THE NATURAL 



always one feeble creature having right to demand 

 protection. Human polygamy could then, never be suc- 

 cessive polygamy, save by exception, that is, if man were 

 an obedient animal, submitting to normal sexual rules, 

 and always fecund; but this successivity is frequent and 

 divorce has legalized it. The other and true polygamy, 

 polygamy actual, temporary or permanent, is still less 

 rare among people of European civilization, but nearly 

 always secret and never legal; it has for corollary a 

 polyandry exercised under the same conditions. This 

 sort of polygamy is very different from that of Mormons, 

 Turks, gallinaceae and antelopes, it is nothing more than 

 promiscuity. It does not dissolve the couple, in dimin- 

 ishing its tyranny it renders it more desirable. Nothing 

 so favours marriage, and consequently, social stability, as 

 the de facto indulgence in temporary polygamy. The 

 Romans well understood this, and legalized concubinage. 

 One can not here deal with a question so remote from, 

 natural questions. To condense one's answer into brief- 

 est possible space, one would say that man, and princi- 

 pally civilized man, is vowed to the couple, but he only 

 endures it on condition that he may leave and return to 

 it at will. This solution seems to conciliate his contra- 

 dictory tastes, and is more elegant than the one offered 

 by divorce, which is always the same thing over again; 

 it is in conformity not only with human, but also with 

 animal tendencies. It is favourable to the species, in as- 

 suring the suitable up-bringing of children, and also to 

 the complete satisfaction of a need, which, in a state 

 of civilization is inseparable either from aesthetic pleasure 

 or sentimental pleasure. 



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