They are more tractable as slaves, and
consequently a high value is set upon their labor. As we have already
seen, these female slaves usually serve at the same time as concubines,
if not legal wives of their masters.
(4) Another cause which we can perhaps hardly appreciate at the present
time is the high valuation set on children. We see this cause operating
particularly in the case of the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Under
the patriarchal family great value was set upon children as necessary to
continue the family line. Where the device of adoption was not resorted
to, therefore, in case of barrenness or the birth exclusively of female
children, nothing was more natural than that polygyny should be resorted
to in order to insure the family succession. In the patriarchal family
also a high valuation was necessarily set upon children, because the
larger the family grew the stronger it was.
(5) Finally, religion came to sanction polygyny. The religious sanction
of polygyny cannot be looked upon as one of its original causes, but
when once established it reacted powerfully to reenforce and maintain
the institution.
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