"remarked very judiciously that such laws as ours would not
suit the Beetjuans because there were so great a number of
women and the male population suffered such diminutions from
the wars."
Sir Samuel Baker (_A.N._, 147) says of the wife of the Chief of
Latooka:
"She asked many questions, how many wives I had? and was
astonished to hear that I was contented with one. This
amused her immensely, and she laughed heartily with her
daughter at the idea."
In Equatorial Africa, "if a man marries 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" (Reade, 259). Livingstone
(_N.E.Z._, 284) says of the Makalolo women:
"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; that they could not imagine how English
ladies could relish such a 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."
Some amusing instances are reported by Burton (_T.T.G.L._, I., 36, 78,
79). The lord of an African village appeared to be much ashamed
because he had only two wives. His sole excuse was that he was only a
boy--about twenty-two. Regarding the Mpongwe of the Gaboon, Burton
says: "Polygamy is, of course, the order of the day; it is a necessity
to the men, and even the women disdain to marry a 'one-wifer.'" In his
book on the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, G.S. Robertson writes:
"It is considered a reproach to have only one wife, a
sign of poverty and insignificance. There was on one
occasion a heated discussion at Kamdesh concerning the
best plans to be adopted to prepare for an expected
attack. A man sitting on the outskirts of the assembly
controverted something the priest said. Later on the
priest turned round fiercely and demanded to be told
how a man with 'only one wife' presumed to offer an
opinion at all."
His religion allowed a Mohammedan to take four legitimate wives, while
their prophet himself had a larger number. A Hindoo was permitted by
the laws of Manu to marry four women if he belonged to the highest
caste, but if he was of the lowest caste he was condemned to monogamy.
King Solomon was held in honor though he had unnumbered wives,
concubines, and virgins at his disposal.
How far the sentiment of monogamy--one of the essential ingredients of
Romantic Love--had penetrated the skulls of American Indians may be
inferred from the amusing and typical details related by the historian
Parkman (_O.T._, chap. xi.) of the Dakota or Sioux Indians, among whom
he sojourned. The man most likely to become the next chief was a
fellow named Mahto-Tatonka, whose father had left a family of thirty,
which number the young man was evidently anxious to beat:
"Though he appeared not more than twenty-one years old,
he had oftener struck the enemy, and stolen more horses
and more squaws than any young man in the village. We
of the civilized world are not apt to attach much
credit to the latter species of exploits; but
horse-stealing is well-known as an avenue to
distinction on the prairies, and the other kind of
depredation is esteemed equally meritorious. Not that
the act can confer fame from its own intrinsic merits.
Any one can steal a squaw, and if he chooses afterward
to make an adequate present to her rightful proprietor,
the easy husband for the most part rests content; his
vengeance falls asleep, and all danger from that
quarter is averted. Yet this is esteemed but a pitiful
and mean-spirited transaction. The danger is averted,
but the glory of the achievement also is lost.
Mahto-Tatonka proceeded after a more gallant and
dashing fashion. Out of several dozen squaws whom he
had stolen, he could boast that he had never paid for
one, but snapping his fingers in the face of the
injured husband, had defied the extremity of his
indignation, and no one had yet dared to lay the hand
of violence upon him. He was following close in the
footsteps of his father. The young men and the young
squaws, each in their way, admired him. The one would
always follow him to war, and he was esteemed to have
an unrivalled charm in the eyes of the other."
Thus the admiration of the men, the love (Indian style) of the women,
and the certainty of the chieftainship--the highest honor accessible
to an Indian--were the rewards of actions which in a civilized
community would soon bring such a "brave" to the gallows. Some of the
agencies by which the belief that wife-stealing and polygamy are
honorable was displaced by the modern sentiment in favor of monogamy,
will be considered later on. Here I simply wish to enforce the
additional moral that not only the _ideas_ regarding bigamy and
polygamy have changed, but the _emotions_ aroused by such actions;
execration having taken the place of admiration. Judging by such
cases, is it likely that ideas concerning women and love could change
so utterly as they have since the days of the ancient Greeks, without
changing the emotions of love itself? Sentiments consist of ideas and
emotions. If both are altered, the sentiments must have changed as a
matter of course. Let us take as a further example the sentiment of
modesty.