and affections, the most painful and incurable that human nature knows. In all other respects, adultery on the part of the man who solicits the chastity of a married woman, includes the crime of seduction, and is attended with the same mischief.

The infidelity of the woman is aggravated by cruelty to her children, who are generally involved in their parents' shame, and always made unhappy by their quarrel.

2. The loss which a woman sustains by the ruin of her reputation, almost exceeds computation. Every person's happiness depends in part upon the respect and reception which they meet with in the world; and it is no inconsiderable mortification, even to the firmest tempers, to be rejected from the society of their equals, or received there with neglect and disdain. But this is not all, nor the worst. By a rule of life, which it is not easy to blame, and which it is impossible to alter, a woman loses with her chastity the chance of marrying at all, or in any manner equal to the hopes she had been accustomed to entertain. Now marriage, whatever it be to a man, is that from which every woman expects her chief happiness. And this is still more true in low life, of which condition the women are who are most exposed to solicitations of this sort. Add to this, that where a woman's maintenance depends upon her cha-conducts us, we leave the husband no other seracter (as it does, in a great measure, with those who are to support themselves by service,) little sometimes is left to the forsaken sufferer, but to starve for want of employment, or to have recourse to prostitution for food and raiment.

3. As a woman collects her virtue into this point, the loss of her chastity is generally the destruction of her moral principle; and this consequence is to be apprehended, whether the criminal intercourse be discovered or not.

II. The injury to the family may be understood, by the application of that infallible rule, " of doing to others, what we would that others should do unto us."-Let a father or a brother say, for what consideration they would suffer this injury to a daughter or a sister; and whether any, or even a total, loss of fortune, could create equal affliction and distress. And when they reflect upon this, let them distinguish, if they can, between a robbery, committed upon their property by fraud or forgery, and the ruin of their happiness by the treachery of a seducer.

III. The public at large lose the benefit of the woman's service in her proper place and destination, as a wife and parent. This, to the whole community, may be little; but it is often more than all the good which the seducer does to the community can recompense. Moreover, prostitution is supplied by seduction; and in proportion to the danger there is of the woman's betaking herself, after her first sacrifice, to a life of public lewdness, the seducer is answerable for the multiplied evils to which his crime gives birth.

If it be said that these consequences are chargeable not so much upon the crime, as the discovery, we answer, first, that the crime could not be discovered unless it were committed, and that the commission is never secure from discovery; and secondly, that if we excuse adulterous connexions, whenever they can hope to escape detection, which is the conclusion to which this argument

curity for his wife's chastity, than in her want of opportunity or temptation; which would probably either deter men from marrying, or render marriage a state of such jealousy and alarm to the husband, as must end in the slavery and confinement of the wife.

The vow, by which married persons mutually engage their fidelity, "is witnessed before God," and accompanied with circumstances of solemnity and religion, which approach to the nature of an oath. The married offender therefore incurs a crime little short of perjury, and the seduction of a married woman is little less than subornation of perjury;—and this guilt is independent of the discovery.

All behaviour which is designed, or which knowingly tends, to captivate the aflection of a married woman, is a barbarous intrusion upon the peace and virtue of a family, though it fall short of adultery.

The usual and only apology for adultery is; the prior transgression of the other party. There are degrees, no doubt, in this, as in other crimes: and so far as the bad effects of adultery are anticipated by the conduct of the husband or wife who offends first, the guilt of the second offender is less. But this falls very far short of a justification; unless it could be shown that the obligation of the marriage-vow depends upon the condition of reciprocal fidelity; for which construction there appears no foundation, either in expediency, or in the terms of the promise, or in the design of the legislature which prescribed the marriage-rite. Moreover, the rule contended for by this plea, has a manifest tendency to multiply the offence, but none to reclaim the offender.

Upon the whole, if we pursue the effects of seduction through the complicated misery which it occasions, and if it be right to estimate crimes by the mischief they knowingly produce, it will ap- The way of considering the offence of one pear something more than mere invective to as-party as a provocation to the other, and the other sert, that not one half of the crimes, for which men suffer death by the laws of England, are so flagitious as this.*

CHAPTER IV.

Adultery.

A NEW sufferer is introduced, the injured husband, who receives a wound in his sensibility * Yet the law has provided no punishment for this offence beyond a pecuniary satisfaction to the injured family; and this can only be come at, by one of the quaintest fictions in the world: by the father's bringing his action against the seducer, for the loss of his daughter's service, during her pregnancy and nurturing.

as only retaliating the injury by repeating the crime, is a childish trifling with words.

"Thou shalt not commit adultery," was an interdict delivered by God himself.. By the Jewish law, adultery was capital to both parties in the crime: "Even he that committeth adultery with his neighbour's wife, the adulterer and adulWhich passages prove, that the Divine Legisteress shall surely be put to death."-Levit. xx. 10. lator placed a great difference between adultery and fornication. And with this agree the Christian Scriptures: for, in almost all the catalogues they have left us of crimes and criminals, they enumerate "fornication, adultery, whoremongers, adulterers." (Matthew xv. 19. 1 Cor. vi. 9. Gal.

v. 9. Heb. viii. 4.) by which mention of both, they | demned thee?" he certainly spoke, and was unshow that they did not consider them as the same: derstood by the woman to speak, of a legal and Lut that the crime of adultery was, in their ap-judicial condemnation; otherwise, her answer, prension, distinct from, and accumulated upon

that of fornication.

The history of the woman taken in adultery, recorded in the eighth chapter of St. John's Gospel, has been thought by some to give countenance to that crime. As Christ told the woman, "Neither do I condemn thee," we must believe, it is said, that he deemed her conduct either not criminal, or not a crime, however, of the heinous nature which we represent it to be. A more attentive examination of the case will, I think, convince us, that from it nothing can be concluded as to Christ's opinion concerning adultery, either one way or the other. The transaction is thus related: "Early in the morning Jesus came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him: and he sat down and taught them. And the Scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery: when they had set her in the midst, they say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act: now Moses in the law commanded that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? This they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. So when they continued asking him, he lift up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin amongst you, let him first cast a stone at her; and again he stooped down and wrote on the ground: and they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst. When Jesus had lift up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said unto him, No man, Lord. And he said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."

"No man, Lord," was not true. In every other sense of condemnation, as blame, censure, reproof, private judgment, and the like, many had condemned her; all those indeed who had brought her to Jesus. If then a judicial sentence was what Christ meant by condemning in the question, the common use of language requires us to suppose that he meant the same in his reply, "Neither do I condemn thee," i. e. I pretend to no judicial character or authority over thee; it is no office or business of mine to pronounce or execute the sentence of the law.

When Christ adds, "Go, and sin no more," he in effect tells her, that she had sinned already : but as to the degree or quality of the sin, or Christ's opinion concerning it, nothing is declared, or can be inferred, either way.

Adultery, which was punished with death during the Usurpation, is now regarded by the law of England only as a civil injury; for which the imperfect satisfaction that money can afford, may be recovered by the husband.

CHAPTER V.
Incest.

In order to preserve chastity in families, and between persons of different sexes, brought up and living together in a state of unreserved intimacy, it is necessary, by every method possible, to inculcate an abhorrence of incestuous conjunctions; which abhorrence can only be upholden by the absolute reprobation of all commerce of the sexes between near relations. Upon this principle, the marriage as well as other cohabitations of brothers and sisters, of lineal kindred, and of all who usually live in the same family, may be said to be forbidden by the law of nature.

Restrictions which extend to remoter degrees of kindred than what this reason makes it necessary to prohibit from intermarriage, are founded in the authority of the positive law which ordains them, and can only be justified by their tendency to diffuse wealth, to connect families, or to promote some political advantage.

This they said tempting him, that they might have to accuse him;" to draw him, that is, into an exercise of judicial authority, that they might have to accuse him before the Roman governor, of usurp ing or intermeddling with the civil government. This was their design; and Christ's behaviour throughout the whole affair proceeded from a knowledge of this design, and a determination to The Levitical law, which is received in this defeat it. He gives them at first a cold and sullen country, and from which the rule of the Roman reception, well suited to the insidious intention law differs very little, prohibits* marriage between with which they came: "He stooped down, and relations, within three degrees of kindred; comwith his finger wrote on the ground, as though puting the generations, not from, but through the he heard them not." "When they continued ask- common ancestor, and accounting affinity the ing him," when they teased him to speak, he dis- same as consanguinity. The issue, however, of assed them with a rebuke, which the impertinent such marriages, are not bastardised, unless the malice of their errand, as well as the sacred cha-parents be divorced during their life-time. racter of many of them, deserved: "He that is without sin (that is, this sin) among you, let him first cast a stone at her." This had its effect. Stung with the reproof, and disappointed of their aim, they stole away one by one, and left Jesus and the woman alone. And then follows the conversation, which is the part of the narrative most material to our present subject. "Jesus said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee? She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I edemn thee; go, and sin no more." Now, when the Levitical and English law, there is nothing to hinChrist asked the woman, "Hath no man con-der a man from marrying his great-niece.

The Egyptians are said to have allowed of the marriage of brothers and sisters. Amongst the Athenians, a very singular regulation prevailed; brothers and sisters of the half-blood, if related by the father's side, might marry; if by the mother's side, they were prohibited from marrying. The same custom also probably obtained in Chaldea so early as the age in which Abraham left it; for he and Sarah his wife stood in this relation to each

*The Roman law continued the prohibition to the descendants of brothers and sisters without limits. In

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.

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.

their own, upon which the increase and succession 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 general rectitude or propriety of the thing itself. 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 praetice being tolerated.

For which reason, and because it was likewise forbidden amongst the Greeks and Romans, we cannot expect to find any express law upon the subject in the christian code. The words of Christ † (Matt. xix. 9.) may be construed, by an

It seems also a significant indication of the divine 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. Polygamy not only violates the constitution of nature, and the apparent design of the Deity, but produces to the parties themselves, and to the public, the following bad effects; contests and jealousies amongst the wives of the same husband; dis-easy implication, to prohibit polygamy: for, if tracted 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

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 pro-less, 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 female 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 virtue, 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 Deut. 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.

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

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 con-confine divorces to the single case of adultery in tinuance 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?

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.

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 stood to impose it with a silent reservation of these of taste and temper, to complaints of coldness, cases; because the same law has constituted a juneglect, severity, peevishness, jealousy: not that dicial relief from the tyranny of the husband, by these reasons are trivial, but because such objec- the divorce a mensa et toro, and by the provision tions may always be alleged, and are impossible which it makes for the separate maintenance of by testimony to be ascertained; so that to allow the injured wife. St. Paul likewise distinguishes implicit credit to them, and to dissolve marriages between a wife's merely separating herself from whenever either party thought fit to pretend the family of her husband, and her marrying them, would lead in its effect to all the licentious-again:-"Let not the wife depart from her husness of arbitrary divorces. band: 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 investigation of the complaint as a cause can rethem to determine a connexion which is become ceive. It has lately been proposed to the legislaodious to both, it may be told them, that the same ture to annex a clause to these acts, restraining permission, as a general rule, would produce liber-the offending party from marrying with the comtinism, 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 left 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

panion 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.