Chapter II · THEORY OF THE HORDE AND MOTHER-RIGHT

[Bibliographical Note II.—A pioneer in the comparative history of marriage and the family is Unger, Die Ehe in ihrer welthistorischen Entwicklung (Vienna, 1850), who notices many of the leading phenomena connected with these institutions in different parts of the world; but his book is essentially a Tendenzschrift, to prove the elevating influence of Christianity and Teutonism. The literature of the Horde and Mother-Right opens, however, with Bachofen's singular but learned treatise, Das Mutterrecht: Eine Untersuchung über die Gynaikokratie der alten Welt nach ihrer religiösen und rechtlichen Natur (Stuttgart, 1861), of which the original edition is now exceedingly scarce, although there is an exact reprint (Basel, 1897). This work is supplemented by Bachofen's Die Sage von Tanaquil (Heidelberg, 1870), and his Antiquärische Briefe (Strassburg, 1886). Upon the Mutterrecht was based Giraud-Teulon's La mère chez certains peuples de l'antiquité (Paris and Leipzig, 1867); followed by Les origines de la famille (Geneva, 1874), and Les origines du mariage et de la famille (Geneva and Paris, 1884), in both of which Bachofen's principal conclusions are supported with much new material. A thoroughgoing disciple of the same school is Lippert, Die Geschichte der Familie (Stuttgart, 1884); and Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit (Stuttgart, 1886-87). Very important also in this connection are the Mutterrecht und Raubehe of Dargun (Breslau, 1883), and his later treatise, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht (Leipzig, 1892), a very able defense of the theory of mother-right for the Aryan peoples after the separation, though conceding that the maternal system was not developed in the primitive stage.

A scholar, who in the main belongs to the same group and who is one of the foremost students of the laws and usages of savage and barbarous peoples, is Post, whose more important writings are Die Geschlechtsgenossenschaft der Urzeit (Oldenburg, 1875); Der Ursprung des Rechts (Oldenburg, 1876); Die Anfänge des Staats- und Rechtsleben (Oldenburg, 1878); Die Grundlagen des Rechts (Oldenburg, 1884); Einleitung in das Studium der ethnologischen Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg, 1886); Afrikanische Jurisprudenz (Oldenburg and Leipzig, 1887); Studien zur Entwicklungsgeschichte des Familienrechts (Oldenburg and Leipzig, 1889); and "Die Kodifikation des Rechts der Amaxosa von 1891," in ZVR., XI. The last-named paper may be read in connection with Rehme's "Ueber das Recht der Amaxosa," in ZVR., X; Kohler's "Ueber das Negerrecht, namentlich in Kamerun," ibid., XI; Bertholon, "Les formes de la famille," in Arch. de l'anth. crim., VIII (1893); Zöller, Forschungsreisen in der Kolonie Kamerun (Berlin and Stuttgart, 1886); the Kamerun of Buchner (Leipzig, 1887); Munzinger's Ostafrikanische Studien (Schaffhausen, 1864); the important work of Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas (Breslau, 1872), treating of the family customs of various aboriginal tribes; Kranz, Natur- und Kulturleben der Zulus (Wiesbaden, 1880); Kingsley, Travels in West Africa (London, 1897); Tillinghast, The Negro in Africa and America (New York, 1902).

By entirely different routes the theories of universal communism and mother-right were reached by Lewis H. Morgan, beginning with the League of the Iroquois (Rochester, 1851); followed by his great work on Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity (Washington, 1871); the systematic treatise entitled Ancient Society (New York, 1878); and the Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines (Washington, 1881); and by J. F. McLennan, Primitive Marriage (1865); reprinted with other papers as Studies in Ancient History (London, 1876). After the author's death appeared the Patriarchal Theory (London, 1885), edited and completed by his brother Donald McLennan; and the second series of Studies (London and New York, 1896), edited by his widow and Arthur Platt.

Sir John Lubbock, Origin of Civilization (New York, 1889), maintains the theory and introduces the name of "communal marriage." McLennan is in the main supported by Robertson Smith, Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia (Cambridge, 1885). This book may be read in connection with Wilken, Das Matriarchat bei den alten Arabern (Leipzig, 1884); Kohler, "Vorislamitisches Recht der Araber," in ZVR., VIII; Friedrichs, "Das Eherecht des Islams," ibid., VII; Vincenti, Die Ehe im Islam (Vienna, 1876); Pischon, Der Einfluss des Islams auf das häusliche, soziale, und politische Leben seiner Bekenner (Leipzig, 1881); Perron, Femme arabe (Paris and Alger, 1858); Kremer, Kulturgeschichte des Orients unter den Kalifen (Vienna, 1875); Vámbéry, Der Islam im neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig, 1875); his Türkenvolk (Leipzig, 1885); Hanoteau and Letourneux, La kabylie et les coutumes kabyles (Paris, 1893); and Baway, "The Marriage Customs of the Moors of Ceylon," in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Ceylon Branch, 1887-88, X, 219-33 (Colombo, 1888). Read also Redhouse, Notes on Tylor's 'Arabian Matriarchate,' propounded by Tylor before the British Association, Montreal, 1884.

For the matrimonial institutions of the Australian aborigines, whose so-called "group-marriage" has played so great a part in speculation, see especially Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai (Melbourne, 1880), supplemented by their "Deme and the Horde," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIV, 142-68 (London, 1885), comparing Attic and Australian classes and local divisions; Fison's article on "Primitive Marriage," in Pop. Sci. Monthly, XVII (New York, 1880); his paper on "Classificatory Systems of Relationship," in Brit. Assoc. Adv. Sci. (Oxford, 1894); Howitt's "Remarks on the Class Systems Collected by Mr. Palmer," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIII, 335-46 (London, 1884); his "Dieri and Other Kindred Tribes of Central Australia," ibid., XX; "Further Notes on the Australian Class Systems," ibid., XVIII, 31-36 (London, 1889); "Organization of Australian Tribes," in Trans. Roy. Soc. of Victoria, I, Part II (1889); and his "Australian Group Relations," in Rep. Smith. Inst., 1883 (Washington, 1885). Important also are Cunow, Die Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger (Stuttgart, 1894), supplementing Morgan's Ancient Society, while rejecting some of Morgan's and Fison's conclusions; Kohler, "Das Recht der Australneger," in ZVR., VII; his later Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe below named; McLennan, Studies, II, 278-310; Curr, The Australian Race (Melbourne, 1886), rejecting the theory of "group-marriage" and promiscuity; especially Roth's North-West-Central Queensland Aborigines (Brisbane and London, 1899); and Spencer and Gillen's very able and detailed account of the Native Tribes of Central Australia (New York and London, 1899), both of which works, like those of Kohler, tend to sustain the general, though not all the incidental, conclusions of Fison and Howitt. Among the many papers and books useful for studying the social life of the Australians are Palmer, "Notes on Some Australian Tribes," in Journal of the Anth. Inst., XIII (London, 1884); Mathew, "The Australian Aborigines," in Journal of the Royal Society of New South Wales, XXIII (Sydney, 1889); Mathews, "Australian Class Systems," in The Am. Anthropologist, IX, X (Washington, 1896-97); and his "The Victorian Aborigines," ibid., XI (Washington, 1898). Supplementary materials may likewise be found in Dawson, Australian Aborigines (Melbourne, Sydney, and Adelaide, 1881); Jung, Das Welttheil Australien (Leipzig, 1882); Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria (London, 1878); Smith and Stewart's The Booandik Tribe (1880); Lang, Social Origins; Atkinson, Primal Law (published together, London, New York, and Bombay, 1903); and especially Crawley, Mystic Rose (London and New York, 1902).

McLennan was first systematically and luminously criticised by Spencer, in Part III of his Principles of Sociology (published, in parts, 1874-77; complete, New York, 1879). McLennan replied in two articles in the Fortnightly Review, XXVII (London, 1877); and in turn Spencer has a "Rejoinder," reprinted in his Various Fragments (New York, 1898). Gomme supplements McLennan's evidences for his "Theory of the Primitive Horde," in Journal of Anth. Inst., XVII (London, 1888); and this article is criticised by Wake, Primitive Human Horde, reprinted from ibid., February, 1888. Morgan is supported by Engels, Ursprung der Familie (Stuttgart, 1892). His researches are appreciatively reviewed and supplemented by Bernhöft, Verwandtschaftsnamen und Eheformen der nord-amerikanischen Volksstämme (Rostock, 1888); and they are criticised by Lubbock, "On the Development of Relationships," in Journal of Anth. Inst., I (London, 1872). The views of Morgan and McLennan are examined by Wake in his "Classificatory Systems of Relationship," ibid., VIII (London, 1879); and his "Primitive Human Family," ibid., IX (London, 1880). See also his "Nature and Origin of Group Marriage," ibid., XIII (London, 1884); and his Le mariage communal (Paris, 1875), replying to Barbier. An able conservative writer, vigorously and learnedly attacking the fundamental conclusions of recent sociological and ethnological science, is Schneider, Die Naturvölker: Missverständnisse, Missdeutungen und Misshandlungen (Paderborn and Münster, 1885-86). He is severely criticised by Hellwald, whose Menschliche Familie (Leipzig, 1889) is one of the most original contributions to our subject. This was preceded by the same writer's Kulturgeschichte (3d ed., Augsburg, 1883). Important monographs are Bobbio, Sulle origine e sul fondamento della famiglia (Turin, 1891); and the clear summary of Th. Achelis, Die Entwicklung der Ehe (Berlin, 1893); which may be read in connection with Dr. A. Achelis's "Geschlechtsgenossenschaft," in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde, No. 148 (Berlin, 1890). Of service also in connection with various topics are Cunow, "Die ökonomischen Grundlagen der Mutterherrschaft," in Neue Zeit, No. 4, XVI. Jahrg., I. Band (Stuttgart, 1897); Ploss, "Ueber das Heirathsalter der Frauen bei verschiedenen Völkern," in Mittheilungen der Ver. für Erdkunde, 1872 (Leipzig, 1873); Redslob, Levirats-Ehe bei den Hebräern (Leipzig, 1836); Danks, "Marriage Customs of the New Britain Group," in Journal of Anth. Inst., XVIII, No. 3; Roth, "Significance of the Couvade," ibid., XXII (London, 1893); Peal, "On the 'Morong,' as Possibly a Relic of Pre-Marriage Communism," ibid., XXII; Ellis, "On Polyandry," in Pop. Sci. Monthly, October, 1891; idem, Tschi-Speaking Peoples (London, 1887); idem, Ewe-Speaking Peoples (London, 1890); Brouardel, L'infanticide (Paris, 1897); Frazer, Totemism (Edinburgh, 1887); Peet, "Tribal Records in the Effigies," in Am. Antiquarian, XV (Chicago, 1893); Lubbock, "Social and Religious Condition of the Lower Races of Man," Rep. Smith. Inst., 1869 (Washington, 1872); Stricker, "Untersuchungen über die kriegerischen Weiber," in Archiv für Anthropologie, V; his Amazonen in Sage und Geschichte (Berlin, 1868); Avery, "Races of the Indo-Pacific Oceans," in Am. Antiquarian, VI (Chicago, 1884); Greenwood, The Wild Man at Home (London, n. d.); Peschel, Races of Man (London, 1889); Zmigrodski's interesting Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arischen Stammes (Munich, 1886); Peet, "Houses and House-Life among the Pre-Historic Races," in Am. Antiquarian, X (Chicago, 1888), taking the same general view as Morgan; and his "Earliest Abodes of Men," ibid., XV (Chicago, 1893). To bring criticism down to date read Tillier's able and suggestive book Le mariage: sa genèse, son évolution (Paris, 1898); Tylor, "The Matriarchal Family," in Nineteenth Century, XL, 81 (July, 1896); Kohler, Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe (Stuttgart, 1897); Giddings, Principles of Sociology (New York and London, 1896); and especially the discussions of the matriarchate, the forms of marriage, and similar topics by Abrikossoff, Westermarck, Letourneau, Kovalevski, and others in Annales de l'institut international (Paris, 1896).

A mass of materials relating to every phase of the subject for many peoples may be found in the large general works of Klemm, Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit (Leipzig, 1843-52); Waitz-Gerland, Anthropologie der Naturvölker (Leipzig, 1860-72; 2d ed., begun 1877); Featherman, Social History of the Races of Mankind (London, 1881-91); and Ratzel, History of Mankind (London and New York, 1896-98). General summaries are given by Adams, "Primitive Rights of Women," in Historical Essays (New York, 1891); McGee, "The Beginnings of Marriage," in Am. Anthropologist, IX (Washington, 1896); Solotaroff, "Origin of the Family," ibid., XI (Washington, 1898); Nadaillac, L'évolution du mariage (Paris, 1893); Brinton, "Religions of Primitive Peoples," in his American Lectures, 2d series (New York and London, 1897); Devas, Studies in Family Life (London and New York, 1886); Lang, "Early History of the Family," in his Custom and Myth (London, 1884); Miln, Wooings and Weddings (Chicago, 1900); and Hutchinson's popular Marriage Customs in Many Lands (London, 1897). An earlier book, inferior though similar in scope to the one last named, is Hamilton's Marriage Rites, Customs, and Ceremonies (London, 1822). Of little value, except as marking the beginning of attempts to write general histories, are Moore, Marriage Customs (London, 1814; 2d ed., 1820); Laumier, Cérémonies nuptiales (Paris, 1829); the anonymous Hochzeitsgebräuche aller Nationen (Swabach, 1783); and Hurtaut's Coup d'œil anglois sur les cérémonies du mariage (Geneva, 1750), compiled from Louis de Gaya's Cérémonies nuptiales (original ed., Paris, 1680). The subject is also treated by Schroeder, Das Recht in der geschlechtlichen Ordnung (Berlin, 1893); Gage, Woman, Church, and State (Chicago, 1893); and Mason, Woman's Share in Primitive Culture (New York, 1894). Mucke, Horde und Familie (Stuttgart, 1895), traces the classificatory systems of kinship to original "space-relationships" in the horde camping-place, and the work is a remarkable example of ingenious though fantastic speculation on a large scale.

For the matrimonial customs of low races, especially valuable are Krause, Die Tlinkit-Indianer (Jena, 1885); Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas (London, 1873); and the magnificent volumes of Paul and Fritz Sarasin, Die Weddas von Ceylon (Wiesbaden, 1892-93). For examples of sexual practices, commonly regarded as survivals of original promiscuity, see Buch, Die Wotjäken (Helsingfors, 1882); Kohler, "Studien über Frauengemeinschaft," in ZVR., V; Bastian, Rechtsverhältnisse (Berlin, 1872); his "Eheverhältnisse," in ZFE., VI; and his "Matriarchat und Patriarchat," ibid., Verhandlungen (Berlin, 1886); Ploss, Das Weib (Leipzig, 1895); his Das Kind (Leipzig, 1884); and Mantegazza's Geschlechtsverhältnisse des Menschen, constituting with the earlier Physiologie der Liebe and Hygiene der Liebe his so-called "trilogy of love." For the bearings of phallicism on the subject read Howard's Sex Worship (2d ed., Washington, 1898), containing a bibliography. In this connection are also of service the works on "seignorial right," the most elaborate monograph being Schmidt's Jus primae noctis (Freiburg, 1881), containing a full bibliography. See also his Slavische Geschichtsquellen zur Streitfrage über das Jus Primae Noctis (Posen, 1886); his paper in ZFE., XVI; and Kohler's criticism, ZVR., IV, V. Against its existence as a right of the mediæval lord are Veuillot, Droit du seigneur (1st ed., Paris, 1854; 3d ed., 1878); Raepsaet, Recherches (Gand, 1817); Barthélemy, "Droit du seigneur," in Revue des questions historiques, I (Paris, 1866), a critical paper of value; and Labessade, Droit du seigneur et la rosière de Salency (Paris, 1878). In his Réponse (Paris, 1857) Delpit makes a vigorous and detailed reply to the arguments of Veuillot (early edition). See also Foras, Droit du seigneur (Chambéry, 1886); and, for comparison, read "Bibliophile's" Les nuits d'épreuve des villageoises allemandes avant le mariage (Brussels, 1877); Grupen's quaint De uxore theotisca (Göttingen, 1748); and Fischer's remarkably valuable and interesting Probenächte der teutschen Bauernmädchen (Berlin and Leipzig, 1780; reprinted, Leipzig, 1898).

To "break ground" for the study of the subject it may be well in the outset to read chaps. iii and iv of Posada's Théories modernes; Kautsky's "Entstehung der Ehe und Familie," in Kosmos, XII; Friedrichs, "Ursprung des Matriarchats," in ZVR., VIII, in connection with his "Zur Matriarchatsfrage," in ZFE., XX; and especially his "Familienstufen und Eheformen," in ZVR., X. The literature and the theories are also reviewed by Bernhöft, "Zur Gesch. des eur. Familienrechts," ibid., VIII; and Schurman gives an interesting summary and criticism in Ethical Import of Darwinism (New York, 1888).

For the works of Wake, Letourneau, Starcke, Westermarck, and other antagonists of the horde theory, see Bibliographical Note III.]

I. BACHOFEN AND HIS DISCIPLES

In the same year with the Ancient Law appeared a book which was destined to have an extraordinary influence in giving a new direction to speculation and research. This was the Mutterrecht of the Swiss scholar Johann Jacob Bachofen, whose memory is revered by many followers.[93] The author shows a wide and minute acquaintance with classic literature and the early myths; but his work is fantastic and almost wholly devoid of scientific method.[94] The material is drawn mainly from two sources: the fragmentary notices of the rules of kinship and the matrimonial customs of various peoples handed down from ancient writers, supplemented slightly through similar accounts by modern travelers; and an interpretation of the supposed symbolism of religious myths, particularly those of the Greeks.[95] The inferences derived from this second source are often far-fetched and fanciful in the extreme. Though the general results of the investigation are summarized in a short introduction, the argument is so loose, the arrangement so confusing, and the style so obscure that it is with the utmost difficulty the author's meaning can be gathered. Nevertheless it is undeniable that he has created the terminology and developed the essential elements of the communistic and gynocratic theories even in their leading details.

According to Bachofen, there are three general phases in the evolution of human sexual relations. The first is the period of aphrodistic hetairism, in which men and women have each other in common; the second is the period of demetrian mother-right or gynocracy, in which kinship and succession are in the maternal line and woman gains religious and political supremacy; and the third, the period of the patriarchate or apollonistic father-right, in which the more spiritual principle of paternity is triumphant.[96] Each of these periods is regarded as a universal culture-stage.[97]

In the first phase, or that of the unregulated communism, material motherhood is the essential fact. Fatherhood is necessarily uncertain. There is no conception of kinship between father and child. Woman, it is assumed, is exposed to the lust or sexual tyranny of man; and it is through her successful revolt against the bondage of unbridled hetairism that she attains the second stage of progress.[98] The period of demetrian gynocracy is therefore represented as a turning-point, a transitional phase, through which humanity passes from its lowest to its highest status. With it the rudiments of marriage appear, but combined with hetairism surviving in various forms or gradations. It is the woman and not the man who obeys the marriage law.[99] Indeed, strict marriage, the exclusive appropriation of a woman by one man, is looked upon as an abridgment of a natural or religious right for which expiation must be rendered to the goddess whose law is violated;[100] and only thus, as a penalty or composition for the privilege of restricted intercourse, can be rationally explained those lascivious customs, such as temporary prostitution, so often found in connection with legal marriage.[101]

A difficulty, however, presents itself. The theory of Bachofen assumes, as a general fact in social evolution, that a period of promiscuity and oppression of the female sex is followed, not merely by an age of mother-right, involving as a necessary consequence of the continued uncertainty of fatherhood the recognition of kinship only in the maternal line; but by an age of gynocracy, involving the social leadership of women and eventually the political and even the military subordination of men. Woman emancipates herself and then she becomes an Amazon. "Weary of the lust of man, she first feels a longing for a securer position and a purer existence. The feeling of shame and the rage of despair inflame her to armed resistance."[102] As "a rival to man, the Amazon became hostile to him, and began to withdraw from marriage and from motherhood. This set limits to the rule of women, and provoked the punishment of heaven and men. Thus Jason put an end to the rule of the Amazons in Lemnos; thus Dionysos and Bellerophon strove together, passionately, yet without obtaining any decisive victory, until Apollo with calm superiority finally became the conqueror;"[103] and so the purer principle of fatherhood prevailed and the era of father-right appeared. But, says Bachofen, that woman should gain supremacy over man arouses our astonishment, because the fact is contrary to what we should expect from their relative physical powers. "The law of nature delivers the scepter of power to the stronger." The paradox, however, is easily explained. "At all times woman has exerted the most powerful influence upon man, upon the culture and morals (Gesellung) of peoples," through the direction of her mind toward the supernatural, the wonderful, and the divine. Through her possession of the mysteries of religion she deprived man of the superior position which nature had given him. "Religion is the only efficient lever of all civilization. Each elevation and depression of human life has its origin in a movement which begins in this supreme department."[104] "Just as the child receives its first discipline from the mother, so do peoples receive it from woman. The man must serve before he can attain supremacy. To the wife alone it is given to tame the unbridled power of man and to guide him in the path of well-doing."[105] But amazonism was a shock to the religious feeling in the stage of mother-right, just as gross hetairism was an offense in the former period. Hence arose a striving for the realization of a higher conception of social relations. "It was the assertion of fatherhood which delivered the mind from natural appearances, and when this was successfully achieved, human existence was raised above the laws of material life. The principle of motherhood is common to all the species of animal life, but man goes beyond this tie in giving the pre-eminence to the power of procreation, and thus becomes conscious of his higher vocation.... In the paternal and spiritual principle he breaks through the bonds of tellurism and looks upward to the higher regions of the cosmos. Victorious fatherhood thus becomes as distinctly connected with the heavenly light as prolific motherhood is with the teeming earth."[106] "All the stages of sexual life, from aphrodistic hetairism to the apollonistic purity of fatherhood, have their corresponding type in the stages of natural life, from the wild vegetation of the morass, the prototype of conjugal motherhood, to the harmonic law of the Uranian world, to the heavenly light which, as the flamma non urens, corresponds to the eternal youth of fatherhood. The connection is so completely in accordance with law, that the form taken by the sexual relations of life may be inferred from the predominance of one or the other of these universal substances in worship."[107]

The theories of Bachofen have given rise to luxurious speculation. With slight modification his conclusions have been accepted by a host of faithful disciples. By others they have been criticised or abandoned. Various schemes have been constructed in the attempt to explain the sequence in which the forms of marriage and the phases of the family have historically appeared. With the literature of this speculation, so far as primitive communism is assumed, the present chapter is concerned. As a rule, only the incidental or negative results of criticism will be noticed, leaving for the following two chapters the criticism originating in a wholly different view of social evolution.

It is convenient in the outset to note the importance of carefully distinguishing between the conception of mother-right, implying kinship in the female line, and that of gynocracy, denoting the supremacy of the female sex.[108] Bachofen, as already seen, uses Mutterrecht as comprehending gynocracy; while some of his followers likewise speak confidently of a time when women took social precedence of men, or even held them in political subjection. Such is the view of Giraud-Teulon, who, with Bachofen, interprets the Amazon myth as implying an age in which women exercised a decided social and political domination.[109] Lippert and Unger take a similar position.[110] On the other hand, it is maintained by a number of writers, who reject the idea of a political or military gynocracy, that the inheritance of name and family rights through the mother usually gives woman a decided precedence in the sphere of social life and private law. This is the opinion of Kautsky, who declares that mother-right involves the headship of woman in the family.[111] Peschel,[112] Tylor,[113] Letourneau,[114] and Hellwald[115] hold a similar view; and with them Grosse,[116] Kohler,[117] and Friedrichs,[118] though more reserved, appear in the main to coincide. Dargun likewise rejects the idea of woman's political supremacy, while holding that mother-right sometimes grows into a real matriarchate so far as private law is concerned.[119] The weight of evidence, however, shows that even this modified view exaggerates the advantages gained by woman under mother-right. It may be admitted that here and there—as for instance among the Sioux, the Wyandots, and some other American peoples[120]—the determination of the child's social and legal rights through the mother has somewhat ameliorated the condition of woman. Yet often, as Dargun[121] has so well shown, the same custom has not enabled her to escape social degradation or marital bondage.[122] She is rather the medium through which rights are conveyed and relations established. "Thus, for instance, among the Australians, with whom the clan of the children is, as a rule, determined by that of the mother, the husband is, to quote Mr. Curr, almost an autocrat in his family, and the children always belong to his tribe."[123] Dr. Starcke reaches a similar conclusion. Referring to the "important place" taken by the wife among various African peoples, he declares that all which "has been said only shows that women in some instances enjoy privileges which are always enjoyed by men."[124] In short, if among many peoples at some stage of progress research has clearly demonstrated the existence of mother-right, it has just as clearly shown that the notion of a gynocracy, of a period of female supremacy, is without historical foundation.

The theory of original communism has been accepted by many writers,[125] though examples of absolute promiscuity have not been produced.[126] Its former existence is inferred from certain customs and institutions which are believed to be its survivals. Even the promiscuity which is thus assumed is not "perfectly indiscriminate," but restricted to the members of the unorganized horde or tribe occupying a particular locality or roaming about together. Hence, significantly, it has sometimes been described as communal or group "marriage."[127] Accordingly the horde[128] or band becomes the unit or starting-point of social development.

Many evidences of the former universality of promiscuity are brought forward. This evidence—to adopt Westermarck's convenient analysis—"flows from two sources. First, there are, in the books of ancient writers and modern travelers, notices of some savage nations said to live promiscuously; secondly, there are some remarkable customs which are assumed to be social survivals, pointing to an earlier stage of civilization when marriage did not exist."[129] The mass of facts collected to illustrate the licentiousness of savage and barbarous tribes cannot here be dwelt upon.[130] It must suffice for the present to note that, according to recent investigation, every instance of alleged indiscriminate sexual relations appears to stop far short of absolute promiscuity.[131] So also several of the more interesting customs, regarded as direct survivals of communism, require only to be briefly mentioned. The principal argument, of course, as will presently appear, is grounded upon the existence of polyandry, and especially upon the proofs adduced of the wide prevalence of kinship reckoned through the mother's line. For it is generally assumed that this system can arise only when paternity is uncertain. Legalized hetairism or prostitution,[132] practiced under various forms and restrictions among many peoples, savage, barbarous, and civilized, is thought to be a proof of original communism.[133] The same is true of "proof-marriages,"[134] existing among the Wotjäken, Burmese, the Germans, in Loango, and elsewhere; of "temporary" marriages,[135] as among the Parthians and American Indians; and of "wife-lending," examples of which are afforded by the Spartans, Romans, Hindus, Arabs, Eskimo, Germans, Wotjäken, and many other peoples.[136] In this connection, likewise, belong those "scandalous nuptial rites" which Bachofen, Lubbock, and Giraud-Teulon regard as acts of "expiation" for marriage. According to this theory, marriage, the individual possession of a woman, was originally regarded as a violation of communal right, for which some compensation or expiation must be rendered.[137] The customs referred to fall for the most part in two general classes. The first group comprises the lascivious religious rites, the so-called sacred or temple prostitution, found in connection with the worship of various deities of love and procreation, such as the Babylonian Mylitta, the Hellenic Aphrodite, the Italian Venus and the Carthaginian Moloch.[138] In the second class fall the revolting nuptial privileges, accorded in many parts of the world to priest, chieftain, or king, or to the friends of the bridegroom and sometimes to those of the bride. To these privileges in general the name of jus primae noctis has been given.[139] A curious example of this practice among the American aborigines is communicated by Castañeda.[140]

The argument for original promiscuity based on the various practices just mentioned is not conclusive. Most, if not all, of them are perhaps capable of other and simpler explanations. The wife-lending, as suggested by Westermarck, may be "due merely to savage ideas of hospitality;"[141] while the custom of sacred prostitution evidently belongs "to phallic-worship, and occurred, as Mr. McLennan justly remarks, among peoples who had advanced far beyond the primitive state. The farther back we go, the less we find of such customs in India; 'the germ only of phallic-worship shows itself in the Vedas, and the gross luxuriance of licentiousness, of which the cases referred to are examples, is of later growth.'"[142] So likewise the jus primae noctis, instead of being an expiation for an encroachment on communal right, may be more naturally explained either as an abuse of power,[143] in some cases as an evidence of hospitality,[144] or in others as a "common war-right, exercised whenever, under any circumstances, capture of a woman is made by a war-party."[145] The toleration of the custom, like that of wife-lending, may sometimes be due to the "juridical" nature of fatherhood as conceived by primitive men.[146]

On the other hand, the theory that these customs are evidences of original sexual communism has gained support from the recent researches of Spencer and Gillen in their very able and detailed book on the Native Tribes of Central Australia. Among these aborigines, the authors declare, "so far as marital relations ... are concerned, we find that whilst there is individual marriage, there are, in actual practice, occasions on which the relations are of a much wider nature. We have, indeed, in this respect three very distinct series of relationships." First we find the present "normal condition of individual marriage with the occasional existence of marital relations between the individual wife and other men of the same group as that to which her husband belongs, and the occasional existence also of still wider marital relations;" secondly "we have evidence of the existence at a prior time of actual group marriage;" and in the third place "we have evidence of the existence at a still earlier time of still wider marital relations."[147]

But these usages are capable of a very different explanation. That they imply a primitive state of promiscuity is emphatically denied by Crawley. Like sacred prostitution, the customs of avoidance, the couvade, and marriage rites in general, according to his theory, they take their rise in the religious or superstitious ideas upon which sexual taboo rests.[148]

Adherents of the communistic theory are not entirely at one as to the phases in the development of marriage and the family. Very generally the family, regarded from the standpoint of authority and kinship, is said to pass from the unregulated horde through the maternal and the paternal to the parental or two-sided stage.[149] Thus Dargun declares that there is a tendency for the uterine system of kinship to give place to the paternal, but never the reverse.[150] Kohler takes the same position.[151] Lippert regards the history of social culture as beginning with the natural relation of mother and child, producing in course of evolution, long before "marriage" arose, the "primitive family" whose principle is mother-right, and which, in turn, under various influences, generally yields to the "old family" (Altfamilie) in its origin based, not on relationship, but on patriarchal power and possession.[152] Bernhöft denies the invariable sequence of mother-right and father-right;[153] and Kautsky maintains that the two systems are parallel, not successive, developments from the hetairism of the primitive horde.[154]

Marriage also, like the family, is said to pass through several distinct phases of development. Thus, with respect to the number of persons joining in a household, Friedrichs distinguishes four "forms" of marriage which, with equal propriety, may be called forms of the family. These are group-marriage, polyandry, polygyny, and monogamy, the first three forms having several varieties.[155] But, as will hereafter appear,[156] it would be rash to infer that these forms necessarily arise in the order named. Again, with regard to the way in which it originates, marriage presents a number of successive stages. According to Kohler,[157] these are marriage by capture, marriage by purchase, religious marriage, and civil marriage. That wife-capture generally gives place to wife-purchase, and this in turn to marriage by gift, and then to the modern contract between the parents, or later between the parties themselves, is especially insisted upon. Hildebrand,[158] however, reverses this order. A measure of progress he finds in what he regards as the three great industrial stages of human culture: those of the chase, pastoral life, and agriculture. In the first stage, not communism, but a tendency toward monogamy prevails. There is little notion of private property; hence covetousness is not a motive of social action. Marriages are freely formed through presents given to the parents, or even without them by simple agreement of the parties. Later, with the rise of private property, marriage by purchase and marriage by capture come into existence; though capture is always exceptional and of comparatively little importance in the history of marriage.

Similar to the view of Hildebrand, in respect to the initial stage, is the theory of Kautsky.[159] The starting-point is the horde. In this absolute equality of the sexes prevails; and the only divisions are the different generations. Neither the maternal nor the paternal line is recognized, for the children belong to the group. Not promiscuity, but "hetairism,"[160] or rather "hetairistic monogamy," exists. Incessant feuds, however, lead to wife-capture; and wife-capture tends directly to communism, for the captured woman belongs as a slave to the band. But the rights of the band may pass to the individual. The free native woman is "wooed;" the war-captive is "fought-for;" and so she becomes the slave-wife of the strongest, who may win other wives in the same way. Marriage by capture thus conquers the original monogamy, in whose place polygyny appears, either at once, or after a transition-period of community in women. Moreover, in this process may be discerned the genesis of modern individual marriage under the sanction of the law. But the consequences of wife-capture are not yet exhausted. The presence in the horde of women taken from several neighboring bands leads at once to the formation of clans and to the matriarchate; for the connection of children with the clan is naturally determined by the mother. The development of private property produces still further results. The individual may buy his wife. She becomes his chattel; and the offspring also belong to him. Thus marriage by purchase gains the victory over wife-capture; and the patriarchate triumphs over mother-right. This is the order of development in the more war-like hordes. But wife-capture does not always precede wife-purchase as a general phase. In the more peaceful and industrious groups wife-capture does not appear at all. Here hetairistic monogamy runs its natural course. Partly under the external influence of tribes where mother-right existed as the result of wife-capture, but mainly under the powerful influence of private property, the matriarchate arose. In the earlier stage kinship with the father was disregarded or unknown. Naturally, therefore, under the new condition, name and also property were transmitted to the children through the mother, with whom their physical connection was always manifest. So it appears that the conception of private property is the basis of "hetairistic mother-right" as it is of father-right; and hetairistic mother-right, as distinguished from the mother-right which owes its origin to wife-capture, implies the precedence of woman in the family.[161] "Gynocracy and patriarchalism are therefore parallel branches of the same stem," the original hetairism of the horde: the one cannot be a further development of the other. Gynocracy, and with it polyandry, which is its result,[162] is the highest stage in the evolution of hetairistic mother-right; just as polygyny and the patriarchal family are the highest stage in the evolution of father-right or the agnatic system of kinship.[163]

To the theory of Kautsky that of Dargun, already explained, bears some resemblance in important details. But Dargun rejects Kautsky's idea of original monogamy; and he does not regard wife-purchase as the necessary source of the patriarchate, though the rise of the latter was greatly favored by it; while mother-right is especially due to the uncertainty of fatherhood.[164]

Hellwald—who in the general development of his subject and in many essential particulars agrees closely with Lippert[165]—seeks the elements of human sexual relations in those of the lower animals. Absolute promiscuity has never existed among men. The hetairism which prevailed was restricted to the immediate band or horde of kindred, which was probably never large. Thus in the horde there was "unregulated polygyny." To the earliest sexual relations[166] of men neither "marriage" nor "family" may properly be applied; and for them no suitable name is forthcoming. In the horde the first social institution evolved was the "mother-group" or rudimentary primitive family (Urfamilie). "Mother and child," as Lippert suggests, "these were the simplest elements of the oldest organization." For the "relation of mother and child alone is given by nature."[167] In the form of the mother-group the family, however imperfectly constituted, precedes the state in the order of growth; although it is not until society, the state, has gained permanent form that from it the historical "family" is developed.[168] Indeed, the mother-group is "lacking in everything" which distinguishes the family according to our modern conceptions.[169] The history of the "primitive family," so far as mother-right is concerned, shows two stages of evolution. The first stage is that of the mother-group strictly so called, through which, as Bachofen and Dargun declare, every race passes and in which all relationship is traced through the mother's blood.[170] Absolute unity or identity of blood is the basis of the earliest human conception of relationship. Generations or stages of seniority alone (Altersstufen), not degrees of kinship, are recognized. Members of the group are of equal blood, "consanguine."[171] Relationship with the father is as yet unknown; and there is in the outset no conception of property. Gradually, however, in the endogamous mother-group a horror of incest, of inbreeding, arises, thus leading to exogamy, which is often facilitated by the stealing of women from surrounding groups. The obtaining of foreign women next produces the clan system. Private property in land and movables arises, especially among those peoples which have attained to settled life and a knowledge of agriculture. In this way the "primitive family" enters upon its second stage—that of the matriarchate. Here we find for the first time forms of marriage and the family properly so called, although rudimentary as compared with the modern institutions. The mother ceases to be merely the center of the common life; she is now the social axis around which everything revolves. Mother-right, implying kinship as well as succession to name and property exclusively in the maternal line, becomes fully established. The matriarchate, unlike the simple mother-group, is not a universal phase through which all mankind has run. In some cases the agnatic system or father-right may have followed immediately upon the earlier stage of mother-right. Incident to the matriarchate are the polygynous and polyandrous forms of the family. With these the institution of property grew apace; and so we reach the paternal system, whose triumph is powerfully aided by wife-capture. In this stage, whatever be the form of social union—whether it be called gens, sippe, or joint-family—it rests upon the authority of the father or patriarchal lord. Following Lippert,[172] the author prefers for this patriarchal group the name "old family" (Altfamilie); and he finds its most famous examples in Hellas and Rome. Here monogamy gained the victory; and so, under the influence mainly of Stoicism and Christianity, the foundations of modern marriage and the individual family were laid.[173]

The influence of economic forces on the evolution of matrimonial and family institutions is especially emphasized by Grosse. Restricting his examination to the conditions which lie within actual "historical or ethnological experience," he seeks to demonstrate that the "various forms of the family correspond to the various forms of economy (Wirthschaft);" that "in its essential features the character of each particular form of the family may be explained by the form of economy in which it is rooted." For the sake of clearer analysis the peoples known to history or ethnology are arranged, not in three, but in five groups according to the leading types of industrial life. These are the lower and upper hunters, the pastoral peoples, and the lower and upper cultivators of the soil.[174] But, like Kohler, Lippert, and Hellwald,[175] the author rejects the popular theory adhered to by Hildebrand, that the chase, herding, and agriculture are three successive stages of progress through which all the races of mankind have necessarily passed. For, as a matter of fact, some pastoral peoples, and even some hunters, like the Eskimo, are more advanced in culture than various peoples who are chiefly dependent upon agriculture; and some tillers of the soil, as Hildebrand concedes, may never have passed through the pastoral stage.[176] On the other hand, Grosse distinguishes two forms of the family: the individual family (Sonderfamilie), or the community of parents and children living in a lasting and exclusive marriage relation, and the great-family (Grossfamilie), which comprises, not merely parents and children, but all descendants with their families, so far as they are not separated from it by marriage or otherwise. Examples of the "great-family" are afforded by the Romans and the Chinese; while the "individual family" is practically the only form known wherever western European culture prevails. In each form of the family either the maternal or the paternal succession (Mutterfolge or Vaterfolge) may exist; but succession must not be confused with the matriarchate or with the patriarchate, each involving the idea of authority; although paternal succession usually implies paternal power, while succession in the female line does not necessarily carry with it the supremacy of the mother.

Among the peoples classed as "lower hunters," even the most backward, exists the individual family; and in the majority of cases it is founded on monogamic marriage, for promiscuity nowhere appears. The authority of the husband is patriarchal. "He procures his wife by exchange or service; and in consequence he is her owner and lord." The "great-family" and the gens (sippe) are also found among these peoples; but they are relatively little developed. Gentes which have become unions for protection and control of territory are father-gentes; while those in which the kinship is traced through the mother are not unions for the purposes of the common life, but for maintenance of the common name.[177] The case is practically the same for the "upper hunters." Wife-purchase, however, is more pronounced. The individual monogamic family still predominates. Kinship through the mother is not so much a "motive for union as it is for separation of those related by blood."[178] Here as among the lower hunters it is the paternal gens which forms an actual union for the common life; and there is "not the least ground for assuming" that a patriarchal gentile constitution has replaced an earlier matriarchal form. Among peoples leading a pastoral life, even more than with those devoted to the chase, the chief economic production lies in the hands of the man. Accordingly he has the place of power and honor. Through him descent and kinship are usually traced. Nowhere is the paternal system so one-sided and so stringently carried out as among pastoral tribes. Woman is oppressed and degraded. She is bought or stolen by her lord. Polygyny, with all its attendant evils, flourishes. The individual family has a thoroughly patriarchal stamp; but it is still the most conspicuous social fact, surpassing in practical significance for the needs of the pastoral life the great-family, and far more the gens. On the contrary, among the lower cultivators woman holds an economic position at least equal in social importance to that of man. As a rule, therefore, she is no longer his slave, but his companion, sometimes even his superior. She gains a corresponding share in the control of the children. The great-family is in like manner affected by the new economic conditions. Communal agriculture gives a mighty impulse to the growth of the gentile constitution; and now among many peoples, under influence of the new and higher position of woman, the maternal gens, perhaps existing side by side with the paternal gens, is developed into a firm social, economic, and political union. In the life of the lower cultivators, if the gens thus becomes the mightiest social organization, the fact is due essentially to its economic function. With the change from communal to individual agriculture the gentile constitution is dissolved; and so among the higher cultivators the individual monogamic family has more than regained its former sway. "Thus it appears," the author summarizes, "that under every form of culture that form of family organization prevails which is best suited to economic needs and conditions;" although, he wisely warns us, a perfect explanation of the various types of the human family can never be given until every part and function of culture which has had an influence upon the functions or the organisms of the family has been separately examined for each case.[179]

The views of Dargun, Hildebrand, and Grosse may be compared with the remarkable, but scarcely well-grounded, speculation of Mucke.[180] According to his ingenious theory, men originally lived in the horde, which, so far from being a fortuitous unorganized band, in which "animal promiscuity" prevailed, was so strictly ordered as to be worthy the name of the "society of the primeval age."[181] In the horde all are free and equal. There is no subordination of the wife, monogamy prevails; for, since every male or female has his predestined mate, there is no room for communism. The author's treatise rests upon the fundamental assumption that primitive relationships are merely "space-relationships."[182] They do not arise in notions of descent. They are determined by the fixed spaces occupied by each sex, generation, and individual in the Hordenlager or camping-place.[183] Every male finds his predestined wife in the corresponding room or division on the opposite side of the sleeping-space; each brother thus marrying the sister nearest to himself in the order of birth. This ideal life of the horde is brought to an end through the rise of the family. The family (from famel, a "servant") is the very opposite of the horde of free and equal members, originating as it does in subjection and servitude. Almost simultaneously the family develops two forms, the androcratic and the gynocratic. Each originates in capture[184] which, under the influence of the conception of private property, yields to purchase. In the androcratic family, the woman becomes a slave-wife; in the gynocratic, the man becomes a slave-husband.[185] Polyandry is the natural product of the gynocratic, as is polygyny of the androcratic family. Originally each of these forms of the family is part "maternal" and part "paternal," in the ordinary sense. But gradually, under the influence of adoption, aided by purchase, the horde is broken up and modern forms of the family arise.[186]

II. MORGAN'S CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY

The doctrine of the primitive horde as the starting-point of social evolution has a special interest in connection with the researches of Lewis H. Morgan and J. F. McLennan. Though their principal works appeared subsequently to that of Bachofen,[187] each has reached his conclusions independently; and each, rejecting the patriarchal family as the primordial unit, has set forth what may be called a "constructive" theory of uniform social progress. In the hands of each marriage and the family are made to pass through an ascending series of phases for all mankind. Unquestionably valuable as are their contributions to the material of sociological science, seldom have there been seen more striking examples of hasty generalization than appear in the theoretical parts of their work.

This is particularly true of the theories of Morgan;[188] although in his Systems of Consanguinity he has with prodigious labor erected a monument of scientific research whose vast importance for the early history of human social relations is by no means yet definitively settled; and whose Ancient Society, aside from its speculative features, has the distinction of first clearly identifying the gentile organization of the Greeks and Romans with that of the red race of the western continents. Starting with the organization of society "on the basis of sex," as illustrated by the so-called class or group-marriages of the Australian Kamilaroi, he proceeds to discuss at length the gentile systems of the American Indians and the classic nations.[189] Originally relationship is traced in the female line, and intermarriage is prohibited within the gens. The gens is older than the monogamic family. It cannot have the family as its constituent unit, because it is composed, not of entire families, but of parts of families.[190]

The earliest phase of sexual relations among primitive men is promiscuity. Following this are five successive stages or forms of marriage and the family, shading into each other, and each running a "long course in the tribes of mankind, with a period of infancy, of maturity, and of decadence."[191] Of these forms the first, second, and fifth are "radical," that is, each developing a distinct system of consanguinity. These systems of consanguinity "resolve themselves into two ultimate forms, fundamentally distinct." One is the classificatory and the other the descriptive. "Under the first, consanguinei are never described, but are classified into categories, irrespective of their nearness or remoteness in degree to Ego; and the same term of relationship is applied to all the persons in the same category." Under the second, which came in with monogamy and prevails among the Aryan, Semitic, and Uralian peoples, "consanguinei are described either by the primary terms of relationship or a combination of these terms, thus making the relationship of each person specific."[192] The classificatory systems of consanguinity, it should be carefully noted, are more tenacious than the forms of marriage, their nomenclatures often surviving long after the actual relationships they denote have ceased to exist.

The first form of the family in Morgan's series is the consanguine,[193] based on the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group. Though now extinct, this form is thought once to have been universal, rude survivals being found even in the present century among the Hawaiians. But the evidence of its former existence upon which Mr. Morgan relies as conclusive is the Malayan system of consanguinity, which he assumes could only have been produced by it. This system is found among the Maoris, the Hawaiians, and other Polynesians. Anciently it may have prevailed generally in Asia; and it lies at the basis of the Chinese relationships. The Malayan system is classificatory. "The only blood-relationships are the primary," being comprised in five categories. These are parent, child, grandparent, grandchild, brother and sister. Thus consanguine marriage "found mankind at the bottom of the scale" of social progress.

In course of time, however, its evils were perceived and the second form of the family arose. This is the Punaluan,[194] resting on the intermarriage of several sisters in a group with each other's husbands; or on that of several brothers in a group with each other's wives; marriage between brothers and sisters not being permitted. "The Punaluan family has existed in Europe, Asia, and America[195] within the historical period, and in Polynesia within the present century," the most interesting example being afforded by the Hawaiians. It is an outgrowth of the consanguine family "through the gradual exclusion of own brothers and sisters from the marriage relation."[196] With it arose the organization into gentes, whose "fundamental rules" in the archaic form are exogamy and relationship in the female line. The Punaluan family co-operating with the gentile organization,[197] produced the Turanian or Ganowánian system of consanguinity, which is also classificatory.[198] This is described by Morgan as "simply stupendous," recognizing "all the relationships known under the Aryan system, besides an additional number unnoticed by the latter."[199]

But forces were now operating within the Punaluan family which were destined to transform it. "From the necessities of the social state," there was more or less pairing from the first, "each man having a principal wife among a number of wives, and each woman a principal husband among a number of husbands." Moreover, the fuller development of the gentile organism, with its rule of exogamy, tended to foster a sentiment hostile to the intermarriage of near kindred and, in other ways, to produce a scarcity of women available for marriage within the Punaluan groups, thus leading to wife-capture and wife-purchase. Under these influences arose the Syndiasmian, or third general type of the family, based upon the marriage of single pairs, often temporary and without exclusive cohabitation. It is found among the Senaca-Iroquois and many other American tribes, among the Tamils of South India, and some other races of Asia.[200] This family did not produce a distinct system of consanguinity, the peoples having it still retaining the Turanian system.[201] The next, or Patriarchal, family, like the Syndiasmian, is "intermediate," not being "sufficiently influential upon human affairs to create a new, or modify essentially the then existing system of consanguinity."[202] It is found particularly among the Semites and Romans, and is characterized by the "organization of a number of persons, bond and free, into a family under paternal power, for the purpose of holding lands, and for the care of flocks and herds." The Syndiasmian, and in a less degree the Patriarchal, constitute the transitional stage in the development of the Monogamic family. Its rise was especially fostered by the influence of property and the increase of the paternal power, leading to the change from the female to the male line of descent. It produced the system of consanguinity prevailing among the Uralian, Semitic, and Aryan peoples.[203]

Such, sketched in hasty outline, is the symmetrical structure which the author of the Ancient Society has erected. But it has not been able wholly to withstand the shock of adverse criticism. The argument rests on too narrow a basis of investigation, and it is sometimes contradictory in its details. Its real foundation is the assumption that the nomenclatures of the classificatory systems of relationship must necessarily denote actual relationships. The truth of this assumption, however, is not self-evident. Other explanations of their meaning, some of them simpler and far more probable, have been offered. In the first place, it is evident that Morgan was misled by Fison's account of the Kamilaroi class-marriages.[204] Only in Australia was he able to find in existence, as he believed, a social organization upon the basis of sex. Yet it is by no means established that communal or even group-marriage has ever prevailed among the Australian aborigines. The criticism of Mr. Curr has raised doubt as to the trustworthiness of Fison's theory, although it may not have entirely shattered it.[205] According to Curr, the class-system is an ingenious arrangement to prevent close intermarriages. Even first cousins may not marry.[206] The Australian is very jealous of his wife, who may be betrothed to him in childhood. Wife-lending occurs, but it is not sanctioned by custom. The use of a single word for different relationships, as for father and father's brother, is not an evidence of former group-marriage, but of "poverty of language."[207] Nevertheless the Australian nomenclature is richer in terms of relationship than has been assumed by Mr. Fison. "There is hardly an Australian vocabulary in print" in which distinct translation of terms for "uncle, aunt, nephew, niece, sister-in-law, and son-in-law" do not occur.[208]

Mucke, as we have already seen, explains the classificatory system as being a survival of the primitive "space-relationships" of the primitive horde.[209] By Kautsky also its origin is traced to the horde in which "hetairistic monogamy" prevailed, and in which blood-relationship with the parents was not regarded. The classes, therefore, have nothing to do with descent, but each embraces all the individuals of a single generation under a common name.[210]

On the other hand, McLennan, in his well-known controversy with Morgan,[211] insists that the system of nomenclature is merely a "system of mutual salutations," urging the fact that most of the peoples having it possess also "some well-defined system of blood-ties."[212] Yet he believes that the Malayan nomenclature, which lies at the basis of Morgan's classificatory system, "had its origin in some early marriage-law."[213] Starcke criticises this inconsistency,[214] and comes to the conclusion, after examination of the whole question, that the "nomenclature was in every respect the faithful reflection of the juridical relations which arose between the nearest kinsfolk of each tribe. Individuals who were, according to the legal point of view, on the same level with the speaker, received the same designation."[215] In substantial harmony with this opinion are the results of Westermarck's researches.[216] According to his view the classificatory nomenclatures are merely terms of address, used to denote the sex, relative age, or the "external, or social relationship in which the speaker stands to the person whom he addresses."[217]

These criticisms have not gone unchallenged. More recent and more detailed examination of the classificatory nomenclatures has thrown new light on their meaning; although their origin in promiscuity or "group-marriage" has not been conclusively established. Thus Cunow, who in general accepts the former existence of group-marriage among various peoples, and even finds traces of it in Australia,[218] denies that the Australian class-nomenclatures are derived from original group-relations;[219] nor are they, as Westermarck believes, ever employed as mere empty terms of polite or respectful address.[220] The class-systems arose in a very early recognition of three generations or stages of seniority, in order to hinder sexual relations between relatives in the ascending and descending line.[221] For this reason, and because of the existence among some backward tribes of significant terms of kinship, individual marriage must as a general rule have existed among the Australian natives from the "earliest times."[222] Thus, "in its original form," the author concludes, "the division into classes is a striking confirmation of Morgan's theory, that the first step in the development of systems of relationship consists in the prevention of sexual union between parents and children in the wide sense."[223] For the same reason it follows that intermarriage between the nearest collateral relatives may not have been excluded.

Much more radical are the conclusions reached by Kohler in the monograph in which, by a minute examination of Morgan's tables and other materials, he seeks to establish the genetic relations subsisting between "totemism, group-marriage, and mother-right," as they appear among the Dravidians, the Australians, and the American aborigines. The researches of Curr and Westermarck are criticised as being too general and as lacking in rigid scientific method.[224] Abundant "survivals," such as the levirate, wife-lending, and, above all, the class-system, seem to demonstrate the former existence of group-marriage in Australia; and in the same way the same result is reached for the other peoples considered. The "key" to the problem is found in totemism, one of the most "formative and vitalizing impulses of mankind. In totemism lies the germ of the future family and state."[225] It is the characteristic feature of the social and religious life of the American Indians. From its very nature totemism favors the rise of mother-right and group-marriage. No person can belong to more than one totem, which is therefore of necessity exogamous. Choice must be made between the maternal and the paternal line—for totemism implies the blood-bond. This choice naturally leads directly to mother-right; since the relation of mother and child is the central fact in the genesis of social experience. The maternal system precedes the paternal, and no trustworthy examples of the opposite evolution have been discovered.[226] Furthermore, totemism leads straight to group-marriage. For if two totem-groups may intermarry, it follows that the "men of one totem may marry women of the other and vice versa." With kinship counted in the maternal line, this fact implies that a man may mate with his own daughter; while the union of mother and son or brother and sister would be excluded because of the identity of their totem.[227] Totemism is thus a means of differentiating matrimonial classes. "The whole history of group-marriage," the author concludes, "is a history of the restriction of marriage from totem to totem by the separation of under-totems through which marriage is subjected to definite conditions." Totemistic group-marriage appears to be the "starting-point" of social culture for all the races of mankind. Whether a more primitive stage of promiscuity may have preceded it, the author in this paper does not undertake to establish.[228]

Similar results are reached by Spencer and Gillen, who have given a remarkably clear and minute account of matrimonial, tribal, and totemistic institutions in central Australia. So far as the Australians are concerned, the theory that the classificatory nomenclatures are merely terms of address is positively rejected.[229] "When, in various tribes, we find series of terms of relationship all dependent upon classificatory systems such as those now to be described, and referring entirely to a mutual relationship such as would be brought about by their existence, we cannot do otherwise than come to the conclusion that the terms do actually indicate various degrees of relationship based primarily upon the existence of inter-marrying groups.... Whatever else they may be, the relationship terms are certainly not terms of address, the object of which is to prevent the native having to employ a personal name. In the Arunta tribe, for example, every man and woman has a personal name by which he or she is freely addressed by others—that is, by any, except a member of the opposite sex who stands in the relationship of 'Mura' to them, for such may only on very rare occasions speak to one another."[230] The fundamental idea of the Australian classes is "that the women of certain groups may marry the men of others." It is a device for limiting and defining the inter-marriage of persons supposed to be of common blood.[231]

Crawley likewise holds that the terms of the classificatory systems "are terms of kinship and not terms of address;" although being "in origin terms of relation," so far they are "terms of address also." For "all of the terms can be used as terms of address, just as our terms of relationship can be so used." The classificatory system, in some cases, appears clearly as a device to assist nature in confining marriage within the same generation.[232]

The results of the most recent research, therefore, seem to have advanced our knowledge of the early social condition of mankind; but not to have definitively settled the problem of the former existence of communistic marriage. One rises from an examination of the literature relating to totemism and to the classificatory systems of relationship with a feeling that much more material must be gathered and exploited before we shall escape entirely from the domain of speculation as to their full meaning.[233]

III. McLENNAN'S CONSTRUCTIVE THEORY

McLennan's theory[234] starts also with man in a condition, as he conceives it, resembling that of other gregarious animals. The unions of the sexes are "probably, in the earliest times, loose, transitory, and in some degree promiscuous."[235] There is no idea of consanguinity, though men may always have been held together by that "feeling of kindred" which arises in "filial and fraternal affection."[236] Everywhere when society emerges from this condition kinship is traced in the female line. Originally paternity is uncertain,[237] hence the recognition of relationship through the mother must of necessity have preceded the parental and the agnatic systems;[238] and this order of development is never reversed.

Though the "filial and fraternal affections may be instinctive," they are "obviously independent of any theory of kinship, its origin or consequences; they are distinct from the perception of the unity of blood upon which kinship depends; and they may have existed long before kinship became an object of thought." Such a group may have been held together chiefly "by the feeling of kindred;" but the "apparent bond of fellowship ... would be that they and theirs had always been companions in war or the chase—joint-tenants of the same cave or grove."[239] Slowly the idea of blood-relationship arose; and eventually observation led to a recognition of the system of kinship through the mother. Further than this, so long as paternity remained uncertain, primitive men could not go. For the theory in question, therefore, the maternal system of kinship existing in the homogeneous "group-stock" is the social fact of fundamental importance. But primitive man was rude, ignorant, relatively helpless. "Before the invention of the arts, and the formation of provident habits, the struggle for existence must often have become very serious. The instincts of self-preservation, therefore, must have frequently predominated." Society would tend toward one common type in which there was little place for the "unselfish affections." In this "struggle for food and security" the balance of the sexes would be disturbed. "As braves and hunters were required and valued, it would be to the interest of every horde to rear, when possible, its healthy male children." The weaker sex must obey the cruel law requiring the "survival of the fittest." Hence arose the common, perhaps general, practice of female infanticide.[240] The result of this disturbance of the balance of the sexes, caused by female infanticide, was a series of customs or phenomena of great sociological interest, requiring notice in the order in which they are supposed to have arisen.

1. The natural consequence of the diminution in the number of women was to enhance their relative importance. Every woman would now have several wooers. Rivalry was fierce and "unrestrained by any sense of delicacy from a copartnery in sexual enjoyments." Quarrels and divisions within the horde would be of frequent occurrence. "These were the first wars for women, and they went to form the habits which established exogamy." But, if complete social disintegration would be avoided, self-preservation required a compromise. A rearrangement in smaller hordes took place; and so "we arrive at last at groups within which harmony was maintained through indifference and promiscuity;" where women, "like other goods," were held in common; and "children, while attached to mothers," belonged to the horde.[241] We have reached in fact, as the first result of female infanticide, the "totem gens" or group of totem kindred, having a common name, taken from some plant, heavenly body, or animal, whose image is sometimes tattooed upon their bodies, and which is sometimes revered as an ancestor, sometimes as an ancestral god.[242]

2. The next institution originating in scarcity of women is polyandry, a form of sexual relations which, by the adherents of the horde-theory, is regarded as the earliest type of the family, properly so called: a family resting upon marriage, that is, upon a courtship "of men and women, protected by public opinion."[243] It is of special interest, because in its progressive phases it is held to be the medium of transition from the maternal to the parental and agnatic systems of kinship; and, therefore, through the aid of contract in the form of wife-purchase, to modern conceptions of the marriage relation. Polyandry is represented as a universal phase of social evolution, constituting the first general modification of promiscuity.[244] Of this there are two principal forms with intermediate stages. In Nair[245] polyandry, the lowest type, we find a condition of sexual relations closely bordering upon the grossest communism. The "wife lives not with her husbands, but with her mother or brothers;" and, under certain "restrictions as to tribe and caste," she is free to choose her husbands or lovers, these not being necessarily related to each other. Here kinship and inheritance are, of course, in the female line. "No Nair knows his father, and every man looks upon his sister's children as his heirs."[246] In a transitional stage the wife has a home of her own, cohabiting with her husbands according to fixed rules. The highest type of polyandry is found in Tibet; and in this case there is a close approach to the essential elements of the modern family. The wife lives in the home of her husbands, who are near relatives, usually brothers. It is the prerogative of the eldest brother to choose the wife. All the children are assumed to belong to him, and, as a matter of fact, the first-born is usually known to be his. Paternity therefore is not entirely uncertain, while the father's blood is always known.[247] The same type of polyandry, somewhat more advanced, appears among the Dravidian Todas of India. Here monogamy and polyandry exist side by side. One man, for example, may have a wife exclusively his own, while his brothers may choose one in common. Usually when one brother has taken a woman to wife, and paid the dower to her parents, the other brothers or very near relatives, all living together, may gain the rights of husbands, "if both he and she consent," by simply providing their respective shares of the dower, which almost invariably consists of from one to four buffaloes.[248] According to Marshall, "no females, whether married or single, possess property; but, under all circumstances of life, are supported by their male relations, being fed from the common stock." When "a father dies, his personal property is divided equally among all his sons. If the deceased, being an elder brother, should have no sons, his next brother inherits all the property. All children of both sexes belong to the father's family; and inheritance runs through the male line only. Thus (1) if a widow should re-marry, her sons by both marriages have claims on their respective father's property. (2) If one or more women are in common to several men, each husband considers all the children as his—though each woman is mother only to her own—and each male child is an heir to the property of all of the fathers." Moreover, there exists a kind of levirate. "In order to avoid the complications that would arise, in the matter of food and the guardianship of property, from the re-marriage of widows, if they entered other families taking their children with them, either a brother or other near relation of her deceased husband takes her to wife." She "remained in the family" is the Toda expression.[249] "Now if we consider that one or more brothers may each become the husband of separate wives by virtue of having each paid a dower, and that younger brothers as they grow to age of maturity, and other brothers as they become widowed, may each either take separate wives or purchase shares in those already in the family, we can at once understand that any degree of complication in perfectly lawful wedded life may be met with, from the sample of the single man living with a single wife to that of the group of relatives married to a group of wives. We begin to see also why tribes following polyandrous habits endeavor to prevent further complications by making widows 'remain in the family.'" It follows that economic motives even here are influential in molding matrimonial institutions. The same motives, the scarcity of subsistence, are likewise the main cause of the very extended female infanticide which widely prevailed previous to 1822, when the Madras government "put a pressure on the Todas, in order to impel them to forsake their murderous practice." It was formerly the habitual custom to smother "all daughters in every family, except one or sometimes two."[250] The Todas are an in-and-in breeding people. "Although there are degrees of kinship, within whose limits the union of the sexes is held in actual abhorrence, yet half brothers and sisters are not included amongst the objectionables."[251]

Accordingly, through polyandry, it is held, the transition to the parental or paternal system of kinship becomes possible, and sooner or later it usually takes place. Among the Todas father-right is fully established. In Tibet the inheritance goes to the brothers in the order of birth; and, failing these, to their eldest son, who, as already seen, is often known to be the eldest brother's child. This rule, it is maintained, may readily lead to agnation. Nevertheless the primitive custom of mother-right was very tenacious. Resisted by the gentile organization and the blood-feud, the transition was slow and painful. It was facilitated by contract and initiation.[252] A woman might be bought with the understanding that the children should belong, not to her own clan, but to that of her husband. Or, when contract alone was not sufficient to overcome the resistance of religion and the blood-feud, the same result might be obtained by purchase, followed by initiation into the sacred rites of the husband's kindred.[253] Moreover, as in Tibet and among the Todas, wife-purchase or its survival is sometimes found in connection with polyandry.[254]

McLennan believes that Tibetan polyandry has been nearly, if not quite, universal, and that it is an "advance upon the Nair type." Many evidences of its alleged actual existence in present and former times are adduced; and where the institution is not found reliance is placed upon the presence of certain customs, such as the Niyoga, or the "appointed daughter," of the Hindus, the Hebrew levirate, and the inheritance by brothers, which are held to be its survivals.[255]

3. The disparity in the number of women would next produce the custom of wife-capture. The normal condition of primitive men is assumed to be that of strife.[256] Women would naturally be sought as the most valuable of the spoils of war. This would lead to polygyny. Since there can be no certainty as to fatherhood where the practice of seizing the women from hostile tribes obtains, wife-capture is the means of maintaining the system of counting kinship through the women only; and the existence of that system, at some time, must be inferred wherever wife-capture or its form in the marriage ceremony is discovered.

4. Wife-capture leads directly to exogamy, or the rule of not marrying within the group of recognized kindred; that is, at first, among those having the same totem. Exogamy is therefore not regarded as the result of a prejudice against intermarriage of those related by blood. For a time, doubtless, marriage within and without the group was practiced indifferently, as pleasure or opportunity favored. But eventually the possession of a foreign woman was looked upon as the more honorable or respectable; and so at last marriage within the kindred was entirely forbidden. With the rise of wife-capture the original homogeneity of the group gave place to a growing heterogeneity. Soon many alien stocks were represented in the horde. Where polygyny existed, or where several wives were taken in succession, the same family might comprise children representing several totems. These children like their mothers were counted as foreigners. Thus a modified form of exogamy arose. "So far as the system of infanticide allowed, the hordes contained young men and women accounted of different stocks, who might intermarry consistently" with the original rule of exogamy. "Hence grew up a system of betrothals, and of marriage by sale and purchase." But the effect of the system of kinship through males, when it superseded the maternal system, was to "arrest the progress of heterogeneity," and to "restore the original condition of affairs among exogamous races, as regards both the practice of capturing wives and the evolution of the forms of capture."[257]

It would be ungrateful not to acknowledge freely the service which McLennan and his adherents have rendered to the social history of mankind. They have brought to light a mass of very important facts which it is highly beneficial for us to know. It cannot be denied that wife-capture, exogamy, and the custom of taking kinship from the mother have very widely prevailed among primitive races. It is not so certain, however, that the right explanation of their origin or of their relation to one another has been given. In the first place, criticism, notably that of Herbert Spencer,[258] has detected fatal weakness and inconsistency in the argument by which Mr. McLennan has sought to establish his theory. It is doubtful, for instance, whether female infanticide has been so important a factor in social evolution.[259] But, granting that it has generally prevailed, it is hard to see how this would greatly disturb the "balance of the sexes." For "tribes in a state of chronic hostility are constantly losing their adult males, and the male mortality so caused is usually considerable. Hence the killing many female infants does not necessitate lack of women: it may merely prevent excess." McLennan's fundamental "assumption is therefore inadmissible."[260] Again it is held that female infanticide, "rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without." But "where wife-stealing is now practiced it is commonly associated with polygyny;"[261] while conversely, polyandry does not "distinguish wife-stealing tribes," such as the Tasmanians, Australians, Dakotas, and Brazilians. "Contrariwise, though it is not a trait of peoples who rob one another of their women, it is a trait of certain rude peoples who are habitually peaceful;" for instance, the Eskimo, "who do not even know what war is." Furthermore, if wife-capture and exogamy are at once practiced by a cluster of adjacent tribes, the scarcity of women would not be relieved. Inevitably the weaker tribes would "tend toward extinction;" and in the meantime, if a part only of their female infants were killed, they must deliberately "rear the remainder for the benefit" of their enemies.[262] Nor, as Starcke has pointed out, is there anything in a "scarcity of women which could lead a community accustomed to promiscuous intercourse to adopt polyandry; on the contrary, such a scarcity would make it more difficult to set limits" to promiscuity. "Marriage, or the exclusive possession of one woman by one or more men, would become more easy in proportion to the increase in the number of women, since the conflict between the lusts of the men would necessarily become less intense."[263] McLennan believes that exogamy has "been practiced at a certain stage among every race of mankind;" and that endogamy, or the custom of marrying within the kindred, is a "form reached through a long series of social developments."[264] Yet, inconsistently with this, he admits that "the separate endogamous tribes are nearly as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate exogamous tribes." He goes even farther, declaring that among a variety of tribes, belonging to "one and the same original stock," endogamy and exogamy are found existing side by side.[265]

Such are some of the results gained simply from an examination of the reasoning of McLennan. They have been here enumerated, not only because they afford an excellent illustration of the extreme complexity of social problems, but also because they may warn us against the perils of hasty speculation. It is not merely in matters of detail that the doctrine of the horde and promiscuity has met with resistance. Its very foundations have recently been powerfully assaulted by the adherents of a totally different view of the origin and development of the human family. How the phenomena of marriage and kinship will appear when seen in a new light, we shall next try to discover.