In the kingdom of Arracan, and in the Philippine islands, a man would think himself much disgraced were he to espouse a female who had not been defloured; and it is only by dint of money that a person can be prevailed with to precede the husband. In the province of Thibet, a mother will search for a stranger, and earnestly beg of him to put her daughter in a situation for obtaining a husband. The Laplanders also prefer such women as have already had a commerce with strangers, from an idea that they must be possessed of more merit than others, otherwise they could not have pleased men whom they consider as better judges of beauty than themselves. In Madagascar, and in several other countries, women the most dissolute and debauched are those who are married the soonest. Many more instances might be produced of this peculiar fancy, which could never have subsisted but from a gross and utter depravation of manners. Marriage is the natural state of man after puberty. A man ought to have but one wife, and a woman but one husband; This is the law of Nature, the number of females being nearly equal with that of males, and ignorance and tyranny must have been the leading features where men have established laws in opposition to it. Reason, humanity, and justice, complain aloud of those odious seraglios, in which the liberty and the affections of many women are sacrificed to the brutal passion of one individual. Are these tyrants of mankind the more happy by this pre-eminence?--No; surrounded with eunuchs, and with women, useless to themselves and to other men, the misery they have created is a constant source of torment and perplexity. Marriage, therefore, as it is established among us, and among every other people who are guided by the light of reason and revelation, is a state which is suited to man, and in which he ought to employ the additional faculties he has acquired by puberty: by obstinately persisting in celibacy they will become troublesome, and even fatal. From a too long continence in either sex diseases may arise, or at least create irritations so violent, that reason and religion would not be sufficient to counteract the impetuosity of the passions which they excite, and thus man may be reduced to a level with the brutes, which, under the impression of such sensations, become furious and ungovernable.