Note 41 — Chapter V

Lubbock’s theory of exogamy. 8. Sir John Lubbock’s41 theory again depends on his theory of what he calls communal marriage, by which all the women of the group were at the general disposal of all the males. This, however, he thinks, would not be the case with women seized from a different tribe. This theory, so far as it is concerned with communal marriage and polyandry, is discussed elsewhere. It is enough here to say that the evidence for the existence of either among the primitive races of this part of India appears entirely insufficient, and it is difficult to understand, even if communal marriage prevailed, how women captured, as must have been the case, by the general act of members of the group, could have been protected from that form of outrage which would naturally have been their lot.