L A W. 
f 
358 
independently; and, not until they fold themfelves and 
their properties to jofeph in the name of Pharoah, do we 
find an univerfal right pofTefied or acquired by a fovereign 
in the land and in the fubjedf. If the firft occupant held 
it till his death, it was divided generally among his male 
defcendants; but in this divifion, in the earlieft times, the 
firft born feems to have acquired an advantage from his 
primogeniture ; though the younger Tons were not left 
unprovided for. The fituation of the daughters was far 
from enviable. Job indeed gave his daughters a flr.ire 
with his Ions, and the era of this venerable patriarch is 
fuppofed to be of the earlieft date; but, except iii this in- 
ftance, they appear to have had no lhare whatever in the 
fucceffion. There is but one way of folving this diffi¬ 
culty; that they were more generally fold than portioned 
to the bridegroom. 
The 'want of children has been fupplied among mcft 
nations by adoption, but, whatever were the motives that 
actuated man on this head, the firft inftance recorded 
proceeded from the amiable emotions of pity and tender- 
lie fs in a female breaft for an expofed and deftitute infant. 
Thefe, with the exception of fervitude which will be 
fpoken of hereafter, form the greater part of the civil or 
criminal inftitutions that have reached us relating to man 
in the early ages of the world. Whether any body of 
laws was compiled before the delivery of the Decalogue 
is difputed : the art of writing was known perhaps long 
prior to it, and it is as probable that it was invented 
within the many centuries prior to the flood as within the 
few that elapfed before its fuppofed invention after. Job 
fpeaks of it more than once, and in a manner to fuppofe 
it in general life. The pillar of Seth alfo, mentioned by 
Jofephus, will give further colour to the fuppofition, 
though upon the confufion of languages new modes of 
writing muft have been adopted. See Gen. xxiii. xxiv. 
xxv. xxvii. xxix. xxxiii. xxxiv. Job xix. xxxi. xlii. and 
Jofephus Antiq. ch. ii. It is hardly neceflary for us to 
continue thefe references, as the Scriptures are in the 
hands of every one. 
Of the Jewish Law. 
The Jewifh law may be divided into the moral, the ce¬ 
remonial, the civil, and the criminal; it is difperfed 
through the books of the Pentateuch, and, except in that 
of Leviticus, exhibits no arrangement, and is but a fort 
of comment upon the Decalogue, containing, according 
to the commentaries of the learned among the Jews, 365 
affirmative and 148 negative precepts. 
The liberty of the Jew, reduced to its juft bounds, 
confifted, as Fleury has obferved, in being permitted to 
do ail that the written law delivered to him did not po- 
fitively prohibit, and in being obliged to do no more than it 
commanded. He was not in other refpedts fubjecf to the 
■will or rule of any general governor. To make a right 
life of this liberty, reverence to parents was early incul¬ 
cated ; the child was commanded to honour his father and 
his mother; (Exod. xx. 12.) and this neceflary honour 
and obedience might be enforced and the breach punifhed 
by correction of the offender. His life was not abfolutely 
in the power of the parent, nor does it appear that he 
could be difmherited, but the prodigal and rebellious fon 
might, after all paternal correftion had failed of eftedt, be 
carried by his father and mother before the elders, and 
there be ftoned by the people. (Deut. xxi. 18.) Kefpeft 
to age was alfo neceflarily inculcated by a law which did 
not propofe to the view of the lubjedt the awe of power 
in the hands of a Angle man. The youth was command¬ 
ed to rife up before the hoary head, and to honour the 
face' of the old mnn. (Lev. xix. 32.) The want of this 
check has been felt in every government that has not 
made it a leading objedt; and the evils refulting from the 
weakening or rather the almoft intire annihilation of pa¬ 
ternal power are every day to be witnefled. 
The Jewifh law was not lefs attentive to the duties of 
parents in educating their children than in affording them 
the means for fuch education. The fabbath was appoint¬ 
ed the day for reft, and to be fandlified ; and in every prin¬ 
cipal town, befides the eight-and-forty cities allotted to 
the Levites, one of the latter ufually refided, for the con¬ 
venience of reading in fynagogue the law to the people, 
as they are enjoined by Moles. 
The Ifraelites were the only race whofe firft inftruc- 
tions tended to elevate man to the right knowledge of his 
divine author, and of his duties towards him. Whilft the 
furrounding naiions were reared in the midft of fable, and 
the tales of their ntirfes confifted in the abfurd or lafci- 
vious ftories of their heathen divinities, the Jew was in- 
ftrudted in the only true knowledge. The father was 
commanded to teach the law diligently to his children, 
to talk of it when he fat in his houfe, when he walked by 
the way, when he lay down, and when he rofe up; even 
to write it upon the polls and gates of his houfe; to ex¬ 
plain to his progeny the ceremonies of his religion, and the 
mighty things his deliverer had done for him. From this 
law he learnt the hiftory of the world to the eftablifhment 
of his fathers in their land, the origin of all the nations 
of the earth, and more intimately of thofe with which it 
was material for him to be acquainted. In a word, from 
this law he learnt his own civil laws, the ceremonies of 
his worfliip, the moral code, and the eternal truth of the 
divinity. 
In a country where barrennefs was a curfe, and progeny 
an honour and a blelfing, and marriage rendered eafy by 
a fufficiency to provide for the burdens it induced, we 
need not be furprifed to find virginity to the end of life 
confidered an affliction, and the childlefs father an objeCl 
of pity ; hence marriage was encouraged. The prohibi¬ 
tion of it with ftrangers was confined to the original Ga- 
naanitifh inhabitants of the land; but, among their own 
nation, the number of wives was undefined. Between the 
Jews, marriage could not be contracted within certain de¬ 
grees of kindred, fuch as between a father and daughter, 
mother and fon, fon and a father’s wife, brothers and fil¬ 
ter s of the whole or half blood or by affinity, grandfathers 
and granddaughters, aunt and nephew paternal or mater¬ 
nal or by marriage with a paternal uncle,father and daugh¬ 
ter-in-law. The Jew was alfo forbidden to marry a wo¬ 
man and her daughter or granddaughter, the filler of his 
own wife in her life-time, and his own brother’s wife. 
The fuppofed incapacity of fecond coufins to contract 
marriage, and the permiilion to firft coufins fo to do, is a 
vulgar error; neither is prohibited. No one could marry 
the widow of his deceafed brother except where he had 
left no ilfue, in which cafe fhe could not firft marry a 
ftranger, but fome one of the brothers was obliged to take 
her to wife, and her firft born was to fucceed in the name 
of her deceafed hulband, that he might not be forgotten. 
This was not the only marriage that was compulfory ; 
the feducer who had enticed a virgin riot betrothed was 
bound to repair the wrong by marrying the injured fe¬ 
male; alfo daughters, being co-heirefies, were compelled 
to marry within their own tribe, that the inheritance 
might not be fevered from it. No particular ceremony of 
regiltration or other act for legalizing the nuptial bond 
appears to have been required; it was accompanied with 
feven days of fealring and joy, and the newly-married 
man was exempted from all burdens and military fervice 
for a twelvemonth. The Levite was indeed fubjeCted to 
a prohibition to which others were not, but, confidering 
the nature of it, it cannot be confidered as any grievous 
denial; he was alfo prohibited from marrying a woman 
who had been divorced. Lev. xxl. 7. Little danger 
could be apprehended of tire lofs of chaftity in the bride 
previous to her marriage, as the want of virginity was 
forfeiture of life. After marriage alfo the waters of 
jealouiy might be adminifiered to the fufpedted wife by 
defire of her diftruttful hufband; and this ordeal afcer- 
tained her chaftity or infidelity. Deut. xxii. Num. v. 
The caufe of divorce feems very undefined. Matter of 
difagreement or incompatibility of temper are not even 
hinted 
t 
