everywhere, and at all times, as variable, controlled by expediency;
and always based on the egoistic idea of possession, expressed by the
right of the parents to dispose of their children; the right by
capture; the right by purchase; and the right by consent.

One or all of these customs have been tried in various parts of the
world and at various times, and seldom has the condition of woman
approached even so enviable a place as that of the female animal,
except in the comparatively short periods when women have been the
gens of the family.

These periods have become more and more infrequent, until the legal
status of women has been, as it is now, no more than what the
evolving consciousness of the male permitted to her.

It is a question whether, under our pretended monogamy, which is, per
se, a more ideal condition than polygamy, all women have been either
better conditioned or more moral. The answer depends largely upon our
idea of what constitutes morality. Certainly, the condition of women
in Christian countries has been, and is now, far from ideal; which
would, judging from surface appearances, indicate that monogamy, as it
has been practiced in the past, served only as an ideal, and at best
has been of first aid to the male, primarily because of a question of
personal health and cleanliness; secondly, as a means of developing in
him the latent qualities of altruism, manifested selfishly enough at
first in protecting his possessions; among which he egotistically
conceded _his children at least_ first place; although the wife was
hardly more than a convenience and an incubator.

Of the conditions that have prevailed under the monogamous custom and
among the so-called superior races, Letourneau, in his _Evolution of
the Family_, says: "The Hebrews seem to have been alone, among the
Semites, in adopting monogamy, at least in general practice. Doubtless
the subjection of the Jewish woman was not extreme as it is in Kabyle;
it was, however, very great. Her consent to marriage, it is true, was
necessary when she had reached majority, but she was all the same sold
to her husband. We find hardly more than the portrait of a laborious
servant, busy and grasping. We shall see that the wife, though she
might gain much money, which seems to have been the ideal of the
Hebrew, according to the Proverbs, was repudiable at will, with no
other reason than the caprice of the master who had bought her.
Finally, and this is mu