Getting Married · Chapter
Difference Between Oriental and Occidental Polygyny explained
This chapter contrasts Eastern and Western polygyny, arguing that Eastern polygyny is limited by law and custom, whereas Western attempts at polygyny fail due to demographic ratios and the freedom of women.
What happens
This chapter contrasts Eastern and Western polygyny, arguing that Eastern polygyny is limited by law and custom, whereas Western attempts at polygyny fail due to demographic ratios and the freedom of women. The author concludes that the only solution for 'superfluous women' is to legitimize children born out of wedlock.
Themes in this chapter
Population and Social Consequences
The chapter discusses the demographic problem of 'superfluous women' and proposes legitimizing children of unmarried women as a solution.
Key passages
“By the Mohammedan law a man cannot marry more than four wives; and by the unwritten law of necessity no man can keep more wives than he can afford; so that a man with four wives must be quite as exceptional in Asia as a man with a carriage-and-pair or a motor car is in Europe”
Islamic law limits a man to four wives, and economic reality further restricts this, making a man with four wives as rare in Asia as a man owning a carriage or car in Europe.
The author compares the rarity of multiple wives in the East to the rarity of luxury vehicles in the West.
“There is no way at all out of the present system of condemning the superfluous women to barrenness, except by legitimizing the children of women who are not married to the fathers.”
The only solution to the problem of women who cannot find husbands is to legally recognize children born to unmarried women.
The chapter ends with a stark policy proposal to address the imbalance of sexes.