"Polygamy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... and the presence of their new master was gratifying to the people. But he never committed the folly of ordering any solemnity. He neither learned nor repeated any prayer of the Koran, as many persons have asserted; neither did he advocate fatalism, polygamy, or any other doctrine of the Koran. Bonaparte employed himself better than in discussing with the Imaums the theology of the children of Ismael. The ceremonies, at which policy induced him to be present, were to him, and to all who accompanied him, mere matters of curiosity. He never set ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... for I would, if called upon, die a martyr for the Christian religion, so completely is (in my poor opinion) its divine origin proved by its beneficial effects on the state of society. Were we but to name the abolition of slavery and of polygamy, how much has in these two words been granted to mankind by the lessons ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... Gershom (A.D.1000) who denounced it as a scandal to the Gentiles, the learned Prof. H. Graetz informs me, with some indignation, that the rite was never practised and that the great Rabbi contended only against polygamy. Female circumcision, however, is I believe the rule amongst some outlying tribes of Jews. The rite is the proper complement of male circumcision, evening the sensitiveness of the genitories by reducing it equally ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... worth a Note that, in spite of polygamy and divorce, a common proverb is monogamic, and divorce is spoken of as the ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 204, September 24, 1853 • Various
... briefs practised all the enormities which humanity alone can conceive or perpetrate. The prophet proclaimed himself King of Sion, and sent out apostles to preach his doctrines in Germany and the Netherlands. Polygamy being a leading article of the system, he exemplified the principle by marrying fourteen wives. Of these, the beautiful widow of Matthiszoon was chief, was called the Queen of Sion, and wore a golden crown. The ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... they goes out to get what they call converts, preaches a lot about the prophet, and a good deal about the comforts they would have in Utah. So much land for nothing, and so much help to set them up, and all that kind of thing, but mighty little about polygamy and the chance of their being handed over to some man old enough to be their father, and without their having any say in the matter. Howsoever, I did not see as I could interfere, and if I wanted to interfere I could not have done it; because all those women ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... they had given up and burnt all their idols, had ceased to practise their bloody and horrible rites, and had embraced Christianity—giving full proof of their sincerity by submitting to a code of laws founded on Scripture, by agreeing to abandon polygamy, by building a large place of worship, and by leading comparatively virtuous and peaceful lives. And all this was begun and carried on for a considerable time, not by the European missionaries but by two of the devoted native teachers, who had ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... at the end of each third year either male or female can divorce the other and is free to marry again. At the end of ten years the An has the privilege of taking a second wife, allowing the first to retire if she so please. These regulations are for the most part a dead letter; divorces and polygamy are extremely rare, and the marriage state now seems singularly happy and serene among this astonishing people;—the Gy-ei, notwithstanding their boastful superiority in physical strength and intellectual abilities, being much curbed into gentle ...
— The Coming Race • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... instead of arising in their might and passing a law that any one admitting he is a Mormon shall simply be deported and as it were kicked out of this free country in which we haven't got any room for polygamy and ...
— Main Street • Sinclair Lewis
... to the climate, for though the days were warm the nights were chilly, and the winters at times rather severe, the country being at a considerable height above the level of the sea. On the other hand, the Pachatupecs were truculent, gluttonous, and not very temperate; they practised polygamy, and all the hard work devolved on the women, whose husbands often brutally ill-used them. It was contrary to etiquette to ask a man questions about his wives, and if you went to a cacique's house you were expected either to ignore their presence ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... of a whole people for something like a thousand years, it is possible by judicious selection of texts to prove anything you wish to prove and to justify anything you wish to do. The "Holy Book" being full of polygamy, slavery, rape and wholesale murder, committed by priests and rulers under the direct orders of God, it was a very simple matter for the Protestant Slavers to construct a Bible ...
— The Profits of Religion, Fifth Edition • Upton Sinclair
... the arousal of the public conscience against political corruption, party corruption, and interparty as well as intraparty bribery and tyranny. There is accord between all the forces for betterment. Barbarism and cruelty toward the brute creation are as certainly doomed as polygamy and human slavery were. The needs of surgery will be preserved from wanton slaughter in the name of surgery, in times past, and now wrought by men called doctors and by cub-boys called students. The statesmen in politics are realizing this. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... was opposed to polygamy, and to the practice of burning prisoners. He is reported to have lived forty years with one wife, and to have reared a numerous family of children, who both loved and esteemed him. His disposition was cheerful, and his conversation sprightly and agreeable. In stature he was small, being ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... powers of the female greatly exceed those of the male; and hence the dissoluteness of morals would be phenomenal, were it not obviated by seclusion, the sabre and the revolver. In cold-dry or hot-dry mountainous lands the reverse is the case; hence polygamy there prevails whilst the low countries require polyandry in either form, legal or illegal (i,e. prostitution) I have discussed this curious point of "geographical morality" (for all morality is, like conscience, both geographical and chronological), ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 3 • Richard F. Burton
... longer contact with air, as do sometimes the bones themselves. A smaller skeleton—a woman's—likewise adorned, shares the honors of the gloomy abode. It is the wife, or perchance the favorite wife, polygamy (the custom of having many wives) having long been universal. In a circle around the two principal figures, but at a respectful distance, indicating their subordinate station, are disposed other skeletons, unclothed and unadorned, evidently slaves, probably favorite attendants. ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 44, September 9, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... one need fear the editor who indulged in diatribes against the prevalence of polygamy in Utah, but that malefactors had better look out when an editor took up his pen against abuses in his own city. We all tend to begin our reforms too far away from home. The man who wishes improvement strongly enough to set to work ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... despotisms. And Heeren is right in connecting this with another great fact, which is important from its influence both on the political and the social life of Asiatics. "Among all the considerable nations of Inner Asia, the paternal government of every household was corrupted by polygamy; where that custom exists, a good political constitution is impossible. Fathers being converted into domestic despots, are ready to pay the same abject obedience to their sovereign which they exact from their family and dependants in their domestic economy." ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... conviction that the charge against the Wesleyans made by the priests of adopting as proselytes all who offer without examination is quite unfounded. The putting away of all but one wife—no small sacrifice on the part of a people who have practised polygamy for ages—is always insisted on as a first step, and regular attendance on religious worship is also expected. Among the older Christians I saw every evidence of their having adopted the new faith from conscientious conviction, and the chiefs of the highest distinction are probably ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... name. The officer of Attila, called Eslas.) In either case the construction is imperfect: a good Greek writer would have introduced an article to determine the sense. Nor is it quite clear, whether Scythian usage is adduced to excuse the polygamy, or a marriage, which would be considered incestuous in other countries. The Latin version has carefully preserved the ambiguity, filiam Escam uxorem. I am not inclined to construe it 'his own daughter' though I have too little confidence in the uniformity of the grammatical ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... pious times, ere priestcraft did begin, Before polygamy was made a sin; When man on many multiplied his kind, Ere one to one was cursedly confined; When nature prompted, and no law denied Promiscuous use of concubine and bride; Then Israel's monarch after Heaven's ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... Polygamy is, of course, the general custom, the number of a man's wives depending entirely upon his wealth, precisely as would the number of his horses in England. There is no such thing as LOVE in these countries; the feeling is not understood, nor does ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Although polygamy be allowed by the government, as indeed it could not well happen otherwise where women are articles of purchase, yet it is an evil that, in a great degree, corrects itself. Nine-tenths of the community find it difficult to rear the offspring ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... again has interest in retaining many traits of primitive conditions among the early inhabitants of these isles which are preserved by no other record. Take, for instance, the calm assumption of polygamy in "Gold Tree and Silver Tree." That represents a state of feeling that is decidedly pre-Christian. The belief in an external soul "Life Index," recently monographed by Mr. Frazer in his "Golden Bough," also finds expression in ...
— Celtic Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... customs of that country. And the tale tells that a week or it might be ten days after his meeting with Florimel, Jurgen married her, without being at all hindered by his having three other wives. For the devils, he found, esteemed polygamy, and ranked it above mere skill at torturing the damned, through a literal interpretation of the saying that it is better to ...
— Jurgen - A Comedy of Justice • James Branch Cabell
... objects. Free of this inconvenience, when the majesty and grandeur of our God was manifest to them, they revered His adorable perfections. Even though there were perverse inclinations in the hearts of those natives, they were not given to polygamy; and when the holy law of God was explained to them, and the respect that the sanctity of marriage (which was elevated by Jesus Christ to the dignity of a sacrament) merits among Christians, they ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... so either prates commonplaces (the most likely and charitable suggestion), or is heartless himself, or is most singular and unfortunate in having made no friends. Many such a reasonable mortal cannot have: our nature, I think, not sufficing for that sort of polygamy. How many persons would you have to deplore your death; or whose death would you wish to deplore? Could our hearts let in such a harem of dear friendships, the mere changes and recurrences of grief and ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... nor will she dream that he is Apollo; nor will the pair moon in the twilight over the love of Hero and Leander. And the many monogamic generations out of which he has descended would fail to prevent polygamy did another woman chance to strand ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... circumstances, they are framed into distinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, so many MIXED MODES, a great part whereof have names annexed to them. Thus, supposing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return kindness received; polygamy to be the having more wives than one at once: when we frame these notions thus in our minds, we have there so many determined ideas of mixed modes. But this is not all that concerns our actions: it is not enough to have determined ideas of them, and to know what names belong to such ...
— An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume I. - MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books I. and II. (of 4) • John Locke
... populous of the Territories the constitutional guaranty is not enjoyed by the people and the authority of Congress is set at naught. The Mormon Church not only offends the moral sense of manhood by sanctioning polygamy, but prevents the administration of justice through ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... purgatory dependent upon the living! Why, I tell him, that smacks of Shintoism, wherein the living feed the dead! Then he points in holy indignation to the Bible. Bah! Cannot I prove anything I may wish from your Bible? What will you have? Polygamy? Incest? Murder? Graft? Hand me your Bible, and I will establish its divinity. No, my good friend. When you come to me with proofs that you really do the works of him whom you profess to follow, then will I gladly listen, for ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... swifter of wing, stronger, and even fiercer than the males. It may be inferred, that in the social life of "eagle-dom" the fair sex have their "rights," and perhaps a little more. One thing is certain, and it seems to be a consequence of this (in compliment to the sex I say it) that nothing like polygamy is known amongst them. Woe to the eagle husband that would even ...
— The Boy Hunters • Captain Mayne Reid
... Though polygamy has always been practiced, the custom to-day limits the wives to two, and only a few men have more than one wife. Where plural wives are taken they are generally sisters. There is little intermarriage among other tribes. Though it occasionally occurs it is fiercely ...
— The Lake of the Sky • George Wharton James
... of generations to prefer pairing with certain individuals of the other sex, characterized in some peculiar manner, the offspring would slowly but surely become modified in this same manner. I have not attempted to conceal that, excepting when the males are more numerous than the females, or when polygamy prevails, it is doubtful how the more attractive males succeed in leaving a larger number of offspring to inherit their superiority in ornaments or other charms than the less attractive males; but I have shown ...
— Little Masterpieces of Science: - The Naturalist as Interpreter and Seer • Various
... home-kingdom with absolute sway. Yet the Mpongwe do not, like other tribes on the west coast, practise that separation of the sexes during gestation and lactation, which is enjoined to the Hebrews, recommended by Catholicism, and commanded by Mormonism—a system which partly justifies polygamy. In Portuguese Guinea the enceinte is claimed by her relatives, especially by the women, for three years, that she may give undivided attention to her offspring, who is rightly believed to be benefited by the separation, ...
— Two Trips to Gorilla Land and the Cataracts of the Congo Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... Saint, is the Patron of Madrid, and has a Church dedicated to him, which is richly adorned within. The Sovereign Court of the Inquisition is held at Madrid, the President whereof is called the Inquisitor General. They judge without allowing any Appeal for four Sorts of Crimes, viz. Heresy, Polygamy, Sodomy and Witchcraft, and when any are convicted, 'tis called the Act ...
— Military Memoirs of Capt. George Carleton • Daniel Defoe
... Professor M. was there, etc. He says we've got to have polygamy in Europe after the war ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick
... expositor. Smoot takes his seat in the upper house of Congress with a first purpose of carrying forth, so far as lies within his hands, the plans of the conspirators. What is the purpose of the conspirators? To protect themselves and their fellow Mormons in the criminal practice of polygamy, and prevent their prosecution as bigamists ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee
... territory was killed by the border-guard if he was detected. Dogs and even human beings were offered as sacrifices. Their sentences for the expiation of crime were as barbarous as the people themselves. Noses and ears were cut off as the most ordinary punishment. Polygamy was practised, and eunuchs protected the harem. The ruler, who was called the 'Chagan,' had power of life and death over his subjects. He alone sat at table during his meals; his 'court,' including even his spouse, squatted ...
— Roumania Past and Present • James Samuelson
... Story. (1) To the Jews of that time it was a call to purity of life, for a return to those relations which God had ordained between man and woman. It was a protest against polygamy which had become almost universal. Indeed, they regarded it as setting forth the whole history of Israel. (2) To the Christian it sets forth in allegory, Christ and his church as Bridegroom and Bride and the fullness of love which unites the ...
— The Bible Book by Book - A Manual for the Outline Study of the Bible by Books • Josiah Blake Tidwell
... seats—but not to consider whether government ownership of railroads will improve upholstering; to know with certainty of perception that it is a bore to have one's husband laugh at one's pet economy, of matches or string or ice—but to be blandly willing to leave all theories of polygamy and polyandry, monogamy and varietism, ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... enthusiasm of poetry by poring through a microscope, and peeping through the keyholes of all the seraglios of all the flowers in the universe I hope his discoveries may leave any impression but of the universal polygamy going on in the vegetable world, where, however, it is more gallant than amongst the human race; for you will find that they are the botanic ladies who keep harams, and not the gentlemen. Still, I will maintain that it is much better that we should have two wives than your sex two husbands. ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... They could not see it. Highly respectable people—the pride of their parish, when they heard of a lecture "upon the Mormons"- -expected to see a solemn person, full of old saws and new statistics, who would denounce the sin of polygamy, and bray against polygamists with four-and-twenty boiling-water Baptist power of denunciation. These uncomfortable Christians do not like humour. They dread it as a certain personage is said to dread holy water, and for ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 1 • Charles Farrar Browne
... which caused them to gain sympathy as having been persecuted in a slave State. They moved to Hancock county, Illinois, in 1840, and built up Nauvoo by a charter with most unusual privileges. Smith here announced a new revelation, sustaining polygamy, which was supplemented by Young in 1852. His rebellious followers started a paper, which he promptly demolished. He was under arrest by the State authorities when a mob shot him on the 27th of June, 1844. On his death Brigham Young tricked the expectant ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... placed her fortune and her person at his absolute disposal. Cadijah, at the time of her marriage, was forty; Mahomet, twenty-five years of age. Till the age of sixty-four years, when she died, did Cadijah enjoy the undivided affection of her husband; "in a country where polygamy was allowed, the pride or tenderness of the venerable matron was never insulted by the society of a rival. After her death he placed her in the rank of the four perfect women: with the sister of Moses, the mother of Jesus, and Fatima, the best beloved of his ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 3 of 8 • Various
... drawn up, in which all these points were arranged, according to his own interested views. Gravina refused to subscribe to what he plainly perceived were only extortions; and the girl, in her turn, not only declined any further connection with him, but threatened to publish the act of polygamy. Before they had done discussing this subject, the door was suddenly opened and the two Spanish ladies presented themselves. After severely upbraiding Gravina, who was struck mute by surprise, they announced to the girl that whatever promise or contract ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... conducted by purchase, the wife being bought by the husband from her father's family. A relic of this custom perhaps still survives in the modern ceremony, when the father gives the bride in marriage to the bridegroom. Polygamy was not unknown; and it was usual for men to marry their father's widows. The wives, being part of the father's property, naturally became part of the son's heritage. Fathers probably possessed the right of selling their children into slavery; ...
— Early Britain - Anglo-Saxon Britain • Grant Allen
... that polygamy is a popular institution in Hindostan, the answer of a Hill-man to a Mofussil magistrate should suffice. "Do you keep more than one wife?" "We can hardly feed one; why should we keep more?" In fact, the privilege of maintaining a plurality of wives is ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Dr. Madan's famous book called "Thylipthora, or a Defence of Polygamy", with which they were prodigiously taken, and talked very freely of reducing the system to practice. Cornwallis, it seems, was to be a bashaw of three tails — Rawdon and Tarleton, of two each — and as a natural appendage of such high rank, they were ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... it to be so, the seventh is a puzzle to them. At the best they only believe it because we say that it is a Commandment of God. Look at the Canons of the early Church on the question; look how Luther sanctioned the polygamy, the double marriage, of the Landgrave of Hesse! So that although now, thank God, our scholars understand more of what is meant by living with a woman, and the relation of husband and wife is not altogether strange to them, yet it was not ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... quarrels between them, and gave me much trouble and anxiety for their safety. After Thomas and John arrived to manhood, in addition to the former charge, John got two wives, with whom he lived till the time of his death. Although polygamy was tolerated in our tribe, Thomas considered it a violation of good and wholesome rules in society, and tending directly to destroy that friendly social intercourse and love, that ought to be the happy result of matrimony and ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... to prove that the jealous fury of the males of certain animals proves nothing with regard to man; and the exceptional case of those southern regions were polygamy is the established custom, only confirms the rule, since it is the plurality of wives that gives rise to the tyrannical precautions of the husband, and the consciousness of his own weakness makes the man resort to constraint to evade ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Balkat, a short distance east of the Caspian, where we have already seen Aryan Atlantean colonies planted at an early day. "The third successor of Fuh-hi, Ti-ku, established schools, and was the first to practise polygamy. In 2357 his son Yau ascended the throne, and it is from his reign that the regular historical records begin. A great flood, which occurred in his reign, has been considered synchronous and identical with the Noachic Deluge, and to Yau is ...
— The Antediluvian World • Ignatius Donnelly
... same kind of pain, was fired by the same kind of anger, stung by the same kind of lust as our own? Can you say the person who fought many a sanguinary battle, who got through many cunning negotiations with enemies and friends, who personally experienced the troubles of polygamy, was a person sinless and divine? We might allow that these ancient sages are superhuman and divine, then our classification has no business with them, because they do not properly belong to mankind. Now, then, who can point out any sinless person in the present world? ...
— The Religion of the Samurai • Kaiten Nukariya
... lunatic or not; anyhow, he falls in love with the girl of the house. Unfortunately, rumour—a nasty, ill-natured thing—has it that Smith is a criminal. Evidence is collected, and a Grand Jury inquire into the charges, which include Bigamy, Murder, Polygamy, Burglary. It looks as if Smith is in for a very uncomfortable time, and the wedding bells are a ...
— Gilbert Keith Chesterton • Patrick Braybrooke
... outcry against Mormonism has been raised lately in this country. It is its polygamous character that has been attacked. But does polygamy deserve all that is said about it? It is not immoral and should not be criminal. Compare it with the very vicious modern custom of restricted families, which is immoral and should be criminal. Where is our population ...
— Ranching, Sport and Travel • Thomas Carson
... are called moral" are to be obeyed, but that the "civil precepts" of the Mosaic code ought not "of necessity to be received in any commonwealth;" from which we may conclude that the Church does not feel bound to enforce, as "of necessity," polygamy, prostitution, murder of heretics, and slavery. She does not venture to designate such precepts as immoral, but she does not feel bound in conscience to enforce them, for which small concession we must feel grateful. Passing from ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... subjected. The government had just succeeded, with some difficulty, in reducing these independent fanatics to its rule. It had made itself master of Utah, and subjected that territory to the laws of the Union, after imprisoning Brigham Young on a charge of rebellion and polygamy. The disciples of the prophet had since redoubled their efforts, and resisted, by words at least, the authority of Congress. Elder Hitch, as is seen, was trying to make proselytes on the very ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... of long-cherished errors, hugged by our forefathers as truths full of life and vigor, and have, indeed, so to speak, founded a Novum Organon in fact and reality, while the great Bacon proposed one in mind and theory. To our enlightened age it was reserved to return to polygamy, after nearly three thousand dragging years of dull adhesion of our race to tiresome monogamy, leaping back by one bound over the whole European Past into ancient and respectable Asia. Ex Oriente lux; ex Oriente gaudia seraglii! It is in our blessed epoch that atheism, by some, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 3, Issue 17, March, 1859 • Various
... Polygamy is not uncommonly practised; and an old man, especially, among other privileges, may have as many gins, or wives, as he can keep, or maintain. Indeed, the maintenance of a wife is not expensive, since they are expected to work; and all the most laborious tasks, including that of supplying ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... Considering the mulatto the key to the race problem in America, Mr. Reuter undertakes to show the extent of race mixture, its nature and growth. He discusses the intermarriage of the races, unlawful polygamy, intermarriage with Indians, intermixture during slavery and concubinage of black women with white men. He seems to know nothing of the numerous facts easily accessible in various works, which show that during slavery there was also a concubinage ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... This cannot be effected with polygamists; for they divide conjugial love; and this love when divided, is not unlike the love of the sex, which in itself is natural; but on this subject something worthy of attention may be seen in the section on POLYGAMY. ...
— The Delights of Wisdom Pertaining to Conjugial Love • Emanuel Swedenborg
... teaching monogamy in the future. Nothing will assure the enmity of a savage more than to ask him to discard any of his wives, and especially the mother of his children. While I would be the last man on earth to advocate polygamy, I can truthfully say that one of the happiest and most harmonious families I ever knew was that of the celebrated Little Crow (who, during all my official residence among the Dakotas, was my principal advisor and ambassador, and who led the massacre in 1862), who had four wives; but ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... though too frequent instances of it had been proved. Crimes might be falsely imputed. This he admitted; but only partially. Witchcraft, he believed, was the secret of poisoning, and therefore deserved the severest punishment. That there should be a number of convictions for adultery, where polygamy was a custom, was not to be wondered at. But he feared, if a sale of these criminals were to be done away, massacre would be ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament (1808) • Thomas Clarkson
... nothing, but out of Himself, and that death is, in the course of nature, total extinction of being, though not opinions received, were not singular. More startling, to European modes of thinking, is his assertion that polygamy is not, in itself, contrary to morality, though it may be inexpedient. The religious sentiment of his day was offended by his vigorous vindication of the freewill of man against the reigning Calvinism, and his assertion of the inferiority of the Son in opposition to the received ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... performed any idolatrous rites; who failed to see that there was anything more agreeable to flesh and blood in our customs than in their own; but who allowed that the missionaries were a wiser and superior race of beings to themselves; who practised polygamy, and looked with a very jealous eye on any innovation that was likely to deprive them of the services of their wives, who built their houses, gathered firewood for their fires, tilled their fields, ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... negative characteristics of much importance common to both. In no city of historical Greece did there prevail either human sacrifices or deliberate mutilation, such as cutting off the nose, ears, hands, feet, etc.; or castration; or selling of children into slavery; or polygamy; or the feeling of unlimited obedience toward one man: all customs which might be pointed out as existing among the contemporary Carthaginians, Egyptians, Persians, Thracians, etc. The habit of running, wrestling, boxing, etc., in gymnastic contests, with the body ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... mountains and of women fairer than the women of these days, and of doings so strange that the jaws of the listeners fall apart." They do not deal with "problems" about the propriety of cannibalism or the casuistry of polygamy [Laughter.] The Athenians fined for his modernite the author of a play on the fall of Miletus because he reminded them of their misfortunes. But many of our novelists do nothing but remind us of our misfortunes. Novels are becoming tracts on parish ...
— Modern Eloquence: Vol II, After-Dinner Speeches E-O • Various
... carry out its threat to secede and set up a separate government, the corner-stone of which should be, protection to the "Divine" institution of slavery. For there were people who believed in the "divinity" of human slavery, as there are now people who believe Mormonism and Polygamy to be ordained by the Most High. We forgive them for entertaining such notions, but forbid their practice. It was generally believed that there would be a flurry; that some of the extreme Southern States would go so far as to pass ordinances of secession. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... educated homosexual prostitutes, resembling those found in China and many regions of northern Asia, bearing also the same name of batsha, are said to be especially common because fostered by the scarcity of women through polygamy and by the women's ignorance and coarseness. The institution of the batsha is supposed to have come to Turkestan from Persia. (Herman, "Die Paederastie bei den Sarten," Sexual-Probleme, June, 1911.) This would seem to suggest that Persia ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 2 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... God who inspired Buddha, and Shakespeare, and Herschel, and Beethoven, and Darwin, and Plato, and Bach? No; not he. But in warfare and massacre, in rapine and in rape, in black revenge and deadly malice, in slavery, and polygamy, and the debasement of women; and in the pomps, vanities, and greeds of royalty, of clericalism, and of usury and barter—we may easily discern the influence of his ferocious and abominable personality. It is time to have done with this nightmare fetish of a murderous tribe of ...
— God and my Neighbour • Robert Blatchford
... enjoined as both meritorious and effective; and at five stated times every day must it be specially performed. The duties generally of the moral law are enforced, though an evil laxity is given in the matter of polygamy and divorce. Tithes are demanded as alms for the poor. A fast during the month of Ramzan must be kept throughout the whole of every day; and the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca—an ancient institution, the rites of which were now divested of their heathenish accompaniments—maintained. ...
— Two Old Faiths - Essays on the Religions of the Hindus and the Mohammedans • J. Murray Mitchell and William Muir
... institutions, all of which originate as private property. The primitive social family was not a state of promiscuity nor even the voluntary pairing of animals and birds, but it was private property in women, beginning as wife-capture and becoming wife-purchase and polygamy. Natural selection, too, is transcended when cannibalism ceases. The self-conscious victor enslaves his enemy and reduces him to property. Next, government arises as private despotism, and with it the land becomes the property ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... manias, bad temper, jealousy- there is a good deal of the old Adam in us which is just wholly bad and to be utterly done away with; rebellious impulses that are hopelessly at war with our own good and must go the way of cannibalism and polygamy. Morality is the stern exterminator of all such enemies of ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... worship. The records of religious cruelty are familiar. Wholesale slaughter, persecution, torture have been abundantly practiced in the name of religion.[2111] Many social institutions (such as slavery and polygamy) countenanced by a given age have been adopted in the religious codes of the age. These examples illustrate the fact that religion does not undertake to fix the details of ethical conduct—its role is something different. This statement applies to the institution of taboo, as is remarked ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... he ate, or where he slept, which, indeed, was mostly in the open. It seemed to me that he had cousins all over Servia, chiefly of the female persuasion, and I am morally certain that the Turkish strain in his blood had in Andreas its natural development in a species of fin-de-siecle polygamy. Sherman's prize "bummer" was not in it with Andreas as a forager. At first, indeed, I suspected him of actual plundering, so copiously did he bring in supplies, and so little had I to pay for them; but I was not long ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... Courtship and antenuptial relations Begging for the hand of the girl Determination of the marriage payment The marriage feast and payment The reciprocatory payment and banquet Marriage and marriage contracts The marriage rite Marriage by capture Prenatal marriage contracts and child marriage Polygamy and kindred institutions Endogamy and consanguineous marriages Intertribal and other marriages Married life and the position of the wife Residence of the ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Original MS.; Early English Poetry, MS. temp. James I.; Grammatical Treatises printed by W. de Worde; Facetiae; Works on Marriage Ceremonies, the Intercourse of the Sexes, and the Philosophy of Marriage; the Plague; Polygamy, Prostitution and its Consequences; Meteors and Celestial Influences; Miracles, Monkish Frauds and Criminal Excesses; Phrenology and Physiognomy, &c. Catalogues will ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 81, May 17, 1851 • Various
... held in somewhat greater respect. German matrons were esteemed as prophetesses and no battle was entered upon unless they had first consulted the lots and given assurance that the fight would be successful.[289] As for the British, who were not a Germanic people, Caesar says that they practiced polygamy and near relatives were accustomed ...
— A Short History of Women's Rights • Eugene A. Hecker
... it is spreading at the expense of polygamy even where not favored by legal interference. The change ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... the Union under the Topeka Constitution; and resolved, amidst the greatest enthusiasm, that "it is both the right and duty of Congress to prohibit in the territories those twin relics of barbarism, polygamy ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... So prone to reach high offices were intelligent eunuchs that it is related that parents were at times induced to treat their boys in the manner above stated, that they might be on the highway to royal favor, honor, and rank; such is the ennobling tendency of Oriental despotism, polygamy, and harem life. On the same principle Europeans subjected their boys to a like operation to fit them for a chorister life or the stage, where fame and honor and wealth were to ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... had to give way. The Amasuka were a polygamous people; all their law and traditions were interwoven with polygamy, and to abolish that institution suddenly and with violence would have brought their social fabric to the ground. Now, as he knew well, the missionary Church declares in effect that no man can be both ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... husband's house and then returns, and is again sent with the usual gauna ceremony, when she is fit for conjugal relations. No price is usually paid for the bride, and each party spends about Rs. 100 on the marriage ceremony. Polygamy and widow marriage are generally allowed, the widow being disposed of by her parents. The ceremony at the marriage of a widow consists in putting vermilion on the parting of her hair and bangles on her wrists. Divorce is allowed on pain of a fine of Rs. 50 if ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... strong support from Government. Nor can we explain this honourable reception by the "licentiousness" ignorantly attributed to Al-Islam, one of the most severely moral of institutions; or by the allurements of polygamy and concubinage, slavery,[FN330] and a "wholly sensual Paradise" devoted to eating, drinking[FN331] and the pleasures of the sixth sense. The true and simple explanation is that this grand Reformation of Christianity ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... regular business of military pioneering. In this case, therefore, there were thirty sons of one man, and all provided with princely establishments. Consequently, to have thirty sons at all was somewhat surprising, and possible only in a land of polygamy; but to keep none back in obscurity (as was done in cases where the funds of the family would not allow of giving to each his separate establishment) argued a condition of unusual opulence. That it was surprising is very true. But as therefore involving any argument against its truth, the ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... were not rosy. We said "love of a sort," and advisedly, for we cannot bring ourselves to believe that Burton was ever frenziedly in love with any woman. He was, to use his own expression, no "hot amortist." Of his views on polygamy, to which he had distinct leanings, we shall speak later. He said he required two, and only two qualities in a woman, namely beauty and affection. It was the Eastern idea. The Hindu Angelina might ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... that he 'brothered' me, and was angry and put my foot down. But he fell back upon the people and made incantations for three days, in which all hands joined; and then, speaking with the voice of God, he decreed polygamy by divine fiat. But he was shrewd, for he limited the number of wives by a property qualification, and because of which he, above all men, was favoured by his wealth. Nor could I fail to admire, though it was plain ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London
... probably flourished throughout the history of the world, that it exists among savages, even among animals, but we fail to observe how far that monogamy differs from ours, even assuming that our monogamy is a real monogamy and not a disguised polygamy, especially in the fact that it is a free union and only subject to the inherent penalties that follow its infraction, not to external penalties. Ours is not free; our faith in its natural virtues is not quite so firm as we assert; we are always meddling with it and worrying over its health and ...
— Essays in War-Time - Further Studies In The Task Of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... formal Sanhedrin was summoned in the following year, to which twelve test questions were submitted,—among them, whether the French Jews could regard France as their Fatherland and Frenchmen as their brothers, and the laws of the State as binding upon them. Further points were raised as to polygamy, divorce, and mixed marriages; other questions related to the position of Rabbis and the ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... Some Socialist thinkers, such as Saint-Simon and Enfantin, following the footstep of Plato, condemn marriage for life and recommend the organisation of procreation by the State. Others, such as Fourier, favour polygamy and polyandry. Others, such as Bellamy[935] and Kautsky,[936] believe that the people will remain attached to marriage as at present constituted. Others again find consolation in the fact that "despite the marital customs of the East, there is ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... races, but also among the Rajputs, the nobles, who think themselves dishonoured if one of their daughters remains unmarried. The inhabitants of the Island of Tikopia, kill more male children than female, a fact that accounts for their practice of polygamy. ...
— Criminal Man - According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso • Gina Lombroso-Ferrero
... where it is established, more females are born than males. This appears to be an indication of nature, and to nature apparently reasonable speculations must yield. A further conclusion obviously presents itself; if polygamy be necessary, woman must be inferior to man, and ...
— A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - Title: Vindication of the Rights of Women • Mary Wollstonecraft [Godwin]
... to himself. He knew nothing of Mormonism except the custom of polygamy, which is ...
— Around the World in 80 Days • Jules Verne
... highly developed domestic cult of those communities considered by the author of La Cite Antique, his statement will scarcely be called in question. But as regards ancestor-worship in general, it would be incorrect; since polygamy or polygyny, and polyandry may coexist with ruder forms of ancestor-worship. The Western-Aryan societies, in the epoch studied by M. de Coulanges, were practically [68] monogamic. The ancient Japanese society was polygynous; and polygyny persisted, after the ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn
... the laws against it, still practise polygamy, and that they have agents all over the world recruiting cuties ...
— The American Credo - A Contribution Toward the Interpretation of the National Mind • George Jean Nathan
... upon uncivilised ones which shock their moral sense beyond a certain point—as by cannibalism or human sacrifice. But such interference should stand upon a nice sense of the offender's rights, and in practice does so stand. The custom of polygamy, for instance (as practised abroad), horribly offends quite a large majority of His Majesty's lieges; yet Great Britain tolerates polygamy even in her own subject races. Neither polygamy nor uncleanliness ...
— From a Cornish Window - A New Edition • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... hostility of the Missourians, which was increased by propaganda among the Mormons for a "war of extermination against the Gentiles." In Illinois, whither many of the "Saints" now removed, Smith had a revelation approving polygamy, which pleased him very much, but which roused opposition among his followers as well as his persecutors. In 1844 he and his brother Hyrum were arrested on a charge of treason in the town of Nauvoo ...
— The Greatest Highway in the World • Anonymous
... ago Lord ROBERT CECIL referred to a rumour that the German Government intended to encourage polygamy. Mr. KING, shocked to discover that this charge rested upon a statement in a neutral newspaper, protested against the practice of making speeches "on such miserable foundations." As the bulk of the hon. Member's own utterances have a similar basis the retort ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Dec. 12, 1917 • Various
... wives, and men in the prime of life married to old widows. As a rule wives are not obtained by the men until they are at least thirty years of age. Women have very frequently two husbands during their lifetime, the first older and the second younger than themselves. Of course, as polygamy is the rule and the men of the tribe exceed the females in number besides, there are always many bachelors in every tribe; but I never heard of a female over sixteen years of age who, prior to the breakdown of aboriginal ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... he had nothing to do; but, if this be established, its supernatural origin, and therefore, supposing theism, its truth, is already proved, and can only receive confirmation from the argument of adaptability. If the Book of Mormon really came down from Heaven, my conviction that polygamy is not for the best, would seem a feeble objection against its claims. That the Judaeo-Christian religion is supernatural and is from without, not only with respect to the individual but to the race; that it is an external, God-given rule, awakening, explaining, ...
— The Faith of the Millions (2nd series) • George Tyrrell
... there existed some country in which, for one reason or another, it was impossible to take a census, but in which it was known that every man had a wife and every woman a husband, then (provided polygamy was not a national institution) we should know, without counting, that there were exactly as many men as there were women in that country, neither more nor less. This method can be applied generally. If there is some relation which, like marriage, connects the things in one collection each with one ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... of his who from time to time had urged him to put her away by divorce, and marry a Protestant who might bear him children. Even my Lord Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Burnet, had, thirteen or fourteen years ago given as his opinion that a barren wife might be divorced, and even that polygamy was not contrary to the New Testament! This, however, Charles had flatly refused to countenance; and, when he thought of it, now and again, shewed her a sort of compassionate kindness, in spite of his distaste for her company. Yet his very compassionateness ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... with practices. Judaism, which added to the Bible the fruits of centuries of spiritual evolution in the shape of the Talmud, has passed utterly beyond the more primitive stages of the Old Testament, even as it has replaced polygamy by monogamy. That Song of Hate at the Red Sea was wiped out, for example, by the oft-quoted Midrash in which God rebukes the angels who wished to join in the song. "How can ye sing when My creatures are perishing?" The very ...
— Chosen Peoples • Israel Zangwill
... legally recognise polyandry and polygamy is well known. Very little, however, has hitherto transpired as to the actual form of these marital customs, so that the details which follow, startling as they may seem when regarded from a Western standpoint, will be found not ...
— In the Forbidden Land • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... the Empire polygamy prevails for those who can afford it, in Tibet polyandry crops up. Which is the more offensive to good morals we need not decide; but is it not evident that Confucianism shows its weakness on one side as Buddhism does on the other? A people that tolerates either ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... morals far superior to his Tibet and Bhotan neighbours, polyandry being unknown, and polygamy rare. This is no doubt greatly due to the conventual system not being carried to such an excess as in Bhotan, where the ties of relationship even ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... had one day driven my wife out of the wigwam in consequence of her presuming to "talk too much," as the Indian said, when the interpreter told me that one of the chiefs was willing that I should marry his daughter, polygamy ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... of office still another state entered the Union. This was Utah, the state founded by the Mormons. Polygamy being forbidden, it was admitted in 1896 as the ...
— This Country Of Ours • H. E. Marshall Author: Henrietta Elizabeth Marshall
... German, became the first Bishop of Prague. This worthy was succeeded after a few years by a native of Bohemia, Adalbert, who finally established Christianity in the country. He had a hard task, as many heathen customs, such as polygamy, were difficult to extirpate; there are even in this day very few churches dedicated to St. Anthony, a saint who does not seem to interest or convince the Bohemians. Adalbert carried his ideals farther afield, to the country ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker |
