HISTORY OF MARRIAGE. POLYGAMY AND MONOGAMY. We propose to give only a brief dissertation on the principles and arguments of these systems, with special reference to their representatives in the nineteenth century. Polygamy has existed in all ages. It is, and always has been, the result of moral degradation or wantonness. The Garden of Eden was no harem. Primeval nature knew no community of love. There was only the union of two "and the twain were made one flesh." Time passed; "the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose." The propensities of men were in the ascendant, and "God repented Him that He had created man." He directed Noah to take into the ark, two of every sort, male and female. But "the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth," and tradition points to Polygamy as the generally recognized form of marriage among the ancients. The father of the Hebrew nation was unquestionably a polygamist, and the general history of patriarchal life shows that a plurality of wives and concubines were national customs. In the earlier part of Egyptian history, Menes is said to have founded a system of marriage, ostensibly monogamous, but in reality it was polygamous, because it allowed concubinage. As civilization advanced, the latter became unpopular, and "although lawful, was uncommon," while polygamy was expressly forbidden. Solomon, according to polygamous principles, with his thousand women, should have enjoyed a most felicitous condition. Strange that he exclaimed "A woman among all these have I not found." According to the distinguished Rabbi, Maimonides, polygamy was a Jewish custom as late as the thirteenth century. When Cecrops the Egyptian King, came to Athens (1550, B.C.) he introduced a new system, which proved to be another step toward the recognition of Monogamy. Under this code a man was permitted to have one wife and a concubine. Here dawned the era of Grecian civilization, the glory of which was reflected in the social and political principles of Western Europe. During the fourth and fifth centuries B.C., concubinage disappeared, but, under the new regime, the condition of the wife was degraded. She was regarded as simply an instrument of procreation and a mistress of the household, while a class of foreign women, who devoted themselves to learning and the fine arts, were the admired, and often the beloved companions of the husbands. These were the courtesans who played the same role in Athenian history, as did the chaste matron, in the annals of Rome. When Greece became subject to Rome and the national characteristics of these nations were blended, marriage became a loose form of monogamy. In Persia, during the reign of Cyrus, about 560 B.C., polygamy was sustained by custom, law, and religion. The Chinese marriage system was, and is, practically polygamous, for, from their earliest traditions, we learn that although a man could have but one