CHAPTER V.

OF THE UNEQUAL BURDEN OF DUTY IMPOSED ON WOMEN, AND HEREIN OF CHASTITY.

1. In attempting an explication of the variations and contradictions which exist in moral codes so far as pertains to the mutual and relative duties of men and women, and of the unequal burden of duty commonly imposed upon women, we must begin by recollecting that the opinion has almost universally prevailed, that woman is naturally inferior and subordinate to man, and, like other inferior creatures, rightfully to be used as an instrument for promoting his pleasure.

The obvious inferiority of women in personal strength has led to the conclusion of a general inferiority. This opinion of inferiority has naturally produced a certain degree of contempt; which has naturally operated to diminish the force of the sentiment of benevolence; and, therefore, to fix the standard of men's duty to women below that of their duty towards each other.

2. Among savages who are struggling perpetually against hunger, at the same time that they are engaged in exterminating wars, the sentiment of benevolence is at the lowest ebb; and the wife is not so much the companion as the slave of her husband, purchased, indeed, of her parents, compelled to constant hard labor, and exposed to suffer personal chastisement.

Yet even here, beauty and the sexual sentiment so far reinforce the sentiment of benevolence, that, for the short time her charms last, the young wife of the savage is treated with a tenderness and indulgence which disappear as she grows older and less. inviting. However petted at first, she soon experiences the double mortification of finding herself a mere domestic drudge, and her place in her husband's affections supplied by a younger and handsomer rival. For, in savage and barbarous communities, every man is thought entitled to as many wives as he can purchase and maintain; and, though comparative equality and universal poverty have commonly prevented polygamy from being carried, in such communities, to any great extent, it has in no such. community been esteemed wrong.

3. The increase of wealth, which constitutes one of the items of increasing civilization, of course delivers the women of wealthy families from the mere drudgery of servitude. Yet they still remain slaves, and commonly purchased slaves, the great end of whose existence is still esteemed to be, the pleasure of their husband and owner, which they are now thought most able to promote, not so much by hard labor as by elegant accomplishments and refinements in the gratification of the sexual appetite, things of which the savage has very little idea.

Lest they might be withdrawn from the fulfilment of this duty, it is considered expedient and just to seclude them from all other society; to shut them up in a harem as the Greeks did and the Orientals do; or like the Chinese, so to mutilate their feet, as

u must men amus nie of walking abroad. For or the viner isoned to this sort of treatbring soccerved of any other, as TE ATI I NI S They rather glory in I s I mai af ensiberiore, whereby women of The per cas e istrusted from those below

& Eumary brvere. bis by this time, consid#ELT MUZERAČ, mi the pan which women ineviINŢ ja ¤ ining bar places filled, and their rousByDance ad queasures corralled by younger and handsomer TES. S and so obvious, that it begins to be deemed no more than just, to provide a recedy against this er—so far as it may be done, without reaching at all upon the pleasures of the bastund Thus in such communities, it comes to be established as a custom, and. presently, as a rule, that not the last married. youngest, and most beautiful wife, as in roder states of society, but the first married, the oldest wife, is esteemed the mistress of the household, and the superior, in some respects, by virtue of her prior marriage, of the other younger wives.

5. So soon as society begins to be divided into ranks and orders, a distinction also springs up between those wives whose fathers are of the same social rank with the husband, and who are no longer sold, but given in marriage, and those wives who are of an inferior rank, - perhaps the husband's born, or purchased slaves. Those of the first class monopolize the title of wives, and compel those of the second class to be content with the inferior name

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 eauses 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 asseating with the male friends of their husbands and titers

Schwere the ideas and customs that prevailed mong the Romans, and were communicated by them to the congrend tribes of Western Europe, and, sub

2 the conquering tribes from the East Nie sabed the western portions of the Frey and which thus have descended er Limes, mål.hed only by certain mystic opinweserty considered.

Phong in the progress above described women 14. Sunei mach, they had by no means approached psis equality with men. By the Roman de the pnmarried daughter remained in strict subvantar de her father; and the husband had the same hair over the wife that he had over his children,

she superintendence and control of all her ons and, throughout Christendom, the letter of evsing law is still much the same. The

set of justice on the part of the Roman wis woman, consisted in the admission of ters to an equal share with the sons, in the ance of the father; and, subsequently, in al