e wife at a time is decreasing polygamy. But by no means is
polygamy an unheard-of thing, even if it is going out of fashion.
Fashion is always slow in reaching the country places, and it seems to
be in the country villages that polygamy seems to be more generally
practised. Two brothers, representative country-men, wealthy and
conservative, were known to have very extensive harems, each one having
twenty-four wives and concubines.

Many fruitless attempts have been made to defend polygamy and to defend
the prophet of Islam for preserving it, but, as a careful student of
social and moral ethics has said, "To an ideal love, polygamy is
abhorrent and impossible," and when ideal love is impossible to the
wife's heart she is degraded because the passions of hate and jealousy
will quickly and surely take its place.

The Arabic word which is applied to a rival wife is "durrah," the root
meaning of which is "to injure," "to harm." This appellation certainly
shows that the fellow-wives are not expected to be on terms of amity
with each other.

The most common excuse for taking a second wife "over the head" of the
first wife, as expressed in Arabic, is that she has failed to present
her husband with a son. To die without a son would be a great disgrace,
so he takes his second wife. A well-educated, pleasant-spoken Moslem
sheikh, who was teaching some new missionaries the Arabic language, was
just on the point of marrying. Being much interested in the young man,
one of the missionaries took occasion to impress upon him some of his
moral duties toward his new wife. Among them that he should never take
another during her lifetime. "Yes, honorable lady, I promise to do as
you say if God is willing and she presents me with a son, otherwise
against my will I must take a second."

A missionary lady and a Bible woman were making some house-to-house
visits in a little country village. As they were going through the
street two smiling-faced women standing together in the door of their
hut pressed them to enter and pay them a visit, too. In the course of
the conversation it turned out that they were fellow-wives. "Have you
any children?" was asked of the older. "No, neither has she," was the
quick response indicating her rival with a nod of her head. Their common
disappointment in not having any children seemed to draw them together
and they seemed more like sisters than rival wives, but if one had a
child and the other not there would