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.
