THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. 287 



fuch a man was before fufficiently provided, and that there 

 was not the leaft reafon for allowing him to marry four 

 wives at a time, when he was already at liberty to marry a^ 

 new one every day. 



DrArbuthnot lays it down as a felf-evident pofition- 

 that four women will have more children by four men, 

 than the fame four women would have by one. This affer- 

 tion may very well be difputed, but ftill it is not in point. 

 For the queftion with regard to Arabia, and to a great part 

 of the world befides, is, Whether or not four women and 

 one man, married, or cohabiting at difcretion, fhall produce 

 more children, than four women and one man who is de^- 

 barred from cohabiting with any but one of the four, the 

 others dying unmarried without the knowledge of man ? 

 or, in other words, Which fhall have moil children, one man 

 and one woman, or one man and four women? This 

 queftion I think needs no difcuffion. 



Let us now coniider, if there is any further reafon why 

 England mould not be brought as an example, which Ara- 

 bia, or the Eaft in general, are to -follow. 



Women in England are commonly capable of child-bear-- 

 Ihg at fourteen, let the other term be forty-eight, when they 

 bear no more ; thirty- four years, therefore, an Englifh wo- 

 man bears children. At the age of fourteen or fifteen they 

 are objects of our love; they are endeared by bearing us 

 children after that time, and none I hope will pretend,, that, , 

 at forty-eight and fifty, an Engliih woman is not an agree- 

 able companion. Perhaps the lall years, to thinking minds, , 

 are fully more agreeable than the firft. We grow old toge- 

 ther^, 



M 



