Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/115

Rh The law which prohibited people's having two inheritances was extremely well adapted for a democracy. It derived its origin from the equal distribution of lands and portions made to each citizen. The law would not permit a single man to possess more than a single portion.

From the same source arose those laws by which the next relation was ordered to marry the heiress. This law was given to the Jews after the like distribution. Plato, who grounds his laws on this division, made the same regulation, which had been received as a law by the Athenians.

At Athens there was a law whose spirit, in my opinion, has not been hitherto rightly understood. It was lawful to marry a sister only by the father's side, but it was not permitted to marry a sister by the same venter. This custom was originally owing to republics, whose spirit it was not to let two portions of land, and consequently two inheritance, devolve on the same person. A man that married his sister only by his father's side, could inherit but one estate, namely, that of his father, but by marrying his sister by the same venter, it might happen that his sister's father having no male issue, might leave her his estate, and consequently the brother that married her, might be possessed of two.

Little will it avail to object what Philo Rh