months. With others, on the
contrary, a number of married women remain in reality virgins, because
the husband does not desire them, and they are nothing more than
domestics. Among these people the husband as a rule only takes a
second wife when the first has grown old, so that bigamy becomes the
ordinary form of marriage.

The Cingalese were polyandrous before the English conquest, and so
many as seven men had one wife in common. Polyandry is especially the
custom in Thibet. Among polyandrous peoples the husbands are not all
on the same footing of equality, some hold an inferior position,
corresponding nearly to that of concubines, another sign of the
tendency to monogamy.

Among the Togas marriage in groups is constituted as follows: All the
brothers are husbands of the wife of the elder brother, and all the
sisters of this wife are at the same time wives of their
brothers-in-law. If we except prostitution, this is the only case in
man which approaches promiscuity. Marriage in groups, however, is
extremely restricted promiscuity.

To resume, monogamy is by far the most widespread form of marriage.
This is explained by the relative number of men to women. It has often
been stated that the number of individuals of the two sexes is nearly
the same, and this has been used as an argument in favor of monogamy.
But this statement is incorrect; sometimes it is the men, but more
often the women, who predominate. Among the natives of Oregon there
are seven hundred men to eleven hundred and eighty-five women. Among
the Punkas and other races the number of women is two or three times
greater than that of the men. In Kotcha-Hamba there is only one man to
five women. Among other races there are, on the contrary, more men
than women, especially in Australia, Tasmania, and Hayti. In the
latter island there is only one woman to five men. In Cashmere there
are three men to one woman. Among the negroes, on the contrary, the
women predominate, sometimes in the proportion of three to one, but
more generally as three to two.

In Europe, more boys than girls are born on the average, but from the
age of fifteen to twenty the numbers become equal, and after twenty
the women predominate. This is due to the greater mortality among men,
owing to war, the greater danger of masculine occupations, and also to
alcoholism. In the fifteen largest towns in Switzerland alcoholism is
the direct or indirect cause of death in 10.5 per cent. of men abo