[251-2] In lower Nerbudda, the poisoning of new born female children was very common about the beginning of this century. In Kutch, people prefer to marry persons from foreign countries, and murder their own daughters. (Ritter, VI, 623, 1054.) Similarly, even in the Indian Arcadia, the land of the Nilgherrys (V, 1035 seq.). In Cashmir, all the beautiful girls are sold in the Punjab and in India from their eighth year upwards. (VII, 78.) Similarly in the Caucasus and in the mountainous region of Badakschan. (VII, 798 ff.) v. Haxthausen, Transkaukasia,[TN 101] 1856, I, ch. 1, tells how the Russians captured a vessel carrying Circassian slaves into Turkey. They left them their choice, to go back home, marry in Russia, or to continue their journey to Constantinople. They all unhesitatingly chose the last! There is an echo of something analogous even in the Semiramis saga.
[251-3] In many parts of Thibet and Rhutan the fourth son, and in some places the half of the young men, become lamas. (Ritter, Erdkunde, IV, 149, 206.)
[251-4] Among the Garos and Nairs, as well as among the Cossyahs, in Northwestern Farther India, the children have no father, but consider their brothers on the mother's side their nearest male relatives. Inheritance also takes this direction. (J. Mill, History of British India, I, 395 seq. Buchanan, Journey through Mysore, II, 411 seq. Ritter, V, 390 seq., 753.) Similarly, among the Lycians: Herodot., I, 173. Whether the peculiar custom of many old German people, of which Tacitus, Germ., 20, makes mention, does not point to an original community of wives, quære.
[251-5] Even the most debauched European is a pattern of modesty compared with the Indians themselves. (Edinb. Rev., XX, 484.) On the frightful development of unnatural as well as natural crimes against chastity among the Chinese, see G. Schlegel, in the memoirs of the Genoostchap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen in Batavia, Band. XXXII, and Ausland, Januar., 1868.
[251-6] According to J. Bowring's official report: Athenæum, 17 Nov., 1855. That the exposure of children is allowed by law in China, and that many poor couples marry with the intention of exposing them, is unquestionable. But the reports concerning the extent of the evil differ materially. The Jesuits estimated that in Pekin alone from 2,000 to 3,000 children were exposed in the streets. To this must be added the many thrown into the water or smothered in a bath-tub immediately after birth. Compare Lettres édif., XVI, 394 ff.; Barrow, 166 ff. The street-foundlings were picked up by the police and placed in wagons, living and dead together, and cast into one pit in a part of the city. Other accounts are much more favorable: thus that of Ellis, Voyage, ch. 7, who was there in 1816, and of Timkowski, Reise, II, 359. Compare the quotations in Klemm, Kulturgeschichte, VI, 212.
[251-7] Petit, Legg. Att., 144. Compare Becker, Charicles, I, 21 ff.; Plato, Theæt., 150 ff. In Plato's state, a system of exposure on a large scale is one of the most essential foundations of the whole. (De Re., V, 461.)
[251-8] Aristotle advised that males should not marry before their 37th year, and that at least after their 55th year they should bring no more children into the world. No family was allowed to have more than a definite number of children. (Polit., VII, 14.) There are even yet pictures of Venus trampling an embryo under foot. (R. O. Müller, Denkmäler der alten Kunst, II, No. 265.) Compare, per contra, Stobaeus, Serm., LXXIV, 91; LXXI, 15.
[251-9] Dionys. Hal., Ant. Rom., IX, 22.
[251-10] Plutarch, De Amore Prol., 2, Minut. Felix Octav., 30. That it seemed entirely right, when persons had "enough" children, to put the others to death, is proved by the catastrophe in Longus' idyllic romance, IV, 24, 35. Even men like Seneca (Contr., IX, 26; X, 33) and Tacitus (Ann., III, 25 ff.) were actually in favor of the right of exposing children. On the frequency of artificial abortion, see Juvenal, VI, 594. Semi-castration of young slaves for libidinous women who did not want to bear children. (Juvenal, VI, 371 ff.; Martial, I, V67.)
[251-11] Under Constantine the Great, 315 after Christ. Theod., Cod., XI, 27, 1