"Polygamous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... our race has never developed the morals and inhibitions which your people find so necessary. We are polygamous, and not apt to be jealous. She offers to give you to me as a royal husband in return for the privilege of being your slave, your housekeeper, your body-servant as it ...
— Valley of the Croen • Lee Tarbell
... together, but "they dwell in vaulted caves on mountain heights," such as the famous Corycian cavern which is near the top of a mountain on Parnassus. There "each man rules his wives and children," evidently a herding polygamous condition of the family; "nor do they (the Cyclops) care for one another." Still further, "they have no ships with crimson prows," no navigation, no commerce which seeks "the cities of men" and binds them together in the bond of society and humanity. Yet there is an ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider
... are devoted to pursuits almost as polygamous as those of the leader of some four-footed herd. In this respect the novels which celebrate him stand close to the more popular Sister Carrie and Jennie Gerhardt, both of them annals of women who fall as easily as Cowperwood's ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... They were a polygamous people, and a slave-holding people, like all of their time; and during the generation or two of this struggle to defend their mountain home they built the fortresses, such as the one we were held in, and other of their oldest buildings, some still in use. Nothing but earthquakes ...
— Herland • Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
... other things men say to us if several men are attentive at the same time, but I have forgotten the rest. They are very convincing, however. Then, when the man has made up his mind that he wants us as his wife (that grammar sounds polygamous, but my whole philosophy of life is against that idea), why, we are to be ready to drop into his arms like a ripe plum and not keep him on tenter-hooks of anxiety, ...
— From a Girl's Point of View • Lilian Bell
... are only calculated for the soft turf of the plains. It roams about in larger herds than the other—eighteen or twenty in the herd—and these are usually females under the protection and guidance of one polygamous old male. While feeding, the latter keeps watch over the flock, usually posting himself at some distance, so that he may have a better opportunity of seeing and hearing any danger that may approach. ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid
... intercourse except for procreation and about as frequently as above indicated is, without any reasonable doubt, due to hereditary tendencies. Under primeval conditions, and in fact, until comparatively recent times, the vast majority of mankind were polygamous, the strong men of the race—those who procreated their kind—having as many wives as they could support and protect, the weak men of the race being crowded aside, sometimes castrated, to become the burden bearers ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... being allowed to keep its revenues. On the Tory view, the relation might be compared to that of man and wife in Christian countries where, though the two are one, the husband is bound to fidelity. On the Whig view it was like a polygamous system, where the wife is in complete subjection, and the husband may take any number of concubines. The Whig noble regarded the church as socially useful, but he was by no means inclined to support its interests when they conflicted with other political considerations. He had ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... is an eternal truth, and it would be very curious to write the history of the local divinity of every continent as well as the history of the patron saints in each one of our provinces. The negro has his ferocious man-eating idols; the polygamous Mahometan fills his paradise with women; the Greeks, like a practical people, deified ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... so many workmen from gin and improvidence, and which in a printed form are disseminated even in such remote regions as Africa, where I am told they have produced the most satisfactory results upon the unsophisticated but polygamous monarchs of that continent. And here, above all, is Miss Hugonin, utilising the vast power of money—which I am credibly informed is a very good thing to have, though I cannot pretend to speak from experience—and casting whole ...
— The Eagle's Shadow • James Branch Cabell
... love; all his transgressions, the fault of his morbid disposition, come home to him; he takes the blame of his sin upon his own shoulders, while the seeker of love revenges himself on his victims for his own shortcomings. The seeker of love is by nature polygamous, while the slave of love is, as a rule, monogamous (and consequently has little success with the opposite sex). Both aspire to a union of sensual and spiritual eroticism, but in both cases the union is a failure. All ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... remorseless gang of nickel-plated apostles, thirsting for his young blood. I really believe he don't care a continental. The days of the avenging angel and the meek-eyed Danite, carrying a large sock loaded with buckshot, are over, perhaps; but only those who try to be Gentiles in a land of polygamous wives and anonymous white-eyed children, know how very unpopular it is. Judge Goodwin, of the Tribune, feels lonesome if he gets through the day without a poorly spelled, spattered, daubed and profane valentine threatening his life. The last time I saw him ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... above the ranker growth of midsummer, possess an unseasonable, ethereal, chaste, spring-like beauty. On some plants the flowers are white and exquisite; others, again, are dull and coarser. Why is this? Because these are what botanists term polygamous flowers, i.e., some of them are perfect, containing both stamens and pistils; some are male only others, again, are female. Naturally an insect, like ourselves, is first attracted to the more beautiful male blossoms, the pollen bearers, and of ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... The polygamous imagination of the Hindoos runs riot in many of their stories. To give another instance: The Kathakoca, or Treasury of Stories (translated by C.H. Tawney, 34), includes an account of the adventures of King ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... charms of their song{235}, by their beauty or their power of courtship, as in the dancing rock-thrush of Guiana. Even in the animals which pair there seems to be an excess of males which would aid in causing a struggle: in the polygamous animals{236}, however, as in deer, oxen, poultry, we might expect there would be severest struggle: is it not in the polygamous animals that the males are best formed for mutual war? The most vigorous males, implying perfect adaptation, must generally gain ...
— The Foundations of the Origin of Species - Two Essays written in 1842 and 1844 • Charles Darwin
... support of one of my most subtle pleadings of defence, to wit, that I have already offered to marry the plaintiff according to my country's laws, but that she did definitely decline such a marriage as polygamous (which it is indubitably liable to become at any moment), consequently, that my said contract is nilled ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... slave in Africa, according to DuBois, lived generally a polygamous family life. When he came to the Southern Colonies his whole family life was made irregular and unhappy, due to the evil conditions of slavery there. The slave might marry on the plantation, but the very ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... radical change. So long as girls have to fight with starvation or with beggarly wages, so long as men are deterred from early marriage by inability to support a family, and so long as many married men remain polygamous in their tastes, just so long will prostitution exist. But we have seen that the clergy is never anxious to interfere with the "rights of the few to tyrannize the many," and since prostitution is an economic problem, religion ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... favourable conditions I could offer, although others record that they have been so fortunate. Repeatedly I have experimented with males and females of different species, but with no success. I have not seem a polygamous moth; but have read of experiences ...
— Moths of the Limberlost • Gene Stratton-Porter
... a word, has found out that the splendors of the palace are not to her taste, and the thought of being a young shepherd's darling is pleasanter to her than that of being an old king's concubine. The polygamous rapture with which Solomon addresses her: "There are three-score queens and four-score concubines, and maidens without number," does not appeal to her rural taste. She has no desire to be the hundred and ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... polygamous nations every woman is provided for, where monogamy prevails the number of married women is limited; and there remains over a large number of women without stay or support, who, in the upper classes, vegetate as useless old maids, and in the lower succumb to hard work for which they are ...
— The Essays of Arthur Schopenhauer; Studies in Pessimism • Arthur Schopenhauer
... Swimmers; the most familiar tribes of which are ducks, swans, geese, auks, penguins, petrels, pelicans, guillemots, gulls, and terns. They mostly live in the water, feeding on fish, worms, and aquatic plants. They are generally polygamous, and make their nests among reeds, or in moist places. The flesh of many of the species is eatable, but that of some is extremely rank and oily. The duck is a native of Britain, but is found on the margins of most of the European lakes. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... which she seemed very thankful, and said, as Mr. Ahmed explained: "God bless you and give you long life. I am old, and may die to-day." She told us that she came from Mosul, away beyond the Syrian desert, to die in Jerusalem. We visited the synagogue of the Caraite Jews, a small polygamous sect, numbering in this assembly about thirty persons. They also differ from the majority of Hebrews in rejecting the Talmud, but I believe they have a Talmud of their own. Their place of worship is a small room almost under the ground, where we were permitted ...
— A Trip Abroad • Don Carlos Janes
... suggestion that marriage was simpler and less fraught with perilous possibilities, "Ann and I are not in the least hoodwinked by marriage. It has enervated the whole race of womankind and led to their complete economic dependence upon a polygamous sex who abuse the trust. Now Ann believes firmly in the holiness of maternity, but she flatly refuses to take upon herself the responsibility of an unwelcome tie. In this, as in everything, I cordially ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... Cambronne's apocryphal saying at Waterloo the blunt sarcasm of the Duke of Wellington that there were a number of ladies at Brussels who were termed "la vieille garde," and of whom it was said "elles ne meurent pas et se rendent toujours." They have led one eminent historian to apologise for the polygamous tendencies of Henry VIII.; another to advance the startling proposition that the "amazing" but, as the world has heretofore held, infamous Emperor Heliogabalus was a great religious reformer, who was in advance of his times; a third to present Lucrezia Borgia to the world ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... child in Denmark or Australia, and a bastard in this austerer climate. These things are, however, only the first intimations of much more profound reactions. Almost all the great European Powers, and the United States also, are extending their boundaries to include great masses of non-Christian polygamous peoples, and they are permeating these peoples with railways, printed matter, and all the stimulants of our present state. With the spread of these conveniences there is no corresponding spread of Christianity. These ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... where adopted sons are practically equivalent to lineal descendants (another instance of the "yumei-mujitsu" type of thought), and where marriage is essentially polygamous, and where the "yumei-mujitsu" spirit has allowed the sovereignty to be usurped in fact, though it may not be in name, it is not at all wonderful that the nation can boast of a longer line of Emperors ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... said the minister's son rising to retire, "woman is a monogamous, man a polygamous, creature, a fact scarcely established in physio- logical theory, but very observable in every-day practice For what said the poet? — Divorce, friend! Re-wed thee! The spring draweth near,[FN68] And a wife's but an almanac ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... birds that sex manifestations appear to assume their most harmonious and poetical forms on earth. Among gallinaceous birds, on the other hand, where the cock is much larger and more pugnacious than the female, and which are polygamous, the cock does not court the female by song, but seizes her by force, and shows little or no interest in his offspring, neither sharing in the brooding nor feeding the young; and even at times seizing any tempting morsel which the young or the ...
— Woman and Labour • Olive Schreiner
... can. He paints submarinescapes, and knows all the fishes. He says fishes have individual expressions. He claims he can tell by a fish's expression whether he is polygamous or monogamous." ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... the Earth-god was a man. On the fertile soil of Rythar there were one hundred women and thirty men. All the boys had taken mates before they reached seventeen. Seventy girls were left unmarried, with no prospect of ever having husbands. A score or more became second wives in polygamous homes, but plural marriage had no appeal for Mryna. She was firmly determined to possess a man of her own. And why shouldn't it ...
— The Guardians • Irving Cox
... and watch over it in unison until the young are hatched. This case is exactly analogous to that of the doves among birds: I may add that wherever such instances occur they always seem to be accompanied by a markedly gentle and affectionate nature. Brilliantly-coloured fighting polygamous fishes are fierce and cruel: monogamous and faithful animals are seldom bright-hued, but they mate for life and are usually remarkable for their domestic felicity. The doves and love-birds ...
— A Book of Natural History - Young Folks' Library Volume XIV. • Various
... greatest intemperance is no reproach with savages. Utter licentiousness, and unnatural crimes, prevail to an astounding extent. (36. Mr. M'Lennan has given ('Primitive Marriage,' 1865, p. 176) a good collection of facts on this head.) As soon, however, as marriage, whether polygamous, or monogamous, becomes common, jealousy will lead to the inculcation of female virtue; and this, being honoured, will tend to spread to the unmarried females. How slowly it spreads to the male sex, we see at the present day. Chastity eminently requires self-command; therefore it has been honoured ...
— The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex • Charles Darwin
... polygamous by instinct, although often kept faithful by habit no less than by duty. If his fancy is left free, it is apt to wander. We observe this in romantic passion no less than in a life of mere gallantry and pleasure. Sentimental illusions may become a habit, and the shorter ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... Gastell, and he knew that he loved her. Yet he delighted in Labiskwee. And what was this feeling of delight but love? He could demean it by no less a name. Love it was. Love it must be. And he was shocked to the roots of his soul by the discovery of this polygamous strain in his nature. He had heard it argued, in the San Francisco studios, that it was possible for a man to love two women, or even three women, at a time. But he had not believed it. How could ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... a woman, dear," she said, gently, "though heaven knows it must have been only yesterday you were playing about the nursery—and one of the facts we women must face, eventually, is that man is a polygamous animal. It is unfortunate, perhaps, but it is true. Civilization may veneer the fact, but nothing will ever override it, not even in these new horseless carriages. A man may give his wife the best ...
— The Rivet in Grandfather's Neck - A Comedy of Limitations • James Branch Cabell
... amount of happiness is produced by a monogamous system, since in a polygamous society so many men must remain unmarried and so many women are dissatisfied with having to share their ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... battle of Plassy." She laid down the pistol, and resumed in milder tones: "From an age-long existence as the left eye of Ganesh it was thus converted into the loot of an invader. To restore this diamond to its lawful, although no doubt polygamous and inefficiently-attired proprietors is at this date impossible. But, oh! what claim have you ...
— The Certain Hour • James Branch Cabell
... civilization for mankind, but he himself sanctioned polygamy with which I am charged. For me you have scorn, for him a monument." Taking his cue from this Mormon speaker, one of the most recent of Luther's Catholic critics remarks: "Let the wives and mothers of America ponder well the polygamous phase of the Reformation before they say 'Amen' to the unsavory and brazen laudations of the profligate opponent of Christian marriage, Christian decency, and Christian propriety. Compare the teachings of Luther on polygamy with those of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet and visionary, ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau
... institution. A post office, now, is wholly human; no other creature has a post office, but there are families in plenty among birds and beasts; all kinds permanent and transient; monogamous, polygamous ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... the number of females in proportion to the rest of the males will be reduced. Since it is almost always the males that are the wooers, we must expect to find the occurrence of secondary sexual characters chiefly among them, and to find it especially frequent in polygamous species. And ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... "The vicuna is polygamous—fights for his harem with desperate fierceness, watches over its number while they feed or sleep, chooses the ground for browsing and rest—defends them against enemies—heads them in the advance, and covers their retreat with his own 'person'— such ...
— The Hunters' Feast - Conversations Around the Camp Fire • Mayne Reid
... meant to indicate his purpose to bestow on him the right of the first-born forfeited by Reuben, and so the violent rage which it excited was not altogether baseless. The whole miserable household strife teaches the rottenness of the polygamous relation on which it rested, and the folly of paternal favouritism. So it carries teaching especially needed then, but not out of ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... is the truth that has filled the world with tears—that the average full-blooded male citizen is polygamous in his instinct and to some extent ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett
... which goes far to convince us. Just as her father was, in a way, polygamous, so Elizabeth was even more truly polyandrous. It was inevitable that she should surround herself with attractive men, whose love-locks she would caress and whose flatteries she would greedily accept. ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... people were never inhabited by devils, and neither are the sane people. Most men want one wife and most women want one husband. Even in the polygamous countries you'll not find any more real polygamy than you find in the countries with the strictest marriage laws. Bluebeard was a Mohammedan, but Don Juan was a Christian. Spain has no divorce on any ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... thong. A kamitok took place during the latter part of our stay." The Chukchi are nominally Christians, but sacrifice animals to the spirits of the rivers and mountains, and also practise Shamanism. In personal habits the people are indescribably filthy. They are polygamous, but the women are treated kindly. The children are specially petted, and are so wrapped up to protect them from the cold that they have been described as resembling huge balls crossed by a bar, their arms having to remain outstretched owing to the bulk of their wrappings. ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 3 - "Chitral" to "Cincinnati" • Various
... were times, ages ago, when the love token had no place. When man was universally polygamous, and when the form of marriage was by capture, it can scarcely have existed. Nor could it have known the days when the jeunesse doree of Babylonia and Assyria assembled before the temple where twice a year ...
— Ainslee's, Vol. 15, No. 6, July 1905 • Various
... Bhils' wedding is simply a mutual promise under the sing[a] tree. These savages, however, live together only so long as they choose. When the family separates, the father takes the elder children, and the mother takes the younger ones. They are polygamous. It is from this tribe that the worship of Aghor[i], the Vindhya fiend, accepted as a form of K[a]l[i], was introduced into Civaite worship. At present their religion is a mixture of Hindu and native superstition. Thus, like the Gonds, they worship stone images of gods placed ...
— The Religions of India - Handbooks On The History Of Religions, Volume 1, Edited By Morris Jastrow • Edward Washburn Hopkins
... possibility of a specially rich class capable of maintaining numerous wives being sustained by the impoverished and indebted world of Europe, nor the sources from which a supply of women preferring to become constituents in a polygamous constellation rather than self-supporting ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... simple legislative act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah Territory by Federal statute, because it was found to be sustaining the Mormon Church and the institution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. Here was an opportunity for them to say to the Government: "This is not what we meant by suffrage, nor what we desire suffrage to be used for. We approve this real disfranchisement." Did they do anything of the kind? Far from it. In 1876 they passed the following: ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... bloom is an easy mark of distinction between several species of grapes and helps to distinguish varieties in a species as well. Most species of grapes bear fertile flowers on one vine and sterile flowers on another and are, therefore, polygamous-dioecious. Sterile vines bear male flowers with abortive pistils so that, while they never produce fruits themselves, they usually assist in fertilizing others. Fertile flowers are capable of ripening fruits without cross-pollination. ...
— Manual of American Grape-Growing • U. P. Hedrick
... speculations to conclude (though it has nothing to do with geographical distribution, yet it has with your statistics) that trees would have a strong tendency to have flowers with dioecious, monoecious or polygamous structure. Seeing that this seemed so in Persoon, I took one little British Flora, and discriminating trees from bushes according to Loudon, I have found that the result was in species, genera and families, as I anticipated. So I sent my notions to ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... sunset pink, at that, and marched out of the room without saying a word. But he was shaking his head as he went, at my shamelessness, I suppose. Poor old Gershom! I wish there were more men in the world like him. The other day Susie intimated that he was too homosexual and that it was the polygamous wretches who really kept the world going. But I refuse to subscribe to that sophomoric philosophy of hers which would divide the race into fools and knaves. "It's safer being sane than mad; it's better being good than bad!" as Robert ...
— The Prairie Child • Arthur Stringer
... he had on earth, in whom was bound up his earthly happiness. What had he to live for, but Isaac? He doubtless loved this child of his old age with exceeding tenderness, devotion, and intensity; and what was perhaps still more weighty, in that day of polygamous households, than mere paternal affection, with Isaac were identified all the hopes and promises which had been held out to Abraham by God himself of becoming the father of a mighty and favored race. His affection as a father was strained to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... Yes—why, there is the very sofa upon which she and Lovberg used to sit, in the old days, discussing his past. There he would sit and tell her of his escapades, his affairs, everything. Tell me, does she insist on Lovberg's being polygamous, whether he wants ...
— King Arthur's Socks and Other Village Plays • Floyd Dell
... me, "one may be faithless, and be shriven by the morning sun. Isn't it funny how these things go? Such a lot of fuss is made in the world by ignoring the great fact that man is by nature both gregarious and polygamous. Believe me, there is much in this doctrine of the Mormons, out there ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... among men and women, it seems to be more prevalent among men. The individuals in whom these attacks predominate are men in the prime of life, ranging from 25 to 35 years of age. These people are polygamous and as it is the custom for the old men to marry young girls, thus leaving the old women to the younger men, which in many instances causes a scarcity of women, it leaves a ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... cynical! Do you know, Lady Stonebridge quite shocked mother—she told her she didn't believe in marriage at all, and that she thought all men were naturally polygamous!" ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... marriage and the relations of the sexes the experiments made by the Turanians have already been referred to. Polygamous customs were prevalent at different times among all the sub-races, but in the Toltec days while two wives were allowed by the law, great numbers of men had only one wife. Nor were the women—as in countries now-a-days where polygamy ...
— The Story of Atlantis and the Lost Lemuria • W. Scott-Elliot
... and valueless in the final analysis, if there is no corresponding moral development and social power. The evolution of the family, based upon monogamy, is one of the chief glories of Christianity over against the libertinism and polygamous ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... the 6th day of October, 1890, the Church of the Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormon Church, through its president issued a manifesto proclaiming the purpose of said church no longer to sanction the practice of polygamous marriages and calling upon all members and adherents of said church to obey the laws of the United States in reference ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... of different import comes from a village on the island of Siminor, just south of Bongao. There, it is said, lives an old Moro who so loved his wife, and strange to say, in this polygamous community, his only wife, that when she died he watched her grave long beyond the appointed time, after which he had his house built over her burial-place, and there lives to this day, still faithful to the mouldering bones beneath him. Surely a proof that great love sometimes stirs even savage ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... CHINESE marriage system was, and is, practically polygamous, for from their earliest traditions we learn, although a man could have but one wife, he was permitted to have as many ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols |
