Monogamy had been the rule of Jewish life from the period of the return from the Babylonian Exile.
In the Middle Ages the custom of monogamy was legalised in Western Jewish communities.
Monogamy and polygamy are usually economic results rather than purely social institutions.
It is a well-known fact that the average man is able to produce many times the number of children to which monogamy limits him.
In this way, it is believed, indissoluble marriage, in its two forms ofmonogamy and polygamy, originated.
Monogamy requires from him periodical continence, not only for a certain time every month, but among many peoples during the pregnancy of his wife, and as long as she suckles her child.
Monogamy is all the more likely to have been the general rule among our earliest human ancestors as it seems to be so among the man-like apes.
Here all property is missing and it was precisely for the protection and inheritance of this that monogamy and man rule were established.
Hence the vicissitudes of monogamy during this epoch occupy him very briefly.
No sign permits the conclusion that a higher form of the family was developed here, that any established form of monogamy ever existed anywhere in the New World before the discovery and conquest.
Here a new element becomes active, an element which at best existed only in the germ at the time when monogamy developed: individual sexlove.
Since monogamy was caused by economic conditions, will it disappear when these causes are abolished?
It is the form of the family characteristic for barbarism, as group marriage is for savagery and monogamy for civilization.
However, those peculiarities that were stamped upon the face of monogamy by its rise through property relations, will decidedly vanish, namely the supremacy of men and the indissolubility of marriage.
In the abduction of women, by the way, a trace of transition to monogamy is found even here, at least in the form of the pairing family.
For savagery group marriage, for barbarism the pairing family, for civilization monogamy supplemented by adultery and prostitution.
We have seen that Bachofen was perfectly right in regarding the progress from group marriage to monogamy mainly as the work of women.
And finally, did we not see that in the modern world monogamy and prostitution, though antitheses, are inseparable and poles of the same social condition?
Monogamy had conquered, in principle at least and as an ideal.
The fact that monogamy was practiced among the ancient Greeks and Romans is in no way derogatory of it as an institution.
To say, in view of such facts, that monogamy originated with the paganism of ancient Greece and Rome, is blasphemy.
That monogamy is a relic of the paganism of the ancient Greeks and Romans, with whom it originated.
But monogamy did not originate with the Greeks, neither was it invented by the Romans, nor by any other nation.
At thirty aman is terrified by the inhibitions of monogamy and has little taste for the so-called comforts of a home; at sixty he is beyond amorous adventure and is in need of creature ease and security.
Monogamy accomplishes this, not by producing satiety, but by destroying appetite.
Intermezzo on Monogamy The prevalence of monogamyin Christendom is commonly ascribed to ethical motives.
If we are to stand by monogamy it behoves us to examine very carefully certain of its present conditions which militate against the full realization of its value for the individual and for the race.
There remains the fact, probably on the whole a quite new fact of our day, that under modern conditions a large proportion of women, whose quality we must consider, are declining monogamyas at present constituted.
We are quite prepared to accept in its place any other institution which will serve mankind better, and we adhere to monogamy only because such an alternative cannot be named.
The human being is immensely complex both in composition and in needs, and the institution of monogamy does not become easier of maintenance as human complexity increases.
The disproportion of the sexes we have already discussed, and it may here be assumed that that grave obstacle to the success of monogamy is removed.
One has elsewhere argued at length that monogamy is the marriage form which has prevailed and will be maintained because of its superior survival-value--in other words, because it best serves the interests of the future.
Hearn's views and practices as regards love and the feminine are not of sympathetic interest to those who think that monogamy is good and advisable.
Both monogamy and the practice of parents selecting their child's spouse arose because best accordant with religion.
It's only our British hypocrisy that makes us pretend monogamy is our rule!
Not you, old chap, but the Weary Roue and the Good Stockbroker, jawing away as if they really thought monogamy was in the majority in this country, and polygamy was something new!
In the realm of Islam, the common man is, as a rule, content with a single wife, so that monogamy here prevails in the lowest stratum of society.
It was likewise practised by the ancient Israelites, and also by the Greeks, although the Indo-Germanic tribes for the most part adhered to monogamy from early times on.
Inasmuch as the acts of primitive man were largely determined by instincts, the original monogamy is not to be interpreted as conformity to a norm.
The same is true of America and of Africa, monogamy decidedly predominating in the former and polygyny in the latter.
For the group-marriage with chief and secondary wives is, of course, more similar to monogamy than is undifferentiated group-marriage.
As an intermediate stage between monogamy and group-marriage, pure polyandry, it should be remarked, is doubtless a very transitory phenomenon.
Even in the totemic era, indeed, polygamy is not universal; monogamy continues to survive.
In the northerly regions, where immigration and racial fusion have played a greater role, both monogamy and polygyny may be found.
Indeed, where strict monogamy does not prevent, phenomena similar to marriage by capture persist far beyond this period into a later civilization.
The monogamy of the political age, on the other hand, is confronted by all those conflicting tendencies which had previously given rise to the various polygamous marriage-unions of totemic society.
Thus, the difference between the two forms of primitive group-marriage also indirectly confirms the supposition that monogamy lies at the basis of group-marriage in general.
IV Ellen Key, in Love and Marriage, observes: "Few propositions are so lacking in proof as that monogamy is the form of sexual life which is indispensable to the vitality and culture of nations.
And further: "all the progress that is ascribed to Christian civilisation has taken place while monogamy was indeed the law, but polygamy the custom.
Again, monogamy secures the superior upbringing and, therefore, the superior socialization of the child.
From all this it follows that monogamy favors the development of high types of religion and morals, family affection being an indispensable root of any high type of ethical religion.
On the contrary, this primitive monogamy rested solely upon an instinctive basis, and, as we have seen, unless children were born it was apt to be relatively unstable.
This means that monogamy is in harmony with the biological conditions that exist in the human species.
It is no inconsiderable social merit of monogamy that it makes blood relationships simple and usually perfectly definite.
It is especially to the credit of monogamy that it has created fatherhood in the fullest sense of the term, and therefore taught the male element in human society the value of service and self-sacrifice.
The leading peoples of the world, therefore, practice monogamy, and it is safe to say that the connection between monogamy and progressive forms of civilization is not an accident.
What, then, are the social advantages of monogamy which favor the development of a higher type of culture?
First, it very greatly decreases mortality in children, because under monogamy both husband and wife unite in their care.
Wherever other forms have existed monogamy has existed alongside of them as the dominant, even though perhaps not the socially honored, form.
Monogamy not only favors the preservation of the lives of the children, but also favors the preservation of the lives of the parents, because it is only under monogamy that we find aged parents cared for by their children to any extent.
Now all of these peoples, with a possible exception, practice monogamy and live in relatively stable family groups.
Westermarck and the Sarasin brothers, the accumulation of a great number of examples of peoples among whom monogamy prevails does not necessarily constitute proof of the original condition of man.
Early monogamy takes its rise beyond the border-line separating man from the lower animals.
There is no subordination of the wife, monogamy prevails; for, since every male or female has his predestined mate, there is no room for communism.
But the latermonogamy differs from the earlier in one important characteristic.
Among the American aboriginesmonogamy is the rule.
This state of things naturally grows up in a society where monogamyis prescribed by law, where the adult women outnumber the adult men, where many men never marry, and where married women too often lead an indolent life.
Here monogamy gained the victory; and so, under the influence mainly of Stoicism and Christianity, the foundations of modern marriage and the individual family were laid.
With advancing culture and the growth of altruism it is inevitable that monogamy should assert its right to prevail over all other forms of the family which have yet appeared among mankind.
Polygyny is found, for example, among the Innuit, but monogamy is the rule, though marriages are often of very short duration.
Partially under the influence of monogamy and the rise of modern forms of property, it has often been superseded by the parental and sometimes by the agnatic system, although this sequence is by no means invariable.
The Roman law recognised monogamy alone, and hence polygamy was prohibited in the entire Roman empire.
Monogamy was the law and practice of all the Greek and Italian communities, so far back as our accounts reach.
The natural foundation of the institution of monogamy is not any inherent viciousness in polygyny or polyandry, but the hard fact that men and women are born in about equal numbers.
Monogamy was the general system in Greece, though there are said to have been slight and temporary deviations into the earlier system, after some great disasters, when an increase of population was ardently desired.
We may regard monogamy either in the light of our intuitive moral sentiment on the subject of purity, or in the light of the interests of society.
In this way it may be intelligibly said, without any reference to utilitarian considerations, that monogamy is a higher state than polygamy.
Monogamy was, from the earliest times, strictly enjoined; and it was one of the great benefits that have resulted from the expansion of Roman power, that it made this type dominant in Europe.
Another mission has been established in Bohol, where their efforts are greatly aided by the prevalence of monogamyamong the people, who suddenly abandon their idols and drunken feasts.
In certain parts of Mindanao, the woman has two husbands; but monogamyis the prevailing custom of the archipelago.
If you will have monogamy you may have it; but if you continue merely to pretend monogamy we shall find a way of regaining our independence.
We cannot prove with theoretical finality that monogamy is the form of family life to which the universe is best adapted.
That Sir Isaac's monogamy with any other instances that might be akin to it was not pure and exalted, and that it needed--shall we call it readjustment?
Wherever it has survived as a system, polygyny has hindered progress, and wherever it exists in the midst of monogamy it tends to break down civilization.
In spite of the general practice of monogamy as a form of marriage and the noble principles that underlie the monogamic type of family, sex relations need the restraint of law.
There is good reason to believe that this practice of monogamy was in vogue among primitive human beings, but marriage was unstable and it was only through long experimentation that monogamy proved itself best fitted to survive.
There are moral advantages in monogamy that alone are sufficient to insure its permanence.
Monogamy encourages affection and mutual consideration, and in that atmosphere children learn the graces and virtues that make social life wholesome and attractive.
The advantages of monogamy are so many that in spite of the present restiveness under restraint it seems certain to become the permanent and universal type as reason asserts its right and controls impulse.
All the deepest and highest forces within us impel us to evolve an ever nobler and tenderer form of life-long monogamy as our social ideal.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "monogamy" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word. Other words: bigamy; monogamy; polyandry; polygamy
