The United States being a “free country,” its government has sometimes
been blamed by “freethinkers” for attempting to repress Mormon Polygamy.
But a free country is not one in which social experiments injurious to
public welfare are to be necessarily allowed. Readers of history and
anthropology know that polygamy is an experiment which has been tried so
often with disastrous social results, that it may be looked upon safely
as criminal and treated accordingly. Even the forcible argument of that
spiteful old pessimist, Schopenhauer, that polygamy should be introduced
because it would rid the world of old maids, does not save the
institution; since it is well—for the prospects of Beauty, at any
rate—that some women should be “eliminated” in the form of old maids.
Among the causes which tended to make polygamy the commonest form of
marriage among savages, four may be briefly enumerated: (1) The constant
wars among the tribes decimated the men, leaving a larger proportion of
women than men, although this was to some extent neutralised by the
habit of female infanticide, which the women indulged in to make
themselves more cherished through scarcity and, possibly, to preserve
their beauty; (2) The women being commonly secured as booty in war, it
was naturally looked on as an honour and a sign of valour to have more
than one wife; (3) Women being regarded and treated as slaves, the more
a man had of them the more they could, by their combined labour,
increase his wealth and influence in the tribe; (4) The rapid decay of
the youthful beauty of primitive woman, naturally inclined her husband,
whose affection was solely based on those physical charms, to add a
second or third, younger woman to his harem.
As woman’s position improved with advancing civilisation, these
influences favouring polygamy were gradually weakened; and as in
treating of Love among Animals, we found the most remarkable instances
of affection—conjugal and romantic—among birds, who are mostly
monogamous; so, among the lower races of man, monogamy is commonly a
sign of superior culture and higher development of the affections. And
this might have been foreseen _a priori_, inasmuch as monogamy is the
only marital relation compatible with that Monopoly of affection which
is one of the conditions of Romantic Love. How could a man feel an
exclusive amorous interest in his bride, knowing that in a few months or
years another would come to claim half his interest? or how could the
bride concentrate all her Love on a man of whom she knew that he could
give her only half or a smaller fraction of his affection?
A similar view is taken by Mr. Spencer. Monogamic unions, he says, “tend
in no small degree indirectly to raise the quality of adult life, by
giving a permanent and deep source of æsthetic interest. On recalling
the many and keen pleasures derived from music, poetry, fiction, the
drama, etc.; and on remembering that their predominant theme is the
passion of love, we shall see that to monogamy, which has developed this
passion, we owe a large part of the gratifications which fill our
leisure hours.”