Note 342 — Chapter III · THEORY OF THE ORIGINAL PAIRING OR MONOGAMOUS FAMILY

In the couvade the father occupies the erroneously so-called lying-in bed; is nursed and otherwise cared for as if he were the mother: while he rigidly fasts or abstains from certain kinds of food. Giraud-Teulon, Origines du mariage, 138; Bachofen, Mutterrecht, 17, 255, 419; Letourneau, L'évolution du mariage, 394-98; Bernhöft, in ZVR., IX, 417; and Lubbock, Origin of Civilization, 14 ff., 159, regard the couvade as a mark of transition. Such, in effect, is also the view of Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, II, 312; Geschichte der Familie, 213 ff., who believes the custom is a form of redemption-sacrifice rendered by the father instead of the actual sacrifice of the first-born child, a sacrifice exacted in the stage of earlier mother-right. Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 361 ff., accepts the theory of Lippert. On the other hand, Tylor, Early History of Mankind, chap, x, 297 ff.; Starcke, Primitive Family, 51, 52, 283, 284; and Dargun, Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht, 18-26, hold that it takes its rise in a supposed physical connection between father and child, and therefore that it exists for the welfare of the child alone. Lubbock, op. cit., 14 ff., emphasizes this fact, while regarding the practice as an evidence of transition. Tylor, however, in his Method of Investigating Institutions, 254-56, accepts the view of Bachofen and Giraud-Teulon, relegating the explanation first assigned by him to a secondary place. Roth, "On the Significance of the Couvade," Jour. Anth. Inst., XXII, 204-44, holds the custom to be a form of magic or witchcraft, resting on the belief in a physical connection between the father and child, and so implying power over the child. According to Crawley, Mystic Rose, 416-28, the custom has its origin in sexual taboo. It is a case of "substitution." The father simulates the mother so that by exposing himself to the same danger he may help her and the child against the magical or evil influences which are especially harmful in the great sexual crises of human life. Cf. Kohler, "Das Recht der Azteken," ZVR., XI, 49; Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, II, 281, 278; Ploss, Das Kind, I, 143-53; Mucke, Horde und Familie, 219 ff.; Friedrichs, in Ausland (1890), 801, 837, 856, 877, 895; Chamberlain, The Child and Childhood in Folk-Thought, 124, 125.