18.13. 13. Of the Civil Laws of those Nations who do not cultivate the
Earth.
The division of lands is what principally increases the civil code. Among
nations where they have not made this division there are very few civil laws.
The institutions of these people may be called manners rather than laws.
Among such nations as these the old men, who remember things past,
have great authority; they cannot there be distinguished by wealth, but
by wisdom and valour.
These people wander and disperse themselves in pasture grounds or in
forests. Marriage cannot there have the security which it has among us,
where it is fixed by the habitation, and where the wife continues in one
house; they may then more easily change their wives, possess many, and
sometimes mix indifferently like brutes.
Nations of herdsmen and shepherds cannot leave their cattle, which
are their subsistence; neither can they separate themselves from their
wives, who look after them. All this ought, then, to go together,
especially as living generally in a flat open country, where there are
few places of considerable strength, their wives, their children, their
flocks, may become the prey of their enemies.
The laws regulate the division of plunder, and give, like our Salic
laws, a particular attention to theft.
