[455] Owing to the hard conditions of life, female beauty fades early among savage and barbarous peoples, sometimes even among those reckoned as civilized. A fresh wife is demanded when the first grows old. In some cases the husband is forbidden by custom to cohabit with his wife until the child is weaned, though suckling may continue two, three, or four years: WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 483-88; PLOSS, _Das Weib_, I, 58, 59 (fading beauty).
[456] WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 202 ff., thus summarizes the causes of polygyny: "_First_, the sterility of the first wife," as in the case of Rachel; "_secondly_, the length of time during which a woman suckles her child; _thirdly_, the sexual requirements of man while leading a hunting or pastoral mode of life; _fourthly_, the accidental scarcity of men; and, _fifthly_, the luxury or sensuality of man, or the desire for influence and power."
[457] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 489-91; _cf._ STARCKE, _op. cit._, 261.
[458] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 495,496; SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 688.
[459] SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 688, 689, 690 ff., 697. _Cf._ on causes of polygyny, LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 112.
[460] SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 682. _Cf._ the similar view of WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 219.
[461] This evil effect Spencer himself emphasizes, though he thinks polygyny favorable to women where the habitat is unfavorable to their self-support and men are scarce: _op. cit._, I, 692-94. See WAKE, _op. cit._, 219 ff., for the relatively advanced condition of women under polyandry; and compare HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 256 ff., who summarizes opinions as to the influence of polyandry; and GROSSE, _Die Formen der Familie_, 110, who emphasizes the degradation of woman among pastoral polygynists.
But, as a rule, neither polygyny nor polyandry is favored by woman, in whom the passion of jealousy is very strongly developed. "Polygyny is an offence against the feelings of women, not only among highly civilized peoples, but even among the rudest savages." It is a noteworthy fact that "among monogamous savage or barbarous races the position of women is comparatively good;"[462] while, on the other hand, polygyny is in almost every way degrading to the female sex.[463] Accordingly, under influence of ideas and sentiments favoring the freedom and dignity of woman, both polygyny and polyandry must yield to individual marriage. With woman in its favor monogamy could never be entirely superseded as the type of human marriage. "Polygamy must disappear as soon as a growing development brings into play permanent motives and fundamental forces."[464] Among these forces is the "idea of procreative conditions" entering into the conception of fatherhood. From this follow chastity on the part of the wife, and consequently a limit to the sexual liberty of the husband. Out of this also sprang ancestor-worship, a powerful force in differentiating the monogamic household. "Even in primitive times, the character, or soul--the inward, mysterious being--of the father was supposed to decide the character of the child.... The joy excited by the excellent qualities of a child was first aroused in the breast of a primitive man when that child owed its being to himself, and its excellence was a proof of the excellence of its begetter, that is, of himself. I venture to assert that even now this idea plays the strongest part in what we call the voice of blood.... Vanity, a sentiment which is often condemned, yet not always blameworthy, finds sustenance in the most trivial occurrences of everyday life from the thought, 'Here I trace myself; the child has inherited that tendency from me.'"[465] 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.