flourishing. Centuries of legal and religious restraint have not been able to uproot it, and the rigid monogamic marriage inscribed in our laws is constantly set at defiance by our customs. Nearly everywhere the number of births called illegitimate is on the increase. In France it constantly progresses—
From 1800 to 1805 4.75 per cent.
" 1806 to 1810 5.43 "
" 1821 to 1825 7.16 "
Since that time the proportion has oscillated round 7.25 in France. But in Sweden, from 1776 to 1866, it has risen from 3.11 per cent. to 9.5. In Saxony the return has been 15.37 in 1862-1864.[1]
At Paris, according to the calculations of A. Bertillon, more than a tenth of the couples (40,000) were living in free union.
In fact, if we interrogate all races, all epochs, and all countries, we see that the concubinate and concubinage have flourished, and still flourish, by the side of legal marriage. One country alone is an exception to this—Kabyle. But the exception confirms the rule. If we find in Kabyle neither concubinage nor concubinate, neither free unions nor natural children, the reason is very simple. It is that outside marriage no sexual union is tolerated, and in case of illegitimate birth the mother and child are both put to death, whilst retaliation falls on the illegal father.[2]
The concubinate is therefore, or at least has been till now, natural to man. One may say, borrowing a locution from Bossuet, that this is proved by "the experience of all the centuries." It remains for me now to deduce from the facts I have enumerated a sketch of the general evolution which they represent, and to estimate their moral significance. The evolution is of the simplest. Sexual union, without restraint or law, has been the commencement. Then the right of the strongest or the richest has created polygamic households. In these households the priority was at last bestowed on one wife; but as the husband did not intend to curb his changing humour, he kept by the side of the chief spouse either slaves or "lesser
