In a variety of parts of the Mogul empire, when the women are carried
abroad, they are put into a kind of machine like a chariot, and placed
on the backs of camels, or in covered sedan chairs, and surrounded by a
guard of eunuchs and armed men, in such a manner, that a stranger would
rather suppose the cavalcade to be carrying some desperate villain to
execution, than employed to prevent the intrigues or escape of a
defenceless woman. At home, the sex are covered with gauze veils, which
they dare not take off in the presence of any man, except their husband,
or some near relation. Over the greatest part of Asia, and some parts of
Africa, women are guarded by eunuchs, made incapable of violating their
chastity. In Spain, where the natives are the descendants of the
Africans, and whose jealousy is not less strong than that of their
ancestors, they, for many centuries, made use of padlocks to secure the
chastity of their women; but finding these ineffectual, they frequently
had recourse to old women, called Gouvernantes. It had been discovered,
that men deprived of their virility, did not guard female virtue so
strictly, as to be incapable of being bribed to allow another a taste of
those pleasures they themselves were incapable of enjoying. The
Spaniards, sensible of this, imagined, that vindictive old women were
more likely to be incorruptible; as envy would stimulate them to prevent
the young from enjoying those pleasures, which they themselves had no
longer any chance for; but all powerful gold soon overcame even this
obstacle; and the Spaniards, at present, seem to give up all restrictive
methods, and to trust the virtue of their women to good principles,
instead of rigor and hard usage.