eriod which often lasts from two to
four years in savages, is an important cause of polyandry. At Sierra
Leone, coitus of the husband with his wife before the last-born child
can walk is regarded as a crime.

Although very advantageous to the wife's health this custom is
entirely based on religious ideas and superstitions. Many savages
consider that every woman is impure and bewitched during her monthly
periods, during pregnancy and suckling. If we add to this the fact
that, being usually treated as beasts, the women soon grow old, we can
easily understand that the men are inclined to polygamy. It is
remarkable with what rapidity the savage woman grows old. She is only
fresh from thirteen to twenty years; after twenty-five she is old and
sterile, and a little later she has the aspect of an old sorceress.
This premature senility is not so much due to early sexual intercourse
as to the terribly hard work they undergo, and also to the prolonged
period of suckling.

Another cause of polygamy is man's natural desire for change. The
negroes of Angola exchange wives. The instinct of procreation, love of
glory and riches cooperate with the sterility of many women in
propagating polygamy. Certain races only tolerate it when the woman is
sterile, or has only daughters, which clearly proves that it is based
on the fear of remaining without male descendants.

On the whole, savage women are less fecund than civilized, owing to
their long continence during the two or four years nursing of each
child. If we add to this the high infant mortality, we can understand
how polygamy becomes among these people a means of reproduction in the
struggle for existence, and even in African races a natural law. A
native of Central Africa may have a hundred wives, who also act as
servants and retainers. In this case polygamy is the expression of
pomp and wealth. It is especially developed in agricultural peoples
owing to the value of the woman's labor. On the other hand it is
impossible among nomadic tribes. In Dahomey the king had thousands of
wives, the nobility hundreds, the simple citizen a dozen and the
soldier none at all.

Jealousy and rivalry among the wives is not always the rule in
polygamous families. In equatorial Africa the wives themselves incline
to polygamy and regard a rich man who restricts the number of his
wives as miserly. Livingstone relates that the women of Makololo
declared they would not live in monogamous England, for