detract from its value or respectability. Do not we owe much
to those grand old pagans who laid the foundation for nearly all the
modern sciences, and established better systems of political economy,
and better schools for uniform culture of the whole individual, than
any the world has seen since? But monogamy did not originate with the
Greeks, neither was it invented by the Romans, nor by any other nation.
It originated with the great Originator of the human race. It is an
institution which has come down to us, not from Greece or Rome, but
from Paradise.

If it was so important that man should have more than one woman to supply
his sexual demands, why was the Creator so short-sighted as to make
but one Eve? It would have been as easy to remove two or three or half
a dozen ribs from Adam's side as one; and as the whole world had yet
to be populated, a plurality of wives would certainly have accelerated
the process. Surely, if polygamy was ever required or excusable, it
ought to have been allowed at the start.

Again, when Noah went into the ark, taking with him an assortment of
all species of animals, he took some kinds by pairs and some by sevens,
from which we might suspect, at least, that he observed the laws of
nature respecting polygamous and monogamous animals. But he took only
one wife for himself, and only one for each of his sons. Why not two
or half a dozen instead? Polygamy would certainly have accelerated the
repopulation of the earth most wonderfully; but Noah was monogamous.
To say, in view of such facts, that monogamy originated with the
paganism of ancient Greece and Rome, is blasphemy.

6. The argument that polygamy will cure the "social evil" is exactly
equivalent to the argument that the removal of all restraint from the
sale and manufacture of intoxicating drinks, thus making them cheap
and common, is the best remedy for intemperance. An equally good
argument might be made for the cure of theft, murder, and every other
vice and crime, by a similar plan. Such reasoning is the veriest
sophistry. None but a biased mind could produce such flimsy arguments.

But we forbear. We have already given this subject more attention than
it is worthy of, though we have failed to characterize the vice of
polygamy as it deserves. We leave this for the reader.

Polyandry.--Perhaps we should add a word or two respecting this custom,
which seems to be a still greater outrage against nature than that of
polygamy, be