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 engag ed 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

propensities assert their sway, in combination with brute force, and love is a compound of lust and jealousy, women are shut up in prison-like beautiful birds in gilded cages, and made the playthings of their master's pleasures. Purchased, held as property, kept under constant constraint, by those who have the power of life and death over them, women, over three quarters of the world are but the purchased ministers of sensual gratification.

Our civilization partakes of all the other forms of social life, and in rare instances rises above them all. In many cases, the women of the most civilized countries at the present day, are as much slaves and drudges as among the most savage tribes, and are treated with the same brutality. There are thousands of women in the freest of civilized countries who have no more liberty of action or affection, than have the inmates of Persian and Turkish harems, who are sold as remorselessly, and are treated as indelicately under the forms and sanctions of law; but rising above these, there may be found much of real liberty, and truth and refinement in the relations of the sexes, and much in the intelligence, freedom, and dignity of the female character to make us hopeful of the world's onward progress.

But let us suspend these generalizations, and come to the facts of history, and the observation of mankind, which must be the material of all speculations. In the history of the past our first glimpses of the treatment and condition of woman, are those which we get in the patriarchal and heroic ages. We find the wives of the Hebrew patriarchs saluting their husbands with a slavish submission and reverence, performing the most menial and laborious occupations, the daughters of wealthy men drawing water from deep wells, not only for household uses, but for camels and other domestic animals. There is no indication that the women of those times had any degree of freedom, or were treated with the delicacy due to the sex; there are, on the other hand, many signs of slavish submission. Man was the lord and master; and he exercised his authority with little regard to the rights of those whose weakness and whose very virtues made them submissive. The fact of the existence of polygamy and concubinage, in patriarchal

times, shows that women were held in slight estimation. No one woman could have had much influence over Abraham, when he had a dozen wives at the same time, as he had after the death of Sarah.

The low estimation in which women were held in most eastern nations in the earliest times, is shown in nothing more than the difference made between male and female children. While the former had a joyous welcome to the world, the latter were of no consideration, and were frequently either destroyed at the moment of birth, or exposed to perish. They were commonly considered a burthen and a misfortune.

Wherever the institution of polygamy prevailed as it did in the ancient Empires of Assyria, Persia, and in the Empires of India and China, woman's condition must have been essentially the same. It is impossible to reconcile such an institution with any thing but the absolute slavery of those who were its victims, since no woman would voluntarily choose to share her husband with another, and the fact of her doing so proves that she has been deprived of all power of choice in the relations most essential to her dignity and happiness. Thus the seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines of Solomon, must have been slaves, taken to him by force, and kept in his palaces, as in a prison. Custom, education, and habit may have made them submit to this outrage, and without complaint, but it was no less an outrage against nature and a blot upon humanity.

The refinements of eastern luxury have done all that could be done to make female slavery endurable. The wives and concubines of the rich, though closely secluded, and shut out from seeing any man but their husband and master, are indulged with every luxury. They have rich dresses and jewels for their adornment, music, dancing,and story telling for their amusements, and live lives of sensual pleasure; while to keep them contented with their condi tion they have but little education, and are shut out from all the avenues of thought. In this indolent and luxurious dissipation, lolling upon sofas, bathing, eating, smoking, and dressing, they pass their time, their only excitement being the visit of their master; their only triumph, that of gaining

his temporary preference. Such has been from the earliest ages, and still is the life of woman in Oriental nations, in its most favorable conditions. Among the lower classes, woman is the toiling drudge as well as the slave of her

master.

There have been individual exceptions, of women who by great energy of character, and favored by circumstances, have risen to great power and consideration. Such, if the whole story be not fabulous, was Semiramis-such were some of the female judges of Israel; and there have been many instances where great beauty combined with talents, have asserted their empire; but such exceptions only prove the general rule, as we have described it. The Oriental woman has always been the slave of man's sensuality.

Let us turn from the early Oriental nations to Egypt, the fountain of European civilization, whose power had declined, and whose grandeur was sinking into gloom, when nations, which we call ancient, were in their infancy.

A crowded population, a suspension of agricultural labor, and the necessity of finding occupation and amusement in artificial life, are circumstances that tend strongly to civilization. Egypt was a narrow strip of country of exceeding fertility, and was filled with a dense population. The whole country was overflowed every year, during which period the people were confined to their houses, and compelled to cultivate arts and social amusements, to make their confined life agreeable.

In this compulsory social life, women found their influence and position. The sexes, by constant association, learned to respect each other. The charms of female society enlivened Egyptian habitations, and woman was treated as the companion and equal of man.

The women of Egypt were engaged in trade and commerce-they were never shut up and hidden by the jealousy of their husbands, and a plurality of wives was never permitted. This single circumstance of the absence of polygamy, which was the custom of all the surrounding nations, speaks volumes. The chastity of females was protected by laws carrying the severest penalties. The queens of Egypt were much honored, and more readily obeyed than their husbands.