and station of concubines, a distinction presently made to extend to the children. 6. Parental affection on the part of fathers who have daughters to bestow in marriage, seconding the natural desire of women to have no rival in their husband's house, and aided by increasing benevolence on the part of the men, gradually leads to stipulations that the husband shall take no other wife while the first lives. He is allowed, as an indemnity, as many concubines as he chooses; but the increasing complaints of the wife, and increasing regard for her feelings, presently dictate, that these concubines shall no longer be kept in the same house; and, indeed, that their being kept at all shall be as little as possible brought to her notice. What was at first a matter of stipulation, or of favor in particular cases, comes, presently, to be viewed as no more than ordinary justice towards the wife in all cases; so that, at last, open polygamy, or the living as a husband with two women in the same house, comes to be commonly regarded as an injurious, and, consequently, an immoral act. Doubtless, the men were somewhat hastened in arriving at this conclusion by the inconvenience to themselves, the disorder, clamor, envy, hatred, and jealousy, so apt to prevail in polygamous households. Such would seem to have been the steps, by which the doctrine of monogamy, or of the marriage of one man to one woman, came, in certain communities, to be established as part of the current code of morals. This doctrine owed its establishment to an increased force, on the part of men towards women, of the sentiment of benevolence, resulting, in part, from a general increase of the force of that sentiment, but partially also from an increased admiration of women, and respect for them, which advanced much in the same proportion as mere personal strength lost its relative importance. The same causes naturally tended, at the same time, to release women from that strict seclusion in which they had been held, and to allow them a certain liberty of associating with the male friends of their husbands and fathers. 7. Such were the ideas and customs that prevailed among the Romans, and were communicated by them to the conquered tribes of Western Europe, and, subsequently, to the conquering tribes from the East and North who subdued the western portions of the Roman Empire; and which thus have descended to our times, modified only by certain mystic opinions to be presently considered. Though in the progress above described women had gained much, they had by no means approached towards a social equality with men. By the Roman law, the unmarried daughter remained in strict subjection to her father; and the husband had the same authority over the wife that he had over his children, that is, the superintendence and control of all her actions; and, throughout Christendom, the letter of the existing law is still much the same. The greatest act of justice on the part of the Roman Law towards woman, consisted in the admission of the daughters to an equal share with the sons, in the inheritance of the father; and, subsequently, in al lowing the wife to possess property of her own, with which her husband could not meddle, - great advantages, which some modern codes, especially the English, have not conceded. According to the letter of our modern current codes of morals, the wife is still held bound to obey her husband in all things; and no matter how obvious her physical or intellectual superiority, the reputation of being governed by her, subjects the husband to ridicule, and the wife to reproach. Though she be allowed a certain liberty, yet there are many things held perfectly innocent in men, which she is not permitted to do; many places, which, under any circumstances, she is not allowed to frequent; and many more, to which she can go only under the escort of her husband, or some near male relative. In all these respects, unmarried women are subjected to still greater restraints. 8. But the most remarkable distinction in modern forensic moral codes between male and female morality, relates to the indulgence of the sexual sentiment; indeed, almost all the other existing distinctions may be traced to that. be traced to that. It is held that no possible circumstances can justify or excuse a woman, in the gratification of this sentiment, except with a husband. Should she not obtain a husband, she is held bound to be content with a life of perpetual virginity.* Indeed, unmarried women are re * On this point, the Roman law was more indulgent. If the father did not provide his daughter with a husband, before she reached the age of twenty-five, he was not allowed to make any subsequent slip on her part, a pretence for disinheriting her. quired not to know or feel, at least, never to give any signs of knowing or feeling, that there is such a thing as sexual desire; and they are taught to regard the discovery in themselves of any such feeling, not as a natural emotion which prudence requires them to keep under control, but as a detestable and disgraceful vice, a ground of inferiority and selfreproach, a criminality to be expiated by tears and self-abasement. Adultery in a wife is esteemed the most disgraceful of crimes, exposing her, even in communities in which divorce is allowed for no other cause, to degradation from her station of wife, if not to imprisonment or even death. . The crime of sexual indulgence in an unmarried woman, is esteemed hardly less. If discovered, it subjects her to the utmost obloquy, delivers her up, without possibility of grace or repentance, to utter infamy, — an infamy which extends even to her innocent offspring, — and condemns her, for the most part, to live by prostitution, and to die soon and wretched. So far is this idea carried, that, in current discourse, female virtue means nothing but chastity; an unmarried woman who has lost her virginity is familiarly said to be ruined, and, though it may have been taken from her by force, and against her consent, she is, nevertheless, irretrievably disgraced. An apparent, rather than a real, exception to these harsh decrees, exists in some countries of Europe, in favor of acknowledged concubines, who, .though unmar This, ried, still live faithfully with one man.* however, is properly to be considered as a species of marriage sanctioned by custom, though not acknowledged by the law. It differs from the legal marriage in being dissoluble at the pleasure of either party, and generally in being contracted with some woman of inferior rank whom a man could not take as his wife without the obloquy of having disgraced himself. If, as often happens, the man has also a legal wife, it is then to be considered as the last remains of that system of polygamy, the disuse and disappearance of which we have already traced. . 9. While such extreme severity is exercised towards women, current forensic morals, and in this all forensic codes ancient and modern seem to have agreed, allow to men, if not entire liberty, a very great laxity. Even adultery and seduction -- acts evidently so injurious, in the one case, to the husband, in the other, to an entire family thereby disgraced, and in both cases, to the woman whom these acts expose to such a combination of miseries still, for the most part, and except in cases of particular aggravation, looked upon, in a man, almost or quite, as permissible acts. Even in communities which lay claim to the greatest strictness upon this point, a suspected adulterer, a more than suspected seducer, is not, therefore, incapacitated for the high stewardship of an Orthodox university, or the lord are *See some very sensible remarks upon this subject, in Dr. John Moore's "View of Society and Manners in Italy." Also Bentham's "Theory of Legislation," Vol. II. Part IV. Ch. 5. |