Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/202

150 women. The censors had not an eye over them but as over the rest of the republic. The institution of the domestic tribunal supplied the magistracy established among the Greeks.

The husband summoned the wife's relations, and tried her in their presence. This tribunal preserved the morals of the republic; and at the same time these very morals maintained this tribunal. For it decided not only in respect to the violation of the laws, but alto of morals; now in order to judge of the violation of morals, morals are requisite.

The penalties inflicted by this tribunal, ought to be, and actually were, arbitrary: for all that relates to manners, and to the rules of modesty, can hardly be comprized under one code of laws. It is easy indeed to regulate by laws what we owe to others; but it is very difficult to comprize all we owe to ourselves.

The domestic tribunal inspected the general conduct of women: but there was one crime, which beside the animadversion of this tribunal, was likewise subject to a public accusation. This was adultery; whether that in a republic so great a violation of morals interested the government; or whether the wife's immorality might render the husband's Rh