IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.
The polygamy of the monarchs of ancient Persia seems to have been copied from that of the kings of Egypt, or of the Incas of Peru. They had numerous concubines and three or four wives, of whom one was especially considered as queen, or privileged wife.[1]
As for the Persians of more ancient times still, the Mazdeans who drew up the sacred code of the Avesta, if we refer to the Zend text, we find they had a most severe sexual morality. The Avestic code condemns and punishes resort to prostitutes, seduction, sexual extravagances, abortion, etc. Throughout that portion of the Avesta which has come down to us there is no recognition of polygamy, and the verses which mention marriage have quite a monogamic meaning. It seems, however, says one of the translators of the Avesta, that among the ancient Persians polygamy may have been authorised in case of sterility of the first wife.[2] Like anthropophagy, polygamy is an original sin with human societies. But writings so exclusively religious and even liturgic as the Avesta constitute very incomplete sources of information in regard to civil institutions. To study the marriage of the ancient Persians in the Avesta seems about as illusory as it would be to study ours in a Catholic prayer-book.
We know also, from the Code of Manu and historical and ethnographical documents, that polygamy is and has been far from being unknown in India, and yet it is difficult to prove from the text of the Vedic hymns that the writers of these chants have practised it.
This may be inferred, however, from several verses. In the beginning the morals were coarse enough for abortion to be common. "Let Agni," we read in a hymn, "kill the rakchasa who, under the form of a brother, a husband, or a lover, approaches thee to destroy thy fruit."[3] On the other hand, woman is held in slight esteem by the sacred chants. She is a being "of incapable mind and
