# Searchlights on Health/History of Marriage

HISTORY OF MARRIAGE.
1. "It is not good for man to be alone," was the Divine judgment, and so God created for him an helpmate; therefore sex is as Divine as the soul.
2. POLYGAMY.—Polygamy has existed in all ages. It is and always has been the result of moral degradation and wantonness.
3. THE GARDEN OF EDEN.—The Garden of Eden was no harem. Primeval nature knew no community of love; there was only the union of two souls, and the twain were made one flesh. If God had intended man to be a polygamist he would have created for him two or more wives; but he only created one wife for the first man. He also directed Noah to take into the ark two of each sort—a male and female—another evidence that God believed in pairs only.
4. ABRAHAM no doubt was a polygamist, and the general history of patriarchal life shows that the plurality of wives and concubinage were national customs, and not the institutions authorized by God.
5. EGYPTIAN HISTORY.—Egyptian history, in the first ostensible form we have, shows that concubinage and polygamy were in common practice.
6. SOLOMON.—It is not strange that Solomon, with his thousand wives, exclaimed: "All is vanity and vexation of spirit." Polygamy is not the natural state of man.
7. CONCUBINAGE AND POLYGAMY continued till the fifth century, when the degraded condition of woman became to some extent matters of some concern and recognition. Before this woman was regarded simply as an instrument of procreation, or a mistress of the household, to gratify the passions of man.
8. THE CHINESE marriage system was, and is, practically polygamous, for from their earliest traditions we learn, although a man could have but one wife, he was permitted to have as many concubines as he desired.
9. MOHAMMEDANISM.—Of the 150,000,000 Mohammedans all are polygamists. Their religion appeals to the luxury of animal propensities, and the voluptuous character of the Orientals has penetrated western Europe and Africa.
10. MORMONISM.—The Mormon Church, founded by Joseph Smith, practiced polygamy until the beginning of 1893, when the church formally declared and resigned polygamy as a part or present doctrine of their religious institution. Yet all Mormons are polygamists at heart. It is a part of their religion; national law alone restrains them.
11. FREE LOVERS.—There is located at Lenox, Madison County, New York, an organization popularly known as Free Lovers. The members advocate a system of complex marriage, a sort of promiscuity, with a freedom of love for any and all. Man offers woman support and love; woman enjoying freedom, self-respect, health, personal and mental competency, gives herself to man in the boundless sincerity of an unselfish union. In their system, love is made synonymous with sexuality, and there is no doubt, but what woman is only a plaything to gratify animal caprice.
12. MONOGAMY (SINGLE WIFE), is a law of nature evident from the fact that it fulfills the three essential conditions of man, viz.: the development of the individual, the welfare of society and reproduction. In no nation with a system of polygamy do we find a code of political and moral rights, and the condition of woman is that of a slave. In polygamous countries nothing is added to the education and civilization. The natural tendency is sensualism, and sensualism tends to mental starvation.
18. CHRISTIAN CIVILIZATION has lifted woman from slavery to liberty. Wherever Christian civilization prevails there are legal marriages, pure homes and education. May God bless the purity of the home.