The laws relating to _marriage_ and the licence of _polygamy_, the facility of _divorce_ allowed by the Kur-án, and the permission of _concubinage_, are essentially the natural and necessary consequences of the main principle of the constitution of Muslim society—the restriction of the intercourse between the sexes before marriage. Few men would marry if he who was disappointed in a wife whom he had never seen before were not allowed to take another; and in the case of a man’s doing this, his own happiness, or that of the former wife, or the happiness of both these parties, may require his either retaining this wife or divorcing her. But I hope that my reader will admit a much stronger reason for these laws, regarding them as designed for the _Muslims_. As the Mosaic code allowed God’s chosen people, for the hardness of their hearts, to put away their wives, and forbade neither polygamy nor concubinage, he who believes that Moses was divinely inspired, to enact the best laws for his people, must hold the permission of these practices to be less injurious to morality than their prohibition, among a people similar to the ancient Jews. Their permission, though certainly productive of injurious effects upon morality and domestic happiness, prevents a profligacy that would be worse than that which prevails to so great a degree in European countries, where parties are united in marriage after an intimate mutual acquaintance. As to the licence of polygamy, which seems to be unfavourable to the accomplishment of the main object for which marriage was instituted, as well as to the exercise and improvement of the nobler powers of the mind, we should remark that it was not introduced, but limited, by the legislator of the Muslims. It is true that he assumed to himself the privilege of having a greater number of wives than he allowed to others; but, in doing so, he may have been actuated by the want of male offspring, rather than impelled by voluptuousness. The law respecting marriage and concubinage is perfectly explicit as to the number of wives whom a Muslim may have at the same time; but it is not so with regard to the number of concubine-slaves whom he may have. It is written, “Take in marriage, of the women who please you, two, three, or four; but if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably [to so many, take] one; or [take] those whom your right hands have acquired,”[175] that is, your slaves. Therefore many of the wealthy Muslims marry two, three, or four wives, and keep besides several concubine-slaves; and many of the most revered characters, even Companions of the Prophet, are recorded to have done the same. The conduct of the latter clearly shows that the number of concubine-slaves whom a man may have is not limited by the law in the opinion of the orthodox.[176]