During the pre-Islamic period this custom was common in Iran...

During the pre-Islamic period this custom was common in Iran, where the climate is temperate. It is purely fictitious to say that in the tropics, women get old at the age of twenty, as alleged by Montesquieu. It is even more fantastic to say that the Prophet of Islam, married Khadijah at the age of five and consummated it at the age of eight. Everyone knows that at the time of their marriage Khadijah was forty and the Prophet was twenty -five.

Secondly, if it is accepted that the early onset of old age in women and the intense virility in men are the causes of this custom, why did the people of the East not adopt the practice of free love and debauchery, as the people of the West did both during the Middle Ages and in the modern times. In the West, as Gustav Leabeon has pointed out, monogamy is found only in the legal books and there is no trace of it in daily life. Again, in the East polygamy exists in its legal form.

The man has to accept the woman as his legal wife and has to bear the responsibility of her children. In the West, it exists in an illegal and clandestine form. Man indulges in free love and escapes all matrimonial responsibility. POLYGAMY IN THE WEST We deem it necessary to give a brief account of polygamy in Europe during the Middle Ages, as described by an eminent Western historian.

This account should convince those who criticise the East for polygamy that in spite of all its defects it is much more dignified than what existed in Europe. Will Durant in his book, History of Civilization, vol.17, gives an interesting account of the state of morality in Italy during the renaissance. We give below a summary of what he has said under the heading 'Morals in Sexual Relations'.

In the course of his brief introduction he says that before describing the morals of the laity it may be pointed out that by nature man is polygamous. Only strict moral restrictions, an adequate amount of hard work and poverty, and a continuous vigilance of the wife can compel him to maintain monogamy. Then he says that adultery was not uncommon during the Middle Ages, prior to the Renaissance.

As during the Middle Ages the guilt of adultery was extenuated by chivalry, similarly, during the Renaissance period, it was watered down among the educated classes by the craving for the polished manners and the refined spirit of the females.