To continue this domestic picture, the marriage settlements, especially
among the Jews, are ticklish and brittle things, as to money or other
mercenary arrangements.

A match is often broken off, because a lamp of the value of four dollars
has been substituted for one of the value of twenty dollars, which was
first promised on the happy day of betrothal.

Indeed, nearly all marriages here are matters of sale and barter. Love
is out of the question, he never flutters his purple wings over the
bridal bed of Mogador. A Jewish or Moorish girl having placed before her
a rich, old ugly man, of mean and villanous character, of three score
years and upwards, and by his side, a handsome youth of blameless
character and amiable manners, will not hesitate a moment to prefer the
former. As affairs of intrigue and simple animal enjoyment are the great
business of life, the ways and means, in spite of Moorish and Mahometan
jealousy, as strong as death, by which these young and frail beauties
indulge in forbidden conversations, are innumerable. Although the Moors
frequently relate romantic legends of lovely innocent brides, who had
never seen any other than the faces of their father, or of married
ladies, who never raised the veil from off their faces, except to
receive their own husbands, and seem to extol such chastity and
seclusion; they are too frequently found indulging in obscene
imaginations, tempting and seducing the weaker sex from the path of
virtue and honour. So that, if women are unchaste here, or elsewhere,
men are the more to blame: if woman goes one step wrong, men drag her
two more. Men corrupt women, and then punish her for being corrupt,
depriving them of their natural and unalienable rights.