CHAPTER IV
ANCIENT JEWISH POLYGAMY
Among the Semitic people more than one kind of marriage existed. Jacob was the husband of two sisters, and Amram, the father of Moses, married his aunt. The greatest of the Jewish saints were polygamists, and many owned concubines and slave-women. David possessed both wives and concubines. Solomon was the lord of seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines.
Purchase-marriage was the custom; the Hebrew parent was allowed to sell his daughter as a wife, concubine, or maid-servant. The purchaser could dismiss the wife or handmaiden at will. Plurality of wives was also maintained, as in Babylon and Egypt, by the capture of women in warfare.
When Moses conquered the Midianites, he commanded: "Now, therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him. But all the women children that
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