12 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
instincts. Polygamy may be understood either as having a plurality of wives, or as having one principal wife and many secondary but still legitimate wives, or any other recognized but less legitimate connections; in one or other of these forms it is now permitted by religion, customs, and law to at least one-half of the population of the world, though its practice may be restricted to a few, on account of cost, domestic peace, and the insufficiency of females. Polygamy holds its ground firmly throughout the Moslem world. It exists throughout India and China in modified forms, and it is entirely in accord with the sentiments both of men and women in the larger part of negro Africa. It was regarded as a matter of course in the early biblical days. Jacob's twelve children were born of four mothers, all living at the same time, namely, Leah and her sister Rachel, and their respective handmaids Billah and Zilpah. Long afterward the Jewish kings emulated the luxurious habits of neighboring potentates and carried polygamy to an extreme degree. For Solomon see i Kings 11:3; for his son Rehoboam see 2 Chron. 1 1 : 2 1 . The history of the subsequent practice of the custom among the Jews is obscure, but the Talmud contains no law against polygamy. It must have ceased in Judea by the time of the Christian era. It was not then allowed in either Greece or Rome. Polygamy was unchecked by law in profligate Egypt, but a reactionary and ascetic spirit existed, and some celibate communities were formed, in the service of Isis, which seem to have exercised a large, though indirect, influence in introducing celibacy into the early Christian church. The restric- tion of marriage to one living wife subsequently became the religion and the law of all Christian nations, though license has been widely tolerated in royal and other distinguished families, as in those of some of our English kings. Polygamy was openly introduced into Mormonism by Brigham Young, who left seven- teen wives and fifty-six children. He died in 1877; polygamy was suppressed soon after. 8
It is unnecessary for my present purpose to go further into the voluminous data connected with these marriages in all parts
1 Encyclopedia Britannica, Vol. XVI, p. 827.
