after periods they allowed them one wife; the priests of the Mysians likewise bound themselves to celibacy; and the priests of the Romish church, in times more enlightened by reason, still follow the execrable ex­ample, as if Heaven were pleased with every means of preserving the individual, and displeased with the means of continuing the species.

But not only the priesthood, but several other religious orders of both sexes, began to spring up, who vainly imagined to conciliate the favour of the Author of nature, by discontinuing his works.—The Egyptians and ancient Indians had communities of Cenobites, who are supposed to have lived in celibacy. Strabo mentions a sect among the Thra­cians that vowed perpetual abstinence from women, and were on that account revered for their sanctity. The Essenes, among the Jews, laid themselves under the same obligation. The Romans had their vestal virgins, who kept perpetually alive the sacred fire in the temple of the goddess of chastity, and were buried alive if they proved incontinent. The Peruvians had their virgins of the Sun, who were brought up in the temple of that luminary, and obli­ged to the strictest virginity, under the same penalty as the vestals among the Romans. Friga, the god­dess [Page 273] of the ancient Scandinavians, had also a temple where her oracles and a sacred fire were kept, by prophetesses devoted to perpetual virginity. Some tribes of the ancient Indians reckoned virginity endowed with such a power, that their most appro­ved remedies were useless and unavailing, unless ad­ministered by the hand of a virgin.

Soon after the introduction of christianity, St. Mark is said to have founded a society called The­rapeutes, who dwelt by the lake Moeris in Egypt, and devoted themselves to solitude and religious offices. About the year 305 of the christian com­putation, St. Anthony being persecuted by Diocle­sian, retired into the desert near the lake Moeris; numbers of people soon following his example, joined themselves to the Therapeutes; St. Anthony being placed as their head, and improving upon their rules, first formed them into regular mona­steries, and enjoined them to live in mortification and chastity. About the same time, or soon after, St. Synclitica, resolving not to be behind St. An­thony in her zeal for chastity, is generally believed to have collected together a number of enthusiastic females, and to have founded the first nunnery for their reception. Some imagine the scheme of celi­bacy was concerted between St. Anthony and St. Synclitica, as St. Anthony, on his first retiring into solitude, is said to have put his sister into a nunnery, which must have been that of St. Synclitica; but however this be, from their institution, monks and nuns increased so fast, that in the city of Orixa, about seventeen years after the death of St. Antho­ny, there were twenty thousand virgins devoted to celibacy.

[Page 274]Such at this time was the rage of celibacy; a rage which, however unnatural, will cease to excite our wonder, when we consider, that it was accounted by both sexes the sure and only infallible road to heaven and eternal happiness; and as such, it beho­ved the church vigorously to maintain and counte­nance it, which she did by beginning about this time to deny the liberty of marriage to her sons. In the first council of Nice, held soon after the introduction of christianity, the celibacy of the clergy was strenu­ously argued for, and some think that even in an earlier period it had been the subject of debate; however this be, it was not agreed to in the council of Nice, though at the end of the fourth century it is said that Syricus, bishop of Rome, enacted the first decree against the marriage of monks; a decree which was not universally received: for several cen­turies after, we find that it was not uncommon for clergymen to have wives; even the popes were al­lowed this liberty, as it is said in some of the old sta­tutes of the church, That it was lawful for the pope to marry a virgin for the sake of having children. So exceedingly difficult is it to combat against nature, that little regard seems to have been paid to this de­cree of Syricus; for we are informed, that several centuries after, it was no uncommon thing for the clergy to have wives, and perhaps even a plurality of them; as we find it among the ordonnances of pope Sylvester, that every priest should be the hus­band of one wife only; and Pius the Second affirmed, that though many strong reasons might be adduced in support of the celibacy of the clergy, there were still stronger reasons against it.

In the year 400, it was decreed in a council, that such of the clergy as had faithful wives should not entertain concubines, but such as either had no wives, [Page 275] or were joined to unfaithful ones, might do as they pleased. In the year 441, it was decreed, that priests and deacons should either abstain from marri­age, or be degraded from their office. This law seems afterward to have been a little relaxed, for in the year 572 one of the canons of the council of Lu­cense says, when a deacon is elected, and declares that he has not the gift of chastity, he shall not be ordained; but if he says nothing, is ordained, and afterwards desires to marry, he shall be set aside from the ministry; and if a subdeacon take a wife, he may be a reader or door-keeper, but he shall not read the apostles. In the year 633, it was ordained, That priests should live chaste, having clean bodies and pure minds; and the same council, as if it had been to shew how ill their statutes were observed, ordained also, That such clergy as had married wi­dows, wives divorced from their husbands, or com­mon whores, should be separated from them. In the year 743, all the canons against marriage seem to have been totally disregarded, as we find, that even those who were bigamists, or had married wi­dows, might be promoted to sacred orders. In the year 1126, the notion of enforcing celibacy seems again to have prevailed; for in a synod held by pope Honorius, all the clergy are strictly forbid to have wives, and ordered to be degraded from their office if they disobeyed the mandate, a mandate which was renewed in the year following, with some addi­tional threatenings annexed to it; and so warm were the fathers of the church in their invectives against matrimony, that some of them rendered themselves ridiculous by their intemperate zeal. St. Jerom ex­pressly declares, that the end of matrimony is eter­nal death, that the earth is indeed filled by it, but heaven by virginity. Edward the Confessor was sainted only for the abstaining from the conjugal em­brace; [Page 276] and many of the primitive christians, fully persuaded that every species of the carnal appetite was inconsistent with pure religion, lived with a wife as they would have done with a sister. Jovinian was banished in the [...] century by the emperor Honorius, for maintai [...]ing, that a man who coha­bited with his wife mig [...] [...] saved, provided he ob­served the laws of piety and virtue laid down in the gospel.

The first canons against marriage were, it is said, only received in Italy and France, a proof that the inha­bitants of these countries were either less sensible, or less tenacious of the rights of mankind, than their neighbours: when, or by whom the celibacy of the clergy was first introduced into England is not per­fectly agreed upon, some supposing it was St. Dun­stan who, with the consent of king Edgar, first pro­posed to, and pressed the married clergy to put away their wives, which all those that refused to do were deposed, and monks put into their livings; these monks, whose invention was always very fruitful in stories to advance their own interest, gave out, that all the married clergy who disobeyed the order of the saint were, with their wives and children, transformed into eels; and, as many of them resi­ded in the Isle, now called Ely, it is said to have taken its name from that circumstance.

At a synod held at Winchester under the same St. Dunstan, the monks farther averred, that so highly criminal was it for a priest to marry, that even a wooden cross had audibly declared against the horrid practice. Others place the first attempt of this kind, to the account of Alefrick, archbishop of Canter­bury, about the beginning of the eleventh century: however this be, we have among the canons a de­cree [Page 277] of the archbishops of Canterbury, and York, ordaining, That all the ministers of God, especially priests, should observe chastity, and not take wives: and in the year 1076, there was a council assembled at Winchester, under Lanfranc, which decreed, That no canon should have a wife; that such priests as lived in castles and villages should not be obliged to put their wives away, but that such as had none should not be allowed to marry; and that bishops should not either ordain priests nor deacons, unless they previously declared that they were not married. In the year 1102, archbishop Anselm held a council at Westmi [...]ster, where it was decreed, That no archdeacon, priest, deacon, or canon, should either marry a wife, or retain her if he had one. Anselm, to give this decree greater weight, desired of the king, that the principal men of the kingdom might be present at the council, and that the decree might be enforced by the joint consent both of the clergy and laity; the king consented, and to these canons the whole realm gave a general sanction. The clergy of the province of York, however, remonstrated against them, and refused to put away their wives; the unmarried refused also to oblige themselves to continue in that state; nor were the clergy of Can­terbury much more tractable.

About two years afterward, Anselm called a new council at London, in the presence of the king and barons, where canons still severer than the former were enacted; those who had taken women since the former prohibition, were enjoined to dismiss them so entirely, as not to be knowingly with them in the same house; and any ecclesiastic accused of this transgression by two or more witnesses, was, if a priest, to purge himself by six witnesses; if a dea­con, by four; if a sub-deacon, by two; otherwise [Page 278] to be deemed guilty. Priests, archdeacons, or canons, refusing to part with their women, here styled ADULTEROUS CONCUBINES, were to be de­prived of their livings, put out of the choir, and declared infamous, and the bishop had authority to take away all their moveable goods, as well as those of their women. This law, highly unjust and severe, was still more so in France; for a council held at Lyons in the year 1042, a power was given to the barons to make slaves of all the children of the married clergy. As the English clergy were still very refractory in the year 1125, cardinal Cre­ma, the pope's legate, presiding in a council at Westminster with a view to enforce the papal au­thority, made a long and inveterate speech against the horrid sin of matrimony, in which he is said to have declared, that it was the highest degree of wickedness to rise from the side of a woman, and make the body of Christ; though it happened some­what unlucky for the poor cardinal, that he was himself that same evening caught by the constable in the very situation he had painted as so sinful, and the shame of it soon drove him out of England.

In the year 1129, the archbishop of Canterbury being legate, a council was called at London, to which all the clergy of England were summoned: here it was enacted, That all who had wives, should put them away before the next feast of St. Andrew, under pain of deprivation. The execution of this decree was left to the king; who took money of seve­ral priests, by way of commutation, and so the in­tention of the decree was frustrated. Many of the clergy now finding a heavy fine imposed on them, for keeping a lawful wife, and none for a concu­bine, chose the latter; by such means their lives became so openly scandalous, that about forty-six [Page 279] years after, in the reign of Henry the second, Rich­ard, archbishop of Canterbury, in a synod held at Westminster, prohibited all, who were in holy or­ders, from keeping concubines, as well as from marrying. The like prohibition was issued after­ward, by Herbert, archbishop of Canterbury, and then also chief justice of England, in a synod held at York. In the ninth year of Henry the Third, Ste­phen Langton revived these decrees; and added, That priests keeping concubines, should not be ad­mitted to the sacraments, nor their concubines allowed Christian burial. But in spite of all these efforts, many of the clergy still retained their wives, concubines, and benefices, till cardinal Otho, some time after made a positive decree, declaring, That the wives and children of such priests should have no benefit from the estates of their husbands and fathers; and that such estates should be vested in the church. This, as it cut off the widows and children of the clergy from all means of subsistence, and turned them beggars into the world, had a more powerful effect than all the censures and thunders of the church; and at last gave the fatal blow to a right which the clergy had struggled to maintain for many centuries; and from this time they seem quietly to have submitted to the yoke, till the Reformation restored to them again the rights of mankind, which had been violently taken from them.

In this manner did things continue till the reign of Henry the Eighth, when dispensations to keep concubines became common to such priests as were able to purchase them; but lest this should be a bad example, they were enjoined to keep them privately, and never to go publickly to them on account of scandal. Some years after, a temporal law was ad­ded to the spiritual, declaring it felony for a priest [Page 280] to marry; or if married, to have any commerce with his wife; or even so much as to converse with her; or for any person to preach or affirm, that it was lawful for a priest to marry. This law was re­pealed the following year, though the canons of the church were still in force, and continued so till the time of Edward the Sixth; when the authority of the see of Rome being thrown off, an act was made, by which the marriages of the clergy were declared lawful, and their children legitimate. Queen Mary, in the first year of her reign, repealed this act; and in this state things continued during the reign of queen Elizabeth; but in the first year of James the First, an act was again made, restoring to the clergy the rights of nature, and of citizens; and the act remains in force at this day.

In this contest we have seen a long and severe struggle, between one part of the clergy, contending for the authority of the church, and another part, contending for the rights of nature. But why this authority of the church, and the rights of nature, should be so opposite to each other, is a point invol­ved in much obscurity. It has been alleged, that the reason why the church enjoined celibacy, was, that the clergy having no legitimate offspring, might turn their whole attention to enrich and aggrandize that community only of which they were members. This, however, does not appear to be well sounded; for illegitimate children may engross the attention of parents, and engage them as strongly in providing for them, as legitimate ones; as has frequently ap­peared in the conduct of the sovereign pontiffs; and yet the church has at most but weakly exerted her­self in preventing the clergy from having children of this kind.

[Page 281]In the human breast there is not a passion so natu­ral, so prevalent, as that which attaches us to the fair sex. The Romish clergy are sons of nature; they are endowed with the same passions, and sus­ceptible of the same feelings as the rest of her chil­dren. How then they should voluntarily give up the gratification of these passions, the pleasure ari­sing from these feelings, seems, if it really were a fact, altogether unaccountable; but if we consider it only as a finesse, we may guess at the motives which induced them to it.

In all countries, and at all periods, the clergy, rather wiser and more cunning than the rest of man­kind, have arrogated and secured to themselves pri­vileges which were denied to all others. Thus the Romish clergy, no doubt, considered the enjoyment of the fair sex as a source of the most exquisite plea­sure; but then, in the way of matrimony, this enjoyment was attended with many inconvenien­ces and disadvantages, which they were willing to avoid: they therefore pretended, that persons so sacred as themselves, were forbid to enter into that state; but at the same time resolved to enjoy all the pleasures arising from the commerce with the other sex, without the expence of a family, or the chance of being tied to a disagreeable partner. To effect this it was necessary, first, to have access to every woman in private; secondly, to get into all the secrets of the sex; and, thirdly, to have places ap­propriated, where none but them and priests should ever be suffered to enter. In the celibacy of the clergy we may, therefore, perceive the origin o [...] auricular confession; a scheme well calculated to pro­mote their licentious purposes, as it obliged all the [Page 282] women, under pain of eternal damnation, to disco­ver every secret; and not contented with denouncing damnation on her who concealed any thing, it pro­mised absolution, in the most full and ample manner, of every thing discovered. Thus threatened with the greatest of all evils, on the one hand, and so easy a method of escaping it, even after every criminal indulgence, held out on the other, is there any won­der that women were frequently prevailed upon to discover even those secrets which the sex most cauti­ously of all others conceal. When women had con­fessed themselves guilty of one or more faults of this kind, it was natural to think, that, without great difficulty, they might be prevailed upon to repeat them; and thus the crafty sons of the church were led to discover where they might make their attacks with the greatest probability of success; and they knew also, that if gentle methods should fail, they could in a manner, force compliance, by threaten­ing to publish the former faults of their penitents.

Being by these schemes, secured of admittance to all the women, and possessed of all their secrets, which they, no doubt, communicated to each other, the next step was to secure themselves from interrup­tion, when in private with them. This was easily accomplished; they had only to denounce the ven­geance of heaven against the daring miscreant, whe­ther husband, father, or lover, who should sacrile­giously disturb a holy lecher, while confessing his penitent. Thus being possessed of all the secrets of the heart, and secured in their privacy with the wo­men, with nature and the passions on their side, and pardon and remission in their power; is it any won­der that the Romish clergy became so debauched, and so dangerous to the peace of society, that the French and German laity, jointly, petitioned the [Page 283] Council of Trent, that priests might be allowed to marry, and that their petition should have these re­markable words? ‘We are afraid to trust our wives and daughters at confession, with men who reckon no commerce with the sex criminal, but in wedlock.’

In the celibacy of the clergy, we may discover also the origin of nunneries; the intrigues they could procure, while at confession, were only short, occasional, and with women who they could not entirely appropriate to themselves; to remedy which, they probably fabricated the scheme of having reli­gious houses, where young women should be shut up from the world, and where no man but a priest, on pain of death, should enter. That in these dark retreats, secluded from censure, and from the know­ledge of the world, they might riot in licentiousness. They were sensible, that women, surrounded with the gay and the amiable, might frequently spurn at the offers of a cloistered priest, but that while confi­ned entirely to their own sex, they would take pleasure in a visit from one of the other, however slovenly and unpolished. In the world at large, should the crimes of the women be detected, the priests have no interests in mitigating their punish­ment; but here the whole community of them are interested in the secret of every intrigue, and should Lucina unluckily proclaim it, she can seldom do it without the walls of the convent, and if she does, the priests lay the crime on some luckless laic, that the holy culprit may come off with impunity.

Such has been the opposition made by the clergy to the marriage of their fraternity, and such perhaps have been the causes of it; nor will it appear to any one who is acquainted with the history of the mid­dle [Page 284] ages, that we censure too severely in so saying; besides, our censure is justified by the joint opinion of two mighty nations in their petition, a part of which we quoted above. The clergy never had any arguments of consequence to offer in support of so arbitrary a measure; that of Cardinal Crema, already mentioned seems to have been what they made most use of, and besides, they quoted the authority of St. Paul, who says, ‘He that marri­eth doth well, but he that marrieth not doth better.’ They trusted most to papal authority, and dogmati­cal assertion; but even in the ages of ignorance all these were too weak to stifle nature; and men easily saw through the thin disguise, which the flagitious­ness of their lives often threw aside without any cere­mony; and besides, they blundered in making mar­riage a sacrament, and denying the administration of it to that part of mankind who were accounted the most holy of all others.

As we have frequently mentioned the concubinage of the clergy, we think it justice to take notice here, that, however infamous it became afterwards, it was towards the beginning of the middle ages a legal union, something less solemn, but nothing less indis­solute than marriage; and that though a concubine did not enjoy the same consideration in the family as a wife of equal rank, she enjoyed a consequence and honour greatly superior to a mistress. By the Ro­man law, when the want of birth, or fortune, pro­hibited a woman from becoming the wife of a man of family, the civil law allowed him to take her as a concubine, and the children of such concubine, both at Rome and among the ancient Franks, were not less qualified, with the father's approbation, to inhe­rit, than the children of a wife. The Western church, for several centuries, held concubinage of [Page 285] this kind entirely lawful. The first council of Tole­do expressly says, That a man must have but one wife, or one concubine, at his option; and several councils held at Rome speak the same language: but so much were these indulgences abused, that they were at last obliged to abolish and declare them infamous in every well regulated state.

We shall now take our leave of the subject of matrimony, with a few observations on the causes of the frequent discords and uneasinesses which arise in that state. If the satirical writers and declaimers of the present age may be credited, married women have in general arrived at such a height of debauch­ery, that few marriages are tolerably happy, and fewer husbands without the invisible marks of a cuckold. We do not pretrend to justify all the wives of the present times; but on comparing them with the past, we find the same clamours have always existed against them; and without pretending to any spirit of prophecy, we may venture to affirm, that they will exist so long as marriages are contracted solely with a view to the interest of the parties, with­out considering whether they are possessed of any of the qualifications necessary to render each other hap­py; a scheme by which, tempers the most discord­ant are frequently joined together, though neither of them are so bad, but they might have made good husbands and wives, if they had been matched with propriety.

But this is far from being the only reason to which we attribute many of the unhappy marriages of this country; the basis of them is laid and esta­blished in the education of our young women, as well as in the manners and customs of our young men. Young women, instead of being taught to [Page 286] mix the agreeable with the useful, are early instruct­ed to cultivate only the former, and to consider the latter as fit for none but maiden aunts, and other antiquated monitors: but this is not all, flattered by the men from their earliest infancy, they are never accustomed to the voice of truth, nor to that plain-dealing which must unavoidably take place in the married state; constantly accustomed to see a lover accost them with the most submissive air, to find him yield every point, and conform himself entirely to their will, they consider themselves as oracles of wisdom, always in the right; taught to form their ideas of the husband only from those of the lover, and the ridiculous notions imbibed from romances; they enter into the married state fully convinced that every husband is through life to play the lover, and that every lover is the romantic being depicted in the novels which they have read,—ideal fancies and dreams, which must soon vanish in disappointment. Nor do the men act more wisely; blinded for the most part by love, they consider the object of their passion as all perfection and excellence; and when they come to be undeceived, as every lover soon must, remorse and chagrine sour their tempers, and make them incapable of forgiving the cheat they think imposed upon them, or behaving with that degree of gentleness with which the stronger sex should regard the foibles▪ and even some of the fol­lies, of the weaker.

Every one who has been attentive to what passes in other nations, and to what happens here, before and after marriage, must readily agree, that nothing can be more certain than the truth of the old saying, Too much familiarity breeds contempt. In order to inspire and preserve respect, it is necessary for kings and other great men to wear ensigns of grandeur, [Page 287] and to be attended with guards; for judges to be arrayed in the symbols of solemnity and wisdom, and for learned men never to be too free in opening the depth of their knowledge. The case is exactly the same with women, and they seem sensible of it be­fore marriage, but insensible of it afterward; before marriage, we are seldom permitted to see them but in their gay and splendid dress, and in their most cheerful and lively humour; we enter not into the penetralium of their weaknesses; we discover none of their faults, and but few of their foibles: but after marriage, they precipitately throw aside the mask, in such a manner as to discover that they wore it only for conveniency; and an intimacy with them opens to the husband, views which could not possi­bly fall within the inspection of the lover; and hence his ideas of the same woman when his mistress and his wife, are so widely different.

In endeavouring to explore the sources of conju­gal infelicity, we may likewise observe, that few men have so successfully studied the temper of wo­men, as to be able to manage it to the best advan­tage. It has long been an observation of the fair, that a reformed rake makes the best husband; and we have known instances where women, after hav­ing made but indifferent wives to men of probity and virtue, who seldom committed any faults, have after­ward made much better ones to rakish young fellows, whose whole lives consisted in sinning and repenting. The reason is plain; such is the constitution of female nature, that a little well-timed flattery and submission will seldom fail of putting them into good humour; whereas the most faultless and prudent conduct cannot always keep them in it. A woman, by the assistance of a few tender caresses, and pro­testations of future amendment, will frequently be [Page 288] prevailed on to forgive ten thousand faults, if she is persuaded that her husband loves her in the inter­vals of his folly; but she will never forgive indiffer­ence, nor contempt. Hence many of the most learned and sensible men are reckoned the worst hus­bands, because they have more friendship than love, and more of both than they express; and many of the most wild and rakish reckoned the best, because they have more love than friendship, and express more of them both than they feel.

These, and several others too tedious to mention in sketches of this nature, seem to be the sources from which matrimonial infelicity so often arises; but would the parties come together with less exalt­ed notions of each other; would they lay their ac­count with finding in each other a mixture of human weaknesses as well as perfections; and would they mutually forgive faults and weaknesses, matrimony would not be so fraught with evils, and so disturb­ed with strife. It is the ox that frets who galls his own neck and that of his fellow with the yoke, while the pair who draw quietly and equally, scarcely feel it inconvenient or troublesome.

CHAPTER XXX. Of Widowhood.

AS the state of matrimony is of all others the most honourable, and the most desired by wo­men, so that of widowhood is generally the most deplorable, and consequently the object of their greatest aversion.

Women, by nature weak, are not able to defend themselves against the insults and outrages of man; the same weakness incapacitates them for maintain­ing themselves either by the means of fishing and hunting, practised among the rude nations, or even by the pasturage and agriculture of those that are more polite: to launch out into trade and commerce would require, perhaps, more industry, and more steady efforts of mind, than are consistent with their volatile natures and finer feelings, and would, besides, expose them to many assaults, which even the severest virtue might not always be able to repel. On these, and a variety of other accounts, we find women commonly dependent on the men for the two im­portant articles, maintenance and protection: while young, they are under the protection of their parents or guardians, who are likewise to provide for them, or at least to superintend the management both of their fortunes and conduct: when they enter into matrimony, they put themselves under the protec­tion and guardianship of a husband; but when they become widows, no person is henceforth so much interested in their welfare, no person is legally [Page 290] bound to defend or to maintain them; and hence their dislike to that forlorn condition.

But there are other causes beside these, which strongly contribute to heighten this dislike. In the bloom of virginity, though a woman may not be very handsome, yet there is always in youth and the prime of life something in her that attracts the atten­tion and procures the good offices of the men, and consequently the chance of a husband is considera­ble. But when a woman has been married, and is become a widow, she is generally past the bloom of life, and has lost, by the bearing of children and care of a family, a great part of those charms which pro­cured her a husband; and on this, and several other accounts, is not so likely to succeed in getting ano­ther; and, as the sex have a strong proclivity to the joys of love, which matrimony only can procure them with reputation, we need not wonder at the readiness with which they enter into, and the reluct­ance they feel in quitting, that state.

Thus the condition of widowhood, in the politest countries, is attended with many disadvantages: in rude and barbarous ones, these disadvantages are still more numerous and more grievous. The sacred records, and indeed the history of all antiquity, give the strongest reasons to suspect, that widows were often the prey of the lawless tyrant, who spoiled them with impunity, because they had none to help them. In many places of the scripture, as well as of prophane authors, we frequently find the state of the widow and the fatherless depicted as of all others the most forlorn and miserable; and men of honour and probity, in recounting their own good actions, making a merit of their having forborne from des­poiling the widow and the fatherless. In the book [Page 291] of Exodus it is declared as a law, ‘That ye shall not afflict the widow, or the fatherless child: if thou afflict them in any ways, and they cry unto me, I will surely hear their cry; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the sword, and your wives shall be widows, and your children fatherless.’ In the eighth century, one of the canon laws enacted, That none shall presume to disturb widows, orphans, and weak people; all of which create a strong sus­picion, that widows were often oppressed; other­wise, why so many laws for their particular pro­tection? But to men who live in happier times, when laws extend an equal protection to all, and when humanity dictates finer feelings than those of triumphing over weak and helpless beings, such laws appear superfluous and unnatural; and the causes of promulgating them can only be cleared up, by considering the manners and customs of the times in which they were instituted.

One of the most ancient of all the customs of an­tiquity seems to have been that of revenging injuries, or, as the scripture calls it, avenging of blood. In the dawn of society, the privileges of maintaining their property, and revenging the wrongs either done to that or their persons, were the rights of nature, and belonged only to individuals; nor is it stretching the point to say, that this privilege, or law, was prior to Moses, and that he probably borrowed it from some of the neighbouring nations. By this law or custom, which seems to have been established among every people not thoroughly cultivated, when any person was killed, the nearest relation only was empowered to take vengeance on the murderer; which vengeance he was at liberty to execute with his own hand: but as this could seldom or never be done but at the risque of life, it often happened, that a [Page 292] widow or an orphan might be murdered with impu­nity, as there was no person so nearly related to either, as to venture his life in taking vengeance on the murderer; and as the public was not then so connected into a whole, as to discover that it suf­fered any damage from the loss of an individual. But besides this, as widows and orphans have not friends so nearly interested in their property, as women who have husbands, and children who have fathers; and as, among uncultivated people, that which is not defended by strength has hardly any barrier around it, widows and orphans, in the times of ancient barbarity, were liable to be frequently wronged, oppressed, and plundered. Hence the dreadful misfortune of being in any of these condi­tions; and hence, also, the superior virtue of not only resisting the temptation of plundering them, but of pleading their cause, in times when the exer­tions of humanity were but weak, and the tempta­tion of acquiring even a little, exceedingly strong.

When we consider the manners and customs of the savage nations of our own times, we are presented with a picture nearly resembling that of the periods we have just now mentioned. There, as weakness is not protected by the laws, to be allied to power­ful relations and friends, or to be joined in some formidable party, are its only securities against rapine and violence. To be thought worthy of the pro­tection of such friends, or of such a party, it is necessary either to be able to share in their common dangers, or to be useful to them in some other man­ner. Widows and orphans are frequently incapa­ble of either: hence, among such people, they are despised and neglected, if not plundered and devoured, by the hand of the oppressor; circumstan­ces, which nowhere happen more frequently than [Page 293] in Greenland; a climate so extremely barren, that almost the whole of their subsistence must be drawn from the sea; and when they cannot derive it from thence, as is frequently the case in stormy weather, then women, who are in general but little regarded, fall the first victims of famine. But should no such accident happen, widows, who are left without sons come to age and strength enough to fish, and catch seals for them, are always in the most deplo­rable condition; for the whole riches of a Green­lander consists in his little stock of provisions; and such is the barbarous custom of the country, that when he dies, the neighbours, who assemble to bury him, seldom or never depart from his hut, till they have consumed the whole of that stock, and left the widow to inhabit the bare walls. In so hor­rid a climate, and on so stormy an ocean, it is but little a woman can procure; she is therefore obliged to subsist by the cold hand of charity; in Greenland much colder, than where the blood and kindlier spi­rits are fanned by a more benevolent atmosphere, and warmed by a more resplendent sun. Hence it frequently happens, that the pieces of seals or of whale-blubber thrown to her, hardly sustain a wretched existence, or entirely fail; when, neglect­ed and unpitied by all around her, she expires by hunger and by cold.

Among many of the ancients, widows were, either by law or by custom, restricted from having a second husband. Almost over all the East, and among many tribes of the Tartars, wives were supposed to serve their husbands as well in the next world as in this; and as every wife there was to be the sole pro­perty of her f [...]st husband, she could never obtain a second, because he could only secure to himself her service in this life. After the Greeks became sensi­ble [Page 924] of the benefits arising from the regulation of Cecrops concerning matrimony, they conceived so high an idea of them, that they affixed a degree of infamy on the woman who married a second hus­band, even after the death of the first; and it was more than two centuries after the death of Cecrops, before any woman dared to make the attempt.—Their history has even transmitted to posterity, with some degree of infamy, the name of her, who first ventured on a second marriage. It was Gorgopho­na, the daughter of Perseus and Andromeda, who began the practice; a practice, which, though soon after followed by others, could not, even by the multitude of its votaries, be screened from the pub­lic odium; for, during a great part of the heroic ages, widows who remarried were considered as having offended against public decency; a custom to which Virgil plainly alludes, when he describes the conflict in the breast of Dido, between her love for Aeneas, and fear of wounding her honour by a second marriage: nay, so scrupulous were the Greeks about second marriages, that in some circumstances they were hardly allowed to the men. Charonidas exclu­ded all those from the public councils of the state, who had children, and married a second wife.— ‘It is impossible (said he) that a man can advise well for his country, who does not consult the good of his own family: he whose first marriage has been happy, ought to rest satisfied with that happiness; if unhappy, he must be out of his senses to risque being so again.’

Among some nations, as the ancient Jews, and Christians of the primitive ages, there were certain orders of men, who were not allowed to join them­selves in marriage with widows. Every priest of the Jews was to take a wife in her virginity; a widow, [Page 295] or a divorced woman, or prophane, or an harlot, these he shall not take; but he shall take a virgin of his own people to wife. And Pope Syricus, copy­ing the example set by Moses, ordained, that if a bishop married a widow, or took a second wife, he should be degraded. It is somewhat remarkable, that Moses should have put widows on the same scale with harlots and prophane women: an arrange­ment which greatly degraded them, and which must doubtless have depended on some opinion or custom, of which we are now entirely ignorant. We are almost as little acquainted with the reason why the clergy of the middle ages were prohibited from mar­rying widows; for, besides the prohibition of Syri­cus, which only extended to bishops, the church afterwards issued many others of the same nature, which extended in time to all men in holy orders. In the year 400, we find it decreed in the Cyprian Council, that if a reader married a widow, he should never be preferred in the church; and that if a sub­deacon did the same, he should be degraded to a door-keeper or reader.

As the Egyptians were the first people who treat­ed women with propriety, and allowed them to enjoy the common rights of nature, they were not even unmindful of their widows, but protected them by their laws, and allowed them a proper maintenance from the effects of their husbands. The Greeks, who derived their laws from ancient Egypt, likewise allowed their widows a dowry for their subsistence; but if they had any children, and married a second husband, they could carry to him none of the dower of the first. Among the Romans, when a man died intestate, and without children, his widow was the sole heiress of his fortune; and if he left chil­dren she had an equal share with them of all that [Page 296] belonged to him. In the middle ages, when it was customary for creditors to seize upon and sell the wives and children of a debtor, they were not em­powered to take his widow: the connection was dis­solved, and she was no longer his property; though her sons and daughters were, and might be taken and sold accordingly. In the eleventh century, the church began to espouse the cause of widows, and required a promise from penitents, before she would give them absolution, that they would not hence­forth hurt the widow and the fatherless. Among the Franks, it was customary to pay to the bride a small sum of money, by way of purchase: this sum was commonly a sol and a denier to a maiden; but to a widow three golden sols and a denier were requisite; because, all women besides widows being under perpetual guardianship, marriage made no change in the liberty of a maiden; whereas a widow parted with the liberty she had gained by the death of her husband, when she joined herself to a second.

The melancholy ceremonies of mourning have, in all ages and countries, been more particularly allot­ted to women, as the best fitted for them, not only by the sympathetic feelings, but also by their greater readiness in calling forth these feelings almost at pleasure. Widows, however, whether from a sense of the almost unspeakable loss they sustain by the death of a husband, or from some other reasons known to themselves only, have generally, in those solemn ceremonies, gone greater lengths than the rest of their sex. Jewish widows mourned the death of their husbands, at least for the space of ten months, and were reckoned shamefully abandoned, if they married again within that time. Almost every civilized people have in some degree copied this example; some allorting a longer, and some a [Page 297] shorter time to the mourning of widows, and all agreeing to mark them with infamy, if they married again too soon. Most legislators, finding widows rather too prompt to enter into second marriages, fixed a certain time within which they should not marry. The Romans, contrary to the practice of all other nations, fixed the time in which widowers should marry. The Julians first allowed three years, afterwards but one. The Papians gave them two. In the eleventh century the church decreed, that a widow should not marry within the space of one year after the death of her husband. The laws of Gene­va have shortened this period to half a year, and in most civilized countries it is more regulated by cus­tom than by law.

It was formerly the custom in Scotland, and in Spain, for widows to wear the dress of mourners until death, or a second husband put an end to the ceremony. In the latter, the widow passed the first year of her mourning in a chamber hung with black, into which day-light was never suffered to enter: when this year was ended, she changed this dark and dismal scene for a chamber hung with grey, into which she admitted the sun-beams sometimes to pene­trate; but neither in her black nor grey chamber did custom allow her looking glasses, nor cabinets, nor plate, nor any thing but the most plain and necessary furniture; nor was she to have jewels on her person, nor to wear any colour but black.^*— [Page 298] The faultless victim, is, however, immediately dis­charged from her gloomy prison, if she is lucky enough to get a second husband, and she frequently lays herself out for one, as much with a view to escape from her confinement, as on account of reite­rating the joys of wedlock.

Among nations less cultivated, the idea of what a widow ought to undergo on the loss of her husband, has been carried to a length, in some respects, more unreasonable than in Spain. The Muskohge sava­ges in America allot her the tedious space of four years to chastity and to mourning, and the Chikka­sah dedicate three to the same purposes; this, howe­ver, on the part of the women is not voluntary, but complied with only to save them from the punish­ment of adulterers, to which they would be lia­ble if they acted otherwise. To this mourning and continency are added particular austerities; every evening and morning, during the first year, a wi­dow is obliged, by custom, to lament her loss in loud and lugubrious strains, and if her husband was a war-chief, she is also obliged, during the first moon, to sit the whole day under his war-pole,^* and there incessantly bewail her loss in loud lamentations, with­out any shelter from the heat, the cold, or whate­ver weather shall happen; a ceremony so rigid and severe, that not a few in the performance of it, not­withstanding the natural hardiness of their constitu­tions, fall victims to the various distempers which then attack them, and to which they are not allow­ed to pay any regard, till the ceremony is ended. This custom, according to the Indians, was institu­ted, [Page 299] not only to hinder women from taking any me­thods to destroy, but also to induce them to do all in their power to preserve the lives of their husbands. Besides this, there may be other reasons. It was anciently considered as one of the greatest of misfor­tunes to die unlamented; a circumstance which the sacred records, and the historians and poets of anti­quity frequently allude to, and which is at this day a custom in many parts of the Indies, and exists also in Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, in some of the northern parts of which, nothing would more dis­turb a chieftain when alive, than to think that his funeral dirge would not be sung by his dependants when dead; perhaps, therefore, this long and pain­ful mourning of the American widows was instituted to prevent the illusive evil of dying unlamented.

But this painful ceremony, and this long celibacy of the Muskohge and Chikkasah widows is not all that they are condemned to suffer; the law obliges them also, during the continuance of their weeds, to abstain from all kinds of diversion, and from all public company, to go with their hair negligent and dishevelled, and to deny themselves the enchanting pleasure of anointing it with grease or oil; the ob­servance of all which is enforced by the nearest of kin to the deceased husband, who keeps a watchful eye over the conduct of his widow, because, should she fail in any particular of the duty we have men­tioned, she would thereby bring the most indeliable stain on the memory of the deceased, and the honour of his family. Through the whole of their widow­hood, the women continue to mourn their lost hus­bands, and in their lamentations constantly call on them by name, especially when they go out to work in the morning, and when they return in the even­ing, at which time the whole company of maids and [Page 300] and widows join in a melancholy chorus, making the hills and dales reverberate the funebral sound. Husbands, however, never weep for their wives— ‘Tears, say they, do not become men; it is only women that ought to weep;’ and we may add, that in America they frequently have great reason so to do, for if the friends of a widow cannot find a husband for her, add if she has no sons of age to procure her the means of subsistence, her condition is but wretched and miserable; what little charity she receives is often given with an ill grace, and at last she is frequently in no small danger of perishing for want.

Such are the severities which mark the fate of wi­dows among the savages of America; but hard as we may reckon all these unmerited sufferings and austerities, they are lenient and tender, when com­pared to what widows in several parts of Africa are obliged to undergo. In that country of tyranny and despotism, wives and concubines are not only doomed to be the slaves of their husbands in this world, but, according to their opinion, in the next also; the husband, therefore, is no sooner dead, than his wives, concubines, servants, and even sometimes horses, must be strangled, in order to render him the same services in the other world which they did in this. At the Cape of Good Hope, as widows are less esteemed than virgins, in order that they may not impose themselves on the men for such, they are obliged by law to cut off a joint from a finger for every husband that dies; this joint they present to their new husband on the day of their marriage. In the Isthmus of Darien, both sexes were formerly obliged to observe this custom, that none of them might impose themselves on each other for what they were not; or according to some authors, which is [Page 301] not less probable, i [...] was their marriage ceremony, by which they were affianced to each other. We have already seen that widows are in several places neglected, and allowed at least to fall a prey to famine; but in Dari [...], the barbarity is carried much farther; when a widow dies, such of her children as are too young to provide subsistence for themselves are buried with her in the same grave, no one being willing to take the charge of them, and the community not being so far ripened as to discover that the loss of every individual is a loss to the state. Such is the savage barbarity of African and Ameri­can policy; a barbarity which can only be exceeded by what we are going to relate of the Hindoos, or ancient inhabitants of the banks of the Ganges, and some other parts of the East Indies.

Besides the remarkable custom of making every woman a prisoner for life, the Asiatics present us with still more extraordinary, and, if possible, more re­pugnant to human nature. The Hindoos do not bury their dead after the manner of many other nations, but burn their bodies upon a large pile of wood erected for the purpose; upon this pile the most beloved wife, and in some places it is said, all the wives of great men are obliged to devote them­selves to the flames which consume the body of their husbands.

This cruel and inhuman custom having existed among them from the remotest antiquity, its origin is dark and uncertain, though they generally give the following account of it. The Hindoo wives having in ancient times become so wicked and aban­doned, as to make a common practice of poisoning their husbands whenever they displeased them; seve­ral methods were in vain attempted to remedy the [Page 302] evil, when at last the men found themselves under a necessity of enacting a law, That every Hindoo wife should be burned to death on the funeral pile of her dead husband; a most effectual, though dreadful, remedy to prevent the most horrid of crimes. If there is any truth in this cause, and the law which was the consequence of it, it has to some seemed strange that obedience to that law was not enforced by any penalty; but this is not in the least strange or unaccountable, for it would be absurd to enforce the execution of a law by a penalty, when no penalty could be devised so dreadful as the execution of the law itself. The Hindoos took a more effectual me­thod, they did not drag the victims to the pile like criminals to execution, but prevailed upon them to offer themselves to it of their own accord; in the first place, by annexing to such a sacrifice all the most glorious and incomprehensible rewards of reli­gion; and in the second, by subjecting the refusal to perpetual infamy, by degrading the woman from her tribe, and considering her as bringing an eter­nal disgrace on her family.

As there is no positive proof, however, that this was the origin of the burning of widows, others have supposed, that the custom arose in the follow­ing manner. At the death of Brama, the great prophet and lawgiver of the Hindoos, his wives, inconsolable for so great a loss, resolved not to sur­vive him, and therefore voluntarily sacrificed them­selves on the funeral pile: the wives of the chief Rajahs, or officers of state, unwilling to have their love and fidelity reckoned less than the wives of Bra­ma, followed in a kind of bravo the example set them by those wives. The Bramins, or priests of Brama, foreseeing that it would turn out advantage­ous to their society, extolled the new invented piety, [Page 303] and declared that the spirits of those heroines from thenceforth desisted from being transmigrated into other bodies, and immediately entered into the first bhoobun of purification;^* a reward so glorious, which put an end to the spirit passing a long and disagreeable state of probation, in the bodies of a variety of inferior animals, induced even the wives of the Bramins themselves to claim a right of sacri­ficing their bodies in this manner. The wives of all the Hindoos caught the enthusiastic contagion, and thus in a short time the [...] heroism of a few wo­men brought on a general custom; the Bramins sanc­tified it by religion, and thereby established it on a foundation that several thousand years have not been able to destroy.

As the Bramins receive considerable emoluments from the burning of widows, being intitled to all the finery in which they are adorned before they ascend the funeral pile; they take care to interweave into their education an idea of its necessity, and from their earliest youth instruct them to consider this catastrophe as the most pleasing to Brama, and the most beneficial to themselves and their children. When they become wives, the same unwearied efforts are continued to confirm their minds in the principles so early inculcated; all the enthusiasm of religion, and all the ardour arising in the human mind from glory, are kindled up into a blaze; all the abhorrence starting up against degradation; shame and infamy are likewise conjured up to exert themselves. The woman is told, from the Shaster, [Page 304] their fountain of infallible truth, that she who burns with the body of her husband shall enjoy life eternal with him in Heaven; that the children descended of a mother thus voluntarily sacrificed, acquire thereby an additional lustre, are courted in marriage by the most honourable of their cast, and even sometimes advanced to a cast superior to that in which they were born; that she who dastardly declines to ascend the funeral pile, is degraded from her cast, thrown out of all society, and by every one contemned and des­pised; her children too, degraded and buffetted, feel the effects of her crime, and become with her­self the detestation even of the lowest and most despi­cable of mankind.

In whatever light we view this custom, or from whatever source we derive its origin, it is certainly one of the most extraordinary that we are presented with in history; several authors, and among them Mons. Voltaire, have mentioned it as the highest effort of fortitude and resolution, that a woman, in the bloom of youth and beauty, should not only voluntarily relinquish life, but calmly and intrepidly kindle, and afterwards ascend the pile whose flames are to devour her. Of this calmness and intrepidity there may, perhaps, be, or rather there appear to be, some instances: but even these are not so nume­rous as we are taught to believe; for a variety of authors tell us, and indeed their testimony is most consonant to human nature, that the greater part, if not all of the victims who devote themselves in this manner, are previously rendered insensible by opium and other soporific drugs. Besides, when we atten­tively consider an action so repugnant to self-preser­vation, the strongest of all human principles, we shall find, that though the victims really offer them­selves, yet the sacrifice is not altogether voluntary; [Page 305] it is an act to which the mind is forced to give con­sent, by hopes of the highest rewards, and fears of the most dreadful punishments; and to constitute a voluntary act, it is evident the mind must not be influenced by either.

It may, perhaps, be alleged here, that no motives whatever are sufficient to influence the human mind to relinquish life, and far less to meet death when armed with such ten-fold terrors; but this is not really the case; there are two motives of a nature so powerful, that either of them have frequently ena­bled both men and women to undervalue life, and set death and all his terrors at defiance. The first of these is Religion; almost every religion has been persecuted, and that persecution has constantly been productive of martyrs, who, influenced by the glo­rious rewards which they fancied annexed to their sufferings, and terrified by the punishments they should incur by declining to suffer, have behaved in death with a courage and magnanimity equal, if not superior to the Hindoo women. The second is the delusive phantom Honour, whose empty name drags the soldier to the field of blood, prompts him to scale the offensive wall, and meet the death planted there in ten thousand terrible shapes; where, if he perishes, the honour he sought after will not enter with him into, nor reward him, in the other world. These motives which, when acting singly, are each of them so powerful, both combine together to lead the Hindoo women to the funeral pile; and what gives them an additional force is, the education of the women, who are from their infancy trained up to consider this world as their place of punishment, their bodies as their prisons, and the final release from both as the undoubted commencement of the most certain and perfect happiness. Less tenacious, [Page 306] therefore, of life than people educated and instructed in different and more doubtful principles, they sub­mit, though not altogether in a voluntary manner, yet with less reluctance than is natural with us, to this sacrifice, which they consider not only as releas­ing them from all farther transmig [...]ations, but as joining them for ever to the happy spirits of their departed husbands, in a state of the most perfect puri­fication.

But this custom of burning has not been altoge­ther confined to women; several Indian philosophers, through an excess of fanaticism, or chagrined with the ills and accidents of life, have flung themselves into the devouring flames, and there expired in seeming tranquility. The latest instance, perhaps, of this was Calanus, who followed Alexander in his expedition to India; he had lived free from pain and sickness to the age of eighty-three, when being seized with a violent cholic, and perhaps loaded with the infirmities of age, he took the resolution of freeing himself from the whole by the funeral pile; a reso­lution which he executed in spite of all the remon­strances of his royal master and other friends. We would naturally suppose that a nation in which both men and women were so regardless of life, should be brave and warlike, yet the contrary has always been the case, they have yielded and easy conquest almost to every invader.

But to return to the women. In spite of the care of the Bramins, in spite of all the glorious rewards offered to those who burn, and indignant punishments threatened against those who do not, nature will often revolt at death, and prefer even a life of ignominy to an exit attended with all the flat­tering ideas of honour and felicity. We are encou­raged [Page 307] to assert this, because a gentleman, who has been present at many of these executions, declares, that in in some of the victims he observed a dread and reluctance, which strongly spoke their having repent­ed of their fatal resolution. But too late; for Vist­nu is waiting for the spirit, and must not be disap­pointed: when the woman, therefore, wants cou­rage, she is forced to ascend the pile, and is after­ward held down by long poles till the flames reach and destroy her; mean while her screams and cries are drowned by the noise of loud music, and the still more noisy shouts and acclamations of the sur­rounding multitude.

Some historians have of late asserted, that the custom of burning no longer exists in India; this, however, is a mistake; there are two recent in­stances of it transmitted by Europeans, who were witnesses of the transactions they relate. Of one of these, as being the most circumstantial, we shall give our readers an abstract. On the 4th of Febru­ary, 1742, died Rham Chund, pundit of the Maha­rat [...]or tribe; his widow, aged seventeen or eighteen years, as soon as be expired, immediately declared to the Bramins, and witnesses present, her resolution to burn. As the family was of great importance, all her relations and friends left no arguments unat­tempted to dissuade her from her purpose. The state of her infant children, and the terrors and pains of death she aspired after, were painted to her in the strongest and most lively colours; but she was deaf to all. Her children, indeed, she seemed to leave with some regret; but when the terrors of burning were mentioned to her, with a countenance calm and resolved, she put one of her fingers into the fire, and held it there a considerable time; then, with one of her hands, she put fire into the palm of the [Page 308] other; sprinkled incense upon it, and fumigated the attending Bramins. Being given to understand, that she should not obtain permission to burn, she fell immediately into the most deep affliction; but soon recollecting herself, answered, that death would still be in her power; and that if she were not allow­ed to make her exit, according to the principles of her cast, she would starve herself. Finding her thus resolved, her friends were, at last, obliged to consent to her proposal.

Early on the following morning, the body of the deceased was carried down to the water side; the widow followed about ten o'clock, accompanied by three principle Bramins, her children, relations, and a numerous crowd of spectators. As the order for her burning did not arrive till after one o'clock, the interval was employed in praying with the Bra­mins, and washing in the Ganges: as soon as it arrived, she retired, and staid about half an hour in the midst her female relations; she then divested herself of her bracelets and other ornaments; and having tied them in a kind of apron which hung before her, was conducted by the females to a cor­ner of the pile. On the pile was an arched arbour, formed of dry sticks, boughs, and leaves; and open only at one end to admit her entrance. In this was deposited the body of the deceased; his head at the end, opposite to the opening. At that corner of the pile, to which she had been conducted, a Bra­min had made a small fire, round which she and three Bramins sat for a few minutes; one of them put into her hand a leaf of the bale tree; of the wood of which a part of the funeral pile is always constructed: she threw the leaf into the fire, and one of the others gave her a second leaf, which she held over the flame, whilst he, three times, dropped [Page 309] some ghee on it, which melted and fell into the fire: whilst these things were doing, a third Bramin read to her some portions of the Aughtorrah Beid, and asked her some questions, which she answered with a steady and serene countenance; these being over, she was led with great solemnity three times round the pile, the Bramins reading before her; when she came the third time to the small fire, she stopped, took her rings off her toes and fingers, and put them to her other ornaments; then taking a solemn and majestic leave of her children, parents, and relations, one of the Bramins dipped a large wick of cotton in some ghee, and giving it lighted in her hand, led her to the open side of the arbour, where all the Bramins fell at her feet; she blessed them, and they retired weeping. She then ascen [...]ed the pile, and entered the arbour, making a profound reverence at the feet of the deceased, and then ad­vancing seated herself by his head. In silent [...], she looked on his face for the space [...] mi­nute; then set fire to the arbour in three places; but soon observing that she had kindled [...] to the leeward, and that the wind blew the flames from her, she arose, set fire to the windward, and placidly resumed her station; sitting there with a dignity and composure, which no words can convey an idea of. The pile being of combustible matter, the support­ers of the roof were soon consumed, and the whole tumbled in upon her, putting an end at once to her courage and her life.

The other account, of a woman who burned her­self, happened within these very few years, and differs from this, only in a few particulars: in this we are not told how the victim disposed of her jewels; in it, they were given to the Bramins: this woman kindled herself the fire that was to devour her; the [Page 310] other had it kindled by her children: this sat by her deceased husband; the other stretched herself by his side. But these, and some others, are immaterial differences, and may perhaps be regulated by the customs of different districts.

From such scenes of horror, we naturally turn with abhorrence; and we are happy to say, that though the practice is not altogether abolished, by the authority and example of the Europeans, it is gradually falling into disuse, and cannot be executed without the leave of the governor; who grants it as seldom as possible: European authority and example, however, cannot prevail on the Asiatics to consider their women in a more liberal point of view; to treat them as companions and equals, or to release them from those prisons where they are confined for life. When such, therefore, is the general treatment of the sex, even while in all the bloom of youth and beauty, we are not to expect that such widows as do not burn with their husbands, are to experience much good treatment—when their youth, when their beauty, is no more; when they have failed in a point of duty, and of gratitude, reckoned so neces­sary; and have nothing, consequently, left to plead their cause but humanity, a passion scarcely alive among the people we are treating of, and whose feeble exertions, in many places of Asia and Africa, cannot rescue even the widow of a friend, or a bro­ther, from being considered as the property of the relations of her deceased husband, and sold or con­demned to labour for their profit.

Widows are not, however, in all parts of Asia treated in this indignant manner. In China, if they have had children, they become absolute mistresses of themselves, and their relations have no power to [Page 311] compel them to continue widows, or to give them to another husband. It is not, however, reputable for a widow who has children, to enter into a second marriage, without great necessity, especially if she is a woman of distinction; in which case, although she has been a wife only a few hours, or barely con­tracted, she frequently thinks herself obliged to pass the rest of her days in widowhood; and thereby to testify to the world the esteem and veneration she had for her husband or lover. In the middle statio [...] of life, the relations of the deceased husband, eag [...] to reimburse the family in the sum which the wife originally cost it, oblige her to marry, or rather sell her to another husband, if she has no male issue; and it frequently happens, that the future husband is fixed upon and the money paid for her, before she is acquainted with the transaction. From this oppression she has only two methods of delivering herself; her relations may reimburse those of the deceased husband, and claim her exemption; or she may become a Bonzesse; a state, however, not very honourable, when embraced in an involuntary man­ner. By the law of China, a widow cannot be sold to another till the time of her mourning for the first expires; so eager, however, are the friends often to dispose of her, that they pay no regard to this law; but on complaint being made to a mandarin, he is obliged to do her justice. As she is commonly unwilling to be bartered for in this manner, with­out her consent or knowledge, as soon as the bargain is struck, a covered chair, with a considerable num­ber of lusty fellows, is brought to her house; she is forcibly put into it, and conveyed to the house of her new husband, who takes care to secure her.

Though among the savages of America, though in Africa and in Asia, widows are treated in this [Page 312] infamous manner, and their condition thereby ren­dered the most deplorable; in Europe the case is so widely different, that widowhood, when tolerable circumstances are annexed to it, is, of all other female states, the most eligible; being free from that guardianship and controul, to which the sex are sub­ject while virgins and while wives. In no part of Europe is this more exemplified than at Parma, and some other places of Italy; where a widow is the only female who is free either to chuse a husband, or assume government of any of her actions; while, should a virgin pretend to chuse for herself, it would be reckoned the most profligate licentiousness; should she govern her actions or opinions, she would be considered as the most pert, and perhaps most aban­doned of her sex. At Turin, the order of St Mau­rice are restricted from marrying widows; and yet at Turin the condition of a widow is, in point of every other liberty, preferable to that of a maid.

As we shall have occasion in the next chapter to treat more fully of the rights and privileges of wi­dows in England, we shall not at present enter on that subject. Our ancient laws, and those of a great part of Europe, ordained, that a widow should lose her dower, if she married again, or suffered her chastity to be corrupted; and the laws of Prussia retain this ordinance to the present time. They like­wise ordain, that a widow shall not marry again within nine months after the death of her husband; and that if a widow, while she is with child by a deceased husband, marry another, she shall be put into the house of correction; and the husband, if he knew her condition, put to work at the wheel-barrow for one year. Besides making a widow lose her dower when she enters into a second marriage, the Prussians have another regulation concerning [Page 313] them, highly descriptive of the humanity and wis­dom of their legislator. When a widower and a widow intend to marry, one or both of which hav­ing children, as it too frequently happens that such children are either despised or neglected, in conse­quence of the new connections formed, and perhaps of the new offspring raised up, the laws of Prussia provide for their education and fortune, according to the rank and circumstances of the parents; and will not suffer either man or woman to enter into a second marriage, without previously settling with the children of the first, and producing a certificate that they have done so from the judge of the district where they reside.

We have already related, that widows in some parts of the world are obliged to distinguish them­selves by certain marks from the rest of the sex, that they may not have a power of imposing them­selves on the men as virgins. The laws of Prussia carry this idea still farther; they reckon that the man who marries a widow, believing her to be a virgin, is so egregiously cheated, that they retort the evil on the aggressor, and render the marriage null and of no effect. We cannot pretend to de­scribe particularly the ideas that the Prussians enter­tain of widows: they are certainly, however, much less exalted than those they entertain of virgins; as in their code of laws we meet with this remarkable sentiment: ‘The husband MAY present to his bride the morgengabe, or gift, on the morning after marriage, even though he should have married a widow.’ But though widows seem by them much less esteemed than virgins, they are not wi [...]h­out several privileges. In some provinces, if there is no marriage settlement, and the husbands dies intestate, they succeed to the half of all that was [Page 314] the joint property of both; but a privilege still more extraordinary, and neither reconcilable to nature, nor to sound policy, is, the allowing in some cases to a widow, eleven months after the death of her husband, to bring forth the child that was begot by him; which, according to the Prussian law, shall be legitimate, provided nothing can be proved against the woman.

In almost all the other countries of Europe, the laws and customs, which regard widows, are little different from those concerning virgins, only in this circumstance, that they every where allow the widow to be mistress of herself; while the maid and the wife are controuled by parent or a husband. They generally also secure to the widow a maintenance from the estates and effects of her deceased husband, and frequently devolve upon her in the important trust of bringing up her children, and suffer her to reap some advantages from board and education; but such advantages are, for the most part, in the power of the father, who, by his will, may leave them to his wife, or to any other guardian he shall think proper to appoint; for the laws of Europe do not consider the mother as the natural guardian of her own children, nor endow her with any autho­ritative power over them.

CHAPTER XXXI. Of the Rights, Privileges, and Immunities of the Women of Great Britain; the Punishments to which they are liable by Law; and the Restrictions they are laid under by Law and Custom.

IN proportion as real politeness and ele­gance of manners advance, the interest and advan­tages of the fair sex not only advance also, but become more firmly and permanently established; the interests, however, and good treatment of the sex do not altogether depend on the advancement of politeness and elegance, for it sometimes happens, that a people rather less advanced in these articles than their neighbours, make up the losses thereby arising to their women, by good-nature and huma­nity. The French and Italians are before the inhabi­tants of Britain in politeness, they are superior to them in elegance, yet the condition of their women, upon the whole, is not preferable. Such privile­ges and immunities as the French and Italian women derive from the influence of politeness, the British derive from the laws of their country. Flowing in this channel, though they are perhaps accompanied with less softness and indulgence, they have the advantage of being established on a firmer founda­tion; and being dictated by equity and humanity, are less liable to be altered and infringed, than if they depended on the whim and caprice which influ­ences gallantry and politeness.

[Page 316]Before we proceed to a particular detail of those laws which regard the persons and properties of the women of this country, it may not be improper to observe, that, taken collectively, and compared with the same kind of laws in other countries, they seem so much preferable, that we cannot help imagining that the same spirit which for many centuries has instigated the English to be liberal of their blood and of their treasure in support of those weaker nations who were oppressed by their more powerful neigh­bours, has also dictated the laws which regard that sex who are almost every where enslaved or oppres­sed by the other. It is true, the laws of several countries are in some particulars more favourable to the sex than ours. Those of Frederic king of Prus­sia, which regard the matrimonial compact, shew a greater indulgence to the women, and vest in them powers more extensive than those of England.—Those of France and Italy, as well as the customs which regard their personal liberty, seem more indul­gent; and those of Spain, which regard their rank, and settle the deference to be paid to them, greatly exceed any thing experienced in this country. But these favours and indulgences are only partial, they only mark particular parts of their code of female laws, and do not uniformly extend their influence over the whole.

In considering the advantages and disadvantages in the condition of our women, we shall begin with the higher ranks of life. In France, the Salique law does not allow a female to inherit the crown; but in England a woman may be the first personage in the kingdom, may succeed to the crown in her own right, and in that case, not bound by any of the laws that regard women, she may enjoy the same powers and privileges as a king. Such a queen, if [Page 317] she marries, retains the same power, issues the orders, and transacts the business of the state in her own name, and continues still the sovereign, while her husband is only a subject. But when a king suc­ceeds in his own right to the crown, and marries, his queen is then only a subject, and her rights and pri­vileges not near so extensive; she is exempted, howe­ver, from the general laws which exclude married women from having any property in their own right; she is allowed a court, and officers distinct from those of the king her husband; and she may sue any per­son at law, without joining her husband in the suit. It is high treason to endeavour to compass her death, and to violate her chastity is punishable in a much severer manner than the punishments for committing adultery with any other woman. She may purchase lands, she may sell and convey them to another per­son, without the interference of her husband. She may have a separate property in goods and in lands, and may dispose of these by will, as if she were a sin­gle woman. She is not liable to pay any toll, and cannot be fined in any court of law. In all other respects she is only considered as a subject, and on the commission of any crime may be tried and punish­ed by the peers of the realm. A queen-dowager has privileges different from all other women of whatever rank; she remains still entitled to almost every right she enjoyed during the life of her hus­band, and even if she marries a subject, does not lose her rank or title; but as a marriage of this kind is considered as derogatory to her dignity, no man is allowed to espouse her without a licence from the reigning king.

Some of the other females of the royal family are also peculiarly distinguished and protected by the law. To violate the chastity of the consort of the [Page 318] prince of Wales, or of the eldest daughter of the king, although with their own consent, is deemed high treason, and punishable accordingly. In for­mer times, the king had a power of levying an aid upon his subjects, to enable him to defray the ex­pence of marrying and giving a portion to his eldest daughter; but this power, which was frequently stretched into the most exorbitant oppression, decli­ned with the feudal system, and has long since hap­pily expired. As for the younger sons and daugh­ters of the king, they are hardly otherwise distin­guished by the laws from other subjects, than by having the precedence in all public ceremonies.

Besides the privileges annexed to the females of the royal family, there are some also enjoyed by peer­esses, which are not common to other women. A peeress, when guilty of any crime, cannot be tried but by a jury of the house of peers; and if convicted of any crime within the benefit of clergy, may plead, and is entitled to an exemption from the punishment of burning on the hand, a punishment commonly inflicted upon people of all inferior ranks for such kind of offences. A woman, who is noble in her own right, cannot lose her nobility by marrying the meanest plebeian; but she can neither communicate her nobility to her husband, nor to her own chil­dren had by him: she who is only ennobled by marrying a peer, loses that nobility if she afterward marry a commoner, the law judging it expedient that marriage should have a power of degrading as well as of elevating her. She who first marries a duke or other peer of a superior order, and after­wards a simple baron, is still allowed to retain her first title, and the privileges annexed to it; for the law considers all peers as equals. In the scale of female rank and importance, there is a kind of inter­mediate [Page 319] space between the peeress and the com­moner, filled up by the wives of bishops, judges, and baronets; all of which, though they share in the splendour and opulence of their husbands, have no title in consequence of the rank which these hus­bands enjoy: by the courtesy indeed of this country, the wives of baronets are called ladies, a title supe­rior to that of their husbands, but at the same time a title to which they have no legal right, being in all judicial writs and proceedings only denominated Dame such-a-one, according to the name of their husbands. In Scotland the courtesy of the country is carried still much farther; every woman who is proprietor of any land in her own right, or is the wife of a man who is proprietor of an estate, great or little, is called Lady such-a-thing, according to the name of that estate: so that a woman is some­times accosted with the pompous title of lady, who may almost cover the whole of her territorial district with her apron.

Such are the privileges and immunities enjoyed by the more elevated ranks of female life; but besides these, they are also entitled to all the other privile­ges and rights which the laws of this country have conferred upon women in general, and which we shall now more particularly consider.

As women are, in polished society, weak and incapable of self-defence, the laws of this country have supplied this defect, and formed a kind of bar­rier around them, by rendering their persons so sacred and inviolable, that even death is in several cases, the consequence of taking improper advantages of that weakness. By our laws, no man is allowed to take a woman of any rank or condition, and oblige her to marry him, under pain of imprisonment for [Page 320] two years, and a fine at the pleasure of the king. But he who forcibly carries away an heiress, and marries her, even though he should obtain her con­sent after the forcible abduction, subjects himself to a still greater penalty, he is guilty of felony without benefit of clergy; and there is hardly any criminal whom the law pursues to death with more steady and unrelenting severity. Women are, on account of their weakness, and the better to preserve the modesty of their sex, excused from serving all kinds of public offices; and succh as are under twelve years of age, which is the time fixed by the law for being marriageable, if forced into marriage, or even sedu­ced to consent to it, may afterwards refuse to the husband the rights of matrimony, and have the mar­riage declared null and of no effect.

In no instance has the law exerted itself more strenuously, than in guarding women from rare and violence offered to their chastity. Their secu­rity in these respects has, in every well regulated state, been considered as an object of the utmost im­portance, not only as guaranteeing to themselves that liberty of refusal, which throughout the whole extent of nature seems the right of females, but also, as affording to the public all the security which the law can give, for [...]he the chastity of their wives, and the legitimacy of their children. We have already mentioned the punishments inflicted on the perpe­trators of rapes in several periods and countries. In Britain these punishments have varied with the man­ners of the times, and the genius of the legislators. In the time of the Anglo-Saxons, he who committed a rape suffered death. William the Conqueror altered that punishment to the loss of eyes and emas­culation, which [...] the offender from b [...]ing again guilty of the [...]. Henry the Third, [Page 321] considering these punishments as too severe, and finding that a power so extensive lodged in the hands of all sorts of women, was often abused from mo­tives of resentment, and a desire of revenge upon those who had slighted or otherwise ill-treated them, ordained, that a rape, when not prosecuted within for [...]y days, should only be considered as a simple trespass, and punished by two years imprisonment and a fine, at the pleasure of the crown; and even when it was prosecuted within the forty days, the king reserved entirely to himself the power of pun­ishing the offender. Having made trial of this me­thod, and finding it was far from being sufficient to guard the fair sex from violence and insult, he at last made the commission of a rape, felony; finding even this defence too weak, he, some time after, was obliged to make it felony without benefit of clergy. And so careful has the law been to secure all women of whatever character or condition, that even the most common prostitutes have in this case the same powers and privileges as other women.

In almost all other cases, whether civil or crimi­nal, parties cannot be witnesses for themselves; a woman, however, who is ravished, may give evi­dence upon her oath, and is in law not only consi­dered as a competent witness, but may, by her sole testimony prove the fact, and deprive the aggressor of his life. In some measure to counteract the exor­bitance of this power, and secure the lives of the men from being sacrificed to pique and resentment, the credibility of her testimony is left entirely in the breast of the jury, to be judged of from the tenour of her conduct, and the circumstances that occur in the trial. This power of being a witness in her own cause, in cases of assault, is not confined to such women only as are allowed by the law to be com­petent [Page 322] witnesses in other cases, it is extended even to infants, and she who is under twelve years of age may be a competent witness against a man who has abused her, provided she has attained a sufficient degree of understanding to know the nature of an oath: nor does the privilege of the sex in this par­ticular instance stop even here; it is extended to a length un [...]nown in most other cases; if a man has been tried and condemned for a rape, and is after­wards pardoned, the woman may, by an appeal, have him tried again for the same offence. A mar­ried woman may sue her ravisher in any criminal court, without the consent or approbation of her husband; and to sum up all, a woman may even kill a man who attempts to ravish her.

Such extensive privileges, vested in a sex so much guided by the impulses of passion, and so susceptible of the strongest and most implacable resentment, has by many been considered as a violent stretch of legal au­thority, whereby the balance of justice, which ought in all cases to be equal, is evidently made to prepon­derate in favour of the one sex, in prejudice to the other. But on the other hand, when we consider the weakness of that sex, the violence of ours, and the necessity which humanity and the rules of society lay us under of defending them; when to these we add, the impossibility, in this case, of framing a law which shall answer the intention of the legislator, and lay neither of the sexes under any disadvantage; and that much greater evils would arise to society, were women subject to the assaults of every rude invader, than from the powers with which they are invested, we cannot help thinking, that this law, as it stands at present, is, perhaps, the best that the nature of the case will admit of.

[Page 323]Besides these powers which are vested in the fe­male for the protection and defence of her chastity, when she has suffered herself to be seduced from this virtue by fraud, or by the imbecility of human nature, the law confers on her another power, that of ascertaining, by her oath before a justice of the peace, the father of her child. In all other matters of litigation, whether civil or criminal, the person accused has liberty to bring an exculpatory proof: but here, as the nature of the crime is supposed to have stronger motives to wish for exculpation than the woman can have to give her child to a wrong father, no exculpatory proof is admitted, but such as renders the commission of the crime impossible. In Scotland the reverse of this is the case; there, the legislator considering it as an extravagant power for a woman to be able to oblige whoever she pleases to father her child, and confiding in the religious veracity of the man, has vested in him the power of exculpating himself; an unmarried woman with child is obliged to discover to the minister and elders of the parish, who is the father; they summon him before them, and if he denies it, he may exculpate himself by oath; this oath, of the most tremendous nature, in which he invokes all the curses of hea­ven to light on his devoted head if he swears falsely, is administered to him by the minister, in presence of the whole congregation; and is so replete with ter­ror, that it is supposed very few men have had the temerity to venture on it, who were not innocent.—The church also assumes a power in Scotland of making every woman of whatever rank or condition, submit to certain penance, and declare the father of her bastard child, otherwise they deny her the sacra­ment; and if she continues obstinate, at last excom­municate her. In England, the church seldom inter­feres with the matter; nor have the church wardens [Page 324] any legal right to carry a woman before a justice who is pregnant with a bastard child, unless she is likely to become chargeable to the parish; and even then, they cannot compel her to go before a justice, nor can he summon her before him, till at least one month after her delivery. We have just now seen, that the only punishment which the laws of Scotland allow of being inflicted on a woman for having a bastard child, is to make her do penance in the church. In England the church exacts no penance, but a jus­tice of the peace may oblige her, if in proper cir­cumstances, to defray some part of the maintenance of her child; and on refusal may commit her to the house of correction. Such are the laws which re­gard women who are settled in a place, and who, though they have fallen victims to seduction, or their own frailty, are not become absolutely abandoned; but a vagrant woman, when delivered of a bastard child in any parish where she is begging, may, by the order of a justice, be committed to the house of correction, and punished with whipping by the quarter session.

As licentiousness of manners, fickleness of temper, or a fraudulent intention of debauching a woman under pretence of marriage, frequently induce the more giddy or worthless of our sex, to address, swear, and make promises to a woman without any intention of marrying her; and as it is impossible in all cases for the sex to discover the real lover from the impostor; that they may not be altogether without redress when so cheated, the law of England ordains that when a man courts a woman, promises to marry her, and afterwards marries another, she may, by an action at law, recover such damages, as a jury shall think adequate to the loss she has sustained. In Scotland, it is said, she may recover one half of the [Page 325] fortune he receives with his wife. On the other hand, as it sometimes happens, that artful women draw on the more fond and silly part of our sex, to make them valuable presents under pretence of mar­riage, and afterwards laugh at, or refuse to marry them: a man who has been so bubbled may sue the woman to return the presents he made her, because they were presumed to have been conditionally given, and she failed in performing her part of that con­dition.

Those personal privileges, and the few restrictions upon them which we have here enumerated, are chiefly such as regard unmarried women: we shall now proceed to relate some of the more peculiar advantages and disadvantages of those who have entered into the state of wedlock.

By the laws of this country, the moment a woman enters into the state of matrimony, her political existence is annihilated, or incorporated into that of her husband; but by this little mortification she is no loser, and her apparent loss of consequence is abundantly compensated by a long list of extensive privileges and immunities, which, for the encou­ragement of matrimony, were, perhaps, contrived to give married women the advantage over those that are single. Of all the privileges which nature has conferred upon us, none are so precious and inesti­mable as personal liberty. Men of all ranks and conditions, and women who are unmarried, or widows, may be deprived of this for debts contracted by themselves, or by others for whom they have given securi [...] but wives cannot be imprisoned for debt, nor deprived of their personal liberty for any thing but crimes; and even such of these as subject the offender only to a pecuniary punishment must be [Page 326] expiated by the husband. No married woman is liable to pay any debt, even though contracted with­out the knowledge, or against the consent, of her husband; and what is still mo [...]e extraordinary, what­ever debts she may have contracted while single, de­volve, the moment of her marriage, upon the hus­band, who, like the scape goat, is loaded by the priest who performs ceremony with all the sins and extravagances of his wife. It is a common opinion among the vulgar, that a general warning in the Ga­zette, or in a news-paper, will exempt a man from the payment of such debts as are contracted by his wife without his knowledge, but this opinion is with­out any good foundation; particular warnings how­ever, giving in writing, have been held as good ex­emptions; but such are of little advantage to a hus­band, as his wife may always find people to give her credit, whom the husband has not cautioned against it.

So long as a wife cohabits with her husband, he is, by the laws of his country, obliged to provide her with food, drink, clothing, and all other neces­saries suitable to her rank and his circumstances, even although he received no fortune with her, or forces her to leave him by ill usuge; he is also liable to maintain her in the same manner; but if she runs away from him, and he is willing that she should abide in his house, he is not liable to give her any separate maintenance, nor to pay any of her debts, unless he take her again; in which case he must pay whatever she contracts, whether she behave herself ill or well: when a husband forces his wife to leave him by cruel usage, she may claim a separate main­tenance; but while she enjoys that, he shall not be liable to pay any of her debts.

[Page 327]As personal safety is of all other privileges the greatest and most valuable, and as weakness may often be exposed to danger when in the hands of power, the laws of this country have taken the most effectual method of securing the safety of married women. When a husband, from maliciousness of temper, or resentment, or any other cause, threat­ens, or actually beats his wife, she may demand security for his future good behaviour; and on ap­plication to any justice of the peace, such justice is obliged to make the husband find such security. And when a husband, conscious of having used his wife ill, will not allow her to go out of his house, or car­ries her away, or keeps her concealed, in order to prevent her endeavouring to find redress for the evils that she suffers, her friends may in that case, by applying to the court of King's Bench, obtain an order for the husband to produce his wife before the said court; and if she there swears the peace against him, she delivers herself from his jurisdiction, and he cannot compel her to go to live with him, but the court will grant her an order to live where she pleases; and should he attempt to force her to do otherwise, it would be a breach of the king's peace, by which he would be subjected to the penalties annexed to such breach.

When a wife is beaten by any person, so as to be disabled from managing her family affairs, the hus­band is by law entitled to such damages on that account from the offender as a jury shall think fit to give; but if an attack is made upon a man's wife in his presence, the law considers the attack as made up­on himself, and gives him the same liberty of defend­ing her that it allows in defending himself: nor does it stop at the attacks made on her person; if her pro­perty is in danger, he may repel force by force, and [Page 328] the breach of the peace which happens on that ac­count is only chargeable on the aggressor; but care must be taken that such defence do not exceed what is necessary for prevention; for if it does, the de­fender becomes himself an aggressor. Among the Romans, among several other ancient nations, and among some people in the present times, it is not deemed culpable for a husband to kill the man whom he surprises commiting adultery with his wife. By the laws of England, he who should do so, would be reckoned guilty of manslaughter; but in conse­quence of the enormous provocation given, the court commonly orders the sentence of burning on the hand to be inflicted in the slightest manner.

As it is considered by the legislature as advantage­ous to population as well as conducive to the harmo­ny of society, that every married couple should live together, the law ordains that no man take away a wife from her husband, neither by force, nor by fraud, nor by her own consent; and he who trans­gresses this order, is liable to a writ of trespass, or an action of ravishment, by which he shall be obli­ged to pay damages to the injured husband, and suffer imprisonment for two years: but this is not the utmost extent of the law, for it also intitles a hus­band to damages, not only against the person who actually takes away his wife, but also against him who entices or persuades her to live separately from him. The ancient laws of England are said to have been so strict in this particular, that when a wife happen­ed to miss her way, the man who found her might not even take her to his house unless she was benight­ed, in danger of being drowned, of falling into the hands of robbers, or of being devoured by wild beasts; but a stranger might carry her on horseback [Page 329] to the nearest market-town, or justice of the peace, there to remain, till claimed by her husband.

As the wife is not allowed to leave the husband, so neither may the husband abandon his wife; and if he does so, without shewing a sufficient cause, she may enter a suit against him for restitution of the rights of marriage; and the spiritual court will com­pel him to return, to live with her, and to restore them. But the law extends its privileges to married women still farther, and grants them immunities almost scarcely compatible with the rules of civil society and the public safety; if a wife commit felony in the company of her husband, it supposes she did it by his compulsion, and on that account absolves her from the punishment commonly inflicted on such delinquents: if a wife take away the goods of her husband without his knowledge, and sell them, nei­ther the wife who stole them, nor the person who bought them of her, are considered as guilty of felo­ny. A wife may receive and conceal her husband if he is guilty of felony or any other crime; for this action of concealment is only considered in her as self-preservation, an instinct which no law can take away or destroy. If a wife receives stolen goods into her house, and secretes them from her husband, the law will nevertheless impute the crime to the husband, unless he either divulges the matter to a magistrate, or leaves his house as soon as he disco­vers the crime. Though wives are thus far indulged by the law, yet they are not emancipated from the punishment it inflicts, when they commit robbery, treason, or murder, although in the company of, and by the coercion of, their husbands.

As a wife always is, or ought to be, the mana­ger of her husband's family, she commonly has [Page 328] [...] [Page 329] [...] [...] [Page 332] in the same manner as if she were not married; by which inequitable bargain, the husband is debar­red from enjoying any of the rights of matrimony, except the person of his wife. But this is not all: if the wife, too, were curtailed in her privileges, the bargain would be in some degree equitable: this, however, is so far from being the case, that it is quite the reverse; the husband becomes thereby lia­ble to pay all the debts which his wife may burden him with, even though she have abundance of her own to answer that purpose; he is also obliged to maintain her, though her circumstances may be more opulent than his; and if he should die before her, she has a right to a third of his real estate and to whatever is customary for widows to have out of his personals; while, if she dies before him, he is not entitled to the value of one single half-pen­ny, unless she has devised it to him by will. These are obvious disadvantages on the part of the hus­band; but, what is still worse, such a bargain over­turns the natural order of things, and destroys that authority, which the gospel and the laws of this country give a man over his wife, and that obedi­ence and subjection which the rules of christianity prescribe in the deportment of a wife toward her husband.

Such are the privileges and immunities which the women of this country derive from marriage, and which they enjoy from the moment that they enter into that state; but there are others of a posthu­mous nature, and these are only reserved for them if they survive their husbands. When a woman, on her entrance into matrimony, gives up her fortune to the power and discretion of her husband; or, per­haps, when she has no fortune, when, through a long and tedious course of years, she joins her ow [...] [Page 333] management, labour, and industry to his; nothing can be more reasonable, than that she should be pro­vided for, in case of his dying before her; and it would be a capital defect in the laws of civil society, to leave this provision altogether in the power of individuals, by whom it might frequently be disre­garded or neglected, and the widows even of such husbands as had died in affluence, left to experience all the hardships of want and poverty: to prevent which the law of this country has wisely ordered, that every widow shall have a reasonable dower out of the effects or estates of her deceased husband, even though there was no marriage-settlement, or though, in such settlement, no dower was stipula­ted to the wife.

Dowers, as it is supposed, were first introduced into England by the Danish kings, and into Den­mark, by Swein, the father of our Canute the Great, who bestowed on the Danish ladies this pri­vilege as a grateful acknowledgement of their having parted with their jewels to ransom him from captivity, when taken prisoner by the Vandals. Dower out of lands was unknown among the Anglo-Saxons; for, by the laws of king Edward, the widow of any one who dies, is directed to be supported entirely out of his personal estate; but afterwards, a widow became entitled to a share in one-half of the lands of her deceased husband, so long as she remained chaste and unmarried; conditions which seem anciently to have been annexed to all dowers in this country; on a supposition, perhaps, that the dread of falling into poverty would be the strongest inducement to continence, and that if she married another husband, all the obligations which bound the estates and effects of the former to maintain her, from that moment [...]eased to exist. Such was the case for some time [Page 334] after dowers were instituted; but these conditions were afterward only required of a widow, when her husband left any children, and in time they fell entirely into disuse; so that at present a widow may claim her dower, whether she is chaste and unmar­ried or otherwise; but no woman can claim her dower, who was not actually the wife of a man at the time of his decease: a divorce, therefore, from the chains of matrimony takes away all right to a dower; but a divorce only from bed and board, although for the crime of adultery, has no such effect. A woman who runs away from her husband, and lives with an adulterer, loses her right to dower, unless the husband is reconciled to, and takes her back. As every foreigner is by the laws of Eng­land, incapable of holding lands, therefore the wife who is an alien is entitled to no dower out of the lands of her husband. The wife of him who commits high-treason is entitled to no dower; nor the wife of an idiot; for an idiot, being incapable of con­senting to any contract, cannot lawfully marry; and therefore all the rights which women acquire by marriage are nugatory in the case of her who is joined to an idiot.

Before marriage-settlements came so much into fashion, the dower which was settled by the law, or with which the husband endowed the wife at the time of marriage, was the only security she had for a maintenance, in case she became a widow. Re­specting dowers, there are in certain places particu­lar customs, which set aside the operations of the law in the districts where they prevail. In some places, custom allots to the widow no less than the whole of her husband's lands; in others more moderate, it gives her only the half, in others only a quarter. Anciently, the most common method of settling the dower of the wife was, by publicly [Page 335] endowing her at the church-door, in the presence of all the company who were assembled at the marriage, with the whole, or such quantity of his lands as the husband thought proper to bestow. When the wife was endowed with the whole, we have some autho­rities to believe the husband made use of these words: ‘With all my lands and tenements I thee endow.’ When he endowed her with a part only, he gave a specific description of such part, that no doubt might remain as to its situation or extent; but when he endowed her with personal property only, then he used to say, ‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow;’ a speech, which, being still pre­served in our marriage-ritual, shews how fond we are of continuing forms, even after the reasons which gave birth to them are totally extinct.

The dower of a widow was formerly neither sub­ject to tolls nor taxes, nor could even the king seize on it for a debt due to the crown; but this privi­lege, being found greatly to diminish the public revenue, was at last discontinued: at this day, how­ever, the dower of a widow cannot be seized by the creditors of her husband; for it would be unjust, that she should not be entitled to an equivalent of her fortune, or a recompense for her labour and care, as well as the creditors to payment of their money. Besides the dotal right to a life-rent of one-third of the husband's real estate, which is commonly allow­ed by law, where the custom of the manor or place does not determine it otherwise, when a husband lends money in the name of himself and his wife, if the wife survive him, and there be enough besides this money to pay his lawful debts, the wife is entitled to it. No widow can be endowed out of copyhold lands, unless by the local custom of the manor, nor can she have any castle, or place of [Page 336] defence, as her dower; for she is considered as inca­pable of managing it, so as to make it answer the purposes for which it was intended.

In the city of London, province of York, and in Scotland, the effects of him who dies intestate are generally divided according to the ancient doctrine of giving every one a reasonable share. If the de­ceased leaves a widow and children, the widow is first allowed the furniture of her bed chamber, and wearing apparel; then all the rest is divided in the following proportions: if the deceased left a widow and two children, the widow shall have eight parts (six by the custom, and two by law), and each of the children five (three by the c [...]stom, and two by the law): if he leaves a widow and one child, each shall have one-half; if he leaves a widow and no child, the widow shall have three-fourths of the whole, and the remaining fourth shall go to the next relation.

As dower, either by the common law or by the special custom of the place, was frequently consider­ed by the contracting parties as too great or too lit­tle, the present times have hardly left any thing to run in that channel, the parties thinking it better to stipulate and agree between themselves on a specific quantity of land or money, which is, previous to the marriage, settled upon the wife by way of jointure, and which effectually takes away all her right to any dower. The jointure, thus legally settled, is still more inviolate to the wife than her dower; it cannot be touched by the creditors of the husband; and though a dower be forfeited by the husband being guilty of high treason, a jointure is not. Every join­ture must be made to the wife, for the term of her own natural life; if made for the life of another per­son, [Page 337] it is not legal, and she may refuse it, and claim the dower the common law assigns her. When a jointure is made before marriage, a wife cannot refuse it, and claim her dower in its stead, she having consented to it, while in a free and independent state; but if the jointure was made after the marriage, she may refuse it, and have a right to a dower, as she is then considered as having been obliged to give her consent by the impulse and coercion of her hus­band. If a husband settle upon his wife a jointure that shall be of a certain yearly value, and it falls short of it, she may commit waste, so far as to make up her deficiency, though prohibited from so doing in the deed of settlement; for it it is but jus­tice, that the widow should have to the full extent of what was intended her by her husband. The wi­dow must have a right to enter upon her jointure im­mediately on the death of her husband; and if any subsequent period is fixed for it, she may claim her dower in preference.

In some parts of England there remains still a Sax­on custom, called Borough English, by which the youngest instead of the eldest son succeeds to the estate of his father; and the widow, as guardian of that son, has the whole estate for life; by the custom of those lands called Gavelkind, the widow has no jointure, but succeeds to one-half of the lands of the deceased husband, and holds them so long as she re­mains chaste and unmarried. Before the time of William the Conqueror, when a widow married within the year, she forfeited her dower, or join­ture; but that custom long since fell into disuse, and at present the law does not prescribe any time in which she shall not re-marry: custom, however, fixes a kind of stigma upon such as take second husbands, before they have dedicated a decent time to grief and mourning.

[Page 338]What we have hitherto mentioned respecting the women of Great Britain, has chiefly regarded those privileges and immunities which are established to them by law, or conceded to them by custom; but as this long list of privileges is, on the other hand, contrasted with many disadvantages, which are ne­cessary, in civil society, to put the two sexes nearly on an equal footing with each other, let us turn to the other side of the picture, and take a view of these also.

The Salique law of France excludes a woman from governing the nation; in Britain, we allow a woman to sway our sceptre, but by law and custom we debar her from every other government but that of her own family, as if there were not a public em­ployment between that of superintending the king­dom, and the affairs of her own kitchen, which could be managed by the genius and capacity of wo­man. We neither allow women to officiate at our altars, to debate in our councils, nor to fight for us in the field; we suffer them not to be members of our senate, to practise any of the learned professions, nor to concern themselves much with our trades and occupations; we exercise nearly a perpetual guar­dianship over them, both in their virgin and their married state; and she who, having laid a husband in the grave, enjoys an independent fortune, is almost the only woman who among us can be call­ed free. Thus excluded almost from every thing which can give them consequence, they derive the greater part of the power which they enjoy, from their charms; and these, when joined to sensibility, often fully compensate, in this respect, for all the disadvantages they are laid under by law, and by custom.

[Page 339]As the possession of property is one of the most valuable of all political blessings, and generally car­ries the possession of power and authority along with it, one of the most peculiar disadvantages in the con­dition of our women is, their being postponed to all males in the succession to the inheritance of landed estates, and their being generally allowed much smaller shares than the man, even of the money and effects of their fathers and ancestors, when this mo­ney or those effects are given them in the lifetime of their parents, or devised to them by will; for other­wise, that is, if the father dies intestate, they share equally with sons in all personal property. When an estate, in default of male heirs, descends to the daughters, the common custom of England is, that the eldest shall not, in the same manner as an eldest son, inherit the whole, but all the daughters shall have an equal share in it. Westmoreland, however, and some other places, are exceptions to this general rule, and the eldest daughter, there, succeeds to the whole of the land in preference to all the other sisters.

In some ancient states, where the women had at­tained a considerable degree of importance, the right of inheritance from an ancestor devolved equally upon the males and females. Among the Greeks and Ro­mans, however, from whom all Europe at first de­rived the origin of its laws, the sons succeeded in preference to the daughters. In France, and every other kingdom where the feudal system was intro­duced, women were totally excluded from the inhe­ritance of the feudal lands, because the baron, of whom such lands were held, required a military tenant, who should take the field with him when occasion required; and women being incapable of this service, were also considered as incapable of [Page 340] succeeding to such estates as required it. This rule was strictly adhered to in England for some ages after the time of William the Conqueror, who first introduced the feudal system among us; but in pro­cess of time, when it became customary to levy mo­ney on the tenants, instead of their personal attend­ance in the field, it became customary to allow wo­men to inherit, in failure of male issue. We have already observed, that formerly the kings of this country might levy an aid on the subjects for the marriage of their eldest daughters: the great barons exercised the same power over their tenants, and, on the marriage of their eldest daughters, obliged each of them to pay what amounted to above five per cent. of their yearly income. But this was only a small part of the oppression these tenants la­boured under: if any of them presumed to give his daughter in marriage without the consent of his lord, he was liable to an action for defrauding the lord of his property, as the lord had a right to chuse her a husband, to make that husband pay a fine or premium, for providing him with a wife. But be­sides this, it is believed, that the lord claimed a right of a more extraordinary nature, that of enjoy­ing the wife of his tenant the first night; a claim which, however▪ improbable it may seem to us, is not altogether incredible, when we consider the ex­orbitant abuse of power which marked with so much infamy the times we are speaking of.

But besides these laws, which for the most part operate so as to hinder the fair sex from getting into possession of much property, the laws of marriage again divest them of such property as they really are in possession of; by marriage, all the goods and chattel which belonged to the woman become vested in the husband, and he has the same power over [Page 341] them as she had before, while they were her sole and absolute property. When the wife, how­ever, is possessed of a real estate in land, the power which the husband acquires over it is not so exten­sive, he only gains a right to the rents and profits ari­sing out of it during the continuance of the marriage; but if a living child is born to him, though it should die in a very short time, he becomes, in that case, tenant for life, by the courtesy of the country: if there happens to be no child, then at the demise of the wife the estate goes to her heirs at law; but the property of her goods and chattels de [...]olves upon the husband, who has the sole and obsolute power of disposing of them according to his pleasure.

Every married woman is considered as a minor, and cannot do any deed which affects her real or personal property without the consent of her hus­band, and if she does any such deed, it is not valid, and the husband may claim the property she disposed of, as if no such disposal had been made. As a married woman cannot dispose of her property while living, so neither does the law give her that power at her death. In the statute of wills, she is expressly prohibited from devising land, and even from be­queathing goods and chattels without the leave of her husband; because all such goods and chattels are, without any limitation, his sole and absolute property; whether they were such as the wife brought along with her at the marriage, or such as she acquired even by her labour and industry afterward.

The laws of this country not only deny to a mar­ried woman the power of making a will, but also [Page 342] dissolve and render of no effect upon her marriage all and every will she may have made while single; and even when a single woman who has made her will marries, and her husband dies, the will she had made, being invalidated by her marriage, does not recover its validity by the husband's death. If a husband and wife are jointly possessed of houses and lands, which are settled upon the survivor, if the husband destroys himself, his wife shall not have the half that belonged to him; it become the property of the crown, as a compensation for the loss of a sub­ject. When a husband and wife agree to live sepa­rate, and the husband covenants to give her so much a year, if at any time he offers to be reconciled and to take her home, upon her refusal, he shall not any longer be obliged to pay her a separate mainte­nance. If a legacy be paid to a married woman who lives separate from her husband, the husband may file a bill in chancery to oblige the person who paid it to his wife to pay it again to him with interest. If a wife proves insane, the husband, as her proper guardian, has a right to confine her in his own house, or in a private mad house; but should the husband not be inclined to release her when her senses return, a court of equity will give her that relief which the husband denies. The power which a husband has over the person of his wife does not seem perfectly settled by the laws of this country; it is nevertheless certain, that she is not to go abroad, nor to leave his house and family, without his approbation; but what coercive methods he may make use of to restrain her from so doing, or whether he may proceed any farther than to admonition and denying her money, seems a point not altogether agreed upon.

[Page 343]When a wife is injured in her person or in her property, so limited is her power, that she cannot bring an action for redress without the consent and approbation of her husband, nor any way but in his name; if, however, such husband has abjured the realm, or is banished from it, he is considered as dead in law, and his wife in that case may sue for redress in her own name and authority. When a husband and wife are outlawed, and the wife appears in court without her husband, she cannot have the outlawry taken off, because she is considered only as a part of the object against which the outlawry was issued. When a husband becomes bankrupt, and is suspected of having dealt fraudulently with his cre­ditors, the commissioners of the bankruptcy may summon his wife before them, examine her concern­ing his affairs, and commit her to prison if she either refuses to answer such questions as are put to her, or answers them in a doubtful manner. When a wi­dow is endowed of certain lands and tenements, and sells them, the heir at law may not only recover them of the purchaser, but also refuse to restore them back to the widow, or to pay her any dower in their stead. By the laws of England, a father only is empowered to exercise a rightful authority over his children, and no power is conferred on the mother, only so far as to oblige these children to con­sider her as a person entitled to duty and a reveren­tial regard.

Besides the limitations and restrictions which the laws of this [...]ountry have laid upon the fair sex, it is necessary for the good of society that punishments should be an [...]ed to their crimes as well as to thos [...] committed by us; those punishments are for the mos [...] part nearly the same in equal degrees of delinquenc [...] [Page 344] in either sex, a few cases, however, are excepted. A woman guilty of high-treason is not punished in the same manner as a man; for this crime, a man is condemned to be hanged up, taken down alive, and his bowels taken out, and his body divided into quarters. A woman is condemned to be drawn to the place of execution, and there burnt to death. Condemnation to the flames is obliging the criminal to suffer a death of all others the most tremendous and terrible, and has been seldom inflicted in Europe but by bigoted priests and relentless inquisitors; the laws of England, however, reckoning high-treason and the murder of a husband equal to heresy, con­demn to the flames her who is guilty of either, sup­posing that a punishment too exemplary cannot be held out to deter from the commission of such unna­tural crimes. In Scotland, the woman who murders her husband is only hung as a common felon. In all the capital punishments of the sex, the laws of Britain lay it down as a maxim, that decency is not to be violated; we wish the same delicacy was observed in those which are only intended for the reformation of the culprit; but whipping at the cart's tail, as practised over all England, is often a shameful in­stance of the contrary.

Keeping a house for the purpose of prostitution, being a nuisance to the neighbourhood, and subver­sive of the peace and order of society, may be pu­nished by subjecting the lady abbess to labour, to bodily correction, or to fine and imprisonment at the pleasure of the court. In the protectorship of Crom­well, wilful adultery was capital, and keeping a bro­thel, or repeatedly committing fornication, were felony without benefit of clergy. At present, adul­tery is only punishable in the spiritual court by cer­tain [Page 345] penances, and in the civil courts by divorce and loss of dower. Adultery was in Scotland for several centuries punishable by death; and even Mary queen of Scots, a lady, if not belied by fame, no way remarkable for conjugal fidelity, published some of the severest edicts against her sisterhood o [...] sinners; but these severities, at last, in Scotland as well as in England, and the laws respecting adultery are now in both kingdoms nearly upon an equal foot­ing. For a variety of the other crimes committed by the sex against chastity, decency, and decorum, the laws have hardly devised any punishment, leav­ing the unhappy delinquent to the stings of consci­ence, the loss of character, the contempt of the vir­tuous, and the vengeance of offended heaven.

To this short account of punishments, we shall add an inconvenience to which the widowed part of the sex are liable in England, originally brought upon the whole by the indiscretion of a few.

When a husband dies, and either leaves no chil­dren, or only daughters who are by the nature o [...] an entail cut off from inheriting his estate, it ha [...] sometimes happened, that his widow, though no [...] really pregnant, has declared herself so, and at last imposed a spurious heir on the family, in prejudic [...] of the real heir at law. To prevent such abuse, th [...] statutes concerning widows, allow a woman forty weeks after the death of her husband, as the time for pregnancy, and if she is not delivered in tha [...] time, the child is deemed illegitimate; but as thi [...] is far from being a sufficient security against all fraud and imposture, they further empower the heir a [...] law, as soon as the widow shall declare herself preg­nant, to have her examined by a jury of matrons [Page 346] and if they declare she is not pregnant, the heir may immediately enter upon his estate; but if they de­clare that she is pregnant, then the heir, to preven [...] all fraud and imposition, may obtain an order from the court of Common Pleas, directing the sheriff o [...] the county where she resides to confine her in [...] house, the doors of which shall be well guarded and access denied to all improper persons; to caus [...] her to be every day examined by some of the jury o [...] matrons, and also to order, that some of them b [...] present at the birth, to prevent all collusion, an [...] declare whether the child of which she is delivere [...] be a male or female; such treatment, of a perso [...] guilty of no crime, in a country where liberty is th [...] boasted prerogative, may justly be deemed a pecu­liar hardship, and as such is, if possible, scarcely ever practised, except where depravity of manners or particular malevolence against the heir at law make it necessary; and even then, it is conducted with the utmost caution, and care is taken that the woman shall have nothing to complain of that is no absolutely necessary to prevent the dreaded imposition on the family.