"While it is true that there are a few more adult women than men, the difference is not sufficiently great to require the introduction of polygamy as a remedy for enforced celibacy At any rate this would be unnecessary until all bachelors ad been provided with wives, when there would be found no necessity for further provision, since there are large numbers of women who are utterly unfit to marry, who would be injured by so doing, and would only serve to degenerate the race, besides making themselves more wretched than they already are. Again, it is a well-known fact that more males than females are born, the preponderance of adult females being caused by a greater mortality among ale children, together with the losses from accidents and war. By a correct observance of the laws of health, together with the abolition of wars, the disparity in relative numbers of the sexes would disappear. Indeed, it might happen that men would be in the preponderance. Still again, it is only in a few very populous and long-settled communities that there are more women than men, as in the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and a few others of the Eastern States, and a few countries of Europe. In all newly settled countries the reverse is true. The inquiry naturally arises, What shall be done under these circumstances? Shall a woman be allowed more than one husband, as is actually the case in some countries? “Oh! no;” our polygamist replies “A woman is not capable of loving more than one man, and is not even able to satisfy the sexual demands of a single husband; so, of course, a plurality of husbands is out of the question. A man is capable of loving any number of women, being differently constituted from a woman ; and so the same rule does not apply.”"

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Added on April 10, 2026
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Original Language: English

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pp.148-149

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Harvey_Kellogg