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Who really said it

Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous

Not Dorothy Parker — an anonymous jingle No verified author Credited over the years to Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), William James, Ogden Nash, Alice Duer Miller and Mrs. Amos Pinchot — none of them documented
Disputed — an orphan jingle with no documented author, pinned on Parker decades after it was already in circulation. Rights unconfirmed

The verse first surfaces in a Cleveland Plain Dealer humour column of 23 November 1939, where Claire MacMurray tells it as a dream anecdote and credits Mrs. Amos Pinchot; by 1942 a psychology monograph was recording that Pinchot denied writing it and that the real author was “shrouded in anonymity.” Dorothy Parker’s name was not attached to the lines until 1971 — four years after her death — and the verse appears nowhere in her published work.

Last verified 27 Aug 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous” author unknown, and not Dorothy Parker. Earliest known printing: Claire MacMurray, "Thanksgiving Nightmare," Cleveland Plain Dealer, 23 November 1939, p. 20, which credited Mrs. Amos Pinchot; she denied authorship, per a footnote in James Grier Miller's Unconsciousness (John Wiley & Sons, 1942), pp. 131–132. Parker's name was not attached to the verse until 1971.

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Dorothy Parker. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

We couldn’t verify where this wording comes from, so there’s no rights status to give. Safe to present as an unverified or anonymous line — just don’t assert a specific author or source.

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In context

Evoking the themes of love and character. Theme: "Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

Where the jingle actually comes from

Earliest known printing
Thanksgiving Nightmare, by Claire MacMurray
Published
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 23 November 1939, p. 20 — credited there to Mrs. Amos Pinchot
Status by 1942
Pinchot denied it; the author “appears to be shrouded in anonymity”
In Parker’s own books
Not present — her real poem on the theme is ‘General Review of the Sex Situation’ (1926)

As the story goes, the author dreamed one night that he had written a poem of such ultimate truth that he was immediately acclaimed to be the greatest poet and philosopher of all time. He immediately rose and scribbled it down, and the next morning found that he had written: Hogamus Higamus / Men are Polygamous / Higamus Hogamus / Women Monogamous. Author unknown, 1942

From James Grier Miller’s Unconsciousness (1942), pp. 131–132. The attached footnote reads: “Mrs. Amos Pinchot has repeatedly been incorrectly said to have been the author of this quatrain. She denies any responsibility for it, however, and the true author appears to be shrouded in anonymity.” Note the early spelling and the plural “Men are” — the familiar “Man is polygamous” wording is a later mutation.

1942 monograph, scanned
Read the denial footnote in Unconsciousness (1942) at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator: the full citation trail for ‘Hogamous, Higamous’

The paper trail, in order

  • 23 November 1939 — the first known appearance: Claire MacMurray’s column “Thanksgiving Nightmare” in the Cleveland Plain Dealer tells the dream story and credits Mrs. Amos Pinchot, printing the verse as “Hogamus Higamus / Men are Polygamous / Higamus Hogamus / Women Monogamous” (Quote Investigator ↗). The Reader’s Digest reprinted it in May 1940 and spread it nationally.
  • 1942 — James Grier Miller’s Unconsciousness retells the anecdote with the author unnamed, footnoting that Pinchot “denies any responsibility for it… and the true author appears to be shrouded in anonymity” (Internet Archive scan ↗).
  • 1953 — Hans J. Eysenck’s Uses and Abuses of Psychology is the first place Quote Investigator finds William James named, calling it the quatrain James “wrote down during a drug-induced dream” — more than four decades after James died in 1910 (Quote Investigator ↗).
  • 1971 — a developmental-psychology textbook is the earliest source Quote Investigator finds assigning the verse to Dorothy Parker, retelling the same dream story with her in the starring role (Quote Investigator ↗).

No author and no first publication can be established for this wording, so no copyright status can honestly be asserted for it. Its earliest known printing — Claire MacMurray’s Cleveland Plain Dealer column of 23 November 1939 — is itself well after 1930 and would carry its own rights; by contrast, Dorothy Parker’s genuine poem on the same theme, from Enough Rope (1926), is in the public domain and freely readable at Project Gutenberg ↗.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Five authors, no evidence

This is a rare case where the quote arrived first and the famous names arrived afterwards. Every candidate was proposed years or decades after the verse was already circulating in print, and not one attribution comes with a manuscript, a book, a letter or a witness.

Dorothy Parker First credited 1971

The earliest Parker credit Quote Investigator located is a 1971 developmental-psychology textbook — published after her death in 1967 and decades after the verse was in print (Quote Investigator ↗). Tony Percy, who investigated the verse for Verbatim, concluded that although it “certainly has a Parkerian feel to it… no trace of ‘Hogamous’ appears in Parker’s works” (Verbatim, reprinted at Coldspur ↗). Wikiquote’s Dorothy Parker page carries no entry for it in any section.

William James Dead before the first citation

The famous tale — James inhales laughing gas, scrawls the secret of the universe, wakes to find this doggerel — is the most repeated version and the least supported. Quote Investigator’s earliest James attribution is Hans Eysenck’s in 1953, and the nitrous-oxide detail only turns up in Robert S. De Ropp’s The Master Game in 1968. James died in 1910, and Quote Investigator finds “no substantive evidence” that he wrote it (Quote Investigator ↗).

Ogden Nash Wrong poem

Quote Investigator suggests the Nash credit may stem from confusion with a real 1942 Nash poem that plays on deliberately misspelt rhymes — “Why does the Pygmy / Indulge in polygmy?… If he sticks to monogmy / A Pygmy’s a hogmy” — which is a different piece of verse entirely (Quote Investigator ↗).

Mrs. Amos Pinchot Denied it

She is the one candidate named in the earliest citation, in 1939, and she is also the only one on record refusing the credit: a 1942 footnote states she “denies any responsibility for it” (Unconsciousness, 1942 ↗).

Alice Duer Miller One newspaper aside

A New York Times report of 12 May 1946 on a United Nations debate about equal rights in marriage quoted the verse as “ascribed by some experts” to Alice Duer Miller — a passing aside with no supporting reference, and one that did not stick (Quote Investigator ↗).

Nobody knows who wrote it. Quote Investigator’s verdict is that “the identity of the author remains uncertain today, but well-known wits Ogden Nash and Dorothy Parker are unlikely” (Quote Investigator ↗).

Context

The joke was never about who said it

The jingle began life as a punchline, not a quotation. In its earliest printed form it is the payoff of a small comic story: a woman dreams she has written a poem so profound it will make her the greatest philosopher who ever lived, scrambles out of bed to write it down, and finds this in the morning. The verse is supposed to be a let-down — that is the whole gag — which is exactly why it needed no author to work.

The famous names arrived later, and each one made the anecdote better. William James inhaling nitrous oxide is a funnier story than an anonymous lady having a dream; Dorothy Parker waking up to it is funnier still. What none of these versions ever acquired was a source. The verse had been in print for more than a decade before James’s name appeared on it, and for over thirty years before Parker’s did.

The joke only works if the poem is a disappointment. Attaching a genius to it was a later improvement.

The wording drifted too — and Parker’s real poem on the subject

Parker’s name may have stuck because she had already published the same thought properly. “General Review of the Sex Situation,” from Enough Rope (1926), runs: “Woman wants monogamy; / Man delights in novelty. / Love is woman’s moon and sun; / Man has other forms of fun…” Same argument, same brevity, real authorship — and it is in the public domain, unlike the orphan jingle, whose status cannot be determined at all.

The wording has also drifted. The 1939 and 1942 texts read “Hogamus Higamus / Men are Polygamous”; a 1946 anthology introduced the doubled-g “Hoggamus, higgamus”; and the singular “Man is polygamous… Woman is monagamous” form now most often quoted is a later variant. Any page that gives you a confident author and a confident wording is giving you more certainty than the record supports.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Love Character

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: Hogamous, Higamousquoteinvestigator.com

The definitive citation trail, 1939 to 1999, and the verdict that the author remains unknown.
Tony Percy in Verbatim: ‘Hogamous, higamous!’coldspur.com

The pioneering 2004 study of the verse: chases the William James story to a dead end and finds no trace of it in Parker.
Unconsciousness (1942), pp. 131–132archive.org

James Grier Miller’s monograph — the primary record of Mrs. Amos Pinchot’s denial and of the author being ‘shrouded in anonymity’.
Enough Rope (1926), full textgutenberg.org

Parker’s first collection in full: it contains ‘General Review of the Sex Situation’ and no ‘Hogamous’ verse.
General Review of the Sex Situationpoets.org

Parker’s genuine, sourced poem on the same subject, credited to Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926).
Wikiquote: Dorothy Parkeren.wikiquote.org

Parker’s sourced and disputed quotations — the ‘Hogamous’ verse appears in neither.

The name it gets pinned on

Why the jingle sounds like Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

1893–1967 · American poet, critic and satirist

Dorothy Parker made her name at Vanity Fair and The New Yorker and at the Algonquin Round Table, writing short, savage, perfectly rhymed verse about love and disappointment. Her first collection, Enough Rope (Boni & Liveright, 1926), contains a poem that says almost exactly what the “Hogamous” jingle says — “General Review of the Sex Situation,” which opens “Woman wants monogamy; / Man delights in novelty.” That real poem is very likely why an anonymous piece of doggerel on the same theme drifted onto her name; the doggerel itself is not in her books.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Earliest documented appearance

Earliest documented in Claire MacMurray, “Thanksgiving Nightmare,” Cleveland Plain Dealer, 23 November 1939, p. 20, col. 3, where the verse is credited to Mrs. Amos Pinchot; her denial is recorded in James Grier Miller, Unconsciousness (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1942), 131–132, n. 69. Author unknown. Dorothy Parker’s name was not attached until 1971.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Hogamous, Higamous, Man is Polygamous, Higamous, Hogamous, Woman is Monagamous’?” Last verified 27 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/hogamous-higamous-man-is-polygamous-higamous-hogamous-woman/

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