THE EVOLUTION OF A FATHER 387 



gradually introduced. A few polygamous people, 

 a very few at first, become monogamous. The new 

 system worked better, it spread, and was finally 

 adopted by those higher nations which it also 

 helped to create. It is an instance, nevertheless, 

 of the slowness with which radical changes succeed 

 in leavening great masses of mankind, that the 

 older system, with the ban of Evolution upon it, 

 still survives in Modern Europe. Yet there are 

 signs, even among the uncivilized, that polygamy 

 is passing away. Among some almost savage 

 tribes it is unknown ; among others prohibited. 

 Even in a polygamous community it is usually 

 only a minority who have more wives than one. 

 And where the plural system is in full force, the 

 tendency — the Evolutionist would say the transition 

 — to monogamy is plainly marked, for among the 

 many wives possessed by any individual, there is 

 generally one who is first favourite and ranks as 

 helpmeet or wife. The stress just laid upon the 

 ethical gains of the monogamous state as contrasted 

 with the polygamous, of course only emphasizes 

 one side of the question, and by the pure naturalist 

 might be ruled out of court. Were the physiologist 

 to go over the same ground he could give a parallel 

 account of the development, and show that on the 

 merely physiological plane the transition to mono- 



