Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/240

 Then, in the following verse, the Code alters: "Some of those who understand this question well, think that the aim of this precept is not perfectly attained by the birth of a single child, and that women may legally engender in this manner a second son." One verse, certainly less ancient, contradicts these curious texts, which are evidently survivals of primitive customs, according to which the husband disposed as he pleased of his feminine property. More modern Brahmanic legislation still authorises the husband to kill the wife and her lover if taken in adultery, and there would be nothing new to us in this, if, as in Japan, and as formerly at Rome, the law did not formally interdict him from killing only one of the two culprits.

X. Adultery in the Greco-Roman World.

However Aryan India may be, she differs very remarkably from us. Let us look now at the way in which adultery has been regarded in Europe, and, to begin with, in the Greco-Roman world. We know that in classic antiquity marriage was quite crudely considered as a civic duty, and looked at from the single point of view of population. Lycurgus and Solon encouraged the impotent husband to favour the adultery of his young wife. Speaking of the laws of Lycurgus, Plutarch says—"He laughed at those who revenge with war and bloodshed the communication of a married woman's favours; and allowed that, if any one in years should have a young wife, he might introduce to her some handsome and worthy young man, whom he most approved, and when she had borne a child of this generous race, bring it up as his own. Also he permitted that if a man of character should entertain a passion for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the beauty of her children, he might beg her husband that he might be allowed to plant, as it were, in rich and fertile soil, excellent children, the congenial offspring of excellent parents." This is marriage considered with-*