iseased of the
human species; thoughtless of the weaknesses and evils he is going to
entail on posterity, and considering nothing but the acquisition of
fortune he is by her alliance to convey to an offspring, by diseases
rendered unable to use it. The Muscovites were formerly the only people,
besides the Greeks, who paid a proper attention to this subject. After
the preliminaries of a marriage were settled between the parents of a
young couple, the bride was stripped naked, and carefully examined by a
jury of matrons, when if they found any bodily defect they endeavored to
cure it; but if it would admit of no remedy, the match was broke off,
and she was considered not only as a very improper subject to breed
from, but improper also for maintaining the affections of a husband,
after he had discovered the imposition she had put upon him.

SALE OF CHILDREN TO PURCHASE WIVES.

In Timor, an island in the Indian Ocean, it is said, that parents sell
their children in order to purchase more wives. In Circassia, women are
reared and improved in beauty and every alluring art, only for the
purpose of being sold. The prince of the Circassians demanded of the
prince of Mingrelia an hundred slaves loaded with tapestry, an hundred
cows, as many oxen, and the same number of horses, as the price of his
sister. In New-Zealand, we meet with a custom which may be called
purchasing a wife for a night, and which is proof that those must also
be purchased who are intended for a longer duration; and what to us is a
little supprising, this temporary wife, insisted upon being treated with
as much deference and respect, as if she had been married for life; but
in general, this is not the case in other countries, for the wife who is
purchased, is always trained up in the principles of slavery; and, being
inured to every indignity and mortification from her parents, she
expects no better treatment from her husband.

There is little difference in the condition of her who is put to sale by
her sordid parents, and her who is disposed of in the same manner by the
magistrates, as a part of the state's property. Besides those we have
already mentioned in this work, the Thracians put the fairest of their
virgins up to public sale, and the magistrates of Crete had the sole
power of choosing partners in marriage for their young men; and, in the
execution of this power, the affection and interest of the parties was
totally overlooked, and the good of th