CHAPTER XXVIII
WESTERN POLYGYNY
The religion, laws, and customs of the West forbid plural marriage. Monogamy is the only recognised and permissible state of wedlock in the greater part of Europe, and in all the advanced civilisations of the American continent. Mormon polygamy is practised in spite of the law of the United States. There is no other conventional form of polygamous union in the highly-civilised Western societies.
As we have seen in our survey of Eastern polygamy, there is always a general tendency towards monogamy, and single marriage is the custom of the great majority of Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Hindus, Burmese, and Persians. Among the Christian Latin, Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races, where permanent monogamous marriage is the only religious and legally-sanctioned union, there is a bias on the part of a large number of the population towards polygynous practices.
Polygamy is severely interdicted, and in most communities punished; but the sexual association of men
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