Among the peoples classed as "lower hunters," even the most backward, exists the individual family; and in the majority of cases it is founded on monogamic marriage, for promiscuity nowhere appears. The authority of the husband is patriarchal. "He procures his wife by exchange or service; and in consequence he is her owner and lord." The "great-family" and thegens(sippe) are also found among these peoples; but they are relatively little developed.Genteswhich have become unions for protection and control of territory are father-gentes; while those in which the kinship is traced through the mother are not unions for the purposes of the common life, but for maintenance of the common name.[177]The case is practically the same for the "upper hunters." Wife-purchase, however, is more pronounced. The individual monogamic family still predominates. Kinship through the mother is not so much a "motive for union as it is for separation of those related by blood."[178]Here as among the lower hunters it is the paternalgenswhich forms an actual union for the common life; and there is "not the least ground for assuming" that a patriarchal gentile constitution has replaced an earlier matriarchal form. Among peoples leading a pastoral life, even more than with those devoted to the chase, the chief economic production lies in the hands of the man. Accordingly he has the place of power and honor. Through him descent and kinship are usually traced. Nowhere is the paternal system so one-sided and so stringently carried out as among pastoral tribes. Woman isoppressed and degraded. She is bought or stolen by her lord. Polygyny, with all its attendant evils, flourishes. The individual family has a thoroughly patriarchal stamp; but it is still the most conspicuous social fact, surpassing in practical significance for the needs of the pastoral life the great-family, and far more thegens. On the contrary, among the lower cultivators woman holds an economic position at least equal in social importance to that of man. As a rule, therefore, she is no longer his slave, but his companion, sometimes even his superior. She gains a corresponding share in the control of the children. The great-family is in like manner affected by the new economic conditions. Communal agriculture gives a mighty impulse to the growth of the gentile constitution; and now among many peoples, under influence of the new and higher position of woman, the maternalgens, perhaps existing side by side with the paternalgens, is developed into a firm social, economic, and political union. In the life of the lower cultivators, if thegensthus becomes the mightiest social organization, the fact is due essentially to its economic function. With the change from communal to individual agriculture the gentile constitution is dissolved; and so among the higher cultivators the individual monogamic family has more than regained its former sway. "Thus it appears," the author summarizes, "that under every form of culture that form of family organization prevails which is best suited to economic needs and conditions;" although, he wisely warns us, a perfect explanation of the various types of the human family can never be given until every part and function of culture which has had an influence upon the functions or the organisms of the family has been separately examined for each case.[179]
The views of Dargun, Hildebrand, and Grosse may be compared with the remarkable, but scarcely well-grounded,speculation of Mucke.[180]According to his ingenious theory, men originally lived in the horde, which, so far from being a fortuitous unorganized band, in which "animal promiscuity" prevailed, was so strictly ordered as to be worthy the name of the "society of the primeval age."[181]In the horde all are free and equal. There is no subordination of the wife, monogamy prevails; for, since every male or female has his predestined mate, there is no room for communism. The author's treatise rests upon the fundamental assumption that primitive relationships are merely "space-relationships."[182]They do not arise in notions of descent. They are determined by the fixed spaces occupied by each sex, generation, and individual in theHordenlageror camping-place.[183]Every male finds his predestined wife in the corresponding room or division on the opposite side of the sleeping-space; each brother thus marrying the sister nearest to himself in the order of birth. This ideal life of the horde is brought to an end through the rise of the family. The family (fromfamel, a "servant") is the very opposite of the horde of free and equal members, originating as it does in subjection and servitude. Almost simultaneously the family develops two forms, the androcratic and the gynocratic. Each originatesin capture[184]which, under the influence of the conception of private property, yields to purchase. In the androcratic family, the woman becomes a slave-wife; in the gynocratic, the man becomes a slave-husband.[185]Polyandry is the natural product of the gynocratic, as is polygyny of the androcratic family. Originally each of these forms of the family is part "maternal" and part "paternal," in the ordinary sense. But gradually, under the influence of adoption, aided by purchase, the horde is broken up and modern forms of the family arise.[186]
The doctrine of the primitive horde as the starting-point of social evolution has a special interest in connection with the researches of Lewis H. Morgan and J. F. McLennan. Though their principal works appeared subsequently to that of Bachofen,[187]each has reached his conclusions independently; and each, rejecting the patriarchal family as the primordial unit, has set forth what may be called a "constructive" theory of uniform social progress. In the handsof each marriage and the family are made to pass through an ascending series of phases for all mankind. Unquestionably valuable as are their contributions to the material of sociological science, seldom have there been seen more striking examples of hasty generalization than appear in the theoretical parts of their work.
This is particularly true of the theories of Morgan;[188]although in hisSystems of Consanguinityhe has with prodigious labor erected a monument of scientific research whose vast importance for the early history of human social relations is by no means yet definitively settled; and whoseAncient Society, aside from its speculative features, has the distinction of first clearly identifying the gentile organization of the Greeks and Romans with that of the red race of the western continents. Starting with the organization of society "on the basis of sex," as illustrated by the so-called class or group-marriages of the Australian Kamilaroi, he proceeds to discuss at length the gentile systems of the American Indians and the classic nations.[189]Originally relationship is traced in the female line, and intermarriage is prohibited within thegens. Thegensis older than the monogamic family. It cannot have the family as its constituent unit, because it is composed, not of entire families, but of parts of families.[190]
The earliest phase of sexual relations among primitive men is promiscuity. Following this are five successivestages or forms of marriage and the family, shading into each other, and each running a "long course in the tribes of mankind, with a period of infancy, of maturity, and of decadence."[191]Of these forms the first, second, and fifth are "radical," that is, each developing a distinct system of consanguinity. These systems of consanguinity "resolve themselves into two ultimate forms, fundamentally distinct." One is theclassificatoryand the other thedescriptive. "Under the first, consanguinei are never described, but are classified into categories, irrespective of their nearness or remoteness in degree toEgo; and the same term of relationship is applied to all the persons in the same category." Under the second, which came in with monogamy and prevails among the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian peoples, "consanguinei are described either by the primary terms of relationship or a combination of these terms, thus making the relationship of each person specific."[192]The classificatory systems of consanguinity, it should be carefully noted, are more tenacious than the forms of marriage, their nomenclatures often surviving long after the actual relationships they denote have ceased to exist.
The first form of the family in Morgan's series is the consanguine,[193]based on the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Though now extinct, this form is thought once to have been universal, rude survivals being found even in the present century among the Hawaiians. But the evidence of its former existence upon which Mr. Morgan relies as conclusive is the Malayansystem of consanguinity, which he assumes could only have been produced by it. This system is found among the Maoris, the Hawaiians, and other Polynesians. Anciently it may have prevailed generally in Asia; and it lies at the basis of the Chinese relationships. The Malayan system is classificatory. "The only blood-relationships are the primary," being comprised in five categories. These are parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother and sister. Thus consanguine marriage "found mankind at the bottom of the scale" of social progress.
In course of time, however, its evils were perceived and the second form of the family arose. This is the Punaluan,[194]resting on the intermarriage of several sisters in a group with each other's husbands; or on that of several brothers in a group with each other's wives; marriage between brothers and sisters not being permitted. "The Punaluan family has existed in Europe, Asia, and America[195]within the historical period, and in Polynesia within the present century," the most interesting example being afforded by the Hawaiians. It is an outgrowth of the consanguine family "through the gradual exclusion of own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation."[196]With it arose the organization intogentes, whose "fundamental rules" in the archaic form are exogamy and relationship in the female line. The Punaluan family co-operating with the gentile organization,[197]produced the Turanian or Ganowánian system of consanguinity, which is alsoclassificatory.[198]This is described by Morgan as "simply stupendous," recognizing "all the relationships known under the Aryan system, besides an additional number unnoticed by the latter."[199]
But forces were now operating within the Punaluan family which were destined to transform it. "From the necessities of the social state," there was more or less pairing from the first, "each man having a principal wife among a number of wives, and each woman a principal husband among a number of husbands." Moreover, the fuller development of the gentile organism, with its rule of exogamy, tended to foster a sentiment hostile to the intermarriage of near kindred and, in other ways, to produce a scarcity of women available for marriage within the Punaluan groups, thus leading to wife-capture and wife-purchase. Under these influences arose the Syndiasmian, or third general type of the family, based upon the marriage of single pairs, often temporary and without exclusive cohabitation. It is found among the Senaca-Iroquois and many other American tribes, among the Tamils of South India, and some other races of Asia.[200]This family did not produce a distinct system of consanguinity, the peoples having it still retaining the Turanian system.[201]The next, or Patriarchal, family, like the Syndiasmian, is "intermediate," not being "sufficiently influential upon human affairs to create a new, or modify essentially the then existing system of consanguinity."[202]It is found particularly among the Semites and Romans, and is characterized by the "organization of anumber of persons, bond and free, into a family under paternal power, for the purpose of holding lands, and for the care of flocks and herds." The Syndiasmian, and in a less degree the Patriarchal, constitute the transitional stage in the development of the Monogamic family. Its rise was especially fostered by the influence of property and the increase of the paternal power, leading to the change from the female to the male line of descent. It produced the system of consanguinity prevailing among the Uralian, Semitic, and Aryan peoples.[203]
Such, sketched in hasty outline, is the symmetrical structure which the author of theAncient Societyhas erected. But it has not been able wholly to withstand the shock of adverse criticism. The argument rests on too narrow a basis of investigation, and it is sometimes contradictory in its details. Its real foundation is the assumption that the nomenclatures of the classificatory systems of relationship must necessarily denote actual relationships. The truth of this assumption, however, is not self-evident. Other explanations of their meaning, some of them simpler and far more probable, have been offered. In the first place, it is evident that Morgan was misled by Fison's account of the Kamilaroi class-marriages.[204]Only in Australia was he able to find in existence, as he believed, a social organization upon the basis of sex. Yet it is by no means established that communal or even group-marriage has ever prevailed among the Australian aborigines. The criticism of Mr. Curr has raised doubt as to the trustworthiness of Fison's theory, although it may not have entirely shattered it.[205]According to Curr, theclass-system is an ingenious arrangement to prevent close intermarriages. Even first cousins may not marry.[206]The Australian is very jealous of his wife, who may be betrothed to him in childhood. Wife-lending occurs, but it is not sanctioned by custom. The use of a single word for different relationships, as for father and father's brother, is not an evidence of former group-marriage, but of "poverty of language."[207]Nevertheless the Australian nomenclature is richer in terms of relationship than has been assumed by Mr. Fison. "There is hardly an Australian vocabulary in print" in which distinct translation of terms for "uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, sister-in-law, and son-in-law" do not occur.[208]
Mucke, as we have already seen, explains the classificatory system as being a survival of the primitive "space-relationships" of the primitive horde.[209]By Kautsky also its origin is traced to the horde in which "hetairistic monogamy" prevailed, and in which blood-relationship with the parents was not regarded. The classes, therefore, have nothing to do with descent, but each embraces all the individuals of a single generation under a common name.[210]
On the other hand, McLennan, in his well-known controversy with Morgan,[211]insists that the system of nomenclature is merely a "system of mutual salutations," urging the fact that most of the peoples having it possess also "some well-defined system of blood-ties."[212]Yet he believes that the Malayan nomenclature, which lies at the basis of Morgan's classificatory system, "had its origin in some earlymarriage-law."[213]Starcke criticises this inconsistency,[214]and comes to the conclusion, after examination of the whole question, that the "nomenclature was in every respect the faithful reflection of the juridical relations which arose between the nearest kinsfolk of each tribe. Individuals who were, according to the legal point of view, on the same level with the speaker, received the same designation."[215]In substantial harmony with this opinion are the results of Westermarck's researches.[216]According to his view the classificatory nomenclatures are merely terms of address, used to denote the sex, relative age, or the "external, or social relationship in which the speaker stands to the person whom he addresses."[217]
These criticisms have not gone unchallenged. More recent and more detailed examination of the classificatory nomenclatures has thrown new light on their meaning; although their origin in promiscuity or "group-marriage" has not been conclusively established. Thus Cunow, who in general accepts the former existence of group-marriage among various peoples, and even finds traces of it in Australia,[218]deniesthat the Australian class-nomenclatures are derived from original group-relations;[219]nor are they, as Westermarck believes, ever employed as mere empty terms of polite or respectful address.[220]The class-systems arose in a very early recognition of three generations or stages of seniority, in order to hinder sexual relations between relatives in the ascending and descending line.[221]For this reason, and because of the existence among some backward tribes of significant terms of kinship, individual marriage must as a general rule have existed among the Australian natives from the "earliest times."[222]Thus, "in its original form," the author concludes, "the division into classes is a striking confirmation of Morgan's theory, that the first step in the development of systems of relationship consists in the prevention of sexual union between parents and children in the wide sense."[223]For the same reason it follows that intermarriage between the nearest collateral relatives may not have been excluded.
Much more radical are the conclusions reached by Kohler in the monograph in which, by a minute examination of Morgan's tables and other materials, he seeks to establish the genetic relations subsisting between "totemism, group-marriage, and mother-right," as they appear among the Dravidians, the Australians, and the American aborigines.The researches of Curr and Westermarck are criticised as being too general and as lacking in rigid scientific method.[224]Abundant "survivals," such as the levirate, wife-lending, and, above all, the class-system, seem to demonstrate the former existence of group-marriage in Australia; and in the same way the same result is reached for the other peoples considered. The "key" to the problem is found in totemism, one of the most "formative and vitalizing impulses of mankind. In totemism lies the germ of the future family and state."[225]It is the characteristic feature of the social and religious life of the American Indians. From its very nature totemism favors the rise of mother-right and group-marriage. No person can belong to more than one totem, which is therefore of necessity exogamous. Choice must be made between the maternal and the paternal line—for totemism implies the blood-bond. This choice naturally leads directly to mother-right; since the relation of mother and child is the central fact in the genesis of social experience. The maternal system precedes the paternal, and no trustworthy examples of the opposite evolution have been discovered.[226]Furthermore, totemism leads straight to group-marriage. For if two totem-groups may intermarry, it follows that the "men of one totem may marry women of the other andvice versa." With kinship counted in the maternal line, this fact implies that a man may mate with his own daughter; while the union of mother and son or brother and sister would be excluded because of the identity of their totem.[227]Totemism is thus a means of differentiating matrimonial classes. "The whole history of group-marriage," theauthor concludes, "is a history of the restriction of marriage from totem to totem by the separation of under-totems through which marriage is subjected to definite conditions." Totemistic group-marriage appears to be the "starting-point" of social culture for all the races of mankind. Whether a more primitive stage of promiscuity may have preceded it, the author in this paper does not undertake to establish.[228]
Similar results are reached by Spencer and Gillen, who have given a remarkably clear and minute account of matrimonial, tribal, and totemistic institutions in central Australia. So far as the Australians are concerned, the theory that the classificatory nomenclatures are merely terms of address is positively rejected.[229]"When, in various tribes, we find series of terms of relationship all dependent upon classificatory systems such as those now to be described, and referring entirely to a mutual relationship such as would be brought about by their existence, we cannot do otherwise than come to the conclusion that the terms do actually indicate various degrees of relationship based primarily upon the existence of inter-marrying groups.... Whatever else they may be, the relationship terms are certainly not terms of address, the object of which is to prevent the native having to employ a personal name. In the Arunta tribe, for example, every man and woman has a personal name by which he or she is freely addressed by others—that is, by any, except a member of the opposite sex who stands in the relationship of 'Mura' to them, for such may only on very rare occasions speak to one another."[230]The fundamental idea of the Australian classes is "that the women of certain groups may marry the men ofothers." It is a device for limiting and defining the inter-marriage of persons supposed to be of common blood.[231]
Crawley likewise holds that the terms of the classificatory systems "are terms of kinship and not terms of address;" although being "in origin terms ofrelation," so far they are "terms of address also." For "all of the terms can be used as terms of address, just as our terms of relationship can be so used." The classificatory system, in some cases, appears clearly as a device to assist nature in confining marriage within the same generation.[232]
The results of the most recent research, therefore, seem to have advanced our knowledge of the early social condition of mankind; but not to have definitively settled the problem of the former existence of communistic marriage. One rises from an examination of the literature relating to totemism and to the classificatory systems of relationship with a feeling that much more material must be gathered and exploited before we shall escape entirely from the domain of speculation as to their full meaning.[233]
McLennan's theory[234]starts also with man in a condition, as he conceives it, resembling that of other gregarious animals. The unions of the sexes are "probably, in the earliest times, loose, transitory, and in some degree promiscuous."[235]There is no idea of consanguinity, though men may always have been held together by that "feeling of kindred" which arises in "filial and fraternal affection."[236]Everywhere when society emerges from this condition kinship is traced in the female line. Originally paternity is uncertain,[237]hence the recognition of relationship through the mother must of necessity have preceded the parental and the agnatic systems;[238]and this order of development is never reversed.
Though the "filial and fraternal affections may be instinctive," they are "obviously independent of any theory of kinship, its origin or consequences; they are distinct from the perception of the unity of blood upon which kinship depends; and they may have existed long before kinship became an object of thought." Such a group may have been held together chiefly "by the feeling of kindred;" but the "apparent bond of fellowship ... would be that they and theirs had always been companions in war or the chase—joint-tenants of the same cave or grove."[239]Slowly the idea of blood-relationship arose; and eventually observation led to a recognition of the system of kinship through the mother. Further than this, so long as paternity remained uncertain, primitive men could not go. For the theory in question, therefore, the maternal system of kinship existing in the homogeneous "group-stock" is the social fact of fundamental importance. But primitive man was rude, ignorant, relatively helpless. "Before the invention of the arts, and the formation of provident habits, the struggle for existence must often have become very serious. The instincts of self-preservation, therefore, must have frequently predominated." Society would tend toward one common type in which there was little place for the "unselfish affections." In this "struggle for food and security" the balance of the sexes would be disturbed. "As braves and hunters were required and valued, it would be to the interest of every horde to rear, when possible, its healthy male children." The weaker sex must obey the cruel law requiring the "survival of the fittest." Hence arose the common, perhaps general, practice of female infanticide.[240]The result of this disturbance of the balance of the sexes, caused byfemale infanticide, was a series of customs or phenomena of great sociological interest, requiring notice in the order in which they are supposed to have arisen.
1. The natural consequence of the diminution in the number of women was to enhance their relative importance. Every woman would now have several wooers. Rivalry was fierce and "unrestrained by any sense of delicacy from a copartnery in sexual enjoyments." Quarrels and divisions within the horde would be of frequent occurrence. "These were the first wars for women, and they went to form the habits which established exogamy." But, if complete social disintegration would be avoided, self-preservation required a compromise. A rearrangement in smaller hordes took place; and so "we arrive at last at groups within which harmony was maintained through indifference and promiscuity;" where women, "like other goods," were held in common; and "children, while attached to mothers," belonged to the horde.[241]We have reached in fact, as the first result of female infanticide, the "totemgens" or group of totem kindred, having a common name, taken from some plant, heavenly body, or animal, whose image is sometimes tattooed upon their bodies, and which is sometimes revered as an ancestor, sometimes as an ancestral god.[242]
2. The next institution originating in scarcity of women is polyandry, a form of sexual relations which, by the adherents of the horde-theory, is regarded as the earliest type of the family, properly so called: a family resting upon marriage, that is, upon a courtship "of men and women, protected by public opinion."[243]It is of special interest, because in its progressive phases it is held to be the medium of transition from the maternal to the parental and agnatic systems of kinship; and, therefore, through the aid of contract in the form of wife-purchase, to modern conceptions of the marriage relation. Polyandry is represented as a universal phase of social evolution, constituting the first general modification of promiscuity.[244]Of this there are two principal forms with intermediate stages. In Nair[245]polyandry, the lowest type, we find a condition of sexual relations closely bordering upon the grossest communism. The "wife lives not with her husbands, but with her mother or brothers;" and, under certain "restrictions as to tribe and caste," she is free to choose her husbands or lovers, these not being necessarily related to each other. Here kinshipand inheritance are, of course, in the female line. "No Nair knows his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his heirs."[246]In a transitional stage the wife has a home of her own, cohabiting with her husbands according to fixed rules. The highest type of polyandry is found in Tibet; and in this case there is a close approach to the essential elements of the modern family. The wife lives in the home of her husbands, who are near relatives, usually brothers. It is the prerogative of the eldest brother to choose the wife. All the children are assumed to belong to him, and, as a matter of fact, the first-born is usually known to be his. Paternity therefore is not entirely uncertain, while the father's blood is always known.[247]The same type of polyandry, somewhat more advanced, appears among the Dravidian Todas of India. Here monogamy and polyandry exist side by side. One man, for example, may have a wife exclusively his own, while his brothers may choose one in common. Usually when one brother has taken a woman to wife, and paid the dower to her parents, the other brothers or very near relatives, all living together, may gain the rights of husbands, "if both he and she consent," by simply providing their respective shares of the dower, which almost invariably consists of from one to four buffaloes.[248]According to Marshall, "no females, whether married or single, possess property; but, under all circumstances of life, are supported by their male relations, being fed from the common stock." When "a father dies, his personal property is divided equally among all his sons. If the deceased, being an elder brother,should have no sons, his next brother inherits all the property. All children of both sexes belong to the father's family; and inheritance runs through the male line only. Thus (1) if a widow should re-marry, her sons by both marriages have claims on their respective father's property. (2) If one or more women are in common to several men,eachhusband considersallthe children as his—though each woman is mother only to her own—and each male child is an heir to the property of all of the fathers." Moreover, there exists a kind of levirate. "In order to avoid the complications that would arise, in the matter of food and the guardianship of property, from the re-marriage of widows, if they entered other families taking their children with them, either a brother or other near relation of her deceased husband takes her to wife." She "remained in the family" is the Toda expression.[249]"Now if we consider that one or more brothers may each become the husband of separate wives by virtue of having each paid a dower, and that younger brothers as they grow to age of maturity, and other brothers as they become widowed, may each either take separate wives or purchase shares in those already in the family, we can at once understand that any degree of complication in perfectly lawful wedded life may be met with, from the sample of the single man living with a single wife to that of the group of relatives married to a group of wives. We begin to see also why tribes following polyandrous habits endeavor to prevent further complications by making widows 'remain in the family.'" It follows that economic motives even here are influential in molding matrimonial institutions. The same motives, the scarcity of subsistence, are likewise the main cause of the very extended female infanticide which widely prevailed previous to 1822,when the Madras government "put a pressure on the Todas, in order to impel them to forsake their murderous practice." It was formerly the habitual custom to smother "all daughters in every family, except one or sometimes two."[250]The Todas are an in-and-in breeding people. "Although therearedegrees of kinship, within whose limits the union of the sexes is held in actual abhorrence, yet half brothers and sisters are not included amongst the objectionables."[251]
Accordingly, through polyandry, it is held, the transition to the parental or paternal system of kinship becomes possible, and sooner or later it usually takes place. Among the Todas father-right is fully established. In Tibet the inheritance goes to the brothers in the order of birth; and, failing these, to their eldest son, who, as already seen, is often known to be the eldest brother's child. This rule, it is maintained, may readily lead to agnation. Nevertheless the primitive custom of mother-right was very tenacious. Resisted by the gentile organization and the blood-feud, the transition was slow and painful. It was facilitated by contract and initiation.[252]A woman might be bought with the understanding that the children should belong, not to her own clan, but to that of her husband. Or, when contract alone was not sufficient to overcome the resistance of religion and the blood-feud, the same result might be obtained by purchase, followed by initiation into the sacred rites of the husband's kindred.[253]Moreover, as in Tibet and among the Todas, wife-purchaseor its survival is sometimes found in connection with polyandry.[254]
McLennan believes that Tibetan polyandry has been nearly, if not quite, universal, and that it is an "advance upon the Nair type." Many evidences of its alleged actual existence in present and former times are adduced; and where the institution is not found reliance is placed upon the presence of certain customs, such as the Niyoga, or the "appointed daughter," of the Hindus, the Hebrew levirate, and the inheritance by brothers, which are held to be its survivals.[255]
3. The disparity in the number of women would next produce the custom of wife-capture. The normal condition of primitive men is assumed to be that of strife.[256]Women would naturally be sought as the most valuable of the spoils of war. This would lead to polygyny. Since there can beno certainty as to fatherhood where the practice of seizing the women from hostile tribes obtains, wife-capture is the means of maintaining the system of counting kinship through the women only; and the existence of that system, at some time, must be inferred wherever wife-capture or its form in the marriage ceremony is discovered.
4. Wife-capture leads directly to exogamy, or the rule of not marrying within the group of recognized kindred; that is, at first, among those having the same totem. Exogamy is therefore not regarded as the result of a prejudice against intermarriage of those related by blood. For a time, doubtless, marriage within and without the group was practiced indifferently, as pleasure or opportunity favored. But eventually the possession of a foreign woman was looked upon as the more honorable or respectable; and so at last marriage within the kindred was entirely forbidden. With the rise of wife-capture the original homogeneity of the group gave place to a growing heterogeneity. Soon many alien stocks were represented in the horde. Where polygyny existed, or where several wives were taken in succession, the same family might comprise children representing several totems. These children like their mothers were counted as foreigners. Thus a modified form of exogamy arose. "So far as the system of infanticide allowed, the hordes contained young men and women accounted of different stocks, who might intermarry consistently" with the original rule of exogamy. "Hence grew up a system of betrothals, and of marriage by sale and purchase." But the effect of the system of kinship through males, when it superseded the maternal system, was to "arrest the progress of heterogeneity," and to "restore the original condition of affairs among exogamous races, as regards both the practice of capturing wives and the evolution of the forms of capture."[257]
It would be ungrateful not to acknowledge freely the service which McLennan and his adherents have rendered to the social history of mankind. They have brought to light a mass of very important facts which it is highly beneficial for us to know. It cannot be denied that wife-capture, exogamy, and the custom of taking kinship from the mother have very widely prevailed among primitive races. It is not so certain, however, that the right explanation of their origin or of their relation to one another has been given. In the first place, criticism, notably that of Herbert Spencer,[258]has detected fatal weakness and inconsistency in the argument by which Mr. McLennan has sought to establish his theory. It is doubtful, for instance, whether female infanticide has been so important a factor in social evolution.[259]But, granting that it has generally prevailed, it is hard tosee how this would greatly disturb the "balance of the sexes." For "tribes in a state of chronic hostility are constantly losing their adult males, and the male mortality so caused is usually considerable. Hence the killing many female infants does not necessitate lack of women: it may merely prevent excess." McLennan's fundamental "assumption is therefore inadmissible."[260]Again it is held that female infanticide, "rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without." But "where wife-stealing is now practiced it is commonly associated with polygyny;"[261]while conversely, polyandry does not "distinguish wife-stealing tribes," such as the Tasmanians, Australians, Dakotas, and Brazilians. "Contrariwise, though it is not a trait of peoples who rob one another of their women, it is a trait of certain rude peoples who are habitually peaceful;" for instance, the Eskimo, "who do not even know what war is." Furthermore, if wife-capture and exogamy are at once practiced by a cluster of adjacent tribes, the scarcity of women would not be relieved. Inevitably the weaker tribes would "tend toward extinction;" and in the meantime, if a part only of their female infants were killed, they must deliberately "rear the remainder for the benefit" of their enemies.[262]Nor, as Starcke has pointed out, is there anything in a "scarcity of women which could lead a community accustomed to promiscuous intercourse to adopt polyandry; on the contrary, such a scarcity would make it more difficult to set limits" to promiscuity. "Marriage, or the exclusive possession of onewoman by one or more men, would become more easy in proportion to the increase in the number of women, since the conflict between the lusts of the men would necessarily become less intense."[263]McLennan believes that exogamy has "been practiced at a certain stage among every race of mankind;" and that endogamy, or the custom of marrying within the kindred, is a "form reached through a long series of social developments."[264]Yet, inconsistently with this, he admits that "the separate endogamous tribes are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous tribes." He goes even farther, declaring that among a variety of tribes, belonging to "one and the same original stock," endogamy and exogamy are found existing side by side.[265]
Such are some of the results gained simply from an examination of the reasoning of McLennan. They have been here enumerated, not only because they afford an excellent illustration of the extreme complexity of social problems, but also because they may warn us against the perils of hasty speculation. It is not merely in matters of detail that the doctrine of the horde and promiscuity has met with resistance. Its very foundations have recently been powerfully assaulted by the adherents of a totally different view of the origin and development of the human family. How the phenomena of marriage and kinship will appear when seen in a new light, we shall next try to discover.
[Bibliographical NoteIII.—The theory of the pairing family is not so much the result of a reaction against the theory of promiscuity as it is a consequence of the perception that the problems of society can only be solved by appealing to the laws of human life and organic evolution. Hence Starcke's highly originalPrimitive Family(New York, 1889), and Westermarck's more elaborate and very able treatise onHuman Marriage(London and New York, 1891), showing the influence in some passages of Starcke's acute reasoning, may fairly be regarded as epoch-making. Important also are Wake'sMarriage and Kinship(London, 1889) and Letourneau'sL'évolution du mariage(Paris, 1888), which is supplemented by hisSociology Based upon Ethnology(London, 1893). These writers have carried farther the suggestions of Darwin,Descent of ManandAnimals and Plants under Domestication; and Spencer,Principles of Sociology(New York, 1879), who had already thrown doubt upon the communistic theory. A similar general conclusion is reached in the valuable monograph of Kautsky, "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," inKosmos, XII (Stuttgart, 1882), whose original "hetairism" is but "defective monogamy;" and Peschel'sRaces of Man(London, 1889) tends in the same direction. Hildebrand likewise rejects the communistic theory in his inaugural address onDas Problem einer allgemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte des Rechts und der Sitte(Graz, 1894); and this work should be read in connection with hisRecht und Sitte auf den verschiedenen wirthschaftlichen Kulturstufen(Jena, 1896). On the other hand, Kulischer, in "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," inZFE., VIII, defends original communal marriage against the views of Darwin. Of special value, likewise, for this chapter areGrosse, Die Formen der Familie(Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896); which is favorably examined by Cunow, "Die ökonomischen Grundlagen der Mutterherrschaft," inNeue Zeit, XVI; Keane,Ethnology(2d ed., Cambridge, 1896);idem,Man: Past and Present(Cambridge, 1899); Frerichs,Naturgeschichte des Menschen(2d ed., Norden, 1891); Bagehot,Physics and Politics(London, 1872); as are also the works of Posada, Crawley, Lang, and Hellwald elsewhere mentioned.For the family among the lower animals in addition to Letourneau, Hellwald, and Westermarck, consult Brehm,Tierleben(Leipzig andVienna, 1891); hisBird-Life(London, 1874); Herman Müller,Am Neste(Berlin, 1881); Schäffle,Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers(Tübingen, 1881); Espinas,Des sociétés animales(2d ed., 1878); Groos,Die Spiele der Thiere(Jena, 1896), or the English translation (New York, 1898); and Wagner, "Die Kulturzüchtung des Menschen gegenüber der Naturzüchtung im Tierreich," inKosmos, 1886, I. In this connection read also Houzeau,Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux(Mons, 1872); Vignoli,Ueber das Fundamentalgesetz des Intelligenz im Tierreiche(Leipzig, 1879); and Salt,Animals' Rights(New York, 1894).On the problems of sex and kinship mentioned in the text see Geddes and Thompson,Evolution of Sex(New York, n. d.); Ellis,Man and Woman(London, 1896); Finck,Primitive Love(New York, 1899), vigorously attacking some of Westermarck's theories; hisRomantic Love and Personal Beauty(London, 1887); Duboc,Psychologie der Liebe(Hannover, 1874); Mantegazza,Physiologie der Liebe(30th ed., Berlin, 1897); Klebs,Verhältniss des männ. und weibl. Geschlechts in der Natur(Jena, 1894); Schroeder,Das Recht in der geschlechtl. Ordnung(Berlin, 1893); Thomas, "Relations of Sex to Primitive Social Control," and his "Difference in the Metabolism of the Sexes," both inAm. Journal of Sociology, III (1898); Sadler,The Law of Population(London, 1830); Starkweather,The Law of Sex(London, 1883); Hofacker and Notter,Uber die Eigenschaften ... welche sich auf die Nachkommen vererben(Tübingen, 1827); Ploss,Das Weib(Leipzig, 1895); also hisUeber die das Geschlechtsverhältniss der Kinder bedingenden Ursachen(Berlin, 1859); Schenk,Einfluss auf das Geschlechtsverhältniss(3d ed., Magdeburg and Vienna, 1898); the brilliant monograph of Düsing,Die Regulierung des Geschlechtsverhältnisses(Jena, 1884); Huth,Marriage of Near Kin(2d ed., 1887); Lewkowitsch, "Die Ehen zwischen Geschwisterkindern and ihre Folgen," inZFE., VIII; and Mitchell, "Blood-Relationship in Marriage," inMem. of London Anth. Society, 1865, II, 402 ff.Several important points are treated in Tylor'sEarly History of Mankind(New York, 1878); and in hisMethod of Investigating Institutions. See also Kovalevsky,Tableau des origines et de l'évolution de la famille(Stockholm, 1890); Swinderen,De Polygynia(Groningae, 1795); and for a curiosity, read Premontval,La monogamie(1751). In general, the literature cited in Bibliographical Note II has been used, and so need not here be described.]
[Bibliographical NoteIII.—The theory of the pairing family is not so much the result of a reaction against the theory of promiscuity as it is a consequence of the perception that the problems of society can only be solved by appealing to the laws of human life and organic evolution. Hence Starcke's highly originalPrimitive Family(New York, 1889), and Westermarck's more elaborate and very able treatise onHuman Marriage(London and New York, 1891), showing the influence in some passages of Starcke's acute reasoning, may fairly be regarded as epoch-making. Important also are Wake'sMarriage and Kinship(London, 1889) and Letourneau'sL'évolution du mariage(Paris, 1888), which is supplemented by hisSociology Based upon Ethnology(London, 1893). These writers have carried farther the suggestions of Darwin,Descent of ManandAnimals and Plants under Domestication; and Spencer,Principles of Sociology(New York, 1879), who had already thrown doubt upon the communistic theory. A similar general conclusion is reached in the valuable monograph of Kautsky, "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," inKosmos, XII (Stuttgart, 1882), whose original "hetairism" is but "defective monogamy;" and Peschel'sRaces of Man(London, 1889) tends in the same direction. Hildebrand likewise rejects the communistic theory in his inaugural address onDas Problem einer allgemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte des Rechts und der Sitte(Graz, 1894); and this work should be read in connection with hisRecht und Sitte auf den verschiedenen wirthschaftlichen Kulturstufen(Jena, 1896). On the other hand, Kulischer, in "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl bei den Menschen in der Urzeit," inZFE., VIII, defends original communal marriage against the views of Darwin. Of special value, likewise, for this chapter areGrosse, Die Formen der Familie(Freiburg and Leipzig, 1896); which is favorably examined by Cunow, "Die ökonomischen Grundlagen der Mutterherrschaft," inNeue Zeit, XVI; Keane,Ethnology(2d ed., Cambridge, 1896);idem,Man: Past and Present(Cambridge, 1899); Frerichs,Naturgeschichte des Menschen(2d ed., Norden, 1891); Bagehot,Physics and Politics(London, 1872); as are also the works of Posada, Crawley, Lang, and Hellwald elsewhere mentioned.
For the family among the lower animals in addition to Letourneau, Hellwald, and Westermarck, consult Brehm,Tierleben(Leipzig andVienna, 1891); hisBird-Life(London, 1874); Herman Müller,Am Neste(Berlin, 1881); Schäffle,Bau und Leben des socialen Körpers(Tübingen, 1881); Espinas,Des sociétés animales(2d ed., 1878); Groos,Die Spiele der Thiere(Jena, 1896), or the English translation (New York, 1898); and Wagner, "Die Kulturzüchtung des Menschen gegenüber der Naturzüchtung im Tierreich," inKosmos, 1886, I. In this connection read also Houzeau,Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux(Mons, 1872); Vignoli,Ueber das Fundamentalgesetz des Intelligenz im Tierreiche(Leipzig, 1879); and Salt,Animals' Rights(New York, 1894).
On the problems of sex and kinship mentioned in the text see Geddes and Thompson,Evolution of Sex(New York, n. d.); Ellis,Man and Woman(London, 1896); Finck,Primitive Love(New York, 1899), vigorously attacking some of Westermarck's theories; hisRomantic Love and Personal Beauty(London, 1887); Duboc,Psychologie der Liebe(Hannover, 1874); Mantegazza,Physiologie der Liebe(30th ed., Berlin, 1897); Klebs,Verhältniss des männ. und weibl. Geschlechts in der Natur(Jena, 1894); Schroeder,Das Recht in der geschlechtl. Ordnung(Berlin, 1893); Thomas, "Relations of Sex to Primitive Social Control," and his "Difference in the Metabolism of the Sexes," both inAm. Journal of Sociology, III (1898); Sadler,The Law of Population(London, 1830); Starkweather,The Law of Sex(London, 1883); Hofacker and Notter,Uber die Eigenschaften ... welche sich auf die Nachkommen vererben(Tübingen, 1827); Ploss,Das Weib(Leipzig, 1895); also hisUeber die das Geschlechtsverhältniss der Kinder bedingenden Ursachen(Berlin, 1859); Schenk,Einfluss auf das Geschlechtsverhältniss(3d ed., Magdeburg and Vienna, 1898); the brilliant monograph of Düsing,Die Regulierung des Geschlechtsverhältnisses(Jena, 1884); Huth,Marriage of Near Kin(2d ed., 1887); Lewkowitsch, "Die Ehen zwischen Geschwisterkindern and ihre Folgen," inZFE., VIII; and Mitchell, "Blood-Relationship in Marriage," inMem. of London Anth. Society, 1865, II, 402 ff.
Several important points are treated in Tylor'sEarly History of Mankind(New York, 1878); and in hisMethod of Investigating Institutions. See also Kovalevsky,Tableau des origines et de l'évolution de la famille(Stockholm, 1890); Swinderen,De Polygynia(Groningae, 1795); and for a curiosity, read Premontval,La monogamie(1751). In general, the literature cited in Bibliographical Note II has been used, and so need not here be described.]
The researches of several recent writers, notably those of Starcke and Westermarck, confirming in part and further developing the earlier conclusions of Darwin and Spencer,have established a probability that marriage or pairing between one man and one woman, though the union be often transitory and the rule frequently violated, is the typical form of sexual union from the infancy of the human race. The problem is not yet fully worked out; but if in the end the theory of original promiscuity must be abandoned, and the pairing or monogamous family accepted as the primitive social unit, it is not because of the spiritual and moral superiority of man, as compared with other animals, but because sexual communism as a primitive and general phase of life appears to be inconsistent with the biological, economic, and psychological laws which have determined the general course of organic evolution. Strongly supported and highly probable as is the pairing or monogamic theory, it must be clearly understood in the outset that it is still only a theory and has not yet reached the stage of demonstration. It will hardly do, however, to set aside the researches of its adherents as being superficial and devoid of real scientific method; for the champions of the opposite doctrine of primitive communism are nothing if not daring, and their sweeping generalizations often rest solely on comparatively few "survivals" of alleged conditions which are absolutely "prehistoric."[266]
It may be impossible to prove that there ever was a uniform primitive state. "So long as we are within the sphere of experience," says Starcke, "we cannot begin by assuming that there was at any time only a single human community. Experience begins with a plurality of communities, and the single community of which we are in search must be found on the indeterminate boundary between man and animals."[267]Indeed, it seems certain that if we are ever to understand the character of the earliest forms of human marriage and the human family, we must begin by studying the family and marriage as they exist among other and less advanced members of the animal world.[268]Biology, declares Letourneau, is the starting-point of sociology.[269]In this view Starcke coincides. "We have no reason to regard the social life of man as a recent form. Not only do the same psychical forces which influence gregarious man also influence the gregarious animal; probability also leads us to infer that the primitive communities of mankind are derived from those of animals. Since man in so many respects only goes on to develop the previous achievements of animal experience, it may be supposed that he made use of the social experience of animals as the firm foundation of his higher advancement." Besides, "there are human communities which are far less firmly established than those of animals;" and "it may even be asserted that the social faculty is positive in animals and negative in man," for man is "less subservient to instinct."[270]"If we want to find out the origin of marriage," says Westermarck, "we have to strike into another path, the only one which can lead to the truth, but a path which is open to him alone who regards organic nature as one continued chain, the last and most perfect link of which is man. For we can no more stop within the limits of our own species, when trying to find the root of our psychical and social life, than we can understand the physical condition of the human race without taking into consideration that of the lower animals."[271]
Accordingly three principal arguments against the existence at any time of a general state of promiscuity have been advanced:
First is the so-called zoölogical argument, based on a comparison of the sexual habits and institutions of animals with those of the lowest races of men. In the outset it is important to observe that the physical differentiation of the sexes is itself a product of the struggle for existence. This important fact is made the starting-point of the argument by which Hellwald[272]finds the elements of the human mother-group and of mother-right in earlier animal experiences. Among the lowest members of the animal kingdom there is no individual distinction of sex. That first makes its appearance when the "artistically constructed organism, in order to sustain itself in the process of evolution, is called upon to perform a wider series of functions." Thus "when an animal is forced to greater exertion, when it must work in order to exist, when unresistingly it can no longer suffer the stream of events to press upon it, but withstands it and seeks in it to follow its own course, then the separation of the sexes appears, and, indeed, as a division of labor created by nature for the purpose of developing species." With further evolution, male and female characteristics become more pronounced, in response to the special functions which each sex is called upon to perform. The same process continues in the case of man. To see in him anything other than the "highest and foremost representative of the animal world, one must be drunk with metaphysical nectar, and nothing is better fitted than comparative physiology to humble one's pride in this regard." For man's entire physical organization is "homologous to that of the higher species of animals." Accordingly, the lower a group of men stands on the ladder of culture, the less marked is the"bodily differentiation of the sexes." Among various backward peoples there is relatively slight difference in outward appearance between the men and the women.[273]The growth of sexual variation in physical structure keeps pace exactly with progress in civilization. This progress depends mainly on two original forces. Of these "without doubt the mightiest is hunger," the need of nourishment. For everywhere on earth the "first thought and striving" of living beings is the "stilling of hunger." Next to the struggle for food, the sexual and pairing impulse is the most potent factor in the genesis of society. The former influence, it is important to observe, is the more constant and the more imperative. The latter grows and becomes more acute with increase in refinement and the consequent development of the nervous system.[274]It follows that in the origin of social institutions the erotic or pairing impulse, however important, is a less cogent genetic force than the economic necessity of a food supply.
The lives of the lower animals reveal a great variety of sexual relations. The lowest form, and perhaps the most frequent, is that of unlimited promiscuity.[275]Among the invertebrates the preservation of the young is left almost wholly to chance. The duties of the parents are limited mainly to the functions of reproduction. "In the lowestclasses of vertebrata, parental care is likewise almost unheard of." It "rarely happens that both parents jointly take care of their progeny."[276]But the chelonia, or tortoise group, are "known to live in pairs;" and here we reach, among animals, the first trace of the family, properly so called. "The chelonia form, with regard to their domestic habits, a transition to the birds, as they do also from a zoölogical and, particularly, from an embryological point of view." Who that has experienced the keen delight afforded by watching the domestic habits of birds, from the building of the nest to the teaching of the young to make the first wavering trial of its wings, cannot bear witness to the high development of marriage and the family among them? The great work of Brehm supplies abundant evidence of their human-like social life.[277]"Parental affection," summarizes Westermarck, "has reached a very high degree of development, not only on the mother's side, but also on the father's. Male and female help each other to build the nest, the former generally bringing the materials, the latter doing the work. In fulfilling the numberless duties of the breeding season both birds take a share. Incubation rests principally with the mother, but the father, as a rule, helps his companion, taking her place when she wants to leave the nest for a moment, or providing her with food and protecting her from every danger. Finally, when the duties of the breeding season are over, and the result desired is obtained, a period with new duties commences. During the first few days after hatching, most birds rarely leave their young for long, and then only to procure food for themselves and their family. In cases of great danger, both parents bravely defend their offspring. As soon as the first period of helplessness is over,and the young have grown somewhat, they are carefully taught to shift for themselves; and it is only when they are perfectly capable of so doing that they leave the nest and the parents."[278]The bird family is usually monogamic, and the marriage is lasting. Birds are generally faithful to the marriage vow; and this is particularly true of the females.[279]"With the exception of those belonging to the gallinaceous family, when pairing," they do so "once for all till either one or the other dies.[280]And Dr. Brehm is so filled with admiration for their exemplary family life that he enthusiastically declares that 'real genuine marriage can only be found among the birds.'"[281]
With the lower mammals the union of the sexes is generally of short duration, often only for a single birth, though in several species the parents remain together even afterthe arrival of the young. But among the higher members examples of monogamic marriage are not infrequent, such being the case with animals of prey.[282]As a rule, the quadrumana live in pairs. Gorillas, however, are said sometimes to be polygynous. "According to Dr. Savage, they live in bands, and all his informants agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in every band."[283]But monogamy is perhaps most common. M. du Chaillu declares that he found "almost always one male with one female, though sometimes the old male wanders companionless."[284]The orang-utan and the chimpanzee, like the gorilla, also live in families.[285]Of a truth, promiscuity is far from universal in the pre-human stage.
Yet it would be easy to overestimate the value of the argument based upon the sexual relations of the lower animals. But it will not do with Kohler and Lippert to set it aside as entirely irrelevant.[286]Upon the precedents afforded by "anthropomorphic" species in particular, as Hellwald justly insists, no "slight weight should be placed;" for these are "not merely the highest organized animals, but they must also be regarded as the nearest animal relatives of man."[287]Indeed, the transition from the family as it exists among the quadrumana to that of the least-developed races of man is not abrupt, although the lowest examples of mankind yet observed are advanced beyond the supposed primitive human stage. The broad characteristicsof the one are the characteristics of the other. The "relations of the sexes are, as a rule, of a more or less durable character." There is conjugal affection. The immediate care of the children belongs to the mother. "Among mammals as well as birds," declares Espinas, "maternal love is the corner-stone of the family."[288]The father is the protector and provider, although paternal love is more slowly developed. Like the male among the lower animals, savage or barbarous man may be "rather indifferent to the welfare of his wife and children, ... but the simplest paternal duties are, nevertheless, universally recognized. If he does nothing else, the father builds the habitation, and employs himself in the chase and in war."[289]
But the argument for the pre-human origin of the elements of marriage and the family does not rest merely upon precedents of sexual habits. It is based rather upon the entire experience of animals in the hard struggle for existence. That struggle, as Hellwald suggests, forced upon them primarily the problem of food-supply, the need of a sort of economic co-operation, more lasting in its results than the pairing instinct. It is the entire social, mental, and moral product of animal experience, of living together, so well described among others by Espinas, Schäffle, Groos, and Wundt, which man in some measure inherited as a rich legacy from his humbler predecessor.[290]Accordingly Westermarck believes that marriage was probably "transmitted toman from some ape-like ancestor, and that there never was a time when it did not occur in the human race."[291]With Starcke, and in harmony with the view of Hellwald already quoted, he holds that marriage and the family cannot rest upon the sexual impulse alone. This is too transitory. Among animals it is obvious that "it cannot be the sexual instinct that keeps male and female together for months and years," for the "generative power is restricted to a certain season;" and it seems highly probable that among men a pairing season prevailed in ancient times. Thus the "wild Indians of California, belonging to the lowest races on earth," are said to "have their rutting seasons as regularly as have the deer, the elk, the antelope, or any other animals."[292]According to Powers, the California Kabinapek "are extremely sensual. In the spring when the wild clover is lush and full of blossoms and they are eating it to a satiety after the famine of winter, they become amorous. This season, therefore, is a literal Saint Valentine's Day with them, as with the natural beasts and birds of the forest."[293]The Tasmanians, the Australian Watch-an-dies, and various other peoples appear to show evidences of the same habit.[294]Vignoli reaches a similar conclusion. "The family union in which man originally finds himself is not an essentially human but likewise an animal fact, since that mode of common social life is found with the greater part of animals and alwaysamong the higher. It is the necessity of rearing the young which unites the parents and gives them a common life for a shorter or longer period; indeed in some species this marriage of love and care continues throughout their whole existence. Hence the fact of family sociality is not an exclusive product of humanity, but of the universal laws of the whole animal life upon the earth. Let it not be asserted that in man affection between the sexes and toward their offspring ... is more active, more intense, and more lasting; for it manifests itself with equal strength and sometime with equal duration between animals and toward their young. Thus man loves, cohabits, and lives socially in a primitive family community only because he is an animal and moreover an animal higher in the organic series. So the fact of the family is consummated according to the necessity of cosmic laws governing a great part of the reproductive and social activity of the animal kingdom."[295]