INTRODUCTION

The principles on the just man and the inequitable are the same any time and in any place, they establish ( constitute ? ) the absolute morality; but the principles on the customs vary with ages and countries. Since the unlimited crowding in the wild tribes until the prohibition absolved from the work of flesh out of wedlock, that of different degrees in the freedom granted ( tuned ? ) to the sexual relations by the public opinion and by the social and religious law! With the exception of the Iranians and Jews, all the antiquity considered the charnel act as licence, all the times when it does not hurt ( damage ? ) the right of others, as for example him ( it ? ) trades with a widow or quite other completely chief woman of her person. However China, Greece and Rome honored the virgins, and India ascètes dedicated to the continence as sacrifice.

In the point of view of the only reason and the selfish consciousness, the tolerance of the Indians and the heathen countered natural and the austere rule ( ruler ? ) of the Iranians seems dictated by the social or political interest; so this rule ( ruler ? ) was imposed only in the name of a revelation by Zoroastre and by Moses.

From there two big divisions between the peoples under the report of the customs; for some the monogamy is compulsory, to the others the polygamy is allowed under all the forms which she can dress ( take on ? ), including the cohabitation and the temporary fornication. In the antiquity we owe, between the peoples who do not admit revelation, to distinguish under the report of the customs: on one hand, Ariahs of India to which the religion and the superstition get involved confidentially and actively in all which concerns the customs, in a political interest, with absence of artistic genius; and on the other hand, Ariahs d' Occident, that is Greeks and Romans to whom this cult was only the outside demonstration of the customs, without direction ( management ? ) nor action marked on them, and where the artistic genius idealized everything and quite dominated.

So the naturalism of Brahmes, the payenne antiquity and the principles of Iran or Israel, from which the Christianity inherited, form three subjects of studies of customs to be moved closer and to be highlighted by their contrasts. The material ( subject ? ) is: for the first subject, in scholiastes and poets of the brahmanisme; for the second, in the classic literature, mainly in the Latin poets under twelve Caesars; for the third, in the modern authors on the customs, the scholars and the theologians. These authors are universally known and it will be enough to quote some extracts from it. But it is necessary to give, in this introduction, at first summary information onto the Iranians, then more complete details of Brahmes.