I have already
mentioned that with people who do not cultivate the earth, marriages are
less fixed than with others, and that they generally take many wives.
"Of all the barbarous nations the Germans were almost the only people
who were satisfied with one wife,
[33]
if we except," says Tacitus, "some
persons who, not from a dissoluteness of manners, but because of their
nobility, had may."
[34]
This explains the reason why the kings of the first race had so
great a number of wives. These marriages were less a proof of
incontinence than a consequence of dignity: and it would have wounded
them in a tender point to have deprived them of such a prerogative.
[35]
This also explains the reason why the example of the kings was not
followed by the subjects.
