Considerable changes took place in the laws after the period of the destruction of Carthage, some of which allowed greater privileges to females; but as divorces became more frequent, crimes multiplied. In the latter periods of the republic women had the principal share in public plots and private assassinations, and practised the worst of sins with the most barefaced audacity. The morals of women are indicative of the state of society in general, and of the estimation in which they are held in particular. If the other sex treat them as slaves, they will become servile and contemptible, a certain degree of self-respect being essential to the preservation of real dignity of character. The way to render human beings of any class despicable is to undervalue them; for disesteem will superinduce degeneracy. If this be the case, then the state of women in any age or country is a criterion of public opinion, since the vices of their lives indicate their condition; upon which principle, Greece and Rome exhibit wretched specimens of female degradation. But there is one circumstance in the history of the Romans which must not be wholly overlooked. Their conduct was marked by _capriciousness._ Though the usual treatment of their women resembled that of other Pagan nations in barbarity, like some of them, too, they frequently rendered them extraordinary honours. On some occasions they even transferred to their principal slaves the right of chastising their wives; and yet, on others they paid them distinguished deference: as in the case of vestals, and the privileges conceded to them after the negotiation between the Romans and Sabines. Various individual exceptions to a barbarous usage might be adduced; sufficient, however, only to evince the general debasement of the female sex, and the total absence of all fixed principles of moral action in unchristianized man. II. Next to the nations of antiquity, the state of women in SAVAGE, SUPERSTITIOUS, AND MAHOMETAN COUNTRIES, comes under review. In treating this part of the subject, it will be necessary to make a rapid circumnavigation of the globe, touching at least at the most remarkable places. EUROPE.