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 History and Philosophy 
 // 
 
 OF 
 
 MARRIAGE; 
 
 OR, 
 
 POLYGAMY AND MONOGAMY 
 COMPARED. 
 
 BY A CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPIST. 
 
 " Jh&re shall be no widows in the land, for I will marry them all; there 
 shall be no orphans, for I will father them all."— OLD PLAY. 
 
 THIRD EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED. 
 
 SAlvT I^AKK city: 
 
 Jos. Hyrum F*ar.ry & Co., 
 
H q 7 X9r 
 
 Copyrighted, 1869, by 
 JAMES CAMPBELL. 
 
 transferred, 1884, to 
 JOS. HYRUM PARRY. 
 
BANCROFT 
 UBRARY 
 
 PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 This little book disdains disguise, and paints humanity as 
 it is. As the artist delineates the exact forms of Nature, 
 although his living models are never perfect, either in feature 
 or in attitude, so should the moral writer portray both the 
 beauiies and the blemishes of social life, without omitting 
 even those which are most repulsive. It is an axiom of pru- 
 dence, never to shut our eyes against a painful truth, but to 
 know the worst, and to provide for it. In the following pages, 
 I have depicted some of the evils of society, but only in order 
 to demonstrate them to be evils, and to point out a remedy 
 for them which is desiral)le, practicable, and beneficent. 
 Some eminent critics have suggested that I have drawn the 
 picture with so great freedom as to be offensive, especially to 
 the ladies; and I began to think of preparing an expurgated 
 edition for their reading, which should advocate the same 
 principles, but in which many of the histoiioal facts upon 
 which those principles depend should be suppressed. Oa 
 further reflection, however, I am ashamed to have yielded to 
 such suggestions even fof an hour. If we treat the sex like 
 fools, and they submit to such treatment, neither they nor 
 the men can justly complain if they are somewhat foolish. 
 It is a just cause of complaint against the men, that they have 
 too long kept the women in sul)jection and ignorance ; first 
 withholdinjj: from them the key of knowledge, and then 
 charging them with incapacity for many responsible duties 
 and emi)loyments, for which an equal share of knowledge 
 would have qualified them. This sin shall not be justly im- 
 puted to ray account. I cordially welcome them to every 
 branch of learning and of industry. I have written nothing 
 that I shall blush to have my sisters or my daughters read. 
 I blush for humanity that so many debasing crimes against 
 the laws of chastity should ever be committed ; but I do not 
 blush to know when and by whom they have been committed, 
 nor to know what are their terrible cousequeaces. This 
 
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION'. 
 
 knowledge has bcc )mc a part of Imman experience and his- 
 tory, which it is not only proper, but important, for every one 
 to know; for tliis knowledf^e is my hcrita,G:e and my chil- 
 dren's hcritao^c, tliat we may take warninj^ from the calamities 
 of others, and g:nard ourselves a'lainst them. 
 
 That a second edition should be called for, of a pbilosoplii- 
 cal treatise so generally regarded as heterodox in its social 
 opinions, and so avowedly opposed to the fashionable vices 
 and prejudices of the times, is a sufficient vindication of 
 the importance of the subject, and the candor of the public. 
 The author ofratefully aeknowledc^cs his obligations to those 
 gentlemen of "the prc<s who have condescen<led to notice the 
 work. These notices, some extracts from which are appended 
 to this edition, are all that could b3 expected. While most 
 of the reviewers are very conservative upon the main (question, 
 they very generally express some gi-aceful compliments to 
 the author's earnestness and ability, which are equally credita- 
 ble to him, and honorable to them. Some have given a full 
 analysis of the argument, and done ample justice to the 
 work; some have condemned it without reading it; and a 
 few have made the most gross misstatements of its scope 
 and design. There his been much contradiction, but no re- 
 butting testimony. Not one historical or statistical fact stated 
 in the book has been disproved, not one proposition claimed 
 to be demonstrated has been shown to he fallacious. The 
 jonly critique worthy of reply is from the pen of J. A. H., 
 Esq., of Springfield, Mass., which is quoted in full in this 
 edition, with the author's reply; and each one can now judge 
 for himself of tie merits of the respective arguments. Some 
 other additions to this edition will further enhance the value 
 of the work. 
 
OOlSTTEIirTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. — INTKODUCTORY. 
 
 Audi Alteram Partem 
 Some Account of the Author . 
 "What Missionaries say of Polygamy 
 The Indian Chief and his two Wives 
 My Reflections upon this Report . 
 Wljy I have written this Book 
 Laws of God and Nature defined . 
 
 PAOB. 
 9 
 
 14 
 17 
 20 
 21 
 23 
 25 
 
 CHAPTER II. — Primary Laws of Love. 
 
 Love like Electricity 28 
 
 Love refines and ennobles . 30 
 
 Love inherent to all . . . . , 32 
 
 Love is the Right of all 36 
 
 Love must be limited by Chastity 37 
 
 Marriage constitutes the Proi^er Limit ...... 38 
 
 CHAPTER m. — Primary Laws or Marriage. 
 
 Marriage defined . , 40 
 
 Marriage beneficial . 41 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 All are entitled to Its Benefits 
 These are denied to many 
 More Women than Men . 
 Women mature earlier than Men 
 Many Men refuse to marry 
 Few Women decline Marriage 
 Monogamj'^ prevents Marriage 
 The Marriage Ceremony . 
 
 42 
 44 
 45 
 
 49 
 50 
 61 
 53 
 65 
 
 CIIAPTER IV. — Origi?j of Polygajit. 
 
 Prejudices to be overcome , , 57 
 
 Polygamy is not Barbarism 58 
 
 Why Ood made but one Woman 62 
 
 Polygamy taught in the Bible 63 
 
 Monogamy of Bishops and Deacons ...... 71 
 
 Dr. McKnight's Commentary 72 
 
 Polygamy approved of God ........ 76 
 
 CHAPTER v. — Origin of Monogamy. 
 
 Monogamy the Daughter of Paganism and Romanism • . 78 
 
 Impurity of Greek an.i Roman Morals 79 
 
 Ancient Roman Marriages not Permanent 81 
 
 Consequences of their Frequent Divorces , . . , . 82 
 
 Monogamy and Private Life of the Caesars 84 
 
 Julius Caesar .88 
 
 Augustus 91 
 
 Tiberius 98 
 
 Caligula 102 
 
 Claudius . . . ' . . ' 106 
 
 Nero 112 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 CHAPTER VI. — Monogamy after the Introduction of 
 Christianttt. 
 
 Gnosticism in the First Century 122 
 
 Gnosticism and Platonism of the Second Century , , ,124 
 
 Monogamy and Christianity in the Third and Fourth Centuries. 127 
 
 Constantine and Theodosius , . 129 
 
 Asceticism and Monasticisra , . . . . - . . . 131 
 
 Mediaeval Superstition and Immorality 133 
 
 Immutahiiity of the Roman Church 136 
 
 CHAPTER Vn.— MoNor.AMT as tt Is. 
 
 Monogamy is Romanism still ..•..•.. 144 
 
 Impurity of Modern Monogamy 151 
 
 The Higher Law of Christian Charity 153 
 
 Is the " Social Evil " preventible ? 156 
 
 Monogamy occasions Seduction and Ruin 159 
 
 The Harlot's Progress 163 
 
 Monogamy causes Religion to be hated 166 
 
 Great Men are always Polygamista 172 
 
 Hypocrisy of Monogamy ....,.,. 175 
 
 CHAPTER Vni. — Relation of Monogamy to Crime. 
 
 Marriage prevents Crime . , , 178 
 
 Adultery 180 
 
 Murder 186 
 
 Divorce . 189 
 
 Procuring Abortion 194 
 
 Fecundity ought to be promoted 199 
 
 Birth-Rate in Massachusetts ...,,«.. 9H 
 
8 CONTEXTS. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. — Objections to PoLrcAMY. 
 
 Docs Polygamy cause Jealousy ? 208 
 
 Is Polygamy degrading ? 209 
 
 Women's Rights 210 
 
 Masculine Power and Feminine Complaisance .... 213 
 
 May Women have a Plurality of Ilusbands ? . . , . 216 
 
 Marriage like the Law of Gravitation . . . , . . 217 
 
 Masculine Responsibility and Care ...... J18 
 
 APPENDIX.— Notices and Reviews. 
 
 Rev. Dr. Martin Madan's " Thclyphthora " 224 
 
 Lecky's " History of European Morals " 230 
 
 Lea's "Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy" . . .252 
 Conyhcare and Howson's Note :n " the One Wife " of a Bishop 253 
 
THE HISTORY 
 PHILOSOPHY OF MAKRIAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 AUDI ALTERAM PARTEM. 
 
 Philosophy takes nothing for granted. It 
 doubts all things that it may prove all things. 
 The marriage question is a proper subject of 
 philosophical inquiry, involving an examination 
 and analysis of both polygamy and monogamy. 
 Of the latter form of marriage the Christian 
 world has known too much, and of the former too 
 little, to have felt, hitherto, the need of any analysis 
 of either. We have inherited our monogamy, or 
 the marriage system which restricts each man to 
 one wife only, and have practised it as a matter of 
 
10 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 course, without any special examination or inquiry : 
 so that we really know but little concerning its 
 origin or its early history ; while we know still 
 less of the system of polygamy. We read some- 
 thing of it in the Bible and in the history of 
 Eastern nations, and we learn something more from 
 the reports of modern travellers ; and it cannot 
 be denied that what we know of it has come to us 
 in such a form as to prejudice our minds against 
 it. This prejudice is unfavorable to a just and 
 candid philosophical inquiry ; and while pursuing 
 this inquiry, let us hold this prejudice in abeyance. 
 Let us not forget that what we have seen of this 
 system is in its most unfavorable aspects. Most 
 travellers carry their native prejudices abroad, and 
 look upon the customs of distant countries with 
 less astonishment than contempt. And they re- 
 member, when writing up their accounts of those 
 countries, that their books are made to be sold at 
 hom.e ; and they must not institute comparisons 
 unfavorable to their own land, but must flatter the 
 conceit of their fellow-countrymen by assuring 
 them that their own social and political institu- 
 tions are vastly better than those of other lands. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 11 
 
 So, also, with history : it presents human affairs 
 in a perspective view, painting its roughest moun- 
 tains with distinct exactness, but casting its peace- 
 ful plains quite into the shade. It devotes a hun- 
 dred pages to the details of wars and intrigues, 
 illustrating the crimes of men, in proportion to a 
 single page of descriptions of common life and do- 
 mestic tranquillity, illustrating their virtues. 
 
 If the writer, on the contrary, shall seem preju- 
 diced in favor of polygamy, let it be attributed to 
 his love of fair play, and his desire to let both 
 sides be heard, rather than to any undue bias of 
 mind preventing him from doing equal justice to 
 the arguments in favor of either system. 
 
 It is attested and proved by competent authority, 
 which no one doubts, that polygamy, or that social 
 system which permits a plurality of wives, has 
 always prevailed in most countries and in all ages 
 of the world, from time immemorial ; but this 
 form of marriage, being foreign to the customs of 
 modern Europe and her colonies in America, is 
 very naturally regarded throughout these enlight- 
 ened regions as something heathenish and barba- 
 rous. And modern writers, whose works are the 
 
12 HISTORY AND PniLOSOPHT 
 
 exponents of European civilization, have hitherto 
 said every thing against it, and nothing for it. 
 But they have condemned it almost without ex- 
 amination or debate, rather because it is strange 
 than because they have proved it to be at fault. 
 No one has given to the subject the time and re- 
 search necessary to its fair elucidation. But as a 
 venerable institution the social system of polygamy 
 does not deserve such supercilious treatment. 
 Such treatment, besides being unjust, is unphilosoph- 
 ical, and unworthy a liberal and an enlightened 
 age. Its great antiquity alone should entitle it to 
 sufficient respect to be heard, at least, in its own 
 defence. It constitutes an important part of hu- 
 man history. It is a great fact that cannot be 
 ignored ; and as such, it must be studied and 
 known. To insist upon the condemnation of this 
 system, without hearing its defence, is oppression. 
 It is even the worst kind of oppression ; for, in such 
 case, it must be allied with ignorance and bigotry. 
 But if there ever was a time, when polygamy 
 could properly be thrust aside with a sneer, and it 
 was satisfactory to Christian justice to condemn it 
 unheard and unexamined, it can be so no longer ; 
 
Ot' MAUntAGE. 13 
 
 for, with the genera,! diffusion of knowledge and 
 the increased facilities of modern intercourse, onr 
 speculative inquiries are seeking a range of cos- 
 mopolitan extent, and we are brought into daily 
 contact with the opinions and the practices of the 
 antipodes. If we disapprove of tlieir practices we 
 shouhl be prepared to make substantial objections 
 to them ; and if we wish to teach them our own, 
 Ave should be able to give equally substantial rea- 
 sons. If the advocates of polygamy arc in the 
 minority in the Christian world, let the common 
 rights of the minority be granted them, — free<lom 
 of debate and the privilege of protest ; and let 
 their solemn protest be listened to with respect, 
 and be spread upon the current records of the 
 day. And, on the other hand, if those who prac- 
 tise this ancient system do constitute the majority 
 of mankind, it cannot be either uninteresting or 
 unimportant to inquire what has made it so nearly 
 universal, and caused it to be adopted by so many 
 different nations, and even different races of men, 
 among whom are, no doubt, some persons who are 
 justly distinguished for their wisdom, their piety, 
 and their humanity. 
 
14 IIISTOPiY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The writer is not aware that any former attempt 
 has been made in this country to analyze and 
 explain the social system of polygamy, or that 
 any works written abroad for this purpose have 
 ever been current here ; at least, he has not been 
 able to obtain any,* and thus to avail himself 
 of their assistance. While, therefore, the subject- 
 matter of this essay is of the most venerable anti- 
 quity, the manner of its discussion must be entirely 
 new ; and not only can the author claim the singu- 
 lar merit of origiuality, but the reader can be 
 assured of the no less singular zeat of novelty. 
 
 SOME ACCOUNT OF THE AUTIIOK. 
 
 Almost everybody who takes up a new book is 
 curious to know somethiug of the writer ; of his 
 special qualifications for his work, of his opportu- 
 nities of acquiring a thorough knowledge of his 
 subject, and of the standpoint from which he views 
 it. He will, therefore, proceed at once to give some 
 account of himself, and how he came to write this 
 work. And the courteous reader will now please 
 permit him to drop the indirect style of address so 
 
 ♦ See Appendix. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 15 
 
 common among writers, and to introduce himself 
 by speaking in the first person. I am a native of 
 New England, and was brought up a strict Puritan. 
 My father always declared his intention to educate 
 me for the law, and I took to learning as readily 
 as most boys of my age. I was graduated from 
 college almost forty years ago, and had nearly 
 completed my professional studies, when my health 
 suddenly broke down ; and I then discovered that 
 I had been bestowing all my care upon the improve- 
 ment of the mind, to the total neglect of the health- 
 fulness of the body. And this, I fancy, was only a 
 common defect at that time, in our American, or, 
 at least, our New-England, system of education. 
 The physicians having prescribed a voyage at sea 
 and a residence of some months in a tropical 
 climate, the influence of my friends obtained a for- 
 eign situation for me in one of our Boston houses 
 having an extensive business in India ; and I be- 
 came their clerk, and afterwards their factor. The 
 engagements then entered into could not easily be 
 broken off, and I have continued in them many 
 years ; and having seen all the continents of the 
 globe, and many islands of the sea, and having 
 
16 nnroRt and iniiLosornY 
 
 observed human society iu every climate and in 
 every social condition, I have at length retnrned to 
 my native land, an older, and, 1 hope, a wiser man. 
 Having become an active member of the church in 
 my youth, I did not renounce my Christian charac- 
 ter abroad, but have always afforded such encoiu*- 
 agement and assistance as I was able, to our Ameri- 
 can and English missionaries, whenever I fell in 
 with them. In fact, I had long cherished a pro- 
 found respect and admiration for the missionary 
 enterprise ; and, notwithstanding my father's wish 
 to educate me for the la\y, I had, during my course 
 of study, seriously offered myself as a candidate for 
 missionary labor ; and, had I been deemed worthy 
 of that honor, I should, no doubt, have devoted my 
 life to that service. But Providence did not so 
 order it. Yet when I went abroad, my early predi- 
 lections easily reconciled me to the pain of leav- 
 ing my native land, to the disappointment which I 
 experienced in renouncing a career of professional 
 and literary honors, and readily introduced me to 
 the society of those devoted missionaries whom I 
 would fain have chOsen for my fellow-laborers 
 aud life-companions. I was very much surprised, 
 
OF MAIilitAGJS, 17 
 
 however, soon after my first acquaintance with 
 them, to learn that, under certain circumstances, 
 they allowed the members of the native Christian 
 churches a plurality of wives. As I had been 
 educated a strict monogamist, in New England, I 
 had never once dreamed that any other social sys- 
 tem than monogamy could be possible among 
 Christian people, anywhere ; and I remonstrated 
 with the missionaries for permitting polygamy 
 among their converts, under any circumstances 
 whatever. 
 
 WHAT THE MISSIONARIES SAY ABOUT POLYGAMY. 
 
 I was answered by them that the Bible has not 
 forbidden it, but, on the contrary, has recognized 
 it, as sometimes lawful and proper ; and although 
 they themselves did not encourage it, they could 
 not positively prohibit it. I then endeavored to recol- 
 lect some prohibition in the Bible, but could ueither 
 recollect nor find one there. On the contrary, to my 
 own astonishment, after a careful examination of 
 the Sacred Scriptures, I did find therein many things 
 to favor it. The missionaries al.«o said that their 
 experience had taught them that the converting 
 
18 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 grace of God was granted to those living in polyg- 
 amy as often as to others ; the natives themselves 
 attach no moral reproach to it ; " and," said the 
 missionaries, '' if such persons give evidence of 
 genuine conversion, ' Can any man forbid water, 
 that they should not be baptized, who have received 
 the grace of God as well as we?' Besides," 
 they added, " if they are not received and recog- 
 nized as Christians, how shall we dispose of them? 
 Shall we refuse them our fellowship, and send 
 them back again to their idolatry? This would be 
 no less unchristian than unkind. Shall we compel 
 them to put away all their wives, but those first 
 married, and then receive them into the church? 
 But in many cases this would be impracticable, in 
 others unjust, in all cruel. For the chastity of the 
 women hitherto irreproachable would be tarnished 
 by their repudiation : they would often be left with- 
 out a home and without support ; and, like other dis- 
 graced and destitute women of all lands, they would 
 be thrust upon a life of infamy and vice. Who," 
 continued they, " shall dare assume the responsi- 
 bility of separating wife from husband, and children 
 from parents? since the Bible expressly forbids a 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 19 
 
 man to divorce his wife, for any cause, except 
 unfaithfulness to her marriage vow: God is not 
 said in the Bible to hate polygamy, but it says 
 there that ' he hateth putting away.' " 
 
 I need not say that I was completely disarmed 
 and silenced by this array of " the law and the tes- 
 timony ; " and was compelled, by their arguments, 
 to admit that their course was one of equal justice 
 and mercy. I soon learned, however, that the rules 
 of the missionaries are by no means uniform upon 
 this question. Many of them, particularly those 
 who possess a great regard for the authority and 
 the dogmas of the church, and who reason rather 
 from the " tradition of the elders," than fi'om the 
 laws of Nature or of God, have rigidly enforced 
 monogamy among their converts ; and if any one 
 becomes a Christian while living in polygamy, such 
 missionaries require him to repudiate all his wives 
 but one. It was not many months after the conver- 
 sation above related that one of the missionaries 
 called my attention to a religious journal that he 
 had just received from Boston, containing the report 
 of certain missionaries among the North-American 
 Indians, giving an account of the conversion of an 
 old and influential chief. 
 
20 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 THE INDIAN CHIEF AND HIS TWO WIVES. 
 
 This chief at the time of his conversion to Chris- 
 tianity was living with two wives. The one first 
 married was now aged, blind, and childless. The 
 other was young, attractive, healthful, and the 
 mother of one fine boy. One of these wives the 
 missionaries required him to put away, as an indis- 
 pensable requisite to baptism and church-member- 
 ship. The old chief, after careful deliberation, 
 could not decide which one to repudiate. The first 
 he was bound by every honorable motive '' to love 
 and to cherish," especially on account of her age 
 and infirmity ; while the other was devotedly at- 
 tached to him, and was the mother of his only child 
 and heir, which he could not give up, and from 
 which he could not separate the mother. He, there- 
 fore, submitted the case to the missionaries to de- 
 cide which one of them he should put away. They 
 decided against the younger one. And as he was 
 old himself and his other wife was barren, that she 
 must also give up her child. This mandate was 
 obeyed with martyr-like fortitude, which nothing but 
 the strongest religious motives could have inspired ; 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 21 
 
 opposed, as it was, to every natural sentiment of 
 love and honor. And thus, in one hour, was that 
 young wife and mother deprived of her husband, 
 her child, her character, and her home ; and sent 
 away a bereaved and lonely outcast into the wide 
 world. The report which the missionaries them- 
 selves gave of this affair closed by saying that the 
 repudiated wife and bereaved mother soon died in- 
 consolable and broken-hearted. 
 
 MY OWN REFLECTIONS UPON THIS REPORT. 
 
 On reading this report, I could not forbear con- 
 trasting their mode of treating polygamy with that 
 of the missionaries in the East, which had come 
 under my own observation there, and which I had, 
 at first, so severely criticised. I now began to blush 
 at my own late ignorance and bigotry. And the 
 more I thought of the ecclesiastical tyranny of the 
 North-American missionaries, the higher rose my 
 indignation against it. I could not fail to see that 
 their narrow attachment to their own social system 
 had made them judicially blind to the merits of any 
 other ; and that they were more ignorant of the 
 true spirit of Christianity as well as of the nat- 
 
22 HISTORY A2^D PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ural rights of man concern rag the laws of marriage, 
 than even the poor savages themselves. Yet they 
 undouhtcdly supposed they were doing God essential 
 service hy this act of inhumanity ; just as our fa- 
 thers did when they hanged and burned honest men 
 because they worshipped God in a different manner, 
 and entertained different views of divine truth, from 
 themselves. Their mistake is one which has always 
 been too common, and from which no one, perhaps, 
 is altogether free. It consists in assuming that 
 because we are honest in our belief, and mean to be 
 right, others who essentially differ from us are dis- 
 honest and wrong ; and in presuming to judge the 
 conduct of others by what we fed to he rights i.e., 
 by our own standard of morality, instead of judging 
 them by what we hnow to he rights according to the 
 infallible standard of divine truth. 
 
 These reflections led me to give the whole sub- 
 ject of marriage, in respect to its divine and nat- 
 ural laws, as thorough and as critical an investio^a- 
 tiou as my abilities and advantages enabled me to 
 do ; and to inquire into the origin and the moral 
 tendencies of the two social systems of monogamy 
 and polygamy. 
 
OF MABRIAGE. 23 
 
 I have now pursued this investigation many years, 
 and have become convinced that polygamy is not 
 always an immorality ; that sometimes a man may 
 innocently have more than one woman ; and then 
 that it is their right to be married to him, and his 
 duty to love and cherish them for better for worse, 
 for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till 
 death shall part them. 
 
 WHY I HAVE WRITTEN THIS BOOK. 
 
 I am unwilling to leave the world without hav- 
 ing given it the benefit of these reflections. All 
 truth is important. If these views are true, they 
 ought to be known ; if they are not true let them be 
 refuted. If the prejudices of modern Christians 
 are opposed to the social system which their ancient 
 brethren, the earliest saints and patriarchs, prac- 
 tised in the good old days of Bible truth and pasto- 
 ral simplicity, I believe that these prejudices are 
 neither natural nor inveterate ; but that they have 
 been induced by the corrupted Christianity of the 
 mediaeval priesthood, and that they will be removed 
 when Christian people become better informed ; and 
 if it be necessary for me to sacrifice my own ease 
 
24 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and my own credit, in attempting to remove them, 
 I shall only suffer the common lot of all reformers he- 
 fore me. Yet I scarcely expect to see any immediate 
 result of my labors. It is a melancholy and an hu- 
 miliating fact that the opinions of most people are de- 
 termined more by what others around them think and 
 say than by wliat they believe themselves. They are 
 not accustomed to the proper exercise of their own 
 reason, and do not follow the convictions of their 
 own minds. Yet there are some who dare to think 
 and act for themselves ; and into the hands of a few 
 such I doubt not these pages will fall : and to all 
 such I most heartily commend them. To an active 
 and an ingenuous mind there is no pursuit more 
 fascinating than the pursuit of knowledge, no pleas- 
 ure more exquisite than the discovery of truth. All 
 those who would enjoy this pleasure in its highest 
 sense must love Truth for herself alone ; they must 
 emancipate themselves from the trammels of preju- 
 dice and public opinion, and dare to follow Truth 
 wherever she may lead. And I make no further 
 apology for calling the attention of an intelligent 
 age to a new examination of an old institution. 
 Truth dreads no scrutiny ; shields herself behind UQ 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 26 
 
 breastwork of established custom or of respectable 
 authority, but proudly stands upon her own merits. 
 I will not despair, therefore, of gaining the atten- 
 tion of every lover of the truth while I attempt to 
 develop and demonstrate the laws of God and of 
 nature upon the important subjects of love and mar- 
 riage, and to apply those laws to the two systems 
 of monogamy and polygamy, 
 
 THE LAWS OF GOD AND OF NATURE ; THE TERMS 
 DEFINED. 
 
 To prevent misconception of the meaning in- 
 tended to be conveyed by these terms, it is proper 
 to state, that, by the laws of God, I mean the writ- 
 ten laws contained in the Holy Bible ; which I 
 believe to be the most perfect revelation of the 
 divine will and God's inestimable gift to man. 
 The laws by which the universe subsists, embracing 
 those of mind as well as those of matter, are un- 
 doubtedly the laws of God also ; but we call them, 
 by way of distinction, the laws of nature ; because 
 it is only by a diligent study of nature, and by rea- 
 soning from cause to effect and from effect to cause, 
 that they can be determined, yet when determined 
 
26 mSTORY AND PIIILOSOFHY 
 
 they are always found to harmonize with each other 
 and also with the written law, which they may 
 safely and properly be employed to illustrate and 
 explain. 
 
 Both these classes of law differ materially frOm 
 the civil law, or the laws of States and nations ; es- 
 pecially in these respects : the former are always 
 harmonious with each other, and equally valid at 
 all times and places, and are, therefore, infallible 
 and unchangeable. The latter are always conflict- 
 ing with and often contradictory to one another ; 
 and are constantly being altered, amended, and re- 
 pealed ; and, although founded upon truth, in gen- 
 eral, and intended for the public good, and there- 
 fore entitled to our respect and obedience, they are 
 so only in a qualified sense, far inferior to that pro- 
 found respect and implicit obedience due to divine 
 and natural law. 
 
 In my analysis of the laws of love and marriage 
 on which depends the mutual relation of the two 
 sexes, I shall be obliged to speak of that relation 
 with unusual familiarity ; even though I may some- 
 times offend our modern notions of modesty and 
 propriety — notions which I shall not now stop to 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 27 
 
 discuss, whether they be true or false ; it matters 
 not. Truth rises superior to every consideration of 
 fastidiousness, and it is high time that these truths 
 should be demonstrated. Yet it shall be my care 
 so to treat them as not to offend true modesty un- 
 necessarily : j9wm omnia pura. 
 
 KOTES TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 1. The term " monogamy " is used throughout this 
 volume to denote enforced or restricted monogamy^ 
 or the system which allows each man but one wife ; 
 and a monogamist is one who supports this system, 
 whether he be married or unmarried. The term 
 ''polygamy" denotes freedom to raarry either one 
 wife or more; and a polygamist is one who main- 
 tains this freedom, whether he has o-ne wife or 
 many, or is unmarried. 
 
 2. This treatise is restricted, as its former title 
 indicates, to the liistory and philosophy of polygamy 
 and monogamy exclusively ; and attempts no dis- 
 cussion of any other form of marriage so called, or 
 of any other social system whatever. The curious 
 reader will find many important facts concerning 
 the history of marriage, and other systems of social 
 life, in a new and valuable work entitled "Medi- 
 cal Common Sense and Plain Home Talk." By E. 
 B. Foote, M.D., 120 Lexington Avenue, New 
 York, 1870. 
 
28 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PRIMARY LAWS OF LOVE. 
 LOVE LIKE ELECTIIICITY. 
 
 Among all the inherent properties of mankind, 
 none is more important than that of love ; and no 
 one more clearly evinces the wisdom and benevo- 
 lence of his Creator. Love, in its primary sense, 
 to which it will be restricted in this treatise, is the 
 mutual attraction of the two sexes. It exists in all 
 persons, either as a sensibility or a passion. It is 
 a sensibility when in a state of rest, or when exer- 
 cised towards the whole of the opposite sex indis- 
 criminately ; but it is a passion when strongly 
 excited and when exercised towards particular 
 individuals. And it is as truly and fundamentally 
 a law of human nature as electricity is of material 
 nature, — to which it bears a curious analogy. 
 \Ye can scarcely reason with more certainty upon 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 29 
 
 the laws of electricity than upon those of love, for 
 we have the assistance of consciousness in one case 
 which we want in the other. But note the analogy : 
 it has been demonstrated that all bodies possess 
 electricity in a greater or less degree ; and that 
 some are positive when compared with others, and 
 some are negative. They are usually at rest ; but 
 when two bodies of different electrical states ap- 
 proach each other, they at once become highly 
 excited, and continue so till brought in contact 
 with each other, when the positive charges or im- 
 pregnates the negative. So it is found that love 
 exists in different states in the two sexes, and in 
 different degrees of intensity in different individuals 
 of the same sex. Males are positive, and females 
 negative ; and while the latter differ less from 
 each other than the former do, being nearly all of 
 them susceptible to the proper proposals of genuine 
 love, yet they are not so much affected by sponta- 
 neous passion as the former are, who usually ex- 
 perience it with great intensity, and are impelled 
 to make the first advances. But there are always 
 some individuals among them who need a great 
 deal of encouragement before they will advance 
 
30 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPnY 
 
 and propose ; and others who are almost destitute 
 of the common sensibility of love, and who will 
 neither make proposals nor receive them. 
 
 LOVE REFINES AND ENNOBLES. 
 
 Love sheds on earth something of the beauty 
 and the light of heaven. Love develops the no- 
 blest traits of humanity ; and often brings them 
 out from those persons who had given little promise 
 of possessing them, until they were brought under 
 the influence of this master passion. There is 
 nothing so great, so difficult, or so self-sacrificing 
 that love will not inspire men to dare and to do. But 
 it is not more in splendid achievements or wonder- 
 ful adventures, than it is in the innumerable little 
 things, which conspire to make up the happiness 
 of social life, that the greatest victories of love are 
 won. We cannot love any person, without seeking 
 his or her benefit ; and in endeavoring to benefit and 
 please the object of our affection, we are impelled to 
 improve and beautify ourselves, in order to become 
 more worthy of our beloved one's affection in return. 
 And this leads us not only to adorn our persons 
 but to polish our manners and cultivate our minds. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 81 
 
 Hence, we are deeply indebted to this sentiment 
 for those qualities of mind and person which com- 
 bine to constitute us social beings ; since it does 
 not more certainly impel us to the acquisition of 
 what is beautiful and becoming in dress and de- 
 portment, than to the attainment of intelligence 
 and politeness, and to surround ourselves with all 
 the embellishments of civilization. Love refines 
 all that it touches. Under its influence the rough 
 boy becomes the respectful young gentleman, and 
 the awkward girl assumes the innate refinement of 
 the lady. Love paints the cheek with roses, adds 
 new lustre and intelligence to the eye, imparts 
 strength and elasticity to the step, grace and 
 dignity to the mien, courage to the heart, elo- 
 quence to the tongue, and poetry to every thought. 
 In fact, love is at once the poetry of life, and the 
 life of poetry. Love has inspired, in every age, 
 the brightest dreams of fancy and the noblest con- 
 ceptions of literature and of art, constituting the 
 perpetual theme which animates the writer's pen 
 and tunes the poet's lyre. Love reposes in the 
 sculptor's marble ; love blushes upon the painter's 
 canvas. And all these various embodiments of 
 
32 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 love by literature aod art are universally appre- 
 ciated and admired ; for the pen, the chisel, and 
 the pencil have only given expression to the gen- 
 eral sentiment of mankind. The poet and the 
 artist have only wrought out what every one else 
 had already thought : and have only given speech, 
 form, and color to the silent, shadowy images of 
 the common heart of man. 
 
 LOTE INHERENT IN ALL. 
 
 That the language of love is universally under- 
 stood, and that its varied delineations by the in- 
 spiration of art are always and everywhere delight- 
 fully recognized, is sufficient proof that the sentiment 
 is universally experienced. It is not confined to 
 the gifted, the highborn, or the rich, nor is it pecu- 
 liar to any period of the world, or to any condition 
 of life. All have possessed the sensibility, if they 
 have not experienced the passion ; they have felt 
 the want of love, if they have not enjoyed its frui- 
 tion. 
 
 It is our birthright. We have no sooner passed 
 the period of adolescence than we inherit the pow- 
 er and the inclination to love. We then feel an 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 33 
 
 instinctive yearning of the heart for a kindred 
 heart. We are each of us conscious of being in- 
 complete alone, and incapable of enjoying alone 
 our fullest happiness, and we intuitively seek that 
 happiness by linking our destiny in life with some 
 dear one of the opposite sex. It is there only that 
 our natural wants can be supplied. One sex is the 
 complement of the other. Each is imperfect alone, 
 and each supplies what the other lacks. Self- 
 reliant as man may suppose himself to be, yet divine 
 wisdom has said, " It is not good for the man to be 
 alone ; " he needs a '' helpmeet " in woman. Still 
 less is it good for the woman to be alone, for " she 
 w^as created for the man," and every woman wants 
 a man to love ; for love is her life, and it is only 
 while she loves, or hopes to love, that she lives to 
 any happy or useful or honest purpose. It has been 
 said that as woman was taken out of man in her 
 creation, so it is man's instinctive desire to seek her 
 and to reclaim her as his own counterpart, or that 
 portion of himself Avliich is required to complete 
 the symmetry of his nature and the happiness of 
 his life. For this love the youthful heart longs and 
 ^ines until it attains the object of its desires, or 
 
 8 
 
34 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPHT 
 
 until it has become so sordid, so hard, and so profli- 
 gate, as to be, at once, unworthy of possessing it, 
 and incapable of enjoying it. This susceptibility 
 of the youthful heart has been faithfully portrayed 
 hy a youthful poet, in the following lines, which 
 are at once recognized, as expressing the common 
 sentiment of humanity : — 
 
 " It is not that my lot is low, 
 That bids the silent tear to flow, 
 It is not grief that bids me moan, 
 It is that I am all alone. 
 
 In woods and glens I love to roam, 
 When the tired hedger hies him home ; 
 Or by the woodland pool to rest, 
 When pale the star looks on its breast. 
 
 ^ Yet wlien the silent evening sighs. 
 
 With hallowed airs and symphonies, 
 My spirit takes another tone, 
 
 ' And sighs that it is all alone. 
 
 The woods and winds with sudden wail 
 Tell all the same unvaried tale ; 
 I've none ta smile when I am free. 
 And when I sigh, to sigh with me. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 36 
 
 Yet in my dreams a form I view. 
 That thinks on me and loves me too ; 
 I start ! and when the vision's flown, 
 
 I weep that I am all alone." 
 
 H. K. White. 
 
 1 
 
 Another poet has expressed the same sentiment 
 in the following impassioned lines : — 
 
 " Give me but 
 Something whereunto I may bind my heart ; 
 Something to love, to cherish, and to clasp 
 Affection's tendrils round." 
 
 Now, if any one should be inclined to call all this 
 but love-sick sentimentality, unworthy our serious 
 consideration, I shall only answer him in the words 
 of Dr. Johnson, the English moralist : " We must 
 not ridicule the passion of love, which he who never 
 felt, never was happy ; and he who laughs at never 
 deserves to feel, — a passion which has inspired 
 heroism, and subdued avarice ; a passion which 
 has caused the change of empires, and the loss of 
 worlds." 
 
 Shall these heaven-born impulses of nature be 
 regarded, or must they be repressed? Shall we 
 
36 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHT 
 
 permit these tendrils of our love to bind themselves 
 around some kindred heart, or shall we suffer them 
 to be rudely torn asunder, and cast aside to wither 
 and decay? Implanted for the noblest purposes 
 within our breasts, interwoven with the very fibres 
 of our being, the laws of God and of nature un- 
 questionably demand their indulgence. 
 
 LOVE IS THE RIGHT OF ALL. 
 
 In plainer terms, the laws of God and of nature 
 clearly indicate that every man and every woman, 
 possessing sufficient health and vitality to experience 
 the passion of love, is benefited by its proper grati- 
 fication ; and those laws both allow and invite every 
 one to enjoy it in its full fruition. A man is not 
 wholly a man, nor a woman wholly a woman, who 
 has never experienced the ecstasies of gratified love. 
 And those men and women who are spending their 
 most vigorous period of life in cold and barren 
 celibacy, without ever having yielded to the warm 
 desires of reproduction, are living, every moment, 
 in debt to their Creator and to the commonwealth 
 of mankind. They have never fulfilled some of 
 t-he most important purposes of their being. 
 
OF MAUniAGE, 37 
 
 " Torches arc made to li^ht, jewels to wear, 
 Dainties to taste, fresh beauty for the use, 
 Herbs for their smell, and sappy plants to bear ; 
 Things growing to themselves are growth's abuse : 
 
 Seeds spring from seeds, and beauty breedeth beauty. 
 
 Thou wast begot — to get it is thy duty. 
 
 Upon the earth's increase why shouldst thou feed, 
 Unless the earth with thy increase be fed "? 
 By law of Nature thou art bound to breed, 
 That thine may live, when thou thyself art dead ; 
 
 And so in spite of death thou dost survive. 
 
 In that thy likeness still is left alive." 
 
 Shakspeare (Venus and Adonis). 
 
 LOVE MUST BE RESTRICTED WITHIN THE LIMITS OP 
 CHASTITY. 
 
 Tet meu and women must not rush into sensual 
 pleasure like brutes, for we are moral beings, as 
 well as corporeal beings, and, as such, the subjects 
 of moral law, which requires us to govern our 
 passions, and circumscribe them within the limits 
 of purity. But, even in this respect, there is no 
 real disagreement between the laws of morality 
 and those of Nature : when they are properly un- 
 derstood, they are each equally explicit in forbid- 
 ding every form of licentious impurity. The most 
 
88 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 loathsome and incurable diseases are the penalties 
 imposed by natural law, and the severest retribu- 
 tions of eternity, the penalties imposed by divine 
 law, upon the promiscuous and unrestrained in- 
 dulgence of the amorous propensity. Nor are these j 
 penalties unnecessary. No passion of our nature ( 
 is more vehement, and no one more liable to be s 
 tempted and led astray from the path of rectitude ; 
 and we should, therefore, attend the more carefully 
 to those laws and limitations which God and 
 Nature have imposed upon its indulgence. And I 
 cannot doubt that they have limited its indulgence 
 strictly to the marriage relation. Some well- 
 defined limit tliere must be between chastity and 
 unchastity, and vice and virtue, or else the laws 
 which define them and which punish transgressors 
 
 must be unjust and oppressive. 
 
 I 
 i 
 
 MARRIAGE CONSTITUTES THAT LIMIT. 
 
 Here there is no oppression and no injustice. 
 Everybody is born with a propensity to love, and 
 everybody that is willing to marry may marry, and 
 indulge that propensity in innocence and purity. 
 Within this limit the o^ratification of love affords 
 
OF MARlilAGE. b9 
 
 us tlid most exquisite, pleasure, promotes health, 
 conduces to lougcvity, and is entirely consistent 
 with the rules of morality and religion. But when 
 it oversteps this limit prescribed by our Creator, 
 and bursts the barriers of chastity, it then assumes 
 the form of unprincipled lust, and inflicts upon its 
 miserable votaries the utmost torture of body, 
 degradation of mind, and remorse of conscience. 
 
 '' Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed un* 
 defiled ; but whoremongers and adulterers God will 
 judge." — Heb. xiii. 4. 
 
 " Hail wedded love, mysterious law, true source 
 Of human offspring, sole propriety, 
 In Paradise, of all things common else. 
 By thee adulterous lust was driven from man, 
 Among the bestial herd to range ; by theo 
 Founded in reason, loyal, just, and pure 
 Relations dear and all the charities 
 Of father, son, and brother first were known. 
 Far be it, that I should write thee sin or blame ; , 
 
 Or think thee unbefitting holiest place; 
 Perpetual fountain of domestic sweets. 
 Whose bed is undefiled and chaste pronounced. 
 Present or past, as saints and patriarchs used. 
 Here Love his golden shafts employs, here lights 
 His constant lamp, and waves his purple wings." 
 
 Paradise Lost. Book iv. 
 
40 mSTORY AND PIIILOSOPJIY 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 l»RIMxVUY LAWS OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 Since the infallible and unchangeable laws of 
 God and of Nature have limited the indulgence of 
 love to married persons only, it becomes necessary 
 to inquire into the laws and limitations of mar- 
 riage itself. What is marriage ? and who are en- 
 titled to its rights and benefits ? 
 
 MARRIAGE DEFINED. 
 
 The propfer definition of marriage is the main 
 point at issue between the social system of polyga- 
 my and that of monogamy, which it is the object 
 of this treatise to examine and compare. One 
 system defines marriage to be the exclusive union 
 of one man to one woman until separated by death 
 or divorce ; the other defines it to be the union of 
 one man to either one woman or more, until sepa- 
 rated, in like manner, by death or divorce. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 41 
 
 It now remains for us to determine which of 
 these defiuitions is most in harmony with the laws 
 of God and of Nature. And we shall be better 
 able to do this, by considering carefully tlie benefi- 
 cent purposes which marrfage is designed to sub- 
 serve. 
 
 MARRIAGE BENEFICIAL. 
 
 Marriage is the first and best of all human insti- 
 tutions, if it can properly be called human, since it 
 was first solemnized in Paradise, by the Creator 
 himself, who then said, "* It is not good that the 
 man should be alone ; I will make him a help meet 
 for him." And he made a woman, and brought her 
 unto the man. " And God blessed them, and 
 God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and 
 replenish the earth, and subdue it." 
 
 It is impossible to enumerate all the benefits of 
 marriage, since there is no vital interest of man- 
 kind which it does not affect favorably. Marriage 
 perpetuates the human race ; lays the foundations 
 of organized society ; promotes industry ; accu- 
 mulates AVealth ; cultivates the arts, and maintains 
 religion. It builds the house, tills the soil, 
 
42 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 supports the family, and fosters every charitable 
 and benevolent enterprise. 
 
 ALL ARE ENTITLED TO ITS BENEFITS. 
 
 As the word of God has declared marriage to 
 be honorable in all, so we must infer that his 
 laws have made provision for the honorable mar- 
 riage of all ; and that every person of each sex 
 is equally entitled to its rights and benefits. 
 These rights should no more be restricted to the 
 rich and the fortunate than are the susceptibilities 
 of love, upon which marriage properly depends, 
 and from which it derives its only proper warrant 
 and authority. 
 
 " Love, and love only, is the loan for love/* 
 
 Marriage, when authorized and warranted by 
 the promptings of an honest love, is a pure and 
 blissful consummation of all that is divine in 
 humanity ; but when it is contracted from mer- 
 cenary or ambitious motives, it becomes a most 
 unholy profanation. Love was not made for 
 marriage, but marriage for love. Love is an 
 inherent and a necessary attribute of humanity ; 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 48 
 
 marriage a subsequent relationship instituted to 
 minister to love's Avants. Love is the mistress, 
 marriage the handmaid. Marriage must wait 
 the demands of love, and not love the demands of 
 marriage. It is, therefore, equally disrespectful 
 to our Creator, and dishonorable to man, to require 
 that love should be suppressed because marriage 
 is inconvenient, and still more dishonorable and 
 disrespectful to require any one to be deprived of 
 the rights of love on account of the impossibility 
 of marriage ; for marriage ought to be possible to 
 all. If love be refining and ennobling, if it be 
 the spontaneous, instinctive birthright of all, and 
 if our Creator has restricted its indulgence to the 
 marriage relation, then marriage must be the 
 right of all, or else God is not a benevolent being. 
 But all nature and all revelation have demon- 
 strated that he is a benevolent being, and it is 
 both impious and absurd to believe that his laws 
 have made no /idequate provision for every one to 
 be married who wishes to be. We may waive 
 our rights, and live in celibacy, if we prefer 
 to ; but no one who loves and who wishes to 
 marry ought to be compelled to remain unmarried. 
 
a HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 It is, thei^fore, demonstrated tliat any form of 
 society which fails to provide for the marriage of 
 all is a defective system, and opposed to the nat- 
 ural, inherent, and inalienable rights of man. 
 
 THESE RIGHTS ARE DENIED TO MANY. 
 
 Yet we well know that there are very many 
 persons, especially many women, who are neither 
 married nor have an opportunity to marry. By 
 some means they have been deprived of their 
 rights. The fault is not theirs; they would, in 
 almost every instance, prefer wedded life if it 
 were in their power to attain it ; but it is not. 
 They possess the same susceptibilities of love, 
 the same yearning for intimate companionship, that 
 others do, but these tender sensibilities they are 
 obliged to repress. The fault is not in nature, 
 nor in the laws of God, but it is in the tyrannical 
 laws and fashions of the artificial system of social 
 life which now obtains among us. . This system 
 must be at fault, for it does not and it cannot 
 provide for the marriage of all ; and many who 
 desire to marry are forever deprived of husbands 
 and homes : while the system of polygamy 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 45 
 
 does provide for all, and is, therefore, the only 
 system which is in harmony with divine and 
 natural laws. 
 
 This proposition is further demonstrated by the 
 simple fact that the number of marriageable women 
 always exceeds the number of marriageable men. 
 
 MORE WOMEN THAN MEN. 
 
 The statistics of all States and nations agree in 
 this fact,* except, occasionally, in those States in 
 
 * " The censuses heretofore taken of more than one hundred 
 millions of the population of Europe exhibit the remarkable fact, 
 that in those countries, during the j5rst fifteen years of life, the 
 males uniformly exceed the females in number, but that, sub- 
 sequently to this age, the females become most numerous, and 
 increasingly so with increase of age. The same is true with 
 regard to the proportionate numbers of the sexes in Massa- 
 chusetts and the other New-England States. 
 
 "Du)ing the ten \ears 1856-65, the total number ot births 
 registered in Massachusetts was 334,493, of which 171,584, or 
 51.29 per cent, were males; 161,715, or 48.35 per cent, were 
 females; and of 1,194, or ^ of one per cent, the sex waa not 
 stated. During the first ten years of life, the deaths of males 
 exceeded those of females in a ratio beyond that of the relative 
 number of the sexes at birth. 
 
 *' In 1855, there were 32,301 more females than males in IMas- 
 sachusetts; in 1860, 37,64^ more females; and the excess of 
 
46 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 which the population is very largely made up by 
 foreign immigration. Most of these immigrants 
 are men ; and many of them have left their wives 
 and families in the mother-country, and do not 
 intend to become permanent citizens, but hope 
 to make their fortunes and return home to enjoy 
 them. Yet many persons who have never ex- 
 amined statistical tables, nor taken any other ac- 
 curate means of informing themselves, suppose the 
 number of the men to be equal to that of the 
 women ; and it has been a plausible objection to 
 polygamy, that if some men have a plurality of 
 wives, some other men must thereby be deprived 
 of any, and the system must be unequal and unjust. 
 The objection would be valid were it based upon 
 valid facts : but it is all an error ; and it is one 
 which a little observation would enable almost any 
 one readily to correct. One has only to count up 
 the persons of each sex of marriageable age in all 
 
 females in 1865 was 63,011." — Census of Massachusetts for 1865, 
 pp. 286, 287. 
 
 " Ever since the first census of 17e5, there has been found an 
 excess of females over males in Massachusetts; the disparity 
 htts increased somewhat rapidly since 1850." — Massachusetts 
 Registration Report of Births, Marriages, and Deaths for 1866. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 4.1 
 
 the families of his own acquaintance to satisfy him- 
 self that the females will outnumber the males. It 
 is true, that, at birth, the number of each sex is 
 nearly equal ; that of the males being slightly in 
 excess, but a much larger proportion of the males 
 die in cliildhood, than of the females.* Generally, 
 about fifty per cent of all male children die before 
 the age of twenty-one years ; while only about 
 thirty-three per cent, or two-thirds as many females, 
 die during the same period.f And then, as they 
 
 * In Massachusetts the percentage of the deaths of male 
 children under one year of age durhig the year 1866 was 22.25, 
 that of female children during the same year was 17.42. See 
 Massachusetts Registration Report for 1866, p. 44. 
 
 t STATISTICAL TABLES. 
 
 rop. OF Massachusetts, 
 June 1, A.D. 1860. 
 
 Male. Female. 
 
 15,869 
 
 60,059 
 
 64,476 
 
 67,544 
 
 57,070 
 
 Under 1 year, 
 1 and under 5, 
 
 10, 
 15, 
 20, 
 
 30, 112,413 
 
 15,()W5 
 50,095 
 64,0c0 
 56,804 
 63,730 
 13^,106 
 
 Total, 
 
 596,713 034,353 
 
 White Pop. of Suffolk Co., 
 (City of Boston), Mass., 1860. 
 Male. Female. 
 
 Under 1 year, 
 1 and under 5, 
 
 6 
 10 
 15 
 
 10, 
 15, 
 20, 
 
 2,707 
 9,358 
 0,730 
 8,2:J4 
 19,865 
 
 2,743 
 9,334 
 9,945 
 8,313 
 23,906 
 
 Total. 
 
 91,015 99,2;i4 
 
 Colored Pop. N.Y. City, iseo* 
 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female- 
 
 Under 1 year, 
 
 82 
 
 114 
 
 1 and under 5, 
 
 410 
 
 453 
 
 5 " 10, 
 
 666 
 
 674 
 
 10 " 15, 
 
 665 
 
 631 
 
 15 " 20, 
 
 446 
 
 648 
 
 20 " 30, 
 
 1,120 
 
 1,655 
 
 Total, 
 
 5,468 7,106 
 
 Pop. of Pennsylvania, 1860. 
 Male. Finale. 
 Under 1 year, 44,167 
 1 and under 5, 179,253 
 
 10, 194,258 
 15, 171.162 
 20, 149,531 
 30, 246,343 
 
 42,704 
 176,116 
 191,094 
 167,025 
 160,357 
 263,931 
 
 Total, 
 
 1,454,419 1,451,796 
 
48 
 
 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 grow up to manhood, the boys and young men are 
 constantly exposed to hardships and dangers, from 
 which the softer sex is exempt ; and hence the 
 excess of the females goes on continually increas- 
 ing, as we see by the statistical tables, from the 
 beginning to the end of the marriageable age. All 
 this in times of peace : the excess must be much 
 greater than usual after a destructive war ; for 
 during the late civil war in America there were lost 
 from both parties nearly a million of men in the 
 most productive period of life. 
 
 Pop. op N. York State, 1860. 
 
 Male. Femah-. 
 
 Under 1 year, 62,175 
 
 luudunUer 5, 210,112 
 
 5 
 10 
 
 20 
 
 10, 232,42() 
 
 16, 203,453 
 
 20, 18S,893 
 
 30, 341,0^7 
 
 51,257 
 210,591 
 227 413 
 l97,!-84 
 205,004 
 380,141 
 
 Total, 
 
 1,933,532 1,947,203 
 
 White rop.OF N.Y.City, i860. 
 Mule. Female. 
 
 12,^47 
 47,074 
 '4<),3>0 
 36.233 
 33,344 
 77,747 
 
 12.072 
 46.025 
 45.452 
 34,936 
 39,028 
 97,627 
 
 Pop. of Phil. Co., Penx., 
 (White), 1860. 
 
 Under 1 year, 
 
 1 and under 6, 
 
 6 *' lu, 
 10 " 15, 
 
 15 " 20, 
 20 " 30, 
 
 Total, 391,521 409,567 Total, 9,177 13,008 
 
 The foregoing statistics are compiled from the United-States 
 
 Census for 1860. The following are from the Census of Hassa- 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Under 1 year, 7,829 
 
 7,475 
 
 1 and under 5, 30,864 
 
 30,533 
 
 5 " 10, 31,981 
 
 31,737 
 
 10 " 15, 26,135 
 
 27,113 
 
 15 *• 20, 23,425 
 
 29,294 
 
 20 •* 30, 49,r.67 
 
 61,380 
 
 Total, 260,156 
 
 283,188 
 
 Pop. of PniLADELPmA. 
 
 (Colored), 1860. 
 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Under 1 year, 187 
 
 209 
 
 1 and under 5, 809 
 
 1,065 
 
 5 " 10, 1,019 
 
 1,195 
 
 10 " 15, 996 
 
 1,199 
 
 5 ♦* 20, 915 
 
 1,452 
 
 20 *' 30, 1,875 
 
 2,864 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 
 
 49 
 
 WOMEN MATURE EARLIER THAN MEN. 
 
 Young women become marriageable at a much 
 earlier age than young men do. There is a natural 
 or constitutional difference of several years, and 
 prudential considerations cause the difference to 
 become practically greater. But few young men 
 are born to large fortunes, which these times of 
 extravagance require for the fashionable mainte- 
 nance of a family ; and those who are rich are not 
 always the most prompt to marry. They prefer 
 to spend their early manhood in dissipation, and 
 are unwilling to bow to the yoke of wedlock till 
 
 chusetts for 1865, published under the supervision of 0. Warner, 
 Secretary of the Commonwealth. Table I. p. 2. 
 
 Pop. 
 
 OK Massachusetts, 
 
 Pop. of Suffolk Co. 
 
 , Mass. 
 
 
 June ] 
 
 , 1805. 
 
 
 (City of 
 
 Boston), June 1, 1865. 
 
 
 
 Male. 
 
 Female. 
 
 Under 1 
 
 year, 2,145 
 
 2,017 
 
 Under 1 
 
 year, 
 
 1 1 974 
 
 11,745 
 
 1 and under 2, 2,003 
 
 1,819 
 
 1 and under 2, 
 
 12,898 
 
 12,431 
 
 2 
 
 3, 2,288 
 
 2,255 
 
 2 " 
 
 3, 
 
 13,043 
 
 13,5! 5 
 
 3 " 
 
 4, 2,205 
 
 2,233 
 
 3 " 
 
 4, 
 
 14,101 
 
 14.188 
 
 4 " 
 
 6, 2,280 
 
 2,301 
 
 4 " 
 
 6, 
 
 14,735 
 
 1 KG53 
 
 5 '* 
 
 10, 11,267 
 
 11,623 
 
 5 • *' 
 
 10, 
 
 71,777 
 
 71,014 
 
 10 " 
 
 15, 9,848 
 
 9,971 
 
 10 " 
 
 15, 
 
 03,853 
 
 62,838 
 
 15 « 
 
 20, 8.527 
 
 10,267 
 
 J5 " 
 
 20, 
 
 65,281 
 
 61,890 
 
 20 " 
 
 30,. 17,601 
 
 25,618 
 
 20 " 
 
 30, 
 
 90,027 
 
 129,479 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Total, 
 
 96,529 
 
 111,083 
 
 Total, 
 
 
 002,010 
 
 005,021 
 
 
 
 
 In the above table the excess of females between the ages of 
 15 and 20 is 6,600, or about \ of the number of males ; between 
 20 and 30 it is 33,452, or more than ^ of the number of males. 
 
50 mSrORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 they begin to feel the iufirmltles of age ; while the 
 poor man must devote several years of his majority 
 to toil before he becomes able to assume matrimo- 
 nial expenses. The result is that most men do 
 not marry until between twenty-five and thirty-five 
 years of age, and many at a later period ; while a 
 large majority of Avomen who marry at all are 
 married between the ages of fifteen and twenty- 
 five. On the whole, therefore, women are practi- 
 cally marriageable ten years younger than men are, 
 a period which constitutes a third part of the ave- 
 rage duration of adult life. From these two causes 
 alone, — the greater number of women, and their 
 being marriageable so much younger, — the pro- 
 portion of marriageable women to marriageable 
 men would be about two to one. 
 
 MANY MEN REFUSE TO MARRY. 
 
 But the practical difference is still greater. For 
 after men have arrived at adult manhood, and 
 have acquired the means of supporting a family, 
 many of them refuse marriage. Some have out- 
 lived their youthful desires, and have acquired 
 decided habits of celibacy ; some are too gay and 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 61 
 
 too profligate ; others too busy and too selfish ; 
 others so broken down by early dissipation and 
 diseased by the contagious poison of low vice, that 
 they are totally unfit to marry : while - tkere are 
 many others whose occupations (such as sailors 
 and soldiers) most commonly prevent marriage. 
 From these disabilities the other sex is much more 
 exempt. They are exposed to fewer temptations ; 
 they are more susceptible to religious impressions ; 
 they are more immediately under the control of 
 parents and guardians, and are saved from many 
 of those enervating and degrading habits which 
 beset young men, rendering them either disinclined 
 to marriage, or unfit for it, or both. 
 
 FEW WOMEN DECLINE MARRIAGE. 
 
 There are, on the other hand, few women who 
 are unwilling to marry. They are naturally depend- 
 ent upon their male friends ; and, after the period 
 of childhood, this dependence is seldom happy or 
 even tolerable, except in the marriage relation. 
 The former is a dependence of necessity, the latter 
 is, or ought to be, a dependence of love ; and this 
 distinction makes all the difference in the world. 
 
52 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Hence it needs no argument to prove what is so 
 universally admitted, that women fulfil their high- 
 est destiny in life only by becoming wives and 
 mothers. I will cite a woman's testimony, and 
 submit the case, quoting the earnest words of 
 '' Gail Hamilton." '• There is not one woman 
 in a million who would not be married if . . . she 
 could have a chance. How do I know? Just as 
 I know that the stars are now shining in the sky, 
 though it is higli noon. I never saw a star at 
 noonday ; but I know it is the nature of stars to 
 shine in the sky, and of the sky to hold its stars. 
 Genius or fool, rich or poor, beauty or the beast, 
 if marriage were what it should be, what God 
 meant it to be, what even, with the world's present 
 possibilities, it might be, it would be the Elysium, 
 the sole, complete Elysium, of woman, yes, and of 
 man. Greatuess, glory, usefulness, happiness, 
 await her otherwheres ; but here alone all her 
 powers, all her being, can find full play. No con- 
 dition, no character even, can quite hide the gleam 
 of the sacred fire ; but on the household hearth it 
 joins the warmth of earth to the hues of heaven. 
 Brilliant, dazzling, vivid, a beacon and a blessing 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 53 
 
 her light may be ; but only a happy home blends 
 the prismatic rays into a soft, serene whiteness, that 
 floods the world with divine illumination. Without 
 wifely and motherly love, a part of her nature 
 must remain enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain 
 sealed." * 
 
 MONOGAMY PREVENTS MARRIAGE. 
 
 But under the system of monogamy it is impos- 
 sible for half the women to live in the enjoyment 
 of the married state. This cruel and oppressive 
 system is compelling them either to repress the fond* 
 est sensibilities and the most imperative demands 
 of Nature, and lo renounce their dearest rights, 
 or else to assert them in a clandestine and forbidden 
 manner, and thus to abandon themselves to a life 
 of infamy and an eternity of shame and woe. 
 
 In older and more wealthy countries practising 
 monogamy, the comparative number of unmarried 
 to married women is even greater. The statistical 
 tables of England show that less than one-third of 
 the marriageable women of that country were liv- 
 ing in marriage at the time of the last census. 
 
 • New Atmosphere, p. 65. 
 
/>l msTonr and philosophy 
 
 At the period of the highest glory of the Roman 
 empire, and also during its long decline, while 
 wealth and luxury increased, and the artijQcial con- 
 ventionalities of society were greatly multiplied, it 
 was observed, with alarm, that marriages became 
 less and less frequent, and were consummated later 
 and later in life : and all the power of the govern- 
 ment was exerted in vain to arrest the growing evil. 
 Heavy fines and special taxes were levied upon old 
 bachelors, and high premiums paid to persons hav- 
 ing numerous families ; but the evil continued to 
 increase till the empire was dismembered.* 
 
 * "But neither rewards nor penalties proved effectual to 
 check the increasing tendency to celibacy; and at the period of 
 the Gracchi an alarm was sounded that the old Roman race was 
 becoming rapidly extinguished. . . . When the legislation of 
 Julius Caesar was found ineffectual for controlling the still 
 growing evil, it was re-enforced by his successor with fresh pen- 
 alties and rewards." — Merivale's Hist, of the Romans^ chap. 33, 
 vol. 2, pp. 37, 38. 
 
 " But upon this one point the master of the Romans [Augus- 
 tus] could make no impression upon the dogged disobedience 
 of his subjects: both the men and the women preferred the 
 loose terms of union upon which they had consented to cohabit, 
 &c."-./6ic/. 
 
 •* Augustus most anxiously, both by law and precept, en- 
 
OP MAttBtAQ^. 55 
 
 THE MARRIAGE CEREMONY. 
 
 In respect to the mode of performing the mar- 
 riage ceremony^ the divine law does not prescribe 
 any : and nothing more was necessary, in ancient 
 times, to constitute a valid marriage than a mutual 
 agreement, or actual cohabitation. The ancient Ro- 
 mans had three different modes of tying the hyme- 
 neal knot, each with a different degree of looseness, 
 but none of them so firm as it should be. The 
 ceremony has always varied in different States, and 
 at different times in the same State, and should 
 never be regarded as any thing more than a public 
 recognition of a relationship already formed and 
 completed between the parties. Yet as marriage 
 
 couraged marriage; but the profligacy of the manners which 
 then prevailed was such that all the honors and rewards and 
 immunities which he prepared were of but little avail." — 
 Kdghtle\fs Hist, of the Roman Empire^ chap i., p. 11. 
 
 *' The principal cause of the prevalent aversion to marriage 
 was the extreme dissoluteness of manners at that time, exceed- 
 ing any thing known in modern days. . . . The first law on the 
 subject was the Julian ' De Miritandis Ordlnibus^^ of 736 ; and 
 this having proved ineffectual, a now and more comprehensive 
 law, embracing all the provisions of the Julian, and named the 
 ^ Papia-Poppcean^' was passed ia the year 762." — Jbid.^ chap, 2, 
 p. 34. 
 
56 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is a matter of importaut consequence to the friends 
 and kindred of the parties, and also to the whole 
 State, involving public as well as private obliga- 
 tions, it is eminently proper that some appropriate 
 ceremony should be performed, and that it should 
 be sufficiently public to leave no doubt as to its 
 reality. Yet marriages are made in heaven ; the 
 claim of the Romish Church to make and unmake 
 them is a blasphemous assumption. No ceremony 
 can add to their religious validity ; and it can only 
 be necessary to their legality and publicity. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 57 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ORIGIN OF POLYGAMY. 
 
 PREJUDICES TO BE OVERCOME. 
 
 Having thus fulfilled my promise to analyze 
 and demonstrate the fundamental laws of love and 
 marriage, I shall now attempt, with equal candor 
 and simplicity, to trace the origin and indicate the 
 moral characteristics of the two social systems of 
 monogamy and polygamy, and to apply to them 
 the same tests of philosophical analysis and com- 
 parison. And here allow me again to say that it 
 is necessary to arm ourselves with patient candor, 
 or we cannot appreciate the truth and justice of 
 any fair analysis of these systems. As we have 
 been brought up under the system of monogamy, 
 we have inherited the prejudices of that system ; 
 and, having been taught to look upon the opposite 
 one with detestation and contempt, we are, on that 
 account, but ill cualified to judge between them. 
 
58 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Let us remember that, whether our prejudices are 
 right or wrong, they are prejudices only. We 
 have not stopped to reason ; we have been content 
 to cherish our opinions on this subje(^t w^ithout ex- 
 amination and without reason. We have always 
 accustomed ourselves to believe that polygamy 
 originated in barbarism ; that it is perpetuated by 
 barbarians only, and that it panders to the basest 
 a%d most depraved of human passions. But let us 
 now think for ourselves. For one, I claim that 
 right. I dare to question the superior purity of 
 monogamy ; and on behalf of the despised and per- 
 secuted system of polygamy, I venture to appeal 
 from the rash decisions of prejudice to the solemn 
 tribunals of divine and natural law ; and in sup- 
 port of this appeal I cite the facts of sacred and 
 profane history, and plead the inalienable rights of 
 man. 
 
 POLYGAMY IS NOT BARBARISM. 
 
 If European monogamists have hitherto sur 
 passed all other men in civilization and social hap- 
 piness, it is not on account of their monogamy, 
 but, no doubt, on account of their Christianity. 
 Even a perverted Christianity, a corrupted Ghri?- 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 59 
 
 tiauity, a Roman Christianity, is better than idola- 
 try or Mohammedanism. What, then, may we not 
 hope when Christianity shall become free and 
 pare, and restored to its pristine simplicity and 
 glory? 
 
 An idolatrous nation practising monogamy has 
 never been able long to exist. History does not 
 furnish one example. Such nations soon become 
 so incurably corrupt as to incur the wrath of God, 
 and are swept from the face of the earth. Neither 
 civilization nor barbarism ; military power or pusil- 
 lanimity ; tyranny or freedom ; monarchy, aristoc- 
 racy, or democracy ; literature, art, wealth, genius, 
 or stupidity has ever been able to save them. Many 
 such States and nations have started in the race of 
 glory and perpetual empire ; but each of them has 
 come to premature decay. Such were the different 
 States of ancient Greece and ancient Italy, many 
 of them distinguished for having produced men of 
 the most brilliant genius and the most renowned ex- 
 perience in the various arts of peace and war, and 
 several of them achieving extensive conquests and 
 becoming vast empires ; yet they very soon collapsed 
 and went to ruin. And such was the fate of the 
 
60 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 mauy scores or perhaps hundreds of the petty States 
 of all Europe before the establishment of Christian- 
 ity. They rose, they flourished, they becanae licen- 
 tious, they fell. Wave after wave of the purer 
 races of the polygamists of Asia rolled over them, 
 knd assumed their places ; and as these, in turn, fell 
 into their social habits, and adopted their monogamy, 
 and became corrupt, they also became extinct, and 
 were succeeded by newer and purer immigrations. 
 On the other hand, the polygamists of Asia have 
 preserved their social purity, and along with it 
 many of their nationalities, through every age, 
 notwithstanding their idolatry and Mohammedan- 
 ism. Such are the nations of China, Japan, Persia, 
 and Arabia, whose living languages and existing 
 laws date back to the very earliest records of an 
 tiquity. An intelligent Christian nation practising 
 polygamy has never yet existed, simply because the 
 two institutions have hitherto been falsely deemed 
 incompatible and irreconcilable. The Gnostic her- 
 esy had so soon corrupted the springs of Christian 
 learning, and the Grecian and Roman hierarchies 
 had so soon usurped the seats of Christian author- 
 ity, that the freedom and simplicity of the pristine 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 61 
 
 faith were perverted, even before such an experi- 
 ment could be made, as I shall fully demonstrate in 
 the next chapter ; and now it is most probable that 
 if such an experiment shall ever be made, it will 
 be somewhere upon the continent of free America. 
 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way ; 
 The four first acts already past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day, — 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 
 Polygamy is not barbarism, for it has been main- 
 tained and supported by such men as Abraham. 
 Moses, David, and Solomon ; Avhose superiors in 
 all that constitute the highest civilization -— knowl- 
 edge, piety, wisdom, and refinement of mind and 
 manners — the world has never known, either in 
 ancient or modern times. Yet polygamy, though 
 it be not barbarism, has almost always and every- 
 where prevailed, where a simple, natural, and in- 
 artificial state of society subsists. Its origin is 
 coeval with that of the human race. It is men- 
 tioned before the flood. It is mentioned soon after 
 the flood. As soon as mankind were multiplied 
 upon the earth, it was discovered that the number 
 
G2 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of the women exceeded that of the men ; and also 
 that the amorous passions of the men were strong- 
 er than those of the women. Polygamy brings both 
 these inequalities together, and allows them to cor- 
 rect each other. It furnishes every woman who 
 wishes to marry, a husband and a home ; and gives 
 every man an opportunity of expending his super- 
 abundant vitality in an honest way. 
 
 WHY GOD MADE BUT ONE WOMAN. 
 
 If it be objected that God created but one woman 
 for Adam, it is a sufficient answer to reply, that 
 both the man and the woman were also created per- 
 fect. They were perfect in health, and perfect in 
 morals. But we are now imperfect in both respects ; 
 and we now need a social system adapted to men 
 and women as they are. If humanity shall ever be 
 restored to its pristine strength and beauty, the 
 equality of the sexes will also be restored, and there 
 will be a man for every woman, and a woman for 
 every man ; a true woman without imperfection, 
 whose accomplishments will not be superficial, nor 
 whose attractions artificial ; but whose rosy cheeks 
 and pearly teeth and swelling breasts and clustering 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 68 
 
 ringlets shall be all her own. God speed the day I 
 Should I live to see it, I would become an advocate 
 for monogamy. But, as it now is, there is not a man 
 for every woman ; and either some women must re- 
 main unmarried and " waste their sweetness on the 
 desert air," and be entirely deprived of their birth- 
 right, and denied all matrimonial advantages, or 
 they may, several of them, agree to share those ad- 
 vantages in common with each other, by having 
 a single husband between them. Polygamy does 
 not compel them to do this ; it only permits them 
 to do it in case they have no opportunity to do bet- 
 ter. On the other hand, it does not compel a man 
 to marry even one woman, much less to have more ; 
 but, if the intensity of his passion urges him to such 
 lengths that he must have and will have more than 
 one, it requires him to take them honestly and hon- 
 orably, and to support them and be a true husband 
 to them. 
 
 POLYGAMY TAUGHT IN THE BIBLE. 
 
 The Sacred Scriptures represent the wisest and 
 best men that ever lived, as practising polygamy 
 with the divine blessing and approval. David had 
 
64 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 seven wives before he reigned in Jerusalem, '' and 
 he took more concubines and wives out of Jerusa- 
 lem, after he was come from Hebron," for God 
 "gave him the house of Saul and the wives of 
 Saul into his bosom." * When God reproved 
 Abimelech, king of Gerar, for his intended adultery 
 with Sarah, wife of Abraham, he did, at the same 
 time, approve of his polygamy ; for Abimelech 
 said, '' In the integrity of my heart and innocency 
 of my hands have I done this." " Said he not 
 unto me. She is 'my sister ? and she, even she 
 herself, said. He is my brother." And God said, 
 '* I know that thou didst this in the integrity of 
 thy heart : " '' now, therefore, restore the man his 
 wife." '' And God healed Abimelech and his wife 
 and his maid-servants." God could allow him to 
 live in open polygamy, without reproof, and " in 
 the integrity of his heart," but could not allow 
 him to commit adultery, even ignorantly.f Solo 
 men was reproved for multiplying the number of 
 his wives to an unreasonable and ostentatious de- 
 gree, but more especially for having taken them 
 
 * 2 Sam. iii. 2-5, 14; v. 13; xii. 8. f Gen. xx. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 65 
 
 from heathen nations ; for " they turned away his 
 heart after other gods : " but these are the only 
 reasons assigned for his reproof, there being no 
 intimation that polygamy was wrong in itself. 
 But it is unnecessary to cite other examples from 
 the Bible. No one familiar with that book has 
 ever denied that polygamy is taught in the Old 
 Testament, and yet most Christians suppose it to 
 be forbidden in the New. Have we any right to 
 sucli a supposition ? Are we right in entertaining 
 any supposition on this subject? If it is forbidden 
 in the New Testament, have we not a right to 
 demand the most unequivocal and undoubted proofs 
 of such prohibition ? Is the God of Abraham and 
 Isaac and Jacob the Christian's God, or is he not ? 
 Is it not possible that this supposition is an error? 
 And, if it be an error, is it not possible that it has 
 been one means of lessening our reverence for the 
 Old Testament, and thereby undermining our con- 
 fidence in the Bible as a whole? If this suppo- 
 sition be an error, has it not been tending to 
 make infidels of us all? I copy the following 
 paragraph from an essay of the Rev. S. W. 
 Foljambe, recently delivered by him, at a Sabbath- 
 
66 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 school Teachers' Convention at Boston, with my 
 lilost hearty commendation : — 
 
 "It is sad to believe that infidelity in some form 
 |)revails t&fOtighout our State, yet we cannot 
 doubt that it is even so, generally covert with an 
 6utward profession of regard for Christianity, but 
 tfeveftfeeless real, accompanied hy a disregard and 
 d'isbelief of the scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments. I refer to this not as any proof that 
 Protestantism or Christianity is or can be a 
 failure, or that the Scriptures are in any real 
 danger, but as indicating a responsibility resting 
 on us to maintain and defend the equal authority 
 and inspiration of the Holy Scriptures ; that " all 
 scripture is given by inspiration of God ; " that its 
 writers, whether Moses or David, Isaiah or Paul,, 
 Ezekiel or John, were ' holy men of God wha 
 wrote as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.*" 
 Is it not true, that, among many who hold to the 
 truth and reality of a divine revelation, there has 
 come to be a feeling that in some way the New 
 Testament has superseded the Old, and that the 
 Old has ceased to be 'profitable for doctrine, for 
 correction, for reproof, for iq^truption in righteousr 
 
OF MAERIAGE. 67 
 
 ness'? Now, if this can be demonstrated, what 
 is there to prove that in a still more advanced stage 
 of spiritual life, as is claimed by many, the New 
 Testament itself may not be superseded by some 
 wiser interpretations of the meaning and purpose 
 of Christ's life, and the Gospels of Matthew and of 
 John be superseded by the gospel of Strauss or 
 Renan ; or the interpretations of Paul as to the 
 person and work of Christ be superseded by the 
 interpretation of Parker and of Music Hall? 
 
 "It seems to me that our Lord is explicit on this 
 point, that the Jewish Scriptures were not and 
 could not be superseded by any later revelation 
 even by himself: 'Think not that I am come to 
 destroy the law, or the prophets : I am not come 
 to destroy, but to fulfil ; ' and again — ' Had ye be- 
 lieved Moses, ye would have believed me, for he 
 wrote of me ; ' and he is continually quoting them 
 as authority, showing that there is no inconsistency 
 between the two revelations. Together they form 
 one continuous and connected divine word. True, 
 the Scriptures are composed of books that are 
 cumulative and progressive, but they are interde- 
 pendent. The internal meaning of the two parts 
 
68 HISTORY A2^D PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is entirely harmonious. The divine Spirit is in 
 them both. They never contradict, but always 
 interpret, explain, and illustrate each other." 
 
 But let the inspiration and perpetual authority of 
 the Old Testament be fully admitted, yet the mod- 
 ern Christian may say, '' We do not live under the 
 First Covenant, nor observe the ceremonies of 
 Moses ; but we live in the New Dispensation, un- 
 der the full light of the gospel : Christ has fulfilled 
 the ritual and emblematical ordinances of the law, 
 and set them aside ; and it is presumed that the 
 ancient marriage laws have been set aside among 
 the rest, and superseded by the purer system of 
 monogamy." But this assumption cannot be sup- 
 ported either by sufficient testimony or by valid rea- 
 soning. The social system of polygamy had existed 
 before the time of Moses, and had no dependence 
 upon the ceremonial law which was instituted in his 
 day. That law only confirmed it as a pre-existent 
 institution. Marriage laws cannot be regarded as 
 merely ritual and emblematical : they are moral 
 and fundamental, guarding the dearest rights and 
 punishing the deepest wrongs of mankind. They 
 arc, therefore, equally permanent with those laws 
 
OF MAttntAGK 69 
 
 protecting life and property, those inculcating obe- 
 dience to parents and rulers, and those maintaining 
 the sanctity of oaths. All these, together with the 
 marriage laws, existed before the time of Moses, 
 and have survived the time of Christ. They are 
 among those " laws " that Jesus came not to subvert 
 but to ratify ; as Dr. George Campbell of Aber- 
 deen has, in Matt. v. 17, very exactly translated 
 the terms iiaxalvGai and 7iXr]QooGat, Hence the mar- 
 riage system of polygamy never formed a part of 
 that ceremonial dispensation which was abrogated 
 by the New Testament ; nor has it ever been proved 
 that the New Testament was designed to affect any 
 change in it ; but the presumption is that this new 
 dispensation has also left it, as it found it, — abid- 
 ing still in force. If any change were to be made 
 in an institution of such long standing, confirmed 
 by positive law, it could obviously be made only by 
 equally positive and explicit ordinances or enact- 
 ments of the gospel. But such enactments are 
 wanting. Christ himself was altogether silent in 
 respect to polygamy, not once alluding to it ; yet 
 it was practised at the time of his advent through- 
 out Judaea and Galilee, and in all the other countries 
 
70 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPUT 
 
 of Asia and Africa, and, without doubt, by some 
 of his own disciples. 
 
 The Book of the Acts is equally silent as the four 
 Gospels are. No allusion to it is found in any of 
 the sermons or instructions or discussions of the 
 apostles and early saints recorded in that book. It 
 was not because Jesus or the apostles durst not 
 condemn it, had they considered it sinful, that they 
 did not speak of it, for Jesus hesitated not to de- 
 nounce the sins of hypocrisy, covetousness, and 
 adultery, and even to alter and amend, apparently, 
 the ancient laws respecting divorce and retaliation ; 
 but he never rebuked them for their polygamy, nor 
 instituted any change in that system. And this 
 uniform silence, so far as it implies any thing, im- 
 plies approval. John the Baptist was thrown into 
 prison, where he was afterwards beheaded, for re- 
 proving King Herod on account of his adultery : 
 and we cannot doubt, that, if he had considered 
 polygamy to be sinful, he would have mentioned it ; 
 for Herod's father was, just before that time, liv- 
 ing with nine wives, whose names are recorded by 
 Josephus, in his " Antiquities of the Jews ; " * 
 
 • Antiq. Jud., book 17, chap. 1, § 3. 
 
bF MARRIAGE, tl 
 
 but Jolm only reproved liim for marryiug Hero- 
 dias, his brother Philip's wife, while his brother 
 was living. He administered the same reproof to 
 Herod that Nathan had formerly done, to David, 
 and for similar reasons. The apostles always de- 
 nounced the sins of fornication and adultery, but 
 never denounced polygamy, nor intimated in any 
 way that it was a sin. In all the long and painful 
 catalogues of sins enumerated in the first, second, 
 and third chapters of Romans, many of which 
 relate to the unlawful indulgence of the amorous 
 propensities, polygamy is not once named. It is 
 the very place where it is morally certain that it 
 would have been named if it were sinful ; and, that 
 it is not there named, we are fully warranted to 
 believe that it is not sinful. 
 
 I 
 I 
 
 MONOGAMY OF BISHOPS AND DEACONS. 
 
 The only portions of the Sacred Writings 
 which seem to disapprove of polygamy are 
 found in the epistles of Paul concerning the quali- 
 fications of bishops and deacons. These pas- 
 sages have been variously interpreted by various 
 commentators. Some suppose that it forbids 
 
72 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 these officers of the church from contracting a 
 second marriage after the death of the first wife ; 
 others that it forbids any but married persons 
 being inducted into these sacred offices — that 
 I hey must be the husbands of one wife, at least, 
 — but that it does not forbid them taking more. 
 But the commonly received opinion, and the one 
 to which I am myself inclined, is, that in choos- 
 ing men for these offices, such men should be 
 chosen who are not much inclined to amorous 
 pleasures, and each of whom has one wife only. 
 They should be men of peculiar temperance and 
 sobriety. This implies that polygamy was still 
 practised in the primitive Christian churches ; 
 for otherwise it would have been superfluous and 
 irrelevant to mention this as a special qualification 
 in a candidate for one of those offices. And 
 even this recommendation applies only to candi- 
 dates, and not to those who have been already 
 ordained. In confirmation of these views I here 
 cite the authority of James McKnight, D.D., one 
 of the most learned commentators on the New 
 Testament. 
 
 " As the Asiatic nations universally practised 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 78 
 
 polygamy, from an inordinate love of the pleasures 
 of the flesh, the apostle ordered, by inspiration, 
 that none should be made bishops but those, who, 
 by avoiding polygamy, had showed ,themselves 
 temperate in the use of sensual pleasures. ... It 
 may be objected, perhaps, that the gospel ought to 
 have prohibited the people, as well as the minis- 
 ters of religion, from polygamy and divorce, if 
 these things were morally evil. As to divorce, 
 the answer is, all, both clergy and people, were 
 restrained from unjust divorces by the precept of 
 Christ. With respect to polygamy being an 
 offence against political prudence, rather than 
 against morality, it had been permitted to the 
 Jews by Moses, and was generally practised by 
 the Eastern nations as a matter of indifferency ; 
 it was, therefore, to be corrected mildly and 
 gradually, by example rather than by express 
 precept, without occasioning those domestic 
 troubles and causeless divorces which must neces- 
 sarily have ensued, if, by an express injunction of 
 the apostles, husbands, immediately on their be- 
 coming Christians, had been obliged to pui away 
 all their wives except one/* — Commentary on 
 1 Tim. iii, 2. 
 
74 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Tills testimony is specially valuable as being 
 'extorted, by the force of truth, from an avowed 
 •advocate of monogamy. Although it is highly 
 •colored by that system, yet these four points are 
 'distinctly admitted. 1. That polygamy was 
 ^commonly practised by the j)rimitive Christians. 
 S. That it had been expressly permitted in the 
 Old Testament. 3. That it was not prohibited 
 in the New Testament. 4. That it was from 
 j)olitical and prudential considerations, and not 
 ifrom any immorality in it, that candidates for 
 the ministry were recommended to abstain from it. 
 Hence, we conclude that this recommendation of 
 the apostle was made out of respect to the preju- 
 dices of the Greeks and Romans, under whose 
 laws they were then living, and who practised a 
 •corrupt and licentious monogamy, which I shall 
 •describe in the next chapter. It was doubtless 
 for similar reasons that the same apostle recom- 
 mended to the Corinthian Christians not to marry ; 
 but no one except a Shaking Quaker or a Roman 
 Catholic can believe that such a recommendation 
 was intended to apply to all persons, at all times 
 and places, or that it was proper then, on any 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 75 
 
 other ground than tlie notorious corru])tion of 
 Corinthian morals. See Appendix, page 253. 
 
 Now polygamy is either right, or it is wrong. If 
 it is wrong, it is contrary to the will of God. If 
 it is contrary to the will of God now, it always has 
 been, ever since the fall of man ; for God has not 
 changed, human nature has not changed, and the 
 mutual relation of the sexes has not changed. If 
 it is contrary to the divine will, God would cer- 
 tainly liave expressed decided disapprobation of it 
 in his word, and denounced tliose who practised 
 it. But on tlie contrary, it was, by the Mosaic 
 law, expressly sanctioned, and, under certain cir- 
 cumstances, expressly commanded, as fully appears 
 from Deut. xxii. 28, and xxv. 5. In the former 
 passage it was commanded that if any man 
 (whether married or unmarried) had had illicit 
 intercourse with an unbetrothed virgin, then he 
 must marry her, and must not put her away all 
 his life. In the other passage it was commanded 
 that when a married man died without issue, his 
 brother must marry his widow. And this com- 
 mand is positive, whether the surviving brother 
 have a wife already, or not ; and even if several 
 
76 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 such married brothers should die, and leave no 
 offspring, the surviving brother would be obliged, 
 by this law, to marry all the widows ; and in 
 each case, the first-born children would succeed to 
 the inheritances of their mothers' first husbands, 
 but the younger children would belong to their 
 own father. This was a law in Israel long before 
 the ceremonial law of Moses, as we learn from 
 the 38th chapter of Genesis, where it is stated 
 that Onan the son of Judah was required to marry 
 the widow of his brother Er, and because he took 
 a wicked course to prevent having offspring by 
 her, he was put to death by the immediate act of 
 God. The entire Book of Ruth, also, constitutes 
 a beautiful illustration and commentary of this 
 ancient law ; and it is mentioned in the New 
 Testament in such terms as to imply that it was 
 still in force in the time of Christ (Matt. xxii. 
 24-28). 
 
 POLYGAMY APPROVED OF GOD. 
 
 I sum up the divine testimony thus : If polyga- 
 my is now a vice and a sin, like adultery or 
 lying or stealing, it always has been and always 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 77 
 
 will be a sin ; and God would never have ap- 
 proved or commanded it : but we have seen above, 
 that he has commanded it in two eases at least, 
 viz., in case of the married man's illicit inter- 
 course with an unbetrothed virgin, and in case of 
 the married man's brother's widow ; and in these 
 cases, therefore, it cannot be a sin. In further 
 proof of its innocence, let it be remembered that 
 it was practised without rebuke by Abraham, 
 when he was styled ^' The Friend of God ; " by 
 Jacob, when his name was changed to Israel on 
 account of his piety and his faith ; by David, 
 when God himself "gave testimony, and said, I 
 have found David the son of Jesse a man after 
 my own heart ; " and by many others whose 
 names will be held in everlasting remembrance, 
 being preserved in Holy Writ, long after those of 
 modern pseudo-religionists, who now denounce 
 polygamy as barbarous and sinful, shall have 
 perished in oblivion. 
 
78 BISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 ORIGIN OF MONOGAMY. 
 
 MONOGAMY IS THE DISSOLUTE DAUGHTER OF PA- 
 GANISM AND ROMANISM. 
 
 I HAVE demonstrated that monogamy is not com- 
 manded in the Bible, and that it is not the doctrine 
 of Christianity. I shall now account for its origin, 
 by proving that it is the joint offspring of paganism 
 and Romanism. The social system of European 
 monogamy is proved to be derived from the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans (especially from the latter), 
 by the early histories of the nations of Europe, and 
 by an uninterrupted descent of traditional customs 
 from them to our own times. It is one of those 
 pagan abominations which we have inherited, which 
 the Roman Church has sanctioned and confirmed, 
 and from which we find it so difficult to emancipate 
 ourselves. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 79 
 
 IMPURITY OF ANCIENT GREEK AND ROMAN MORALS. 
 
 The ancient Greek and Roman notions of mar- 
 riage and of chastity were in some respects different 
 from ours, but only as Christianity has made them 
 different. We are ready to admit, at least in 
 theory, what Christianity requires, that the laws 
 of chastity are binding upon men and women equal- 
 ly, and that no person can innocently indulge in 
 amorous pleasure except with his ovva wife or her 
 own husband. But among them this rule of chas- 
 tity applied to the female sex alone. The other 
 sex claimed and exercised their freedom from it, 
 without concealment or palliation, and at the same 
 time without the loss of moral character or of pub- 
 lic estimation. To be grossly addicted to whoredom 
 and seduction was no dishonor : it was only when 
 convicted of Sodomy that they were pronounced 
 unchaste. 
 
 Marriage was not expected or intended to pre- 
 serve the public purity, or to secure domestic hap- 
 piness, but was rather designed to perpetuate their 
 heroic races, to preserve their rich patrimonial 
 estates, and to maintain the ascendency of their 
 
80 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 aristocratic families. For these purposes they 
 guarded the chastity of their wives with vigilant 
 jealousy and punished their adultery with severity ; 
 but the men placed themselves under no such re- 
 strictions either in law or in fact, but they habitu- 
 ally sought their own pleasures away from home, 
 in the public haunts of impurity, at the house of an 
 Aspasia, of a Leona, or of a Messalina, or at some 
 other establishment of their numerous Cyprian and 
 Corinthian dames ; or, if they could not pay the 
 extravagant prices demanded by these celebrated 
 beauties, they could at least resort to their public 
 temples, and gratify their lust among the prostitutes 
 kept there.* 
 
 * " The Greeks had but little pleasure in the society of their 
 wives. At first, the young husband only visited her by stealth: 
 to be seen in company with her was a disgrace." — Bulwer's 
 Hist, of Athens^ book i. chap. 6. 
 
 *' In the times of Corinthian opulence and prosperity, it is 
 said that the shrine of Venus was attended by no less than one 
 thousand female slaves dedicated to her service as courtesans. 
 These priestesses of Venus contributed not a little to the wealth 
 and luxury of the city." — ^«iAo«'s Classical Dict.j art "Cb- 
 rtn^AiM." 
 
 Strabo, in his great work on Geography, in speaking of the 
 
OF MAnniAQE, 81 
 
 THEIR MARRIAGES NOT PERMANENT. 
 
 The monogamy of the ancient Romans, from and 
 after the time of two hundred years at least before 
 the Christian era, did not require their marriages 
 to be permanent. The principle of a life-long rela- 
 tionship between the husband and wife, which both 
 Moses and Christ have insisted upon, formed no 
 part of their social system. Marriage, among 
 them, was not so much a religious ceremony incul- 
 cating and requiring solemn vows of binding obli- 
 gation, as a civil compact, instituted for purposes 
 of mere present convenience or family aggrandize- 
 ment. It originated in policy rather than in love. 
 They were not, of course, destitute of the passion 
 
 temple of Venus in Corinth says, " There were more than a 
 thousand harlots, the slaves of the temple, who, in honor of the 
 goddess, prostituted themselves to all comers for hire, and 
 through these the city was crowded, and became wealthy." — 
 Book 8, p. 151. 
 
 *' Gravely impressing upon his wife and daughters that to sing 
 and dance, to cultivate the knowledge of languages, to exercise 
 the taste and understanding, was the business of the hired courte- 
 san, it was to the courtesan that he repaired himself for the 
 solace of his own lighter hours." — MtrivaWs Hist, of the Bo- 
 matiiy vol. ii., chap. 33, p. 32. D. Appleton & Co., 18G4, 
 
82 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of love, for they were liuniaa beings ; but that 
 passion was permitted to influence them but little 
 in contracting their marriages. They systemati- 
 cally degraded their love into lust. Their monoga- 
 my required it. Whenever they loved a woman 
 they would manage to enjoy her favors without 
 marriage. Seduction, adultery, and whoredom 
 were rather the rule than the exception among 
 them ; but marriage was for other and more im- 
 portant purposes than those of love. It was rather 
 an alliance of interests than of affections, and an 
 affinity of families rather tlian of hearts. 
 
 And as policy made marriages, so policy often 
 unmade them. If a man could, at any time, form 
 a new alliance which would give him more wealth 
 or influence, he always felt himself at liberty to 
 divorce his wife, and form that new alliance. It 
 was not uncommon, among them, for a man to 
 have had half a dozen diflerent wives, in, perhaps, 
 as many years. 
 
 CONSEQUENCES OF THEIR FREQUENT DIVORCES. 
 
 Imbecility and barrenness, the usual penalties 
 which Nature inflicts upon the violators of the 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 8B 
 
 marriage laws, came upon them. Their children 
 were few and short lived, and in order to maintain 
 their family influence, and transmit their names and 
 their wealth to future generations, which it was 
 their great ambition to do, they were obliged to 
 resort to the expedient of very frequent adoptions, 
 by taking the children of distant relations, or of 
 those allied to them by marriage, and calling them 
 their own. And such were the frequency of their 
 divorces, and the intricacy of their relationships 
 caused by their numerous adoptions, that it has 
 been almost impossible for the best historians and 
 biographers to give us any intelligible account of 
 their families. Such authors as Gibbon, Anthon, 
 Keightley, and Merivale, who are usually accurate 
 in other respects, are found utterly at fault, when 
 they undertake to state the relationship which the 
 most eminent personages of Roman history bear to 
 one another.* 
 
 * Coniradictions and Inaccuracies of Eminent llistarians. 
 
 Anthon. — In art. " Drusus," in his Classical Dictionary, Dr. 
 Charles Anthon says that Drusus " was born three months after 
 his mother's marriage with Augustus; " but in art. " Livia" he 
 says, '* She had already borne two sons to her first husband, viz., 
 Tiberius and Drusus, and was six months gone in pregnancy 
 
84 IIISTOUY AND PIIILOSOPIIY 
 
 THE MONOGAMY OF THE C^SARS. 
 
 In order to give some just conception of Ro- 
 man monogamy at that time when it first came in 
 
 with another child, which was the only one she ever had after 
 her union with Augustus, and which died almost at the moment 
 of its birth." 
 
 In art. "Julia H.," he calls her the mother of Augustus; and 
 in art. " Augustus," he says his mother was Atia, the daughter 
 of Julia. 
 
 In art. '■ Julia IV.," he calls Scribonia the first wife of Au- 
 gustus; but in art. " Augustus," he calls her his third wife. 
 
 In art. " Messalina," he says she was the first wife of Clau- 
 dius; and in art. "iElia Psetina," he says ^Elia was the former 
 wife of Claudius, and that she was repudiated to make way for 
 Messalina. And, according to Suetonius, iElia was, in fact, the 
 fourth, and Messalina the fifth, of his wives. 
 
 In art. " Julius Caesar," he says his first wife was divorced in 
 consequence of the affuir of Clodius; but in art. " Clodius," he 
 says it was against Pompeia that Clodius had illicit designs, and 
 in art. " Pompeia," he says she was Caisar's third wife, &c. 
 
 Keightley. — In his Hist, of Rom. Empire, p. 11, he says, 
 Scribonia was the first wife of Augustus; but she was his third. 
 On the same page he says Tiberius married Agrippina, who was 
 the younger daughter of Agrippa: but Tiberius did not marry 
 her, but he married Vipsania, her older sister; and his brother 
 Drusus married Agrippina, and he was the only husband she 
 ever had, which was a remarkable circumstance for Roman 
 ladies in those days. 
 
 On the same page he repeats the error of Anthon mentioned 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 85 
 
 contact with Christianity, and when it began to 
 impose its social system upon the other nations of 
 
 above, — that Drusus was born after his mother's marriage with 
 Augustus. Two similar errors occur on p. 13. 
 
 LiDDELL. — On p. 726 of Dr. Liddell's Hist, of Rome, there 
 are three errors of this kind within the limits of twice as many 
 lines, viz., he calls the name of one of Augustus's wives Clodia for 
 Claudia; he says Scribonia was his second wife, for his third; 
 and says that Livia, at the time of her marriage to Augustus, 
 was pregnant of her second child instead of her third. Thus it 
 is demonstrated that very respectable modern historians are 
 accustomed to perpetuate error by compiling and copying from 
 each other, when the^ should, every one of them, go back to 
 the original and exact authorities, and thus eliminate the truth. 
 
 Messrs. Harper & Brothers, New York, have republished the 
 above work of Dr. Liddell, so faithfaily as to give us page for 
 page, line for line, and word for word, an exact reprint of the 
 English edition by John Murray; reproducing not pnly such 
 historical blunders as those above noticed, but even the most 
 obvious typographical errors; e.g., on p. 250, under the bust 
 of Scipio there is L., for Lucius Scipio Africanus, instead of P., 
 for Publius Scipio Africanus ; and on p. 453, footnote, we are 
 referred to the end of chapter 37, for the bust of Ennius, when 
 it is not there, but at the end of chapter 50, &;c. Such exact 
 faithfulness in following copy is worthy of the well-known skil- 
 fulness of the Chinese tailor, who, when about to make a new 
 garment in European style, took home an old one for a pattern, 
 which he succeeded in imitating with exactness, even tc the 
 patches. 
 
86 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Europe (for these two eveuts are quite synchro- 
 nous), I will now, as briefly as possible, give 
 some account of the domestic life and manners of 
 the six imperial Ciesars, who governed Rome at 
 that period. In this account I shall enumerate 
 their many marriages, and their numerous di- 
 vorces and adoptions, and state their exact rela- 
 tionship to each other. By this means, I hope to 
 be able to explain the complexity of Roman affini- 
 ties, which has baffled the apprehension of so 
 many acute and learned historians, and at the 
 same time to exhibit the original* nature and true 
 spirit of Roman monogamy. " Ex pede Hercu- 
 lem ; " from the Ca3sars let us learn the Romans. 
 
 I should hesitate to pollute my pages with these 
 delineations of Roman manners, if the nature of 
 my treatise did not require it. But it is necessary 
 to the plan and scope of this work that the ana- 
 lytical examination of the origin and early history 
 of our present marriage system should be con- 
 ducted with philosophical exactness, — an exactness 
 that requires explicit facts, which I have spared 
 no time nor labor to search out, and which I am 
 not at liberty to withhold, however revolting they 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 87 
 
 may be. In order that modern monogamists may 
 clearly see the justice or tlie injustice of the 
 boasted claims of their system to superior purity 
 and virtue, it is very proper that they look to the 
 rock whence they were hewn and to ' the hole of 
 the pit whence they were digged. 
 
 The single family of the Csesars is selected as 
 an example, not because it is the worst example 
 which those times produced, for, on the contrary, 
 there is abundant evidence that Sylla and Catiline 
 and Clodius and Sejanus, and the emperors Domi- 
 tian and Commodus and Caracalla, and many 
 others of their contemporaries, exceeded the 
 Caesars in profligacy ; but the domestic history of 
 the latter family is given, because it is the most 
 authentic, and the most familiar to all classical 
 and historical scholars. Caius Seutonius Tran- 
 quillus, commonly called Suetonius, is the princi- 
 pal authority for the facts cited ; and his testi- 
 mony is confirmed by all the other authorities of 
 his own age, and fully allowed by those of every 
 subsequent age. As he was born A.D. 70, very 
 near the time of those whose lives he records ; as 
 he has maintained a reputation for candor and 
 
88 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 impartiality ; as he was private secretary to the 
 Emperor Hadrian, and had access to the secret 
 archives of the Caesars, and often alludes to their 
 handwriting, — no one has ever questioned either 
 his authenticity or his credibility. 
 I 1. Julius Cjesar. — Caius Julius Caesar, the dic- 
 tator, married successively four wives, whose names 
 were, 1. Cossutia, 2. Cornelia, 3. Pompeia, and, 4. 
 Calpurnia. Cossutia was a wealthy heiress, and 
 was married for her money ; but she was divorced 
 before Caesar was eighteen years of age (which was, 
 according to Roman law, during the first year of 
 his majority), upon the occasion of the triumph of 
 the party of Marius, to which Caesar had attached 
 himself; when the ambitious youthful politician 
 and future conqueror Avas permitted to marry 
 Cornelia, the daughter of Cornelius Cinna the 
 consul, and the friend and colleague of Marius ; 
 by which alliance Caesar brought himself at once 
 into public notice, and began to aspire to the 
 highest offices of state. Cornelia died young, 
 after having given birth to Caesar's only legitimate 
 child, a daughter named Julia ; who was married 
 to Pompey the Great, at the formation of the first 
 
OF MAnniAGE. 89 
 
 Triumvirate, but who died without issue. Pom- 
 peia, Caesar's third wife, was divorced, in favor of 
 Calpuruia, who survived him. He repudiated 
 Pompeia in consequence of the affair of the in- 
 famous Clodius, who had introduced himself into 
 Caesar's house, disguised in female apparel, 
 for the purpose of assailing the virtue of Pom- 
 peia, at the festival of the Bona Dea, when, by 
 law and by custom, it was deemed the greatest 
 sacrilege for any male to be found upon the prem- 
 ises. Caisar at once divorced his wife, but 
 brought no charge against Clodius ; but he was 
 tried for the sacrilege upon the accusation of 
 Cicero. When Caesar was called as a witness, 
 and was asked why he had put away his wife, he 
 answered with the proud remark, that his wife's 
 chastity must not only be free from corruption, 
 but must also be above suspicion. Yet Cassar 
 himself, who made this memorable remark, was 
 excessively addicted to gross sensuality, and was 
 the father of several illegitimate children. Sue- 
 tonius says that he committed adultery with many 
 ladles of the highest quality in Rome ; among 
 whom he specifies Posthumia the wife of Servius 
 
90 HISTOItY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Sulpitius, Lollia the wife of Aalus Gabiuius, Ter- 
 tullia the wife of Marcus Crassus, Mutia the wife 
 of Pompey the Great, Eunoe the wife of Bogudes, 
 Cleopatra Queen of Egypt, and Servilia the 
 mother of Marcus Brutus, to whom he presented 
 a pearl costing six millions of sesterces (equal 
 to two hundred thirty-two thousand, one hundred 
 and seven dollars) ; at the same time seducing 
 her daughter Tertia. Yet in another paragraph 
 Suetonius says the only stain upon CoBsar's chastity 
 was his having committed Sodomy with Nicoraedes, 
 King of Bithynia ; which proves what has be- 
 fore been said, that the Romans did not consider 
 fornication, or even adultery, as constituting un- 
 chastity in men, but only in women ; and that 
 they expected and permitted licentiousness in the 
 most respectable men, as a necessary part of their 
 social system of monogamy. It is evidently with 
 similar opinions of their social system that Dr. 
 Liddell thus sums up the character of CiBsar: — 
 " Thus died ' the foremost man in all the world,' 
 a man who failed in nothing that he attempted. 
 He might, Cicero thought, have been a great 
 orator : his ' Commentaries ' remain to prove that 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 91 
 
 he was a great writer. As a general, he had few 
 superiors ; as a statesman and politician, no equal. 
 His morality in domestic life was not better or 
 worse than commonly prevailed in those licentious 
 days. He indulged in profligate anaours freely 
 and without scruple ; but public opinion reproached 
 him not for this. He seldom, if ever, allowed 
 pleasure to interfere with business, and here his 
 character forms a notable contrast to that of 
 Sylla," &c. * 
 
 2. Augustus. — He was the grand-nepliew and 
 adopted son of Caesar, being the grandson of his 
 sister Julia, wife of Marcus Atius. Their daughter, 
 named Atia (sometimes written Attia or Accia), 
 married Cains Octavius, and became the mother of 
 Augustus and his sister Octavia. His name, at 
 first, was identical with that of his father, Caius 
 Octavius ; but Julius Caesar, having failed of any 
 direct male heir, adopted him in his last will and 
 testament, as his son ; and, upon the publica- 
 tian of the will, he assumed his adopted father's 
 
 * Suet. Vit. Jul. Caesar, par. 40-50. Liddell's Hist. Rome: 
 London, 1857; book 7. Anthon's Class. Diet., art. "Caesar, 
 Mutia," &c. 
 
92 mSTORY AND PHtLOSOPBt 
 
 family Dame : twenty years afterwards the addi- 
 tional name or title, Augustus, was conferred upon 
 him by vote of the Senate, and then his full name 
 became Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus. 
 Like his great-uncle, Augustus had four wives, 
 named, 1. Servilia ; 2. Claudia ; 3. Scribonia ; and, 
 4. Livia Drusilla, whom he successively married 
 and successively divorced, except the last, who sur- 
 vived him. And like Caesar he had but one child 
 — a daughter — also named Julia, who was the 
 daughter of his third wife Scribonia. This wife 
 he divorced soon after he obtained supreme power, 
 and at the same time married Livia Drusilla. 
 She was already married to Claudius Nero : she 
 had borne her husband two sons, and was then six 
 months advanced in pregnancy with her third child ; 
 but Augustus demanded her on account of her 
 beauty and accomplishments, and her husband 
 durst not refuse the demand. She was therefore 
 divorced from Nero, and married to Augustus. 
 Her child was born not long afterwards, and died 
 at birth. She was at this time twenty years of 
 age, and highly educated. She had already trav- 
 elled in foreign countries, and, to the fascinations 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 93 
 
 of rare personal beauty, she added the charms of a 
 cultivated mind. 
 
 Augustus's only child, Julia, was married three 
 times. Her first marriage was to Marcellus, her 
 cousin, only son of Octavia, her father's sister. 
 Marcellus died young, much lamented, and left no 
 issue. Augustus had, some time before, compelled 
 Agrippa, commander-in-chief of the army, to di- 
 vorce his wife Pompeia, and marry Marcella, his 
 sister Octavia's daughter ; but now, on the death of 
 Marcellus, he commanded Agrippa to divorce his 
 niece, Marcellus's sister, and marry his daughter, 
 Marcellus's widow. By this second marriage, Julia 
 had five children, three of whom were sons, the 
 youngest of which was born after his father's death 
 and Jiis mother's third marriage, and was named 
 Agrippa Posthumus : the other two sons were 
 called Caius and Lucius. This final marriage of 
 Julia was to Tiberius Nero, the stepson of Augus- 
 tus, and was without issue : it will be alluded to 
 again under the notice of Tiberius. Julia was one 
 of the most dissolute Avomen of that dissolute age. 
 And there can be no doubt that the age and the 
 monogamous system were even more dissolute thaa 
 
94 niSTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the women, and caused them to become so when 
 they were not so. The chastity of the Roman ma- 
 trons and virgins was prized and honored as highly 
 by themselves, and by their husbands and fathers 
 and brothers, as it has ever been among any people 
 in the world ; as the legends of Lucretia and of 
 Virginia and others can testify. The ordinances 
 of God and of Nature in behalf of female purity 
 were enforced among them, both by their ancient 
 traditions and by their current laws ; and all com- 
 bined to cause them to preserve their chastity to 
 the last possible extremity. But that extremity 
 had, with many of them, been reached. The un- 
 bounded license of the other sex, permitted by 
 public opinion to be practised with the utmost im- 
 punity ; the scant and. insufficient opportunities 
 for lawful marriages, and the frequent, unjust, and 
 arbitrary divorces from those marriages ; in fine, 
 the whole theory of monogamy, — finally drove the 
 women to desperate recklessness and ruin. It had 
 been Julia's happy lot to be the wife of two hon- 
 orable men, both eminent for their manliness, — 
 Marcellus and Agrippa. She had also been the 
 happy mother of five healthful children. And now, 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 95 
 
 while still young, she found herself hastily and for- 
 cibly united to a man against his will ; and that 
 man a monster and a beast. It is not strange that 
 she fell, nor that, in her fall, she dragged down 
 many others with her. Her exalted rank easily se- 
 duced some of the noblest men of Rome to become 
 her paramours. " And she became at length so 
 devoid of shame and prudence as to carouse and 
 revel openly, at night, in the Forum, and even on 
 the Rostra. Augustus had already had a suspicion 
 that her mode of life was not quite correct, and 
 when convinced of the full extent of her depravity, 
 his anger knew no bounds. He communicated his 
 domestic misfortune to the Senate ; he banished his 
 dissolute daughter to the Isle of Pandateria, on the 
 coast of Campania, whither she was accompanied 
 by her mother Scribonia. He forbade her there 
 the use of wine and of all delicacies in food or 
 dress, and prohibited any person to visit her with- 
 out his special permission. He caused a bill of 
 divorce to be sent her in the name of her husband 
 Tiberius, of whose letters of intercession for her he 
 took no heed. He constantly rejected all the solici- 
 tations of the people for her recall ; and when, one 
 
96 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 time, they were extremely urgent, he openly prayed 
 that they might have wives and daughters like 
 her." Her confidential servant and freedwoman, 
 Phoebe, having hanged herself when her mistress's 
 profligacy was made known, Augustus declared 
 that he would rather be the father of Phoebe than 
 of Julia. This treatment of his daughter, and this 
 remark concerning her, is another confirmation of 
 the different regard had in those times to the un- 
 chaste conduct of women and of men ; for Augustus 
 himself was a seducer and an adulterer, and was 
 as profligate as his uncle Julius. Suetonius de- 
 clares, that he constantly employed men to pimp 
 for him, and that they took such freedom in select- 
 ing the most beautiful women for his embraces, 
 that they compelled " both matrons and ripe vir- 
 gins to strip for a complete examination of their 
 persons." He also says, upon the authority of Marc 
 Antony, that at an entertainment at his house, '^ he 
 once took the wife of a man of consular rank from 
 the table, in the presence of her husband, into his 
 bedchamber, and that he brought her again to the 
 entertainment with her ears very red and her hair 
 in great disorder," plainly implying that every one 
 could see that he had ravished her. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 97 
 
 But it is the judgment of that distinguished scholar 
 and historian, Dr. Liddell, that in these " and other 
 less pardonable immoralities there was nothing to 
 shock the feelings of Romans ; " and Keightley thus 
 sums up his character. " In his public charac- 
 ter, as sovereign of the Roman empire, few princes 
 will be found more deserving of praise than Augus- 
 tus. He cannot be justly charged with a single 
 cruel, or even harsh action, in the course of a peri- 
 od of forty-four years. On the contrary, he seems 
 in every act to have had the welfare of the people 
 at heart. In return, never was prince more entirely 
 beloved by all orders of his subjects ; and the title 
 * Father of his Country,' so spontaneously bestowed 
 upon him, is but one among many proofs of the 
 sincerity of their affection." " He was surrounded 
 by no pomp ; no guards attended him ; no officers of 
 the household were to be seen in his modest dwell- 
 ing ; he lived on terms of familiarity with his 
 friends ; he appeared like any other citizen, as a 
 witness in courts of justice, and in the senate gave 
 his vote as an ordinary member. He was plain and 
 simple in his mode of living, using only the most 
 ordinary food, and wearing OQ clothes but what 
 7 
 
98 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 were woven and made by his wife, sister, and 
 daughter. In all his domestic relations he was 
 kind and affectionate ; he was a mild and indulgent 
 master, and an attached and constant friend." * 
 
 3. Tiberius. — Tiberius was the son of Claudius 
 Nero and Livia Drusilla. He was not at all related 
 by blood to the Julian family, but belonged by birth 
 to the ancient Claudian gens ; being allied to the 
 former family only by marriage and adoption. His 
 mother married Augustus when he was five years 
 of age ; he himself married Julia, Augustus's only 
 daughter, when he was thirty ; and Augustus adopted 
 him as his son when he was forty-five : so that he was 
 at once the step-son, the son-in-law, and the adopted 
 son of Augustus. His name, at first, was Tiberius 
 Claudius Drusus Nero ; to which, after his adoption 
 by Augustas, he added simply Cassar. Augustus, 
 with his characteristic prudence, as soon as he per^ 
 ceived that direct heirs in the male line were likely 
 to fail him, began to make provision for the per- 
 petuation of his name and fortune, as well as for 
 
 * Snot. Vi\ A-ig. par. 60-69; Liddell'sHIst. of Rome,book 7; 
 Keight "jap., chaps. 1, 2. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 99 
 
 the preservation of the peace of the empire, by mak- 
 ing sons by adoption. He first adopted his two 
 oldest grandsons, Cains and Lucius Agrippa, in their 
 early childhood ; but they both died during the 
 lifetime of Augustus, and left no issue, — Lucius at 
 the age of nineteen years ; and two years afterwards, 
 Cains, at the age of twenty-four.* Drusus Nero, 
 the younger brother of Tiberius, and the favorite 
 step-son of Augustus, had also died before them ; but 
 he had left two sons, Germanicus and Claudius. 
 These with Tiberius, and his only son Drusus, by 
 his first wife Vipsania, and Agrippa Posthumus, 
 the only remaining son of Julia, were all the males 
 allied to Augustus. Upon the death of Caius, there- 
 fore, A.D. 6, Augustus adopted both Agrippa Pos- 
 thumus and Tiberius, and caused Tiberius at the 
 same time to adopt Germanicus : so that all the 
 males of the family then became Caesars, except 
 Claudius Nero ; but he was considered foolish, and 
 was not included. Tiberius, as has been observed, 
 
 * Caius married Livilla, sister to Germanicus, and grand- 
 niece to Augustus, but had no offspring; his widow afterwards 
 married Drusus, son of Tiberius, by whom she had two children, 
 Tiberius and Julia. 
 
100 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 was, at this timo, forty-five years of age ; and each 
 of the three young men, Agrippa, Germanicus, and 
 Drusus, was about nineteen. 
 
 Tiberius was married twice ; first to Vipsania, 
 eldest daughter of Agrippa, and after divorcing her, 
 as usual, he married Julia, Agrippa's widow. It 
 is but justice to Tiberius, to say that both the di- 
 vorce and the marriage were hateful to him, and 
 were consummated only upon the order of Augus- 
 tus. He had lived happily with Vipsania, who was 
 the mother of his only son, and who was then preg- 
 nant with her second child, while Julia was also 
 pregnant with her fiflh child by Agrippa. 
 
 Upon the death of Augustus, Tiberius command- 
 ed his step-brother Agrippa Posthumus to be put to 
 death, and assumed sole command of the empire. 
 His first order was but a sample of his government ; 
 for he soon became one of the most odious tyrants 
 that ever cursed the world. His vices were of the 
 most infamous character, and comprised all that are 
 alluded to in the first chapter of Paul's Epistle to 
 the Romans, and for wliich the ancient city of Sodom 
 was destroyed by fire. In order to give loose rein 
 to Ins wors§ than beastly propensities, he retir$4 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 101 
 
 from Rome to that lovely sequestered islacd in the 
 Bay of Naples, which was then called Capreae, 
 and which in modern Italian is now named Capri. 
 "But," says Keightley, " this delicious retreat was 
 speedily converted by the aged prince into a den of 
 infamy, such as has never, perhaps, found its equal ; 
 and it almost chills the blood to read the details of 
 the horrid practices in which he indulged amid 
 the rocks of Capreae." Like all the other Caesars, 
 Tiberius left no son. His son Drusus was married, 
 and had a son and a daughter ; but he \yas poisoned 
 by his own wife Livilla, and died during his father's 
 lifetime. The grandson named Tiberius, and the 
 grand-daughter named Julia, both survived him. 
 His adopted son Germanicus, after achieving an 
 excellent reputation as a man and a military com- 
 mander, had also died, about five years after the 
 accession of Tiberius, at the age of thirty-four years, 
 attributing his death to slow poison secretly admin- 
 istered by the command of his adopted father. 
 Germanicus left nine children ; but all the sons 
 were destroyed before the death of Tiberius, except 
 one, named Caius, but commonly called Caligula. 
 Tiberius therefore left two male heirs only, — Caius 
 
102 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Caligula, his grandsou by adoption, and Tiberius, 
 his grandson by birlh.* 
 
 4. Caligula. — Tiberius, by his last will, had ap- 
 pointed his two grandsons his joint and equal heirs ; 
 but Germanicus, the father of Caligula, had always 
 been greatly beloved by the people, while Tiberius had 
 been hated. The will was therefore unanimously set 
 aside, and the sole power conferred upon Caligula. 
 Thus was the line of the Csesars still continued by 
 adoption. Caligula was born A.D. 12, and became 
 emperor at twenty-five years of age, A.D. 37. Hie 
 was married four times. His wives' names were, 
 1. Junia Claudilla ; 2. Livia Orestilla ; 3. Lollia 
 PauUina ; and, 4. Milonia Caesonia. The first died, 
 the next two were divorced, the last survived him. 
 Soon after the death of Junia, which was some 
 time before he attained the supreme power, he t6ok 
 I Ennia, the wife of Macro, as his favorite mistress, 
 promising to procure a divorce from her husband, 
 and to marry her himself when he should attain 
 the empire ; and Macro appears to have acquiesced 
 in this arrangement, selling his wife's virtue and 
 
 * Suet.; Keightley; Authon. 
 
OF MARMIAGE. lOi 
 
 the honor of his house for such rewards and emolu- 
 ments as Caligula was pleased to accord to him. 
 But in the second year of his administration, instead 
 of fulfilling his engagements to Ennia and her hus- 
 band, he neglected and disgraced them ; so that 
 they both committed suicide. 
 
 Caligula then took his own sister Drusilla, and 
 lived in incest with her, having forced her husband, 
 Lucius Cassius, to divorce her for that purpose ; 
 but, in order to cover the affair, he caused her to bo 
 married to one of his attendants, Marcus Lepidus, 
 his cousin, with whom he was at the same time 
 practising the still more horrid and unnatural crime 
 of Sodomy. Upon the death of this sister, which 
 occurred during the same year, he mourned for her 
 with the most extravagant grief, and caused her 
 henceforth to be worshipped as a goddess ; building 
 a temple and consecrating priests in her honor. 
 His own solemn oath ever after was, " By the divin- 
 ity of Drusilla." 
 
 He next married Livia Orestilla ; and in this 
 strange and cruel manner. He had been invited to 
 the wedding-feast of Caius Fiso, a man belonging 
 to one of the noblest families of Rome, w hose bride 
 
104 mSTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 was this same Livia. Caligula accepted the invi- 
 tation ; the marriage ceremony took place, and the 
 feast was at its height, when, struck with the beauty 
 of the bride, he resolved to appropriate her to himself, 
 and saying to Piso, " Do not touch my wife," he took 
 her home with him. The next day he caused proc- 
 lamation to be made for the information of the 
 Roman public, that he had purveyed himself a wife 
 after the manner of Augustus. It is not strange 
 that under such circumstances he did not find her 
 an agreeable consort, for her affections had been 
 given to Piso, and with him only could she be happy. 
 He therefore divorced her again, within three days 
 of her marriage, but would not permit her to have 
 her former husband. 
 
 The occasion of his marrying his next wife, Lollia 
 Paullina, was equally strange, but quite different. 
 He heard some one extol the beauty of her grand- 
 mother, and was inflamed with passion to enjoy 
 hers. She was already married to Memmius Reg- 
 ulus, and was then away from Rome, in a foreign 
 province, with her husband ; but Caligula sent orders 
 to Regulus to divorce his wife, ordered her home 
 and married her. He lived with her about a year, 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 105 
 
 when he divorced her for her barreriness ; and then 
 married his last wife, Caesonia, with whom he had 
 already been having illicit intercourse for many 
 months, and who was now far advanced in preg- 
 nancy. She was a woman of infamous character, 
 and had had three illegitimate children before ; but 
 he married her, and she was very soon delivered of 
 a daughter, which was Caligula's only child. 
 
 During most of this time, since the death of 
 Drusilla, he was living in incest with both his other 
 sisters, Agrippina and Livilla, while at the same 
 time he would prostitute them to his male favorites, 
 the ministers of his more heathenish lusts. Sueto- 
 nius says, that, in addition to these incests and adul^ 
 teries already specified, he debauched nearly every 
 lady of rank in Rome ; whom he was accustomed 
 to invite, along with their husbands, to a feast : he 
 would then examine them, as they passed his couch 
 one after another, as one would examine female 
 slaves when about to purchase ; and after supper 
 he would retire to his bedchamber, and then send 
 for any lady present that he liked best.. 
 
 During his administration public prostitutes paid 
 twelve and a half per cent of their fees into the 
 
106 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 imperial treasury ; and in order to increase this 
 branch of the revenue he opened a brothel in his 
 own palace, filled it with respectable (?) women, 
 and sent out criers into the forum to advertise it, 
 and invite the people to resort to it. 
 
 Caligula was slain by the officers of his own 
 guard, in the twenty-ninth year of his age, after 
 governing the Roman world less than four years. 
 During the first year of his administration he had 
 first adopted and then murdered the younger 
 Tiberius Caesar, then about seventeen years of 
 age, who left no issue ; and a few hours after his 
 own death his wife Caesonia was slain, and also 
 their infant daughter, who had its little brains 
 dashed out against a wall : so the last of the 
 Caesars seemed to have perished. But there was 
 one old man left, who, if he was not a Caesar, was 
 certainly related to all the Caesars, and it was 
 determined to make him a Caesar, and raise him 
 to the supreme power. This old man was Clau- 
 dius Nero. 
 
 5. Claudius. — He was the uncle of Caligula, 
 and the nephew of Tiberius. His name at first 
 had been Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero, to which 
 
OF MAURI AGE. lOT 
 
 he now added that of Caesar. He was married six 
 times. His wives' names were, 1. JEmilia Lepida ; 
 2. Livia Medulllna Camilla ; 3. Plaiitia Urgulli- 
 nilla ; 4. ^lia Psetina ; 5. Valeria Messalina ; aud^ 
 6. Agrippina. Of these, the first, third, and fourth 
 were divorced, the second died, the fifth was exe- 
 cuted, and the last survived him* JElia Paetina, 
 the fourth, was divorced soon after Claudius 
 obtained the empire, in order to make way for 
 Messalina, whose principal recommendation was 
 that she had already become pregnant by him. 
 They were accordingly married : the child was born, 
 and was a boy, whom they named Britannicus. 
 She afterwards bore him a daughter called Octavia. 
 Messalina*s lust and cruelty were so unbounded, 
 that her name has become the syuonyme of every 
 thing most vile and detestable in the female charac- 
 ter. She has been called the Roman Jezebel ; but 
 the comparison is an injustice to the Samaritan 
 queen. She was as much more wicked than 
 Jezebel as Roman monogamy is more impure than 
 Jewish polygamy. Her husband's chief officers 
 became her adulterers, and were allied with her 
 in all her abominations. She cast an eye of lust 
 
1(>8 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 on the principal men in Rome, and whom she could 
 not seduce to gratify her vile propensities she 
 would contrive to destroy. She was so excessive 
 in her sensuality, that she often required the 
 services of the strongest and most vigorous men 
 to satisfy her lusts ; and often for that reason 
 chose gladiators and slaves : but such persons 
 would not always venture to incur the risk of 
 discovery, and then she would make her stupid 
 husband the unwitting broker of her adulterous 
 pleasures. As an example of this mode of 
 procedure, in such cases, it is recorded that 
 " when Mnester, a celebrated dancer, refused to 
 yield to her solicitations or her threats, she pro- 
 cured a written order from Claudius, commanding 
 him to do whatever she should require. Mnester 
 then complied. The same was the case with many 
 others, who believed they were obeying the orders 
 of the prince when they were yielding to the libidi- 
 nous desires of his wife." 
 
 But she was not content with being infamous 
 herself, she determined to make others so ; compel- 
 ling many respectable married women to prostitute 
 themselves, even in the palace, and in the presence 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 109 
 
 of their husbands, who were poAverless to prevent 
 it, for she brutally destroyed those who would not 
 acquiesce in their wives' dishonor. Meantime her 
 own excesses were unknown by Claudius ; for she 
 caused some one of her maids to occupy her place 
 in his bed, and purchased by rewards, or antici- 
 pated by murder, those who could give him informa- 
 tion. At length her enormities were discovered 
 and brought to light in this manner, — a manner so 
 strange and unnatural, that the grave historian 
 Tacitus expressed his doubts whether posterity 
 could be made to believe that aoy woman could be 
 so wicked. Messalina had set her heart upon 
 Caius Silius, the consul elect, who was esteemed 
 the handsomest man in Rome. In order to obtain 
 sole possession of him she drove his wife Juuia out 
 of his house ; and Silius, knowing that to refuse 
 her would be his destruction, while by compliance 
 he might possibly escape, yielded to his fate. But 
 the infatuated adulteress became so reckless that she 
 disdained concealment and came openly to visit 
 him, heaping wealth and honors upon him, and 
 transferring the slaves and the treasures of the 
 prince to his bQ^se, Silius then saw th^t he wa§ 
 
110 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 so deep in guilt that either he or Claudius must 
 perish, and proposed to Messalina to murder her 
 husband and seize the supreme power. She hesi- 
 tated ; not from regard to her husband, but from 
 the fear that when Silius should bo invested with 
 the empire he would east her off. She therefore 
 proposed, as an amendment to his plan, that they 
 should be married first, and then murder the prince 
 and seize the empire afterwards. This plan was 
 agreed to ; and while Claudius was absent from the 
 city to perform a sacrifice at Ostia, when he was 
 building the new harbor there, they were publicly 
 married, in due form, and with much ceremony. 
 But their own attendants w^ere shocked. They in- 
 formed the prince ; and the whole plot was dis- 
 covered and the guilty parties put to death. 
 
 Claudius then took for his sixth and last wife his 
 brother's daughter Agrippina ; and as such a union 
 was regarded as incestuous by the laws and customs 
 of the Romans, Claudius first repaired to the sen- 
 ate-house, and caused a new law to be passed legal- 
 izing marriages between uncles and nieces, and 
 then formally espoused her. Agrippina, the new 
 imperial consort, was sister to the late emperor 
 
OF MARRIAGE. Ill 
 
 Caligula ; and besides having lived in incest with 
 him, she had been married twice before. By her 
 first husband, Cneius Domitius Ahenobarbus, she 
 had had a son, named Lucius, who was nine years 
 of age at the time of her marriage with Claudius, 
 and three years older than his only son Britannicus. 
 To promote the interests of her own son Lucius, 
 and to destroy Britannicus, was now the ruling pas- 
 sion of Agrippina ; to gratify which she paused at 
 nothing. Yet she was not, like Messalina, natural- 
 ly inclined to licentiousness ; but in order to win 
 the influence and assistance of powerful men for 
 promoting her ambitious designs in behalf of her 
 son, she stooped so low as to prostitute herself to 
 thejr lusts, when they could not be purchased by 
 any other means at her command. At first she 
 managed to have Octavia, the sister of Britannicus, 
 divorced from Silanus, to whom she had been be- 
 trothed, and married to her son Lucius, and, in a 
 year or two afterwards, to have Lucius adopted by 
 Claudius as his son. Three years afterwards 
 she procured poison from the notorious Locusta, 
 and put her husband, the Emperor Claudius, to 
 death, in the sixty-fourth year of his a£re- t^f*^v 
 
112 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 he had governed Rome a little less than fourteen 
 years.* 
 
 G.Nero. — Agrippina carefully concealed the 
 death of Claudius until secure measures had been 
 taken for setting aside Britannicus, and for the suc- 
 cession of her son ; when the death was announced 
 and the new emperor proclaimed. Nero was suc- 
 cessively the grand-nephew, the step-son, the son 
 in-law, and the adopted son of Claudius ; and, by 
 adoption, the great-grandson of Tiberius ; being 
 son of Agrippina, daughter of Germanicus, adopted 
 son of Tiberius. He was also, by birth, the grand- 
 nephew of Augustus, by the collateral female line ; 
 his father, Domitius Ahenobarbus, being son of 
 Antonia Major, eldest daughter of Octavia,. sister 
 of Augustus. His name, at first, was Lucius 
 Domitius Ahenobarbus ; but upon his adoption by 
 Claudius, into the Julian family, he took the name 
 of Nero Claudius Caesar. 
 
 He was married seven times. The names of his 
 consorts were, 1 . Octavia ; 2. Poppaea Sabina ; 3. 
 Octavia again ; 4. Poppaea again ; 5. Statilia Mes- 
 
 * Suet, Vit, Claud. ; Tacitus Ann. ; Keight. ; Anthon. 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 113 
 
 salina ; 6. Sporus ; and, 7. Dorypliorus. It will 
 readily be seen, from this list, that his marriages 
 and divorces were more numerous than his brides, 
 and that the last two names are those of males. 
 
 Nero had no affection for his first wife, the chaste 
 and modest Octavia, whom he had married from 
 policy, and not for love : and his mother, the ambi- 
 tious Agrippina, who loved power so much, was 
 pleased with this indifference ; for she hoped to 
 maintain an undivided influence over him, and 
 through him to rule the world. But in the second 
 year of his administration he conceived a violent 
 passion for an Asiatic freedwoman named Acte ; 
 a passion which his preceptor, the celebrated phi- 
 losopher Seneca, and his other councillors of state, 
 encouraged ; permitting him to take her as his ac- 
 knowledged mistress, without rebuke, hoping that 
 this attachment would keep him from a life of 
 promiscuous licentiousness and from debauching 
 women of rank. But Agrippina was furious ; not 
 because Acte was a low-bred woman (though this 
 was the excuse for her opposition), but she felt that 
 her own power would be diminished by her : and 
 she threatened that if he did not give her up, she 
 
 8 
 
114 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPHT 
 
 would herself abandon him, and would set up Bri- 
 tannicus ; and, as the daughter of the beloved 
 Germanicus, would appeal to the army against her 
 son, in Britannicus* behalf. This was a powerful 
 argument, and Nero knew that his mother was 
 capable of any thing to maintain her power ; but 
 he resolved, that, instead of giving up his mistress, 
 he would murder his innocent brother. He pro- 
 cured poison from Locusta and gave it him, but it 
 proved too weak ; he then sent for Locusta again, 
 and reproached her and beat her, and bade her 
 prepare a stronger dose. She obeyed him ; and, 
 having proved the potency of the venom upon a 
 kid and a pig, he had it given to Britannicus, in 
 some cokl water, at dinner. Its effect was instan- 
 taneous, and the poor boy dropped down dead. 
 Nero carelessly remarked to the company that he 
 had been subject to fits from infancy, and. would 
 soon recover. Agrippina and Octavia were struck 
 with terror, and said nothing ; the latter, young as 
 she was, having learned to suppress her feelings, 
 and the former perceiving that her son was fast 
 becoming her superior both in cruelty and in craft. 
 Nero next became enamored of Foppaea Sabina, 
 
OF MAURI AGE. 115 
 
 a lady of great beauty and of noble birth, who 
 had been divorced from her first husband, Cris- 
 pin us, and was then married to her second, Mar- 
 cus Otho ; but Otho was sent out as governor of 
 the distant province of Portugal, and Nero gave 
 himself up to the enjoyment of his adulterous 
 passion. Then Agrippina became more furious 
 than ever, for she saw, that if he should divorce 
 Octavia, and marry Poppaea, her own influence 
 would be gone forever. But she set at work in a 
 different manner than before ; for such was her 
 insane love of power, that, in order to retain her 
 influence over her son, she began herself to pander 
 to his vices, diverting and distracting his mind 
 with a succession of beautiful ladies, offering her 
 purse, and the use of her own apartments for his 
 private assignations, and even attempting to 
 seduce him to unnatural incest with herself; and 
 nothing but the fear of the army and of the peo- 
 ple prevented them from the consummation of that 
 abominable crime. Still the influence of Poppasa 
 increased ; and so did Agrippina's hatred and 
 jealousy of her, until at length Nero resolved 
 upon the crime of matricide, which he effected in 
 
116 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the most barbarous manner. He first attempted 
 to drown her, in a manner that might appear 
 accidental, by sending her to sea in an unsea- 
 worthy vessel laden with lead ; the deck of which 
 was to give way at the proper time, and the 
 vessel itself to fall in pieces. She went on board, 
 and the deck fell, with its freight of lead, as was 
 expected ; but she was saved by the devotion of 
 her attendants. He then sent assassins to shed 
 her blood. When they entered her apartment, 
 and one of them drew his sword, she exposed her 
 w^omb, and cried out, " Strike here : " he obeyed, 
 and thus she perished. But it was only after the 
 lapse of three years more, that he divorced the 
 virtuous Octavia, by whose alliance he had ob- 
 tained the empire, and who was greatly beloved 
 by the people. He effected her divorce, however, 
 and married Poppaea ; but the murmurs of the 
 people were so alarming, that, in a short time, he 
 divorced Poppaea, and married Octavia the second 
 time. But his affections were still unchanged, 
 and he at length induced Anicetus, the assassin 
 that had slain his mother, to make oath that 
 Octavia had committed adultery with him ; and, 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 117 
 
 although nobody beh'eved the wretch, this served 
 as a pretext for divorcing her again. She was 
 then banished to the usual place, the Island of 
 Pandataria, where she was soon afterwards put 
 to death, at twenty-one years of age, and her 
 head sent as a present to Poppaja ; to whom Nero 
 was then married the second time. Soon after 
 this marriage, to his great joy, she bore him a 
 daughter, his first and only child, which lived, 
 however, but a few months. 
 
 It was the next year after the birth of this 
 infant, that Rome was burnt [A.D. 65]. The 
 loss of lives, as well as of property, was very 
 great. The streets of the city were narrow and 
 crooked, and the flames spread so rapidly, that 
 escape was difficult. The fire raged six days. 
 Five-sevenths of the city was laid waste. Nero 
 has often been charged with having caused the 
 fires himself ; but the charge has never been proved. 
 He was strongly suspected at the time, and, in 
 order to divert suspicion from himself, he laid 
 the blame upon the innocent Christians. They 
 had become already numerous in the city, and 
 were generally hated and despised. They were 
 
118 mSTORY AND PHILOSOPHt 
 
 put to death, upon this suspicioUj with torture and 
 insult ; some torn to pieces by dogs, after being 
 sewed up in the skins of wild animals, some 
 crucified, and some wrapped in pitch and set on 
 fire, to serve for lamps in the night. Two years 
 after the great fire, Popp^ea came to lier death in 
 as brutal a manner as mother, sister, and brother 
 had done before. She was killed by Nero, in a 
 fit of anger, by a violent kick when in an ad- 
 vanced state of pregnacy. 
 
 He then celebrated his fifth marriage, with a 
 lady named Messalina ; with whom it happened 
 to be her fifth marriage also. Her last husband 
 was Atticus Vestinus, whom Nero put to death 
 in order to obtain possession of his wife. But he 
 soon divorced her, yet that did not break her 
 heart, for she outlived him, and preserved her 
 beauty to captivate the fancy of another emperor, 
 in future years. 
 
 Nero was married the sixth time to a boy. 
 His name was Sporus. Nero fancied that his 
 beauty resembled that of his slain Poppsea, whose 
 death he repented and bewailed. He caused 
 Sporus to be made a eunuch, and exhausted the 
 
OP MARIttAG^. 119 
 
 powers of art ia trying to make him a woman* 
 He then espoused him, with the most solemn 
 forms of marriage ; and it was cleverly remarked 
 by the people, that it was a great pity that his 
 father Domitius had not had sucli a wife. 
 
 His seventh and last marriage was to Dorypho^ 
 tus, his own freedman ; but in this case Nero 
 himself was the bride, and his manumitted slave 
 the groom. Nero was a musician and a come* 
 dian, and was accustomed to spend a great part 
 of his time in rehearsal and in public performance^ 
 as an actor. He chose the crowded theatre as 
 the place in which to celebrate this marriage. He 
 first covered himself with the skin of a wild beast, 
 and in that dress, before thousands of assembled 
 men and women, committed rapes upon persons 
 of both sexes, who were tied to stakes for that 
 purpose. Having thus demonstrated his manhood, 
 he appeared as the bride in his marriage to Do- 
 ryphorus, to whom he was married in the same 
 solemn form that Sporus had been married to him ; 
 finishing the representation by consumaiating the 
 marriage in the embraces of Doryphorus, him- 
 self imitating the cries and shrieks of young 
 virgins when they are ravished. 
 
120 mstoiilt ANi) piiilosoPMf 
 
 Nero died by his own hand, A.D. 68, in the 
 
 thirty-first year of his age, and the fourteenth of 
 his imperial power. He left no child, either by 
 .birth or by adoption. He was the last of the 
 ; Caesars. That name was henceforth only an lion- 
 , orary title. Can any one regret the extinction of 
 the dissolute and degenerate race? Is it not a 
 happy provision in the laws of God, that " mon- 
 sters cannot propagate " ? * 
 
 Such was monogamy at the commencement of 
 the Christian era ; for it was during the reign of 
 Augustus that Christ was born, and during that 
 of Nero that Paul was beheaded. Such was the 
 social system imposed by Rome upon the nations 
 of Europe. This is no fancy sketch, nor have the 
 facts here cited been herein exaggerated. My 
 authorities are accessible to every scholar, and I 
 invite criticism and investigation. The question 
 now arises. How was Roman monogamy affected 
 by its contact with Christianity ? And this question 
 I shall proceed to discuss in another chapter. 
 
 * Sueton. Vit. NeroniSj par. 20-29. ; Tac. Ann.; Keight. Histr 
 Bom. Emp. 
 
OP MARktAGB. 121 
 
 CHAPTER VI. , 
 
 HOW WAS ROMAN MONOGAMY AFFECTED Bt 
 THE INTRODUCTION OF CHRISTIANITY? 
 
 The introduction of Christianity effected no 
 violent revolutions of any kind in the social rela- 
 tions of men and women, except by purifying 
 these relations, and enforcing the duties dependent 
 upon them. Christianity did not dictate any par- 
 ticular form of government, or any code of laws, 
 but enjoined obedience to the existing laws, when 
 they were not inconsistent with the laws of the 
 gospel. The first Christians, while they were 
 themselves scarcely tolerated, were not inclined to 
 attempt a social revolution by opposing the estab- 
 lished system of monogamy ; but they attempted 
 to oppose only its vices, and to remove them. 
 They insisted, from the first, upon purity and 
 chastity in men and women equally. They de- 
 nounced prostitution, adultery, and frequent and 
 
1^2 mSTORY A^D PmLOSOPJtt " 
 
 capricious divorces, and did what they could t6 
 eradicate their practice. But before they attained 
 any degree of civil or religious freedom, or were 
 in any situation to introduce the purer system of 
 polygamy, they had themselves become thoroughly 
 Romanized ; and the errors of Gnosticism, Plato- 
 nism, and Montanism had then prevailed so exten^ 
 sively as to impel them, at last, to attempt a social 
 reformation in a direction quite contrary to po- 
 lygamy, by discouraging marriage, and by introdu- 
 cing asceticism, monasticism, and celibacy. 
 
 GNOSTICISM IN THE FIRST CENTURY. 
 
 Christianity was not fully tolerated in Europe 
 till the time of the Emperor Constantine the 
 Great, in the former part of the fourth century ; 
 and was not established by law as the religion of 
 Rome, till the reign of Theodosius, in the very 
 last part of that century ; while Gnosticism and its 
 cognate errors began to be disseminated even in the 
 first century, in apostolic times : they prevailed 
 extensively in the second century, and had perma- 
 nently corrupted the church in the third and 
 fourth. While the different Gnostic writers and 
 
OP MARHIAGE. 128 
 
 teachers differed greatly from one another on 
 many points of belief, they were generally agreed 
 in their fundamental doctrines, which sprung from 
 the ancient Persian or Magian system of religion, 
 and which taught the existence of two eternal 
 beings, — Ormuzd, or God, the author of good, and 
 the creator of light, which is his emblem ; and 
 Ahriman, or the Devil, the author of evil, and 
 the creator of darkness, his emblem. They 
 believed that the world consisted of spirit and 
 of matter, both being eternal ; the latter, essen- 
 tially evil, formed or moulded by the Devil 
 from the eternal substance of chaos, and the 
 former, essentially good, proceeding out of God, 
 and still forming a part of God : hence, that the 
 body is vile, wicked, and dark ; while the soul is 
 pure, holy, and light. The body, therefore, with 
 its appetites and passions, should be despised and 
 subdued ; while the soul, with its superior attri- 
 butes, should be' cherished and obeyed. The 
 principal Gnostic teachers of the first century 
 were Simon Magus, Menander, and Cerinthus. 
 They all studied at Alexandria, and all became 
 Christians. Cerinthus taught that the man Jesus 
 
124 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPHT 
 
 was born of Joseph and Mary in the natural way ; 
 that the sl'cop^ Christ, descended on him at his bap- 
 tism, in the form of a dove ; and, previous to the 
 crucifixion, that the el'ooy returned to God, leaving 
 the man to suffer on the cross. 
 
 GNOSTICISM AND PLATONISM OF THE SECOND 
 CENTUKY. 
 
 In the second century, the Gnostic Christians 
 became much more numerous and influential. 
 Among the writers and teachers whom historians 
 particularly mention were Saturuinus, Basilides, 
 Carpocrates, Valentine, Bardesaues, Tatian, Mar- 
 cion, Montanus, Tertullian, and Origen. Saturuinus 
 (A.D. 115) taught that Satan, the ruler of mat- 
 ter, was coeval with the Deity ; that the world was 
 created by seven angels, without the knowledge 
 of the Deity, who, however, was not displeased 
 when he saw it, and breathed into man a rational 
 soul. Satan, enraged at the creation of the world 
 and the virtue of its inhabitants, formed another 
 race of men out of matter, with malignant souls 
 like his own ; and hence arose the great moral 
 difference to be observed amoni? men. The moral 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 125 
 
 discipline of Saturiiinus was ascetic and severe : 
 ho discouraged marriage, declaring it to be the doc- 
 trine of the Devil ; * he enjoined abstinence from 
 wine and flesh, and taught to keep under the body, 
 as being formed from matter, which is in its 
 essence evil and corrupt. Bardesanes wrote about 
 A.D. 170, in the time of the Emperor Marcus 
 Aurelius. " His moral system was ascetic in the 
 extreme ; he enjoined his disciples to renounce 
 wedlock, abstain from animal food, and live in 
 solitude on the slightest and most meagre diet, and 
 even to use water instead of wine in the Lord's 
 Supper." I' Montanus (A.D. 175) insisted upon 
 more frequent and more rigorous fasts than had 
 yet prevailed in the church, for they had hitherto 
 fasted only during the passion-week ; he forbade 
 second marriages ; taught the absolute and irrevo- 
 cable excommunication of adulterers, murderers, 
 and idolaters ; required all chaste women to wear 
 veils ; and forbade all kinds of costly attire and 
 ornaments of the person. His most distinguished 
 disciple was TertuUian, bishop of Carthage, a 
 
 ♦ Mosheim, Ecc. Hist., vol. 1, p. 246. 
 
 t Keightley's Hist. Rom. Emp., part 2, chap. 7. 
 
126 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPBY 
 
 very learned and voluminous writer, whose works 
 have been held in the greatest estimation in every 
 age. Origen, a still more learned and more vo- 
 luminous writer, and a very eloquent preacher, 
 embraced the Gnostic errors when a young man, 
 and carried his principles of subduing the pass^ions 
 of the body to such an extent, that he made a 
 eunuch of himself: but in after-life, when he had 
 spent many years in studying, translating, and ex- 
 pounding the Holy Scriptures, and understood 
 tliem better, he regretted the rash act of his youth, 
 and greatly modified his Gnostic sentiments ; so 
 much so, that many have accused him of teaching 
 different views of the same subject, and of con- 
 tradicting himself. 
 
 The first Platonic philosopher who joined the 
 Christians was Justin Martyr, who was beheaded 
 at Rome A.D. 155 ; followed by Clement of Alex- 
 andria, A.D. 192, who had a school in that city 
 called the Catechetic School, which attempted to 
 harmonize the philosophy of Plato with the mate- 
 rialism of the Gnostics by means of the common 
 medium of Christianity. This scheme was called 
 the New Platonism ; and a long contest prevailed 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 127 
 
 between the followers of this system and the Advo- 
 cates for gospel simplicity. But the victory ap- 
 peared to be on the side of the Platonists, which 
 assured the lasting corruption of Christianity ; for 
 learned Christians now began to maintain that the 
 Scriptures have a double meaning ; one literal and 
 plain, and the other latent and symbolic : the literal 
 or exoteric sense to be taught to the people, and 
 the latent or esoteric sense to be communicated 
 only to the initiated and the faithful. A similar 
 distinction in morals followed. There was one 
 rule for the multitude, and another for the aspirants 
 to higher sanctity. These were to seek retirement 
 and to mortify the flesh, avoiding marriage and all 
 indulgence of the senses. Hence originated the 
 austerities of religious hermits ; hence the celibacy 
 of priests, monks, and nuns. 
 
 RELATION OF MONOGAMY TO CHRISTIANITY IN THE 
 THIED AND FOURTH CENTURIES. 
 
 At the council of Caesarea, A.D. 314, it was de- 
 cided and decreed, in the first canon, that, if a 
 priest should marry after his ordination, he must 
 be deposed from oflice. The seventh canon for- 
 
128 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 bids a priest to be present at the marriage of a 
 bigamist. 
 
 At the council of Ancyra, in the same year, it 
 was ordered, in the tenth canon, that those deacons 
 who expressed their intention to marry at the time 
 of their ordination might innocently do so ; but, if 
 they should marry without having expressed such 
 intention, they must be deposed from office. 
 
 At the first council of Carthage, A.D. 348, 
 by the second canon, it was ordered that all Chris- 
 tians who had violated their vows of virginity by 
 subsequent marriage should be excommunicated ; 
 and, if they were priests, thej should be deposed 
 from office. 
 
 Siricius, Bishop of Rome, m 385 ordered that 
 every priest and every deacon within his diocese 
 who should marry a second wife, or a widow, 
 should be deposed fi*om office. 
 
 While these Gnostic and Platonic sentiments 
 w^ere at work corrupting the church within, the 
 state of social life without the pale of Christianity 
 was much the same as it has been described under 
 the first six Caesars ; or, if the testimony of all the 
 contemporary writers can be believed, it was be- 
 
OF MAliHIAGE, lS9 
 
 coming more aad more corrupt. The Christians 
 formed but a small minority of the whole popula- 
 tion, and they were generally hated, and often per- 
 secuted. It is scarcely possible for us to conceive 
 of any greater depravity than that of the age of 
 Caligula and Nero ; and we do not wonder to learn 
 that in the succeeding century the once mighty 
 Roman empire was beginning to totter to its fall. 
 But before it fell it Avas destined to be upheld a 
 Avhile by the fortitude of Christian patriots ; and, in 
 turn, the purity of Christianity was to become more 
 and more sullied by its long contact with Roman 
 depravity, and its intimate complicity with Roman 
 monogamy. 
 
 CONSTAXTINE AND THEODOSIUS. 
 
 In the former part of the fourth century, the two 
 joint emperors were Constantino and Licinius. 
 They agreed, at first, to tolerate Christianity ; but 
 Licinius violated his agreement, and commenced a 
 persecution. Tlien Coastantine, who had himself 
 been a pagan hitherto, resolved to favor the Chris- 
 tians more than he had done already, and thus 
 attach to himself the most industrious and peace- 
 able citizens, and the most brave and loyal soldiers 
 9 
 
130 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 of the empire. In the year A.D. 324 the cross ap- 
 peared for the first time upoa his banners ; his 
 rival was defeated, and he became sole emperor. 
 Then Constantine issued circular letters, announ- 
 cing his conversion to Christianity, and inviting the 
 people to follow his example. This call of the pow- 
 erful monarch was not unheeded. The Christian 
 faith spread rapidly : ministers of religion thronged 
 the royal court, and offices of honor and profit were 
 conferred upon Christians. Yet Constantine him- 
 self, through all his subsequent life, was only a 
 catechumen or inquirer, and was not baptized, and 
 received into full membership in the church, until 
 he was near his end. And, in the mean time, he 
 left the ancient system of the Roman state undis- 
 turbed ; and paganism, with its corrupt monogamy, 
 was still the law of the land. At length Theodo-!' 
 sius, his grandson, required the Senate, a majority 
 of whom had hitherto remained pagans, to choose 
 between the two religions ; and they were finally 
 induced to vote in accordance with his wishes, in 
 favor of Christianity. He soon (A.D. 392) pub- 
 lished a severe edict against paganism ; and " then 
 pretended conversions became numerous, the tern- 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 131 
 
 pies were deserted, and the churches filled with 
 worshippers, aed the religion under which Rome 
 flourished for twelve centuries ceased forever." * 
 
 ASCETICISM AND MONASTICISM. 
 
 And then at length, when Christianity became 
 paramount in the State, a permanent and decided 
 social reform might have been possible, had they 
 tolerated polygamy, as the first Christians had done 
 in Judaea and other Asiatic countries ; for they 
 would thus have made it possible for all to be mar- 
 ried that wished to marry, and thus have guarded 
 themselves from the terrible licentiousness of the 
 pagans, by the influences of which they were sur- 
 rounded on every hand. But, on the contrary, im- 
 pelled by the prevailing influences of Gnosticism, 
 they not only retained their former monogamy, but 
 they made it more strict and ascetic than before, and 
 attempted an impossible reform by suppressing the 
 amorous propensities, and vainly endeavoring to 
 eradicate them. The bishops and doctors of the 
 church had already done what they could to dis- 
 courage marriage, and bring it into disrepute, es- 
 
 * Keiffhtley Rom. Emo., part 3, chap. 6. 
 
132 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 pecially with the ministers of religion ; but now 
 they forbade it to them altogether. 
 
 At the council of Toledo, in A.D. 400, it was 
 ordered, by canon seventeenth, that every Christian 
 that had both a wife and a concubine should be 
 excommunicated ; but he should not be excommu- 
 nicated who had only a concubine without a wife. 
 
 At the fourth council of Carthage, A.D. 401, it 
 was ordered, by canon seventieth, that all bishops, 
 priests, and deacons, who had wives, must repudiate 
 them, and live in celibacy, under penalty of deposi- 
 tion from office. 
 
 Pope Innocent I., about A.D. 412, in his official 
 letter to the two bishops of Abruzzo, orders them 
 to depose those priests who had been guilty of the 
 crime of having children since their ordination. 
 
 Thus the seeds of Gnostic error, that had been 
 sown in the church during the former periods of its 
 history, now sprang up anew, and bore a plentiful 
 Virvest. '' Nothing," says Keightley, " is more 
 characteristic of the corruption which Christianity 
 lad undergone than the high honor in which the 
 rarious classes of ascetics were held. These use- 
 ess or pernicious beings now actually swarmed 
 
OF MAUniAGE. 133 
 
 throughout the Eastern empire, and were grad^ 
 ually spreading themselves into the "West. We 
 have shown how asceticism has been derived from 
 the sultry regions of Asia, and how it originates 
 in the Gnostic principles. It had long been insinu- 
 ating itself into the church ; but, after the establish- 
 ment of Christianity, it burst forth like a torrent." 
 " The hope of acquiring heaven by virginity and 
 mortification was not confined to the male sex: 
 woman, with the enthusiasm and the devotional 
 tendency peculiar to her, rushed eagerly towards 
 the crown of glory* Nunneries became numerous^ 
 and were thronged with inmates. Nature, how* 
 ever, not unfrequently asserted her rights ; and the 
 complaints and admonitions of the most celebrated 
 fathers assure us that the unnatural state of vowed 
 celibacy was productive of the same evils and scan* 
 dais in ancient as in modern times.'* * 
 
 MEDIEVAL SUPEESTITION AND IMMORALITT* 
 
 *' And then," says the learned ecclesiastical his- 
 torian, Mosheim, " the number of immoral and un- 
 
 * Hist. Rom. Emp., chap. 6. 
 
134 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 worthy Christians began so to increase, that the 
 examples of real piety and virtue became ex- 
 tremely rare. When the terrors of persecution 
 were totally dispelled ; when the church, secured 
 from the efforts of its enemies, enjoyed the sweets 
 of prosperity and peace ; when the major part of 
 its bishops exhibited to their flocks the contagious 
 examples of arrogance, luxury, effeminacy, ani- 
 mosity, and strife, with other vices too numerous to 
 mention ; when multitudes were drawn into the 
 profession of Christianity, not by the power of con- 
 viction and argument, but by the prospect of gain 
 or by the fear of punishment, — then it was indeed 
 no wonder that the church was contaminated with 
 shoals of profligate Christians, and that the vir- 
 tuous few were, in a manner, oppressed and over- 
 whelmed by the superior numbers of the wicked 
 I and licentious." " Nor did the evil end here ; for 
 those vain fictions, which an attachment to the 
 Platonic philosophy and to popular opinions had 
 engaged the greatest part of the Christian doctors 
 to adopt before the time of Constantine, were now 
 confirmed, enlarged, and embellished in various 
 ways. Hence arose the extravagant veneration 
 
W iiAiihiAGk 135 
 
 for departed saiats, the celibacy of priests, the 
 Avorship of images and relics, which, ia process of 
 time, almost totally destroyed the Christian religion, 
 or at least eclipsed its lustre, and corrupted its es- 
 sence." '^ A preposterous desire of imitating the 
 pagan rites, and of blending them with the Chris- 
 tian worship, and that idle propensity which the 
 generality of mankind have towards a gaudy and 
 ostentatious religion, all combined to establish the 
 reign of superstition on the ruins of Christianity. 
 Accordingly, frequent pilgrimages were undertaken 
 to Palestine and to the tombs of the martyrs, as if 
 there alone the sacred principles of virtue and the 
 certain hope of salvation were to be acquired. The 
 public processions and supplications, by which the 
 pagans endeavored to appease their gods, were 
 now adopted into the Christian worship, and cele- 
 brated with great pomp and magnificence. The 
 virtues that had formerly been ascribed to the 
 heathen temples, to their lustrations, to the statues 
 of their gods and heroes, were now attributed to 
 the Christian churches, to water consecrated by 
 certain forms of prayer, to the images of holy men ; 
 and the worship of the martyrs was modelled ac- 
 
136 HISTORY AND FHILOSOPHT 
 
 cording to the religious services that were paid to 
 
 the gods before the comiog of Christ." * 
 
 Similar testimonies could easily be cited from 
 
 . Gibbon's " Decline and Fall of the Roman Em- 
 f 
 
 i pire," from D'Aubigne's " History of the Keforma- 
 ! tion," from the ancient works of Eusebius, and the 
 modern ones of Neauder, and from hundreds of 
 others ; but I will not weary my readers with them. 
 Thus it appears from the testimonies of all the his- 
 torians, ecclesiastical and civil, sacred and profane, 
 that the doctrines and practices which distinguish 
 the Roman-Catholic Church to-day were most of 
 them derived from a very early age, anterior to the 
 civil acknowledgment and legal establishment of 
 Christianity. Keightley says, '^ The Church of 
 Rome is, in fact, very unjustly treated when she is 
 charged with being the author of the tenets and 
 practices which were transmitted to her from the 
 fourth century. Her guilt or error was not that of 
 invention, but of retention.'* 
 
 IMMUTABILITY OF THE ROMAN CHURCH. 
 
 Her boasted claim of immutability is well sus- 
 tained, as far back, certainly, as the commence- 
 
 * Mosheira, Ecc. Hist. Cent. 4, oart 2, chap. 3. 
 
OF MAIiRIAOE. 137 
 
 ment of the fifth centuiy. The Western empire 
 survived till the close of that century ; and as the 
 power of the emperors continued to decline, that of 
 the bishops of Rome, who were afterwards called 
 popes, continued to increase, till at length they at- 
 tained monarchical as well as hierarchical power, 
 and governed the religious and the social affairs of 
 the European world. And as the dogmas of the 
 Roman Church are now maintaining monogamy 
 with many of its attendant vices, and are now pro- 
 hibiting marriage to its clergy, and discouraging it 
 in all its more earnest religious devotees, of both 
 sexes, so they always have done. And we have the 
 testimonies of all modern historians, all modern 
 travellers, and of modern statistics, that the vices 
 of old Rome that then attended its social system of 
 monogamy are still the vices of modern Rome, and 
 of all the countries under the sway of the Roman 
 Church ; the most recent statistics of the Catholic 
 countries of Europe giving the number of illegiti- 
 mate children born there each year, as greater 
 than the number of those of legitimate birth. And 
 it is not only on the corrupt soil of old Europe that 
 the licentiousness of ancient Roman monogamy 
 
138 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 still prevails, but also in the Catholic countries of 
 Dew America. In proof of this I will cite only 
 one testimony, where thousands might be cited, 
 from a recent work entitled " What I saw in South 
 and North America." By H. W. Baxley, M.D., 
 Special Commissioner of the United-States Gov- 
 ernment. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1865. 
 This is his description of " what he saw " in Lima, 
 the capital of Peru : — 
 
 " It is rarely the case that one walks in any 
 part of the city, during the day or night, without 
 being shocked by sights of indecency, immodesty, 
 and immorality, too gross even to be hinted at, 
 and disgraceful to the arrogant civilization of the 
 nation. If one thousand seven hundred and ninety- 
 three priests, exercising ecclesiastical authority 
 and performing religious functions in this city, as 
 published in its statistics, with seventy churches, 
 forty-two chapels, six hundred and twenty-eight 
 altars, and vast power of influence and enforce- 
 ment, cannot produce a better state of morals and 
 manners, it shows either a defective system of re- 
 ligion, or incapacity and faithlessness on the part 
 of the executors of the holy trust. The statements 
 of candid citizens and of foreign residents of many 
 years compel the belief, that the general demoraliza- 
 
OF MAURI AGE, 139 
 
 tion is mainly clue to a depraved clergy. If priests 
 taking vows of chastity and devotion alone to God, 
 perjure themselves, obey the lusts of the flesh, and 
 scatter their illegitimate offspring abroad, it is to 
 be expected that they will find imitators among 
 those whose temporal purity they should guard, 
 and whose eternal welfare they should promote. 
 The unblushing boldness with which clerical de- 
 bauchery stalks abroad in Lima renders it needless 
 to put in any saving clause of declaration. The 
 priest may be seen on the sabbath day, as on others, 
 in bull-ring and cock-pit, restaurant and tavern, with 
 commoner and concubine, joining in noisy revel, or 
 looking on with complacent sanction. Nor does 
 the going-down of the sun arrest his wayward per- 
 egrinations ; for he may be seen at that hour, at 
 corners, with tajpadas^ in gay and lascivious con- 
 versation, or threading by-ways in fulfilment of a 
 lustful assignation. If the bishop of Arequipas 
 will turn to the ' weak and beggarly elements of 
 the world,' if he cannot, like his great predecessor 
 St. Paul, ' contain,' but must obey the carnal de- 
 sires, ' let him marry,' as he is commanded by the 
 apostle, like an honorable man and a consistent 
 Christian ; and let him not encourage the frailty 
 of depraved disciples by a shameless example of 
 licentiousness made public by his procurement of 
 separate apartments in Lima for his seven concu- 
 bines and his thirty-five illegitimate children. 
 
140 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 " The streets of tliis capital were yesterday the 
 scene of a procession which was a disgrace to its 
 professed enlightenment, and an idolatrous vio- 
 lation of its boasted Christianity. A gorgeously- 
 gilded throne, borne on the shoulders of negroes, 
 who were partially concealed by a deep valance, 
 supported the pontifically-attircd effigy of St. 
 Peter ; its right arm, moved by secret machinery, 
 being occasionally raised in attitude of blessing 
 the throngs of deluded worshippers who bowed 
 their heads for its benediction. Another similarly 
 decorated dais bore a life-size graven image of 
 La Merced, the patron saint of Peru ; elegantly 
 arrayed in curls, coronet, richly-embroidered 
 crinoline and robe, pearl necklace and ear-rings, 
 brooch and bodice ; and holding in its uplifted 
 jewelled fingers a silver yoke. These effigies 
 were escorted by prelates and other ecclesiastics ; 
 and that of La Merced was preceded by six pert- 
 looking mulatto girls, — designed to represent 
 virgins, — carrying incense upon silver salvers, 
 from which numerous censers, swung by priestly 
 hands, were kept supplied, and rolled upward 
 their clouds of perfume, to tell of the adoration 
 of her votaries. The whole procession moved to 
 the sound of measured chants sung by hundreds 
 of the clergy, who often bowed ; behind whom 
 followed the civic diuaiitaries of the nation and 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 141 
 
 city, bareheaded and reverential ; and after these 
 came the plumed warriors, on horse and foot, 
 with breastplate and helmet, lance, sabre, musket, 
 and cannon,. flaunting banners, and martial music, 
 guarding the saints through the city, and back to 
 the altars of the Church of La Merced, whence 
 they came, and Avhere they will receive hereafter, 
 as heretofore, the petitions and vows of thousands 
 of misguided religionists. Can popular regenera- 
 tion be rationally looked for when examples of 
 ecclesiastical profligacy are patent to the public 
 eye, and when such violations of divine precepts 
 are practised, and such delusions devised to mis- 
 lead the ignorant? 
 
 " No one can scrutinize the social habits in 
 Lima, without becoming sensible of the fact that 
 women are probably ' more sinned against than 
 sinning.' For they not only have provocations to 
 faithlessness, and opportunity afforded for its in- 
 dulgence by sanctioned customs, but they arc 
 taught by the universally-recognized dissoluteness 
 of the men not to place any confidence in them, 
 and not to contemplate marriage as a means of 
 happiness beyond its power to furnish an estab- 
 lishment, and make a woman mistress of her 
 own actions. 
 
 " In the street called San Francisco, opposite 
 the monastery of that name, a kind of barracks 
 
142 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 is found, containing quite a population apart from 
 the rest. There lives a class of women and chil- 
 dren whom one would think came in a direct line 
 from the gypsies, if their complexion did not 'show 
 a variety of a thousand shades, from white to 
 black. These women are the acknowledged 
 mistresses, and the children the progeny, of the 
 monks, who visit them at all times, and pay them 
 a regular stipend. ' La casa de la monjas,' — the 
 house of the nuns, — as the people ironically call 
 it, is a real Gomorrah. The clerical protectors of 
 the tenants that inhabit it willingly mistake the 
 chambers, not having the weakness of the laity 
 of being jealous of each other. Do not suppose 
 that we are amusing ourselves in speaking ill of the 
 monks of Lima. These abominations among them- 
 selves they are the first to expose ; for in their 
 stated elections for superiors, such is the bitterness 
 of rival aspirants, that they publicly charge against 
 each other these infamous transactions, making 
 known the number of their concubines and illegiti- 
 mate children." 
 
 Thus have Dr. Baxley and others cast the 
 principal reproach of this frightful immorality 
 upon the poor priests ; but does it not belong 
 rather to their entire social system ? The priests 
 
OF MARUIAGE. 143 
 
 in assuming the vows of perpetual celibacy, and 
 the people iu supporting the old Roman monog- 
 amy, which their Gnostic views of Christianity 
 require, have assumed more than human nature 
 is able to bear, and more than it ought to bear ; 
 and there must be constant transgression and 
 immorality as long as their present system pre- 
 vails. 
 
 And now I think I have fairly demonstrated 
 that the European social system of monogamy 
 had its origin in Roman paganism, and has been 
 perpetuated by Roman Catholicism. 
 
144 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 MOxNOGAMY AS IT IS AMONG PROTESTANTS. 
 MONOGAMY IS KOMANISM STILL. 
 
 Take monogamy as it is to-day, in Protestant 
 countries, and we see that the old Roman leaven 
 is still in it. Christianity has not reformed and 
 purified that system so much as that has corrupted 
 Christianity. Most of us in these countries are 
 accustomed to congratulate ourselves upon our 
 happy escape from the bondage and the bigotry 
 of the Papal Church. But we are mistaken. 
 We have not escaped. Rome binds us in stronger 
 shackles than the iron chains of the holy Inquisi- 
 tion. Her shackles are upon our consciences : they 
 are intertwined with every fibre of our social life. 
 Much of her intolerant spint, many of her ques- 
 tionable doctrines and practices, and her tradi- 
 tional forms and ceremonies, are still common to 
 the nominally Christian world. In respect to a 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 146 
 
 few of them, Ave have discovered that they are 
 uuscriptural, and unsupported by divine authority, 
 and are therefore of no binding obligation ; but, by 
 many other traditional doctrines and practices of 
 that hierarchy, we are unconsciously, and there- 
 fore so much the more securely fettered. Wo 
 boast of our Christian freedom, while we are, in 
 fact, but little better than slaves ; for if we are 
 nomially free, yet we are bound by an apprentice- 
 ship to Rome more degrading than our former 
 slavery itself: and our boasted emancipation is 
 but a miserable farce. We are too servile and 
 timid in our interpretation of the Bible, and in 
 our examination of the divine and natural laws. 
 We hesitate to follow the simple truth to its legiti- 
 mate and logical conclusions. We stand aghast 
 at the radical changes which severe truth requires 
 in our religious and social systems. We shrink 
 from exploring the profound labyrinths to which 
 truth attempts in vain to lead us ; while we look 
 anxiously around for clews and leading-strings by 
 which to trace our way. We dare not go for- 
 ward without example and authority ; and au- 
 thority and example are reconducting us to RomCf 
 
146 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 Our great champion, Dr. Martin Luther, made a 
 few bold steps iu the right direction, but stopped 
 far short of the ultimate results to which his own 
 principles were leading. A Protestant in theory, 
 lie was, in practice, essentially a Romanist. He 
 insisted much upon justification by faith alone, 
 and declared personal piety to be necessary to 
 true Christianity ; and yet he admitted all citizens, 
 irrespective of their faith or their want of it, to 
 the most solemn and most esoteric ordinances of 
 the Christian Church. He repudiated the au- 
 thority of earthly potentates to compel men's 
 Christian belief, but retained the union of Church 
 and State in order to compel their Christian obedi- 
 ence. He denied the infallibility of the pope, and 
 the miraculous power of the priesthood, and yet 
 believed in the Ileal Presence, if not the adoration 
 of the host. His disciples are to-day imitating 
 his example rather than promoting his principles, 
 and possess little more' evangelical faith than the 
 Ilomanists themselves. 
 
 Henry the Eighth, the founder of the Church of 
 England, was even less a Protestant than Luther ; 
 and the present tendency of many of the most 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 147 
 
 influential doctors and dignitaries of this Church 
 is in the same retrograde direction as that of the 
 Lutherans. Yet these two churches, the Anglican 
 and the Lutheran, are the main pillars of Protest- 
 antism, — the Boaz and Jachin of the porch of 
 the new temple. I have not lost my hope that 
 the truth of gospel simplicity will ultimately pre- 
 vail over ecclesiastical bigotry ; but it may require 
 as many centuries for the Christian world to 
 unlock the trammels of the Roman hierarchy, and 
 to escape from its thraldom, as it originally re- 
 quired to fix those trammels upon the consciences 
 of Christian freemen. 
 
 But the Romans are more consistent in their 
 system of monogamy than we are ; for while the 
 dogmas of the Church forbid polygamy, and even 
 single marriages to the ministry, they provide for 
 the surplus women, by having numerous societies 
 of uuns and sisters of charity, who make a merit 
 of necessity, by assuming the vows of perpetual 
 celibacy, to serve the Church, and acquire religious 
 merit. As Protestants, we have been taught to 
 believe that these monastic institutions have proved 
 to be schools of vice, and that the vows of perpet- 
 
148 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ual chastity assumed in them are unnatural and 
 wicked, and that they are often violated under the 
 detestable hypocrisy of sacerdotal sanctity.* For 
 
 * The following citations are from Froude's Hist, of Eng., 
 vol. ii., chap. 10. 
 
 "Only light reference will be made in this place to the 
 darker scandals by which the abbeys were dishonored. Such 
 things there really were, to an extent which it may be painful 
 to believe, but which evidence too abundantly proves." 
 
 Among other specifications, ^Mr. Froude cites the letter of the 
 Archbishop of Canterbury (written A.D. 1489) to the Abbot of 
 St. Albans, wherein he accuses him thus: " ' Not a few of youi 
 fellow monks and brethren, as we most deeply grieve to learn, 
 giving themselves over to a reprobate mind, laying aside the 
 fear of God, do lead only a life of lasciviousness, — nay, as is 
 horrible to relate, be not afraid to defile the holy places, even 
 the very churches of God, by infamous intercourse with nuns. 
 You yourself, moreover, among other grave enormities and 
 abominable crimes whereof you are guilty, and for which you 
 are noted and diffamed, have, in the first place, admitted a cer- 
 tain married woman named Elena Germyn, who has separated 
 herself, without just cause, from her husband, and for some 
 time past has lived in adultery with another man, to be a nun, 
 or sister in the Priorj^ of Bray; and . . . Father Thomas 
 Sudbury, one of your brother monks, publicly, notoriously, and 
 without interference oi punishment from you, has associated 
 and still associates with this woman, as an adulterer with his 
 harlot. Moreover, divers other of your brethren and fellow- 
 
OF MARRtAGE. 149 
 
 these reasons, we have suppressed the nunneries ; 
 but we have made no provision for the nuns, and 
 those who would have become nuns. In those 
 institutions they were, at least, assured of a home 
 and a support, even if they did learn vice ; but 
 now, when thrown upon the world, they are still 
 moVe exposed to vice, and are without a home and 
 without support. Under Catholic monogamy, if a 
 young woman made a false step, slie could hide 
 
 monks have resorted and do resort continually to her and other 
 women at the same place, as to a public brothel or receiving 
 liouse. Nor is Bray the only house into which you have intro- 
 duced disorder. At the Nunnery of Sapwell, you depose those 
 who are good and religious, you promote to the highest dignities 
 the worthless and the vicious.' '* 
 
 In the year 1536, the Report of Special Commissioners ap- 
 pointed to inspect the Monasteries of England was laid before 
 parliament, by which it appeared, says Mr. Froude, that " two- 
 thirds of the monks in England were living in habits which 
 may not be described. . . . The case against the monas- 
 teries was complete; and there is no occasion either to be 
 surprised or peculiarly horrified at the discovery. The demor- 
 alization which was exposed was nothing less and nothing more 
 than the condition into which men of average nature compelled 
 to celibacy, and living as the exponents of a system which they 
 disbelieved, were certain to fall." 
 
160 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 her shame in a convent, and devote her future life 
 to penitence and prayer ; but, under Protestant 
 monogamy, the frail fair sinner has no such refuge. 
 Her first lapse from virtue shuts her out forever 
 from the respect and sympathy of the world, and 
 from the hope of future reformation ; and her 
 downward career to the gates of hell is so gen- 
 erally taken for granted, that it becomes almost 
 a certainty. The only safe and proper provision 
 for homeless women is marriage. An early mar- 
 riage will usually save them from the dangers to 
 which they are exposed. Monogamy cannot secure 
 their marriage ; but polygamy can : yet we are 
 taught to look with horror upon polygamy as one 
 of the " relics of barbarism," although it is plainly 
 taught in the Bible, and is the only social system 
 which provides marriage for all, and which secures 
 the honest and lawful gratification of those impet- 
 uous passions which must be and which will be 
 indulged in some manner, if not by marriage, then 
 without it ; while we wink at all the disgusting 
 abominations of prostitution, divorce, adultery, 
 and other vices, which are the well-known and the 
 inevitable results of restricted marriacre. Mono^ja- 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 161 
 
 my, in " forbidding to marry,'* assumes all thd 
 curses which this prohibition entails. We must 
 choose between the system which provides mar- 
 riage for all, with comparative purity, or the system 
 of restricted marriage with inevitable impurity. 
 
 IMPURITY OF MODERN MONOGAMY. 
 
 The Bible forbids prostitution, but permits po- 
 lygamy. The ancient Greeks and Romans for- 
 bade polygamy, but permitted prostitution. Mod- 
 ern monogamy pretends to forbid both, but really 
 permits prostitution also. Our monogamous moral- 
 ity is, therefore, that of ancient paganism, and 
 not that of the Bible ; and prostitution is as much 
 a necessary part of our social system as it was 
 of that at Athens, at Corinth, or at Rome. Our 
 magistrates are not ignorant of the extent of 
 public licentiousness ; but they do not attempt to 
 suppress it. They only seek to conceal it, and 
 confine it, if possible, within its present limits, 
 requiring its votaries to keep it in the dark. Our 
 police-officers know almost every prostitute that 
 walks the street, and allow her to ply her nefa- 
 rious trade unmolested, so long as she is polite 
 
152 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and uoobtrusive. As the Spartans are reputed 
 to have said to the youth of their state, in re- 
 spect to theft, " Steals hut do not he caught at it^^' 
 so the guardians of our public morals say, " You 
 may be as licentious as you please, only make no 
 public display of your immorality." The reason 
 of this connivance at prostitution must be be- 
 cause our legislators and judges believe its sup- 
 pression to be impossible ; and, with our system 
 of monogamy, it is impossible. If there must be 
 a multitude of women unmarried and unprovided 
 for, there will be a multitude of prostitutes ; 
 and, if there are a multitude of prostitutes, there 
 will be a multitude of men, who, like Shak- 
 speare's FalstafF, will decline marriage, because 
 they can be " better accommodated than with a 
 wife : " and so the evil will go on continually in- 
 creasing and propagating itself. The Foundling 
 Hospital, the Five Points House of Industry, 
 and the Home for Friendless and Abandoned 
 AYomen, must be built alongside of the brothel; 
 and their numerous inmates must be maintained 
 either by public tax or by Christian charity 
 (most frequently by the latter) : so that honest 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 153 
 
 men must support their own wives and children 
 and also the cast-off drabs and bastards of un- 
 principled libertines. If we must have public 
 prostitutes, let us have them openly and boldly, as 
 the ancient Greeks and Romans did ; and let them 
 be publicly licensed, as they were under Caligula, 
 and as they are said to be still in France ; and let 
 the state derive, at least, sufficient revenue from 
 them to bury their murdered infants, and to bring 
 up their abandoned foundlings. 
 
 THE HIGHER LAW OF CHRISTIAN PHILANTHROPY. 
 
 Let me not be misunderstood in what I have 
 just said. I do not depreciate that form of charity 
 which seeks out the victims of licentiousness, and 
 makes them the special objects of its beneficence. 
 I would not say one word in its disparagement. 
 On the contrary, I acknowledge its genuineness. 
 Such charity is worthy of great commendation : 
 it is in a special sense true Christian charity, for 
 it is eminently Christ-like ; since he came to seek 
 and to save the lost, and disdaioed not to be called 
 the Friend of publicans and sinners. But what I 
 demand is this, that this form of Christian char- 
 
154 . HISTORY AND PHILOSOP^T 
 
 iiy should so expand its efforts and its aims as 
 fully to meet the case, and yield a permanent 
 and radical relief to that class of the poor and 
 miserable which it has taken under its charge. 
 Let its aims be so comprehensive, so high, so broad, 
 and so deep, that it cannot be satisfied with any 
 thing less than a prevention of the "social evil" 
 which it has hitherto attempted only to alleviate. 
 And it is certainly no slander to our present chari- 
 ties of this kind, to say that the alleviation which 
 they have effected is altogether inadequate. The 
 miserable victim=5 of this vice are increasing 
 faster than the ability or the disposition to relieve 
 them. The most enthusiastic philanthropists have 
 already become disheartened ia. vainly endeavor- 
 ing to furnish sufficient relief, and they can see no ' 
 means of prevention. They are at their wits'- 
 end ; and some of them have become fully aware, 
 that, under our present social system, no preven- 
 tion can be possible. " While sin is in the 
 world," some say, " we cannot prevent men and 
 women from sinning: they will sin, in spite of us 
 and in spite of every thing ; and the world itself 
 is growing more and more depraved and wicked 
 
OP MAttntAGt:. 155 
 
 every day. All that we caa do is to show Chris- 
 tian mercy, and grant some present relief." 
 
 But the true Christian philanthropist does not 
 rest satisfied in such conclusions. He knows that 
 it is not true that the world is growing worse and 
 worse, but that facts and statistics prove the 
 contrary. He believes in the " good time com- 
 ing," and that the world is actually growing better 
 arid better. Many causes of human misery have 
 been discovered and removed, or greatly dimin- 
 ished, and he hopes that more will be. The 
 average duration of human life is actually being 
 prolonged. The average state of health is incon 
 testably being improved. Christianity has not 
 been instituted in vain. It has already accom- 
 plished wonders of mercy and grace, and its 
 blessed work of reform is still going on. The 
 true philanthropist, therefore, must not and will 
 not despair. If no preventive of licentiousness 
 has hitherto been found, and if it be impossible to 
 find any under our present social system of mar- 
 riage, we must look for it under some other sys- 
 tem. Marriage was made for man, and not man 
 for marria^re. 
 
15G HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 IS THE "SOCIAL EVIl/' PREVEXTIBLE ? 
 
 But perhaps some may suppose that sincere and 
 genuine piety is a sufficient preventive of licen- 
 tiousness, and that, when all the people become 
 truly converted, and well instructed in religious 
 knowledge, then they will be secure from this 
 vice. I have great confidence in genuine piety, 
 and believe that it is indeed the best antidote to all 
 the ills that flesh is heir to ; but the difficulty is, 
 that it is this very licentiousness which is hinder- 
 ing people from becoming pious. And, besides 
 this, it is not from want of religious knowledge 
 that people become licentious : they have already 
 had line upon line, and precept upon precept, for 
 many successive generations. They know that 
 licentiousness is a sin ; and they know, that, when 
 they fall into it, they become liable to the most 
 fearful punishments, both in this life and in the 
 world to come : but the tyranny of monogamy has 
 left them no alternative ; they have no other avail- 
 able means of gratifying the wants of nature. 
 Marriage is impossible to half the women, and a 
 single marriage is inadequate to the requirements 
 
OF MARBIAGE. 157 
 
 of half the men. Pious exhortation is but idle 
 talk to those "who are sinning from the excite- 
 ment of amorous desire of which there is no 
 possible gratification except a sinful one. If the 
 philanthropist who is giving them these exhorta- 
 tions cannot point out a lawful means of meeting 
 those natural wants, of what profit can his exhor- 
 tations be? "If a brother or a sister be naked, 
 and destitute of daily food, and one of you say 
 unto them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and 
 filled ; notwithstanding ye give ihem not those 
 things which are needful to the body ; what doth 
 it profit?" It is not instruction which our "des- 
 titute and abandoned women " want ; they want 
 marriage ; they want homes of their own to 
 shelter them, and husbands to love them and to 
 provide for them. And I have already demon- 
 strated that it is their right to have them ; their 
 natural and unquestionable right, of which the 
 injustice and tyranny of monogamy has cruelly 
 deprived them. Society has wronged them ; and 
 with their own peculiar, intuitive instinct they feel 
 it, though they cannot tell exactly how. Society, 
 somehow, has made war upon them, most uu- 
 
158 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPHT 
 
 justly ; and, when they become licentious, it is 
 from an Instinctive feeling of self-defence ; it is 
 only to take such justifiable revenge upon society 
 as a state of warfare authorizes, and has, in a 
 manner, rendered necessary. 
 
 Now, let this warfare cease. Let the women 
 have their rights. Let every woman have a hus- 
 band and a home ; and let every man have as 
 many women as he can love, and as can love him, 
 and as he is able to support, until all the women 
 are provided for : then, and not till then, will pros- 
 titution cease ; and then the happy time that the 
 poet dreamed of, when he put the apparently ex- 
 travagant sentiment into his hero's mouth, which I 
 have placed upon my titlepage, will have come at 
 last, and 
 
 " There shall be no more widows in the land/' * 
 
 * " No man who loves his kind can in these days rest con- 
 tent with waiting as a servant upon human misery, when it is 
 in so many cases possible to anticipate and avert it. Preven- 
 tion is better than cure; and it is now clear to all that a large 
 part of human suffering is prcventible by improved social ar- 
 rangements. Charity will now, if it be genuine, fix upon this 
 enterprise as greater, more widely and permanently beneficial, 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 169 
 
 MONOGAMY OCCASIONS SEDUCTION AND RUIN. 
 If any of my readers have failed to see that 
 there is any necessary connection between mo- 
 
 and therefore more Christian, than the other. It will not, in- 
 deed, neglect the lower task of relieving and consoling those, 
 who, whether through the errors and unskilful arrangements of 
 society, or through causes not yet preventible, have actually 
 fallen into calamity. Its compassion will be all the deeper, its 
 relief more prompt and zealous, because it does not generally, 
 as former generations did, recognize such calamities to be part 
 of man's inevitable destiny. When the sick man has been vis- 
 ited, and every thing done which skill and assiduity can do to 
 cure him, modern charity will go on to consider the causes of 
 his malady, and then to inquire whether others incur the same 
 dangers, and may be warned in time. When the starving man 
 has been relieved, modem charity inquires whether any fault in 
 the social system deprived him of his share of Nature's bounty, 
 any unjust advantage taken by the strong over the weak, any 
 rudeness or want of culture in himself, wrecking his virtue and 
 his habits of thrift." [I continue this quotation with a reserva- 
 tion; applying it to the first Roman Christians, but doubting its 
 truthfulness in respect to the " apostolic," Jewish Christians.] 
 
 " The first Christians were probably not so much h opeless of 
 accomplishing great social reforms, as unripe for the conception 
 of them. They did not easily recognize evil to be evil, and did 
 not believe, or rather had never dreamed, that it could be cured. 
 Habit dulls the senses, and puts the critical faculty to sleep. 
 
160 HISTORY AND FIIILOSOPHT 
 
 nogamj aud female ruin, I beg them to examine 
 carefully the followiug observations. It has been 
 demonstrated, in a former chapter, that monogamy 
 leaves a multitude of women unprotected, and un- 
 provided with the privileges of marriage. It does 
 
 The fierceness and hardness of ancient manners is apparent tons; 
 but the ancients themselves were not shocked by sights which 
 were familiar to them. To us it is sickening to think of the 
 gladiatorial show, of the massacres common in Eoman warfare, 
 of the infanticide practised by grave and respectable citizens, 
 who did not merely condemn their children to death, but often 
 in practice, as they well knew, to what was still worse, — a life 
 of prostitution and beggary. The Roman regarded a gladiato- 
 rial show as we regard a hunt; the news of the slaughter of two 
 hundred thousand Helvetians by Caesar, or half a million Jews 
 by Titus, excited in his mind a thrill of triumph; infanticide 
 committed by a friend appeared to him a prudent measure of 
 liousehold economy. To shake off this paralysis of the moral 
 sense produced by habit, to see misery to be misery, and cruelty 
 to be cruelty, requires not merely a strong, but a trained and 
 matured compassion. It was as much, probably, as the first 
 Christian could learn at once, to relieve the sick, the starving, 
 and the desolate. Only after centuries of this simple philan- 
 thropy could they learn to criticise the fundamental usages of 
 society itself, and acquire courage to pronounce that, however 
 deeply rooted and time honored, they were in many cases 
 shocking to humanity. 
 
 " Closely connected with this insensibility to the real char- 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 161 
 
 not and it cannot furnish half of them with hus- 
 bands and homes of their own : hence the galling 
 bondage of female dependence ; hence the difficulty 
 of woman's finding her '^ sphere." Yet there is 
 nothing mysterious or doubtful about what consti- 
 tutes her sphere ; for it is defined by the simple 
 term " home," — that word, above all others, so 
 charming, and so suggestive of every excellence in 
 the female character, and of all the sweet memories 
 which cluster round the blessed names of mother, 
 
 acter of common usages is a positive unwillingness to reform 
 them. The argument of prejudice is twofold. It is not only 
 that what has lasted a long time must be right, but also that 
 what has lasted a long time, right or wrong, must be intended 
 to continue. We are advanced by eighteen hundred years be- 
 yond the apostolic generation. Our minds are set free, so that 
 we may boldly criticise the usages around us, knowing them to 
 be but imperfect essays toward order and happiness, and no 
 divinely or supcrnaturally ordained constitution which it would 
 be impious to change. We have witnessed improvements in 
 physical well-being which incline us to expect further progress, 
 and make us keen-sighted to detect the evils and miseries that 
 remain. Thus ought the enthusiasm of humanity to work in 
 these days, and thus, plainly enough, it does work. These in- 
 vestigations are constantly being made, these reforms com- 
 meneecli" — Ecce Homo. 
 11 
 
162 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 sister, and bride. But, alas ! the practical mystery 
 with an immense number of women still remains ; 
 and that is, how to find a home. A father's house 
 is no longer a home to many a young woman ; per- 
 haps that father is poor, and the burden of years 
 is at last superadded to that of poverty. He cheer- 
 fully toiled for his child while she was young and 
 necessarily dependent upon him ; and, as she grew 
 up to womanhood, he stinted not to bestow upon 
 her such learning and such accomplishments as his 
 scanty means could command ; and his heart was 
 often cheered by the hope of seeing her well mar- 
 ried and well settled in life : but, as these hopes are 
 not realized, he begins to feel the burden of her 
 maintenance. " She is old enough to provide for 
 herself," and "Why doesn't she get married?" 
 Sure enough! poor thing, why doesn't she? But 
 oh ! how cruel to reproach her with her involuntary 
 dependence and her miserable lot ! And it is an 
 immense relief to her, when it is at length decided 
 that she must go out to service. And so she goes 
 to toil for bread among strangers. Her frail form 
 is overburdened, and often broken down, by unre- 
 mitting ttud ill-requited labor^ and her young hearlr 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 163 
 
 not unfrequently corrupted aud hardened by un- 
 avoidable contact and contamination with vice. 
 
 THE harlot's progress. 
 
 What wonder is it, then, that, under such cir- 
 cumstances, the unprotected, wearied, homesick girl 
 should yield a reluctant ear to the seductive flat- 
 teries of the profligate libertine, who scruples not 
 to utter vows of constancy, and draw fond pictures 
 of future aflluence, to be shared with her ; but who, 
 having accomplished his fiendish purpose, and 
 stolen from her, forever, her only dower of inno- 
 cence and purity, now ignores his vows and prom- 
 ises, and casts her off, to seek and ruin another 
 victim ! What shall become of that poor, desolate, 
 guilty, heart-broken wretch thus ruthlessly aban- 
 doned ? Alas ! the result is scarcely doubtful : it 
 is too often experienced. Despised by herself no 
 less than by the world, driven in anger from the 
 paternal threshold, the gates of honest toil and the 
 doors of Christian charity closed against her, she 
 yields to hopeless despair, and, even for the mis- 
 erable purpose of prolonging a wretched existence, 
 she abandons herself at length to a life of open 
 
164 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 shame ; becoming herself the means of propagatp- 
 ing that misery of which she is such an unhappy 
 victim. 
 
 The artificial system of monogamy offers up 
 other sacrifices on the unholy altar of abandoned 
 lust, besides those furnished from among the 
 daughters of toil or the victims of seduction. 
 The accomplished, the refined, the proud, and the 
 wealthy have furnished their full proportion to 
 swell the aggregate number of the lost. We hope, 
 of course, that much the larger portion of women 
 who have been well brought up, and have failed to 
 marry, have lived and died honest old maids. 
 They never quite lost their hope. Poor, simple 
 souls, they had always been told that their hus- 
 bands would come for them by and by ; that there 
 is a Jack for every Gill, as many men as women 
 in the world ; and so they sat and waited, — 
 
 "Rusticus expcctat, dum defluat amnis ; at ille 
 Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevuiu." 
 
 And thus the ceaseless tide of human life rolls 
 on and on, the number of competitors among mar- 
 riageable maids abates not, the number of men 
 
Ot MABRIAGE, 165 
 
 who are ready to marry augments not. Some, 
 therefore, among the higher and the middling ranks 
 of life, who ought to die old maids, according to 
 the system of monogamy, do not so die. The very 
 pride and spirit of accomplished women have some- 
 times proved their ruin. When they have dis- 
 covered that real men are comparatively rare in 
 the matrimonial market, and that there are more 
 rakes and triflers than honest lovers in society, and 
 that there cannot be husbands and homes provided 
 for more than half the women, — being unable to 
 suppress all their strong susceptibilities of love, and 
 unwilling to surrender all their rights to its enjoy- 
 ment, — they have deliberately determined to en- 
 joy what they can without marriage ; and thus to 
 defy the scorn of men and the wrath of God. 
 
 But passion does not impel so great a number of 
 intelligent women to self-abandonment, as a desire 
 of self-support and a dread of being an intolerable 
 burden to others. Under such apprehensions, many 
 unhappy women, who had been nursed in the lap 
 of luxury, and accustomed to every indulgence 
 during childhood, have found, after coming of 
 age, that as year after year passed round, and no 
 
166 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 eligible opportunity of marriage occurred, their 
 presence at home was becoming more and more 
 unwelcome, and their formidable bills of expenses 
 more and more reluctantly allowed, till they have 
 at last fled from those halls of wealth, and from 
 an intolerable dependence on churlish relatives, to 
 a still more wretched existence in the haunts of 
 public vice. 
 
 How great is the injustice and oppression of the 
 social system which makes no other provision for so 
 many of its most beautiful and originally innocent 
 daughters than this ! Well may the poet thus rave 
 against the social tyranny of our system. 
 
 " Cursed be the social lies that warp us from the living truth ; 
 Cursed be the social wants that sin against the strength of 
 youth: 
 i Cursed be the sickly forms that err from honest Nature^s 
 I rule." Tennyson. 
 
 MONOGAMY CAUSES CHASTITY AND RELIGION TO BE 
 HATED. 
 
 Monogamy being partial in its privileges, and 
 oppressive in its prohibitions, like every other op- 
 pressive and unjust thing, provokes resentment and 
 
OP MARRIAGE, 167 
 
 i&nmity, and cannot be thoroughly maintained and 
 honestly observed. Human nature is constantly 
 rebelling against it, and is persistently asserting its 
 inherent and inalienable right to all the benefits of 
 love and marriage, of which this system has de- 
 prived it. These struggles for freedom from the 
 oppression of monogamy, being made in ignorance 
 of the privileges of polygamy, have assumed the 
 form of defiant transgression against the laws of 
 chastity itself; for the popular conscience is so 
 depraved by the erroneous education of our social 
 system, as to regard the restrictions of monogamy 
 as identical with tho^e of religion. And, finding 
 them too hard to be borne, instead of resorting to 
 the just and proper alternative of polygamy, many 
 persons have broken away from all moral restraint 
 whatever, have given loose rein to impetuous pas- 
 sion, and have become lost to every sentiment of 
 virtue and to every hope of heaven. 
 
 As Christianity itself was outraged and repu- 
 diated at the period of the French Revolution, on 
 account of the abuses of Roman Catholicism, with 
 which the popular mind had confounded it (Roman- 
 ism being the only acknowledged form of Chris- 
 
168 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tianity then known in that country, so that, when 
 they rose against it, they rose against Christianity 
 itself, and became raging demons of barbarity and 
 crime), so now, throughout Europe and America, is 
 chastity outraged and religion repudiated on ac- 
 count of the unjust restrictions which monogamy 
 has instituted in their names. But neither religion 
 nor chastity is the real object of this hatred. 
 All men sincerely respect the one and revere the 
 other. Yet many cannot see how to assert their 
 natural rights and achieve their long-lost freedom 
 without destroying both. Polygamy alone solves 
 the problem how those rights can be enjoyed while 
 chastity is preserved and religion maintained ; for 
 polygamy alone can honestly furnish sufficient in- 
 dulgence of love to all the men, and sufficient pro- 
 tection of marriage to all the women. Monogamy 
 says to half the women, " Ye cannot marry, and 
 hence ye shall not love ; " and to every man it 
 says, " Thou canst marry but one woman, and one 
 only shalt thou love," without regard to the condi- 
 tion of that woman, or her ability or inability to 
 meet his conjugal wants. 
 
 It is a physical fact that women are not only 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 169 
 
 less inclined to amorous passion than the men, at 
 all times, but they are also subject to interruptions 
 and periodical changes, which men do not expe- 
 rience. During the long period of lactation, or 
 nursing, most women have a positive repugnance 
 to the embraces of love, as well as during the 
 progress of certain nervous chronic disorders pecu- 
 liar to the sex, which are aggravated, if not caused, 
 by frequent connubial intercourse ; so much so, that 
 some medical men insist upon entire separation 
 from the marriage-bed during the continuance of 
 these disorders, and also during the period of lacta- 
 tion. At such times, one would suppose that no 
 civilized man, or at least that no Christian man, 
 could be so brutal and so cruel as to force his wife 
 to yield to his propensities against her own incli- 
 nations and in spite of her repeated and earnest 
 remonstrances : but nothing is more certain than 
 that there are many thousands of just such Chris- 
 tian men ; for what can the poor monogamist do ? 
 The healthful currents of vigorous life impel him 
 to amorous desire ; and he cannot afford to shut 
 down the gates or to shut off the steam. To do so 
 would involve immense loss of pleasure and of 
 
170 HISTORY AND PniLOSOPHY 
 
 power. The passions furnish the only streams to 
 turn the machinery of action ; and love is the 
 strongest of them all. While there is the hope of 
 indulgence, the machinery runs smoothly, and the 
 whole man is full of life and buoyancy and power ; 
 but, if this master-passion must be repressed, its 
 unnatural restraint absorbs all the remaining 
 strength of the man, and he is no better than a 
 hermit or a monk. Hence no vigorous man is 
 willing to endure this restraint. Yet the Christian 
 monogamist has been taught that it is both a sin 
 and a shame to look for the gratification of his 
 desires away from home ; so the poor heart-broken 
 and back-broken wife must submit to torture, and 
 so the otherwise kind and honorable husband must 
 commit violence upon his dearest friend, whom he 
 has most solemnly promised to love and to cherish, 
 in sickness and in health, till death shall part them. 
 Many a poor wife then prays for death to part 
 them soon. But other men, at such times, dis- 
 daining to avail themselves of extorted pleasures, 
 which can afford so little satisfaction, and despising 
 that religion which will justify or allow such cruel 
 brutality, then steal away from their unwilling 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 171 
 
 wives, and, in defiance of the most solemn obliga- 
 tions and sacred laws of God and man, go and do 
 worse ; defiling the beds of virgin innocence, or 
 wasting their health and strength upon vile prosti* 
 tutes. Which horn of this trilemma should the 
 vigorous husband of this invalid woman choose ; 
 imbecile continence, wicked licentiousness, or matrix 
 monial brutality ? Would not polygamy be an alter- 
 native preferable to either? would it not be more 
 just and more merciful than either? It is just and 
 merciful to both the men and the women ; it pre- 
 serves the marriage-bed undefiled ; it provides hus- 
 bands for all the women ; and it allows each man 
 to take more than one wife when circumstances 
 warrant and require it. And they often do require 
 it. The extraordinary vehemence and intensity of 
 the amorous propensity which some men expe- 
 rience is sufficient of itself to require it. Such 
 men can no more restrain this desire than that for 
 their necessary food. They may call to their as- 
 sistance every motive to continence that can be 
 drawn from heaven and earth and hell, but they 
 often call in vain ; for the intensity of this passion 
 sweeps down every barrier, and rushes to its gi*ati- 
 
172 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 fication. If, then, there will be and there must bo 
 indulgence, let it be such as is regulated and con- 
 trolled by divine and natural law. God who made 
 man, and who knows w^hat is in man, has provided 
 sufficient means to supply his natural amorous 
 wants. Marriage is that means ; and, as one wife 
 is not always sufficient, he has provided more. 
 There are women enough, and no man need be 
 either pining or sinning for the want of them. 
 
 " Take the good the gods provide thee : 
 Lovely Thais sits beside tliec, 
 Blooming like an Eastern bride, 
 In flower of youth and beauty's pride. 
 Happy, happy, happy pair 1 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave, 
 None but the brave deserves the fair/* 
 
 GREAT MEN ARE ALWAYS POLYGAMISTS. 
 
 And it is the brave, the gifted, the talented, that 
 deserve the fair, who have always desired the fair, 
 and won the fair. " Lovely Thais " never refuses 
 to unveil her charms to the true hero. Great men 
 always recognize the voice of God in the voice of 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 178 
 
 Nature, no matter under what social system they 
 may live. They yield to the natural and the 
 divine behests, even though they transgress the 
 laws of ordinary social life. They obey God rather 
 than men ; and this obedience is the first element of 
 their greatness. Ordinary laws may be sufficient 
 to restrain ordinary men ; but when a Samson is 
 within their bonds, those bonds are snapped asun- 
 der like the green withes and the new ropes of 
 Delilah. Yet, were not our social laws so mani- 
 festly arbitrary and oppressive, such eminent phi- 
 losophers as Plato, Aristotle, and Bacon, such noble 
 heroes as Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon, and Nelson, 
 such divine poets as Goethe, Burns, and Byron, 
 and such enlightened statesmen as Pericles, Augus- 
 tus, Buckingham, Palmerston, and Webster, and 
 many thousands more, would never have incurred 
 the odium of libertinism as they have. Although 
 they lived under the system of monogamy, they 
 would not and did not submit to it. Their noble 
 natures required a larger indulgence, and they took 
 it, law or no law, like brave men as they were. 
 And there are many more such men than the world 
 dreams of in its narrow monogamous philosophy ; 
 
174 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and yet it is a shame and a pity that our social laws 
 cannot be so amended, and brought into harmony 
 with those of God and Nature, that our noblest 
 men would yield them the most prompt obedience. 
 And \A it not a sad pity, a burning shame, and a 
 fearful wrong that our laws are such, that such men 
 cannot acknowledge their mistresses, and avow 
 their children? The wrongs of these women and 
 children are crying to God from the ground, and 
 he will hear and judge. These great men are 
 brave ; but they are not brave enough. They have 
 no just right to practise their polygamy in the 
 dark. Let us have either an honest monogamy or 
 an avowed polygamy. Hence it is that I am called 
 by the justice of God and the sufferings of human- 
 ity to appeal to every honorable sentiment in man- 
 kind in behalf of a greater freedom to marry, and 
 a greater purity of the marriage relation. Let 
 us have such marriage laws, that whatever rela- 
 tions any honorable man shall determine to form 
 with the other sex can be honorably formed and 
 honorably maintained. 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 175 
 
 HYPOCRISY OF MONOGAMY. 
 
 But an honest monogamj is an impossibility. 
 Wherever it is practised, it is a system of hypocrisy. 
 It is a veil of abstemiousness assumed to conceal a 
 mass of hidden corruption. Its direct tendency is 
 to stimulate the contemptible vices of intrigue and 
 lying, as well as the equally detestable ones of pros- 
 titution and adultery. By attempting to deprive 
 one-half the women of any lawful and honorable 
 means of amorous pleasure, and by allowing the 
 men only partial and inadequate means, it impels 
 a multitude of each sex to secret transgression, or 
 else to open profligacy ; and thus the laws of chas- 
 tity are violated on every hand, and truthfulness, 
 integrity, purity, and honor are becoming but un- 
 meaning terms. 
 
 No one familiar with social life in Europe will 
 dare to dispute that a large proportion of the 
 upper classes of society there are addicted to some 
 form of licentiousness. It is often observed there, 
 that, as soon as the women marry, they throw off 
 the restraints of chastity, and encourage secret 
 lovers ; and while each of the men live openly with 
 
176 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 one woman only, or with none, yet they indulge in 
 promiscuous criminal intercourse to an incredible 
 extent. Now, which social system is the more 
 honorable and manly, the more virtuous and pure, 
 the one more in accordance with Nature and the 
 laws of Nature's God, — a pretended and a corrupt 
 monogamy, or an open and honest polygamy? 
 Which manifests the more base and selfish pas- 
 sion, — the man who espouses the partners of his 
 love, and takes them to his home and his heart, 
 and provides for them and their children, or the 
 man who steals away from his house in the dark, 
 and indulges his dishonorable and degrading 
 passion in secret places, and then abandons the 
 partners of his guilty pleasure to a life of wretch- 
 edness and shame and want? 
 
 " Domestic happiness, thou only bliss 
 Of Paradise that has survived the fall ! 
 Though few now taste thee unimpaired and pure, . . 
 Forsaking thee, what shipwreck have we made 
 Of honor, dignity, and fair renown ! 
 Till prostitution elbows us aside 
 In all our crowded streets ; and senates seem 
 Convened for purposes of empire less 
 Than to release the adulteress from her bond.** 
 
 Thb Task. 
 
OF MARRIAGE, VII 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE NECESSARY RELATION OF MONOGAMY 
 TO IMMORALITY AND CRIME. 
 
 MARRIAGE PREVENTS CRIME. 
 
 It is an acknowledged fact that crime is much 
 more prevalent among unmarried persons than 
 among the married ; for the married man's family 
 becomes a pledge to society for his good behavior : 
 nor can the married woman disgrace herself with- 
 out disgracing also her husband and her children. 
 That -system, therefore, which provides marriage 
 for the greater number must be the more favora- 
 ble to the promotion of public virtue and morali- 
 ty. It has already been demonstrated that polyg- 
 amy provides for the marriage of the greater 
 number of the women than monogamy can ; and 
 it will not be difficult to prove that it also con- 
 duces to the marriage of the greater n\imber of 
 the men : for there are always a great many men 
 12 
 
ITS UISTORY AND PUILOSOPHY 
 
 wlio will not marry, so long as they can obtain 
 tUe gratification of their propensities without mar- 
 riage, which they can do as long as there are so 
 many unmarried women as there must be where- 
 ever monogamy prevails. The more rich and 
 luxurious monogamous society becomes, the more 
 abandoned women there will be, and the fewer 
 marriages and the more crime. But let the sys- 
 tem of polygamy be adopted, and then all the 
 women will be wanted for wives ; and, as they 
 can then obtain husbands and homes of their own, 
 but few will prefer to follow a loose and vicious 
 course of life. And then the men, being deprived 
 of the opportunity of illicit indulgence, will be 
 compelled to marry ; and their marriage will refine 
 and humanize them, and preserve them from 
 many of those vices and immoralities to which 
 they are now addicted. There are many crimes 
 against which the moral sentiment of humanity 
 revolts, but which are constantly forced upon man- 
 kind by the tyranny of monogamy, and which 
 nothing but a return to the purer system of 
 polygamy can restrain and prevent. Among 
 many of these crimes and moral evils caused or 
 
OF MARRIAGE. l"?a 
 
 aggravated by monogamy, aud which would be 
 greatly diminished by polygamy, I can mention 
 only a few. 
 
 ADULTERY. 
 
 The violation of the marriage-vow constitutes the 
 crime of adultery, — a crime which has always 
 been regarded with the greatest detestation among 
 mankind, and which, in ancient times, was punished 
 with death. The definition of adultery, like that of 
 marriage, depends upon the social system which we 
 adopt. According to the system of monogamy, if 
 any married person has sexual intercourse with any 
 one, except his own wife, or her own husband, 
 then he or she is guilty of adultery ; but if the 
 other party to the same act be unmarried, then 
 that unmarried person is not guilty of adultery, 
 but of fornication only. That is, if a married 
 man has intercourse with another man's wife, then 
 both are guilty of adultery ; but if an unmarried 
 man has intercourse with a married woman, then 
 she is guilty of adultery, but he is not. According 
 to the system of polygamy, if any man has inter- 
 course with another man's wife, they are both 
 guilty of adultery ; but if any man has intercourse 
 
180 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with an unmarried woman, then both are guilty 
 of fornication. That is, it is the married or 
 unmarried state of the woman, and not of the man, 
 that determines the nature of the crime ; and both 
 parties to the same act are always by this system 
 held guilty of the same oifence. A careful exam- 
 ination of the laws of God and of Nature will 
 enable us to determine which of these definitions 
 is correct, and will also assist us in the determina- 
 tion of the more important question, Which social 
 system is right? 
 
 1. If a married woman admit any other man 
 to her bed except her husband, her offspring be- 
 comes spurious, or at least uncertain, and her hus- 
 band may have another man's child imposed upon 
 him instead of his own, to be supported, and to 
 inherit his estate ; but no such uncertainty occurs 
 from the intercourse of one man with several 
 women. 
 
 2. If a wife admit the embrace of another 
 lover, it always implies an alienation of her affec- 
 tions from her husband : but it does not imply an 
 alienation of her husband's affections to take 
 another woman, for his first wife is not always 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 181 
 
 capable of fulfilliag his conjugal desires ; and it 
 is sometimes as much out of regard to her health 
 and comfort as to his own gratification, that he 
 is impelled to take another. 
 
 3. If a woman is having intercourse with sev- 
 eral men at the same time, she is living in un- 
 cleanness, and in constant liability of inducing 
 within herself, and communicating to all her 
 lovers, the most loathsome and incurable diseases ; 
 her mind and heart become hopelessly depraved, 
 and she incurs the utter loss of all self-respect 
 and all public estimation : but no such diseases 
 of body or degradation of character attach to 
 the man who is living with several women. 
 
 These natural laws are fully ratified and con- 
 firmed by the divine law : " The man that com- 
 mitteth adultery with another man's wife, the 
 adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to 
 death." " But if a man entice a maid that is not 
 betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow 
 her to be his wife." " Because he hath humbled 
 her, he may not put her away all his life." '' And 
 Nathan said to David, Thou art the man. Thus 
 Baith the Lord, I delivered thee out of the hand of 
 
182 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPJIY 
 
 Saul, and I gave thee tlij master's house and thy 
 master's wives into thj bosom ; and gave thee 
 the house of Israel and of Judah, and if that had 
 been too little, I would moreover have given thee 
 such and such things. Wherefore hast thou de- 
 spised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in 
 his sight, and hast taken the wife of Uriah the 
 Hittite to be thy wife? Now, therefore, the 
 sword shall never depart from thy house, because 
 thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of 
 Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife." * It seems 
 unnecessary to cite further proofs. The entire 
 Bible confirms the definition of adultery as given 
 by the system of polygamy. 
 
 The civil laws of those States practising monog- 
 amy, in defining adultery, are full of contradic- 
 tions and obscurities. Their theory requires that 
 all married persons, both men and women, who 
 have intercourse with any others except their own 
 husbands or their own wives, should be called 
 adulterers, and considered equally criminal ; but 
 with an open Bible before them, and living Nature 
 
 * Ex. xxii. 16; Lev. xx. 10; Deut, xxii. 22-29; 2 Sam. xii. 
 7-10 
 
0^ MARRIAGE. 183 
 
 all around them, they approach, soraetimes, very 
 near to the distinctions set forth in polygamy. 
 The following is Dr. Noah Webster's definition : 
 ^'Adultery, Violation of the marriage-bed; a crime 
 or civil injury which introduces, or may introduce, 
 into a family, a spurious offspring. In common 
 usage, adultery means the unfaithfulness of any 
 married person to the marriage-bed. By the laws 
 of Connecticut, the sexual intercourse of any man 
 with a married woman is the crime of adultery in 
 both ; such intercourse of a married man with an 
 unmarried woman is fornication in both, and 
 adultery of the man, within the meaning of the 
 law respecting divorce ; but not a felonious 
 adultery in either, or the crime of adultery at 
 common law, or by the statute. This latter 
 offence is, in England, prooeerl^d with only in the 
 ecclesiastical courts." i 
 
 This definition, according to the laws of Connec- 
 ticut, is the very one which polygamy requires, 
 with the exception of that part of it relating to 
 divorce ; and doubtless the God-fearing legislators 
 of the " Land of Steady Habits" who framed this 
 statute were more familiar with the Bible than 
 
184 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 with Roman codes, and, besides, had very little 
 respect for the authority of popes or councils. In 
 Massachusetts, also, the statute requires that 
 ."when the crime is committed between a married 
 I woman and a man who is unmarried, the man 
 shall be deemed guilty of adultery." Rev. Stat, 
 of Mass.^ 1860. In most of the States of the 
 American Union, however, the laws define adul- 
 tery, according to common usage, as the theory of 
 monogamy requires. And the consequence is, that 
 it is regarded as a very trifling crime by the 
 statutes of those States ; the common penalty being 
 only one hundred dollars' fine, or six months' im- 
 prisonment, even this light penalty being rarely 
 inflicted ; for the public conscience is so depraved 
 by the false definitions of monogamous jurispru- 
 dence in respect to this crime, that few men will 
 prosecute and few juries will convict either an 
 adulterer or an adulteress. 
 
 " The frequency of crimes has washed them white." 
 
 Yet, with a curious inconsistency, whenever an 
 injured husband appeals to the higher law of God, 
 and assumes the awful responsibility to inflict with 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 185 
 
 his own hand the penalty of deatli to the adulterer, 
 the multitude applaud, or, at least, excuse the vin- 
 dictive act ; and men of undoubted respectability 
 are thus impelled to private revenge, not only in 
 the heat of resentment, when the guilty parties are 
 first detected, but even in cool blood, and as an 
 afterthought for vindicating personal and family 
 honor. And, when he is arraigned for trial, the 
 jury, sympathizing with him as the injured hus- 
 band, are almost sure to acquit him with applause. 
 Instances of such homicides are, unhappily, too 
 common to require authentication. Since this is 
 the state of our public morals, who are the bar- 
 barians if we are not? What is barbarism but 
 private revenge? In what does civilization consist, 
 if not in maintaining the sacred supremacy of law, 
 and in furnishing adequate protection and vindica- 
 tion of life and honor? But the monogamous law 
 of adultery is so contradictory to the divine law, 
 and so absurdly at variance with common sense 
 and common justice, that injured marital honor 
 now has no redress but a barbarous one. A re- 
 vision of the law concerning adultery, defining the 
 crime, as polygamy does, in accordance with the 
 
180 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 laws of God, and enforcing it by an adequate pen- 
 alty, is all that is necessary to disarm the assassin, 
 and to invest the law itself with that majesty and 
 sanctity which a true Christian civilization demands; 
 
 MURDER* 
 
 It is a notorious fact, that, where the system of 
 monogamy prevails, the most common cause of 
 murder is unhappy marriages. Husbands murder 
 their wives, and wives murder their husbands, or 
 incite others to do it, almost every week. When 
 love turns to hatred, it is the bitterest kind of 
 hatred ; and when people hate each other, their 
 hatred becomes the more intense, the more closely 
 they are bound together. The bonds of matrimony 
 are softer than silk, and sweeter than wreaths of 
 flowers, so long as mutual love and mutual confi- 
 dence subsist ; but "vvhen these are banished from 
 the domestic altar, and their places usurped by 
 distrust and jealousy, then those bonds become 
 heavier than iron shackles, and more corroding 
 than fetters of brass. Under such cii'cumstances, 
 a separation of some kind is eagerly desired. This 
 desire is spontaneous and instinctive ; but the 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 187 
 
 raarriage-vow has been so solemuly uttered and 
 recorded, that there can be no honorable separation 
 but death. Then the dreadful crime of murder is 
 conceived and cherished and pondered in the mind, 
 until it takes complete possession of it. The idea 
 of murder is begotten between the desire of dis- 
 solving the marriage and tlie desire of maintaining 
 one's public honor. And both desires cannot be 
 gratified in any other way. Divorce is dishonor 
 able. It occasions endless talk and scandal, and 
 divulges family secrets. It makes one inevitably 
 notorious. It often involves immense expense. 
 Persons, therefore, whose desires are naturally im- 
 petuous, and who are determined to obtain a speedy 
 separation from their hated husbands or wives, are 
 peculiarly liable to this crime. They study out a 
 plan that promises complete success. They are 
 quite sure that they can manage to murder their 
 companions without being found out. At all events, 
 they often do murder them, and run the risk of 
 being found out, as well as the additional risk of 
 divine punishment in the world to come. Many 
 cases of murder for this cause never are found out ; 
 but enough are discovered to prove that the dread- 
 
188 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 ful crime is one of frequent occurrence. It has 
 been brought to light that some men have mur- 
 dered a number of wives, and some women a num- 
 ber of husbands in succession. The nursery story 
 of Bluebeard may be a horrible fiction ; but it is a 
 fiction founded on fact : there must be some veri- 
 similitude about it, or it could never have interested 
 so many generations as it has. Many well-authen- 
 ticated instances of wife-murder have occurred for 
 which no excuse of jealousy or domestic infelicity 
 can be urged, and which can only be accounted 
 for on the ground of men's capricious desires and 
 love of change. The history of Henry VIIT., king 
 of England, and his six wives, most of whom were 
 successively murdered to make room for their suc- 
 cessors, is an obvious and an authentic instance. 
 
 Now, polygamy furnishes the only sufficient pre- 
 ventive of this horrible crime ; for almost any man 
 would sooner support an extra wife, if the usages 
 of society would allow it, than to take the life of 
 his present wife, at the imminent risk of his own. 
 And many men will do it, and are now doing it, 
 even against the usages of society, and in spite of 
 the regulations of monogamy. Thus King flenry 
 
OF MARBIAGE. 189 
 
 II., less sanguinary, or more independent of public 
 opinion, than his brilliant descendant above men- 
 tioned, still permitted his queen Eleanor to live, 
 and to vv^ear the crown, though he often preferred 
 the society of the fair Rosamond to hers, and often 
 repaired to her sylvan bowers at Woodstock to 
 enjoy it. And most of the sovereigns of Europe 
 have followed his example ; but, like Charles II. 
 and the four Georges, they keep their mistresses 
 nearer court than at Woodstock. 
 
 DIVORCE. 
 
 The marriage-relation is designed to be a per- 
 manent and an inseparable one. The parties take 
 each other by the hand, and mutually plight their 
 troth, for better or for worse, to love and to cher- 
 ish, in prosperity and in adversity, in health and 
 in sickness, till death shall part them. Such a 
 union is most honorable : it is most admirable. 
 But, under the system of monogamy, it is often im- 
 practicable. Although the laws of Christ allow of 
 but one cause for divorce, — the unfaithfulness of 
 the wife to the marriage-vow, — and although 
 every State that practises monogamy claims to be 
 
190 mSTOEY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 a Christian State, yet civil laws allow of divorce for 
 the most trifling causes. The excuse is made, that, 
 when married persons are unhappy in their mar- 
 riage-relation, divorce alone can prevent neglect 
 and abuse ; and it may prevent murder. So they 
 allow them to commit one great crime to prevent 
 their committing another and a greater. This is, 
 of course, fallacious reasoning. But, if it were most 
 exact reasoning, the remedy is dangerous, unneces- 
 sary, and directly at variance with the laws of 
 God. Polygamy is a safer and a surer remedy or 
 rather preventive of both divorce and murder than 
 any violation of divine law can be. The laws of 
 God and of Nature always harmonize with each 
 other ; and the only manner in which we can per- 
 fect our civil laws is to bring them into perfect 
 accordance with the former. 
 
 Most men who desire a divorce would prefer 
 polygamy, if it were practicable and lawful. A 
 man does not often undertake to repudiate his 
 present wife, until he begins to desire another. 
 And that other one is already selected and already 
 loved ; but the love cannot be consummated. And 
 nothing but the desire of consummating this love 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 191 
 
 caiTies him through with the divorce. For, if the 
 law of the land favors the divorce, there still re- 
 mains the law of God to oppose it ; and hence 
 divorces are usually difficult, expensive, annoying, 
 and slow. It took Henry VIII. five years, with 
 all his wealth and power, to divorce himself from 
 his first wife, Catharine of Aragou, in favor of 
 Anne Boleyn, with whom he was desperately in 
 love all the while. If she had yielded to his solici- 
 tations, and granted him illicit gratification, it is 
 not at all probable that he would ever have prose- 
 cuted the divorce to its termination. And thus is 
 every divorce more or less tedious, and it ought to 
 be. Christianity forbids it, the wife resists it, chiU 
 dren plead, and friends expostulate against it, the 
 world wonders and stares ; and yet, in spite of all 
 opposition, the vehement passions of men often 
 drive them through it. Yet the greatest suff*ering 
 of all is that of the man's own conscience, who 
 persists in it. To do such violence to the most 
 solemn laws of God and the most honorable senti- 
 ments of mankind is no light crime, whatever the 
 laws of the State may term it. Polygamy fur- 
 nishes the only preventive qf this great social evil. 
 
1D2 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 If a man loves another Avoman, and is resolved to 
 have her, let him take her, and keep her, and keep 
 his first one also. Napoleon Bonaparte never 
 would have divorced Josephine, had polygamy 
 been deemed lawful and proper. Yet no man ever 
 had a fairer pretext for divorce upon any mere 
 prudential considerations tlian he had.' Her virtue 
 was unquestionable. It was not only above re- 
 proach, it was above suspicion. But all hopes of 
 her having offspring had failed. His desire for an 
 heir was most intense, most natural, and most com- 
 mendable. It seemed to be all that was wanting 
 to secure the stability of his throne, the good of his 
 people, and the peace of the world. Yet, accord- 
 ing to the system of monogamy, the only manner 
 in which these very desirable ends could be at- 
 tained Avas by the divorce of Josephine, by whose 
 alliance he had been brought to more public notice, 
 and been greatly assisted in his successful career, 
 and who was one of the loveliest and noblest women 
 that ever wore a crown. The divorce was con- 
 summated, the reasons for it were publicly an- 
 nounced ; but the moral sense of the world was 
 shocked, and Napoleon was at once pronounced ^ 
 
OF MARRIAGE. . 193 
 
 tyrant and a monster. And this act is still held by 
 many to be the turning-point both in his personal 
 character and in his public career. Before this, 
 all his history is bright ; after it, all is dark. One 
 cannot, even now, after so long a time, contemplate 
 the tears of Josephine and the subsequent disasters 
 of Napoleon, without cursing the narrow bigotry 
 of monogamy, and wishing that the golden age of 
 polygamy had returned before his day. 
 
 At the court of David, King of Israel, even the 
 rape and the incest of Tamar were not so unpar- 
 donable as her abandonment. Although shocked 
 and indignant at the brutal violence of her half- 
 brother Amnon, yet her tenderness could not deny 
 some pity to the intensity of his passion. " Nay, 
 my brother, do not force me," she said. " Speak 
 to the king; for he will not withhold me from 
 thee." But when his lust had been sated, and 
 he commanded her to be gone, she refused to go ; 
 saying, " This evil in sending me away is greater 
 than the other." * Then he caused her to be put 
 out forcibly, and the door to be bolted. It was 
 this insulting divorce added to her forcible humilia- 
 
 * 2 Sara. xiil. 
 
194 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 tion that broke her heart. The latter she might 
 forgive, the former she could not ; and she rent 
 her purple robes, and went out crying with her 
 hand upon her head. It was this cruel repudia- 
 tion that whetted the dagger of Absalom to avenge 
 her wrongs, and it was this that fills up the meas- 
 ure of Amnon's guilt in the judgment of every 
 honest heart. God did not require David to put 
 away Bathshcba after he had once ravished her, 
 and would not have permitted him to do so, had 
 he desired it, although he had obtained her by 
 blood and fraud. His punishment must come in 
 some other manner. Their marriage, once con- 
 summated by cohabitation, was complete and in- 
 dissoluble. How differently would a similar case 
 be noAV decided by the ecclesiastical courts of 
 modern Europe! Can men's judgment be more 
 just than God's? 
 
 PROCURING ABORTION. 
 
 The murder of the child in embryo is a crime 
 prohibited by law, and most repugnant to humani- 
 ty. Yet it is one which the system of monogamy 
 is obli^red to wink at and tolerate* This horrid 
 
OF MABRIAGE. 105 
 
 crime is becoming more and more common every 
 year, till it is now somewhat fashionable, espe- 
 cially as it is more commonly practised by fashion- 
 able people. Not many years ago, the person 
 who dispensed drugs for such vile purposes was 
 branded as a villain, or looked upon as a hateful 
 hag ; a Locusta, whose fit dwelling-place was 
 some dark cave among volcanic mountains, and 
 whose fit companions were venomous serpents and 
 wild foxes : but it is now currently reported that 
 one of the popular compounders of these death- 
 dealing drugs is deemed worthy of the honor of 
 knighthood,* and is appointed physician extraor- 
 dinary to the queen. Almost every newspaper 
 now contains a well-displayed advertisement, ad- 
 dressed " to the ladies," setting forth the power- 
 ful properties of some specific for '' removing 
 obstructions," and '' bringing on the monthly 
 periods," with entire certainty ; and although 
 these drugs will be " sure to cause miscarriage," 
 yet they are at the same time so " mild and safe 
 as not to be injurious to the most delicate consti- 
 tution." Such are some of the most impudent 
 
 * Sir r?Uames Clarke. 
 
193 m STORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 claims of the modern abortionist. But I cannot 
 go on. 
 
 For full details I beg to refer my readers to the 
 public journals of the day. 
 
 But the manufacturers and the consumers of 
 drugs for these abominable practices are not the 
 only ones responsible for the crime. Monogamy 
 is responsible for it. The entire social system is 
 corrupt. The most respectable merchants and 
 apothecaries deal in these drugs, the most respect- 
 able journals advertise them, everybody reads 
 about them ; yet no protesting voice is raised, 
 either against the use of them or the traffic in 
 them. The ministers of religion, the proper 
 censors of the public morals, are silent : the 
 subject is too indelicate for them to allude to. The 
 police-magistrates and other officers of the law 
 make no effiDrt to bring the guilty parties to jus- 
 tice, except in the most shocking and notorious 
 instances, where the life of the mother is taken, as 
 well as that of the child. 
 
 Intelligent and respectable physicians, who have 
 the best opportunities of knowing, state that this 
 vice is now practised more commonly by married 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 197 
 
 women than by the unmarried ; and it is not dif- 
 ficult to account for it. Under the system of 
 monogamy, the wife attempts too much, and phys- 
 ical impossibilities are expected and required of 
 her. She alone undertakes to supply all her hus- 
 band's conjugal wants, and to gratify all his 
 amorous desires ; and she is quite conscious that 
 even in the bloom of her youth, in perfect health, 
 and in the height of her charms, she is scarcely 
 capable of doing it : and she dreads to have any 
 thing happen to her to make her less capable. 
 Especially if she has already borne one child, 
 and has passed through the long period of lactation, 
 she remembers its effect upon herself and upon 
 her husband with alarm. She fancies herself in 
 danger of losing her hold upon his affections, 
 which she wishes to retain, of course, as long as 
 possible. She therefore takes drugs to prevent 
 fruitfulness, and to preserve her form and beauty, 
 in order to prevent her husband's affe^H'ons being 
 lavished upon others. 
 
 And if the system of monogamy be right, then 
 this motive is commendable, and the reasoning 
 based upon it is entirely valid. No wife can be 
 
198 HISTORY AND PTIILOSOPnY 
 
 blamed for wishing to prevent her husband from 
 forming illicit attachments, and thus bringing dis- 
 honor upon himself and all his house ; and the 
 only means at her command for preventing it is 
 io concentrate all his affections upon herself. 
 
 But polygamy is capable of suppressing this 
 vice, or, at least, of greatly diminishing it, by 
 removing its most powerful motives. Under the 
 system of polygamy, the burdens as well as the 
 privileges of the women are more equally distrib- 
 uted. No woman is required or expected to be 
 always prepared for her husband's embraces, nor 
 does she claim any more than she is able to 
 receive, or than he is voluntarily inclined to be- 
 stow. If she is full of life, and in vigorous 
 health, and is capable of fulfilling her conjugal 
 duties alone, it is well : her husband is a happy 
 man. But, if she is not able, it is still well. Her 
 husband need not be unhappy ; for he can espouse 
 another, without reproach to her or dishonor to 
 himself. 
 
OF MAnmAGE, 199 
 
 FECUNDITY OUGHT TO BE PROMOTED, NOT 
 DESTROYED. 
 
 The laws of God and of Nature concur in 
 bearing unqualified testimony to the desirableness 
 of offspring. It is the proper fruit of marriage, 
 of which love is the blossom. The blossom 
 yields a delicious but an evanescent pleasure ; 
 but the fruit, after diligent culture and careful 
 preservation, is a source of perpetual delight and 
 honor. " Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 
 the earth and subdue it,'* constitutes the most im- 
 portant part of the divine blessing pronounced 
 upon the first married couple, ^- a benediction re* 
 peated, in substance, upon the occasion of every 
 subsequent marriage the particulars of which are 
 recorded in the Holy Bible. When the parents of 
 Rebecca sent her away to become the wife of 
 Isaac, they blessed her, and said, " Be thou the 
 mother of thousands of millions ; " and wheu 
 Boaz espoused Ruth the Moabitess, the people that 
 were in the gate, and the elders, said, " The Lord 
 make the woman that is come into thy house, like 
 Rachel and Leah, which two did build the house 
 
200 HISTORY AND PIIILOSOPHY 
 
 of Israel." " Lo, children are a heritage of the 
 Lord, and the fruit of the womb is his reward. 
 As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man, so 
 are the children of the youth. Happy is the man 
 that hath his quiver full of them." " Thy wife 
 shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thy 
 house, thy children like olive-plants round about 
 thy table. Behold that thus shall the man be 
 blessed that feareth the Lord." * 
 
 As fruitfulness, on the one hand, is alvvays de- 
 clared to be a blessing, in the Bible, so barrenness, 
 on the other hand, is declared to be a curse. The 
 most affecting and the most memorable prayers 
 of females recorded therein are those which beg 
 for offspring ; and the most grateful thanksgivings 
 are those for children borne by them. But the 
 unnatural and unholy system of monogamy which 
 now prevails has so strangely perverted our desires, 
 that it seems to change the divine blessing into a 
 curse, and the curse into a blessing. If women 
 would now dare to pray for what they wish, they 
 would pray for barrenness, instead of fruitfulness. 
 Now, there must be something radically wrong in 
 
 * Ps. cxxvii., cxxviii. 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 261 
 
 a social system which thus presumes to reverse the 
 course of Nature, and to contradict the divine 
 assurances of blessing and of cursing ; and which 
 has so fatally and deeply poisoned the mysterious 
 springs of life, and polluted the most inviolable 
 sanctuaries of female purity and maternal love. 
 
 " Our Maker bids increase : who bids abstain, 
 But our destroyer, foe to God and man ? " 
 
 I doubt whether there can be any form of licen- 
 tiousness more abhorrent to the laws of God and 
 of Nature than this " Murder of the Innocents." 
 Even fornication cannot be so great a sin. The 
 unmarried woman who has a child in the natural 
 way, and who bestows upon it a mother's love and 
 a mother's care, cannot thereby become so guilty 
 as the married woman who wilfully destroys her 
 offspring, or who prevents her fruitfulness. There 
 is great danger lest the general smattering of medi- 
 cal knowledge among us may do more harm than 
 good. There is, alas ! a positive certainty that 
 presumptuous quacks, who know only enough of 
 Nature to have lost their reverence for her laws, 
 are leading many of our honorable women astray, 
 
202 V HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 and are poisoning the best blood in our land. 
 These women, like our common mother Eve, from 
 unholy and intensely selfish motives, prompted and 
 countenanced by our system of monogamy, are 
 plucking the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good 
 and evil, and intermeddling with those functions 
 of Nature which ought to be let alone. No honor- 
 able physician, who is master of his profession, 
 will degrade that profession so ranch as to descend 
 to such vile practice. His business is not to destroy 
 life, but to save it. He, at least, has learned the 
 most profound respect for the laws of our beinjf 
 
 *' A little learning is a dangerous thing ; 
 Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring. 
 There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain ; 
 But drinking largely sobers us again." 
 
 We had better know nothing of the laws of 
 gestation than to know only enough to evade or 
 violate them ; for they cannot be violated with im- 
 punity. The time will come when the young wife 
 who now destroys her unborn offspring, or who 
 otherwise wilfully and wickedly tampers with her 
 reproductive powers, will surely mourn their loss, 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 203 
 
 and will mourn as one that cannot be comforted. 
 Like Rachel, she will beg and pray for fruitfulness, 
 and say, " Oh ! give me children, or else I die ; '* 
 but, not like Rachel, she will beg and pray in vain* 
 Those delicate organs once weakened by violent or 
 unnatural means rarely regain their normal con- 
 dition, and one voluntary abortion may be followed 
 by many involuntary miscarriages. She loses all, 
 and she is guilty of all ; and some day she will 
 surely feel both her loss and her guilt, till it be- 
 comes, like the punishment of the first murderer, a 
 burden too heavy to be borne. Never can she 
 know by blissful experience the sweetness of a. 
 mother's love ; that pure and fond and tender and 
 changeless affection, which so inspires and ennobles 
 the female character. Never can she become quite 
 free from the jealous suspicions of her husband, 
 who, against his will and all his better judgment, 
 is a perpetual prey to the green-eyed demon. 
 Never can the spacious halls and gloomy apart- 
 ments of their solitary home resound with the in- 
 nocent glee of their children's voices ; no baby in 
 the cradle ; no " daughter singing in the village 
 choir " or the Sunday-school concert ; no son to 
 
204 BlSTOnr AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 graduate fropa school or college, or to inherit and 
 transmit to future generations the faniily name and 
 wealth and honors. 
 
 This is no fancy sketch nor far-fetched represen- 
 tation, but is a faithful protraiture of many of our 
 New-England families. The curse of God is al- 
 ready upon us, and our native population is even 
 now giving way to the more prolific races of Eng- 
 lish, Celts, and Germans. God gives the land to 
 those who obey his marriage-laws to '* be fruitful, 
 and multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue 
 it." As the Israelites drove out the ancient Ca- 
 naanites who made their children pass through to 
 Moloch, and as they took possession of their fruit- 
 ful fields and vineyards, already planted, and of 
 their towns and cities, already built ; so these 
 poorer, more natural and less artificial immigrants 
 are dispossessing us. I quote once more from the 
 Massachusetts Registration Report for 1866, page 
 18. 
 
 BIRTH-RATE IN MASSACHUSETTS. 
 
 " In England, during the twenty-six years 1838- 
 1863, with a population of about eighteen millions, 
 the average birth-rate was 3.33 per cent. In 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 205 
 
 Massachusetts, it has never been so high. In the 
 seven years 1852-1858, it was 2.90. In the five 
 years immediately preceding the war, 1856-1860, 
 it was 2.85. During the four years of war, 1862- 
 1865, the birth-rate was 2.46. We find it now 
 rising, not to the old standard of 2.85 or 2.90, but 
 to 2.69." 
 
 Page 28 reads as follows, — 
 
 '' The foreign-born population of Massachusetts, 
 by the census of 1865, was 265,486, the American 
 population 999,976, and the population of un- 
 known nativity 1,569. The last it is not easy to 
 divide ; it seems nearer the probable truth to divide 
 them equally. We have, then, 1,000,761 Ameri- 
 cans, and 266,270 foreigners. And they produced 
 in 1866, — the Americans 16,555 children, the 
 foreigners 17,530 children ; that is to say, a child 
 was born to every ^0^^^ Americans, and to every 
 15^^!^ foreigners ; the latter class being four times 
 as productive as the former." 
 
 The birth-rate, therefore, of the Americans of 
 Massachusetts for the year 1866 was only 1.65 
 per cent ; while that of the foreign population 
 was 6.59 per cent. At this rate, not many gener- 
 ations will be required for them to dispossess us* 
 
206 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 But it is unnecessary to the satisfactory analysis 
 and comparison of the two marriage-systems to 
 go on, to any greater length, with this painful dis- 
 section of vice, or to array any further statistical 
 proofs in confirmation of the inherent licentious- 
 ness of monogamy. It would be easy to show 
 that the galling bondage of restricted marriage has 
 had, and is now having, a similar effect upon the 
 great social evils of insanity, suicide, and self- 
 pollution, which it has upon those other forms of 
 vice which have been analyzed above, and to 
 prove that polygamy would tend to mitigate them 
 also. If these hints of mine are seized upon and 
 properly developed by some more capable writer, 
 and so clearly and happily set forth as to lead to a 
 practical reform, it will be honor enough for me to 
 have indicated its necessity and demonstrated its 
 possibility. 
 
OF MAURI AGE. 2G7 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 OBJECTIONS TO POLYGAMY ANSWERED. 
 
 A FEW pages will now be devoted to a consider- 
 ation of the objections which have been urged 
 against the system of polygamy. And it may be 
 proper to say, that if there should be any objec- 
 tions to it which are not here answered to every 
 one's satisfaction, yet the superiority of this sys- 
 tem is still maintained and proven, as long as 
 the previous demonstrations remain valid ; the 
 objections to the contrary notwithstanding. It is 
 often the case that a proposition may be true, and 
 at the same time it may not be possible to answer 
 all the objections to it. There are unanswerable 
 objections to a democratic or popular form of 
 government ; and yet for some nations, such a 
 form of government may, on the whole, be the best 
 one. 
 
203 HISTORY AND PBlLOtiOPIIY 
 
 DOES POLYGAMY CAUSE JEALOUSY? 
 
 It has been objected that polygamy cannot be 
 reasonable or right, since it causes jealousy 
 among the different women in the same family. 
 But it cannot be proved that jealousy is confined to 
 any particular social system : it is, unfortunately, 
 too common to every system. It is inherent in 
 human nature, and must be regarded as one of 
 its inseparable infirmities. Yet, so far from being 
 most violent under the system of polygamy, the 
 opposite is the fact ; for it is always most violent 
 when secret intrigue is carried on, and when the 
 dreaded rival does not sustain an open and an ac- 
 knowledged relation to the husband, but when the 
 tenderness between him and that rival, whether 
 real or suspected, is only secretly indulged : so 
 that monogamy really furnishes more occasion for 
 the exercise of this cruel passion than polygamy. 
 In the latter system, the claims of the different 
 w^omen are acknowledged and understood ; the 
 parties all stand in well-defined relations to each 
 other, and violent jealousy, under such circum- 
 stances, must be comparatively rare. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 209 
 
 IS POLYGAMY DEGRADING TO WOMEN? 
 
 It has also been objected, that polygamy can- 
 not be reasonable and right, since it places men 
 and women on terms of social inequality ; it exalts 
 man, and degrades woman ; it makes her depend- 
 ent on his will ; it demands of her her undivided 
 love and fidelity towards him, while he is permit- 
 ted to lavish his affections upon as many as he 
 may please. But all this is not degrading to her. 
 It is the only thing that saves her from degrada- 
 tion. The experience of every age and of every 
 community has proved that many men cannot and 
 will not content themselves with one woman. 
 There must be polygamy, or else there must be 
 prostitution ; and prostitution is wickedness, and 
 wickedness is degradation. 
 
 Nor is there any thing degrading in woman's 
 dependence upon man. This dependence is nat- 
 ural, and honorable to her. It is the very position 
 which she herself voluntarily and instinctively 
 assumes towards him. The entire code of polite, 
 social intercourse between the two sexes is founded 
 on this principle of her nature. Not only in 
 14 
 
210 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 times of real danger, but at all times, she loves to 
 leaa upon the strong, brave arm of man, and 
 willingly confesses her own timidity and weakness. 
 And these qualities are so far from degrading her, 
 that they only render her the more attractive and 
 lovely. The manly gallant is as ready to afford 
 assistance as she is to accept it. In riding, in 
 walking, in dancing, in sailing, in bathing, in 
 the public assembly, in the social gathering, and 
 everywhere where it is possible to receive atten- 
 tion and accept assistance and protection, it is 
 equally pleasing and ennobling for her to receive, 
 and for him to bestow them. 
 
 woman's rights. 
 
 They are her rights, — her woman's rights. I 
 believe in woman's rights, and I believe that 
 polygamy is the system that can best assure them 
 to her ; for, as it is a mathematical certainty that 
 there are more women than men in the world, 
 some men must assume the protection of more 
 than one woman each, or some women must be 
 deprived of their rights. The most sacred and the 
 most precious of all her rights are her rights to s^ 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 211 
 
 husbaul and a home; and it is no more a degra- 
 dation to her to share that home and that husband 
 with another woman than it is to share other 
 benefits and other attentions from the same man, 
 in common with other women. No woman con- 
 siders herself degraded to walk abroad with her 
 hand upon a man's arm while another woman has 
 her hand upon the other arm ; thus they often 
 appear in public, at balls and concerts and lectures 
 and churches. For the time being, they are both 
 willingly dependent upon his protection and his 
 bounty ; and he is also dependent upon each of 
 them for the benefits of their companionship and 
 the charms of their society. He could not so 
 fully enjoy those entertainments without them. 
 For example, there are two female friends residing 
 together, and mutually dependent upon each other 
 for many of their social enjoyments, and for 
 much of their intellectual and moral culture. A 
 worthy young man of their acquaintance calls 
 upon them frequently, and admires them both ; 
 and they enjoy his visits, for neither of them have 
 any other male associate. At length he invites 
 them both to a public entertd-inment, Neither of 
 
212 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 them would be willing to leave her friend, and go 
 with him alone ; nor could he well endure the 
 thought of enjoying himself • abroad with one, 
 while the other would be deserted and neglected 
 at home, — the other who would enjoy the 'enter- 
 tainment so much, and whose enjoyment would so 
 much enhance theirs. Now, if this triple com- 
 panionship shall ripen into friendship, and the 
 friendship into love, and the love shall result in a 
 triple marriage, where is the degradation ? Would 
 it not be still more heartless to desert either 
 of the friends now, when each heart is thrilling 
 with the harmonious music of the triple love? 
 Let the words of divine wisdom answer, — 
 
 " Two are better than one, . . . and a three- 
 fold cord is not quickly broken." 
 
 There is a want in the female nature which 
 impels her to seek and to appreciate the society 
 of a male friend, which no number of associates 
 of her own sex can fully satisfy. I have stood by 
 the gates of the cotton-mill, and seen the multitudes 
 of female operatives stream out of an evening, and 
 I marked their lonesome appearance as they re- 
 paired to their respective homes. Homes, did I 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 213 
 
 say? Ah ! any thing but homes, — their boarding- 
 houses. There I have seen them sit down, by 
 scores, to the dinner-table, and eat their dinners 
 in the utmost silence, as if each one was entirely 
 isolated from all social and agreeable companion- 
 ship. Oh, what loneliness ! how hard ! how bit- 
 ter ! Yet many of them were radiant with the 
 charms of womanhood, and each one capable of 
 adorning and blessing a home, but which few of 
 them will ever enjoy ; for tliey are not only the 
 unwilling victims of poverty and toil, but the 
 willing votaries of fashion, and the unconscious 
 slaves of monogamy. 
 
 MASCULINE POWER AND FEMININE COMPLAISANCE. 
 
 Those qualities of mind and person which impel 
 a woman to seek the protection of the stronger sex, 
 arising from her natural weakness and timidity, 
 are really those very qualities which inspire the 
 deepest admiration ; yet, should a man happen to 
 display these feminine qualities, they only render 
 him supremely contemptible. A man must be 
 strong, self-reliant, and courageous. No woman 
 can devotedly love a man, unless she sees, or thinks 
 
214 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 she sees, in liim a power of mind or of body, or of 
 both, which Nature has denied to her. It is this 
 power which she intuitively admires and venerates 
 and worships, even though its exercise over her 
 may be arbitrary and tyrannical. The Sabine ma- 
 trons loved their Roman lords none the less be- 
 cause they had seized them with the strong hand ; 
 and a woman is always and everywhere more 
 ready to forgive the too great ardor and boldness 
 of a lover than his unmanly timidity and shame. 
 For a wife to look up to her husband for authority 
 and guidance is as natural as to look to him for 
 protection from danger ; and this is as natural as 
 breathing. It is therefore true, though it may 
 seem hard to some to admit it, that it is his right 
 and duty to exercise authority, and her right and 
 privilege to practise complaisance and submission. 
 
 " Whence true authority in man ; though both 
 Not equal, as their sex not equal seemed ; 
 For contemplation he, and valor formed ; 
 For softness she, and sweet attractive grace ; 
 He for God only, she for God in him. 
 His fair large front and eye sublime declared 
 Absolute rule ; and hyacintliine locks 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 215 
 
 Hound from Iiis parted forelock manly hung 
 Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad ; 
 She, as a veil, down to the slender waist 
 Her unadorned golden tresses wore. 
 Dishevelled, but in wanton ringlets waved. 
 As the vine curls her tendrils, which implied 
 Subjection, but required with gentle sway,*' &c. 
 
 Paradise Lost, Book iv. 
 
 Yet while God and Nature have constituted man 
 the supenor to woman in strength and courage and 
 authority, these principles do not render her rela- 
 tion to man one of degradation or even of general 
 inferiority ; for there are many other and no less 
 admirable qualities in which she surpasses him. 
 Her moral and religious sentiments are more sus- 
 ceptible, and her intellectual perceptions are truer 
 and keener in respect to those matters requiring 
 delicacy of taste and refinement of mind. Her 
 humane sympathies are also stronger ; she is 
 sooner moved by the sentiments of compassion, 
 benevolence, and charity. Blessings on her gentle 
 heart ! What a dreary world would this be with- 
 out woman ! And it is only polygamy that appre- 
 ciates and appropriates her. Monogamy neglects 
 her, spurns her, corrupts her, and desjrades her. 
 
21G HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 IF A MAN MAY HAVE A PLURALITY OF WIVES, WHY 
 MAY NOT A WOMAN HAVE A PLURALITY OF HUS- 
 BANDS ? 
 
 ( Because a woman's heart is so constituted, that 
 I it is impossible for her to cherish a sincere love for 
 more than one husband at the same time. It is 
 even difficult for her to believe that a man can 
 cherish a sincere and honest love for more than one 
 woman at the same time. It is difficult for her to 
 believe it ; for she cannot comprehend it. Her own 
 instincts revolt against the thought of a plurality of 
 husbands, and, judging his feeling by her own, she 
 does not see how a man can want, or at least can 
 truly love, a plurality of wives. But, as this point 
 involves a constitutional difference of sex, it is one 
 in which we must be aware that our feelings can- 
 not guide us. A man can never know the infinite 
 tenderness and the infinite patience of a mother's 
 love, except imperfectly, by reason and observa- 
 tion. His experience does not teach him. His 
 paternal love does not exactly resemble it. So a 
 woman can never know the purity and sincerity of 
 a man's conjugal love for a plurality of wives, ex- 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 217 
 
 cept by similar observation and reason. Her con- 
 jugal love is unlike it. Her love for one man 
 exhausts and absorbs her whole conjugal nature : 
 there is no room for more. And if she ever re- 
 ceives the truth that his nature is capable of a 
 plural love, she must attain it by the use of her 
 reason, or admit it upon the testimony of honest 
 men. 
 
 THE SUN AND THE PLANETS ; OR MARRIAGE LIKE 
 GRAVITATION. 
 
 It would be as impossible and as unnatural for a 
 pure-minded, virtuous woman to have more than 
 one husband, as for the earth to have more than one 
 sun; but it is not unnatural nor impossible for a 
 pure and noble-minded man to cherish the most de- 
 voted love for several wives at the same time : it is as 
 natural for him as it is for the sun to have several 
 planets at the same time, each one dependent on 
 him, and each one harmonious in her own sphere. 
 To each planet the sun yields all the light and heat 
 which she is capable of receiving, or which she 
 would be capable of receiving, were she the only 
 planet in the sky. Each planet attracts the sun to 
 
218 IIISTOnY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 the utmost of her weight, — the exhaustion of hef 
 power ; and the sun returns her attraction to an ex- 
 actly equal degree, and no more. Not one planet nor 
 two, nor all combined, are able to exhaust his 
 power, or move him from his sphere. One more 
 illustration : if a strong man holds one end of a 
 cord, and a little child the other, and they pull to- 
 wards each other, the tension of the cord is meas- 
 ured by the strength of the child, and not by that 
 of the man. The same degree of power is felt at 
 each end of the cord. The strength of the child is 
 exhausted, that of the man is not. He can draw 
 several children to him, sooner than they could 
 unitedly draw him to them. A similar relation 
 exists, naturally, between the male and the female. 
 He is the sun, they are the planets. He is 
 strong, they are weak. Let us not find fault 
 with the ordinances of God, nor attempt to resist 
 his will. 
 
 MASCULINE RESPONSIBILITT AND CARE. 
 
 The responsibilities of the man are in propor- 
 tion to his strength and authority. He must 
 assume the care and provide for the support of 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 219 
 
 the family ; and his female companioas will sub- 
 mit to this authority, if they are wise and prudent, 
 with all the grace and gentleness which distin 
 guish their sex. 
 
 " Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, 
 Thy head, thy sovereign ; one that cares for thee 
 And for thy maintenance ; commits his body 
 To painful labor, both by sea and land ; 
 To watch the night in storms, the day in cold, 
 While thou liest warm at home, secure and safe ; 
 And craves no other tribute at thy hands, 
 But love, fair looks, and true obedience, — 
 Too little payment for so great a debt. 
 Such duty as the subject owes the prince. 
 Even such a woman oweth to her husband ; 
 And when she's fro ward, peevish, sullen, sour. 
 And not obedient to his honest will, 
 What is she but a foul contending rebel, 
 And graceless traitor to her loving lord ? 
 I am ashamed that women are so simple 
 To offer war where they sliould kneel for peace ; 
 Or seek for rule, supremacy, and sway, 
 When they are bound to serve, love, and obey. 
 Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth, 
 Unapt to toil and trouble in the world ; 
 But that our soft conditions and our hearts 
 Should well agree with our external parts ? " 
 
 T 4MIXG THE Shrew act v. scene il. 
 
220 mSTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 The capacity of a man to attract and support 
 several women must depend upon the amount of his 
 talent, his fortune, and his benevolence, as well as 
 upon his physical strength and vitality. There are 
 some men who are scarcely able to attract the love 
 and provide for the support of one woman ; others 
 are well able, if they were willing, to maintain 
 several wives, but they are too penurious and too 
 selfish to attempt it: and such men do not deserve 
 the love of one. But there are others who are both 
 able and willing, and who can as well love and pro- 
 vide for several as for one, and even better ; for, if 
 a man of immense vitality and correspond! og men- 
 tality have but one, she must necessarily suffer 
 from the superabundance of his power, and per- 
 haps, like Semele in the too ardent embraces of 
 Jove, may prove an early victim to the powerful 
 demonstrations of his love. But even should he 
 use the utmost tenderness, and never forget to 
 restrain his burning ardor, yet, so long as he lives 
 under the system of monogamy, such a husband 
 must often be the occasion of the keenest suffering 
 to a delicate woman. It is a source of constant 
 pain and grief to her that she cannot come up to 
 
OF MARRIAGE, 221 
 
 her husband's capacity, nor satisfy his conjugal 
 requirements. She often tortures herself with the 
 thought that he cannot love her, for she feels her- 
 self so much his inferior, and so utterly unworthy 
 of his love. She often says that she knows he 
 wishes her to die, that he migiit marry another. 
 She wishes herself dead. She is madly jealous 
 of every other woman who comes within the 
 circle of their acquaintance, even though her 
 husband may have no fancy for her ; but the poor 
 wife fears he may have, and this constant fear is 
 worse than the worst reality. But, on the other 
 hand, if he were a polygamist, and this same 
 woman were one of his wives, she would then be 
 happy and content. For she would continue to 
 receive from him all the demonstrations of love 
 she is capable of enduring, while she would joy- 
 fully contribute her share towards completing the 
 capacity of his. Then it would constitute her 
 happiness to behold him happy, and t9 enjoy the 
 consciousness of having done what she could to 
 make him so. She now rejoices in his abundant 
 vitality, and is proud of his superiority. And 
 when his manliness, his dignity, and his power are 
 
222 HISTORY AND PHILOSOPHY 
 
 radiated upon her beaming countenance, and re- 
 flected thence, it is then that her heart is filled with 
 the utmost delight and satisfaction of which it is 
 susceptible. Having become his wife, she is so 
 entirely devoted to him, that she almost loses in 
 him her own identity. She throws herself upon 
 his ample breast and within his infolding arms, 
 and yields both her person and her will to his 
 control ; and she only regrets, when she has given 
 up all, that she has not more to give. 
 
 '* You see rae, Lord Bassanio, where I stand, 
 Such as I am ; though for myself alone 
 I would not be ambitious in my wish 
 To wish myself much better ; yet for you, 
 I would be trebled twenty times myself; 
 A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times 
 More rich : 
 
 That only to stand high on your account, 
 I might, in virtues, beauties, livings, friends, 
 Exceed account ; but the full sum of me 
 Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractised ; 
 Happy in this, she is not yet so old 
 But she may learn ; and happier than this, 
 She is not bred so dull but she can learn ; 
 Happiest of all, is, that her gentle spirit 
 Commits itself to yours to be directed, 
 4s from her lord, her governor, her king^. 
 
OF MARRIAGE. 223 
 
 Myself and what is mine, to you and yours 
 Is now converted : but now I was the lord 
 Of this fair mansion, master of my servants. 
 Queen o'er myself; and even now, but now. 
 This house, these servants, and this same myself. 
 Are yours, my iwd ; I give ihem »^ith this ring/' 
 
 Merchant of Venice, act iii. scene ii. 
 
APPENDi:^ 
 
 When this little book was ready for the press, I 
 found, in one of our public libraries, an ancient 
 work, in three volumes, on the same subject, with 
 a formidable Greek title, as follows : " Thelyph- 
 thora ; or, a Treatise on Female Ruin, in its 
 Causes, Effects, Consequences, Prevention, and 
 Remedy," &c. Published by J. Dodsley. Lon- 
 don, 1781. The work is learned and heavy, yet 
 it passed through several editions, and had evidently 
 attracted attention. The author's name does not 
 appear ; but it is well known to have been written 
 by Rev. Martin Madan, D.D., Chaplain of the 
 Lock Hospital, London ; to the wardens and pa- 
 trons of which the work is dedicated. I have read 
 it with much interest, and find it to contain abun- 
 dant confirmation of the views expressed in the 
 foregoing pages. 
 
 224 
 
APPENDIX. 226 
 
 In the preface to the second edition, the author 
 says, " I now conclude this preface with the con- 
 tents of a paper received from a very respectable 
 clergyman, who was candid enough to let, his preju- 
 dices submit to his judgment, and had honesty 
 enough to own it." 
 
 I transcribe the greater part of that " paper," 
 omitting such parts as apply to England only, and 
 not to America. ^ >^ 
 
 "As the subject of a late publicatioa entitled 
 Thelyphthora, or a Treatise on Female Ruin, &c., 
 is much misunderstood and misrepresented by 
 many people, who have, some of them, never read 
 it at all, and the rest but partially, and not without 
 prejudice, and therefore oppose it, 'tis judged best 
 to send its opposers the following questions for 
 them to answer. The doing of this, 'tis thought, 
 will bring the matter to a point, enter upon par- 
 ticulars, and be a means to discover where and 
 with whom truth is, and where and with whom 
 error is. 
 
 " 1. Are the mischievous, shocking crimes of 
 whoredom, fornication, and adultery got to an enor- 
 mous and increasing iieight in the land, and is the 
 15 
 
226 APPENDIX. 
 
 laud defiled and deluged by them, or not? and is 
 the frown of God upon the land, or is it not? 
 
 '* 2. Is it needful, and is it our bounden duty, to 
 cry aloud against these God-provoking and nation- 
 ruining sins, and to seek a remedy against this 
 monstrous evil, or is it not ? 
 
 " 3. Is there any thing destructively horrible in 
 the lives, and any thing shockingly dreadful in the 
 deaths, of abandoned women, alias common prosti- 
 tutes, or is there not? 
 
 '' 4. What number, how many thousands, are 
 there of these miserable creatures in our land ? and 
 have they any evil effect on the male sex, or not? 
 
 ^* 5. Do our laws, as they now stand, hinder thi^s 
 ruinous evil, or do they not? and can they, or caa 
 they not? 
 
 '' 8. Is there any remedy at all spoken of in 
 God's word against the great evil of lewdness? 
 and, if there be, what is that particular remedy? 
 
 "' 9. Does God, in his word, order that whores, 
 adulterers, and adulteresses shall be put to death, or 
 does he not? (See Lev. xx. 10 ; Deut. xxii, 21, 22.) 
 
 ''12. Is there any particular recompense that 
 God iu \k\^ word orclevs m m^\^vx\^^ m^u to makQ 
 
APPENDIX. 227 
 
 to a virgin whom he has defiled, or is there not? 
 and, if there be, what is it? (See Ex. xxii. 16, 17 ; 
 Deut. xxii. 28, 29.) 
 
 " 13. Is there any particular recompense that a 
 married man is enjoined to make the virgin whom 
 he has defiled, or is there not? If there be, what 
 is it? Is the virgin in the above case to receive a 
 recompense, and the virgin in this case to receive 
 none, and to be abandoned? (See the Scriptures 
 above noted.) 
 
 " 14. Is our marriage-ceremony in the church 
 so of the essence of marriage as to constitute mar- 
 riage ; and, therefore, none are married in God's 
 sight, but what are joined together by a priest with 
 that ceremony? 
 
 "15. Is the marriage of the people called 
 'Quakers 'in this land marriage in God's sight? 
 and also according to our laws ? 
 
 '' 17. In what way, or by what form, were all 
 those people of old joined together, whose mar- 
 riages are recorded in Scripture history ? 
 
 '' 18. In what way, or by what form, were Chris- 
 tians married for upwards of a thousand years 
 immediately after the birth of Christ? 
 
228 APPENDIX. 
 
 "19. Was our church marriage-ceremoDy the 
 consequence of Pope Innocent III. putting mar- 
 riage, as a sacrament, into the hands of popish 
 priests, or was it not? 
 
 "20. What reason can be assignea for God's 
 permitting so many people, and particularly some 
 of his distinguished saints of old, to live allowedly 
 in the practice of polygamy, and to die without 
 ever reproving them, calling them to repentance, 
 and without their ever expressing any sorrow for 
 it, and showing any evidences at all of their re- 
 pentance? and if God*s Avord be the rule of our 
 conduct, and if the example of these saints be 
 written for our learning, what are we to learn from 
 them respecting polygamy ? 
 
 "21. If these saints of old lived and died in sin^ 
 by living and dying in the allowed practice of 
 polygamy, what is the name of the sin ? By what 
 term is it to be distinguished ? Was it adultery ? 
 or Avhoredom? or fornication? Was their com- 
 merce licit, or illicit? What commandment did 
 they sin against? Were they adulterers, whore- 
 mongers, or fornicators? What does the Scripture 
 history of the lives and deaths of these saints teach 
 us to call their practice ? 
 
APPENDIX, 229 
 
 ** 22. Were Hannah and Rachel and (after 
 Uriah's death) Bathsheba whores or adulteresses ; 
 or were they lawful and honored wives ? How are 
 they spoken of, and how were they treated, as the 
 Scripture history informs us? 
 
 "23. Were Joseph, Samuel, and Solomon bas- 
 tards, or honorable and legitimate sons? In what 
 character were they spoken of and treated ? Did 
 God show favor to them, or dislike of them ? 
 
 "24. Were not Hannah, Rachel, and Bathsheba 
 whores or adultresses ; and Joseph, Samuel, and 
 Solomon bastards, according to the laws of our 
 land? 
 
 "26. In what way can a stop be put to these 
 following ruinous, detestable, horrible, and nation- 
 al evils ; namely, brothel-keeping ; murdering of 
 infants by seduced women ; pregnant virgins com- 
 mitting of suicides ; the venereal disease ; seduc* 
 tion ; prostitution ; whoredom ; adultery ; and all 
 the deplorable evils accompanying and following 
 the mischievous sins of lewdness in this land? If 
 God's law respecting the commerce of the sexes 
 was observed, and if the laws of our land were to 
 enforce that, might we not expect his blessing on 
 
230 APPENDIX. 
 
 such means used to accomplish so needed and so 
 desirable an end ? 
 
 " After these questions are answered, in a phiin, 
 fair, and scriptural manner, and the answers are 
 honest, free from paltry subterfuge and equivoca- 
 tion, we shall find out w^hether the scheme in that 
 book has a good or a bad tendency ; whether to be 
 reprobated or received ; and whether the friends 
 and abettors of it are friends or foes to their coun- 
 try, the cause of God, the temporal, spiritual, and 
 eternal welfare of their fellow-creatures ? " 
 
 Another learned work, in two octavo volumes, 
 bearing directly upon ray subject, has just now 
 (1869) been issued from the London press, enti- 
 tled " History of European Morals, from Augus- 
 tus to Charlemagne. By W. E. H. Lecky, M. A.'* 
 
 The preceding pages of '' The History and Phi- 
 losophy of Marriage " had all been stereotyped 
 before these elegant volumes came to hand ; and 
 it is only in this appendix, and at this last moment, 
 that I can pass them under a brief review. Hav- 
 ing spent fifteen years in the same field of study, 
 with a similar object in view, and being well 
 aware of the interest and importance of this de- 
 
APPENDIX, 231 
 
 partmeut ot history, I scarcely need to say I have 
 read Mr. Lecky's work Avith a keen appreciation 
 of its worth, which has increased with each suc- 
 cessive page. I cannot express my sincere admi- 
 ration of the rare skill and fidelity with which the 
 author has elaborated his theories, grouped his 
 facts, and collated his authorities ; investing the 
 usually dry and abstruse study of moral philoso^ 
 phy with so much of both pleasure and profit as 
 to unite the amusement of romance to the instruc- 
 tion of authentic records. The plan of my own 
 essay, to which this notice is appended, being 
 much less voluminous, and less pretentious, I 
 could not introduce so many citations as I often 
 wished, — an inability which I need not now re- 
 gret, since this work has appeared, to which I 
 can and do hereby refer. And yet these volumes 
 do not seem to be altogether complete. They are 
 as remarkable for what they omit as for what they 
 contain, and suggest the question, Whether the dis- 
 tinguished author be not too good a philosopher to 
 be, at the same time, a very good historian? 
 whether his fondness for speculation has not too 
 often diverted his attention from a cateororical 
 
232 APPENDIX, 
 
 description of the morals and manners of the nu- 
 merous tribes, and the long periods of time em- 
 braced Avithin the scope of his history? His 
 profound disquisitions are models of excellence, as 
 such, and are copiously illustrated by incontestable 
 facts and authorities ; but he does not give us 
 enough such disquisitions to constitute together the 
 history of the morals of the given period. His 
 work consists rather of some speculations on Eu- 
 ropean morals than a history of them during seven 
 centuries. He gives us admirable monographs on 
 the different schools of moral philosophy, on the 
 Pagan persecutions, on stoicism, on neo-Platonism, 
 on miracles, on chastity, on asceticism, on mona- 
 chism, on the celibacy of the clergy, on abortion, on 
 infanticide, and exposure of children, &c., which are 
 all very good ; but he gives us no similar sketches 
 of the history of marriage, of divorce, of adul- 
 tery, of prostitution, of monogamy, of polygamy, 
 of Paganism, of Gnosticism, of Catholicism, of 
 Mohammedanism, &c., each one of which forms 
 an essential part of the history of European mor- 
 als. His plan of philosophical disquisitions, also, 
 interrupts and confounds all chronological order, 
 
APPENDIX. 233 
 
 and leaves no room for those biographical sketches 
 of distinguished men, whose private lives give 
 moral tone and character to the times in which 
 they live, which we always look for in a work 
 of history, and especially in a history of mor- 
 als, and the want of which, in these volumes^ 
 will be esteemed, by some at least, as a serious 
 defect. 
 
 It happens, curiously enough, that what Mr. 
 Lecky has omitted, I have, in " The History and 
 Philosophy of Marriage,'* in part supplied, per- 
 haps in a less satisfactory manner, but with no less 
 sincere an appreciation of the truth, which it be- 
 longs to history to disentangle and unfold. 
 
 In the first chapter of " The History of European 
 Morals," the author seems to me to degrade the 
 passion of love and the institution of marriage 
 below their just rank in the scale of morals, and 
 to attribute to a life of continence a higher sanc- 
 tity than the facts which he cites can warrant. 
 (I quote from p. 107, et seq.^ vol. i.) 
 
 "We have," says he, "an innate, intuitive, in- 
 stinctive perception, that there is something degrad- 
 ing in the sensual part of our nature ; something to 
 
234 APPENDIX. 
 
 which a feeling of shame is naturally attached ; 
 something that jars with our conception of perfect 
 purity ; something we could not with any propri- 
 ety ascribe to an all-holy Being." "It is this 
 feeling, or instinct, which produces that sense of 
 the sanctity of perfect continence, which the Cath- 
 olic Church has so warmly encouraged, but which 
 may be traced through the most distant ages and 
 the most various creeds. Wq find it among the 
 Nazarenes and the Essenes of Judasa, among the 
 priests of Egypt and India, in the monasteries of 
 Tartary, and ... in the mythologies of Asia." 
 *' In the midst of the sensuality of ancient Greece, 
 chastity was the pre-eminent attribute ascribed to 
 Athene and Artemis. ' Chaste daughter of Zeus,' 
 prayed the suppliants in ^schylus, ' thou whose 
 calm eye is never troubled, look down upon us ! 
 Virgin, defend the virgins ! * " '' Celibacy was an 
 essential condition in a few orders of priests, and 
 in several orders' of priestesses." " Strabo men- 
 tions the existence in Thrace of societies of men 
 aspiring to perfection by celibacy and austere 
 lives." At Rome, . . . " we find the traces of this 
 higher ideal in the intense sanctity attributed to 
 the vestal virgins, ... in the legend of Claudia, 
 ... in the prophetic gift so often attributed to 
 virgins, in the law which sheltered them from an 
 execution, and in the language of Statins, who de- 
 scribed marriage itself as a fault. In Christianity, 
 scarcely any other single circumstance has contrib- 
 uted so much to the attraction of the faith as the 
 ascription of virginity to the female ideal." 
 
 Now, all this, and a deal more, which I need 
 
APPENDIX. 235 
 
 not quote, ot the same sort, only proves, that, in 
 respect of chastity, they frequently adore it most 
 who lack it most ; and, in respect of love and mar- 
 riage, that human sentiments are so influenced by 
 fashionable vice, that we are often ashamed of 
 what we ought to be proud, and proud of what we 
 ought to be ashamed. We possess such contradic- 
 tory sentiments and such conflicting passions, that 
 we need a divine law to teach us what is right and 
 wliat is wrong, and what is pure and what is im- 
 pure. And divine law has taught us that marriage 
 is honorable ; that the normal exercise of love is 
 the noblest and purest passion of the soul ; and 
 •that the normal gratification of the reproductive 
 instinct is the highest function of the body : and 
 those only are ashamed of it who either indulge it 
 abnormally and sinfully, or who desire to. Then, 
 by the law of association, this guilty impurity im- 
 parts its own defilement to every act and thought 
 of love, until the passion itself seems, as it is to 
 them, degrading and impure. Thus this notion 
 arises, not from its proper use, but only from its 
 abuse ; and the law of increase ever remains the 
 primal law of Nature : nor is it true, as he as- 
 
286 APPENDIX. 
 
 serts, that we cannot, with any propriety, ascribe 
 it to an " all*holy Being." Our first parents were 
 *' all-holy ; " yet this passion can be ascribed to 
 them with the utmost propriety ; for " God said 
 unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish 
 the earth*" " And they were not ashamed." 
 
 " Nor turnedj I ween, 
 Adam from his fair spouse ; nor Eve the rites 
 Mysterious of connubial love refused: 
 Whatever hypocrites austerely talk 
 Of purity and place and innocence ; 
 Defaming as impure what God declares 
 Pure, and commands to some, leaves free to all." 
 
 But our author's own pages furnish further refu- 
 tation of his theory, in his sketch of the history of 
 asceticism, which at the same time affords so 
 full and so apt a confirmation of my assertions in 
 respect of the evil influences of Gnosticism and 
 PlatOnism upon mediaeval Christianity and the 
 European marriage-system, that I quote the fol- 
 lowing from his 4th and 5th chapters, vol. ii. pp. 
 108, 119, 138, 340, 363, &c. : — 
 
 " The central conceptions of the monastic system 
 are the meritoriousness of complete abstinence from 
 
APPENDIX, 237 
 
 all sexual intercourse, and of complete reuunciation 
 of the world. The first of these notions appeared 
 in the very earliest period, in the respect attached 
 to the condition of virginity, which was always 
 regarded as sacred, and especially esteemed in the 
 clergy, though for a long time it was not imposed 
 as an obligation." '' On the outskirts of the 
 Church, the many sects of Gnostics and Manicheans 
 all held, under different forms, the essential evil of 
 matter." *' The object of the ascetic was to attract 
 men to a life of virginity ; and, as a necessary conse- 
 quence, marriage was treated as an inferior state." 
 '' 'To cut down by the axe of virginity the wood 
 of marriage,' was, in the energetic language of St. 
 Jerome, the end of the saint." " Whenever any 
 strong religious fervour fell upon a husband or a 
 wife, its first effect was to make a happy union im- 
 possible. The more religious partner immediately 
 desired to live a life of solitary asceticism." *' St. 
 Nilus, when he had already two children, was 
 seized with a longing for the prevailing asceticism ; 
 and his wife was persuaded, after many tears, to 
 consent to their separation. St. Ammon, on the 
 night of his marriage, proceeded to greet his bride 
 with an harangue upon the evils of the married 
 state, and they agreed at once to separate. St. 
 Melania labored long and earnestly to induce her 
 husband to allow her to desert his bed." " St. 
 Abraham ran away from his wife on the night of 
 his marriage." '' Woman was represented as the 
 door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She 
 should be ashamed at the very thought that she is 
 a woman. She should live in continual penance, 
 on account of the curses she has brought upon the 
 
238 APPENDIX. 
 
 world. She should be ashamed of her dress ; for 
 it is the memorial of her fall. She should be espe- 
 cially ashamed of lier beauty ; for it is the most 
 potent instrument of the demon." ''To break by 
 his ingratitude the heart of the mother who had 
 borne him, to persuade the wife wlio adored him 
 that it was her duty to separate from him forever, 
 to abandon his children, was regarded by the her- 
 mit as the most acceptable offering he could make 
 to his God." " St. Simeon Stylites, who had been 
 passionately loved by his parents, began his saintly 
 career by breaking the heart of his father, who died 
 of grief at his flight to the desert. His mother, 
 twenty-seven years after, when she heard, for the 
 first time, where he was, hastened to visit him. 
 But all her labor was in vain : no woman was ad- 
 mitted within the precincts of his dwelling; and he 
 refused to permit her even to look upon his face." 
 '' Three days and three nights she wept and en- 
 treated in vain ; and exhausted with grief, age, 
 and privation, she sank feebly to the ground, and 
 breathed her last before his door. Then, for the 
 first time, the saint, accompanied by his followers, 
 came out. He shed some pious tears over the 
 corpse of his murdered mother, and offered up a 
 prayer, consigning her soul to heaven. Then, 
 amid the admiring murmurs of his disciples, the 
 saintly matricide returned to his devotions." ""He 
 had bound a rope around him, so that it had be- 
 come embedded in his flesh, which putrified around 
 it. A horrible stench exhaled from his body, and 
 worms dropped from him whenever he moved. He 
 built successively three pillars, the last being sixty 
 feet high, and scarcely three feet in circumference ; 
 
APPENDIX, 239 
 
 and on this pillar he lived during thirty years, ex- 
 posed to every change of climate, ceaselessly and 
 rapidly bending his body in prayer almost to the 
 level of his feet. For one year, he stood upon one 
 leg, the other being covered with hideous ulcers ; 
 while his biographer was commissioned to stand 
 by his side, and pick up the worms that fell from 
 his body, and replace them in the sores, the saint 
 saying to the worm, ' Eat what God has given 
 you.' " " For six months, St. Macarius of Alex- 
 andria slept in a marsh, and exposed his body, 
 naked, to the stings of venomous flies. He was 
 accustomed to carry about with him eighty pounds 
 of iron. His disciple, St. Eusebius, carried a hun- 
 dred and fifty pounds of iron, and lived for three 
 years in a dried-up well. St. Sabinus would only 
 eat corn that had become rotten by remaining for 
 a month in water." "A man named Mutius, ac- 
 companied by his only child, a little boy of eight 
 years old, once abandoned his possessions, and de- 
 manded admission into a monastery. The monks 
 received him ; but they proceeded to discipline his 
 heart. His little child was clothed in rags, beaten, 
 spurned, and ill treated. Day after day, the father 
 was compelled to look upon his boy wasting away 
 in sorrow, his once happy countenance forever 
 stained with tears, distorted by sobs of anguish. 
 But yet, says the admiring biographer, such was 
 his love for Christ, and for the virtue of obedience, 
 that the father's heart was rigid and unmoved." 
 
 '' But most terrible of all were the struggles of 
 young and ardent men, through whose veins the 
 hot blood of passion continually flowed, physically 
 jucapablo of a 11 /e of celibacy, who were borne ou 
 
240 APPENDIX, 
 
 the wave of enthusiasm to the desert life. In the 
 arms of Syrian or African brides, whose soft eyes 
 answered love with love, they might have sunk to 
 rest ; but in the lonely desert no peace could ever 
 visit their souls. Multiplying, with frantic energy, 
 the macerations of the body, beating their breasts 
 with anguish, the tears forever streaming from their 
 eyes, imagining themselves continually haunted by 
 forms of deadly beauty, their struggles not un- 
 frequently ended in insanity and in suicide. When 
 St. Pachomius and St. Paltemon were once con- 
 versing together in the desert, a young monk 
 rushed into their presence in a distracted manner, 
 and, convulsed with sobs, poured out his tale of 
 sorrows. A woman had entered his cell, and had 
 seduced him, and then vanished, leaving him half 
 dead upon the ground ; then, with a wild shriek, 
 the monk broke away, rushed across the desert till 
 he arrived at the next vilhige ; and there, leaping 
 into the open furnace of the public baths, he per- 
 ished in the flames." 
 
 "In the time of St. Cyprian, before the Decian 
 persecution, it had been common to find clergy pro- 
 fessing celibacy, but keeping, under various pre- 
 texts, their mistresses in their houses ; and, after 
 Constantine, the complaints on this subject became 
 loud and general. Virgins and monks often lived 
 together in the same house ; and with a curious 
 audacity of hypocrisy, which is very frequently 
 noticed, they professed to have so overcome the 
 passions of their nature, that they shared in chas- 
 tity the same bed." '' Noble ladies, pretending a 
 desire to live a life of continence, abandoned their 
 husbands, to live with low-born lovers. Palestine, 
 
APPENDIX. 241 
 
 wliicli soon became the centre of pilgrimages, had 
 become, in the time of St. Gregory of Nyssa, a 
 hot-bed of debauchery." " There were few towns 
 in Central Europe, on the way to Rome, in the 
 eighth century, where English ladies who started 
 as pilgrims were not living in open prostitution." 
 
 f The last chapter of this " History of European 
 Morals" also furnishes a complete confirmation of 
 my own assertion {ante p. 60), that the barbarian 
 polygamists from Asia, who successively invaded 
 Europe, were possessed of a higher social purity 
 than the monogamous Homans, or than they 
 themselves possessed after they had adopted the 
 European system. 
 
 " In respect of this virtue [^chastity], the various 
 tribes of barbarians, however violent and lawless, 
 were far superior to the more civilised community." 
 " The moral purity of the barbarians was of a kind 
 altogether different from that which the ascetic 
 movement inculcated. It was concentrated exclu- 
 sively upon marriage. It showed itself in a noble 
 conjugal fidelity ; but it was little fitted for a life 
 of celibacy." '' The practice of polygamy among 
 the barbarian kings was also, for some centuries, 
 unchecked, or, at least, unsuppressed, by Chris- 
 tianity. The kings Caribert and Chilperic had 
 both many wives at the same time. Clothaire 
 married the sister of his first wife during the life- 
 time of the latter; who, on the king announcing 
 
242 APPENDIX, 
 
 his intention to lier, is reported to have said, 'Let 
 my lord do what seemeth good in liis sight ; only 
 let thy servant live in thy favour.' St. Cokimbanus 
 was expelled from Gaul chiefly on account of his 
 denunciations of the polygamy of King Thierry. 
 Dagobert had three wives, as well as a multitude 
 of concubines. Charlemagne himself had, at the 
 same time, two wives ; and ho indulged largely in 
 concubines. After this period, examples of this 
 nature became rare." " But, notwithstanding these 
 startling facts, there can be no doubt that the gen- 
 eral purity of the barbarians was, from the first, 
 superior to that of the later Romans." 
 
 Perhaps our learned author calls these facts 
 " startling," because they do not accord with mod- 
 ern notions of the superior purity of monogamy 
 which he seems to entertain, in common with other 
 Europeans, in spite of a thousand other "facts" 
 to the contrary which his own volumes contain. 
 For example, in his sketch of the morals of ancient 
 Greece, the "facts" seem "perplexing" to him. 
 la the heroic age, when polygamy was practised, 
 the noblest types of female virtue and excellence 
 abounded ; but in the later period, when the 
 "higher state" of monogamy prevailed, female 
 virtue experienced a sudden eclipse, so dark and 
 tptal, ancl so incompatible with his theory of the 
 
APPENDIX. 243 
 
 superior purity of monogamy, that he expresses 
 the utmost shame and reluctance in being obliged 
 to record the evidences of its gro3S depravity. 
 Hear what he says, and pardon his errors in 
 theory, for they are those of his age ; admire his 
 candor, and fidelity to facts, for they are the high- 
 est qualifications of an historian. 
 
 " It is one of the most remarkable, and, to some 
 writers, one of the most perplexing): facts in the 
 moral history of Greece, that, in the former and 
 ruder period, women had undoubtedly the highest 
 place, and their type exhibited the highest perfec- 
 tion. Moral ideas, in a thousand forms, have 
 been sublimated, enlarged, and changed by advan- 
 cing civilisation ; but it may be fearlessly asserted, 
 that the types of female excellence which are con- 
 tained in the Greek poems, while they are among 
 the earliest, are also among the most perfect, in the 
 literature of mankind. The conjugal tenderness 
 of Hector and Andromache ; the unwearied fidelity 
 of Penelope, awaiting through the long, revolving 
 years the return of her storm-tossed husband ; the 
 heroic love of Alcestis, voluntarily dying, that her 
 husband might live; the filial piety of Antigone ; 
 the majestic grandeur of the death of Polyxena ; the 
 more saintly resignation of Iphigeuia, excusing 
 with her last breath the father who had condemned 
 her ; the joyous, modest, and loving Nausicaa, 
 whose figure shines like a perfect idyll among the 
 tragedies of the Odyssey, — all these are pictures 
 
244 APPENDIX. 
 
 of perennial beauty which Rome and Christendom, 
 chivahy and modern civilisation, have neither 
 eclipsed nor transcended. Virgin modesty and 
 conjugal fidelity, the graces as well as the virtues 
 of the most perfect womanhood, have never been 
 more exquisitely pourtrayed." 
 
 Such was the golden age of polygamy. ISow 
 look on that picture, and then on this, both drawn 
 by the same hand, and that the hand of a mono- 
 gamist. 
 
 " In the historical [or monogamous] age of Greece, 
 the legal position of women had, in some measure, 
 slightly improved ; but their moral .condition had 
 undergone a marked deterioration. The foremost 
 and most dazzling type of Ionic womanhood was 
 the courtesan ; and among the males, at least, the 
 empire of passion was almost unrestricted. The 
 peculiarity of Greek sensuality is, that it grew up, 
 for the most part, uncensured, and, indeed, even 
 encouraged, under the eyes of some of the most 
 illustrious of moralists. If we can imagine Ninon 
 de I'Enclos, at a time when the rank and splendour 
 of Parisian society thronged her drawing-rooms, 
 reckoniug a Bossuet or a Fenelon among her fol- 
 lowers ; if we can imagine these prelates publicly 
 advising her about her profession, and the means 
 of attaching the affections of her lovers, — we shall 
 have conceived a relation like that which existed 
 between Socrates and the courtesan Theodota.'*' 
 '' In the Greek civilisation, legislators and moral- 
 ists recognised two distinct orders of womanhood, 
 
APPEKDTX, 245 
 
 — the wife, whose first duty was fidelity to her hus- 
 band, and the hetsera, the mistress, who subsisted 
 by her fugitive attachments. The wives lived in 
 almost absolute seclusion. They were usually 
 married when very young. The mare wealthy 
 seldom went abroad, and never, except when ac- 
 companied by a female slave ; never attended the 
 public spectacles ; received no male visitors, except 
 in the presence of their husbands ; and had not 
 even a scat at their own tables when male guests 
 were there. Thucydides doubtless expressed the 
 prevailing sentiment of his countrymen when he 
 said that the highest merit of woman is not to be 
 spoken of either for good or for evil." " The 
 names of virtuous women scarcely appear in Greek 
 history." "A few instances of conjugal and filial 
 affection have been recorded ; but, in general, the 
 only women who attracted the notice of the people 
 were the hetaerse, or courtesans." '' The voluptu* 
 ous worship of Aphrodite gave a kind of reli- 
 gious sanction to their profession. Courtesans 
 were the priestesses in her temples." " The courte- 
 san was the queen of beauty. She was the model 
 of the statues of Aphrodite, that commanded the 
 admiration of Greece. Praxiteles was accustomed 
 to reproduce the form of Phyrne ; and her statue, 
 carved in gold, stood in the temple of Apollo." 
 " Apelles was at once the painter and lover of 
 Lais." " The courtesan was the one free woman 
 of Athens ; -and she often availed herself of her 
 freedom to acquire a degree of knowledge which 
 enabled her to add to her other charms an intense 
 intellectual fascination." . . . "My task in describ- 
 ing this aspect of Greek life has been an eminently 
 
^46 APPENDIX, 
 
 unpleasing one ; and I should certainly not have 
 entered upon even the baldest and most guarded 
 disquisition on a subject so difficult, painful, and 
 delicate, had it not been absolutely indispensable to 
 a history of morals. AVhat I have written will 
 sufficiently explain why Greece, which was fertile, 
 probably, beyond all other lands, in great men, was 
 so remarkably barren of great women.'* '' The Chris- 
 tian doctrine, that it is criminal to gratify a power* 
 ful and a transient physical appetite, except under 
 the condition of a lifelong contract, was altogether 
 unknown." *' An aversion to marriage became 
 very general, and illicit connections were formed 
 with the most perfect frankness and publicity." 
 
 In support of his opinion, that monogamy is 
 a higher state of morals than polygamy, Mr. 
 Lecky, in the final chapter, brings forward four 
 arguments, which merit a fair statement. 
 
 '' We may regard monogamy," he says, *' either 
 in the light of our intuitive moral sentiment on the 
 subject of chastity, or in the light of the interests 
 of society. By the first, I understand that univer- 
 sal perception or conviction which I believe to be 
 an ultimate fact in human nature, that the sensual 
 side of our being is the lower side, and some degree 
 of shame may appropriately be attached to it. In its 
 Oriental or polygamous stage, marriage is regarded 
 almost exclusively in its sensual aspect, as a grati- 
 fication of the animal passions ; while in European 
 marriages , . . the lower element has compara- 
 
APPENDIX. 247 
 
 tively little promineace. In this respect, it may 
 be intelli<5ibly said that monogamy is a higher state 
 than polygamy. The utilitarian arguments are 
 also extremely powerful, and may be summed up 
 in three sentences. Nature, by making the num- 
 ber of males and females nearly equal, indicates it 
 as natural. In no other form of marriage can the 
 government of the family be so happily sustained ; 
 and in no other does woman assume the position 
 of the equal of man.'* 
 
 I have already anticipated and considered the last 
 three arguments in " The History and Philosophy 
 of Marriage,'* and I have also incidentally touched 
 upon the first in my examination of our author's 
 views of chastity and continence ; but, as he seems 
 to place great stress upon this notion, and repeats 
 it again and again, I will venture to offer another 
 word in reply. If an enforced monogamy be more 
 chaste than polygamy, then, for a s*tronger reason, 
 an enforced celibacy is more chaste than monog- 
 amy, — a conclusion of which his own work 
 demonstrates the absurdity, as does every other 
 respectable history of real life in any age or coun- 
 try. I yield to no one in a most profound respect 
 for chastity, and in a most sincere desire to pro- 
 mote it ; but by as much as I venerate true chas- 
 
248 APPENDIX. 
 
 tity by so much do I detest its counterfeit. I have 
 demonstrated that our present system of monogamy 
 is a counterfeit, stimulating the most loathsome 
 , vices of prostitution and hypocrisy ; and I assert 
 ^that the only effectual manner in which social 
 j purity and honesty can be maintained is by pro- 
 moting the utmost freedom to marry, and the ut- 
 most purity of marriage. All men are not alike. 
 Let there be no Procustean marriage-bed. If 
 there are those who are able and Avilling, for the 
 love of God and the better service of the Church, 
 to devote themselves to a voluntary life of honest 
 celibacy, we respect and venerate them for it. If 
 there are others who will each honestly and cheer- 
 fully content himself with one wife, " and, forsak- 
 ing all others, keep himself only unto her so long 
 as they both shall live," at the same time avoiding 
 all matrimonial abuse and excess, we will respect 
 them but little less than the former ; but, again, if 
 there are others, whose measure of vitality is so 
 large that they cannot and will not be restricted 
 to a single marriage, or whose wives arc confirmed 
 invalids, and hopelessly barren and incapable of 
 matrimonial duty, — I would not oblige these men 
 
APPENDIX, 240 
 
 either to murder or to divorce their present wives, 
 or to live a life of matrimonial brutality, or of des- 
 perate licentiousness ; but I would grant them the 
 right to marry again, as the best possible alternative. 
 And I insist that the man who should thus openly 
 maintain his natural rights, and live an honest 
 life, would still be worthy of public confidence and 
 respect. Such men, by taking additional wives, 
 would become the most efficient public benefactors, 
 by providing for the otherwise homeless and aban- 
 doned Avomen, and by furnishing the only possible 
 preventive of the great social evil. The time has 
 gone by for accepting the mere outward profession 
 of sanctity : we require substantial evidences of its 
 possession before we consent to accord to its claim- 
 ants their proper honors. No one can now escape 
 publicity. The almost omnipresent reporters of 
 the press invade our sanctuaries and our bed- 
 chambers ; and a bird of the air shall carry the 
 matter. Men and women need affect no purity or 
 sanctity which they do not possess. The fiat has 
 gone forth, "Let there be light;" and, in our 
 present situation, what we most desire is more 
 light. And Mr._Lecky himself, at last, virtually 
 
250 APPENDIX. 
 
 admits, that, while monogamy should be the ideal 
 type of the matrimonial relation, its universal, 
 honest observance is an impossibility. But, in- 
 stead of recommending the pure and divinely-sanc- 
 tioned freedom of polygamy, he prefers to pander 
 to the licentious tendencies of a luxurious age, by 
 suggesting the alternative of loose 'connections 
 with temporary mistresses. 
 
 " The life-long union," says he, " of one man 
 and of one woman should be the normal or domi- 
 nant type of intercourse between the sexes." 
 "But it by no means follows, that, because it 
 should be the dominant type, it should be the only 
 one, or that the interests of society demand that 
 all connections should be forced into the same die. 
 Connections which are confessedly only for a few 
 years have always subsisted side by side with per- 
 manent marriages ; and in periods when public 
 opinion, acquiescing in their propriety, inflicts no 
 excommunication on one or both of the partners 
 when these partners are not living the demoralis- 
 ing and degrading life which accompanies the con- 
 sciousness of guilt, and when proper provision is 
 made for the children who are born, it would be, 
 I believe, impossible to prove, by the light of sim- 
 ple and unassisted reason, that such connections 
 should be invariably condemned. It is extremely 
 important, both for the happiness and for the moral 
 well-being of men, that life-long unions should not 
 be elFected simply under the prompting of a blind 
 
APPP.KDtX. 251 
 
 appetite. There are always multitudes, who, in 
 the period of their lives when their passions are 
 most strong, are incapable of supporting children 
 in their own social rank, and who would therefore 
 injure society by marrying in it, but are, nevef* 
 theless, perfectly capable of securing an honorable 
 career for their illegitimate children in the lower 
 social sphere to which they would naturally belong. 
 Under the conditions I have mentioned, these con* 
 nections are not injurious, but beneficial, to the 
 weaker partner ; they soften the differences of rank, 
 they stimulate social habits, and they do not pro- 
 duce upon character the degrading effect of pro- 
 miscuous intercourse, or upon society the injurious 
 effects of imprudent marriages, one or the other of 
 which will multiply in their absence. In the im- 
 mense variety of circumstances and characters, 
 cases will always appear in which, on utilitarian 
 grounds, they might seem advisable." 
 
 Thus, at last, this fashionable vice has lifted the 
 mask of hypocrisy a little, and found a voice, and 
 spoken for itself. And thus has the learned 
 monogamous moralist at once admonished and 
 encouraged the seducer, '* You may love and 
 ruin as many virtuous young women as you can, 
 if you will only disown them and cast them off at 
 last. The more such 'conquests' over female 
 honor you achieve, the more will the world admire 
 you, and smooth your way to future victories of 
 
252 APPENDIX. 
 
 the same sort ; for ' these connections have always 
 subsisted side by side with permanent marriages,' 
 and they are tlierefore right. They ' are not inju- 
 rious, but beneficial,' when made ' only for a few 
 years,' or a few months ; but you must not marry. 
 Impossible ! Marriage for love, especially out of 
 your ' own social rank,' ' is the prompting of a 
 blind passion,' and ' would injure society.' One 
 such marriage would be highly ' imprudent ; ' and 
 more than one would be horrible, and would send 
 you to prison. You may safely promise to marry 
 as many as you please, if you cannot seduce them 
 otherwise ; but you must take care not to do it 
 before a witness, or in your own handwriting ; for 
 plural marriage is a crime, but plural seduction is 
 an honor ! " 
 
 Such is the " higher state " of monogamy, and 
 such the upshot of its boasted equality ; for " in 
 no other system does woman assume the position 
 of the equal of man." The polygamist is stupid. 
 He gives his honest hand to each of his wives, to 
 have and to hold till death ; and his honor and his 
 happiness are thenceforth theirs. The more astute 
 monogamist has all the women he wants, but as- 
 sumes no solemn vows, and only trifles with their 
 
APPENDIX. 253 
 
 love. But he is wiser than they ; nay, lie is better. 
 He is made of finer clay. The polite world wel- 
 comes the innocent seducer into society with one 
 hand, and shuts its doors against his guilty victims 
 with the other. On him the most respectable 
 ladies, married and unmarried, lavish their atten- 
 tions and their smiles, while they lift their skirts 
 in lofty disdain from the slightest contact with his 
 mistresses. This pure system is pre-eminently 
 Christian, for it obeys so perCectly the golden 
 Christian rule, to do to others as we wish them to 
 do to us ; it has every convenience, and not one 
 inconvenience, of polygamy ; it yields full sway 
 to all its amorous passions, but submits to none of 
 its burdens and safeguards : in a word, the sys- 
 tem of monogamy, according to its own showir^ 
 above, affords every possible indulgence to all the 
 men, and no possible protection to half the women. 
 Its equality is like its morality ; and both are, like 
 its logic, superlatively Homan. 
 
 But this notion of the alleged equality of the' 
 sexes under the system of monogamy is so absurd, 
 that Mr. Lecky himself dissents from it on another 
 page, and thus virtually contradicts himself, and 
 abandons the arp;ument. 
 
254 APPENDIX. 
 
 " The fundamental truth," says lie, " that the 
 same act can never be at once venial for a man to 
 demand, and infamous for a woman to accord, 
 though nobly enforced by the early Christians, has 
 not passed into the popular sentiment of Christen- 
 dom. At the present day, though the standard of 
 morals is far higher than in pagan Rome, it may 
 be questioned whether the inequality of the cen- 
 sure which is bestowed upon the two sexes is not 
 as great as in the days of paganism. . . . The 
 character of the seducer . . . has been glorified 
 and idealised in the popukir literature of Christen- 
 dom in a manner to which we can find no parallel 
 in antiquity. When we reflect that the object of 
 -such a man is, by the coldest and most deliberate 
 treachery, to blast the lives of innocent women ; 
 when we compare the levity of his motives with 
 the irreparable injury he inflicts ; and Avhen we 
 remember that he can only deceive his victim by 
 persuading her to love him, and can only ruin her 
 by persuading her to trust him, — it must be owned 
 that it would be difficult to conceive a cruelty more 
 Avanton and more heartless, or a character com- 
 bining more numerous elements of infamy and 
 dishonor. The contrast between the levity with 
 which the frailty of man has in most ages been 
 regarded, and the extreme severity with which 
 women who have been guilty of the same offence 
 have been treated, forms one of the most singular 
 anomalies in history, and appears the more re- 
 markable when we remember that the temptation 
 usually springs from the sex which is so readily 
 pardoned; that the sex which is visited with such 
 crushing penalties is proverbially^ the most weak ; 
 
APPENDIX. 255 
 
 and that in the case of women, but not in the case 
 of men, the vice is very commonly the result of 
 misery and poverty." 
 
 Now, I charge this anomalous inequality, this 
 injustice, and this cruelty, which do such violence 
 to every noble sentiment of humanity, mainly to 
 the artificial system of monogamy. There are no 
 traces of them in the Bible, nor in polygamous law 
 generally. By the divine law, the parties to the 
 same act are held guilty of the same crime. The 
 only question is, whether the woman be another 
 man's wife or not. If she is, the crime is adultery 
 in both, and both are to be punished with death. 
 If she be unmarried, the penalty is, that they must 
 be married to each other till death shall part them, 
 whether he has another wife or not. If this pen- 
 alty should always be enforced, what a deal of 
 misery it would prevent ! Men's wanton passions 
 would be under better government than they now 
 are, and they would look before they leap. 
 
 One more paragraph, and then I shall have done 
 with Mr. Lccky. I have often asserted, and re- 
 peatedly proved, that prostitution is a necessary 
 part of monogamy ; and I find an unexpected, an 
 
256 APPENDIX. 
 
 ample and a distinct admission of this indictment 
 against the system. 
 
 " That unhappy being," he says, ^ whose very 
 name it is a shame to speak, . . . who is scorned 
 and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, 
 for the most part, to disease, and abject wretched- 
 ness, and an early death, . . . herself the supreme 
 type of vice, she is, ultimately, the most efficient 
 guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged 
 purity of countless happy homes would be polluted ; 
 and not a few, who, in the pride of their untempted 
 chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, 
 would have knovvj;i the agony of remorse and de- 
 spair. On that one degraded and ignoble form 
 are concentrated the passions that might have filled 
 the world Avith shame. She remains, while creeds 
 and civilisations fall, the eternal priestess of hu- 
 manity, blasted for the sins of the people." 
 
 In this passage, it is at once apparent that Mr. 
 Lecky has gone quite beyond me. 1 charge, that 
 prostitution is an evil to be deplored and prevented, 
 the open or clandestine sufferance cf which is 
 necessary only to the system of monogamy ; and 
 that it would be prevented, or, at least, greatly 
 mitigated, by the abolition of that system, for which 
 every honest man should work and pray. He 
 avers, that prostitution is au evil, but a wholesome 
 evil, essentially and eternally necessary to the best 
 
APPENDIX, 257 
 
 good of society ; and that all efforts to suppress it 
 are useless and vain, if not wrong ; that it should 
 be licensed and regulated; that it is the safety-- 
 valve of civilization, which would otherwise ex- 
 plode ; the cursed scape-goat of the world, which 
 would else all go to ruin. 
 
 In answer to this horrid doctrine, I can only say 
 that I cannot give up my daughters to become 
 harlots, even if the world must go to ruin ; nor 
 can I require any other parent to give up his or 
 hers. 1 am sufficiently a Christian to believe that 
 I should love my neighbor as myself; sufficiently 
 a philanthropist to believe that all sinners are my 
 neighbors, for whose present reformation and final 
 salvation I am bound to labor ; and sufficiently 
 evangelical to believe that no other vicarious savior 
 than Christ is necessary ".for the sins of the 
 people." 
 
 Thus I have given ample space, and full expres- 
 sion to these arguments for monogamy, and for the 
 several forms of its necessary prostitution ; request- 
 ing my opponents to reciprocate this favor by 
 placing my arguments side by with theirs, and en- 
 treating the public to judge between them, and, be- 
 fore aAvarding judgment, to be sure to hear the other 
 17 
 
258 APPENDIX, 
 
 side. If there is any truth in the Holy Bible, it 
 teaches the innocence of polygamy, and the sinful- 
 ness of every form of sexual indulgence not 
 guarded by a life-long marriage. If there is any 
 truth in history, it teaches the innate impurity of 
 enforced monogamy, — an impurity which has al- 
 ways increased with the increase of wealth and 
 the advance of civilization ; which perverted Chris- 
 tianity itself is powerless to prevent ; which has 
 corrupted and wasted many nations ; and into 
 which we are drifting with inevitable certainty, 
 and from which nothing but an extension of the 
 benefits and the safeguards of marriage can ever de- 
 liver us, — all which propositions are demonstrated 
 in " The History and Philosophy of Marriage." 
 
 I beg leavo to refer, also, to a recent work enti- 
 tled " An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy 
 in the Christian Church. By H. C. Lea." Phila- 
 delphia : J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1867. 
 
 This is a valuable repertory of authentic re- 
 corded facts, cited from 
 
 " Many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,'* 
 
 confirming the views advanced in '' The History 
 
APPENDIX, 259 
 
 and Philosophy of Marriage " in respect of the 
 degrading influences of the Roman system of re- 
 stricted marriage, from which I have proved our 
 European monogamy to have been derived. I 
 earnestly commend this book to the attention of 
 every student of moral philosophy, and to that of 
 every Christian philanthropist. 
 
 Conybeare and Howson's " Life and Epistles of 
 St. Paul" contains the following note on 1 Tim. 
 iii. 2, concerning the " one wife " of a bishop, 
 which I place alongside of Dr. McKnight's (page 
 72). It also confirms my own statements in the 
 chapter on the origin of monogamy. 
 
 " In the corrupt facility of divorce allowed both 
 by the Greek and Roman law, it was very common 
 for man and wife to separate, and marry other 
 parties, during the life of one another. Thus a 
 man might have three or four living wives ; or 
 rather women who had all successively been his 
 wives. ... A similar code is [now] unhappily to 
 be found in Mauritius ; there ... it is not un- 
 common to meet in society three or four women 
 Avho have all been the Avives of the same man; 
 . . . We believe it is this kind of successive polyg- 
 amy, rather than simultaneous polygamy, which is 
 here spoken of as disqualifying for the Presbyter- 
 ate. So Beza." 
 
CRITIQUE. 
 
 By J. A. H., Esq. 
 
 . -.^e^o 
 
 Springfield, Mass., Sept. 25, 1869. 
 To the Author of " The Historij and Philosophy of Marriage.'*^ 
 
 Dear Sir, — I have read carefully your little 
 work, aud will, as briefly as possible, notice a few 
 conclusions, which seem faulty to my mind ; and, to 
 the best of my ability, will state wherein I should 
 differ with you. First, as to your position that 
 man is not capable of loving one woman, and her 
 only, and that woman is pre-eminently devoted to 
 one man ; thus making man a promiscuous animal, 
 while the opposite is true of woman. Laying aside 
 the exceptions, I think it can be shown that this is 
 false doctrine, and that your conclusions are unwar- 
 rantable from the premises. For we find, that, in 
 nature, most animals in a wild state are mated : so, 
 through the whole range of the feathered tribe in 
 a state of nature, the same is true ; and the 
 reason why the same law is not observable among 
 domesticated animals and birds is, I think, attribut- 
 260 
 
CRITIQUE BY J. A. H, 261 
 
 able to man's interference. From this I urge that 
 God has made all his creatures monogamous in 
 their instincts. 
 
 Second, your statistics to show that there are 
 more women than men will work very well when 
 the test is applied to such thickly populated and 
 peculiarly situated States as these in New England, 
 and some of the Middle States ; but you will 
 scarcely claim any great weight in the slight dif- 
 ferences manifest to support your theory. You evi- 
 dently rely somewhat upon your observation that 
 females mature at a much earlier age than males, 
 to support your statistics, and on both, to support 
 your theory that the Creator has thus made pro- 
 vision for polygamy. It may be true, that, in low 
 latitudes, females do mature younger ; but I believe 
 that this is not true of Northern climes, and that, 
 on the average, males will be found to be fit for 
 fathers as soon as the opposite sex are fit to become 
 mothers. 
 
 Third, in reviewing the lives of the Gajsars as 
 an example of the condition of morals in the Ro- 
 man empire too, you overlook some facts, in draw- 
 ing conclusions, quite inexcusable. You attribute 
 all of their vices and sin to the social system of 
 monogamy, and point to the polygamous nations 
 of the East for comparisons, to the credit of the lat- 
 ter. While it is true, no doubt, that all of iniquity 
 
262 CRITIQUE BY J. A. 11. 
 
 which human cunning could devise was chargeable 
 to the Romans, yet Sodom^ the city of the plain, 
 was the just subject of God's wrath as the penahy 
 of this same vice which is imputed to the Caesars, 
 and to the Romans as a people, — this, too, among a 
 polygamous people : this would seem to indicate 
 that Sodomy is not necessarily the child of monog- 
 amy. And, further, I believe that to-day, the 
 only nation on the civilized globe that stands 
 charged with Sodomy is Turkey^ and the Turks 
 are a polygamous people ! If this docs not prove 
 that monogamy is not responsible for our sins, it 
 tends to show, I think, that the remed} does not lie 
 in a plurality of wives. 
 
 Fourth, when the countries of the East were 
 sparsely inhabited, or, in fact, when the world was 
 comparatively without inhabitants, the need for the 
 application and working of your theory may have 
 existed ; but it does not exist now. Why Jesus 
 Christ did not rebuke polygamy, I do not know. 
 His silence on this point proves nothing ; if it did, 
 I could cite many specific sins of an equally dis- 
 gusting character passed over by him without a 
 command ; but I suppose he thought that the prac- 
 tical working of Christianity would effectually 
 break down polygamy ; and so it has. AYherever 
 Christians Imve planted the standard of Calvary, 
 this bane to womanhood disappears. Christ, no 
 
CRITIQUE BY J. A, H. 263 
 
 doubt, saw these things in futuro^ and refrained 
 from uprooting their entire social system ; leaving 
 it to time. 
 
 I could extend my remarks ad infinitum ; but I 
 tliink I have said euougli. I think the work is 
 worthy the perusal of all meii who are of a think- 
 ing turn of mind, and, so far as I can judge, it is 
 excellently written. As designed for an extensive 
 sale, I regret I cannot predict a success ; for the 
 great army of martyrs (women) to the theory will 
 stifle it if possible. Again : there are matters 
 treated in the work (possibly unavoidable) which 
 delicacy would prevent many from reading, and 
 fathers and husbands from taking into their fami- 
 lies ; and, finally, I own, that, until I read this 
 work, I was not aware that so much could be said 
 in favor of polygamy. J. A. H, 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 
 
 Boston, Oct. 28, 1869. 
 J. A. II., Esq., Spkixgfield, Mass. 
 
 Dear Sir, — Your critique of" The History and 
 Philosophy of Marriage*' has come to hand, in 
 which you state my views, somewhat erroneously, to 
 be, "that man is not capable of loving one woman, 
 and her only ; . . . thus making man a promiscuous 
 animal, while the opposite is true of Avoman." 
 These allegations I respectfully deny. They are 
 scarcely fair ; for I have strongly objected to all 
 " promiscuous '* intercourse, throughout my trea- 
 tise ; and it is my main charge against enforced 
 monogamy that it tends to promote it. I am sorry 
 to be misunderstood. I say a pure and honest 
 plural marriage should be permitted to some meii 
 of superior vitality and great reproductive power, 
 on account of the unfortunate imbecility or barren- 
 ness of some women. I admit that monogamy is 
 the normal type of marriage between perfectly 
 264 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY, 265 
 
 healthful persons ; but, as the women are less health- 
 ful and more numerous than the men, tlie two 
 inequalities should correct each other. (Pp. "62, 
 170,198, 248, &c.) 
 
 You assert that animals in a state of nature are 
 not polygamous, and hence that our Creator has 
 not designed that man should be. I admit that this 
 may be true of carnivorous beasts of prey and of 
 solitary habits, but is not true of herbivorous and 
 omnivorous animals of social habits ; for they are 
 usually polygamous : but man is both omnivorous 
 and social, and hence by this analogy he should be 
 polygamous. The gallinaceous birds are also polyga- 
 mous, while birds of prey are not ; but the analogy 
 in this case is too remote to be of much benefit to 
 either side of the question : when we shall have 
 acquired wings, we shall neither marry, nor be given 
 in marriage. 
 
 2. You say, my "statistics to show that there 
 are more women than men will work very well in 
 "New England," &c., but not generally. My prop- 
 osition is this, " The number of marriageable 
 women always exceeds the number of marriageable 
 men . . . except in those States in which the popula- 
 tion is largely made up by foreign immigration ;" 
 and I cite public documents to prove that this is 
 true of " more than one hundred millions of the 
 population of Europe," and of many different States 
 
266 THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 
 
 ia America (p. 45) ; and I challenge you to produce 
 any contrary statistics, except in cases affected by 
 immigration as aforesaid. These public documents 
 and other authentic statistics have established five 
 important fads : (1) That about half the popula- 
 tion of every State consists of children under age, 
 (2) of whom the majority are males ; (3) that, 
 after marriageable age, the females are more 
 numerous, (4) on account of the greater mortality 
 of male children ; and (5) that the whole number 
 of females exceeds the whole number of males. It 
 is a necessary conclusion, therefore, that the number 
 o^ marriageable females must still more exceed the 
 number of marriageable males. This last proposi* 
 tion is often true, even when, on account of immi- 
 gration, the whole number of males exceeds the 
 whole number of females. I invite your special 
 attention to an examination of the statistics of 
 Pennsylvania. (See Table, p. 47.) 
 
 In the year 1860, the whole number of males in 
 that State was 1,454,419, and the number of females 
 1,451,796 ; hence there were 3,723 more males 
 than females. Yet at the same time there were 
 more marriageable women than men, for there were 
 1 1 ,902 more males than females under fifteen years 
 of age; therefore there were 7,179 more females 
 than males over fifteen, while there were 10,826 
 more females than males between the ai^es of fif- 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 267 
 
 teen and twenty, and 17,588 more females than 
 males between the ages of twenty and thirty. 
 
 Your assertion, that the earlier maturity of women 
 " is not true in Northern climes," &c., is unsup- 
 ported by any reason oi* authority, while it has a 
 color of truth ; for there are some exceptions in 
 extreme polar regions : but the rule as I give it is 
 correct of nine-tenths of the race ; and I cite every 
 respectable work on physiology in proof of it. 
 
 3. You object to my ''charging the vices of tbo 
 CaBsars to their monogamy," and triumphantly point 
 to the Sodomy of polygamous Turkey, and of an- 
 cient Sodom itself, in support of this objection. My 
 reason for relating the family history of the Cassars 
 was not so much to charge all their vices to their 
 monogamy as to give a true picture of their social 
 life and their marriage-system at a time distin- 
 guished by the concurrence of two great events, — 
 the conquest of Northern Europe, which imposed 
 the system of Roman monogamy upon the civilized 
 world ; and the introduction of Christianity, by an 
 early perversion of which that system was invested 
 with the sanctity of a religious institution, and 
 many of its repulsive vices were perpetuated by the 
 most religious people, and have thus come down to 
 modern times. In the analysis and discussion of 
 these vices, special reference was had to prostitution 
 and divorce ; and the least possible allusion was 
 
288 THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 
 
 made to Sodomy, on account of its remote relation 
 to marriage, and its comparative absence from our 
 Western civilization ; and all allusion to it would 
 kave been omitted if faithfulness to historical truth 
 had allowed. Yet, although its discussion does not 
 necessarily belong to the marriage-question, it is 
 closely connected with its history, since it arises 
 from one of the perversions of the amorous propen- 
 sity. Other readers of '' The History and Philoso- 
 phy of Marriage " have therefore noticed the same 
 omissions which you have : they, too, have pointed 
 to Sodom and to Turkey ; and because I have not 
 attempted to prove that every Roman vice was 
 derived from their monogamy, or was stimulated 
 by it, they will not admit that I have proved any 
 of them to have been. Hence I am obliged to meet 
 the issue fully ; to lay aside all fastidious scru- 
 ples ; and to state what I have gathered of the 
 origin of Sodomy, and its relation to the early his- 
 tory of marriage. 
 
 The rise of this detestable vice in Europe is 
 proved to be connected with that of enforced mo- 
 uogainy. This marriage-system first appeared in 
 Greece during the second period of its history, and 
 Sodomy immediately followed in its train. There 
 are no traces of it, as Mr. Lecky remarks ('' Histo- 
 ry of European Morals," vol. ii. p. 311), in Homer 
 oriaHesiod; but the dramatic poets and the art- 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 269 
 
 ists of the monogamous period of Grecian history 
 abound in allusions to it ;*yet Mr. Lecky errs, I 
 think, in attributinoj its rise to the Grecian games ; 
 for there is little doubt that it was an importation 
 from Phoenicia, whence it is well known the Greeks 
 were accustomed to borrow very largely at that 
 period, and where its history can be traced back, 
 even to the time of the deluge. 
 
 In the ninth chapter of Genesis, it is stated that 
 Ham, one of the sous of Noah, and a monogamist, 
 had seen his father's nakedness; a very common 
 Hebrew euphemism to imply something much 
 worse : for it is further said, that when " Noah 
 awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger 
 son had do7ie unto him,'' he forthwith cursed his 
 posterity to the latest generation, — an apparently 
 absurd and unjust penalty for seeing an indecency ; 
 but really, if my interpretation be correct, it was 
 only a very just and very proper denunciation of 
 that unnatural vice, which has always been hered- 
 itary in that race. It was in Palestine and Phoe- 
 nicia that the family of Canaan, the accursed son of 
 Ham, settled (Gen. x. 15-19), where they were 
 all addicted to this vice ; from the corruption of 
 which, and of kindred vices, named in Leviticus 
 (chapters eighteen and twenty), the invading Isl*ael- 
 ites were warned to beware, and for which it is 
 therein expressly declared, that the Canaanites 
 were doomed to destruction. 
 
270 TEE AUTHOR'S REPLY, 
 
 In later years, the Carthaginians, a Phoenician 
 colony, exerted a similar corrupting influence upon 
 Rome (Lecky, "European Morals," i. 177, ii. 320) ; 
 for it was six years after the first Punic War, in the 
 year of the city 520, that the first divorce occurred 
 at Rome (Lecky, ii. 317), which soon became no- 
 toriously common there, as well as the more odious 
 vice of Sodomy. The Romans had already im- 
 bibed a taint of this vice, along with their monog- 
 amy, from the Greeks, at a very early period ; but 
 the wars with Carthage increased it greatly. The 
 first Punic War lasted nearly a quarter of a century, , 
 and gave ample time for the adoption of such for- 
 eign practices as wars are always apt to introduce. 
 Many Romans had been long detained as prisoners 
 at Carthage, and had learned the language and the 
 licentious manners of that city : at the close of the 
 war, the two states were brought into intimate com- 
 mercial relations, and an inundation of Punic vice 
 was the inevitable consequence. Nor was that cor- 
 rupt city sufifered to endure. The voice of the aged 
 Cato, who visited Carthage during the next war to 
 arrange an exchange of prisoners, and who saw the 
 corruptions of the city with the experienced eye of 
 a censor, was as the voice of God, when, on his 
 return to Rome, he closed his frequent speeches in 
 the senate with the ominous and terrible sentence, 
 €t preterea censeo Carthaginem esse ddendam (" I 
 
TEE AUTHOR'S REPLY, 271 
 
 insist that Carthage must be destroyed "). Our re- 
 maining knowledge of the social systems of the 
 Sidonians, the Tyrians, and the Carthaginians, is 
 quite meagre, at best : but it is demonstrable that 
 polygamy was rare in those states ; that some ap- 
 proach to enforced monogamy was first attempted ; 
 and that some notions of that doctrine, since called 
 the Malthusian doctrine, which discourages an in- 
 crease of population on grounds of political econo- 
 my, were first current there ; for both Polybius,*and 
 Aristotle in his " Politica," assert that the Cartha- 
 ginian polity most resembled that of Sparta, where 
 it is well known the social and political systems 
 were inseparably blended. The Spartans were 
 monogamous ; they discouraged a rapid increase of 
 population ; they suppressed the maternal instincts 
 by taking the children from their mothers at a very 
 early age, to be brought up at the public nurseries 
 and schools, exposing the feeble infants to perish, 
 and raising none but the strongest. At Carthage, it 
 is also known, that the families of the nobles were 
 small and few (Heeren's Ideen, vol. ii, part 1, p. 
 118), and extremely jealous of each other: hence 
 their failure to support Hannibal in Italy ; hence his 
 recall, his disasters, and the rapid ruin of the state. 
 In respect of the Sodomy of modern Turkey, I 
 deny that it was introduced by the polygamous 
 Turks themselves, but assert that it has obviously 
 
272 THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 
 
 been inherited and propagated there by the miser- 
 able degenerate sons of degenerate Greek and 
 Roman and Phoenician sires. And this is only an 
 illustratiou and confirmation of the theological 
 opinion, that the utter extermination of the Canaan- 
 ites by the invading Hebrews was a dire necessity, 
 that they might not be contaminated by their vices, — 
 those very vices which are now destroying the vic- 
 torious Turks, Avho, in their greater mercy, spared 
 the unarmed and the vanquished. 
 
 4. You admit that polygamy was anciently al- 
 lowed for the more rapid increase of population, 
 when the world was new, but object, that such a 
 need does not exist now. The objection is specious, 
 but unsound. The world is no longer new ; but it 
 is still unpeopled. The first law of God — " In- 
 crease and multiply and replenish the earth, and 
 subdue it " — has never been sufficiently obeyed. 
 The earth is not replenished, and not subdued. It 
 does not contain, to-day, one-twentieth part of the 
 population which it might easily support, and sup- 
 port with even more ease than its present popula- 
 tion. The Malthusian doctrine is now regarded by 
 most moralists to be as unphilosophical as it is 
 selfish, cruel, and unnatural. The greater portion 
 of the earth is even now but a new farm, and the 
 present inhabitants but the first pioneers of improve- 
 ment, who are breaking up the prairies, felling tho 
 
THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 273 
 
 forests, extracting the stumps, and gathering out 
 the stones ; our children's children will only begin 
 to live in comfort and abundance upon a cultivated 
 earth. The first want which the poet Milton 
 , ascribes to the primitive gardeners in Eden is still 
 ' our greatest want, ~ the want of " more hands." 
 I 5. The silence of Jesus concerning polygamy I 
 shall still claim as an argument in its favor, not- 
 withstanding your observations. My arguments 
 need not be repeated here. 
 
 6. The reluctance of the Avomen to adopt a po- 
 lygamous system has also been anticipated in my 
 work. The conservative element in the female 
 character, and the subserviency of the sex to fashion 
 and to public opinion, are all well known, and all 
 designed, I believe, by our Creator, for our com- 
 mon good. Yet because they cannot, at once, see 
 the propriety and necessity of the system of plural- 
 ity of wives, this fact should not deter us from its 
 investigation ; for, if it should prove to be a purer 
 and better system, we shall be sure of their approval 
 in the end ; and, when it is once approved and prac- 
 tised, the fairer sex, so far from being its " mar- 
 tyrs," will be the principal gainers by it. 
 
 7. I am fully aware that I attempt the discus- 
 sion of a very delicate subject, and that my book is 
 open to objections on that score ; but it is only, as 
 the Bible is, necessarily so, in order to state such 
 
 18 
 
274 THE AUTHOR'S REPLY. 
 
 facts as ought to be known, and such as are essen- 
 tial to a philosophical examination of the history 
 of marriage. (See Preface.) 
 
 For your final complimentary remarks I return 
 my grateful acknowledgments. 
 
 The Author. 
 
IlifDEX. 
 
 Abort ion, 195 : monogamy causes, 
 198. 
 
 Asceticism, 131; Lecky's sketch 
 of, 237. 
 
 Acte, mistress of Nero, 113, 180. 
 
 Adultery, defined and discussed. 
 
 Agrippina's incest with Cali- 
 gula, 105 : her marriage to 
 Claudius, 110; her former mar- 
 riages, 111. 
 
 Amorous passions more Intense 
 in men than in women, 62, 169, 
 171. 
 
 Anthon, Dr. C, quoted, 80, 83. 
 
 Art, inspired by love, 31. 
 
 Augustus and his four wives, 91 ; 
 his profligacy, 96. 
 
 Barrenness, caused by monoga- 
 my, 82, 204; is a curse, yet our 
 women desire it, 200; in Mas- 
 sachusetts, 205. 
 
 Baxley, Dr., " What he Raw in 
 Lima," 138. 
 
 Bible, the, teaches polygamy, 63; 
 defines adultery, 183. 
 
 Bishop, a, one wife of, 71, 2.53. 
 
 Bulwer's History of Athens, 80. 
 
 Birth-ratC; in Massachusetts, 204. 
 
 Caesar, Julius, and his fourwives, 
 88; divorces Pompeia, 89; his 
 profligacy, 90. 
 
 Caesonia, wife of Caligula, 104, 
 106. 
 
 Caligula and his four wives, 101, 
 102; incest with his sisters, 103, 
 105; licenses prostitutes, 105. 
 
 Catholicism, its antiquity and im- 
 
 mutability, 136; its vices, 137, 
 157. 
 
 Celibacy of priests, &c., arose 
 from Gnosticism and neo-Pla- 
 tonism, 127; causes licentious- 
 ness, 138, 240. 
 
 Chastity, tarnished by divorce, 
 18; of polygamists, 60,241; re- 
 quired of women alone by 
 Greeks and Romans, 79, 94. 
 
 Civilization indebted to love, 31. 
 
 Claudius and his six wives, 99, 
 107. 
 
 Clodius the infamous, 87, 89. 
 
 Conjugal love in men and women, 
 217. 
 
 Constantino and Licinius, 129. 
 
 Conybeare and Howson's St. 
 Paul, 253. 
 
 Councils of the Church, 127, 132. 
 
 Cowper, William, quoted, 179, 
 185. 
 
 David a polygamist, 64, 193. 
 
 Divorce, forbidden by the Bible, 
 18; frequent among the Ro-^ 
 mans, 82; is dishonorable, 187; 
 caused by monogamy, 189 ; of 
 Henry VIH., and of Napoleon, 
 192; of Tamar, 193. 
 
 " EcceHomo," quoted, 158. 
 Ennia, mistress of Caligula, 102. 
 
 Fecundity, to be promoted, 199 ; 
 
 a divine blessing, 200. 
 Foliambe, Rev. 8. W., quoted, 
 
 65. 
 Froude on monachism, 148. 
 
 27ii 
 
 BANCROFT 
 LIBRARY 
 
276 
 
 INDEX, 
 
 "Gail Hamilton" on marriage, 
 52. 
 
 Gnosticism, 60, 122; encourages 
 celibacy, 138. 
 
 Great men are polygamists, 172. 
 
 Greece, superior type of women 
 in its polygamous period, 243; 
 the open sensuality of its mo- 
 nogamous period, 244. 
 
 Harlot's progress, the, 163. 
 Henry H. and " Fair Rosamond," 
 
 189. 
 Henry VHI., and the English 
 
 Church, ]46 ; his six wives, 188 ; 
 
 divorce of Catharine, 191. 
 Herod Antipas, his adultery, 70. 
 Herod the Great, and his nine 
 
 wives, 71. 
 Home, woman's sphere, 161 ; 
 
 many women have none, 162, 
 
 213. 
 Hypocrisy of monogamy, 175. 
 
 Idolatry and monogamy, 59. 
 
 Impurity of monogamy, 79, 151, 
 244. 
 
 Infidelity, caused by our preju- 
 dices against the polygamy of 
 the Bible, 65. 
 
 Jealousy, does polygamy cause 
 it? 208. 
 
 Jesus did not abolish or change 
 marriage-laws, 69. 
 
 Johnson, Dr. Samuel, on ridicul- 
 ing love, 35. 
 
 Josephine's divorce, 192. 
 
 Josephus on polygamy of Herod, 
 71. 
 
 Julia, daughter of Csesar, 88. 
 
 Julia, daughter of Augustus, 93. 
 
 Keightley, " History of Roman 
 Empire," 55, 88; his character 
 of Augustus, 97; of Tiberius, 
 101; on Gnosticism, 133; on 
 the errors of Roman Church, 
 136. 
 
 Laws, divine, natural, and civil, 
 26 ; of marriage are perpetual, 
 68; levirate, 75. 
 
 Lea's *' Sacerdotal Celibacy," 252. 
 
 Lecky's "History of European 
 Morals," 230. 
 
 Licentiousness, of clergy, 134, 138, 
 148; of Greece, open and ap- 
 proved, 244. 
 
 Liddell's, Dr., character of Cae- 
 sar, 90; of Augustus, 97. 
 
 Lima, " What I saw there," Bax- 
 ley, 138. 
 
 Literature, inspired by love, 31. 
 
 Livia Drusilla, wife of Augustus, 
 92. 
 
 Livia Orestilla, wife of Caligula, 
 103. 
 
 Locusta poisons Claudius, 111; 
 and Britannicus, 114. 
 
 Lollia Paullina, wife of Caligula, 
 104. 
 
 Love, defined, 28; refining, 29; 
 the birthright of all, 32; in- 
 spires literature and art, 31 ; its 
 gratification longed for, 33 ; ben- 
 eficial, 35; licentious, forbid- 
 den, 37 ; its relation to marriage, 
 38, 43. 
 
 Luther's doctrines, and his prac- 
 tice, 146. 
 
 McKnight's Commentary, 72. 
 
 Madan's " Thelyphthora," 225. 
 
 Marriage, defined, 40; its bene- 
 fits, 41; relations to love, 43; 
 few women decline it, 51 ; pre- 
 vented by monogamy, 53; cere- 
 mony of, 55; not changed by 
 the New Testament, 68; Ro- 
 man, 82 ; began to be forbidden 
 to the clergy in the fourth cen- 
 tury, 127 ; necessary to women, 
 150; prevents crime, 178; de- 
 graded by religious ascetics, 
 237. 
 
 Marriageable age of women, 47. 
 
 Massachusetts, statistics of, 47, 
 49, 204. 
 
 Mediaeval immorality, 133. 
 
 Men and women, comparative 
 number of, 47. 
 
 Merivale's " History of Romans," 
 quoted, 54, 81. 
 
 Messalina's lust and cruelty, 107- 
 109. 
 
 Milton, John, quoted, 3, 39, 201, 
 214, 236. 
 
INDEX. 
 
 277 
 
 Missionaries do not treat polyga- 
 my uniformly, 17-21. 
 
 Monogamy, defined, 40; prevents 
 marriage, 44, 53; cannot exist 
 with idolatry, 59; of bishops, 
 71, 253; origin of, 78; Greek 
 and Roman, 79; of the Caesars, 
 84 ; as it is to-day, 144 : causes 
 seduction, 159 ; causes chastity 
 and religion to be hated, 166; 
 brutality of, 169; hypocrisy of, 
 175; arguments for, examined, 
 247. 
 
 Montanus, his doctrines, 126. 
 
 Morality of polygamy, 73, 242. 
 
 Morals, impure, of monogamy, 
 82, 152. 
 
 Mosheim, quoted, 125, 133. 
 
 Murder, caused by monogamy, 
 186. 
 
 Mutius and his boy, 239. 
 
 Neo-Platonism, 126. 
 
 Napoleon's divorce of Josephine, 
 
 192. 
 Nero's seven marriages, 112. 
 Nuns and nunneries, 149. 
 
 Origen's Gnosticism and mutila- 
 tion, 126. 
 
 Passions, the intensity of, 171, 
 
 Philanthropy, higher law of, 153. 
 
 Plurality of husbands, 216. 
 
 Polygamy, defined, 10, 63; little 
 known, 10; prejudices against, 
 10, 23, 57 ; has always been prac- 
 tised, 11; challenges examina- 
 tion, 12; objections to it an- 
 swered, 46, 208; origin of, 61; 
 not barbarism, 58, 61; gives 
 every woman a husband and a 
 home, 62; taught in the Bible, 
 63 ; of David, 64 ; God attests its 
 innocence, 64; before Moses, 
 68; morality of, 73; of early 
 Christians, 74; commanded by 
 the Bible, 75. 
 
 Polygamists, converted, 17; their 
 chastity, 60, 241 ; great men are, 
 
 172; are public benefactors, 
 
 249. 
 Prostitutes, licensed by Caligula, 
 
 105; and now in France, 153. 
 Prostitution a necessary part of 
 
 monogamy, 151, 251. 
 
 Religion hated by monogamists, 
 167, 170. 
 
 Roman marriages, infrequent, 54; 
 not permanent, 81. 
 
 Roman Catholics more consistent 
 than Protcstaiits in their mo- 
 nogamy, 147. 
 
 Roman Catholicism, its origin, 
 136; governs Protestants still, 
 144. 
 
 Sex, moral difi'erences of, 215, 
 
 216. 
 Simeon Stylites, the saint, 238. 
 Statistics given, 4.3-49, 204. 
 Strabo ou Corinthian morals, 80. 
 
 " Thelj'phthora " of Dr. Madan, 
 
 225. 
 Theodosius abolishes paganism, 
 
 130. 
 TihoriuSjhis marriages and vices, 
 
 98-100. 
 Truth to be loved and followed, 
 
 24, 145. 
 
 Virtue of polygamists, 60, 241, 
 243. 
 
 Woman, why God made but one, 
 62 ; called by ascetics, the door 
 of hell, 237 ; her sphere, 161 ; 
 her love and man's, diflferent, 
 217; her dependence, natural 
 and honorable, 209. 
 
 Women, often denied the right of 
 marriage, 44; more numerous 
 than men, 45; marriageable age 
 of, 49; are superior to men in 
 some things, 215; are less am- 
 orous than men, 23, 62, 169. 
 
 Women's rights, 158, 210. 
 
 Women's wrongs, 157. 
 
NOTICES OF THE PRESS. 
 
 From " The Boston Advertiser ,^^ Sept. 1, 1869. 
 " ' The History and Philosophy of Marriage, or Polygamy 
 and Monogamy Compared/ ... is a serious defence of 
 polygamy from a Christian standpoint. The author is a 
 Kew-Englander by birth, a Puritan by education, who has 
 lived many years in India. . . . His obsei-vations there, 
 and acquaintance with missionary laborers, have inclined him 
 to look with favor upon polygamy, and he has evidently 
 given much study and thought to the subject." 
 
 From " The Banner ofLight,^^ Boston, Sept. 8, 1869. 
 " Here is ' a Christian plea for polygamy.' As such it 
 will be read, first out of curiosity, and afterwards for the 
 ideas it advances. The latter are nowise new, yet the author 
 puts them together in an original manner, and with much 
 force. It is well to have the subject of marriage discussed in 
 all its bearings. This book attempts that. It considers the 
 primary laws of love and marriage, the origin of polygamy, 
 the origin of monogamy, the development of the rule of 
 monogamy, how it is related to crime, the current objec- 
 tions to polygamy. Appended to the whole is a chapter of 
 notices and reviews, including a searching one of Lccky's 
 * History of European Morals.' The book will excite to 
 reflection wherever read, and is well worth reading." 
 
 From " The Springfield Republican, '^^ Sept. 8, 18G9. 
 "Here we have a devout person, learned in the Scriptures 
 and in other lore, who stoutly charges that monogamy is the 
 relic of barbarism, and calls polygamy the proper and civiliz- 
 278 
 
ing institution. . . . Startling and repulsive as this position 
 is, there is really more to be said in its favor than any one 
 who has not read this book may imagine." 
 
 From " The Evening JSFeias,'^ Salt Lake Citijj Sept. 8, 1869 
 " It is gratifying to every lover of truth — in these days, 
 when, instead of worshipping God, men bow down to the 
 shrine of popularity — to sec a man fearlessly step forward, 
 and declare the sincere convictions of his soul, though, in 
 so doing, he conies directly in contact with the prejudices 
 of the age. The views of the writer of this book are con- 
 sidered peculiar and startling ; but he is credited with sin- 
 cerity. Hon. Geo. Wm. Curtis, M.A., Professor of Recent 
 Literature in Cornell University, and F. B. Sanborn, M.A., 
 associate editor of *The Springfield Republican,' who read 
 the proof-sheets of the work, say that it has the curious dis- 
 tinction of being a Christian plea for polygamy ; but that the 
 author has treated a very difficult and delicate subject with 
 knowledge, candor, and evident sincerity of purpose; and 
 while it advances opinions with which they cannot agree, 
 they cannot quarrel with its spirit; and as its statements and 
 arguments are founded on extensive observation and reading, 
 it is entitled to attention, respect, and refutation, not to be 
 met with mere contradiction, but with argument. 
 
 " This is fair, and an evidence that the world moves. . . . 
 It is a book that should have a wide circulation and an atten- 
 tive perusal; both of which it will doubtless receive." 
 
 From " The Boston Journal,''^ Sept. 9, 1869. 
 " Mr. James Campbell has issued a work which will attract 
 some attention, and probably draw out some criticism. It is 
 entitled * The History and Philosophy of Marriage ; or, Po> 
 lygamy and Monogamy Compared. Its author is said to be 
 a minister; and, treating his subject from a Christian stand- 
 point, he makes an earnest plea for polygamy. While a 
 majority of its readers, we believe, will fail to be convinced 
 by its arguments, they will approve the spirit in which it is 
 written." 
 
 From *' Tlie Commonwealth ^'^^ Boston, Sept. 11, 1869. 
 " This book is put out by its author avowedly as a plea for 
 polygamy. It is correctly written, and is rather readable in 
 its style. It exhibits, too, in bome portions, considerable 
 research." 
 
 279 
 
From " The Boston Advertiser -^^ Sept. 12, 1869. 
 "The author, who has taken upon himself the task of vin- 
 dicating^ polygamy in the name of piiilanthropy, and has 
 adopted the comprehensive motto from an old play, * There 
 shall be no widows in the lind, for I will marry them all/ — 
 has undertaken a weighty task." 
 
 From ** The American Literani Gazette^'>^ PhiladeljJhia, Sept. 
 ^ 15, 1869. 
 
 " This is a difficult and delicate subject, treated in an honest 
 and straightforward way ; and, while we cannot agree with 
 the writer in his advocacy of polygamy, we must admire the 
 icarless candor with which he ])romulgates a doctrine which 
 lie sincerely believes will benefit his fellow-men. . . . The 
 book is in many ways a curious production, and will find 
 many readers among students both of religion and social 
 science.'' 
 
 From " The Central Christian Advocate,^^ St. Louis, Sept. 16, 1869. 
 " A writer of fair ability deliberately advocating polygamy. 
 The author's indictment of society is severe and deserved, 
 his remedy absurd and impossible." 
 
 From " The Watchman and Reflector,'^ Boston, Sept. 16, 1869. 
 " This is certainly a bold book. . . . Seems honest : is 
 written with ability." 
 
 From " The Sun,^> New York, Sept. 16, 1869. 
 " A hook in defence of polygamy, by a writer professmg to 
 be a Christian, is certainly a novelty calculated to awaken 
 attention. Such a book is 'Polygamy and Monogamy Com- 
 pared,' just published by James Campbell of Boston. . . . 
 On the scriptural and historical side of the argument, our 
 author is of course irrefutable. Polygamy is recognized and 
 approved over and over again in the Old Testament, and not 
 condemned in the New. Indeed, the injunction of the apostle 
 that a bishop should be the husband of one wife would seem 
 to imply that it was the custom for other persons in the 
 church at that day to have more than one. The practice of 
 the world from the earliest historical period is also in favor 
 of polygamy. . . . Polygamy is, as he says, better than 
 prostitution enforced by want, in which so many women are 
 now engaged ; and it certainly would be no worse if sanc- 
 tioned by law and custoai than as now practised by another 
 2S0 
 
name. ... In the marriage-service of the Church of Eng- 
 land, it is distinctly said that marriage was ordained of God 
 for the procreation of offspring, and the avoidance of fornica- 
 tion; and the Queen of England herself had to hear this 
 utterance as she stood at the altar with Prince Albert. Those 
 who talk of marriage in this way have nothing to do but to 
 keep silence when the polygamist speaks. He is simply 
 carrying out their principles to their logical results, and they 
 cannot meet him with arguments of the slightest force.'' 
 
 From " The Democrat^^^ St. Louis, September, 1869. 
 " This is a book of unusual character. . . . The author's 
 facts of history, civil and biblical, his views of ' the social 
 evil,' and its causes, are all presented in a pure spirit, and 
 with force." 
 
 From *' Coleman's liural World," St. Louis, September, 1869. 
 
 " We judge it will be read with great interest. It has been 
 written from a Christian standpoint, and abounds with im- 
 portant historical allusions." 
 
 From " The St. Louis Republican," September, 1869. 
 " It is such a work as could only be the result of full con- 
 fidence in the justice and right of the cause it advocates." 
 
 From " The New -York Times," September 18, 18G9. 
 " This little volume is a literary curiosity ... of earnest- 
 ness and research; and we cheerfully admit its right to a 
 courteous hearing." 
 
 From " Tlie New - York Citizen and Round Tabl^" September 18, 
 1869. 
 " It is evident that the work is not by Mr. Emerson, or by 
 Mr. Alcott, although it possibly may be by Mr. Greeley. . . . 
 What is important is, that such a work, being, as it is, pretty 
 thoroughly considered, and written with the fervor of pro- 
 found conviction, should appear at this juncture, as one of 
 the proofs of intense dissatisfaction with existing social rela- 
 tions, which, felt in Great Britain and this country, is stronger 
 in New England than anywhere else. Such a book is not 
 the token of individual caprice, or abnormal eccentricity 
 alone ; but of a pervasive uneasiness, — a general tendency to 
 social revolution (of which the movement for * Woman's 
 
 281 
 
Rights Ms merely one phase), whose manifestations promise 
 to be numerous and troublesome. . . . The arguments of * A 
 Christian Pliilanthropist' are rather numerous than novel, 
 although some of them strike us as both original and inge- 
 nious. . . . We have dwelt at some length upon this remark- 
 able book, not only because of the great interest of the sub- 
 ject, and the curious illustration it affords of how much can 
 be said in logical behoof of a system which most people are 
 aghast at the bare mention of, but because it tokens all man- 
 ner of perturbations to come." 
 
 From " The Weekly Student," Chicago, September 23, 1869. 
 " If any one wishes to see an out-and-out argument in 
 support of polygamy, as a curiosity, he may buy and read 
 this book." 
 
 From " The Advance," Chicago, September 23, 1869. 
 ' This is a marvellous work." 
 
 From " The Kciv - York Evening Post," September 25, 1869. 
 " This is one of the strange things of this strange time, — 
 a book written by a man of considerable ability and learning, 
 a large experience of life, and evident sincerity, in favor of 
 polygamy as a means of doing away many of the evils which 
 at present afflict society." 
 
 From " The Dedham Gazette," September 25, 1869. 
 " It displays a great knowledge of history ; and the author 
 has worked up his materials into a most interesting fonn. 
 While we difler with the author in his conclusions, we cannot 
 but admire the talent with which he treats his subject, and 
 the able manner of stating his premises and conclusions." 
 
 - From " The Albany Evening Journal," October 6, 1869. 
 
 "Among the sensational books recently published, few are 
 more striking, novel, or unique than that entitled *The 
 History and Philosophy of Marriage.' " 
 
 . '" 
 
 From " T7ie Religio- Philosophical Journal," Chicago, Oct. 23, 1869. 
 :" We never opened a book that contained as much valuable 
 information on the above subject as this work." 
 282 
 
From " The Atlantic Monthly,^^ Boston^ Kovember^ 1869. 
 
 " * The History ami Philosophy of Marriage ; or, Polygamy 
 and Monogamy Compared." '* Tlrere shall be no widows in 
 the land, for I will marry them all ; there shall be no orphans, 
 for I will father them ail." * 
 
 " There is a mingling of gayety and seriousness in this title 
 which at once fixes the attention. . . . We must own, that 
 there is Scripture for polygamy, and that, if sufficiently ex- 
 tended, it would put an end to the existing form of the social 
 evil, and would restore the lost numerical balance of the sexes, 
 by giving every lady a husband, more or less. But polyga- 
 my is a boon which, like the ballot, ought not to be be- 
 stowed, unsought by the sex supposed to be blest in receiv- 
 ing it. . . . Some people — we will not allow that they are 
 not the wisest people, though it may be worth while once for 
 all to silence them — hold that nothing is required to put an 
 end to all the pother about woman's right to vote, and to be 
 paid a man's wages for a man's work, but to give a husband 
 to each of the agitators. Why, then, should not the Christian 
 philanthropist — if he is a Christian philanthropist, and not 
 a Pagan Misanthrope in disguise — appear in person at the 
 next convention, and try, on the principle that half a loaf is 
 better than none, if the offer of part of a husband would not 
 suffice to hush the clamor? He himself is in a position to 
 become an unimpeded sacrifice to the truth, being, as he tells 
 us, a bachelor; and though we by no means think it just 
 always to hold the preacher to the practice of his precepts, 
 we are really almost persuaded that it is a duty in the present 
 case." 
 
 [We thank " The Atlantic " for this liberal suggestion, and 
 will take it into serious consideration : so look out for us at 
 the n^ext convention.] 
 
 From " The American PhrenobgicalJouimal^''^ Koveniher, 1869. 
 *' This is the title of an extraordinary work. . . . lie pro- 
 ceeds to consider his very important subject from points of 
 view, moral, physical, and political, and seeks to make a case 
 on his own side as strong as he can, assisted by extensive per- 
 sonal observation and much reading." 
 
 From " The Western Hampden Times,^' November 17, 1869. 
 " The author is plainly in earnest, and deals with his sub- 
 ject in no unintelligent manner ; having devoted much 
 thought to it. His arguments are ingenious, his style easily 
 followed and readily comprehended, his motives doubtless 
 pure." . 283 
 
Publisher's Advertisement. 
 
 Opinions of Eminent Literary Men. 
 
 Of Notices received from Competent Judges to whom 
 this work has been submitted we insert the fol- 
 lowing : — 
 
 From the Hon. G. W. Curtis, M.A., 
 Professor of Recent Literature in Cornell University. 
 I have read the proof-sheets of " The History and Philos- 
 ophy OF Marriage," in which the author treats a very diffi- 
 cult and delicate subject with knowledge, candor, and evident 
 honesty of purpose. It is the contribution of an argument, 
 usually wholly unconsidered, to the discussion ' of a question 
 which challenges the grave attention of civilization, and which 
 Mr. Lecky treats in his recent " History of European Morals," 
 reaching, however, a conclusion directly opposed to that of this 
 little work. This book has the curious distinction of being a 
 Christian plea for polygamy. I do not agi'ee with its conclusions ; 
 but 1 cannot quarrel with its spirit. 
 
 GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS. 
 July 9, 1869. 
 
 From F. B. Sanborn, M.A., 
 Associate Editor of the Springfield Republican. 
 
 The author of " The History and Philosophy of Mar- 
 riage " some time since submitted his manuscript to my exam- 
 ination, and I have read, with interest, the greater part of the 
 work. It advances opinions with which I cannot agree ; and 
 these are based upon premises that I should very much question ; 
 but as the expression of a sincere conviction founded on exten- 
 sive observation and reading, it seems to me entitled to atten- 
 tion, respect, and refutation, by those competent to meet the 
 arguments presented with otiier arguments, and not with mere 
 contradiction. F. B. SANBORN. 
 
 Springfield, Aug. 13, 1869. 
 
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