POLYGAMY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 227, 25 September 1930, Page 6

POLYGAMY.

"Calixta" asserts that man by nature k polygamous and quotes as an example to support her case the customs of the Old Testar ment patriarchs with tlieir assemblies of wives and numerous progeny. Similar views were also held by the early Mormons in .the United States of America. Polygamy was disastrous to that community and had to foe abandoned. Referring to the. supposed Divine injunction to "increase and multiply," "Calixta" states that the institution of monogamy implied ■ that law''.was 'no for society.. If your correspondent would only read' the Cenway memorial lecture entitled "Human Nature," delivered at South Place Institute, . March 17, 1927 (Leonard Huxley, LL.D., in the chair) by G. Elliot Smith, she would perhaps realise that primitive family groups reveal a higher type of morality than any society that came afterwards. "Calixta's" views, if followed, would discredit the widespread belief that formerly a golden age existed. Innumerable writings of travellers qualified to judge are in my opinion sufficient to prove that Hesiod'e story of a golden age of peace and happiness is ■ essentially true, and that primitive man was kind, honest, chaste, peaceful and a strict monogamist. JOHN GUIXIVEX. *