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18 by bringing the Jews into closer relation with the rest of mankind. The Greeks and Romans were monogamists, and the Jews of the dispersion were, in spite of themselves, compelled to mitigate their provincialism in many respects. The sexual license of the Græco-Roman world was, indeed, truly repugnant to the best instincts of a race which treasured the pure teachings of the prophets, but in the particular matter of polygamy the Jews were probably assisted by the influence of their Gentile neighbours to escape in practice from a vicious theory. Dr. Edersheim writes:

"The readers of the New Testament cannot but feel that the relations there indicated proceed upon the assumption that monogamy was the rule, and polygamy the exception. The permission of polygamy, and the comparative facility of obtaining a divorce, may seem to militate against the fundamental idea of the marriage relation. But against these drawbacks we have to put the two indubitable facts, that generally men were only united in wedlock to one wife, and that Jewish females occupied not only a comparatively but an absolutely high position. The law throughout recognised and protected the rights of women, and discouraged the practice of polygamy. An impartial reader cannot rise from the perusal, not of a few isolated passages, but of the sections