Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/210

158

T is contrary to reason and nature that women should reign in families, as was customary among the AEgyptians; but not that they should govern an empire. In the first case the state of their natural weakness does not permit them to have the pre-eminence; in the second their very weakness generally gives them more lenity and moderation, qualifications fitter for a good administration, than roughness and severity.

In the Indies they are very easy under a female government; and it is settled that if the male issue be not of a mother of the same blood, the females born of a mother of the blood-royal must succeed. And then they have a certain number of persons that assist them to bear the weight of the government. If to this we add the example of England and Russia, we shall find that they succeed alike both in moderate and despotic governments. Rh