femily also are likely to be opponents. A woman is of yalue not only as a wife^ but also as a daughter; and all throagh^ from the lowest to the highest stages of social progress, we find a tacit or avowed claim to her services by her father. It is so even with the degraded Fuegians: an equivalent in the shape of service rendered has to be given for her by the youth, '^ such as helping to make a canoe.'^ It is so with numerous more advanced savages all over the world: there is either the like giving of stipulated work, or the giving of a price. And we have evidence that it was originally so among ourselves: in an action for seduction the deprivation of a daughter's services is the injury alleged. Hence it is inferable that in the rudest states, where claims, parental or other, are but little regarded, the taking away of a daughter is Ukely to become the occasion of a fight.
Facts support this conclusion. Of the Araucanians Smith tells us that when there is opposition of the parents, " the neighbours are immediately summoned by blowing the horn, and chase is given." " Among the Ganders, a tribe on the southern shores of the Caspian Sea, the bridegroom must run away with his bride, although he thereby exposes himself to the vengeance of her parents, who, if they find him within three days, can lawfully put him to death." And we read concerning the Gonds that " a suitor usually carries off the girl that is refused to him by the parents." Thus we find a further natural cause for the practice of capture — a cause which must have been common before social usages were well established. Indeed, on reading that among the Mapuch^s the man sometimes '^ lays violent hands upon the damsel, and carries her off," and that *' in all such cases the usual equivalent is afterwards paid to the girl's father," we may suspect that abduction, spite of parents, was the primary form; that there came next the making of compensation to escape vengeance; that this grew into the making of presents beforehand; and that so resulted eventually the system of purchase.
656 THE D0ME8TI0 RELATIONS.
If^ then, within a tribe there are three soarces of opposition to the appropriation of a woman by a man, it doea not seem that the form of capture is inexplicable unless we assume the abduction of women from other tribes.
Bui eren supposing it to haye originated in the capture of foreign women, its survival as a marriage-ceremony would not prove exogamy to have been the law. In a tribe whose warriors had many of them wives taken from enemies, and who, as having captured their wives, were regarded as more honourably married than the rest, there would result an ambition, if not to capture a wife, still to seem to capture a wife. In every society the inferior ape the superior; and customs thus spread among classes the ancestors of which did not observe them. The antique-looking portraits that decorate many a modern large house, by no means demonstrate the distinguished ancestry of the owner; but may merely simulate a distinguished ancestry. The coat of arms a wealthy man bears, does not necessarily imply descent from men who once had their shields and flags covered by such marks of identity. The plumes borne on a hearse, do not prove that the dead occupant had forefathers who wore knightly decorations. And similarly, it does not follow that all the members of tribes who go through the form of capturing their wives at marriage, are descendants of men who in earlier days actually captured their wives.
Mr. McLennan himself points out that, among sundry ancient peoples, captured wives were permitted to the military class though not to other classes. It we suppose a society formed of a dominant militaiy class, originally the conquerors, who practised wife-capture, and a subject class who could not practise it; and if we ask what would happen when such a society fell into more peaceful relations with adjacent like societies, and obtained wives from them no longer by force, but by purchase or other friendly arrangement; we may see that, in the first place, the form of capture would replace the actuality of capture in the marriages I I I I I SXOQAMT AND EKDOOAMT. 667 of this dominant class; for^ as Mr. McLennan contenils^ conformity to ancestral usage would necessitate the simulation of capture after actual capture has ceased. And when^ in the dominant class^ wife-capture had thus passed into a form, it would be imitated by the subject class as being the most honourable form. Such among the inferior as had risen to superior social positions would first adopt it; and they would gradually be followed by those below them. So that, e7en were there none of the other probable origins named above, a surviving form of capture in any society would not necessarily show that society to have been exogamous; but would merely show that wife-capture was in early times practised by its leading men.
§ 289. And now, pursuing the argument, let us see whether exogamy and endogamy are not simultaneously accounted for as correlative results of the same differentiating process. Setting out with a state in which the relations of the sexes were indefinite, variable, and determined by the passions and circumstances of the occasion, we have to explain how exogamy and endogamy became established, the one here, the other there, as consequences of surrounding conditions. The efficient conditions were the relations to other tribes, now peaceful but usually hostile, some of them strong and some of them weak.
Necessarily, a primitive group not commonly at war with neighbouring groups, must be endogamous; for the taking of women from other tribes is either a sequence of open war, or is an act of private war which brings on open war. Pure endogamy, however, resulting in this manner, is probably rare; since the hostility of tribes is almost universal. But endogamy is likely to characterize not peaceful groups alone, but also groups habitually worsted in war. An occasional abducted woman taken in reprisal, will not suffice to establish in a weak tribe any precedent for wife-capture; but, contrariwise, a member of such a tribe who carries off TJ u a woman, and so proyokea ihe Toogeanoe of a stronger faribe robbed^ is likely to meet with geneial reprobation.^ Hence marrying within the tribe will not only be habiioalj bat there will arise a prqndioe, and erraitoally a law, against taking wires from other tribes: the needs of sdf-preservation will make the tribe endogamoos. This interpr^ation harmonizes with the fsct, admitted by Mr. Mliennan, that the endogamons tribes are as nnmeroos as the ezogamons; and also with the &ct he admits, that in snndry cases clusters of tribes allied by blood Mid language are some of them exogamons and some endogamons.
It is to be inferred that among tribes not differing mnch from one another in strengrth, there will be continnal aggressions and reprisals^ accompanied by mntoal robberies of women. No one of them will be able to snpply itself with wives entirely at the expense of adjacent tribes; and benoe^ in each of them, there will be both native wives and wives taken from other tribes: there will be both exogamy and endogamy. Stealing of wives will not be reprobated, becanse the tribes robbed are not too strong to be defied; and it will not be insisted on^ because the men who have stolen wives will not be nnmeroos enough to determine the average opinion.
If > however, in a clnster of tribes one gains predominance by freqaent successes in war — if the men in it who have stolen wives come to form the larger number — if the possession of a stolen wife becomes a mark of that bravery without which a man is not worthy of a wife; then the discreditableness of marrying within the tribe, growing into * Since the Above sentence was written, I have^ by a bappj coincideDoeh come npon a verifying fact^ in the joBt-pablished Life in ike Somtkem Islet, bj tbe Rev. Mr. Gill (p. 47). A man belonging to one of the tribes in ICangua •tole food from an ac^acent tribe. This adjacent tribe avenged itself by destroying the houses, etc.» of the thief's tribe. Therenpon the thieTs tribe, sn^TT because of the mischief thns brought npon them, killed the thief. If this happened with a stealer of food, still more would it be likely to happen with a stealer of women, when the tribe robbed was the more poweriuL aer SZOaAHT AND EKDOGAMT. 659 disgracefulness, will end in a peremptory reqairement to get a wife from another tribe — ^if not in open war, then by private thef fc: the tribe will become exogamons. A sequence may be traced. The exogamons tribe thns arising, and growing while it causes adjacent tribes to dwindle by robbing them, will presently divide; and its sections, usurping the habitats of adjacent tribes, will carry with them the established exogamons habit. When, presently becoming hostile, these diverging sub-tribes begin to rob one another of women, there will arise conditions conducive to that internal exogamy which Mr. McLennan supposes, rightly I think, to replace external exogamy. For unless we assume that in a cluster of tribes, each will undertake to rear women for adjacent tribes to steal, we must conclude that the exogamons requirement will be met in a qualified manner. Wives bom within the tribe but foreign by blood, will, under pressure of the difficulty, be considered allowable, instead of actually stolen wives. And thus, indeed, that kinship in the female line which primitive irregularity in the relations of the sexes originates, will become established, even though male parenthood is known; since this interpretation of kinship will make possible conformity to a law of eonnubiv/m that could not otherwise be obeyed.
§ 290. Nothing of much importance is to be said respecting exogamy and endogamy in their general bearings on social life.
Exogamy in its primitive form is clearly an accompaniment of the lowest barbarism; and it decreases as the hostility of societies becomes less constant, and the usages of war mitigated. That the implied crossing of tribal stocks, where these tribal stocks are very small, may be advantageous, physiologically, is true; and exogamy may so secure a benefit which at a later stage is secured by the mingling of conquering and conquered tribes; though none who bear in mind the thoughtlessness of savages will sup- 660 THE DOMESTIC RBIATIONS.
pose sncli a benefit to liave been contemplated. Bat the exogamotis oostom as at first established^ implies an extremely abject condition of women; a brutal treatment of tbem; an entire absence of the higher sentiments that accompany the relations of the sexea Associated with the lowest type of political life, it is also associated with the lowest type of domestic life.
Evidently endogamy, which at the outset must have characterized the more peaceful groups, and which has prevailed as societies have become less hostile, is a concomitant of the higher forms of the family.
[The above chapter, written before the middle of September, I have kept standing in type for several weeks: being deterred from printing by the announcement that a second edition of Mr. M'Lennan's work was coming out, and by the thought that perhaps amendments contained in it might entail some modifications of my criticisms. Circumstances, however, have prevented Mr. M'Lennan from changing his exposition. In the preface to this new edition he says: — '* Thongh I am again firee to resimie the studies necessaiy for its revision, it is uncertain whether I coold soon reyise it in a eatialaetaiy manner — bo that I am without an answer to representationB made to me, that it is better it should be made acceaaible to students with its imperfections than that it should remain inaccessible to them. I have done this the more readily that, on the whole, I still adhere to the conelusions I had arrived at more than eleven years ago, on the various matters which are discussed in ' Primitive Marriage.* " I now, therefore, send the foregoing pages to the press unaltered. The quotations are, of course, from the first edition, the paging of which does not correspond with that of the second. I have not, however, thought it needful, or indeed, desirable, to change the references; since the first edition is at present, and probably wiU for some time be, more widely diffused than the second.]
CHAPTER V.
PROMISCUITY.
§ 291. Alrbaby^ in the chapter on " The Frimitire Relations of the Sexes,'' illustrations have been given of the indefiniteness and inconstancy of the connexions between men and women in low societies. The wills of the stronger, onchecked by political restraints, nnguided by moral sentiments, determine all behavionr. Forcibly taking women from one another, men recognize no tie between the sexes save that which might establishes and liking nmintains. To the instances there given, others may be added, showing that at first, marriage, as we understand it, hardly exists.
Bancroft quotes Poole as saying of the Haidahs that the women ''cohabit almost promiscuously with their own tribe, though rarely with other tribes." According to Captain Taylor, the Hill-tribes of the Piney HUls, Madura district, have very few restrictions upon promiscuous intercourse. Describing a people inhabiting the Keilgherry Hills, Captain Harkness says — '' They [two Brulars] informed us that the Einilars have no marriage contract, the sexes cohabiting almost indiscriminately; the option of remaining in union or of separating resting principally with the female.'' Of another Indian people, the Teehurs, it is said that they ''live together almost indiscriminately in large communities, and eyen when two people are regarded 662 THK OOMXSTIC RKIiATIONS.
as married the tie is but nominal/' And according to a Bralimin sepoj who lired more than a year with the AndamaneBOj promiscuity is so far sanctioned among them by public opinion, that a man who is refused by an unmarried woman "considers himself insulted," and sometimes takes summary yengeance.
As shown by instances before giren, this state of things is in many low tribes rery little qualified by such form of union as stands for marriage; which sometimes has not eren a name. Temporary fancies determine the connexions and mere whims dissolve them. What is said of the Mantras, who marry without acquaintance and dirorce for trifles, and among whom some men marry ''forty or fifty" times, may be taken as typical, § 292. Facts of this kind are thought by several writers to imply that the primitive condition was one of unqualified hetairism. Complete promiscuity is held to have been not simply the practice but in some sort the law. Indeed, the name ''communal marriage'' has been proposed by Sir John Lubbock for this earliest phase of the sexual relations, as implying recogniaed rights and bonds. I do not think the evidence warrants us in concluding that promiscuity ever existed in an unqualified form; and it appears to me that even had it so existed, the name " communal marriage " would not convey a true conception of it.
As before contended, the initial social state must have been one in which there were no social laws. Social laws presuppose continued social existence; and continued social existence presupposes reproduction through successive generations. Hence there could, at first, have been no such social law as that of "communal marriage, where every man and woman in a small community were regarded as equally married to one another" — ^there could have been no conception of "communal marriage rights." The words " marriage " and " rights " as applied to such a state have.
FB0MI3GUITT. 663 li seems to me, misleading connotations. Each implies a claim and a limitation. If the claim is co-extensive with the members of the tribe^ then the only limitation must be one excluding members of other tribes; and it cannot^ I thinks be said that the idea of marriage within a tribe is generated by the negation of the claims of those belonging to other tribes. Bat passing over the terminology^ let us consider the essential question raised — ^whether what we may call tribal monopoly of its women, regarded as a common possession held against other tribes, preceded indiyidual monopoly within the tribe. Sir John Lubbock considers that absence of indiyidual marital possession went along with absence of individual possession generally: while the notion of private ownership of other thinga did not exist, there did not exist the notion of private ownership of women. Just as in the earliest stages the tribal territory was common property, so, too, he thinks, were the women of the tribe common property; and he thinks that private ownership of women was established only by stealing them &om other tribes: women so obtained being recognized as belonging to their captors. But while concurring in the belief that the development of the conception of property in general, has had much to do with the development of the niarital relation, it is quite possible to dissent from the belief that the conception of property was ever so undeveloped as Sir John Lubbock's conclusion implies. It is true that the idea of ownership which a tribe has in the territory it occupies, may be compared to that of many animals, solitary and gregarious, which drive trespassers away from their lairs or habitats: even the swans on each reach of the Thames resist invading swans from other reaches; and the public dogs in each quarter of Constantinople attack dogs from other quarters if they encroach. It is true, also, that generally among savages there is a certain community of property in the game captured; though not an unqualified community. But the reason for S64 THE D0MB6TIC BBIATIONS.
all this is clear. Land is jointly lield by Imnters becanse it cannot be otherwise held -, and joint claims to the food it produces are involved. To infer that there is not in the earliest state a recognition of individaal property in other things^ is^ I think^ going farther than either the probabilities or the facts warrant. The dog shows ns some notion of ownership — will not only iBght for the prey he has caught, or for his kennel^ but will keep guard over his master's clothes or other belongings. We cannot suppose that man in his rudest state had less notion of ownership than this. We must suppose he had more; and our supposition is justified by evidence. Habitually savages individually own their weapons and implements^ their decorations^ their dresses. Even among the degraded Fuegians there is private property in canoes. Indeed^ the very conception of prospective advantage which leads an intelligent being to take possession of^ or to make^ any useful thing, is a conception which leads him to resist the abstraction of that thing.
Oenerally, possession of it is not interfered with, because the thing is not worth the risk of a fight; and eren where, after resistance, it is taken by another, still it comes to be held by that other individually. The impulses which lead primitive men thus to monopolize other objects of value, must lead them to monopolize women. There must arise private ownerships of women, ignored only by the stronger* who establish other private ovmerships.
And this conclusion seems to me the one supported by the facts. Everywhere promiscuity, however marked, is qualified by unions having some persistence. If, in the yarious cases before named, as also among the Aleutian Islanders and the Kutchins of North America, the Badagas, Kurumbahs and Keriahs of India, the Hottentots and yarious other peoples of Africa, there is no marriage ceremony; we have in the very statement an implication that there is something haying the nature of marriage. If, as with the North American tribes generally, " nothing more than PROMISCUITY. 666 PROMISCUITY. 666 the personal consent of the parties/' unsanctioned and unwitnessed^ occars; still some kind of union is alleged. If, as among the Bushmen and the Indians of California, there is not even a word signifying this relation between the sexes; still there is evidence that the relation is known. If among such people as the Teehurs of Oude, the general promiscuity is such that '' even when two people are regarded as married the tie is but nominal/' still, some ^'are regarded as married." The very lowest races now existing — Fuegians, Australians, Andamanese — show us that, however informally they may originate, sexual relations of a more or less enduring kind exist; and I do not see reasons for concluding that in social groups lower than these, there was no individual possession of women by men. We must, I think, infer, that even in prehistoric times, promiscuity was checked by the establishment of individual connexions, prompted by men's likings and maintained against other men by force.
§ 293. Admitting, however, that in the earliest stages promiscuity was but in a small degree tbus qualified, let us note, first, the resulting ideas of kinship.
Causes direct and indirect, will conspire to produce recognition of relationship in the female line only. Necessarily if promiscuity is extensive, and if there is a larger number of children bom to unknown fathers than to known fathers, it must happen that as the connexion between mother and child is obvious in all cases, while that between father and child is inferable only in some cases, there will arise a habit of thinking of maternal kinship rather than of paternal. Hence, even in that minority of cases where paternity is manifest, children will be thought of and spoken of in the same way. Among ourselves common speech habitually indicates a boy as Mr. So-and-so's son, though descent from his mother is as fully recognized; and a converse usage, caused by prevailing promiscuity among savages, will 666 TBIfi DOKESTIC BELATIONS.
lead to the speaking of a cliild as the mother's child^ eyen when the &ther is known.
A farther cause for the establishment of this practice exists. Though we conclude that promiscuity is in all oases qualified hj unions having some duration^ jet we see that in Uie lowest stages^ as among the Andamanese^ each of these unions ends when a child is weaned: the result being tliat thereafter^ association of the child with its father ceases, while association with its mother continues. Consequentlj, even when there is acknowledged patemiiy, the child will be mostly thought of in connexion with its mother; and thus will be confirmed the habit otherwise caused.
This habit haying arisen^ the resulting system of kinship in the female line will^ as we have seen^ be strengthened by the practice of exogamy when passing from the external to the internal form. The requirement that a wife shall be taken from a foreign tribe^ readily becomes confounded with the requirement that a wife shall be of foreign blood. If maternal descent only is recognized^ the daughters of foreign women within the tribe will^ as Mr. M^exman argues^ be rendered available as wives under the law of exogamy; and the custom of so regarding ithem will be strengthened by making fulfilment of this law possible, when otherwise fulfilment would bo impossible. A settled system of kinship through females, and interdict against marriage with those having the same family name, or he* longing to the same clan, will result.
Instances collected by Mr. McLennan and Sir John Lab* bock, show that this system ^' prevails throughout Western and Eastern Africa, in Gircassia, Hindostan, Tartary, Siberia, China, and Australia, as well as in North and South America." For interpreting it in the above manner there are some additional reasons. One is that we are not obliged to make the startling assumption that male parentage was at first entirely unperceived. A second is that we escape an inconsistency. Male parentage is habitually known, though PBOKiscumr. 667 PBOKiscumr. 667 disregarded^ where tlie system of kinsliip in tlie female line now obtains; for not only in the lowest races are there unions persistent enough to make male parentage manifest^ but the yery statement that female kinship is alone counted^ cannot bo made by these.races without implying a consciousness of male kinship: nay^ indeed, have not these races^ down to the yery lowest^ always a word for father as well as a word for mother? And a third is that commonly the names of the clans which are forbidden to intermarry, such as Wolf, Bear, Eagle, Whale, etc., are names given to men; implying, as I have before contended (§ 170-3) descent from distinguished male ancestors bearing those names — descent which, notwithstanding the system of female kinship, was remembered where there was pride in the connexion.* § 294. From the effects of unregrdated relations of the sexes on the system of formally -recognized kinship, in pursuing which I have diverged somewhat from the immediate topic, let us now pass to the effects on the society and its individuals.
In proportion to the prevalence of promiscuity, there must be paucity and feebleness of relationships. Besides having no known male parents, the children of each mother are less connected with one another. They are only halfbrothors and half-sisters. Family bonds, therefore, are not * I may add here a oondusive proof that avowed recognition of kinship in the female line only, by no means shows an unconsciousness of male kinship. This proof is furnished by that converse custom which some ancient Aryans had of recognizing relationship through males, and ignoring relationship through females. When Orestes, after killing his mother for murdering his &ther, was absolved on the ground urged by him, that a man is related to his father and not to his mother, undeniable evidence was g^ven that an established doctrine of kinship may disregard a connexion which is obvious to all — ^more obvious than any other. And if it cannot be supposed that an actual unconsciousness of motherhood was associated with this system of exclusive kinship through males among the Greeks; then thero is no adequate warrant for the supposition that actual unconsciousness of fatherhood wa* associated with the system ot exclusive kinship through females among savages.
only weak but oaxmot spread far; and this implieB defect of cohesion among members of the society. Thongb they bave some common interests^ with some yague notion of general kinship, there lacks that element of strength arising from the interests within groups distinctly rolated by blood. At the same time^ the establishment of subordination is hindered. Nothing beyond temporary predominance of the stronger is likely to arise in the absence of definite family and definite descent: there can be no settled political control. For the like reason the growth of ancestorworship^ and of the religions bonds resulting from it, are impeded. Thus in several ways indefinite sexual relations hinder social self-presenration and social evolution.
Their nnfavourableness to the welfare of offspring scarcely needs pointing out. Where paternity is not recognized^ children must depend almost wholly on maternal care. Among savages, exposed as they are to every kind of privation, the rearing of children is in all cdses difficult; and it is necessarily more difficult where the mother is unaided by the father. So too is it, if in a smaller degree, with the progeny of brief marriages, such as those of the Andamanese, whose custom it is for man and wife to part when a child bom to them is weaned. Often the child must afterwards die from lacking adequate support and protection, which the mother alone cannot give. No doubt, under such conditions, miscellaneous help is given. Indeed, the Andamanese women are said to aid one another in suckling; and probably food and other things are furnished by the men: the child becomes, in a measure, the child of the tribe. But indefinite tribal care can but partially replace definite paternal care. How unfavourable to the maintenance of population are these unregulated relations of the sexes, we have, indeed, direct evidence. A recent reporter, Mr. Francis Day, a surgeon, says that the Andamanese appear to be gradually dying out. He saw but one woman who had as many as three living children. During PROMiaCCTITT. 669 a year, tlurty-eight deatibs were reported and only fourteen births, among the families living near the Eoropean settlements.
Turning from progeny to parents, it is clear that to them also the absence of persistent marital relations is extremely injurious. Maintenance of the race, in so far as it is effected, is effected at an excessive cost to the women; and though the men may not suffer directly, yet they suffer indirectly. After the vigour of maturity is past, there coiAe the privations of an early decline unmitigated by domestic assistance. Mr. Day says of the Andamanese that few appear to live to a greater age than forty; and they are subject to a variety of diseases. Absence of those higher gratifications accompanying developed family life, is also to be noted as a concomitant evil.
Irregular relations of the sexes are thus at variance with the welfare of the society, of the young, and of the adults. We before saw that in all respects the traits of the primitive man — physical, emotional, intellectual — are immense hindrances to social evolution; and here we see that his lack of those sentiments which lead to persistent marriages, constitutes a further hindrance.
§ 295. Out of this lowest state, however, there tend to arise higher states. In two ways do groups thus loose in their sexual relations, evolve into groups having sexual relations of more definite kinds.