[73] Cicero, Pro Cœlio, 20 (48).
[74] Epictetus, Enchiridion, xxxiii. 8.
[75] Denis, op. cit. ii. 133 sqq.
[76] Musonius Rufus, quoted by Stobæus, Florilegium, vi. 61.
[77] Denis, op. cit. ii. 149 sqq.
[78] Jamblichus, De Pythagorica vita, 31 (191). Cf. Jevons, in Plutarch’s Romane Questions, p. lxxxviii. sq.
[79] Plato, Leges, viii. 840 sq. Cf. Xenophon, Memorabilia, i. 3. 8.
Much stronger was the censure which Christianity passed on pre-nuptial connections. While looking with suspicion even on the life-long union of one man with one woman, the Church pronounced all other forms of sexual intercourse to be mortal sins. In its Penitentials sins of unchastity were the favourite topic; and its horror of them finds an echo in the secular legislation of the first Christian emperors. Panders were condemned to have molten lead poured down their throats.[80] In the case of forcible seduction both the man and woman, if she consented to the act, were put to death.[81] Even the innocent offspring of illicit intercourse were punished for their parents’ sins with ignominy and loss of certain rights which belonged to other, more respectable, members of the Church and the State.[82] Persons of different sex who were not united in wedlock were forbidden by the Church to kiss each other; nay, the sexual desire itself, though unaccompanied by any external act, was regarded as sinful in the unmarried.[83] In this standard of purity no difference of sex was recognised, the same obligations being imposed upon man and woman.[84]
[80] Lecky, op. cit. ii. 316.
[81] Codex Theodosianus, ix. 24. 1.