To the period of Ruga many writers assign the origin of the Roman marriage contracts, introduced, as they who trace them thither state, for the purpose of securing the portions of the women as Divorces became more frequent.

Frequent they did, indeed, become, and for the slightest causes possible. The instances which immediately occur to the classical reader amply prove this.

C. Sulpitius Gallus repudiated his wife because he had seen her abroad with her head uncovered. Q. Austilius Vetus, because his wife conversed with women of low condition. P. Sempronius Sophus, because his wife had been seen at a public show. Cæsar dismissed his wife, and alleged, when inquiry was made into the cause of it, that he would not have the wife of Cæsar even suspected of such a crime. Nero dismissed Octavia for her sterility; and Augustus put away one of his wives because he did not like her temper. Sometimes they separated when they were tired of each other. This was called a Divorce bonâ gratiâ; a repudium sine ullá querelâ; perhaps the Consul Æmilius is an instance of this; he dismissed a handsome and fruitful wife, and would assign no reason for it. The women were equally prompt in availing them

selves of the liberty.

them is very severe.

Seneca's reflection upon
He declares, they cal-

culated their age, not by the number of consuls, but by the number of husbands they had had.*

The most ordinary causes of Divorce were, barrenness, age, disease, madness, and banishment. On Coriolanus going to his exile, when he parted with his wife, he intreated her to marry again, and to find a man happier than himself.

One kind of marriage among the Romans was not dissoluble; it was called the farracia, from marriage being the communion of far, Sea, the ordinary food of the ancient Romans.† The rest were too easily broken; and the remedies proposed for the increasing moral evils which arose in consequence, were as inadequate in their nature, as they were tardy

* "Illustres quædam ac nobiles fœminæ, non consulum numero, sed maritorum, annos suos computant, et exeunt matrimonii causâ, et nubunt repudii."

Sen. de Benef. lib. iii. Op. tom, 2. p. 418. This word exeunt, is stated to be critically accurate, as it formed part of the phraseology of the dismissal, at least, according to Juvenal:

"Collige sarcinulas, dicet libertus, et exi."

Juvenal, Sat. vi.

+ Dion. Halicar. ii. 93.

in their application. The goddes Viriplaca, "the appeaser of men," was resorted to, in order to adjust the causes of complaint; but it is sufficient to have analyzed her name, to exempt her from any imputation of impartiality. The Censors and the Prætors were also employed in these matters.

Valerius Maximus relates an instance of the former expelling a Senator for unreasonably dismissing his virgin spouse; but it was not until Augustus, who united in himself both the Censor and the Prætor, that this licence of Divorce was effectually restrained.*

By a construction of crime, in that period peculiar to himself, he termed Adultery an infraction of the laws of majesty, and made it high treason. According to this principle, he accused his daughter and grand-daughter, and punished all their gallants with death or exile. There might be motives of policy influencing this construction, sufficiently powerful to have dictated even harsher measures. These gallants were numerous, and were men of consideration, of whom, the reigning Emperor felt no little jealousy, and this was a ready and plausible mode of removing them from his sight.

But this last clause brings us near the third branch of the Essay, the laws of the New Testament. We have passed over the Greek and Roman laws, and a single remark may be necessary to review the whole It will then appear from the passages referred to, that the punishments annexed to the crime of Adultery have exceedingly varied in the severity of their nature, according to the views entertained by the legislators and the people, of the crime itself. Some have regarded it as a capital offence, others as venial; and the penalties have in consequence either been so rigorous as to amount to cruelty, or so ridiculous as to excite a smile. Sometimes death has been the visitation of a crime, which has inflicted a misery, worse than death, on the injured party.* Sometimes the loss of the eyes, as the avenues through which the temptation entered; sometimes the loss of the offending member; at others, only slight pecuniary mulcts, or personal inflictions of the oddest character, mutilation, castration, sometimes compulsorily self-inflicted, and the excision of the ears or nose. The punishments have not only strangely varied, but have been

of a diametrically opposite kind: in some cases, the offenders were incapacitated from ever repeating their crimes; in others, they were compelled to submit to a public repetition of the guilty pleasure, till satiety had rendered it disgusting, and made those waters which, when stolen in secret, were sweet, more bitter than the waters of jealousy.

With regard to Divorce, we have seen at one time the utmost caution in its indulgence, and the permission of it surrounded by the wisest restraints; but at others, the growing profligacy of the people, over-leaping all the bounds of laws, and compelling, in the use of it, the most licentious liberty. And to those latter periods we may refer, to the jealousies, the strifes, the discords, and the confusion to which the unrestrained exercise of this liberty gave birth; in order to prove how little compatible such a measure is with the real happiness, domestic peace, and security of a state, as little as it is agreeable to the prescribed regulations and natural dictates of reason and justice.