Thus it appears that it is the scarcity of husbands or
wives of high quality that leads woman to polygyny and men to
polyandry, and that if this scarcity were cured, monogamy, in the
sense of having only one husband or wife at a time (facilities for
changing are another matter), would be found satisfactory.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIENTAL AND OCCIDENTAL POLYGYNY
It may now be asked why the polygynist nations have not gravitated
to monogamy, like the latter-day saints of Salt Lake City. The
answer is not far to seek: their polygyny is limited. By the
Mohammedan law a man cannot marry more than four wives; and by the
unwritten law of necessity no man can keep more wives than
he can afford; so that a man with four wives must be quite as
exceptional in Asia as a man with a carriage-and-pair or a motor
car is in Europe, where, nevertheless we may all have as many
carriages and motors as we can afford to pay for. Kulin polygyny,
though unlimited, is not really a popular institution: if you are
a person of high caste you pay another person of very august caste
indeed to make your daughter momentarily one of his sixty or
seventy momentary wives for the sake of ennobling your
grandchildren; but this fashion of a small and intensely snobbish
class is negligible as a general precedent.
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