110 The Conjugal Condition 



that those qualities which are^ as it were^ engrafted into his 

 soulj and which^ form his character^ are derived from those in 

 whose company he constantly is; and_, therefore^ in most 

 instances fr'om his family^ we can guess at the magnitude of 

 the revohition which woidd follow from the overthrow of our 

 present system by the substitution of one so different. But 

 when we look more minutely into the matter^ avc perceive 

 that monogamy admits of variations^ productive of very serious 

 consequences, some of which are not far short of those which 

 woTild flow from the extremes referred to. For example^ the 

 law may allow a man to have but one legal wife^, but never- 

 theless it may sanction what in effect would amount in 

 practice to polygamy ; or it may, while confining the man to 

 one wife at a time, admit of an unlimited number in suc- 

 cession, by giving the husband the power to divorce on the 

 lightest grounds, as became the usage in Rome in the latter 

 period of the Republic, and during the Empire ; a usage, it 

 may be remarked, to which probably more than to any other 

 cii'cumstance, may be attributed that decline in the population 

 of central Italy, which ultimately led to the removal of the 

 seat of Government to the shores of the Bosphorus — the 

 virtual extinction of the Empire of Rome. 



Of the mischievous consequences of too great a laxity of 

 the marriage contract, Augustus was conscious, and attempted 

 a return towards that system under which a small colony 

 grew into a colonizing empke ; but, as we . are informed by 

 Gibbon, " once, and once only, he experienced a sincere and 

 strenuous opposition. His subjects had resigned all political 

 liberty; they defended the freedom of domestic life. A law 

 which enforced the obligation and strengthened the bonds of 

 marriage, was clamorously rejected. Propertius, in the arms 

 of Delia, applauded the victory of licentious love, and the 

 project of reform was suspended till a new and more tract- 

 able generation had arisen in the world."* 



The measure referred to in this passage was the Lex Julia 

 and Papia Poppaia, designed to discovirage celibacy, and en- 

 courage marriage, with a view to the promotion of population; 

 and may have done what all the legions on the Rhine and the 

 Danube failed to do — protected Italy from the iron heel of 

 the barbarian. Unfortunately, however, the efforts to set 

 limitations to the liberty of divorce signally failed, so much 



Gibbon, CJiapter xliv. 



