HISTOKICAL EACES 251 



famine, and child mortality throughout the historical period we 

 may pass to the consideration of the remaining factors, dealing 

 first with the ancient empires and Asiatic peoples and afterwards 

 with Europe from the fall of the Eoman Empire. We shall find 

 that considerable differences exist regarding the importance of the 

 various factors as between these two divisions. Koughly speaking, 

 with the exception of the importance of disease, conditions in the 

 ancient empires and in Asiatic countries are similar to those in 

 previous groups. In Europe after the introduction of Christianity 

 we shall find that certain factors become of little or no importance, 

 whereas others appear for the first time, and finally in the modem 

 period we shall discover further changes. It is therefore con- 

 venient to consider the conditions in the first two sub-groups 

 taken together and afterwards those in the latter two sub-groups. 

 All the evidence goes to show that celibacy and postponement 

 of marriage were very rare in the ancient empires and are very 

 rare among Asiatic peoples. The only instances to the contrary 

 are such cases as those of the later days of the Eoman Empire ; 

 such cases are wholly exceptional and what there is to be said 

 about them will be deferred to the next chapter. Generally 

 speaking, every one married at or soon after the age of puberty. 

 In Greece ' in various places criminal proceedings might be taken 

 against celibates '. l Though the figures on which he worked were 

 small, Macdonell found that marriages in Eome took place between 

 the ages of ten and twenty. 2 In all these countries we find examples 

 of religious celibacy. In Egypt 3 and Chaldea 4 there were celi- 

 bates of both sexes for religious reasons, in Eome there were vestal 

 virgins, in Persia Sun Priestesses who did not marry, and in India 

 and Tibet there are similar examples. 5 But unlike Christian 

 celibacy, these instances of celibacy were of no importance what- 

 ever as regards the question of numbers. The religious celibates 

 never formed more than an insignificant fraction of the whole 

 population. In general, as we shall see later, marriage was strongly 

 encouraged by religions other than Christianity for the mass of 

 mankind. The one other important exception would seem to be 

 Buddhism, which not only forbade marriage to the sacerdotal caste, 



1 Westermarck, Moral Ideas, vol. ii, p. 403. See on this subject Schomann, 

 Griechische Alterthumer, vol. i, p. 271, and Plutarch, Lycurgus, p. 15. 2 Mac- 



donell, loc. cit., p. 369. 3 Miiller, Das Sezuelle Leben, p. 7. Ibid., p. 14. 



5 Westermarck, Moral Ideas, vol. ii, p. 407. In China there is a Golden Orchid 

 Society, the girl members of which swear never to marry (Giles, China, p. 69). 



