It was a beenah marriage which Jacob made into the family of Laban, and we find from Genesis xxiv. 1-8 that it was thought not improbable that Isaac might do the same. In beenah marriage the children belong to the mother's clan, and we thus find that Laban says: "These daughters are my daughters, and these children my children." It was exactly against such a marriage as that of Jacob, viz., with two women at one time that the text (Lev. xvii. 18) was directed which is so much squabbled about by both opponents of and advocates for marriage with a deceased wife's sister. The custom of the Levirate mentioned in Deut. xxv. possibly indicates pre-existent polyandry. Lewis, in his _Hebrew Republic_, says: "In the earliest ages the Levir had no alternative but to take the widow; indeed, she was his wife without any form of marriage." Casting off a shoe, it may be said, is a symbol of foregoing a right; thus the relatives of a bride still "throw slippers." The Arabs have preserved the ceremony intact. A proverb among them, when a young man foregoes his prescriptive right to marry his first cousin, is, "She was my slipper; I have cast her off" (Burckhardt, Bedouins and Wahabys, i. 113). Among the Caribs of Venezuela and in Equatorial West Africa, the eldest son inherits all the wives of his deceased father with the sole exception of his own mother. Schweinfurth relates that the same custom obtains in Central Africa. On the Gold Coast the throne is occupied by the prince, who gains possession of the paternal harem before his other brothers. Thus Absalom took David's harem in the sight of all Israel before the old man had gone to glory, as a proof he wished his reign to be considered over; and when Adonijah asks his brother Solomon for Abishag, the comforter of David's old age, the wise Solomon kills him, as thus betraying designs on the throne. In the custom that widows passed to the heir with other property, and hence that marriage with the widow grew to be a sign of a claim to the deceased person's possessions, we have a reasonable explanation of what must otherwise appear irrational crime. The custom of inheriting widows is adverted to in the Koran; and Bendhawi, in his commentary, gives the whole ceremony, which consists in the relative of the deceased throwing his cloak over the widow and saying, "I claim her." The Mormons always defended their plurality of wives from the divine book, and polygamy has been defended by various Christian ministers, from the Lutheran divine, Joannes Lyser, author of _Discoursus Politicus de Polygamia_, and the Rev. Martin Madan, author of _Thelyphthora_ to the Rev. Mercer Davies, author of _Hangar_, and Ap Richard, M.A., who urges a biblical plea for polygamy under the title of _Marriage and Divorce_. Such works have done little to bring into favor the divine ordinance of polygamy, but they have done much to show how unsuited is the morality of "the word of God" to the requirements of modern civilisation.