near the Oroonoko, purchase as many wives as they can maintain; and divorce them without ceremony.

Very different is a matrimonial engagement between equals, where a dowry is ibt contracted with the bride. The nature of the engagement implies, that neither of them should difmifs the other, without a juft caufe. In Mexico, where the bride brought a dowry, there could be no divorce but by mutual confent. In Lapland, the women who have a stock of rain-deer as above mentioned, make a confiderable figure. This lays a foundation for a matrimonial covenant as among us, which bars polygamy, and confequently divorce without a juft caufe. And when these are barred in feveral inftances, the prohibition in time becomes general.

I proceed to adultery, the criminality of which depends alfo in fome measure, on the nature of the matrimonial engagement. Where wives are purchased and polygamy is indulged, adultery can fcarce be reckoned a crime in the husband; and where there are a plurality of wives, found fenfe makes it but a venial crime in any of

them. But as men are the lawgivers, the

punishment

punishment of female adultery, where polygamy takes place, is generally too fevere, It is however more or lefs fevere in different countries, in proportion as the men are more or lefs prone to revenge. The Chinese are a mild people, and depend more on locks and bars for preventing adultery, than on feverity; the punishment being only to fell an adulterefs for a flave, The fame law obtains in the kingdom of Laos, bordering upon China. An adulterefs among the ancient Egyptians was punished with the lofs of her nofe. In ancient Greece, a pecuniary penalty was inflicted on an adulterer (a). An adulteress was probably punished more severely. Among the negroes, who have very little delicacy, adultery is but flightly punifhed; except in the kingdom of Benin, There, an adulterefs, after a fevere whipping, is banished; and the adulterer forfeits his goods, which are beftow'd on the injured hufband, Among the ancient Germans, a grave and virtuous people, adultery was rare. An adulterefs was deprived of her hair, expelled from her hufband's house, and whipped through the

(a) Odyffey, b. 8. 1..384.

village

village (a). In Japan, where the people are remarkably fierce, female adultery is always punished with death. In Tonquin, a woman guilty of adultery, is thrown to an elephant to be destroy'd. By the law of Mofes, an adulterefs is punished with death, as alfo the adulterer (b). Margaret of Burgundy, Queen to Lewis Hutin King of France, was hang'd for adultery; and her lovers were flea'd alive. Such were the favage manners of those times. There is an old law in Wales, that for defiling the Prince's bed, the offender must pay a rod of pure gold, of the thickness of the finger of a ploughman who has ploughed nine years, and in length from the ground to the Prince's mouth when fitting.

Matrimony between a fingle pair, for mutual comfort, and for procreating children, implies the stricteft mutual fidelity. Adultery however is a deeper crime in the wife, than in the hufband: in him it may happen occafionally, with little or no alienation of affection; but the fuperior modefty of the female fex is such, that a wife

(a) Tacitus, De moribus Germanorum, cap. 19. (b) Leviticus, xx. 10.

does

does not yield, till unlawful love prevails, not only over modefty, but over duty to her husband. Adultery therefore in the wife, is a breach of the matrimonial engagement in a double refpect: it is an alienation of affection from the husband, which unqualifies her to be his friend and companion; and it tends to bring a spurious iffue into the family, betraying the husband to maintain and educate children who are not his own.

The gradual advance of the female fex to an equality with the male fex, is vifible in the laws of female fucceffion, that have been established at different times, and in different countries. It is not probable, that in any country women were early admitted to inherit land: they are too much despised among favages, for fo valuable a privilege. The fiercenefs and brutality of the ancient Romans in particular, unqualified the women to be their companions : it never entered their thoughts, that women should inherit land, which they cannot defend by the fword. But women came to be regarded, in proportion as the national manners refined. The law prohibiting female fucceffion in land, eftablished

I

blished in days of rufticity, was held to be rigorous and unjust when the Romans were more polished. Proprietors of land, fuch of them as had no fons, were difposed to evade the law, by ample provifions to their daughters, which rendered the land of little value to the collateral heirmale. To reform that abufe, as termed by those who adhered to ancient customs, the lex Voconia was made, confining fuch provifions within moderate bounds and this regulation continued in force, till regard for the female fex broke through every legal restraint, and established female fucceffion in land, as formerly in moveables * The barbarous nations who crush'd

Juftinian, or more properly the lawyers employ'd by him upon that abfurd compilation the Pandects, is guilty of a grofs error, in teaching, that by the Twelve Tables males and females of the fame degree fucceeded equally to land. The lex Voconia (explain'd in Alexandri ab Alexandro geniales dies, lib. 6. cap. 15.) vouches the contrary. And one cannot fee without pain, Juftinian's error, not only adopted by an illuftrious modern, but a caufe affigned for it fo refined and fubtile as to go quite out of fight, L'efprit de loix, liv. 27. chap. 1. I venture to affirm, that fubtile reasoning never had any influence upon a rough and illiterate people; VOL. II. I

and