In Abyssinia, which also is not a gynecocratic country, the women enjoy very great liberty; their conduct is very dissolute, and their marriage very easily broken. Bruce, who first made known to us these curious customs, likens them to those of ancient Egypt. “In Abyssinia,” he says, “the women live as if they were common to every one. They pretend, however, to belong, by principle, to one man only when they marry, but they do not act up to it.”[529] Divorce is so easy in Abyssinia that Bruce says he has seen a woman surrounded by seven former husbands.[530] The most distinguished Abyssinian ladies have cicisbei, after the Italian fashion of old times. At their feasts, according to Bruce again, the lovers yield themselves publicly to each other. Their neighbours at table simply take care to hide them very imperfectly by improvising with their cloaks a waving partition.[531] The young women of the province of Samen, says Bruce, came alone to trade with the travellers. “They were hard in their bargains, with the exception of one only, in which they seemed very reasonable and very generous. They agreed to give rather than sell their favours, alleging that long solicitations on one side and refusals on the other wasted time that might be more agreeably employed.”[532] It is clear from this that the monogamic _régime_ of the Abyssinians is more apparent than real, that it is much modified by the extreme cicisbeism, by the use of concubines, of which I have already spoken, and lastly by the abuse of divorce, turning it into a successive polygamy. V. _Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia._ Among the Asiatic Mongols monogamy is also not very strict. In Thibetan Himalaya polyandry seems to predominate. It is not rare, either, in Thibet proper, where, on the other hand, polygamy is not forbidden, for there is no rigid legislation in regard to marriage. Besides, in these countries, as in many others, girls enjoy complete liberty before marriage, and they use it without suffering at all in reputation.[533] It is singular that in Lamaïc Thibet, in full theocracy, in a country where the prayers and the practices of religion enter into nearly all the actions of civil life, marriage escapes all ecclesiastical interference. In fact, the priests have nothing to do with it, and all the matrimonial ceremony, which is purely laïc, consists in a simple mutual engagement entered into by the interested parties before witnesses.[534] This laïc anarchy of marriage in Thibet must no doubt be attributed to Lamaïc bigotry itself. The Lamas avoid women, holding marriage in contempt, and all the great functionaries, as well as many Thibetans of the other classes, are of the same opinion.[535] Religion does not concern herself with it; she disdains it, as in Egypt, which seems to show that a sufficient degree of religious madness hinders theocratic legislators from thinking of civil institutions.