Mohammed, who often displayed a consideration for women very rare in the founders of religions, is an exception. His prescription of once a week represented the right of the wife, quite independently of the number of wives a man might possess.
How fragile the claim of "conjugal rights" is, may be sufficiently proved by the fact that it is now considered by many that the very term "conjugal rights" arose merely by a mistake for "conjugal rites." Before 1733, when legal proceedings were in Latin, the term used was obsequies, and "rights," instead of "rites," seems to have been merely a typesetter's error (see Notes and Queries, May 16, 1891; May 6, 1899). This explanation, it should be added, only applies to the consecrated term, for there can be no doubt that the underlying idea has an existence quite independent of the term.
"In most marriages that are not happy," it is said in Rafford Pyke's thoughtful paper on "Husbands and Wives" (Cosmopolitan, 1902), "it is the wife rather than the husband who is oftenest disappointed."