For the man who had been faithful to his old wife Chadidja until her death, when he was past fifty years of age, had from the time that he came forward, not merely as the restorer of a primitive religion which had suffered corruptions, but as the herald of a new religion, say from the date of the Hegira itself, espoused about a dozen wives,(89) some for love and some for policy, to make alliance with families of repute. Among these was Aischa, daughter of Abu Bekr, whom he took when scarcely out of her childhood, a daughter of Omar, and a sister of Abd Allah, who had been disgraced by the violation of a sacred month. The Koran limits the number of lawful wives to four, but Mohammed himself was to be an exception. At the time polygamy in Arabia had no restriction, and as public opinion was not shocked, his wives had to submit. But when Mariam, the Abyssinian slave, assumed the position of a dangerous rival, they complained to their families, and showed their contempt to the faithless husband. He promised to quit the favoured slave, but he dwelt with her for a month apart from his wives and then produced verses of the Koran, dispensing him from his promise respecting Mariam, and threatening his wives that if they continued in their disobedience he would take instead of them more submissive wives and virgins. But a more important incident in the domestic life of Mohammed was to occur, which showed how entirely he was led away by sensual passion.(90) He had fallen in love with Zeineb, the wife of Zeid, formerly his slave, then his adopted son, and one of the most attached among his followers. Zeid perceived this and was willing to cede her to the man who was not only his prophet but his benefactor. The prophet took her, and added her to the number of his wives. But the Arabians, though they practised unlimited polygamy, did not allow to marry the wife of an adopted son, whom they considered in the light of a real son. Mohammed felt the scandal, and produced a passage from the Koran. In it he declared in the name of God the custom hitherto entertained of treating adopted children as really children to be foolish, and for the future even sinful. Then he spread the belief that Zeid’s divorce from his wife had taken place against his own advice; he makes God remind him in a following verse how notwithstanding his own love for her he had counselled Zeid to keep her; and how even after the divorce, he had shrunk, through fear of men, from espousing her until God had expressly commanded it,(91) and this for two reasons, first, to shew that he who acts after the will of God should not heed the tattle of men; and secondly to give by his own example the more force to the newly-enacted law in regard of adopted sons; a law, he added, which earlier prophets, whom he takes care not to name, had promulgated.