"Polygamy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... reckless, passionate youth, imbued with the comfortable theories of polygamy, Leopold Eberhard was destined to succeed his father in the family honours, and achieve a course of Persian living which, while practised frequently under other names at many courts, astounded Germany by ...
— A German Pompadour - Being the Extraordinary History of Wilhelmine van Graevenitz, - Landhofmeisterin of Wirtemberg • Marie Hay
... tale tells that a week or it might be ten days after his meeting with Florimel, Jurgen married her, without being at all hindered by his having three other wives. For the devils, he found, esteemed polygamy, and ranked it above mere skill at torturing the damned, through a literal interpretation of the saying that it is better ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... medicine-man prays to Naye{COMBINING BREVE}nayezgani, asking his beneficence toward the new home. This ceremony lasts until midnight, when the visitors depart and the marriage is consummated. Polygamy was common. Divorce is effected without ceremony, the discontented one deserting the other and leaving him or her ...
— The North American Indian • Edward S. Curtis
... some days, making observations on the manners and customs of the Kurds. She was not prepossessed in their favour by what she saw: the women are idle, ignorant, and squalid; the men work as little and rob as much as they can. Polygamy is practised; and religion is reduced to the performance of a few formalities. The costume of the wealthier Kurds is purely Oriental, that of the common people varies from it a little. The men wear wide linen trousers, and over them a shirt confined by a girdle, with a sleeveless ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... sickle feathers which ornament the rear of his back and hang over his tail are lustrous dark green. The hen meanwhile is very much less brilliant in her contrasts. I shall speak more fully of this in discussing polygamy. ...
— The Meaning of Evolution • Samuel Christian Schmucker
... to accompany him into the country, and to seduce, and quiet her conscience, shewed her a celebrated piece written in defence of Polygamy, and Concubinage: When he was gone, he soon relapsed into his former extravagances, forgot his promise of providing for his child, and its mother; and inhumanly left them a prey to indigence and oppression. The lady was only happy in being released from the killing anguish, of ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Vol. IV • Theophilus Cibber
... women among the ancient Jews, and in contemporary nations, was one of degradation and servitude. She was the slave of man. The Essenes, a Jewish sect not unlike the modern Shakers, treated this sex with little respect, often with contempt. The system of polygamy, of old almost universally prevalent, tended directly to "stifle the best emotions of the female heart, and to call all its worst passions into exercise." It has been supposed by some, that the wonder which the ...
— The Young Maiden • A. B. (Artemas Bowers) Muzzey
... marry the same man, and polygamy was common. A Chinese book, compiled in the early years of the Christian epoch, speaks of women being so numerous in Japan that nobles had four or five wives and commoners two or three. Of course, the reason assigned for this custom ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... of the Archbishop of Maintz; Thietmar, a German, became the first Bishop of Prague. This worthy was succeeded after a few years by a native of Bohemia, Adalbert, who finally established Christianity in the country. He had a hard task, as many heathen customs, such as polygamy, were difficult to extirpate; there are even in this day very few churches dedicated to St. Anthony, a saint who does not seem to interest or convince the Bohemians. Adalbert carried his ideals farther afield, to the country of the heathen Prussians, who killed him for trespassing ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... bungling on, irresponsive to the principal needs and interests of the times. An ineffectual start was made on two subjects presenting simple issues on which there was an energetic pressure of popular sentiment—Chinese immigration and polygamy among the Mormons. Anti-Chinese legislation had to contend with a traditional sentiment in favor of maintaining the United States as an asylum for all peoples. But the demand from the workers of the Pacific slope for protection against Asiatic ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... the commencement of the revolt, he had reached the prime of manhood, a slave, with a soul uncontaminated by the degradation which surrounded him. Living in a state of society where worse than polygamy was actually urged, we find him at this period faithful to one wife—the wife of his youth—and the father of an interesting family. Linked with such tender ties, and enlightened with some degree of education, ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... good manners, respectful to the aged, affectionate to their kindred, and bountiful to their priests, of whom more than twenty thousand are supported by voluntary contributions in Bangkok alone. Marriage is contracted at sixteen for males, and fourteen for females, and polygamy is the common practice, without limit to the number of wives except such as may be imposed by the humble estate or poverty of the husband; the women ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... gratifying to the people. But he never committed the folly of ordering any solemnity. He neither learned nor repeated any prayer of the Koran, as many persons have asserted; neither did he advocate fatalism, polygamy, or any other doctrine of the Koran. Bonaparte employed himself better than in discussing with the Imaums the theology of the children of Ismael. The ceremonies, at which policy induced him to be present, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... insight, however, into the peculiar domestic customs of the inmates of the valley did away in a measure with the severity of my scruples, and convinced me that I was deceived in some at least of my conclusions. A regular system of polygamy exists among the islanders; but of a most extraordinary nature,—a plurality of husbands, instead of wives! and this solitary fact speaks volumes for the gentle disposition of ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... to his own interested views. Gravina refused to subscribe to what he plainly perceived were only extortions; and the girl, in her turn, not only declined any further connection with him, but threatened to publish the act of polygamy. Before they had done discussing this subject, the door was suddenly opened and the two Spanish ladies presented themselves. After severely upbraiding Gravina, who was struck mute by surprise, they announced ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... charmed with his person. The female heart in all ages and countries is the same. She caused a slave to intimate to him what was passing in her mind, and, for the remaining twenty-four years of her life, Mohammed was her faithful husband. In a land of polygamy, he never insulted her by the presence of a rival. Many years subsequently, in the height of his power, Ayesha, who was one of the most beautiful women in Arabia, said to him: "Was she not old? Did ...
— History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science • John William Draper
... purgatory? The dead in purgatory dependent upon the living! Why, I tell him, that smacks of Shintoism, wherein the living feed the dead! Then he points in holy indignation to the Bible. Bah! Cannot I prove anything I may wish from your Bible? What will you have? Polygamy? Incest? Murder? Graft? Hand me your Bible, and I will establish its divinity. No, my good friend. When you come to me with proofs that you really do the works of him whom you profess to follow, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... its spring term at Fort Bridger the same day. In his charge to the grand jury, Judge Eckels was explicit on the subject of polygamy, instructing them substantially as follows: That among the Territorial statutes there was no act legalizing polygamy, nor any act affixing a definite punishment to that practice as such; that, consequently, whether the old Spanish law or the Common Law ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... real, to some extent vary at different periods in accordance with the ideals which happen to be fashionable. In more remote ages they have been still more profoundly modified by religious and social ideas; polygamy and polyandry, the custom of marrying only inside one's own caste, or only outside it, all these various and contradictory plans have been easily accepted at some place and some time, and have offered no more conscious obstacle to the ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... settled at Nauvoo, Illinois. They were led by Joseph Smith, and not only proposed to run a new kind of religion, but introduced polygamy into it. The people who lived near them attacked them, killed Smith, and drove the Mormons to ...
— Comic History of the United States • Bill Nye
... it's d——d heathenism," replied the farmer, who, take him all in all, is a superior specimen of the class of small-planters at the South; and yet, seeing polygamy practised by his own slaves, he made no effort to prevent it. He told me that if he should object to his darky cohabiting with the Colonel's negress, it would be regarded as unneighborly, and secure him the enmity of the whole district! And still we are told that slavery ...
— Among the Pines - or, South in Secession Time • James R. Gilmore
... stronghold of opposition taken. Woman's claim to the ballot has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation stone of democratic government—has been, from the Christian standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still remains: the mass of the women do not want it. We do not quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason for our failures—the real objective ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... principal people, during a conversation with me, put three or four pills of opium, as large as a grey pea, into his mouth in the space of a quarter of an hour. They are exceedingly addicted to the vilest lusts, and have no sense of shame in gratifying their passions. Polygamy is common among them. Yet with all their vices, they like to brag of their having the true faith. The Chinese, though more industrious, are not more virtuous; and as to the so-called Christians, I will ...
— Letters on the Nicobar islands, their natural productions, and the manners, customs, and superstitions of the natives • John Gottfried Haensel
... never submit long to give up Belgium, and that he would have yielded all except that; that he would have given up the Slave Trade, as it was a Brigandage of very little use to France. He had a most extraordinary idea of how it should be abolished, viz., he said he would allow Polygamy among the Whites in the West Indies, that they might inter-marry with the Blacks, and all become Brothers and Sisters. He said that he had consulted a Bishop upon this, who had objected to it as contrary to ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... mankind, some races have well-developed tendencies toward polygamy. In the warmer regions of the United States there dwells a great, splendid, glossy Blackbird, the Boat-tailed Crackle. The nest of this bird is a wonderfully woven structure of water plants and grasses ...
— The Bird Study Book • Thomas Gilbert Pearson
... improve the degraded condition of the Bantu cooking culture? Not for his physical delectation only, but because his present methods are bad for his morals, and drive the man to drink, let alone assisting in riveting him in the practice of polygamy, which the missionary party say is an exceedingly bad practice for him to follow. The inter- relationship of these two subjects may not seem on the face of it very clear, but inter-relationships of customs very ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... long ago Lord ROBERT CECIL referred to a rumour that the German Government intended to encourage polygamy. Mr. KING, shocked to discover that this charge rested upon a statement in a neutral newspaper, protested against the practice of making speeches "on such miserable foundations." As the bulk of the hon. Member's own utterances have a similar basis the retort was ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... baptised and were Christians of a sort; a church had been built; a more or less modern system of agriculture had been introduced, and the most of the population wore trousers or skirts, according to sex. Recently, however, trouble had arisen over the old question of polygamy. The missionaries would not tolerate more than one wife, while the Zulu section of the tribe insisted upon the old ...
— Smith and the Pharaohs, and Other Tales • Henry Rider Haggard
... to will also, I think, have been equally uncertain in its results. In the very lowest tribes there is rarely much polygamy, and women are more or less a matter of purchase. There is also little difference of social condition, and I think it rarely happens that any healthy and undeformed man remains without wife and children. I very much doubt the often-repeated assertion that our aristocracy ...
— Alfred Russel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Marchant
... character. But of all the influence which woman has over man, that which is naturally most permanent, for good or evil, arises from the marriage tie. How we of the cold North have been able to emancipate woman from the deplorable depth into which polygamy would place her, it is not easy to say. That it is a state absolutely countenanced—nay, enjoined—in the Old Testament, it would be useless to deny. But custom and fair usance are stronger than the Old Testament; and the Jews, ...
— Brave Men and Women - Their Struggles, Failures, And Triumphs • O.E. Fuller
... mask was off. In that land of polygamy and deportations it is frequent enough that one brother does not know the other by sight; but it must be disconcerting, all the same, to have a supposititious brother sprung on you. He gave a perceptible start, as he had not done when first ...
— The Lion of Petra • Talbot Mundy
... only one point in your favor; for as your attentions were not decided, and as the law does not, as yet, permit polygamy—" ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... that native missionaries would prove more indulgent, but the reverse is found to be the case. The new broom sweeps clean; and the white missionary of to-day is often embarrassed by the bigotry of his native coadjutor. What else should we expect? On some islands, sorcery, polygamy, human sacrifice, and tobacco-smoking have been prohibited, the dress of the native has been modified, and himself warned in strong terms against rival sects of Christianity; all by the same man, at the same period of time, and with the like authority. By what criterion is the convert to distinguish ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amusement over polygamy in Utah. That institution shocks Mr. WARD, of New-York, and naturally also Mr. BUTLER, of Massachusetts. Mr. WARD was astonished to see any member standing up in defence of polygamy in the nineteenth century. If some member should stand ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 2, April 9, 1870 • Various
... didn't. How could they? Back in their prehistoric records of polygamy and slavery there were no ideals of wifehood as we know it, and since then ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... to give only a brief dissertation on the principles and arguments of these systems, with special reference to their representatives in the nineteenth century. Polygamy has existed in all ages. It is, and always has been, the result of moral degradation or wantonness. The Garden of Eden was no harem. Primeval nature knew no community of love. There was only the union of two "and the twain were made one flesh." Time passed; "the sons of God saw ...
— The People's Common Sense Medical Adviser in Plain English • R. V. Pierce
... changeless opinion. But the Koran enshrines the best theological and ethical ideas of Arabia at the time when it was written: God was an oriental monarch, ruling in heaven; utter submission to the fate which he decreed was the one law of human relationship with him; and on earth slavery and polygamy and conversion of unbelievers by force were recognized as right. The Koran was ahead of its day, but having been by a theory of inspiration petrified into artificial finality it became the enemy of all opinions which would ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... found new food for thought. What power is it that makes the Hindoo woman burn herself on the funeral pyre of her husband? Her religion. What holds the Turkish woman in the harem? Her religion. By what power do the Mormons perpetuate their system of polygamy? By their religion. Man, of himself, could not do this; but when he declares, "Thus saith the Lord," of course he can do it. So long as ministers stand up and tell us that as Christ is the head of the church, so is man the head of the woman, how are we to break the chains ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV • Various
... carry out its threat to secede and set up a separate government, the corner-stone of which should be, protection to the "Divine" institution of slavery. For there were people who believed in the "divinity" of human slavery, as there are now people who believe Mormonism and Polygamy to be ordained by the Most High. We forgive them for entertaining such notions, but forbid their practice. It was generally believed that there would be a flurry; that some of the extreme Southern States would go so far as to pass ordinances of secession. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... against political corruption, party corruption, and interparty as well as intraparty bribery and tyranny. There is accord between all the forces for betterment. Barbarism and cruelty toward the brute creation are as certainly doomed as polygamy and human slavery were. The needs of surgery will be preserved from wanton slaughter in the name of surgery, in times past, and now wrought by men called doctors and by cub-boys called students. The statesmen in politics are realizing ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... wrecked the Roman power? One says vice, Another indolence, another dice. Emascle says polygamy. "Not so," Says Impycu—"'twas luxury and show." The parson, lifting up a brow of brass, Swears superstition gave the coup de grace, Great Allison, the statesman-chap affirms 'Twas lack of coins (croaks Medico: "'T was worms") And John P. Jones ...
— Shapes of Clay • Ambrose Bierce
... to "straighten out" the "Mormons." President Grant, no doubt obtained much of his information about the "Mormons" from his friend, the Rev. J.P. Newman. This minister had held a three days' discussion in the Tabernacle at Salt Lake City with Apostle Orson Pratt on the subject of polygamy. Elder Pratt seems to have got the better of the argument, and it can well be imagined what kind of information this preacher gave ...
— A Young Folks' History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints • Nephi Anderson
... most races is celebrated socially, but not among those in which polygamy prevails. The formula observed on the occasion differs in different tribes; in some the union is effected under painful ceremonies to the bride, in others with fasting and penitential torments to the bridegroom. In general ...
— Travels in Peru, on the Coast, in the Sierra, Across the Cordilleras and the Andes, into the Primeval Forests • J. J. von Tschudi
... the first querists, referring to the passage that a bishop should be the husband of one wife, argues that polygamy is justifiable in the laity. The society of gentlemen conducting the British Apollo are posed by this casuist, and promise to give him an answer. Celinda then wishes to know from "the gentlemen", concerning the souls of the dead, ...
— Henry Esmond; The English Humourists; The Four Georges • William Makepeace Thackeray
... plantation organization replaced the clan and tribe, and the white master replaced the chief with far greater and more despotic powers. Forced and long-continued toil became the rule of life, the old ties of blood relationship and kinship disappeared, and instead of the family appeared a new polygamy and polyandry, which, in some cases, almost reached promiscuity. It was a terrific social revolution, and yet some traces were retained of the former group life, and the chief remaining institution was the ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... the prime of life married to old widows. As a rule wives are not obtained by the men until they are at least thirty years of age. Women have very frequently two husbands during their lifetime, the first older and the second younger than themselves. Of course, as polygamy is the rule and the men of the tribe exceed the females in number besides, there are always many bachelors in every tribe; but I never heard of a female over sixteen years of age who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal customs after the coming ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... heartrending. Remember that when these men began their rebellion against Brigham, it was simply a protest against his tyranny—his exorbitant tithing system—a mere refusal to render tribute unto him; not at all a disavowal of the Morman religion or of polygamy. But as bond after bond has burst, this last, strongest and tightest one of plurality of wives is beginning to snap asunder. To illustrate: One man, a noble, loving, beautiful spirit—nothing of the tyrant, nothing ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... eats salt'' being said of a spendthrift. Bars of rock-salt, after serving as coins, are, when broken up, used as food. There is a general looseness of morals: marriage is a very slight tie, which can be dissolved at any time by either husband or wife. Polygamy is by no means uncommon. Hence there is little family affection, and what exists is only between children of the same father and mother. Children of the same father, but of different mothers, are said to be "always enemies to each other.'' (Samuel Gobat's Journal of a Three ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... churches, violated females, murdered men who refused to join the gang, and, in briefs practised all the enormities which humanity alone can conceive or perpetrate. The prophet proclaimed himself King of Sion, and sent out apostles to preach his doctrines in Germany and the Netherlands. Polygamy being a leading article of the system, he exemplified the principle by marrying fourteen wives. Of these, the beautiful widow of Matthiszoon was chief, was called the Queen of Sion, and wore a golden crown. The prophet made ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... said about the sensuality of Muhammadans. The sanction given by Muhammad to polygamy and extreme facility of divorce has borne bitter fruit. His own example has had a depraving influence. He alleged, indeed, a special Divine sanction for the dissoluteness of his later life, but this has not deterred his followers from thinking they could ...
— Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877 • James Kennedy
... on the Scandinavian continent, were often forced to compound with their grim converts, by indulgence to certain habits, such as indiscriminate polygamy. To eat horse-flesh in honour of Odin, and to marry wives ad libitum, were the main stipulations of the neophytes. And the puzzled monks, often driven to a choice, yielded the point of the wives, but stood firm on the graver ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... as well as images? Acting on this idea, he demanded that Sunday should be observed with rest in all the Mosaic rigour of the term; this rest he identified with that 'inaction,' which formed his idea of true union with God. He proceeded then to advocate polygamy, as permitted to the Jews in the Old Testament: he actually advised an inhabitant of Orlamunde to take a second wife, in addition to the one then living. He began, at the same time, to dispute the real presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament—a doctrine ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... beyond our sympathy. She was twenty-two years old—no child—and she acted with her eyes open. No deceit was practised with her. She knew the man had a wife, and she was base enough to accept a share of his attentions. Do you advocate polygamy? That is an intelligible position, I admit. It is one way of meeting the ...
— The Odd Women • George Gissing
... sense of women—the instinct which makes them regard the unborn in their every act—perhaps, too, the fact that the interests of the unborn are here identical, as in other situations, with their own egoistic aspirations. As a popular philosopher has shrewdly observed, the objections to polygamy do not come from women, for the average woman is sensible enough to prefer half or a quarter or even a tenth of a first-rate man to the whole devotion of a third-rate man. Considerations of much the same sort ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... in the prime of life by a white man whose wife he had accidentally shot at the door of her cabin. He was one of the first to welcome the white men and adopt the improvements they brought with them. When he became sufficiently civilized to understand that polygamy was unlawful, he separated from his oldest wife. Her scalp was carefully preserved among those of the great warriors he had conquered. His son, Flying Deer, who is with us to-day, will address you in his own language, which I shall interpret for you. The last ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... following morning, I argued with him about that, but he couldn't be budged. He said he stood for truth and all that kind of thing. I put it to him that he would expect any foreigner to conform to his national customs. He'd expect a Turk to give up his polygamy, I said, no matter what heart-breakings it cost some of the family. But he had a kink in his thinking, holding that his people had the whole, solid, unchanging truth. Of course, the argument came down with ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... subjugation. While the general principles of the Bible are in favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality of the race, isolated texts have been used to block the wheels of progress in all periods; thus bigots have defended capital punishment, intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman. The creeds of all nations make obedience to man the corner-stone of her religious character. Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are now giving us higher and ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... anyhow, he falls in love with the girl of the house. Unfortunately, rumour—a nasty, ill-natured thing—has it that Smith is a criminal. Evidence is collected, and a Grand Jury inquire into the charges, which include Bigamy, Murder, Polygamy, Burglary. It looks as if Smith is in for a very uncomfortable time, and the wedding bells are a long way ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... Instances of polygamy are not so common among the Netchillik nation, for the reason, it is said by the tribes in their vicinity, that they have a custom that prevents the accumulation of women to be taken care of. Their neighbors say that they kill their female babes as soon as born. The first is usually allowed ...
— Schwatka's Search • William H. Gilder
... My Dog My Experience as an Agriculturist My Lecture Abroad My Mine My Physician My School Days Nero No More Frontier On Cyclones One Kind of Fool Our Forefathers Parental Advice Petticoats at the Polls Picnic Incidents Plato Polygamy as a Religious Duty Preventing a Scandal Railway Etiquette Recollections of Noah Webster Rev. Mr. Hallelujah's Hoss Roller Skating Rosalinde Second Letter to the President She Kind of Coaxed Him Shorts Sixty Minutes in America Skimming the Milky Way Somnambulism and Crime Spinal Meningitis ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... Bignonia Catalpa, Gratiola, and hemlock-leaved Geranium have only half their filaments crowned with anthers. In like manner the florets, which form the rays of the flowers of the order frustraneous polygamy of the class syngenesia, or confederate males, as the sun-flower, are furnished with a style only, and no stigma: and are thence barren. There is also a style without a stigma in the whole order dioecia ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... where it is established, more females are born than males. This appears to be an indication of nature, and to nature apparently reasonable speculations must yield. A further conclusion obviously presents itself; if polygamy be necessary, woman must be inferior to man, ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... him,—Cruikshank alone could do it justice. But the triumph of the poem is in the high-toned sentiment of civilisation and moral duty, which, esteeming 'the grey barbarian' lower than the 'Christian cad,'—and that is low enough in all conscience,—tears the captivating delusions of freedom and polygamy from the poet's eyes, even when his pulse is throbbing at the wildest, and sends him from the shades of the palm and the orange tree to the advertising columns of the 'Morning Post.' This is indeed a great poem, and we need only add that the reader will ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... is spreading at the expense of polygamy even where not favored by legal interference. The change is most evident ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... Polygamy, when tried under modern democratic conditions, as by the Mormons, is wrecked by the revolt of the mass of inferior men who are condemned to celibacy by it; for the maternal instinct leads a woman to prefer a tenth share in a first rate man to the exclusive possession of ...
— Maxims for Revolutionists • George Bernard Shaw
... does not seem to be much difficulty about the matter. Men of the Far East will submit to very low wages for the same reason that they will submit to "the punishment known as Li, or Slicing"; for the same reason that they will praise polygamy and suicide; for the same reason that they subject the wife utterly to the husband or his parents; for the same reason that they serve their temples with prostitutes for priests; for the same reason ...
— A Miscellany of Men • G. K. Chesterton
... Madan's famous book called "Thylipthora, or a Defence of Polygamy", with which they were prodigiously taken, and talked very freely of reducing the system to practice. Cornwallis, it seems, was to be a bashaw of three tails — Rawdon and Tarleton, of two each — and as a natural appendage of such high rank, they ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... be guilty of Rape,* Polygamy,** or Sodomy,*** with man or woman, shall be punished, if a man, by castration,**** if a woman, by cutting through the cartilage of her nose, a hole of one half inch in ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... attempting any reform beyond teaching monogamy in the future. Nothing will assure the enmity of a savage more than to ask him to discard any of his wives, and especially the mother of his children. While I would be the last man on earth to advocate polygamy, I can truthfully say that one of the happiest and most harmonious families I ever knew was that of the celebrated Little Crow (who, during all my official residence among the Dakotas, was my principal advisor and ambassador, and who led the massacre in 1862), who ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... to me that he had cousins all over Servia, chiefly of the female persuasion, and I am morally certain that the Turkish strain in his blood had in Andreas its natural development in a species of fin-de-siecle polygamy. Sherman's prize "bummer" was not in it with Andreas as a forager. At first, indeed, I suspected him of actual plundering, so copiously did he bring in supplies, and so little had I to pay for them; but I was not long in discovering that all kinds of produce were dirt cheap in Servia, ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... system. The change implied in this proselytism is greater in respect of some social practices than in the abstract principles of religious belief. The polyandry of the Tibetans is in direct contrast with the polygamy of the Moslems, and is far more strictly maintained. It is favored by the circumstance that, contrary to what usually obtains in old countries, the males in this region considerably outnumber the females; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... Mexican territory, outside the jurisdiction of American law. Woman suffrage was almost coincident with its beginnings, and it came as a legitimate part of the union of state and church, of communism, of polygamy. The dangers that especially threaten a republican form of government are anarchy, communism, and religious bigotry; and two of these found their fullest expression, in this country, in the Mormon creed ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... accusation enlivens the squibs of the pamphleteers of Queen Anne's reign. In the 'New Atalantis' Mrs. Manley certified that the fair victim was first persuaded by his lordship's sophistries to regard polygamy as accordant with moral law. Having thus poisoned her understanding, he gratified her with a form of marriage, in which his brother Spencer, in clerical disguise, acted the part of a priest. It was even suggested that the bride in this mock marriage was the lawyer's ward. Never ...
— A Book About Lawyers • John Cordy Jeaffreson
... case with the neighboring tribes, polygamy is practiced, the only bar to marriage being blood relationship. Upon the death of the head of the family one-half of his property goes to his wife and half to the children. If there are two or ...
— The Wild Tribes of Davao District, Mindanao - The R. F. Cummings Philippine Expedition • Fay-Cooper Cole
... the little man, and he added, in a confidential way, "It's always like this, ain't it? And must be unless you had polygamy, only the other way round; you understand." He laughed like an idiot, while I ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... constraint upon uncivilised ones which shock their moral sense beyond a certain point—as by cannibalism or human sacrifice. But such interference should stand upon a nice sense of the offender's rights, and in practice does so stand. The custom of polygamy, for instance (as practised abroad), horribly offends quite a large majority of His Majesty's lieges; yet Great Britain tolerates polygamy even in her own subject races. Neither polygamy nor uncleanliness can be held any just excuse for turning a ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... more reason for them to make a regulation in this matter, because they are the only people of those parts that neither allow of polygamy, nor of divorces, except in the case of adultery, or insufferable perverseness; for in these cases the Senate dissolves the marriage, and grants the injured person leave to marry again; but the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... "Polygamy is bad enough—especially as instances are not wanting of a man being married at the same time to a mother and her daughters, or several sisters, and in at least one instance to mother, daughter, and granddaughter; and Mormon theology teaches, too, ...
— The Two Elsies - A Sequel to Elsie at Nantucket, Book 10 • Martha Finley
... intelligent enough to understand that the opposite of a virtue is not necessarily a vice. Because we do not like the taste of one another it does not follow that the cannibal is a person of depraved appetite. Because, as a rule, we have but one wife and several mistresses each it is not certain that polygamy is everywhere—nor, for that matter, anywhere—either wrong or inexpedient. Our habit of wearing clothes does not prove that conscience of the body, the sense of shame, is charged with a divine mandate; for like the conscience ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... financial matters that ought to be left to the Treasury Department, as I understand it, instead of arising in their might and passing a law that any one admitting he is a Mormon shall simply be deported and as it were kicked out of this free country in which we haven't got any room for polygamy and the tyrannies ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... fancy the world is. One has old saints, the other invents new ones. One places miracles at a distance, t'other makes them before their eyes, while both are up to mesmerism. One says there is no marryin' in Paradise, the other says, if that's true, it's hard, and it is best to be a mormon and to have polygamy here. Then there is a third party who says, neither of you speak sense, it is better to believe nothin' than to give yourself up to be crammed. Religion, Squire, ain't natur, because it is intended to improve corrupt natur, it's no use talkin' ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... first of these legal disabilities is a prior marriage, or having another husband or wife living; in which case, besides the penalties consequent upon it as a felony, the second marriage is to all intents and purposes void[g]: polygamy being condemned both by the law of the new testament, and the policy of all prudent states, especially in these northern climates. And Justinian, even in the climate of modern Turkey, is express[h], that "duas uxores eodem tempore habere ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... Mormonism has been raised lately in this country. It is its polygamous character that has been attacked. But does polygamy deserve all that is said about it? It is not immoral and should not be criminal. Compare it with the very vicious modern custom of restricted families, which is immoral and should be criminal. Where is our population ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... pessimist, Herr Arthur Schopenhauer, advocates universal polygamy upon the theory that all women would thus be supported. To the unprejudiced observer who reads the comic papers and goes to afternoon receptions, it would seem that each woman should have several husbands, to pay her bills and see that ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed
... territory was killed by the border-guard if he was detected. Dogs and even human beings were offered as sacrifices. Their sentences for the expiation of crime were as barbarous as the people themselves. Noses and ears were cut off as the most ordinary punishment. Polygamy was practised, and eunuchs protected the harem. The ruler, who was called the 'Chagan,' had power of life and death over his subjects. He alone sat at table during his meals; his 'court,' including even his spouse, squatted around and fed upon the floor. In ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... practically recognise it to be so, the seventh is a puzzle to them. At the best they only believe it because we say that it is a Commandment of God. Look at the Canons of the early Church on the question; look how Luther sanctioned the polygamy, the double marriage, of the Landgrave of Hesse! So that although now, thank God, our scholars understand more of what is meant by living with a woman, and the relation of husband and wife is not altogether ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... before long I will get busy and write you of a visit I shall make to a Mormon bishop's household. Polygamy is still practiced. ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... all that—well, Mr Bethany might prefer to take it on the authority of the Bible if it was his duty. But it was at least mainly Old Testament stuff, like polygamy, Joshua, and the 'unclean beasts.' The 'unclean beasts.' It was simply, as Simon had said, mainly an affair of the nerves, like Indian jugglery. He had heard of dozens of such cases, or similar cases. And it was hardly ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... I heard him speak of having recourse to that cheat and impostor my spirit was grieved within me, and I wrote the Book of Ad myself. And I was heedful to put in none but wholesome and profitable precepts, and more especially did I forbid polygamy, having perceived a certain inclination thereunto in ...
— The Twilight of the Gods, and Other Tales • Richard Garnett
... fewer terms. An illustration will show how this is done. If there existed some country in which, for one reason or another, it was impossible to take a census, but in which it was known that every man had a wife and every woman a husband, then (provided polygamy was not a national institution) we should know, without counting, that there were exactly as many men as there were women in that country, neither more nor less. This method can be applied generally. If there is some relation which, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... been proved. Crimes might be falsely imputed. This he admitted; but only partially. Witchcraft, he believed, was the secret of poisoning, and therefore deserved the severest punishment. That there should be a number of convictions for adultery, where polygamy was a custom, was not to be wondered at. But he feared, if a sale of these criminals were to be done away, massacre ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... here adopted is no mere false asceticism surviving from an undisciplined and pre-scientific age, as the solemn verbiage of so much second-rate talking expresses it to-day, we may quote some words of David Hume, Huxley's "prince of agnostics," from the Essay on Polygamy and Divorce. The least emotional of philosophers—a hard-headed Scotsman—he makes short work of the sentimentality which is invoked now-a-days against ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... those territories polygamized and yet the body of the nation not feel the putrefaction. Hear it, good men and women of America, that so long ago as 1862 a law was passed by Congress forbidding polygamy in the territories and in all the places where they had jurisdiction. Twenty-two years have passed along and five administrations, armed with all the power of government, and having an army at their ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... respect. German matrons were esteemed as prophetesses and no battle was entered upon unless they had first consulted the lots and given assurance that the fight would be successful.[289] As for the British, who were not a Germanic people, Caesar says that they practiced polygamy and near relatives were accustomed to have ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... do hope you won't put your foot into the question of intermarriage of the races. It has no place on our platform, any more than the question of no marriage at all, or of polygamy, and, so far as I can prevent it, shall not be brought there. I beg you therefore not to congratulate him publicly. Were there a proposition to punish the woman and leave the man to go scot free, then we should have a protest to make against ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... discord of a bamboo tom-tom. I have reason to believe that even African barbarities had charms for the odd Englishman; but he was chiefly won by the dolce far niente of the natives, and the Oriental license of polygamy. In a word, Joseph had the same taste for a full-blooded cuffee, that an epicure has for the haut gout of a stale partridge, and was in ecstasies at my extrication. He neglected his siestas and his accounts; he wandered from ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... Polygamy is allowed amongst these people; and it is not uncommon for a man to have two or three wives. The women are marriageable at a very early age; and it should seem, that one who is unmarried, is but in a forlorn state. She can with difficulty get a subsistence; ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 15 (of 18) • Robert Kerr
... enunciation than was contained in the Liberal platform of 1872, though the assigned reason for that revolt, as given by its champions, was the alleged hostility of the Republican party to improvement in the Government service. The Protective policy was upheld; the extirpation of polygamy was demanded; and an investigation into the Chinese question, then beginning to distract ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... of them!" said Venning. "I don't know, I'm sure. I'm no lawyer, but I rather think that you, as an Englishman, would not be allowed to take two. Polygamy ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... bride Courtship and antenuptial relations Begging for the hand of the girl Determination of the marriage payment The marriage feast and payment The reciprocatory payment and banquet Marriage and marriage contracts The marriage rite Marriage by capture Prenatal marriage contracts and child marriage Polygamy and kindred institutions Endogamy and consanguineous marriages Intertribal and other marriages Married life and the position of the wife Residence of the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... this. [106] Almost singly among the barbarians, they content themselves with one wife; a very few of them excepted, who, not through incontinence, but because their alliance is solicited on account of their rank, [107] practise polygamy. The wife does not bring a dowry to her husband, but receives one from him. [108] The parents and relations assemble, and pass their approbation on the presents—presents not adapted to please a female taste, or decorate the bride; ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... true an Englishman," said Eve, shaking hands cordially with their well-meaning neighbour, "that he would give a certificate in favour of polygamy, if it had a ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... had a vote, it would surely be cast in favour of polygamy. Man is forever sexual, and in equal degree, until the verge of decrepitude. Woman passes through the stages of fecundation, pregnancy, ...
— Youth and Egolatry • Pio Baroja
... was an immemorial custom among the Jews, and their forefathers, the patriarchs, to have sometimes more wives or wives and concubines, than one at the same the and that this polygamy was not directly forbidden in the law of Moses is evident; but that polygamy was ever properly and distinctly permitted in that law of Moses, in the places here cited by Dean Aldrich, Deuteronomy 17:16, 17, or 21:15, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... provoke us too far. The Ewigweibliche has become too literal a fact, and in our reaction against this everlasting woman question we shall develop in unexpected directions. Her cry for equal purity will but end in the formal institution of the polygamy of ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... I thought of a dozen questions I wanted to ask the Bishop, but I could never ask that care-worn little woman anything concerning their peculiar belief. However, I was spared the trouble, for soon the children retired and the conversation drifted around to Mormonism and polygamy; and our hostess seemed to want to talk, so I just listened, for Mrs. O'Shaughnessy rather likes to "argufy"; but she had no argument that night, only her questions ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... inferiority of the female sex is still apparent—namely, in the illiteracy of females, in marriage before womanhood, in polygamy, in the seclusion of women, and in the prohibition of the marriage of widows. Excepting the last, no one of these customs is imposed by caste, nor is the last even ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison
... time to time had urged him to put her away by divorce, and marry a Protestant who might bear him children. Even my Lord Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burnet, had, thirteen or fourteen years ago given as his opinion that a barren wife might be divorced, and even that polygamy was not contrary to the New Testament! This, however, Charles had flatly refused to countenance; and, when he thought of it, now and again, shewed her a sort of compassionate kindness, in spite of his distaste for ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... except the authors, Haldane and Leslie, "has broken the everlasting Covenant." The very Confession of Westminster is arraigned for its laxity. "The whole Civil and Judicial Law of God," as given to the Jews (except the ritual, polygamy, divorce, slavery, and so forth), is to be maintained in the law of Scotland. Sins are acknowledged, and since the Covenant every political step—Cromwell's Protectorate, the Restoration, the Revolution, the accession of the "Dukes of Hanover"—has been a sin. A Court of Elders ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... a moment regret our philanthropical move, despite its awful waste of life and gold. England, however can do her duty to Africa without cant, and humbug, and nonsense about the 'sin and crime of slavery.' Serfdom, like cannibalism and polygamy, are the steps by which human society rose to its present status: to abuse them is ignorantly to kick down the ladder. The spirit of Christianity may tend to abolish servitude; but the letter distinctly admits it, and the translators have unfairly rendered 'slave' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... the sons and daughters of the chief married as often as they could also, it can be imagined that the main connecting links between the heads of families and their chief, and that which marked him out most prominently as a superior, was this marriage, or rather polygamy business. ...
— Samoa, A Hundred Years Ago And Long Before • George Turner
... the same thing, another way of writing or pronouncing the identical same dignity or rank. Well, you know that polygamy is the pet vice of the ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... Polygamy is never thought of by the Sakais but bigamy is not an absolute exclusion although it very rarely takes place because as soon as a woman sees that her husband is enamoured of another she is the first to propose a divorce and no ...
— My Friends the Savages - Notes and Observations of a Perak settler (Malay Peninsula) • Giovanni Battista Cerruti
... they grew towards manhood, of frequent and severe quarrels between them, and gave me much trouble and anxiety for their safety. After Thomas and John arrived to manhood, in addition to the former charge, John got two wives, with whom he lived till the time of his death. Although polygamy was tolerated in our tribe, Thomas considered it a violation of good and wholesome rules in society, and tending directly to destroy that friendly social intercourse and love, that ought to be the happy ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... history and biography, science and legislation, poetry, drama and fiction of a whole people for something like a thousand years, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove anything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to do. The "Holy Book" being full of polygamy, slavery, rape and wholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the Protestant Slavers to construct a Bible defense of ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... their faith, and a faith which breeds heroes is better than an unbelief which leaves nothing worth being a hero for. Only let us be fair, and not defend the creed of Mohammed because it nurtured brave men and enlightened scholars, or refrain from condemning polygamy in our admiration of the indomitable spirit and perseverance of the Pilgrim Fathers of Mormonism, or justify an inhuman belief, or a cruel or foolish superstition, because it was once held or acquiesced in by men whose nobility of character we heartily recognize. The New England ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... fanatics whose works were fatal to them must be enrolled the famous advocates of polygamy, Johann Lyser, Bernardino Ochino, and Samuel Friedrich Willenberg. Lyser was born at Leipsic in 1631, and although he ever remained a bachelor and abhorred womankind, nevertheless tried to demonstrate that not only ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield
... Polygamy is, of course, the general custom, the number of a man's wives depending entirely upon his wealth, precisely as would the number of his horses in England. There is no such thing as LOVE in these countries; the feeling is not understood, nor does it exist in the shape in which we understand ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... charitable suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have: our nature, I think, not sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore your death; or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear friendships, the mere changes and recurrences of grief and mourning would be intolerable, and tax our lives beyond their value. In ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... citizens' dress, and doing business as white men do it. One of Pastor Eells's first Sundays at the mission was noted for the celebration of Christian marriage on the part of seven or eight couples who had been living together under their heathen way of taking up. So they have been shuffling off their polygamy. While we were there, a man of middle life came to the pastor's house with his first wife, to be married to her after the Christian form, having made a satisfactory pecuniary arrangement with the second, ...
— American Missionary, Volume 44, No. 6, June, 1890 • Various
... were brave, and all the women were chaste;" and notwithstanding the latter of these virtues is acquired and preserved with much more difficulty than the former, it is ascribed, almost without exception, to the wives of the ancient Germans. Polygamy was not in use, except among the princes, and among them only for the sake of multiplying their alliances. Divorces were prohibited by manners rather than by laws. Adulteries were punished as rare and inexpiable crimes; nor was seduction justified by example and fashion. [56] We may easily ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... flourished throughout the history of the world, that it exists among savages, even among animals, but we fail to observe how far that monogamy differs from ours, even assuming that our monogamy is a real monogamy and not a disguised polygamy, especially in the fact that it is a free union and only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural virtues is not quite so firm as we assert; we are always ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... age," and the result was that "when his brethren [who were only his half-brothers] saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him."[92] When such tales as these came west in Christian times, their references to polygamy were constantly suppressed, and their distinctions between brothers and half-brothers disappeared. In the same way the elder and jealous wife, who had behaved with cruelty in the original stories to the offspring of her rival, often ...
— Russian Fairy Tales - A Choice Collection of Muscovite Folk-lore • W. R. S. Ralston
... always lived with him in the same house, and who died leaving two boys. She is neither young nor handsome, but he considered it his duty to provide for her and the children, and not to let her marry a stranger. So you see that polygamy is not always sensual indulgence, and a man may practise greater self-sacrifice so than by talking sentiment about deceased wives' sisters. Hassan has 3 pounds a month, and two wives come expensive. I said, laughing, to Omar as we left him, that I did not think the two wives ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... a statute approved March 22, 1882, and by statutes in furtherance and amendment thereof defined the crimes of bigamy, polygamy, and unlawful cohabitation in the Territories and other places within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States and prescribed a ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... appearance of her having been either a drudge or a plaything. She was regarded as man's true "helpmate," shared his thoughts, ruled his family, and during their early years had the charge of his children. Polygamy was unknown in Egypt during the primitive period; even the kings had then but one wife. Sneferu's wife was a certain Mertitefs, who bore him a son, Nefer-mat, and after his death became the wife of his successor. ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... reproductive powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male; and hence the dissoluteness of morals would be phenomenal, were it not obviated by seclusion, the sabre and the revolver. In cold-dry or hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either form, legal or illegal (i,e. prostitution) I have discussed this curious point of "geographical morality" (for all morality is, like conscience, both geographical and chronological), ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... Polygamy is not uncommonly practised; and an old man, especially, among other privileges, may have as many gins, or wives, as he can keep, or maintain. Indeed, the maintenance of a wife is not expensive, since they are expected ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... previous colonies had deserted it,—and in a climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of civilization, utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service time, and left Old Montagu, who still ...
— Black Rebellion - Five Slave Revolts • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... individuals of the other sex, characterized in some peculiar manner, the offspring would slowly but surely become modified in this same manner. I have not attempted to conceal that, excepting when the males are more numerous than the females, or when polygamy prevails, it is doubtful how the more attractive males succeed in leaving a larger number of offspring to inherit their superiority in ornaments or other charms than the less attractive males; but I ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... Ogg's, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in traveling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge. She could have informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy," and being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had deduced the conclusion that "poly" meant "many"; but she had had no idea that gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts were the oddest mixture of ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... organization which, while it perhaps made them less sensible of pain, certainly made them less susceptible of passion, than the higher races of men, the Hurons were notoriously dissolute, far exceeding in this respect the wandering and starving Algonquins. [ 1 ] Marriage existed among them, and polygamy was exceptional; but divorce took place at the will or caprice of either party. A practice also prevailed of temporary or experimental marriage, lasting a day, a week, or more. The seal of the compact was merely the ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... tabernacle, "with ten curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet, with cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them," the interest of the little boys rather languished; likewise through His regulations about such dry matters as slavery, divorce, and polygamy. His directions for killing witches and for stoning the ox that gores a man or woman had more of colour in them. But there was no real interest until the good God promised His children to bring them in unto the Amorites and the Hittites ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... and yet be faithful to your marriage vows—how to obtain all the excitement of polygamy, all the relief of the divorce court without the bother and the scandal and the expense. Why can't you look at it ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair
... at best, only necessary evils, to be endured, as tradition says Confucius taught, only as the possible mothers of men. Yet the condition of women in China is far superior to that in any other heathen country. Monogamy is the rule in China, polygamy is the exception, being confined to the three classes, the rich, the officials, and those who can by effort afford to take a secondary wife, their first wife having failed to give birth to ...
— An Australian in China - Being the Narrative of a Quiet Journey Across China to Burma • George Ernest Morrison
... the Manbo is in practice a monogamist, but polygamy is permitted with the consent of the first wife and, in cases that I have known, by her direction and even according to her selection. She finds her work too burdensome and directs her husband to get another helpmate. As a rule, however, ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Public speaking, it is seen, is practiced in the infancy of Greek society. (2) Customs. People live in hill-villages, surrounded by walls. Life is patriarchal, and, as regards the domestic circle, humane. Polygamy, the plague of Oriental society, does not exist. Women are held in high regard. Slavery is everywhere established. Side by side with piracy and constant war, and the supreme honor given to military prowess, there is a fine and bountiful ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... a snatch as they can come by it, borrow of their neighbours, than have wives of their own; except they may, as some princes and great men do, keep as many courtesans as they will themselves, fly out impune, [5776]Permolere uxores alienas, that polygamy of Turks, Lex Julia, with Caesar once enforced in Rome, (though Levinus Torrentius and others suspect it) uti uxores quot et quas vellent liceret, that every great man might marry, and keep as many wives as he would, or Irish divorcement were in use: but as it is, 'tis hard ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... for that. Understand we are shutting our eyes to every other consideration but physical or quasi- physical ones. Imagine the thing done, for example, by a Mr. Francis Galton, who had an absolutely open mind upon all other questions. Some form of polygamy, marriage of the most transient description, with reproduction barred to specified types, would probably come from such a speculation. But, in addition, a number of people who can have only a few children ...
— Mankind in the Making • H. G. Wells
... classes in his country with extreme violence; but when the peasants rose, with their just and reasonable demands, and threatened Saxony, he issued a tract insisting that they should be cut to pieces. He valued the royal prerogative so highly that he made it include polygamy. He advised Henry VIII that the right way out of his perplexity was to marry a second wife without repudiating the first. And when the Landgrave Philip asked for leave to do the same thing, Luther gave it on condition that it was denied. ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... of that country was by no means devoid of interest. From Swiss history we passed to the history and constitution of ancient Greece, to the theory of constitutions, to the striking difference of those of the Asiatic nations, and the causes of this difference, to be found in the climate and in polygamy, to the widely different characters of the Arabs (whom the emperor extolled very highly), and the Tartars, which led us to the invasions always threatening civilization from that side, and the necessity of raising a bulwark against ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... annuls it, even the seventh commandment, the violation of which is so offensive to decency and its observance so necessary to the purity of the home, may in this way be ruled out as a binding obligation. Let polygamy be the order, supported by the example of Jacob and David and Solomon, and the families be constituted along that line, then enforced monogamy would seem to be a sundering of tender ties and hardness toward the cast off Hagars that is inconsistent ...
— Usury - A Scriptural, Ethical and Economic View • Calvin Elliott
... them to gain sympathy as having been persecuted in a slave State. They moved to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1840, and built up Nauvoo by a charter with most unusual privileges. Smith here announced a new revelation, sustaining polygamy, which was supplemented by Young in 1852. His rebellious followers started a paper, which he promptly demolished. He was under arrest by the State authorities when a mob shot him on the 27th of June, 1844. On his death Brigham Young tricked ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... being sought to justify at Hong Kong a state of things as to slavery that the laws of China forbade and which in no wise could be justified as Chinese "custom." "The reason for this immense demand for young female domestics lies in the system of polygamy which obtains all over the empire, and which has a religious basis." By this he means that it is from the Chinese standpoint a religious duty for a father to leave a son, upon his death, to continue the family sacrifices. Therefore ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... polygamy, and to the practice of burning prisoners. He is reported to have lived forty years with one wife, and to have reared a numerous family of children, who both loved and esteemed him. His disposition ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... Under conditions of polygamy the woman is rarely subjected to sexual intercourse for other than procreative purposes, and even granting that the man has intercourse for procreation only, if he had twelve wives, he would be having it twelve times as frequently as any ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... expositor. Smoot takes his seat in the upper house of Congress with a first purpose of carrying forth, so far as lies within his hands, the plans of the conspirators. What is the purpose of the conspirators? To protect themselves and their fellow Mormons in the criminal practice of polygamy, and prevent their prosecution as bigamists by ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... crime of having two or more wives, and is also called polygamy. But bigamy literally signifies having two wives, and polygamy any number more than one. These words, in law, are applied also to women having two or more husbands. A person having a lawful husband or wife living, and marrying another person, is guilty of bigamy. An unmarried person, also, ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... immediate admission of Kansas into the Union under the Topeka Constitution; and resolved, amidst the greatest enthusiasm, that "it is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... absurd,—what conduct so immoral, as not to find patronage in the journals of the day? or not to find tolerance or protection under the fostering wings of church or state? What is impiously called "free love," as well as avowed infidelity and polygamy, are patronized by constituted authorities in Christendom. When taking a survey of the errors and systems of error, hostile to the honor of Messiah and the free grace of his gospel, how few can be found in the different nations of ...
— Notes On The Apocalypse • David Steele
... term than polygamy—was the inevitable result of the patriarchal system. Man made the law and the law recognized no restraint upon his sexual and parental instincts. Improvements in living added to the resources of the family and made it possible to maintain large households of wives, children, and slaves. ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... males. It may be inferred, that in the social life of "eagle-dom" the fair sex have their "rights," and perhaps a little more. One thing is certain, and it seems to be a consequence of this (in compliment to the sex I say it) that nothing like polygamy is known amongst them. Woe to the eagle husband that would even dream of such ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... with that of the family relations. Polygamy was rare, monogamy the rule; but the right of concubinage was unlimited. While a high position was accorded both by affection and custom to the married wife, traces still existed of a state of society in which she was regarded as property that went with ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... a condition of full spiritual development, is most highly commended; but a marriage to one wife and fidelity to her is recognised as a kind of chastity. Polygamy was censured by the Buddha as involving ignorance and ...
— The Buddhist Catechism • Henry S. Olcott
... Lord, as has been abundantly shewn above. This cannot be effected with polygamists; for they divide conjugial love; and this love when divided, is not unlike the love of the sex, which in itself is natural; but on this subject something worthy of attention may be seen in the section on POLYGAMY. ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Polygamy, although one of their institutions, is little practised, as few men have more than one wife at a time. The betrothal of a female takes place in infancy, and often even before birth. A few half-caste children have been born, but they do not appear ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... should be astonished at any thing in these days—by assuring me that you have lately heard this system eloquently defended by a female philosopher. What can women expect from it but contempt? Next to polygamy, it would prove the most certain method of destroying the domestic happiness of the sex, as well as their influence and respectability in society. But some of the dear creatures love to talk of what they do not understand, and ...
— Tales And Novels, Vol. 8 • Maria Edgeworth
... Matthews of the United States Supreme Court stated the same view with even greater clearness in one of the Utah polygamy cases (Murphy v. Ramsey, 114 U.S. 44, 45): "It rests with Congress to say whether in a given case any of the people resident in the Territory shall participate in the election of its officers or the making of its laws. It may take from them any right of suffrage it may previously have conferred, ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... wove, navigated rivers in sailboats, and fought with bows, lances, and swords. They had clear perceptions of the rights of property, which were based on land. Their morals were simple and pure, and they had strong natural affections. Polygamy was unknown among them. They had no established sacerdotal priesthood. They worshipped the powers of Nature, especially fire, the source of light and heat, which they so much needed in their dreary land. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... on the altar of monogamy? The women here referred to and who are placed in this wretched position are the inevitable counterbalance to the European lady, with her pretensions and arrogance. Hence polygamy is a real benefit to the female sex, taking it as a whole. And, on the other hand, there is no reason why a man whose wife suffers from chronic illness, or remains barren, or has gradually become too old for him, should not take a second. ...
— Essays of Schopenhauer • Arthur Schopenhauer |
