POLYGAMY is the name of the custom according to which a man may have more than one lawful wife at a time, which custom prevails in several countries. Polygamy has existed in Asia from time immemorial, and Mo hammedanism adopted and confirmed the custom. Montesquieu pretends that polygamy in the East is the consequence of the greater number of female births in that country ; but this surmise is by no means proved. Another and a more plausible reason may be found in the premature old age of the female sex in some countries. Niebuhr, in his Travels in Arabia,' gives a curious conversation which he had with an Arab on the subject of polygamy. (Reisebeschreibung, ii. 253.) Neither Greek nor Roman usage al lowed a man to have more than one wife at a time. But divorce became so common among the Romans, that the frequent change of wife became almost a practical polygamy. However, this practice of divorce was probably con fined to the rich and luxurious, who, when they have no regular occupation, are generally the most licentious mem bers of society. The barbarous nations, on the contrary, that is to say, those who were not Greeks or Romans, practised polygamy, with the exception of the Germans, " who alone," says Tacitus, "among all the barbarians, are content with a single wife." (German., 17.) In the scriptures we find instances of polygamy recorded before the flood. (Genesis, iv. 19.) It was common in the patriarchal times, and we have the in stance of Jacob marrying two sisters. By the law of Moses it appears to have been tolerated. (Erodes, xxi. 9, 10, and Deuteronomy, xxi. 15.) But in the time of our Saviour, no indication appears of its being common among the Jews. Divorce, however, was frequent, and our Saviour (Matthew, xix. 9) reprobates the custom. St. Paul speaks always of mar riage in terms implying the union of one man with one woman. In Christian countries, polygamy has been long since universally forbidden, both by the church and by the civil law, under severe penal ties, which in some countries amounted to death. In England, it is a punishable offence. [BIGAMY.]
The Koran allows a man to have four legitimate wives ; but it is only the rich who avail themselves of this permission. The Arabs are generally content with one wife.
Polygamy can never prevail much in any country where slavery does not exist in some form, even if the practice is permitted. The expense of two or more wives is a sufficient check on the practice. It is only the rich who can indulge in this way. A poor man in any country will find one wife and one set of children quite enough for him. If in England, for instance, it was per mitted for a man to have several wives at once, all of whom should be in the legal condition of a wife, the expense alone would prevent any prudent man from availing himself of the legal permission if there were no other objection. When the wife is a kind of slave to her husband and assists to support him by her labour, a plurality of wives is merely an in creasing of a man's slaves with the in creased power of sexual intercourse at the same time. That such a mode of life must be a brutalized and a half savage state, is obvious enough ; and it is not consistent with any improvement in the condition of women ; and on the improved condition of women mainly depends the improveable condition of society. If in any country polygamy were carried to a great extent among the rich, the consequence would be that the poor must go without wives, unless the demands of the rich were supplied by importation of female slaves, which is the case in some countries.
That union which exists in the co habitation of a man with one woman makes a family quite a different thing from a family which is founded on the cohabitation of a man with more than one woman. Traced out to all their con sequences, the two practices produce distinct social systems, which, in nearly every respect, are right opposed to one ano ther. The advantage is on the side of mo nogamy, though the nations which main tain polygamy might easily discover some weak points in the monogamist practice.