Only a man suffering from priapism could gratify the eroticism of a large number of wives and the latest or youngest wife would naturally receive a larger share of physical attention than the earlier and older mates. The jealousy and hatred thus engendered are in no way minimised by the fact that the custom of certain lands countenances such arrangements.
Polyandry as it existed in ancient times and still exsists in Tibet, where a woman marries several men (generally brothers) may be more satisfactory for the primitive female. Owing to her physiological make up, and also to her passive rôle in love, woman can gratify several men and receive gratification from them. The neurotic disturbances which may arise as a result of a woman's lack of sexual gratification are avoided by the polyandric scheme of union. But this is the only superiority which polyandry has over polygamy.
Both polygamous and polyandric nations and civilisations have gradually receded as far as numerical importance and world prestige go and both institutions are bound to disappear.
The development of the human ego, both in men and women, will not permit much longer of the enslavement of one sex to gratify the pleasures of the other. Nor can any group, male or female, enforce its domination over individuals of the opposite sex and make them accept the dogma of an inferior sex by embodying that dogma in any religious creed of the mormon or mohammedan type.
Infidelity. Plural love is passing but infidelity has taken its place in every possible respect as a sexual and an egotistical form of gratification.
When dealing with infidelity we must establish a careful distinction between forms of infidelity due to "normal" causes and other forms due to unconscious complexes. On the other hand we should beware of admitting, as many unscientific writers do, that there is a distinct difference of attitude to infidelity in the two sexes.
That shortsighted viewpoint has been unfortunately voiced in hundreds of popular sayings which represent man as the great examplary of infidelity and woman as faithfulness incarnate.
Economic conditions, not sexual differences, are at the bottom of the levity with which men treat their heart affairs and of the gravity with which women, officially at least, consider the marriage relationship.
Financial dependence and the fear of motherhood compel the domesticated, parasitic type of woman to secure the services of a breadwinner, and after achieving that object, to avoid hurting his susceptibilities.
Independent and professional women, especially the sterile or sterilised ones, are frankly "masculine" in their love habits.