'" In his
book on the Kafirs of the Hindu-Kush, G.S. Robertson writes:
"It is considered a reproach to have only one wife, a
sign of poverty and insignificance. There was on one
occasion a heated discussion at Kamdesh concerning the
best plans to be adopted to prepare for an expected
attack. A man sitting on the outskirts of the assembly
controverted something the priest said. Later on the
priest turned round fiercely and demanded to be told
how a man with 'only one wife' presumed to offer an
opinion at all."
His religion allowed a Mohammedan to take four legitimate wives, while
their prophet himself had a larger number. A Hindoo was permitted by
the laws of Manu to marry four women if he belonged to the highest
caste, but if he was of the lowest caste he was condemned to monogamy.
King Solomon was held in honor though he had unnumbered wives,
concubines, and virgins at his disposal.
How far the sentiment of monogamy--one of the essential ingredients of
Romantic Love--had penetrated the skulls of American Indians may be
inferred from the amusing and typical details related by the historian
Parkman (_O.T._, chap. xi.) of the Dakota or Sioux Indians, among whom
he sojourned. The man most likely to become the next chief was a
fellow named Mahto-Tatonka, whose father had left a family of thirty,
which number the young man was evidently anxious to beat:
"Though he appeared not more than twenty-one years old,
he had oftener struck the enemy, and stolen more horses
and more squaws than any young man in the village.
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