number of wives is limited to three, it is not permitted that the husband should exercise the least partiality.

The laws and customs which protect wives in their fair division of connubial rights and blessings, do not apply to concubines, who have no such protection, but are at the mercy of their master's caprice.

In Turkey, wives, by custom, claim the society of their husbands every Friday night. All the rest of the week he passes according to his inclination, among the ladies of his harem.

Polygamy was practiced among the ancient Mexicans and Peruvians, as well as the more barbarous tribes in both North and South America. Montezuma II. had three thousand women. The Incas married only their own sisters, but were allowed a great number of concubines. The Peruvians, before the coming of Incas, are said to have had their women in common, with no recognised marriage relation.

Throughout all Africa, polygamy is the general custom, and many of the negro princes rival Solomon and Montezuma. Some of the Guinea kings not only count their wives by thousands, but they form of them a life-guard or standing army, and they are therefore trained to military service. In Europe, one woman is often too much for peace; but travellers assure us that in Africa many wives share one husband, and their only strife is to render_him happy. There is not the least rivalry or jealousy. Each has her turn-each her week of particular attendance. There is no pretension of superiority. The husband is punctually obeyed. The height of honor and felicity is to merit the good fortune of sharing his bed, and this favor is seldom accorded, and only as the reward of good conduct. But the highest honor ever paid to a favorite wife is to bestow her temporarily upon a stranger who is partaking of his hospitality. This is the reward of the greatest merit, and is esteemed accordingly.

Among the Maroons of Jamaica, the customs of Africa formerly existed, with slight modifications. When a man took an additional wife, he was obliged to make the same present to each of his former wives as to the bride. Each wife lived in turn with the husband, for two days, while the

rest were engaged in cultivating the grounds. The wives had their property separate from each other, but the husband shared with all, and the only jealousy known was caused by the husband noticing any of his children, except those of his particular wife for the time being. So happy was this kind of family compact, that the missionaries, though they found the Maroons docile in all other respects, could not induce them to separate from their wives, nor could they be made to believe that the good God had commanded any thing which seemed to them so unnatural and abhorrent.

Our missionaries, at the present day, find the same difficulty in all heathen countries, and no longer insist upon a breaking up of family relations, as indispensable to Christian communion.

We have passed, in rapid review, the marriage customs of the world-but, there are many things connected with the condition and treatment of women, of which we prefer to treat in other portions of this work. There appears to be demanded, however, at this point, a few observations upon marriage in general.

Marriage is that condition in which the two sexes perform their proper duties to each other. It should express the perfection of the sexual relation. This is marriage as it should be; we have seen something of marriage as it is.

The sexes being necessary to each other, and man being physically the strongest, woman became his slave. The Savage captures or purchases one or more wives. While they are young and attractive, he may treat them with tenderness; but the general rule is, that the wife is the slave of the husband.

The Barbarian fills his harem with wives and concubines; shuts them out from all the rest of the world; and makes them entirely subservient to his pleasures. In civilization, a man marries but one wife-sometimes from affection, sometimes from convenience or interest. She is in many respects his property, and is bound to obey him. The Church celebrates the marriage as a religious rite; the State regards it as a civil contract; but, in all cases, the man occupies a superior and privileged position; and while any violation of the marriage vow on the part of

the wife subjects her to infamy, the moral sentiment of the community is very little shocked by the husband's infidelity. In some countries-and those the most civilized-women, by superior cultivation, have attained to a social equality with men, and this has been vindicated in marriage customs. Thus, in France and Italy, among the higher classes, (whose marriages are mostly those of convenience,) the men are not habitually faithful to their marriage vows; and custom allows the same liberty to women.

The true marriage, according to the most refined notions, requires a pure and exalted mutual love for its perfection. The union of the two sexes in love is properly termed marriage; and all other connections have but its form, without its soul. Taking this view of the subject, there is no real marriage with a plurality of wives, since love is in its nature exclusive. The most that can exist in such cases, is a tender friendship, which may be very sincere and beautiful, but which is not sufficient for the marriage of which we speak.

But, if union of interests and the sentiment of friendship are not sufficient to constitute marriage-if a pure and exclusive mutual love alone can make that perfect condition-we must come to the conclusion, that true marriage is comparatively rare.

With our civilized notions, we should have no hesitation in condemning polygamy as a system of prostitution and adultery; but, if we look at the marriages of interest, convenience, and the great number of incomplete and unhappy unions which are formed in Christian countries, and judge of them according to the above strict definition of the marriage relation, we shall be slower to condemn those whose customs are different from our own, but which may not be much farther removed from the standard of perfection.

If marriage is only real and perfect where it exists with mutual love, all other unions are of a different character. They are termed by rigid moralists, "legal prostitution,' "authorized adultery," &c. We shall use no such ugly designations. The condition of mankind is so far from perfection in all respects, that it is useless to expect to find any institution faultless.

The Barbarous is an improvement upon the Savage state, and the Civilized is an advance from the Barbarous. Man is not yet at the end of his progress-and we may expect that the marriage of his future condition, will be as much improved as his other relations.

Religionists have endeavored to make marriages indissoluble. A union without love may as well end at one time as another, unless there are economical reasons to the contrary. With love, there would be, of course, no motive to a separation. What the laws of the world are and should be, with respect to divorce, we shall have occasion to show hereafter. There are also many other matters incidentally connected with marriage, which will demand our consideration.

NOTE.In the preceding pages, several paragraphs relating to marriage customs have been copied, with but slight alterations, from the excellent "History of Women," by Mrs. Child.

WOMAN.

PART SIXTH.

TREATMENT AND CONDITION.

We come now to the consideration of a branch of our subject, which is as full of interest, and, it may be, of higher importance than either of those which have already engaged our attention. It is true, that these different portions of our grand subject are not wholly separated from each other it is impossible that they should be. The former parts have had an intimate relation to this, and this will of necessity contain much that might have been inferred from the others, but the treatment which woman receives from the other sex, and her condition, in the various states of society, are so connected with the great principles of social science, that we shall devote some space and labor to their separate consideration.

We shall show what woman's condition has been and is, in all the phases of human life; what it should be is one of the great problems of humanity, which we have yet to solve. We shall see that in all ages she has been the slave, the drudge, the plaything, of man, over the greatest portion of the earth-seldom his companion, his friend, his other equal self, honored, cherished, and beloved. Still less frequently has woman been an independent, self-relying, selfsustaining being, enjoying her birthright of liberty and social equality, and governing in her own sphere of beauty and taste, as the queen of the realm of human affections.

In the lower forms of social organization, where physical strength is the beastly standard of superiority, and in its coarsest sense, might makes right, woman, with smaller bones and more delicate muscles, is the slave and drudge of man. In the next form of society, where the animal