otnote 131: In pure Greek, it is not a common word; nor can the
proper meaning, fornication, be strictly applied to matrimonial sin. In
a figurative sense, how far, and to what offences, may it be extended?
Did Christ speak the Rabbinical or Syriac tongue? Of what original word
is the translation? How variously is that Greek word translated in the
versions ancient and modern! There are two (Mark, x. 11, Luke, xvi. 18)
to one (Matthew, xix. 9) that such ground of divorce was not excepted
by Jesus. Some critics have presumed to think, by an evasive answer, he
avoided the giving offence either to the school of Sammai or to that of
Hillel, (Selden, Uxor Ebraica, l. iii. c. 18--22, 28, 31.) * Note: But
these had nothing to do with the question of a divorce made by judicial
authority.--Hugo.]

The freedom of love and marriage was restrained among the Romans by
natural and civil impediments. An instinct, almost innate and universal,
appears to prohibit the incestuous commerce [132] of parents and
children in the infinite series of ascending and descending generations.
Concerning the oblique and collateral branches, nature is indifferent,
reason mute, and custom various and arbitrary. In Egypt, the marriage
of brothers and sisters was admitted without scruple or exception: a
Spartan might espouse the daughter of his father, an Athenian, that of
his mother; and the nuptials of an uncle with his niece were applauded
at Athens as a happy union of the dearest relations. The profane
lawgivers of Rome were never tempted by interest or superstition to
multiply the forbidden degrees: but they inflexibly condemned the
marriage of sisters and brothers, hesitated whether first cousins should
be touched by the same interdict; revered the parental character of
aunts and uncles, [1321] and treated affinity and adoption as a just
imitation of the ties of blood. According to the proud maxims of the
republic, a legal marriage could only be contracted by free citizens; an
honorable, at least an ingenuous birth, was required for the spouse of
a senator: but the blood of kings could never mingle in legitimate
nuptials with the blood of a Roman; and the name of Stranger degraded
Cleopatra and Berenice, [133] to live the concubines of Mark Antony
and Titus. [134] This appellation, indeed, so injurious to the majesty,
cannot without indulgence be applied to the manners, of these Oriental
queens. A concubine, in the strict sense of the civilians, was a