Woman physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce / By Alexander Walker.
- Alexander Walker
- Date:
- 1839
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Woman physiologically considered as to mind, morals, marriage, matrimonial slavery, infidelity and divorce / By Alexander Walker. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![ceals the mysteries of love among civilized nations, be the offspring only of their intellectual culture, it is not surprising that a wholly uninstructed peo- ple should be insensible to such a feeling, and, in its unconsciousness, should even have established public solemnities which would strike us as exces- sively indelicate.” In fact, they think it as un- necessary to conceal their pleasures as their persons. ‘‘The women, however, who distributed their favours indiscriminately, were almost always of the lowest class, “ Among the higher classes, a most licentious association called Ehrioi, including both sexes, existed. [This consisted of about a hundred males and a hundred females, who formed one promiscu- ous marriage.] Renouncing the hopes of progeny, its members rambled about the island, leading the most dissolute lives; and if a child was born among them, the laws of the society compelled its murder, or the expulsion of the mother. The men were all warriors, and stood in high estimation among the people. The Ehrioi themselves were proud of the title, and even the King O Tu belonged to this profligate institution.” It is of this that Darwin says :— ' “Thus, where pleased Venus, in the southern main, Sheds all her smiles on Otaheite’s plain, Wide o’er the isle her silken net she draws, And the loves laugh at all but Nature’s laws. ’’](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33095851_0378.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
