gOO C OQOO OOOOOOOOOOOO POLYGAMY: A LECTURE DELIVERED BY MOULVI MOHAMMAD ABDUL JHANI, B. A., ( Secretary, oung S Jen's IMohaintnadun disso- ciation, and Secy,, L . Educational Committee, Sin ju rn an- i- SI ini a yet-i-Sslum, la /tore?.) ON THE SIXTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE AN J U - MAN-I-HIM AYET-I-IS LA M , LA HO RE. PUBLISHED BY JHE yVlOHAMMADAI^ JRACT AI^D ^OOK JDePOT, PUNJAB, LAHORE: PRINTED AT THE ISLAMIA PRESS, YAKKI GaTE. 1891—1308. (All riahts have been secured by the Depot and are reserved.) DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO^ 1,000 Copies. IN THE NAME OF THE MOST MERCIFUL GOD. Gentlemen ! A lecturer is generally regarded in the light of a teacher. It would be a mere presumption on my part to stand forth before so able an audience and claim to teach it. I very sincerely say that I am here to learn aud not to teach. I have been introduced to you as a graduate, but I introduce myself to you as a student, and a student in two senses. On the one hand, I am a student of the Lahore Medical College, and on the other, I am a student of the Anjuman-i-Himait-i-lslam. You will perhaps wonder as I call myself a student of the Anjuman. The Anjuman, I think, is a school for young educated Mohammadans to cultivate their power of public speaking in the English language — a school which I regret to say, has very few students ; because most of our graduates and under-graduates, when they leave the benches of Colleges seek after chairs in offices. These office chairs and a small sura of money are the goal at which they aim, and to which, as they think, they are destined. I am, gentlemen, one of the very few students of this school, and this is my first lesson. Though a graduate, I can in no way represent the respectable diplomised class, my studies being extremely limited and my ability in the English language only deplorable. • Any pretensions to this claim on my part will, therefore, detract from the high opinion which the public entertain about graduates. The subject upon which I am to speak this evening is “ Polygamy.” The various bearings, the moral, the social and the religious, in which the subject cau be considered, render it extremely difficult and too delicate for me to handle. Although I confess that I will not be able to do justice to the subject on accouut of my special weakness in theology, yet I touch it for its great importance so that it might serve at least as an impetus for the educated fraction of our community to think over subjects of this nature. There are various reasons for which I have taken this subject — a. Because it is one of the most important social questions of Islam ; and hence to us it is of special importance and interest. b. Because it is one of those doctrines which have been most misunderstood by the general Mohammadan community. There are some who allow, or indulge in an indefinite multipli- cation of wives, while on the other hand there are those who condemn polygamy as the most despicable practice. Both sides have gone to extremes, both do net understand the poly- gamy of Islam. One part consider the question very lightly. They have fallen into the old mistake of taking permission for the mandate ; and the mere knowledge that polygamy is allowed by Islam is for them enough to find an excuse for the gratification of their lust, until their conscience becomes so blunted that their Harem is filled with misery and wretchedness. The other party do not at all consider the polygamy of Islam ; they base their judgments on the polygamy which is practised in the first party ; but they are equally guilty of not trying to under- stand the true principles of Islam with regard to the doctrine. c. Because it is one of those points w T hich appear as a flaw to those who do not profess Islam. These, our brethren, perfectly un- acquainted with the doctrine and especially with the sound grounds upon which it is based, make it a special subject of reference in attacking Islam — nay, they go so far as to utter calumnies againt our blessed Prophet, as the founder of Islam, for the polygamy which he personally practised. This is the result of pre- judice which has blinded their mind’s eye. d. That the young educated Mohammadans who evince a mark ed ignorance of their religion, at once come to the conclusion that polygamy of Islam is one of its weakest points, and so they begin to criticise their religion with reference to this point or to other points which they have equally misunderstood. This young generation of the present day — the so-called hope of the nation — when they come in 111 contact with Western civilisation and culture, when they read the alluring couplets of poets like Tennyson on the equality of man and woman, as, The woman’s cause is man’s ; they rise or sink Together, dwarfed or godlike, boud or free , when they see the sweet home-life of the Western nations, when they see the misery that prevails in the seraglios of lustful Mohaiumadan chiefs — the bad abusers of their sacred religion — they begin to think with Muir that polygamy “ strikes at the root of public morals, poison ing public life and disorganising so ciety j freedom of judgment in religion is crushed.and annihilated.” In order to avoid unneccessary repetition, I would divide the sub- ject in the following manner : — ]. Connection of man and woman — marriage 2 . Relation of mau and woman. 3. Polygamy, 4. Divorce. I. — Marriage. Marriage is the union for life of a man and a woman at their mutual consent, so that each may be a help and comfort to the other. The objects which Nature has in view from marriage are two-fold : — I. Self preservation. — Self-preservation is the first law of Nature, and Nature lias adopted two methods for this purpose — ( 3 ) 1. Ingestion of food or its introduction into tli6 system, and evacuation of its residue. 2. Secretions, as the remote result of growth and development — consequent to the introduction of food, and its conversion into the sabstanee of the body. These secretions are particular pro- ducts of the vital economy, and in order to preserve health they require to be discharged, some voluntarily and others spontaneously. No one can deny that vivid imagination, keen understanding and power of retention — or in other words, the vitality of mind — depend, to a very large extent, upon the normal discharge of that secretion — the vital fluid or the semen as it is techincallv called. On studying the characters of those perions who indulge themselves in sexual excess, e.g., the lustful polygamist, the wretched masterbators, the debauchees, and even those who without trespassing the bounds of morality resort to frequency in the gratification of their sexual desires, we will find that the vitaliy of their mmd has been very materially injured and that the excess has greatly told upon the tone of their system. On the other hand if the excretion of the seminal fluid were entirely checked, sirndar deraugemeut of system would bo the inevitabla result. II. Reproduction or propagation of the kind under most favourable conditions. There can be no hesitation to believe repioduction as an ob- ject of marriage, for if there were no murriage, multiplication of human beings, and practically the whole world, would come to an end. A questiou might here suggest iself that both these objects might be accomplished without any legal marriage, or, in other words when the excretion of the seminal fluid is requisite for self-preserva- tion and propagation, why enter at all into matrimonial bonds, when it can be brought about by adultery. Let us now imagine the state of a society in which no man has got his own wife and no woman her own husband. a. A man will get hold of any -woman that attracts him and will thus gratify his Inst so frequently as to lead him to excess. The physical basis of his life will be deteriorated, and his whole moral nature will be irrevocably corrupted. b. Impregnation will be impracticable and the woman’s ovum will gradually lose all its activity. This fact can be easily borrie out by a glance at the prostitutes of the bazar, very few among them bearing children. e. Even if we suppose that impregnation does take place and children are born, there will be no one father to claim the children and to afford them proper nourishment and training. There will be unknown fathers and unknown children, but every father will be a childless father and every child will be a fatherless child ; and the old Roman proverb, “Clever is the man who knows his father,” ( 4 ) will be very appropriately applicable. The mother, of course, will not be able to keep them, and they will be left to shift for themselves when they are too young to do so. The younger generation will be starved to death and further reproduction will cease for ever. d. The light of love, the most important source of human happiness will bo extinguished, never to be lighted again ; for there will be no special object of love for man as well as for woman. e. Society will have no existence ; no house will be worth the name ; man will be no longer a gregarious animal, and brutality will characterise the human beings. /. There will be no education, no training, no system; and culture, whether intellectual, moral or spirtual, will leave the world. In brief, I should say, human beings will be degenerated to brutes. Hence it is evident that it is marriage, legal marriage alone, that brings about the accomplishment of the two primary objects of marriage. Relation of man to woman. The doctrine of the relative position of man and woman has been variously discussed. Man generally depicts himself the sole mas- ter who has enthralled the poor weaker sex ; and woman represents herself as in every way superior to man. Dr. Trail, an American physiologist, quotes a very interesting passage written by a woman. Says the author — “ But the late Mrs. Farnham, in her admirable book, ‘ Woman and her era,’ contends for the actual superiority of woman as the highest type of organisation yet produced ou the earth. She claims that because woman has all the organs, or their analogues, that man has, and two (the uterus and mamma) which he does not possess, she is organically and in function, a superior being.”* There is no doubt in the ingenuity of the writer ; she has very ably supported lief cause and proved in a very eloquont way her superiority to the opposite sex. But she has not taken into consider- ation the simple fact that the difference in the organisation of man and woman is merely functional. They are the two agents who have to carry out by their co-operation the all-important command — “Increase and multiply and replenish the earth” and for this purpose they have been given different organs. We cannot in fact deny that the woman plays the greater part. She spends her time, her health, in performing this duty, but she oannot for this reason be held as as a higher being than man. She stands to him as a subordinate officer to a higher one, the former having more work * Mrs. Farnhara’s remarks are so lengthy that I cannot quote them. This quotation is sufficient to show the grounds upon which she has baaed the superiority of her sex. ( 5 ) to do than the latter. What Mrs. Farnhara has written might como from the pen of every woman, for that is the result of a natural reaction against those encroachments which man generally makes upon her rights. Men are usually prejudiced in picturing women. There are some who have been so fortunate as to be born in a good family where women are educated, and to get beautiful and noble wives. These men in the blindness of their partial admiration will over- look any shortcomings on the part of the females. There are others who have not have had the luck enough to get an amiable and wished-for associate; they, as the result of their own experience, will draw a very hideous picture of the female sex, and will close their eyes from those rare beauties which are her peculiar charactristics. Both go to extremes, both are alloyed with some tinge of prepossession. But I say it would be extremely difficult to get remarks entirely devoid of partiality. 1 cannot upon my own theory exclude myself from this category ; but I have tried as far as I could to weau my remarks of prejudice or party-feeling. In my opinion, therefore, man and woman occupy the same position on the scale of humanity ; but as regards their relation to each other in family or society, although woman possesses certain qualities characteristic of her sex, on the whole she is subordi- nate toman. The general error that we fall into in comparing the relative position of the two sexes is that when we see the women of civilised countries ; they displace from our mind the women of our own country, who at last entirely fade away from before us as too insigni- ficant to be noticed. In order to base our judgments on true pre- mises, we ought to compare these glittering stars to the bright luminaries of their own horizon and not to the dusky spots of ours. Woman has got certain endowments which are not found in man — 1. Beauty. 2. Delicacy. 3. Love for children, for the mothers sacrifice for them what the fathers would not do. 4. All-absorbing and all-controlling desire for offspring. 5. She imparts her qualities to the child during the course of her pregnancy, even afterwards up to the end of lactation period. These are endowments which the fulfilment of her natural func- tion truly demand. There are more important points, however, in which woman is far below man ; — 1. Physical strength. — Even before she bears children an average woman is weaker physically than an average man. But when she begins her period of child-birth, her bodily powers are greatly ( 6 ) diminished. First of all a healthy woman must have her monthly course, and this lasts from three to ten days in each month. The menstrual flow or mens or “ flowers ” as it is called, consist chiefly of the seminal fluid of woman with a small quantity of blood which gives it a pale reddish colour. It may even consist of entire semen without any drop of blood whatever. In some cases only blood comes, but this is due to hoemorrhage and not to the usual normal menstrual flow. In every case, however, whether the flowers consist of semen alone, or of semen mingled with blood, or of blood alone (as in dis- eased cases), no one can deny that the flow greatly weakens the female, the more so when it reiterates its attacks every month in the year. Pregnancy itself is one of the most potent causes that prey upon the woman’s strength and health. Every one knows that the child, when it is in the womb of its mother is nourished by her alone. A large part of the blood circulating in the mother’s body is set apart by Nature for this specific purpose. There are very few annuals throughout the whole range of the animal kingdom, whose females are not physically weaker than their males. 2. She is inferior to man in general intellectual manifestations, for her attainments generally are less. There have been no doubt some women in the East as well as in the West, who have evinced great intellectual powers. If we carefully trace the causes of the attainments of these noble women, we will find that most of them have not been paying their due to Nature. Some of them were not married at all ; some, though married, became widows early in life, while others married very late in life. Most of these did not fulfil with requisite propriety the function which ^Nature had specified for them. Their energies that were to be consumed in bearing and rearing children have been almost wholly exercised in the direction of self-improvement ; and, as no energy is ever lost, they did improve themselves. Such women, therefore, cannot be brought forth as example^ of the general scope of womaa’s capacities. Moreover, these women stand at the top of the female class ; and if we compare them with the noblest men, the gulf between them can be very distinctly seen. It becomes, however, more apparent when we compare the attainments of an average man with those of an average woman. It is evident that her physical weakness and the frequent attacks upon her constitution will keep her at a dis- advantage, for she will not have enough time, even if she have it, she will not be able to suffer so much hardship as man. Not to speak of the difference that exists in the cerebrul development of the two sexes, a fact which is, however, doubted : the frequent diminution of blood-supply to the brain of woman, will not enable it to manifest its powers as that of man. She is pregnant for nine months, then the periud of lactation commences which lasts for about two years, After a few months' rest Bhe ( 7 ) is Again with child and again she will nurse. The period of rest for her, therefore, if she goes on bearing children normally, cannot be more than two years in every four years of her age. Hence the work accomplished by her braiu can in no way be equal to that of man’s brain. 3. Let us now take the moral and spiritual departments. It has often been said that woman is naturally more moral than man, for she has to take a much greater part in nourishing and training the children, therefore she has less opportunities for immoral pro- pensities to stain her character. So far with woman it is all right ! She has less occassion to be immoral. But how goes it with man ? Although he docs not take the same part in family engagements, yet the work alloted to him by Nature to which he can devote his whole time, I mean self-improvement, &c., can keep him much more engaged than the woman. Man, therefore, considered naturally, lias no occasion at all to be immoral. Moreover, the range of man’s moral development will be much higher than that of woman, for all the engagements of man will contribute to the cultivation of his moral faculties. Similar reasons can also prove her spiritual inferiority. 4. She has less sexual power, and this is self-evident ; for if she had greater sexual power than man, she could hardly fulfil her offices of pregnancy and lactation, which actually suppress sexual passion. , 5. If we look upon woman as she is and not as we wish her to be, we must find in her certain traits of character, which do not allow her a position superior to man. She is often obstinate and does not overlook the faults of others ; she has a petted temper, a narrow mind and a cunning spirit. Whether this is due to Nature or to man’s selfish teaching, as some contend, I cannot say, yet in all probabi- lity it is ascribable to both of these causes. She is undoubtedly so by Nature ; but the prominence of these qualities is due to the selfish method in which she is taught to look upon herself. 6. Woman generally depends upon man for support ; for he can work constantly, while the woman is frequently called to her duty which does not allow her to work. One, however, must guard himself against the supposition that by thus advocating the superiority of the male over the female sex, J di’ag the latter so low as to subject her to man’s servility, and to serve as a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his animal appetite. Far from this. I maintain that they are both equally placed in their respective spheres, but the sphere of man’s powe r and capacities is, to some extent, of a higher type than woman’s ; while, as •wife and husband, they have equal claims upon each other. Although in most cases the vast difference that exists between the two sexes in some countries is, to a large extent, to be accounted for by the method in which the woman is trained to look upon herself and by the society ( 8 ) in which she walks, yet the part due to Nature cannot be denied These remarks are not only applicable to our own country, but to the most advanced countries as well. POLYGAMY. Having thus established the superiority of man to woman I pass on now to the proper subject of polygamy. If we pass under review the ancient history of the world, we will find that among the nations of antiquity polygamy has been in practice in the East as well as in the West. The laws of marriage were but little observed, and relation- ships, however close, were not at all regarded. The chiefs of societies were the sources of this practice, and they were imitated by the lower classes. We cannot, however, ignore any system simply because it formed a feature of society in its infancy — simply because it existed in rude antique nations ; we must consider the system in all its bear- ings, and then discard it, if it so deserves. The word ‘polygamy’ includes both plurality of wives and plurality of husbands — polygyny and polyandry- The proper term for plurality of wives would, therefore, be polygyny, but as polygamy is generally used to denote the same sense, I will also use that term, though scientifically it is wrong. I need not dwell at all upon the subject of polyandry, for on the grounds that I have given for the inferiority of the female sex it would only seem absurd even to conceive of one woman ministering to the desires of a number of husbands, while she is hardly fit to keep pace even with one. The advocates of man’s superiority to the female sex can in no way allow polyandry. Those who give an equal position to the two sexes cannot allow polyandry unless they allow polygamy. Those who maintain the superiority of the female sex will undoubted- ly deter from making her, under any circustances, a slave to the passions of a number of men : for the woman has desires greatly influenced and modified by her functional activity — desires which are to be responded to by constant and unchanged, and therefore discordant, desires of the husband. By considering the sexual apparatus of the two sexes we find that they differ very widely in structure; so that man’s might be called active, and that of woman passive or receptive. Man can, therefore, enforco sexual intercourse (though for certain reasons he should not do so at all), while woman can never. A polyandrons woman would consequently seem to be an inconsistency. The social evils that accrue from such a system are exactly similar to those that result from the absence of any legal marriage, to which I have referred in the beginning. The idea of sexual intercourse is generally associated with vulgarity or indecency. It i3 on this account that polygamy, inasmuch as it represents a plurality of wives and frequency in the act of sexual intercourse, is considered by the strict advocates of monogamy to be an outcome of lust and sensuality. Polygamy, therefore, in its general and mistakren application would mean a plurality of wives, ( 9 ) the increase over and above one wife being meant to respond to th» desires of lust and indulgence. This polygamy is not at all Islamic polygamy, for nothing can be more degrading than the mere lustful indulgence of sexual intercourse, and Islam condemns such a practice as an outrage and concubinage. The greatest mistake, therefore, com mitted by non-Mohammadan nations in cirticising Islam, is to look upou its polygamy in a sense quite different from the one in which Islam takes it. The permission of Islam for polygamy is not without foundation ; it is based upon natural grounds, and if we know these by minutely analysing the human nature, we must be convinced of the fact, that as a practical physiologist, our Prophet was far in advance of the physicians of the present day. The reasons for polygamy can be classi- fied into Essential and Accidental. A. Essential. a. That the period of man’s virility, that is, the period duriug which he is able to procreate, is much longer than the corresponding period of woman. Woman’s age of puberty and man’s age of maturity are generally, with a slight difference, 15 years in either case ; but the critical age of woman, or her turn of life is fortyeight, and may some times be about sixty ; while the corresponding age of man is not less than sixty and may even rise to ninety. There can be no reason, therefore, why a perfectly healthy and strong man, whose wife, although she has got children, has attained her turn of life, should not, if be is still able to procreate, marry a second wife, when he wishes to do so, and feels himself able to bear all the troubles consequent on such marriages. When sexual intercourse is necessary to energise all the powers of mind and body, why should he not be allowed the privilege of providing himself with it when his old age demands it ? I believe that the period of decline is the period of perfect, almost unalloyed happiness — the season for the highest enjoy- ments. “ Then the passions are disciplined and subdued, the moral powers are in the ascendant, the intellect is stored with treasures of knowledge, the mistakes and error of half a century have taught the lessons of wisdom — ,to know right and wrong, and how to use all the things of the universe without abusing any, a thousand vicissitudes of fortune and many disappointments have fixed the aspirations of the immortal mind more firmly and more trustingly on the “ life to come,” and the varied experiences of good and ill have taught, as nothing else could, the soul to a just and true recognition of its relations to all external things and to all other beings ; whilst the pains and penalties of its manifold transgressions have educated it into harmony with the laws of its organisation — with itself, its fellow beings and its Creator.” As the vitality imparled to the new being during the sexual in tercourse comes more from the father than from the mother, the child- ren of old age, when man himself is healthy and strong, will inherit ( 10 ) their father’s capacities and powers when these are at their best ; they will then be the true representatives of their parent. Although for me it is only to say this, yet those, “ who are a lamp to the feet of youth,” will very well see the truth of what I have said. There can be no spectacle on the earth stranger, yet more pleas- ing, than the sight of a pair — a happy pair — the man above fifty and the woman just at the end of her teens — one on the thereshold of his green old age and the other in the very sublime of her bright and beauteous youth — the one with a full relish for moral and intellectu- cal achievemets, pouring into the heart of his helpmate all his know- ledge, wisdom and experience, elevating her soul with his own accom- plishments, ennobling her mind with the inspirations of the most refined sentiments that he has gathered from the harvest of his perfectly ripened field of long age, and rendering her after all a fit stay for hia aged stature ; while the other with her blooming roses of youth, with a face untrodden by the wrinkles of age, with her graceful, sprightly movements and with a complete comeliness playing all about her, act- ing as a magnet to her aged associate’s vitality, buoying up his men- tal and bodily framework, giving an invigorating impetus to his decaying sensibilities, by powerful emanations from her sweet juvenile smiles. She warms his bosom as the virgin who warmed the bosom of David. She imbibes from him his noble beauties of mind which are reflected by her face, he takes from her a livelihood manifested by his behaviour towards the lovely spouse. Both give and take each other’s qualities and are at last commingled into one. * This would perhaps appear to be an exaggerated picture, and at the same time a cruel one, for the previous wife, as one might say, would be thrown into the background of oblivion. She is not entirely displaced from her husband’s mind ; she is still provided with all she requires ; she has still her husband’s love, though not his whole heart ; she is still kindly behaved; she is still a prominent factor of the family; she is still the chief counsellor in household businesses; her children, if any, are still looked upon by the father with the same parental affec- tion ; she has still around her those bright and soul-inspiring faces, which formed once the only hope of her life. She cannot, without tingiug her character with a stain of selfishness, look upon her so-called rival, with jealousy, only because that she has shared her husband’s love for rendering him a service which she herself is unable to render. (b ) During the period of woman’s pregnancy man can impregnate another woman. Every being throughout the wholerange of the animal kingdom, from the simplest organisation of monad to the most complex orgainsation of man, is characterised by the power of self-propagation — of multiplying itself. Sexual intercourse in lower animals is merely a generative act. They reproduce their species from generation to * One might here object to the practicability of such a union; for young girls generally dislike to be yoked with old men. For answer to this objection I refer the reader to the definition of marriage that I have given in the beginning, and to the fifth Islamic law of marriage and divorce (page 15). ( 11 ) generation, without in the least manifesting any tendeucy to im- provement, for they have no menatlity. Sexual passion in them is a vital manifestation, but the gratification of this passion is a vito-uiechanical action, because, as we see, tbeir sexual desires are always governed by seasons. Tire breeders of domestic animals avail" themselves of this law of Nature, and they only bring the sexes together when they know that their connection will end in fructification. In human beings, on the other hand, that uniformity in the scale of instinct is disturbed from age to ago. They are always changing, the change tending to improvement and perfection; their passions are not under the domain of seasons, but they are governed by their own undefiled instinct. From the moment of conception, the man has to wait at least for two years until the periods of gestation or impregnation, and lactation or suckling the infant are completed. If he repeats the sexual act during this period, he will only stout the growth of the seedling he has im- planted while it is yet germinating, he will frustrate his hope of his own accord, he will unconsciously commit a sin in the eye3 of God as well'as iu that of man bv destroying the life of a germ whose growth is in every way predestinated. Again, when his wife is able to respond to his desire, a single sexual embrace. — one coitus alone, is very frequently sufficient to conceive her, and she is again in a position to deny her husband’s embrace; her own passion is naturally pacified, and she has little or no desire for sexual in- tercourse, till full two years more have elapsed. No such natural subsidence is ever marked in the passions of man after woman’s conception, and he has to regulate his desire by instinct and by forethought. If he then seek to enjoy another woman’s society in a legal way, keeping in mind his health and other sources of peace, he is not committing a sin, for he cannot help himself any more than woman can help her conception, her pregnancy and similar other functions # which it is her lot to serve. When there is no natural restraint upon the exercise of the propensities in exercising them, lie cannot act unnaturally or abnormally . “ True physiology teaches us that there is nothing low, nothing base, nothing degrading, nothing demoralising, nothing sensualising, nothing impure in the normal exercise of any faculty or propensity with which human beings are endowed-” («). There are no reasons for man to be a strictly monogamistic- animal as there are for certain other animals like the pigeon, the tiger, &c. These are some of the Essential l’easons by which man can b« allowed to be polygamistic ; there are, moreover, several Accidental circumstances under which he may be allowed or sometimes even forced, to have more wives than one. Accidental. (a). The wife may be sterile — In face of the great love that might exist between her and her husband, both, or at least one of ( 12 ) them, might yield to that strong tendency of becoming parent which Nature has so intimately blended with the human mind. It is more markedly manifested by the female sex. There are many living examples of women who have not been able to beget children and who have, curiously enough, compelled their husbands to have oher wives so that they might be blessed with offspring. (b.) There may be some natural incongruity between the semen of man and the ovum of the woman, and this might be a cause of the family being childless. In this case also a second wife may be allowed without any violation of the laws of Nature. (c) . A man might have children, but these may be all female. The male members being in all societies the chief productive factors of the family, the desire for male children is stronger than that for females ; and in order to fulfil this desire a man might safely have a second wife. (d) . The previous wife may have some disease, either of the generative organs to which women are more subject than men, or she may have some contagious affection, or she may have any other bodily suffering, and is therefore unable to bring forth healthy children. (e) . She may be of a dull head or of bad understanding,