Note 230 — Chapter IV · [89] SEXUAL ASPECT OF MARRIAGE

The solution of this problem would, in the first place, require a revision of the concept of survival, in order to avoid arbitrariness when classifying one custom as a survival, another as an innovation. I venture to say such classifications have been made too carelessly. I think it will be clear from the whole of this book, that the individual family should not be considered as a mere innovation, and that, accordingly, there is hardly any justification for treating the customs in question as survivals. But this is only by way of parenthesis; these problems lie outside our task. They must be treated on a broader basis than that of the Australian ethnographic area only.