WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
maintaining "amies" or mistresses. The frequency of irregular attachments in France is attributable in a large degree to the commercialisation of marriage. Union in wedlock for love alone is comparatively rare among the French.
It may be asked whether the powerful psychic and physical attraction, which is the source of the highest form of love between the sexes, is usually perceptible in average marriage in the West. Most men and women unite in wedlock for a number of reasons besides passion; and in this fact lies the cause of numerous cases of post-marital love affairs. The marriage of convenience, the decorous, cool-blooded alliance of two prudent persons, who affect to despise mere sentiment and passion, may prove tolerably successful.
But often there comes an hour when one or the other experiences that profound and all-powerful emotion that is associated with a romantic love. Our divorce court cases give abundant proof that mercenary marriage, and unions entered into without absorbing affection on both sides, frequently end in tragedy.
Romain Rolland says truly: "The majority of men have not vitality enough to give themselves wholly to any passion. They spare themselves and save their force with cowardly prudence."
Ill-assorted marriages from which there is no reput-
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