No reference has been made to the details of the Arabic system; but, as the two forms are given in the Table, the explanation made of one will suffice for the other, to which it is equally applicable.

With its additional special terms, and its perfected method, consanguinei are assumed to be connected, in virtue of their descent, through married pairs, from common ancestors. They arrange themselves in a lineal and several collateral lines; and the latter are perpetually divergent from the former. These are necessary consequences of monogamy. The relationship of each person to the central Ego is accurately defined and, except as to those who stand in an identical relationship, is kept distinct from every other by means of a special term or descriptive phrase. It also implies the certainty of the parentage of every individual, which monogamy alone could assure. Moreover, it describes the relationships in the monogamian family as they actually exist. Nothing can be plainer than that this form of marriage made this form of the family, and that the latter created this system of consanguinity. The three are necessary parts of a whole where the descriptive system is exclusive. What we know by direct observation to be true with respect to the monogamian family, its law of marriage and its system of consanguinity, has been shown to be equally true with respect to the punaluan family, its law of marriage and its system of consanguinity; and not less so of the consanguine family, its form of marriage and its system of consanguinity. Any of these three parts being given, the existence of the other two with it, at some one time, may be deduced with certainty. If any difference could be made in favor of the superior materiality of any one of the three, the preference would belong to systems of consanguinity. They have crystallized the evidence declaring the marriage law and the form of the family in the relationship of every individual person; thus preserving not only the highest evidence of the fact, but as many concurring declarations thereto as there are members united by the bond of consanguinity. It furnishes a test of the high rank of a domestic institution, which must be supposed incapable of design to pervert the truth, and which, therefore, may be trusted implicitly as to whatever it necessarily teaches. Finally, it is with respect to systems of consanguinity that our information is most complete.

The five successive forms of the family, mentioned at the outset, have now been presented and explained, with such evidence of their existence, and such particulars of their structure as our present knowledge furnishes. Although the treatment of each has been general, it has touched the essential facts and attributes, and established the main proposition, that the family commenced in the consanguine, and grew, through successive stages of development, into the monogamian. There is nothing in this general conclusion which might not have been anticipated from à priori considerations; but the difficulties and the hindrances which obstructed its growth are seen to have been far greater than would have been supposed. As a growth with the ages of time, it has shared in all the vicissitudes of human experience, and now reveals more expressively, perhaps, than any other institution, the graduated scale of human progress from the abyss of primitive savagery, through barbarism, to civilization. It brings us near to the daily life of the human family in the different epochs of its progressive development, indicating, in some measure, its hardships, its struggles and also its victories, when different periods are contrasted. We should value the great institution of the family, as it now exists, in some proportion to the expenditure of time and of intelligence in its production; and receive it as the richest legacy transmitted to us by ancient society, because it embodies and records the highest results of its varied and prolonged experience.

When the fact is accepted that the family has passed through four successive forms, and is now in a fifth, the question at once arises whether this form can be permanent in the future. The only answer that can be given is, that it must advance as society advances, and change as society changes, even as it has done in the past. It is the creature of the social system, and will reflect its culture. As the monogamian family has improved greatly since the commencement of civilization, and very sensibly in modern times, it is at least supposable that it is capable of still farther improvement until the equality of the sexes is attained. Should the monogamian family in the distant future fail to answer the requirements of society, assuming the continuous progress of civilization, it is impossible to predict the nature of its successor.

Roman and Arabic System of Relationship.

Transcriber's Note: Abbreviations: fa=father, mo=mother, GF=Grandfather, GM=Grandmother, GD=Granddaughter, GS=Grandson, bro=Brother, str=sister, gt=great, dau=daughter. End of Transcriber's Note.

CHAPTER VI. - SEQUENCE OF INSTITUTIONS CONNECTED WITH THE FAMILY.

Sequence in part Hypothetical.—Relation of these Institutions in the Order of their Origination.—Evidence of their Origination in the Order named.—Hypothesis of Degradation considered.—The Antiquity of Mankind.

It remains to place in their relations the customs and institutions which have contributed to the growth of the family through successive forms. Their articulation in a sequence is in part hypothetical; but there is an intimate and undoubted connection between them.

This sequence embodies the principal social and domestic institutions which have influenced the growth of the family from the consanguine to the monogamian.494 They are to be understood as originating in the several branches of the human family substantially in the order named, and as existing generally in these branches while in the corresponding status.

A few observations upon the foregoing sequence of customs and institutions, for the purpose of tracing their connection and relations, will close this discussion of the growth of the family.

Like the successive geological formations, the tribes of mankind may be arranged, according to their relative conditions, into successive strata. When thus arranged, they reveal with some degree of certainty the entire range of human progress from savagery to civilization. A thorough study of each successive stratum will develop whatever is special in its culture and characteristics, and yield a definite conception of the whole, in their differences and in their relations. When this has been accomplished, the successive stages of human progress will be definitely understood. Time has been an important factor in the formation of these strata; and it must be measured out to each ethnical period in no stinted measure. Each period anterior to civilization necessarily represents many thousands of years.

Promiscuous Intercourse.—This expresses the lowest conceivable stage of savagery—it represents the bottom of the scale. Man in this condition could scarcely be distinguished from the mute animals by whom he was surrounded. Ignorant of marriage, and living probably in a horde, he was not only a savage, but possessed a feeble intellect and a feebler moral sense. His hope of elevation rested in the vigor of his passions, for he seems always to have been courageous; in the possession of hands physically liberated, and in the improvable character of his nascent mental and moral powers. In corroboration of this view, the lessening volume of the skull and its increasing animal characteristics, as we recede from civilized to savage man, deliver some testimony concerning the necessary inferiority of primitive man. Were it possible to reach this earliest representative of the species, we must descend very far below the lowest savage now living upon the earth. The ruder flint implements found over parts of the earth’s surface, and not used by existing savages, attest the extreme rudeness of his condition after he had emerged from his primitive habitat, and commenced, as a fisherman, his spread over continental areas. It is with respect to this primitive savage, and with respect to him alone, that promiscuity may be inferred.

It will be asked whether any evidence exists of this antecedent condition. As an answer, it may be remarked that the consanguine family and the Malayan system of consanguinity presuppose antecedent promiscuity. It was limited, not unlikely, to the period when mankind were frugivorous and within their primitive habitat, since its continuance would have been improbable after they became fishermen and commenced their spread over the earth in dependence upon food artificially acquired. Consanguine groups would then form, with intermarriage in the group as a necessity, resulting in the formation of consanguine families. At all events, the oldest form of society which meets us in the past through deduction from systems of consanguinity is this family. It would be in the nature of a compact on the part of several males for the joint subsistence of the group, and for the defense of their common wives against the violence of society. In the second place, the consanguine family is stamped with the marks of this supposed antecedent state. It recognized promiscuity within defined limits, and those not the narrowest, and it points through its organism to a worse condition against which it interposed a shield. Between the consanguine family and the horde living in promiscuity, the step, though a long one, does not require an intermediate condition. If such existed, no known trace of it remains. The solution of this question, however, is not material. It is sufficient, for the present at least, to have gained the definite starting-point far down in savagery marked out by the consanguine family, which carries back our knowledge of the early condition of mankind well toward the primitive period.

There were tribes of savages and even of barbarians known to the Greeks and Romans who are represented as living in promiscuity. Among them were the Auseans of North Africa, mentioned by Herodotus,495 the Garamantes of Æthiopia, mentioned by Pliny,496 and the Celts of Ireland, mentioned by Strabo.497 The latter repeats a similar statement concerning the Arabs.498 It is not probable that any people within the time of recorded human observation have lived in a state of promiscuous intercourse like the gregarious animals. The perpetuation of such a people from the infancy of mankind would evidently have been impossible. The cases cited, and many others that might be added, are better explained as arising under the punaluan family, which, to the foreign observer, with limited means of observation, would afford the external indications named by these authors. Promiscuity may be deduced theoretically as a necessary condition antecedent to the consanguine family; but it lies concealed in the misty antiquity of mankind beyond the reach of positive knowledge.

II. Intermarriage of Brothers and Sisters, own and collateral, in a Group.—In this form of marriage the family had its birth. It is the root of the institution. The Malayan system of consanguinity affords conclusive evidence of its ancient prevalence. With the ancient existence of the consanguine family established, the remaining forms can be explained as successive derivations from each other. This form of marriage gives (III.) the consanguine family and (IV.) the Malayan system of consanguinity, which disposes of the third and fourth members of the sequence. This family belongs to the Lower Status of savagery.

V. The Punaluan Custom.—In the Australian male and female classes united in marriage, punaluan groups are found. Among the Hawaiians, the same group is also found, with the marriage custom it expresses. It has prevailed among the remote ancestors of all the tribes of mankind who now possess or have possessed the Turanian system of consanguinity, because they must have derived it from punaluan ancestors. There is seemingly no other explanation of the origin of this system. Attention has been called to the fact that the punaluan family included the same persons found in the previous consanguine, with the exception of own brothers and sisters, who were theoretically if not in every case excluded. It is a fair inference that the punaluan custom worked its way into general adoption through a discovery of its beneficial influence. Out of punaluan marriage came (VI.) the punaluan family, which disposes of the sixth member of the sequence. This family originated, probably, in the Middle Status of savagery.

VII. The Organization into Gentes.—The position of this institution in the sequence is the only question here to be considered. Among the Australian classes, the punaluan group is found on a broad and systematic scale. The people are also organized in gentes. Here the punaluan family is older than the gens, because it rested upon the classes which preceded the gentes. The Australians also have the Turanian system of consanguinity, for which the classes laid the foundation by excluding own brothers and sisters from the punaluan group united in marriage. They were born members of classes who could not intermarry. Among the Hawaiians, the punaluan family was unable to create the Turanian system of consanguinity. Own brothers and sisters were frequently involved in the punaluan group, which the custom did not prevent, although it tended to do so. This system requires both the punaluan family and the gentile organization to bring it into existence. It follows that the latter came in after and upon the former. In its relative order it belongs to the Middle Status of savagery.

VIII. and IX. These have been sufficiently considered.

X. and XI. Marriage between Single Pairs, and the Syndyasmian Family.—After mankind had advanced out of savagery and entered the Lower Status of barbarism, their condition was immensely improved. More than half the battle for civilization was won. A tendency to reduce the groups of married persons to smaller proportions must have begun to manifest itself before the close of savagery, because the syndyasmian family became a constant phenomenon in the Lower Status of barbarism. The custom which led the more advanced savage to recognize one among a number of wives as his principal wife, ripened in time into the practice of pairing, and in making this wife a companion and associate in the maintenance of a family. With the growth of the propensity to pair came an increased certainty of the paternity of children. But the husband could put away his wife, and the wife could leave her husband, and each seek a new mate at pleasure. Moreover, the man did not recognize, on his part, the obligations of the marriage tie, and therefore had no right to expect its recognition by his wife. The old conjugal system, now reduced to narrower limits by the gradual disappearance of the punaluan groups, still environed the advancing family, which it was to follow to the verge of civilization. Its reduction to zero was a condition precedent to the introduction of monogamy. It finally disappeared in the new form of hetærism, which still follows mankind in civilization as a dark shadow upon the family. The contrast between the punaluan and syndyasmian families was greater than between the latter and the monogamian. It was subsequent in time to the gens, which was largely instrumental in its production. That it was a transitional stage of the family between the two is made evident by its inability to change materially the Turanian system of consanguinity, which monogamy alone was able to overthrow. From the Columbia River to the Paraguay, the Indian family was syndyasmian in general, punaluan in exceptional areas, and monogamian perhaps in none.

XII. and XIII. Pastoral Life and the Patriarchal Family.—It has been remarked elsewhere that polygamy was not the essential feature of this family, which represented a movement of society to assert the individuality of persons. Among the Semitic tribes, it was an organization of servants and slaves under a patriarch for the care of flocks and herds, for the cultivation of lands, and for mutual protection and subsistence. Polygamy was incidental. With a single male head and an exclusive cohabitation, this family was an advance upon the syndyasmian, and therefore not a retrograde movement. Its influence upon the human race was limited; but it carries with it a confession of a state of society in the previous period against which it was designed to form a barrier.

XIV. Rise of Property and the establishment of lineal succession to Estates.—Independently of the movement which culminated in the patriarchal family of the Hebrew and Latin types, property, as it increased in variety and amount, exercised a steady and constantly augmenting influence in the direction of monogamy. It is impossible to overestimate the influence of property in the civilization of mankind. It was the power that brought the Aryan and Semitic nations out of barbarism into civilization. The growth of the idea of property in the human mind commenced in feebleness and ended in becoming its master passion. Governments and laws are instituted with primary reference to its creation, protection and enjoyment. It introduced human slavery as an instrument in its production; and, after the experience of several thousand years, it caused the abolition of slavery upon the discovery that a freeman was a better property-making machine. The cruelty inherent in the heart of man, which civilization and Christianity have softened without eradicating, still betrays the savage origin of mankind, and in no way more pointedly than in the practice of human slavery, through all the centuries of recorded history. With the establishment of the inheritance of property in the children of its owner, came the first possibility of a strict monogamian family. Gradually, though slowly, this form of marriage, with an exclusive cohabitation, became the rule rather than the exception; but it was not until civilization had commenced that it became permanently established.