Note 153 — Chapter II · [34] MODES OF OBTAINING WIVES

There is no room here to discuss this general assertion at length. But it may be made plausible by pointing out that a certain status must be quite fundamental in a society to get the religious sanction (for instance monogamy in our country), and that it requires undoubtedly a long process in order to transform this sanction into a formal act and put into a material form the accumulated action of many social forces.