§ 300. When from that form of polyandry, little above promiscuity, in which one wife has several unrelated husbands and each of the husbands has other unrelated wives, we pass to that form in which the unrelated hus« bands have but one wife, thence to the form in which the husbands are related, and finally to the form in which they are brothers only; we trace an advance in family struc- ture. Already I have referred to Mr. M^nnan's indication of the different results..
Where, as among the Nairs, each woman has several un- related husbands, and each of the husbands has several unrelated wives, not only is the paternal blood of the off- spring unknown, but children of each man commonly exist in several households. Besides the fact that the only known kinship is through the woman, there is the fact that each man's domestic interest, not limited to a particular 676 THK Doxmno bmlltiovb.
groap of bhildren, is lost hj dissipatioii. Matenud parent- hood alons being concentrated and paternal parenthood diffosed, the family honds are but little stronger than those accompanying general promiscuity. Besides his mother, a man's only known relations are his half-brothers and half- sisters and the children of his half-sisters.
Where the unrelated hosbands are limited to one wife, and where their children, though they cannot be affiliated upon their fathers individually, form a single domestic group, there is some sphere for the paternal feelings. Each husband has an interest in the offspring, some of whom may be, and probably are, his own: occasionally, in- deed, being sererally attributed to each by likeness, or by their mother's statement. Though the positirely-known relationships remain the same as in the last case, yet there is some advance in the formation of domestic groups.
And then, as Mr. M'Lennan points out, where the hus- bands are brothers, the children have a known blood in the male line as well as in the female lino. Each boy or girl in the family is, if not a son or daughter, still a nephew or niece, of each husband. This fixing of the ancestry on both sides evidently strengthens the family bond. Beyond the closer Idnships in each group, there now arise in successive generations, alliances between groups, not on the female sido only, but on the male side. And this ramification of counezions becomes an element of social strength.'^ So that as, in passing from promiscuity to polyandry, we * It IB proper to point oat here that the nanie frmtenud polyondiy does not czactlj repreeent the f»ci§, tnd th«t in realitj there exists no inch inrtitation. A polyandxy ttrietlj fraternal, would implj that the hnibendB had deioended from a monogamic union; for onlj then could thej be farothen in the full •ense of the word. In a polyandrie lociety the ao-oaUed brothers who become husbands of one wife^ are descendants of one mother by fathers who were brothers on the maternal tada, and something less than cousins on the paternal side. The so-called brothers are therefore something more than half-brothers. This qualification, however, does not negative the statement thai the male blood of the children is known.
fOLTAKDBT. 677 pass to more coherent and definite domestic relations^ so do we in passing from the lower forms of polyandry to the higher.
§ 301. What must we say concerning polyandry in re- spect of its effects on social self-preservation^ on the rearing of offsprings and on the lives of adnlts? Some who hare had good opportunities of judging^ contend that in certain places it is advantageous. It would seem that just as there are habitats in which only inferior forms of animals can exists BO in societies physically conditioned in particular wayss the inferior forms of domestic life survive because they alone are practicable.
In his recent work^ The Abode of Snow, Mr. Wilson^ discussing the Tibetan polyandry in its adaptation to the barren Himalayan region, says:— ** There is a tendency on the part of population to inorease at a greater ratio than its power of produdiig food; and few more effeotnal means to check that tendency could well be dcTised than the syBtem of Tibetan polyandry, taken in coignnction with the Lama monasteries and nnnneiies. Very likely it was never deliberately devised to do so, and came down from some very rude state of society; bnt, at all events, it mnst have been found exceedingly serviceable in repressing population among, what Koeppen so well calls, the snow-lands of Asia. If popula- tion had increased there at the rate it has in England during this century, frightful results must have followed either to the Tibetans or to their immediate neighbours. As it is, almost every one in tha Himilaya has either land and a house of his own, or land and a house in which he has a share, and which provide for his protection and subsistence. ♦ ♦ ♦ I was a little surprised to find that one of the Moravian missionaries defended the polyandry of the Tibetans, not as a thing to be approved of in the abstract or tolerated among Christians, but as good for the heathen of so sterile country. In taking this view, he proceeded on the argument that superabundant population, in an unfertile country, must be a great calamity, and produce ' eternal war- fare or eternal want.' Turner took also a similar view.'* Concerning the effects on the welfare of offspring, I do not meet with definite statements. If^ however^ it be true that in so very infertile a habitat^ a form of marriage which tends to oheok increase.is aclfai&tageons} tile im- plioatioa is that the ohildxvn in eaeli« family are better off, physieally considered, than they wonld be were monogwnic unions the role: being better fed and clothed the mortality among them must be less, and the growth more vigorous. As to the accompanying mental influenoej we can ohly sus- pect that confliot of authority and absence of specific pater* nity, must entail serious evils.
The lives of adults, if we may accept. the> testimonies of travellers, do not appear to be so injuriously aflfected as might have been anticipated. Mr. Wilson says: — *'Ia s piinutiTe and not vezy settled itate of sooietf, when the head of a funily is often called sway on long meroantile joumeySt or to atten4,»t oonrt» or for purposes of war, it is %. certain adyantage that he should he aUe to leave a relative in his place whose interests are hound np with his own« Mr. Talhoys Wheeler has suggested that polyandry arose among a pastoral people, whose men were away from their ftmiHes for months at a time, and where the duty of pfoteoting their fiumlles would he undertaken by the brothers in torn. The system oertainfy answers such an end, and I never knew of a case when a polyandrie wife was left withont the society of one at least of her hasbaads.'* He also quotes Tomer as saying:— ^ " The infiaence of this eustom on the manners of the people, as far as I eoold trace, has not been un&vourable. ♦ » 4i To the privilege of un- bounded liberty the wife here adds the character of mistress of the family and companion <^ her husbands. But, lest so pleasing a picture may delude some of the strong-minded ladies (of America) to get up an agilatidn for the estaUishment of polyandry in the West, I must say it struck me that the having many husbands sometimes appeared to be only having many masters and increased toil and trouble.'* 8o/ too, in the lately- republished narrative of Mr. George Bogle's mission t^ Tibet, in Warren Hastings' time we read: — ** They club together in matrimony as merchants do in tr^e. Nor is thib joint concern often productive of jealousy among the partners. They are little addicted to jealousy. Disputes, indeed, sometimes arise about the children of the marriage; but they are settled either by a comparison of the features of the child with those of its several fEtthers. or left to the determination of its mother/* § 802. If we regard polyandry as one of several marital POLYANDRY. 679.
arrangements independentlj originating in the earliest societies, we shall not interpret its decline in the same way as if we consider it a transitional form once passed through by e^ery race, as Mr. M'Lennan apparently does.
To one of the causes which he assigns for its decline, we may, indeed, assent. He points out that in some cases, as among the Kandyans, a chief has a wife to himself, though inferior people are polyandrous; and we learn from Horace della Penna's account of Thibet, lately republished, that in his time a kindred difference existed there: he says that polyandry '' seldom occurs with noble folk, or those in easy circumstances, who take one wife alone, and sometimes, but rarely, more.'* Hence, with Mr. McLennan, we may infer that since the habits of the higher in all societies spread downwards, imitation tends to make monogamy replace polyandry where circumstances do not hinder. But Mr. McLennan, not regarding this dying out of inferior forms in presence of superior forms as the sole cause, endeavours to show that the superior forms also arise by transformation of the inferior. Taking as typical the polyandry of Ladak, where the eldest brother has a priority, and where, on his death, " his property, authority, and widow devolve upon hie next brother," he affiliates upon this the arrangement among the early Hebrews, under which '* the Levir had no alter- native but to take the widow [of his brother]; indeed, she was his wife without cmyform of marriage,** And he hence infers that monogamy and polygyny, as existing among the Hebrews, had been preceded by polyandry: saying that— *' It is imposaibld not to believe that we have here presented to na successive stages of decay of one and the same original institution; impossible not to connect the obligation, in its several phases, with what we have seen prevailing in Ladak; impossible not to regard it as having originally been a right of succession, or the counterpart of such a right, derived firom the practice of polyandry."
It seems to me, however, quite possible to find in the customs of primitive peoples, another explanation which is much more natural. Under early social systems, wives.
680 TflS DOMESTIC BSLATIONS.
being regai*ded as property, are inherited ia the same way aa other property. When we read that among the " Bel]a« boUahs (Haidahs), the widow of the deceased is transferred to his brother's harem;'' that among the Znlas, '' the widow is transferred to the brother of her deceased husband on his death j'' that among the Damaras, '' when a chief dies^ his suryiving wives are transferred to his brother or to his nearest relation;'^ the suspicion is raised that this taking possession of a brother's wife has nothing to do with poly- andry. This suspicion is confirmed on finding that in Congo *' if there be three brothers, and one of them die^ the two survivors share his concubines between them;'* on finding that in Samoa, " the brother of a deceased husband, considered himself erUUled to have his brother's wife;'* on finding that in ancient Vera Paz, " the brother of the de- ceased at once took her [the widow] as his wife even if he was married, and if he did not, another relation had a right to her/' These facts imply that where wives are classed simply as objects of value (usually purchased) the suc- cession to them by brothers goes along with succession in general. And if there needs further evidence^ I may cite this — ^that in sundry places a father's wives are in- herited. Thomson says that among the New Zealanders " father's wives descended to their sons, and dead brothers' wives to their surviving brothers." Of the Mishmis^ Bow- latt states that '^ when a man dies or becomes old^ it is the custom of these people for the wives to be distributed amongst his sons, who take them to wife." Torquemada mentions provinces of Mexico in which the sons inherited those wives of their fathers who had not yet borne sons to the deceased. In his Abeokutay Burton states that among the Egbas ^' the son inherits all the father's wives save his own mother." We learn from Bosman that on the Slave Coast, '^ upon the father's death, the eldest son inherits not only all his g^oods and cattle, but his wives * * * except his own mother." And in Dahomey, the king's eldest son POLTANDBT. 681 " inherits the deceased's wives and makes them liis own^ excepting^ of course^ the woman that bare him.''
We cannot^ then^ admit that the practice of marrying a dead brother's widow implies pre-existence of polyandry; and cannot accept the inference that ont of decaying poly- andry higher forms of marriage grew np.
§ 808. Considering the several forms of polyandry as types of domestic relations which have arisen by successive limitations of promiscuity, we must say that in this or that society they have evolved, have survived, or have been extinguished, according as the aggregate of conditions has determined. Probably in some cases the lower polyandry has not been supplanted by the higher, because the two have not BO come into competition that the better results of the higher have made themselves felt. In competition with polygyny and monogamy, polyandry may, in some^cases, have had the advantage for reasons above cited: polygynic and monogamic families dying out because the offspring of them were relatively ill-fed.
On the other hand, influences like those which in some places made the superior forms of polyandry prevail over the inferior, must, in other places, have tended to extin- guish polyandry altogether. Save where great restriction of the food-supply over a considerable area, rendered multiplication disadvantageous, polyandric societies, pro- ducing fewer members available for offence and defence, naturally gave way before societies having family arrange- ments more &vourable to increase. This is probably the chief reason why polyandry, once common, has become comparatively infirequent. Other things equal, this inferior family type has yielded to superior family types; both because of its inferior fertility, and because of the smaller family cohesion, and consequently smaller social cohesion^ resulting from it.
CHAPTER Vn.
POLTOYNT.
§ 304. WsRB it not for the ideas of sacrediieaa with that Hebrew history which in diildhood familiarised us with examples of polygyny, we shoold probably feel as maoh surprise and repngnanoe on first reading about it aa we do on first reading about polyandry. Education has, howerer, prepared us for learning without astonishment J that polygyny is common in every part of the world not occupied by the most advanced nations.
It prevails in all climates— in the Arctic regionSi in arid burning tracts, in fertDe oceanic islands, in steaming tropi- cal continents. AU races practise it. We have already noted its occurrence among the lowest tribes of men-— the Fae- gians, the Australians, the Tasmanians. It is habitaal with the Negritos in New Caledonia^ in Tanna, in Yate, in Eromanga, in Lifu. MalaycPolynesian peoples eidubit it everywhere: in Tahiti, in the Sandwich Islands, Tonga, New Zealand, Madagascar, Sumatra. Throughout Ameriea it is found among the rude tribes of the northern con* tinent, from the Esquimaux to the Mosquitos of the isthmus; and among the equally rude tribes of the soutiieni continent, from the Caribs to the Patagonians; and it pre* vailed in the ancient semi-oivilized American states of Mexico, Peru, and Central America. It is general wifli African peoples — ^with the Hottentots, Damaras^ Kaffirs of POLTGTNY. 683 POLTGTNY. 683 the south; with the East Africans^. Congo people. Coast Negroes, Inland Negroes, Dahomans, Ashantis of mid- Africa; with the Fulahs and Abyssinianfj of the north. In Asia it is common to the settled Cingalese, the semi- nomadic Hill-tribes of India, the wandering Yakates. And its prevalenoe in ancient eastern societies needs but naming. Indeed, on counting up all peoples, savage and ciriliased, past and present, it appears that the polygynons ones far Qutnnxnber the rest.
Plurality of wives would be even more general were it^. not in some cases checked by the conditions. We learn this when told that among the poverty-stricken Bushmen, poly- gyny^i though perfectly allowable, is rare; when Forsyth states that among theGonds '^polygamy is not forbidden, but, women being costly chattels, it is rarely practised;^' when Tennent tells us of the Yeddahs that ^' the community is too poor to afford polygamy;'' when, concerning the Osiyaks, we read in Latham that '' polygamy is allowed, but it is not common; for a plurality of wives the coimtry is too poor.'' And though the occurrence of polygyny among some of the poorest peoples, as the Australians and the Puegians, shows that poverty does not prevent it, if the women can gather enough food fpr self -maintenance, we may yet understand its exclusion where the mode of life does not permit them to do this. ' This natural restriction of polygyny by poverty, is not the \i j^ i A h.. only natural restriction. There is another, recognition of ^ i which modifies considerably those ideas of polygynous societies ordinarily conveyed by travellers. Their accounts often imply that plurality of wives is, if not the uniform, still, the most general, arrangement in the societies they describe. Yet a little thought makes us hesitate to accept the implication. Turner tells us that in lifu, ^^a chief has f prty wives: compaon men three or four.'' How can that be? we may fitly ask — How come there to be so many women? Scepticism such as is raised by this state- 684 THi ixnfBffnc sujiTioira.
meal, k raised in smaller deg^rees bj many other state- ments. We read in Park that ''the Mandingoes are poly- gamists, and each of the 'wives' in rotation is mistress of the household/' Anderson says of the Damaras that "polygamy is practised to a great extent » » » each wife bnilds for herself a hat/* We are told by Lesseps that " obliged to make freqoent jonmeys, a Yakoat has a wife in every place where he stops/' Bancroft quotes concerning the Haidahs, the assertion that "polygamy is universal, re£pilated simply by the &cilities for subsist- ence/' Acceptance of these statements involves the belief that in each case there is a great numerical preponderance of women over men. But unless we assume that the number of girls bom g^reatly exceeds the number of boys, which we have no warrant for doing, or else that war causes a mor- tality of males more enormous than seems credible, we must suspect that the polygynous arrangement isjess general than these expressions represent it to be. Ex- amination confirms the suspicion. For habitually we find it said, or implied, that the number of wives varies according to the means a man has of purchasing or maintaining them; whence it is to be inferred that as, in all societies, the majority are comparatively poor, only the minority can afford more wives than one. Such statements as that among the Comanches " every man may have all the wives he can buy;" that the Nu£El people "marry as many wives as they are able to purchase;" that "the number of a Feegeean's wives is limited only by his means of maintaining them;" that " want of means forms the only limit to the number of wives of a Mishmee;" warrant the inference that the less prosperous men, everywhere likely to form the larger part, have either no wives or but a single wife each; and that thus there does not really exist that immense excess of women implied by such statements as those above quoted.
For this inference we find definite justification on in- POLTQYNT. 685 quirin^^ fnrdier. Numerous accounts show us^ directly and indirectlyj that in polygynous societies the polygyny prevails only among the wealthier or the higher in rank. Lichtenstein says ''most of the Eoossas have but one wife; the kings and chiefs of the kraab only^ have four or five/' Baffles states that polygyny is permitted in Java^ but not much practised except by the upper classes. '' The customs of the Sumatrans/' says Marsden, '^ permit their having as many wires by jvjur as they can compass the purchase of, or afford to maintain; but it is extremely rare that an instance occurs of their having more than one, and that only among a few of the chiefs/' Of the Ancient Mexicans, Francis of Bologna writes — *' The people were content with one legitimate wife, except the lords, who had many concubines, some possess- ing more than 800/^ Herrera alleges of the Honduras people that '^ they generally kept but one wife, but their lords as many as they pleased/' And among the people of Nicaragua, according to Oviedo, *' few have more than one wife, except the principal men, and those who can support more/' These statements, joined with others presently to be cited, warn us against the erroneous impressions likely to be formed of societies described as polygjrnous. We may infer that in most cases where polygyny exists, monogamy] co-exists to a greater extent, and in all other cases to aj considerable extent.
§ 305. The prevalence of polygyny will not perplex us if, setting out with the primitive unregulated state, we ask what naturally happened.
.The superior strength of body and energy of mind, which gained c^tain men predominance as warriors and chiefs, also gave them more power of securing women; either by stealing them from other tribes or by wresting them from men of their own tribe. And in the same way that possession of a stolen wife came to be regarded as a \ 666 THI D0XE8TIC BELiLTIOHS.
mark of saperiority^ so did* possession ^ of several wiTea;, foreign or native. Cremony^ as quoted by Bancroft^ says the Apache " who can support or keep^ or attract by lus power to keep^ the greatest number of women^ is the man who is deemed entitled to the greatest amount of honoor and respect." This is typical. PluraKty of wives has every- where tended to become a more or less definite class- distinction. We learn from Olavigero that in Mexico " AhuizotPs predecessors had many wives, from. an opinion that their authority and grandetir would be heightened in proportion to the number of persons^ who contributed to their pleasures." Mlis states that in Madagascar, where a plnrality of wives is common among chiefs and rich people, ''the only law to regulate polygamy seems to be, that no man may take twelve wives excepting the sovereign.'^ Describing the East Africans, Burton says — '' The chiefs pride themselves upon the number of their wives, varying from twelve to three hundred." According to Beeoham, in Ashantee '' the number of wives which caboceers and other persons possess, depends partly on their rank and partly on their ability to purchase them." Joining which facts with those furnished to us by the Hebrews, whose judges and kings — Gideon, David, Solomon — ^had their greatness so shown; and with those furnished us by extant Eastern peoples, whose potentates, primary and secondary, are thus distinguished; we may see that the establishment and maintenance of polygyny has been largely due to the honour accorded to it, originally as a mark of strength and \ bravery, and afterwards as a mark of social staius. Tkda ' conclusion is verified by European- history; as witness tlie statement of Tacitus concerning the ancient G-ermans, tbat " almost alone among barbarians they are content with one wife," except a very few of noble birth; and as witness the statement of Montesquieu that the polygyny of tiie Merovingian kings was on attribute of dignity.
From the begfinning, too, except in some regions wh«<a POLTOYNT. 687 the labour of women could not be utilized for purposes of production, an economic incentive has joined iritb other incentiyes. We read that in New Caledonia, '' chiefs have ten, twenty, and thirty wives. The more wives the better plantations^ and the more food.'' A like utilization of wives prompts to a plurality of them throughout Africa. On reading in Gailli6 that Mandingo wives ''go to distant places for wood and water; their husbands make them sow, weed the cultivated fields, and gather in the harvest '/' and on being told by Shooter that among the Kaffirs, '' besides her domestic duties, the woman has to perform all the hard work; she is her husband's ox, as a Kaffir once said to me, — she had been bought, he argued, and must therefore labour;" we cannot fail to see that one motive for desiring many wives, is desiring many slaves.
When we remember that in every society the doings of the powerful and the wealthy famish the standards of right and wrong, so that even the very words ''noble" and " servile," originally expressive of social stattts, have come to be expressive of good and bad in conduct; we may under- stand how it happens that plurality of wives acquires, in places where it prevails, an ethical sanction. Associated t, with greatness, polygyny is thought praiseworthy; and! associated with poverty, monogamy is thought mean. Hence the reprobation with which, as we have already seen, the one-wife system is regarded in polygynous communities. Even the religious sanction is sometimes joined with the A ethical sanction. Keating tells us that by the Chippewayans '^ polygamy is held to be agreeable in the eyes of the Great Spirit, as he that has most children is held in highest esti- mation"— a belief reminding us of a kindred one current among the Mormons. And that among the Hebrews plu- rality of wives was not at variance either with the prevail- ing moral sentiments or with supposed divine injunctions, is proved by the absence of any direct or implied reprobation of it in their laws, and by the special favour said to be V 688 THX DOMISTIO BILITIOVS* ■hown by Qod to sundry rulers who had many wives and many cononbines.
It shoold be added that in societies oharacterized by it, this form of marital relation is approved by women as well as men*— certainly in some cases, if not generally. Bancroft cites the &ct that among the Comanches ''as polygamy causes a greater division of labor, the women do not object to it/' And of the Makalolo women, Livingstone says: — " On healing that a man in England ooold many but one wife, several ladies exclaimed that the j wonld not like to live in saoh a ooontry: thej oonld not imagine how English ladies oonld relish our custom; for in their way of thinking, evezy man of respectability shonld have a nnmber of wives as a proof of his wealth. Similar ideas prevafl all down the Zambesi."
Initiated, then, by unrestrained sexual instincts lunong savage men, polygyny has very generally been fostered by the same causes that have established political control and industrial control. It has commonly been an incidental element of governmental power in uncivUiaed and semicivilized societies.