It has been for a long time ignorantly assumed, that women are slaves during life among the Mahometans; and that, after their death, they do not enter paradise. These are two great errors, of a kind which popes are continually repeating in regard to Mahometanism. Married women are not at all slaves; and the Sura, or fourth chapter of the Koran, assigns them a dowry. A girl is entitled to inherit one-half as much as her brother; and if there are girls only, they divide among them two-thirds of the inheritance; and the remainder belongs to the relations of the deceased, whose mother also is entitled to a certain share. So little are married women slaves, they are entitled to demand a divorce, which is granted when their complaints are deemed lawful. A Mahometan is not allowed to marry his sister-in-law, his niece, his foster-sister, or his daughter-in-law brought up under the care of his wife. Neither is he permitted to marry two sisters; in which particular the Mahometan law is more rigid than the Christian, as people are every day purchasing from the court of Rome the right of contracting such marriages, which they might as well contract gratis. _Polygamy._ Mahomet has limited the number of wives to four; but as a man must be rich in order to maintain four wives, according to his condition, few except great lords avail themselves of this privilege. Therefore, a plurality of wives produces not so much injury to the Mahometan states as we are in the habit of supposing; nor does it produce the depopulation which so many books, written at random, are in the habit of asserting. The Jews, agreeable to an ancient usage, established, according to their books, ever since the age of Lameth, have always been allowed several wives at a time. David had eighteen; and it is from his time that they allow that number to kings; although it is said that Solomon had as many as seven hundred. The Mahometans will not publicly allow the Jews to have more than one wife; they do not deem them worthy of that advantage; but money, which is always more powerful than law, procures to rich Jews, in Asia and Africa, that permission which the law refuses. It is seriously related, that Lelius Cinna, tribune of the people, proclaimed, after the death of Cæsar, that the dictator had intended to promulgate a law allowing women to take as many husbands as they pleased. What sensible man can doubt, that this was a popular story invented to render Cæsar odious? It resembles another story, which states that a senator in full senate formally professed to give Cæsar permission to cohabit with any woman he pleased. Such silly tales dishonor history, and injure the minds of those who credit them. It is a sad thing, that Montesquieu should give credit to this fable.