Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/144

 132 and polygyny on recalling two facts named in the chapter on "Exogamy and Endogamy." By members of savage communities, captured women are habitually taken as additional wives or concubines, and the reputations of warriors are enhanced in proportion to the numbers thus obtained. As Mr. McLennan points out, certain early peoples permitted foreign wives (presumably along with other wives) to the military class, when wives from alien societies were forbidden to other classes. Even among the Hebrews the laws authorized such appropriations of women taken in war. The further direct connection is, that where loss of many men in frequent battles leaves a great surplus of women, the possession of more wives than one by each man conduces to the maintenance of population and the preservation of the society: continuance of polygyny being, under these circumstances, insured by the conflicts between such societies, which, other things equal, entail the disappearance of those not practising it. To which must be added the converse fact that, in proportion as decreasing militancy and increasing industrialness cause an approximate equalization of the sexes in numbers, there results a growing resistance to polygyny; since it cannot be practised by many of the men without leaving many of the rest wifeless, and causing an antagonism inconsistent with social stability. Hence monogamy is to a great extent compelled by that balance of the sexes which industrialism brings about.

Once more, the natural relation between polygyny and predominant militancy, and between monogamy and predominant industrialness, is shown by the fact that these two domestic forms harmonize in principle with the two associated political forms. We have seen that the militant type of social structure is based on the principle of compulsory coöperation, while the industrial type of social structure is based on the principle of voluntary coöperation. Now, it is clear that plurality of wives, whether the wives are captured in war or purchased from their fathers regardless of their own wills, implies domestic rule of the compulsory type: the husband is despot and the wives are slaves. Conversely, the establishment of monogamy where fewer women are taken in war and fewer men lost in war is accompanied by an increased value of the individual woman, who, even when purchased, is therefore likely to be better treated. And when, with further advance, some power of choice is acquired by the woman, there is an approach to that voluntary coöperation which characterizes this marital relation in its highest form. The domestic despotism which polygyny involves is congruous with the political despotism proper to predominant militancy; and the diminishing political coercion which naturally follows development of the industrial type is congruous with the diminishing domestic coercion which naturally follows the accompanying development of monogamy.

Probably the histories of European peoples will be cited in