142 Of the Checks to Population Bk. i. 



nourable, and women are reckoned very service- 

 able in the management of the cattle and the 

 household concerns, it is not probable that many 

 are deterred from marriage from the fear of not 

 being able to support a family.* At the same 

 time, as all wives are bought of their parents, it 

 must sometimes be out of the power of the poorer 

 classes to make the purchase. The Monk Ru- 

 bruquis, speaking of this custom, says that, as 

 parents keep all their daughters till they can sell 

 them, their maids are sometimes very stale before 

 they are married. f Among the Mahometan Tar- 

 tars, female captives would supply the place of 

 wives 5$ but among the Pagan Tartars, who make 

 but little use of slaves, the inability to buy wives 

 must frequently operate on the poorer classes as 

 a check to marriage, particularly as their price 

 would be kept up by the practice of polygamy 

 among the rich.§ 



The Kalmucks are said not to be jealous,|| and 

 from the frequency of the venereal disease among 

 them,^[ we may infer that a certain degree of pro- 

 miscuous intercourse prevails. 



* Geneal. Hist, of the Tartars, vol. ii. p. 407. 



f Travels of Wm. Rubruquis, in 1253. Harris's Collection of 

 A r oy. b. i. c. ii. p. 561. 



% Decouv. Russ. torn. iii. p. 413. 



§ Pallas takes notice of the scarcity of women or superabun- 

 dance of males among the Kalmucks, notwithstanding the more 

 constant exposure of the male sex to every kind of accident, De- 

 couv. Russ. torn. iii. p. 320. 



|| Id. p. 239. 



% Id. p. 324. 



