Chapter III: Theory of the Original Pairing or Monogamous Family (2)

Westermarck seeks a simple explanation of female kinship in the necessary relations of a child with its mother. "Especially among savages, the tie between a mother and a child is much stronger than that which binds a child to the father. Not only has she given birth to it, but she has also for years been seen carrying it about at her breast. Moreover, in cases of separation, occurring frequently at lower stages of civilization, the infant children always follow the mother, and so, very often, do the children more advanced in years."[339] Polygyny has doubtless favored the choice of the female line of descent;[340] and the odd custom of the couvade, found here and there among rude peoples, instead of being a mark of transition to the paternal system, only implies some connection or "some idea of relationship" between father and child;[341] and accordingly simpler and more probable reasons for its origin have been assigned.[342] Thus it may take its rise in the notion of a mysterious physical connection between the father and the child. "The well-being of the child is its object." The father occupies the so-called lying-in bed, not as a bed of sickness "affording rest and strength after travail," but he abstains from certain foods lest they should injure the child, and he fasts in order that his powers of endurance may be assured to it.[343] This view is strongly supported by the fact that among many primitive peoples, in various stages of advancement, the belief is found that the child springs from the father alone, the mother merely performing the function of nourishment.[344] Finally Westermarck's generalization as to the real import of kinship through females only may be noted. The "facts adduced as examples" of this system, he declares, "imply chiefly that children are named after their mothers, not after their fathers, and that property and rank succeed exclusively in the female line."[345]

[339] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 107-13; _cf._
LUBBOCK, _Origin of Civilization_, 149 ff.

[340] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 108; STARCKE,
_op. cit._, 27, 28, 35, 36, 40, 41, 69 n. 4, citing
WINTERBOTTOM, _An Account of the Native Africans in the
Neighborhood of Sierra Leone_. _Cf._, however, DARGUN,
_Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht_, 59 ff.

[341] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 106, 107, 17.

[342] In the couvade the father occupies the erroneously
so-called lying-in bed; is nursed and otherwise cared for as
if he were the mother: while he rigidly fasts or abstains
from certain kinds of food. GIRAUD-TEULON, _Origines
du mariage_, 138; BACHOFEN, _Mutterrecht_, 17, 255,
419; LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 394-98;
BERNHÖFT, in _ZVR._, IX, 417; and LUBBOCK,
_Origin of Civilization_, 14 ff., 159, regard the couvade as
a mark of transition. Such, in effect, is also the view of
LIPPERT, _Kulturgeschichte_, II, 312; _Geschichte
der Familie_, 213 ff., who believes the custom is a form of
redemption-sacrifice rendered by the father instead of the
actual sacrifice of the first-born child, a sacrifice exacted
in the stage of earlier mother-right. HELLWALD, _Die
mensch. Familie_, 361 ff., accepts the theory of Lippert. On the
other hand, TYLOR, _Early History of Mankind_, chap,
x, 297 ff.; STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 51, 52, 283,
284; and DARGUN, _Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht_, 18-26,
hold that it takes its rise in a supposed physical connection
between father and child, and therefore that it exists for the
welfare of the child alone. LUBBOCK, _op. cit._, 14 ff.,
emphasizes this fact, while regarding the practice as an evidence
of transition. TYLOR, however, in his _Method of
Investigating Institutions_, 254-56, accepts the view of Bachofen
and Giraud-Teulon, relegating the explanation first assigned by
him to a secondary place. ROTH, "On the Significance
of the Couvade," _Jour. Anth. Inst._, XXII, 204-44, holds the
custom to be a form of magic or witchcraft, resting on the belief
in a physical connection between the father and child, and so
implying power over the child. According to CRAWLEY,
_Mystic Rose_, 416-28, the custom has its origin in sexual taboo.
It is a case of "substitution." The father simulates the mother
so that by exposing himself to the same danger he may help her
and the child against the magical or evil influences which are
especially harmful in the great sexual crises of human life.
_Cf._ KOHLER, "Das Recht der Azteken," _ZVR._, XI, 49;
MÜLLER, _Chips from a German Workshop_, II, 281, 278;
PLOSS, _Das Kind_, I, 143-53; MUCKE, _Horde
und Familie_, 219 ff.; FRIEDRICHS, in _Ausland_ (1890),
801, 837, 856, 877, 895; CHAMBERLAIN, _The Child and
Childhood in Folk-Thought_, 124, 125.

[343] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 52. See the preceding note;
also LIPPERT, _Geschichte der Familie_, 213 ff., who
criticises the use of the term "lying-in bed."

[344] FUSTEL DE COULANGES, _Ancient City_, 47, 70,
_passim_; see further, WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._,
107, 108; HOWITT, _Smithsonian Report_ (1883), 813;
MAINE, _Early Law and Custom_, 203; WILKINSON,
_Ancient Egyptians_, I, 320.

[345] _Human Marriage_, 97. He insists on the powerful influence
of names on the roles of succession: _ibid._, 111.

Starcke has devoted the first half of his book to a detailed investigation of the problem of female descent, and comes to the conclusion that it depends mainly on local and economic causes. He first shows that the clan is of later origin than the family; and holds that these are by nature very different institutions. The family is juridical, established by contract, and only "in a subsidiary sense" founded on the "tie of blood between parents and children;" but the clan is a natural and homogeneous group of kindred among whom degrees of relationship are not counted. It is an exclusive group into which the child is born; and "it is absolutely impossible for one person to belong to two distinct clans."[346] In the primitive stage, before the formation of clans, the family must always be a more or less isolated group. The man usually chooses the place of abode, and hence paternal kinship may be easily recognized. A considerable number of rude peoples exist who take kinship from the father;[347] and Starcke is inclined to believe, though he presents rather slender evidence, that as a general rule the paternal precedes the maternal system. With the rise of the clan organization, it became absolutely necessary for the local groups to take one system or the other. So the "definition of kinship results from the conflict between clans, and teaches us nothing further with respect to the child's relation to its parent. The choice between the two possible lines is decided by the economic organization of the community and by the local grouping of individuals, but there is not the slightest trace of the fact that considerations with respect to the sexual relations had any influence in the matter."[348]

[346] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 10-16, 25.

[347] _Ibid._, 26, 27, 30, 58 ff., 101; WESTERMARCK,
_op. cit._, 98 ff.

[348] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 118; _cf. ibid._, 54.
FRIEDRICHS agrees with Starcke on the essential point.
The uterine system arises with the formation of families and
_gentes_. In a very primitive state, the natural means of
subsistence sufficing, the children leave the parents and look
out for themselves; as it becomes more and more difficult
to find food and shelter, family groups are formed, and the
children remain a longer time with the mother. Hence naturally
the name and kinship are taken from her: "Ueber den Ursprung
des Matriarchats," _ZVR._, VIII, 378 ff. Compare _idem_,
"Familienstufen und Eheformen," _ibid._, X, 197 ff., 201.
DARGUN, _Mutterrecht und Vaterrecht_, 43-66, discusses
the original mother-right, but rejects Starcke's theory of
local causes, accepting uncertainty of fatherhood as a primary
influence. Starcke is also criticised by HELLWALD, _Die
mensch. Familie_, 456-58, 465, 484 ff.

Starcke's opinion that such rules of succession depend on local connections, those persons being each other's heirs "who dwell together in one place,"[349] seems to gain some support from the result of Dr. Tylor's examination of the so-called "beena"[350] marriage form, which requires the man to live in the family of his wife, usually serving for her as did Jacob for Laban's daughters. It is remarkable that this custom and the maternal system of kinship are commonly found together. "Thus the number of coincidences between peoples where the husband lives with the wife's family and where the maternal system prevails, is naturally large in proportion, while the full maternal system as naturally never appears among peoples whose exclusive custom is for the husband to take his wife to his own home."[351] Furthermore, adds Westermarck, "where both customs--the woman receiving her husband in her own hut, and the man taking his wife to his--occur side by side among the same people, descent in the former cases is traced through the mother, in the latter through the father."[352]

[349] _Op. cit._, 36, _passim_; summarized by
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 110.

[350] See above, p. 16, on "beena" marriage.

[351] TYLOR, _On a Method of Investigating the
Development of Institutions_, 258. _Cf._ WESTERMARCK,
_op. cit._, 109; also STARCKE, _op. cit._, 79, 80, who
regards serving as a form of wife-purchase, and the migration
of the husband as "due to the great cohesive power of the
several families, which causes them to refuse to part with any
of their members." Among various American peoples it is the
custom for the husband to take up his abode permanently in the
wife's family: SOUZA, "Tratado descriptivo do Brazil,"
_Revista Inst. Hist._, XIV, 311 ff.; STEVENSON, "The
Sia," _XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 20, 22; or temporarily:
DOBRIZHOFFER, _Account of Abipones_, II, 208, 209;
POWELL, "Wyandotte Society," in _A. A. A. S._, XXIX,
681; MACCAULEY, "Seminole Indians," _V. Rep. of Bureau
of Eth._, 496; MCGEE, "The Seri Indians," _XVII. Rep. of
Bureau of Eth._, 280.

[352] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 110. Compare
SMITH, _Kinship and Marriage_, 74 ff.;
MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 101 ff.; and MARSDEN,
_History of Sumatra_, 225.

It seems certain that the whole truth regarding the problems of kinship, as well as regarding the rise and sequence of the forms of the family, can be reached only through a thorough historical investigation of the industrial habits of mankind. In fact, the position of Starcke, that the rise of rules of descent and kinship depends mainly on economic and local causes, is strengthened in a remarkable way by the researches of Grosse, which have already been presented in outline. Nowhere does promiscuity appear among the peoples known to history or ethnology; and everywhere, even among the "lower hunters," comprising the most backward members of the human kind, appears the single family in which the man holds the place of power, which is often despotic. There is no definite sequence between the maternal and the paternal systems. The existence of either depends upon favorable economic conditions; and they may both appear side by side. In fact, according to Cunow, among the lower hunters, with the single exception of the Australians, the custom of female descent has not yet been discovered; and even in Australia it is precisely the most advanced tribes among which the maternal system appears. It first arises when women are sought outside of the original horde, in order to prevent intermarriage of maternal kindred.[353]

[353] See CUNOW, "Die ökonomischen Grundlagen der
Mutterherrschaft," _Neue Zeit_ (1897-98), XVI, 115, 113, 14,
reviewing and supplementing GROSSE'S _Die Formen der
Familie_, summarized above. The investigations of Hildebrand,
elsewhere mentioned, tend in the same direction.

In the light of present research, therefore, the most that can safely be admitted concerning the system of kinship through females only is that it has widely existed among the races of mankind;[354] although, as elsewhere shown, its prevalence has been greatly exaggerated. Partially under the influence of monogamy and the rise of modern forms of property, it has often been superseded by the parental and sometimes by the agnatic system, although this sequence is by no means invariable. It is very archaic, yet not necessarily primitive. There is no satisfactory evidence that it implies an original stage of promiscuity. It is not impossible, in view of the facts disclosed by Starcke, that sometimes it may be preceded by a custom in which the child is named from the father, and rank and property descend in the male line; while there is evidence that in the lower hunting stage, before rules of descent were yet subjects of reflection, a kind of patriarchate or androcracy generally prevailed.[355]

[354] LETOURNEAU, _L'évolution du mariage_, 424, thus
concludes his investigation of the question of kinship: "Ce
qui est vraisemblable, c'est que, dans la majorité des cas, la
filiation paternelle a succédé à la filiation maternelle et à
des formes familiales plus ou moins confuses." _Cf. ibid._,
399, 400. MAX MÜLLER, _Biographies of Words_, p. xvii,
thinks that "we can neither assert nor deny that in unknown
times the Aryans ever passed through a metrocratic stage." _Cf._
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 104, 113.

[355] "Among the lower hunters there is no matriarchate, but--if
indeed one may make the distinction--only a patriarchate or
rather an androcracy (_Mannesherrschaft_). Even in those
Australian tribes where the custom of maternal succession
exists, the woman follows the man into his horde and becomes
his property. Their children remain in his horde, and not she
but he has the disposition of the offspring.... This primitive
patriarchate, of course, has nothing to do with that of the later
patriarchal family. It is not based on any reflection regarding
descent or the man's share in procreation; it rests simply on the
right of the stronger, on the rude physical superiority of man,
his position as winner of the greater share of the food and as
protector" of the family community.--CUNOW, _op. cit._,
115, 116.

III. THE PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY

The case is much the same with the problem of exogamy, which is closely connected with the question of kinship. According to McLennan, as already seen, exogamy, or the prohibition of marriage within the clan, owes its rise to wife-capture occasioned by scarcity of women through female infanticide; and it is contrasted with the opposite custom of endogamy, which, it is alleged, usually implies a higher stage of civilization. This account of its origin, he thinks, is, on the whole, the "only one which will bear examination."

How far it really falls short of the truth was first pointed out by Herbert Spencer. "In all times and places, among savage and civilized," he says, "victory is followed by pillage. Whatever portable things of worth the conquerors find, they take.... The taking of women is manifestly but a part of this process of spoiling the vanquished. Women are prized as wives, as concubines, as drudges; and, the men having been killed, the women are carried off along with the other moveables." Thus "women-stealing" is an "incident of successful war." But a woman so taken has a double value. "Beyond her intrinsic value she has an extrinsic value. Like a native wife, she serves as a slave: but unlike a native wife, she serves also as a trophy." A warrior possessing such a token of prowess gains social distinction. "In a tribe not habitually at war, or not habitually successful in war, no decided effect is likely to be produced on the marriage customs." But in warlike and successful tribes an "increasing ambition to get foreign wives" will arise. Among savages, proofs of courage are often required as qualifications for marriage. Hence it is not surprising that the abduction of a foreign woman should be accepted as the best proof of all. "What more natural than that where many warriors of the tribe are distinguished by stolen wives, the stealing of a wife should become the required proof of fitness to have one? Hence would follow a peremptory law of exogamy." Spencer's interpretation, therefore, agrees with that of McLennan in finding the origin of exogamy in wife-capture and in implying that usage grows into law. But it does not, "like his, assume either that this usage originated in a primordial instinct, or that it resulted from a scarcity of women caused by infanticide.[356] Moreover, unlike Mr. McLennan's, the explanation so reached is consistent with the fact that exogamy and endogamy in many cases co-exist; and with the fact that exogamy often co-exists with polygyny;" nor does it "involve us in the difficulty raised by supposing a peremptory law of exogamy to be obeyed throughout a cluster of tribes." For if exogamy would be likely to arise in tribes usually successful in war, peaceful tribes and those usually worsted in war, though living side by side with the successful and warlike, would be naturally led to adopt the rule of endogamy. Furthermore, among tribes not differing much from one another in strength, endogamy and exogamy may coexist. "Stealing of wives will not be reprobated, because the tribes robbed are not too strong to be defied; and it will not be insisted on, because the men who have stolen wives will not be numerous enough to determine the average opinion." Spencer also maintains that the symbol of rape in the marriage ceremony does not necessarily imply the previous existence either of foreign wife-stealing or of exogamy, assigning three other reasons which singly or together may account for it. First, it may result from a struggle for women within the tribe. "There still exist rude tribes in which men fight for possession of women, the taking possession of a woman naturally comes as a sequence to an act of capture. That monopoly which constitutes her a wife in the only sense known by the primitive man is a result of successful violence."[357] Secondly, contrary to the view of Sir John Lubbock,[358] the symbol of rape may be due to the struggle of the bride and her female friends, many manifestations of which are found in the marriage customs of primitive races; though the dread of harsh treatment is thought to be an additional motive. But Starcke, doubting whether among savages there is much to choose between the brutality of the husband and that of the father, thinks the weeping of the woman merely symbolizes her sorrow "on leaving her former home; her close dependence on her family is expressed by her lamentation." The existence of such symbols is not surprising in "communities of which the family bond is the alpha and omega."[359] The ceremony of capture, finally, may be due to the resistance of the father and other male friends of the bride. A woman has an economic value, "not only as a wife but also as a daughter; and all through, from the lowest to the highest stages of social progress, we find a tacit or avowed claim to her service by her father." Her service is an object of purchase; and in English law "we have evidence that it was originally so among ourselves: in an action for seduction the deprivation of a daughter's services is the injury alleged."[360]

[356] SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 649-52.
It should be noted that McLennan really ascribes the origin of
exogamy to wife-capture, though, inadvertently seemingly, in one
passage he refers it to a "primitive instinct."

[357] See STARCKE, _op. cit._, 217, who thinks Spencer
inconsistent with his own theory; for "if the rape of women can
be practised within the tribe, it need no longer be assumed that
a young man's ambition impels him to take a wife from another
tribe."

[358] _Origin of Civilization_, 111, 130.

[359] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 217, 218.

[360] SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 652-60. Spencer is
criticised by WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 311 ff.;
STARCKE, _op. cit._, 215 ff.

Sir John Lubbock is likewise an adherent of the view that exogamy originates in wife-capture; but he connects his explanation with his peculiar theory of the communistic family, and it cannot therefore be accepted, if that theory is to be rejected.[361] He holds that originally all the men and women of a tribe lived in sexual communism and individual marriage was looked upon "as an infringement of communal right." But "if a man captured a woman belonging to another tribe he thereby acquired an individual and peculiar right to her, and she became his exclusively." In this way, the practice of capturing foreign wives led to individual marriage, and its evident advantages eventually produced the rule of exogamy. Accordingly, the "symbol of rape became such an important part of the wedding ceremonies, because it was the symbol of giving up the woman to become the exclusive possession of one man."[362] McLennan, however, criticises this view on the ground that "in almost all cases the form of capture is the symbol of a group act--of a siege, or a pitched battle, or an invasion of a house by an armed band." Seldom does it represent a capture by an individual. "On the one side are the kindred of the husband; on the other the kindred of the wife." Furthermore, if women were commonly captured by the men of a group or parties of them, as he justly observes, it is hard to see how an individual who had captured a woman could appropriate her more easily than he could appropriate any woman of his own group for whom he had a fancy.[363] Very different is the explanation offered by Tylor, who regards exogamy as the primitive mode of alliance and "political self-preservation." "Among tribes of low culture there is but one means known of keeping up permanent alliance, and that means is intermarriage." Often the alternative has been "marrying out" or "being killed out." Endogamy, on the other hand, "is a policy of isolation, cutting off a horde or village, even from the parent stock whence it separated."[364] That exogamy has often, perhaps generally, served the political purpose suggested by Tylor is not improbable, and his view is sustained by that of Post and Kohler;[365] but this will not account for its origin.

[361] LUBBOCK, _op. cit._, 86, 98, 103, 104-43. _Cf._
the criticism of STARCKE, _op. cit._, 220, 221;
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 316; MCLENNAN,
_Studies_, I, 329-47.

[362] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 220; LUBBOCK, _op.
cit._, 109 ff.

[363] MCLENNAN, _op. cit._, I, 344, 345, 329 ff.

[364] _On a Method of Investigating the Development of
Institutions_, 267, 268; _cf._ WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._,
316, 317.

[365] KOHLER, "Indisches Ehe- und Familienrecht,"
_ZVR._, III, 360-62; POST, _Familienrecht_, 79, 83.
TYLOR, _op. cit._, 365, 366, denies that capture and
exogamy are related as cause and effect.

Both Lubbock and Spencer, it will be observed, agree with McLennan in assigning the origin of exogamy to wife-capture. On the other hand, a group of writers, differing widely on ancillary questions, unite in identifying the causes which have produced exogamy with those which, in general, have led to the establishment of forbidden degrees of consanguinity in marriage. In other words, tribal or clan exogamy is but one of many rules for the prevention of close intermarriage between kindred. It must be admitted that a profound horror of incest is now "an almost universal characteristic of mankind, the cases which seem to indicate a perfect absence of this feeling being so exceedingly rare that they must be regarded merely as anomalous aberrations from a general rule."[366] But, from the beginning, has there been an innate aversion to the sexual union of persons closely related by blood? Is that aversion derived from experience of the injurious results of such unions? Did it originally extend only to marriage and not to irregular sexual connections? Or, finally, is it the indirect result of a custom, such as wife-capture, hardening into a rule of forbidden degrees? These are questions to which very different answers have been given.

[366] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 290.

Adherents of the horde theory, of course, deny that horror of incest is a primitive instinct. Such is the view also of Spencer, who thinks that "regular relations of the sexes are results of evolution, and that the sentiments upholding them have been gradually established,"[367] though--somewhat inconsistently, as we have seen--he agrees with McLennan in regarding exogamy as the result of custom growing into law. Lubbock takes a similar position, denying that we can "attribute to savages any such farsighted ideas" as the recognition of the injurious effects of close intermarriage.[368] On the other hand, Morgan, whose consanguine family implies the absence of any primitive abhorrence of incest, considers exogamy "explainable, and only explainable as a reformatory movement to break up the intermarriage of blood relations," thus implying that the aversion to such a union is derived from experience.[369] But knowledge which "can only be gained by lengthened observation," Dr. Peschel believes, "is 'unattainable by unsettled and childishly heedless races,' among whom, nevertheless, a horror of incest is developed most strongly."[370] Sir Henry Maine, on the contrary, "cannot see why the men who discovered the use of fire and selected the wild forms of certain animals for domestication and of vegetables for cultivation should not find out that children of unsound constitution were born of nearly related parents."[371] The researches of Starcke, and still more those of Westermarck, render it almost certain, however, that Morgan and Maine are mistaken in their view, though it may point the way to the truth.[372]

[367] SPENCER, _op. cit._, I, 636 ff.

[368] LUBBOCK, _op. cit._, 133.

[369] MORGAN, _Proceedings of the American Academy of
Arts and Sciences_, VII, 469; _Ancient Society_, 69, 424 ff.;
_cf._ STARCKE, _op. cit._, 323; WESTERMARCK,
_op. cit._, 317.

[370] PESCHEL, _Races of Man_, 224;
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 317, 318; also
DARWIN, _Animals and Plants under Domestication_, II,
124; LUBBOCK, "Customs of Marriage and Systems of
Relationship among the Australians," _Jour. Anth. Inst._, XIV,
300.

[371] MAINE, _Early Law and Custom_, 228.

[372] DARWIN, _op. cit._, II, 103, 104, accepts
HUTH'S view (_Marriage of Near Kin_), that there is
no "instinctive feeling in man against incest any more than in
gregarious animals."

Starcke's argument leads up to the conclusion that the basis of exogamy is to be sought in the causes which produced the clan; for between the clans of a tribe exogamy almost always prevails, and, without exception, clanless tribes are "endogamous or at least not exogamous." Furthermore, tribes divided into clans are usually endogamous as to the tribe.[373] Now, prohibitions are found which cannot be due to "exogamy as a definition of the clan;" such is the prohibition of marriage between mother and son where agnation is in force, and "between father and daughter where the uterine line prevails." Since, therefore, "exogamy as a definition of the clan cannot directly produce these prohibitions, which are found wherever exogamy occurs, and in some instances where it is absent," the inference follows that exogamy must have its origin in the abhorrence of close intermarriage and the ideas to which that is due. But these ideas are not necessarily the same as those underlying "the various prohibited degrees of marriage which are now in force;" nor do they imply that the injuriousness of such unions is the ground of the aversion. "In a community in which marriage takes place between consumptive and syphilitic persons, and those affected by hereditary disease, without being condemned by public opinion, and still less by the law, it cannot be said that the condemnation of incest is founded on our regard for posterity."[374] In harmony with his view that marriage is juridical, not founded on sexual relations, he finds the origin of the horror of marriage between near kindred in the legal incongruity of such unions and in their danger to the peculiar constitution of the ancient family itself. Marriage between a brother and sister or between a mother and son would usually be impossible because the "son possesses nothing which he could offer to the father as purchase-money." To accomplish the purpose by force would be an "unheard-of crime among savages." A connection between a father and daughter would seldom occur, "since a father is unwilling to renounce the advantages of bestowing his daughter in marriage."[375] "If in this way an impression arises that there is something unusual and incompatible with other ideas in marriage between such persons, an occasional calamity which befalls any of them will be enough to excite the imaginative faculty in the highest degree; and if no prohibition previously existed, the absolute condemnation of such marriages would then be pronounced." In a word, "the intermarriage of individuals of the same family implies that persons who have no legal right to dispose of themselves and their property nevertheless agree upon such legal disposition, an encroachment which would certainly be violently opposed by primitive men." In the same way, exogamy will arise between clans; and the co-existence of endogamy and exogamy seems to be consistently explained by this theory. "Exogamy prohibits marriage between persons who are so nearly related that they have no legal independence of each other; endogamy prohibits the marriage of persons whose legal status is too remote from each other."[376] In corroboration of his view, Starcke finds evidence that, here and there, a distinction is made between regular marriage and sexual intercourse, the former being forbidden, unless for special reasons, while the latter is allowed.[377]

[373] This is the view of MORGAN, _Ancient Society_,
512-14; also of MAINE, _op. cit._, 221 ff.; FISON
AND HOWITT, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_, 117, 138 ff.;
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 363.

[374] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 212, 223, 224.

[375] In this part of his argument Starcke's generalizations
are scarcely sustained by the evidence. See the criticism of
CUNOW, _Australneger_, 180-84, who urges the well-known
fact that many of the lowest peoples are not acquainted with
wife-purchase at all; and even where wife-purchase exists, it
might seem to be of as much advantage to a father to marry his
daughter to her brother as, for instance, to allow the son to
obtain a wife by offering his sister in exchange.

[376] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 233, 229, 230.

[377] _Ibid._, 227, 228.

If Starcke's explanation of the origin of the dread of close intermarriage between kindred is too vague and ill supported by definite proof, his original suggestion that exogamy must take its rise in that horror is sustained and placed on a broader foundation by the singularly interesting researches of Westermarck[378]--a scholar who has rendered to social science a very important service by carrying the principles of organic evolution into the sphere of domestic institutions. He starts with the assertion that horror of incest is universal. Writers have, indeed, collected evidence which they believe points to a time when such an aversion did not exist. Thus marriage with a sister is permitted in Ceylon and Annam; in the royal families of Siam, Burma, and the Sandwich Islands; while the same custom prevailed, as is well known, among the Ptolemies of Egypt, and among the kings of ancient Persia.[379] But these unions are either "anomalous aberrations" from the general rule; or else they are allowed in order to preserve the purity of caste or the royal blood; or, in case of half-sisters, because relationship is traced in one line only;[380] while occasionally they may result from "extreme isolation" or from "vitiated instincts."[381] Everywhere prohibitions exist, though they vary greatly in the "degrees of kinship within which union is forbidden." As a rule, "among peoples unaffected by modern civilization the prohibited degrees are more numerous than in advanced communities, the prohibitions in a great many cases referring even to all the members of the tribe or clan."

[378] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, chaps. xiv, xv, xvi,
290-382. These chapters should be read in the light of the
results obtained in those on "Law of Similarity," the "Means of
Attraction," "Sexual Selection," and the "Liberty of Choice."

[379] For the evidence of incestuous marriages, see
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 292 ff., 331 ff.;
STARCKE, _op. cit._, 44, 209 ff.; SPENCER,
_Principles of Sociology_, I, 636; GIRAUD-TEULON,
_Origines_, 60 ff.

[380] This may perhaps explain why half-sisters and half-brothers
may marry among the Todas where relationship is in the male line:
MARSHALL, _A Phrenologist amongst the Todas_, 206, 221.

For instance, to select a few examples from the wealth of illustration provided by Westermarck, the "Californian Gualala account it 'poison,' as they say, for a person to marry a cousin or an avuncular relation, and strictly observe in marriage the Mosaic table of prohibited affinities."[382] Among the "Bogos of Eastern Africa, persons related within the seventh degree may not intermarry, whether the relationship be on the paternal or maternal side;" and a similar rule exists among the Pipiles of San Salvador. "Among the Kalmucks, no man can marry a relation on the father's side; and so deeply rooted is this custom among them, that a Kalmuck proverb says, 'The great folk and dogs know no relationship,' alluding to the fact that only a prince may marry a relative." Often clan exogamy is enforced by the severest penalties. "The Algonquins tell of cases where men, for breaking this rule, have been put to death by their nearest kinsfolk."[383]

[381] Here and there among low races one finds examples of
alleged incest recorded. Thus among the New England Indians
marriages between brothers and sisters are said to have existed:
WAITZ, _Anthropologie_, III, 106. "Among these people
only," says Turner of the Innuit on the Labrador coast, "have
I heard of a son who took his mother as a wife, and when the
sentiment of the community compelled him to discard her he took
two other women, who were so persecuted by the mother that they
believed themselves to be wholly under her influence." "Ethnology
of the Ungava District," _XI. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 180. So
also D'EVREUX suspects incest, not marriage, between
brothers and sisters among the Brazilian Indians: _Voyage
dans le Nord du Brésil, 1613-14_, 85-95. On the other hand,
DOBRIZHOFFER says the Abipones abhor marriage with near
kindred: _Relation_, II, 212; and the same appears to be true of
the Kafirs: RATZEL, _History of Mankind_, II, 435. See
also the examples mentioned by GROSSE, _Die Formen der
Familie_, 129, 130.

[382] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 297; POWERS,
_Tribes of California_, 192.

[383] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 297, 305, 306.

Westermarck next takes up the origin of prohibited degrees; and after a critical examination of the various theories to explain it, he comes to the conclusion that in no case observed is the prohibition of incest founded on conscious experience of its injurious effects. It has not come into existence as the result of observation or calculation or through education on the part of the savage. Law and custom might thus arise; and these may "prevent passion from passing into action, they cannot wholly destroy its inward power." The home is kept pure "neither by laws, nor by customs, nor by education, but by an _instinct_ which under normal circumstances makes sexual love between the nearest kin a psychical impossibility." But this instinct is not an "_innate_ aversion to marriage with _near relations_." It is rather an "innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons living very closely together from early youth;" and "as such persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly as a horror of intercourse between near kin." It is not "by the degrees of consanguinity, but by the close living together that prohibitory laws against intermarriage are determined."[384]

[384] _Ibid._, 318, 320, 321. WAKE, _Marriage and
Kinship_, 55, 56, expresses a similar view.

This theory, it will be noticed, coincides with that of Starcke in selecting local contiguity or the intimate association of family life as the fundamental fact. It differs, however, in several important particulars. The economic or legal motives are not emphasized; and Westermarck's explanation is broader than Starcke's, for he holds that the aversion extends to sexual connections outside of regular marriage.

It is impossible here to do more than indicate the character of the evidence by which Westermarck powerfully supports his conclusion. Among the Greenlanders, for instance, "it would be reckoned uncouth and blamable, if a lad and a girl, who had served and been educated in one family, desired to be married to one another." It is even "preferred that the contracting parties should belong to different settlements."[385] Among the Kandhs, according to Colonel Macpherson, "marriage cannot take place even with strangers who have been long adopted into, or domesticated with, a tribe;" and the Cis-Natalian Kafirs are reputed to "dislike marriage between persons who live very closely together, whether related or not."[386] Further proof is derived from the fact that "many peoples have a rule of exogamy, which does not depend on kinship at all." Piedrahita, in the seventeenth century, "relates of the Panches of Bogota that the men and women of one town did not intermarry, as they held themselves to be brothers and sisters, and the impediment of kinship was sacred to them; but such was their ignorance that, if a sister were born in a different town from her brother, he was not prevented from marrying her."[387] So also the "Yaméos, on the river Amazon, will not suffer an intermarriage between members of the same community 'as being friends in blood, though no real affinity between them can be proved;'" and the Uaupés, of the same region, "do not often marry with relations, or even neighbours, preferring those from a distance, or even from other tribes."[388]

[385] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 321, citing
EGEDE, _Description of Greenland_, 141; NANSEN,
_The First Crossing of Greenland_, II, 330.

[386] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 321, citing
MACPHERSON, _Memorials of Service in India_, 69.

[387] TYLOR, _On a Method of Investigating the
Development of Institutions_, 268; PIEDRAHITA, _Historia
general_ (1688), 11; WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 321.

[388] _Ibid._, 322; WALLACE, _Travels on the Amazon_,
497.

The great variation in the extent of prohibited degrees found among nations is "nearly connected with their close living together." Savage and barbarous peoples, "if they have not remained in the most primitive social condition of man, live, not in separate families, but in large households or communities, all the members of which dwell in very close contact with each other." Such are the house-communities of the American aborigines, found everywhere, from the "long houses" of the Iroquois to the vast pueblos or "cities" of Mexico and Yucatan;[389] the "joint undivided families" of the Hindus and Southern Slavs;[390] and the _trevs_ or clan households of ancient Wales, comprising four generations living in one inclosure, whose members are forbidden to intermarry.[391] It is significant that in all such cases we find extended prohibitions of close intermarriage, which do not exist "where the family lives more separately." In fact, there is a marked tendency, amounting almost to a law, that the larger the family or clan group, the wider is the circle of forbidden degrees; and, on the contrary, the more isolated and dispersed the manner of life, the greater is the liberty of matrimonial choice.[392]

[389] MORGAN, _Houses and House-Life of the American
Aborigines_; FISKE, _Discovery of America_, I, 64 ff.;
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 324.

[390] MAINE, _Early History of Institutions_, 7, 78,
106, 195, 200, _passim_; _Early Law and Custom_, chap, viii;
KRAUSS, _Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven_, 14, 64,
72, 79 ff., 84, etc.; KOHLER, "Indisches Ehe- und
Familienrecht," _ZVR._, III, 362; _cf._ LYALL, _Asiatic
Studies_, chap. vii.

[391] LEWIS, _Ancient Laws of Wales_, 56, 57, 196.

[392] _Westermarck_, _op. cit._, 323-28.

In the same way prohibition of marriage on the ground of "affinity" or "spiritual relationship" may take place. "By association of ideas" the "feeling that two persons are intimately connected in some way" may "give rise to the notion that marriage or intercourse between them is incestuous." A strong argument is also derived from the "classificatory system of consanguinity." Tylor has shown that this system and the system of exogamy are, in most cases, found together. They are the "two sides of one institution."[393]

[393] TYLOR, _On a Method of Investigating
the Development of Institutions_, 261 ff.; _cf._
WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 328, 329.

But a deeper and still more interesting question remains: "How has this instinctive aversion to marriage between persons living closely together originated?" We cannot help feeling that through his masterly solution of this difficult problem Westermarck has at last brought us very near to the truth. He finds the key to it in the biological law of similarity.[394] It is demonstrated that a "certain degree of similarity as regards the reproductive system of two individuals is required to make their union fertile and the progeny resulting from this union fully capable of propagation." But the similarity must not be _too_ close. A certain amount of differentiation is requisite; but the differentiation must not be too great.[395] There must be homogeneity combined with heterogeneity. Among domestic animals close interbreeding, it is well known, leads to infertility and degeneration; and Darwin's researches prove that self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom produces the same results.[396] There is abundant evidence tending to show that what is true of plants and the lower animals is true also of man. "Taking all these facts into consideration," says Westermarck, in closing his argument, "I cannot but believe that consanguineous marriages, in some way or other, are more or less detrimental to the species. And here, I think, we may find a quite sufficient explanation of the horror of incest; not because man at an early stage recognized the injurious influence of close intermarriage, but because the law of natural selection must inevitably have operated. Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt a time when blood-relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But variations, here as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves; and those of our ancestors who avoided in-and-in breeding would survive, while the others would gradually decay and ultimately perish. Thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerful enough, as a rule, to prevent injurious unions. Of course it would display itself simply as an aversion on the part of individuals to union with others with whom they lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would be blood-relations, so that the result would be the survival of the fittest. Whether man inherited the feeling from the predecessors from whom he sprang, or whether it was developed after the evolution of distinctly human qualities, we do not know."[397]

[394] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, chap, xiii, and compare
chap, xv, 334 ff.

[395] On sterility as the result of crossing in species, see
WALLACE, _Darwinism_, 152-86; DARWIN, _Animals
and Plants under Domestication_, II, 78 ff.; and on the good
effects of crossing and the evil effects of close interbreeding,
_ibid._, II, 92-126, 104. _Cf._ QUATERFAGES, _The
Human Species_, 85-88 (crossing species), 276-86 (effects of
crossing in mixed races); MITCHELL, "Blood-Relationship
in Marriage," in _Memoirs of London Anth. Society_, 1865, II,
402-56; and WITHINGTON, _Consanguineous Marriages_, 2
ff., who believes the injurious effects of such unions on the
offspring have been overestimated. On the other hand, it has
been maintained that under primitive conditions the advantages
of close intermarriage may have outweighed all disadvantages:
_Mucke_, _Horde und Familie_, 245-47, combating Westermarck's
view.

[396] DARWIN, _Effects of Cross and Self-Fertilization
in the Vegetable Kingdom_, 436.

[397] CUNOW, _Australneger_, 184 ff., rejects
Westermarck's theory, first, on the ground that the prohibition
of intermarriage in the cases cited often extends far beyond the
local group; and secondly, because where the members of a _gens_
do not at the same time form a local community, marriage is not
forbidden in the group of persons actually living together. But
Westermarck is dealing with origins; and he does not mean to
say that all the existing complex systems of kinship which have
gradually been developed through association of ideas or other
influences actually now conform to the principle for which he
contends. On the other hand HELLWALD, _Die mensch.
Familie_, 178 ff., following WAGNER, in _Kosmos_, 1886,
I, 21, 24-34, reaches a conclusion essentially like that obtained
by Westermarck. He finds the origin of exogamy in a dread of
close intermarriage producing a horror of incest. During the
period of the endogamous mother-group such marriages were the
rule. With the rise of fixed habitations for the group, beginning
in the glacial age and carried farther in the diluvial period,
came more permanent sexual relations, the prototype of real
marriage. This close living together, because of its deadening
effect on sexual attraction, produced a dislike of unions in the
group, leading to exogamy, often accompanied by wife-capture;
although neither rape nor exogamy must be regarded as a universal
stage of social evolution. CRAWLEY, _Mystic Rose_, 222,
223, 443 ff., rejects Westermarck's theory of a general human
"instinct" against inbreeding. He insists that neither incest
nor promiscuity was "ever anything but the rarest exception
in any stage of human culture, even the earliest; the former
being prevented by the psychological difficulty with which
love comes into play between persons either closely associated
or strictly separated before the age of puberty, a difficulty
enhanced by the ideas of sexual taboo, which are intensified in
the closeness of the family circle, where practical as well as
religious considerations cause parents to prevent any dangerous
connections." Westermarck's theory, he holds, does not account
for all the facts; for example, "that to no little extent
brothers and sisters, mothers and sons, fathers and daughters,
do _not_ live together. This is a result of sexual taboo, and
is originally a part of the cause why such marriage is avoided,
and not a result of avoidance of incest." In short, it "is
the application of sexual taboo to brothers and sisters, who,
because they are of opposite sexes, of the same generation, and
are in close contact, and for no other reasons, are regarded as
potentially marriageable, that is the foundation of exogamy and
the marriage system." _Cf._ LANG, _Social Origins_,
10-34, 238-40 note, whose criticism of Westermarck and McLennan
follows similar lines; and ATKINSON, _Primal Law_,
209-40, who believes that jealousy may have set up a bar to
sexual unions within the "fire-circle" before totems or the idea
of incest arose.

Exogamy appears, then, to be the result of natural selection, arising "when single families united in small hordes. It could not but grow up if the idea of union between persons intimately associated with one another was an object of innate repugnance." Conversely, the law of similarity enables us to understand the coexistence of clan-exogamy and tribal endogamy. The one springs from a horror of sexual union between persons who are too near; the other arises in a dislike of connection between those who are too remote. Among primitive men, and sometimes even among those well advanced in civilization, there exists a shrinking from physical contact with strange races only less violent than the aversion which the dread of incest excites. But this prejudice yields to the sympathy produced by the growing similarity of interests, ideas, sentiments, and general culture among men. Sympathy, upon which affection mainly depends, has widened the sphere of sexual selection.[398]

[398] Consult the very interesting chapter of
WESTERMARCK on "Selection as Influenced by Affection and
Sympathy, and by Calculation," _op. cit._, 356 ff. "Affection
depends in a very high degree upon sympathy. Though distinct
aptitudes, these two classes of emotions are most intimately
connected: affection is strengthened by sympathy, and sympathy
is strengthened by affection.... If love is excited by contrast,
it is so only within certain limits. The contrast must not be so
great as to exclude sympathy."--_Ibid._, 362. "Civilization,"
he adds, "has narrowed the inner limit, within which a man or
woman must not marry;" while "it has widened the outer limit
within which a man or woman _may_ marry and generally marries.
The latter of these processes has been one of vast importance in
man's history."--_Ibid._, 376.

IV. THE PROBLEM OF THE SUCCESSIVE FORMS OF THE FAMILY

From the preceding analysis it will appear, we trust, that scientific examination of the problems of kinship and exogamy has disclosed something of the real origin of the laws which govern human sexual relations. The searching criticism to which the theory of polyandry has been subjected, in connection with the opposite custom of polygyny, carries us still nearer the truth. For, in the light of recent research, it does not seem entirely hopeless to discover a trace of the actual sequence in which, according to natural law, the general forms of marriage and the family have been evolved.

According to McLennan, it will be remembered, polyandry originates in a scarcity of women due to female infanticide; and it is a universal phase of social progress through which transition is made from promiscuity and the system of kinship in the female line to the paternal system and higher types of family life. Furthermore, he seems to think, though on this point he is not very clear,[399] that polygyny may grow out of polyandry through the practice of capturing wives. This theory has by no means gone unchallenged.[400] It has been shown, in the first place, that the extent to which the custom of polyandry has prevailed is greatly exaggerated. Though it is found among various peoples in different parts of the world, its occurrence is on the whole comparatively rare; and the practice is much less extended than that of polygyny. Its former existence cannot be inferred from such customs as the niyoga and the levirate; for these are capable of simpler explanation.[401] It is highly probable, as Starcke urges, that they are merely expedients for procuring an heir or for conveniently regulating the succession to property and authority,[402] particularly in the joint family; but there is no good reason to doubt that Spencer's explanation is adequate in some cases. "Under early social systems," he declares, "wives, being regarded as property," are inherited like other possessions.[403] The procuring of an heir through a brother or some other third person harmonizes with the "juridical character of fatherhood among primitive men."[404]

[399] MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 116, _passim_; _cf._
SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 679.

[400] See, especially, WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._,
chaps. xx-xxiii; STARCKE, _Primitive Family_, 128-70;
WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, chaps. v, vi, vii; and
compare HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 241 ff. For the
literature of polyandry, see p. 80, n. 2, above.

[401] For the literature relating to the levirate and similar
customs, see above p. 84, n. 2.

[402] This may be the explanation of the levirate among the
Todas: MARSHALL, _A Phrenologist amongst the Todas_,
206-9, 213. Similar practical motives influenced the rise of
the levirate elsewhere: DORSEY, "Omaha Sociology,"
_III. Rep. of Bureau of Eth._, 258; _cf._ MARTIUS,
_Ethnographie_, 117, notes; _idem_, _Rechtszustande_, 64.

[403] SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 679-81,
748 ff., 750. See, however, the criticism of STARCKE,
_op. cit._, 151-53, 159 ff.; and compare WESTERMARCK,
_op. cit._, 510 ff.; MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 108
ff.; _Fortnightly Review_ (1877), 701; and SPENCER'S
"Short Rejoinder," _ibid._, 897. But elsewhere Spencer thinks
the levirate may arise in the duty of caring for the brother's
children--a general cause of polygyny: _op. cit._, 691, 692. For
examples of inheritance of widows, see KOHLER, "Das
Recht der Azteken," _ZVR._, XI, 54; "Das Negerrecht, namentlich
in Kamerun," _ibid._, XI, 416, 423; and for widower inheritance
among the Chins, _idem_, _ibid._, 186 ff.

[404] STARCKE, _op. cit._, 141 ff. For his theory of
juridical fatherhood see _ibid._, 121-27, 135, 139; and compare
the similar view of WAKE, _Marriage and Kinship_, 78
ff. This author gives an interesting discussion of the case of
Boaz and Ruth, _op. cit._, 172-78, which may be compared with
MCLENNAN, _Studies_, I, 109 n. 3. On the evidence for
juridical fatherhood among the Arabs, consult SMITH,
_Kinship and Marriage_, 119, 120.

Again, not only is the general extent of polyandry limited, but even where it exists it is confined in almost every case "to a very small part of the population."[405] It is sometimes restricted to the poorer classes, sometimes to the rich; and nearly always it is found side by side with polygyny or monogamy. There is another limitation, already noticed, which tells very strongly against the theory of its origin in promiscuity. Polyandry usually shows a tendency in the direction of monogamy. Sometimes each of the husbands lives with the wife during a certain period, while the others are absent; or frequently, "as one, usually the first married, wife in polygynous families is the chief wife;" so also, "one, usually the first, husband in polyandrous families is the chief husband." In him authority and the property are vested, and all the children, even, are feigned to be his.[406]

[405] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 455-57.

[406] _Ibid._, 457-59, 113-17; _cf._ especially STARCKE,
_op. cit._, 135. HELLWALD, _Die mensch. Familie_, 264
ff., gives many interesting details.