Page:Walter Matthew Gallichan - Women under Polygamy (1914).djvu/50

 forbidden to wreak vengeance on an aggressor, showed his annoyance by exposing those parts of the body usually concealed. Such exposures are manifestations of ritual, and have nothing to do with lasciviousness. On certain occasions, the Hebrew prophets cast off their clothing, as a symbol or demonstration of emotion.

Special regulations guarded the pregnant woman and the mother during the period of suckling. Lactation is often prolonged for three years in the East, and, during the exercise of this function, women are compelled to live as celibates. As this would involve sexual abstinence on the part of the husband of one wife, we have here, in part, the origin of the sanction of polygamy. But this injunction does not account for polygamous marriage. Its sources, as I have indicated, sprang from our animal ancestry and primitive appetite.

Although cleanliness of the body was taught, the public bath was not recommended. Mohammed, who probably held the common belief that baths are haunted by evil spirits, forbade this ablution in public. Later, however, he relaxed this rule, and men and women were allowed to bathe, provided they wore loin cloths.

"Whatever woman enters a bath the devil is with her," declared the prophet. Nevertheless, the