body being covered,
under which there may lie hid what may be contagious, as well as
loathsome. All men are not so wise as to choose a woman only for her
good qualities; and even wise men consider the body as that which adds
not a little to the mind: and it is certain there may be some such
deformity covered with the clothes as may totally alienate a man from
his wife when it is too late to part with her. If such a thing is
discovered after marriage, a man has no remedy but patience. They
therefore think it is reasonable that there should be good provision
made against such mischievous frauds.

There was so much the more reason for them to make a regulation in this
matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither
allow of polygamy, nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery, or
insufferable perverseness; for in these cases the Senate dissolves the
marriage, and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the
guilty are made infamous, and are never allowed the privilege of a
second marriage. None are suffered to put away their wives against their
wills, from any great calamity that may have fallen on their persons;
for they look on it as the height of cruelty and treachery to abandon
either of the married persons when they need most the tender care of
their comfort, and that chiefly in the case of old age, which as it
carries many diseases along with it, so it is a disease of itself. But
it frequently falls out that when a married couple do not well agree,
they by mutual consent separate, and find out other persons with whom
they hope they may live more happily. Yet this is not done without
obtaining leave of the Senate, which never admits of a divorce, but upon
a strict inquiry made, both by the senators and their wives, into the
grounds upon which it is desired; and even when they are satisfied
concerning the reasons of it, they go on but slowly, for they imagine
that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very
much shake the kindness of married people. They punish severely those
that defile the marriage-bed. If both parties are married they are
divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they
please; but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery.
Yet if either of the injured persons cannot shake off the love of the
married person, they may live with them still in that state, but they
must follow them to that labour to which th