Walter Matthew Gallichan

“ Ill-assorted marriages from which there is no reputable method of escape are a prolific source of Western polygyny. Most happily-married men are quite content under monogamy, in spite of the variability of male desire. But an enormous number of men, and of women also, live in continual secret revolt against single marriage.
x It is dangerous to blind ourselves in this matter. Neither sanctioned polygamy, nor sanctioned monogamy, are adapted to the emotional and passional needs of the whole body of men and women of a race or a nation. ”

“ Until then indissoluble marriage will continue to be one of the sources of polygyny in Europe and America.
Another cause of polygyny, especially in Great Britain, is to be sought in the preponderance of women in the population. The surplus of marriageable women who remain single is often overstated. Never- theless, there is an immense army of compulsory celibate women. Certain city areas are inhabited chiefly by unmarried women. Such a phenomenon utterly bewilders the intelligent Eastern visitor. ”

“ There is little need to insist upon the frequency of legal marriage with super-added " free love." Every medical man of fairly wide experience knows perfectly well that many persons of both sexes exhibit the polygynous instinct. We may grant that monogamy is the highest and best form of sex-union; but what are we to say of that pseudo-monogamy which is so common in all the Western lands ? ”

“ It is hardly necessary to add to the list of great men who have manifested the capacity for loving several women in succession, and not infrequently more than one at the same time.
The masculine bias for plural love must not, how- ever, be over-estimated. There are, without ques- tion, men of the Western races to whom the bare idea of cohabitation, or casual sexual association, with more than one woman is supremely repugnant. Where monogamy is slowly taking the place of polygamy, we notice that men seek a compensation by forming a suc- cession of single unions. ”

“ It has been the unwritten law of most Western countries that sovereigns and princes shall be allowed to indulge in polygyny. Anyone only superficially acquainted with the histories of the courts of Europe can point to a number of instances.
When polygamy is interdicted men endeavour to mitigate the restrictions of monogamous marriage by sex intimacy with two or more women, one being the recognised and lawful wife. The irksomeness of monogamy drives a certain number of men to plural sexual associations. Westgrmarek admits that polygyny is often the result of legal monogamy. ”

“ It is, therefore, not the sanction that promotes invariably the frequency of the practice of polygyny.
Human nature is perverse. Men of the West invented single marriage, but they have in large numbers always rebelled secretly against its inhibitions and limitations. Theological morality declared that men and women must marry for life, or abstain entirely from any kind of sexual union. ”

“ As we have seen in our survey of Eastern polygamy, there is always a general tendency towards monogamy, and single marriage is the custom of the great majority of Turks, Arabs, Egyptians, Hindus, Burmese, and Persians. Among the Christian Latin, Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races, where permanent monogamous marriage is the only religious and legally-sanctioned union, there is a bias on the part of a large number of the population towards polygynous practices. ”

“ Convention and public opinion, though often lax in the case of man's variability, are still a deterrent influence. Religion also serves as a restraint upon minds swayed by beliefs and theological precepts. Often, no doubt, the innately polygynous man is hindered from indulging his propensity by reasoned ethical and social considerations.
Nevertheless, it is useless to pretend that the practices of unrecognised polygyny and " wild love " are purely Eastern, or confined entirely to primitive races. ”

“ He asks, reasonably enough, how we reconcile the boast of our advanced and humane civilisation with the fact that tens of thousands of our women are deprived of the primary rights of love, marriage, and the reproduction of offspring. ”

“ What it proves is that marriage is becoming less popular among both sexes; that the number of men is disproportionate to the number of women, and that men find a substitute for matrimony in polygyny, and more especially in prostitution. ”

“ A number of writers have declared that prostitution is inseparable from the system of monogamous marriage. Do we not find that in the countries where polygamy is allowed by religion and law monogamy is the general rule, and that the bartering of sex-love by courtesans is uncommon? ”

“ A fairly large proportion of men confess freely that, from the ethical and the social points of view, lifelong fidelity to one woman is a lofty ideal. But nature, they add, has not shaped them for the restraints of mono- gamic wedlock. They admit that they can love more than one woman at the same time, and that they give way to their polygynous obsessions. ”

“ Roman Catholic absolutism in matrimonial matters rendered divorce impossible. Once married, always married, and for good or ill. Protestantism recognised that such a decree was arbitrary, and legal separation and divorce were provided for by the law. Slowly, but inevitably, the links of the chain of wedlock have been loosened, and the new divorce measures show a wider appreciation of human needs. The enforced fettering of the unfortunately married will be one day regarded as a relic of a barbarous age. ”

“ Monarchs and nobles throughout the whole of Europe, and in all ages, have imitated Eastern polygamy by the maintenance of court mistresses and paramours. This precedent made plural love a fashionable and popular custom among the affluent. Schopenhauer boldly affirmed that we, all of us, for some time at least, live in polygamy ”

“ Out of the orgy arose that other form of reaction known in all advanced nations as prostitution. When we speak in Eng- land of " secret " polygamy we misuse a term signify- ing sanctioned plural conjugality. There is no legal polygamy in Great Britain, but there is, biologi- cally speaking, a constant practice of polygyny. The polygynous man may be described as one who is not content with one mate at a time. He is not constant in his desires. ”

“ Such a sub- stitute for polygamous marriage is not repellent to a number of Europeans, and as a practice it is commoner than association with more than one woman at the same time. The latter form of irregularity is especially odious to a fair proportion of Western men, who may be classed biologically as monogamic by instinct. ”

“ Many men and women of genius have displayed an aptitude for polygyny, but probably not in a greater degree than less gifted persons. The amours of the ordinary man are not recorded, as in the case of the man of genius. ”

“ For the origin of modern systematic, commercial " white slavery " we must look to the West. Condemned by religion, by most social re- formers, and often inhibited by law, the courtesan still thrives among all the Western races. ”

“ It may be asked whether the powerful psychic and physical attraction, which is the source of the highest form of love between the sexes, is usually perceptible in average marriage in the West. Most men and women unite in wedlock for a number of reasons besides passion ”

“ It is true that all men if the testimony of the sub- jects themselves is to be accepted are not naturally inclined to plurality in sex partnerships. There is no reason to question the admissions of a large number of men that their instincts are wholly monogamous. These are the natural, the typical, monogamic lovers. I have interrogated very many of my sex on this sub- ject. The bulk have replied that the impulse for variety in sexual relations has assailed them from time to time, and even after marriage of esteem and affec- tion ”

“ Nothing could be plainer than the Christian teaching upon the sin of unchastity. Apostles, Fathers, Bishops, and Popes have denounced inconstancy in the state of wedlock. Cruel punishments have been inflicted upon the unchaste and the adulterous, from social ostracism to death itself. ”

“ All creative artists are intensely attuned to the sense of beauty, and this hypersensitiveness, coupled with the virility that so often accompanies strong intellectual power, induces amorous preoccupation. ”

“ The responsibility is far less here in England than in Mohammedan countries. Although religious ethics clearly forbid such plural intimacies, it is well known that society condones the men who engage in them, while the woman is generally condemned. ”

“ In the time of Moses, women taken in warfare became the wives, concubines, or slaves of their captors.
Maimon, the Jewish historian, states that a man might possess as many wives as he could afford to main- tain. So general, therefore, was the custom of polygamy that the early Christians were confronted with a very formidable social problem. As a matter of fact, plural marriage, even though it was considered an offence, was not wholly abolished for many centuries after the time of St. ”

“ The social evil " flourishes chiefly where there is the strictest insistence on permanent monogamic mar- riage. We, as monogamists, are bound to accept this too-evident fact. Before English religious reformers attempted to dispel the creeds and the customs of India, there was practically no bartering of the sexes in the form which we know only too well. ”

“ The subject for months has had my careful scrutiny, and I have found the con- dition of affairs to be absolutely damnable."
In Russia, Tolstoy said that "out of a hundred men there is hardly one who has not been married before, and out of fifty hardly one who has not made up his mind to deceive his wife." ”

“ Life of Byron," states that all the greatest artists and poets have been 1 either strangers or rebels to domestic ties." If constant susceptibility to love is a mark of the poly- gynous impulse, as it would seem to be, then poets from Ovid to Byron and Burns undoubtedly instance that impulse. ”

“ Our divorce court cases give abundant proof that mercenary mar- riage, and unions entered into without absorbing affec- tion on both sides, frequently end in tragedy.
Romain Rolland says truly: < The majority of men have not vitality enough to give themselves wholly to any passion. They spare themselves and save their force with cowardly prudence. ”