Women Under Polygamy

AMONG the Western nations there are, no doubt, many un-reflective and incurious persons who regard the vast institution of polygamy merely as a part of the faith and practice of the ancient Hebrews, the Hindus, and the Mohammedans of former and modern times. The custom is of far greater antiquity than the older religion of the Jews and the birth of Islam. For the origin of polygamy we must seek among the animal ancestry of mankind.

Many male birds and mammals are instances of that instinct of securing a plurality of sexual companions, which in the view of Voltaire, Schopenhauer, and other philosophers, is the natural impulse of mankind. Leaving for the present, the consideration of Schopenhauer's assumption that every normal man desires more than one wife, let us glance for a moment at the sex-relations of the animals nearest to ourselves in the evolutionary chain.