WOMEN UNDER POLYGAMY
Although men scarcely realise the fact, women in civilised communities are the predominant controllers of the sex relations. If women in England elected to live either in polygamy or in polyandry men would be forced sooner or later to accept the condition. The "mate-hunger" of the male renders him, to a large extent, the servitor, and often the dupe of the female. A sex-strike among the greater mass of Western women would overthrow the supposed male supremacy in a few weeks, and lead to a complete reconstruction of ethical and social views regarding love and marriage.
Another inevitable concomitant of the harem system is jealousy. This passion is common enough in monogamous conjugality. But it is even more likely to show itself, in its basest forms, among a number of women equally anxious to win the favour of a common spouse. The seraglio is often the scene of bitter envies, quarrels, plots, and sometimes of crimes arising from this source. No doubt the women of polygamous countries are taught to subjugate the instinct of jealousy. A really jealous woman would find harem life unbearable. But even the defenders of plural marriage do not all assert that jealousy is absent.
The glaring contrast that Western polygyny affords to Eastern polygyny is in the fact that our variety is without obligations. The Oriental concubine, mis-
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