Montesquieu,
Persian Letters — Letter 55
(1721)
“ All the wise precautions of the Asiatics; the veils which cover them, the prisons in which they are kept, the eunuchs who guard them, seem to the French only so many obstacles better fitted to exercise than to tire the ingenuity of women. Here, husbands accept their lot with a good grace, and the infidelities of their wives seem to them as inevitable as fate. A husband, who would wish to monopolise his wife, would be looked upon as a disturber of the pleasure of the public, as a lunatic who wanted to enjoy the light of the sun to the exclusion of everybody else. ”
