I
should try vainly to persuade the English woman that there can be
peace in households so constituted: still, such is the case.
Messrs. Wilson and Du Chaillu both assert that the wives rarely
disagree amongst themselves. The sentimental part of love is
modified; the common husband becomes the patriarch, not the
paterfamilias; the wife is not the mistress, but the mere de
famille. The alliance rises or sinks to one of interest and
affection instead of being amorous or uxorious, whilst the
underlying idea, "the more the merrier," especially in lands
where free service is unknown, seems to stifle envy and jealousy.
Everywhere, moreover, amongst polygamists, the husband is
strictly forbidden by popular opinion to show preference for a
favourite wife; if he do so, he is a bad man.
But polygamy here has not rendered the women, as theoretically it
should, a down-trodden moiety of society; on the contrary, their
position is comparatively high. The marriage connection is not
"one of master and slave," a link between freedom and serfdom;
the "weaker vessel" does not suffer from collision with the pot
de fer; generally the fair but frail ones appear to be, as
amongst the Israelites generally, the better halves.
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