CHAPTER IX.
POLYGAMY OF CIVILISED PEOPLE.
I. The Stage of Polygamy.—Primitive polygamy—Man resigns himself to monogamy.
II. Arab Polygamy.—Why the Mussulmans have remained polygamous—The inferiority of woman proclaimed by the Koran—Polygamic restrictions in the Koran—Religion sanctions the right of conjugal property—The purchased woman—The conjugal prerogatives of the prophet—Duties of the polygamous husband—Celestial polygamy—The Mussulman marriage is laic—Female merchandise—The preliminaries of marriage—Duties and obligations of the Mussulman husband; his rights—Marriage in Kabyle—Cruel subjection of the Kabyle wife—Sale and purchase of the wife—Excessive rights of the Kabyle husband—The Kabyle marriage is inferior to the Arab marriage—Polygamy and the subjection of women.
III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.—Monogamy of the priests in Egypt—Polygamy of the Incas and of the nobles in Peru—Polygamy of the nobles in Mexico—Polygamy with monogamic tendency.
IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.—Polygamy and concubinage of princes in Persia—Severity of sexual morality in the Avesta—Polygamy according to the Rig-Veda—Polygamy in the Code of Manu—Evolution of polygamy in India—How monogamy became established.
Our inquiry is already sufficiently advanced to give us an idea of the first phases of the evolution of marriage. To begin with, both in the case of human beings and of anthropoid apes, sexual unions have not been reduced to any rule; promiscuity has been rare and exceptional, but polygamy has been very common, at least a gross polygamy, not regulated in any way, and merely resulting from the monopoly of the women by the strongest or the richest men. It has been a sort of conjugal anarchy, admitting simultaneously of various matrimonial forms, as polyandry, term marriage, experimental marriage, etc., during periods of more or less length.
Besides their primordial rôle as child-bearers, wives were found very useful in other ways—either for the satisfaction of sensual desires, or for the execution of a number of painful labours; and therefore men endeavoured to procure as many of them as possible, first by capture, and then by purchase, or by giving a certain amount of work in submitting to a temporary servitude. In the preceding chapter I have given the history of this primitive, savage polygamy which as yet no law regulated.
During the first phases of their social evolution, all the human races have practised, with more or less brutality, this gross polygamy. We have seen—and it is a subject to which I shall have to return—how, in the bosom of the polygamic régime, monogamic tendencies have appeared, which by degrees have ended by prevailing amongst all the more civilised races. These races have resigned themselves to adopt monogamy, or at least legal monogamy. I say “resigned,” for it seems that monogamy costs much to man; in reality laws and customs have everywhere attenuated the severity of it for him by various compromises of which I shall soon have to speak.
However, among the superior races, there is one, the Arab race, which, up to our own time, has maintained and legalised the polygamic régime, while propagating and regulating it among the various peoples that have come under its domination. If, in this respect, the Arab race has been an exception to the general evolution, it is not because it is less gifted than the others; it has sufficiently proved this. According to the ancients, a fantastic fish, the remora, had the power of suddenly stopping the passage of ships at sea; religion has played this part for the Arabs. Theoretically, all the great and solidly constituted religions are incompatible with progress. Although relatively they may appear innovations at the moment of their birth, yet they bar the route of the future, and, as much as is in their power, oppose all ulterior evolution. This is imperative, since they pretend to declare the immutable will of divine personages, who are omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly wise, and who cannot consequently either re-touch or amend the laws that they make, and the commands they give to poor human creatures. Now, Islamism arose amidst the full polygamic régime; its founder could not even dream of establishing any other. Polygamy was therefore established by divine right among the faithful, and as at the bottom it is in accord with the primitive instincts of man, it has maintained itself in Mussulman countries from the time of Mahomet to our own days. From the sociological point of view this is a most interesting fact, for it gives us the opportunity of studying and estimating the polygamic régime in its full development.
Let us listen at first to the Koran; we will then consult the Arabian jurists and the customs of contemporary Arabs.
To begin with, the holy book loudly proclaims the inferiority of women, which naturally justifies their subjection, and this subjection is great in all polygamous countries. There is no ambiguity on this point in the words of the prophet: “Men are superior to women by reason of the qualities God has given them to place them above women, and because men employ their wealth in giving dowries to women. Virtuous women are obedient and submissive; they carefully guard, during their husband’s absence, that which God has ordered them to preserve intact. Thou shalt correct those whom thou fearest may be disobedient: thou shalt put them in beds apart: thou shalt beat them: but as soon as they obey thee again, do not seek cause for quarrel with them. God is merciful and great.”[394]
This text is eloquent. It first of all consecrates masculine superiority by divine right, then marriage by purchase, and lastly, the liberty of the husband to treat his wives with brutality.
The restrictions on polygamy found in the Koran are very slight: “Marry not the women whom your fathers had to wife: it is a sin, and abomination: except what is already past.”[395]
No retrospective effect here! We may conclude from this that, up to the time of Mahomet, the sons inherited the harem of their father, as is still the case in a number of little despotic states of negro Africa.
The holy book also commands respect for the feminine property of others, save in the case of capture by war or of religious infidelity of the husband. “You are forbidden to take to wife free women who are married, except those women whom your right hand shall possess as slaves: such is the law of God.”[396] “O believers! when believing women come unto you as refugees, try them. And if you know them to be true believers, send them not back to their infidel husbands; but give their husbands back what they have expended for their dower.”[397] In the Koran the respect for money is already much greater than for females. The wife must be purchased. “It is permitted unto you to procure wives with money, and you shall keep them in virtuous ways, avoiding debauchery. Give unto her with whom thou dost cohabit the dower thou hast promised.”[398]
The prophet counsels the faithful, without however commanding it, to have a small number of wives: “But if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably towards the orphans, take in marriage of such other women as please you, two, or three, or four, and not more.”
The text ends with a permission to the man merely to pay a fictitious dowry to the wives: “Assign dowries freely to your wives, and if it pleases them to give you back a part, enjoy it conveniently at your ease.”[399]
As for the prophet himself, he was to be above most of the restrictions which he imposed on others: “O prophet, we have allowed thee thy wives unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy right hand possesseth of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the daughters of thy uncle, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on thy father’s side and on thy mother’s side, who have fled with thee from Mecca, and any other believing woman, if she give herself unto the prophet.”[400] “O prophet, if believing women come to thee for an asylum, having promised thee that they will flee idolatry, that they will not steal, nor commit fornication, nor kill their children, and will not disobey thee in anything that is just: believe them and pray for them: God is indulgent and merciful.”[401] This last text gives a sad enough idea of the morality of the Arab women before the time of Mahomet; but taken together with the preceding one, it shows how convenient and even agreeable it is to be the interpreter of the Divine will.
With such facilities for recruiting, the harem of the prophet must have been richly furnished; therefore he has taken care to free himself from one duty which he recommends to others, of debitum conjugale: “Thou mayest,” he says to himself, “either grant or refuse thy embraces to thy wives.”[402]
On the contrary, he says to vulgar believers: “Ye can by no means carry yourselves equally between wives in all respects, though you study to do it; therefore turn not from a wife with all manner of aversion, nor leave her like one in suspense; if ye agree and fear to abuse your wives, God is gracious and merciful.”[403]
Polygamy is not rare in the world. We have seen it and shall see it again in the course of our inquiries; but the polygamy of the Koran has an advantage over most of the others; it is at once celestial and terrestrial, for the paradise of true believers is only an ideal harem: “Say, O believer, what shall I declare of greater benefit for those who fear God, than gardens through which flow rivers of water, where they shall dwell for ever, and there shall be women, who are pure virgins, etc.[404]... Damsels having large black eyes. Therein shall be agreeable damsels, whom no man or genius hath deflowered.[405] There shall be young and beautiful virgins.[406]... And near them (the elect) shall be houris with large black eyes, having complexions like rubies and pearls.[407] Verily we have created the damsels of Paradise by a peculiar creation.”[408]
The whole of this sacred code sanctifies the inferiority of the woman, and this inferiority has not been at all mitigated in practice; for iniquity, always tenacious, is far more so when it is authorised by religion.
We must notice, however, in regard to Mussulman marriage, a circumstance which at first sight is singular: it is that Mahometanism intervenes in nothing, as religion, in all that concerns marriage; all conjugal matters are absolutely private, and even the civil power does not appear any more than the religious power in the celebration of marriage.
As a general rule, the future husband goes to declare his union to the sheik or cadi, who then remits the minute of it to the interested party, without keeping a copy of it. This formality is, besides, in no way obligatory; the marriage is considered as a private act, and if afterwards any disputes should arise in relation to it, the parties concerned arrange them as well as they can, by appealing to the testimonial proof.[409]
It all amounts to this, that for Mussulmans the wife is a thing, and the marriage a simple bargain. The wife is always sold to the husband, and the price is discussed either by her legal representative or by her conventional agent. The nuptial gift is even essential to marriage, and if it has not been paid the wife has the right to refuse all intimate commerce. “The wife sells herself,” says Sidi Khelil; “and every vendor has the right to retain the merchandise sold until after taking the payment.”[410] Before buying, the suitor is allowed to see the face and the hands of the bride; for the hands of the woman are reputed to give an idea of her personal beauty.[411]
A man ought, whenever possible, to marry a virgin, and the bargain may be concluded several years before the delivery of the merchandise.[412] If the girl is still a virgin, not emancipated, but beyond the age when it is considered necessary to commence the special rôle reserved to her sex, the father has the right to impose marriage on her.[413]
The orphan girl can also be married by the authority of the Cadi, if she is more than ten years old, and if there is reason to fear that she may lead an irregular life.[414]
In all other cases the consent of the girl is necessary. This circumstance, let us especially note, constitutes a real moral progress beyond savage polygamy, and we shall presently see that it is not yet realised in Kabyle. The consent of the girl is given in two ways, according to whether she is a virgin or not. This interesting particular must be frankly declared during the negotiation; the Koran commands it. If the girl is a virgin, it is understood that modesty should deprive her of speech, and in order to signify yes or no, she must have recourse to the language of signs. She can, for example, show her repugnance by covering her face, and her content by smiling. But if she is no longer virgo intacta she is allowed to speak freely.[415]
We have seen that, according to the Koran, the woman owes her master an absolute submission; and he, in return, whatever may be the number of his wives, binds himself morally not to leave any one of them “as in suspense.” This precept of the sacred code is specifically carried out. Every Mussulman owes to his wives an equal share of his nights, and she who has had the favour of the night has a right to the following day also.
When the husband buys a fresh wife he is indebted to her seven successive nights if she is a virgin; for three only, in a contrary case. He has the right to refuse greater exactions than this.[416]
But the husband has other obligations. He must supply food to his wife, even if she is afflicted with a voracious appetite. This last case is considered as a calamity, but the husband must resign himself to it, or repudiate the glutton.[417]
The husband owes, besides, to his wife or wives water to drink, water for ablutions and purifications, oil to eat, oil to burn, oil for cosmetic unctions, wood for cooking and for the oven, salt, vinegar, meat every other day or otherwise, according to the custom in various countries. He must supply them with a mat or a bed—that is to say, a mattress—and a cover to put on the mat. These duties have correlative rights. The husband has the right to forbid his wife to eat garlic, or to eat or drink any other thing which may leave a disagreeable odour. He may interdict any occupation likely to weaken her, or impair her beauty.[418] Finally, if she refuses her conjugal obligations without reasonable motives, the husband can at will deprive her of salt, pepper, vinegar, etc.[419] The sum total of these restrictions renders an Arab woman’s position a very subordinate one, both before and after marriage. But the fate of the Kabyle woman is much more miserable.
We are always hearing it repeated in France that the Kabyle man is monogamous, and consequently not so different from ourselves in this respect as the Arab; but among the Kabyles, as among the Arabs, it is polygamy which is legal; and if the greater number of the Kabyles are monogamous in practice, it is chiefly from economy.
In spite of their republican customs, of their respect for individual liberty, of the rights they accord to the mother, and of certain safeguards with which they protect the women in time of war, contrary also to the liberal tendencies of the Berbers in relation to women, the Kabyles of Algeria treat their married women and their daughters as actual slaves, and they are in this respect inferior to the Arabs themselves.[420] In all matters that refer to sexual relations the Kabyle customs are ferocious. Outside of marriage all union of the sexes is severely interdicted in Kabyle, and the married woman has no personality; she is literally a thing possessed.[421]
The young Kabyle girl is sold by her father, her brother, her uncle, or some relation (açeb); in short, by her legal owner. In announcing his marriage, a man says quite bluntly—“I have bought a wife.” When a father has married his daughter, the phrase in ordinary use is—“He has eaten his daughter.”[422]
Among the Cheurfas, but it is an exceptional case, the girl is consulted on the choice of a husband when she has attained the age of reason; everywhere else the virgin daughter is never consulted, and even the widow and repudiated wife, to whom the Mussulman law accords liberty, cannot dispose of themselves in Kabyle countries.[423]
In many tribes, however, the daughter can twice refuse the man that is proposed to her; but after that she has exhausted her right, and is forced to submit.[424]
The legal owner of the Kabyle woman generally gives her, at her wedding, garments and jewels; or rather, he lends them to her, for it is forbidden to the woman to dispose of them, and at her death these precious articles must be returned to her relatives.[425]
An essential condition of the Kabyle marriage, as of the Arab, is the payment of a certain price, generally debated, but which certain tribes of southern Jurjura have fixed once for all. This price is called the “turban” (thâmanth), as with us “pin-money” is spoken of. A penal sanction guarantees the payment of the thâmanth and the delivery of the person sold.[426]
In principle the woman has no right over the thâmanth.[427]
Besides the purchase money, or thâmanth, the Kabyle further stipulates in addition that he shall receive a certain quantity of provisions (cattle, or food, flour, oil, butter) to be consumed during the marriage festivities.
The villages which have tariffed the thâmanth have also fixed the amount of these presents.
The father likewise stipulates, for the benefit of the daughter who is sold, a gift of garments and of jewels; but this gift dispenses the husband from providing in this respect for the maintenance of the wife during one year. This is particularly necessary, because the bride, in quitting her parents, leaves them all that she has received,[428] and takes away nothing but her body.
It is sometimes the mother who thus makes the conjugal sale of her daughter, but on condition of being recognised as guardian; and even then she does not enjoy, like the father, an unrestrained power, and she has to consult her daughter.[429]
Once purchased, the Kabyle wife is entirely at the mercy of the husband-proprietor. She must follow him wherever it suits him to settle; her only actual possession is the raiment which covers her. Her husband has the right to chastise her with his fist, with a stick, with a stone, or even with a poignard. He is only forbidden to kill her without a reasonably serious motive.[430]
If, however, when she has become a mother, she is unable to suckle her child, the law decides that the husband is obliged to provide a wet nurse;[431] though this is more for the child’s sake than the mother’s, as she cares little enough about the infant.
The married woman is considered so entirely as property in Kabyle that the prolonged absence of the master is allowed to set her free. In this case she belongs, after four years, to her maternal relations, who have the right to re-marry her—that is to say, to re-sell her—unless the absent husband has left her a sufficient provision. However, the husband’s parents can delay the dissolution of the first marriage, sometimes for seven years, sometimes for ten years, but on condition of taking the place of the absent husband in furnishing the deserted wife with food and clothes.[432]
The Kabyle woman, therefore, married or not, is always a thing possessed. We shall see later that even widowhood does not enfranchise her. The right of correcting the woman who is not under the power of a husband ceases only when she has reached an age when marriage would be sterile, and especially if she has in a way abjured her sex by mixing with men in the markets.[433]
Very often the assimilation of the Kabyle people to the French is spoken of as a thing relatively easy. It appears to me that the servile subjection of the Kabyle woman is an almost insurmountable obstacle to this dream of fusion. Without doubt the married woman in France is only a minor; but in Kabyle she is still in the lowest stage of slavery. In this respect the Berbers of Kabyle are on a level with the coarsest savages; they are even inferior to the Arabs, although the latter have preserved almost unchanged the polygamic régime of the old Islamite, and even pre-Islamite ages. But in all times and all countries the condition of woman is the measure of the moral development of the whole people. Now, in regard to this there is a gulf between Kabyle and civilised Europe.
The polygamic régime has, besides, in every country an almost necessary result—the slavery of women. This is natural. As in the hordes of chimpanzees, the male, the anthropomorphous paterfamilias, only maintains his authority by force and by expelling his rivals, so, in human societies, the polygamous husband can hardly be anything but the proprietor of subjugated beings, not daring to aspire to freedom. It may be remarked also that the polygamic appetite, so habitual to man, cannot be strange to woman. Both have the same blood and share the same heredity. The polygamous husband, therefore, has always to prevent or repress the straying of his feminine flock by close confinement or by terror. Under a polygamic régime the wife has scarcely any rights; she has chiefly duties.
III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.
I have dwelt long enough on Mussulman polygamy. From a sociological point of view it is extremely interesting. It affords us the opportunity of studying from life customs which, with differences of detail, must have been those of all civilised peoples at a certain period of their evolution, and which probably have only been kept up among the Islamites on account of the confusion of civil and religious laws, these last giving to polygamy a sort of consecration.
In all the great primitive barbarous monarchies the polygamy of the first ages has been by degrees restrained or abolished, according to the measure of social progress.
In ancient Egypt polygamy was still in force; but already it was interdicted to the priests,[434] contrary to what has happened nearly everywhere. As a matter of fact, and by the simple necessity resulting from the proportion of the sexes, even when polygamy is authorised and legal, it is especially the luxury of rich and powerful men; the common people have everywhere been reduced to monogamy, whether they wished it or not. Under most of the great early despotic monarchies which had emerged from primitive savagery this fact became legalised, and plurality of wives constituted a privilege reserved to the great ones of the land.
In ancient Peru monogamy was obligatory for men who possessed nothing, but not for the Inca and the nobles of the kingdom. Thus the last Inca, Atahualpa, had three thousand wives or concubines. As generally happens when polygamy is restrained, there was already a hierarchy among the wives of the Inca; one of them, who was obliged to be his sister, the coya, was reputed superior to the others, and her eldest son succeeded his father.[435] On this point, as on many others, ancient Peru had unconsciously copied Egypt.
In Mexico also, monogamy was habitual for the poor, but the powerful and the nobles had a number of wives proportioned to their rank and to their riches.[436] In Mexico, as in Peru, polygamy was monogamic in the sense that one wife had pre-eminence over the others, and that her children alone inherited the paternal title and wealth.
This polygamy of princes and potentates, who by right of birth soar above the common rule, is found also in the great Aryan empires of Asia.[437]
IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.
The polygamy of the monarchs of ancient Persia seems to have been copied from that of the kings of Egypt, or of the Incas of Peru. They had numerous concubines and three or four wives, of whom one was especially considered as queen, or privileged wife.[438]
As for the Persians of more ancient times still, the Mazdeans who drew up the sacred code of the Avesta, if we refer to the Zend text, we find they had a most severe sexual morality. The Avestic code condemns and punishes resort to prostitutes, seduction, sexual extravagances, abortion, etc. Throughout that portion of the Avesta which has come down to us there is no recognition of polygamy, and the verses which mention marriage have quite a monogamic meaning. It seems, however, says one of the translators of the Avesta, that among the ancient Persians polygamy may have been authorised in case of sterility of the first wife.[439] Like anthropophagy, polygamy is an original sin with human societies. But writings so exclusively religious and even liturgic as the Avesta constitute very incomplete sources of information in regard to civil institutions. To study the marriage of the ancient Persians in the Avesta seems about as illusory as it would be to study ours in a Catholic prayer-book.
We know also, from the Code of Manu and historical and ethnographical documents, that polygamy is and has been far from being unknown in India, and yet it is difficult to prove from the text of the Vedic hymns that the writers of these chants have practised it.
This may be inferred, however, from several verses. In the beginning the morals were coarse enough for abortion to be common. “Let Agni,” we read in a hymn, “kill the rakchasa who, under the form of a brother, a husband, or a lover, approaches thee to destroy thy fruit.”[440] On the other hand, woman is held in slight esteem by the sacred chants. She is a being “of incapable mind and unfit for serious employment.”[441] In one hymn, Satchi, the daughter of Buloman, boasts of having eclipsed her rivals in the eyes of her husband.[442] A certain number of verses speak of the wives of the gods: “The praying cows, these wives of Agni, wish to obtain a proof of the virility of the god.”[443]
In Sanskrit the word “finger” is feminine, and thus very often the fingers which handle the sacred mortar are called the ten wives of Agni.[444]
In short, other accounts leave us no room to doubt that in primitive India, as elsewhere, the great and the powerful have largely practised polygamy from Vedic times.[445]
That these customs have been those of Brahmanic India, the text of Manu in antiquity, and the reports of travellers in modern times, attest loudly enough. One verse of Manu regulates the right of succession of sons that a Brahmin may have by four wives belonging to different castes. “If a Brahmin has four wives belonging to four classes, in the direct order, and if they all have sons, this is the rule of inheritance. Let the son of the Brahmin (after having deducted the bull, the chariot, and the jewels) take three parts of the rest; let the son of the Kchatriya wife take two parts; that of the Vaisyâ, one part and a half; that of the Soudra, one part only.”[446]
Another verse, much more singular, declares that the children of a second wife belong to the person who has lent the money to buy her:
“He who has a wife, and who, after having borrowed money from some one, marries another with it, derives no other advantage than the sensual pleasure; the children belong to the man who has given the money.”[447] As for the king, the Code of Manu permits polygamy to him in the largest measure, at least under the form of concubinage. He ought to have a troop of wives, whose duty it is to fan him, and to pour water and perfumes over his august person. He refreshes himself with them from the cares of government, and passes the night in their agreeable company.[448] We must not forget, besides, that, as the Mahabharata has informed us, the Kchatriyas practised marriage by capture and polygamy.[449]
To sum up, in India, as everywhere else, polygamy has evolved; it has at first been common; then, when power and riches have been concentrated in the hands of a small number, it has become the privilege of the great. The polygamy of the princes and of the rich Brahmins was even the first obstacle encountered in the seventeenth century by the preaching of the Jesuits in India.[450]
In the present time it is the same for the great, and custom tolerates a second wife, even to common husbands, in case of sterility of the first.[451] I shall have to speak again of these customs in treating of concubinage.
If we now sum up the general sense of the numerous facts which I have just passed in review, we see that with the entire human race polygamy has succeeded to the sexual and conjugal anarchy of the first ages. Like all other institutions, primitive polygamy has gradually become regulated, but always while keeping the woman in a very humiliating position. One fact of great importance, and which has by degrees ruined the régime of a plurality of wives, even when custom, law, and religion authorised it, is that polygamy became a luxury within the reach only of rulers, as soon as a tolerable social condition restrained the too rapid mortality of males. Indeed, from this moment the sexual equilibrium of births compelled the greater number of men to practical monogamy, and thenceforth, as Herbert Spencer justly remarks, a public opinion was necessarily formed in favour of monogamy. Often, therefore, polygamy constituted a legal privilege; it was expressly limited to kings, great men, and priests.
Besides this a hierarchy became established among the numerous wives, and one of them had precedence of her companions.
Finally, legal monogamy was decreed, but this monogamy was in appearance only. In practice the pain of it was softened by compromises, notably by prostitution, which was at least tolerated, and by concubinage, which received the consecration of law.