Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/67

 to marry made a declaration of it, and a public functionary fixed the day for the celebration of Tchin-than, or the legal and religious defloration. For this the intervention of a Buddhist priest, or a tao-sse priest, was indispensable. The parents entreated his service, which was very costly, and for this reason girls who were poor retained their virginity longer than the rich. It even sometimes happened that pious persons, moved by a sentiment of charity, took on themselves the payment of the costs of the ceremony for those who had been waiting a long time. Great display attended it. On the appointed day the officiating priest was carried in the evening with much pomp to the festive house, and the next morning he was reconducted home in a palanquin with parasol, drum, and music, and not without being offered fresh presents. A. de Rémusat has given, in Latin, some curious particulars of the intimate details of the ceremony, which I cannot relate here.

These few examples suffice to show how very much morality is a relative thing, but they cannot serve as a basis to a general theory of hetaïrism.

The seignorial right of prelibation is simply an abuse of force and good pleasure; only, viewed in the light of our morality, it shocks us more than the others. One might justify it, however, by reasons which Bossuet considered sufficient to render slavery lawful. The right of conquest has given, or still gives, all over the world, every sort of right over the vanquished, even the right of life and death. The conqueror, "in a just war," says the sage of Meaux, may legitimately kill the vanquished and, a fortiori, enslave him; and one may add, following out a logical conclusion, that it is lawful for him to dispose as he pleases of his wife and daughter. As a matter of course, the priest, in his quality of lord, can claim the same privileges as the layman; but besides this, if it should happen that his particular religion lends itself to the idea by being founded in some manner on the worship of the principle of procreation, as is so frequently the case with oriental religions, a sort of superstitious prestige will come to adorn and clothe this sacerdotal shamelessness.

In all this there is hardly any room for hetaïrism con-*