In process of time, however, the various tribes began to regard each other with less aversion than formerly; and it became safer and more profitable to purchase women, on the same principle that any other kind of merchandise was bought.  Prices were regulated according to the supply in the market and the beauty or the muscular strength of the hapless creatures exposed for sale.  Fathers sold or exchanged their daughters, brothers their sisters, without the slightest shame or remorse.  Among the Tambanks, in exchanging the women for stock, a woman, full-grown and of ordinary strength, was considered equal in value to two cows or one ox.

As the settlements became more permanent, assuming by degrees the character of established nations, and the centers of enterprise grew into populous cities, the barter and exchange traffic naturally declined; but in its place were established regular markets for the sale of female slaves.  Civilization was beginning to make some slight progress; and fathers began to entertain doubts regarding the propriety of selling their own flesh and blood, though they did not hesitate to buy their wives.

The slaves who were exposed in the marketplaces, therefore, were generally the overplus not desired in the harems of those who had captured them in war; and as the most beautiful brought the highest market-price, the public exhibitions of the poor unfortunates drew thither crowds of gaping people—­some merely curious, some intent on business.  Even in more modern days, the slave-markets of the East, and in the Southern States of the American Republic, have attracted crowds of spectators—­some to condemn the horrible practice, some to compassionate the unhappy victims, but most to engage in the monstrous traffic.

It is not necessary to review further, in detail, the condition of women in the various nations as they sprang into existence, or through the successive periods of their history to the commencement of the Christian era.  Various causes brought about a partial liberty for women, in both the Jewish and Roman nations, prior to the birth of Christ; but for those of other lands the blackness of darkness still remained.  It was but a partial liberty, it is true, even for the Hebrew or Roman women, but their condition was much improved.  Concessions had been made slowly.  They had come in shreds, and had not amounted to much in ameliorating their situation when they came; but slight as were the privileges yielded, they were yet indications of the dawning of a brighter day for Eve’s poor daughters.

The reformations effected were like wresting prey from the mighty.  And how could it be otherwise, with selfishness and love of power, sustained by unjust and one-sided laws, arrayed against merely natural rights—­not demanded, scarcely even asserted—­and those to whom these rights belonged excluded from every position where they might hope to do either the one or the other successfully?  The law of divorce was still common; and, like every thing else where the sexes were concerned, all the advantages were on the side of the oppressor, man.