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 CHAPTER IX.

POLYGAMY OF CIVILISED PEOPLE.

I. The Stage of Polygamy.—Primitive polygamy—Man resigns himself to monogamy. II. Arab Polygamy.—Why the Mussulmans have remained polygamous—The inferiority of woman proclaimed by the Koran—Polygamic restrictions in the Koran—Religion sanctions the right of conjugal property—The purchased woman—The conjugal prerogatives of the prophet—Duties of the polygamous husband—Celestial polygamy—The Mussulman marriage is laic—Female merchandise—The preliminaries of marriage—Duties and obligations of the Mussulman husband; his rights—Marriage in Kabyle—Cruel subjection of the Kabyle wife—Sale and purchase of the wife—Excessive rights of the Kabyle husband—The Kabyle marriage is inferior to the Arab marriage—Polygamy and the subjection of women. III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.—Monogamy of the priests in Egypt—Polygamy of the Incas and of the nobles in Peru—Polygamy of the nobles in Mexico—Polygamy with monogamic tendency. IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.—Polygamy and concubinage of princes in Persia—Severity of sexual morality in the Avesta—Polygamy according to the Rig-Veda—Polygamy in the Code of Manu—Evolution of polygamy in India—How monogamy became established. I. The Stage of Polygamy.

Our inquiry is already sufficiently advanced to give us an idea of the first phases of the evolution of marriage. To begin with, both in the case of human beings and of anthropoid apes, sexual unions have not been reduced to any rule; promiscuity has been rare and