Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 20, Number 58, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1899 — BIGAMY, [ARTICLE]

BIGAMY,

If Not Polygamy, Once Authorised In Kurope. Among the early Teutonic tribes, as among all savage nations, polygamy was openly practiced. According to Herbert Spencer the Merovingian princes also had more than one wife. But so far as is known no civilized European government ever authorized the practice. In the thirty years’ war the Diet of Franconia, sitting at Nuremberg, passed the following remarkable law, “permitting each man to marry two wives, on account of the numerical superiority of the women.” Article 3of this law ran: “Any man is allowed to marry two wives, but husbands are advised that if the fate of two persons is Intrusted to them they must in turn behave with prudence and discretion, providing for them sufficiently and taking such measures as may prevent quarrels.” Herbert Spencer may consider the Diet which could pass such a law civilized. And they may have been, but to the casual observer it would seem that they were also to a certain extent insane.