Among the Hurons in North America, where the regal dignity is hereditary, and great regard paid to the royal family, the fucceffion is continued through females, in order to preferve the royal blood untainted. When the chief dies, his fon who cerfucceeds not, but his fifter's fon; tainly is of the royal blood, whoever be the father and, when the royal family is at an end, a chief is elected by the nobleft matron of the tribe. The fame rule of fucceffion obtains among the Natches, a people bordering on the Miffiffippi; it being an article in their creed, That their royal family are children of the fun. On the fame belief was founded a law in Peru, appointing the heir of the crown to marry his fifter; which, equally with the law mentioned, preferved the blood of the fun in the royal family, and did not incroach fo much upon the natural order of fucceffion.

Female fucceffion depends in fome degree on the nature of the government. In Holland, all the children, male and female, fucceed equally. The Hollanders live by commerce, which women are capable of as well as men. Land at the

fame

fame time is so scanty in that country, as to render it impracticable to raise a family by engroffing a great estate in land; and there is nothing but the ambition of raising a family, that can move a man to prefer one of his children before the rest. The fame law obtains in Hamburgh, for the fame reasons. Extenfive eftates in land fupport great families in Britain, a circumftance unfavourable to younger children. But probably in London, and in other great trading towns, mercantile men provide against the law, by making a more equal diftribution of their effects among their children.

After tranfverfing a great part of the globe with painful industry, would not one be apt to conclude, that originally females were every where defpifed, as they are at prefent among the favages of America; that wives, like flaves, were procured by barter; that polygamy was univerfal; and that divorce depended on the whim of the hufband? But no fort of reafoning is more fallible, than the drawing general conclufions from particular facts. The northern nations of Europe, as appears from the foregoing fketch, muft be excepted

from

from these conclufions. Among them, women were from the beginning courted and honoured, nor was polygamy ever known among them.

We proceed now to a capital article in the progrefs of the female fex; which is, to trace the different degrees of restraint impofed upon married women in different countries, and at different times in the fame country; and to affign the causes of thefe differences. Where luxury is unknown, and where people have no wants but what are fuggefted by uncorrupted nature; men and women live together with great freedom, and with great innocence. In Greece anciently, even young women of rank miniftered to men in bathing.

"While thefe officious tend the rites divine, "The laft fair branch of the Neftorian line, "Sweet Polycafté, took the pleafant toil

"To bathe the Prince, and pour the fragrant oil (a).

Men and women among the Spartans bathed promifcuously, and wrestled together ftark naked. Tacitus reports, that the Germans had not even feparate beds, but lay promiscuously upon reeds or heath a

Odyffey, book 3. See alfo book 8. line 491.

long

long the walls of the houfe. The fame custom prevails even at prefent among the temperate Highlanders of Scotland; and is not quite worn out in New England. A married woman is under no confinement, because no man thinks of an act fo irregular as to attempt her chastity. In the Caribbee iflands, adultery was unknown, till European Chriftians made fettlements there. At the fame time, there fcarce can be any fewel for jealousy, where men purchase their wives, put them away at pleafure, and even lend them to a friend. But when, by ripening fenfibility, a man feels pleasure in his wife's attachment to him, jealoufy commences; jealoufy of a rival in her affections. Jealoufy accordingly is a fymptom of increasing esteem for the female fex; and that paffion is vifibly creeping in among the natives of Virginia. It begins to have a real foundation, when inequality of rank and of riches takes place. Men of opulence ftudy pleasure married women become objects of a corrupted taste; and often fall a facrifice, where morals are imperfect, and the climate an incentive to animal love. Greece is a delicious country, the people handfome; and when the

ancient

ancient Greeks made the greatest figure,
they were miferably defective in morals.
They became jealous of rivals; which
prompted them, according to the rough
manners of thofe times, to exclude women
from fociety with men. Their women
accordingly were never seen in public; and,
if my memory ferve me, an accidental in-
terview of a man and a woman on the pu-
blic street brings on the catastrophe in a
Greek tragedy. In Hecuba, a tragedy of
Euripides, the Queen excufes herself for
declining to vifit Polymeftor, faying,
"that
"it is indecent for a woman to look a

man in the face." In the Electra of Sophocles, Antigoné is permitted by her mother Jocafta to take a view of the Argian army from a high tower an old man who accompanies her, being alarmed at feeing fome females pafs that way, and afraid of cenfure, prays Antigoné to retire; "for," fays he, women are prone 66 to detraction; and to them the mereft "trifle is a fruitful fubject of converfa

tion * Spain is a country that fcarce

yields

* Women are not prone to detraction, unless when denied the comforts of Society. The cenfure

of