WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
In the West, the relations of the sexes are in a curiously chaotic state. Monogamous wedlock is only one form of sexual association. A. E. Crawley, in his article on "Chastity," in "The Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics," says very truly that "at least 50 per cent, of the sexual intercourse that occurs in Western nations is outside the bonds of wedlock."
"The Churches do not help to solve the problem by preaching total abstinence and encouraging scientific ignorance; their attitude is part of the conventional sexual morality of the time. They can aid in the scientific rehabilitation of a natural chastity only by joining hands with science. Western science to-day has begun their work by a thorough study of the sexual impulse, and important pioneering has been effected in the education of the intelligent upon these subjects and in the development of eugenic research."[1]
It is fairly certain that sexual promiscuity never prevailed among primitive people to the extent that it prevails in the most highly-civilised nations of to-day. Prostitution, as we have seen, is one of the evils rarely apparent among polygamic nations.
Enforced celibacy for a host of normal women, with the normal woman's desire for the love and companion-
- ↑ Op. cit. A. E. Crawley.
317
