: tion ; and fatiety with respect to one, would give new vigour with respect to others a generic habit would be formed of intemperance in fruition (a); and animal love would become the ruling paffion. Men, like the hart in rutting-time, would all the year round fly with impetuofity from object to object, giving no quarter even to women fuckling their infants and women, abandoning themfelves to the fame appetite, would become altogether regardless of their offspring. In that ftate, the continuance of the human race would be a miracle. In the favage ftate, as mentioned above, it is beyond the power of any woman to provide food. for a family of children; and now it appears, that intemperance in animal love would render a woman carelefs of her family, however eafy it might be to provide for it *. (a) Elements of Criticism, chap. 14. I * I have often been tempted to blame Providence for bringing to perfection in early youth the carnal appetite, long before people have acquired any prudence or felf-command. It rages the most when young men fhould be employed in acquiring know-ledge, and in fitting themfelves for living comfort ably I fay more. The promiscuous ufe of women would unqualify them in a great measure to procreate. The carnal appetite in man resembles his appetite for food: cach of them demands gratification, after fhort intervals. Where the carnal appetite is felt but a fhort space annually, as among animals who feed on grafs, the promifcuous use of females is according to the order of nature: but fuch a law in man, where the carnal appetite is always awake, would be an effectual bar to procreation ; it being an undoubted truth, that women. ably in the world. I have fet this thought in various lights; but I now perceive that the cenfure is without foundation. The early ripeness of this appetite, proves it to be the intention of Providence that people fhould early fettle in matrimony. In that ftate the appetite is abundantly moderate, and gives no obftruction to education. It never becomes unruly, till a man, forgetting the matrimonial tie, wanders from object to object. Pride and luxury are what dictate late mar riages industry never fails to afford the means of living comfortably, provided men confine themfelves to the demands of nature. A young man, at the fame time, who has the care of a family upon him, is impelled to be active in order to provide food for them. And fuppofing him to have a fufficiency without labour, attention to his wife and children produces a habit of doing good, which is regularly extended to all around. And married men become thus good citizens; and fome of them eminent patriots. who who indulge that appetite to excess, seldom have children; and if all women were common, all women would in effect be common prostitutes. If undisguised nature show itself any where, it is in children. So truly is matrimony an appointment of nature, as to be understood even by children. They often hear, it is true, people talking of matrimony; but they alfo hear of logical, metaphyfical, and commercial matters, without understanding a fyllable. Whence then their notion of marriage but from nature? Marriage is a compound idea, which no inftruction could bring within the comprehenfion of a child, did not nature co-operate. That the arguments urged above against a promifcuous ufe of women, do not neceffarily conclude against polygamy, or the union of one man with a plurality of women, will not escape an attentive reader. -St Auguftin and other fathers admit, that polygamy is not prohibited by the law of nature; and the learned Grotius profeffes the fame opinion (a). But great names (a) De jure belli ac pacis, lib. 2. cap. 5. § 9. terrify me not; and I venture to maintain, that pairing in the ftricteft fenfe is a law of nature among men as among wild birds; and that polygamy is a grofs infringement of that law. My reasons follow. I urge, in the first place, the equal number of males and females, as a clear indication that Providence intends every man to be confined to one wife, and every woman to one husband. That equality, which has fubfifted in all countries and at all times, is a fignal inftance of over-ruling Providence; for the chances against it are infinite. All men are by nature equal in rank: no man is privileged above another to have a wife; and therefore polygamy is contradictory to the plan of Providence. Were ten women born for one man, as is erroneously reported to be the cafe in Bantam, polygamy might be the intention of Providence; but from the equality of males and females, it is clearly the voice of nature, as well as of the facred fcripture, "That a man fhall leave "his father and mother, and cleave to his "wife; and they fhall be one flesh." Confider J Confider, in the next place, that however plaufible polygamy may appear in the present state of things, where inequality of rank and of fortune have produced luxury and fenfuality; yet that the laws of nature were not contrived by our Maker for a forced ftate, where numberless individuals are degraded below their natural rank, for the benefit of a few who are elevated above it. To form a just notion of polygamy, we must look back to the original state of man, where all are equal. In that state, every man cannot have two wives; and confequently no man is entitled to more than one, till every other be upon an equal footing with him. At the fame time, the union of one man with one woman is much better calculated for continuing the race, than the union of one man with many women. Think of a favage who may have fifty or fixty children by different wives, all depending for food upon his induftry: chance muft turn out much in his favour, if the half of them perish. not by hunger. How much a better chance for life have infants who are diftributed more equally in different fa milies? VOL. II. C Polygamy |