Many of the best minds of Islâm have perceived in this rule a virtual prohibition of polygamy. The moral effect of the institution on Mussulman society as a whole can hardly be ignored: it has prevented the growth in Mussulman countries, untainted by foreign social ideas, of that class whose existence is alike an outrage on our humanity and a disgrace to civilisation. Considering how the profession of the _hetairai_, honoured among some nations, despised among others, but tolerated by most, has flourished through all ages, it is no small credit to the Arabian Teacher that it was so effectually stopped in Islâm. =Divorce.=—As in the Jewish system, option was given to the husband to dissolve the marriage tie. At the same time the act was pronounced to be ‘the most abominable in the sight of the Lord.’ =Bondsmen and Bondswomen.=—Only persons taken in lawful warfare were permitted to be held in bondage. The emancipation of bonds-folk was declared one of the highest acts of piety.[24] And any person who made a provision for their ransom was the favoured of God. Traffic in human beings was strictly forbidden, and the man who dealt in slaves was pronounced to be the accursed of God. In a word, human chattelhood is unknown in Islâm; and the institution which is called ‘slavery’ in Europe and America has no existence in Mohammedan countries. In Islâm, parents were not to be separated from children; brothers from brothers, or one relation from another. The Moslem bondsman and bondswoman were members of the master’s family; were on no account to be ill-treated; were to be fed and clothed like the masters and mistresses. Once emancipated they could intermarry with the master’s sons or daughters. Relations with bondswomen were sanctioned by the Rabbinical Laws. They were common in Christian communities, and were freely practised in the Southern States of North America until very recent times by people who considered themselves and were regarded by many others as highly civilised. Among them the issue of a slave-woman was for ever a slave: the smallest taint of slave-blood, however remote, subjected the unfortunate being to be sold as a slave. Although the system of Mohammed, with the object of avoiding a drastic solution, tolerated relations with bondswomen,—with far greater humanity it declared that the issue of such connections were legitimate, and that the bondswoman who bore children to her master was _ipso facto_ emancipated; that thenceforth she was no more his bondswoman, but ‘the mother of his child.’