WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
to refer at length to the subject. But it is most important that we should recognise the extreme facility offered for the indulgence of men's tendency to variety by the provision of a huge class of outcast women in monogamous countries.
The institution was condemned by Mahommed. It was banned in ancient Persia, India, and Burma. The Persian "Zendavesta" denounced the practice in the plainest terms. For the origin of modern systematic, commercial "white slavery" we must look to the West. Condemned by religion, by most social reformers, and often inhibited by law, the courtesan still thrives among all the Western races.
The species of polygyny in the West approaching more closely to the permissible polygamic marriage of the East is the intimacy of married men with mistresses or lovers. Such association is of a more constant character than that of the ephemeral traffic with the demi-mondaine.
"The double establishment," "the left-handed marriage," the "morganatic marriage" are terms applied to the cohabitation that we incorrectly label as Western "polygamy." There is actually very little hindrance in all parts of Europe and America to the indulgence of men's polygynous propensity. The responsibility is far less here in England than in Mohammedan countries. Although religious ethics
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