23.4. 4. Of Families.
It is almost everywhere a custom for the wife to
pass into the family of the husband. The contrary is without any
inconvenience established at Formosa,
[6]
where the husband enters into
the family of the wife.
This law, which fixes the family in a succession of persons of the
same sex, greatly contributes, independently of the first motives, to
the propagation of the human species. The family is a kind of property:
a man who has children of a sex which does not perpetuate it is never
satisfied if he has not those who can render it perpetual.
Names, whereby men acquire an idea of a thing which one would
imagine ought not to perish, are extremely proper to inspire every
family with a desire of extending its duration. There are people among
whom names distinguish families: there are others where they only
distinguish persons: the latter have not the same advantage as the
former.
Footnotes
[6]
Father Du Halde, tome i, p. 165.
