382  DOMESTIC  AND

been  insulted  by  the  unbridled  obscenity  of  some  of
their  writers.  But  there  is  this  distiiictioii.  In
modem  Europe,  grossness  is  admitted  to  be  gross ;
and  the  writer  who  transgresses  the  laws  of  decorum
and  of  decency,  and  devotes  his  execrable  volume  to
the  effusions  of  an  impure  imagination,  is  rejected
and  contemned  by  the  common  sense  and  the  common
feelings  of  society.  Whereas,  at  Athens  and  at
Rome,^  impurity  was  considered  neither  as  an  offence
nor  as  a  dishonour.  It  spoke  from  the  stage  without
reserve.  It  sullied  the  conversation  or  the  writings
of  the  most  accomplished  characters ;  and  it  attested
an  sera  in  the  history  of  manners,  distinguished  by
apparent  contradictions,  and  at  once  refined  by
science  and  the  arts,  and  disgraced  by  a  licence  of
modes  and  language  as  universal  as  it  was  corrupt.
SECT.  II.
State  of  the  female  sex  in  IndiO'-^Polygamy^  its  extent  and  remits —
IVomen  equalfy  secluded  before  and  after  marriage-^&erviUty  of
their  obedience — Uneducated — Domestic  offices — The  duty  of  the
widow — The  accomplishments  withheld  from  the  better  class  offe-
maleSf  lavished  on  the  wanton  beauty  of  the  dancing  girls  of  the
temjdes — fFomeUy  in  general^  divested  of  property — In  a  state  <f
perpetual  tutelage — Prohibited  from  reading  the  Vedas — Uable  to
the  most  capricious  divorce — Suspicion  and  jealousy  of  the  laws —
Punishment  of  female  infidelity — Unvarying  state  of  manners  in
the  East.
