MONOGAMY FOR WIVES
When certain strong men found themselves able to garner a larger share of property than their fellows, they rebelled against the communistic ownership of property, and the state, with the system of private ownership, was evolved, came into being to protect the private owners in their private ownership against the community, or the mass, which possessed no private property. Wealthy men then began to desire to leave their fortunes to their own children and so the marriage system, with theoretical monogamy for both sexes and practical monogamy for wives, arose. Men of property then felt tolerably certain that their wealth would descend to their own sons and to the sons of no others.
We are not inclined to believe this was due to the prevalence of any so-called paternal instinct. Paternal instinct is, we suspect, a minus, rather than a plus, quantity. It seems to us that fathers more often learn to love their children through following the conduct prescribed by good form and pretending to love them, or through love of display, pride or by association, than through any "natural tendency."
The almost universality of the maternal instinct is proven by the peoples in the world today, for scarcely anybody would have a chance for existence if it were not for the care of the mothers.
Generally the coming of children is a handicap to a woman in the market in which Nature and the present system have placed her. Where this is the case, it is here that society, customs and laws speak for the family, in ways built up, sometimes blindly, sometimes consciously, to preserve the species, and upon the old biological and economic foundations.
It is generally granted that women with children are more conservative than women without children. We believe this is true only when they and their children are provided for. When a mother is left with no one to support her children, she becomes more predatory than other women in the pursuit of a new provider. Our jails and workhouses are full of unsuccessful mothers of this class, convicted of crimes against property.
Mothers are conservative when their children are secure; more predatory when they are in want. Mothers often compete successfully in making their wares attractive and in binding the male by habits and associations that hold him and induce him to continue to pay.
Among men, the possession of, and ability to support a woman in perpetuity, whom no other may touch, is honorific, a high sign of display. It announces to the world that such a man is able to hold a trophy in the struggle for existence. A monogamous wife is, in fact, an emblem of well-off-ness, and greatly to be desired.
A man does not wish to be one among a corporation of men owning a woman any more than he desires to be owner of a sixth part of an automobile. Not because there is anything more intrinsically wrong in purchasing one-sixth than six-sixths, but because, in a world where the ownership of private property is the greatest of all good things, individual ownership denotes respectability, comfort, ability to buy outright. Hence we have monogamy for wives and mistresses in general, and polygamy for men.
For if it is honorific to possess one woman, it is still more proof of one's buying power to support half a dozen different establishments. Besides, biologically, a man may require many women for the satisfaction of his desires.