Chapter 111

83Westermarck,op. cit.p. 390sqq.

84Koenigswarter,Études historiques sur le developpement de la société humaine, p. 53. Spencer,Principles of Sociology, i. 625.

85Bancroft,Native Races of the Pacific States, i. 277.Cf.von Weber,Vier Jahre in Afrika, ii. 215sq.(Kafirs).

86Powers,Tribes of California, pp. 22, 56.

With progressing civilisation, however, the practice of purchasing wives has been gradually abandoned, and come to be looked upon as infamous. The wealthier classes took the first step, and poorer and ruder persons subsequently followed their examples. Thus in India, in ancient times, the Âsura form, or marriage by purchase, was lawful for all the four castes. Afterwards it fell into disrepute, and was prohibited among the Brâhmanas and Kshatriyas, whereas it was still approved of in the case of a Vaisya and a Sûdra. But in the ‘Laws of Manu’ it is forbidden altogether.87It is said there, “No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring.”88The Greeks of the historical age had ceased to buy their wives. In Romeconfarreatio, which suggested no idea of purchase, was in the very earliest known time the form of marriage in force among the patricians; and among clients and plebeians, also, the purchase of wives came to an end in remote antiquity, surviving as a mere symbol in theircoëmptio.89Among the Germans marriage by purchase was abolished only after their conversion to Christianity.90In the Talmudic law the purchase of wives appears as merely symbolical, the bride-price being fixed at a nominal amount.91In China, although marriage presents correspond exactly to purchase-money in a contract of sale, the people will not hear of their being called a “price”;92which shows that here, too, some feeling of shame is attached to the idea of selling a daughter.

87Laws of Manu, iii. 23sqq.

88Ibid.iii. 51.Cf.ibid.ix. 93, 98.

89Rossbach,op. cit.pp. 92, 146, 248, 250, &c.

90Grimm,Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, p. 424.

91Gans,Erbrecht, i. 138.

92Jamieson, ‘Marriage Laws,’ inChina Review, x. 78 n.*

We may discern two different ways in which thisgradual disappearance of marriage by purchase has taken place. On the one hand, the purchase became a symbol, appearing as a sham sale in the marriage ceremonies or as an exchange of presents; on the other hand, the purchase sum was transformed into the morning gift and the dotal portion, a part—afterwards the whole—being given to the bride either directly by the bridegroom or by her father. These transformations of marriage by purchase have taken place not only in the history of the civilised nations, but among several peoples who are still in a savage or semi-civilised state; and of a few of them it is expressly stated that they consider marriage by purchase a disgraceful practice.93

93Westermarck,op. cit.p. 405sqq.

From marriage by purchase we have thus come to the practice of dower, which is apparently the very reverse of it. But whilst the marriage portion partly derives its origin from the purchase of wives, it does not do so in every case. It serves different ends, often indissolubly mixed up together. It may have the meaning of a return gift. It may imply that the wife as well as the husband is expected to contribute to the expenses of the joint household. It is also very often intended to be a settlement for the wife in case the marriage be dissolved through the husband’s death or otherwise.94In the social history of the civilised races the marriage portion has played so prominent a part, that, as we have spoken of a stage of marriage by purchase, we may speak of another and later stage where fathers are bound by custom or law to portion their daughters. The Jews95and Muhammedans96consider it a religious duty for a man to give a dower to his daughter. In Greece the dowry came to be thought almost necessary to make the distinction between a wife and a concubine.97Isaeus says that no decent man would give his legitimate daughter less than a tenth of hisproperty;98indeed, so great were the dowers given that in the time of Aristotle nearly two fifths of the whole territory of Sparta were supposed to belong to women.99In Rome, even more than in Greece, the marriage portion became a mark of distinction for a legitimate wife;100and though later on Justinian in several of his constitutions declares thatdosis obligatory for persons of high rank only,101the old custom did not fall into desuetude.102The Prussian ‘Landrecht’ still prescribes that the father, or eventually the mother, shall arrange about the wedding and fit up the house of the newly-married couple.103According to the ‘Code Napoléon,’ on the other hand, parents are not bound to give a dower to their daughters,104and the same principle is generally adopted by modern legislation. It is true that especially in the so-called Latin countries there is still a strong tendency to dotation,105but another feeling, in some measure opposed to it, is gaining ground everywhere. In a society where monogamy is prescribed by law, where the adult women outnumber the adult men, where many men never marry, and where married women too often lead an indolent life—in such a society the marriage portion in many cases becomes a purchase-sum by means of which a father buys a husband for his daughter, as formerly a man bought a wife from her father. But, as Mr. Sutherland observes, “that pecuniary interests, either on one side or on the other, should conspicuously enter into the motives which lead to marriage, becomes repulsive to the increasing delicacy of feeling; and so we find that in cultured communities the dowry dies out, just as the purchase-money declined in the civilised stages.”106

94Ibid.p. 411sqq.

95Mayer,Rechte der Israeliten, ii. 344.

96Koran, iv. 3.

97Cauvet, ‘L’organisation de la famille à Athènes,’ inRevue de législation et de jurisprudence, xxiv. 152. Potter,Archæologia Græca, ii. 268.Cf.Meier and Schömann,Der attische Process, p. 513sq.

98Isaeus,Oratio de Pyrrhi hereditate, 51, p. 43.

99Aristotle,Politica, ii. 9, p. 1270 a.

100Laboulaye,Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des femmes, p. 38sq.Ginoulhiac,Histoire du régime dotal, p. 66. Meier and Schömann,op. cit.p. 513sq.

101Ginoulhiac,op. cit.p. 103.

102Fordos necessariain Germany during the Middle Ages, see Mittermaier,Grundsätze des gemeinen deutschen Privatrechts, ii. 3.

103Eccius, in von Holtzendorff,Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft, ii. 414.

104Code Napoléon, art. 204.

105See Maine,Early History of Institutions, p. 339.

106Sutherland,Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, i. 243.

Whilst most of the lower animal species are by instinct either monogamous or polygynous, with man every possible form of marriage occurs. There are marriages of one man with one woman (monogamy), of one man with many women (polygyny), of many men with one woman (polyandry), and, in a few exceptional cases, of many men with many women.107

107Westermarck,op. cit.ch. xx.

Among the causes by which the forms of marriage are influenced the numerical proportion between the sexes plays an important part. Polyandry seems to be due chiefly to a surplus of men, though it prevails only where the circumstances are otherwise in favour of it.108It presupposes an abnormally feeble disposition to jealousy, and has probably at all times been exceptional in the human race. There is no solid evidence for the theory set forth by McLennan that it was the rule in early times.109On the contrary, this form of marriage seems to require a certain degree of civilisation; we have no trustworthy account of its occurrence among the lowest savages. In polyandrous families the husbands are most frequently brothers, and the eldest brother, at least in many cases, has the superiority. It seems a fair conclusion that in such instances polyandry was originally an expression of fraternal benevolence on the part of the eldest brother, or of urgent demands on the part of the younger ones, who otherwise, on account of the scarcity of women, would have to live unmarried. If additional wives were afterwards acquired, they would naturally be considered the common property of all the brothers; and in this way the group marriage of the Toda type seems to have evolved.110Polygyny, also, is to some extent dependent upon the proportion between the sexes. It has been observed in India that polyandry occurs in those parts of the country where the males outnumber the females, polygyny in thosewhere the reverse is the case.111Indeed, in countries unaffected by European civilisation polygyny is likely to prevail wherever there is a majority of women. But the proportion between the sexes is only one cause out of many to which polygyny is due.

108Ibid.p. 482.

109McLennan, ‘The Levirate and Polyandry,’ inFortnightly Review, N.S. xxi. 703sqq.Idem,Studies in Ancient History, p. 112sq.

110Westermarck,op. cit.p. 510sqq.See also Rivers,Todas, pp. 515, 519, 521.

111Goehlert, ‘Die Geschlechtsverschiedenheit der Kinder in den Ehen,’ inZeitschr. f. Ethnologie, xiii. 127.

There are several reasons why a man may desire to possess more than one wife.112Monogamy requires from him periodical continence, not only for a certain time every month, but among many peoples during the pregnancy of his wife, and as long as she suckles her child. One of the chief causes of polygyny is the attraction which female youth and beauty exercise upon a man; and at the lower stages of civilisation women generally become old much sooner than in more advanced communities. The liking of men for variety is also a potent factor; the Negroes of Angola asserted that they “were not able to eat always of the same dish.”113We must further take into account men’s desire for offspring, wealth, and authority. The barrenness of a wife is a very common reason for the choice of a new partner; the polygyny of the ancient Hindus seems to have been due chiefly to the fact that men dreaded the idea of dying childless, and even now in the East the desire for offspring is one of the principal causes of polygyny.114The more wives, the more children; and the more children, the greater power. In early civilisation a man’s relations and connections are often his only friends; and where slavery does not prevail, next to a man’s wives the real servant, the only to be counted upon, is the child. Moreover, a man’s fortune is increased by a multitude of wives not only through their children, but through their work. Manual labour among savages is undertaken largely by women; and when neither slaves nor persons who will work for hire can be procured,it becomes necessary for any man who requires many servants to have many wives.

112Westermarck,op. cit.p. 483sqq.

113Merolla da Sorrento, ‘Voyage to Congo,’ in Pinkerton,Collection of Voyages, xvi. 299.

114Wallin,Reseanteckningar från Orienten, iii. 267. Le Bon,La civilisation des Arabes, p. 424. Gray,China, i. 184.

Nevertheless, however desirable polygyny may be from the man’s point of view, it is altogether prohibited among many peoples, and in countries where it is an established institution it is practised—as a rule to which there are few exceptions—only by a comparatively small class.115The proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this, but there are other causes of no less importance.116Where the amount of female labour is limited and no accumulated property exists, it may be very difficult for a man to keep a plurality of wives. Again, where female labour is of considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase-sum for a wife is a hindrance to polygyny which can be overcome only by the wealthier men. There are, moreover, certain factors of a psychical character which are unfavourable to polygyny. When love depends on external attractions only, it is necessarily fickle; but when it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after youth and beauty are gone. As another obstacle to polygyny we have to note the true monogamous sentiment, the absorbing passion for one, which is not unknown even among savage races. Polygyny is finally checked by the respect in which women are held by men. Jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, and it is the ambition of every wife to be the mistress of her husband’s house. Hence where women have succeeded in obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than themselves, monogamy is frequently the result.

115Westermarck,op. cit.p. 435sqq.

116Ibid.p. 493sqq.

It is certain that polygyny has been less prevalent at the lowest stages of civilisation—where wars do not seriously disturb the proportion of the sexes, where life is chiefly supported by hunting and female labour is consequently of slight value, and where there is no accumulation of wealthand no distinction of class—than it is at somewhat higher stages.117The more advanced savages and barbarians seem to indulge in this practice to a greater extent than the lower ones, many, or most, of whom are either little addicted to polygyny or strictly monogamous. Various forest tribes in Brazil are monogamous,118and so are several of the Californian tribes—“a humble and a lowly race, … one of the lowest on earth.”119Thus the Karok do not allow bigamy even to a chief; and though a man may own as many women for slaves as he can purchase, he brings obloquy on himself if he cohabits with more than one.120Among the Veddahs121and Andaman Islanders122monogamy is as rigidly insisted upon as any where in Europe. The natives of Kar Nicobar “have but one wife, and look upon unchastity as a very deadly sin.”123Among the Koch and Old Kukis polygyny and concubinage are forbidden;124whilst among some other aboriginal tribes in India a man, though not expressly forbidden to have many wives, is blamed if he has more than one.125Among the Karens of Burma126and certain tribes of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indian Archipelago, polygyny is said either to be prohibited or unknown.127The Hill Dyaks marry but one wife, and a chief who once broke through this custom lost all his influence.128In Australia there are said to be some truly monogamous tribes;129in the Birria tribe, for instance, “the possession of more than one wife is absolutely forbidden, or was so before the coming of the whites.”130Monogamy is all the more likely to have been the general rule among our earliest human ancestors as it seems to be so among the man-like apes. Darwin certainly mentions the gorilla as a polygamist;131but the majority of statements we have regarding this animal are to the opposite effect. Relying on the most trustworthy authorities, Professor Hartmann says, “The gorilla lives in a society consisting of male and female and their young of varying ages.”132

117Westermarck,op. cit.p. 505sqq.

118von Martius,op. cit.i. 274, 298. Wallace,Travels on the Amazon, pp. 509, 515sqq.Waitz,Anthropologie der Naturvölker, iii. 472.

119Powers,op. cit.pp. 5, 56, 406. Wilkes,U. S. Exploring Expedition, v. 188.

120Powers,op. cit.p. 22.

121Bailey, inTrans. Ethn. Soc.N.S. ii. 291sq.Hartshorne, inIndian Antiquary, viii. 320.

122Man, inJour. Anthr. Inst.xii. 135.

123Distant,ibid.iii. 4.

124Dalton,op. cit.p. 91. Stewart, ‘Notes on Northern Cachar,’ inJour. As. Soc. Bengal, xxiv. 621.

125Dalton,op. cit.pp. 28, 54. Jellinghaus, ‘Munda-Kolhs in Chota Nagpore,’ inZeitschr. f. Ethnol.iii. 370.

126Smeaton,Loyal Karens of Burma, p. 81.

127Westermarck,op. cit.p. 436sq.

128Low,Sarawak, p. 300.

129Curr,Australian Race, i. 402; ii. 371.

130Ibid.ii. 378.

131Darwin,Descent of Man, pp. 217, 590sq.

132Hartmann,Die menschenähnlichen Affen, p. 214.

Whilst civilisation is thus up to a certain point favourable to polygyny, it leads in its higher forms to monogamy. Owing to the decrease of wars, the death-rate of the men becomes less, and the considerable disproportion between the sexes which among many warlike peoples makes polygyny almost a law of nature no longer exists among the most advanced nations. No superstitious belief keeps the civilised man apart from his wife during her pregnancy and while she suckles her child; and the suckling time has become much shorter since the introduction of domesticated animals and the use of milk. To a cultivated mind youth and beauty are by no means the only attractions of a woman; and civilisation has made female beauty more durable. The desire for offspring becomes less intense. A large family, instead of being a help in the struggle for existence, is often considered an insufferable burden. A man’s kinsfolk are no longer his only friends, and his wealth and power do not depend upon the number of his wives and children. A wife ceases to be a mere labourer, and manual labour is to a large extent replaced by the work of domesticated animals and the use of implements and machines. Moreover, the sentiment of love becomes more refined, the passion for one more absorbing. The feelings of the weaker sex are frequently held in higher regard. And the better education bestowed on women enables them to live comfortably without the support of a husband.

As for the moral valuation of the various forms of marriage, it should be noticed that even among polygynous and polyandrous peoples monogamy is permitted by custom or law, although in some instances it is associated with poverty and considered mean, whereas polygyny, as associated with greatness, is thought praiseworthy.133Again, the notion that monogamy is the only proper form of marriage, and that any other form is immoral, is due either to the mere force of habit; or, possibly, to the notion that it is wrong of some men to appropriate a plurality of wives when others in consequence can get none; or to the feeling that polygyny is an offence against the female sex; or to the condemnation of lust. As regards the obligatory monogamy of Christian nations, we have to remember that monogamy was the only recognised form of marriage in the societies on which Christianity was first engrafted, and that it was the only form that could be tolerated by a religion which regarded every gratification of the sexual impulse with suspicion and incontinence as the gravest sin. In its early days the Church showed little respect for women but its horror of sensuality was immense.

133Spencer,Principles of Sociology, i. 657.

A few words still remain to be said of a form of marriage which has of late been the subject of much discussion in connection with Australian ethnology. Many years ago attention was drawn to the fact that the Kamilaroi tribes in South Australia are divided into four classes, in which brothers and sisters are respectively Ipai and Ipātha, Kŭbi and Kubĭtha, Mŭri and Mātha, Kumbu and Būtha; and that the members of one class are forbidden to marry among themselves, but bound to marry into a certain other class. Thus Ipai may only marry Kubĭtha; Kŭbi, Ipātha; Kumbu, Mātha; and Mŭri, Būtha. In a certain sense, we were told, every Ipai is regarded as married, not by any individual contract, but by organic law, to every Kubĭtha; every Kŭbi to every Ipātha, and so forth. If, for instance, a Kŭbi meet a stranger Ipātha, they addresseach other as “spouse”; and “a Kŭbi thus meeting an Ipātha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognised by her tribe.”134The institution according to which the men of one division have as wives the women of another division, the Rev. L. Fison called “group marriage.” He contends that among the natives of South Australia it has given way in later times, in some measure, to individual marriage. But theoretically, he says, marriage is still communal: “it is based upon the marriage of all the males in one division of a tribe to all the females of the same generation in another division.” The chief argument advanced by Mr. Fison in support of his theory is grounded on the terms of relationship in use in the tribes. These terms belong to the “classificatory system” of Mr. Morgan;135but he admits that he is not aware of any tribe in which the actual practice is to its full extent what the terms of relationship imply. “Present usage,” he says, “is everywhere in advance of the system so implied, and the terms are survivals of an ancient right, not precise indications of custom as it is.”136The same is granted by Mr. Howitt.137Yet I have pointed out, in my criticism of the classificatory system, to what absurd results we must be led if, guided by such terms, we begin to speculate upon early marriage.138Moreover, as I have said, “if a Kŭbi and an Ipātha address each other as spouse, this does not imply that in former times every Kŭbi was married to every Ipātha indiscriminately. On the contrary, the application of such a familiar term might be explained from the fact that the women who may be a man’s wives, and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him.”139This suggestion derives support from the following statement made by Dr. Codrington with reference to the Melanesians:—“Speakinggenerally, it may be said that to a Melanesian man all women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either brothers or husbands…. It must not be understood that a Melanesian regards all women who are not of his own division as, in fact, his wives, or conceives himself to have rights which he may exercise in regard to those women of them who are unmarried; but the women who may be his wives by marriage and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him.”140

134Ridley,Kámilarói, p. 161sq.(edit. 1866, p. 35sqq.). Fison and Howitt,Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 36, 51, 53.

135Fison and Howitt,op. cit.p. 60.

136Ibid.p. 159sq.

137Howitt, ‘Australian Group Relations,’ inSmithsonian Report, 1883, p. 817.

138Westermarck,op. cit.ch. v.

139Ibid.p. 56.

140Codrington,Melanesians, p. 22sq.

More recently Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have shown that a marriage system essentially similar to that of the South Australian natives prevails in Central Australia; and they, also, regard it as a later modification of genuine group marriage. Nowadays, they say, the system of individual wives prevails—“modified, however, by the practice of customs according to which, at certain times, much wider marital relations are allowed.” But to this rule there is one exception:—“In the Urabunna tribe group marriage actually exists at the present day, a group of men of a certain designation having, not merely nominally but in actual reality, and under normal conditions, marital relations with a group of women of another special designation”; here “individual marriage does not exist either in name or in practice.”141But, after all, it appears that even among the Urabunna every woman is the specialNupaof one man, and that certain other men, herPiraungaruonly have a secondary right to her. Thus, if the Nupa man (the real, or at all events the chief, husband) be present, the Piraungaru (accessory husbands) are allowed to have intercourse with her only in case the Nupa man consents.142Is this modification of the Urabunna group marriage a later development from a previous system according to which all the men of a certain group had an equal right to all thewomen of another group? Here we are on dangerous ground; nothing is more difficult than to decide whether certain customs are survivals or not. We find modifications resembling those connected with the group marriage of the Urabunna both in polyandry and in polygyny; the first husband in a polyandrous family is usually the chief husband, and the first wife in a polygynous family is very frequently the chief wife. We must certainly not conclude that these restrictions have been preceded by an earlier custom which gave equal rights to all the husbands or all the wives; on the contrary, it is more likely that the higher position granted to the first husband or to the first wife is due to the fact that monogamy was the usual form of marriage.143Similarly the Urabunna custom may very well have developed out of ordinary individual marriage,144and the cause of it may perhaps be, as Mr. N. W. Thomas has suggested,145the difficulties which an Australian native often experiences in getting a wife.146As for other facts which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group marriage in the past, such as thejus primæ noctis, &c., I only desire to emphasise the circumstance that extra-matrimonial intercourse is practised by the Australian natives in a variety of cases the real meaning of which seems obscure. In some instances at least, a magic significance appears to be attributed to it;147and that it is a survival of group marriage, in the strict sense of the term, is again only a conjecture.

Back to Index Next