Akin is the feeling shown by placing little or no value on chastity in the young. Li Beng^ela (Congo), according to Bastian, poor maidens were led about before marriage, in order to acquire money by prostitution. Prom Herrera we learn that the Mexicans had an identical custom: ''parents used when the maidens were marriageable, to send them to PBIMITITI BUiinONS OV TBI SIZES^ 63S earn their portions, and accordinglj they ranged about the oonntry in a shameful manner till they had got enough to many them oS.'' Bancroft says the ancient people of the Isthmas of Darian thought " prostitution was not infamous; noble ladies held as a maxim, that it was plebeian to deny anytl^ng asked of tiiem'^ — an idea like that of the Andam^ anese, among whom good manners are thought to lequire concessions of this kind. Equally stnmge are the marital sentiments diqibyed by oertain peoples, both extant and extinct. QftheABsanyeh Arabs, whose marriages are for so many days in the week, usually four, Petherick tells us that during a preliminary negotiation the bride's mother protests against '' binding her daughter to a due observance of that chastity which matrimony is expected to command, for more than two days in the week;'' and there exists on the part of the men a duly adapted sentiment: the husband, allowing the wife to disregard all marital obligations dur- ing the off days, even considers an intrigue with some other man as a compliment to his own taste. Some of the Chibchas of ancient Central America betrayed a kindred feeling. Not simply were they indifferent to virginity in their brides, but if their brides were virgins '' thought them unfortunate and without luck, as they had not inspired affection in men: accordingly they disliked them as miserable women.''
While lacking the ideas and feelings which regulate the relations of the sexes among advanced peoples, savages often exhibit ideas and feelings no less strong, but of quite contrary characters. The Shushwaps of Columbia hold that ** to give away a wife without a price is in the highest degree disgraceful to her family;" and; similarly, by the Modocs of CaUfomia ''the children of a wife who has co&t her husband nothing are considered no better than bastards, and are treated by society with contumely." Again, in Burtons Abeohuia, we read that ''those familiar with modes of thought in the East well know the horror and loathing with which the people generally look upon the one-wife system '' — a statement we might hesitate to re- ceiye were it not verified by that of Livingstone concern- ing the negfTO women on the Zambesi, who were shocked on hearing that in England a man had only one wife, and by that of Bailey, who describes the disgust of a Kandian chief when commenting on the monogamy of the Yeddahs.
§ 281. Still more are we shown that regular relations of the sexes are results of evolution, and that the sentiments upholding them have been gradually established, on finding how little regard is paid by many uncivilized and semi- civilized peoples to those limitations which blood-relation- ships dictate among the civilized.
Among savages, connexions which we condemn as in the highest degree criminal, are by no means infrequent. Heame says of the Chippewayans that many of them '' cohabit occa- sionally with their own mothers, and fre^juently espouse their sisters and daughters; " and Bancroft quotes Langsdorff as saying the like of the Kadiaks. So, too, respecting the Elarens of Tenasserim, Heler tells us that " matrimonial alli- ances between brother and sister, or father and daughter, are not uncommon to this day.'' To these cases from America and Asia may be added a case from Africa. According to Bastian, to keep the royal blood pure, the kings of Gape Gk)nzalves and (Gaboon are accustomed to marry their grown up daughters, and the queens marry the eldest sons.
Incest of the kind that is a degree less shocking is exem- plified by more numerous peoples. According to Clavigero, marriage between brother and sister was not prohibited by the Panuchese. Concerning the people of Cali, Piedrahita says that ''they married their nieces, and some of the lords their sisters." Torquemada states that " in the district of New Spain four or five cases ^^ ^^ ^^ of marriage with sisters were found." In Peru, the " Yncas from the first estab* lished it as a very stringent law and custom that the heir to the kingdom should marry his eldest sister, legitimate both PBIMITIYE BSLATIONS OF TH£ SEXES. 637 on the side of the father and the mother/' So, too, in Poly- nesia, Ellis tells us of the Sandwich Islanders, that near consanguineoas marriages are frequent in the royal family — brothers and sisters sometimes marrying. Describing the customs of the Malagasy, Drury says " the nearest of kin marry, even brother and sister, if they have not the same mother/' Nor do we lack instances among ancient peoples of the old world. *' That the restriction [prohibiting mar- riage with a uterine sister] was not observed in £gypt, we have sufficient evidence from the marriages of several of the Ptolemies,'' says Wilkinson. Even our own Scandi- navian ancestors allowed incest of this kind. It is stated in the Heitnshringla Saga that Niord took his own sister in marriage, ''for that was allowed by" the Yanaland law.
It may be said that certain of these unions are with half- sisters (like the union of Abraham and Sarah); that such occurred among the Canaanites, Arabians, Egyptians, Assy- rians, Persians; and that they go along with non-recognition of kinship in the male line. But admitting this to be true in some of the cases, though clearly not in others, we are still shown how little warrant exists for ascribing to primi- tive instinct the negations of unions between those nearly related; for the very words forbidding marriage to a half- sister having the same mother, though not to one having the same father, clearly imply that the male parenthood is habitually known though disregarded.
As further proving that sentiments such as those which among ourselves restrain the sexual instincts, are not in- nate, I may add the strange i&ct which Bailey tells us concerning the Yeddahs. Their custom '^ sanctions the marriage of a man with his younger sister. To marry an elder sister or aunt would, in their estimation, be inces- tuous, a connection in every respect as revolting to them as it would be to us — ^as much out of the question and inad- missible as the marriage with the younger sister was proper and natural. It was, in fact, the proper marriage."
638 THS DOMisnc bbultioks.
^ 282. WMe the fiicts show us a g^eral association be* tween the radest forms of social existence and the most degraded relations of the sexes, they do not show us that social progress and progress towards a higher type of family life are aniformly connected. Yarions anomalies meet as.
Unendoring anions characterize many of the lowest races; and yet the miserable Yeddahs, lower than most in their social state, form onosoally endaring anions. Bailey writes— "Divorce is unknown among them. * ** I have heard a Yeddah say, ^ Death alone separates hosband and wife ^ '': a trait in which their Eandian neighbours, other- wise considerably superior, differ from them widely.
Nor do we find that the diminution of incestuous con- nexions, preserres a constant ratio to social evolution. Those extreme forms of them which we have noted among some of the most degraded races of North America, are paralleled among royal faunilies in African kingdoms of considerable size; while forms of them a degree less repulsive are common to savage and semi-civilized.
Though that type of family life in which there is one wife to several husbands is said to occur among some of the lowest tribes, as the Fuegians, yet it is by no means common among the lowest; while we meet with it among relatively- advanced peoples, in Ceylon, in Malabar, aud in Thibet. And the converse arrangement, of many wives to one hus- band, almost universally allowed and practised by savages^ not only survives in semi-civilized societies but has held its ground in societies of considerably-developed types, past and present.
Neither are there connexions so clear as might have been expected, between sexual laxity and general debasement^ moral or social; and conversely. The relatious between the men and women in the Aleutian Islands are among the most degraded. Nevertheless these islanders are de- scribed by Cook as " the most peaceful, inoffensive people I ever met with. And, as to honesty, they might serve PRIMrnVS RELATIONS 01 THK flXXlfl. 68tf as a pattern to the most civilised nation upon earth/' On the other hand^ while the Thlinkeet men are said to ** treat their wives and children with much affection/' and the women to show '^ reservoj modesty^ and conjngal fidelity/' they are described as thieyish, ^J^^Sf ^^^ ®^* tremely omel, maiming their prisoners oat of pure wanton- ness and killing their slaves; and, similarly, though the Bachassins (Bechuanas) are reprobated as lamentably de- based, having '^ a universal disregard to truth and indiffer- ence to murder,^' yet the women are modest and " almost universally fidthful wives." A kindred anomaly m^ets us on contrasting societies in higher stages. We have but to read Cook's account of the Tahitians, who were not only considerably advanced in arts and social arrangements, but displayed the kindlier feelings in unusual degrees, to be astonished at their extreme disregard of restraints on the sexual instincts. Conversely, those treacherous, blood- thirsty cannibals the Fijians, who commit atrocities which Williams said he dared not recordj display considerable superiority in their sexual relations: Erskine states that '' female virtue may be rated at a high standard for a barbarous people."
Moreover, contrary to what we should expect, we find great sexual laxity in some directions joined with rigidity in others. Among the Koniagas *' a young unmarried wo- man may live uncensnred in the freest intercourse with the men; though, as soon as she belongs to one man, it is her duty to be true to him." Herrera tells us of the Cumana people — " The maidens * * * made little account of their virginity. The married women * * * lived chaste." And similarly P. Pizarro says of the Peruvians that ''the wives of the common people were &ithf ul to their husbands. ^ ^ * Before their marriage, their fathers did not care about their being either good or bad, nor was it a disgrace with them [to have loose habits.]" Even of those Chibchah husbands above referred to as so strangely indifferent, or 640 THX IKjMMSnC BILATIONB.
leas than indifferent^ to feminine chastity before marriage, it is said that '' neverthelesSj they were very sensitiTe to infidelity."
The evidencOj then, does not allow ns to infer, as we should naturally have done, that advance in the forms of the sexual rehitions and advance in social evolution, are constantly and uniformly connected.
§ 283. Nevertheless, on contemplating the &cts in their ensemble, we see that progress towards higher social types is joined with progress towards higher types of the sexual re- lations. Gompanson of the extremes makes this unquestion- able. The lowest groups of primitive men, without political organization, are also without anything worthy to be called domestic organization: the relations of the sexes and those of parents to offspring are scarcely above those of brutes. Contrariwise, all civilized nations, characterized by definite, coherent, orderly social arrangements, are also characterized by definite, coherent, orderly &mily arrangements. Hence we cannot doubt that, spite of irregularities, the develop- ments of the two are associated in a general way.
Leaving here this preliminary survey and its implications, we have now to trace, so far as we can, the successively higher forms of family structure^ We may expect to find the genesis of each depending on the circumstances of the society: conduciveness to social self-preservation under the conditions of the case, being the determining cause. Setting out with wholly-unregulated relations of the sexes, the first customs established must have been those which most favoured social survival; not because this was seen, bat because the societies that had customs less fit, disappeared.
But before considering the separate forms of the sexual relations, we must consider a previous question — ^Whence come the united persons? — ^Are they of the same tribe or of different tribes? or are they partiy one and partiy the other?
CHAPTER IV.
EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY.
§ 284. In luB ingenious and interesting work on Primu live Marriage/f^ tlie words " Exogamy " and " Endogamy *' are used by Mr. McLennan to distingaish the two practices of taking to wife women belonging to other tribes, and taking to wife women belonging to the same tribe. As explained in his preface, his attention was drawn to these diverse customs by an inquiry into '' the meaning and origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies;'* — an in- quiry which led him to a general theory of early sexual relations. The following outline of his theory I disentangle, as well as I can, from statements that are not altogether consistent.
Scarcity of food led groups of primitive men to destroy female infants; because, ''as braves and hunters were re- quired and valued, it would be the interest of every horde to rear, when possible, its healthy male children. It would be less its interest to rear females, as they would be less capable of self-support, and of contributing, by their exer- tions, to the common good/' (p. 165.)
Mr. M'Lennan next alleges that '' the practice ih early times of female infanticide," '' rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without.*' (p. 138.)
Joined with a re-statement of the causes we come upon * FrimUive Marriage, By John F. Mliennap. M.A., Edinburgh, 1866.
T T 6^2 THE DOMESTIC RELATIONS.
an inferred result^ as follows: — *' The scarcity of women within the group led to a practice of stealing the women of other gronps^ and in time it came to be considered im- proper^ because it was unusual^ for a man to marry a woman of his own group." (p. 289.) Or, as he says on p. 140, '^usage^ induced by necessity^ would in time establish a prejudice among the tribes observing it (exogamy) — a pre- judice^ strong as a principle of religion, as every prejudice relating to marriage is apt to b^-^gainst marrying women of their own stock."
To this habitual stealing of wives, and re-stealing of them, as among the Australians (p. 76,) he ascribes that doubtful paternity which led to the recognition of kinship through females only. Though elsewhere admitting a more general cause for this primitive form of kinship (p. 159,) he regards wife-stealing as its most certain cause: saying that '' it must have prevailed wherever exogamy prevailed— exogamy and the consequent practice of capturing wives. Certunty as to fathers is impossible where mothers are stolen from, their first lords, and liable to be re-stolen before the birth Assuming the tribes which thus grew into the practice of wife-stealing, to have been originally homogeneous in blood, or at least to have supposed themselves, so Mr. McLennan arg!ies that the introduction of wives who were foreigners in blood, joined with the rise of the first definite conception of relationship (that between mother and child) and conse- quent system of kinship exclusively in the femsJe line, led to recognized heterogeneity within the tribe: there came to exist within the tribe, children regarded as belonging by blood to the tribes of their mothers. Hence arose another form of exogamy. The primitive requirement that a wife should be stolen from another tribe, naturally became con- founded with the requirement that a wife should be of the blood of another tribe; and hence girls bom within the tribe, from mothers belonging to other tribes, became SXOaAMT AND ENDOGAMT. 643 eligible as wives. The original exogamy, carried out only by robbing other tribes of their women, gave place, in part, or wholly, to the modified exogamy carried out by marrying from within the tribe, women bearing family names which implied that they were foreign in blood.
In tracing the development of higher forms of the domestic relations, Mr. M'Lennan postulates, as we have seen, that the scarcity of women " led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without/' Describing and illustrating the different forms of polyandiy, ending in that highest form in which the husbands are brothers, he points out that at this stage there arose recog- nition not only of descent in the female line, but also of descent in the male line; since the father's blood was known, though not the father.
Then through gradually-established priority of the elder brother, as being the first of the group to marry and the first likely to have children, it became an accepted fiction that all the children were his: " the elder brother was a sort of paterfamilias;" and ''the ide^ of fatherhood'' thus caused, was a step towards kinship through males, and *' a step away from kinship through females." (pp. 243-4.)
Pointing out that among some polyandrous peoples, as the Kandians, the chiefs have become monogamists, Mr. McLen- nan argues (p. 245) that their example would be followed, and c' thus would arise a practice of monogamy or of polygamy." And he thence traces the genesis of the patriarchal form, the system of agnation, the institution of caste.
Though this outline of Mr. M'Lennan's theory is ex- pressed, wherever regard for brevity permits, in his own words, yet possibly he may take exception to it; for, as already hinted, there are incongruities in his statements, and the order in which they are placed is involved. That many of the phenomena he describes exist, is beyond question. It is undeniable that the stealing of women, still habitual with sundry low races, was practised in the past by races 644 THI DOnSTIO bilations.
now higher; and that the form of captare in marriage ceremonies prerails in Bocietiea where no real captare occurs at present. It is undeniable that kinship through females is, among various primitive peoples^ the only kinship avowedly recognized; and that it leads to the descent of name, rank, and property in the female line. It is unde- niable that in many places where wife- stealing is, or has been, the practice, marriage is forbidden between those of the same family name, who are assumed to be of the same stock. But whOe admitting much of the evidence, and while accepting some of the inferences, we shall find reason for doubting Mr. Mljennan's theoiy taken as a whole. Let us consider, first, the minor objections.
§ 285. Sundry facts inconsistent with his conclusion, though referred to by Mr. MfLiennan, he passes over as of no weight. He thinks there is warrant for the belief that exogamy and wife-capture have *^ been practised at a cer- tain stage among every race of mankind'' (p. 138): this stage being the one now exemplified by sundry low races. Nevertheless, he admits that ''the separate endogamous tribes are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous tribes.'' (p. 145.) Now if, as he believes, exogamy and wife-stealing have "been practised at a certain stage among every race of mankind " — ^that stage being the primitive one; and if, as he seeks to prove, endogamy is a form reached through a long series of social developments; it is difficult to understand how the endogamous tribes can be as rude as the exogamous ones. Again, he names the fact that " in some districts— as in the hills on the north-eastern frontier of India, in the Caucasus, and the hill ranges of Syria — ^we find a variety of tribes, proved, by physical characteristics and the affinities of language, of one and the same original stock, yet in this particular differing toto ccelo from one imother — some forbidding marriage within the tribe, and EZOQAUY AND ENDOGAMY. 645 some proscribing marriage without if (pp. 147-8): a fact by no means congmoas witb his hypothesis.
Should Mr. McLennan reply that on pp. 47-8 he has recognized the possibility^ or probability^ that there were tribes primordially endogamous — should he say that on pp. 144-5 will be found the admission that perhaps exo- gamy and endogamy ''may be equally archaic;*' the re- joinder is that besides being inconsistent with his belief that exogamy has " been practised at a certain stage among eyery race of mankind/' this possibility is one which he practically rejecta On pp. 148-50, he sketches out a series of changes by which exogamous tribes may eventually become endogamous; and in subsequent sections on the ^' Growth of Agnation/* and " The Eise of Endogamy/' he tacitly as- serts that endogamy has thus developed: if not without exception, still, generally. Indeed, the title of one of his chapters — '' The Decay of Exogamy in Advancing Commun- ities," clearly implies the belief that exogamy was general, if not universal, with the uncivilized; and that endogamy grew up along with civilization. Thus the incongruity between the propositions quoted in the last paragraph, can- not be escaped.
Sundry other of Mr. MlJennan's reasonings conflict with one another. Assuming that in the earliest state, tribes were stock-groups ''organized on the principle of exo- gamy," he speaks of them as having " the primitive instinct of the race against marriage between members of the same stock." (p. 118.) Yet, as we have seen above, he elsewhere speaks of wife-capture as caused by scarcity of women within the tribe; and attributes to this " usage induced by necessity" the prejudice against " marrying women of their own stock." Moreover, if, as he says (and I believe rightly says) on p. 145, *' men must originally have been free of any prejudice ag;ainst marriage between relations," it seems inconsistent to allege that there was a " primitive instinct** " against marriage between members of the same stock."
Again^ wKiIe in some places the establishment of the exogamous prejadice is ascribed to the practice of wife- stealing (p. 53-4 and p. 186) it is elsewhere made the an- tecedent of wife-stealing: interdict against marriage within the tribe was primordial. Now if this last is Mr. M'Len- nan's view^ I agree with Sir J. Lubbock in thinking that it is untenable. It cannot be assnmed that in these earliest groups of men^ with which Mr. McLennan commences^ there were any established rules of marriage. Unions of the sexes must have preceded all social laws. The rise of a social law implies a certain preceding continuity of social existence; and this preceding continuity of social existence implies the reproduction of successive generations. Hence reproduction entirely unregulated by interdicts, must be taken as initial Assuming, however, that of his two views Mr. Mnjennan will abide by the more tenable one, that wife-stealing led to exogamy, let us ask how far he is justified in alleging that female infanticide, and consequent scarcity of women, led to wife-stealing. At first sight it appears undeniable that destruction of infant girls, if frequent, must have been accompanied by deficiency of adult females; and it seems strange to call in question the legitimacy of this inference. But Mr. McLennan has overlooked a concomitant. Tribes in a state of chronic hostility are constantly losing their adult males, and the male mortality so caused is usually con- siderable. Hence the killing many female infants does not necessitate lack of women: it may merely prevent ex- cess. Excess must, indeed, be inevitable if, equal numbers of males and females being reared, some of the males are from time to time slain. The assumption from which Mr. M'Lennan's argument sets out, is, therefore, inad- missible.
How inadmissible it is, becomes conspicuous on finding that where wife-stealing is now practised, it is commonly associated with polygyny. The Fuegians, named by Mr^ EZOaAHT AND SKD00AH7. 647 M'Lennan among wife-stealing peoples^ are poljgynists. According to Dovo> the Tasmanians were poljgynists^ and Lloyd says that polygyny was universal among them; yet the Tasmanians were wife-stealers. The Australians far«- nish Mr. McLennan with a typical instance of wife-stealing and exogamy; and though Mr. Oldfield alleges scarcity of women among them^ yet other testimony is quite at variance with his. Mitchell says: — " Most of the men appeared to possess two [females], the pair in general consisting of a fat plump gin^ and one much younger ''; and according to the Frenchman Peltier^ named in the last chapter as having lived seventeen years with the Macadama tribe in Queens- land, the women were '' more numerous than the men, every man having from two to five women in his suite." In North America the Dakotahs are at once wife-stealers and poly- gynists. Burton tells us. In South America the Brazilians similarly unite these traits; and among the Caribs they are especially associated. Writing of polygyny as practised on the Orinoco, Humboldt says: — " It is most considerable among the Caribs, and all the nations that have pre- served the custom of carrying ofiF young girls from the neighbouring tribes.^' How then can wife-stealing be as- cribed to scarcity of women 7 A converse incongruity likewise militates against Mr. M^Lennan's theory. His position is that female infanti- cide, '^rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from with- out.'* But polyandry does not, so far as I see, distinguish wife-stealing tribes. We do not find it among the above- named Tasmanians, Australians, Dakotahs, Brazilians; and although it is said to occur among the Fuegians, and charac- terizes some of the Caribs, it is much less marked than their polygyny. 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. There is poly- andry among the Esquimaux, who do not even know what 648 THB Dovxsnc biiatioks.
war 18. There is poljandiy among the Todaa^ who in no way aggress upon their neighbonrs.
Other minor difficolties might be dwelt npon. There is the fact that in many cases exogamy and endogamy co-exist; as among the ComancheSj the New Zealanders, the Lepchas, the Califomians. There is the fact that in sundry cases polygyny and polyandry co-exist, as among the Faegians, the Caribs^ the Esqnimaux, the WaranSj the Hottentots, the ancient Britons. There is the fact that there are some exogamons tribes who have not the form of capture in mar- riage; as the Iroquois and the Chippewas. But not dwelling on these, I torn to certain cardinal difficulties, obyious d priori, which appear to me insuperable.
§ 286. Setting out with primitive homogeneous groups, Mr. McLennan contends that the scarcity of women caused by destruction of female infants, compelled wife-stealing; and he thinks that this happened '' at a certain stage among every race of mankind.^' (p. 138.) The implication is, therefore, that a number of adjacent tribes, usually belong- ing to the same variety of man in the same stage of pro- gress, were simultaneously thus led to rob one another. But immediately we think of wife-stealing as a practice not of one tribe only, but of many tribes forming a cluster, there presents itself the question — How was the scarcity of wives thus remedied f If each tribe had fewer women than men, how could the tribes get wived by taking one another's women f The scarcity remained the same: what one tribe got another lost. Bearing in mind the low fertility and great infant mortality among savages, if there is a chronic deficiency of women and the tribes rob one another equally, the result must be diminished population in all the tribes. If some, robbing others in excess, get enough wives, and leave certain of the rest with very few, these must tend towards extinction. And if the surviving tribes carry on the process, there appears no limit until the strongest tribe.
wwwmpip wwwmpip EZOQAMY Am) IKDOGAMT. 649 eontinniag to sapply itself with women from tlie less strong, finally alone sunrives and has no tribes to rob.