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Show 430 THE CITY OF THE SAINTS. CHAP. X. ers, numbers more female than male immigrants; consequently that, without polygamy, part of the social field would remain un-tilled.* To the unprejudiced traveler it' appears that polygamy is the rule where population is required, and where the great social evil has not had time to develop itself. In Paris or London the institution would, like slavery, die a natural death; in Arabia and in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains it maintains a strong hold upon the affections of mankind. Monogamy is best fitted for the large, wealthy, and flourishing communities in which man is rarely the happier because his quiver is full of children, and where the He-tasra becomes the succedaneum of the "plurality-wife." Polyandry has been practiced principally by priestly and barbarous tribes, f who fear most for the increase of their numbers, which would end by driving them to honest industry. It reappears in a remarkable manner in the highest state of social civilization, where excessive expenditure is an obstacle to freehold property, and the practice is probably on the increase. The other motive for polygamy in Utah is economy. Servants are rare and costly; it is cheaper, and more comfortable to marry them. Many converts are attracted by the prospect of becoming wives, especially from places where, like Clifton, there are sixty-four females to thirty-six males. The old maid is, as she ought" to be, an unknown entity. Life in the wilds of Western America is a course of severe toil: a single woman can not perform the manifold duties of housekeeping,. cooking, scrubbing, washing, darning, child-bearing, and nursing a family. A division of labor is necessary, and she finds it by acquiring a sisterhood. Throughout the States, whenever a woman is seen at manual or outdoor work, one is certain that she is Irish, German, or Scandinavian. The delicacy and fragility of the Anglo-American female nature is at once the cause and the effect of this exemption from toil. The moral influence diffused over social relations by the presence of polygyny will be intelligible only to those who have studied the workings of the system in lands where seclusion is practiced in its modified form, as among the Syrian Christians. In * I am sure of the correctness of this assertion, which is thus denied in general terms by M. Recks, of the Revue des Deux-Mondes. "A la fin de 1858, on comp-tait sur le Territoire 3617 maris polygames, dont 1117 ayant cinque femmes oil d'avantage: mais un grand nombre de Mormons n'avaient encore pu trouver d'e"pouses; il est probable meme que le chiffre des hommes depasse celui des femmes, comme dans tous les pays peuptes d'emigrans. L'dquilibre entre les sexes n'est pas encore e"tabli." t The Mahahharata thus relates the origin of the practice in India. The five princely Pandava brothers, when contending for a prize offered by the King of Dro-na to the most successful archer, agreed to divide it if any of them should prove the winner. Arjun, the eldest, was declared victor, and received in gift Draupadi, the king's daughter, who thus became the joint-stock property of the whole fraternity. They lived enfamille for some years at the foot of Bairath, the remains of which, or rather a Ghoorka structure on the same site, are still visible on a hill near the N.W. corner of the Dhun. (Hunting in the Himalaya, chap, vii.) |
