According to Starcke, "we are in some respects disposed to underestimate the great influence which sexual matters exert on all the concerns of social life, and the attempt is sometimes made to sever it from moral life, as a matter of which we are constrained to admit the practical existence, although, from the ideal point of view, it ought not to be. On the other hand, its influence on primitive communities has been greatly overrated." The sexual instinct, however powerful, is "devoid of the conditions which form the basis of the leading tendencies in which man's struggle for existence must be fought out." Hence primitive marriage does not rest upon the tender sentiment which we call love,[296] but "as hard and dry as private life itself," it has its "origin in the most concrete and prosaic requirements." The "common household," he continues, "in which each had a given work to do, and the common interest of obtaining and rearing children were the foundations upon which marriage was originally built."[297] Therefore, according to this view, marriage appears to be a kind of contractual relation from the beginning.[298] The conclusions of Westermarck on this point are in substantial harmony with those of Starcke: "The prolonged union of the sexes is, in some way or other, connected with parental duties.... The tie which joins male and female is an instinct developed through the powerful influence of natural selection." This instinct as well as parental affection are "thus useful mental dispositions which, in all probability, have been acquired through the survival of the fittest." So he concludes that "it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. Marriage is therefore rooted in family, rather than family in marriage."[299] Hence it is that among many peoples "true conjugal life does not begin before a child is born;" and there are other races who "consider that the birth of a child out of wedlock makes it obligatory for the parents to marry."[300]
As a result of the first argument, then, marriage appears as a fundamental institution, whose beginnings are anterior to the dawn of human history. But there is need of a new definition, one broad enough to satisfy the demands of science. For most existing definitions are of a "merely juridical or ethical nature, comprehending either what is required to make the union legal, or what, in the eye of an idealist, the union ought to be." Hence Westermarck defines marriage, from a scientific point of view, as a "more or less durable connection between male and female, lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of offspring;" and Starcke, in like spirit, declares that marriage in the widest sense is "only a connection between man and woman which is of more than momentary duration, and as long as it endures they seek for subsistence in common."[301]
The second or physiological argument may be very briefly stated. It rests upon the evidence, referred to by Sir Henry Maine, that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes "tends nowadays to a pathological condition very unfavorable to fecundity; and infecundity, amid perpetually belligerent savages, implies weakness and ultimate destruction."[302] Thus Dr. Carpenter, "who visited the West Indies before the abolition of slavery, well remembers the efforts of the planters to form the negroes into families, as the promiscuity into which they were liable to fall produced infertility, and fertility had become important to the slave-owner through the prohibition of the slave-trade."[303] Again "it is a well-known fact that prostitutes very seldom have children, while, according to Dr. Roubaud, those of them who marry young easily become mothers."[304] Furthermore, as Westermarck urges, "in a community where all the women equally belonged to all the men, the younger and prettier ones would of course be most sought after, and take up a position somewhat akin to that of the prostitutes of modern society."[305] Nor is the objection, that "the practice of polyandry prevails among several peoples without any evil results as regards fecundity being heard of," insuperable. For "polyandry scarcely ever implies continued promiscuous intercourse of many men with one woman;" and where it exists the relations of the woman with her husbands is often so regulated as to make the union practically monogamous.[306] In this connection also should be considered the infertility and other evils resulting from the intermarriage of near kindred.[307] For in a state of promiscuity such unions must have been very frequent; and at one stage of social development, if the theory of Morgan were to be accepted, they must have constituted the general rule.
According to Westermarck, the strongest objection to ancient promiscuity "is derived from the psychical nature of man and other animals."[308] The third or psychological argument therefore alleges the universal prevalence of sexual jealousy among the races of men.[309] Darwin declares that this passion is found among all male quadrupeds with which he is acquainted; and comes to the conclusion, therefore, that "looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against all other men."[310] That jealousy is unknown among "almost all uncivilized peoples" is, indeed, asserted by many adherents of the horde theory.[311] But a mass of evidence relating to savage and barbarous races in all parts of the world shows that such assertions are without foundation. In many tribes the suspected wife is exposed to the vengeful fury of the jealous husband. For example, among the California Indians, according to Powers, "if a married woman is seen even walking in the forest with another man than her husband she is chastised by him;" and "a repetition of the offense is generally punished with speedy death."[312] So "among the Creek 'it was formerly reckoned adultery, if a man took a pitcher of water off a married woman's head and drank of it.'"[313] Women, we are told, are held in little esteem among the Innuit on the coast of Labrador; yet "the men are very jealous," and death is often the penalty for adultery on the part of either spouse.[314] Magalhães, who visited "more than a hundred villages" among "thirty tribes" of Brazilian natives, some of them "already half civilized and others still entirely free from any participation in our institutions, ideas, and pre-conceived notions," records as a result of his observations that "there exists in the Indian family all grades from institutions strict to a degree exceeding anything history tells us about down to the community of women.... Thus I know tribes where there is no marriage, and I know others in which a woman committing adultery is punished by being burned."[315] Moreover, he emphatically warns us that he is speaking here of the "uncatechised" native, not yet demoralized by missionary influence.[316] According to Dobrizhoffer, the Abipones of Paraguay are conspicuous for "conjugal fidelity;" and they are very jealous, taking swift vengeance when infidelity is suspected.[317] Souza, who "lived in Brazil, in what is now the state of Bahia, from 1570 to 1587,"[318] says that "there are always jealousies among" the wives of the polygamous Tupinambás, especially on the part of the first wife, because usually she is "older than the others and less gentle."[319] On the other hand, the Jesuit Anchieta, who was in the same country "from 1553 until his death in 1597," declares that women frequently abandon their consorts to take other men "without any feeling upon the part of the husbands; and I never saw and never heard of any Indian killing any of his wives on account of any feeling about adultery;" but his narrative reveals unmistakable evidence of the existence of sexual jealousies.[320]
In fact, among primitive peoples, as suggested by the preceding examples, death or other severe punishment is often the penalty for adultery. It is so in Polynesia, although the fault of the man is usually "condoned;"[321] as also in Micronesia, where the husband does not escape so easily.[322] Extraordinary precautions are sometimes taken to prevent marriage with an impure bride. Frequently the husband requires that the "woman he chooses for his wife shall belong to him, not during his life-time only, but after his death." Hence the widespread practice of sacrificing the wife at the death of the husband; and the frequent restraint upon the remarriage of widows is ascribed to the same cause.[323]
As a final result of his minute examination, Westermarck concludes that there is "not a shred of genuine evidence for the notion that promiscuity ever formed a general stage in the social history of mankind." The hypothesis, he declares, is "essentially unscientific." How, then, it may be asked, can the series of phenomena adduced by McLennan and others to support that hypothesis be otherwise explained?
In the first place, it is believed, the direct evidence as to the existence of races living promiscuously in ancient and modern times will not stand the test of criticism.[324] Often the statements of writers and travelers prove on examination to be erroneous. Thus, for instance, Sir Edward Belcher's assertion, that among the Andaman Islanders "the custom is for the man and woman to remain together until the child is weaned, when they separate, and each seeks a new partner,"[325] has been "disproved by Mr. Man, who, after a very careful investigation of this people, says not only that they are strictly monogamous, but that divorce is unknown, and conjugal fidelity till death not the exception but the rule among them."[326] Sometimes the "facts adduced are not really instances of promiscuity." This appears to be true, as already seen, of the alleged Australian group-marriages. So also the "communism" practiced among the Cahyapós, "who seem to be the most numerous tribe of the central plateaux of Brazil," turns out on examination to be something very different from promiscuity, resembling more the "temporary" marriages already mentioned, though combined with polygyny. "The communism of wives among them," says Magalhães,[327] "is as follows: The woman as soon as she reaches the age at which she is permitted to have relations with a man, conceives by the one who pleases her. During the period of gestation and nursing she is maintained by the father of the child, who may have others in similar charge and these others during similar periods live in the same cabin. As soon as the woman begins to work she is free to conceive by the same man or she may procure another, the charge of supporting the earlier offspring passing to the latter."[328] This institution, it is clear, involves considerable social regulation. Indeed we are particularly warned that "by communism of women is not to be understood anything like prostitution.... This distinction is the more important for the proper comprehension of the savage family, since it is certain that in those same tribes where this communism exists, prostitutes are held in great displeasure." The custom "is a mode of family existence that they judge best according to their ideas and means of living." With it Magalhães contrasts the "exclusiveness" of the neighboring Guatos of the river Plate, in "Brazilian Paraguay," who are not monogamous, each man having "one, two, or three wives according to his ability in hunting, fishing, and the gathering of the different fruits which make up the base of their food." The women are exceedingly modest. "If a Guato woman brought us a fish, some game, wild fruit," or in any way sought "something of ours that she wanted, she did it always with her eyes fixed on the ground or turned toward her husband." The related Chambioás of the Amazon valley are even more severe. Among them women are burned for adultery; and in their "widows' men" they have a curious device for the preservation of domestic peace.[329] All these tribes "guard with great caution against, and some even punish with death, the union of the two sexes before the complete puberty of the woman.... Friar Francisco assured me that the virginity of the man was strictly maintained until the epoch of his marriage, and this was not allowed before he was twenty-five years of age, without even this being the ordinary thing: marriage is commonly after thirty." As a principal reason for this usage are assigned the "force and energy of the offspring."[330]
Savage tribes are often extremely licentious; but it is significant that the most immoral are not always lowest in the scale of development. Besides, it is well known that "contact with a higher culture, or more properly, the dregs of it, is pernicious to the morality of peoples living in a more or less primitive condition."[331] Nor can promiscuity as a general social stage be assumed from the existence of some tribes whose sexual relations are but slightly restrained, since, as just seen, there are others, not otherwise more advanced, remarkable for the chastity of the wedded as well as the unwedded life.[332]
The indirect evidence of a former stage of unrestricted sexual relations, based on the existence of certain customs assumed to be its survival, particularly female kinship, exogamy, and polyandry, turns out on examination to be even less convincing than that obtained from direct observation. Primitive man is usually influenced by extremely simple motives; and the great fault of speculation has been the assignment of remote and complex causes for phenomena which are often capable of easier explanation. "The most important features of the life of a community," Starcke observes, "are due to forces at once simple and universal."[333]
Such is the case with attempts to account for kinship in the female line. McLennan thinks it "inconceivable" that it can be due to any cause other than uncertainty of fatherhood; and he holds therefore that it must have preceded the paternal system.[334] Careful research, however, has shown that these assumptions are far from axiomatic. In the first place, the acute criticism of Friedrichs is deserving of special attention. Among a number of low races where relationship with the begetter is not recognized he finds that certainty of fatherhood through securing the fidelity of the wife nevertheless exists. The number is small, but a single certain example, he insists, is sufficient to refute McLennan's hypothesis. Such an example is provided by Semper[335] in the case of the people of the Palau Islands; and it is all the more convincing because here it is only the wife who is prohibited from general sexual intercourse, while young girls may give free play to their desires, and in a measure this is not merely suffered, but even enjoined by social custom.[336] Indeed, savages know well how to secure chastity on the part of their women by such "naïve arts" as infibulation, so realistically described by Ploss in his well-known book on woman.[337]
While not denying that uncertainty of fatherhood may have been influential in some cases, Spencer argues that without this assumption it is perfectly natural that the child should be named from the mother with whom it spends its early life; and where exogamy prevails the custom would become a convenient rule for determining who are marriageable women within the group; for 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."[338]
Westermarck seeks a simple explanation of female kinship in the necessary relations of a child with its mother. "Especially among savages, the tie between a mother and a child is much stronger than that which binds a child to the father. Not only has she given birth to it, but she has also for years been seen carrying it about at her breast. Moreover, in cases of separation, occurring frequently at lower stages of civilization, the infant children always follow the mother, and so, very often, do the children more advanced in years."[339] Polygyny has doubtless favored the choice of the female line of descent;[340] and the odd custom of the couvade, found here and there among rude peoples, instead of being a mark of transition to the paternal system, only implies some connection or "some idea of relationship" between father and child;[341] and accordingly simpler and more probable reasons for its origin have been assigned.[342] Thus it may take its rise in the notion of a mysterious physical connection between the father and the child. "The well-being of the child is its object." The father occupies the so-called lying-in bed, not as a bed of sickness "affording rest and strength after travail," but he abstains from certain foods lest they should injure the child, and he fasts in order that his powers of endurance may be assured to it.[343] This view is strongly supported by the fact that among many primitive peoples, in various stages of advancement, the belief is found that the child springs from the father alone, the mother merely performing the function of nourishment.[344] Finally Westermarck's generalization as to the real import of kinship through females only may be noted. The "facts adduced as examples" of this system, he declares, "imply chiefly that children are named after their mothers, not after their fathers, and that property and rank succeed exclusively in the female line."[345]
Starcke has devoted the first half of his book to a detailed investigation of the problem of female descent, and comes to the conclusion that it depends mainly on local and economic causes. He first shows that the clan is of later origin than the family; and holds that these are by nature very different institutions. The family is juridical, established by contract, and only "in a subsidiary sense" founded on the "tie of blood between parents and children;" but the clan is a natural and homogeneous group of kindred among whom degrees of relationship are not counted. It is an exclusive group into which the child is born; and "it is absolutely impossible for one person to belong to two distinct clans."[346] In the primitive stage, before the formation of clans, the family must always be a more or less isolated group. The man usually chooses the place of abode, and hence paternal kinship may be easily recognized. A considerable number of rude peoples exist who take kinship from the father;[347] and Starcke is inclined to believe, though he presents rather slender evidence, that as a general rule the paternal precedes the maternal system. With the rise of the clan organization, it became absolutely necessary for the local groups to take one system or the other. So the "definition of kinship results from the conflict between clans, and teaches us nothing further with respect to the child's relation to its parent. The choice between the two possible lines is decided by the economic organization of the community and by the local grouping of individuals, but there is not the slightest trace of the fact that considerations with respect to the sexual relations had any influence in the matter."[348]
Starcke's opinion that such rules of succession depend on local connections, those persons being each other's heirs "who dwell together in one place,"[349] seems to gain some support from the result of Dr. Tylor's examination of the so-called "beena"[350] marriage form, which requires the man to live in the family of his wife, usually serving for her as did Jacob for Laban's daughters. It is remarkable that this custom and the maternal system of kinship are commonly found together. "Thus the number of coincidences between peoples where the husband lives with the wife's family and where the maternal system prevails, is naturally large in proportion, while the full maternal system as naturally never appears among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband to take his wife to his own home."[351] Furthermore, adds Westermarck, "where both customs—the woman receiving her husband in her own hut, and the man taking his wife to his—occur side by side among the same people, descent in the former cases is traced through the mother, in the latter through the father."[352]
It seems certain that the whole truth regarding the problems of kinship, as well as regarding the rise and sequence of the forms of the family, can be reached only through a thorough historical investigation of the industrial habits of mankind. In fact, the position of Starcke, that the rise of rules of descent and kinship depends mainly on economic and local causes, is strengthened in a remarkable way by the researches of Grosse, which have already been presented in outline. Nowhere does promiscuity appear among the peoples known to history or ethnology; and everywhere, even among the "lower hunters," comprising the most backward members of the human kind, appears the single family in which the man holds the place of power, which is often despotic. There is no definite sequence between the maternal and the paternal systems. The existence of either depends upon favorable economic conditions; and they may both appear side by side. In fact, according to Cunow, among the lower hunters, with the single exception of the Australians, the custom of female descent has not yet been discovered; and even in Australia it is precisely the most advanced tribes among which the maternal system appears. It first arises when women are sought outside of the original horde, in order to prevent intermarriage of maternal kindred.[353]
In the light of present research, therefore, the most that can safely be admitted concerning the system of kinship through females only is that it has widely existed among the races of mankind;[354] although, as elsewhere shown, its prevalence has been greatly exaggerated. Partially under the influence of monogamy and the rise of modern forms of property, it has often been superseded by the parental and sometimes by the agnatic system, although this sequence is by no means invariable. It is very archaic, yet not necessarily primitive. There is no satisfactory evidence that it implies an original stage of promiscuity. It is not impossible, in view of the facts disclosed by Starcke, that sometimes it may be preceded by a custom in which the child is named from the father, and rank and property descend in the male line; while there is evidence that in the lower hunting stage, before rules of descent were yet subjects of reflection, a kind of patriarchate or androcracy generally prevailed.[355]
The case is much the same with the problem of exogamy, which is closely connected with the question of kinship. According to McLennan, as already seen, exogamy, or the prohibition of marriage within the clan, owes its rise to wife-capture occasioned by scarcity of women through female infanticide; and it is contrasted with the opposite custom of endogamy, which, it is alleged, usually implies a higher stage of civilization. This account of its origin, he thinks, is, on the whole, the "only one which will bear examination."
How far it really falls short of the truth was first pointed out by Herbert Spencer. "In all times and places, among savage and civilized," he says, "victory is followed by pillage. Whatever portable things of worth the conquerors find, they take.... The taking of women is manifestly but a part of this process of spoiling the vanquished. Women are prized as wives, as concubines, as drudges; and, the men having been killed, the women are carried off along with the other moveables." Thus "women-stealing" is an "incident of successful war." But a woman so taken has a double value. "Beyond her intrinsic value she has an extrinsic value. Like a native wife, she serves as a slave: but unlike a native wife, she serves also as a trophy." A warrior possessing such a token of prowess gains social distinction. "In a tribe not habitually at war, or not habitually successful in war, no decided effect is likely to be produced on the marriage customs." But in warlike and successful tribes an "increasing ambition to get foreign wives" will arise. Among savages, proofs of courage are often required as qualifications for marriage. Hence it is not surprising that the abduction of a foreign woman should be accepted as the best proof of all. "What more natural than that where many warriors of the tribe are distinguished by stolen wives, the stealing of a wife should become the required proof of fitness to have one? Hence would follow a peremptory law of exogamy." Spencer's interpretation, therefore, agrees with that of McLennan in finding the origin of exogamy in wife-capture and in implying that usage grows into law. But it does not, "like his, assume either that this usage originated in a primordial instinct, or that it resulted from a scarcity of women caused by infanticide.[356] Moreover, unlike Mr. McLennan's, the explanation so reached is consistent with the fact that exogamy and endogamy in many cases co-exist; and with the fact that exogamy often co-exists with polygyny;" nor does it "involve us in the difficulty raised by supposing a peremptory law of exogamy to be obeyed throughout a cluster of tribes." For if exogamy would be likely to arise in tribes usually successful in war, peaceful tribes and those usually worsted in war, though living side by side with the successful and warlike, would be naturally led to adopt the rule of endogamy. Furthermore, among tribes not differing much from one another in strength, endogamy and exogamy may coexist. "Stealing of wives will not be reprobated, because 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 numerous enough to determine the average opinion." Spencer also maintains that the symbol of rape in the marriage ceremony does not necessarily imply the previous existence either of foreign wife-stealing or of exogamy, assigning three other reasons which singly or together may account for it. First, it may result from a struggle for women within the tribe. "There still exist rude tribes in which men fight for possession of women, the taking possession of a woman naturally comes as a sequence to an act of capture. That monopoly which constitutes her a wife in the only sense known by the primitive man is a result of successful violence."[357] Secondly, contrary to the view of Sir John Lubbock,[358] the symbol of rape may be due to the struggle of the bride and her female friends, many manifestations of which are found in the marriage customs of primitive races; though the dread of harsh treatment is thought to be an additional motive. But Starcke, doubting whether among savages there is much to choose between the brutality of the husband and that of the father, thinks the weeping of the woman merely symbolizes her sorrow "on leaving her former home; her close dependence on her family is expressed by her lamentation." The existence of such symbols is not surprising in "communities of which the family bond is the alpha and omega."[359] The ceremony of capture, finally, may be due to the resistance of the father and other male friends of the bride. A woman has an economic value, "not only as a wife but also as a daughter; and all through, from the lowest to the highest stages of social progress, we find a tacit or avowed claim to her service by her father." Her service is an object of purchase; and in English law "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."[360]
Sir John Lubbock is likewise an adherent of the view that exogamy originates in wife-capture; but he connects his explanation with his peculiar theory of the communistic family, and it cannot therefore be accepted, if that theory is to be rejected.[361] He holds that originally all the men and women of a tribe lived in sexual communism and individual marriage was looked upon "as an infringement of communal right." But "if a man captured a woman belonging to another tribe he thereby acquired an individual and peculiar right to her, and she became his exclusively." In this way, the practice of capturing foreign wives led to individual marriage, and its evident advantages eventually produced the rule of exogamy. Accordingly, the "symbol of rape became such an important part of the wedding ceremonies, because it was the symbol of giving up the woman to become the exclusive possession of one man."[362] McLennan, however, criticises this view on the ground that "in almost all cases the form of capture is the symbol of a group act—of a siege, or a pitched battle, or an invasion of a house by an armed band." Seldom does it represent a capture by an individual. "On the one side are the kindred of the husband; on the other the kindred of the wife." Furthermore, if women were commonly captured by the men of a group or parties of them, as he justly observes, it is hard to see how an individual who had captured a woman could appropriate her more easily than he could appropriate any woman of his own group for whom he had a fancy.[363] Very different is the explanation offered by Tylor, who regards exogamy as the primitive mode of alliance and "political self-preservation." "Among tribes of low culture there is but one means known of keeping up permanent alliance, and that means is intermarriage." Often the alternative has been "marrying out" or "being killed out." Endogamy, on the other hand, "is a policy of isolation, cutting off a horde or village, even from the parent stock whence it separated."[364] That exogamy has often, perhaps generally, served the political purpose suggested by Tylor is not improbable, and his view is sustained by that of Post and Kohler;[365] but this will not account for its origin.
Both Lubbock and Spencer, it will be observed, agree with McLennan in assigning the origin of exogamy to wife-capture. On the other hand, a group of writers, differing widely on ancillary questions, unite in identifying the causes which have produced exogamy with those which, in general, have led to the establishment of forbidden degrees of consanguinity in marriage. In other words, tribal or clan exogamy is but one of many rules for the prevention of close intermarriage between kindred. It must be admitted that a profound horror of incest is now "an almost universal characteristic of mankind, the cases which seem to indicate a perfect absence of this feeling being so exceedingly rare that they must be regarded merely as anomalous aberrations from a general rule."[366] But, from the beginning, has there been an innate aversion to the sexual union of persons closely related by blood? Is that aversion derived from experience of the injurious results of such unions? Did it originally extend only to marriage and not to irregular sexual connections? Or, finally, is it the indirect result of a custom, such as wife-capture, hardening into a rule of forbidden degrees? These are questions to which very different answers have been given.
Adherents of the horde theory, of course, deny that horror of incest is a primitive instinct. Such is the view also of Spencer, who thinks that "regular relations of the sexes are results of evolution, and that the sentiments upholding them have been gradually established,"[367] though—somewhat inconsistently, as we have seen—he agrees with McLennan in regarding exogamy as the result of custom growing into law. Lubbock takes a similar position, denying that we can "attribute to savages any such farsighted ideas" as the recognition of the injurious effects of close intermarriage.[368] On the other hand, Morgan, whose consanguine family implies the absence of any primitive abhorrence of incest, considers exogamy "explainable, and only explainable as a reformatory movement to break up the intermarriage of blood relations," thus implying that the aversion to such a union is derived from experience.[369] But knowledge which "can only be gained by lengthened observation," Dr. Peschel believes, "is 'unattainable by unsettled and childishly heedless races,' among whom, nevertheless, a horror of incest is developed most strongly."[370] Sir Henry Maine, on the contrary, "cannot see why the men who discovered the use of fire and selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication and of vegetables for cultivation should not find out that children of unsound constitution were born of nearly related parents."[371] The researches of Starcke, and still more those of Westermarck, render it almost certain, however, that Morgan and Maine are mistaken in their view, though it may point the way to the truth.[372]
Starcke's argument leads up to the conclusion that the basis of exogamy is to be sought in the causes which produced the clan; for between the clans of a tribe exogamy almost always prevails, and, without exception, clanless tribes are "endogamous or at least not exogamous." Furthermore, tribes divided into clans are usually endogamous as to the tribe.[373] Now, prohibitions are found which cannot be due to "exogamy as a definition of the clan;" such is the prohibition of marriage between mother and son where agnation is in force, and "between father and daughter where the uterine line prevails." Since, therefore, "exogamy as a definition of the clan cannot directly produce these prohibitions, which are found wherever exogamy occurs, and in some instances where it is absent," the inference follows that exogamy must have its origin in the abhorrence of close intermarriage and the ideas to which that is due. But these ideas are not necessarily the same as those underlying "the various prohibited degrees of marriage which are now in force;" nor do they imply that the injuriousness of such unions is the ground of the aversion. "In a community in which marriage takes place between consumptive and syphilitic persons, and those affected by hereditary disease, without being condemned by public opinion, and still less by the law, it cannot be said that the condemnation of incest is founded on our regard for posterity."[374] In harmony with his view that marriage is juridical, not founded on sexual relations, he finds the origin of the horror of marriage between near kindred in the legal incongruity of such unions and in their danger to the peculiar constitution of the ancient family itself. Marriage between a brother and sister or between a mother and son would usually be impossible because the "son possesses nothing which he could offer to the father as purchase-money." To accomplish the purpose by force would be an "unheard-of crime among savages." A connection between a father and daughter would seldom occur, "since a father is unwilling to renounce the advantages of bestowing his daughter in marriage."[375] "If in this way an impression arises that there is something unusual and incompatible with other ideas in marriage between such persons, an occasional calamity which befalls any of them will be enough to excite the imaginative faculty in the highest degree; and if no prohibition previously existed, the absolute condemnation of such marriages would then be pronounced." In a word, "the intermarriage of individuals of the same family implies that persons who have no legal right to dispose of themselves and their property nevertheless agree upon such legal disposition, an encroachment which would certainly be violently opposed by primitive men." In the same way, exogamy will arise between clans; and the co-existence of endogamy and exogamy seems to be consistently explained by this theory. "Exogamy prohibits marriage between persons who are so nearly related that they have no legal independence of each other; endogamy prohibits the marriage of persons whose legal status is too remote from each other."[376] In corroboration of his view, Starcke finds evidence that, here and there, a distinction is made between regular marriage and sexual intercourse, the former being forbidden, unless for special reasons, while the latter is allowed.[377]
If Starcke's explanation of the origin of the dread of close intermarriage between kindred is too vague and ill supported by definite proof, his original suggestion that exogamy must take its rise in that horror is sustained and placed on a broader foundation by the singularly interesting researches of Westermarck[378]—a scholar who has rendered to social science a very important service by carrying the principles of organic evolution into the sphere of domestic institutions. He starts with the assertion that horror of incest is universal. Writers have, indeed, collected evidence which they believe points to a time when such an aversion did not exist. Thus marriage with a sister is permitted in Ceylon and Annam; in the royal families of Siam, Burma, and the Sandwich Islands; while the same custom prevailed, as is well known, among the Ptolemies of Egypt, and among the kings of ancient Persia.[379] But these unions are either "anomalous aberrations" from the general rule; or else they are allowed in order to preserve the purity of caste or the royal blood; or, in case of half-sisters, because relationship is traced in one line only;[380] while occasionally they may result from "extreme isolation" or from "vitiated instincts."[381] Everywhere prohibitions exist, though they vary greatly in the "degrees of kinship within which union is forbidden." As a rule, "among peoples unaffected by modern civilization the prohibited degrees are more numerous than in advanced communities, the prohibitions in a great many cases referring even to all the members of the tribe or clan."
For instance, to select a few examples from the wealth of illustration provided by Westermarck, the "Californian Gualala account it 'poison,' as they say, for a person to marry a cousin or an avuncular relation, and strictly observe in marriage the Mosaic table of prohibited affinities."[382] Among the "Bogos of Eastern Africa, persons related within the seventh degree may not intermarry, whether the relationship be on the paternal or maternal side;" and a similar rule exists among the Pipiles of San Salvador. "Among the Kalmucks, no man can marry a relation on the father's side; and so deeply rooted is this custom among them, that a Kalmuck proverb says, 'The great folk and dogs know no relationship,' alluding to the fact that only a prince may marry a relative." Often clan exogamy is enforced by the severest penalties. "The Algonquins tell of cases where men, for breaking this rule, have been put to death by their nearest kinsfolk."[383]
Westermarck next takes up the origin of prohibited degrees; and after a critical examination of the various theories to explain it, he comes to the conclusion that in no case observed is the prohibition of incest founded on conscious experience of its injurious effects. It has not come into existence as the result of observation or calculation or through education on the part of the savage. Law and custom might thus arise; and these may "prevent passion from passing into action, they cannot wholly destroy its inward power." The home is kept pure "neither by laws, nor by customs, nor by education, but by an instinct which under normal circumstances makes sexual love between the nearest kin a psychical impossibility." But this instinct is not an "innate aversion to marriage with near relations." It is rather an "innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth;" and "as such persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly as a horror of intercourse between near kin." It is not "by the degrees of consanguinity, but by the close living together that prohibitory laws against intermarriage are determined."[384]
This theory, it will be noticed, coincides with that of Starcke in selecting local contiguity or the intimate association of family life as the fundamental fact. It differs, however, in several important particulars. The economic or legal motives are not emphasized; and Westermarck's explanation is broader than Starcke's, for he holds that the aversion extends to sexual connections outside of regular marriage.
It is impossible here to do more than indicate the character of the evidence by which Westermarck powerfully supports his conclusion. Among the Greenlanders, for instance, "it would be reckoned uncouth and blamable, if a lad and a girl, who had served and been educated in one family, desired to be married to one another." It is even "preferred that the contracting parties should belong to different settlements."[385] Among the Kandhs, according to Colonel Macpherson, "marriage cannot take place even with strangers who have been long adopted into, or domesticated with, a tribe;" and the Cis-Natalian Kafirs are reputed to "dislike marriage between persons who live very closely together, whether related or not."[386] Further proof is derived from the fact that "many peoples have a rule of exogamy, which does not depend on kinship at all." Piedrahita, in the seventeenth century, "relates of the Panches of Bogota that the men and women of one town did not intermarry, as they held themselves to be brothers and sisters, and the impediment of kinship was sacred to them; but such was their ignorance that, if a sister were born in a different town from her brother, he was not prevented from marrying her."[387] So also the "Yaméos, on the river Amazon, will not suffer an intermarriage between members of the same community 'as being friends in blood, though no real affinity between them can be proved;'" and the Uaupés, of the same region, "do not often marry with relations, or even neighbours, preferring those from a distance, or even from other tribes."[388]
The great variation in the extent of prohibited degrees found among nations is "nearly connected with their close living together." Savage and barbarous peoples, "if they have not remained in the most primitive social condition of man, live, not in separate families, but in large households or communities, all the members of which dwell in very close contact with each other." Such are the house-communities of the American aborigines, found everywhere, from the "long houses" of the Iroquois to the vast pueblos or "cities" of Mexico and Yucatan;[389] the "joint undivided families" of the Hindus and Southern Slavs;[390] and the trevs or clan households of ancient Wales, comprising four generations living in one inclosure, whose members are forbidden to intermarry.[391] It is significant that in all such cases we find extended prohibitions of close intermarriage, which do not exist "where the family lives more separately." In fact, there is a marked tendency, amounting almost to a law, that the larger the family or clan group, the wider is the circle of forbidden degrees; and, on the contrary, the more isolated and dispersed the manner of life, the greater is the liberty of matrimonial choice.[392]
In the same way prohibition of marriage on the ground of "affinity" or "spiritual relationship" may take place. "By association of ideas" the "feeling that two persons are intimately connected in some way" may "give rise to the notion that marriage or intercourse between them is incestuous." A strong argument is also derived from the "classificatory system of consanguinity." Tylor has shown that this system and the system of exogamy are, in most cases, found together. They are the "two sides of one institution."[393]
But a deeper and still more interesting question remains: "How has this instinctive aversion to marriage between persons living closely together originated?" We cannot help feeling that through his masterly solution of this difficult problem Westermarck has at last brought us very near to the truth. He finds the key to it in the biological law of similarity.[394] It is demonstrated that a "certain degree of similarity as regards the reproductive system of two individuals is required to make their union fertile and the progeny resulting from this union fully capable of propagation." But the similarity must not be too close. A certain amount of differentiation is requisite; but the differentiation must not be too great.[395] There must be homogeneity combined with heterogeneity. Among domestic animals close interbreeding, it is well known, leads to infertility and degeneration; and Darwin's researches prove that self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom produces the same results.[396] There is abundant evidence tending to show that what is true of plants and the lower animals is true also of man. "Taking all these facts into consideration," says Westermarck, in closing his argument, "I cannot but believe that consanguineous marriages, in some way or other, are more or less detrimental to the species. And here, I think, we may find a quite sufficient explanation of the horror of incest; not because man at an early stage recognized the injurious influence of close intermarriage, but because the law of natural selection must inevitably have operated. Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when blood-relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations, here as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves; and those of our ancestors who avoided in-and-in breeding would survive, while the others would gradually decay and ultimately perish. Thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions. Of course it would display itself simply as an aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom they lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would be blood-relations, so that the result would be the survival of the fittest. Whether man inherited the feeling from the predecessors from whom he sprang, or whether it was developed after the evolution of distinctly human qualities, we do not know."[397]
Exogamy appears, then, to be the result of natural selection, arising "when single families united in small hordes. It could not but grow up if the idea of union between persons intimately associated with one another was an object of innate repugnance." Conversely, the law of similarity enables us to understand the coexistence of clan-exogamy and tribal endogamy. The one springs from a horror of sexual union between persons who are too near; the other arises in a dislike of connection between those who are too remote. Among primitive men, and sometimes even among those well advanced in civilization, there exists a shrinking from physical contact with strange races only less violent than the aversion which the dread of incest excites. But this prejudice yields to the sympathy produced by the growing similarity of interests, ideas, sentiments, and general culture among men. Sympathy, upon which affection mainly depends, has widened the sphere of sexual selection.[398]
From the preceding analysis it will appear, we trust, that scientific examination of the problems of kinship and exogamy has disclosed something of the real origin of the laws which govern human sexual relations. The searching criticism to which the theory of polyandry has been subjected, in connection with the opposite custom of polygyny, carries us still nearer the truth. For, in the light of recent research, it does not seem entirely hopeless to discover a trace of the actual sequence in which, according to natural law, the general forms of marriage and the family have been evolved.
According to McLennan, it will be remembered, polyandry originates in a scarcity of women due to female infanticide; and it is a universal phase of social progress through which transition is made from promiscuity and the system of kinship in the female line to the paternal system and higher types of family life. Furthermore, he seems to think, though on this point he is not very clear,[399] that polygyny may grow out of polyandry through the practice of capturing wives. This theory has by no means gone unchallenged.[400] It has been shown, in the first place, that the extent to which the custom of polyandry has prevailed is greatly exaggerated. Though it is found among various peoples in different parts of the world, its occurrence is on the whole comparatively rare; and the practice is much less extended than that of polygyny. Its former existence cannot be inferred from such customs as the niyoga and the levirate; for these are capable of simpler explanation.[401] It is highly probable, as Starcke urges, that they are merely expedients for procuring an heir or for conveniently regulating the succession to property and authority,[402] particularly in the joint family; but there is no good reason to doubt that Spencer's explanation is adequate in some cases. "Under early social systems," he declares, "wives, being regarded as property," are inherited like other possessions.[403] The procuring of an heir through a brother or some other third person harmonizes with the "juridical character of fatherhood among primitive men."[404]
Again, not only is the general extent of polyandry limited, but even where it exists it is confined in almost every case "to a very small part of the population."[405] It is sometimes restricted to the poorer classes, sometimes to the rich; and nearly always it is found side by side with polygyny or monogamy. There is another limitation, already noticed, which tells very strongly against the theory of its origin in promiscuity. Polyandry usually shows a tendency in the direction of monogamy. Sometimes each of the husbands lives with the wife during a certain period, while the others are absent; or frequently, "as one, usually the first married, wife in polygynous families is the chief wife;" so also, "one, usually the first, husband in polyandrous families is the chief husband." In him authority and the property are vested, and all the children, even, are feigned to be his.[406]
In opposition to the theory of McLennan various explanations of the origin of polyandry have been advanced. Spencer regards both polygyny and polyandry as mere limitations of promiscuity. "Promiscuity may be called indefinite polyandry joined with indefinite polygyny; and one mode of advance is by diminution of the indefiniteness." Polyandry, therefore, does not originate in scarcity of women; nor can it be due to poverty; "though poverty may, in some cases, be the cause of its continuance and spread." It is rather one of several independent "types of marital relations emerging from the primitive unregulated state; and one which has survived where competing forms, not favored by the conditions, have failed to extinguish it."[407] Hellwald holds a similar view.[408] Robertson Smith traces its origin to the practice of capturing or of purchasing wives in common by a group of kinsmen; and in the case of purchase, poverty or the high price of women must have exerted a favorable influence.[409] Not entirely dissimilar is the view of Wake who, rejecting the hypothesis of McLennan, believes that polyandry can be satisfactorily explained "only as being established, under the pressure of poverty, either independently or as an offshoot from the phase of punaluan group marriage in which several brothers have their wives in common."[410] Starcke in like manner finds that it "is adapted in every respect to this organization of the joint family group." In its highest forms "it is only the eldest brother who is married," and "the younger ones are not husbands, but merely specially authorized lovers. There is nothing to indicate that the band of brothers, as such, take a wife in common; that is, that the marriage is the act of the whole community." Hence "polyandry belongs to the category of facts which have to do with the ordinary family communism;" and it does not forfeit its character of a marriage in which the individual does not quite lose his personality in the group.[411]
More satisfactory, from a scientific point of view, is the result of Westermarck's inquiry. This is so, not only because we feel that he is probably right in his conclusion, but because his argument affords an excellent illustration of the success with which the statistical method may be applied to social questions. The way for a solution of the problem had been prepared by McLennan and his critics. They had established a strong probability that poverty and scarcity of women are in some intimate way connected with polyandry. Westermarck shows that there is, in fact, a close relation, but that relation is a consequence of natural selection. The ultimate causes of polyandry, he demonstrates, are identical with the forces which have produced a numerical disparity between the sexes.[412] First of all the assumption[413] that "monogamy is the natural form of human marriage because there is an almost equal number of men and women," is proved to be untenable by an appeal to the statistics of population, which reveal a considerable variation in the numerical proportion of the sexes. Among many peoples the men are greatly in majority; among others there is a corresponding surplus of women. This disparity is in part easily explainable by referring to the varying conditions of life among different peoples. The "preponderance of women," for instance, "depends to a great extent upon the higher mortality of men" due chiefly to the "destructive influence of war" and the other dangers and hardships to which primitive men are exposed. On the other hand, the surplus of men may, in some degree, be ascribed to female infanticide and, still more, to the severe labor and harsh treatment which usually fall to the lot of women among low races.[414]
But such causes are by no means entirely adequate to account for the numerical inequality of the sexes. For, in the second place, statistics show a considerable disparity between them at birth. "Among some peoples more boys are born, among others more girls; and the surplus is often considerable." With the Todas, for instance, are found about 100 boys to 80 girls under fourteen years of age;[415] while in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Syria, the Arabias, the Holy Land, and in various other portions of Asia, two, three, or even four women to one man are born.[416] "In Europe, the average male births outnumber the female by about five per cent.... But the rate varies in different countries. Thus, in Russian Poland, only 101 boys are born to 100 girls; whilst, in Roumania and Greece, the proportion is 111 to 100."[417]
At this point Westermarck finds it necessary to consider the problem of the "causes which determine the sex of the offspring." The view that sex is influenced either by the relative or by the absolute age of the parents is untenable;[418] nor can the theory be accepted that "polygyny leads to the birth of a greater proportion of female infants."[419] The theory of Düsing, however, must be regarded as the most probable explanation which has yet been advanced.[420] According to him, "the characters of animals and plants which influence the formation of sex are due to natural selection. In every species the proportion between the sexes has a tendency to keep constant, but the organisms are so well adapted to the conditions of life that, under anomalous circumstances, they produce more individuals of that sex of which there is the greatest need. When nourishment is abundant, strengthened reproduction is an advantage to the species, whereas the reverse is the case when nourishment is scarce. Hence—the power of multiplication depending chiefly upon the number of females—organisms, when unusually well nourished, produce comparatively more female offspring; in the opposite case, more male."[421] The observations of Ploss[422] and others[423] appear to sustain Düsing's hypothesis. Wherever nourishment is scarce there seems to be a surplus of male births. Such is the case in highlands as compared with lowlands; among the poor as compared with the rich; in sterile regions as compared with those that are more fertile. Furthermore, Düsing has suggested a second cause due also to natural selection, which influences the numerical proportion of the sexes born; and his conclusion is confirmed by the researches of Westermarck. Mixture of race among animals and plants appears to cause a surplus of female births;[424] while, on the contrary, incestuous unions, being injurious to the species, "have a tendency to produce an excess of male offspring."[425] So, among half-breeds, the number of girls usually predominates;[426] while among in-and-in bred plants, animals, or men the reverse is the case. Hence it seems probable "that the degree of differentiation in the sexual elements of the parents exercises some influence upon the sex of the offspring, so that, when the differentiation is unusually great, the births are in favour of females; when it is unusually small, in favour of males."[427]