old. In the hot countries of Arabia and ten, and eleven years of age. " Hist, the Indies, girls are marriageable at of the Kingdom of Algiers," by Logiers eight years of age, and are brought to de Tassis, p. 6i. bed the year after."--Prideaux, ^* Life 252 MONTESQUIEU rally introduce a kind of equality between the two sexes; and, in consequence of this, the law of having only one wife.
In cold countries the almost necessary custom of drinking strong liquors establishes intemperance amongst men. Wom- en, who in this respect have a natural restraint, because they are always on the defensive, have, therefore, the advantage of reason over them.
Nature, which has distinguished men by their reason and bodily strength, has set no other bounds to their power than those of this strength and reason. It has given charms to women, and ordained that their ascendant over man shall end with these charms: but in hot countries, these are found only at the beginning, and never in the progress of life.
Thus the law which permits only one wife is physically con- formable to the climate of Europe, and not to that of Asia. This is the reason why Mahommedanism was so easily estab- lished in Asia, and with such difficulty extended in Europe; why Christianity is maintained in Europe, and has been de- stroyed in Asia; and, in fine, why the Mahommedans have made such progress in China, and the Christians so little. Hu- man reasons, however, are subordinate to that Supreme Cause who does whatever He pleases, and renders everything sub- servient to His will.
Some particular reasons induced Valentinian& to permit polygamy in the empire. That law, so improper for our cli- mates, was abrogated by Theodosius, Arcadius, and Honorius.c 3. — That a Plurality of Wives greatly depends on the Means of supporting them Though in countries where polygamy is once established the number of wives is principally determined by the opulence of the husband, yet it cannot be said that opulence established polygamy in those states, since poverty may produce the same effect, as I shall prove when I come to speak of the savages.
Polygamy, in powerful nations, is less a luxury in itself than the occasion of great luxury. In hot climates they have few h See Jornandes, '* de Regno et Tern- c See Law 7 of the Code " de Judaeis Eor. Success.," and the ecclesiastic et Cselicolis," and Nov. 18, cap. v. istorians.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 253 wants, and it costs little to maintain a wife and children \d they may, therefore, have a great number of wives.
4. — That the Law of Polygamy is an affair that depends on Calculation According to the calculations made in several parts of Eu- rope, there are here born more boys than girls;e on the con- trary, by the accounts we have of Asia, there are there born more girls than boys/ The law which in Europe allows only one wife, and that in Asia which permits many, have, there- fore, a certain relation to the climate.
In the cold climates of Asia there are born, as in Europe, more males than females; and hence, say the Lamas,g is de- rived the reason of that law which amongst them permits a woman to have many husbands./t But it is difficult for me to believe that there are many coun- tries where the disproportion can be great enough for any ex- igency to justify the introducing either the law in favor of many wives or that of many husbands. This would only imply that a majority of women, or even a majority of men, is more conformable to nature in certain countries than in others. ' I confess that if what history tells us be true, that at Bantam there are ten women to one man,i this must be a case particu- larly favorable to polygamy.
In all this I only give their reasons, but do not justify their customs.
5. — The Reason of a Law of Malabar In the tribe of the Naires, on the coast of Malabar, the men can have only one wife, while a woman, on the contrary, may have many husbands./ The origin of this custom is not, I believe, difficult to discover. The Naires are the tribe of nobles, d In Ceylon a man mav live on ten hommedan Arabs who, in the ninth censols a month; they eat nothing there but tury, went into India and China, rice and fish. " Collection of Voyages thought this custom a prostitution, made to establish an India Company." And indeed nothing could be more e Dr. Arbuthnot finds that in Eng- contrary to the ideas of a Mahommedan.
land the number of boys exceeds that ^ i " Collection of Voyages for the estabof girls; but people have been to blame lishment of an India Company," vol. i.
to conclude that the case is the same L^^^ Francis Pirard, cap. xxvii.
in all climates. " Edifying Letters," 3d and loth colf See Kempfer, who relates that upon lection, on the Malleami on the Coast numbering the people of Meaco there of Malabar. This is considered as an were found 182,072 males, and 223,573 abuse of the military profession, as a females. ^ ^ woman, says Pirard, of the tribe of g Du Halde's " Hist, of China," vol. iv. the Bramins never would marry many h Albuzeir-el-hassen, one of the Ma- husbands.
254 MONTESQUIEU who are the soldiers of all those nations. In Europe soldiers are forbidden to marry; in Malabar, where the climate requires greater indulgence, they are satisfied with rendering marriage as little burdensome to them as possible: they give one wife amongst many men, which consequently diminishes the attach- ment to a family, and the cares of housekeeping, and leaves them in the free possession of a military spirit.
6. — Of Polygamy considered in itself With regard to polygamy in general, independently of the circumstances which may render it tolerable, it is not of the least service to mankind, nor to either of the two sexes, whether it be that which abuses or that which is abused. Neither is it of service to the children; for one of its greatest inconveniences is, that the father and mother cannot have the same affection for their offspring; a father cannot love twenty children with the same tenderness as a mother can love two. It is much worse when a wife has many husbands; for then paternal love only is held by this opinion, that a father may believe, if he will, or that others may believe, that certain children belong to him.
They say that the Emperor of Morocco has women of all colors, white, black, and tawny, in his seraglio. But the wretch has scarcely need of a single color.
Besides, the possession of so many wives does not always prevent their entertaining desires for those of others -fi it is with lust as with avarice, whose thirst increases by the acquisi- tion of treasure.
In the reign of Justinian, many philosophers, displeased with the constraint of Christianity, retired into Persia. What struck them the most, says Agathias,^ was that polygamy was per- mitted amongst men who did not even abstain from adultery.
May I not say that a plurality of wives leads to that passion which nature disallows? for one depravation always draws on another. I remember that in the revolution which happened at Constantinople, when Sultan Achmet was deposed, history says that the people, having plundered the Kiaya's house, found k This is the reason why women in / " Life and Actions of Justinian," p.
the East are so carefully concealed. 403.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 255 not a single woman; they tell us that at Algiers/w in the great- est part of their seraglios, they have none at all.
7'-T0f ^^ Equality of Treatment in case of many Wives From the law which permitted a plurality of wives followed that of an equal behavior to each. Mahomet, who allowed of four, would have everything, as provisions, dress, and con- jugal duty, equally divided between them. This law is also in force in the Maldivian isles,w where they are at liberty to marry three wives.
The law of Moseso even declares that if any one has married his son to a slave, and this son should afterwards espouse a free woman, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage shall he not diminish. They might give more to the new wife, but the first was not to have less than she had before.
8. — Of the Separation of Women from Men The prodigious number of wives possessed by those who live in rich and voluptuous countries is a consequence of the law of polygamy. Their separation from men, and their close con- finement, naturally follow from the greatness of this number. Domestic order renders this necessary; thus an insolvent debt- or seeks to conceal himself from the pursuit of his creditors. There are climates where the impulses of nature have such force 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./* 9. — Of the Connection between domestic and political Government In a republic the condition of citizens is moderate, equal, mild, and agreeable; everything partakes of the benefit of pubtn " History of Algiers," by Logier de woman in a lonely apartment; or to Tassis. hear the cries of an enemy, who must n See Pirard, cap. xii. perish without our assistance." Trans- 0 Exod. xxi. 10, II. lation of a Chinese piece of morality, p " It is an admirable touch-stone, to which may be seen in Du Halde, vol.
find by oneself a treasure, and to know iii. p. 151.
the right owner; or to see a beautiful 256 MONTESQUIEU lie liberty. An empire over the women cannot, amongst them, be so well exerted; and where the climate demands this em- pire, it is most agreeable to a monarchical government. This is one of the reasons why it has ever been difficult to estabUsh a popular government in the east.
On the contrary, the slavery of women is perfectly conform- able to the genius of a despotic government, which delights in treating all with severity. Thus at all times have we seen in Asia domestic slavery and despotic government walk hand in hand with an equal pace.
In a government which requires, above all things, that a par- ticular regard be paid to its tranquillity, and where the ex- treme subof-dination calls for peace, it is absolutely necessary to shut up the women; for their intrigues would prove fatal to their husbands. A government which has not time to exam- ine into the conduct of its subjects views them with a suspicious eye, only because they appear and suffer themselves to be known.
Let us only suppose that the levity of mind, the indiscretions, the tastes and caprices of our women, attended by their passions of a higher and a lower kind, with all their active fire, and in that full liberty with which they appear amongst us, were conveyed into an eastern government, where would be the father of a family who could enjoy a moment's repose? The men would be everywhere suspected, everywhere enemies; the state would be overturned, and the kingdom overflowed with rivers of blood.
10. — The Principle on which the Morals of the East are founded In the case of a multiplicity of wives, the more a family ceases to be united, the more ought the laws to reunite its detached parts in a common centre; and the greater the diversity of in- terests, the more necessary is it for the laws to bring them back to a common interest.
This is more particularly done by confinement. The women should not only be separated from the men by the walls of the house, but they ought also to be separated in the same enclos- ure, in such a manner that each may have a distinct household in the same family. Hence each derives all that relates to the i THE SPIRIT OF LAWS practice of morality, modesty, chastity, reserve, silence, peace, dependence, respect, and love; and, in short, a general direc- tion of her thoughts to that which, in its own nature, is a thing of the greatest importance, a single and entire attachment to her family.
Women have naturally so many duties to fulfil — duties which are peculiarly theirs, that they cannot be sufficiently excluded from everything capable of inspiring other ideas; from every- thing that goes by the name of amusements; and from every- thing which we call business.
We find the manners more pure in the several parts of the East, in proportion as the confinement of women is more strictly observed. In great kingdoms there are necessarily great lords. The greater their wealth, the more enlarged is their ability of keeping their wives in an exact confinement, and of preventing them from entering again into society. Hence it proceeds that in the empires of Turkey, Persia, of the Mogul, China, and Japan, the manners of their wives are admirable.
But the case is not the same in India, where a multitude of islands and the situation of the land have divided the country into an infinite number of petty states, which from causes that we have not here room to mention are rendered despotic.
There are none there but wretches, some pillaging and others pillaged. Their grandees have very moderate fortunes, and those whom they call rich have only a bare subsistence. The confinement of their women cannot, therefore, be very strict; nor can they make use of any great precautions to keep them within due bounds; hence it proceeds that the corruption of their manners is scarcely to be conceived.
We may there see to what an extreme the vices of a climate indulged in full liberty will carry licentiousness. It is there that nature has a force, and modesty a weakness, which exceed all comprehension. At Patan^ the wanton desires of the wom- en are so outrageous, that the men are obliged to make use of a certain apparel to shelter them from their designs.** Accordq " Collection of Voyages for the es- want of a husband. See Pirard, cap.
tablishment of an India Company," vol. xii. At Bantam, as soon as a girl is ii. p. 2. twelve or thirteen years old, she must r In the Maldivian isles the fathers be married, if they would not have her marry their daughters at ten and eleven lead a debauched life. " Collection of years of age, because it is a great sin. Voyages for the establishment of an say they, to suffer them to endure the India Company," p. 348.
258 MONTESQUIEU ing to Mr. Smith,^ things are not better conducted in the petty kingdoms of Guinea. In these countries the two sexes lose even those laws which properly belong to each.
II. — Of domestic Slavery independently of Polygamy It is not only a plurality of wives which in certain places of the East requires their confinement, but also the climate it- self. Those who consider the horrible crimes, the treachery, the dark villainies, the poisonings, the assassinations, which the liberty of women has occasioned at Goa and in the Portuguese settlements in the Indies, where religion permits only one wife; and who compare them with the innocence and purity of man- ners of the women of Turkey, Persia, Hindostan, China, and Japan, will clearly see that it is frequently as necessary to sepa- rate them from the men, when they have but one, as when they have many.
These are things which ought to be decided by the climate. What purpose would it answer to shut up women in our north- ern countries, where their manners are naturally good; where all their passions are calm; and where love rules over the heart with so regular and gentle an empire that the least degree of prudence is sufficient to conduct it?
It is a happiness to live in those climates which permit such freedom, of converse, where that sex which has most charms seems to embellish society, and where wives, reserving them- selves for the pleasures of one, contribute to the amusement of all.
12. — Of natural Modesty All nations are equally agreed in fixing contempt and ig- nominy on the incontinence of women. Nature has dictated this to all. She has established the attack, and she has estab- lished too the resistance; and having implanted desires in both, she has given to the one boldness, and to the other shame. To individuals she has granted a long succession of years to attend to their preservation: but to continue the species, she has granted only a moment.
5 " Voyage to Guinea," part second. They steal into a man's bed, and wake " _When the women happen to meet him; and if he refuses to comply with with a man, they lay hold of him, and their desires, they threaten to suflFer threaten to make a complaint to their themselves to be caught in flagranti." husbands if he slight their addresses.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 259 It is then far from being true that to be incontinent is to follow the laws of nature; on the contrary, it is a violation of these laws, which can be observed only by behaving with modesty and discretion.
Besides, it is natural for intelligent beings to feel their im- perfections. Nature has, therefore, fixed shame in our minds — a shame of our imperfections.
When, therefore, the physical power of certain climates vio- lates the natural law of the two sexes, and that of intelligent beings, it belongs to the legislature to make civil laws, with a view to opposing the nature of the climate and re-establishing the primitive laws.
13. — Of Jealousy With respect to nations, we ought to distinguish between the passion of jealousy and a jealousy arising from customs, man- ners, and laws. The one is a hot raging fever; the other, cold, but sometimes terrible, may be joined with indifference and contempt.
The one, an abuse of love, derives its source from love itself. The other depends only on manners, on the customs of a na- tion, on the laws of the country, and sometimes even on re- ligion.^ It is generally the efifect of the physical power of the climate; and, at the same time, the remedy of this physical power.
14. — Of the Eastern Manner of domestic Government Wives are changed so often in the East that they cannot have the power of domestic government. This care is, therefore, committed to the eunuchs, whom they intrust with their keys and the management of their families. " In Persia," says Sir John Chardin, " married women are furnished with clothes as they want them, after the manner of children." Thus that care which seems so well to become them, that care which every- where else is the first of their concern, does not at all regard them.
< Mahomet desired his followers to when he was dying, said the same thing; watch their wives; a certain Iman, and Confucius preached the same doc- trine.
26o MONTESQUIEU 15. — Of Divorce and Repudiation There is this difference between a divorce and a repudiation, that the former is made by mutual consent, arising from a mutual antipathy; while the latter is formed by the will, and for the advantage of one of the two parties, independently of the will and advantage of the other.
The necessity there is sometimes for women to repudiate, and the difficulty there always is in doing it, render that law very tyrannical which gives this right to men without granting it to women. A husband is the master of the house; he has a thousand ways of confining his wife to her duty, or of bringing her back to it; so that in his hands it seems as if repudiation could be only a fresh abuse of power. But a wife who repudi- ates only makes use of a dreadful kind of remedy. It is always a great misfortune for her to go in search of a second husband, when she has lost the most part of her attractions with another. One of the advantages attending the charms of youth in the female sex is that in an advanced age the husband is led to complacency and love by the remembrance of past pleasures.
It is then a general rule that in all countries where the laws have given to men the power of repudiating, they ought also to grant it to women. Nay, in climates where women live in domestic slavery, one would think that the law ought to favor women with the right of repudiation, and husbands only with that of divorce.
When wives are confined in a seraglio, the husband ought not to repudiate on account of an opposition of manners; it is the husband's fault if their manners are incompatible.
Repudiation on account of the barrenness of the woman ought never to take place except where there is only one wife:« when there are many, this is of no importance to the husband.
A law of the Maldivians permitted them to take again a wife whom they had repudiated.^ A law of Mexico^ forbade their being reunited under pain of death. The law of Mexico was more rational than that of the Maldivians: at the time even of the dissolution, it attended to the perpetuity of marriage; inu It does not follow hence that re- any other, because in this case there pudiation on account of sterility should was less expense. Pirard's " Travels."
be permitted amongst Christians. w " Hist, of the Conquest of Mexico," V They took them again preferably to by Solis, p. 499.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 261 stead of this, the law of the Maldivians seemed equally to sport with marriage and repudiation.
The law of Mexico admitted only of divorce. This was a particular reason for their not permitting those who were vol- untarily separated to be ever reunited. Repudiation seems chiefly to proceed from a hastiness of temper, and from the dictates of passion; while divorce appears to be an afifair of deliberation.
Divorces are frequently of great political use: but as to the civil utility, they are estabUshed only for the advantage of the husband and wife, and are not always favorable to their chil- dren.
16. — Of Repudiation and Divorce amongst the Romans Romulus permitted a husband to repudiate his wife, if she had committed adultery, prepared poison, or procured false keys. He did not grant to women the right of repudiating their husbands. Plutarch^ calls this a law extremely severe.
As the Athenian law3' gave the power of repudiation to the wife as well as to the husband, and as this right was obtained by the women amongst the primitive Romans, notwithstand- ing the law of Romulus, it is evident that this institution was one of those which the deputies of Rome brought from Athens, and which were inserted in the laws of the Twelve Tables.
Cicero says that the reasons of repudiation sprang from the law of the Twelve Tables.^ We cannot then doubt but that this law increased the number of the reasons for repudiation established by Romulus.
The power of divorce was also an appointment, or at least a consequence, of the law of the Twelve Tables. For from the moment that the wife or the husband had separately the right of repudiation, there was a much stronger reason for their having the power of quitting each other by mutual consent.
The law did not require that they should lay open the causes of divorce.^ In the nature of the thing, the reasons for repu- diation should be given, while those for a divorce are unneces- sary; because, whatever causes the law may admit as suffi- X " Life of Romulus." ex duodecim tabuHs causam addidit." — y This was a law of Solon. Philip, ii.
e " Mimam res suas sibi habere jussit, a Justinian altered this, Nov. 117, cap. X.
262 MONTESQUIEU cient to break a marriage, a mutual antipathy must be stronger than them all.
The following fact, mentioned by Dionysius Halicarnassus,^ Valerius Maximus,^ and Aulus Gellius,^^ does not appear to me to have the least degree of probability: though they had at Rome, say they, the power of repudiating a wife, yet they had so much respect for the auspices that nobody for the space of five hundred and twenty years ever made^ use of this right, till Carvilius Ruga repudiated his, because of her sterility. We need only be sensible of the nature of the human mind to per- ceive how very extraordinary it must be for a law to grant such right to a whole nation, and yet for nobody to make use of it. Coriolanus, setting out on his exile, advised hisf wife to marry a man more happy than himself. We have just been seeing that the law of the Twelve Tables and the manners of the Romans greatly extended the law of Romulus. But to what purpose were these extensions if they never made use of a power to repudiate? Besides, if the citizens had such a respect for the auspices that they would never repudiate, how came the legislators of Rome to have less than they? And how came the laws incessantly to corrupt their manners?
All that is surprising in the fact in question will soon dis- appear, only by comparing two passages in Plutarch. The regal lawg permitted a husband to repudiate in the three cases already mentioned, and " it enjoined," says Plutarch,/* " that he who repudiated in any other case should be obliged to give the half of his substance to his wife, and that the other half should be consecrated to Ceres." They might then repudiate in all cases, if they were but willing to submit to the penalty. Nobody had done this before Carvilius Ruga,« who, as Plutarch says in another place,/ " put away his wife for her sterility two hundred and thirty years after Romulus." That is, she was re- pudiated seventy-one years before the law of the Twelve Tables, which extended both the power and causes of repudiation.
c Ibid., cao. IV. h Ibid.
d Lib. IV. cap. iii. 8. i Indeed sterility is not a cause men- ^ According to Dionys. Halicarn. and tioned by the law of Romulus: but to Valerius Maximus; and five hundred all appearance he was not subject to a and twenty-three, according to Aulus confiscation of his eflfects, since he fol- Gellius, Neither did they agree in lowed the orders of the censors, placing this under the same consuls.; In his comparison between Theseus f bee the Speech of Veturia " in and Romulus. Dionys. Hahcam. lib. VIII.
THE SPIRIT OF LAWS 263 The authors I have cited say that Carvilius Ruga loved his wife, but that the censors made him take an oath to put her away, because of her barrenness, to the end that he might give children to the republic; and that this rendered him odious to the people. We must know the genius and temper of the Romans before we can discover the true cause of the hatred they had conceived against CarviUus. He did not fall into dis- grace with the people for repudiating his wife; this was an affair that did not at all concern them. But Carvilius had taken an oath to the censors, that by reason of the sterility of his wife he would repudiate her to give children to the republic. This was a yoke which the people saw the censors were going to put upon them. I shall discover, in the prosecution of this work,^ the repugnance which they always felt to regulations of the Hke kind. But wherrce can such a contradiction between those authors arise? It is because Plutarch examined into a fact, and the others have recounted a prodigy.
k Book XXIII. chap. iii.
BOOK XVII HOW THE LAWS OF POLITICAL SERVITUDE BEAR A RELATION TO THE NATURE OF THE CLIMATE I. — Of political Servitude POLITICAL servitude does not less depend on the nature of the climate than that which is civil and domestic; and this we shall now demonstrate.
2. — The Difference between Nations in point of Courage We have already observed that great heat enervates the strength and courage of men, and that in cold climates they have a certain vigor of body and mind, which renders them patient and intrepid, and qualifies them for arduous enterprises. This remark holds good, not only between dififerent nations, but even in the dififerent parts of the same country. In the north of China a people are more courageous than those in the south; and those in the south of Corea b have less bravery than those in the north.
We ought not, then, to be astonished that the efifeminacy of the people in hot climates has almost always rendered them slaves; and that the bravery of those in cold climates has en- abled them to maintain their liberties. This is an effect which springs from a natural cause.