Chapter XXI · THE FORMS OF HUMAN MARRIAGE

(Continued)

It has also been asserted that monogamy is the natural form of human marriage because there is an almost equal number of men and women. But this is by no means the case. The numerical proportion between the sexes varies, and in some cases varies greatly, among different peoples.

In the whole district of Nutka, it seemed to Meares that there were not so many women as men, whereas, further north, the women decidedly preponderated.2890 Among the Kutchin, according to Kirby, women form the minority;2891 and they seem to hold the same position among the Upper Californians and Western Eskimo.2892 But as a rule, among the North American aborigines, the opposite is apparently the case. Thus there are more women than men among certain Eskimo tribes, according to Dr. King; among the natives of the Sitka Islands, according to Lisiansky; among the Californian Shastika, according to Mr. Powers.2893 The census of the Creeks taken in the year 1832 showed 6,555 men and 7,142 women; that of the Indian population around Lakes Superior, Huron, Michigan, the Upper Mississippi, &c., in the same year, 3,144 men and 3,571 women, excluding children, that of the Nez Percés in Oregon, taken in 1851 by Dr. Dart, 698 men and 1,182 women.2894 Among the Blackfeet and Shiyann, according to Mr. Morgan—among the Puncahs and some other tribes, according to Mr. Catlin—the number of women is said to be twice as large as that of men, and in some cases even three times as large.2895

In Yucatan, according to Stephens, there are two women to one man; among the Guaranies, according to Azara, fourteen women to thirteen men; in Cochabamba, according to Gibbon, even five to one.2896 Among the Zapotecs and other nations of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the women are greatly in excess of the men;2897 whereas, among the Tarumas,2898 Avanos, Maypurs,2899 and Guanas,2900 the men are stated to be more numerous than the women. Von Martius says that among the Indians of Brazil, the number varied in some villages in favour of the male sex, in others in favour of the female.2901

In Australia the men seem generally to be in the majority.2902 Speaking of the Australian natives, the Rev. L. Fison says, “I think we may suppose that the number of males generally exceeds that of females among the lower savages; at least, quite a number of observers declare that such is the fact.”2903 Among the Western Australians, according to Mr. Oldfield, at all times the males are in excess of the other sex.”2904 Wilhelmi makes a similar statement with regard to several other tribes;2905 but this rule does not apply to all the Australians. “On Herbert River,” says Herr Lumholtz, “the women are more numerous than the men; this is also the case among the tribes south-west of the Carpentarian Gulf and elsewhere. But, according to accurate observations, the opposite is the case in a large part of Australia.”2906 In some tribes of the interior, Mr. Sturt found that among children there were about two girls to one boy.2907

In Tasmania, according to Breton, the men greatly exceeded the women in number.2908 So also in Tahiti, where, at the time of Mr. Ellis’s arrival, there were probably four or five men to one woman;2909 in Maupiti, where the disproportion between the sexes among adults was at the rate of three men to two women;2910 and in Easter Island, where, according to the estimates of Cook and La Pérouse, the men were twice as numerous as the women.2911 In the Sandwich Islands, Nukahiva, and some islands belonging to the Solomon Group, the male sex predominated;2912 and among the Maoris, according to a census taken in the year 1881, there were 24,370 men and 19,729 women.2913 In Makin Island, of the Kingsmill Group, on the other hand, Wood represented the women as outnumbering the men.2914 The same was to a very great extent the case in Tukopia;2915 and d’Albertis says that in Naiabui, a village in New Guinea with 300 inhabitants, “there are more women than men by about a third.”2916 Both sexes are nearly equally represented at Port Moresby,2917 and according to Marsden, in Sumatra.2918 In Sarawak the women are less numerous than the men.2919

In Ceylon a considerable disparity is exhibited by the returns. According to Pridham, it is found in the greatest degree among the Sinhalese, among whom the surplus of men averages twelve per cent., but it is also observable in the case of the Malabar population in the northern province, where the surplus of men averages six per cent.2920 Robert Orme states that, in India, the number of women exceeds that of men;2921 but this is certainly not the case in every part of the country. In a census of the North-West Provinces, taken during the year 1866, the proportions between the sexes were found to be 100 men to 86·6 women, and, in the Panjab, even 100 to 81·8.2922 In some districts of the Himalayas there is a surplus of males, in others of females.2923 In Kashmir, the proportion of men to women is as three to one.2924 In the Buddhist country of Ladakh, says Sir A. Cunningham, “it will be observed that the females outnumber the males, while the reverse is the case in the Mussulman districts along the Indus.”2925 In Malwa, in Central India, the number of women surpasses the number of men,2926 and the same, according to Sir John Bowring, is to a great extent the case in China.2927 The Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, on the other hand, amounted in the year 1867, according to Mr. Breeks, to 455 males and 249 females of all ages, whilst Mr. Marshall some few years ago found the Toda males of all ages bear the proportion to females of all ages of 100 to 75.2928 Among the Mongols, as we are informed by Prejevalsky, “the women are far less numerous than the men;”2929 and the same is said to have been the case with the Massagetæ, and to be the case still in Kamchatka.2930

As for the peoples of Africa, I have found two cases only of an excess of men, the one among the population of Galega, to the north-east of Madagascar, the other among the Quissama tribe in Angola.2931 The reverse seems decidedly to be the rule. Thus, from Morocco Dr. Churcher writes to me that “there appears to be a striking disproportion, though there is no such thing as statistics in this land.” In Ma Bung, in the Timannee country, Major Laing counted three women to one man.2932 A census taken in Lagos in 1872 showed among the population of African origin, 27,774 men and 32,353 women.2933 Among the Negroes of the Gold Coast, according to Bosman; in Latúka, according to Emin Pasha; among the Waguha of West Tanganyika, according to Mr. A. J. Swann; among the Wa-taïta, according to Mr. Joseph Thomson, women predominate.2934 Mr. Cousins is inclined to think that the same is the case with the Cis-Natalian Kafirs, “as there are few bachelors, and the majority of men have more than one wife.”2935 In Uganda, says the Rev. C. T. Wilson, “the female population is largely in excess of the male, the proportion being about three and a half to one.”2936

In European countries, the number of men and of women from fifteen to twenty years of age is generally almost the same; but in an earlier period of life there are more men than women, and, in a later, more women than men.2937

This disparity in the numbers of the sexes is due to various causes. The preponderance of women depends to a great extent upon the higher mortality of men. Dr. Sutherland found that the average age of 109 Eskimo was nearly 22 years—that of the females 24·5, that of the males 19·3 years.2938 The men pass most of their time at sea, in snow and rain, heat and cold, and many of them are drowned. The result of this troublesome and dangerous life is that few of them attain the age of fifty, whereas many women reach the age of seventy or even eighty. This, according to Dr. King, is the reason why, among this people, there are generally fewer men than women.2939 Mr. Bancroft states that, among the Ingaliks near the mouth of the Yukon, some of the women reach sixty, while the men rarely attain more than forty-five years.2940 In Europe, the death-rate is higher among men than among women, partly because of the greater dangers they are exposed to. Among many savage and barbarous peoples, however, the greater mortality of the male population depends chiefly upon the destructive influence of war.2941 “As all nations of Indians in their natural condition,” says Mr. Catlin, “are unceasingly at war with the tribes that are about them, ... their warriors are killed off to that extent, that in many instances two, or sometimes three women to a man are found in a tribe.”2942 According to Ellis, it is supposed by the Missionaries in Madagascar that, in consequence of the destructive ravages of war, in some of the provinces there are among the free portion of the inhabitants five, and in other three, women to one man, whilst the proportion of the sexes seems to be equal at birth.2943 But I am inclined to think that this cause operates principally at tolerably advanced stages of civilization, and only in a smaller degree among the rudest savages, who, devoid of any definite tribal organization, live a wandering life, scattered in families or hordes consisting of a few persons. Thus, with regard to the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges writes to me, “On several occasions when some hundreds of natives have been gathered together, I have taken censuses of them, and have always found the sexes equal or nearly so.... War was unknown, though fightings were frequent, but women took part in them as energetically as the men, and suffered equally with them—if anything, more.” Among the Australians also, as we have seen, wars do not cause any disproportion between the sexes.

The surplus of males is often due to female infanticide;2944 and among certain peoples there is another cause which must be taken into account. Captain Lewin states that, among the Toungtha, women die at a comparatively early age because of the constant labour which their sex entails upon them, whereas the men live very long.2945 And the same is said by Mr. Kirby with regard to the Kutchin.2946

Moreover, there is a disproportion between the sexes at birth. Among some peoples more boys are born, among others more girls; and the surplus is often considerable. Mr. Ross thinks that, among the Eastern Tinneh, “the proportion of births is rather in favour of females,” whilst the Aht women seem to have more boys than girls.2947 Von Humboldt found by examining baptismal registers, that more boys than girls were born in some communities of New Spain.2948 The same, according to M. Belly, is the case among the Indians of Guatemala and Nicaragua.2949

In the interior of Australia, Mr. Sturt met with several smaller tribes in which the number of girls was considerably greater than the number of boys, though in other tribes the proportion of births is in favour of males.2950 Sir. G. Grey drew up a list of 222 births, and of these 93 were females, 129 males.2951 In Tasmania, where the men were more numerous than the women, female infanticide was very rare.2952 The same is the case with the Sinhalese. They hold in abhorrence the crime of exposing children, says Dr. Davy; and it is never committed except in some of the wildest parts of the country, and even there only when the parents themselves are on the brink of starvation, and must either sacrifice a part of the family or die.2953 Haeckel assures us that among this people there is a permanent disproportion between male and female births, ten boys being born, on the average, to eight or nine girls.2954 Among the Todas, as we are informed by Mr. Marshall, the male children under fourteen years of age bear to the female children of the same period—ages estimated from their personal appearance—the ratio of 100 to 80·0,2955 though female infanticide is never practised, having long since become extinct through the action of the British Government.2956 Mr. Man’s inquiries tended to show that, among the Andamanese, there is a slight predominance of female over male births.2957

Bruce observes, “From a diligent inquiry into the South and Scripture-part of Mesopotamia, Armenia, and Syria, from Mousul (or Nineveh) to Aleppo and Antioch, I find the proportion to be fully two women born to one man. There is indeed, a fraction over, but not a considerable one. From Latikea, Laodicea ad mare, down the coast of Syria to Sidon, the number is very nearly three, or two and three-fourths to one man. Through the Holy Land, the country called Horan, in the Isthmus of Suez, and the parts of the Delta, unfrequented by strangers, it is something less than three. But from Suez to the Straits of Babelmandeb, which contains the three Arabias, the portion is fully four women to one man, which, I have reason to believe, holds as far as the Line, and 30° beyond it.” The manner in which Bruce came to these conclusions he describes as follows:—“Whenever I went into a town, village, or inhabited place, dwelt long in a mountain, or travelled journeys with any set of people, I always made it my business to inquire how many children they had, or their fathers, their next neighbours, or acquaintance. This not being a captious question, or what any one would scruple to answer, there was no interest to deceive.... I say, therefore, that a medium of both sexes arising from three or four hundred families indiscriminately taken, shall be the proportion in which one differs from the other.”2958

This statement has been contradicted, but, so far as I know, it has not been proved to be wholly without foundation. It is to some extent made credible by what Dr. Churcher informs me regarding the disproportion of the sexes among the Moors of Morocco. As the result of his own observation, and that of a Mohammedan friend of his, he writes, “There is certainly a disproportion also at birth.... It would be safe to say that the female births are in the proportion of three females to one male; this partly accounts for the great rejoicing when a son is born. It reacts, however, in this way, that the people say, ‘Allah has given us more women than men, hence it is evident that polygamy is of God.’” In the Monbuttu country, according to Emin Pasha, “far more female children are born than males.”2959 And, regarding the disproportion between the sexes in Uganda, Mr. Wilson says, “Careful observation has established the fact that there are a good many more female births than male, and, on taking the groups of children playing by the roadside, there will always be found to be more girls than boys.”2960 Confronted by these definite statements, and by the fact that, in many African countries, there is a striking excess of women, we cannot with Süssmilch and Chervin2961 dismiss as wholly groundless Montesquieu’s well-known assertion that in the hot regions of the Old World more girls are born than boys,2962 although such disproportion certainly does not exist in every tropical country.

In Europe, the average male births outnumber the female by about five per cent., the still-born being excluded. But the rate varies in the different countries. Thus, in Russian Poland, only 101 boys are born to 100 girls, whilst, in Roumania and Greece, the proportion is 111 to 100.2963 The excess of male over female births is less when they are illegitimate than when legitimate.2964

Ever since Aristotle’s days inquirers have sought to discover the causes which determine the sex of the offspring; but no conclusion commanding general assent has yet been arrived at. The law of Hofacker and Sadler, according to which more boys are born if the husband is older than the wife, more girls if the wife is older than the husband, has attracted the greatest number of adherents.2965 But Noirot and Breslau have lately come to the opposite result, and, from the data of Norwegian statistics, Berner has shown that the law is untenable.2966 Dr. Goehlert has modified it so far that he holds the sex to be influenced, not by the relative, but by the absolute ages of the parents.2967 But W. Stieda has found from the registers of births in Alsace-Lorraine, that neither the relative nor the absolute ages of the parents exercise this sort of influence.2968 Again, Platter, in a paper in ‘Statistische Monatsschrift’ (Vienna) for 1875, concludes from the examination of thirty million births that the less the difference in the age of the parents the greater is the probability of boys being born.2969

It has, further, been suggested that polygyny leads to the birth of a greater proportion of female infants.2970 Dr. J. Campbell, however, who carefully attended to this subject in the harems of Siam, concludes that the proportion of male to female births is the same as from monogamous unions.2971 It has also been maintained, in a paper read before the “Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland” by Mr. John Sanderson, that, among the Kafirs resident in Natal and the adjoining countries, there was no surplus of female births in polygynous families.2972 The mass of facts collected by Mr. Sanderson is, however, too small to warrant any positive general deductions, and the like must be said of the information on the subject which Mr. Cousins and Mr. Eyles have sent me from the same part of South Africa. According to M. Remy and Mr. Hyde, on the other hand, the censuses of the Mormons show a great excess of female births.2973 But it is impossible to believe that polygynous intercourse per se can cause such an excess. Hardly any animal, as Mr. Darwin remarks, has been rendered so highly polygynous as English race-horses; nevertheless, their male and female offspring are almost exactly equal in number.2974

Of all the theories relating to this subject, the one set forth by Dr. Düsing2975 is by far the most important. According to him, the characters of animals and plants which influence the formation of sex are due to natural selection. In every species, the proportion between the sexes has a tendency to keep constant, but the organisms are so well adapted to the conditions of life that, under anomalous circumstances, they produce more individuals of that sex of which there is the greatest need. When nourishment is abundant, strengthened reproduction is an advantage to the species, whereas the reverse is the case when nourishment is scarce. Hence—the power of multiplication depending chiefly upon the number of females—organisms, when unusually well nourished, produce comparatively more female offspring; in the opposite case, more male. Dr. Düsing and, before him, Dr. Ploss,2976 have adduced several remarkable facts which seem to indicate that such a connection between abundance and the production of females, and between scarcity and the production of males, actually exists. It is, for example, a common opinion among furriers that rich regions give more female furs, poor regions more male.2977 It is an established fact that male births are in greater excess in country districts, the population of which is often badly fed, than in towns, where the conditions of life are shown to be, as a rule, more luxurious.2978 A similar excess is found among poor people as compared with the well-off classes.2979 Especially remarkable is Dr. Ploss’s statement that in highlands comparatively more boys are born than in lowlands. He found that, in Saxony, in the years 1847-1849, the proportion between male and female births was 105·9 to 100 in the region not exceeding 500 Paris feet above the level of the sea; 107·3 to 100, at a height of between 1,001 and 1,500 feet; and 107·8 to 100, at a height of between 1,501 and 2,000.2980

The evidence adduced by Dr. Ploss and Dr. Düsing is certainly not strong enough to permit us to regard their inference otherwise than as an hypothesis. But it is an hypothesis in which there seems to be some truth. There are ethnological facts which fully harmonize with it.

According to the census made by the collectors of districts in 1814, the whole population of the old English possessions in Ceylon formed a grand total of 475,883 souls, the males outnumbering the females by 27,193. Above the age of puberty there were 156,447 males, and 142,453 females; below that age, 95,091 males, and 81,892 females. Davy, who thinks that the census is not far from the truth, remarks, “The disproportion appears to be greatest in the poorest parts of the country, where the population is thinnest, and it is most difficult to support life; and smallest where there is least want. Indeed, in some of the fishing villages, where there is abundance of food, the number of females rather exceeds that of the males. May it not be a wise provision of provident Nature to promote, by extreme poverty, the generation of males rather than of females?”2981

Very remarkable is the striking coincidence of polyandry with the great poverty of the countries in which it prevails. It seems to be beyond doubt that this practice, as a rule, is due to scarcity of women. This is the view taken by most of the authorities to whom we owe our knowledge of polyandrous peoples.2982 And this disproportion between the sexes cannot, at least in many instances, be explained as a result of female infanticide. It was formerly said that the excess of men among the Todas was owing to the fact that all the girls beyond a certain number were destroyed in the cradle; but later investigations, as we have seen, show that the excess depends upon a striking disproportion between male and female births. Dr. Seemann states that, among those Eskimo tribes who practise polyandry, and among whom men are more numerous than women, female infanticide seems to be unknown.2983 With regard to the inhabitants of the Jounsar district of the Himalayas, Mr. Dunlop says, “Wherever the practice of polyandry exists, there is a striking discrepance in the proportions of the sexes among young children as well as adults; thus, in a village where I have found upwards of four hundred boys, there were only one hundred and twenty girls, yet the temptations to female infanticide, owing to expensive marriages and extravagant dowers which exist among the Rajputs of the plains, are not found in the hills where the marriages are comparatively inexpensive, and where the wife, instead of bringing a large dowry, is usually purchased for a considerable sum from her parents. In the Garhwal Hills, moreover, where polygamy is prevalent, there is a surplus of female children.... I am inclined to give more weight to Nature’s adaptability to national habit, than to the possibility of infanticide being the cause of the discrepance found in Jounsar.”2984 Female infants are killed only where they are a burden to the family or community to which they belong. But it will be shown subsequently that this is by no means the case with the inhabitants of the Himalayas. Hence it seems almost probable that, among the polyandrous peoples of these regions, as among the Todas and Sinhalese, more boys are born than girls.

It has been said that Tibetan polyandry depends upon the scarcity of women in a marriageable state, and that this scarcity is due to the Lama nunneries absorbing so many of the girls.2985 But Koeppen clears the religion of Tibet of any responsibility for polyandry, showing that the practice existed in the country before the introduction of Buddhism.2986 Mr. Baber states the very remarkable fact that “polygamy obtains in valleys, while polyandry prevails in the uplands.”2987 According to Mr. Rockhill, “female infanticide is not practised in Tibet, except among the women married to Chinese;”2988 and Grosier and Du Halde expressly assert that more males than females are born there.2989

Much stress must be laid on the fact that polyandry prevails chiefly in poor countries. “Polyandry,” says Lieutenant Cunningham, “appears to be essential in a country in which the quantity of cultivable land is limited, and in which pastures are not extensive, in which there are but few facilities for carrying on commerce, and in which there is no mineral wealth readily made available.”2990 “Il est connu,” says M. Vinson, “que sur la côte de Malabar la polyandrie a été établie pour obvier à la pénurie des subsistances.”2991 The Santals live in a country a great part of which is poor and sterile.2992 Regarding the Kunawari, Miss Gordon Cumming remarks, “There is a curious distinction in the social customs of the people in the upper and lower part of this valley. Below Wangtu it is said that polygamy prevails, as elsewhere; every man buying his wives from their parents for a given number of rupees.... Farther up the valley, however, where the people are very poor, and the tiny ridges of cultivation will not support large families, polyandry is common.”2993 Speaking of the Botis of Ladakh, Sir A. Cunningham asserts that polyandry “was a most politic measure for a poor country which does not produce sufficient food for its inhabitants.”2994 Mr. Bellew holds the same view with regard to polyandry in Lammayru in Ladakh:—“The population is kept down to a proportion which the country is capable of supporting. For the only parts of it which are habitable are the narrow valleys through which its rivers flow, and the little nooks in the mountains which are watered by their torrent tributaries.”2995 According to Mr. Wilson, even one of the Moravian missionaries defended the polyandry of the Tibetans “as good for the heathen of so sterile a country,” since superabundant population in an unfertile country, would be a great calamity and produce “eternal warfare or eternal want.”2996 A similar opinion is pronounced by Koeppen, Turner, de Ujfalvy, and Wilson.2997

It is commonly asserted that this coincidence of polyandry with poverty of material resources depends upon the intention of the people to check an increase of population, or upon the fact that the men are not rich enough to support or buy wives for themselves. But the accuracy of these assumptions is very doubtful. Among no polyandrous people, except the Tibetans with their nunneries do we know of a class of unmarried women. Moreover, even if a woman is sometimes a burden to her husband in a tribe that lives by hunting, her position is very different among a pastoral or agricultural people. In the Himalayas, as Mr. Fraser remarks, women are useful in the fields and in domestic labours, and fully earn their own subsistence.2998 Again, Turner, who had many opportunities of seeing Western Tibet, asserts that polyandry there is not confined to the lower ranks alone, but is frequently found in the most opulent families,—a statement with which Mr. Wilson agrees.2999 In Ceylon, as we have seen, it prevails chiefly among the wealthier classes.3000 And in the villages of the Kotegarh district in the Himalayas, according to Dr. Stulpnagel, most of the cases of polyandry are found among well-to-do peoples. “It is the poor,” he says, “who prefer polygamy, on account of the value of the women as household drudges.”3001 All these facts are certainly in favour of Dr. Düsing’s theory; and Dr. Floss’s statement as to the excess of male births in the highlands of Saxony becomes very important when we consider that polyandry chiefly occurs among mountaineers—in South Africa, as we have seen, as well as in Asia.

Dr. Düsing has, moreover, inferred that incest is less common in proportion as the number of males is great. The more males, he says, the farther off they have to go from their birthplace to find mates. Incest is injurious to the species; hence incestuous unions have a tendency to produce an excess of male offspring.3002 Thus, according to Dr. Nagel, certain plants, when self-fertilized, produce an excess of male flowers. According to Dr. Goehlert’s statistical investigation, in the case of horses, the more the parent animals differ in colour, the more the female foals outnumber the male.3003 Among the Jews, many of whom marry cousins, there is a remarkable excess of male births. In country districts where, as we have seen, comparatively more boys are born than in towns, marriage more frequently takes place between kinsfolk. It is for a similar reason, says Dr. Düsing, that illegitimate unions show a tendency to produce female births.3004

The evidence given by Dr. Düsing for the correctness of his deduction is, then, exceedingly scanty—if, indeed, it can be called evidence. Nevertheless, I think his main conclusion holds good. Independently of his reasoning, I had come to exactly the same result in a purely inductive way. There is some ground for believing that mixture of race produces an excess of female births. In his work on the ‘Tribes of California,’ Mr. Powers observes, “It is a curious fact, which has frequently come under my observation, and has been abundantly confirmed by the pioneers, that among half-breed children a decided majority are girls.... Often I have seen whole families of half-breed girls, but never one composed entirely of boys, and seldom one wherein they were more numerous.”3005 When I mentioned this statement to a gentleman who had spent many years in British Columbia and other parts of North America, he replied that he himself had made exactly the same observation. Mr. Starkweather has found that, according to the United States statistical tables of the sex of mulattoes born in the Southern States, there is an excess of from 12 to 15 per cent. of female mulatto children, whilst, taking the whole population together, the male births show an excess of 5 per cent.3006 In Central America, according to Colonel Galindo, “an extraordinary excess is observable in the births of white and Ladino females over those of the males, the former being in proportion to the latter as six, or at least as five, to four: among the Indians the births of males and females are about equal.”3007 Mr. Stephens asserts that, among the Ladinos of Yucatan, the proportion is even as two to one.3008 Taken in connection with the fact mentioned by Mr. Squier, that the whites in Central America are as one to eight in comparison with the mixed population,3009 these statements accord well with the following observation of M. Belly as regards Nicaragua:—“Ce qui me paraît être le fait général,” he says, “c’est que dans les villes où l’élément blanc domine, il se procrée en effet plus de filles que de garçons.... Mais dans les campagnes et partout où la race Indienne l’emporte, c’est le contraire qui se produit, et dès lors la prépondérance du sexe masculin se maintient par la prépondérance de l’élément indigène. Le même phénomène avait déjà été observé au Mexique.”3010

Concerning the proportion of the sexes at birth among the mixed races of South America, I have unfortunately no definite statements at my disposal. But Mr. J. S. Roberton informs me, from Chañaral in Chili, that in that country, with its numerous mongrels, more females are born than males. According to the list of the population of the capitaina of São Paulo, in the year 1815, given by v. Spix and v. Martius—a list which includes more than 200,000 persons,—the proportion between women and men is, among the mulattoes, 114·65 to 100; among the whites, 109·3 to 100; among the blacks, 100 to 129.3011 But this last proportion is of no consequence, as we have no account of the number of negro slaves annually imported into the capitaina. Sir R. F. Burton found, from the census returns of 1859 for the town of São João d’El Rei, where there is a large intermixture of the white race with the coloured women, an excess of nearly 50 per cent. of women as compared with men.3012 A census of the population in the Province of Rio, taken in the year 1844, also shows a considerable excess of women, not only, however, among the mixed population, but among the Indian and negro creoles as well;3013 and M. de Castelnau was astonished at the disproportionately large number of females in Goyaz.3014

In the northern parts of the United States, according to Kohl, female children predominate in the families of the cross-breeds arising from the intercourse of Frenchmen with Indian women.3015 This statement is very much like Graf v. Görtz’s, that the families of the offspring of Dutchmen and Malay women in Java (Lipplapps) consist chiefly of daughters.3016 A census taken in the eighteenth century, given by Süssmilch, proves also that among these mongrels there is a great excess of women over men.3017 From Stanley Pool in Congo, Dr. Sims writes to me, “It is the subject of general remark here, that the half-caste children are generally girls; out of ten I can count, two only are boys.” At the same time he states that, among the native Bateke people, no disproportion between the sexes is observable. Mr. Cousins informs me that, in the western province of Cis-Natalian Kafirland, in the “Karoo” district from Caledon up to Mossel Bay, there is a half-caste or mixed race called “Bruin Menschen,” generally known as bastards, among whom more females than males are born. Dr. Felkin found that, among the foreign women imported to Uganda, the excess of females in the first births was enormous, viz., 510 females to 100 males, as compared with 102 females to 100 males in first births from pure Waganda women; whilst in subsequent pregnancies of these imported women the ratio was 137 females to 100 males. As a matter of fact, in the families of the poorer classes of Uganda, who “do all in their power to marry pure Waganda women,” the sexes are as evenly balanced as in Europe, whereas this is certainly not the case among the children of chiefs and wealthy men who have large harems supplied mainly with foreign wives. “I found,” says Dr. Felkin, “that of the women captured by the slave-raiders in Central Africa, and brought down to the East Coast, either near Zanzibar or through the Soudan to the Red Sea, those who had been impregnated on the way usually produced female children. Hence the Soudan slave-dealers, instead of having only one slave to sell, have a woman and a female child.”3018 Dr. Felkin suggests, as an explanation of this excess of female births, that the temporarily superior parent produces the opposite sex; but the facts stated seem strongly to corroborate the theory that intermixture of race is in favour of female births. Very remarkable are two statements in the Talmud, that mixed marriages produce only girls.3019 Mr. Jacobs informs me that his collection of Jewish statistics includes details of 118 mixed marriages; of these 28 are sterile, and in the remainder there are 145 female children and 122 male—that is, 118·82 to 100 males.

We must not, of course, take for granted that what applies to certain races of men holds good for all of them; but it should be observed that the cases mentioned refer to mongrels of very different kinds. It is indeed scarcely probable that anything else than the crossing can be the cause of this excess of females, as facts tend to show that unions between related individuals or, generally, between individuals who are very like each other, produce a comparatively great number of male offspring.

In all the in-and-in bred stocks of the Bates herd at Kirklevington, according to Mr. Bell, the number of bull calves was constantly very far in excess of the heifers.3020 Of the in-and-in bred Warlaby branch of short-horns, Mr. Carr says that it “appears to have a most destructive propensity to breed bulls.”3021 Dr. Goehlert’s statement as regards horses, just referred to, is corroborated by Crampe’s investigations, which included more than two thousand different cases, all tending to prove that female foals predominate in proportion as the parent animals differ in colour.3022

We have seen that the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills are probably the most in-and-in bred people of whom anything is known, and we have also seen how, among them, the disproportion between male and female births is strikingly in favour of the males. Among the Badagas, a neighbouring people, who, like the Todas, have numerous subdivisions of caste, each of which differs in some social or ceremonial custom,3023 and all of which, probably, are endogamous, there is also a considerable surplus of men.3024 Now it is very remarkable that in another tribe inhabiting the same hill ranges, the Kotars, who do not intermarry with the inhabitants of their own village, but always seek a wife from another “kotagiri,” women are not so scarce as among the Todas and the Badagas.3025 Among the endogamous Maoris, the men outnumber the women. So also among the Sinhalese, who consider marriage between the father’s sister’s son and the mother’s brother’s daughter the most proper union. Among the polyandrous Arabs mentioned by Strabo, marriage between cousins was the rule. The polyandrous mountaineer of South Africa, in almost every case, marries a daughter of his father’s brother.3026 And with the Jews, among whom cousin marriages occur perhaps three times as often as among the surrounding populations,3027 the proportion of births is probably more in favour of the males than among the non-Jewish population of Europe.3028 All these facts, taken together, seem to render it probable that the degree of differentiation in the sexual elements of the parents exercises some influence upon the sex of the offspring, so that, when the differentiation is unusually great, the births are in favour of females; when it is unusually small, in favour of males.

We certainly cannot, from the numerical proportion of the sexes, especially at birth, draw any inference as to the form of marriage characteristic of the species. Among birds living in a state of nature, polyandry is almost unheard of, though, according to Dr. Brehm, the males are generally more numerous than the females.3029 As for man, there are several non-polyandrous peoples among whom the men are considerably in excess of the women; whilst among other peoples polygyny is forbidden, though the women are in excess of the men. Nevertheless, the form of marriage depends to a great extent upon the proportion between the male and female population. Polyandry, as already said, is due chiefly to a surplus of men, though it prevails only where the circumstances are otherwise in favour of it. And, as regards polygyny, I cannot agree with M. Chervin that it is quite independent of the proportion between the sexes.3030 It has been observed that, in India, polyandry occurs in those parts of the country where the males outnumber the females, polygyny in those where the reverse is the case.3031 Indeed, in countries unaffected by European civilization, polygyny seems to prevail wherever women form the majority.

Thus the causes which determine the proportion of the sexes exercise some influence also upon the form of marriage. Among the Eskimo, for instance, who, according to Armstrong, take more than one wife when the women are sufficiently numerous,3032 polygyny results chiefly from the dangerous life the men have to lead in order to gain their subsistence. Among the Indians of North America, it is, to a large extent, due to the wars which destroy many of the male population. In certain countries it seems to be furthered by physiological conditions leading to an excess of female births. As for polyandry, we have some reason to believe that it is due, on the one hand, to poor conditions of life, on the other to close intermarrying. As a matter of fact, the chief polyandrous peoples either live in sterile mountain regions, or are endogamous in a very high degree.

There are several reasons why a man may desire to possess more than one wife. First, monogamy requires from him periodical continence. He has to live apart from his wife, not only for a certain time every month,3033 but, among many peoples, during her pregnancy also.3034 Among the Shawanese, for instance, “as soon as a wife is announced to be in a state of pregnancy, the matrimonial rights are suspended, and continency preserved with a religious and mystical scrupulosity.”3035 This suspension of matrimonial rights is usually continued till a considerable time after child-birth. Among the Northern Indians, a mother has to remain in a small tent placed at a little distance from the others during a month or five weeks;3036 and similar customs are found among many other peoples.3037 Very commonly, in a state of savage and barbarous life, the husband must not cohabit with his wife till the child is weaned.3038 And this prohibition is all the more severe, as the suckling-time generally lasts for two, three, four years, or even more. In Sierra Leone, it was looked upon as a crime of the most heinous nature if a wife cohabited with her husband before the child was able to run alone.3039 Among the Makonde, in Eastern Africa, says Mr. Joseph Thomson, “when a woman bears a child, she lives completely apart from her husband till the child is able to speak, as otherwise it is believed that harm, if not death, would come to the infant.”3040 In Fiji, “the relatives of a woman take it as a public insult if any child should be born before the customary three or four years have elapsed.”3041 This long suckling-time is due chiefly to want of soft food and animal milk.3042 But when milk can be obtained,3043 and even when the people have domesticated animals able to supply them with it,3044 this kind of food is often avoided. The Chinese, who are a Tartar people, and must have descended at one time from the “Land of Grass,” entirely eschew the use of milk.3045

Professor Bastian suggests that it is on hygienic grounds, though almost instinctively, that a man abstains from cohabitation with his wife during her pregnancy, and as long as she suckles her child.3046 But the reason seems rather to be of a religious character. Diseases are generally attributed by savages to the influence of some evil spirit.3047 Among many peoples the attainment of the age of puberty is marked by most superstitious ceremonies.3048 A woman, during the time of menstruation, is looked upon with a mystic detestation.3049 It is therefore quite in accordance with primitive ideas that the appearance of a new being should be connected in some way with supernatural agencies. Among the Ashantees, according to Mr. Reade, “when conception becomes apparent, the girl goes through a ceremony of abuse, and is pelted down to the sea, where she is cleansed. She is then set aside; charms are bound on her wrists, spells are muttered over her, and, by a wise sanitary regulation, her husband is not allowed to cohabit with her from that time until she has finished nursing her child.”3050 A woman in child-bed is very commonly considered unclean.3051 In China, a man of the upper classes does not speak to his wife within the first month after the birth of a child, and no visitor will enter the house where she lives.3052 According to early Aryan traditions, as v. Żmigrodzki remarks, a witch and a woman in child-bed are persons so intimately connected, that it is impossible to make any distinction between them.3053

One of the chief causes of polygyny is the attraction which female youth and beauty exercise upon man. Several instances have already been mentioned of a fresh wife being taken when the first wife grows old. Indeed, when a man, soon after he has attained manhood, marries a woman of similar age—not to speak of such countries as China and Corea, where the first wife is generally a woman from three to eight years older than her husband3054—he will still be a man in the prime of life, when the youthful beauty of his wife has passed away for ever. This is especially the case among peoples at the lower stages of civilization, among whom, as a rule, women get old much sooner than in more advanced communities.

Thus in California, according to Mr. Powers, women are rather handsome in their free and untoiling youth, but after twenty-five or thirty they break down under their heavy burdens and become ugly.3055 Among the Mandans, the beauty of the women vanishes soon after marriage.3056 The Kutchin women get “coarse and ugly as they grow old, owing to hard labour and bad treatment.”3057 Patagonian women are said to lose their youth at a very early age, “from exposure and hard work;” and among the Warraus, according to Schomburgk, “when the woman has reached her twentieth year, the flower of her life is gone.”3058 In New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii, and other islands of the South Sea, the beauty of women soon decays—“the result,” says Mr. Angas, “of hard labour in some cases, and in others of early intercourse with the opposite sex, combined with their mode of living, which rapidly destroys their youthful appearance.”3059

“Women of fifty in Europe,” Stavorinus observes, “look younger and fresher than those of thirty in Batavia.”3060 At two and twenty, Dyak beauty “has already begun to fade, and the subsequent decay is rapid.”3061 Among the Manipuris and Garos, the women, pretty when young, soon become “hags”;3062 and this is true also of the Aino women in Yesso, partly, it is said, because of the exposed life they lead as children, partly because of the early age at which they marry and become mothers, and partly because of the hard life they continue to lead afterwards.3063

In Africa female beauty fades quickly. The Egyptian women, from the age of about fourteen to that of eighteen or twenty, are generally models of loveliness in body and limbs, but, when they reach maturity, their attractions do not long survive.3064 In Eastern Africa, according to Sir R. F. Burton, the beauty of women is less perishable than in India and Arabia; but even there charms are on the wane at thirty, and, when old age comes on, the women are no exceptions to “the hideous decrepitude of the East.”3065 Arab girls in the Sahara preserve only till about their sixteenth year that youthful freshness which the women of the north still possess in the late spring of their life;3066 and, among the Ba-kwileh, women have no trace of beauty after twenty-five.3067 Speaking of the Wolofs, Mr. Reade remarks that the girls are very pretty with their soft and glossy black skin, but, “when the first jet of youth is passed, the skin turns to a dirty yellow and creases like old leather; their eyes sink into the skull, and the breasts hang down like the udder of a cow, or shrivel up like a bladder that has burst.”3068 Among the Damaras, Ovambo, and Kafirs, women, soon after maturity, begin to wither, as we are told, on account of hard labour;3069 and the Bushman women, it is said, soon become sterile from the same cause.3070 Among the Fulah, it is rare for a woman older than twenty to become a mother; and in Unyoro Emin Pasha never saw a woman above twenty-five with babies.3071

Early intercourse with the opposite sex is adduced by several writers as the cause of the short prime of savage women. But I am disposed to think that physical exertion has a much greater influence. Even from a physiological point of view hard labour seems to shorten female youth. Statistics show that, among the poorer women of Berlin, menstruation ceases at a rather earlier age than among the well-off classes.3072 It has been suggested that in hot countries women lose their beauty much sooner than in colder regions,3073 whereas men are not affected in the same way by climate. But, so far as I know, we are still in want of exact information on this point.

A further cause of polygyny is man’s taste for variety. Merolla da Sorrento asserts that the Negroes of Angola, who used to exchange their wives with each other for a certain time, excused themselves, when reproved, on the ground that “they were not able to eat always of the same dish.”3074 And in Egypt, according to Mr. Lane, “fickle passion is the most evident and common motive both to polygamy and repeated divorces.”3075

Motives due to man’s passions are not, however, the only causes of polygyny. We must also take into account his desire for offspring, wealth, and authority.

The barrenness of a wife is a very common reason for the choice of another partner. Among the Greenlanders, for instance, who considered it a great disgrace for a man to have no children, particularly no sons, a husband generally took a second wife, if the first one could not satisfy his desire for offspring.3076 Among the Botis of Ladakh, says Lieutenant Cunningham, “should a wife prove barren, a second can be chosen, or should she have daughters only, a second can be chosen similarly.”3077 In the Mutsa tribe of Indo-China, polygyny is allowed only if the wife is sterile;3078 and, among the Patuah or Juanga, the Eskimo at Prince Regent’s Bay, and several other peoples, already referred to, a man scarcely ever takes a second wife if the first wife gives him children.3079 Among the Tuski, “if a man’s wife bears only girls, he takes another until he obtains a boy, but no more.”3080 In China and Tonquin, and among the Munda Kols of Chota Nagpore, it sometimes happens that the barren wife herself advises her husband to take a fresh partner,3081 as Rachel gave Jacob Bilhah.3082

The polygyny of the ancient Hindus seems to have been due chiefly to the fact that men dreaded the idea of dying childless, and M. Le Play observes that even now in the East the desire for offspring is one of the principal causes of polygyny.3083 Dr. Gray makes the same remark as to the Chinese,3084 Herr Andree as to the Jews.3085 In Egypt, says Mr. Lane, “a man having a wife who has the misfortune to be barren, and being too much attached to her to divorce her, is sometimes induced to take a second wife, merely in the hope of obtaining offspring.”3086

The more wives, the more children; and the more children, the greater power. Man in a savage and barbarous state is proud of a large progeny, and he who has most kinsfolk is most honoured and feared.3087 Regarding certain Indians of North America, among whom the dignity of chief was elective, Heriot remarks that “the choice usually fell upon him who had the most numerous offspring, and who was therefore considered as the person most deeply interested in the welfare of the tribe.”3088 Among the Chippewas, says Mr. Keating, “the pride and honour of parents depend upon the extent of their family.”3089 Speaking of African polygyny, Sir R. F. Burton observes that the “culture of the marriage tie is necessary among savages and barbarians, where, unlike Europe, a man’s relations and connections are his only friends; besides which, a multitude of wives ministers to his pride and influence, state and pleasure.”3090 Bosman tells us of a viceroy tributary to the negro king of Fida, who, assisted only by his sons and grandsons with their slaves, repulsed a powerful enemy who came against him. This viceroy, with his sons and grandsons, could make out the number of two thousand descendants, not reckoning daughters or any that were dead.3091 Moreover, in a state of nature, next to a man’s wives, the real servant, the only one to be counted upon, is the child.3092

A husband’s desire for children often leads to polygyny in countries where the fecundity of women is at a low rate. More than a hundred years ago, Dr. Hewit observed that women are naturally less prolific among rude than among polished nations.3093 This assertion, though not true universally,3094 is probably true in the main. “It is a very rare occurrence for an Indian woman,” says Mr. Catlin, “to be ‘blessed’ with more than four or five children during her life; and, generally speaking, they seem contented with two or three.”3095 This statement is confirmed by the evidence of several other authorities;3096 and it holds good not only for the North American Indians, but, upon the whole, for a great many uncivilized peoples.3097 Some writers ascribe this slight degree of prolificness to hard labour,3098 or to unfavourable conditions of life in general.3099 That it is partly due to the long period of suckling is highly probable, not only because a woman less easily becomes pregnant during the time of lactation, but also on account of the continence in which she often has to live during that period. The mortality of children is very great among savages,3100 and this, co-operating with other causes to keep the family small, makes polygyny seem to many peoples absolutely necessary. Speaking of the Equatorial Africans, Mr. Reade says, “Propagation is a perfect struggle; polygamy becomes a law of nature; and even with the aid of this institution, so favourable to reproduction, there are fewer children than wives.”3101

A man’s fortune is increased by a multitude of wives not only through their children, but through their labour. An Eastern Central African, says Mr. Macdonald, finds no difficulty in supporting even hundreds of wives. “The more wives he has, the richer he is. It is his wives that maintain him. They do all his ploughing, milling, cooking, &c. They may be viewed as superior servants who combine all the capacities of male servants and female servants in Britain—who do all his work and ask no wages.”3102 Manual labour among savages is undertaken chiefly by women; and, as there are no day-labourers or persons who will work for hire, it becomes necessary for any one who requires many servants to have many wives. Mr. Wood remarks that, when an Indian can purchase four or five wives, their labour in the field is worth even more to the household than his exertions in hunting.3103 “The object of the Kutchin,” says Mr. Kirby, “is to have a greater number of poor creatures whom he can use as beasts of burden for hauling his wood, carrying his meat, and performing the drudgery of his camp.”3104 A Modok defends his having several wives on the plea that he requires one to keep house, another to hunt, another to dig roots.3105 In the Solomon Islands in New Guinea, at the Gold Coast, and in other places where the women cultivate the ground, a plurality of wives implies a rich supply of food;3106 whilst, among the Tartars, according to Marco Polo, wives were of use to their husbands as traders.3107

A multitude of wives increases a man’s authority, not only because it increases his fortune and the number of his children, or because it makes him able to be liberal and keep open doors for foreigners and guests,3108 but also because it presupposes a certain superiority in personal capabilities, wealth, or rank. Statements such as “a man’s greatness is ever proportionate to the number of his wives,” or “polygamy is held to be the test of his wealth and consequence,” are very frequently met with in books of travels. Thus the Apache “who can support or keep, or attract by his power to keep, the greatest number of women, is the man who is deemed entitled to the greatest amount of honour and respect.”3109

However desirable polygyny may be from man’s point of view, it is, as we have seen, altogether prohibited among many peoples, and, in countries where it is an established institution, it is practised, as a rule to which there are few exceptions, only by a comparatively small class. The proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this. But there are other causes of no less importance.

In ethnographical descriptions it is very often stated that a man takes as many wives as he is able to maintain. Where the amount of female labour is limited, where life is supported by hunting, where agriculture is unknown, and no accumulated property worth mentioning exists, it may be extremely difficult for a man to keep a plurality of wives. Among the Patagonians, for instance, it is chiefly those who possess some property who take more than one wife.3110 Regarding the Tuski, Mr. Hooper states that “each man has as many wives as he can afford to keep, the question of food being the greatest consideration.”3111 In Oonalashka, according to v. Langsdorf, a man who had many wives, if his means decreased, sent first one, then another back to their parents.3112

Again, where female labour is of considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase-sum for a wife very often makes the poorer people content with monogamy. Thus among the Zulus, Mr. Eyles writes, many men have but one wife because cattle have to be paid for women. Among the Gonds and Korkús, according to Mr. Forsyth, “polygamy is not forbidden, but, women being costly chattels, it is rarely practised.”3113 Among the Bechuanas, says Andersson, there is no limit, but his means of purchase, to the number of wives a man may possess.3114 And the same is observed with reference to a great many other peoples, especially in Africa, where the woman-trade is at its height. Polygyny is, moreover, checked to some extent by the man’s obligation to serve for his wife for a certain number of years, and even more by his having to settle down with his father-in-law for the whole of his life.

So far as the woman is allowed to choose, she prefers, other things being equal, the man who is best able to support her, or the man of the greatest wealth or highest position. Naturally, therefore, wherever polygyny prevails, it is the principal men—whether they owe their position to birth, skill, or acquired wealth—who have the largest number of wives; or it may be that they alone have more than one wife. Speaking of the Ainos of Yesso, Commander H. C. St. John says that a successful or expert hunter or fisher sometimes keeps two wives; and, if a woman finds her husband an unsuccessful Nimrod, she abandons him.3115 Among the Aleuts, “the number of wives was not limited, except that the best hunters had the greatest number.”3116 Among the Kutchin, “polygamy is practised generally in proportion to the rank and wealth of the man;”3117 and, among the Brazilian aborigines and the Araucanians, polygyny occurs only or chiefly among rich men and chiefs.3118 Touching the Equatorial Africans, Mr. Reade remarks, “The bush-man can generally afford but one wife, who must find him his daily bread.... But the rich man can indulge in the institutions of polygamy and domestic slavery.”3119 In Dahomey, as we are told, “the king has thousands of wives, the nobles hundreds, others tens; while the soldier is unable to support one.”3120 In the New Hebrides, polygyny prevails especially among the chiefs; in Naiabui of New Guinea, “the head men only have more than two or three wives;” and, in South Australia, “the old men secure the greatest number.”3121

Thus polygyny has come to be associated with greatness, and is therefore, as Mr. Spencer remarks, thought praiseworthy, while monogamy, as associated with poverty, is thought mean.3122 Indeed, plurality of wives has everywhere tended to become a more or less definite class distinction, the luxury being permitted, among some peoples, only to chiefs or nobles.

One of the most important of the influences which determine the form of marriage is the position of women, or rather the respect in which they are held by men. For polygyny implies a violation of woman’s feelings.

Several statements tend to show that jealousy and rivalry do not always disturb the peace in polygynous families. It sometimes happens that the first wife herself brings her husband a fresh wife or a concubine, or advises him to take one, when she becomes old herself, or if she proves barren, or has a suckling child, or for some other reason.3123 In Equatorial Africa, according to Mr. Reade, the women are the stoutest supporters of polygyny:—“If a man marries,” he says, “and his wife thinks that he can afford another spouse, she pesters him to marry again, and calls him ‘a stingy fellow’ if he declines to do so.”3124 Speaking of the Makalolo women, Livingstone observes, “On hearing that a man in England could marry but one wife, several ladies exclaimed that they would not like to live in such a country: they could not imagine how English ladies could relish our custom, for, in their way of thinking, every man of respectability should have a number of wives, as a proof of his wealth. Similar ideas prevail all down the Zambesi.”3125 Among the Californian Modok also, according to the Hon. A. B. Meacham, the women are opposed to any change in the polygynous habits of the men.3126 But such statements may easily be misinterpreted. Often the wives live peacefully together only in consequence of the strict discipline of the husband.3127 They put up with polygyny, thanks to long custom; they even approve of it where it procures them advantages. The consideration of the whole family, and especially of the first wife, is increased by every new marriage the husband concludes.3128 Where the wife is her husband’s slave, polygyny implies a greater division of labour. This is the reason why, among the Apaches, the women do not object to it; why, among the Bagobos of the Philippines, they rejoice at the arrival of a new wife; why, in the Mohammedan East, they themselves encourage the husband to marry more wives.3129 Among the Arabs of Upper Egypt, says Baker, one of the conditions of accepting a suitor is, that a female slave is to be provided for the special use of the wife, although the slaves of the establishment occupy, at the same time, the position of concubines.3130 Von Weber tells us of a Kafir woman who, on account of her heavy labour, passionately urged her husband to take another wife.3131 Nevertheless, polygyny is an offence against the feelings of women, not only among highly civilized peoples, but even among the rudest savages. For jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, although it is generally more powerful in men than in women.3132

The Greenlanders have a saying that “whales, musk-oxen, and reindeer deserted the country because the women were jealous at the conduct of their husbands.”3133 Regarding the Northern Indians, Hearne says, “The men are in general very jealous of their wives, and I make no doubt but the same spirit reigns among the women, but they are kept so much in awe of their husbands, that the liberty of thinking is the greatest privilege they enjoy.”3134 Franklin tells us of an Indian woman who committed suicide by hanging herself, in a fit of jealousy; and another woman threw herself into the Mississippi with her child, when her husband took a new wife.3135 As regards the Dacotahs, Mr. Prescott says that “polygamy is the cause of a great deal of their miseries and troubles. The women, most of them, abhor the practice, but are overruled by the men. Some of the women commit suicide on this account.”3136 The natives of Guiana, according to the Rev. W. H. Brett, live in comfort, as long as the man is content with one wife, but, when he takes another, “the natural feelings of woman rebel at such cruel treatment, and jealousy and unhappiness have, in repeated instances, led to suicide.”3137 Among the Tamanacs, says v. Humboldt, “the husband calls the second and third wife the ‘companions’ of the first; and the first treats these ‘companions’ as rivals and ‘enemies’ (‘ipucjatoje’).”3138 Among the Charruas, it often happens that a woman abandons her husband if he has a plurality of wives, as soon as she is able to find another man who will take her as his only wife.3139 And, when a Fuegian has as many as four women, his hut is every day transformed into a field of battle, and many a young and pretty wife must even atone with her life for the precedence given her by the common husband.3140

In the islands of the Pacific similar scenes occur. The missionary Williams’s wife once asked a Fiji woman who was minus her nose, “How is it that so many of your women are without a nose?” “It is due to a plurality of wives,” was the answer; “jealousy causes hatred, and then the stronger tries to cut or bite off the nose of the one she hates.”3141 In Tukopia, many a wife who believed another woman to be preferred by the husband committed suicide.3142 Among the Australian aborigines, the old wives are extremely jealous of their younger rivals, so that “a new woman would always be beaten by the other wife, and a good deal would depend on the fighting powers of the former whether she kept her position or not.”3143 Among the Narrinyeri, according to the Rev. A. Meyer, the several wives of one man very seldom agree well with each other; they are continually quarrelling, each endeavouring to be the favourite.3144 “The black women,” says Herr Lumholtz, “are also capable of being jealous.”3145

Among the Sea Dyaks, according to Sir Spenser St. John, the wife is much more jealous of her husband than he is of her.3146 In China, many women dislike the idea of getting married, as they fear that, should their husbands become polygynists, there would remain for them a life of unhappiness. Hence, some become Buddhist or Taouist nuns, and others prefer death by suicide to marriage.3147 Mr. Balfour asserts that, among the Mohammedans and ruling Hindu races who permit and practise polygyny, it causes much intriguing and disquiet in homes.3148 According to Mr. Tod, it “is the fertile source of evil, moral as well as physical, in the East.”3149 The same view is taken by Pischon and d’Escayrac de Lauture with regard to the polygyny of the Mohammedans.3150 In Persia, says Dr. Polak, a married woman cannot feel a greater pain than if her husband takes a fresh wife, whom he prefers to her; then she is quite disconsolate.3151 In Egypt, quarrels between the various women belonging to the same man are very frequent, and often the wife will not even allow her female slave or slaves to appear unveiled in the presence of her husband.3152 In the description, in the Book of Proverbs, of domestic happiness, it is assumed that the husband has only one wife;3153 and, in the latter part of the ‘Rig-Veda,’ there are hymns in which wives curse their fellow-wives.3154

The Abyssinian women are described as very jealous; and in the polygynous families of the Eastern Africans, Zulus, Basutos, &c., quarrels frequently arise.3155 The Hova word for polygyny is derived from the root “ràfy,” which means “an adversary.” “So invariably,” says the Rev. J. Sibree, “has the taking of more wives than one shown itself to be a fruitful cause of enmity and strife in a household, that this word, which means ‘the making an adversary,’ is the term always applied to it.... The different wives are always trying to get an advantage over each other, and to wheedle their husband out of his property; constant quarrels and jealousy are the result, and polygamy becomes inevitably the causing of strife, ‘the making an adversary.’”3156 Statements of this kind cannot but shake our confidence in the optimistic assertions of Dr. Le Bon and other defenders of polygyny.3157

In order to prevent quarrels and fights between the wives, the husband frequently gives each of them a separate house. It is probably in part for the same reason that, among several peoples, wives are usually chosen from one family. In general, says Domenech, when an Indian wishes to have many wives, he chooses before all others, if he can, sisters, because he thinks he can thus secure more domestic peace.3158 This is true of many of the North American aborigines;3159 a man who marries the eldest daughter of a family secures in many cases the right to marry all her sisters as soon as they are old enough to become his wives.3160 The same practice is said to prevail in Madagascar,3161 and, combined with polyandry, among certain peoples of India. But it is obvious that the evils of polygyny are not removed by such arrangements.

Where women have succeeded in obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than themselves, monogamy is generally considered the only proper form of marriage. Among monogamous savage or barbarous races the position of women is comparatively good; and the one phenomenon must be regarded as partly the cause, partly the effect of the other. The purely monogamous Iroquois, to quote Schoolcraft, are “the only tribes in America, north and south, so far as we have any accounts, who gave to woman a conservative power in their political deliberations. The Iroquois matrons had their representative in the public councils; and they exercised a negative, or what we call a veto power, in the important question of the declaration of war. They had the right also to interpose in bringing about a peace.”3162 Moreover, they had considerable privileges in the family.3163 Among the Nicaraguans—a people almost wholly monogamous,—the husbands are said to have been so much under the control of their wives that they were obliged to do the housework, while the women attended to the trading.3164 Among the Zapotecs and other nations inhabiting the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, who do not permit polygyny, “gentleness, affection, and frugality characterize the marital relations.”3165 In New Hanover3166 and among the Dyaks,3167 the wife seems to have a kind of authority; and among the Minahassers, according to Dr. Hickson, “the woman is, and probably has been for many generations, on a footing of equality with her husband.”3168 Mr. Man states that, in the Andaman Islands, “the consideration and respect with which women are treated might with advantage be emulated by certain classes in our own land.”3169 The Pádam wives are treated by their husbands with a regard that seems singular in so rude a race. “But I have seen,” says Colonel Dalton, “other races as rude who in this respect are an example to more civilized people. It is because with these rude people the inclination of the persons most interested in the marriage is consulted, and polygamy is not practised.”3170 The Munda Kols of Chota Nagpore call a wife “the mistress of the house,” and she takes up a position similar to that of a married woman in Europe.3171 The Santal women, who enjoy the advantage of reigning alone in the husband’s wigwam, according to Mr. E. G. Man, hold a much higher status in the family circle than their less fortunate sisters in most Eastern countries.3172 The Kandhs, Bodo, and Dhimáls treat their wives and daughters with confidence and kindness, and consult them in all domestic concerns.3173 Among the monogamous Moors of the Western Soudan, the women exercise a considerable influence on the men, who take the greatest pains to pay them homage.3174 The Touareg wives’ authority is so great that, although Islam permits polygyny, the men are forced to live in monogamy.3175 Among the monogamous Tedâ, the women hold a very high position in the family.3176 As for European monogamy, there can be no doubt that it owes its origin chiefly to the consideration of men for the feelings of women.

The form of marriage is, further, influenced by the quality of the passions which unites the sexes. When love depends entirely on external attractions, it is necessarily fickle; but when it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after youth and beauty are gone.

It remains for us to note the true monogamous instinct, the absorbing passion for one, as a powerful obstacle to polygyny. “The sociable interest,” Professor Bain remarks, “is by its nature diffused: even the maternal feeling admits of plurality of objects; revenge does not desire to have but one victim; the love of domination needs many subjects; but the greatest intensity of love limits the regards to one.”3177 The beloved person acquires, in the imagination of the lover, an immeasurable superiority over all others. “The beginnings of a special affection,” the same psychologist says, “turn upon a small difference of liking; but such differences are easily exaggerated; the feeling and the estimate acting and re-acting, till the distinction becomes altogether transcendent.”3178 This absorbing passion for one is not confined to the members of civilized societies. It is found also among savage peoples, and even among some of the lower animals. Hermann Müller, Brehm, and other good observers have proved that it is experienced by birds; and Mr. Darwin found it among certain domesticated mammals.3179 The love-bird rarely survives the death of its companion, even when supplied with a fresh and suitable mate.3180 M. Houzeau states, on the authority of Frédéric Cuvier, “Lorsque l’un des ouistitis (Harpale jacchus) du Jardin des Plantes de Paris vint à mourir l’époux survivant fut inconsolable. Il caressa longtemps le cadavre de sa compagne; et quand à la fin il fut convaincu de la triste réalité, il se mit les mains sur les yeux, et resta sans bouger et sans prendre de nourriture, jusqu’à ce qu’il eût lui-même succombé.”3181

Among the Indians of Western Washington and North-Western Oregon, says Dr. Gibbs, “a strong sensual attachment undoubtedly often exists, which leads to marriage, as instances are not rare of young women destroying themselves on the death of a lover.”3182 The like is said of other Indian tribes, in which suicide from unsuccessful love has sometimes occurred even among men.3183 Colonel Dalton represents the Pahária lads and lasses as forming very romantic attachments; “if separated only for an hour,” he says, “they are miserable.”3184 Davis tells us of a negro who, after vain attempts to redeem his sweetheart from slavery, became a slave himself rather than be separated from her.3185 In Tahiti, unsuccessful suitors have been known to commit suicide;3186 and even the rude Australian girl sings in a strain of romantic affliction—

“I never shall see my darling again.”3187

As a man, under certain circumstances, desires many wives, so a woman may have several reasons for desiring a plurality of husbands. But the jealousy of man does not readily suffer any rivals, and, as he is the stronger, his will is decisive. Hence, where polyandry occurs, it is only exceptionally a result of the woman’s wishes.

Various causes have been adduced for this revolting practice. The difficulty of raising the sum for a wife, and the expense of maintaining women may perhaps in part account for it.3188 Regarding polyandry in Kunawar, the Rev. W. Rebsch says that the cause assigned is not poverty, but a desire to keep the common patrimony from being distributed among a number of brothers.3189 Some writers believe that polyandry subserves the useful end of preventing the woman from being exposed to danger and difficulty, when she is left alone in her remote home during the prolonged absences of her lord.3190 According to the Sinhalese, the practice originated in the so-called feudal times, when the enforced attendance of the people on the king and the higher chiefs would have led to the ruin of the rice lands, had not some interested party been left to look after the tillage. But Sir Emerson Tennent remarks that polyandry is much more ancient than the system thus indicated: it is shown to have existed at a period long antecedent to “feudalism.”3191 To whatever other causes the practice may be attributed, the chief immediate cause is, no doubt, a numerical disproportion between the sexes.