Before I leave the subject of marriages, it may be proper to take notice of some peculiar privileges in relation thereto, which were granted by GOD to Mohammed, as he gave out, exclusive of all other Moslems. One of them was, that he might lawfully marry as many wives and have as many concubines as he pleased, without being confined to any particular number;1 and this he pretended to have been the privilege of the prophets before him. Another was, that he might alter the turns of his wives, and take such of them to his bed as he thought fit, without being tied to that order and equality which others are obliged to observe.2 A third privilege was, that no man might marry any of his wives,3 either such as he should divorce during his lifetime, or such as he should leave widows at his death: which last particular exactly agrees with what the Jewish doctors have determined concerning the wives of their princes; it being judged by them to be a thing very indecent, and for that reason unlawful, for another to marry either the divorced wife or the widow of a king;4 and Mohammed, it seems, thought an equal respect, at least, due to the prophetic as to the regal dignity, and therefore ordered that his relicts should pass the remainder of their lives in perpetual widowhood. and to have understood stoning to be the punishment of adulterers in general. Vide Selden, Ux. Hebr. l. 3, c. 11 and 12. 2 Levit. xix. 20. 3 Deut. xix. 15, xvii. 6, and Numb. xxxv. 30. 4 Deut. xxii. 13-19. 5 Numb. v. 11, &c. 6 Vide Selden, ubi sup. l. 3, c. 15, and Leon. Modena, de' Riti Hebraici, parte iv. c. 6. 7 Kor. c. 2, p. 23. 8 Ibid. c. 4, p. 53 and 57, &c. 9 Ibid. p. 56 10 See Levit. xv. 24, xviii. 19, and xx. 18; Exod. xxi. 8-11; Deut. xxi. 10-14; Levit. xviii. and xx. 11 Abulfed. Hist. Gen. al Shahrestani, apud Poc. Spec. p. 321 and 338. 12 Vide Poc. ibid. p. 337, &c. 13 Cap. 4, p. 56. 1 Kor. c. 33. See also c. 66, and the notes there. 2 Kor. c. 33. See the notes there. 3 Ibid. 4 Mishna, tit. Sanhedr. c. 2, and Gemar, in eund. tit. Maimon. Halachoth Melachim, c. 2. Vide Selden, Ux. Hebr. l. I, c. 10. Prid. Life of Mah. p. 118.