Among inferior creatureSj inherited instinct settles the fit arrangement — the arrangement most condacive to the wel- fare of the species. Here there is no continuous association of male and female; here there is a polygynous group; here there is monogamy lasting for a season. A good deal of evidence may be giyen that among the primates inferior U) man, there are monogamic relations of the sexes having some peraistence. Why, then, in groups of primitive men did there come divergences from this arrangement prompted by innate tendeiicies? Possibly the answer is that with association into larger groups than are formed by inferior primates, there came into play disrupting influences which did not previously exist; and that the effects of these were not checked because the marital forms resulting furthered the survival of the groups. It would seem that during certain transitional stages between the first extremely scattered, or little gregarious, stage, and the extremely aggregated, or highly gregarious, stage there have arisen various conditions favouring various forms of union: so causing temporary deviations from the primitive tendency.
Be this as it may, however, it is manifest that monogamy has long been growing innate in the civilized man: all the ideas and sentiments that have become associated with mar- riage, having, as their necessary implication, the singleness of the union.
T" CHAPTER IX.
THE FAMILY.
§ 315. Let xxs now look at the connexions between types of family and social types. Do societies of different de- grees of composition habitually present different forms of domestic arrangement? Are different forms of domestic arrangement associated with the militant system of organi- zation and the industrial system of organization?
To the first of these questions no satisfactory answer can be given. The same marital relation occurs in the simplest groups and in the most compound groups. A strict monogamy is observed by the miserable Wood Ved- dahs, living so widely scattered that they can scarcely be said to have reached the social state; and the wandering Bushmen^ similarly low, though not debarred polygyny, are usually monogamic. Certain settled and slightly advanced tribes, too, are monogamic; as instance the New Guinea people, and as instance also the Dyaks, who have reached » stage passing from simple into compound. And then we have monogamy habitual with nations which have become vast by aggregation and re-aggregation. Polyandry, again, is not restricted to societies of one order of composition. We find it in simple groups, as among the Fuegians, the Aleutians, and the Todas; and we find it in compound groups in Ceylon, in Malabar, in Tibet. Similarly with the distribution of polygyny. It is common to simple, com- pound, doubly-compound, and even trebly-compound 8o>^ z z 706 THB DOMESTIC REUlTIOKS.
cieties. One kind of connexion between the ijpe of family and the degree of social composition jdbj, how- ever^ be alleged* Formation of compound groups^ im- plying greater co-ordination and the strengthening of re- strainfcs, implies more settled arrangements, public and private. Increasing rigidity of custom and growth of it into law^ which goes along with the extending govern- mental organization holding larger masses together, aSects the domestic relations along with the political relations; and thus renders the family arrangements^ be they polyandric, polygynic, or monogamic, more definite.
Can we then allege special connexions between the different types of family and the different social types classed as militant and industrial f None afire revealed by a cursory inspection. Looking first at simple tribes, we find among the unwariike Todas, a mixed polyandry and poly- gyny; and among the Esquimaux, so peaceful as not even to understand the meaning of war, we find, along with monogamic unions, others that are polyandric and poly- gynic. At the same time the warlike Garibs show os a certain amounfc of polyandry and a greater amount of poly- gyny. If, turning to the other extreme, we compare wiih one another large nations, ancient and modem, it seems that the militant character in some cases co-exists with a prevalent polygyny and in other cases with a prevalent or universal monogamy. Nevertheless we shall, on examining the facts more closely, discern general connexions between vj the militant type and polygjmy, and between the indus- trial type and monogamy.
But first we must recognize the truth that a predominant militancy is not so much to be measured by armies and the conquests they achieve, as by constancy of predatoiy activities. The contrast between militant and industrial, is properly between a state in which life is occupied in conflict with other beings, brute and human, and a state in which life is occupied in peaceful labour — energies ^ THS VAMIIiT. 707 spent in deBtmction instead of energpyea spent in prodnciaon. So conceiving militancy, we find polygyny to be its habitual accompaniment. To trace the coexistence of the two from Australians and Tasmanians on through the more developed simple societies up to the compound and doubly compound, would be tedious and is needless; for observing, as we have already done (§ 304), the prevalence of polygyny in the less advanced societies, and admitting, as we must, their state of unceasing hostility to their neighbours, the coex- istence of these traits is a corollary. That this coexistence results from causal connexion, is suggested by. certain converse cases. Among the Dorians, a division of the New Guinea people, there is strict monogamy, with for- bidding of divorce, in a primitive community comparatively unwarlike and comparatively industrial. Another instance is furnished by the Land Dyaks, who are monogamic to the extent that polyg3my is an offence, and who, though given to tribal quarrels about their lands and to the taking of heads as trophies, have such industrial development that the men, instead of making war and the chase habitual occupa- tions, do much of the heavy work, while there is division of trades with some commercial intercourse. The Hill-tribes of India furnish other instances. There are the amiable Bodo and Dhimals, without military arrangements and having no weapons but their agricultural implements, who are industrially advanced to the extent that there is ex- change of services and that the men do all the out-of-door work; and they are monogamous. Similarly the monogamous Lepchas are wholly unwarlike. Such, too, is the relation of traits in certain societies of the New World distinguished from the rest by being partially or entirely industrial. Whereas most of the aborigines of North America, habitually polygynous, live solely to hunt and fight, the Iroquois had permanent villages and cultivated lands; and each of them had but one wife. More marked still is the case of the Pueblos, who ''walling out black barbarism'' by 708 THB DOHSSnC EXLATIONS.
their ingeniously conglomerated honses, fight onlj in aelf- defence^ and when let alone engage ezclnsiyelj in agricul- tural and other industries, and whose marital relations are strictly monogamic. This connexion of traits in the simpler societies, where not traceable directly in the inadequate descriptions of travellers, is often traceable in- directly. We have seen (§ 250), that there is a natural relation between constant fighting and development of chiefly power: the implication being that where, in settled i/ tribes, the chiefly power is small the militancy is not great. And this is the fact in those above-named conununities characterized by monogamy. In Dory there are no chiefs; among the Dyaks subordination to chiefs is feeble; the headman of each Bodo and Dhimal village has but nominal authority; the Lepcha flees from coercion; and the go- vernor of a Pueblo town is annually elected. Conversely we see that the polygyny which prevails in simple preda- tory tribes, persists in aggregates of them welded together by war into small nations under established rulers; and frequently acquires in them large extensions. In Poly- nesia it characterizes in a marked way the warlike and tyrannically-governed Fijians; all through the African kingdoms there goes polygyny along with developed chieftainship, rising t2> great heights in Ashanti and Dahomey, where the governments are coercive in extreme degrees. The like may be said of the extinct American societies: polygyny was an attribute of dignity among the rigorously-ruled Peruvians, Mexicans, Chibchas, Nicara- guans. And the old despotisms of the East were also cha- racterized by polygyny. Allied with this evidence / is the evidence that in a primitive predatory tribe. all the men of which are warriors, polygyny is generally diffused; but in a society compounded of such tribes, polygyny con- tinues to characterize the militant part while monogamy begins to characterize the industrial part. This differentia- tion is foreshadowed even in the primitive predatory tribes; THX FAMILY. 709 since the least militant men fail to obtain more than one wife each. And it becomes marked when^ in the growing population^ there arises a division between waiTiors and workers. Still more clearly shall we see the connexion between militancy and polygyny on recalling two facts named in the chapter on '^ Exogamy and Endogamy/' By members of savage communities^ captured women are / habitually taken as additional wives or concubines^ and the reputations of warriors are enhanced in proportion to the numbers thus obtained (§ 305). Ajs Mr. McLennan points out^ certain early peoples permitted foreign wives (presumably along with other wives) to the military class^ when wives from alien societies were forbidden to other classes. Even among the Hebrews the laws authorized such appropriations of women taken in war (§ 308). The further direct con- nexion is the one implied in § 307; namely^ that where loss of many men in frequent battles leaves a great surplus of women^ the possession of more wives than one by each man conduces to the maintenance of population and the preser- vation of the society: continuance of polygyny beings under these circumstances^ insured by the conflicts between such societies^ which^ other things equals entail the disappearance of those not practising it. To which must be added the con- verse fact^ that in proportion as decreasing militancy and increasing industrialness cause an approximate equaliza-/ tion of the sexes in numbers^ there results a growing resistance to polygyny; since it cannot be practised by many of the men without leaving many of the rest wifeless^ and causing an antagonism inconsistent with social stability. Hence monogamy is to a great extent compelled by that balance of the sexes which industrialism brings' about. Once more^ the natural relation between polygyny and predominant militancy^ and between mono- gamy and predominant industrialness^ is shown by the fact that these two domestic forms harmonize in principle with the two associated political forms. We have seen that the militant type* of social stractore is based on the prin- ciple of compulsory oo*operatioii^ While the indnstnal type of social straotnre is baaed on the principle of yolon- taiy co-operation. Now it is clear- that plurality of wives, whether the wives are captured in war or purchased from their fathers regardless of their own will^ implies domestic rule of the compulsory type: the husband is despot and the wives are slaves. Conversely, the establishment of mono- gamy where fewer women are taken in war and fewer man lost in war, is accompanied by an increased value of the individual woman; who, even when purchased, is therefore likely to be better treated. And when, with further advance, some power of choice is acquired by the woman, there is an approach to that voluntary co-operation which charac- terizes this marital relation in its highest form. The domes- tic despotism which polygyny involves, is congmoos with the political despotism proper to predominant militancyi and the diminishing political coercion which naturally fullovB development of the industrial type, is congruous with the diminishing domestic coercion which naturally follows the accompanying development of monogamy. FrobaUf the histories of European peoples will be cited in evidence against this view: the allegation being that, from Gh^kand Boman times downwards, these peoples, though militant, hiwe been monogamic. It may however be replied that ancient European societies, though often engaged in wars, had large parts of their populations otherwise engaged, and had industrial systems characterized by considerable divi- sion of labour and commercial intercourse. Further, there must be remembered the &ct that in northern Europe, during and after Boman times, while warfare was constant nionogamy was not universal. Tacitus admits the occurrence of polygyny among the Oerman chiefs. Already we have seen, too, that the Merovingian kings were polygyiusiB. Even the Carolingian period yields such &ctB as that— *' The confidence of Conan II. was kept np by.the inoradiUe noiker THB FAMILY. 711 of men-at-anns whioh his kingdom fonrislied; for yon must know that hare^ beaidea that the kingdom is extenBive as well, each warrior will beget fifty, sinoe, bound by the laws neither of decency nor of religion^ each, has ten wivea or more even." — (ErmoltL NigeUus^ iiL op. Sor. R.
And Koonigswartear says that " snch was tHe persistence of legal concubinage in the cnstoms of the people that traces of it are fonnd at Tooloase even in the thirteenth century/' Thus^ considering the many factors that have co-operated in modifying marital arrangementa*--considering also that some societies, becoming relatively peaceful, have long re- tained in large measure the structures acquired during previous greater militancy, while other societies which have considerably developed their industrial structures have again become predominantly militant, causing mixtures of traits; the alleged relations are, I think, as clear as can be ex- pected. That advance from the primitive predatory type to the highest industrial type, has gone along with ad- vance from prevalent polygyny to exclusive monogamy, is unquestionable; and that decrease of militancy and increase of industrialness has been the essential cause of this change in the type of family, is shown by the fact that this change has occurred where such other supposable causes as culture, rehgious creed, etc., have not come into play.
§ 316. The domestic relations thus far dealt with mainly under their private aspects, have now to be dealt with under their public aspects. For, on the structure of the family, considered as a component of a society, depend various social phenomena.
The multitudinous facts grouped in foregoing chapters show that no true conception of the higher types of family in their relations to the higher social types, can be obtained without previous study of the lower types of family in their relationB to the lower social types. In this case.
712 TKX DOMESTIC SSIATI0M8.
tes in aU other cases, error results when conclosiona arc drawn from the more complex products of evolution, iu ignorance of the simpler products from which they hare been derived. Already an instance has been furnished bj the interpretations of primitive religions given by the reign- ing school of mythologists. Possessed by the ideas which civilization has evolved, and looking back on the ideas which prevailed among the progenitors of the civilized races, they have used the more complex to interpret the less complex; and when forced to recognize the entire on- likeness between the inferred early religious ideas and the religious ideas found among the uncivilized who now exist, have assumed a fundamental difference in mode of action between the minds of the superior races and the minds of the inferior races: classing with the inferior, in pursuance of this assumption, certain ancient races to which the modern world is indebted for its present advance. Though to the teachings of so-called Turanians, the Aryans and Semites owe their civilizations — ^though the Accadians had great cities, settled laws, advanced industries, arts in which four metals were utilized, and writing that had already reached the phonetic stage, while the Semites were still nomadic hordes — though the Egyptians had for some thousands of years lived as an elaborately-organized nation, approaching in many of its appliances to modern nations, and producing monuments that remain a wonder to mankind, while the Aryans were wandering with their herds in scattered groups about the Hindu Kush; yet these peoples are, in company with the lowest barbarians, cavaUerly grouped as having radically inferior intelligences, because they show in an unmistakable way the genesis of religious ideas irrecon- cilable with that genesis which mythologists are led by their method to ascribe to the superior races.
All who accept the conclusions set forth in the first part of this work, will see in this instance the misinterpretation caused by analysis of the phenomena from above downwards.
THE FAMILY. 713 instead of synthesis of them from below upwards. They will see that in search of explanations we must go below the stage at which men had learnt to domesticate cattle and till the ground.
§ 317. I make these remarks by way of introduction to a criticism on the doctrines of Sir Henry Maine. While valuing his works, and accepting as true within limits the views he sets forth respecting the family under its developed form, and respecting the part played by it in the evolu- tion of European nations, it is possible to dissent from his assumptions concerning the earliest social states, and from the derived conceptions.
As leading to error. Sir Henry Maine censures " the lofty contempt which a civilized people entertains for barbarous neighbours,^' which, he says, ''has caused a remarkable negligence in observing them.^' But he has not him- self wholly escaped from the effects of this sentiment. While utilizing the evidence furnished by barbarous peo- ples belonging to the higher types, and while in some cases citing confirmatory evidence furnished by certain barbarous peoples of lower types, he has practically dis- regarded the great mass of the uncivilized, and ignored the vast array of facts they present at variance with his theory. Though criticisms have led him somewhat to qualify the sweeping generalizations set forth in his Aiu dent Law — though, in the preface to its later editions, he refers to his subsequent work on Village Oommunities, as in- dicating some qualifications; yet the qualifications are but small, and in great measure hypothetical. He makes light of such adverse evidence as Mr. M'Lennan and Sir John Lub- bock give, on the ground that the part of it he deems most trustworthy is supplied by Indian Hill-tribes, which have, he thinks, been led into abnormal usages by the influences invading races have subjected them to. And though, in his Early Institutions, he says that '' all branches of human 714 THl DOlEMnC BKunoxs.
society maj or tbolj not hare been devielopei £rom joint &mQies which arose oat of an onginal patriarchal ceU/' he clearly^ by this form of expression, declines to admit tbu in many cases they have not been thus developed.
He rightly blames earlier writers for not exploring a suffi- ciently wide area of induction. But he has himself not made the area of induction wide enough; and that snb- stitution of hypothesis for observed £iot which he ascribes to his predecessors, is, as a consequence, to be noticed in his own work. Respecting the evidence available for framing generalizations, he says: — " The radiments of the social state, so &t as they are known to v at all, are known tlirough testimony of three sorts — aoconnts bjconteiD- poraiy obsenrers of civilizations less advanced thaa their own, the records which particohir races have preserved concerning their pnnu- tive history, and ancient law."
And since, as exemplifying the '' accounts by oontemporai; observers of civilizations less advanced than their own/' he names the account Tacitus gives of the Germans, and does not name the accounts modern travellers give of uncivilized races at large, he clearly does not include as evidence the statements made by these.* Let me name here two instances of the way in which this limitation leads to the substitatioD of hypothesis for observation.
Assuming that the patriarchal state is the earliest, Sir Henry Maine says that *' the implicit obedience of rude men to their parent is doubtless a primary &ct/' Now though among • He does, indeed, at page 17 oP hit rUlafe Oommmmtim, delibeiitely ^ credit this evidence — speaking of it as '*the alippeiy testimony concerniog savages which is gathered from traveUers' tales." I am aware that in the eye* of most, antiquity gives sacredness to testimony; and that so, what vere "travellers' tales " when they were written in Roman days, hsve oome, io oar days, to he regarded as of higher anthority than like tales written hy reoest «r living traveUets. I see, however, no reason to ascribe to the second»hand sfaik» ments of Tacitns a trustworthiness which I do not ascribe to the thstrbsnd statements of modem explorers, many of them sdentifically educated — ^Bsrro*» Barth, Qalton, Burton, Livingstone, Seemon, Darwin^ WaUaos^ HanboU^ Bnrckhardt^ and others too numeroos to aet down.
THl ^AJOCf. 715 lower races, b<»is, while joxxng, may be snbordinate, from laek of ability to resist; yet that they remain subordinate when they become men, cannot be asserted as a uniform, and therefore as a primary, fact. On turning to § 85, it will be seen that obedience does not charaoterize all types of men. When we read that the Mantra '^ lives as if there were no other person in the world but himself'; that the Carib 'Ms impatient under the least infringement of his inde- pendence; that the Mapnch6 '^ brooks no command '*; that the Brazilian Indian begins to display '^ impatience of all restraint at puberty ''; we cannot conclude that filial submis- sion is an original trait. When we find that by the (^allino- meros, '^ old people are treated with contumely, both men and women,'' and that by Shoshones and Araucanians, boys are not corrected for fear of destroying their spirit; we cannot suppose that subjection of adult sons to their others characterizes all types of men. When from Bancroft we learn that by the Navajos, " bom and bred with the idea of perfect personal freedom, all restraint is unendur- able," and that among them '* every father holds undis- puted sway over his children until the age of puberly " — when we learn that among some Califomians, children after puberty ''were subject only to the chief," that among the lower Califomians, ''as soon as children are able to get food for themselves they are left to their own devices," and that among the Comanches male children " are even privileged to rebel against their parents, who are not entitled to chastise them but by consent of the tribe "; we are shown that in some races the parental and filial relation early comes to an end. Even the wilder members of the very race which has familiarized us with patriarchal go- vemment, yield like facts. Burckhardt says that "the young Bedouin " pays his father " some deference as long as he continues in his tenf; but "whenever he can become master of a tent himself," " he listens to no advice, nor obeys any earthly command but thai of his own. will."
716 THE DOMESTIC SEIATIONS.
So far from supposing that filial obedience is innate^ and the patriarchal type a natural consequence^ the eyidenoe points rather to the inference that the two have evolved hand in hand under favouring conditions.
Again, referring to the way in which originally, common ancestral origin was the only ground for united social action. Sir Henry Maine says: — '* Of this we may at least be ceriaiii, that all aacient societies regarded themselves as having proceeded from one original stock, and even lat)oured under an incapacity for comprehending any reason except this for their holding together in political onion. The history of political ideas begins, in &ct, with the assumption that kinship in blood is the sole possible ground of commonity in political functions."