To this end, a brief history will be given of a few widely spread customs. It will be seen that with scant exceptions they are based on social expediency, and not on natural instincts. Each of the following paragraphs might have been expanded into a long chapter had that seemed necessary. Those who desire to investigate the subject further can easily do so by referring to standard works in anthropology, among the most useful of which, for the present purpose, are Frazer’s _Golden Bough_, Westermarck’s _History of Marriage_, Huth’s _Marriage of Near Kin_, and Crawley’s _Mystic Rose_. 1. MONOGAMY. It is impossible to label mankind by one general term, either as animals who instinctively take a plurality of mates, or who consort with only one, for history suggests the one condition as often as the other. Probably different races, like different individuals, vary considerably in their natural instincts. Polygamy may be understood either as having a plurality of wives; or, as having one principal wife and many secondary but still legitimate wives, or any other recognised but less legitimate connections; in one or other of these forms it is now permitted—by religion, customs, and law—to at least one-half of the population of the world, though its practice may be restricted to a few, on account of cost, domestic peace, and the insufficiency of females. Polygamy holds its ground firmly throughout the Moslem world. It exists throughout India and China in modified forms, and it is entirely in accord with the sentiments both of men and women in the larger part of negro Africa. It was regarded as a matter of course in the early Biblical days. Jacob’s twelve children were born of four mothers all living at the same time, namely, Leah, and her sister Rachel, and their respective handmaids Bilhah and Zilpah. Long afterwards, the Jewish kings emulated the luxurious habits of neighbouring potentates and carried polygamy to an extreme degree. For Solomon, see I Kings xi. 3. For his son Rehoboam, see II Chron. xi. 21. The history of the subsequent practice of the custom among the Jews is obscure, but the Talmud contains no law against polygamy. It must have ceased in Judæa by the time of the Christian Era. It was not then allowed in either Greece or Rome. Polygamy was unchecked by law in profligate Egypt, but a reactionary and ascetic spirit existed, and some celibate communities were formed in the service of Isis, who seem to have exercised a large though indirect influence in introducing celibacy into the early Christian Church. The restriction of marriage to one living wife subsequently became the religion and the law of all Christian nations, though licence has been widely tolerated in royal and other distinguished families, as in those of some of our English kings. Polygamy was openly introduced into Mormonism by Brigham Young, who left seventeen wives, and fifty-six children. He died in 1877; polygamy was suppressed soon after (_Encyc. Brit._, xvi. 827.)