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Updated: April 30, 2025
Fatherhood, in the full sense of the word, can hardly be said to exist under polygyny. Those philosophers, like Schopenhauer, who advocate the legalizing of polygyny in civilized countries, are hardly worth replying to. It is safe to say that any widespread practice of polygyny in civilized communities would lead to a reversion to the moral standards of barbarism in many if not in all matters.
We may note also the general truth, that while religion does not originate human institutions or the forms of human association, it is preeminently that which gives fixity and stability to institutions through the supernatural sanction that it accords them. Some judgment of the social value of polygyny may not be out of place in connection with this subject.
This is not, however, true in all cases and particularly it was not true of all intermixture that took place under the regime of slavery. Rather intermixture under such circumstances approached not vice, as we understand the word, but polygyny. Consequently some of the best blood of the South runs in the veins of some of the mulattoes.
The most common variation, and that which most clearly possesses a biological foundation, is the tendency to polygyny, which is found at all stages of culture, even, in an unrecognized and more or less promiscuous shape, in the highest civilization.
Polygyny had some social utility, because it increased the number of children, and this gave added prestige and power to the family, as slavery had utility because it provided a labor force; but both were weaknesses in ancient society, because they did not tend in the long run to human welfare.
Another variety of marriage that has been less common than polygyny is polyandry. It is a term that signifies the marriage of one woman to several husbands, and seems to have occurred, as in the interior of Asia, only where subsistence was especially difficult or women comparatively few. Neither polygyny nor polyandry were universal, even where they were a frequent practice.
The story of human progress shows that in the social conflict those groups survive which have become best adapted to life conditions and so are fitted to cope with their enemies. In the story of the family male leadership proved most useful and was perpetuated, but the practice of polygyny and polyandry proved in the long run to be hurtful to success in the sturdy struggle for existence.
Among our European ancestors, alike among Germans and Celts, polygyny and other sexual forms existed as occasional variations. The corresponding institution of the concubine has been still more deeply rooted and widespread.
We know of no instances of polygyny amongst them; though we know of cases in which a Punan woman has become the second wife of a man of some other tribe. On the other hand, polyandry occurs, generally in cases in which a woman married to an elderly man has no children by him. They desire many children, and large families are the rule; a family with as many as eight or nine children is no rarity.
Two facts always need to be borne in mind regarding polygyny: First, that wherever it is practiced it is relatively confined to the upper and wealthy classes, for the reason that the support of more than one family is something which only the wealthy classes in a given society could assume.
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