Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (1827) Vol 1.djvu/294

 270 THE DECLINE AND FALL CHAP, chaste ;" and notwithstanding the latter of these virtues • is acquired and preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is ascribed, almost without excep- tion, to the wives of the ancient Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances. Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws. Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was seduction justified by example and fashion''. We may easily discover, that Tacitus in- dulges an honest pleasure in the contrast of barbarian virtue, with the dissolute conduct of the Roman ladies : yet there are some striking circumstances that give an air of truth, or at least of probability, to the conjugal faith and chastity of the Germans. Its probable Although the progress of civilization has undoubt- causes. ^^j^ contributed to assuage the fiercer passions of human nature, it seems to have been less favourable to the virtue of chastity, whose most dangerous enemy is ^ the softness of the mind. The refinements of life cor- rupt while they polish the intercourse of the sexes. The gross appetite of love becomes most dangerous when it is elevated, or rather, indeed, disguised by sen- timental passion. The elegance of dress, of motion, and of manners, gives a lustre to beauty, and inflames the senses through the imagination. Luxurious enter- tainments, midnight dances, and licentious spectacles, present at once temptation and opportunity to female frailty K From such dangers, the unpohshed wives of the barbarians were secured, by poverty, solitude, and the painful cares of a domestic life. The German huts, open on every side to the eye of indiscretion or jea- lousy, were a better safeguard of conjugal fidelity, than the walls, the bolts, and the eunuchs of a Persian haram. To this reason, another may be added of a '' The adulteress was whipped through the village. Neither wealth nor beauty could inspire compassion, or procure her a second husband, 18, 19. ' Ovid employs two hundred lines in the research of places the most fa- vourable to love. Above all, he considers the theatre as the best adapted to collect the beauties of Rome, and to melt them into tenderness and sensuality.