Note 36 — Chapter V

McLennan’s theory of exogamy. 6. The earliest theory was that of Mr. McLennan,36 who began by calling attention to the fact that there are numerous survivals of marriage by capture, such as the mock struggle for the bride and so on, to which more particular reference is made in another place: that these symbols show that at one time people were accustomed to procure their wives by force. He went on to argue that among primitive nomadic groups, where the struggle for existence was intense, the girls would be a source of weakness to the community: such children would be ill-protected and nourished, and female infanticide would occur. Hence, owing to the scarcity of brides, youths desirous of marrying would be obliged to resort to violence and capture women by force from the groups. This would in time produce the custom in favour of, or the prejudice against, (which in the case of marriage would soon have the force of tribal law) marrying women within the tribe. This theory has been criticized at length by Mr. Herbert Spencer and Dr. Westermarck37 mainly on the following grounds:—“The custom cannot have originated from the lack of women, because the tribes that use it are mostly polygamous. It is, again, not proved to prevail among races which practise polyandry. The evidence of the widespread custom of female infanticide among groups in this assumed stage of social development is not conclusive. Primitive man does not readily abandon the instinct of love of the young which he possesses in common with all the lower animals, and women, so far from being useless to the savage, are most valuable as food providers. Further, there may be a scarcity of women in a tribe, and youths unable to find partners be forced to seek wives in another group, the difficulty remains why marriage with surviving tribal women should not only be unfashionable, but prohibited by the severest penalties; in some cases that of death. The position of such women would be nothing short of intolerable, because they could not marry unless an outsider chose to ravish them.”