MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

воок III.

PART III.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH RESULT FROM

THE CONSTITUTION OF THE SEXES.

TH

HE conftitution of the fexes is the foun dation of marriage.

Collateral to the fubject of marriage, are fornication, feduction, adultery, inceft, polygamy, divorce.

Confequential to marriage, is the relation and reciprocal duty of parent and child.

We will treat of thefe fubjects in the following order: firft, of the public use of marriage

inftitutions; secondly, of the fubjects collateral to marriage, in the order in which we have here proposed them; thirdly, of marriage itfelf; and lastly, of the relation and reciprocal duties of parents and children.

CHAP.

СНАР. I.

OF THE PUBLIC USE OF MARRIAGE INSTI

TUTIONS.

THE

'HE public ufe of marriage inftitutions confists in their promoting the following beneficial effects:

1. The private comfort of individuals, elpecially of the female fex. It may be true, that all are not interested in this reason; nevertheless, it is a reafon to all for abstaining from any conduct which tends in its general confequence to obftruct marriage; for whatever promotes the happiness of the majority is binding upon the whole.

2. The production of the greatest number of healthy children, their better education, and the making of due provifion for their fettlement in life.

3. The peace of human fociety, in cutting off a principal source of contention, by affigning one or more women to one man, and protect

ing his exclusive right by fanctions of morality

and law.

4. The better government of fociety, by dif tributing the community into feparate families, and appointing over each the authority of a master of a family, which has more actual influence than all civil authority put together.

5. The fame end, in the additional security which the state receives for the good behaviour of its citizens, from the folicitude they feel for the welfare of their children, and from their being confined to permanent habitations.

6. The encouragement of induftry.

Some ancient nations appear to have been more fenfible of the importance of marriage inftitutions than we are. The Spartans obliged their citizens to marry by penalties, and the Romans encouraged theirs by the jus trium liberorum. A man who had no child was entitled by the Roman law only to one half of any legacy that fhould be left him, that is, at the moft, could only receive one half of the teftator's fortune.

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

FORNICATION.

THE

HE firft and great mischief, and by confequence the guilt, of promifcuous concubinage, confifts in its tendency to diminish marriages, and thereby to defeat the feveral beneficial purposes enumerated in the preceding chapter.

Promifcuous concubinage difcourages marriage by abating the chief temptation to it. The male part of the species will not undertake the incumbrance, expence, and restraint of married life, if they can gratify their paffions at a cheaper price; and they will undertake any thing, rather than not gratify them.

The reader will learn to comprehend the magnitude of this mischief, by attending to the importance and variety of the uses to which marriage is subservient; and by recollecting withal, that the malignity and moral quality of each crime is not to be estimated by the particular effect.

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