By far the greatest number of primitive peoples are monogamous. Only in
relatively few cases is there polyandry. Polygyny often occurs among
persons who are specially favoured, either economically or socially; but
it is nowhere the form of marriage of the majority of the population.
The polygyny reported among certain tribes generally refers only to
chiefs, magic doctors, or some other special persons who have more than
one wife. Sexual group communism at the side of monogamy or polyandry
has been found in various places, but it is wrong to speak of it as
"group marriage." This is evident from the previously quoted examples of
the pirauru in Australia, the sex communities among the Chukchee, the
Nandi, Masai, and others. It is possible, of course, that monogamy which
now co-exists with certain cases of sex communism may have been a later
addition, but this is not proven. It is more likely that the pairing
instinct (not identical with the instinct of procreation) is
characteristic of our sub-human ancestors. In fact, even in the animal
world there are numerous examples of monogamy (P. Deegener).
It has been established that in Africa, Indonesia, Melanesia, and
elsewhere, the small children remain with their parents, while the
bigger children are lodged together in special boys' and girls' houses,
and are, as it were, brought up communally. The relationship of the
children to their own parents is not notably closer than that between
them and other persons of the same age class. We must not look upon this
child communism solely as a curiosity, but as the relic of a very
ancient primitive institution. Most likely there is some connection
between child communism and the interchange of children which is
customary, for example, among the Dravidian races of India
("Ethnographical Survey of the Central India Agency") and on the Murray
Islands, in the Torres Straits (Australia). According to W. H. R. Rivers
(1907, p. 318), the interchange of children between families is very
frequent here without the peoples being able to give any explanation of
it. Nor do other social and religious institutions offer any indication
as to the origin of this custom. Rivers surmises that it has been
preserved from a social organisation in which "children were largely
common to the women of the group so far as nurture was concerned." At
any rate, this adoption en masse will help civilised man to understand
that less civilised peoples have ideas about parenthood different from
those that exist among us, and also that group motherhood is not absurd.
The existence of group motherhood among primitive communities—whose
members were much more dependent on each other in the struggle for
existence than are the members of much more advanced societies—must
often have been of considerable advantage to these communities. On the
assumption of "group motherhood" it is easily explainable that children
use the same mode of address for their own sisters and brothers as for
all the other children of the group, and that all the women of equal
ages are called "mother." Hence the classificatory system of
relationship ceases to be puzzling. It becomes clear why under this
system whole groups of persons designate each other as husbands and
wives, and why the children of all the persons of these groups call each
other brothers and sisters, etc. The assumption is justified that man in
a low state of civilisation knew only group relationship; further
distinctions were derived only later from these relationships, the
present-day classificatory system arising ultimately from them. Among
the peoples where Rivers could examine this system there were
indications of a development in the direction of using it rather for the
distinction of real blood and marriage relationship than for the
distinction of social position, for which it was originally intended. A
connection between marriage regulation and the classificatory system of
relationships exists not only among the Dravidian races, but also among
the North American Indians, and certainly among other branches of the
human race. Rivers says: "The classificatory system in one form or
another is spread so widely over the world as to make it probable that
it had its origin in some universal stage of social development"; and
further he says: "The kind of society which most readily accounts for
its chief features is one characterised by a form of marriage in which
definite groups of men are the husbands of definite groups of women."
Rivers does not mean thereby institutions like the pirauru, but a
permanent group marriage. It may be objected against this latter
assumption that permanent (not occasional) sex communism does not
necessarily need to be connected with communism of children. It is quite
possible that monogamy and child communism may exist side by side, as,
e.g., among the Murray Islanders.
But even if group marriage did really exist in some places, and if the
existence of child communism would prove this, it still cannot be
asserted that it is a phase of development through which all human races
have passed. For the assumption of a parallel development of all races
is untenable. It is true the basic psychic organisation is the same for
all human beings, being due to the common descent of mankind. But owing
to the continual adaptation to changing environmental conditions, it was
not preserved, but underwent different changes. There is no ground for
the assumption that, while environmental changes brought about bodily
modifications, mental changes did not take place also, therewith leading
at the same time to differences in social culture. On the contrary, we
must rather assume that together with anthropological variations among
the races there also arose variations in social development, the
different civilisations resulting from differentiated mental
dispositions and deviating more and more from each other. Certain
elements of the original primitive civilisation have been preserved in
the various later developments, but not everywhere the same elements,
nor were the differentiations that did take place all of the same
degree. Certain fundamental conceptions may remain unchanged for long
periods, and may produce analogous phenomena in different civilisations.
Since deviations from monogamy are extremely rare among primitive
peoples, the assumption is justified that monogamy is one of the
fundamental factors of human civilisation. How could its practically
universal occurrence be explained otherwise? There can be no question of
convergence, nor has a world-wide transmission of a cultural element
that has arisen later been proved up to the present.
The opinion, first expressed by L. H. Morgan, that the classificatory
relationship system is evidence of the existence of group marriage (not
merely in the form of pirauru existing at the side of monogamy), is
contradicted by the etymological meaning of the terms used by primitive
people, which are generally translated by "father," "mother,"
"grandfather," "brother," "sister," "child," etc. These collective names
show nowhere an allusion to procreation, but only to age differences:
father and mother are the "elder," the "big ones," the "grown-ups"; the
children are the "little ones," the "young ones"; brothers and sisters
are the "comrades." We often find that among the Australian negroes and
the South Sea islanders no distinction is made between father and
mother. All persons of an older generation of a horde or a totem (or of
a phratry respectively) are simply the "elder," the "big ones." If a
native wishes to indicate more clearly the sex of a person of an older
class, he must add the word "man" or "woman" (or the adjective "male" or
"female"). It often happens that grandparents and grandchildren use the
same form of address, which in no way refers to descent (Cunow). Other
facts point to the same conclusion. Where the pirauru exists in
Australia, the same form of address is used for persons standing in
pirauru relationship to the speaker as for members of the same age
class who have no such relationship. This could not be so if the
appellation had originated from common sexual relationship. Cunow
rightly concludes: "Sexual communities can be proved to exist here and
there among primitive peoples, but the nomenclature of the
classificatory relationships has not grown out of such group
relationships. These so-called group marriages are rather adventitious
growths, playing only a secondary rôle in the history of the family."
Buschan (1912, p. 254) looks upon the pre-marital sexual freedom of
girls among many primitive peoples (most probably among the majority of
them) as a relic of communal marriage from earlier times. He assumes
that the girls had promiscuous relationships with the other sex. This,
however, is not the case. As a rule, couples meet together for a time,
and only rarely does a person have relationship with several persons at
the same time. The conditions are essentially the same as in Europe,
except that amongst "savages" a love affair going as far as intercourse
is not considered immoral. The assumption of many authors that man is
polygynous is far from being proved, at least not in the sense that the
majority of men are inclined to have relationship with several women at
the same time. It cannot, however, be disputed that after some time the
relationship between two people tends to lose its attraction, often
causing a breaking of the marriage vow.
There is a custom among many peoples that a man's widow falls to his
younger brother (or cousin)—the levirate. According to another
custom, a man has the right to marry the sisters of his wife. Both these
customs have been explained as being relics of a form of marriage in
which brothers married several sisters or sisters married brothers at
the same time (Frazer, II., p. 144). But it seems much more likely that
we have here before us merely a case of property rights.
Even if constancy in marriage is not the rule, especially among
primitive people, yet we must still regard the permanent living together
of one man and one woman as a state that has always prevailed amongst
human beings (Westermarck). Many of the speculations, at first sight so
learned, about the apparently intricate paths in the development of
marriage, remain merely speculations which cannot stand the test of
modern ethnological research. Heinrich Schurtz (p. 175) makes the
pertinent remark that nothing excited the hostile camps of the
sociological idealists and naturalists more than the dispute about
promiscuity in primitive times. While the one party painted with zest
the indiscriminate and irregular sex relationship of primitive races,
claiming it as an established original stage in human development, the
adherents of idealism rose in indignation against a theory that places
primitive man far below the level of the higher animals, and that leaves
the riddle unsolved how such a chaos could lead to the idea of sexual
purity and a spiritualisation of the sexual impulse. In this battle for
and against promiscuity even facts were unfortunately too often not
respected, attempts being made to disregard them at any cost. This
cannot be good for the ultimate victory of truth. Facts should not be
passed over, but should be taken into full consideration. In this
conflict of opinions the institution of pirauru especially has fared
particularly badly. Some anthropologists wanted to do away with it
altogether at any price (for instance, Josef Müller); others drew
conclusions from it that are utterly unjustified. But even if this were
not so, even if the pirauru could be used as a proof of previous
sexual promiscuity, it still does not follow that it was a general
custom in man, for the majority of the peoples show no trace of it.
First of all, it must be noticed that even the pirauru possesses
various restrictions upon marriage with persons outside certain groups,
which alone exclude unrestrained promiscuity. Furthermore, individual
marriage, the binding force of which is undoubtedly even stronger and
closer, is well known to exist beside it. There is a good deal of
probability for the assumption of Schurtz that marriage regulations
establishing the right of several men to one wife may first have arisen
from mere friendly acts, or the original sexual licentiousness may have
developed occasionally under specially favourable circumstances into the
institution of pirauru, while at other places such a systematic
development did not take place. It is easily to be understood that lower
civilisations will show a looser standard of the marriage bond than
those where many interests of a rich cultural development require the
strengthening of this bond. Sexual needs may also have brought about the
origin of the pirauru institutions. Thus there exist in Australia
tribes among which the loan of wives was customary owing to the scarcity
of women. There is only one step from this state of affairs to the
pirauru. Among many tribes complicated marriage restrictions make a
"legitimate" marriage very difficult, and this may easily lead to other
sex relationships taking the place of marriage.
It is a mistake to assume hastily that customs among primitive people
that appear strange to us must therefore be ancient and be relics of a
primitive state. Every primitive race has a long history behind it, and
it is not likely that it has remained static all the time. Primitive
people are not stationary in development; there is much change among
them in the course of generations. This applies also to customs and
habits which seem absolutely stable. External conditions may produce new
developments, or result in foreign influences. Not everything,
therefore, that is peculiar to uncivilised races of the present day must
be looked upon as primitive.
Polyandry deserves our special consideration. As a recognised social
institution it has so far been definitely established only among the
Indian peoples and castes, as well as in Tibet, on the borders of
Northern India. In exceptional cases polyandry occurs among the Eskimos
and the Asiatic Polar races. The older accounts of polyandry occurring
in Australia are not confirmed by the new ethnographical literature. The
reports about polyandry among the American Indians are also incorrect.
John Roscoe (1907, pp. 99 et seq.) has proved its existence among the
Bahima and Baziba tribes of Central Africa, though here polyandry is not
the rule, but is only practised occasionally. If a man is poor, if he
cannot get together the number of cows required for the bride price, or
if he is unable to support a wife, he can combine with one or several of
his brothers and take a wife in common with them. It is easy to get the
women for this purpose. Furthermore, among these tribes the housewife
may be claimed by a guest, while exchange of wives also occurs.
In India polyandry is prevalent among the peoples of the Himalayan
mountains and among some Southern Indian tribes. Some cases of this
curious form of marriage are already mentioned in the ancient Indian
literature. It may be assumed, therefore, that it was more prevalent
formerly than at present. This institution was certainly never very
general nor of great importance in the life of the people of India. At
the present time it is restricted to a number of comparatively small
tribes and castes. Two forms of polyandry can be distinguished among
them, namely, the fraternal form, where several brothers or cousins have
one wife in common, and the matriarchal form, where a woman has several
husbands, not necessarily related to each other.
In Northern India polyandry is general among the Tibetans and Bhotias of
the Himalayan border districts. Here, when the oldest of several
brothers takes a wife, she has the right—but not the duty—to have
sexual relationship with the other brothers living in the same
household. If a younger brother also marries, the other still younger
brothers have the choice in which household they wish to live. The
surplus women become nuns. This system is said to be due to the poverty
of the country. The Himalayan peoples, being intent on preventing the
increase of the population and a further reduction of the means of
existence, consign many women to celibacy and childlessness. Yet at the
same time they make it possible, by this system, for the socially
privileged man to satisfy his sexual needs. The children of polyandrous
marriages belong, as a rule, legally to the oldest brother. But it also
occurs that each brother in turn, according to his age, has a child
assigned to him regardless of whether the brother concerned was on the
spot at the time of the child's conception. Sometimes the mother has the
right to name the father of each of her children.
Fraternal polyandry also exists in Cashmir and among certain Sudra
castes of the Punjab mountains. In the Punjab, however, the Rajputs and
other castes of that neighbourhood are also influenced by polyandry. The
ceremonies which take place at marriage in the Punjab bear traces of
"marriage by capture." The dwellings of the polyandrous castes of this
district consist of two rooms, one for the woman and one for the group
of brothers. In Tibet, as also among the polyandrous Southern Indians,
they have, however, mostly one room. The surplus women in the Punjab
become objects of commerce. In the native State of Bashar, for instance,
an active export trade is carried on with the surplus women, for whom
sums up to 500 rupees are given.
Among the Dyats in the Punjab, the Gudyars in the United Provinces, as
among all the Hindu castes in the mountain districts of Ambala,
polyandry existed until lately; but it is said not to do so there any
longer. In Ambala not only brothers, but also first cousins, were
considered to be husbands of the oldest brother's wife.
Further, in East India the Santal caste (2,138,000 persons in Bengal,
Bihar and Orissa) is the only community among which a similar custom
exists. Among the Santals not only have the younger brothers access to
the wife of the older brother, but the husband also may have relations
with the younger sisters of his wife. This state of affairs may perhaps
be looked upon as sexual communism among a small group. In Ladakh, too,
and in other places of Cashmir, the wife common to several brothers may
bring with her her sister into the marriage as co-partner. In the Punjab
the fraternal husbands may also marry a second and third wife.
Among Indian migratory labourers it seems to have been formerly the rule
that the brother remaining at home served as a conjugal substitute for
the husband temporarily absent. Nowadays this custom has almost
disappeared.
In Southern India polyandry is a recognised institution among the Toda
and Kurumba of the Nilgiri mountains, as also among a number of the
lower castes, especially on the coast of Malabar. Here polyandry and
polygyny occasionally co-exist side by side.
The polyandry among the Toda has been described in detail by W. H. R.
Rivers. The whole tribe is divided into two endogamous groups, which,
again, are split up into a number of exogamous sub-groups. The husbands
shared in common by a woman are in most cases brothers; they are rarely
other members of the same exogamous group and of the same age class.
When the husbands are brothers, there never ensue any quarrels about
access to the wife. All the brothers are reckoned as fathers of a child.
Yet it often occurs that a Toda only calls one man his father. It is
exclusively external circumstances that are here decisive; often one of
the fathers is more influential and more respected than his brothers,
and naturally the sons prefer to speak of him as their father. If only
one of the fathers is alive, the offspring always describe him as their
father. If the husbands are not real brothers, they live, like these, in
one household, but the children are allotted to single definite fathers.
That man is considered the father of a child who in the seventh month of
the mother's pregnancy has gone with her through the ceremony of the
presentation of bow and arrow (which is also customary in fraternal
polyandry). The husbands may take turns in the practice of this ceremony
at every pregnancy; it results, therefore, frequently that the first two
or three children belong to one and the same man, the other husbands
acquiring formal father-right only at the later births. If the husbands
separate and give up the common household, each one takes with him the
children belonging to him by right of the bow-and-arrow ceremony. As
everywhere else in India, polyandry has fallen into decay among the
Toda. It may happen that several men have in common several wives, or
that of a group of brothers each has his own wife. But polyandry has
remained up to the present time the prevalent form of marriage among
these hill-folk. The surplus girls used formerly to be killed without
exception; and it is certain, says Rivers, that girl infanticide is
still practised to some extent, although the Toda themselves deny this.
It must be noted that child marriage exists among the Toda.
Matriarchal polyandry, which, in contradistinction to fraternal
polyandry, goes with descent through the mother, still occurs among the
Munduvars of the Travancore plateaus, the Nayars in some parts of
Travancore and Cochin, the Western Kallan, and also among some other
Southern Indian communities. Among numerous other races having mother
descent, but not among all, relics of the former existence of
matriarchal polyandry have been established. The secular authorities,
and no less the European missions, are trying hard to exterminate this
form of marriage.
It is difficult to trace any connection between the polyandry in the
north and that in the south of India. It is most probable that this
custom was carried into Southern India by the Tibetan conquerors in
ancient times. Many Southern Indian polyandrous races, like the Toda
and the Nayar, are distinguished from their real Dravidian neighbours by
their more powerful build, lighter colouring, higher noses, etc.
Furthermore, the architecture of the Malabar temples bears traces of
Tibetan influence. The demon masks carved thereon show almost the same
faces as the Tibetan masks. Among the Kallan the tradition of northern
descent has been preserved up to the present time, and they bury their
dead with their faces turned towards the north.
Exogamy is the custom which forbids the choice of partners for marriage
within a certain group, and which has the effect of preventing near
relations from sexual intercourse. It is found very frequently among
primitive people, and is very prevalent, as Sir J. G. Frazer shows in
his book "Totemism and Exogamy." This, however, does in no way justify
the assumption that it was a general stage of civilisation of all
mankind, and that it once existed even in those places where it is not
found to-day.
Although European travellers, colonists and scientists had long been in
contact with coloured races, it was the Scotsman J. F. McLennan who
first discovered the existence of exogamy. He was led to this discovery
by the study of that peculiar marriage custom which consists in the
pretence of forcible bride capture, though the marriage of the couple
concerned has been agreed to by both families beforehand. McLennan
tried to find an explanation for this custom, and came to the conclusion
that capture of women, which only took place in pretence, must once have
been practised in reality to a large extent. In searching for facts
confirmatory of this assumption, he was struck by the fact that among
savage and barbarous people the men married women not of their own, but
of another, tribal group. He described this as "exogamy," in
contradistinction to "endogamy," by which marriage partners are
restricted in their choice to their own group. In a tribe or other
social group both sexual arrangements may exist side by side, in such a
manner that the tribe is closely endogamous and is divided into several
exogamous groups.
The theory put forward by McLennan as an explanation of the origin of
exogamy is very simple and on superficial examination very convincing.
He assumed that exogamy arose from a scarcity of women, which forced men
to obtain wives by capture from other groups and thus gradually led to a
general preference for strange women. The cause of this assumed scarcity
of women was considered to be the infanticide of new-born females, which
was carried on systematically, for savage people foresaw that in the
struggle for existence it would be a hindrance to have a great number of
women, who could take no share in the battle with enemies, and who
presumably would contribute less to the food supply than the men.
H. Cunow also traces back the origin of exogamy to the scarcity of
women and wife capture. He starts from the assumption that among the
Australian and other uncivilised races the number of persons in a horde
is very limited. "If one assumes that the number of members of a horde
is sixty, the youngest class would contain, according to present-day
reckoning, about twenty-five persons, the middle class twenty, and the
oldest class about fifteen persons. In the middle class there would,
therefore, be only about ten women. Among these a young man entering the
middle class would often not find a single woman that he could take for
his wife, for, after pairing marriage had become general, the few
existing women had already found a spouse; they had already been
disposed of. There was nothing left for the young man but to capture a
woman from a strange horde as soon as possible, or to try to persuade a
comrade of the same age class to let him share in his marriage
relationship on the understanding that his hunting bag would contribute
towards the 'household of the three.' This multiple conjugal partnership
is customary among most of the Australian tribes even to-day." To this
it must be added that the man needs to show much less consideration for
a captured strange woman than for one of his own tribe, who would run
away if badly treated. Nor can the young man remain single, for he
himself would then have to drag his property about, which would hinder
him in the hunt and expose him to the ridicule of his companions. (In
reality there are many unmarried men even in Australia.) The search for
wives led ultimately, according to Cunow, to wife capture and exogamy.
Infanticide, which McLennan assumes, is at present a rare exception
among primitive people. Almost all explorers praise their great love for
children, and even malformed children are not always killed. Even where
infanticide does occur, the sex of the child is certainly not the factor
that decides whether it is to be killed or not. The assumption that
scarcity of women is brought about by girl infanticide is not correct.
The female sex is, indeed, in the minority among uncivilised natives
where they have been counted; but the excess of men is only small.
Mutual capture of women could not alter this disparity, for it is
unlikely that some tribes permitted the capture of their women without
retaliation. Besides, even among primitive people men are careful in
risking their lives. Capture of women is, therefore, nowhere the rule,
but is everywhere the exception. Had it been the rule anywhere, the
continuous fighting would have led to the extermination of the tribes in
question. Frazer is right when he says: "If women are scarce in a group,
many men will prefer to remain single rather than expose themselves to
the danger of death by trying to capture women from their neighbours."
This is what really happened among many tribes of the Australian natives
who lived on a friendly footing with each other. It even happens that
the old men who claim the women expressly forbid the young men to steal
women from other tribes, because that will lead to bloodshed. Further,
scarcity of women is most likely overcome, as previously mentioned, by
several men's sharing one wife, which arrangement, unlike the capture of
women, avoids arousing the hostility of neighbours. Among peaceable
tribes, therefore, a numerical preponderance of men results not in
exogamy, but in polyandry. But admitting that a warlike tribe has not
sufficient women and therefore captures them from their neighbours, it
is still unexplainable why the men should altogether avoid sexual
relationship with their own women, few as they are, and have no desire
for them whatsoever. This will certainly not be the result; on the
contrary, the few women obtainable without force will be all the more in
demand.
Frazer thinks that the origin of exogamy has been rightly explained by
the American ethnologist L. H. Morgan, who for many years lived among
the exogamic Indians as one of them, and thus came into direct contact
with exogamy. Morgan assumed that sexual promiscuity was general at a
very early period in the history of mankind, and that exogamy was
instituted for the deliberate purpose of preventing cohabitation between
blood relations, particularly between brothers and sisters, as was
previously customary. This struck promiscuity at the root; it removed
its worst peculiarity, and resulted at the same time in a powerful
movement towards the establishment of sexual monogamy.
Frazer, in supporting Morgan's theory, relies exclusively on the
Australian natives, who, according to him, though extremely primitive
savages, "carry out the principle of exogamy with a practical
astuteness, logical thoroughness, and precision such as no other race
shows in its marriage system."
Frazer finds that the effects of the Australian marriage class system
are in complete harmony with the deeply rooted convictions and feelings
of the natives as regards sexual intercourse, and concludes that the
successive tribal subdivisions have been brought about deliberately in
order to avoid marriage of blood relations. According to him, it is not
going too far to assert that "no other human institution bears the stamp
of deliberate purpose more clearly than the exogamous classes of the
Australians. To assume that they serve only accidentally the purpose
that they actually fulfil, and which is approved by them unreservedly,
would be to test our credulity nearly as much as if we were told that
the complicated mechanism of a watch has originated without human
design."
Nearly all Australian tribes have the system of division into marriage
classes. Every tribe consists of two main groups (called in
ethnographical literature phratries or moieties), and each of these
groups is again divided into two, four, or eight classes. Sometimes the
phratries and classes have special names, but not always. In the latter
case it may be assumed that the names have been lost, while the division
of the tribes into marriage groups remains. These groups are strictly
exogamous. In no case are the members of the main group of the tribe
(phratry) or of the same class allowed to marry each other. Only members
of two given classes may marry, and their children are again assigned to
given classes. Among some of the tribes there exists paternal descent,
among others maternal descent. Which of the two modes of descent
prevails in Australia can hardly be determined. Among some tribes
property is inherited in the female line. Other rights of the female sex
connected with mother descent are unknown. An example of the Australian
marriage classes is given here, namely, that of the tribe Warrai, who
live on the railway line running from Port Darwin to the south. Among
this tribe indirect paternal descent is the custom; i.e., the children
belong to the main group (phratry) of the father, but to other marriage classes.
| Phratry I. |
Phratry II. |
Adshumbitch
*Aldshambitch |
Apungerti
*Alpungerti |
Apularan
*Alpularan |
Auinmitch
*Alinmitch |
The female marriage classes are marked with an asterisk.
Each member of a certain male marriage class may only marry a member of
a marriage class of the other phratry, placed opposite in the table.
Thus, for instance, an Adshumbitch man marries an Alpungerti woman, an
Apungerti man an Aldshambitch woman, etc. The children always belong to
the phratry of the men, but to another marriage group of theirs. Thus,
for instance, the boys born from the union of an Adshumbitch man with an
Apungerti woman belong to the Apularan class, and the girls born of this
marriage belong to the Alpularan class. Further complications arise in
consequence of the totem system, which exists among most of the
Australian tribes. As the local groups of a tribe are numerically weak
and consist of members of all marriage classes, the choice of mates is
restricted to quite a small number of persons, being further limited to
a great extent by the marriage of girls in childhood. But even when
adults marry, they can rarely decide according to their own will, but
are dependent on the circumstances of relationship. On the northern
coast of Australia the marriage class system does not exist, but exogamy
exists there, the members of certain local groups not being allowed to
marry each other. The now extinct tribes in the south-east of the
continent also had no marriage class system.
But it still remains a mystery how it was found out that marriages of
blood relations were harmful. One objection is, that some of the
Australians are ignorant of the process of generation; they do not even
know that pregnancy is the result of cohabitation. It is also doubtful
whether the Australian natives can in any case be considered as typical
representatives of primitive man. If this were so, all mankind would
still be in a very low state of civilisation, for the Australians appear
incapable of progressive development. And further, if exogamous classes
were purposely instituted in order to prevent cohabitation between blood
relations, how is it that other people also are excluded from sexual
intercourse who are not blood relations? Frazer's comparison with a
watch is also badly chosen. We must take into consideration the
intellectual stage of development of mankind at the time when exogamy
arose, and when the watch was invented. Even if we do not admit that
exogamy was instituted with a conscious purpose, this does not by any
means, as Frazer says, do away altogether with will and purpose from the
history of human institutions. There is no need to doubt that the
Australian system of exogamy became more and more complicated through
the deliberate action of man.
Frazer himself assumes that the Australians had an aversion to
cohabitation between brothers and sisters even before it was definitely
fixed by binding rules. Sexual aversion between parents and children,
according to him, is universal among them, whether there be in vogue the
two-, four- or eight-classes system, i.e., whether incest between
parents and children is expressly forbidden or not. "In democratic
societies like those of the Australian natives, the law sanctions only
thoughts that have already been long the mental possession of the
majority of people." Hence the agreement of the marriage class system
with the feelings of the people becomes explainable.
Since the aversion to sexual intercourse within certain classes was
already in existence before the formation of marriage classes, the
classificatory system being merely the formal expression of it, we have
to find some explanation for it. For the appearance of this aversion
marks the real beginning of exogamy, which cannot be explained by the
complicated system of the Australians. It is possible that the sexual
aversion towards blood relations is already a characteristic trait of
the human race before its truly human development, and that it may have
to be looked upon as an instinct. This is the opinion of F. Hellwald,
which has also been upheld of late by A. E. Crawley. It is assumed that
among brothers and sisters, as among boys and girls who have lived
together from childhood, the pairing instinct generally remains in
abeyance, because the conditions are wanting that are likely to awaken
this instinct. Courting the favour of a person of the other sex is the
process that gradually brings about the sexual excitement necessary for
union. The possibility of sexual excitation between people who have
lived together from childhood is decidedly lessened through habituation,
if not completely inhibited. In this respect brothers and sisters reach
already at puberty that state towards each other to which people married
for a long time approach gradually, through the constant living
together and the exhaustion of youthful passion. If brother and sister
sometimes show passion for each other, it is generally the result of the
same circumstances that are necessary to arouse it under normal
conditions, e.g., a long separation. As the absence of sexual
attraction between brother and sister who have grown up together is a
natural thing, it is strange that cohabitation between them should have
to be specially prohibited and enforced by strict measures among
primitive peoples. The explanation, according to Crawley, is simple. "In
many departments of primitive life we find a naïve desire to, as it
were, assist Nature, to affirm what is normal and later to confirm it by
the categorical imperative of custom and law. This tendency still
flourishes in our civilised communities, and, as the worship of the
normal, is often a deadly foe to the abnormal and eccentric, and too
often paralyses originality. Laws thus made, and with this object, have
some justification, and their existence may be due, in some small
measure, to the fact that abnormality increases pari passu with
culture. But it is a grave error to ascribe a prevalence of incest to
the period preceding the law against it." All the facts tend to show
that the most primitive people procured their wives by friendly
arrangements. From this standpoint it would be most practical if each
tribe were divided into two groups, the men of each group marrying wives
from the other group. This state of affairs is actually to be found
among many uncivilised peoples that are divided into two exogamous
groups or phratries. It has still to be discovered how this bipartition
arose. It is unthinkable that a division into two groups was
intentionally brought about by the members of the groups for the purpose
of preventing marriages between blood relations of a certain grade. No
tribe has ever been divided in such a manner; the division must
therefore be explainable in another way. The phratries are large
families (in the broad sense of the word); they descend from families
(in the narrower sense of the word), reciprocally supplying each other
with wives. The names of the phratries are generally unintelligible, in
contradistinction to the names of the totem groups, and therefore most
probably older. The totem groups, of which a phratry consists, are to be
considered as younger branches of the original double family, which have
arisen through wives being taken from other groups whose children again
received the name of their mothers. If it should be asked why the
members of two phratries should constantly intermarry, it should be
pointed out that among communities in the lowest stage of civilisation
women are not easily procurable, and the force of external circumstances
would favour the unions just mentioned (Crawley, pp. 54 et seq.).
A biological explanation of the origin of exogamy is given by Herbert
Risley. Without basing it on the assumption that primitive people have a
knowledge of the harmfulness of incest, he gives the following
exposition: "Exogamy can be brought under the law of natural selection
without extending it too far. We know that among individuals or groups
of individuals there exists a tendency to vary in their instincts, and
that useful variations (such as are suitable to the conditions of life)
tend to be preserved and transmitted by inheritance. Let us assume now
that in a primitive community the men varied in the direction towards
choosing wives from another community, and that this infusion of fresh
blood was advantageous. The original instinct would then be strengthened
by inheritance, and sexual selection would be added in the course of
time. For an exogamous group would have a greater choice of women than
an endogamous one, ... and in the competition for women the best would
fall to the strongest and most warlike men. In this way the strengthened
exogamous groups would in time exterminate the endogamous neighbours, or
at least take away their best marriageable maidens. Exogamy would spread
partly through imitation, partly through the extermination of endogamous
groups. The fact that we cannot explain how it came about that the
people varied in the aforesaid direction is not fatal to this
hypothesis. We do not doubt natural selection in the case of animals
because we cannot give the exact cause of a favourable variation."
E. Westermarck holds a similar theory about the cessation of incest. He
thinks that "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. It must necessarily have
arisen at a stage when family ties became comparatively strong, and
children remained with their parents until the age of puberty or even
longer."
It may be surmised that the impulse towards the appearance of the
exogamous tendency arose through economic progress, which led to an
increase of the means of existence, and this in its turn produced a more
friendly relationship between neighbouring groups that previously had
quarrelled about food. The men thus came into contact with strange
women, and this awakened a heightened sexual feeling, in other words the
instinct which is said to have led to the avoidance of incest. Thus
among the peoples on a very low economic level (e.g., the Pigmies) no
laws for the prevention of incest are to be found, a fact that may be
held to confirm this idea. Primitive people could in any case not
understand the harmfulness of incest, while it is certain that strange
members of the opposite sex could exert a stronger attraction, and thus
render the sexual impulse permanent, which previously was periodical, as
among the animals.
