MARRIAGE PREVENTS CRIME
It is an acknowledged fact that crime is much more prevalent
among unmarried persons than among the married; for the
married man's family becomes a pledge to society for his good
behavior: nor can the married woman disgrace herself without
disgracing also her husband and her children. That system,
therefore, which provides marriage for the greater number
must be the more favorable to the promotion of public virtue
and morality. It has already been demonstrated that polygamy
provides for the marriage of the greater number of the women
than monogamy can; and it will not be difficult to prove that
it also conduces to the marriage of the greater number of the
men: for there are always a great many men
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who will not marry, so long as they can obtain the
gratification of their propensities without marriage, which
they can do as long as there are so many unmarried women as
there must be where ever monogamy prevails. The more rich and
luxurious monogamous society becomes, the more abandoned
women there will be, and the fewer marriages and the more
crime. But let the system of polygamy be adopted, and then
all the women will be wanted for wives; and, as they can then
obtain husbands and homes of their own, but few will prefer
to follow a loose and vicious course of life. And then the
men, being deprived of the opportunity of illicit indulgence,
will be compelled to marry; and their marriage will refine
and humanize them, and preserve them from many of those vices
and immoralities to which they are now addicted. There are
many crimes against which the moral sentiment of humanity
revolts, but which are constantly forced upon mankind by the
tyranny of monogamy, and which nothing but a return to the
purer system of polygamy can restrain and prevent. Among
many of these crimes and moral evils caused or
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aggravated by monogamy, and which would be greatly
diminished by polygamy, I can mention only a few.
ADULTERY
The violation of the marriage-vow constitutes the crime of
adultery,-a crime which has always been regarded with the
greatest detestation among mankind, and which, in ancient
times, was punished with death. The definition of adultery,
like that of marriage, depends upon the social system which
we adopt. According to the system of monogamy, if any married
person has sexual intercourse with any one, except his own
wife, or her own husband, then he or she is guilty of
adultery; but if the other party to the same act be
unmarried, then that unmarried person is not guilty of
adultery, but of fornication only. That is, if a married man
has intercourse with another man's wife, then both are guilty
of adultery; but if an unmarried man has intercourse with a
married woman, then she is guilty of adultery, but he is not.
According to the system of polygamy, if any man has
intercourse with another's man's wife, they are both guilty
of adultery; but if any man has intercourse
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with an unmarried woman, then both are guilty of fornication.
That is, it is the married or unmarried state of the woman,
and not of the man, that determines the nature of the crime;
and both parties to the same act are always by this system
held guilty of the same offence. A careful examination of
the laws of God and of Nature will enable us to determine
which of these definitions is correct, and will also assist
us in the determination of the more important question, Which
social system is right?
1. If a married woman admit any other man to her bed except
her husband, her offspring becomes spurious, or at least
uncertain, and her husband may have another man's child
imposed upon him instead of his own, to be supported, and to
inherit his estate; but no such uncertainty occurs from the
intercourse of one man with several women.
2. If a wife admit the embrace of another lover, it always
implies an alienation of her affections from her husband: but
it does not imply an alienation of her husband's affections
to take another woman, for his first wife is not always
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capable of fulfilling his conjugal desires; and it is
sometimes as much out of regard to her health and comfort as
to his own gratification, that he is impelled to take
another.
3. If a woman is having intercourse with several men at the
same time, she is living in uncleanness, and in constant
liability of inducing within herself, and communicating to
all her lovers, the most loathsome and incurable disease; her
mind and heart become hopelessly depraved, and she incurs the
utter loss of all self-respect and all public estimation: but
no such diseases of body or degradation of character attach
to the man who is living with several women.
These natural laws are fully ratified and confirmed by the
divine law: "The man that committeth adultery with another
man's wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be
put to death." "But if a man entice a maid that is not
betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be
his wife." "Because he hath humbled her, he may not put her
away all his life." "And Nathan said to David, Thou art the
man. Thus saith the Lord, I delivered thee out of the hand of
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Saul, and I gave thee thy master's house and thy master's
wives into thy bosom; and gave thee the house of Israel and
of Judah, and if that had been too little, I would moreover
have given thee such and such things. Where- fore hast thou
despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight,
and hast taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife?
Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thy house,
because thou hast despised me, and hast taken the wife of
Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife."*1 It seems unnecessary to
cite further proofs. The entire Bible confirms the
definition of adultery as given by the system of polygamy.
The civil laws of those States practising monogamy, in
defining adultery, are full of contradictions and
obscurities. Their theory requires that all married persons,
both men and women, who have intercourse with any others
except their own husbands or their own wives, should be
called adulterers, and considered equally criminal; but with
an open Bible before them, and living Nature
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all around them, they approach, sometimes, very near to the
distinctions set forth in polygamy. The following is Dr.
Noah Webster's definition: "Adultery. Violation of the
marriage-bed; a crime or civil injury which introduces, or
may introduce, into a family, a spurious offspring. In
common usage, adultery means the unfaithfulness of any
married person to the marriage-bed. By the laws of
Connecticut, the sexual intercourse of any man with a married
woman is the crime of adultery in both; such intercourse of a
married man with an unmarried woman is fornication in both,
and adultery of the man, within the meaning of the law
respecting divorce; but not a felonious adultery in either,
or the crime of adultery at common law, or by the statute.
This latter offence is, in England, proceeded with only in
the ecclesiastical courts."
This definition, according to the laws of Connecticut, is the
very one which polygamy requires, with the exception of that
part of it relating to divorce; and doubtless the God-fearing
legislators of the "Land of Steady Habits" who framed this
statute were more familiar with the Bible than
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with Roman codes, and, besides, had very little respect for
the authority of popes or councils. In Massachusetts, also,
the statute requires that "when the crime committed between a
married woman and a man who is unmarried, the man shall be
deemed guilty of adultery." Rev. Stat. of Mass., 1860. In
most of the States of the American Union, however, the laws
define adultery, according to common usage, as the theory of
monogamy requires. And the consequence is, that it is
regarded as a very trifling crime by the statutes of those
States; the common penalty being only one hundred dollars'
fine, or six months' imprisonment, even this light penalty
being rarely inflicted; for the public conscience is so
depraved by the false definitions of monogamous jurisprudence
in respect to this crime, that few men will prosecute and few
juries will convict either an adulterer or an adulteress.
"The adulteress! what a theme for angry verse!
What provocation to the indignant heart
That feels for injured love! But I disdain
The nauseous task to paint her as she is, -
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Cruel, abandoned, glorying in her shame!
No: let her pass, and, charioted along
In guilty splendor, shake the public ways:
The frequency of crime has washed them white."
MURDER
It is a notorious fact, that, where the system of monogamy
prevails, the most common cause of murder is unhappy
marriages. Husbands murder their wives, and wives murder
their husbands, or incite others to do it, almost every week.
When love turns to hatred, it is the bitterest kind of
hatred; and when people hate each other, their hatred becomes
the more intense, the more closely they are bound together.
The bonds of matrimony are softer then silk, and sweeter than
wreaths of flowers, so long as mutual love and mutual
confidence subsist; but when these are banished from the
domestic altar, and their places usurped by distrust and
jealousy, then those bonds become heavier than iron shackles,
and more corroding than fetters of brass. Under such
circumstances, a separation of some kind is eagerly desired.
This desire is spontaneous and instinctive; but the
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marriage-vow has been so solemnly uttered and recorded, that
there can be no honorable separation but death. Then the
dreadful crime of murder is conceived and cherished and
pondered in the mind, until it takes complete possession of
it. The idea of murder is begotten between the desire of
dissolving the marriage and the desire of maintaining one's
public honor. And both desires cannot be gratified in any
other way. Divorce is dishonorable. It occasions endless
talk and scandal, and divulges family secrets. It makes one
inevitably notorious. It often involves immense expense.
Persons, therefore, whose desires are naturally impetuous,
and who are determined to obtain a speedy separation from
their hated husbands or wives, are peculiarly liable to this
crime. They study out a plan that promises complete success.
They are quite sure that they can manage to murder their
companions without being found out. At all events, they often
do murder them, and run the risk of divine punishment in the
world to come. Many cases of murder for this cause never are
found out; but enough are discovered to prove that the dread-
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ful crime is one of frequent occurrence. It has been brought
to light that some men have murdered a number of wives, and
some women a number of husbands in succession. The nursery
story of Bluebeard may be a horrible fiction; but it is a
fiction founded on fact: there must be some verisimilitude
about it, or it could never have interested so many
generations as it has. Many well-authenticated instances of
wife-murder have occurred for which no excuse of jealousy or
domestic infelicity can be urged, and which can only be
accounted for on the ground of men's capricious desires and
love of change. The history of Henry VIII., king of England,
and his six wives, most of whom were successively murdered to
make room for their successors, is an obvious and an
authentic instance.
Now, polygamy furnishes the only sufficient preventive of
this horrible crime; for almost any man would sooner support
an extra wife, if the usages of society would allow it, than
to take the life of his present wife, at the imminent risk of
his own. And many men will do it, and are now doing it, even
against the usages of society, and in spite of the
regulations of monogamy. Thus King Henry
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II., less sanguinary, or more independent of public opinion,
than his brilliant descendant above mentioned, still
permitted his queen Eleanor to live, and to wear the crown,
though he often preferred the society of the fair Rosamond to
hers, and often repaired to her sylvan bowers at Woodstock to
enjoy it. And most of the sovereigns of Europe have followed
his example; but, like Charles II. and the four Georges, they
keep their mistresses nearer court than at Woodstock.
DIVORCE
The marriage-relation is designed to be a permanent and an
inseparable one. The parties take each other by the hand,
and mutually plight their troth, for better or for worse, to
love and to cherish, in prosperity and in adversity, in
health and in sickness, till death shall part them. Such a
union is most honorable: it is most admirable. But, under
the system of monogamy, it is often impracticable. Although
the laws of Christ allow but one cause for divorce, - the
unfaithfulness of the wife to the marriage-vow, - and
although every State that practises monogamy claims to be
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a Christian State, yet civil laws allow of divorce for the
most trifling causes. The excuse is made, that, when married
persons are unhappy in their marriage-relation, divorce alone
can prevent neglect and abuse; and it may prevent murder. So
they allow them to commit one great crime to prevent their
committing another and a greater. This is, of course,
fallacious reasoning. But, if it were most exact reasoning,
the remedy is dangerous, unnecessary, and directly at
variance with the laws of God. Polygamy is a safer and a
surer remedy or rather preventive of both divorce and murder
than any violation of divine law can be. The laws of God and
of Nature always harmonize with each other; and the only
manner in which we can perfect our civil laws is to bring
them into perfect accordance with the former. Most men who
desire a divorce would prefer polygamy, if it were
practicable and lawful. A man does not often undertake to
repudiate his present wife, until he begins to desire
another. And that other one is already selected and already
loved; but the love cannot be consummated. And nothing but
the desire of consummating this love
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carries him through with the divorce. For, if the law of the
land favors the divorce, there still remains the law of God
to oppose it; and hence divorces are usually difficult,
expensive, annoying, and slow. It took Henry VIII. five
years, with all his wealth and power, to divorce himself from
his first wife, Catharine of Aragon, in favor of Anne Boleyn,
with whom he was desperately in love all the while. If she
had yielded to his solicitations, and granted him illicit
gratification, it is not at all probable that he would ever
have prosecuted the divorce to its termination. And thus is
every divorce more or less tedious, and it ought to be.
Christianity forbids it, the wife resists it, children plead,
and friends expostulate against it, the world wonders and
stares; and yet, in spite of all opposition, the vehement
passions of men often drive them through it. Yet the
greatest suffering of all is that of the man's own
conscience, who persists in it. To do such violence to the
most solemn laws of God and the most honorable sentiments of
mankind is no light crime, whatever the laws of the State may
term it. Polygamy furnishes the only preventive of this
great social evil.
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If a man loves another woman, and is resolved to have her,
let him take her, and keep her, and keep his first one also.
Napoleon Bonaparte never would have divorced Josephine, had
polygamy been deemed lawful and proper. Yet no man ever had
a fairer pretext for divorce upon any mere prudential
considerations than he had. Her virtue was unquestionable.
It was not only above reproach, it was above suspicion. But
all hopes of her having offspring had failed. His desire for
an heir was most intense, most natural, and most commendable.
It seemed to be all that was wanting to secure the stability
of his throne, the good of his people, and the peace of the
world. Yet according to the system of monogamy, the only
manner in which these very desirable ends could be attained
was by the divorce of Josephine, by whose alliance he had
been brought to more public notice, and been greatly assisted
in his successful career, and who was one of the loveliest
and noblest women that ever wore a crown. The divorce was
consummated, the reasons for it were publicly announced; but
the moral sense of the world was shocked, and Napoleon was
at once pronounced a
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tyrant and a monster. And this act is still held by many to
be the turning-point both in his personal character and in
his public career. Before this, all his history is bright;
after it, all is dark. One cannot, even now, after so long a
time, contemplate the tears of Josephine and the subsequent
disasters of Napoleon, without cursing the narrow bigotry of
monogamy, and wishing that the golden age of polygamy had
returned before his day.
At the court of David, King of Israel, even the rape and the
incest of Tamar were not so unpardonable as her abandonment.
Although shocked and indignant at the brutal violence of her
half-brother Amnon, yet her tenderness could not deny some
pity to the intensity of his passion. "Nay, my brother, do
not force me," she said. "Speak to the king; for he will not
withhold me from thee." But when his lust had been sated, and
he commanded her to be gone, she refused to go; saying, "This
evil in sending me away is greater than the other."*2 Then he
caused her to be put out forcibly, and the door to be bolted.
It was this insulting divorce added to her forcible humilia-
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tion that broke her heart. The latter she might forgive, the
former she could not; and she rent her purple robes, and went
out crying with her hand upon her head. It was this cruel
repudiation that whetted the dagger of Absalom to avenge her
wrongs, and it was this that fills up the measure of Amnon's
guilt in the judgement of every honest heart. God did not
require David to put away Bathsheba, after he had once
ravished her, and would not have permitted him to do so, had
he desired it, although he had obtained her by blood and
fraud. His punishment must come in some other manner. Their
marriage, once consummated by cohabitation, was complete and
indissoluble. How differently would a similar case be now
decided by the ecclesiastical courts of modern Europe! Can
men's judgement be more just than God's?
PROCURING ABORTION
The murder of the child in embryo is a crime prohibited by
law, and most repugnant to humanity. Yet it is one which the
system of monogamy is obliged to wink at and tolerate. This
horrid
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crime is becoming more and more common every year, till it is
now somewhat fashionable, especially as it is more commonly
practised by fashionable people. Not many years ago, the
person who dispensed drugs for such vile purposes was branded
as a villain, or looked upon as a hateful hag; a Locusta,
whose fit dwelling-place was some dark cave among volcanic
mountains, and whose fit companions were venomous serpents
and wild foxes: but it is now currently reported that one of
the popular compounders of these death-dealing drugs is
deemed worthy of the honor of knighthood.*3 and is appointed
physician extraordinary to the queen. Almost every newspaper
now contains a well-displayed advertisement, addressed "to
the ladies," setting forth the powerful properties of some
specific for "removing obstructions," and "bringing on the
monthly periods," with entire certainty; and although these
drugs will be "sure to cause miscarriage," yet they are at
the same time so "mild and safe as not to be injurious to the
most delicate constitution." Such are some of the most
impudent
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claims of the modern abortionist. But I cannot go on.
For full details I beg to refer my readers to the public
journals of the day.
But the manufacturers and the consumers of drugs for these
abominable practices are not the only ones responsible for
the crime. Monogamy is responsible for it. The entire social
system is corrupt. The most respectable merchants and
apothecaries deal in these drugs, the most respectable
journals advertise them, everybody reads about them; yet no
protesting voice is raised, either against the use of them or
the traffic in them. The ministers of religion, the proper
censors of the public morals, are silent: the subject is too
indelicate for them to allude to. The police-magistrates and
other officers of the law make no effort to bring the guilty
parties to justice, except in the most shocking and notorious
instances, where the life of the mother is taken, as well as
that of the child.
Intelligent and respectable physicians, who have the best
opportunities of knowing, state that this vice is now
practised more commonly by married
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women than by the unmarried; and it is not difficult to
account for it. Under the system of monogamy, the wife
attempts too much, and physical impossibilities are expected
and required of her. She alone undertakes to supply all her
husband's conjugal wants, and to gratify all his amorous
desires; and she is quite conscious that even in the bloom of
her youth, in perfect health, and in the height of her
charms, she is scarcely capable of doing it: and she dreads
to have any thing happen to her to make her less capable.
Especially if she has already borne one child, and has passed
through the long period of lactation, she remembers its
effect upon herself and upon her husband with alarm. She
fancies herself in danger of losing her hold upon his
affections, which she wishes to retain, of course, as long as
possible. She therefore takes drugs to prevent fruitfulness,
and to preserve her form and beauty, in order to prevent her
husband's affections being lavished upon others.
And if the system of monogamy be right, then this motive is
commendable, and the reasoning based upon it is entirely
valid. No wife can be
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blamed for wishing to prevent her husband from forming
illicit attachments, and thus bringing dishonor upon himself
and all his house; and the only means at her command for
preventing it is to concentrate all his affections upon
herself.
But polygamy is capable of suppressing this vice, or, at
least, of greatly diminishing it, by removing its most
powerful motives. Under the system of polygamy, the burdens
as well as the privileges of the women are more equally
distributed. No women is required or expected to be always
prepared for her husband's embraces, nor does she claim any
more than she is able to receive, or than he is voluntarily
inclined to bestow. If she is full of life, and in vigorous
health, and is capable of fulfilling her conjugal duties
alone, it is well: her husband is a happy man. But, if she
is not able, it is still well. Her husband need not be
unhappy; for he can espouse another, without reproach to her
or dishonor to himself.
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FECUNDITY OUGHT TO BE PROMOTED, NOT DESTROYED.
The laws of God and of Nature concur in bearing unqualified
testimony to the desirableness of offspring. It is the
proper fruit of marriage, of which love is the blossom. The
blossom yields a delicious but an evanescent pleasure; but
the fruit, after diligent culture and careful preservation,
is a source of perpetual delight and honor. "Be fruitful,
and multiply, and replenish the earth and subdue it,"
constitutes the most important part of the divine blessing
pronounced upon the first married couple, - a benediction
repeated, in substance, upon the occasion of every subsequent
marriage the particulars of which are recorded in the Holy
Bible. When the parents of Rebecca sent her away to become
the wife of Isaac, they blessed her, and said, "Be thou the
mother of thousands of millions;" and when Boaz espoused Ruth
the Moabitess, the people that were in the gate, and the
elders, said, "The Lord make the woman that is come into thy
house, like Rachel and Leah, which two did build the house
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of Israel." "Lo, children are a heritage of the Lord, and
the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the
hand of a mighty man, so are the children of thy youth. Happy
is the man that hath his quiver full of them." "Thy wife
shall be as a fruitful vine by the sides of thy house, thy
children like olive-plants round about thy table. Behold that
thus shall the man be blessed that feareth the Lord."*4
As fruitfulness, on the one hand, is always declared to be a
blessing, in the Bible, so barrenness, on the other hand, is
declared to be a curse. the most affecting and the most
memorable prayers of females recorded therein are those which
beg for offspring; and the most grateful thanks-givings are
those for children borne by them. But the unnatural and
unholy system of monogamy which now prevails has so strangely
perverted our desires, that is seems to change the divine
blessing into a curse, and the curse into a blessing. If
women would now dare to pray for what they wish, they would
pray for barrenness, instead of fruitfulness. Now, there
must be something radically wrong in
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a social system which thus presumes to reverse the course of
Nature, and to contradict the divine assurances of blessing
and of cursing; and which has so fatally and deeply poisoned
the mysterious springs of life, and polluted the most
inviolable sanctuaries of female purity and maternal love.
"Our Maker bids increase: who bids abstain,
But our destroyer, foe to God and man?"
I doubt whether there can be any form of licentiousness more
abhorrent to the law of God and of Nature than this "Murder
of the Innocents." Even fornication cannot be so great a sin.
The unmarried woman who has a child in the natural way, and
who bestows upon it a mother's love and a mother's care,
cannot thereby become so guilty as the married woman who
wilfully destroys her offspring, or who prevents her
fruitfulness. There is great danger lest the general
smattering of medical knowledge among us may do more harm
than good. There is, alas! a positive certainty that
presumptuous quacks, who know only enough of Nature to have
lost their reverence for her laws, are leading many of our
honorable women astray,
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and are poisoning the best blood in our land. These women,
like our common mother Eve, from unholy and intensely selfish
motives, prompted and countenanced by our system of monogamy,
are plucking the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and
evil, and intermeddling with those functions of Nature which
ought to be let alone. No honorable physician, who is master
of his profession, will degrade that profession so much as to
descend to such vile practice. His business is not to
destroy life, but to save it. He at least has learned the
most profound respect for the laws of our being.
"A little learning is a dangerous thing:
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring.
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
But drinking largely sobers us again."
We had better know nothing of the laws of gestation than to
know only enough to evade or violate them; for they cannot be
violated with impunity. The time will come when the young
wife who now destroys her unborn offspring, or who otherwise
wilfully and wickedly tampers with her reproductive powers,
will surely mourn their loss,
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and will mourn as one that cannot be comforted. Like
Rachael, she will beg and pray for fruitfulness, and say,
"Oh! give me children, or else I die;" but, not like
Rachael, she will beg and pray in vain. Those delicate
organs once weakened by violent or unnatural means rarely
regain their normal condition, and one voluntary abortion may
be followed by many involuntary miscarriages. She loses all,
and she is guilty of all; and some day she will surely feel
both her loss and her guilt, till it becomes, like the
punishment of the first murderer, a burden too heavy to be
borne. Never can she know by blissful experience the
sweetness of a mother's love; that pure and fond and tender
and changeless affection, which so inspires and ennobles the
female character. Never can she become quite free from the
jealous suspicions of her husband, who, against his will and
all his better judgement, is a perpetual prey to the
green-eyed demon. Never can the spacious halls and gloomy
apartments of their solitary home resound with the innocent
glee of their children's voices; no baby in the cradle; no
"daughter singing in the village choir" or the Sunday-school
concert; no son to
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graduate from school or college, or to inherit and transmit
to future generations the family name and wealth and honors.
This is no fancy sketch nor far-fetched representation, but
is a faithful portraiture of many of our New-England
families. The curse of God is already upon us, and our
native population is even now giving way to the more prolific
races of English, Celts, and Germans. God gives the land to
those who obey his marriage-laws to "be fruitful, and
multiply and replenish the earth, and subdue it." As the
Israelites drove out the ancient Canaanites who made their
children pass through to Moloch, and as they took possession
of their fruitful fields and vineyards, already planted, and
of their towns and cities, already built; so these poorer,
more natural and less artificial immigrants are dispossessing
us. I quote once more from the Massachusetts Registration
Report for 1866, page 18.
BIRTH-RATE IN MASSACHUSETTS
"In England, during the twenty-six years, 1838-1863, with a
population of about eighteen millions, the average birth-rate
was 3.33 per cent. In
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Massachusetts, it has never been so high. In the seven years
1852-1858, it was 2.90. In the five years immediately
preceding the war, 1856-1860, it was 2.85. During the four
years of war, 1862-1865, the birth-rate was 2.46. We find it
now rising, not to the old standard of 2.85 or 2.90, but to
2.69."
Page 28 reads as follows,-
"The foreign-born population of Massachusetts, by the census
of 1865, was 265,486, the American population 999,976, and
the population of unknown nativity, 1,569. The last it is
not easy to divide; it seems nearer the probable truth to
divide them equally. We have, then, 1,000,761 Americans, and
266,270 foreigners. And they produced in 1866, - the
Americans 16,555 children, the foreigners 17,530 children;
that is to say, a child was born to every 60 45/100
Americans, and to every 15 19/100 foreigners; the latter
class being four times as productive as the former."
The birth-rate, therefore, of the Americans of Massachusetts
for the year 1866 was only 1.65 per cent; while that of the
foreign population was 6.59 per cent. At this rate, not many
generations will be required for them to dispossess us.
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But it is unnecessary to the satisfactory analysis and
comparison of the two marriage-systems to go on, to any
greater length, with this painful dissection of vice, or to
array any further statistical proofs in confirmation of the
inherent licentiousness of monogamy. It would be easy to
show that the galling bondage of restricted marriage has
had, and is now having, a similar effect upon the great
social evils of insanity, suicide, and self-pollution, which
it has upon those other forms of vice which have been
analyzed above, and to prove that polygamy would tend to
mitigate them also. If these hints of mine are seized upon
and properly developed by some more capable writer, and so
clearly and happily set forth as to lead to a practical
reform, it will be honor enough for me to have indicated its
necessity and demonstrated its possibility.
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*1 Ex. xxii. 16; Lev. xx. 10; Deut. xxii. 22-29;
2 Sam. xii. 7-10
*2 2 Sam. xiii.
*3 Sir (?) James Clarke.
*4 Ps. cxxvii., cxxviii.
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