WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
mam, or bath, became a popular institution of Mohammedanism. The habit of mixed bathing may have been adapted from the Romans. In ancient Pompeii there were three sumptuous public baths.
Christianity abolished the bath. The first saints realised clearly that the cleanness of the skin, produced by bathing, friction, and unguents, was a stimulant to passion. St. Paula reproved her nuns for scrupulous washing, averring that "the purity of the body and its garments means the impurity of the soul." In mediæval Europe, as Lecky points out, the dirtiest of religious devotees were the most honoured for their saintliness. The monks in the Middle Ages bathed only twice a year. It was better to be filthy externally than concupiscent within.
The Christian religion was a reaction and protest against the excesses of Greece and Rome. Frequent ablution, with its tonic effect on the whole system, was practised in the classic times for another reason besides cleanliness. In denouncing the bath, the early Christian teachers aimed at the lessening of sensuality. Under Henry II. of England, baths were recognised legally as brothels. There were several public baths in Southwark at this date.
Among the Moslems the purification of the body was a rite, and we find, throughout the whole dominion of the Mohammedan faith, an intense devotion to the
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