WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
but an excess of one sex over the other is, no doubt, a factor. In the Western nations of to-day, where the female population exceeds the male, there is no sanctioned and recognised polygamy. But there is an irregular form of polyandry exampled in the universal practice of prostitution, and more or less open concubinage.
No doubt, the dominant primitive man resembled the gorilla in his desire to possess more than one wife. The craving for variety in sexual unions is probably as deep-rooted in human nature as the desire to subdue enemies and to reap the wealth of conquest. This impulse of sexual variety is checked and thwarted by various means among masses of the people of the West.
Nevertheless, in spite of religious inhibitions, public opinion, psychic refinement in sexual appetite, poverty, and other obstacles to the gratification of polygamous yearnings, there are many instances of the expression of this innate and imperious passion for variety. Christianity and Christian legislation have not succeeded in annihilating the wandering sexual longings of those men and women in whom basic and pristine emotions survive.
"What is the meaning of maintaining monogamy?" wrote James Hinton. "Do you call English life monogamous?"
Our monogamy is constantly varied by polygyny, or
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