286 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



to one man in 50 out of the 90 under every meridian of 

 the globe. 



Without giving Mahomet all the credit for abilities 

 that fome have done, we may furely fuppofe him to know 

 what happened in his own family, where he mull have 

 fecn this great difproportion of four women born to one 

 man ; and from the obvious confequences, we are not to 

 wonder that one of his firfl cares, when a legiflator, was 

 to rectify it, as it llruck at the very root of his empire, 

 power, and religion, With this view, he enacted, or rather 

 revived, the law which gave liberty to every individual to 

 marry four wives, each of whom was to be equal in rank 

 and honour, without any preference but what the predilec- 

 tion of the hufband gave her. By this he fecured civil 

 rights to each woman, and procured a means of doing a- 

 way that reproach, of. dying without ijfue, to which the minds 

 of the whole fex have always been fenfible, whatever their 

 religion was, or from whatever part of the world they 

 came. 



Many, who are not converfant with Arabian hiftory, have 

 imagined, that this permifiion of a plurality of wives was 

 given in favour of men, and have taxed one of the moft 

 political, mcejfary meafures, of that legiflator, arifing from mo- 

 tives merely civil, with a tendency to encourage lewdnefs, 

 from which it was very far diftant. But, if they had con- 

 fidered that the Mahometan law allows divorce without 

 any caufe ajjlgned, and that, every day at the pleafure of the 

 man ; befides, that it permits him as many concubines as he 

 can maintain, buy with money, take in war, or gain by the 

 .ordinary means of addrefs and iblicitations, — they will think 



fuch 



