Amongst the Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans of the empire
concubines were a recognized class. A concubine was not a woman who had
cast off her own honor until after the thirteenth century,[1243] and
although her position became doubtful, it was not disreputable for two
or three centuries more. Morganatic marriages for princes have continued
down to our own time. Whatever is defined and provided for in the mores
as a way of solving the problem of life interests is never wrong. Hence
the cases of sacral harlotry, of temporary marriage (as in China, Korea,
Japan, and ancient Arabia), of royal concubines (since the king was
forced to accept a status wife of prescribed rank, etc.), and all the
other peculiar arrangements which have existed in history are accounted
for. Pair marriage, however, has swept all other forms away. It is the
system of the urban-middle-capitalist class. It has gained strength in
all the new countries where all men and women were equal within a small
margin and the women bore their share of the struggle for existence. The
environment, in the new countries, favored the mores of the class from
which the emigrants came. In the old countries the mores of the middle
class have come into conflict with the mores of peasants and nobles. The
former have steadily won. The movement has been the same everywhere,
although the dates of the steps in it have been different. As to women,
the countries which are at the rear of the modern movement keep the old
mores; those which are at the head of it have emancipated women most,
and have swept away from their legislation all toleration for anything
but pair marriage. Vice, of course, still affects facts, and the growth
of wealth and luxurious habits seems to be developing a tendency to take
up again some old customs which bear an aristocratic color. It must be
expected that when the economic facts which now favor the lower middle
classes pass away and new conditions arise the marriage mores will
change again. Democracy and pair marriage are now produced by the
conditions. Both are contingent and transitory. In aristocratic society
a man's family arrangements are his own prerogative. When life becomes
harder it will become aristocratic, and concubinage may be expected to
arise again.

It seems clear that pair marriage has finally set aside the notion
which, in the past, has been so persistently held,--that women are bad
by nature, so that one half of the human race is permane