really outlived themselves, they would no longer nourish such a rooted distemper, but would choose rather to die, since they cannot live, but in much misery; being assured, that if they either deliver themselves from their prison and torture, or are willing that others should do it they shall be happy after their deaths: and since by their dying thus, they lose none of the pleasures, but only the troubles of life, they think they act not only reasonably in so doing, but religiously and piously, because they follow the advices that are given them by the priests, who are the expounders of the will of God to them. Such as are wrought on by these persuasions, do either starve themselves of their own accord, or they take opium, 145 and so they die without pain. But no man is forced on this way of ending his life; and if they cannot be persuaded to it, they do not for that fail in their attendance and care of them. But as they believe that a voluntary death, when it is chosen upon such an authority, is very honourable, so if any man takes away his own life, without the approbation of the priests and the senate, they give him none of the

145 This is one of those maxims of a "rough and fierce philosophy," which Bishop Burnet speaks of in his preface. It differs in one particular from Napoleon's "philosophy," which led him, from motives of mistaken humanity, to think of poisoning the sick in Syria, to prevent their falling into the hands of a savage enemy. The Utopians only starved or poisoned those who consented to be so treated; which, Mr. Hobbes assures us, could be doing them no injury; for he who consents to anything, cannot consider himself injured. De Cive. 1. I. c. iii. § 7.

honours of a decent funeral, but throw his body into some ditch.

Their women are not married before eighteen, nor their men before two-and-twenty; and if any of them run into forbidden embraces before their marriage, they are severely punished, and the privilege of marriage is denied them, unless there is a special warrant obtained for it afterwards from the prince. Such disorders cast a great reproach upon the master and mistress of the family in which they fall out; for it is supposed they have been wanting to their duty. The reason of punishing this so severely is, because they think that if they were not strictly restrained from all vagrant appetites, very few would engage in a married state, in which men venture the quiet of their whole life, being restricted to one person; besides many other inconveniences that do accompany it. In the way of choosing of their wives, they use a method that would appear to us very absurd and ridiculous, but is constantly observed among them, and accounted a wise and good rule. Before marriage, some grave matron presents the bride naked,146 whether she is a virgin or a widow, to the

146 The Spartans exposed their young women thus habitually, and partly for the same reason, partly for the purpose of correcting the phlegmatic temperament of the Dorians. Sir Thomas More has reasons, no doubt, on his side; but tastes differ, at different times; and in modern Europe, though many women of fashion would not object to the trial, as is clear from their style of dressing, it might be found rather inimical than otherwise to marriage. In the East, according to Lady Montague, the ladies could bear the scrutiny-so beautiful are their figures.

bridegroom; and after that, some grave man presents the bridegroom naked to the bride. We indeed both laughed at this, and condemned it as a very indecent thing. But they, on the other hand, wondered at the folly of the men of all other nations, who if they are but to buy a horse of a small value, are so cautious, that they will see every part of him, and take off both his saddle, and all his other tackle, that there may be no secret ulcer hid under any of them; and that yet in the choice of a wife, on which depends the happiness or unhappiness of the rest of his life, a man should venture upon trust, and only see about a hand-breadth of the face, all the rest of the body being covered, under which there may lie hid that which may be contagious, as well as loathsome. All men are not so wise, that they choose a woman only for her good qualities; and even wise men consider the body as that which adds not a little to the mind. And it is certain, there may be some such deformity covered with one's clothes, as may totally alienate a man from his wife, when it is too late to part with her; for if such a thing is discovered after marriage, a man has no remedy but patience: so they think it is reasonable, that there should be a good provision made against such mischievous frauds.

“There was so much the more reason in making a regulation in this matter, because they are the only people of those parts that do neither allow of polygamy, nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery, or insufferable perverseness: for in these cases the senate dissolves the marriage, and grants

the injured person leave to marry again; but the guilty are made infamous, and are never allowed the privilege of a second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their wills, because of any great calamity that may have fallen on their person; for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon either of the married persons, when they need most the tender care of their consort; and that chiefly is the case of old age, which, as it carries many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself.147 But it falls. often out, that when a married couple do not agree well together, they by mutual consent separate, and find out other persons with whom they hope they may live more happily.148 Yet this is not done without obtaining leave of the senate, which never admits of a divorce, but upon a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the grounds upon which it proceeds; and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it, they go on but slowly, for they reckon that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages, would very much shake the kindness of married persons. They punish severely those that defile the marriage bed. If both parties are married, they are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please; but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery. Yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake

147 A humane law.

148 He here anticipates Milton's notions, which are those of right reason.

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off the love of the married person, they may live with them still in that state, but they must follow them to that labour to which the slaves are condemned; and sometimes the repentance of the condemned person, together with the unshaken kindness of the innocent and injured person, has prevailed so far with the prince that he has taken off the sentence: but those that relapse after they are once pardoned, are punished with death.

"Their law does not determine the punishment for other crimes; but that is left to the senate, to temper it according to the circumstances of the fact. Husbands have power to correct their wives, and parents to correct their children, unless the fault is so great that a public punishment is thought necessary for the striking terror into others. For the most part, slavery is the punishment even of the greatest crimes; for as that is no less terrible to the criminals themselves than death, so they think the preserving them in a state of servitude is more for the interest of the commonwealth, than the killing them outright; since as their labour is a greater benefit to the public than their death could be, so the sight of their misery is a more lasting terror to other men, than that which would be given by their death. If their slaves rebel, and will not bear their yoke, and submit to the labour that is enjoined them, they are treated as wild beasts that cannot be kept in order, neither by a prison, nor by their chains, and are at last put to death. But those who bear their punishment patiently, and are so much wrought on by that pressure that lies