other: "And yet, indeed, she is my sister; she is the daughter of my father, but not of my mother; and she became my wife." Gen. xx. 12. CHAPTER VI. Polygamy. their own, upon which the increase and successsion of the human species in a great degree depend; this is less provided for, and less -practicable, where twenty or thirty children are to be supported by the attention and fortunes of one father, than if they were divided into five or six families, to each of which were assigned the industry and inheritance of two parents. Whether simultaneous polygamy was permitted by the law of Moses, seems doubtful;* but whether permitted or not, it was certainly practised by the Jewish patriarchs, both before that law, and under it. The permission, if there were any, might be like that of divorce, "for the hardness of their heart," in condescension to their established indulgences, rather than from the The state of manners in Judea had probably undergone a reformation in this respect before the time of Christ; for in the New Testament we meet with no trace or mention of any such practice being tolerated. THE equality in the number of males and females born into the world, intimates the intention of God, that one woman should be assigned to one man: for if to one man be allowed an exclusive right to five or more women, four or more men must be deprived of the exclusive possession of any which could never be the order intended. It seems also a significant indication of the di-general rectitude or propriety of the thing itself, vine will, that he at first created only one woman to one man. Had God intended polygamy for the species, it is probable he would have begun with it; especially as, by giving to Adam more wives than one, the multiplication of the human race would have proceeded with a quicker progress. For which reason, and because it was likewise Polygamy not only violates the constitution of forbidden amongst the Greeks and Romans, we nature, and the apparent design of the Deity, but cannot expect to find any express law upon the produces to the parties themselves, and to the pub- subject in the christian code. The words of lic, the following bad effects; contests and jealou-Christ † (Matt. xix. 9.) may be construed, by an sies amongst the wives of the same husband; distracted affections, or the loss of all affection, in the husband himself: a voluptuousness in the rich, which dissolves the vigour of their intellectual as well as active faculties, producing that indolence and imbecility both of mind and body, which have long characterised the nations of the East; the abasement of one half of the human species, who, in countries where polygamy obtains, are degraded into mere instruments of physical pleasure to the other half; neglect of children; and the manifold, and sometimes unnatural mischiefs, which arise from a scarcity of women. To compensate for these evils, polygamy does not offer a single advantage. In the article of population, which it has been thought to promote, the community gain nothing for the question is not, whether one man will have more children by five or more wives than by one; but whether these five wives would not bear the same or a greater number of children to five separate husbands. And as to the care of the children, when produced, and the sending of them into the world in situations in which they may be likely to form and bring up families of easy implication, to prohibit polygamy: for, if whoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery," he who marrieth another without putting away the first, is no less guilty of adultery: because the adultery does not consist in the repudiation of the first wife (for, however unjust or cruel that may be, it is not adultery,) but in entering into a second marriage during the legal existence and obligation of the first. The several passages in St. Paul's writings, which speak of marriage, always suppose it to signify the union of one man with one woman. Upon this supposition he argues, Rom. vii. 1, 2, 3. Know ye not, brethren, (for I speak to them that know the law,) how that the law hath dominion over a man, as long as he liveth? For the woman which hath an husband, is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth; but if the husband be dead, she is loosed from the law of her husband: so then, if while her husband liveth she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress." When the same apostle permits marriage to his Corinthian converts, (which," for the present distress," he judges to be inconvenient,) he restrains the permission to the *This equality is not exact. The number of male marriage of one husband with one wife :-"It is infants exceeds that of females in the proportion of good for a man not to touch a woman; neverthenineteen to eighteen, or thereabouts: which excess profess, to avoid fornication, let every man have his vides for the greater consumption of males by war, seafaring, and other dangerous or unhealthy occupations. own wife, and let every woman have her own Nothing, I mean, compared with a state in which husband." marriage is nearly universal. Where marriages are less general, and many women unfruitful from the want of husbands, polygamy might at first add a little to popula. tion, and but a little; for, as a variety of wives would be sought chiefly from temptations of voluptuousness, it would rather increase the demand for feinale beauty," than for the sex at large. And this little would soon be made less by many deductions. For, first, as none but the opulent can maintain a plurality of wives, where polygamy obtains, the rich indulge in it while the rest take up with a vague and barren incontinency. And, secondly, women would grow less jealous of their vir: tue, when they had nothing for which to reserve it, but a chamber in the haram; when their chastity was no longer to be rewarded with the rights and happiness of a wife, as enjoyed under the marriage of one woman to one man. These considerations may be added to what is mentioned in the text, concerning the easy and early settlement of children in the world. The manners of different countries have varied in nothing more than in their domestic constitutions. Less polished and more luxurious nations have either not perceived the bad effects of polygamy, or, if they did perceive them, they who in such countries possessed the power of reforming the laws have been unwilling to resign their own gratifications. Polygamy is retained at this day among the Turks, and throughout every part of Asia in which Christianity is not professed. In Christian countries, it is universally prohibited. See Dent. xvii. 17; xxi. 15. I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery., In Sweden, it is punished with death. In Eng-1 Cæsar found amongst the inhabitants of this island a species of polygamy, if it may be so called, which was perfectly singular. Uxores, says he, habent deni duodenique inter se communes; et marime fratres cum fratribus, parentesque cum liberis; sed si qui sint ex his nati, eorum habentur liberi, quo primum virgo quæque deducta est. CHAPTER VII. Of Divorce. By divorce, I mean a dissolution of the marriage-contract, by the act, and at the will, of the husband. This power was allowed to the husband, among the Jews, the Greeks, and latter Romans; and is at this day exercised by the Turks and Per sians. The congruity of such a right with the law of nature, is the question before us. And, in the first place, it is manifestly inconsistent with the duty which the parents owe to their children; which duty can never be so well fulfilled as by their cohabitation and united care. It is also incompatible with the right which the mother possesses, as well as the father, to the gratitude of her children, and the comfort of their society; of both which she is almost necessarily deprived, by her dismission from her husband's family. Where this objection does not interfere, I know of no principle of the law of nature applicable to the question, beside that of general expediency. For, if we say that arbitrary divorces are excluded by the terms of the marriage-contract, it may be answered, that the contract might be so framed as to admit of this condition. If we argue, with some moralists, that the obligation of a contract naturally continues, so long as the purpose, which the contracting parties had in view, requires its continuance; it will be difficult to show what purpose of the contract (the care of children excepted,) should confine a man to a woman, from whom he seeks to be loose. If we contend, with others, that a contract cannot, by the law of nature, be dissolved, unless the parties be replaced in the situation which each L possessed before the contract was entered into; A lawgiver, whose counsels are directed by views of general utility, and obstructed by no local impediment, would make the marriage contract indissoluble during the joint lives of the parties, for the sake of the following advantages: I. Because this tends to preserve peace and concord between married persons, by perpetuating their common interest, and by inducing a necessity of mutual compliance. There is great weight and substance in both these considerations. An earlier termination of the union would produce a separate interest. The wife would naturally look forward to the dissolution of the partnership, and endeavour to draw to herself a fund against the time when she was no longer to have access to the same resources. This would beget peculation on one side, and mistrust on the other; evils which at present very little disturb the confidence of a married life. The second effect of making the union determinable only by death, is not less beneficial. It necessarily happens that adverse tempers, habits, and tastes, oftentimes meet in marriage. In which case, each party must take pains to give up what offends, and practise what may gratify the other. A man and woman in love with each other, do this insensibly; but love is neither general nor durable; and where that is wanting, no lessons of duty, no delicacy of sentiment, will go half so far with the generality of mankind and womankind as this one intelligible reflection, that they must each make the best of their bargain; and that, seeing they must either both be miserable, or both share the same happiness, neither can find their own comfort but in promoting the pleasure of the other. These compliances, though at first extorted by necessity, become in time easy and mutual; and, though less endearing than assiduities which take their rise from affection, generally procure to the married pair a repose and satisfaction sufficient for their happiness. II. Because new objects of desire would be continually sought after, if men could, at will, be released from their subsisting engagements. Suppose the husband to have once preferred his wife to all other women, the duration of this preference cannot be trusted to. Possession makes a great difference: and there is no other security against the invitations of novelty, than the known impossibility of obtaining the object. Did the cause which brings the sexes together, hold them' together by the same force with which it first attracted them to each other; or could the woman cause, or for what causes, appears to have been controverted amongst the interpreters of those times. Christ, the precepts of whose religion were calculated for more general use and observation, revokes this permission (as given to the Jews, "for the hardness of their hearts,") and promulges a law which was thenceforward to confine divorces to the single case of adultery in the wife. And I see no sufficient reason to depart from the plain and strict meaning of Christ's words. The rule was new. It both surprised and offended his disciples; yet Christ added nothing to relax or explain it. be restored to her personal integrity, and to all the advantages of her virgin estate; the power of divorce might be deposited in the hands of the husband, with less danger of abuse or inconveniency. But constituted as mankind are, and injured as the repudiated wife generally must be, it is necessary to add a stability to the condition of married women, more secure than the continuance of their husbands' affection; and to supply to both sides, by a sense of duty and of obligation, what satiety has impaired of passion and of personal attachment. Upon the whole, the power of divorce is evidently and greatly to the disadvantage of the woman: and the only question Inferior causes may justify the separation of appears to be whether the real and permanent husband and wife, although they will not auhappiness of one half of the species should be sur-thorise such a dissolution of the marriage conrendered to the caprice and voluptuousness of the other? tract as would leave either party at liberty to marry again: for it is that liberty, in which the We have considered divorces as depending danger and mischief of divorces principally conupon the will of the husband, because that is the sist. If the care of children does not require that way in which they have actually obtained in they should live together, and it is become, in the many parts of the world: but the same objections serious judgment of both, necessary for their muapply, in a great degree, to divorces by mutual tual happiness that they should separate, let them consent; especially when we consider the indeli-separate by consent. Nevertheless, this necessity cate situation and small prospect of happiness, which remains to the party who opposed his or her dissent to the liberty and desire of the other. can hardly exist, without guilt and misconduct on one side or both. Moreover, cruelty, ill-usage, extreme violence, or moroseness of temper, or other great and continued provocations, make it lawful for the party aggrieved to withdraw from the society of the offender without his or her consent. The law which imposes the marriage-vow, whereby the parties promise to "keep to each other," or The law of nature admits of an exception in favour of the injured party, in cases of adultery, of obstinate desertion, of attempts upon life, of outrageous cruelty, of incurable madness, and perhaps of personal imbecility; but by no means indulges the same privilege to mere dislike, to op-in other words, to live together, must be underposition of humours and inclination, to contrariety of taste and temper, to complaints of coldness, neglect, severity, peevishness, jealousy: not that these reasons are trivial, but because such objections may always be alleged, and are impossible by testimony to be ascertained; so that to allow implicit credit to them, and to dissolve marriages whenever either party thought fit to pretend them, would lead in its effect to all the licentiousness of arbitrary divorces. stood to impose it with a silent reservation of these cases; because the same law has constituted a judicial relief from the tyranny of the husband, by the divorce a mensa et toro, and by the provision which it makes for the separate maintenance of the injured wife. St. Paul likewise distinguishes between a wife's merely separating herself from the family of her husband, and her marrying again:-"Let not the wife depart from her husband: but and if she do depart, let her remain unmarried." Milton's story is well known. Upon a quarrel with his wife, he paid his addresses to another The law of this country, in conformity to our woman, and set forth a public vindication of his Saviour's injunction, confines the dissolution of conduct, by attempting to prove, that confirmed the marriage-contract to the single case of aduldislike was as just a foundation for dissolving the tery in the wife; and a divorce, even in that case, marriage-contract, as adultery: to which position, can only be brought about by the operation of an and to all the arguments by which it can be sup- act of parliament, founded upon a previous senported, the above consideration affords a sufficient tence in the ecclesiastical court, and a verdict answer. And if a married pair, in actual and ir- against the adulterer at common law: which proreconcileable discord, complain that their happi-ceedings taken together, compose as complete an ness would be better consulted, by permitting them to determine a connexion which is become odious to both, it may be told them, that the same permission, as a general rule, would produce libertinism, dissension, and misery, amongst thousands, who are now virtuous, and quiet, and happy in their condition: and it ought to satisfy them to reflect, that when their happiness is sacrificed to the operation of an unrelenting rule, it is sacrificed to the happiness of the community. The Scriptures seem to have drawn the obligation tighter than the law of nature lef it. "Whosoever," saith Christ, "shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away, doth commit adultery."Matt. xix. 9. The law of Moses, for reasons of local expediency, permitted the Jewish husband to put away his wife: but whether for every investigation of the complaint as a cause can receive. It has lately been proposed to the legislature to annex a clause to these acts, restraining the offending party from marrying with the companion of her crime, who, by the course of proceeding, is always known and convicted: for there is reason to fear, that adulterous connexions are often formed with the prospect of bringing them to this conclusion; at least, when the seducer has once captivated the affection of a married woman, he may avail himself of this tempting argument to subdue her scruples, and complete his victory; and the legislature, as the business is managed at present, assists by its interposition the criminal design of the offenders, and confers a privilege where it ought to inflict a punishment. The proposal deserved an experiment: but something more penal will, I apprehend, be found necessary to check the progress of this alarming depravity. though marriage, in its own nature; and abstracted from the rules and declarations which the Jewish and, Christian Scriptures deliver concerning it, be properly a civil contract, and nothing more. With respect to one main article in matrimonial alliances, a total alteration has taken place in the fashion of the world; the wife now brings money to her husband, whereas anciently the husband paid money to the family of the wife; as was the case among the Jewish patriarchs, the Greeks, and the old inhabitants of Germany. This alteration has proved of no small advantage to the female sex: for their importance in point of fortune procures to them, in modern times, that assiduity and respect, which are always wanted to compensate for the inferiority of their strength; but which their personal attractions would not always secure. Whether a law might not be framed directing the fortune of the adulteress to descend as in case of her natural death; reserving, however, a certain proportion of the produce of it, by way of annuity, for her subsistence (such annuity, in no case, to exceed a fixed sum,) and also so far suspending the estate in the hands of the heir as to preserve the inheritance to any children she might bear to a second marriage, in case there was none to succeed in the place of their mother by the first; whether, I say, such a law would not render female virtue in higher life less vincible, as well as the seducers of that virtue less urgent in their suit, we recommend to the deliberation of those who are willing to attempt the reformation of this important, but most incorrigible, class of the community. A passion for splendor, for expensive amusements and distinction, is commonly found, in that description of women who would Our business is with marriage, as it is estabecome the objects of such a law, not less inordi-blished in this country. And in treating thereof, nate than their other appetites. A severity of the it will be necessary to state the terms of the markind we propose, applies immediately to that pas-riage vow, in order to discover:sion. And there is no room for any complaint of injustice, since the provisions above stated, with others which might be contrived, confine the punishment, so far as it is possible, to the person of the offender; suffering the estate to remain to the heir, or within the family, of the ancestor from whom it came, or to attend the appointments of his will. / I. What duties this vow creates. 2. What a situation of mind at the time is inconsistent with it. 3. By what subsequent behaviour it is violated. The husband promises on his part, "to love, comfort, honour, and keep, his wife:" the wife on hers, "to obey, serve, love, honour, and keep, her husband;" in every variety of health, fortune, and condition: and both stipulate "to forsake all others, and to keep only unto one another, so long as they both shall live." This promise is called the marriage vow; is witnessed before God and the congregation; accompanied with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing upon it; and attended with such circumstances of devotion and solemnity as place the obligation of it, and the guilt of violating it, nearly upon the same foun Sentences of the ecclesiastical courts, which release the parties a vinculo matrimonii by reason of impuberty, frigidity, consanguinity within the prohibited degrees, prior marriage, or want of the requisite consent of parents and guardians, are not dissolutions of the marriage-contract, but judicial declarations that there never was any marriage; such impediment subsisting at the time, as rendered the celebration of the marriage-rite a mere nullity. And the rite itself contains an ex-dation with that of oaths. ception of these impediments. The man and woman to be married are charged, "if they know any impediment why they may not be lawfully joined together, to confess it;" and assured that so many as are coupled together, otherwise than God's word doth allow, are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony lawful;" all which is intended by way of solemn notice to the parties, that the vow they are about to make will bind their consciences and authorise their cohabitation, only upon the supposition that no legal impediment exists. CHAPTER VIII. WHETHER it hath grown out of some tradition of the Divine appointment of marriage in the persons of our first parents, or merely from a design to impress the obligation of the marriage-contract with a solemnity suited to its importance, the marriage-rite, in almost all countries of the world, has been made a religious ceremony;* al It was not, however, in Christian countries re quired that marriages should be celebrated in churches, till the thirteenth century of the Christian æra. Marriages in England during the Usurpation, were solemnized before justices of the peace: but for what pur pose this novelty was introduced, except to degrade the clergy, does not appear. The parties by this vow engage their personal fidelity expressly and specifically; they engage likewise to consult and promote each other's happiness; the wife, moreover, promises obedience to her husband. Nature may have made and left the sexes of the human species nearly equal in their faculties, and perfectly so in their rights; but to guard against those competitions which equality, or a contested superiority, is almost sure to produce, the Christian Scriptures enjoin upon the wife that obedience which she here promises, and in terms so peremptory and absolute, that it seems to extend to every thing not criminal, or not entirely inconsistent with the woman's happiness. "Let the wife," says St. Paul, "be subject to her husband in every thing "-"The ornament of a meek and quiet spirit," says the same apostle, speaking of the duty of wives, "is, in the sight of God, of great price." No words ever expressed the true merit of the female character so well as these. The condition of human life will not permit us to say, that no one can conscientiously marry, who does not prefer the person at the altar to all other men or women in the world: but we can have no difficulty in pronouncing (whether we respect the end of the institution, or the plain The ancient Assyrians sold their beauties by an an. nual auction. The prices were applied by way of por tions to the more homely. By this contrivance, all of both sorts were disposed of in marriage. terms in which the contract is conceived,) that | happiness and misery so much in our power, or whoever is conscious, at the time of his marriage, of such a dislike to the woman he is about to marry, or of such a subsisting attachment to some other woman, that he cannot reasonably, nor does in fact, expect ever to entertain an affection for his future wife, is guilty, when he pronounces the marriage vow, of a direct and deliberate prevarication; and that, too, aggravated by the presence of those ideas of religion, and of the Supreme Being, which the place, the ritual, and the solemnity of the occasion, cannot fail of bringing to his thoughts. The same likewise of the woman. This charge must be imputed to all who, from mercenary motives, marry the objects of their aversion and disgust; and likewise to those who desert, from any motive whatever, the object of their affection, and, without being able to subdue that affection, marry another. The crime of falsehood is also incurred by the man who intends, at the time of his marriage, to commence, renew, or continue a personal commerce with any other woman. And the parity of reason, if a wife be capable of so much guilt, ex tends to her. The marriage-vow is violated, II. By any behaviour which, knowingly, renders the life of the other miserable; as desertion, neglect, prodigality, drunkenness, peevishness, penuriousness, jealousy, or any levity of conduct which administers occasion of jealousy. A late regulation in the law of marriages, in this country, has made the consent of the father, if he be living, of the mother, if she survive the father, and remain unmarried, or of guardians, if both parents be dead, necessary to the marriage of a person under twenty-one years of age. By the Roman law, the consent et avi et patris was required so long as they lived. In France, the consent of parents is necessary to the marriage of sons, until they attain to thirty years of age; of daughters, until twenty-five. In Holland, for sons till twenty-five; for daughters till twenty. And this distinction between the sexes appears to be well founded; for a woman is usually as properly qualified for the domestic and interior duties of a wife or mother at eighteen, as a man is for the business of the world, and the more arduous care of providing for a family, at twenty-one. The constitution also of the human species in dicates the same distinction.* CHAPTER IX. Of the Duty of Parents. THAT virtue, which confines its beneficence within the walls of a man's own house, we have been accustomed to consider as little better than a more refined selfishness; and yet it will be confessed, that the subject and matter of this class of duties are inferior to none in utility and importance: and where, it may be asked, is virtue, the most valuable, but where it does the most good? What duty is the most obligatory, but that on which the most depends? And where have we * Cum vis prolem procreandi diutius hæreat in mare quam in fœmina populi numerus nequaquam minuetur, si serius venerem colere inceperint viri. liable to be so affected by our conduct, as in our own families? It will also be acknowledged that the good order and happiness of the world are better upholden whilst each man applies himself to his own concerns and the care of his own family, to which he is present, than if every man, from an excess of mistaken generosity, should leave his own business, to undertake his neighbour's, which he must always manage with less knowledge, conveniency, and success. If therefore, the low estimation of these virtues be well founded, it must be owing, not to their inferior importance, but to some defect or impurity in the motive. And indeed it cannot be denied, that it is in the power of association so to unite our children's interest with our own, as that we shall often pursue both from the same motive, place both in the same object, and with as little sense of duty in one pursuit as in the other. Where this is the case, the judgment above stated is not far from the truth. And so often as we find a solicitous care of a man's own family, in a total absence or extreme penury of every other virtue, or interfering with other duties, or directing its operation solely to the temporal happiness of the children, placing that happiness in amusement and indulgence whilst they are young, or in advancement of fortune when they grow up, there is reason to believe that this is the case. In this way, the common opinion concerning these duties may be accounted for and defended. If we look to the subject of them, we perceive them to be indispensable. If we regard the motive, we find them often not very meritorious. Wherefore, although a man seldom rises high in our esteem who has nothing to recommend him beside the care of his own family, yet we always condemn the neglect of this duty with the utmost severity; both by reason of the manifest and immediate mischief which we see arising from this neglect, and because it argues a want not only of parental affection, but of those moral principles which ought to come in aid of that affection where it is wanting. And if, on the other hand, our praise and esteem of these duties be not proportioned to the good they produce, or to the indignation with which we resent the absence of them, it is for this reason, that virtue is the most valuable, not where it produces the most good, but where it is the most wanted: which is not the case here; because its place is often supplied by instincts, or involuntary associations. Nevertheless, the offices of a parent may be discharged from a consciousness of their obligation, as well as other duties; and a sense of this obligation is sometimes necessary to assist the stimulus of parental affection; especially in stations of life in which the wants of a family cannot be supplied without the continual hard labour of the father, and without his refraining from many indulgences and recreations which unmarried men of like condition are able to purchase. Where the parental affection is sufficiently strong, or has fewer difficulties to surmount, a principle of duty may still be wanted to direct and regulate its exertions: for otherwise it is apt to spend and waste itself in a womanish fondness for the person of the child; an impro vident attention to his present ease and gratification; a pernicious facility and compliance with his humours; an excessive and superfluous care to provide the externals of happiness, with little |