In ancient Egypt polygamy was still in force; but already it was interdicted to the priests,[434] contrary to what has happened nearly everywhere. As a matter of fact, and by the simple necessity resulting from the proportion of the sexes, even when polygamy is authorised and legal, it is especially the luxury of rich and powerful men; the common people have everywhere been reduced to monogamy, whether they wished it or not. Under most of the great early despotic monarchies which had emerged from primitive savagery this fact became legalised, and plurality of wives constituted a privilege reserved to the great ones of the land. In ancient Peru monogamy was obligatory for men who possessed nothing, but not for the Inca and the nobles of the kingdom. Thus the last Inca, Atahualpa, had three thousand wives or concubines. As generally happens when polygamy is restrained, there was already a hierarchy among the wives of the Inca; one of them, who was obliged to be his sister, the _coya_, was reputed superior to the others, and her eldest son succeeded his father.[435] On this point, as on many others, ancient Peru had unconsciously copied Egypt. In Mexico also, monogamy was habitual for the poor, but the powerful and the nobles had a number of wives proportioned to their rank and to their riches.[436] In Mexico, as in Peru, polygamy was monogamic in the sense that one wife had pre-eminence over the others, and that her children alone inherited the paternal title and wealth. This polygamy of princes and potentates, who by right of birth soar above the common rule, is found also in the great Aryan empires of Asia.[437] IV. _Polygamy in Persia and India._ The polygamy of the monarchs of ancient Persia seems to have been copied from that of the kings of Egypt, or of the Incas of Peru. They had numerous concubines and three or four wives, of whom one was especially considered as queen, or privileged wife.[438] As for the Persians of more ancient times still, the Mazdeans who drew up the sacred code of the Avesta, if we refer to the Zend text, we find they had a most severe sexual morality. The Avestic code condemns and punishes resort to prostitutes, seduction, sexual extravagances, abortion, etc. Throughout that portion of the Avesta which has come down to us there is no recognition of polygamy, and the verses which mention marriage have quite a monogamic meaning. It seems, however, says one of the translators of the Avesta, that among the ancient Persians polygamy may have been authorised in case of sterility of the first wife.[439] Like anthropophagy, polygamy is an original sin with human societies. But writings so exclusively religious and even liturgic as the Avesta constitute very incomplete sources of information in regard to civil institutions. To study the marriage of the ancient Persians in the Avesta seems about as illusory as it would be to study ours in a Catholic prayer-book.