POLYGAMY 



POLYGONACEjE 



more and less civilised, of 'the East' generally, and 

 to a certain extent in Australia and Polynesia, 

 though it U rare amongst American Indians. That 

 this custom was usual in Old Testament times is 

 ohviouB from many references ; the New Testament 

 seems to indicate that monogamy was universal 

 amongst the Jews of the 1st century, though the 

 Talmud contains no positive prohibition against a 

 plurality of wives. Christianity has never tolerated 

 polygamy; even Concubinage (q.v. ) has been al- 

 ways treated an sinful, and polygamy in a crime liy 

 the law of Christian state*. Greeks and Uomans 

 did not practise polygamy within historical times ; 

 the ancient Germans were the only barbarians 

 known to Tacitus who were content with a single 

 wife. M i isli'in law and usage permit a man to have 

 four wives, but such plurality is confined to the 

 rich ; poor men have seldom more than one wife 

 <see MOHAMMEDANISM). There is no limit to the 

 number of wives a Hindu may keep, without taking 

 account of concubines. Instances still occur of a 

 high-caste man of wealth having a hundred wives. 

 But in this connection it should be remembered 

 that in hot countries girls become marriageable at 

 .in early age, and soon lose their youth and attrac- 

 tiveness ; a man's first wife may remain his con- 

 fidante and real companion through lifo, though 

 he provides himself with a succession of girl favour- 

 ites. In China there is but one rightful wife in a 

 household, though a man may, it he will, keep 

 secondary wives or concubines. 



In Christian countries, even in those where con- 

 cubinage and adultery are lightly regarded and 

 divorce very easily obtained, polygamy is dealt 

 with as a criminal offence. In Britain and the 

 United States Bigamy (q.v.) is severely punished ; 

 uniler the same head any polygamous union is 

 included. Nevertheless there have occasionally 

 been found divines to defend polygamy or s. inn-- 

 thing like it. The Anabaptists insisted on such 

 freedom; Ochino (q.v.) wrote in defence of it. 

 When in 1540 Philip the Magnanimous, the reform- 

 ing landgrave of Hesse, resolved with the consent 

 of his wife ( then a confirmed invalid ) to marry a 

 second wife, Luther and Melanchthon approved 

 the step ' as his personal friends, though not as 

 doctors of theology;' and Bueer (q.v.) promoted, 

 approved, and witnessed the bigamous union. The 

 first wife survived the second marriage for nine 

 years. As late as 1667, when Catherine of 

 Bragan/a misrariii-d, Home Anglican divines sug- 

 gested polygamy as the best way of securing a 

 direct heir to tin- tlirone. 



Morganatic Marriage (q.v.) and Handfasting 

 (q.v.) greatly simplified divorce, and often preceded 

 a more binding and legitimate union ; hut another 

 union at the name time was not compatible with 

 either. In 1780 the liev. Martin Madan, chaplain 

 to the Lock Hospital in London, startled the world 

 and raised a violent controversy by arguing in favour 

 of polygamy as a means of diminishing prostitution 

 and saving human souls from guilt; tne work in 

 which these views were advoeated was called 

 TMyphthora, or a Treatue on Female Rn 

 vols. 1780-81 ). In recent times the Mormons (n.v. ) 

 by their practice of itolygamy created a trouble 

 some Question for the administrators of United 

 States law ; but in 1890 they agreed to cease from 

 making plural marriages. It has always lieen a 



dillinilty for Christian missionaries when i veils 



with several wives desired liaptism. As a rule the 

 convert was treated as married only to the first w ife 

 in (Kiint of date, and .was required absolutely to 

 put away all the others a rule that was inevitably 

 liarnh aiid inequitable in iu operation. liishop 

 Colenso declined t make the convert part from 

 wives he bail married in good faith ; so did the 

 American missionaries in Burma; and M'Farlane, 



in Among the Cannibal* in A r eu> Guinea (It, 88), 

 says that he and the other Missionaries of the 

 London Missionary Society 'resolved not to inter- 

 fere with those social relations in which the gospel 

 found the people of New Guinea.' See ANTIiim 

 r.'i.i..\. I'AMii.v, MARRIAGE, HAREM, and the 

 works cited there. 



Polyglot (Gr. }x>h/s, 'many,' and gliitta, 

 'tongue ) means a collection of versions in diller- 

 ent languages of the same work, but is almost 

 exclusively applied to manifold versions of the 

 Bible. Tin- Ilexapla of Origen (q.v.) contained, 

 besides the Hebrew text, several other deck 

 versions, but is not commonly reckoned among the 



polyglots. Tin ist famous polyglots are ( 1 ) the 



Complutcnsian. published under the auspic I 



Cardinal \imenes d|.v.) at Alcala (Lat. ('unifi/ii- 

 turn ), in C vols. folio, 1502-17, with Hebrew, Greek, 

 Chaldee (each with Lntin versions), and the 

 Vulgate Latin ; (2) the Antwerp Polyglot, printed 

 at the Plantin press, at the cost of Philip 11. of 

 Spain, in 1569-72, edited by Alias Montaniis; 

 (3) the Paris Polyglot, edited liy Le .lay in H',4."i, in 

 6 splendid volumes; and (4) the London 1'oUglot, 

 edited by Brian Walton, in 6 vols. folio, h>.">4 .">7, 

 and containing the Bible, or parts of it, in nine 

 languages. Of modern works of this kind the 

 most convenient is Bagster's Polyglot, first pub- 

 lished by Hamster at London in 1831 (new cds. 

 1874, &c"), which gives the Old Testament in eight 

 languages (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, English, Ger- 

 man, Italian, French, and Spanish), and the New 

 Testament in nine ( the Syriac version being added). 



PolygnotllS Greek painter who flourished 

 in the middle of the 5th century B.C., was born in 

 the isle of Thasos, and belonged to a family of 

 painters. He was a friend of the Athenian geneial 

 Cimon, and is said to have been attached to his 

 sister, Elpinice. His principal works were at 

 Athens, at Delphi, and at Plat;ea. In t\\e first- 

 named citv he executed paintings in the temple of 

 Theseus; in the Stoa Poikile (or Painted Portico), 

 the Greek Princes assembled to judge of the 

 Violation of Cassandra by Aiax ; in the temple 

 of the Dioscuri, the Rape of the Daughters of 

 Leticippus ; and in the 1'ropylien on the Arm 

 polis, a series from the old Greek legends. At 

 Platwa he painted, in the temple of Athena, 

 I'lysses and the Slain Suitors of Penelope. His 

 greatest work is said to have been in tin- I.esclie, a 

 court or peristyle at Delphi, built by the Cnidians, 

 the walls of which he covered with a series repre- 

 senting the Wars of Troy and the Visit of Ul\ 

 to the Lower World. Polygnotus was a great 

 advance on any of his pi He was the 



tii-t who gave life, character, and expression to 

 painting. Aristotle extols the dignity and beauty 

 of bis conceptions. 



Pol.VgOII (<lr. /mh/.i, 'many,' ,,<-ni. 'corner'), 

 a plane figure, bounded by a number <>f straight 

 lines; the name is conventionally limited to those 

 plane ligmes whose lioundiiig straight lines are 

 more- than fmir in nuinlier. Polygon* of 5. (i, 7. \ 

 \c. side* are denominated pentagons, hexagons, 

 heptagons, octagons, ,vc. ; and when the niunlier 



of sides ex Is twelve the figure is merely men 



tinned as a |M>lygon of so many sides. 



PolygOliareffi, a natural order of plants, 

 mostly herb*, but including a few shrubs. The 

 b-aves are alternate, with stipules cohering around 

 the stem, i bough sometimes reduced to a mere 

 ring. The Mowers are not unfrequently unisexual ; 

 the fruit generally a nut, often triangular, the 

 seed with farinaceous albumen, which has an 

 economic importance in buckwheat.^ The genus 

 Polygonum comprises numerous species, of which 

 several are natives of Britain ; in North America 



