i'ifectiiaUy, and are tlms, rdathdif to the temporary reqturemetUs^ the liighest. Sach requirements, howeTer, are bat temponuy Formation of larger social aggregates, increase of industrialism and decrease oC militancy, gradoallj bring aboot a state in which the lives of societies do not depend mainly on their poirers of dealing offensively and defenaively with other societies, bat depend mainly on those powers which enaKLe them to hold their own in the straggle of indastrud competition. So that, rdaticely to these ultimate requirements, societies become hi^ in proportion to the evolation of their indostrial systems, and not in proportion to the evolution of those centralized regulating systems fitting them for carrying on wars. In animals, then, the measure of superiority remains tlie same throughout, because the ends to be achieved remain the same throughout; but in societies the measure of superiority is entirely changed, because the ends to be achieved are entirely changed. This answer prepares the way for an answer to a previous objection M. Marion makes. I have pointed out that whereas, in the individual organism, the component units, mostly devoid of feeling, carry on their activities for the welfare of certain groups of units (forming the nervous centres) which monopolize feeling; in the social organism, all the units are endowed with feeling And I have added the coroUiuy, that whereas, in the individuu organism, the nnits exist for the benefit of the aggregate, in the social organism the aggregate exists for the benefit of the units. M. Marion, after indicating these views, expresses his astonishment that, having so clearly recognized this difference, I after- wards take so little account of it, and do not regard it as affecting the analogies I draw. The reply is that my recognition of this profound difference between the ends to be subserved by individual organiza- tions and by social organizations, has caused the seemingly-anomalous estimation of social types explained above. Social or^nization is to be considered high in proportion as it subserves individual welilBure, because in a society the units are sentient and the aggregate insen- tient; and the industrial tjpe is the higher because it subserves inifi* vidufli welfare better than tne militant type. During the progressive stages of militancy, the welfare of the aggregate takes precedence of the wefiare of the individual, because his life depends on preservation of the aggregate from destruction by enemies; and hence, under the mUitant^rt^'^tin^, the individual, regarded as existing for the benefit of the State, has his personal welfare consulted only so mr as consists with maintaining the power of the State. But as the necessity for self-preser- vation of the society in conflict with other societies, decreases, and indus- trialism increases, the subordination of individual welfare to corporate welfare, becomes less and less; and finally, when tlie aggregate has no longer external dangers to meet, the organization proper to complete industrialism which it acquires, conduces to individual wel&re in the greatest degree. The industrial type, with its de-centralized structures, 18 the highest, because it is the one which most subserves the ends to be achieved by social organization, as distinguished from the ends to be achieved in individual organization by centralized structoree.
PART III.
THE DOMESTIC BELAII0N8.
sos^ CHAPTER I.
THE MAINTENANCE OF SPECIES.
§ 272. As fall understanding of tlie social relations oannot be gained without studying their genesis, so neither can full understanding of the domestic relations; and fully to understand the genesis of the domestic relations, we must go further back than the history of man carries us.
Of every species it is undeniable that individuals which die must be replaced by new individuals, or the species as a whole must die. No less obvious is it that if the death-rate in a species is high, the rate of multiplication also must be high, and conversely. And as this due pro- portioning of reproduction to mortality is requisite for mankind as for every other kind, we may infer that the facts exhibited by living beings in general must be con- sidered before the meanings of the facts exhibited by human beings can be completely comprehended.
§ 278. Regarding the continued life of the species as in every case the end to which all others are subordinate (for if the species disappears all other ends disappear), let us look at the several modes there are of achieving this end. The requirement that the full number of adults shall arise in successive generations, may be fulfilled in variously - modified ways, which subordinate the existing and next- succeeding members of the species in various degrees.
Low creatures having small powers of meeting the lifedettroying actmtieB aroundy and still tanallpr pciweta of fnrotectiiig progeny^ can utaintiain tiieir kinda only if tlie mature indrndoal prodooeB the genna of nev indrridaBls in inuneoae numbers; ao that, improiected and deCenccloas aa the germs arc, one or two maj esc^ie deabnctaan. Manifestly, the larger the pari ct the paientid sabatenoe tranaformed into germs (and often the great maas of it so transformed), the smaller is the part Aat can be devoted to indiyidnsl life.
With each germ, nsoaUy oontained in an OYum, is laid np some nntritiTe matter, avaiLible for growth before it com* mences its own straggle for existence. From a giren quantity of matter devoted by the parent-organism to repro- dnction, there may be formed either a larger nnmber of germs with a smaller quantity of nntritiTe matter eaidi, or a smaller number witha larger quantity each. Hienoe result differences in the rates of juvenile mortality. Here of a ' million minute ova left uncared for, the majority are destroyed before they are hatched; multitudes of the remainder, with the feeblest powers of getting food and evading enemies, die or are devoured soon after they are hatched; so that very few have considerable amounts of individual life. Conversely, when the conditions to be met by the species make it advantageous that there should be fewer ova and more nutriment bequeathed to each, the young individuals, beginning life at more advanced stages of development, survive longer: the species is main- tained without the sacrifice of so many before arrival at maturity.
All varieties in the proportions of these factors occur. An adult individual, the single survivor from hundreds of thousands of germs, may itself be almost wholly sacrificed individually in the production of germs equally numerous; in which case the species is maintained at enormous cost, both to adults and to young. Or the adult, devoting but a moderate portion of its substance to the.production of THE MAINTENANCE OF SPECIES. 623 germs^ may enjoy a considerable amount of life; in which case the cost of maintaining the species is shown in an im- mense mortality of the yonng. Or the adult^ sacrificing its substance almost entirely, may produce a moderate number of ova severally well provided with nutriment and well pro- tected, among which the mortality is not so great; and in this case the cost of maintaining the species &ll8 more on the adult and less on the young.
§ 274. Thus while, in one sense, the welfare of a species depends on the welfare of its individuals, in another sense, the welfare of the species is at variance with the welfare of its individuals; and further, the sacrifice of individuals may tell in different proportions on the undeveloped and on the mature.
Already in the Principles of Biology, §§ 819 — 61, the* antagonism between Individuation and Genesis under its general aspects has been set forth. Here certain of its special aspects concern us. To comprehend them clearly, which we shall find it important to do, we must look at them more closely.
CHAPTER n.
FHK DIVERSE INTERESTS OF THE SPECIES, OF THE PARENTS, AND OF THE OFFSPRINO.
§ 275. Among tlie microscopic Protozoa, there is per- petual spontaneous fission. After a few hours of inde- pendent existence^ each individual is sacrificed in producing two new individuals, which, severally growing, soon them- selves repeat the process. And then from time to time there occurs a still more extreme form of reproductive dissolution: after a period of quiescence the entire body breaks up into g^rms whence arise a new generation. Here, then, a parental life extremely brief, disappears absolutely in the lives of progeny.
Animal aggregates of the second order show us sundry ways in which this actual transformation of the parental body into the bodies of ofispring takes place; though now, of course, at much longer intervals. Among the CoBlsnterata, there is the case of certain meduscB, where the polype-like body of the parent, or quasi-parent, after reaching a cer- tain growth, changes into a series of segments, like a pile of saucers, each of which, developing in turn, swims away and becomes a medusa. In these and allied cases of cyclical generation, it may, however, be held that, as the medusa is the adult form, the body of an unsexual indi- vidual is sacrificed in producing these partially-developed sexual individuals. A kindred result is achieved DIV£B8K INTSBB8TS OF SFBCIIS, PABXNTS, XTC. 625 in a different manner among some trematode eniozoa. Evolved far enough to have head, appendages, and ali- mentary system, a Oercaria presently transforms the whole of its internal substance into yoang Oercarice substantially like itself; and^ eventually bursting, sets them free, severally to pursue the same course. Finally, after two or three generations so produced, complete individuals are formed.
Different in method, but showing us in an equal degree the dissolution of a parent's body into portions that are to continue the race, is the mode of reproduction in the ces- toid entozoa, A segment of a tape-worm, known as a pro- glottis in its adult and separated state, has then a life shown only by a feeble power of movement. It has descended from one out of myriads of eggs produced by a preceding tape- worm; and is itself, at the time of becoming an independent individual, nothing more than a receptacle for innumerable eggs. Without limbs, without senses, without even alimentaiy system, its vitality is scarcely higher than that of a plant; and it dies as soon as its contained masses of ova are ma- tured. Here we have an extreme instance of subordination both of adult and young to the interests of the species.
Ascending now to higher types, let us take a few examples from the Articulaia, Many kinds of parasitic crustaceans^ such as the Lemea, pass through a brief early stage during which the young individual swims about. Nearly always it then dies; but if it succeeds in fixing itself on a fish, it loses its limbs and senses, and, doing nothing but absorb nutriment from the fish, evolves enormous ovisacs. Bud- ding out from the sides of its body, these by and by greatly exceed its body in bulk: the parental life is lost in pro- ducing multitudinous eggs. An instance analogous in result, though somewhat different in method, occurs even among insects. Having no higher life than is implied by sucking in the juices of the cactus over which it creeps, the female cochineal insect develops, as it approaches maturity, masses of ova which eventually fill its interior; and gradually, 626 THB DOICISTIC BJIIATIOKS.
as its substance is absorbed into the oya^ it dies ttid leaves the shell of its body as a protective envelope for them: whence issaing^ ninety -nine are devoured for one that sor- rives. Among superior insects, along with per* haps an equal sacrifice of young, the sacrifice of adults is less. After a larval stage during which the vital activities are relatively low and the mortality high, there comes, for the one survivor out of hundreds, an active maturity. This, however, is brief — ^sometimes lasting but for a few days; and after the deposition of eggs, life forthwith ceases.
The Vertebrata will furnish such further illustrations as are needed. In this class the sacrifice of parental life to the maintenance of the species, is in few if any cases direct. A cod produces above a million eggs, and, surviving, does this year after year; but whUe the life of the parent is preserved, nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and more of the progeny have their Hves cut short at various stages on the way to maturity. In higher types of the class, producing comparatively few eggs that are better provided for, this sacrifice of the rising generation to the interests of the species is much less; and for the like reason it is much less also in the next highest group of vertebrates, the Am^ phibia, Passing-to Birds, we find preservation of the race secured at a greatly-diminished cost to both parents and offspring. The young are so well fostered that out of a small number most grow up; and here perhaps a half, and there perhaps a fourth, reach the reproductive stage. Further, the lives of parents are but partially subordinated at times when the young are being reared. And then there are long intervals between bt^eeding-seasons, during which the Hves of parents are carried on for their own sakes. In the highest class of vertebrates, the Mammalia, regarded as a whole, we see a like general advance in this concilia- tion of the interests of the species, the parents, and the young; and we also see it within the class itself, on ascend- ing from its lower to its higher types. A small rodent reaches maturity in a few months; andj prodacing large and frequent broods^ soon dies: there is but a short early period during which the female lives for herself^ and she mostly loses life before the reproductive age is past^ so having no latter days unburdened by offspring. Turning at once to the other extreme we find an immense contrast. Between twenty and thirty years of the young elephant's life passes entirely in individual development and activity. The tax of bearing offspring, relatively few and at long intervals, subordinates in but a moderate degree the life of the adult female. And though our knowledge does not enable us to say how long life lasts after the reproductive age is past, yet, considering that the powers remain adequate for sus- tentation and self-defence, we may infer that the female elephant usually enjoys a closing series of many years; while the male is throughout life scarcely at all taxed.
§ 276. In yet another way does evolution decrease the saorifice of individual life to the life of the species. The material cost of reproduction involves an equivalent sub- traction from individual development and activity, for which among low types there is no compensation; but as we ascend through higher types we find an increasing compen- sation in the shape of parental pleasures.
Limiting our illustrations to vertebrate animals, we see that by most fishes and amphibians, the spawn, once deposited, is left to its fate: there is great physical expense, and if no subsequent efforts are entailed, there are also none of the accompanying gratifications. It is otherwise with birds and mammals. While the rearing of offspring entails labour on one or both parents, the parental life, though thereby in one way restricted, is in another way extended; since it has become so moulded to the requirements, that the activities of parenthood are sources of agreeable emotions, just as are the activities which achieve self-sustentation.
When from the less intelligent of these higher vertebrates 628 THE DOMIBTIC BIL1TX0N8.
which produce many young at short internals, and have to abandon them at early ages, we ascend to the more in* telligent which produce few young at longer intervals, and give them aid for longer periods; we perceive that, while the rate of juvenile mortality is thus diminished, there results both a lessened physical cost of maintaining the species, and an augmented satisfaction of the affections.
§ 277. Here, then, we have definite measures by which to determine what constitutes advance in the relations of parents to ofispriDg and to one another. In proportion as organisms become higher in their structures and powers, they are in- dividually less sacrificed to the maintenance of the species; and the implication is that in the highest type of man this sacrifice is reduced to a minimum.
Commonly, when discussing the domestic relations, the welfare of those immediately concerned is almost exclusively regarded. The goodness or badness of g^ven connexions between men and women, is spoken of as though the effects on the existing adult generation were chiefly to be con- sidered; and, if the effects on the rising generation are taken into aq^unt, little if any thought is given to the effects which future generations will experience. This order has, as we see, to be reversed.
Family organizations of this or that kind have first to be judged by the degrees in which they help to preserve the social aggregates they occur in; for, in relation to its com- ponent individuals, each social aggregate stands for the species. Mankind survives not through arrangements which have reference to it as a whole, but by survival of its separate societies; each of which struggles to maintain its existence in presence of other societies. And the survival of the race, achieved through the survival of its constituent societies, being the primary requirement, the domestic ar- rangements most conducive to survival in each society^ must be regarded as relatively appropriate.
In SO far as it consists witli preservation of the society, tlie nextliighest end is raising the largest number of healthy offspring &om birth to maturity. The qualification does not seem needed; but we shall find evidence that it is needed. Societies, and especially primitive groups, do not always thrive by unchecked increase in their numbers; but, contrariwise, in some cases preserve themselves from ex- tinction at the cost of increased mortality of the young.
After welfare of the social group and welfare of progeny, comes welfare of parents. That form of marital relation must in each case be held the best which, subject to these preceding requirements, farthers most, and burdens least, the lives of adult men and women.
And as a last end to be contemplated comes that further- ance of individual life which we see when the declining years of parents, elongated and made pleasurable by off- spring, iJiso become sources of pleasure to those offspring.
Uniting these propositions, we draw the corollary that the highest constitution of the family is reached when there is such conciliation between the needs of the society and those of its members, old and young, that the mortality between birth and the reproductive age falls to a minimum, while the lives of adults have their subordination to the rearing of children reduced to the smallest degree. The diminution of this subordination takes place in three ways: first, by elongation of that' period which precedes repro- duction; second, by decrease in the number of offspring borne and reared, as well as by increase of the pleasures taken in the care of them; and third, by lengthening of the life that follows cessation of reproduction.
This ideal of the family suggested by a survey of the sexual and parental relations throughout the organic world, is also the ideal to which comparisons between the lower and the higher stages of human progress point. In savage tribes we habitually find great juvenile mortality: there is commonly more or less infanticide; or there are many earl J deKths from mfiiTDiErmble cofoditioiis; or time are both. Agidn, these inferior races are charactmaed Ytj earlj matoritj and commencing reprodaction; implying sihort- nesa of that first period during which the indrridnal life is carried on for its own sake. YThile fertilitj laats^ the tax, especiall J on the women, who are also exhausted bj dradgeries, is great. "Hie marital and parental rdaJtiaoE are sources of pleasures neither so high nor so prolonged as in the cirilixed races. And then after children have been reared, the remaining life of eithor sex is brief: often being ended by yiolenoe; often bj ddiberate desertion; and other- wise by rapid decay unchecked by filial care.
We are thus famished with both a relatire standard and an absolute standard by which to measure the domestk; relations in each stage of social progress. While, judging them relatiYely by their adaptations to the aooompanying social requirements, we may be led to regard as needful in their times and places, arrangements that are repugnant to us; we shall, judging them absolutely, in relation to ike most dereloped types of life, individual and national, find good reasons for reprobating them. For this preliminary survey clearly reveals the fact that the domestic relations which are the highest as ethically considered, are also tiie highest as considered both biologically and sociologically.* * Thi« feemi the fifciert place for naming an impcntuit snggestioD made bj an American adherent of mine, late Lectnrer on Fhiloeophy at Hanrard Uiii- Territj, Mr. John Fiske^ respecting the truuition from the gregariouneB of anthropoid ereatnrei to the iodality of hnman beings, caused by the rela- tions of parents to offspring. (See OmUimet <^ Cdamie Phiiotapkf, voL il, pp. 342^) Postnlating the general law that in proportion as organ- is'ns are complex thej evolve slowly, he infers that the prolongation of infancy which accompanied development of the less intelligent primatei into the more intelligent ones, implied greater duration of parental eaie^ Children, not so soon capable of providing fiir themselves, had to be loogiv nnrtnred by female parents, to some extent aided by male parents, individnall^ or jointly; and hence resulted a bond holding together parents and offspring tor longer periods, and tending to initiate the family. That this has been a oo-operating factor in social evolution, is highly probable.
CHAPTER III.
PBIMITIYK ABLATIONS OV THE SEXES.
§ 278. Most readers will have thonglit it strange to begin an account of the domestic relations by surveying the most general phenomena of race-maintenance. But they may see the propriety of setting out with a purely natural-history * yiewj on being shown that among the lowest savages the relations of the sexes differ in no marked ways from those common among inferior creatures.
The males of gregarious mammals usually fight for pos- session of the females; and primitive men do not in this respect differ from other gregarious mammals. Hearne tells us of the Chippewayans that '' it has ever been the custom among these people for the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they were attached.^' According to Hooper, as quoted by Bancroft, a Tuski, desiring another one's wife, fights with her husband. Of the Bushmen, lichtenstein writes — '' the stronger man will sometimes take away the wife of the weaker.^' So again, Narcisse Peltier, who from twelve years of age up to twenty-nine was detained by a tribe of Queensland Australians, states that the men " not unf requently fight with spears for the possession of a woinan.'' And summing up the accounts of the Dogrib Indians, Sir John Lubbock says — ^' In fact, the men fight for the possession of the women, just like stags.''
Nor is it on the part of males only, that this practice 632 THE BOMSSTTC BEIATIONS.
exists. Peltier tells ns that in the above-named tribe^ the women, of whom from two to five commonly belong to eadi man, fight among themselves about him: " their weapons being heavy staves with which they beat one another about the head till the blood flows/' And the trait of feminine nature thus displayed, is congruous with one indicated by Mitchell, who says that ''after battle, it frequently happens nmong the native tribes of Australia, that the wives of the conquered, of their own free will, go over to the victors": reminding us of the lioness which, quietly watching the fight between two lions, goes off with the conqueror.
We have thus to begin with a state in which the &mily, as we understand it, can scarcely be said to exist. In the loose groups of men first formed, there is no established order of any kind: everything is indefinite, unsettled. As the relations of men to one another are undetermined, so are the relations of men to women. In either case there are no guides save the passions of the moment, checked only by fears of consequences. Let ns glance at the facts which show the relations of the sexes to have been originally unregulated 'by the institutions and ideas we commonly regard as natural § 279. According to Sparman, there is no form of union between Bushmen and Bushwomen save " the agreement of the parties and consummation.^' Keating tells us that the Ghippewas have no marriage ceremony. Hall says the same thing of the Esquimaux, Bancroft of the Aleuts, Brett of the Arawaks, Tennent of the Yeddahs, and the Lower Calif ornians, Bancroft says, ''have no marriage ceremony, nor any word in their language to express marriage. Like birds or beasts, they pair off according to &ncy.''
Even where a ceremony is found, it is often nothing more than either a forcible or a voluntary commencement of living together. Very generally there is a violent seizure of the woman by the man — a capture; and the marriage is ooncladed by the completion of this capture. In some cases the man and woman light a fire and sit by it; in some cases^ as among the Todas^ the union is established when the bride performs " some trifling household function '/^ in some cases, as among the New Guinea people^ " the female gives her intended some tobacco and betel-leaf/' Davis says that when the Navajos desire to marry, " they sit down on opposite sides of a basket, made to hold water, filled with atole or some other food, and partake of it. This simple proceeding makes them husband and wife.'' Nay, we have the like in the old Boman form of confarreatio — marriage constituted by jointly eating cake. These indications that the earliest marriage-ceremony was merely a formal com- mencement of living together, imply a preceding time when the living together began informally.
Moreover, such domestic union as results is so loose, and often so transitory, as scarcely to constitute an advance. In the Chippewayan tribes '^ divorce consists of neither more nor less than a good drubbing, and turning the woman out of doors." The Peric6i (Lower Galifomian) *' takes as many women as he pleases, makes them work for him as slaves, and when tired of any one of them turns her away.*' Similarly, according to Southey, when one of the Tupis ''was tired of a wife, he gave her away, and he took as many as he pleased.'' Bonwick tells us that for Tas- manians not to change their wives, was ''novel to their habits, and at variance with their traditions." Of the Kasias, Yule alleges that '' divorce is so frequent that their unions can hardly be honoured with the name of marriage." Even peoples so advanced as the Malayo-Poly- nesians furnish kindred facts. In Thompson's New Zealaiid we read that '' men were considered to have divorced their wives when they turned them out of doors." And Ellis, confirming Cook, says that in Tahiti " the marriage tie was dissolved whenever either of the parties desired it." It may be added that this careless breaking of marital bonds is 684 THS MBMmc BBUiTunra.
not peodkr to men. Where women hnTe t]ie power^ as asottg the above-named Kaaias, thej cavalierly tarn their hoflbands oat of doors if €bef displease them; and Hetren tells US that the like happened with some of the Aucwit Mexicans.
These facts^ whidi might be supported bj many othorsy show ns clearly enough that the marital reh^ns, like the political relations, have gradually erolyed; and that there did not at first exist those ideas and feelings which anumg civilized nations give to marriage its sanctity.
§ 280. Absence of these ideas and feelings is further shown by the prevalence in rode societies of praciices which are to us in the highest degree repngnant.
Yarions of the anciviUaed and semi-civilized display hos- pitality by furnishing guests with temporary wives. Her- rera tells us of the Gumana people, that '' the great men kept as many women as they pleased, and gave the beauti- fuUest of them to any stranger they entertained.'^ Savages habitually thus give their wives and daughters. Among such Sir John Lubbock enumerates the Esquimaux, North and South American Indians, Polynesians, Eastern and Western Negroes, Arabs, Abyssinians, Kaffirs^ Mongols, Tutski, etc. Of the Bushman wife Sparman tells us that when the husband gives her permission, she may go whitiier she will, and associate with any other man. Of the Oreenland Es- quimaux, Egede, as quoted by Sir John Lubbock, expressly states that '' those are reputed the best and noblest tem- pered who, without any pain or reluctancy, will lend their friends their wives."