Page:History of Manchester (1771), Volume 1, by John Whitaker.djvu/400

 £h&p. X. O F- M'A N C HE 9TER. 365 - V - THE primitive Britons are charged by tweo£ the moft re* fpe&able hiftorians among the Rortians with die grofs barbarifms of a community of wives, inceftuous loves, and unnatural mix-* tures. And the accusation is too furely as juft in ittelf as it is enormous in its nature A community of wives is the princi- pal point. in the charge ; and the iqeeftuous and unnatural co- habitations are mentioned merely as the^refult oftheoth^r.- And this, is not,, <as at firft fight it n*ay fpem to 'be, repugnant to the British principles of gavelkind in private inheritances and to the Britiih modes of fucceffion in public. : A particular proyifioa ytzs made, that the children of every wife fh,ould be. reckoned 3s the progeny of the genuine huiband. e Nor is this. cptp* muoity at all contradictory^ as. -at firft it may feem to he*;, efther to fonae particular notices in the Roman accounts or to the ge- neral tenor of the Poems of Offian. In the former indeed Boa- dijeia is mentioned as the appropriated wife of Prafytagus*, an-. Qtherperiba i^ ipokenof as- the peculiar confort of Cara&acus^ ^ruj C^rtifaoandua. is named as die particular ipoule of. Venn- tius>. But the marrierof the maid was always- efteemed as £he hufband of the wife V And though, in the Poems of Oflian. we lee thft principle of ^patrimonial fidelity eon/jdered with de- fioacy ana obferved tfkh. religion anjong the, Brltifh 'wives, yet this is f Very compatible yivh ' the ^bcounts of jthe r Romans. That principle might coiifift inafi.delity ntft to one'^tif to fe-' vera!, to all the individuals th^t Njrere 'incorporated into the fo- ciety, who were geiterally ten* or twelve 1 in ' riumt>er,. and who agrfeed among themfelves to ai^cominuttrty oT *tvivcsi% -Airfl'an habitual : k: national' affbdatibcr of ideas /will 4bori render aiiy* g*eflfo<6fles agceeabfe & fltelicaey and' -will- ffiwi uoake "tin£iittf>trt, iv J ties cdm^iblfe wilrfi reK^on: ' - - "■ ■■ '■ ;i - • '"•'■ '•TtW Biitiftr females, after tlia fatrtdtaonr, of -foinmng, {& cotoftaatijr : «mp&ycfa; in the ^ntffec'liftoW oFifti/ dKfofF the-: fliafoy -tioufs fef &fcth VhicFt tha want?- offfafcaiy' amfrfemtfiits • xtttfft ha^e-fefr'ttartititiferfy- uabant to? thV'-foritr att.Wes, -thar the ^indfe'Wamff tfte^mb'ol of thefex, and. air eft ate devolving • .•."'■• to*