AVOIDANCES

[1]How do we know thathomowas stillalalus?—A. L.

[2]Later, as we further analyse the chords in the great hymn of human existence, we shall find that this first of all rules of intelligent moral action, however little it may have had of ethical intention in its inception, will ever remain (in its effects) the fundamental note in the harmony of psychical life. All succeeding law is its inevitable corollary, and vibrating in cadence with this fundamental note.

Results in strengthening the groups which admit several adult males.—Disappearance of hostile band of exiled young males.—Relations of sire and female mates of young males now within the group.—Father-in-law and daughter-in-law avoidance.—Rights as between two generations.—Elder brother and younger brother's wife avoidances.—Note on Hostile Capture.

If we can admit the argument as to the sequence of incidents which thus led to the primary amicable conjunction of two males within the same group, it is not necessary to enter very minutely into the exact manner in which it would grow into a habit and spread throughout the land. We may surmise that, in spite of the advantages presented, its progress would, from the isolation of the groups, and their mutual hostility, be very slow. This would specially be the case if, as with physical variations, this point of departure in social development was a purely individual one, and so had to spread from a single centre by natural selection acting through a beneficial variation. It is, in fact, difficult to conceive, in view of the series of the abnormal factors we have supposed necessary for the genesis of such evolution, that any coincident departure of the same nature would be likely to occur in any other centre. It is even certain that the full possible benefit of the innovation would not be able to make itself felt even in the group of its creators. It is easy to understand that, in spite of the shield-like love of the mother, there would be friction between father and son in such unfamiliar circumstances, not only novel to the individual, but unhabitual to the race. In fact, it may be taken for granted that on the part of the father there was at first only a sulky tolerance ofthe new arrangement, a tacit but very unwilling acquiescence in the presence of the son.

On the part of the son would exist a watchful reserve, with an ever-haunting sense of insecurity, born of a novel and precarious situation. Even on such terms, however, and with what little might be of conciliation between the two, it is evident that a momentous forward step has been taken: the powers of the group in offence and defence, as against outsiders, would be enormously increased;[1]the fire of youth and the wisdom of old age for the first time joined forces, and paternal experience comes to the aid of filial courage and ardour. On the death of the patriarch the family found a natural protector, and what potential germs of advance, material or spiritual, had been evolved, would remain intact.

The real significance of the circumstance of such conjunction will, however, be found to lie in the character of its consequences as entailing further progress. Thus we have suggested that the original innovation consisted in the toleration of the presence of a single male offspring. But the way was evidently thus paved for the acceptance, at least in later generations, of others of the young males, although at first only of those who, not too much rivalling the fathers in power, would offer least grounds for jealousy. Now if we may accept it as an axiom in the matter of social progress in this race, that everything depended on aggregation of numbers in peaceful union, then such renewed inclusion presents itself in an important light. When it grew into a habit, the vast increase in power with every succeeding generation to a group, which is implied in the fact of each male child counting as an unit of strength, becomes evident. The new superiority to the original Cyclopean form of family, with its solitary male head, is enormous. The extinction of the latter type would only be a matter of time, it would finally result from the easy capture, by betterorganised rivals, of their females. With the gradual disappearance of those who clung to the old order, the leaven of progress would spread in permanence through the whole mass. It would eventually become the rule that all the male offspring should remain within a group, to form henceforth an integral part of it.

This result would be very important from another point of view. Such retention of sons would lead to the elimination of one of the greatest past elements of disorder—that band of exiled young males, which we found as a constantly menacing adjunct of the Cyclopean family, would cease to exist. But, again, a very slight reflection will enable us to perceive that such a modification as the presence of these celibate young males in the family circle must soon have entailed consequences in social evolution of a new and strange complexion, thoroughly embarrassing, in such an era, to those interested. Primitive social economy was now, in fact, to enter on phases presenting such possibilities of complication and disruption as must forcibly have led to the continued evolution of law in regulation. Such complications will become at once apparent on an examination of the probable sequence of events in the family life of the race. Such law in regulation will be shown to have been evolved, and, as before, to be still existent as a rule of action in these latter days, and with all those weird characteristics of mutism and general anomalism which prove its archaic origin.

Granted a group consisting of a patriarch whose marital rights extend over all its females, and of young males whose attitude,[2]from a sexual point of view, is marked by the strict reserve ordained by the primal law, it by no means follows that such celibacy of the young males would extend beyond the feminine element of their own troop. On the contrary, the whole of the outside world remains free for them to choose from. In fact, it is evident that it is there, in the world outside of the group, that their future mates must be found. On the component females of the parent horde a banhas been for ever laid, but all else of womankind are free of the interdict; they are beyond the law, and 'Sin is not imputed where there is no law.' Here, then, in the outer world, would their wives be sought. The complication we have mentioned would arise when, after successful captures of females by the young males, captures which it is hardly necessary to state would have been 'hostile,' the introduction of their captives within the parental group took place. The presence of females not to be his own within a circle where all that was feminine had ever been his in undisputed right, would certainly stir to its depths the soul of the Cyclopean type of parent. Such a situation must in its inception have caused a friction full of menace to the new order of things.

The only solution would be, as we have said, in the further evolution of law in remedy. We shall, as before, expect to find the law ordaining restrictions on intercourse between certain individuals, and marked with the archaic characteristic of mere visual action being sufficient for its interpretation. Such, then, as it was, we still find it, in the habit still common with many races of avoidance between father-in-law and daughter-in-law. In mute avoidance between these two could peace alone endure in the new crisis. The new rule implied the development of the same respect by the father for the marital rights of the son, as we have seen the primal law to have had for effect as regards the paternal prerogatives. Natural selection would come into play in the consolidation of this new stage in legislative evolution. For the group which first adopted such amodus vivendiwould gain so great an advantage with each generation, in point of numbers alone, as would quickly give it supremacy. On the other hand, the forcible infringement by the father on the rights of possession by the sons in their captives, would simply result in the withdrawal of the sons and their women. Hence disruption of the group, and a fatal retrogression to the archaic type with all the weakness implied in a sole male component.

Here then we find renewed, in act of custom, another barto intercourse between certain individuals of different sexes. And not only as a peace-conferring covenant would the fresh step in progress be important. It marks another stride in advance from brute to man, in the further recognition of points of difference between one female and another from a sexual point of view, the genetic evolution of which sentiment, in the primal law, foreshadowed such latent potentiality as already distinctive of mankind alone. Social advance to this stage has entailed the genesis of law in definition of respective marital rights asbetween the two generations, viz. fathers and sons, but further evolution in regulation of the individual right, as within the generation itself, is evidently indicated. For all members of the latter, as is the case to-day with many lower people, would be considered,de facto, aclass, in which all are regarded as brothers, own or tribal, whose interest in all things regarding their classificatory rights would be in common.[3]

Such would be more especially the case in respect to female captives, whose capture would be the act of all. Here sexual jealousy, if uncontrolled, would inevitably lead to repetitions of that violent segregation of the members which occurred under the same circumstances amidst their primitive prototypes—i.e. that band of isolated young males, contemporaries of and exiles from some Cyclopean family. We may, however, surmise that, now or soon, the general development of intelligence and advance in social feeling would permit the action of the necessary rule in remedy. That rule would doubtless take the form we still find existing to-day for regulation in parallel circumstances, a rule which simply accords priority of right in accordance with seniority in birth. Such right would in itself accrue naturally as with other animals, from the fact that superior strength is found with greater age. This prior possession is not incompatible with an amicable recognition of the privilege of later participationby others. If such recognition took place in favour of the rights of the juniors, whilst they again peacefully accepted the larger pretensions of the seniors within their class, then natural selection would again act in their favour by the elimination of groups unable to abide such conditions. The arrogation of sole possession could but lead to the disintegration of the troop.[4]

Another solution of the problem of rights as between brothers may here be noted: it is that which is common to such widely separated spots as New Caledonia and Orissa, viz. the law of avoidance between an elder brother and a younger brother's wife. It is one of the most strict and severe. It is, however, incompatible with group marriage, which we are now dealing with.[5]It marks the genetic stage of monandry.

So far, then, we have thus traced the evolutionary process of group formation—and we seem to find confirmed that affirmation as to the primordial order of succession in the genetic growth of custom which I ventured to submit in my first pages, viz. primo: the existence of an early idea of concupiscent lust, distinctive of the male head of a group, which led to his pretensions in marital right over all its component females in necessary incestuous union; secundo, the evolution of the primal law (with what little of originally ethical intention is now immaterial), in protection of such right when threatened by intruders; tertio, its acceptance by the latter, and, as an inevitable sequel, their indispensable capture of outside females as sole possible mates.[6]

But then this question of the absolute necessity of therape of strange females as mates by the young males of a group, opens up to view another remarkable coincidence of effect in custom, still enduring to our day. As such it may furnish a clue to a feature in savage habits, to which we have already alluded as the cause of more discussion, concerning its origin, than any other. For habitual hostile capture of females outside a group by its male members, with a coincidental bar to sexual union with its component females, seems simply a definition of that habit among many actual peoples which has been called Exogamy by Mr. J. F. McLennan. Hence comes the evident corollary to the argument that the primal law and exogamy stand to each other in the mutual relation of cause and effect. We stated that if this was in reality the case, and if here we have the origin of marriage outside the group, then the novelty of the view, and the fact that it finds itself in opposition to other theories on the matter, weighty from the eminence of their propounders, would still require the production of a clear series of proofs in its favour if it was to be accepted. Such proofs, however, we predicted, would with research be found abundantly. We hope that already in our thesis, as far as it has gone, we may be considered to have advanced some such testimony in the seemingly necessary identity of custom, in form at least, in a hypothetic ancient and an actual modern era. There is surely here more than mere fortuitous coincidence in social evolution.

It seems, indeed, a legitimate inference that the divers habits of avoidance which we have cited, intelligible only by their congruency with such phases of genetic growth of custom as we have surmised, whilst presenting features utterly anomalous as latter-day creations, are in reality of the archaic origin we would assign to them. Their extraordinary vitality, which becomes almost bewildering to contemplate, may be explained by the fact that, as the first steps in progress, they would be necessarily woven into the whole social fabric.

It remains to be seen if, in further unravelling its tangled web, other threads of actual custom may not be found asapparently eloquent of a far distant, unfamiliar past, in their present abnormal features; other usages in every-day lower (savage) life, which in the light of a primal law shall furnish an unexpected solution of many perplexing problems in social evolution. If it can be shown that their inception would have been in happy accordance with the resolution of necessary incidents in evolutionary progress, may we not legitimately infer both that such customs thus had their origin, and again that these incidents really occurred? Our further research into the development of social institutions will point out indisputably, that primitive society was now on the eve of a succession of events in social order, presenting quite a series of menacing complications—their resolution will seemingly entail inevitably the continuous evolution of law in remedy, which law would have presented features identical with the actual laws of avoidance and others.

Mr. Atkinson accepts, for the excessively early stage of semi-human society with which his hypothesis deals, the necessity of procuring mates for the young bucks by capture from a hostile group. Now Dr. Westermarck writes, 'Mr. McLennan thinks that marriage by capture arose from the rule of exogamy;' and Mr. Atkinson holds that it arose from the necessity of the case. The old patriarch allowed no female born within his group to be united to his sons. Dr. Westermarck says, 'It seems to me extremely probable that the practice of capturing women for wives is due chiefly to the aversion to close intermarrying ... together with the difficulty a savage man has in procuring a wife in a friendly manner, without giving compensation for the loss he inflicts on her father' (Westermarck, 368-369). He admits a period when 'the idea of barter had hardly occurred to man's mind,' But Mr. Atkinson is thinking of a state of affairs in which the idea of barter had not occurred at all. Even at Dr. Westermarck's stage of the dawn of barter, 'marriage by capturemust have been very common.' But Mr. Crawley argues that because, in his opinion, 'types of formal and connubial capture' are not survivals from actual capture, therefore 'the theory that mankind ... ever, in normal circumstances, were accustomed to obtain their wives by capture from other tribes, may be regarded as exploded' (Mystic Rose, p. 367). This dictum does not affect Mr. Atkinson's theory. Semi-human beings, in the conditions imagined by him, might be obliged to get their wives by capture, whether existing types of so-called formal capture are survivals of actual hostile capture or not. If Mr. Atkinson accepts the formal abductions as survivals of real captures and so as proofs of his argument, and if such formal abductions are not survivals of real capture—still, as Dr. Westermarck says, even after the supposed stage of semi-human life, 'marriages by capture must have been very common'—in Mr. Atkinson's hypothetical still earlier stage, they must have been universal.

[1]It is clear that, for this reason, natural selection would favour the new kind of group. The arrangement would be imitated.—A. L.

[2]With portentous endurance of custom towards these.

[3]Herr Cunow, as we showed, regards the 'classes' (not the 'phratries') of Australian tribes as based on a rough and ready calculation of non-intermarrying generations.—A. L.

[4]See also Westermarck, pp. 458, 459, on the Khyoungtha, a Chittagong hill tribe. After marriage a younger brother is allowed to touch the hand, to speak and laugh with his elder brother's wife, but it is thought improper for the elder brother even to look at the wife of his younger brother. This is a custom more or less among all hill tribes, it is found carried to even a preposterous extent among the Santals.

[5]As a fact the 'classes' (probably distinctions, originally, of generations) do not, I think, indicate 'group marriage.'—A. L.

[6]Westermarck,ut supra, pp. 387-389, 546, agrees. For the opposite view, cf. Crawley, p. 367. Westermarck does not seem very sure of his own mind.—A. L.

Resemblance of semi-brutal group, at this stage, to actual savage tribe.—Resemblance merely superficial.—In this hypothetical semi-brutal group paternal incest survives.—Causes of its decline and extinction.—The Sire's widows in the group.—Arrival of outside suitors for them.—Brothers of wives of the group.—New comers barred from marital rights over their daughters.—Jealousy of their wives intervenes.—Value of sisters to be bartered for sisters of another group discovered.—Consequent resistance to incest of group sire.—Natural selection favours groups where resistance is successful.—Cousinage recognised in practice.—Intermarrying sets of cousins become phratries.—Exceptional cases of permitted incest in chiefs and kings.—No known trace of avoidance between father and daughter.—Progress had rendered such law superfluous.

A superficial view of the group we have examined might, from its general resemblance in custom to others among actual lower types of man, lead to a hasty conception of perfect identity, from a social point of view, in nearly all other respects. We see that exogamy, hostile capture, group marriage,[1]and obedience to certain accepted rules of avoidance, are common to both, to the hypothetical semi-bestial and to the actual savage groups.

The impression, however, would be very erroneous.

In the former, the hypothetical archaic stage, still lurked as a festering canker, an archaic element in marital prerogative, which marks it as of an epoch in the life-history of our race when the brute still triumphed over the man, an epoch far removed from our own. It possessed a feature in connubial relations as between certain group members which placed a profound gulf between it and any existing form ofthese days—a trait which, whilst it endured, would tend to render all further social progress difficult, if not impossible. It barred the road to that next great gradation in sociological evolution which is implied in the friendly conjunction of groups in a tribe. The latter stage was a vast upward step, but still it was only one round in the ladder of ascent to man, and indeed derived its chief importance from this fact as such. The tribe was the real goal; there, only, could be found the vital quality of social stability to be conferred by peacefulconnubiumbetween united groups as opposed to hostile capture between isolated families. Each group must come to be in itself complete, and yet each must form the necessary complementary parts of the actualTribecommon to all lower races, with its typical divisional inter-marriageable group classes ['phratries']. The fatal bar to a higher platform was a heritage from the anthropoid ancestor, and, as such, eminently characteristic of an animal stage.

This odious inheritance was the habit of incest between father and daughter, which we have found to be common to all the mammalia as a dominant domestic feature. As a factor in evolution we have seen that it actually had as direct outcome the primal law itself, and thus, with a strange irony, it may be said to have so laid the foundation of an ultimate moral sense. In such or other action in the past it had, however, served its useful purpose. Its operation in the future could be but detrimental; so opposed to all advance does it become, that, as we shall find, it is to be finally swept aside so completely as to permit to some students doubts of its existence, though 'In Saturn's time such mixture was not held a crime.' Leaving no traces of action in actual usage save in such exceptions as prove the rule, it will not be difficult to show that, in giving birth to the primal law, it doomed its own existence, and this apart from any ethical connection. The continued progress of society led almost mechanically to developments eminently inimical to its continuance as a custom, whilst again it would be found even injurious to the order of things as constituted in the earliestgroup-plus-tribe stage. If we bear in mind the axiom that, other things being equal, the largest assemblage of individuals in amity would have the greatest chance of survival, as possessing more numerous units of strength, then father-and-daughter marriage would be pernicious by preventing an assembly from profiting to a full extent by the productive powers of all its members. For such incest implies sole marital rights by a senior generation of males over a junior generation of females. As the latter would always, from mere disparity of age, outlive the former, it follows that, on the death of a father the daughters would remain unproductive, the only other males in the family group being their own brothers, and as such barred to them by the primal law.

This situation, in itself an element of weakness, became doubly so, if, as is probable, these young widowed females seceded to other and hostile groups with whom union to them was free. Such groups would in consequence be by so much strengthened, at the expense of their original circle. If, on the other hand, these widows remained in their own circle, their presence as useless mouths would be embarrassing, and a possible source of danger as a temptation to outside suitors. Again, celibacy being quite an anomaly in such an era, complications might arise from possible infractions of the primal law itself within a group.

But it is in special relation to the further movement in advance implied in the friendly aggregation of groups into a tribe that the effects of paternal incest would be most fatally felt. For while it reigned as a custom and a father usurped sole marital right over the whole feminine element, the immigration into the group of outside suitors for their hands would be impossible, their possession by the latter would be only possible after capture, which, being hostile, would tend to keep asunder the different groups. And yet in the next and higher stage of social evolution, as presented in the amalgamation of groups into a tribe, the acceptation of these outside mates in peaceful connubium is precisely the mostcharacteristic feature. In later days they will be found as the male members of a certain 'class' in one 'phratry,' and,de facto, eligible in group marriage with all and certain females of the corresponding category as regards birth in another phratry, within an all-embracing tribe. As indeed with actual Australians, where, by right of birth alone each 'class' contains the natural born husbands of the wives of another 'class.' Such connubium is evidently impossible while incest flourished as a custom, it could only arise after its decay.[2]

It thus becomes necessary to study by what possible conjunction of affairs so desirable a result was arrived at. We will find that, however fortuitous the event of the primary inclusion of an outside possible suitor within a group, however timid and hesitating his entry, his presence there would be the signal of the beginning of the end. Now it is evidently hopeless to look for any voluntary acceptance of his claims by the living father, to whom the temptation to so easy a procuring of an inmate of his harem as his own daughter would be irresistible. There would be also on his side all habit and tradition, and with no direct group interest in opposition, the brothers being unconcerned. The initiative in change must then arise irrespective of him, and without the obstacle of his presence. This could only be possible thus after his death.

Now it is important to observe that precisely the embarrassment we have seen arise after this event must be a means to the end of the conjunction we seek. We have noted the danger of the situation under such circumstances; ineligible in union by the primal law with the remaining male element, which is composed of their own brothers, temptations to its infraction would be as frequent as fatal, on the part of the early widowed sisters. On the other hand, the anomaly of a celibate existence in the animal stage would tend to the secession of widows, so to speak, to hostile hordes, or to constant attempts at hostile capture by the outside suitor. But with the friendly entry of the latter and his acceptance as a group member, all these disturbing influences would at once cease; further, the value of an extra unit of strength in his presence would soon make itself felt.

Let us then imagine a band of brothers willing to aid in the sustenance of their widowed sisters, strong enough to defy their capture by others, and determined to frustrate any attempt at escape on their part. The inevitable result would be the attraction within their own circle of suitors for their hands. Now it is worthy of note that the feasibility of the process of such attraction and inclusion becomes more obvious when we reflect that if, as is probable, they belonged to a neighbouring group, they would thus by no means find themselves quite strangers in their new home. For it is precisely from near neighbours that their wives would have been captured by the males of the assembly they have now joined. These wives, in fact, would be probably own sisters to the immigrants. As such, then, we can understand an easier tolerance of their presence by the resident males, their new brothers-in-law; as brothers and sisters the primal law created such a bar in division between their own wives and the new comers, as put aside any possible chance of friction in jealousy.

Now the significance of the entry of outside males would be vast, from many points of view. In a general sense we here find that further aggregation of numbers in unison which we considered important, as prophetic of the presentsocial condition of to-day. Again, there arises a renewed distinction of that difference as between one female and another, so peculiar to mankind. For here we see that for the first time a sister no longer ranks in exactly the same line, from a marital point of view, as a mother. A daughter, in fact, may now evidently have as mate other than the husband-father. As the primitive mind habituated itself to this idea, the first serious blow was dealt at the old parental prerogative. Again, in other ways, in other minds than own brother and sister, will this change in the old order of things be thus brought home—to no one more clearly than to the outside suitor himself, when, later, he becomes a father; the trains of circumstances leading to it are very curious, but would arise in a perfectly natural manner. The result in this connection would make itself felt by him in the next generation, with the advent to the adult stage of his own female offspring.

Is it credible, indeed, that the original male members of a group who had solely accepted his entry as mate for those ineligible females, their sisters, would consent to his further participation in marital right with other female group members? Evidently not: for thus the sexual prerogatives of the strangers would be much greater than their own—for the resident males are barred by the primal law from the wives of the new comers, who yet, as resident females, form probably much the most numerous section of the feminine element in the horde. If the new comers further inherited the ordinary right of intercourse with their own daughters, who would be correspondingly numerous, then the extent of their rights would entirely outbalance that of their brothers-in-law. As original residents the latter would, however, be the law-makers, and we can have no doubt as to what form in such a case law would take.[3]Thus is struck a blow again,however indirect, to incest as a custom, a blow whose power would be the more effective, insomuch as here it is the living father himself, in the outside suitor, who would be in cause. But even admitting that it is possible to conceive a complacency in regard to such participation in sexual rights on the part of the brother, there would still be another much more formidable obstacle to incestuous license as regards his daughter confronting the male intruder in the person of the precedent sister, now his wife.

A psychological factor of enormous power was now for the first time in the history of the world to make itself felt. It would be the play of the natural feeling of sexual jealousy on the part of his resident female mate. The jealousy of a woman, in fact, is at length able to make its strength appear, to some purpose. As a wife who had not been captured, who, in fact, as an actual member of the group itself, was, so to speak, the capturer, her position in regard to her dependent husband would be profoundly modified in comparison with that of the ordinary captive female. Whereas such a captive, seized by the usual process of hostile capture, had been a mere chattel utterly without power;she, as a free agent in her own home, with her will backed by that of her brothers, could impose law on her subject spouse, and such law dictated by jealousy would undoubtedly ordain a bar to intercourse between him and her more youthful, and hence more attractive, daughter.

By these then, and other incidents, each of vast value, we may perceive how the primitive mind became gradually prepared for a change so imperatively necessary for all future progress, and how a habit even so deeply ingrafted as incest may primarily have been forced to slacken its hold. It is even possible to imagine how from such a point of departure, the custom might at once have entirely ceased among all, or at least a portion of, mankind. If we could conceive at this stage a secession from their original group of its resident component females, accompanied by their outside mates, with a continuance of the acceptance of the subordinatestrange suitors in future generations of the new colony, then we could admit the probability of rapid evolution in approach to a well-known actual group formation. The persistent importation of the always dependent outsider would accentuate the movement already begun against incest—with two such associations in unison, cousinship would be recognised, and peacefulconnubiumin 'cross-cousin' marriage between groups would become a habit, and female descent the rule.[4]But at such a stage in social evolution, it is impossible to accept the dominance of the unsupported female or 'feme sole.'Gynæcocracy, if it has indeed ever existed, is evidently as yet incredible. Not thus was dealt the final fatal blow at this last great trait of archaism. We must rather seek it in the familiar economy of the type of group we have left, which is characterised, as with other animals, by the predominance of the male.

In our study of the various incidents in primitive social economy which would have had effect in a sense inimical to the custom of incest, we have only considered the matter from the point of view of the entry of the outside suitor after the death of the paternal tyrant. The incestuous rights of the living group-fathers are thereby in no way directly affected. In the absence of any direct personal interest in the matter on the part of the group-sons, the only other male components and law-makers might indeed continue to remain unopposed indefinitely. Thus a resolution of the problem of decay of incest would seem as far off as ever. Happily this is not in reality the case—the real significance of the entry of the outsider, even on such terms as we have examined, lay in the co-ordination of movement of these resultant primary checks, and the inevitable synchronous evolution of the most characteristic feature of the next and higher type of group, as in itself a mere component of a tribe. The outsider's admission, in fact, really contained the germ of progress in group formation which was to entail the total required decay [of incest].

Up to the present, although the entire male element in a group was divided into two classes, by generations whose interests had little in common, between them no antagonism had arisen which could not be appeased by the evolution of such a law in remedy as we have noted. The case would now be altered; an irreconcilable breach was about to divide them. It will be seen that the advent of the outsider had been a real portent. Where, for instance, and under the circumstances we have portrayed, he had become a more accustomed figure as an immigrant, he would form a valuable connecting link between groups. Each would certainly possess some females seized from the other by more or less forcible capture, but each now possessed a certain proportion of these males, brothers of those females, whose intrusion had been peaceably accepted. With less strained relations and greater intercourse, capture would become a little more rare, and a friendly interchange of women more common. There would be then discovered by the brother a hitherto undreamt-of virtue in the young female, his sister; in fact, her value as a negotiable article would appear.

As brothers and sisters, and thus barred in union by the primal law, their relative interest in each other had been of the feeblest in the past. The ultimate destiny of the sister might be a matter of the most perfect indifference to the brother. With the new order of things she had suddenly become more precious. As an object of barter for the sister of another man, she would show herself to be invaluable. In view of the difficulty and danger attending hostile capture, the temptation to such easy procuration of mates as sister-barter offered would be irresistible. Coming at first into practice when only the death of the father had left his widowed daughter free, its advantages to the sons would impose a gradual encroachment on the rights of possession by the living parent. In prejudice to incest were now opposed the two most powerful passions in human nature, sexual desire, and a love of material gain, and the successful barter of a sister for another man's sister satisfiedboth. For attempts at capture might be unsuccessful, and purchase might be more or less unsatisfactory. And these passions would be aroused in bosoms able to make their power felt. The sons, as also resident males, would be among the law-makers. However powerful the father in past authority and tradition, in the end the force of numbers would tell. However numerous the group of fathers, they would always be outnumbered by the group of brother sons, and victory would thus ultimately incline to these.[5]However long and doubtful the struggle, as the latter possessed the longer lease of life, thequantumof the exchange value of a sister would always finally be made to show itself, and the determination to profit thereby would be more strongly impressed on each generation.

Natural selection would again certainly come into play in favour of such groups, thus curtailing the monstrous prerogatives of the old-world fathers, by dint of numbers alone. The superiority which would ensue with each generation, would speedily ensure the triumph of that assembly which could definitely accept the presence of the outside suitor. He would come as a multiple unit of strength, a willing ally who would otherwise have been an active enemy—the generator of the productive power to females who would either have remained as sterile residents, or seceded to hostile hordes as breeders of new foes.

Thus, then, we may at length perceive how a custom even so deeply ingrained in nascent man as paternal incest, may finally have become extinct as a custom. In the action of such circumstances we can accept the idea of its ultimate decay and death. By the numerical preponderance of the individuals within a group interested in its disappearance, was alone such a result feasible. This necessary condition we here find fulfilled.

In opposition to the father we now see arrayed not onlythe wife-mother jealous of her mate, not only the daughter inclined instinctively to youth and the unknown, but, most important of all, the son, now egged on by most powerful personal feelings and interests. And for these latter ones, as we have seen, time itself would fight; to youth each hour and day is a gain in strength, to old age each moment means a loss of power. With the decay of the custom we see that the way lies clear to progress in group formation. Sooner or later the presence of the offspring of the outside suitors in the formerly purely consanguine circle will be recognised, their recognition as cousins to the younger resident members will be made, and the old type of horde by a process of cleavage divides itself into two intermarriageable clans, (phratries?), and the savage tribe is created.[6]

Thus did the custom of paternal incest disappear, and so completely as not to leave a trace of its passage in recognised usage among actual peoples. But as an unauthorised habit it long existed, nay, it still lurks, and as such it is probably much more common among the lowest classes of even most civilised peoples than is generally imagined. The continual domiciliary propinquity of such close relatives makes the crime easy[7]and detection difficult. Amidst the savage races, although rare, it is by no means unknown. It is not a crime by the laws of totem kinship with female descent, the daughter in such a case being always of the same totem as her mother, and thus theoretically eligible. The only bar is the classificatory system which, based on sequence in birth, forbids all connection between those of different generations. Thus this form of incest, when it does occur, in no way creates the utter horror which we find universal at any union between brother and sister. An old native chief whom I questioned on the matter certainly spat with disgust at the idea, but again, to my own knowledge, a case occurred where a girl bore a child to her own father, and when the fact was mentioned among the people, it only caused coarse laughter. It is true that in this case the culprit was a great chief—it is possible that there would have been more adverse comment if he had been a commoner. It is certain that the betrayalof the vested interests of the future husband (for in New Caledonia all children are betrothed at a very early age) would have been more resented in the latter case. But license in sexual intercourse within forbidden relationships seems everywhere the privilege of irresponsible rank, if we may judge by the Kalmuck proverb, 'Great folk and the beasts marry where they please.'

However, its occurrence in such cases may be traced to sources which show that here the exception proves the rule. Indeed, the fact of its occurring almost solely among the higher classes [as among the Incas], points clearly to a probable connection with an idea of pride of race, or a question of inheritance. Now we may note that with descent in the female line the right of direct succession to the paternal name, or place of power, or property, is not in the gift of a father. The only legal conveyers of the blood right within him are females in whose veins is to be found that same blood, i.e. his mother and sisters. However regal a personage his child by a foreign woman, it is cut off from that heritage, nor in connection with this offspring can pride of race find a place. Thus, then, we may understand how union, although illegal, with a sister was so frequent in, and even enjoined on, the royal race amidst certain peoples. The purity of the royal blood thus alone remained intact, and from a king was born a king. For it is a remarkable fact which must be more than a coincidence that amongst these very peoples, such as the ancient Egyptians, Persians, and Peruvians, whose rulers were addicted to the habit, female descent was the custom [?]. At least I am not personally acquainted with any exception to the rule. In consonance with this descent through females only and where any approach has been made to gynæcocracy, we shall expect to find that there would be only one legal wife. Such was indeed the case also in Ancient Egypt, there is no instance of two consorts given in any of the inscriptions. This fact, taken in connection with that which conduced to incestuous union under this form of descent, invites us to make a digression in a curious reflection, not however entirely foreign to our general theme. For thesame effect as regards inheritance on the offspring which would be produced by union with a sister, would also occur in marriage with a daughter whose parents had been themselves brother and sister. Thus we may guess the lineage of the unknown mother of the great royal wife Nefer-ari, daughter and consort of the Pharaoh of the oppressive Rameses the Great. This daughter had, in fact, been probably chosen among others for wife precisely because her mother had herself been both his sister and his wife.[8]

We may now renew our affirmation that paternal incest as a custom, is no longer generally recognised anywhere. The primitive unquestioned marital right in incest is quite unknown. It has disappeared, and so completely have even traces of its past general occurrence faded, that doubts of the reality of the fact may be pardonably entertained. The question is of importance in connection with our thesis, for as may be seen the whole theory of the primal law is based on the idea of its primitive universal prevalence. We hope, however, to have shown the inherent possibility of the fact as being a habit common to all the mammalia—and it has seemed against reason to suppose that man's ancestor, whilst in the animal stage, would be an exception to so general a rule. Our further argument has adduced circumstances in favour of a final decay so complete that oblivion could not but follow.

Perhaps not the least remarkable fact to the anthropologist in connection with its life and death, is that only as between a father and a daughter, of all blood relationships, do we find no trace among actual peoples of any law in Avoidance. The fact is significant, as we may thus surmise that the process of decay was very long delayed, in fact to a time when such inchoate form of law as Avoidance had become an archaism, or until general progress had rendered any law unnecessary.

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