t  ^  My  husband,''  says  a  female,  in  the  Heetopades,  <'  may,  if  he
plea8e,'sell  me  to  the  gods,  or  give  me  to  the  Bramins;''  that  js,:a8
the  translator  interprets  it,  devote  her  to  the  sacrifice  of  the  Mara-^
medha.    Heetopad.  Transl.  by  Sir  William  Jones,  p.  185.
c  c  3


300  DOMESTIC  AND

These  laws  seem  to  recognise  but  one  virtue,  vo--
luntary  or  c(»npulsory,  in  women.  To  the  generous
sentiment,  the  pure  and  disinterested  Idve,:  the  noble
confidence,  the  tenderness  delighted  to  lavish  itself
on  the  object  of  its  devotion,  they  have  no  reference.
They  were  made  for  the  sole  purpose  of  securing
the  chastity  of  the  wife,  not  by  inspiring  her  with
high  and  holy  motive,  but  by  announcing  the  punish-
ments reserved  for  infidelity,  and  confirming  the
despotism  of  jealous  restraint  The  glance  of  a
strange  eye,  the  approach  of  a  strange  hand,  a  word
of  salutation  from  a  strange  lip,  they  denounce  as
dangerous  or  fatal  to  the  virtue  whicl\  they  guard ;
and  the  regulations  which  they  prescribe  for  the  re-
straint of  the  frailty  imputed  to  the  sex,  are  an-
nounced in  terms  too  explicit  to  be  misunderstood,^
and  too  gross  for  modesty  either  to  repeat  or  to
hear  *.
