Note 255-8 — Chapter III

Frederick the Great limited the mourning time of widowers to 3 months and of widows to 9. His abolition of ecclesiastical punishment for those who had fallen, and his prohibition of censuring them under penalty of fine, was based as much on his population policy as on philanthropic grounds. (Preuss. Geschichte, Friedrich's M., II, 337.) Similarly in Sweden: Schlözer, V. W., V, 43. In Iceland, after a great plague, even in the last century, it was provided that it should be no disgrace to a young woman to have as many as six illegitimate children. (Zacchariä, Vierzig Bücher vom Staate, II, 112.) The marshal of Saxony wished, in the interest of the recruiting of the army, that marriages should be contracted only for a term of five years. (Rêveries de Maurice, etc., 345.) The sterile women of Egypt visit the Tantah, a place of pilgrimage and fair-town, where, under the cloak of religion, they give themselves up to unbridled and promiscuous intercourse. (Wachenhufen, vom ägypt. armen Mann, II, 151 ff.)