23.5. 5. Of the several Orders of lawful Wives.
Laws and religion
sometimes establish many kinds of civil conjunctions; and this is the
case among the Mahometans, where there are several orders of wives, the
children of whom are distinguished by being born in the house, by civil
contracts, or even by the slavery of the mother, and the subsequent
acknowledgment of the father.
It would be contrary to reason that the law should stigmatise the
children for what it approved in the father. All these children ought,
therefore, to succeed, at least if some particular reason does not
oppose it, as in Japan, where none inherit but the children of the wife
given by the emperor. Their policy demands that the gifts of the emperor
should not be too much divided, because they subject them to a kind of
service, like that of our ancient fiefs.
There are countries where a wife of the second rank enjoys nearly
the same honours in a family as in our part of the world are granted to
an only consort: there the children of concubines are deemed to belong
to the first or principal wife. Thus it is also established in China.
Filial respect,
[7]
and the ceremony of deep mourning, are not due to the
natural mother, but to her appointed by the law.
By means of this fiction they have no bastard children; and where
such a fiction does not take place, it is obvious that a law to
legitimatize the children of concubines must be considered as an act of
violence, as the bulk of the nation would be stigmatised by such a
decree. Neither is there any regulation in those countries with regard
to children born in adultery. The recluse lives of women, the locks, the
inclosures, and the eunuchs render all infidelity to their husbands so
difficult, that the law judges it impossible. Besides, the same sword
would exterminate the mother and the child.
Footnotes
[7]
Ibid, tome ii, p. 121.
