Chapter CVII: Section CCXLV

INFLUENCE OF A COMMUNITY OF WOMEN AND POLYGAMY.

Most barbarous nations live very unchaste;[245-1] so that, as Tacitus observes, the ancient Germans were a brilliant exception to the rule.[245-2] Vices of unchastity always limit the otherwise natural increase of population. Premature enjoyment exhausts the sources of fruitfulness in the case of many.[245-3] The life of the child conceived in sin is generally little valued by its parents. Hence the numerous instances of exposure and infanticide.[245-4] We have already seen how closely, psychologically speaking, a community of goods is allied to a community of women. (§ 85.) And, indeed, in the lower stages of civilization, we find as close an approximation to the latter as to the former; and it is difficult to believe that, among men living in a state of nudity, the marriage of one man to one woman could properly exist.[245-5] But it is as little possible to reconcile a community of women with density of population as great national wealth with a community of goods. Any one acquainted with the condition and capacities of new born children knows that the weak little flame easily goes out when not nursed by family care.[245-6]

Polygamy also is a hinderance to the increase of population. Abstract physiology must, indeed, admit that a man may, even without any danger to his health, generate more children than a woman can bear.[245-7] But, in reality, the simultaneous enjoyment of several women leads to excess and early exhaustion;[245-8] and if one of them is married after the other, the older who might still bear children for a long time are neglected by the man.[245-9] Monogamy is, doubtless, the Creator's law, since only in monogamous countries can we expect to find the intimate union of family life, the beauties of social intercourse and free citizenship.[245-10] "God made them male and female."[245-11] And yet in all countries with which we are statistically acquainted, there is a somewhat larger number of boys than of girls born;[245-12] but this excess is removed by the time that puberty sets in, by reason of the greater mortality of boys. Only extraordinary conditions which thin the ranks of males, such as war and emigration, leave a preponderance of the number of women.[245-13] Hence, among barbarous nations, who live in everlasting strife (§§ 67, 70), polygamy is very generally established. Men are seldom deterred therefrom by a solicitude concerning what they shall eat, since the women are treated as slaves, and rather support the men than are supported by them.[245-14] But in the civilized countries of the east, the polygamy of the great may actually lead to the compulsory singleness of many of the lower classes, as a species of compensation.[245-15] The monstrous institution of eunuchism, which has existed time out of mind in the east, is a consequence of this condition of things as well as of the natural jealousy of the harem.[245-16]

[Footnote 245-1: Impurity of the Kamtschatdales, bordering
on a community of women. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, I, 287
ff., 350 ff.; II, 206, 297 seq.) On Lapland, see _Klemm_,
III, 55. In their purely nomadic period, even the Getes,
afterwards remarkable for their noble character (_Horat._,
Carm., III, 24), have had very loose relations of the sexes.
(_Menander_, in _Strabo_, VII, 297.)]

[Footnote 245-2: Very unlike the Celts: _Strabo_, IV, 199.
But the Germans even at the time when the compensation
system alone prevailed, imposed a disgraceful death on the
_corpore infames. (Tacit._, Germ., 12.) In keeping with this
purity of the Germans was the deep gravity and the genuine
heartiness of their ancient nuptial ceremonies. (_Tacit._,
Germ., 18.) Similarly, in England throughout the middle
ages. (_Lappenberg_, Engl., Gesch. I, 596.) Great moral
severity of the Scandinavians (_Weinhold_, Altnord. Leben,
255), so that the gratification of the sexual appetite
outside of marriage was punishable with death. (_Adam
Brem._, IV, 6, 21.)]

[Footnote 245-3: Abuse of young girls in New Holland
(_Collins_, 563); among the American aborigines
(_Charlevoix_, Histoire de la N. France, III, 304; Lettres
édifiantes, VII, 20 ff.); among the negroes (_Buffon_,
Histoire naturelle de l'Homme, VI, 255).]

[Footnote 245-4: Infanticide in Kamtschatka, _Klemm_, I,
349.]

[Footnote 245-5: In most mythical histories, the
institutions of property and of marriage are ascribed to the
same name (Menes Cecrops, the Athenian Thesmophories.) Among
the Indian tribes of Terra Firma, the exchange of wives and
the _jus primæ noctis_ of the chiefs are very common.
(_Depons_ Voyage, I, 304, ff.) In North America, the Indians
are very eager to rent out their wives for a glass of
brandy. (_Prinz Neuwied_, N. A. Reise, I, 572 seq.) Compare
_Lewis_ and _Clarke_, Travels to the Source of the Missouri
and the Pacific Ocean, 1804-1806. Almost always on entering
a higher age-class it is one of the principal conditions to
leave one's wife for a time to the more distinguished. On
feast days, prayer days, etc., the women give themselves
publicly up to vice; and this can be commuted only by a
gift. (_Prinz Neuwied_, I, 129 ff., 272.) Community of women
in California. (_Bagert_, Nachrichten von der Halbinsel C.
1772.) In many of the South Sea Islands, the youth of the
higher classes were wont to form themselves into so-called
_arreyo-societies_, the object of which was the most
unlimited intercourse of the sexes (a pair being united
generally only from 2 to 3 days), and the murder of the new
born children. The girls principally were murdered, and
hence the missionaries at Otaheite (New Cytheria) found only
1/5 as many women as men. _Chaque femme semble être la femme
de tous les hommes chaque homme le mari de toutes les
femmes._ (_Marchand_, I, 122.) The many governing queens
here are characteristic. Compare _Forster_, Reise II, 100,
128; _Kotzebue_, Reise, III, 119; European Magazine, June,
1806; _Reybaud_, Voyages, et marines, 128, and the
quotations in _Klemm_, Kulturgesch., IV, 307.

Similar customs are found among the nomads. The Bedouins
dissolve their marriages so easily that a man forty-five
years old had 50 wives; family secrets are a thing unknown
there. (_Burckhardt_, Notes on the Bedouins, 64; Travels
app. II, 448; _Ritter_, Erdkunde, XII, 205, 211, 983.) On
the Libyans, see _Herodot._, IV, 168, 172, 186, 180: on the
Massagetes, _Herodot._, I, 216; on the Taprobanes, _Diod._,
II, 58; on the Troglodytes, _Pomp, Mella._, I, 8,
_Agatharch_, 30. Community of women among the ancient
Britons, _Caesar_, B. G. V, 14 seq.; also among the naked,
tatooed Caledonians, _Dio Cass._, LXXVI, 12; probably also
among the cannibal Irish. _Strabo_, IV, 201. Great laxity of
the marriage tie in Moelmud's laws of Wales, (_Palgrave_,
Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth, I, 458 ff.)
in which country a species of tenure in common of land and
servants was customary. (_Wachsmuth_, Europ. Sittengesch.
II, 225.) In Russia, in very ancient times, only the Polanes
had real marriages. (_Nestor v. Schlözer_, I, 125 seq.)
Something very analogous even among the Spartans: same
education for boys and girls, admittance for men to the
female gymnasiums; marriage in the form of an abduction, and
afterwards fornication. (_Xenoph._, De rep. Laced. I, 6:
_Plutarch_, Lycurg. 15.) Adultery tolerated by law in
countless cases. (_Xenoph._, II, 7 ff.; _St. John_, The
Hellenes, I, 394.) History of the origin of the so-called
Partheniæ; _Strabo_, VI, 279. (_Supra_, § 83.) The custom
which prevails among so many barbarous nations to designate
one's progeny by the name of the mother, _Sanchoniathan_
traces to the licentiousness of women. (p. 16, Orell.)
Traces of this also in Egypt: _Schmidt_, Papyrusurkunden,
321 ff. Avunculus means little grand-father. Many proofs
which _Peschel_, Völkerkunde, 243 seq. explains otherwise,
but which seem to me to point to an original community of
wives.]

[Footnote 245-6: The relation existing between the so-called
organization of labor (§ 82) and a community of wealth is
repeated in the relation of a community of wives to the
situation in Dahomey, where every man has to purchase his
wife from the king. _Gumprecht_, Afrika, 196. Similarly
among the Incas: _Prescott_, Hist. of Peru, I, 159. Even the
sale of wives is a step in advance as compared with a
community of wives (§ 67 seq).]

[Footnote 245-7: It is said that a German prince of the 18th
century had 352 natural children. (_Dohm_, Denkwürdigkeiten,
IV, 67.) Feth Ali, shah of Persia, had made 49 of his own
sons provincial governors, and he had besides 140 daughters.
(_Ker Porter_, II, 508.)]

[Footnote 245-8: Turkish married men are frequently impotent
at the age of 30. (_Volney_, Voyage dans la Turquie, II,
445.) Similarly in Arabia. (_Niebuhr,_ Beschreibung, 74.)
The use of aphrodisiac means very wide-spread in the East.
According to _Niebuhr_ (76), monogamous marriages produced
absolutely more children than polygamous. Compare _G.
Botero_, Ragion di Stato, VIII, 93 ff.; _Montesquieu_,
Lettres Persanes, N., 114; _Süssmilch_, Göttl. Ordnung, I,
Kap., 11. On the other hand, _Th. L. Lau_, Aufrichtiger
Vorschlag von ... Einrichtung der Intraden (1719), 6,
recommends the allowing of polygamy as a means of increasing
population.]

[Footnote 245-9: Rehoboam had 18 wives and 60 concubines,
and only 88 children (II Chron., 11, 21); that is not much
more than one child by each.]

[Footnote 245-10: The high esteem for woman requisite to
true love seems to be almost irreconcilable with polygamy.
The wife stands to the husband in the relation of a
mistress; and, in reference to the latter, fidelity has
scarcely any meaning. The husband also has no confidence in
his wife; and hence the seclusion of the harem. But the
domestic tyrant is easily made the slave of a higher power.
And what becomes of fraternal love with the half-brother
feeling of children of different mothers?]

[Footnote 245-11: Genesis 1, 27; 5, 12; 7, 13.]

[Footnote 245-12: Compare _J. Graunt_, Natural and Political
Observations on the Bills of Mortality (1662). During the
course of the 19th century, according to averages made from
long series of years, there were, for every 1,000 girls born
alive in Lombardy, 1,070 boys; in Bohemia, 1,062; in France,
1,058; in Holland, 1,057; in Saxony, 1,056; in Belgium,
1,052; in England, 1,050; in Prussia, 1,048. On the whole,
the ratio in 70,000,000 children born alive was as 100 :
105.83. The excess of males over females in bastards is
smaller than in the case of legitimate children, in towns
than in the country. Everything considered, the number of
boys born seems to be greater than the number of girls in
proportion as the father is in advance of his wife in years.
Compare _Sadler_, Law of Population, II, 343. _Hofacker_,
Ueber die Eigenschaften die sich vererben, 51 ff. _Wappäus_,
Allg. Bevölkerungstatistik, II, 151, 160 ff., 306 ff. _Per
contra_, we have _Legoyt's_ supposition that the number of
boys born is greater in proportion as the parents are more
nearly of an age: Statistique comparée, 500.]

[Footnote 245-13: According to the censuses between 1856 and
1861, there are for every 1,000 men in Belgium 994 women; in
Austria, 1,004; in Prussia, 1,004; in France, 1,001; in
England, 1,039; in Holland, 1,038. The majority of the
latter seems to have diminished everywhere the greater the
distance in time from the most recent great wars; and to
belong only to those age-classes which were coeval with
those wars. (Preuss. amtliche Tabellen für 1849, I, 292.) In
the United States there were, 1800-1844, for every 1,000
women, 1,033-1,050 men; mainly accounted for by large
immigration. Between 1819 and 1855 the immigration was
2,713,391 men and 1,720,305 women. (_W. Bromwell_, History
of Immigration to the United States, New York, 1856.) In
Switzerland, among the population belonging to the cantons,
there were for every 1,000 men, 1,038 women; among the
foreign Swiss, 970; among foreigners, 650. (_Bernouilli_,
Populationistik, 31.) Compare _Horn_, loc. cit., I, 105 ff.,
who supposes a natural principle of equilibrium: the greater
the preponderance of the number of women, the more does it
happen that only the younger women are married; the greater
consequently the difference between the ages of the married
couple, and the more probable the birth of boys, and _vice
versa_. (115 ff.)]

[Footnote 245-14: Compare _Catlin_, N. American Indians, I,
118 ff. Even Strabo believed that among the Median
mountaineers each man had five wives! (XI, 526.)]

[Footnote 245-15: Concerning Solomon's 700 wives and 300
concubines, see I Kings, 11, 3; according to the Canticle of
Canticles, only 60 wives and 80 concubines. According to
_Mirkhond_ and _Khondemir_, there was in the place in which
the Sassand shah resided, 3,000 women of the harem and
12,000 female slaves. Polygamy among the latter class is
seldom possible or thought of. Of 2,800 Moslems in Bombay,
only 100 lived in polygamy, and only 5 had three wives each.
(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, 1088.) I lay no weight here on the
assertion so frequently repeated of travelers in the east,
that more girls than boys are born there; for the reason
that there is there no real statistics, and that the infidel
travelers can be permitted few glimpses into the secrecy of
family life. _Lady Sheil_ indeed assures us that in Persia
itself the opinion prevails that there are a great many more
women than men. Glimpses of Life and Manners in Persia,
1855. Similar pretense among the Mormons.]

[Footnote 245-16: We find, even on Egyptian temples,
pictures representing the castration of prisoners. _Franck_,
in the Mémoires sur l'Egypte, IV, 126. On Babylon, see
_Hellanicus_, apud. Donat. ad Terent. Eunuch., I, 2, 87.
This province, besides Assyria (the ancient seat of sultan
glory), delivered 500 castrated boys per annum to the king
of Persia. (_Herodot._, III, 92.) Of the califs, Soliman is
said to be the first (at the beginning of the 8th century)
who had his harem superintended by eunuchs; a very sensual
master who frequently changed his wives. (_Reiske Z.
Abulfeda_, I, 109 ff.; _Weil_, Gesch. der Kalifen, I, 573.)
At an audience which the calif Moktadir gave to a Byzantine
ambassador, there appeared 4,000 white and 3,000 black
eunuchs. (_Rehm._, Gesch. des Mittelalters, I, 2, 32.) In
the harems of the present Persian persons of rank, there are
usually from 6 to 8 eunuchs. _Rosenmüller_, Altes und Neues
Morgenland, IV, 290. In Upper Egypt, the castration of
handsome boys by monks (!) is a regular trade. About 2 per
cent. die in consequence of the operation, the others rise
in consequence in price from 200-300 to 1,000 piasters.
(_Ritter_, Erdkunde, I, 548.) In the Frankish middle age,
the merchants of Verdun castrated persons to sell them in
Spain. Compare _Liutprand_, Hist., VI, 3, in _Muratori_,
Script. Rerum Ital., II, 1, 470.]