A few pages will now be devoted to a consideration of the objections which have been urged against the system of polygamy. And it may be proper to say, that if there should be any objections to it which are not here answered to every one's satisfaction, yet the superiority of this system is still maintained and proven, as long as the previous demonstrations remain valid; the objections to the contrary notwithstanding. It is often the case that a proposition may be true, and at the same time it may not be possible to answer all the objections to it. There are unanswerable objections to a democratic or popular form of government; and yet for some nations, such a form of government may, on the whole, be the best one.
DOES POLYGAMY CAUSE JEALOUSY?
It has been objected that polygamy cannot be reasonable or right, since it causes jealousy among the different women in the same family. But it cannot be proved that jealousy is confined to any particular social system: it is, unfortunately, too common to every system. It is inherent in human nature, and must be regarded as one of its inseparable infirmities. Yet, so far from being most violent under the system of polygamy, the opposite is the fact; for it is always most violent when secret intrigue is carried on, and when the dreaded rival does not sustain an open and an acknowledged relation to the husband, but when the tender-ness between him and that rival, whether real or suspected, is only secretly indulged: so that monogamy really furnishes more occasion for the exercise of this cruel passion than polygamy. In the latter system, the claims of the different women are acknowledged and understood; the parties all stand in well-defined relations to each other, and violent jealousy, under such circumstances, must be comparatively rare.