THE ANTIQUITY OF HUMAN MARRIAGE
If it be admitted that marriage, as a necessary requirement for the
existence of certain species, is connected with some peculiarities
in their organism, and, more particularly among the highest monkeys,
with the paucity of their progeny and their long period of infancy,—it
must at the same time be admitted that, among primitive men, from
the same causes as among these animals, the sexes in all probability
kept together till after the birth of the offspring. Later on, when
the human race passed beyond its frugivorous stage and spread over
the earth, living chiefly on animal food, the assistance of an adult
male became still more necessary for the subsistence of the children.
Everywhere the chase devolves on the man, it being a rare exception
among savage peoples for a woman to engage in it.[192] Under such
conditions a family consisting of mother and young only, would
probably, as a rule, have succumbed.
It has, however, been suggested that, in olden times, the natural
guardian of the children was not the father, but the maternal
uncle.[193] This inference has been drawn chiefly from the common
practice of a nephew succeeding his mother’s brother in rank and
property. But sometimes the relation between the two is still more
intimate. “La famille Malaise proprement dite—le Sa-Mandei,—” says a
Dutch writer, as quoted by Professor Giraud-Teulon, “consiste dans
la mère et ses enfants: le père n’en fait point partie. Les liens de
parenté qui unissent ce dernier à ses frères et sœurs sont plus étrois
que ceux qui le rattachent à sa femme et à ses propres enfants. Il
continue même après son mariage à vivre dans sa famille maternelle;
c’est là qu’est son véritable domicile, et non pas dans la maison de
sa femme: il ne cesse pas de cultiver le champ de sa propre famille,
à travailler pour elle, et n’aide sa femme qu’accidentellement. Le
chef de la famille est ordinairement le frère aîné du côté maternel
(le mamak ou avunculus). De par ses droits et ses devoirs, c’est lui
le vrai père des enfants de sa sœur.”[194] As regards the mountaineers
of Georgia, especially the Pshaves, M. Kovalevsky states that, among
them, “le frère de la mère prend la place du père dans toutes les
circonstances où il s’agit de venger le sang répandu, surtout au cas de
meurtre commis sur la personne de son neveu.”[195] Among the Goajiro
Indians,[196] the Negroes of Bondo,[197] the Barea, and the Bazes,[198]
it is the mother’s brother who has the right of selling a girl to her
suitor. Touching the Kois, the Rev. John Cain says, “The maternal
uncle of any Koi girl has the right to bestow her hand on any one of
his sons, or any other suitable candidate who meets with his approval.
The father and the mother of the girl have no acknowledged voice in the
matter. A similar custom prevails amongst some of the Komâti (Vaiśya)
caste.”[199] Among the Savaras in India, the bridegroom has to give a
bullock not only to the girl’s father, but to the maternal uncle;[200]
whilst among the Creeks, the proxy of the suitor asked for the consent
of the uncles, aunts, and brothers of the young woman, “the father
having no voice or authority in the business.”[201]
But such cases are rare. Besides, most of them imply only that the
children in a certain way belong to the uncle, not that the father is
released from the obligation of supporting them. Even where succession
runs through females only, the father is nearly always certainly the
head of the family. Thus, for instance, in Melanesia, where the clan of
the children is determined by that of the mother, “the mother is,” to
quote Dr. Codrington, “in no way the head of the family. The house of
the family is the father’s, the garden is his, the rule and government
are his.”[202] Nor is there any reason to believe that it was generally
otherwise in former times. A man could not of course be the guardian
of his sister’s children, if he did not live in close connection with
them. But except in such a decidedly anomalous case as that of the
Malays, just referred to, this could scarcely happen unless marriages
were contracted between persons living closely together. Nowadays,
however, such marriages are usually avoided, and I shall endeavour
later on to show that they were probably also avoided by our remote
ancestors.
It might, further, be objected that the children were equally well or
better provided for, if not the fathers only, but all the males of
the tribe indiscriminately were their guardians. The supporters of
the hypothesis of promiscuity, and even other sociologists, as for
instance Herr Kautsky,[203] believe that this really was the case among
primitive men. According to them, the tribe or horde is the primary
social unit of the human race, and the family only a secondary unit,
developed in later times. Indeed, this assumption has been treated
by many writers, not as a more or less probable hypothesis, but as a
demonstrated truth. Yet the idea that a man’s children belong to the
tribe, has no foundation in fact. Everywhere we find the tribes or
clans composed of several families, the members of each family being
more closely connected with one another than with the rest of the
tribe. The family, consisting of parents, children, and often also
their next descendants, is a universal institution among existing
peoples.[204] And it seems extremely probable that, among our earliest
human ancestors, the family formed, if not the society itself, at least
the nucleus of it. As this is a question of great importance, I must
deal with it at some length.
Mr. Darwin remarks, “Judging from the analogy of the majority of the
Quadrumana, it is probable that the early ape-like progenitors of man
were likewise social.”[205] But it may be doubted whether Mr. Darwin
would have drawn this inference, had he taken into consideration the
remarkable fact that none of the monkeys most nearly allied to man can
be called social animals.
The solitary life of the Orang-utan has already been noted. As
regards Gorillas, Dr. Savage states that there is only one adult male
attached to each group;[206] and Mr. Reade says expressly that they
are not gregarious, though they sometimes seem to assemble in large
numbers.[207] Both Mr. Du Chaillu[208] and Herr von Koppenfels[209]
assure us likewise that the Gorilla generally lives in pairs or
families.
The same is the case with the Chimpanzee. “It is seldom,” Dr. Savage
says, “that more than one or two nests are seen upon the same tree or
in the same neighbourhood; five have been found, but it was an unusual
circumstance. They do not live in ‘villages’.... They are more often
seen in pairs than in gangs.... As seen here, they cannot be called
gregarious.”[210] This statement, confirmed or repeated by Mr. Du
Chaillu[211] and Professor Hartmann,[212] is especially interesting, as
the Chimpanzee resembles man also in his comparatively slight strength
and courage, so that a gregarious life might be supposed to be better
suited to this animal.
Mr. Spencer, however, has pointed out that not only size, strength,
and means of defence, but also the kind and distribution of food and
other factors must variously co-operate and conflict to determine how
far a gregarious life is beneficial, and how far a solitary life.[213]
Considering, then, that, according to Dr. Savage, the Chimpanzees are
more numerous in the season when the greatest number of fruits come to
maturity,[214] we may almost with certainty infer that the solitary
life generally led by this ape is due chiefly to the difficulty it
experiences in getting food at other times of the year.
Is it not, then, most probable that our fruit-eating human or
half-human ancestors, living on the same kind of food, and requiring
about the same quantities of it as the man-like apes, were not more
gregarious than they? It is likely, too, that subsequently, when man
became partly carnivorous, he continued, as a rule, this solitary
kind of life, or that gregariousness became his habit only in part.
“An animal of a predatory kind,” says Mr. Spencer, “which has prey
that can be caught and killed without help, profits by living alone:
especially if its prey is much scattered, and is secured by stealthy
approach or by lying in ambush. Gregariousness would here be a positive
disadvantage. Hence the tendency of large carnivores, and also of
small carnivores that have feeble and widely-distributed prey, to lead
solitary lives.”[215] It is, indeed, very remarkable that even now
there are savage peoples who live rather in separate families than in
tribes, and that most of these peoples belong to the very rudest races
in the world.[216]
“‘The wild or forest Veddahs,’” Mr. Pridham states, “build their
huts in trees, live in pairs, only occasionally assembling in greater
numbers, and exhibit no traces of the remotest civilization, nor
any knowledge of social rites.”[217] According to Mr. Bailey, the
Nilgala Veddahs, who are considered the wildest, “are distributed
through their lovely country in small septs, or families, occupying
generally caves in the rocks, though some have little bark huts. They
depend almost solely on hunting for their support, and hold little
communication even with each other.”[218]
In Tierra del Fuego, according to Bishop Stirling, family life is
exclusive. “Get outside the family,” he says, “and relationships are
doubtful, if not hostile. The bond of a common language is no security
for friendly offices.”[219] Commander Wilkes states likewise that the
Fuegians “appear to live in families and not in tribes, and do not
seem to acknowledge any chief;[220]” and, according to M. Hyades, “la
famille est bien constitutée, mais la tribu n’existe pas, à proprement
parler.”[221] Each family is perfectly independent of all the others,
and only the necessity of common defence now and then induces a few
families to form small gangs without any chief.[222] The Rev. T.
Bridges writes to me, “They live in clans, called by them Ucuhr,
which means a house. These Ucuhr comprise many subdivisions; and the
members are necessarily related. But,” he continues, “the Yahgans are
a roving people, having their districts and moving about within these
districts from bay to bay and island to island in canoes, without any
order. The whole clan seldom travels together, and only occasionally
and then always incidentally is it to be found collected. The smaller
divisions keep more together.... Occasionally, as many as five families
are to be found living in a wigwam, but generally two families.”
Indeed, in ‘A Voice for South America,’ Mr. Bridges says that “family
influence is the one great tie which binds these natives together, and
the one great preventive of violence.”[223]
Speaking of the West Australians, who are probably better known to him
than to any other civilized man, Bishop Salvado says that they “au
lieu de se gouverner par tribus, paraissent se gouverner à la manière
patriarchale: chaque famille, qui généralement ne compte pas plus de
six à neuf individus, forme comme une petite société, sous la seule
dépendance de son propre chef.... Chaque famille s’approprie une espèce
de district, dont cependant les families voisines jouissent en commun
si l’on vit en bonne harmonie.”[224]
Mr. Stanbridge, who spent eighteen years in the wilds of Victoria,
tells us that the savages there are associated in tribes or families,
the members of which vary much in number. Each tribe has its own
boundaries, the land of which is parcelled out amongst families and
carefully transmitted by direct descent; these boundaries being so
sacredly maintained that the member of no single family will venture on
the lands of a neighbouring one without invitation.[225] And touching
the Gournditch-mara, Mr. Howitt states that “each family camped by
itself.”[226]
The Bushmans of South Africa, according to Dr. Fritsch, are almost
entirely devoid of a tribal organization. Even when a number of
families occasionally unite in a larger horde, this association is more
or less accidental, and not regulated by any laws.[227] But a horde
commonly consists of the different members of one family only, at least
if the children are old and strong enough to help their parents to find
food.[228] “Sexual feelings, the instinctive love to children, or the
customary attachment among relations,” says Lichtenstein, “are the
only ties that keep them in any sort of union.”[229]
The like is stated to be true of several peoples in Brazil. According
to v. Martius, travellers often meet there with a language “used only
by a few individuals connected with each other by relationship, who
are thus completely isolated, and can hold no communication with any
of their other countrymen far or near.”[230] With reference to the
Botocudos, v. Tschudi says that “the family is the only tie which
joins these rude children of nature with each other.”[231] The Guachís,
Mauhés, and Guatós for the most part live scattered in families,[232]
and the social condition of the Caishánas, among whom each family has
its own solitary hut, “is of a low type, very little removed, indeed,
from that of the brutes living in the same forests.”[233] The Marauá
Indians live likewise in separate families or small hordes, and so
do some other of the tribes visited by Mr. Bates.[234] According to
Mr. Southey, the Cayáguas or Wood-Indians, who inhabited the forests
between the Paraná and the Uruguay, were not in a social state; “one
family lived at a distance from another, in a wretched hut composed of
boughs; they subsisted wholly by prey, and when larger game failed,
were contented with snakes, mice, pismires, worms, and any kind of
reptile or vermin.”[235] Again, speaking of the Coroados, v. Spix and
v. Martius say that “they live without any bond of social union,
neither under a republican nor a patriarchal form of government. Even
family ties are very loose among them.”[236]
The Togiagamutes, an Eskimo tribe, never visited by white men in
their own country until the year 1880, who lead a thoroughly nomadic
life, wandering from place to place in search of game or fish,
appear, according to Petroff, “to live in the most perfect state of
independence of each other. Even the communities do not seem bound
together in any way; families and groups of families constantly
changing their abode, leaving one community and joining another, or
perhaps forming one of their own. The youth, as soon as he is able to
build a kaiak and to support himself, no longer observes any family
ties, but goes where his fancy takes him, frequently roaming about with
his kaiak for thousands of miles before another fancy calls him to take
a wife, to excavate a miserable dwelling, and to settle down for a
time.”[237]
The ancient Finns, too, according to the linguistic researches of
Professor Ahlqvist, were without any kind of tribal organization. In
his opinion, such a state would have been almost impossible among them,
as they lived in scattered families for the sake of the chase and in
order to have pastures for their reindeer.[238]
That the comparatively solitary life which the families of these
peoples live, is due to want of sufficient food, appears from several
facts. Lichtenstein tells us that the hardships experienced by the
Bushmans in satisfying the most urgent necessities of life, preclude
the possibility of their forming larger societies. Even the families
that form associations in small separate hordes are sometimes obliged
to disperse, as the same spot will not afford sufficient sustenance
for all. “The smaller the number, the easier is a supply of food
procured.”[239]
“Scarcity of food, and the facility with which they move from one
place to another in their canoes,” says Admiral Fitzroy, “are, no
doubt, the reasons why the Fuegians are always so dispersed among the
islands in small family parties, why they never remain long in one
place, and why a large number are not seen many days in society.”[240]
The natives of Port Jackson, New South Wales, when visited a hundred
years ago by Captain Hunter, were associated in tribes of many
families living together, apparently without a fixed residence, the
different families wandering in different directions for food, but
uniting on occasions of disputes with another tribe.[241] The Rev. A.
Meyer assures us likewise, as regards the Encounter Bay tribe, that
“the whole tribe does not always move in a body from one place to
another, unless there should be abundance of food to be obtained at
some particular spot; but generally they are scattered in search of
food.”[242] Again, with reference to the Australians more generally,
Mr. Brough Smyth remarks that “in any large area occupied by a tribe,
where there was not much forest land, and where kangaroos were not
numerous, it is highly probable that the several families composing
the tribe would withdraw from their companions for short periods, at
certain seasons, and betake themselves to separate portions of the
area, ... and it is more than probable—it is almost certain—that each
head of a family would betake himself, if practicable, to that portion
which his father had frequented.”[243]
Finally, from Mr. Wyeth’s account in Schoolcraft’s great work on
the Indian Tribes of the United States, I shall make the following
characteristic quotation with reference to the Snakes inhabiting the
almost desert region which extends southward from the Snake River as
far as the southern end of the Great Salt Lake, and eastward from the
Rocky to the Blue Mountains:—“The paucity of game in this region
is, I have little doubt, the cause of the almost entire absence of
social organization among its inhabitants; no trace of it is ordinarily
seen among them, except during salmon-time, when a large number of
the Snakes resort to the rivers, chiefly to the Fishing Falls, and
at such places there seems some little organization.... Prior to the
introduction of the horse, no other tribal arrangement existed than
such as is now seen in the management of the salmon fishery.... The
organization would be very imperfect, because the remainder of the
year would be spent by them in families widely spread apart, to eke
out the year’s subsistence on the roots and limited game of their
country. After a portion of them, who are now called Bonaks, had
obtained horses, they would naturally form bands and resort to the
Buffalo region to gain their subsistence, retiring to the most fertile
places in their own, to avoid the snows of the mountains and feed their
horses. Having food from the proceeds of the Buffalo hunt, to enable
them to live together, they would annually do so, for the protection
of their horses, lodges, &c., &c. These interests have caused an
organization among the Bonaks, which continues the year through,
because the interests which produce it continue; and it is more
advanced than that of the other Snakes.”[244]
Here, I think, we have an excellent account of the origin of society,
applicable not only to the Snakes, but, in its main features, to man
in general. The kind of food he subsisted upon, together with the
large quantities of it that he wanted, probably formed in olden times
a hindrance to a true gregarious manner of living, except perhaps in
some unusually rich places. Man in the savage state, even when living
in luxuriant countries, is often brought to the verge of starvation, in
spite of his having implements and weapons which his ruder ancestors
had no idea of. If the obstacle from insufficient food-supply could
be overcome, gregariousness would no doubt be of great advantage
to him. Living together, the families could resist the dangers of
life and defend themselves from their enemies much more easily than
when solitary,—all the more so, as the physical strength of man, and
especially savage man,[245] is comparatively slight. Indeed, his bodily
inferiority, together with his defencelessness and helplessness, has
probably been the chief lever of civilization.
“He has,” to quote Mr. Darwin, “invented and is able to use various
weapons, tools, traps, &c., with which he defends himself, kills or
catches prey, and otherwise obtains food. He has made rafts or canoes
for fishing or crossing over to neighbouring fertile islands. He has
discovered the art of making fire, by which hard and stringy roots can
be rendered digestible, and poisonous roots or herbs innocuous.”[246]
In short, man gradually found out many new ways of earning his living
and more and more emancipated himself from direct dependence on
surrounding nature. The chief obstacle to a gregarious life was by this
means in part surmounted, and the advantages of such a life induced
families or small gangs to unite together in larger bodies. Thus it
seems that the gregariousness and sociability of man sprang, in the
main, from progressive intellectual and material civilization, whilst
the tie that kept together husband and wife, parents and children, was,
if not the only, at least the principal social factor in the earliest
life of man. I cannot, therefore, agree with Sir John Lubbock that, as
a general rule, as we descend in the scale of civilization, the family
diminishes, and the tribe increases, in importance.[247] This may hold
good for somewhat higher stages, but it does not apply to the lowest
stages. Neither do I see any reason to believe that there _ever_ was a
time when the family was quite absorbed in the tribe. There does not
exist a single well established instance of a people among whom this is
the case.
I do not, of course, deny that the tie which bound the children to the
mother was much more intimate and more lasting than that which bound
them to the father. But it seems to me that the only result to which a
critical investigation of facts can lead us is, that in all probability
there has been no stage of human development when marriage has not
existed, and that the father has always been, as a rule, the protector
of his family. Human marriage appears, then, to be an inheritance from
some ape-like progenitor.