gislators and her poets went to study the abstruse antiquities of
Egypt and Chaldea. The absolute seclusion of women which was
necessitated under the burning sun of Asia prevailed under the laws of
Greece and Ionia. The women remained in confinement within the marbles
of the gyneceum. The country was reduced to the condition of a city,
to a narrow territory, and the courtesans who were connected with art
and religion by so many ties, were sufficient to satisfy the first
passions of the young men, who were few in number, since their
strength was elsewhere taken up in the violent exercises of that
training which was demanded of them by the military system of those
heroic times.

At the beginning of her royal career Rome, having sent to Greece to
seek such principles of legislation as might suit the sky of Italy,
stamped upon the forehead of the married woman the brand of complete
servitude. The senate understood the importance of virtue in a
republic, hence the severity of manners in the excessive development
of the marital and paternal power. The dependence of the woman on her
husband is found inscribed on every code. The seclusion prescribed by
the East becomes a duty, a moral obligation, a virtue. On these
principles were raised temples to modesty and temples consecrated to
the sanctity of marriage; hence, sprang the institution of censors,
the law of dowries, the sumptuary laws, the respect for matrons and
all the characteristics of the Roman law. Moreover, three acts of
feminine violation either accomplished or attempted, produced three
revolutions! And was it not a grand event, sanctioned by the decrees
of the country, that these illustrious women should make their
appearances on the political arena! Those noble Roman women, who were
obliged to be either brides or mothers, passed their life in
retirement engaged in educating the masters of the world. Rome had no
courtesans because the youth of the city were engaged in eternal war.
If, later on, dissoluteness appeared, it merely resulted from the
despotism of emperors; and still the prejudices founded upon ancient
manners were so influential that Rome never saw a woman on a stage.
These facts are not put forth idly in scanning the history of marriage
in France.

After the conquest of Gaul, the Romans imposed their laws upon the
conquered; but they were incapable of destroying both the profound
respect which our ancestors entertained for women and the ancient
super