Overruled

The essay offers a clinical study of how polygamy and marital infidelity actually occur among ordinary people, contrasting theoretical advocates with the secretive practitioners who know the practice best. It emphasizes the inaccessibility of reliable facts when confession is penalized, argues that leisure and idleness encourage flirtation while industry restrains it, and traces a fundamental conflict between spontaneous human attraction and the property-like relations of marriage. Jealousy is treated as both instinctive and socially inculcated, with class differences shaping responses and sanctions; the piece highlights resulting hypocrisy, social pressure, and the personal and legal consequences that follow.