POLYGAMY, the condition of a man hav ing more than one wife at the same time. Etymologically considered, the word would sig nify plurality of husbands (polyandry) as well as plurality of wives (polygyny) ; it is em ployed here in the latter (the usual) sense. Polygamy among barbarous people is customary, though among them — as indeed wherever po lygamy is allowed—plurality of wives is not usual except in the upper classes. The law of monogyny (one wife), we learn from Tamils, was most strictly observed among the Germani; 'almost alone among barbarians,)) he says, a the Germani are content each with one wife)); yet he says that their chiefs had the right to marry several women at the same time. A custom of promiscuous marriage existed among the ancient Britons; any number of men would form a society and take an equal number of wives in common; the children born were the children of all; a like community of wives is suggested by Plato in his (Republic.) Polygamy was allowed among the ancient Greeks, but seems to have been rarely practised. It was never customary among the ancient Romans, though no Roman law prohibited it. Mark Antony is reputed to have been the first Roman to have at once two wives ; under the empire i polygamous unions were not infrequent whether in the imperial house or in the class of the very rich. Laws to prohibit polygamy in the Roman state were first enacted under Theo dosius and under his two sons, Honorius and Arcadius; they were abrogated by Valentinian I.
The Merovingian kings of the Franks, we learn from Gregory of Tours, were polygamous, and the same author says that Charlemagne had a numerous harem of wives. Martin Luther for mally approved the taking of a second wife, the first living, by the landgrave of Hesse. The Jewish laws permitted polygamy, but probably here again the practice was confined to the wealthy class. In all Christian countries polygamy is condemned by the law of the churches and prohibited by the laws of the state under penalties. In England, till the reign of James I, matrimonial questions were mat ters of ecclesiastical cognizance only; but under James a statute was enacted making death the penalty for polygamy. The Mormons in Utah openly professed and practised polygamy from their first settlement there till 1890 when Con gress enacted drastic laws for its suppression, and it was not till after the people of Utah had constitutionally abandoned polygamy that the Territory was admitted into the Union as a State (4 Jan. 1896). Since then it is declared that the sect still adheres to its belief in the lawfulness and the meritoriousness of polyg amous unions; and though they no longer openly practise it, polygamous unions among them — crypto-polygamous unions — are not rare, as is evident from the testimony before the Senate committee in March 1904. See MORMONS.