Book XVI.
How the Laws of Domestic Slavery Bear a Relation to the
Nature of the Climate.
16.1. 1. Of domestic Servitude.
Slaves are established for the family; but
they are not a part of it. Thus I distinguish their servitude from that
which the women in some countries suffer, and which I shall properly
call domestic servitude.
16.2. 2. That in the Countries of the South there is a natural Inequality
between the two Sexes.
Women, in hot climates, are marriageable at
eight, nine, or ten years of age;
[1]
thus, in those countries, infancy
and marriage generally go together. They are old at twenty: their reason
therefore never accompanies their beauty. When beauty demands the
empire, the want of reason forbids the claim; when reason is obtained,
beauty is no more. These women ought then to be in a state of
dependence; for reason cannot procure in old age that empire which even
youth and beauty could not give. It is therefore extremely natural that
in these places a man, when no law opposes it, should leave one wife to
take another, and that polygamy should be introduced.
In temperate climates, where the charms of women are best preserved,
where they arrive later at maturity, and have children at a more
advanced season of life, the old age of their husbands in some degree
follows theirs; and as they have more reason and knowledge at the time
of marriage, if it be only on account of their having continued longer
in life, it must naturally introduce a kind of equality between the two
sexes; and, in consequence of this, the law of having only one wife.
In cold countries the almost necessary custom of drinking strong
liquors establishes intemperance amongst men. Women, who in this respect
have a natural restraint, because they are always on the defensive, have
therefore the advantage of reason over them.
Nature, which has distinguished men by their reason and bodily
strength, has set no other bounds to their power than those of this
strength and reason. It has given charms to women, and ordained that
their ascendancy over man shall end with these charms: but in hot
countries, these are found only at the beginning, and never in the
progress of life.
Thus the law which permits only one wife is physically conformable
to the climate of Europe, and not to that of Asia. This is the reason
why Mahometanism was so easily established in Asia, and with such
difficulty extended in Europe; why Christianity is maintained in Europe,
and has been destroyed in Asia; and, in fine, why the Mahometans have
made such progress in China, and the Christians so little. Human
reasons, however, are subordinate to that Supreme Cause who does
whatever He pleases, and renders everything subservient to His will.
Some particular reasons induced Valentinian
[2]
to permit polygamy in
the empire. That law, so improper for our climates, was abrogated by
Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius.
[3]
Footnotes
[1]
"Mahomet married Cadhisja at five, and took her to his bed at
eight years old. In the hot countries of Arabia and the Indies, girls
are marriageable at eight years of age, and are brought to bed the year
after." — Prideaux, "Life of Mahomet." We see women in the kingdom of
Algiers pregnant at nine, ten, and eleven years of age. — Laugier de
Tassis, "History of the Kingdom of Algiers," p. 61.
[2]
See Jornandes, "De Regno et Tempor. Success.," and the ecclesiastic
historians.
[3]
See Leg. 7. "Cod. De Judæis et Cælicolis, and Nov. 18, cap. v.
16.3. 3. That a Plurality of Wives greatly depends on the Means of
supporting them.
Though in countries where polygamy is once established
the number of wives is principally determined by the opulence of the
husband, yet it cannot be said that opulence established polygamy in
those states, since poverty may produce the same effect, as I shall
prove when I come to speak of the savages.
Polygamy, in powerful nations, is less a luxury in itself than the
occasion of great luxury. In hot climates they have few wants, and it
costs little to maintain a wife and children;
[4]
they may therefore have
a great number of wives.
Footnotes
[4]
In Ceylon a man may live on ten sols a month; they eat nothing
there but rice and fish. "Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the
Establishment of the East India Company," ii, part 1.
16.4. 4. That the Law of Polygamy is an affair that depends on
Calculation.
According to the calculations made in several parts of
Europe, there are here born more boys than girls;
[5]
on the contrary, by
the accounts we have of Asia, there are there born more girls than
boys.
[6]
The law which in Europe allows only one wife, and that in Asia
which permits many, have therefore a certain relation to the climate.
In the cold climates of Asia there are born, as in Europe, more
males than females; and hence, say the Lamas,
[7]
is derived the reason
of that law which amongst them permits a woman to have many husbands.
[8]
But it is difficult for me to believe that there are many countries
where the disproportion can be great enough for any exigency to justify
the introducing either the law in favour of many wives or that of many
husbands. This would only imply that a majority of women, or even a
majority of men, is more conformable to nature in certain countries than
in others.
I confess that if what history tells us be true, that at Bantam
there are ten women to one man,
[9]
this must be a case particularly
favourable to polygamy.
In all this I only give their reasons, but do not justify their
customs.
Footnotes
[5]
Dr. Arbuthnot finds that in England the number of boys exceeds
that of girls; but people have been to blame to conclude that the case
is the same in all climates.
[6]
See Kempfer, who relates that upon numbering the people of Meaco
there were found 182,072 males, and 223,573 females.
[7]
Father Du Halde, "History of China," vol. iv, p. 4.
[8]
Albuzeir-el-hassen, one of the Mahometan Arabs who, in the ninth
century, went into India and China, thought this custom a prostitution.
And indeed nothing could be more contrary to the ideas of a Mahometan.
[9]
"Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of
the East India Company," vol.i.
16.5. 5. The Reason of a Law of Malabar.
In the tribe of the Naires, on
the coast of Malabar, the men can have only one wife, while a woman, on
the contrary, may have many husbands.
[10]
The origin of this custom is
not I believe difficult to discover. The Naires are the tribe of nobles,
who are the soldiers of all those nations. In Europe soldiers are
forbidden to marry; in Malabar, where the climate requires greater
indulgence, they are satisfied with rendering marriage as little
burdensome to them as possible: they give one wife amongst many men,
which consequently diminishes the attachment to a family, and the cares
of housekeeping, and leaves them in the free possession of a military
spirit.
Footnotes
[10]
See Francis Pirard, cap. 27. "Edifying Letters," coll. iii, x, on the
Malleami on the coast of Malabar. "This is considered as an abuse of the
military profession, as a woman," says Pirard, of the tribe of the
Bramins never would marry many husbands.
16.6. 6. Of Polygamy considered in itself.
With regard to polygamy in
general, independently of the circumstances which may render it
tolerable, it is not of the least service to mankind, nor to either of
the two sexes, whether it be that which abuses or that which is abused.
Neither is it of service to the children; for one of its greatest
inconveniences is, that the father and mother cannot have the same
affection for their offspring; a father cannot love twenty children with
the same tenderness as a mother can love two. It is much worse when a
wife has many husbands; for then paternal love only is held by this
opinion, that a father may believe, if he will, or that others may
believe, that certain children belong to him.
They say that the Emperor of Morocco has women of all colours,
white, black, and tawny, in his seraglio. But the wretch has scarcely
need of a single colour.
Besides, the possession of so many wives does not always prevent
their entertaining desires for those of others;
[11]
it is with lust as
with avarice, whose thirst increases by the acquisition of treasure.
In the reign of Justinian, many philosophers, displeased with the
constraint of Christianity, retired into Persia. What struck them the
most, says Agathias,
[12]
was that polygamy was permitted amongst men who
did not even abstain from adultery.
May I not say that a plurality of wives leads to that passion which
nature disallows? for one depravation always draws on another. I
remember that in the revolution which happened at Constantinople, when
Sultan Achmet was deposed, history says that the people, having
plundered the Kiaya's house, found not a single woman; they tell us that
at Algiers,
[13]
in the greatest part of their seraglios, they have none
at all.
Footnotes
[11]
This is the reason why women in the East are so carefully
concealed.
[12]
"Life and Actions of Justinian," p. 403.
[13]
Laugier de Tassis, "History of the Kingdom of Algiers."
16.7. 7. Of an Equality of Treatment in case of many Wives.
From the law which permitted a plurality of wives followed that of an equal behaviour
to each. Mahomet, who allowed of four, would have everything, as
provisions, dress, and conjugal duty, equally divided between them. This
law is also in force in the Maldivian isles,
[14]
where they are at liberty to marry three wives.
The law of Moses
[15]
even declares that if any one has married his
son to a slave, and this son should afterwards espouse a free woman, her
food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. They
might give more to the new wife, but the first was not to have less than
she had before.
Footnotes
[14]
See Pirard, "Voyages," cap. 12.
16.8. 8. Of the Separation of Women from Men.
The prodigious number of
wives possessed by those who live in rich and voluptuous countries is a
consequence of the law of polygamy. Their separation from men, and their
close confinement, naturally follow from the greatness of this number.
Domestic order renders this necessary; thus an insolvent debtor seeks to
conceal himself from the pursuit of his creditors. There are climates
where the impulses of nature have such force that morality has almost
none. If a man be left with a woman, the temptation and the fall will be
the same thing; the attack certain, the resistance none. In these
countries, instead of precepts, they have recourse to bolts and bars.
One of the Chinese classic authors considers the man as a prodigy of
virtue who, finding a woman alone in a distant apartment, can forbear
making use of force.
[16]
Footnotes
[16]
"It is an admirable touch-stone, to find by oneself a treasure,
and to know the right owner; or to see a beautiful woman in a lonely
apartment; or to hear the cries of an enemy, who must perish without our
assistance." — Translation of a Chinese piece of morality, which may be
seen in Du Halde, vol. iii, p. 151.
16.9. 9. Of the Connection between domestic and political Government.
In a republic the condition of citizens is moderate, equal, mild, and
agreeable; everything partakes of the benefit of public liberty. An
empire over the women cannot, among them, be so well exerted; and where
the climate demands this empire, it is most agreeable to a monarchical
government. This is one of the reasons why it has ever been difficult to
establish a popular government in the East.
On the contrary, the slavery of women is perfectly conformable to
the genius of a despotic government, which delights in treating all with
severity. Thus at all times have we seen in Asia domestic slavery and
despotic government walk hand in hand with an equal pace.
In a government which requires, above all things, that a particular
regard be paid to its tranquillity, and where the extreme subordination
calls for peace, it is absolutely necessary to shut up the women; for
their intrigues would prove fatal to their husbands. A government which
has not time to examine into the conduct of its subjects views them with
a suspicious eye, only because they appear and suffer themselves to be
known.
Let us only suppose that the levity of mind, the indiscretions, the
tastes and caprices of our women, attended by their passions of a higher
and a lower kind, with all their active fire, and in that full liberty
with which they appear amongst us, were conveyed into an eastern
government, where would be the father of a family who could enjoy a
moment's repose? The men would be everywhere suspected, everywhere
enemies; the state would be overturned, and the kingdom overflowed with
rivers of blood.
16.10. 10. The Principle on which the Morals of the East are founded.
In the case of a multiplicity of wives, the more a family ceases to be
united, the more ought the laws to reunite its detached parts in a
common centre; and the greater the diversity of interests, the more
necessary is it for the laws to bring them back to a common interest.
This is more particularly done by confinement. The women should not
only be separated from the men by the walls of the house, but they ought
also to be separated in the same enclosure, in such a manner that each
may have a distinct household in the same family. Hence each derives all
that relates to the practice of morality, modesty, chastity, reserve,
silence, peace, dependence, respect, and love; and, in short, a general
direction of her thoughts to that which, in its own nature, is a thing
of the greatest importance, a single and entire attachment to her
family.
Women have naturally so many duties to fulfil — duties which are
peculiarly theirs — that they cannot be sufficiently excluded from
everything capable of inspiring other ideas; from everything that goes
by the name of amusements; and from everything which we call business.
We find the manners more pure in the several parts of the East, in
proportion as the confinement of women is more strictly observed. In
great kingdoms there are necessarily great lords. The greater their
wealth, the more enlarged is their ability of keeping their wives in an
exact confinement, and of preventing them from entering again into
society. Hence it proceeds that in the empires of Turkey, Persia, of the
Mogul, China, and Japan, the manners of their wives are admirable.
But the case is not the same in India, where a multitude of islands
and the situation of the land have divided the country into an infinite
number of petty states, which from causes that we have not here room to
mention are rendered despotic.
There are none there but wretches, some pillaging and others
pillaged. Their grandees have very moderate fortunes, and those whom
they call rich have only a bare subsistence. The confinement of their
women cannot therefore be very strict; nor can they make use of any
great precautions to keep them within due bounds; hence it proceeds that
the corruption of their manners is scarcely to be conceived.
We may there see to what an extreme the vices of a climate indulged
in full liberty will carry licentiousness. It is there that nature has a
force and modesty a weakness, which exceeds all comprehension. At
Patan
[17]
the wanton desires of the women are so outrageous, that the
men are obliged to make use of a certain apparel to shelter them from
their designs.
[18]
According to Mr. Smith,
[19]
things are not better
conducted in the petty kingdoms of Guinea. In these countries the two
sexes lose even those laws which properly belong to each.
Footnotes
[17]
"Collection of Voyages that Contributed to the Establishment of
the East India Company," vol. ii, part II, p. 196.
[18]
In the Maldivian isles the fathers marry their daughters at ten
and eleven years of age, because it is a great sin, say they, to suffer
them to endure the want of a husband. See Pirard, cap. 12. At Bantam, as soon
as a girl is twelve or thirteen years old, she must be married, if they
would not have her lead a debauched life. "Collection of Voyages that
Contributed to the Establishment of the East India Company," p. 348.
[19]
"Voyage to Guinea," part II, p. 192. "When the women happen to
meet with a man, they lay hold of him, and threaten to make a complaint
to their husbands if he slight their addresses. They steal into a man's
bed, and wake him; and if he refuses to comply with their desires, they
threaten to suffer themselves to be caught in flagranti.
16.11. 11. Of domestic Slavery independently of Polygamy.
It is not only a plurality of wives which in certain places of the East requires their
confinement, but also the climate itself. Those who consider the
horrible crimes, the treachery, the dark villainies, the poisonings, the
assassinations, which the liberty of women has occasioned at Goa and in
the Portuguese settlements in the Indies, where religion permits only
one wife; and who compare them with the innocence and purity of manners
of the women of Turkey, Persia, Hindostan, China, and Japan, will
clearly see that it is frequently as necessary to separate them from the
men, when they have but one, as when they have many.
These are things which ought to be decided by the climate. What
purpose would it answer to shut up women in our northern countries,
where their manners are naturally good; where all their passions are
calm; and where love rules over the heart with so regular and gentle an
empire that the least degree of prudence is sufficient to conduct it?
It is a happiness to live in those climates which permit such
freedom of converse, where that sex which has most charms seems to
embellish society, and where wives, reserving themselves for the
pleasures of one, contribute to the amusement of all.
16.12. 12. Of natural Modesty.
All nations are equally agreed in fixing
contempt and ignominy on the incontinence of women. Nature has dictated
this to all. She has established the attack, and she has established too
the resistance; and having implanted desires in both, she has given to
the one boldness, and to the other shame. To individuals she has granted
a long succession of years to attend to their preservation: but to
continue the species, she has granted only a moment.
It is then far from being true that to be incontinent is to follow
the laws of nature; on the contrary, it is a violation of these laws,
which can be observed only by behaving with modesty and discretion.
Besides, it is natural for intelligent beings to feel their
imperfections. Nature has, therefore, fixed shame in our minds — a
shame of our imperfections.
When, therefore, the physical power of certain climates violates the
natural law of the two sexes, and that of intelligent beings, it belongs
to the legislature to make civil laws, with a view to opposing the
nature of the climate and re-establishing the primitive laws.
16.13. 13. Of Jealousy.
With respect to nations, we ought to distinguish
between the passion of jealousy and a jealousy arising from customs,
manners, and laws. The one is a hot raging fever; the other, cold, but
sometimes terrible, may be joined with indifference and contempt.
The one, an abuse of love, derives its source from love itself. The
other depends only on manners, on the customs of a nation, on the laws
of the country, and sometimes even on religion.
[20]
It is generally the effect of the physical power of the climate;
and, at the same time, the remedy of this physical power.
Footnotes
[20]
Mahomet desired his followers to watch their wives; a certain
Iman, when he was dying, said the same thing; and Confucius preached the
same doctrine.
16.14. 14. Of the Eastern Manner of domestic Government.
Wives are changed so often in the East that they cannot have the power of domestic
government. This care is, therefore, committed to the eunuchs, whom they
entrust with their keys and the management of their families. "In
Persia," says Sir John Chardin, "married women are furnished with
clothes as they want them, after the manner of children." Thus that care
which seems so well to become them, that care which everywhere else is
the first of their concern, does not at all regard them.
16.15. 15. Of Divorce and Repudiation.
There is this difference between a
divorce and a repudiation, that the former is made by mutual consent,
arising from a mutual antipathy; while the latter is formed by the will,
and for the advantage of one of the two parties, independently of the
will and advantage of the other.
The necessity there is sometimes for women to repudiate, and the
difficulty there always is in doing it, render that law very tyrannical
which gives this right to men without granting it to women. A husband is
the master of the house; he has a thousand ways of confining his wife to
her duty, or of bringing her back to it; so that in his hands it seems
as if repudiation could be only a fresh abuse of power. But a wife who
repudiates only makes use of a dreadful kind of remedy. It is always a
great misfortune for her to go in search of a second husband, when she
has lost the most part of her attractions with another. One of the
advantages attending the charms of youth in the female sex is that in an
advanced age the husband is led to complacency and love by the
remembrance of past pleasures.
It is then a general rule that in all countries where the laws have
given to men the power of repudiating, they ought also to grant it to
women. Nay, in climates where women live in domestic slavery, one would
think that the law ought to favour women with the right of repudiation,
and husbands only with that of divorce.
When wives are confined in a seraglio, the husband ought not to
repudiate on account of an opposition of manners; it is the husband's
fault if their manners are incompatible.
Repudiation on account of the barrenness of the woman ought never to
take place except where there is only one wife:
[21]
when there are many,
this is of no importance to the husband.
A law of the Maldivians permitted them to take again a wife whom
they had repudiated.
[22]
A law of Mexico
[23]
forbade their being
reunited under pain of death. The law of Mexico was more rational than
that of the Maldivians: at the time even of the dissolution, it attended
to the perpetuity of marriage; instead of this, the law of the
Maldivians seemed equally to sport with marriage and repudiation.
The law of Mexico admitted only of divorce. This was a particular
reason for their not permitting those who were voluntarily separated to
be ever reunited. Repudiation seems chiefly to proceed from a hastiness
of temper, and from the dictates of passion; while divorce appears to be
an affair of deliberation.
Divorces are frequently of great political use: but as to the civil
utility, they are established only for the advantage of the husband and
wife, and are not always favourable to their children.
Footnotes
[21]
It does not follow hence that repudiation on account of
sterility should be permitted amongst Christians.
[22]
They took them again preferably to any other, because in this
case there was less expense. — Pirard, "Travels."
[23]
Solis, "History of the Conquest of Mexico," p. 499.
16.16. 16. Of Repudiation and Divorce amongst the Romans.
Romulus permitted a husband to repudiate his wife, if she had committed adultery, prepared
poison, or procured false keys. He did not grant to women the right of
repudiating their husbands. Plutarch
[24]
calls this a law extremely severe.
As the Athenian law
[25]
gave the power of repudiation to the wife as
well as to the husband, and as this right was obtained by the women
among the primitive Romans, notwithstanding the law of Romulus, it is
evident that this institution was one of those which the deputies of
Rome brought from Athens, and which were inserted in the laws of the
Twelve Tables.
Cicero says that the reasons of repudiation sprang from the law of
the Twelve Tables.
[26]
We cannot then doubt but that this law increased
the number of the reasons for repudiation established by Romulus.
The power of divorce was also an appointment, or at least a
consequence, of the law of the Twelve Tables. For from the moment that
the wife or the husband had separately the right of repudiation, there
was a much stronger reason for their having the power of quitting each
other by mutual consent.
The law did not require that they should lay open the causes of
divorce
[27]
In the nature of the thing, the reasons for repudiation
should be given, while those for a divorce are unnecessary; because,
whatever causes the law may admit as sufficient to break a marriage, a
mutual antipathy must be stronger than them all.
The following fact, mentioned by Dionysius Halicarnassus,
[28]
Valerius Maximus,
[29]
and Aulus Gellius,
[30]
does not appear to me to
have the least degree of probability: though they had at Rome, say they,
the power of repudiating a wife, yet they had so much respect for the
auspices that nobody for the space of five hundred and twenty years ever
made
[31]
use of this right, till Carvilius Ruga repudiated his, because
of her sterility. We need only be sensible of the nature of the human
mind to perceive how very extraordinary it must be for a law to grant
such right to a whole nation, and yet for nobody to make use of it.
Coriolanus, setting out on his exile, advised his
[32]
wife to marry a
man more happy than himself. We have just been seeing that the law of
the Twelve Tables and the manners of the Romans greatly extended the law
of Romulus. But to what purpose were these extensions if they never made
use of a power to repudiate? Besides, if the citizens had such a respect
for the auspices that they would never repudiate, how came the
legislators of Rome to have less than they? And how came the laws
incessantly to corrupt their manners?
All that is surprising in the fact in question will soon disappear,
only by comparing two passages in Plutarch. The regal law
[33]
permitted a husband to repudiate in the three cases already mentioned, and "it
enjoined," says Plutarch,
[34]
"that he who repudiated in any other case
should be obliged to give the half of his substance to his wife, and
that the other half should be consecrated to Ceres." They might then
repudiate in all cases, if they were but willing to submit to the
penalty. Nobody had done this before Carvilius Ruga,
[35]
who, as Plutarch says in another place,
[36]
"put away his wife for her sterility
two hundred and thirty years after Romulus." That is, she was repudiated
seventy-one years before the law of the Twelve Tables, which extended
both the power and causes of repudiation.
The authors I have cited say that Carvilius Ruga loved his wife, but
that the censors made him take an oath to put her away, because of her
barrenness, to the end that he might give children to the republic; and
that this rendered him odious to the people. We must know the genius and
temper of the Romans before we can discover the true cause of the hatred
they had conceived against Carvilius. He did not fall into disgrace with
the people for repudiating his wife; this was an affair that did not at
all concern them. But Carvilius had taken an oath to the censors, that
by reason of the sterility of his wife he would repudiate her to give
children to the republic. This was a yoke which the people saw the
censors were going to put upon them. I shall discover, in the
prosecution of this work,
[37]
the repugnance which they always felt to
regulations of the like kind. But whence can such a contradiction
between those authors arise? It is because Plutarch examined into a
fact, and the others have recounted a prodigy.
Footnotes
[25]
This was a law of Solon.
[26]
"Mimam res suas sibi habere jussit, ex duodecim tabulis causam
addidit." — Philipp, ii. 69.
[27]
Justinian altered this, Nov. 117, cap. x.
[31]
According to Dionysius Halicarnassus and Valerius Maximus; and
five hundred and twenty-three, according to Aulus Gellius. Neither did
they agree in placing this under the same consuls.
[32]
See the "Speech of Veturia" in Dionysius Halicarnassus, viii.
[33]
Plutarch, "Life of Romulus."
[35]
Indeed sterility is not a cause mentioned by the law of Romulus:
but to all appearance he was not subject to a confiscation of his
effects, since he followed the orders of the censors.
[36]
In his comparison between Theseus and Romulus.
