Though the kingdoms
of their country have often changed masters, though they have submitted
to the arms of almost every invader, yet the laws by which their sex are
governed and enslaved, have never been revised nor amended.

Had the manners and customs of the Asiatic women been subject to the
same changes as they are in Europe, we might have expected the same
changes in the sentiments and writings of their men. But, as this is not
the case, we have reason to presume that the sentiments entertained by
Solomon, by the apocryphal writers, and by the ancient Bramins, are the
sentiments of this day.

Though the confinement of women be an unlawful exertion of superior
power, yet it affords a proof that the inhabitants of the East are
advanced some degrees farther in civilization than mere savages, who
have hardly any love and consequently as little jealousy.

This confinement is not very rigid in the empire of the Mogul. It is,
perhaps, less so in China, and in Japan hardly exists.

Though women are confined in the Turkish empire, they experience every
other indulgence. They are allowed, at stated times, to go to the public
baths; their apartments are richly, if not elegantly furnished; they
have a train of female slaves to serve and amuse them; and their persons
are adorned with every costly ornament which their fathers or husbands
can afford.

Notwithstanding the strictness of confinement in Persia, their women are
treated with several indulgences. They are allowed a variety of precious
liquors, costly perfumes, and beautiful slaves: their apartments are
furnished with the most elegant hangings and carpets; their persons
ornamented with the finest silks, and even loaded with the sparkling
jewels of the East. But all these trappings, however elegant, or however
gilded, are only like the golden chains sometimes made use of to bind a
royal prisoner.

Solomon had a great number of queens and concubines; but a petty Hindoo
chief has been known to have two thousand women confined within the
walls of his harem, and appropriated entirely to his pleasure. Nothing
less than unlimited power in the husband is able to restrain women so
confined, from the utmost disorder and confusion. They may repine in
secret, but they must clothe their features with cheerfulness when their
lord appears. Contumacy draws down on them immediate punishment: they
are degraded, chastised, divorced, shut up in dark dungeons, and
sometimes put to deat