CHAP. VIII.: That we ought not to regulate by the Principles of the Canon Law, Things which should be regulated by those of the Civil Law.

BY the Leg. ff. ad leg. Juliam peculatus. ^†438 civil law of the Romans, he who took a thing privately from a sacred place, was punished only for the guilt of theft: by the Capite quisquis 17. questione 4. Cujas observat. lib. xiii. cap. 19. tom. 3. ^†439 canon law, he is punished for the crime of sacrilege. The canon law takes cognizance of the place; the civil laws of the fact. But to attend only to the place, is neither to reflect on the nature and definition of a theft, nor on the nature and definition of sacrilege.

As the husband may demand a separation, by reason of the infidelity of his wife; the wife might formerly Beausmanoir on the ancient customs of Beauvoisis, chap. 18. ^†440 demand it, on account of the infidelity of

the husband. This custom, contrary to a regulation made in the Law of the first code ad leg. Juliam de adulteriis. ^†441 Roman laws, was introduced into the ecclesiastic courts At present they do not take cognizance of these things in France. ^†442, where nothing was regarded but the maxims of canon law; and indeed, if we consider marriage as a thing merely spiritual, and as relating only to the things of another life, the violation is in both cases the same, but the political and civil laws of almost all nations, have, with reason, made a distinction between them. They have required from the women a degree of reserve and continency, which they have not exacted from the men; because, in women, a violation of chastity supposes a renunciation of all virtue; because women, by violating the laws of marriage, quit the state of their natural dependence; because nature has marked the infidelity of women with certain signs; and, in fine, because the children of the wife born in adultery necessarily belong, and are an expence to the husband, while the children produced by the adultery of the husband, are not the wife’s, nor are an expence to the wife.