Chapter XXI: The Forms of Human Marriage (2)

A man’s fortune is increased by a multitude of wives not only through their children, but through their labour. An Eastern Central African, says Mr. Macdonald, finds no difficulty in supporting even hundreds of wives. “The more wives he has, the richer he is. It is his wives that maintain him. They do all his ploughing, milling, cooking, &c. They may be viewed as superior servants who combine all the capacities of male servants and female servants in Britain—who do all his work and ask no wages.”[3102] Manual labour among savages is undertaken chiefly by women; and, as there are no day-labourers or persons who will work for hire, it becomes necessary for any one who requires many servants to have many wives. Mr. Wood remarks that, when an Indian can purchase four or five wives, their labour in the field is worth even more to the household than his exertions in hunting.[3103] “The object of the Kutchin,” says Mr. Kirby, “is to have a greater number of poor creatures whom he can use as beasts of burden for hauling his wood, carrying his meat, and performing the drudgery of his camp.”[3104] A Modok defends his having several wives on the plea that he requires one to keep house, another to hunt, another to dig roots.[3105] In the Solomon Islands in New Guinea, at the Gold Coast, and in other places where the women cultivate the ground, a plurality of wives implies a rich supply of food;[3106] whilst, among the Tartars, according to Marco Polo, wives were of use to their husbands as traders.[3107]

A multitude of wives increases a man’s authority, not only because it increases his fortune and the number of his children, or because it makes him able to be liberal and keep open doors for foreigners and guests,[3108] but also because it presupposes a certain superiority in personal capabilities, wealth, or rank. Statements such as “a man’s greatness is ever proportionate to the number of his wives,” or “polygamy is held to be the test of his wealth and consequence,” are very frequently met with in books of travels. Thus the Apache “who can support or keep, or attract by his power to keep, the greatest number of women, is the man who is deemed entitled to the greatest amount of honour and respect.”[3109]

However desirable polygyny may be from man’s point of view, it is, as we have seen, altogether prohibited among many peoples, and, in countries where it is an established institution, it is practised, as a rule to which there are few exceptions, only by a comparatively small class. The proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this. But there are other causes of no less importance.

In ethnographical descriptions it is very often stated that a man takes as many wives as he is able to maintain. Where the amount of female labour is limited, where life is supported by hunting, where agriculture is unknown, and no accumulated property worth mentioning exists, it may be extremely difficult for a man to keep a plurality of wives. Among the Patagonians, for instance, it is chiefly those who possess some property who take more than one wife.[3110] Regarding the Tuski, Mr. Hooper states that “each man has as many wives as he can afford to keep, the question of food being the greatest consideration.”[3111] In Oonalashka, according to v. Langsdorf, a man who had many wives, if his means decreased, sent first one, then another back to their parents.[3112]

Again, where female labour is of considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase-sum for a wife very often makes the poorer people content with monogamy. Thus among the Zulus, Mr. Eyles writes, many men have but one wife because cattle have to be paid for women. Among the Gonds and Korkús, according to Mr. Forsyth, “polygamy is not forbidden, but, women being costly chattels, it is rarely practised.”[3113] Among the Bechuanas, says Andersson, there is no limit, but his means of purchase, to the number of wives a man may possess.[3114] And the same is observed with reference to a great many other peoples, especially in Africa, where the woman-trade is at its height. Polygyny is, moreover, checked to some extent by the man’s obligation to serve for his wife for a certain number of years, and even more by his having to settle down with his father-in-law for the whole of his life.

So far as the woman is allowed to choose, she prefers, other things being equal, the man who is best able to support her, or the man of the greatest wealth or highest position. Naturally, therefore, wherever polygyny prevails, it is the principal men—whether they owe their position to birth, skill, or acquired wealth—who have the largest number of wives; or it may be that they alone have more than one wife. Speaking of the Ainos of Yesso, Commander H. C. St. John says that a successful or expert hunter or fisher sometimes keeps two wives; and, if a woman finds her husband an unsuccessful Nimrod, she abandons him.[3115] Among the Aleuts, “the number of wives was not limited, except that the best hunters had the greatest number.”[3116] Among the Kutchin, “polygamy is practised generally in proportion to the rank and wealth of the man;”[3117] and, among the Brazilian aborigines and the Araucanians, polygyny occurs only or chiefly among rich men and chiefs.[3118] Touching the Equatorial Africans, Mr. Reade remarks, “The bush-man can generally afford but one wife, who must find him his daily bread.... But the rich man can indulge in the institutions of polygamy and domestic slavery.”[3119] In Dahomey, as we are told, “the king has thousands of wives, the nobles hundreds, others tens; while the soldier is unable to support one.”[3120] In the New Hebrides, polygyny prevails especially among the chiefs; in Naiabui of New Guinea, “the head men only have more than two or three wives;” and, in South Australia, “the old men secure the greatest number.”[3121]

Thus polygyny has come to be associated with greatness, and is therefore, as Mr. Spencer remarks, thought praiseworthy, while monogamy, as associated with poverty, is thought mean.[3122] Indeed, plurality of wives has everywhere tended to become a more or less definite class distinction, the luxury being permitted, among some peoples, only to chiefs or nobles.

One of the most important of the influences which determine the form of marriage is the position of women, or rather the respect in which they are held by men. For polygyny implies a violation of woman’s feelings.

Several statements tend to show that jealousy and rivalry do not always disturb the peace in polygynous families. It sometimes happens that the first wife herself brings her husband a fresh wife or a concubine, or advises him to take one, when she becomes old herself, or if she proves barren, or has a suckling child, or for some other reason.[3123] In Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Reade, the women are the stoutest supporters of polygyny:—“If a man marries,” he says, “and his wife thinks that he can afford another spouse, she pesters him to marry again, and calls him ‘a stingy fellow’ if he declines to do so.”[3124] Speaking of the Makalolo women, Livingstone observes, “On hearing that a man in England could marry but one wife, several ladies exclaimed that they would not like to live in such a country: they could not imagine how English ladies could relish our custom, for, in their way of thinking, every man of respectability should have a number of wives, as a proof of his wealth. Similar ideas prevail all down the Zambesi.”[3125] Among the Californian Modok also, according to the Hon. A. B. Meacham, the women are opposed to any change in the polygynous habits of the men.[3126] But such statements may easily be misinterpreted. Often the wives live peacefully together only in consequence of the strict discipline of the husband.[3127] They put up with polygyny, thanks to long custom; they even approve of it where it procures them advantages. The consideration of the whole family, and especially of the first wife, is increased by every new marriage the husband concludes.[3128] Where the wife is her husband’s slave, polygyny implies a greater division of labour. This is the reason why, among the Apaches, the women do not object to it; why, among the Bagobos of the Philippines, they rejoice at the arrival of a new wife; why, in the Mohammedan East, they themselves encourage the husband to marry more wives.[3129] Among the Arabs of Upper Egypt, says Baker, one of the conditions of accepting a suitor is, that a female slave is to be provided for the special use of the wife, although the slaves of the establishment occupy, at the same time, the position of concubines.[3130] Von Weber tells us of a Kafir woman who, on account of her heavy labour, passionately urged her husband to take another wife.[3131] Nevertheless, polygyny is an offence against the feelings of women, not only among highly civilized peoples, but even among the rudest savages. For jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, although it is generally more powerful in men than in women.[3132]

The Greenlanders have a saying that “whales, musk-oxen, and reindeer deserted the country because the women were jealous at the conduct of their husbands.”[3133] Regarding the Northern Indians, Hearne says, “The men are in general very jealous of their wives, and I make no doubt but the same spirit reigns among the women, but they are kept so much in awe of their husbands, that the liberty of thinking is the greatest privilege they enjoy.”[3134] Franklin tells us of an Indian woman who committed suicide by hanging herself, in a fit of jealousy; and another woman threw herself into the Mississippi with her child, when her husband took a new wife.[3135] As regards the Dacotahs, Mr. Prescott says that “polygamy is the cause of a great deal of their miseries and troubles. The women, most of them, abhor the practice, but are overruled by the men. Some of the women commit suicide on this account.”[3136] The natives of Guiana, according to the Rev. W. H. Brett, live in comfort, as long as the man is content with one wife, but, when he takes another, “the natural feelings of woman rebel at such cruel treatment, and jealousy and unhappiness have, in repeated instances, led to suicide.”[3137] Among the Tamanacs, says v. Humboldt, “the husband calls the second and third wife the ‘companions’ of the first; and the first treats these ‘companions’ as rivals and ‘enemies’ (‘ipucjatoje’).”[3138] Among the Charruas, it often happens that a woman abandons her husband if he has a plurality of wives, as soon as she is able to find another man who will take her as his only wife.[3139] And, when a Fuegian has as many as four women, his hut is every day transformed into a field of battle, and many a young and pretty wife must even atone with her life for the precedence given her by the common husband.[3140]

In the islands of the Pacific similar scenes occur. The missionary Williams’s wife once asked a Fiji woman who was _minus_ her nose, “How is it that so many of your women are without a nose?” “It is due to a plurality of wives,” was the answer; “jealousy causes hatred, and then the stronger tries to cut or bite off the nose of the one she hates.”[3141] In Tukopia, many a wife who believed another woman to be preferred by the husband committed suicide.[3142] Among the Australian aborigines, the old wives are extremely jealous of their younger rivals, so that “a new woman would always be beaten by the other wife, and a good deal would depend on the fighting powers of the former whether she kept her position or not.”[3143] Among the Narrinyeri, according to the Rev. A. Meyer, the several wives of one man very seldom agree well with each other; they are continually quarrelling, each endeavouring to be the favourite.[3144] “The black women,” says Herr Lumholtz, “are also capable of being jealous.”[3145]

Among the Sea Dyaks, according to Sir Spenser St. John, the wife is much more jealous of her husband than he is of her.[3146] In China, many women dislike the idea of getting married, as they fear that, should their husbands become polygynists, there would remain for them a life of unhappiness. Hence, some become Buddhist or Taouist nuns, and others prefer death by suicide to marriage.[3147] Mr. Balfour asserts that, among the Mohammedans and ruling Hindu races who permit and practise polygyny, it causes much intriguing and disquiet in homes.[3148] According to Mr. Tod, it “is the fertile source of evil, moral as well as physical, in the East.”[3149] The same view is taken by Pischon and d’Escayrac de Lauture with regard to the polygyny of the Mohammedans.[3150] In Persia, says Dr. Polak, a married woman cannot feel a greater pain than if her husband takes a fresh wife, whom he prefers to her; then she is quite disconsolate.[3151] In Egypt, quarrels between the various women belonging to the same man are very frequent, and often the wife will not even allow her female slave or slaves to appear unveiled in the presence of her husband.[3152] In the description, in the Book of Proverbs, of domestic happiness, it is assumed that the husband has only one wife;[3153] and, in the latter part of the ‘Rig-Veda,’ there are hymns in which wives curse their fellow-wives.[3154]

The Abyssinian women are described as very jealous; and in the polygynous families of the Eastern Africans, Zulus, Basutos, &c., quarrels frequently arise.[3155] The Hova word for polygyny is derived from the root “ràfy,” which means “an adversary.” “So invariably,” says the Rev. J. Sibree, “has the taking of more wives than one shown itself to be a fruitful cause of enmity and strife in a household, that this word, which means ‘the making an adversary,’ is the term always applied to it.... The different wives are always trying to get an advantage over each other, and to wheedle their husband out of his property; constant quarrels and jealousy are the result, and polygamy becomes inevitably the causing of strife, ‘the making an adversary.’”[3156] Statements of this kind cannot but shake our confidence in the optimistic assertions of Dr. Le Bon and other defenders of polygyny.[3157]

In order to prevent quarrels and fights between the wives, the husband frequently gives each of them a separate house. It is probably in part for the same reason that, among several peoples, wives are usually chosen from one family. In general, says Domenech, when an Indian wishes to have many wives, he chooses before all others, if he can, sisters, because he thinks he can thus secure more domestic peace.[3158] This is true of many of the North American aborigines;[3159] a man who marries the eldest daughter of a family secures in many cases the right to marry all her sisters as soon as they are old enough to become his wives.[3160] The same practice is said to prevail in Madagascar,[3161] and, combined with polyandry, among certain peoples of India. But it is obvious that the evils of polygyny are not removed by such arrangements.

Where women have succeeded in obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than themselves, monogamy is generally considered the only proper form of marriage. Among monogamous savage or barbarous races the position of women is comparatively good; and the one phenomenon must be regarded as partly the cause, partly the effect of the other. The purely monogamous Iroquois, to quote Schoolcraft, are “the only tribes in America, north and south, so far as we have any accounts, who gave to woman a conservative power in their political deliberations. The Iroquois matrons had their representative in the public councils; and they exercised a negative, or what we call a veto power, in the important question of the declaration of war. They had the right also to interpose in bringing about a peace.”[3162] Moreover, they had considerable privileges in the family.[3163] Among the Nicaraguans—a people almost wholly monogamous,—the husbands are said to have been so much under the control of their wives that they were obliged to do the housework, while the women attended to the trading.[3164] Among the Zapotecs and other nations inhabiting the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, who do not permit polygyny, “gentleness, affection, and frugality characterize the marital relations.”[3165] In New Hanover[3166] and among the Dyaks,[3167] the wife seems to have a kind of authority; and among the Minahassers, according to Dr. Hickson, “the woman is, and probably has been for many generations, on a footing of equality with her husband.”[3168] Mr. Man states that, in the Andaman Islands, “the consideration and respect with which women are treated might with advantage be emulated by certain classes in our own land.”[3169] The Pádam wives are treated by their husbands with a regard that seems singular in so rude a race. “But I have seen,” says Colonel Dalton, “other races as rude who in this respect are an example to more civilized people. It is because with these rude people the inclination of the persons most interested in the marriage is consulted, and polygamy is not practised.”[3170] The Munda Kols of Chota Nagpore call a wife “the mistress of the house,” and she takes up a position similar to that of a married woman in Europe.[3171] The Santal women, who enjoy the advantage of reigning alone in the husband’s wigwam, according to Mr. E. G. Man, hold a much higher _status_ in the family circle than their less fortunate sisters in most Eastern countries.[3172] The Kandhs, Bodo, and Dhimáls treat their wives and daughters with confidence and kindness, and consult them in all domestic concerns.[3173] Among the monogamous Moors of the Western Soudan, the women exercise a considerable influence on the men, who take the greatest pains to pay them homage.[3174] The Touareg wives’ authority is so great that, although Islam permits polygyny, the men are forced to live in monogamy.[3175] Among the monogamous Tedâ, the women hold a very high position in the family.[3176] As for European monogamy, there can be no doubt that it owes its origin chiefly to the consideration of men for the feelings of women.

The form of marriage is, further, influenced by the quality of the passions which unites the sexes. When love depends entirely on external attractions, it is necessarily fickle; but when it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after youth and beauty are gone.

It remains for us to note the true monogamous instinct, the absorbing passion for one, as a powerful obstacle to polygyny. “The sociable interest,” Professor Bain remarks, “is by its nature diffused: even the maternal feeling admits of plurality of objects; revenge does not desire to have but one victim; the love of domination needs many subjects; but the greatest intensity of love limits the regards to one.”[3177] The beloved person acquires, in the imagination of the lover, an immeasurable superiority over all others. “The beginnings of a special affection,” the same psychologist says, “turn upon a small difference of liking; but such differences are easily exaggerated; the feeling and the estimate acting and re-acting, till the distinction becomes altogether transcendent.”[3178] This absorbing passion for one is not confined to the members of civilized societies. It is found also among savage peoples, and even among some of the lower animals. Hermann Müller, Brehm, and other good observers have proved that it is experienced by birds; and Mr. Darwin found it among certain domesticated mammals.[3179] The love-bird rarely survives the death of its companion, even when supplied with a fresh and suitable mate.[3180] M. Houzeau states, on the authority of Frédéric Cuvier, “Lorsque l’un des ouistitis (_Harpale jacchus_) du Jardin des Plantes de Paris vint à mourir l’époux survivant fut inconsolable. Il caressa longtemps le cadavre de sa compagne; et quand à la fin il fut convaincu de la triste réalité, il se mit les mains sur les yeux, et resta sans bouger et sans prendre de nourriture, jusqu’à ce qu’il eût lui-même succombé.”[3181]

Among the Indians of Western Washington and North-Western Oregon, says Dr. Gibbs, “a strong sensual attachment undoubtedly often exists, which leads to marriage, as instances are not rare of young women destroying themselves on the death of a lover.”[3182] The like is said of other Indian tribes, in which suicide from unsuccessful love has sometimes occurred even among men.[3183] Colonel Dalton represents the Pahária lads and lasses as forming very romantic attachments; “if separated only for an hour,” he says, “they are miserable.”[3184] Davis tells us of a negro who, after vain attempts to redeem his sweetheart from slavery, became a slave himself rather than be separated from her.[3185] In Tahiti, unsuccessful suitors have been known to commit suicide;[3186] and even the rude Australian girl sings in a strain of romantic affliction—

“I never shall see my darling again.”[3187]

As a man, under certain circumstances, desires many wives, so a woman may have several reasons for desiring a plurality of husbands. But the jealousy of man does not readily suffer any rivals, and, as he is the stronger, his will is decisive. Hence, where polyandry occurs, it is only exceptionally a result of the woman’s wishes.

Various causes have been adduced for this revolting practice. The difficulty of raising the sum for a wife, and the expense of maintaining women may perhaps in part account for it.[3188] Regarding polyandry in Kunawar, the Rev. W. Rebsch says that the cause assigned is not poverty, but a desire to keep the common patrimony from being distributed among a number of brothers.[3189] Some writers believe that polyandry subserves the useful end of preventing the woman from being exposed to danger and difficulty, when she is left alone in her remote home during the prolonged absences of her lord.[3190] According to the Sinhalese, the practice originated in the so-called feudal times, when the enforced attendance of the people on the king and the higher chiefs would have led to the ruin of the rice lands, had not some interested party been left to look after the tillage. But Sir Emerson Tennent remarks that polyandry is much more ancient than the system thus indicated: it is shown to have existed at a period long antecedent to “feudalism.”[3191] To whatever other causes the practice may be attributed, the chief immediate cause is, no doubt, a numerical disproportion between the sexes.