Page:Montesquieu - The spirit of laws.djvu/416

364 to each. Mahomet, who allowed of four, would have every thing, as provisions, dress, and conjugal duty, equally divided between them. This law is also in force in the Maldiyian isles where they are at liberty to marry three wives.

The law of Moses even declares, that if any one has married his son to a slave, and this son should marry afterwards a free woman, he shall diminish nothing of her food, her raiment or respect. They might give more to the new wife; but the first was not to have less than she had before.

HE prodigious number of wives possessed by those who live in rich and voluptuous nations, is a consequence of the law of polygamy. Their separation from men, and their close confinement, naturally follow from the greatness of this number. Domestic order renders this necessary; thus an insolvent debtor seeks to conceal himself from the pursuit of his creditors. There are climates where the impulses of nature have such strength that morality has almost none. If a man be left with a woman, the temptation and the fall will be the same thing; the attack certain, the resistance none. In these countries, instead of precepts, they have recourse to bolts and bars.

One of the Chinese classic authors considers the man as a prodigy of virtue, who finding a woman alone in a distant apartment, can forbear making use of force. Rh