II. THEORY OF THE HORDE AND MOTHER-RIGHT

II. THEORY OF THE HORDE AND MOTHER-RIGHT

[BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE II.--A pioneer in the comparative history of marriage and the family is Unger, Die Ehe in ihrer welthistorischen Entwicklung (Vienna, 1850), who notices many of the leading phenomena connected with these institutions in different parts of the world; but his book is essentially a Tendenzschrift, to prove the elevating influence of Christianity and Teutonism. The literature of the Horde and Mother-Right opens, however, with Bachofen's singular but learned treatise, Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur (Stuttgart, 1861), of which the original edition is now exceedingly scarce, although there is an exact reprint (Basel, 1897). This work is supplemented by Bachofen's Die Sage von Tanaquil (Heidelberg, 1870), and his Antiquärische Briefe (Strassburg, 1886). Upon the Mutterrecht was based Giraud-Teulon's La mère chez certains peuples de l'antiquité (Paris and Leipzig, 1867); followed by Les origines de la famille (Geneva, 1874), and Les origines du mariage et de la famille (Geneva and Paris, 1884), in both of which Bachofen's principal conclusions are supported with much new material. A thoroughgoing disciple of the same school is Lippert, Die Geschichte der Familie (Stuttgart, 1884); and Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit (Stuttgart, 1886-87). Very important also in this connection are the Mutterrecht und Raubehe of Dargun (Breslau, 1883), and his later treatise, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht (Leipzig, 1892), a very able defense of the theory of mother-right for the Aryan peoples after the separation, though conceding that the maternal system was not developed in the primitive stage.

A scholar, who in the main belongs to the same group and who is one of the foremost students of the laws and usages of savage and barbarous peoples, is Post, whose more important writings are Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Urzeit (Oldenburg, 1875); Der Ursprung des Rechts (Oldenburg, 1876); Die Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben (Oldenburg, 1878); Die Grundlagen des Rechts (Oldenburg, 1884); Einleitung in das Studium der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg, 1886); Afrikanische Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg and Leipzig, 1887); Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts (Oldenburg and Leipzig, 1889); and "Die Kodifikation des Rechts der Amaxosa von 1891," in ZVR., XI. The last-named paper may be read in connection with Rehme's "Ueber das Recht der Amaxosa," in ZVR., X; Kohler's "Ueber das Negerrecht, namentlich in Kamerun," ibid., XI; Bertholon, "Les formes de la famille," in Arch. de l'anth. crim., VIII (1893); Zöller, Forschungsreisen in der Kolonie Kamerun (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1886); the Kamerun of Buchner (Leipzig, 1887); Munzinger's Ostafrikanische Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864); the important work of Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas (Breslau, 1872), treating of the family customs of various aboriginal tribes; Kranz, Natur- und Kulturleben der Zulus (Wiesbaden, 1880); Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897); Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America (New York, 1902).

By entirely different routes the theories of universal communism and mother-right were reached by Lewis H. Morgan, beginning with the League of the Iroquois (Rochester, 1851); followed by his great work on Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity (Washington, 1871); the systematic treatise entitled Ancient Society (New York, 1878); and the Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines (Washington, 1881); and by J. F. McLennan, Primitive Marriage (1865); reprinted with other papers as Studies in Ancient History (London, 1876). After the author's death appeared the Patriarchal Theory (London, 1885), edited and completed by his brother Donald McLennan; and the second series of Studies (London and New York, 1896), edited by his widow and Arthur Platt.

Sir John Lubbock, Origin of Civilization (New York, 1889), maintains the theory and introduces the name of "communal marriage." McLennan is in the main supported by Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge, 1885). This book may be read in connection with Wilken, Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern (Leipzig, 1884); Kohler, "Vorislamitisches Recht der Araber," in ZVR., VIII; Friedrichs, "Das Eherecht des Islams," ibid., VII; Vincenti, Die Ehe im Islam (Vienna, 1876); Pischon, Der Einfluss des Islams auf das häusliche, soziale, und politische Leben seiner Bekenner (Leipzig, 1881); Perron, Femme arabe (Paris and Alger, 1858); Kremer, Kulturgeschichte des Orients unter den Kalifen (Vienna, 1875); Vámbéry, Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1875); his Türkenvolk (Leipzig, 1885); Hanoteau and Letourneux, La kabylie et les coutumes kabyles (Paris, 1893); and Baway, "The Marriage Customs of the Moors of Ceylon," in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, 1887-88, X, 219-33 (Colombo, 1888). Read also Redhouse, Notes on Tylor's 'Arabian Matriarchate,' propounded by Tylor before the British Association, Montreal, 1884.

For the matrimonial institutions of the Australian aborigines, whose so-called "group-marriage" has played so great a part in speculation, see especially Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Melbourne, 1880), supplemented by their "Deme and the Horde," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIV, 142-68 (London, 1885), comparing Attic and Australian classes and local divisions; Fison's article on "Primitive Marriage," in Pop. Sci. Monthly, XVII (New York, 1880); his paper on "Classificatory Systems of Relationship," in Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci. (Oxford, 1894); Howitt's "Remarks on the Class Systems Collected by Mr. Palmer," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIII, 335-46 (London, 1884); his "Dieri and Other Kindred Tribes of Central Australia," ibid., XX; "Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems," ibid., XVIII, 31-36 (London, 1889); "Organization of Australian Tribes," in Trans. Roy. Soc. of Victoria, I, Part II (1889); and his "Australian Group Relations," in Rep. Smith. Inst., 1883 (Washington, 1885). Important also are Cunow, Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger (Stuttgart, 1894), supplementing Morgan's Ancient Society, while rejecting some of Morgan's and Fison's conclusions; Kohler, "Das Recht der Australneger," in ZVR., VII; his later Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe below named; McLennan, Studies, II, 278-310; Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne, 1886), rejecting the theory of "group-marriage" and promiscuity; especially Roth's North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1899); and Spencer and Gillen's very able and detailed account of the Native Tribes of Central Australia (New York and London, 1899), both of which works, like those of Kohler, tend to sustain the general, though not all the incidental, conclusions of Fison and Howitt. Among the many papers and books useful for studying the social life of the Australians are Palmer, "Notes on Some Australian Tribes," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIII (London, 1884); Mathew, "The Australian Aborigines," in Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, XXIII (Sydney, 1889); Mathews, "Australian Class Systems," in The Am. Anthropologist, IX, X (Washington, 1896-97); and his "The Victorian Aborigines," ibid., XI (Washington, 1898). Supplementary materials may likewise be found in Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881); Jung, Das Welttheil Australien (Leipzig, 1882); Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria (London, 1878); Smith and Stewart's The Booandik Tribe (1880); Lang, Social Origins; Atkinson, Primal Law (published together, London, New York, and Bombay, 1903); and especially Crawley, Mystic Rose (London and New York, 1902).

McLennan was first systematically and luminously criticised by Spencer, in Part III of his Principles of Sociology (published, in parts, 1874-77; complete, New York, 1879). McLennan replied in two articles in the Fortnightly Review, XXVII (London, 1877); and in turn Spencer has a "Rejoinder," reprinted in his Various Fragments (New York, 1898). Gomme supplements McLennan's evidences for his "Theory of the Primitive Horde," in Journal of Anth. Inst., XVII (London, 1888); and this article is criticised by Wake, Primitive Human Horde, reprinted from ibid., February, 1888. Morgan is supported by Engels, Ursprung der Familie (Stuttgart, 1892). His researches are appreciatively reviewed and supplemented by Bernhöft, Verwandtschaftsnamen und Eheformen der nord-amerikanischen Volksstämme (Rostock, 1888); and they are criticised by Lubbock, "On the Development of Relationships," in Journal of Anth. Inst., I (London, 1872). The views of Morgan and McLennan are examined by Wake in his "Classificatory Systems of Relationship," ibid., VIII (London, 1879); and his "Primitive Human Family," ibid., IX (London, 1880). See also his "Nature and Origin of Group Marriage," ibid., XIII (London, 1884); and his Le mariage communal (Paris, 1875), replying to Barbier. An able conservative writer, vigorously and learnedly attacking the fundamental conclusions of recent sociological and ethnological science, is Schneider, Die Naturvölker: Missverständnisse, Missdeutungen und Misshandlungen (Paderborn and Münster, 1885-86). He is severely criticised by Hellwald, whose Menschliche Familie (Leipzig, 1889) is one of the most original contributions to our subject. This was preceded by the same writer's Kulturgeschichte (3d ed., Augsburg, 1883). Important monographs are Bobbio, Sulle origine e sul fondamento della famiglia (Turin, 1891); and the clear summary of Th. Achelis, Die Entwicklung der Ehe (Berlin, 1893); which may be read in connection with Dr. A. Achelis's "Geschlechtsgenossenschaft," in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde, No. 148 (Berlin, 1890). Of service also in connection with various topics are Cunow, "Die ökonomischen Grundlagen der Mutterherrschaft," in Neue Zeit, No. 4, XVI. Jahrg., I. Band (Stuttgart, 1897); Ploss, "Ueber das Heirathsalter der Frauen bei verschiedenen Völkern," in Mittheilungen der Ver. für Erdkunde, 1872 (Leipzig, 1873); Redslob, Levirats-Ehe bei den Hebräern (Leipzig, 1836); Danks, "Marriage Customs of the New Britain Group," in Journal of Anth. Inst., XVIII, No. 3; Roth, "Significance of the Couvade," ibid., XXII (London, 1893); Peal, "On the 'Morong,' as Possibly a Relic of Pre-Marriage Communism," ibid., XXII; Ellis, "On Polyandry," in Pop. Sci. Monthly, October, 1891; idem, Tschi-Speaking Peoples (London, 1887); idem, Ewe-Speaking Peoples (London, 1890); Brouardel, L'infanticide (Paris, 1897); Frazer, Totemism (Edinburgh, 1887); Peet, "Tribal Records in the Effigies," in Am. Antiquarian, XV (Chicago, 1893); Lubbock, "Social and Religious Condition of the Lower Races of Man," Rep. Smith. Inst., 1869 (Washington, 1872); Stricker, "Untersuchungen über die kriegerischen Weiber," in Archiv für Anthropologie, V; his Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte (Berlin, 1868); Avery, "Races of the Indo-Pacific Oceans," in Am. Antiquarian, VI (Chicago, 1884); Greenwood, The Wild Man at Home (London, n. d.); Peschel, Races of Man (London, 1889); Zmigrodski's interesting Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arischen Stammes (Munich, 1886); Peet, "Houses and House-Life among the Pre-Historic Races," in Am. Antiquarian, X (Chicago, 1888), taking the same general view as Morgan; and his "Earliest Abodes of Men," ibid., XV (Chicago, 1893). To bring criticism down to date read Tillier's able and suggestive book Le mariage: sa genèse, son évolution (Paris, 1898); Tylor, "The Matriarchal Family," in Nineteenth Century, XL, 81 (July, 1896); Kohler, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe (Stuttgart, 1897); Giddings, Principles of Sociology (New York and London, 1896); and especially the discussions of the matriarchate, the forms of marriage, and similar topics by Abrikossoff, Westermarck, Letourneau, Kovalevski, and others in Annales de l'institut international (Paris, 1896).

A mass of materials relating to every phase of the subject for many peoples may be found in the large general works of Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit (Leipzig, 1843-52); Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Naturvölker (Leipzig, 1860-72; 2d ed., begun 1877); Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind (London, 1881-91); and Ratzel, History of Mankind (London and New York, 1896-98). General summaries are given by Adams, "Primitive Rights of Women," in Historical Essays (New York, 1891); McGee, "The Beginnings of Marriage," in Am. Anthropologist, IX (Washington, 1896); Solotaroff, "Origin of the Family," ibid., XI (Washington, 1898); Nadaillac, L'évolution du mariage (Paris, 1893); Brinton, "Religions of Primitive Peoples," in his American Lectures, 2d series (New York and London, 1897); Devas, Studies in Family Life (London and New York, 1886); Lang, "Early History of the Family," in his Custom and Myth (London, 1884); Miln, Wooings and Weddings (Chicago, 1900); and Hutchinson's popular Marriage Customs in Many Lands (London, 1897). An earlier book, inferior though similar in scope to the one last named, is Hamilton's Marriage Rites, Customs, and Ceremonies (London, 1822). Of little value, except as marking the beginning of attempts to write general histories, are Moore, Marriage Customs (London, 1814; 2d ed., 1820); Laumier, Cérémonies nuptiales (Paris, 1829); the anonymous Hochzeitsgebräuche aller Nationen (Swabach, 1783); and Hurtaut's Coup d'œil anglois sur les cérémonies du mariage (Geneva, 1750), compiled from Louis de Gaya's Cérémonies nuptiales (original ed., Paris, 1680). The subject is also treated by Schroeder, Das Recht in der geschlechtlichen Ordnung (Berlin, 1893); Gage, Woman, Church, and State (Chicago, 1893); and Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture (New York, 1894). Mucke, Horde und Familie (Stuttgart, 1895), traces the classificatory systems of kinship to original "space-relationships" in the horde camping-place, and the work is a remarkable example of ingenious though fantastic speculation on a large scale.

For the matrimonial customs of low races, especially valuable are Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (Jena, 1885); Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas (London, 1873); and the magnificent volumes of Paul and Fritz Sarasin, Die Weddas von Ceylon (Wiesbaden, 1892-93). For examples of sexual practices, commonly regarded as survivals of original promiscuity, see Buch, Die Wotjäken (Helsingfors, 1882); Kohler, "Studien über Frauengemeinschaft," in ZVR., V; Bastian, Rechtsverhältnisse (Berlin, 1872); his "Eheverhältnisse," in ZFE., VI; and his "Matriarchat und Patriarchat," ibid., Verhandlungen (Berlin, 1886); Ploss, Das Weib (Leipzig, 1895); his Das Kind (Leipzig, 1884); and Mantegazza's Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen, constituting with the earlier Physiologie der Liebe and Hygiene der Liebe his so-called "trilogy of love." For the bearings of phallicism on the subject read Howard's Sex Worship (2d ed., Washington, 1898), containing a bibliography. In this connection are also of service the works on "seignorial right," the most elaborate monograph being Schmidt's Jus primae noctis (Freiburg, 1881), containing a full bibliography. See also his Slavische Geschichtsquellen zur Streitfrage über das Jus Primae Noctis (Posen, 1886); his paper in ZFE., XVI; and Kohler's criticism, ZVR., IV, V. Against its existence as a right of the mediæval lord are Veuillot, Droit du seigneur (1st ed., Paris, 1854; 3d ed., 1878); Raepsaet, Recherches (Gand, 1817); Barthélemy, "Droit du seigneur," in Revue des questions historiques, I (Paris, 1866), a critical paper of value; and Labessade, Droit du seigneur et la rosière de Salency (Paris, 1878). In his Réponse (Paris, 1857) Delpit makes a vigorous and detailed reply to the arguments of Veuillot (early edition). See also Foras, Droit du seigneur (Chambéry, 1886); and, for comparison, read "Bibliophile's" Les nuits d'épreuve des villageoises allemandes avant le mariage (Brussels, 1877); Grupen's quaint De uxore theotisca (Göttingen, 1748); and Fischer's remarkably valuable and interesting Probenächte der teutschen Bauernmädchen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1780; reprinted, Leipzig, 1898).

To "break ground" for the study of the subject it may be well in the outset to read chaps. iii and iv of Posada's Théories modernes; Kautsky's "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," in Kosmos, XII; Friedrichs, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," in ZVR., VIII, in connection with his "Zur Matriarchatsfrage," in ZFE., XX; and especially his "Familienstufen und Eheformen," in ZVR., X. The literature and the theories are also reviewed by Bernhöft, "Zur Gesch. des eur. Familienrechts," ibid., VIII; and Schurman gives an interesting summary and criticism in Ethical Import of Darwinism (New York, 1888).

For the works of Wake, Letourneau, Starcke, Westermarck, and other antagonists of the horde theory, see BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE III.]

I. BACHOFEN AND HIS DISCIPLES

In the same year with the Ancient Law appeared a book which was destined to have an extraordinary influence in giving a new direction to speculation and research. This was the Mutterrecht of the Swiss scholar Johann Jacob Bachofen, whose memory is revered by many followers.[93] The author shows a wide and minute acquaintance with classic literature and the early myths; but his work is fantastic and almost wholly devoid of scientific method.[94] The material is drawn mainly from two sources: the fragmentary notices of the rules of kinship and the matrimonial customs of various peoples handed down from ancient writers, supplemented slightly through similar accounts by modern travelers; and an interpretation of the supposed symbolism of religious myths, particularly those of the Greeks.[95] The inferences derived from this second source are often far-fetched and fanciful in the extreme. Though the general results of the investigation are summarized in a short introduction, the argument is so loose, the arrangement so confusing, and the style so obscure that it is with the utmost difficulty the author's meaning can be gathered. Nevertheless it is undeniable that he has created the terminology and developed the essential elements of the communistic and gynocratic theories even in their leading details.

[93] See, for example, LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 4, 5; KOHLER, in ZVR., IV, 266 ff., who regards Bachofen as the "Altmeister der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz;" and GIRAUD-TEULON, Mariage et la famille, 146 ff., passim. Cf. KAUTSKY, in Kosmos, XII, 348.

[94] DELBRÜCK, "Das Mutterrecht bei den Indogermanen," in Preussische Jahrbücher, XCVII, 15, characterizes the work as "fantastic," though resting upon "einer äusserst ausgebreiteten Gelehrsamkeit." DR. STARCKE'S criticism is too severe: "We should rather call his 'Mutterrecht' the rhapsody of a well-informed poet than the work of a calm and clear-sighted man of science."--Primitive Family, 243. For the best analysis of Bachofen, see ibid., 241-51. Cf. also BERNHÖFT, "Zur Geschichte des eur. Familienrechts," in ZVR., VIII, 4, 5; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 98 ff.; MCLENNAN, Studies in Ancient History, I, 319-25; GIRAUD-TEULON, La mère chez certains peuples de l'antiquité, 6 ff.; ZMIGRODSKI, Die Mutter, 178 ff., 196 ff., 311 ff., passim; SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, 31, 36-38, 178, 190; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 14 ff., 257, 258; KAUTSKY, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 256, 257, 348; ACHELIS, Die Entwicklung der Ehe, 6 ff.; POSADA, Théories modernes, 47 ff., 148; CHAMBERLAIN, The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought, 12 ff.

[95] The author first discusses the account given by Herodotus and others of Lycian customs, which account, he declares, contains the clearest and most valuable evidence of the existence and character of Mutterrecht (v). Then follows a similar treatment of the evidence derived from Crete, Athens, Lemnos, Egypt, India and central Asia, Orchomenos and the Minyœ, Epizephyrian Locris, Elis, Lesbos, Mantinea, the Cantabrians, and from the Pythagorean system.

According to Bachofen, there are three general phases in the evolution of human sexual relations. The first is the period of aphrodistic hetairism, in which men and women have each other in common; the second is the period of demetrian mother-right or gynocracy, in which kinship and succession are in the maternal line and woman gains religious and political supremacy; and the third, the period of the patriarchate or apollonistic father-right, in which the more spiritual principle of paternity is triumphant.[96] Each of these periods is regarded as a universal culture-stage.[97]

[96] Das Mutterrecht, vi, xviii-xix, xxi, passim.

[97] Ibid., vi. "Wie auf die Periode des Mutterrechts die Herrschaft der Paternität folgt, so geht jener eine Zeit des regellosen Hetärismus voran."--Ibid., xviii. For many illustrations, see the Index at "Aphrodite," "Demeter," and "Apollo," the names of the divinities presiding respectively over the three phases.

In the first phase, or that of the unregulated communism, material motherhood is the essential fact. Fatherhood is necessarily uncertain. There is no conception of kinship between father and child. Woman, it is assumed, is exposed to the lust or sexual tyranny of man; and it is through her successful revolt against the bondage of unbridled hetairism that she attains the second stage of progress.[98] The period of demetrian gynocracy is therefore represented as a turning-point, a transitional phase, through which humanity passes from its lowest to its highest status. With it the rudiments of marriage appear, but combined with hetairism surviving in various forms or gradations. It is the woman and not the man who obeys the marriage law.[99] Indeed, strict marriage, the exclusive appropriation of a woman by one man, is looked upon as an abridgment of a natural or religious right for which expiation must be rendered to the goddess whose law is violated;[100] and only thus, as a penalty or composition for the privilege of restricted intercourse, can be rationally explained those lascivious customs, such as temporary prostitution, so often found in connection with legal marriage.[101]

[98] "Es kann nicht verkannt werden: die Gynaikokratie hat sich überall in bewusstem und fortgesetztem Widerstande der Frau, gegen den sie erniedrigenden Hetärismus hervorgebildet, befestigt, erhalten."--Ibid., xix; cf. xviii, 17-18.

[99] Ibid., 18, passim. Cf. STARCKE, 245.

[100] "Das demetrische Prinzip erscheint als die Beeinträchtigung eines entgegengesetzten ursprünglichern, die Ehe selbst als Verletzung eines Religionsgebots.... Nur aus ihm erläutert sich der Gedanke, dass die Ehe eine Sühne jener Gottheit verlangt, deren Gesetz sie durch Ausschliesslichkeit verletzt. Nicht um in den Armen eines Einzelnen zu verwelken, wird das Weib von der Natur mit allen Reizen, über welche sie gebietet, ausgestattet; das Gesetz des Stoffes verwirft alle Beschränkung, hasst alle Fesseln, und betrachtet jede Ausschliesslichkeit als Versündung an ihrer Göttlichkeit."--Das Mutterrecht, xix. In general, on the antagonism of Aphrodite to marriage, see ibid., 13, 71, 134, 137, 310, 320, 325.

[101] "Die Prostitution wird selbst eine Bürgschaft der ehelichen Keuschheit, deren Heilighaltung eine vorausgegangene Erfüllung des natürlichen Berufes von Seite der Frau erfordert."--Ibid., xix.

A difficulty, however, presents itself. The theory of Bachofen assumes, as a general fact in social evolution, that a period of promiscuity and oppression of the female sex is followed, not merely by an age of mother-right, involving as a necessary consequence of the continued uncertainty of fatherhood the recognition of kinship only in the maternal line; but by an age of gynocracy, involving the social leadership of women and eventually the political and even the military subordination of men. Woman emancipates herself and then she becomes an Amazon. "Weary of the lust of man, she first feels a longing for a securer position and a purer existence. The feeling of shame and the rage of despair inflame her to armed resistance."[102] As "a rival to man, the Amazon became hostile to him, and began to withdraw from marriage and from motherhood. This set limits to the rule of women, and provoked the punishment of heaven and men. Thus Jason put an end to the rule of the Amazons in Lemnos; thus Dionysos and Bellerophon strove together, passionately, yet without obtaining any decisive victory, until Apollo with calm superiority finally became the conqueror;"[103] and so the purer principle of fatherhood prevailed and the era of father-right appeared. But, says Bachofen, that woman should gain supremacy over man arouses our astonishment, because the fact is contrary to what we should expect from their relative physical powers. "The law of nature delivers the scepter of power to the stronger." The paradox, however, is easily explained. "At all times woman has exerted the most powerful influence upon man, upon the culture and morals (Gesellung) of peoples," through the direction of her mind toward the supernatural, the wonderful, and the divine. Through her possession of the mysteries of religion she deprived man of the superior position which nature had given him. "Religion is the only efficient lever of all civilization. Each elevation and depression of human life has its origin in a movement which begins in this supreme department."[104] "Just as the child receives its first discipline from the mother, so do peoples receive it from woman. The man must serve before he can attain supremacy. To the wife alone it is given to tame the unbridled power of man and to guide him in the path of well-doing."[105] But amazonism was a shock to the religious feeling in the stage of mother-right, just as gross hetairism was an offense in the former period. Hence arose a striving for the realization of a higher conception of social relations. "It was the assertion of fatherhood which delivered the mind from natural appearances, and when this was successfully achieved, human existence was raised above the laws of material life. The principle of motherhood is common to all the species of animal life, but man goes beyond this tie in giving the pre-eminence to the power of procreation, and thus becomes conscious of his higher vocation.... In the paternal and spiritual principle he breaks through the bonds of tellurism and looks upward to the higher regions of the cosmos. Victorious fatherhood thus becomes as distinctly connected with the heavenly light as prolific motherhood is with the teeming earth."[106] "All the stages of sexual life, from aphrodistic hetairism to the apollonistic purity of fatherhood, have their corresponding type in the stages of natural life, from the wild vegetation of the morass, the prototype of conjugal motherhood, to the harmonic law of the Uranian world, to the heavenly light which, as the flamma non urens, corresponds to the eternal youth of fatherhood. The connection is so completely in accordance with law, that the form taken by the sexual relations of life may be inferred from the predominance of one or the other of these universal substances in worship."[107]

[102] Ibid., xxiv.

[103] STARCKE, Primitive Family, 246. On the Amazon myth see BACHOFEN, Das Mutterrecht, xxiv ff., 85. For many examples of amazonism noticed in the work see Index at "Amazonen;" and compare GIRAUD-TEULON, Mariage et la famille, 302-28, who accepts the view of Bachofen and gives an elaborate discussion. According to KOVALEVSKY, Mod. Customs and Ancient Laws of Russia, 16 ff., there are evidences of amazonism found among the Slavs. Compare STRICKER, "Untersuchungen über die kriegerischen Weiber," Archiv für Anthropologie, V; and his Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte.

[104] Das Mutterrecht, xiii, xiv. See STARCKE'S fine translation of these passages, op. cit., 243-45.

[105] Das Mutterrecht, 19; cf. STARCKE, 245.

[106] STARCKE'S summary, op. cit., 244; BACHOFEN, xxvii.

[107] STARCKE'S summary, op. cit., 244, 245; BACHOFEN, xxix.

The theories of Bachofen have given rise to luxurious speculation. With slight modification his conclusions have been accepted by a host of faithful disciples. By others they have been criticised or abandoned. Various schemes have been constructed in the attempt to explain the sequence in which the forms of marriage and the phases of the family have historically appeared. With the literature of this speculation, so far as primitive communism is assumed, the present chapter is concerned. As a rule, only the incidental or negative results of criticism will be noticed, leaving for the following two chapters the criticism originating in a wholly different view of social evolution.

It is convenient in the outset to note the importance of carefully distinguishing between the conception of mother-right, implying kinship in the female line, and that of gynocracy, denoting the supremacy of the female sex.[108] Bachofen, as already seen, uses Mutterrecht as comprehending gynocracy; while some of his followers likewise speak confidently of a time when women took social precedence of men, or even held them in political subjection. Such is the view of Giraud-Teulon, who, with Bachofen, interprets the Amazon myth as implying an age in which women exercised a decided social and political domination.[109] Lippert and Unger take a similar position.[110] On the other hand, it is maintained by a number of writers, who reject the idea of a political or military gynocracy, that the inheritance of name and family rights through the mother usually gives woman a decided precedence in the sphere of social life and private law. This is the opinion of Kautsky, who declares that mother-right involves the headship of woman in the family.[111] Peschel,[112] Tylor,[113] Letourneau,[114] and Hellwald[115] hold a similar view; and with them Grosse,[116] Kohler,[117] and Friedrichs,[118] though more reserved, appear in the main to coincide. Dargun likewise rejects the idea of woman's political supremacy, while holding that mother-right sometimes grows into a real matriarchate so far as private law is concerned.[119] The weight of evidence, however, shows that even this modified view exaggerates the advantages gained by woman under mother-right. It may be admitted that here and there--as for instance among the Sioux, the Wyandots, and some other American peoples[120]--the determination of the child's social and legal rights through the mother has somewhat ameliorated the condition of woman. Yet often, as Dargun[121] has so well shown, the same custom has not enabled her to escape social degradation or marital bondage.[122] She is rather the medium through which rights are conveyed and relations established. "Thus, for instance, among the Australians, with whom the clan of the children is, as a rule, determined by that of the mother, the husband is, to quote Mr. Curr, almost an autocrat in his family, and the children always belong to his tribe."[123] Dr. Starcke reaches a similar conclusion. Referring to the "important place" taken by the wife among various African peoples, he declares that all which "has been said only shows that women in some instances enjoy privileges which are always enjoyed by men."[124] In short, if among many peoples at some stage of progress research has clearly demonstrated the existence of mother-right, it has just as clearly shown that the notion of a gynocracy, of a period of female supremacy, is without historical foundation.

[108] FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ZVR., X, 190, 191, rejects the use of Mutterrecht as being practically of "no significance," preferring Matriarchat (from ἄρχειν = "to lead") to denote the uterine system of relationship; and Gynaikokratie, "gynocracy" (from κρατεĩν = "to rule") to express the idea of the domination of women over men. "Gynocracy" is used to express this idea by the Jesuit LAFITAU (Mœurs des sauvages, 1724), borrowed from STRABO (Geogr., lib. iii); PESCHEL, Races of Man, 234; PLOSS, Das Kind, II, 393. MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 108 ff., 114 ff., 174 ff., passim, rejects the use of Mutterrecht and Vaterrecht, and adopts the terms "gynocratic" and "androcratic" family; but these designations had already been employed by other writers, e. g., by PLOSS, op. cit., II, 393-96. "Metrocracy" also appears: WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 98.

But Dargun's use of Mutterrecht and Vaterrecht to express maternal or paternal kinship, and Matriarchat and Patriarchat to express maternal or paternal power, seems preferable, in order to avoid confusing the two conceptions; see above, chap. i, p. 21. Compare further GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 11, who uses Mutterfolge and Vaterfolge respectively as opposed to Matriarchat and Patriarchat; also HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 122-24, who gives definitions of "marriage" and "family;" and WESTERMARCK, "Le matriarcat," Annales, 115 ff., who shows that in practice writers have used "matriarchate" in three senses.

[109] Les origines du mariage, 302-28.

[110] LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 17; UNGER, Die Ehe, 9. See also GUMPLOWICZ, Grundriss der Sociologie, Abschnitt III, who holds that a period of gynocracy preceded the androcratic stage; BARAZETTI, in ZVR., IX, 304-7. See also GAGE, Woman, Church, and State, 13 ff.

[111] KAUTSKY, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 343, 344.

[112] PESCHEL, Races of Man, 233, 234.

[113] TYLOR, Method of Investigating Institutions, 252.

[114] LETOURNEAU, in Annales de l'institut international, 155: "Le mot [matriarcat] doit disparaître, parceque la chose n'a jamais existé."

[115] HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 213 ff. But this author (112 ff., 116) shows that among primitive men the sexes were not fully differentiated; so that women often possessed "amazonian" characteristics.

[116] GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 48, 161 ff., 176 ff., 183. According to Grosse, among the lowest existing races patriarchalism prevails. Examples of women exercising political authority in the clan (Sippe) are exceedingly rare, although such may be found occasionally, as among the Huron and Iroquois, and some other peoples.

[117] KOHLER, "Die Ehe mit und ohne Mundium," ZVR., VI, 328, 329. Cf. POWELL, "Wyandot Government," _I. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 59-69.

[118] FRIEDRICHS, "Ueber den Ursprung des Matriarchats," ZVR., VIII, 381, 382, though he shows elsewhere that paternal authority may coexist with mother-right: "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ibid., X, 206. Cf. MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 108 ff., 114 ff., passim, who maintains that the family, androcratic or gynocratic, originates in slavery through rape or purchase. In the gynocratic family the woman is owner and mistress of the man, as the man is lord of the woman in the androcratic family.

[119] DARGUN, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht, 67-85.

[120] For an example see POWELL, op. cit., and his "Wyandotte Society," A. A. A. S., XXIX, 675-88.

[121] For his theory see the Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht; and compare chap. i, pp. 20-23, above.

[122] See POST, Ursprung des Rechts, 52-56; Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft, 94, denying the existence of a period of gynocracy; also SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, I, 748; PLOSS, Das Kind, II, 393; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 216-19; LETOURNEAU, L'évolution du mariage, 131.

[123] WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 41; CURR, The Australian Race, I, 60, 62, 69. DARGUN, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht, 2 ff., insists that Mutterrecht denotes merely exclusive kinship through the mother and is entirely consistent with paternal authority. Cf. MUCKE, 173 ff.

[124] STARCKE, op. cit., 65; cf. ibid., 229. Fear of the blood-feud through the wife's relatives, as among the Amaxosa, may sometimes act as a check upon the power or brutality of the husband: REHME, "Das Recht der Amaxosa," ZVR., X, 39, 40.

The theory of original communism has been accepted by many writers,[125] though examples of absolute promiscuity have not been produced.[126] Its former existence is inferred from certain customs and institutions which are believed to be its survivals. Even the promiscuity which is thus assumed is not "perfectly indiscriminate," but restricted to the members of the unorganized horde or tribe occupying a particular locality or roaming about together. Hence, significantly, it has sometimes been described as communal or group "marriage."[127] Accordingly the horde[128] or band becomes the unit or starting-point of social development.

[125] For example, by GIRAUD-TEULON, Les origines du mariage, 70 ff., passim; LIPPERT, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit, II, 7; BERNHÖFT, "Zur Gesch. des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., VIII, 161 ff.; ENGELS, Ursprung der Familie, 17; KULISCHER, "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl," ZFE., VIII, 140; "Intercommunale Ehe," ibid., X, 193; MORGAN, Systems of Consanguinity, 480, 487 ff.; Ancient Society, 418, 500-502, 384 ff.; BASTIAN, Rechtsverhältnisse, xviii, lix; MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 92, 95, passim; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 86 ff., 98 ff.; POST, Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben, 19; Geschlechtsgenossenschaft, 16 ff.; Grundlagen des Rechts, 182 ff.; Familienrecht, 54 ff.; Ursprung des Rechts, 46 ff.; WILKEN, Das Matriarchat, 7; GUMPLOWICZ, Outlines of Sociology, 110 ff.; and especially KOHLER, in ZVR., IV, 266, 267; V, 334 ff., and elsewhere throughout his numerous papers.

[126] Thus GIRAUD-TEULON (op. cit., 70), a zealous advocate of the theory of promiscuity, declares: "Avant d'accepter une semblable hypothèse, il convient cependant de reconnaitre que l'on n'a pas encore trouvé de peuplade vivant actuellement en état de complète promiscuité." But, he adds, the facts observed among living tribes "sont en tel nombre, en telle concordance, et confinent de si près à la promiscuité absolue, que ce n'est pas sortir du champ des hypothèses scientifiquement permises que de supposer dans l'enfance de l'humanité un état de pur communisme." On the lack of positive proof cf. also KAUTSKY, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 198 ff.; WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 41; MORGAN, Ancient Society, 500 ff.; MCLENNAN, Studies in Ancient History, I, 85 ff., 93 ff.; SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, I, 662, 664; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 130, 131.

[127] "Communal marriage" is the name introduced by SIR JOHN LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 86, 98, 103, 104-9, whose theory is criticised by MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 329 ff. "Gruppen- oder Hordenchen" is the term employed by POST, Familienrecht, 57, 58; Grundlagen des Rechts, 200, 201; Anfänge, 10 ff. For the so-called Australian group-marriage see FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 50 ff., 99 ff., 159 ff.; the criticism of CURR, _The Australian Race_, I, 106-42, which should be compared with KOHLER, "Das Recht der Australneger," ZVR., VII, 326 ff., 329 ff., 337 ff.; his Zur Geschichte der Ehe, 64 ff.; CUNOW, Australneger; SPENCER AND GILLEN, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_; and CRAWLEY, Mystic Rose, 475 ff. In general, on group-marriage see KULISCHER, in ZFE., VIII, 140; X, 193; BERNHÖFT, "Altindisches Familienorganisation," ibid., IX, 5 ff.; SCHROEDER, Das Recht in der geschlechtlichen Ordnung, 19 ff.

[128] On the horde see BERNHÖFT, "Zur Gesch. des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., VIII, 167; WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 41, 52; FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ZVR., X, 194, 197, 198; idem, ibid., VIII, 378, 379; KAUTSKY, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 193 ff. (the Stamm); POST, Geschlechtsgenossenschaft, 4 ff.; Familienrecht, 57, 58; KOHLER, in ZVR., VII, 381; MUCKE, Horde und Familie; GROSSE, Die Formen der Ehe, 59, 62; FRERICHS, Zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen, 106, 107; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 121 ff., 153; GUMPLOWICZ, Outlines of Sociology, 110 ff.; and the literature cited below on the Australian class-systems, and on the works of MORGAN and SPENCER.

Many evidences of the former universality of promiscuity are brought forward. This evidence--to adopt Westermarck's convenient analysis--"flows from two sources. First, there are, in the books of ancient writers and modern travelers, notices of some savage nations said to live promiscuously; secondly, there are some remarkable customs which are assumed to be social survivals, pointing to an earlier stage of civilization when marriage did not exist."[129] The mass of facts collected to illustrate the licentiousness of savage and barbarous tribes cannot here be dwelt upon.[130] It must suffice for the present to note that, according to recent investigation, every instance of alleged indiscriminate sexual relations appears to stop far short of absolute promiscuity.[131] So also several of the more interesting customs, regarded as direct survivals of communism, require only to be briefly mentioned. The principal argument, of course, as will presently appear, is grounded upon the existence of polyandry, and especially upon the proofs adduced of the wide prevalence of kinship reckoned through the mother's line. For it is generally assumed that this system can arise only when paternity is uncertain. Legalized hetairism or prostitution,[132] practiced under various forms and restrictions among many peoples, savage, barbarous, and civilized, is thought to be a proof of original communism.[133] The same is true of "proof-marriages,"[134] existing among the Wotjäken, Burmese, the Germans, in Loango, and elsewhere; of "temporary" marriages,[135] as among the Parthians and American Indians; and of "wife-lending," examples of which are afforded by the Spartans, Romans, Hindus, Arabs, Eskimo, Germans, Wotjäken, and many other peoples.[136] In this connection, likewise, belong those "scandalous nuptial rites" which Bachofen, Lubbock, and Giraud-Teulon regard as acts of "expiation" for marriage. According to this theory, marriage, the individual possession of a woman, was originally regarded as a violation of communal right, for which some compensation or expiation must be rendered.[137] The customs referred to fall for the most part in two general classes. The first group comprises the lascivious religious rites, the so-called sacred or temple prostitution, found in connection with the worship of various deities of love and procreation, such as the Babylonian Mylitta, the Hellenic Aphrodite, the Italian Venus and the Carthaginian Moloch.[138] In the second class fall the revolting nuptial privileges, accorded in many parts of the world to priest, chieftain, or king, or to the friends of the bridegroom and sometimes to those of the bride. To these privileges in general the name of jus primae noctis has been given.[139] A curious example of this practice among the American aborigines is communicated by Castañeda.[140]

[129] WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 52.

[130] For this class of evidence, see GIRAUD-TEULON, Les origines du mariage, 1 ff.: POST, Familienrecht, 57, 58; Anfänge, 17 ff.; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 69 ff., 104 ff.; BERNHÖFT, "Zur Geschichte des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., VIII, 161 ff.; MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 83 ff.; MORGAN, Ancient Society, 500 ff., passim; LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 168-80; PLOSS, Das Weib, I, 331, 360 ff., 370 ff., 383 ff.; KULISCHER, "Die geschlechtliche Zuchtwahl," ZFE., VIII, 140, 141; FRIEDRICHS, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," ZVR., VIII, 370 ff.; MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 65, 138 ff., who deny that these customs are evidences of promiscuity; as also does SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, 36 ff.; KOHLER, "Ueber das Negerrecht, namentlich in Kamerun," ZVR., XI, 419, 422; "Studien über Frauengemeinschaft," ibid., V, 334 ff.; Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 14, 64 ff., 146; and elsewhere in his various monographs; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 187, 326-29; KOVALEVSKY, Mod. Customs and Anc. Laws of Russia, 6 ff.; SCHNEIDER, Die Naturvölker, I, 267 ff.; II, 413 ff., who, rejecting the doctrines of evolution and survival, holds to the biblical legend of the "fall of man."

[131] The result of the recent researches of Spencer, Starcke, Westermarck, Letourneau, and others will be discussed in the next chapter.

[132] Read especially the section of BERNHÖFT, "Zur Geschichte des eur. Familienrechts," 161-221, on "Askese und Hetärismus," who is criticised by MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 122; GUYOT, Prostitution, 12 ff.; MANTEGAZZA, _Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen_, 366 ff.; and the detailed and learned monograph of ROSENBAUM, Geschichte der Lustseuche im Alterthume (Halle, 1893). An examination of the whole subject is given by WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, chap. iv.

[133] In this connection are adduced the cases in which courtesans have been held in high esteem, sometimes in higher regard than married women, as in Athens and India: GIRAUD-TEULON, Les origines du mariage, 43-45; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 132, 133, 537, 538; POST, Geschlechtsgenoss., 31; SCHROEDER, Das Recht in der geschlechtlichen Ordnung, 244 ff.; BERNHÖFT, "Zur Gesch. des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., VIII, 172-74; KOHLER, "Ueber das Negerrecht," ibid., XI, 419; WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 61 ff., 80, 81, who denies the inference of promiscuity from this custom and mentions many low tribes among whom chastity is observed. Cf. FRIEDRICHS, in ZVR., VIII, 374 ff.; SCHNEIDER, Die Naturvölker, II, 473, 474, who ascribes the custom to religious impulse--the consecration of virgins to the cult of Aphrodite.

The custom, found among Egyptians, Tibetans, Wotjäken, American Indians, and other peoples, permitting girls freely to prostitute themselves before marriage is similarly put in evidence: HERODOTUS, II, 121, 124, 125, 126; IV, 176; V, 6; POST, Grundlagen, 187; Geschlechtsgenoss., 29-31; Familienrecht, 346; BUCH, Die Wotjäken, 45 ff.; KOHLER, in ZVR., V, 335 (Wotjäken); BERNHÖFT, op. cit., 165, 166; GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 52, 53; UNGER, Die Ehe, 12, 13; HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 220 ff., 343; WAITZ, Anthropologie, II, 112, 113 (Africa); RATZEL, Hist. of Mankind, II, 128 (Brazil and ancient Peru); PRATZ, _Hist. de la Louisiane_, II, 386 (Natches Indians); STEVENSON, in XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 19, 20 (the Sia); TURNER, ibid. XI, 189 (the Innuit).

[134] On the so-called "Probeehen" or "Probenächte," see BUCH, Die Wotjäken, 50, 51, 53, 57; KOHLER, in ZVR., V, 346, 351, 338, 339; POST, Anfänge, 21; DÜRINGSFELD, Hochzeitsbuch, 9; SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, 40; WEINHOLD, Deutsche Frauen, I, 261 ff.; FRIEDBERG, Eheschliessung, 84; and especially FISCHER, Ueber die Probenächte der teutschen Bauernmädchen, who gives a detailed historical investigation from the early Middle Ages onward, with interesting examples. Cf. KOVALEVSKY, Mod. Customs and Anc. Laws of Russia, 12, 13 (the Kirchgang or Dorfgehen of Switzerland, Baden, and Würtemberg).

Among the Todas, after a marriage is arranged, the bride has a proof-time of a night and a day. On the "expiry of this brief honeymoon," the damsel is required to make up her mind "either to accept or reject her suitor."--MARSHALL, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 212.

[135] STRABO, II, 515; LUBBOCK, op. cit., 131; GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 3; POST, Geschlechtsgenoss., 29, 43 ff; Anfänge, 21; especially HELLWALD'S chapter entitled "Zeitehen und wilde Ehen," Die mensch. Familie, 438 ff.; and KULISCHER, "Communale Zeitehen," Archiv für Anthropologie, XI, 228 ff.; WAITZ, Anthropologie, III, 105 (proof and temporary marriages among American Indians); II, 114 (same in Africa); KLEMM, Kulturgeschichte, II, 78 (N. A. Indians); TURNER, in XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 189 (Innuit); MCGEE, The Seri Indians, in _XVII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, Part I, 280.

[136] PLUTARCH, Lycurgus, c. 15 (Sparta); FRIEDRICHS, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," ZVR., VIII, 372, 373; POST, Anfänge, 25; Geschlechtsg., 34 ff.; NADAILLAC, L'évolution du mariage, 17 ff.; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 131, 132, who mentions the well-known case of Cato's lending his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius; BUCH, Die Wotjäken, 48; KOHLER, in ZVR., III, 398, note (India), 399 (Germans); V, 336 (Wotjäken), 342 (Alaska), 353 (Creeks); VII, 326 (Australia); VIII, 84 (Birma); XI, 422 (Kamerun); JOLLY, in ZVR., IV, 331, 332 (Hindus); SMITH, Kinship and Marriage, 116; WAITZ, Anthropologie, II, 114 (Africa); NELSON, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," in XVIII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., Part I, 292; MCGEE, in XV. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 178 (Sioux); WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 74 n. 1, mentions, with the sources of information, many tribes among whom wife-lending prevails.

"Exchange of wives" is common among the Eskimo. "For instance, one man of our acquaintance planned to go to the rivers deer hunting in the summer of 1882, and borrowed his cousin's wife for the expedition, as she was a good shot and a good hand at deer hunting, while his own wife went with his cousin on the trading expedition to the eastward. On their return the wives went back to their respective husbands." Sometimes in such cases the women are better pleased with their new mates and remain with them. "According to GILDER (Schwatka's Search, 197) it is a usual thing among friends in that region to exchange wives for a week or two almost every two months." EGEDE (Greenland, 139) says such temporary exchanges take place at festivals. So also at Repulse Bay, at certain times there is said to be a "general exchange of wives throughout the village, each woman passing from man to man till she has been through the hands of all, and finally returned to her husband."--MURDOCH, "Point Barrow Expedition," IX. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 413. Cf. TURNER, "Ethnology of Ungava Dist.," ibid., 189. The loaning of wife or daughter to a guest, or the prostitution of the wife for hire, appears among some South American tribes: MARTIUS, Ethnographie, I, 118; idem, Rechtszustande, 65.

[137] LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 130-32, 536 ff.; GIRAUD-TEULON, Les origines du mariage, 5 ff., who says: "Le mariage (en prenant ce mot dans son sense étroit) apparaît chez les races inférieures comme une infraction aux droits de la communauté, et partant, comme la violation d'une loi naturelle: de là, à le considérer comme la violation d'une loi religieuse, il n'y avait qu'un pas." See the criticism by MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 335 ff., who rejects the theory of expiation for violation of communal right; because usually the woman does not belong to the husband's tribe, and because often the privileges are exercised by friends of both bridegroom and bride. Cf. FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 149-56; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 17, 34, 65, 245 ff.; LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 169; KOHLER, in ZVR., VII, 327 (Australia); MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 138-40, who rejects the theory; and KOVALEVSKY, Mod. Customs and Anc. Laws of Russia, 10, 11, who refers to the promiscuous intercourse practiced at various festivals, resembling the assemblies on the Roumanian Gainaberg which Kohler has discussed in ZVR., VI, 398 ff. These may be compared with the license practiced at certain gatherings among the Arunta and several other Australian tribes: SPENCER AND GILLEN, Native Tribes of Central Australia, 96 ff.

[138] "Thus Herodotus states, in Babylonia, every woman was obliged once in her life to give herself up, in the temple of Mylitta, to strangers, for the satisfaction of the goddess; and in some parts of Cyprus, he tells us, the same custom prevailed. In Armenia, according to Strabo, there was a very similar law. The daughters of good families were consecrated to Anaitis, a phallic divinity like Mylitta, giving themselves, as it appears, to the worship of the goddess indiscriminately."--WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 72; HERODOTUS, I, c. 199; STRABO, XI, 532. As to Babylon Herodotus may have been mistaken; cf. chap. iv, below. See further illustrations in BERNHÖFT, op. cit., 169 ff.; GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 7 ff.; PLOSS, Das Weib, I, 383 ff.; LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 171; FRIEDRICHS, in ZVR., VIII, 373, who enumerates the peoples where the custom has existed; idem, ibid., X, 215, 216; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 356 ff.; and HOWARD, Sex Worship, 103-16, 201, passim, who holds that sacred prostitution, and many of the other sexual practices usually assigned as survivals of promiscuity, are evidences of phallicism.

[139] The monograph of DR. KARL SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, is the most elaborate work on the subject. The author denies (41 ff., 365 ff., 379) that the custom existed in feudal Europe or elsewhere as a right; and he holds that the practices so called are not evidences of promiscuity. His views are sharply criticised by HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 349 n. 4; and especially by KOHLER, in ZVR., IV, 279-87. SCHMIDT has a supplementary discussion in ZFE., XVI, 44 ff.; and is reviewed unfavorably by KOHLER, ZVR., V, 397-406. See also SCHMIDT'S Slavische Geschichtsquellen zur Streitfrage über das Jus Primae Noctis; KOHLER, Urgeschichte der Ehe, 140; idem, in ZVR., VII, 350, 351; VIII, 85; SCHNEIDER, Die Naturvölker, II, 471-73; GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 32-41; WEINHOLD, Die deutschen Frauen, I, 300, 301; LETOURNEAU, L'évolution du mariage, 56-62; SUGGENHEIM, Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft, 104, who believes the "right of the lord" existed in France far down into the Middle Ages; BACHOFEN, Mutterrecht, 12, 13, 17, 18, passim; POST, Anfänge, 17, 18; idem, Geschlechtsgenoss., 37; KULISCHER, "Die communale Zeitehe," in Archiv für Anthropologie, XI, 228 ff., who refers to the recent existence of the alleged custom in Russia; FRIEDRICHS, in ZVR., X, 214, 215; STARCKE, op. cit., 124-26. There is a learned discussion in the quaint De uxore theotisca, cap. i, of GRUPEN; the literature cited in Bibliographical Note II should be consulted; and Schmidt has appended a very full bibliography to his book. The term jus primae noctis is especially applied to the alleged "right of the lord" in feudal times; but the existence of even this custom as a legal privilege is still an unsettled question.

[140] The custom is for the men "to buy the women whom they marry of their fathers and relatives at a high price, and then to take them to a chief, who is considered to be a priest, to deflower them and see if she is a virgin; and if she is not, they have to return the whole price, and he can keep her for his wife or not, or let her be consecrated, as he chooses." In the same connection, Castañeda says, "among them are men dressed like women who marry other men and serve as their wives;" and he describes also a curious kind of legal or consecrated prostitution existing among the same people: see the translation of Castañeda's account in WINSHIP'S "Coronado Expedition, 1540-2," XIV. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 513, 514. Cf. FAWCETT, "On Basivis: Women, Who, through Dedication to a Deity, Assume Masculine Privileges," Jour. Anth. Soc. (Bombay), II (1891), 322-54.

The argument for original promiscuity based on the various practices just mentioned is not conclusive. Most, if not all, of them are perhaps capable of other and simpler explanations. The wife-lending, as suggested by Westermarck, may be "due merely to savage ideas of hospitality;"[141] while the custom of sacred prostitution evidently belongs "to phallic-worship, and occurred, as Mr. McLennan justly remarks, among peoples who had advanced far beyond the primitive state. The farther back we go, the less we find of such customs in India; 'the germ only of phallic-worship shows itself in the Vedas, and the gross luxuriance of licentiousness, of which the cases referred to are examples, is of later growth.'"[142] So likewise the jus primae noctis, instead of being an expiation for an encroachment on communal right, may be more naturally explained either as an abuse of power,[143] in some cases as an evidence of hospitality,[144] or in others as a "common war-right, exercised whenever, under any circumstances, capture of a woman is made by a war-party."[145] The toleration of the custom, like that of wife-lending, may sometimes be due to the "juridical" nature of fatherhood as conceived by primitive men.[146]

[141] WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 73, 74; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 81, 82. The custom may possibly be accounted for by the slow growth of the sentiment upon which "conjugal attachment depends:" MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 341. For an alleged "survival" see SCHMIDT, Hochzeiten in Thüringen, 31. For the strictly regulated form of wife-lending among certain Australian tribes see the reference to the work of Spencer and Gillen below.

[142] WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 72; MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 341, 342. This is also the view of CLIFFORD HOWARD in his Sex Worship, chaps. v, ix, x.

[143] WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 78; SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, 41.

[144] WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 73.

[145] MCLENNAN, op. cit., I, 337; WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 76.

[146] The well-known theory of STARCKE, op. cit., 121-27. It is not essential, according to this view, in early stages of development, that a child should be actually begotten by the father. It is enough that it should be borne by his legal wife and be accepted by him. Hence the jus primae noctis, exercised by a priest, king, or other distinguished person, is sometimes regarded as an honor: ibid., 125, 126; WESTERMARCK, op. cit., 79.

On the other hand, the theory that these customs are evidences of original sexual communism has gained support from the recent researches of Spencer and Gillen in their very able and detailed book on the Native Tribes of Central Australia. Among these aborigines, the authors declare, "so far as marital relations ... are concerned, we find that whilst there is individual marriage, there are, in actual practice, occasions on which the relations are of a much wider nature. We have, indeed, in this respect three very distinct series of relationships." First we find the present "normal condition of individual marriage with the occasional existence of marital relations between the individual wife and other men of the same group as that to which her husband belongs, and the occasional existence also of still wider marital relations;" secondly "we have evidence of the existence at a prior time of actual group marriage;" and in the third place "we have evidence of the existence at a still earlier time of still wider marital relations."[147]

[147] The first series of relationships is seen in the Arunta tribe, where "no man will lend his wife to anyone who does not belong to the particular group with which it is lawful for her to have marital relations--she is, in fact, only lent to a man whom she calls Unwana, just as she calls her own husband, and though this may undoubtedly be spoken of as an act of hospitality, it may with equal justice be regarded as evidence of the very clear recognition of group relationship, and as evidence also in favor of the former existence of group marriage." A native, it is true, will sometimes lend his wife "as an act of hospitality to a white man; but this has nothing to do with the lending of wives which has just been dealt with." It "does not imply the infringement of any custom." The second relationship in the series named is of a public nature, and it is strictly regulated by custom. It consists in the defloration of a girl just before her marriage by certain men who have access to her in a definite order. These men belong to forbidden groups; that is, groups into which the woman may not marry. "The ceremonies in question are of the nature of those which Sir John Lubbock has described as indicative of expiation for marriage;" and they may be regarded as "rudimentary customs" pointing back to a stage of wider marital rights than those which now exist in these tribes. The third relationship is the license allowed on "occasions when a large number of men and women are gathered together to perform certain corrobborees," the more important gatherings lasting perhaps "ten days or a fortnight." Every day "two or three women are told off to attend at the corrobboree ground, and, with the exception of men who stand in the relation to them of actual father, brother, or son, they are, for the time being, common property to all the men present." The explanations of similar usages advanced by McLennan and Westermarck, such as phallicism, are deemed inapplicable to these cases: SPENCER AND GILLEN, Native Tribes of Central Australia, 92-111. Compare especially KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 64 ff., passim, who finds in the totem groups and classificatory systems of relationship, existing in Australia, America, and elsewhere, evidence of former group-marriage.

But these usages are capable of a very different explanation. That they imply a primitive state of promiscuity is emphatically denied by Crawley. Like sacred prostitution, the customs of avoidance, the couvade, and marriage rites in general, according to his theory, they take their rise in the religious or superstitious ideas upon which sexual taboo rests.[148]

[148] Mystic Rose, 236-66, 294-317, 347 ff., 468-85, passim. Cf. LANG, Social Origins, 87-111, passim.

Adherents of the communistic theory are not entirely at one as to the phases in the development of marriage and the family. Very generally the family, regarded from the standpoint of authority and kinship, is said to pass from the unregulated horde through the maternal and the paternal to the parental or two-sided stage.[149] Thus Dargun declares that there is a tendency for the uterine system of kinship to give place to the paternal, but never the reverse.[150] Kohler takes the same position.[151] Lippert regards the history of social culture as beginning with the natural relation of mother and child, producing in course of evolution, long before "marriage" arose, the "primitive family" whose principle is mother-right, and which, in turn, under various influences, generally yields to the "old family" (Altfamilie) in its origin based, not on relationship, but on patriarchal power and possession.[152] Bernhöft denies the invariable sequence of mother-right and father-right;[153] and Kautsky maintains that the two systems are parallel, not successive, developments from the hetairism of the primitive horde.[154]

[149] According to FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ZVR., X, 190 ff., the forms of the family are the following: (1) "die lose Familie;" (2) "die matriarchale, uterine Familie;" (3) "die patriarchale, agnatische Familie;" (4) "die moderne, zweiseitige Familie."

[150] DARGUN, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 12, 13. For exceptions, however, see his Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht, 29 ff., 35, 41, 46.

[151] KOHLER, in ZVR., III, 393; IV, 266 ff.

[152] LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 4 ff., 218 ff.; idem, Kulturgeschichte, I, 76 ff., 90.

[153] BERNHÖFT, "Zur Geschichte des eur. Familienrechts," ZVR., VIII, 401, 402.

[154] KAUTSKY, "Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 338-48, especially 347; cf. MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 172 ff.

Marriage also, like the family, is said to pass through several distinct phases of development. Thus, with respect to the number of persons joining in a household, Friedrichs distinguishes four "forms" of marriage which, with equal propriety, may be called forms of the family. These are group-marriage, polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy, the first three forms having several varieties.[155] But, as will hereafter appear,[156] it would be rash to infer that these forms necessarily arise in the order named. Again, with regard to the way in which it originates, marriage presents a number of successive stages. According to Kohler,[157] these are marriage by capture, marriage by purchase, religious marriage, and civil marriage. That wife-capture generally gives place to wife-purchase, and this in turn to marriage by gift, and then to the modern contract between the parents, or later between the parties themselves, is especially insisted upon. Hildebrand,[158] however, reverses this order. A measure of progress he finds in what he regards as the three great industrial stages of human culture: those of the chase, pastoral life, and agriculture. In the first stage, not communism, but a tendency toward monogamy prevails. There is little notion of private property; hence covetousness is not a motive of social action. Marriages are freely formed through presents given to the parents, or even without them by simple agreement of the parties. Later, with the rise of private property, marriage by purchase and marriage by capture come into existence; though capture is always exceptional and of comparatively little importance in the history of marriage.

[155] FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ZVR., X, 256-58.

[156] See below, chaps. iii, iv.

[157] "Wie die Ehe aus der Ueberwältigung der Frau durch den Mann hervorging, und wie sie sich von da aus zum Frauenkaufe gestaltete; wie sie zur religiösen Heilanstalt wurde und wie sie von da aus zum geläuterten Rechtsinstitute umbildete, indem die religiöse Feier nicht mehr obligat blieb, ... lehrt uns das indische Recht klarer, als jedes andere."--"Indisches Ehe- und Familienrecht," ZVR., III, 342, 343.

[158] HILDEBRAND, Ueber das Problem einer algemeinen Entwicklungsgeschichte, 14 ff., 17 ff.; idem, Recht und Sitte auf den versch. Kulturstufen, 9 ff.

Similar to the view of Hildebrand, in respect to the initial stage, is the theory of Kautsky.[159] The starting-point is the horde. In this absolute equality of the sexes prevails; and the only divisions are the different generations. Neither the maternal nor the paternal line is recognized, for the children belong to the group. Not promiscuity, but "hetairism,"[160] or rather "hetairistic monogamy," exists. Incessant feuds, however, lead to wife-capture; and wife-capture tends directly to communism, for the captured woman belongs as a slave to the band. But the rights of the band may pass to the individual. The free native woman is "wooed;" the war-captive is "fought-for;" and so she becomes the slave-wife of the strongest, who may win other wives in the same way. Marriage by capture thus conquers the original monogamy, in whose place polygyny appears, either at once, or after a transition-period of community in women. Moreover, in this process may be discerned the genesis of modern individual marriage under the sanction of the law. But the consequences of wife-capture are not yet exhausted. The presence in the horde of women taken from several neighboring bands leads at once to the formation of clans and to the matriarchate; for the connection of children with the clan is naturally determined by the mother. The development of private property produces still further results. The individual may buy his wife. She becomes his chattel; and the offspring also belong to him. Thus marriage by purchase gains the victory over wife-capture; and the patriarchate triumphs over mother-right. This is the order of development in the more war-like hordes. But wife-capture does not always precede wife-purchase as a general phase. In the more peaceful and industrious groups wife-capture does not appear at all. Here hetairistic monogamy runs its natural course. Partly under the external influence of tribes where mother-right existed as the result of wife-capture, but mainly under the powerful influence of private property, the matriarchate arose. In the earlier stage kinship with the father was disregarded or unknown. Naturally, therefore, under the new condition, name and also property were transmitted to the children through the mother, with whom their physical connection was always manifest. So it appears that the conception of private property is the basis of "hetairistic mother-right" as it is of father-right; and hetairistic mother-right, as distinguished from the mother-right which owes its origin to wife-capture, implies the precedence of woman in the family.[161] "Gynocracy and patriarchalism are therefore parallel branches of the same stem," the original hetairism of the horde: the one cannot be a further development of the other. Gynocracy, and with it polyandry, which is its result,[162] is the highest stage in the evolution of hetairistic mother-right; just as polygyny and the patriarchal family are the highest stage in the evolution of father-right or the agnatic system of kinship.[163]

[159] KAUTSKY, "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 190-207, 256-72, 329-48.

[160] KAUTSKY's use of "hetairism" for "defective" monogamy is apt to become misleading.

[161] KAUTSKY, 339.

[162] According to KAUTSKY, just as polygyny arises in a Herrschaftsverhältniss--the lordship of the man over the captured or purchased woman--so polyandry originates in an analogous relation of the woman to the man. Under gynocracy the woman chooses her husband, hence polyandry; 344-46.

[163] KAUTSKY, 347.

To the theory of Kautsky that of Dargun, already explained, bears some resemblance in important details. But Dargun rejects Kautsky's idea of original monogamy; and he does not regard wife-purchase as the necessary source of the patriarchate, though the rise of the latter was greatly favored by it; while mother-right is especially due to the uncertainty of fatherhood.[164]

[164] DARGUN, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht, 60, 61, 127, 43-52.

Hellwald--who in the general development of his subject and in many essential particulars agrees closely with Lippert[165]--seeks the elements of human sexual relations in those of the lower animals. Absolute promiscuity has never existed among men. The hetairism which prevailed was restricted to the immediate band or horde of kindred, which was probably never large. Thus in the horde there was "unregulated polygyny." To the earliest sexual relations[166] of men neither "marriage" nor "family" may properly be applied; and for them no suitable name is forthcoming. In the horde the first social institution evolved was the "mother-group" or rudimentary primitive family (Urfamilie). "Mother and child," as Lippert suggests, "these were the simplest elements of the oldest organization." For the "relation of mother and child alone is given by nature."[167] In the form of the mother-group the family, however imperfectly constituted, precedes the state in the order of growth; although it is not until society, the state, has gained permanent form that from it the historical "family" is developed.[168] Indeed, the mother-group is "lacking in everything" which distinguishes the family according to our modern conceptions.[169] The history of the "primitive family," so far as mother-right is concerned, shows two stages of evolution. The first stage is that of the mother-group strictly so called, through which, as Bachofen and Dargun declare, every race passes and in which all relationship is traced through the mother's blood.[170] Absolute unity or identity of blood is the basis of the earliest human conception of relationship. Generations or stages of seniority alone (Altersstufen), not degrees of kinship, are recognized. Members of the group are of equal blood, "consanguine."[171] Relationship with the father is as yet unknown; and there is in the outset no conception of property. Gradually, however, in the endogamous mother-group a horror of incest, of inbreeding, arises, thus leading to exogamy, which is often facilitated by the stealing of women from surrounding groups. The obtaining of foreign women next produces the clan system. Private property in land and movables arises, especially among those peoples which have attained to settled life and a knowledge of agriculture. In this way the "primitive family" enters upon its second stage--that of the matriarchate. Here we find for the first time forms of marriage and the family properly so called, although rudimentary as compared with the modern institutions. The mother ceases to be merely the center of the common life; she is now the social axis around which everything revolves. Mother-right, implying kinship as well as succession to name and property exclusively in the maternal line, becomes fully established. The matriarchate, unlike the simple mother-group, is not a universal phase through which all mankind has run. In some cases the agnatic system or father-right may have followed immediately upon the earlier stage of mother-right. Incident to the matriarchate are the polygynous and polyandrous forms of the family. With these the institution of property grew apace; and so we reach the paternal system, whose triumph is powerfully aided by wife-capture. In this stage, whatever be the form of social union--whether it be called gens, sippe, or joint-family--it rests upon the authority of the father or patriarchal lord. Following Lippert,[172] the author prefers for this patriarchal group the name "old family" (Altfamilie); and he finds its most famous examples in Hellas and Rome. Here monogamy gained the victory; and so, under the influence mainly of Stoicism and Christianity, the foundations of modern marriage and the individual family were laid.[173]

[165] For LIPPERT's development of the family see his Geschichte der Familie, and especially his excellent Kulturgeschichte, I, 71-90; II, 1-165, 505-54.

[166] HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 121, 122, 126. "Was Platz griff, war wohl ungeregelte Polygamie, welche aber ziemlich naturgemäss Polyandrie nach sich zieht, und aus dieser Vermischung jenen ehelosen Geschlechtsverkehr schuf, für welchen noch die richtige Benennung fehlt."--Ibid., 129.

[167] Ibid., 146, 150; LIPPERT, Kulturgeschichte, I, 76; idem, Geschichte der Familie, 20.

[168] HELLWALD, op. cit., 150; FRERICHS, _Zur Naturgeschichte des Menschen_, 103, 104; cf. LIPPERT, op. cit., I, 76.

[169] HELLWALD, op. cit., 151.

[170] Ibid., 151; DARGUN, Mutterrecht und Raubehe, 3; BACHOFEN, Mutterrecht, as above quoted.

[171] HELLWALD, op. cit., 158 ff., accepting MORGAN'S main conclusions in his _Systems of Consanguinity_; and opposing SCHNEIDER, _Die Naturvölker_, II, 474-77.

[172] LIPPERT, Geschichte der Familie, 218, 219, who distinguishes between the "Alt- und Gesamtfamilie" and the modern "Sonderfamilie."

[173] Of course, only a bare outline of the author's able treatise is here given. See especially Die mensch. Familie, 176 ff. ("Exogamie und Clanbildung"), 197 ff. ("Entwicklungsbedingungen und Wesen des Matriarchats"), 227 ff. ("Die Bündnissformen im Matriarchat"), 274 ff. ("Der Frauenraub und seine Folgen"), 347 ff. ("Ausbildung des Patriarchats"), 529 ff. ("Die Altfamilie").

The influence of economic forces on the evolution of matrimonial and family institutions is especially emphasized by Grosse. Restricting his examination to the conditions which lie within actual "historical or ethnological experience," he seeks to demonstrate that the "various forms of the family correspond to the various forms of economy (Wirthschaft);" that "in its essential features the character of each particular form of the family may be explained by the form of economy in which it is rooted." For the sake of clearer analysis the peoples known to history or ethnology are arranged, not in three, but in five groups according to the leading types of industrial life. These are the lower and upper hunters, the pastoral peoples, and the lower and upper cultivators of the soil.[174] But, like Kohler, Lippert, and Hellwald,[175] the author rejects the popular theory adhered to by Hildebrand, that the chase, herding, and agriculture are three successive stages of progress through which all the races of mankind have necessarily passed. For, as a matter of fact, some pastoral peoples, and even some hunters, like the Eskimo, are more advanced in culture than various peoples who are chiefly dependent upon agriculture; and some tillers of the soil, as Hildebrand concedes, may never have passed through the pastoral stage.[176] On the other hand, Grosse distinguishes two forms of the family: the individual family (Sonderfamilie), or the community of parents and children living in a lasting and exclusive marriage relation, and the great-family (Grossfamilie), which comprises, not merely parents and children, but all descendants with their families, so far as they are not separated from it by marriage or otherwise. Examples of the "great-family" are afforded by the Romans and the Chinese; while the "individual family" is practically the only form known wherever western European culture prevails. In each form of the family either the maternal or the paternal succession (Mutterfolge or Vaterfolge) may exist; but succession must not be confused with the matriarchate or with the patriarchate, each involving the idea of authority; although paternal succession usually implies paternal power, while succession in the female line does not necessarily carry with it the supremacy of the mother.

[174] "Niedere und Höhere Jäger, Viehzüchter, Niedere und Höhere Ackerbauer."--GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 25, 26.

[175] LIPPERT, op. cit., 30 ff.; KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 4, 5, where Hildebrand is criticised; HELLWALD, op. cit., 197 ff., who declares that in the history of civilization it is "undoubtedly more correct to regard, not pastoral life and agriculture, but nomadic life and settled life as the marks of two diverse culture-phases."

[176] GROSSE, op. cit., 29 ff.

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 the gens (sippe) are also found among these peoples; but they are relatively little developed. Gentes which 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 paternal gens which 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 is oppressed 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 the gens. 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 maternal gens, perhaps existing side by side with the paternal gens, is developed into a firm social, economic, and political union. In the life of the lower cultivators, if the gens thus 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]

[177] "Im Uebrigen aber bildet die Muttersippe auf dieser Culturstufe noch keine Lebens- sondern nur eine Namensgemeinschaft."--GROSSE, op. cit., 64.

[178] Ibid., 84.

[179] Ibid., 244, 245.

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 the Hordenlager or 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 (from famel, 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 originates in 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]

[180] MUCKE, Horde und Familie in ihrer urgeschichtlichen Entwickelung. Eine neue Theorie auf statistischer Grundlage (Stuttgart, 1895). Mucke is harshly reviewed by KOHLER, Urgeschichte der Ehe, 17-27.

[181] "Genossenschaft der Urzeit." He derives horde from orta, orda = "local community," "Ortsgemeinschaft," hence "order": MUCKE, viii, 40, 41, 43 ff., passim.

[182] "Raumverwandtschaften," MUCKE, 1 ff., 20-43, passim.

[183] The details of the author's argument cannot here be given. First (erster Abschnitt) he appeals to the mental processes of the child. The spaces, and consequently the relationship, arise in the child's sense-perception, the impression obtained by the infant soul of the relative distance or remoteness of persons belonging to the different ages and generations. The very inadequate evidence adduced for the former universality of such Lager arrangement (sechster Abschnitt) consists (1) of the alleged customs of modern Asiatic hordes; and (2) the remains of ship-shaped graves and dwelling-places discovered in various parts of the world. With wonderful ingenuity the author is able to explain by his theory nearly every problem connected with marriage and the family. Aside from the constructive part of his work, his criticism of other writers, though often unjust and intolerant, is sometimes acute and instructive.

[184] The brothers capture men for their sisters by way of reprisal and retaliation for stealing the latter: MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 125, 126, 111, 113 ff.

[185] But at first the man and the woman are merely slaves--there is no sexual or marriage relation whatever: ibid., 117.

[186] Ibid., 178-82. In the fourth and fifth Abschnitte (155-247) the author discusses the dissolution of the horde through the influence of the two forms of the family. The argument is involved and almost entirely a priori. It is nearly impossible to discover his conclusion as to whether a purely patriarchal or matriarchal family is differentiated in the process.

II. MORGAN'S CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY

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 hands of 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.

[187] MCLENNAN'S Studies in Ancient History appeared in 1876, being mainly a reprint of his Primitive Marriage, published January, 1865, four years later than Bachofen's book; but "it was in the spring of 1866," he says, "that I first heard of Das Mutterrecht."--Studies, I, 319.

MORGAN'S League of the Iroquois was published in 1851, and in this he describes some of the essential facts connected with his theory. In 1857, he re-examined the subject and enlarged his views (Proceedings of the Am. Association for the Advancement of Science, Part II). But it was not until 1871 that his great work on Systems of Consanguinity appeared, though accepted for publication, January, 1868. This was followed by the Ancient Society, 1877, in which his theory is fully elaborated. The Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines, 1881, was originally intended as Part V of the Ancient Society.

This is particularly true of the theories of Morgan;[188] although in his Systems of Consanguinity he 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 whose Ancient 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 the gens. The gens is 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]

[188] Referring to Lubbock's favorable view of Morgan's contributions to ethnological science, DR. STARCKE declares: "With all respect for Morgan's diligence as a collector of facts, I am more disposed to agree with McLennan that his work is altogether unscientific, and that his hypotheses are a wild dream, if not the delirium of fever."--Primitive Family, 207, 208. Cf. MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 269; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 162; and GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 3 ff. This criticism is far too severe; see KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 1 ff.; CUNOW, Australneger, chaps. v-vii, 11 ff.; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 158 ff.

[189] Ancient Society, 49-379; Houses and House-Life, 1 ff.

[190] Ancient Society, 227, 433 ff., 469. It is easy to see that this argument is fallacious, even when the rule of exogamy prevails. Cf. the criticism of STARCKE, op. cit., 275-77; BOTSFORD, Athenian Constitution, 4-7.

The earliest phase of sexual relations among primitive men is promiscuity. Following this are five successive stages 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 the classificatory and the other the descriptive. "Under the first, consanguinei are never described, but are classified into categories, irrespective of their nearness or remoteness in degree to Ego; 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.

[191] Ancient Society, 389, and on the whole subject, 382-508. In his earlier work, Systems of Consanguinity, 480 ff., MR. MORGAN gives fifteen normal stages or institutions in the evolution of marriage and the family. See also the summary in MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 251, 252; and LUBBOCK'S elaborate discussion of Morgan, Origin of Civilization, 162 ff.

[192] Ancient Society, 394; Systems of Consanguinity, 10-15; LUBBOCK, op. cit., 165.

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 Malayan system 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.

[193] Ancient Society, 383 ff., 401-23; Systems of Consanguinity, 480 ff., 488 ff., where the term "communal family" is used.

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 into gentes, 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 also classificatory.[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]

[194] Systems of Consanguinity, 131 ff., 489, 490; Ancient Society, 424-52. The Hawaiian word Pŭnalŭa means "dear friend," "intimate companion": ibid., 427.

[195] In forty North American tribes the former existence of the Punaluan family is thought to be proved by the Turanian system of consanguinity and by the right of the husband of the eldest sister to the younger sisters also: Ancient Society, 432, 436.

[196] Ibid., 424.

[197] Since the rule of exogamy as respecting the gens would permit the intermarriage of brothers and sisters. For convenience McLennan's term "exogamy" is here used to indicate prohibition of marriage within the gens.

[198] Systems of Consanguinity, 131-382. But, curiously enough, among the peoples with the Punaluan family the Malayan system of consanguinity survived: Ancient Society, 426, 427, passim. Ganowánians are the American Indians, the word meaning "bow-and-arrow people": Systems of Consanguinity, 131. Cf. MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 253, n. 1.

[199] Ancient Society, 387, 435 ff. In all more than two hundred relationships of the same person are recognized: ibid., 436.

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 a number 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]

[200] Ibid., 384 ff., 453-65. Called the "barbarian" family in Systems of Consanguinity, 490, 491.

[201] Ancient Society, 461.

[202] Ibid., 384, 465, 466; Systems of Consanguinity, 480, 491.

[203] Ancient Society, 468-97; Systems of Consanguinity, 492, 493, 3-127.

Such, sketched in hasty outline, is the symmetrical structure which the author of the Ancient Society has 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, the class-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]

[204] Published by MORGAN in _Proceedings of the Am. Academy of Arts and Science_, for 1872; and subsequently presented in full by FISON in Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 50 ff., 99 ff., 159 ff., passim; MORGAN, _Ancient Society_, 49-61. Compare MCLENNAN'S account of Australian kinship in Studies, II, 278-310, especially 304 ff.

[205] CURR, The Australian Race, I, 106-42. Cf. also KEANE, Man: Past and Present, 154, 155; and CRAWLEY, Mystic Rose, 348, 476 ff.

[206] CURR, op. cit., I, 111, 112.

[207] Ibid., 116.

[208] Ibid., 140. Compare the criticism of WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 56, 57.

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]

[209] MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 31 ff., passim.

[210] KAUTSKY, "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 194-98, 256.

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 early marriage-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]

[211] See Studies, I, 249-315; II, 304 ff.; and the reply of MORGAN, Ancient Society, 509 ff.

[212] Studies, I, 270, 271, 273.

[213] Studies, I, 277. The form of marriage referred to is Nair polyandry. So the Turanian system is referable to Thibetan polyandry. Cf. MORGAN, op. cit., 517 ff.

[214] Primitive Family, 181.

[215] Ibid., 207, 171-208. STARCKE is criticised by CUNOW, Australneger, 165, for lack of thoroughness and consistency in his examination of the classificatory systems.

[216] History of Human Marriage, chap. v, 82 ff.

[217] Ibid., 90. LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 162-203, criticises Morgan's views as to the classificatory systems and concludes that the "terms for what we shall call relationships are, among the lower races of men, mere expressions for the results of marriage customs, and do not comprise the idea of relationship as we understand it; that, in fact, the connection of individuals inter se, their duties to one another, their rights, and the descent of their property, are all regulated more by the relation to the tribe than by that to the family; that, when the two conflict, the latter must give way" (202). TYLOR, On a Method of Investigating the Development of Institutions, 261-65, discovers a close relation between exogamy and the classificatory system. Thus out of fifty-three tribes with that system thirty-three observe the rule of exogamy (264).

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] denies that 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.

[218] The so-called "Pirauru marriage" of the Dieri tribe (HOWITT, in Trans. R. S. Victoria, I, Part II, 1899, 96) and the "Dilpamali marriage" of the Kunandaburi tribe (CUNOW, Australneger, 163). Practically the same is the Piraungaru custom of the Urabunna tribe which SPENCER AND GILLEN, Native Tribes of Central Australia, 61 ff., regard as a "modified form of group-marriage."

[219] CUNOW, op. cit., 161, 163-65.

[220] Idem, Australneger, 176.

[221] On the three Altersclassen or Altersschichtungen, see ibid., 25 ff. The present class-system of the Kamilaroi, the author believes, is not older than the rise of the gentile organization. "Originally the division into classes by no means served, as Morgan and Fison assume, to exclude sexual intercourse between near collateral kindred, but to prevent cohabitation between relatives in the ascending and descending line, between parents and children, uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, etc." Cf. as to the main point the somewhat similar views of HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 158 ff.; LIPPERT, Kulturgeschichte, I, 81-83; and KAUTSKY, Kosmos, XII, 196-98.

[222] CUNOW, op. cit., 161, 162: Among backward tribes parents are distinguished from parents' brothers and sisters; and own children from the children of own brothers and sisters.

[223] Ibid., 25. See the somewhat similar conclusion of ATKINSON, The Primal Law, 280-94; and compare the criticism of CUNOW by LANG, Social Origins, 37, 112-18.

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 and vice 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," the author 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]

[224] KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 3, 14 ff., 151 ff. This paper supplements the author's earlier Recht der Australneger, ZVR., VII, 321 ff., 329 ff., 337 ff., where Fison's general conclusions are accepted and the literature cited.

[225] "Der Totemglaube gehört zu den bildensten, lebensvollsten, religiösen Trieben der Menschheit. In dem Totemismus liegt die künftige Familien- und Staatenbildung im Keime."--KOHLER, op. cit., 27.

[226] Ibid., 62.

[227] Ibid., 39 ff., 41, 53 ff., 64, 65.

[228] Ibid., 65, 163, 164.

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 of others." It is a device for limiting and defining the inter-marriage of persons supposed to be of common blood.[231]

[229] SPENCER AND GILLEN, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, 56.

[230] Ibid., 56, 57. "A man can only marry women 'who stand in the relationship of nupa, that is, are children of his mother's elder brother's blood or tribal, or, what is the same thing, of his father's elder sister.'" The mother of a man's nupa is "mura to him and he to her, and they must not speak to one another." This applies to a possible mother, i. e., the sister of the father: ibid., 61, 62.

[231] Op. cit., 58.

Crawley likewise holds that the terms of the classificatory systems "are terms of kinship and not terms of address;" although being "in origin terms of relation," 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]

[232] Mystic Rose, 473, 474.

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]

[233] In general on the Australian class-systems see further, TYLOR, Early History of Mankind, 288; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, chap. iv; KOVALEVSKY, Tableau, 13 ff.; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 104 ff., BERNHÖFT, in ZVR., IX, 6 ff.; MCLENNAN, Studies, II, 304 ff., where the reports of Grey, Ridley, and other observers are summarized; GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 49 ff., 58 ff., who, in the main, accepts Curr's conclusions; DAWSON, Australian Aborigines, 1, 2, 26-40; FOREST, "Marriage Laws of N. W. Australia," Report 2d Meeting of Aust. Association Adv. Sci. (1890), 653, 654; FISON, "Group-Marriage and Relationships," ibid., 4th Meeting (Tasmania, 1893), 688-97, criticising Westermarck, 717-20, criticising McLennan; MATHEW, "Australian Aborigines," Jour. R. S. N. S. Wales, XXIII, 335-49, criticising Morgan and McLennan. Consult also the references in the Bibliographical Note at the head of the chapter.

For further discussion of Morgan's researches see BERNHÖFT, Verwandtschaftsnamen und Eheformen; POSADA, Théories modernes, 52-57; SCHROEDER, Das Recht in der geschlechtl. Ordnung, 18 ff.; CUNOW, Australneger, v-vii, 11 ff.; GROSSE, op. cit., 3 ff.; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 158 ff.; BEAUCHAMP, "Aboriginal Communal Life in America," _Am. Antiquarian_, IX, 343-50, attacking Morgan's views, holding that proper communism is not found among the red Indians; GIRAUD-TEULON, Les origines du mariage, 92-101, 169 ff.; FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 99, 101, 149, 316 ff., who, for the Australian groups, sustain Morgan as opposed to McLennan; WAKE, op. cit., 15, 19, 112, 266 ff., 297 ff.; LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 432, 433, who accepts Morgan's five forms of the family; KOVALEVSKY, op. cit., 9, 10; MAINE, Early Law and Custom, 195 ff., passim; PESCHEL, Races of Man, 224, 228 ff., who rejects Morgan's conclusions; LUBBOCK, "Development of Relationships," _Jour. Anth. Inst._, Feb., 1871.

III. McLENNAN'S CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY

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.

[234] Studies in Ancient History, I, viii, 83-146. McLennan's views are somewhat modified and further developed in his Patriarchal Theory, notably in chaps. xii and xiii, 181-242; and a mass of new material is presented in his Studies, 2d ser. (1896).

[235] In his two earlier works McLennan is vague as to the exact meaning of "promiscuity" and "polyandry;" but in his letter to Darwin (1874), Studies, II, 50-56, he defines these terms, so that, in effect, he makes important concessions to the adherents of early monogamy and polygyny and to those critics who have questioned his theory of universal phases of progress. He says, referring to the first series of Studies: "The import of my reasoning is that more or less of it [promiscuity] and of indifference must appear in the hordes or their sections or some of them." It is used to "denote the general conduct as to sexual matters of men without wives.... Now I agree with you that from what we know of human nature we may be sure that each man would aim at having one or more women to himself, and cases would occur wherein for a longer or shorter time the aim would be realized, and there would be instances of what we may call polygyny and monogamy--your first stage.... I take it, polygyny, monogamy, and polyandry (or its equivalents) must have occurred in every district from the first;" but the cases of polyandry would be much more numerous. "Polyandry, in my view, is an advance from, and contraction of, promiscuity. It gives men wives. Till men have wives they may have tastes, but they have no obligations in matters of sex. You may be sure polygyny in the early stage never had the sanction of group opinion." This late explanation does not, however, relieve the author from responsibility for the misleading statements or obscurities of his earlier works. Cf. the rather too appreciative review of the second series of Studies by PROFESSOR GIDDINGS, in Annals of the Am. Academy, IV, 97-100.

[236] Studies, I, 83, 88-90.

[237] Ibid., chap. viii.

[238] On the three systems of kinship see POST, Familienrecht, 6 ff.

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 by female 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.

[239] MCLENNAN, op. cit., I, 83, 84.

[240] Ibid., 90, 91, 75-77; II, 77-80. After the appearance of totem groups, infanticide would be checked by the blood-feud: ibid., I, 145.

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 "totem gens" 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]

[241] Ibid., 91-93.

[242] On totemism see MCLENNAN, Patriarchal Theory, 206, 207, 227-29, 230-36; Studies, II, 368 ff., passim; MORGAN, Ancient Society, 49 ff., who gives many facts relating to totem gentes among the American Indians and elsewhere; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, Index; FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 40-49, 165-71, who criticise LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 210, 338 ff., 263; STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 20 ff., 29 ff., passim; TYLOR, _Primitive Culture_, I, 42, 213, 215. WESTERMARCK, _Human Marriage_, chap, ix, denies that tattooing is fundamentally connected with totemism, and holds that it is a form of ornamentation to serve as a means of sexual attraction. Cf. MUCKE, Horde und Familie, 77; PLOSS, _Das Weib_, I, 94 ff.; 196 ff.; BACHOFEN, Mutterrecht, 335; FRASER, Totemism; idem, Golden Bough, III, 416 ff.; CRAWLEY, Mystic Rose, 249, 398, 457, 470; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 190 ff.; FLETCHER, "A Study from the Omaha Tribe," _Procds. A. A. A. S._, XLVI, 325-34; idem, "Emblematic Use of the Tree in the Dakotan Group," ibid., XLV, 191-209; especially KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 27 ff.; and SPENCER AND GILLEN, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, containing the best and fullest account of the Australian forms of the institution.

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 kinship and 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, each husband considers all the 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 there are degrees 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]

[243] For MCLENNAN'S best statement as to the nature and prevalence of polyandry see his interesting letter to Darwin, Studies, II, 50-56, already mentioned.

[244] Ibid., I, 93 ff., 97, 133 ff.; II, 47-56; _Patriarchal Theory_, 267 ff. In general, on polyandry, see MARSHALL, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 190-232; STARCKE, op. cit., 128-40, 77 ff., passim; SMITH, _Kinship and Marriage_, 121 ff., 277-79; FISON AND HOWITT, op. cit., 144 ff.; WAKE, op. cit., 134-78, Index; GIRAUD-TEULON, Origines du mariage, 150 ff., 434 ff.; WESTERMARCK, op. cit., chaps, xx-xxii, 3, 115-17, 547-49; MAYNE, Hindu Law and Usage, 60 ff.; SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, I, 672-81, 641 ff.; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 79, 143 ff.; SCHMIDT, Jus primae noctis, 35, 36, 319, 320; POST, Familienrecht, 54-63; idem, Afrikanische Jurisprudenz, I, 40, 303; idem, _Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft_, 16 ff.; LETOURNEAU, L'évolution du mariage, 40, 49, 90-109; MASON, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 221, 222; MAINE, Early Law and Custom, 106, 123, 200; FRIEDRICHS, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," ZVR., VIII, 371 ff.; idem, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," ibid., X, 257, 258; MUCKE, op. cit., 181-38; KAUTSKY, "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," Kosmos, XII, 258, 264, 344-48; BERNHÖFT, in ZVR., IX, 12 ff.; KOHLER, _op. cit._, 143; GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 117 ff.; HELLWALD, op. cit., 241-61; SCHNEIDER, _Die Naturvölker_, II, 459 ff.; ACHELIS, _Entwicklung der Ehe_, 28 ff.; ELLIS, in Pop. Sci. Monthly, Oct., 1891.

[245] MCLENNAN believes this form to be wide-spread. It is found in Ceylon, among the Kasias and Saporogian Cossacks, and elsewhere. The higher and lower forms often appear together among the same people: Studies, I, 99 ff. "Beena" marriage of Ceylon is believed to be a modification of their polyandry.

[246] BUCHANAN, Journey, II, 594; MCLENNAN, op. cit., I, 102. Cf. on the Nairs, GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 150-64; STARCKE, op. cit., 83-87, 133 ff.; SMITH, Kinship and Marriage, 122; LETOURNEAU, op. cit., 99-101.

[247] Cf. SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, I, 676, 677.

[248] MARSHALL, op. cit., 210. According to FRAU JANSSEN (Globus, XLIII, 371), it is the custom for the "young wife to become the spouse of all the brothers of her husband; her first child counts as that of the eldest brother, the second as that of the second, and so forth." Cf. HELLWALD, op. cit., 246.

[249] MARSHALL, op. cit., 206, 207. To be a barudi or widow or a baruda or widower is a term of reproach: ibid., 208.

[250] Ibid., 111, 196, 213.

[251] Ibid., 221. In this regard as in many others the Todas resemble the Veddahs: SARASIN, Die Weddas von Ceylon, I, 465-67. For a good account of polyandry among the Todas and other peoples see HELLWALD, op. cit., 241 ff., 246 ff.

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-purchase or its survival is sometimes found in connection with polyandry.[254]

[252] On wife-purchase and initiation, as a means of transition to the paternal system, see MCLENNAN, Patriarchal Theory, 232-38.

[253] Thus, in Guinea, according to Bosman, in ordinary marriages, even when the wives were purchased, the children belonged to the mother. "It was customary, however, for a man to buy and take to wife a slave, a friendless person ... and consecrate her to his Bossum or god." In this case the "children would be born of his kindred and worship."--BOSMAN, Description of Guinea, 161; MCLENNAN, op. cit., 235, 236.

[254] MASON, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture, 222; ROCKHILL, Land of the Lamas, 213, 339; MARSHALL, op. cit., 210 ff., 217, 219.

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 be no 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.

[255] An "appointed daughter" is one assigned by contract in marriage to bear an heir to her father who has no son. In the Niyoga a son is begotten upon the wife, in the lifetime of the husband, by a person appointed for that purpose. The levirate and other like expedients existed also among the Hindus: Ordinances of Manu, IX, 53, 57-69, 97, 143 ff.; BURNELL AND HOPKINS, 253 ff.; "Gautama," Sacred Books of the East, II, 267 ff.; MAYNE, Hindu Law and Usage, chap. iv; MCLENNAN, Patriarchal Theory, 268, 286 ff.; LEIST, Alt-arisches Jus Gentium, 122, 123; JOLLY, The Hindu Law of Partition, 144-66; idem, Rechtliche Stellung der Frauen bei den alten Indern, 36-38 (levirate). For the Hebrew form of the levirate, see Deuteronomy 25:5-11, where the brother is required to "perform the duty of an husband's brother to the widow." The book of Ruth contains many illustrations of primitive family custom. SIR HENRY MAINE, Early Law and Custom, chap. iv, regards the Niyoga, the levirate, and similar expedients for supplying a male heir, as fictions, under the influence of the worship of male ancestors, for maintaining the agnatic family. J. D. Mayne explains the Niyoga on the theory that the lord and owner of the wife is the lord of the child, physical paternity not being essential; and the levirate is an extension of the Niyoga. MCLENNAN, op. cit., 266-339, criticises the theories of the two last-named writers. See also KOHLER, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 153; HELLWALD, Die mensch. Familie, 262, 274, 470; SCHNEIDER, Die Naturvölker, I, 25; II, 461; ACHELIS, Entwicklung der Ehe, 36 ff.; REDSLOB, Die Levirats-Ehe bei den Hebräern, 1 ff.; STARCKE, Primitive Family, 141-58, 159-70 (inheritance by brothers); SPENCER, Principles of Sociology, I, 679-81; LETOURNEAU, L'évolution du mariage, chaps. xii, xv; FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 146, 147; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 171-78, 436 ff.; especially WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 3, 510-14, who cites the literature. Various examples are mentioned in ZVR., III, 394-407, 419, 420; VI, 280 (Germany); VIII, 242; X, 81; XI, 237.

[256] MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 23, 72, 73, passim.

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]

[257] Ibid., I, 127-40, 50-71.

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 to see 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 one woman 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]

[258] Principles of Sociology, I, 641 ff. In general for criticism and summary of McLennan's views see MORGAN, Ancient Society, 509-21; MAINE, _Early Law and Custom_, 106 ff., 123, 124, 150, 192-228; GIRAUD-TEULON, Origines du mariage, 102 ff., passim; SMITH, Kinship and Marriage, 80, 118, 121, 129 ff., 230; FISON AND HOWITT, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, 23 ff., 67, 101 ff., 130 ff.; LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 102, 109, 130, 143 ff., passim; SCHURMAN, _The Ethical Import of Darwinism_, chap, vi; MASON, _Woman's Share in Primitive Culture_, chap, x; STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 94 ff., 128 ff., 141 ff., passim; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 14 ff., 58 ff., 134 ff., 253 ff., 297 ff., passim; idem, "Primitive Family," _Jour. Anth. Inst._, August, 1879; KAUTSKY, in Kosmos, XII, 258 ff.; WESTERMARCK, Index; SPENCER, _Various Fragments_, 70 ff.; GOMME, "Primitive Human Horde," Jour. Anth. Inst., XVII, 118-33; who is criticised by WAKE, "Primitive Human Horde," ibid., November, 1887, 276 ff.

[259] Such is the view of LUBBOCK, Origin of Civilization, 103, 129, 134, 135; WESTERMARCK, Human Marriage, 466, 472, 473, 547; FISON AND HOWITT, op. cit., 133 ff., 171 ff., 190, 357; WAKE, Marriage and Kinship, 75 ff. "It is not proved that the tribes which practice child-murder put to death the female infants by preference."--STARCKE, op. cit., 131 ff. Such is also the opinion of FISON AND HOWITT, loc. cit.; LUBBOCK, op. cit., 103; DARWIN, Descent of Man, II, 364, 591-93; and GIRAUD-TEULON, op. cit., 110-16. See also SMITH, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, 129, 130, 279-85; FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen," ZVR., X, 219-37; PLOSS, Das Kind, II, 243-64; idem, Das Weib, I, 250, 251; GROSSE, Die Formen der Familie, 36; SCHNEIDER, Die Naturvölker, I, 297 ff.; MARTIN, Hist. de la femme, 3 ff.; and various examples in ZVR., VII, 355, 374; IX, 14 ff. (Todas); X, 122; XI, 427 (Kamerun); BROUARDEL, L'infanticide (Paris, 1897); MARSHALL, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 108 ff., 190 ff.; NELSON, "The Eskimo about Bering Strait," in XVIII. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., Part I, 289; CHAMBERLAIN, The Child, etc., 110 ff.

In his second series of Studies, 74, 111, MCLENNAN defends his view as to the prevalence of female infanticide and presents a mass of facts relating to it among many peoples. FARRER, Early Wedding Customs, 224, denies that infanticide is the cause of exogamy.

[260] SPENCER, op. cit., I, 646.

[261] Ibid., 646, 647. But McLennan meets this difficulty by insisting that wife-stealing, among polyandrous peoples would lead to polygyny on the part of the most successful. This would also explain the inconsistency alleged by SPENCER (648) that polygyny and polyandry sometimes coexist, as among Fuegians, Caribo, Eskimo, Warrens, Hottentots, and the ancient Britons. See MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 145, 146; and cf. POST, Familienrecht, 62.

[262] SPENCER, op. cit., I, 649.

[263] Primitive Family, 132. Other objections are brought forward by this able writer. "It has been suggested that the motive for the murder of female infants is the fear of becoming the object of the predatory instincts of other tribes; whence we must conclude that the tribe which keeps its women alive is tolerably strong; those tribes which lack women cannot, therefore, obtain them by violence to any great extent. It also seems to be a strange thing to kill the female infants from a dread of being exposed to attack, and at the same time to seek to increase the number of women by carrying them off by violence from other tribes."--Ibid., 132.

[264] SPENCER, op. cit., I, 644.

[265] MCLENNAN, Studies, I, 78-80, 124, 142-45, 147 ff.; II, 57 ff. Cf. his article on "Exogamy and Endogamy," Fortnightly Review, XXI, 884 ff., where he seems to waver somewhat in his conclusions on this point.

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.

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