polygamy of the first ages has been by degrees restrained or abolished, according to the measure of social progress.
In ancient Egypt polygamy was still in force; but already it was interdicted to the priests,[1] contrary to what has happened nearly everywhere. As a matter of fact, and by the simple necessity resulting from the proportion of the sexes, even when polygamy is authorised and legal, it is especially the luxury of rich and powerful men; the common people have everywhere been reduced to monogamy, whether they wished it or not. Under most of the great early despotic monarchies which had emerged from primitive savagery this fact became legalised, and plurality of wives constituted a privilege reserved to the great ones of the land.
In ancient Peru monogamy was obligatory for men who possessed nothing, but not for the Inca and the nobles of the kingdom. Thus the last Inca, Atahualpa, had three thousand wives or concubines. As generally happens when polygamy is restrained, there was already a hierarchy among the wives of the Inca; one of them, who was obliged to be his sister, the coya, was reputed superior to the others, and her eldest son succeeded his father.[2] On this point, as on many others, ancient Peru had unconsciously copied Egypt.
In Mexico also, monogamy was habitual for the poor, but the powerful and the nobles had a number of wives proportioned to their rank and to their riches.[3] In Mexico, as in Peru, polygamy was monogamic in the sense that one wife had pre-eminence over the others, and that her children alone inherited the paternal title and wealth.
This polygamy of princes and potentates, who by right of birth soar above the common rule, is found also in the great Aryan empires of Asia.[4]
