Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: LETTER V. CONDITION IN ASIA AND AFRICA. Groton, 8th Mo. 4A, 1837. My Dear Sister, ?I design to devote this Setter to a brief examination of the condition of women in Asia and Africa. I believe it will be found that men, in the exercise of their usurped uominion over woman, have almost invariably done one of two things. They have either made slaves of the creatures whom God design- rd to be their companions and their coadjutors: i every moral and intellectual improvement, or they have dressed them like dolls, and used them as toys to amuse their hours of recreation. I shall commence by stating the degrading practice of SELLING WOMEN, which we find prevalent in almost all the Eastern nations. Among the Jews, ? ' Whoever wished for a wife must pay tire parents for her, or perform a stipulated period of service; sometimes the parties were solemnly betrotlted in childhood, and tlw price of the bride stipulated.' In Babylon, they had a yearly custom of a peculiar kind. 'In every district, three men, respectable for theirvirtue, were chosen to conduct all the marriageable girls to th public assembly. Here they were put up at auction by the public crier, while the magistrate presided over the sales. The most beautiful were sold first, and the rich contended eagerly fur a choice. The most ugly, or deformed girl was sold next m succession to the handsomest, and assigned to any person who would take her with the leaspsum of money. The price given for the beautiful was divided into dowries for the homely.' Two things may here be noticed; first, the value set upon personal charms, just as a handsome horse commands a high price; and second, the utter disregard which is manifested towards the feelings of woman. ' In no part of the world does the condition of women..