The polygamy of Philip, landgrave of Hesse, in the Lutheran community, in 1539, is well known. I knew a sovereign in Germany, who, after having married a Lutheran, had permission from the pope to marry a Catholic, and retained both his wives.
It is well known in England, that the chancellor Cowper married two wives, who lived together in the same house in a state of concord which did honor to all three. Many of the curious still possess the little book which he composed in favor of polygamy.
We must distrust authors who relate, that in certain countries women are allowed several husbands. Those who make laws everywhere are born with too much self-love, are too jealous of their authority, and generally possess a temperament too ardent in comparison with that of women, to have instituted a jurisprudence of this nature. That which is opposed to the general course of nature is very rarely true; but it is very common for the more early travellers to mistake an abuse for a law.
The author of the "Spirit of Laws" asserts, that in the caste of Nairs, on the coast of Malabar, a man can have only one wife, while a woman may have several husbands. He cites doubtful authors, and above all Picard; but it is impossible to speak of strange customs without having long witnessed them; and if they are mentioned, it ought to be doubtingly; but what lively spirit knows how to doubt?
"The lubricity of women," he observes, "is so great at Patan, the men are constrained to adopt certain garniture, in order to be safe against their amorous enterprises."
The president Montesquieu was never at Patan. Is not the remark of M. Linguet judicious, who observes, that this story has been told by travellers who were either deceived themselves, or who wished to laugh at their readers? Let us be just, love truth, and judge by facts, not by names.
End of the Reflections on Polygamy.
It appears that power, rather than agreement, makes laws everywhere, but especially in the East. We there beheld the first slaves, the first eunuchs, and the treasury of the prince directly composed of that which is taken from the people.
He who can clothe, support, and amuse a number of women, shuts them up in a menagerie, and commands them despotically. Ben Aboul Kiba, in his "Mirror of the Faithful," relates that one of the viziers of the great Solyman addressed the following discourse to an agent of Charles V.:
"Dog of a Christian!—for whom, however, I have a particular esteem—canst thou reproach me with possessing four wives, according to our holy laws, whilst thou emptiest a dozen barrels a year, and I drink not a single glass of wine? What good dost thou effect by passing more hours at table than I do in bed? I may get four children a year for the service of my august master, whilst thou canst scarcely produce one, and that only the child of a drunkard, whose brain will be obscured by the vapors of the wine which has been drunk by his father. What, moreover, wouldst thou have me do, when two of my wives are in child-bed? Must I not attend to the other two, as my law commands me? What becomes of them? what part dost thou perform, in the latter months of the pregnancy of thy only wife, and during her lyings-in and sexual maladies? Thou either remainest idle, or thou repairest to another woman. Behold thyself between two mortal sins, which will infallibly cause thee to fall headlong from the narrow bridge into the pit of hell.