Among polygamous nations the women, too, often fight for the men, whose favourites in their absence are apt to suffer much at the hands of jealous rivals. It is among the polygamous semi-civilised nations in general that Jealousy asserts itself in the most shrill and dissonant manner. It is not that bitter-sweet romantic Jealousy which by its constant fluctuations between hope and doubt fans a modern lover’s passion into brighter flames; it is a more vicious kind of conjugal Jealousy which destroys domestic peace and plots the ruin of rivals. In Madagascar, Mr. Spencer tells us, “the name for Polygyny—‘fampovafesana’—signifies ‘the means of causing enmity’”; and that kindred names are commonly applicable to it we are shown by their use among the Hebrews: in the Mishna a man’s several wives are called ‘tzârot,’ that is, troubles, adversaries, or rivals. In modern Persia, where polygamy prevails, the same state of affairs is encountered. Says Ploss: “If there are several women in the house, each one inhabits a separate division; in the houses of the wealthy each wife, moreover, has her own servants. Constantly apprehending evil intentions, no woman touches the dishes of a rival.” It is among the polygamous nations of the East, too, that history records such a profusion of bloody wars of succession waged by half-brothers; for how could fraternal or any other kind of domestic affection flourish in families where the mothers are constantly goaded by Jealousy into deadly hatred of one another? MONOPOLY AND MONOGAMY The United States being a “free country,” its government has sometimes been blamed by “freethinkers” for attempting to repress Mormon Polygamy. But a free country is not one in which social experiments injurious to public welfare are to be necessarily allowed. Readers of history and anthropology know that polygamy is an experiment which has been tried so often with disastrous social results, that it may be looked upon safely as criminal and treated accordingly. Even the forcible argument of that spiteful old pessimist, Schopenhauer, that polygamy should be introduced because it would rid the world of old maids, does not save the institution; since it is well—for the prospects of Beauty, at any rate—that some women should be “eliminated” in the form of old maids.