Religion pronounces an equal censure against the infidelity of the
husband; but, as it is not accompanied by the same civil effects, the
wife was never permitted to vindicate her wrong; and the distinction of
simple or double adultery, so familiar and so important in the canon
law, is unknown to the jurisprudence of the _Code_ and the _Pandects_. I
touch with reluctance and despatch with impatience a more odious vice,
of which modesty rejects the name, and nature abominates the idea. The
primitive Romans were infected by the example of the Etruscans and
Greeks; in the mad abuse of prosperity and power, every pleasure that is
innocent was deemed insipid; and the Scatinian law, which had been
extorted by an act of violence, was insensibly abolished by the lapse of
time and the multitude of criminals.
By this law the rape, perhaps the seduction, of an ingenuous youth was
compensated as a personal injury by the poor damages of ten thousand
sesterces, or fourscore pounds; the ravisher might be slain by the
resistance or revenge of chastity; and I wish to believe that at Rome,
as in Athens, the voluntary and effeminate deserter of his sex was
degraded from the honors and the rights of a citizen.
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