A CRITICISM OF THE HYPOTHESIS OF PROMISCUITY
The inference drawn in the last chapter is opposed to the view held
by most sociologists who have written upon early history. According
to them, man lived originally in a state of promiscuity. This is the
opinion of Bachofen, McLennan, Morgan, Lubbock, Bastian, Giraud-Teulon,
Lippert, Kohler, Post, Wilken, and several other writers.[248] Although
suggested at first only as a probable hypothesis, this presumption is
now treated by many writers as a demonstrated truth.[249]
The promiscuity of primitive man is not, however, generally considered
to be perfectly indiscriminate, but limited to the individuals
belonging to the same tribe. It may, therefore, perhaps be said to be
a kind of marriage: polygyny combined with polyandry. Sir John Lubbock
has also given it the name of “communal marriage,” indicating by
this word, that all the men and women in a community were regarded as
equally husbands and wives to one another. As I do not, in speaking of
marriage, take into consideration unions of so indefinite a nature,
this seems to be the proper place to discuss the hypothesis in question.
The evidence adduced in support of it flows from two sources. First,
there are, in the books of ancient writers and modern travellers,
notices of some savage nations said to live promiscuously; secondly,
there are some remarkable customs which are assumed to be social
survivals, pointing to an earlier stage of civilization, when marriage
did not exist. Let us see whether this evidence will stand the test of
a critical examination.
* * * * *
Herodotus and Strabo inform us that, among the Massagetæ every man had
his own wife, but that all the other men of the tribe were allowed to
have sexual intercourse with her.[250] The Auseans, a Libyan people,
had, according to the former, their wives in common;[251] and Solinus
reports the same of the Garamantians of Ethiopia.[252] Community
of women is, further, alleged to have occurred among the Liburnes,
Galactophagi,[253] and the ancient Bohemians.[254] And Garcilasso de la
Vega asserts that, among the natives of Passau in Peru, before the time
of the Incas, men had no separate wives.[255]
To these statements of ancient peoples Sir J. Lubbock adds a few others
concerning modern savages.[256] “The Bushmen of South Africa,” he
says, “are stated to be entirely without marriage.” Sir Edward Belcher
tells us that, in the Andaman Islands, the custom is for the man and
woman to remain together until the child is weaned, when they separate,
and each seeks a new partner.[257] Speaking of the natives of Queen
Charlotte Islands, Mr. Poole says that among them “the institution
of marriage is altogether unknown,” and that the women “cohabit
almost promiscuously with their own tribe, though rarely with other
tribes.”[258] In the Californian Peninsula, according to Baegert, the
sexes met without any formalities, and their vocabulary did not even
contain the word “to marry.”[259] Mr. Hyde states that, in the Pacific
Islands, there was an “utter absence of what we mean by the family,
the household, and the husband; the only thing possible was to keep
the line distinct through the mother, and enumerate the successive
generations with the several putative fathers.”[260] Among the Nairs,
as Buchanan tells us, no one knows his father, and every man looks on
his sister’s children as his heirs; a man may marry several women,
and a woman may be the wife of several men.[261] The Teehurs of Oude
live together almost indiscriminately in large communities, and even
when two people are regarded as married the tie is but nominal.[262]
It is recorded that, among the Tôttiyars of India, “brothers, uncles,
nephews, and other kindred, hold their wives in common.”[263] And
among the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills, when a man marries a girl,
she becomes the wife of all his brothers as they successively reach
manhood, and they become the husbands of all her sisters when they are
old enough to marry.[264]
The Kámilarói tribes in South Australia are divided into four clans,
in which brothers and sisters are respectively Ipai and Ipātha, Kŭbi
and Kubĭtha, Mŭri and Mātha, Kumbu and Būtha. Ipai may only marry
Kubĭtha; Kŭbi, Ipātha; Kumbu, Mātha; and Mŭri, Būtha. In a certain
sense, we are told, every Ipai is regarded as married, not by any
individual contract, but by organic law, to every Kubĭtha; every Kŭbi
to every Ipātha, and so on. If, for instance, a Kŭbi “meet a stranger
Ipātha, they address each other as _spouse_. A Kŭbi thus meeting an
Ipātha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his
wife, and his right to do so would be recognised by her tribe.”[265]
This institution, according to which the men of one division, have as
wives the women of another division, the Rev. L. Fison calls “group
marriage.” He contends that, among the South Australians, it has given
way in later times, in some measure, to individual marriage. But
theoretically, as he says, marriage is still communal: “it is based
upon the marriage of all the males in one division of a tribe to all
the females of the same generation in another division.” To this may
be added a statement of the Rev. C. W. Schürmann with reference to the
Port Lincoln aborigines. “As for near relatives, such as brothers,”
he remarks, “it may almost be said that they have their wives in
common.... A peculiar nomenclature has arisen from these singular
connections; a woman honours the brothers of the man to whom she is
married with the indiscriminate name of husbands; but the men make
a distinction, calling their own individual spouses yungaras, and
those to whom they have a secondary claim, by right of brotherhood,
kartetis.”[266]
Speaking of the Fuegians, Admiral Fitzroy says, “We had some reason to
think there were parties who lived in a promiscuous manner—a few women
being with many men.”[267] The Lubus of Sumatra, the Olo Ot, together
with a few other tribes of Borneo, the Poggi Islanders, the Orang Sakai
of Malacca, and the mountaineers of Peling, east of Celebes, are by
Professor Wilken stated to be entirely without marriage.[268] The same
is said by Professor Bastian to be the case with the Keriahs, Kurumbas,
Chittagong tribes, Guaycurûs, Kutchin Indians, and Arawaks.[269] He
states, too, that the Jolah on the island of St. Mary, according to
Hewett, possess their women in common,[270] and that, according to
Magalhães, the like is true of the Cahyapos in Matto Grosso.[271] We
read in Dapper’s old book on Africa, that certain negro tribes had
neither law, nor religion, nor any proper names, and possessed their
wives in common.[272] These are all the statements known to me of
peoples alleged to be without marriage.
In the first place, it must be remarked that some of the facts adduced
are not really instances of promiscuity. Sir Edward Belcher’s statement
as regards the Andamanese evidently suggests monogamy; and among the
Massagetæ and the Teehurs, the occurrence of marriage is expressly
confirmed, though the marriage tie was loose. As for the aborigines
of the Californian Peninsula, it must be remembered that the want of
an equivalent for the verb “to marry” does not imply the want of
the fact itself. Baegert indicates, indeed, that marriage did occur
among them, when he says that “each man took as many wives as he
liked, and if there were several sisters in a family he married them
all together.”[273] And throughout the Pacific Islands, marriage is
a recognized institution. Nowhere has debauchery been practised more
extensively than among the Areois of Tahiti. Yet Mr. Ellis assures us
that, “although addicted to every kind of licentiousness themselves,
each Arcoi had his own wife; ... and so jealous were they in this
respect that improper conduct towards the wife of one of their own
number was sometimes punished with death.”[274]
As to the South Australians, Mr. Fison’s statements have caused not a
little confusion. On his authority several writers assert that, among
the Australian savages, groups of males are actually found united to
groups of females.[275] But after all, Mr. Fison does not seem really
to mean to affirm the present existence of group-marriages. The chief
argument advanced by him in support of his theory is grounded on the
terms of relationship in use in the tribes. These terms belong to the
“classificatory system” of Mr. Morgan;[276] but Mr. Fison admits that
he is not aware of any tribe in which the actual practice is to its
full extent what the terms of relationship imply. “Present usage,”
he says, “is everywhere in advance of the system so implied, and the
terms are survivals of an ancient right, not precise indications of
custom as it is.”[277] The same is granted by Mr. Howitt.[278] Yet it
will be pointed out further on to what absurd results we must be led,
if, guided by such terms, we begin to speculate upon early marriage.
Moreover, if a Kŭbi and an Ipātha address each other as spouse, this
does not imply that in former times every Kŭbi was married to every
Ipātha indiscriminately. On the contrary, the application of such a
familiar term might be explained from the fact that the women who may
be a man’s wives, and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a
widely different relation to him.[279] It seems also as if a communism
in wives among the Port Lincoln aborigines had been inferred by Mr.
Schürmann chiefly from the nomenclature. Indeed, Mr. Curr, who has
procured more information regarding the Australian aborigines than
any other investigator, so far as I know, states that, in Australia,
men and women have never been found living in a state of promiscuous
intercourse, but _the reverse is a matter of notoriety_.[280] “It
seems to me,” he says, “after a careful examination of the subject,
that there is not within our knowledge a single fact, or linguistic
expression which requires us to have recourse to the theory of
group-marriage to explain it, but that there are several ... directly
at variance with that theory.”[281] The Rev. John Mathew asserts also,
in his recent paper on ‘The Australian Aborigines,’ that he fails to
see that group-marriage “has been proven to exist in the past, and it
certainly does not occur in Australia now.”[282] At any rate, it may be
asserted that such group-marriages are different from the promiscuity
which is presumed to have prevailed in primitive society. And this may
with even more reason be said of the marriages of the Tôttiyars, Nairs
and Todas, of which at least those of the Todas have originated, I
believe, in true polyandry.
Many of the assertions made as to peoples living together promiscuously
are evidently erroneous. Travellers are often apt to misapprehend the
manners and customs of the peoples they visit, and we should therefore,
if possible, compare the statements of different writers, especially
when so delicate and private a matter as the relation between the sexes
is concerned. Sir Edward Belcher’s statement about the Andamanese has
been disproved by Mr. Man, who, after a very careful investigation of
this people, says not only that they are strictly monogamous, but that
divorce is unknown, and conjugal fidelity till death not the exception
but the rule among them.[283] As regards the Bushmans, Sir John Lubbock
does not indicate the source from which he has taken the statement
that they are “entirely without marriage;” all the authorities I have
consulted, unanimously assert the reverse. Burchell was told that even
a second wife is never taken until the first has become old, and that
the old wives remain with the husband on the same terms as before.[284]
Barrow tells us almost the same.[285] Indeed, as we have already seen,
the family is the chief social institution of this people.
With reference to the Fuegians, Mr. Bridges, who has lived amongst
them for thirty years, writes to me, “Admiral Fitzroy’s supposition
concerning parties among the natives who lived promiscuously is false,
and adultery and lewdness are condemned as evil, though through the
strength of animal passions very generally indulged, but never with
the consent of husbands or wives, or of parents.” From the description
of Captain Jacobsen’s recent voyage to the North-Western Coast of
North America, it appears that marriage exists among the Queen
Charlotte Islanders also, although the husbands often prostitute their
wives.[286] As for Professor Wilken’s statements about promiscuity
among some peoples belonging to the Malay race, Professor Ratzel calls
their accuracy in question. At least, among the Lubus, as Herr Van
Ophuijsen assures us, a man has to buy his wife, just as among the
other Malay peoples;[287] and Dr. Schwaner expressly says that all that
we know about the Olo Ot depends on hearsay only.[288] But, according
to him, they are not without marriage.[289]
Some of Professor Bastian’s assertions are most astonishing. Any one
who takes the trouble to read Richardson’s, Kirby’s, or Bancroft’s
account of the Kutchin, will find that polygyny, but not promiscuity,
is prevalent among them, the husbands being very jealous of their
wives.[290] The same is stated by v. Martius about the Arawaks, whose
blood-feuds are generally owing to jealousy and a desire to avenge
violations of conjugal rights.[291] The occurrence of marriage among
them has also been ascertained by Schomburgk and the Rev. W. H.
Brett.[292] The Guaycurûs are said by Lozano to be monogamous,[293]
and so, according to Captain Lewin, are as a rule the Chittagong Hill
tribes, as we shall find later on. Touching the Keriahs, Colonel Dalton
affirms only that they have no word for marriage in their own language,
but he does not deny that marriage itself occurs among them; on the
contrary, it appears that they buy their wives.[294] The Kurumbas
are stated to be without the marriage ceremony, but not without
marriage.[295] And Dapper’s assertion that certain negro tribes have
their women in common, has never, so far as I know, been confirmed by
more recent writers. Dr. Post has found no people in Africa living in
a state of promiscuity;[296] and Mr. Ingham informs me, speaking of
the Bakongo, that “they would be horrified at the idea of promiscuous
intercourse.”
The peoples who may possibly live in a state of promiscuity have thus
been reduced to a very small number. Considering the erroneousness of
so many of the statements on the subject, it is difficult to believe in
the accuracy of the others.[297] Ethnography was not seriously studied
by the ancients, and their knowledge of the African tribes was no doubt
very deficient. Pliny, in the same chapter where he states that, among
the Garamantians, men and women lived in promiscuous intercourse,
reports of another African tribe, the Blemmyans, that they had no head,
and that the mouth and eyes were in the breast.[298] Besides, marriage
is an ambiguous word. The looseness of the marital tie, the frequency
of adultery and divorce, and the absence of the marriage ceremony may
entitle us to say that, among many savage peoples, marriage in the
European sense of the term does not exist. But this is very different
from promiscuity.
Even if some of the statements are right, and the intercourse between
the sexes among a few peoples really is, or has been, promiscuous,
it would be a mistake to infer that these utterly exceptional cases
represent a stage of human development which mankind, as a whole,
has gone through. Further, nothing would entitle us to consider
this promiscuity as a survival of the primitive life of man, or
even as a mark of a very rude state of society. It is by no means
among the lowest peoples that sexual relations most nearly approach
to promiscuity. Mr. Rowney, for instance, states that, among the
Butias, the marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite unknown,
that the husbands are indifferent to the honour of their wives, that
“the intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous.” But the
Butias are followers of Buddha, and “can hardly be counted among
the _wild_ tribes of India, for they are, for the most part, in
good circumstances, and have a certain amount of civilization among
them.”[299] On the other hand, among the lowest races on earth, as
the Veddahs, Fuegians, and Australians, the relation of the sexes are
of a much more definite character. The Veddahs are a truly monogamous
people, and have a saying that “death alone separates husband and
wife.”[300] And with reference to the Australians, Mr. Brough Smyth,
states that “though the marriages of Aboriginals are not solemnized
by any rites, ... it must not be supposed that, as a rule, there is
anything like promiscuous intercourse. When a man obtains a good wife,
he keeps her as a precious possession, as long as she is fit to help
him, and minister to his wants, and increase his happiness. No other
man must look with affection towards her.... Promiscuous intercourse is
abhorrent to many of them.” Among the aborigines of the northern and
central parts of Australia, there are certainly women wholly given up
to common lewdness, and a man is said to be considered a bad host who
will not lend his wife to a guest. But Mr. Brough Smyth thinks that
these practices are modern, and have been acquired since the aborigines
were brought in contact with the lower class of the whites, for “they
are altogether irreconcilable with the penal laws in force in former
times amongst the natives of Victoria.”[301] It seems obvious, then,
that even if there are peoples who actually live promiscuously, these
do not afford any evidence whatever for promiscuity having prevailed
in primitive times. Now let us examine whether the other arguments are
more convincing.
* * * * *
“A further fact,” Dr. Post says, “which speaks for sexual intercourse
having originally been unchecked, is the wide-spread custom that the
sexes may cohabit perfectly freely previous to marriage.”[302]
The immorality of many savages is certainly very great, but we must
not believe that it is characteristic of uncivilized races in general.
There are numerous savage and barbarous peoples among whom sexual
intercourse out of wedlock is of rare occurrence, unchastity, at least
on the part of the woman, being looked upon as a disgrace and even as a
crime.
“A Kafir woman,” Barrow says, “is chaste and extremely modest;”[303]
and Mr. Cousins writes to me that, between their various feasts,
the Kafirs, both men and women, have to live in strict continence,
the penalty being banishment from the tribe, if this law is broken.
Proyart states that, among the people of Loango, “a youth durst not
speak to a girl except in her mother’s presence,” and “the crime of
a maid who has not resisted seduction, would be sufficient to draw
down a total ruin on the whole country, were it not expiated by a
public avowal made to the king.”[304] Among the Equatorial Africans,
mentioned by Mr. Winwood Reade, a girl who disgraces her family by
wantonness is banished from her clan; and, in cases of seduction, the
man is severely flogged.[305] In Dahomey, if a man seduces a girl,
the law compels marriage, and the payment of eighty cowries to the
parent or master.[306] In Tessaua, according to Dr. Barth, a fine
of 100,000 kurdi is imposed on the father of a bastard child—a sum
which indicates how seldom such children are born there.[307] Among
the Beni-Mzab, a man who seduces a young girl has to pay two hundred
francs, and is banished for four years.[308] Among the Beni-Amer,
according to Munzinger, the unmarried women are very modest, though
the married women believe that they are allowed everything.[309] Among
the Arab girls in Upper Egypt, unchastity is made impossible by an
operation when they are from three to five years old;[310] and among
the Marea, continence is a scarcely less necessary virtue, as a maiden
or widow who becomes pregnant is killed together with the seducer and
the child.[311] As regards the Kabyles, Messrs. Hanoteau and Letourneux
assert, “Les mœurs ne tolèrent même aucune relation sexuelle en dehors
du mariage.... L’enfant né en dehors du mariage est tué ainsi que sa
mère.”[312]
Among the Central Asian Turks, according to Vámbéry, a fallen girl is
unknown.[313] Among the Kalmucks,[314] as also the Gypsies,[315] the
girls take pride in having gallant affairs, but are dishonoured if
they have children previous to marriage. A seducer among the Tunguses
is bound to marry his victim and pay the price claimed for her.[316]
In Circassia, an incontinent daughter is generally sold as soon as
possible, being a disgrace to her parents.[317] Among the wretched
inhabitants of Lob-nor, “immorality is severely punished.”[318] And
regarding the Let-htas, a Hill Tribe of Burma, Mr. O’Riley states that,
until married, the youth of both sexes are domiciled in two long houses
at opposite ends of the village, and “when they may have occasion
to pass each other, they avert their gaze, so they may not see each
other’s faces.”[319]
As to the aborigines of the Indian Archipelago, Professor Wilken states
that side by side with peoples who indulge in great licentiousness,
there are others who are remarkably chaste. Thus, in Nias, the
pregnancy of an unmarried girl is punished with death, inflicted
not only upon her but upon the seducer.[320] Among the Hill Dyaks,
the young men are carefully separated from the girls, licentious
connections between the sexes being strictly prohibited;[321] and
the Sibuyaus, a tribe belonging to the Sea Dyaks, though they do not
consider the sexual intercourse of their young people a positive crime,
yet attach an idea of great indecency to irregular connections, and are
of opinion that an unmarried woman with child must be offensive to the
superior powers.[322]
By some of the independent tribes of the Philippines also, according
to Chamisso, chastity is held in great honour, “not only among the
women, but also among the young girls, and is protected by very severe
laws;”[323]—a statement which is confirmed by Dr. Hans Meyer and
Professor Blumentritt with reference to the Igorrotes of Luzon.[324]
In New Guinea, too, chastity is strictly maintained.[325] Mr. G.
A. Robinson and the Catechist Clark, who lived for years with the
aborigines, both declare their belief in the virtue of the young
women;[326] and Dr. Finsch assures us that the natives of Dory are,
in that respect, superior to many civilized nations in Europe.[327]
The French naturalists and some English writers spoke highly of the
morality of the young people among the Tasmanians.[328] The women of
Uea, Loyalty Islands, are described by Erskine as “strictly chaste
before marriage, and faithful wives afterwards.”[329] In Fiji, great
continence prevailed among the young folk, the lads being forbidden to
approach women till eighteen or twenty years old.[330] Speaking of the
aborigines of Melanesia, Dr. Codrington remarks, “It is certain that
in these islands generally there was by no means that insensibility
in regard to female virtue with which the natives are so commonly
charged.”[331] In Samoa, the girls were allowed to cohabit with
foreigners, but not with their countrymen,[332] and the chastity of the
chiefs’ daughters was the pride of the tribe. But Mr. Turner remarks
that, though this virtue was ostensibly cultivated here by both sexes,
it was more a name than a reality.[333]
With reference to the Australian natives, Mr. Moore Davis says,
“Promiscuous intercourse between the sexes is not practised by the
Aborigines, and their laws on the subject, particularly those of New
South Wales, are very strict. When at camp, all the young unmarried
men are stationed by themselves at the extreme ends, while the married
men, each with his family, occupy the centre. No conversation is
allowed between the single men and the girls or the married women....
Infractions of these and other laws were visited either by punishment
by any aggrieved member of the tribe, or by the delinquent having
to purge himself of his crime by standing up protected simply by
his shield, or a waddy, while five or six warriors threw, from a
comparatively short distance, several spears at him.”[334] Concerning
several tribes in Western Victoria, Mr. Dawson likewise states that,
at the corroborees and great meetings of the tribes, unmarried adults
of both sexes are kept strictly apart from those of another tribe.
“Illegitimacy is rare,” he says, “and is looked upon with such
abhorrence that the mother is always severely beaten by her relatives,
and sometimes put to death and burned. Her child is occasionally killed
and burned with her. The father of the child is also punished with the
greatest severity, and occasionally killed.”[335]
Turning to the American peoples: among the early Aleuts, according to
Veniaminof, “girls or unmarried females who gave birth to illegitimate
children were to be killed for shame, and hidden.”[336] Egede tells us
that, among the Greenlanders, unmarried women observed the rules of
modesty much better than married women. “During fifteen full years
that I lived in Greenland,” he says, “I did not hear of more than two
or three young women, who were gotten with child unmarried; because
it is reckoned the greatest of infamies.”[337] According to Cranz, a
Greenland maid would take it as an affront were a young fellow even to
offer her a pinch of snuff in company.[338] Among the Northern Indians,
girls are from the early age of eight or nine years prohibited by
custom from joining in the most innocent amusements with children of
the opposite sex. “When sitting in their tent,” says Hearne, “or even
when travelling, they are watched and guarded with such an unremitting
attention as cannot be exceeded by the most rigid discipline of an
English boarding-school.”[339] Mr. Catlin asserts that, among the
Mandans, female virtue is, in the respectable families, as highly
cherished as in any society whatever.[340] Among the Nez Percés,[341]
the Apaches,[342] and certain other North American peoples,[343] the
women are described as remarkably chaste, the seducer being viewed by
some of them with even more contempt than the girl he has dishonoured.
And Dobrizhoffer praises the Abiponian women for their virtuous
life.[344]
If we add to these facts those which will be adduced further on,
showing what man requires in his bride, it must be admitted that
the number of uncivilized peoples among whom chastity, at least as
regards women, is held in honour and, as a rule, cultivated, is very
considerable. There being nothing to indicate that the morality of
those nations ever was laxer, the inference of an earlier stage of
promiscuity from the irregular sexual relations of unmarried people,
could not apply to them, even if such an inference, on the whole,
were right. But this is far from being the case: first, because the
wantonness of savages, in several cases, seems to be due chiefly to the
influence of civilization; secondly, because it is quite different from
promiscuity.
It has been sufficiently proved that contact with a higher culture,
or, more properly, the dregs of it, is pernicious to the morality of
peoples living in a more or less primitive condition. In Greenland,
says Dr. Nansen, “the Eskimo women of the larger colonies are far
freer in their ways than those of the small outlying settlements where
there are no Europeans.”[345] And the Yokuts of California, amongst
whom the freedom of the unmarried people of both sexes is very great
now, are said to have been comparatively virtuous before the arrival
of the Americans.[346] In British Columbia and Vancouver Island,
“amongst the interior tribes, in primitive times, breaches of chastity
on the part either of married or unmarried females were often punished
with death, inflicted either by the brother or husband;” whilst, among
the fish-eaters of the north-west coast, “it has no meaning, or, if
it has, it appears to be utterly disregarded.”[347] Again, among the
Queen Charlotte Islanders the present depravation has, according to
Captain Jacobsen been caused by the gold diggers who went there in the
middle of this century.[348] Admiral Fitzroy observed, too, that the
unchastity of the Patagonian women did not correspond with the pure
character attributed to them at an earlier time by Falkner, and he
thinks that “their ideas of propriety may have been altered by the
visits of licentious strangers.”[349] A more recent traveller, Captain
Musters, observed, indeed, little immorality amongst the Indians whilst
in their native wilds.[350]
There is, further, no doubt that the licentiousness of many South
Sea Islanders, at least to some extent, owes its origin to their
intercourse with Europeans. When visiting the Sandwich Islands with
Cook, Vancouver saw little or no appearance of wantonness among the
women. But when he visited them some years afterwards, it was very
conspicuous; and he ascribes this change in their habits to their
intercourse with foreigners.[351] Owing to the same influence, the
women of Ponapé and Tana lost their modesty;[352] and the privileges
granted to foreigners in Samoa have been already mentioned. Nay, even
in Tahiti, so notorious for the licentiousness of its inhabitants,
immorality was formerly less than it is now. Thus, as a girl, betrothed
when a child, grew up, “for the preservation of her chastity, a small
platform of considerable elevation was erected for her abode within the
dwelling of her parents. Here she slept and spent the whole of the time
she passed within doors. Her parents, or some member of the family,
attended her by night and by day, supplied her with every necessary,
and accompanied her whenever she left the house. Some of their
traditions,” Ellis adds, “warrant the inference that this mode of
life, in early years, was observed by other females besides those who
were betrothed.”[353]
Speaking of the tribes who once inhabited the Adelaide Plains of South
Australia, Mr. Edward Stephens, who went to Australia about half a
century ago, remarks, “Those who speak of the natives as a naturally
degraded race, either do not speak from experience, or they judge them
by what they have become when the abuse of intoxicants and contact with
the most wicked of the white race have begun their deadly work. As a
rule, to which there are no exceptions, if a tribe of blacks is found
away from the white settlement, the more vicious of the white men are
most anxious to make the acquaintance of the natives, and that, too,
solely for purposes of immorality.... I saw the natives and was much
with them before those dreadful immoralities were well known, ... and I
say it fearlessly, that nearly all their evils they owed to the white
man’s immorality and to the white man’s drink.”[354]
The Rev. J. Sibree tells us that, among most of the tribes of
Madagascar, the unchastity of girls does not give umbrage. But “there
are some other tribes,” he says, “more isolated, as certain of the
eastern peoples, where a higher standard of morality prevails, girls
being kept scrupulously from any intercourse with the other sex until
they are married.”[355]
Nowhere has chastity been more rigorously insisted upon than among the
South Slavonians. A fallen girl among them has lost almost all chance
of getting married. She is commonly despised and often punished in a
very barbarous way; whilst, on the other hand, purity gives a girl a
higher value than the greatest wealth. In some places, a father or a
brother may even kill a man whom he finds with his daughter or sister.
But Dr. Krauss assures us that this rigidity in their morals has
gradually decreased, the more foreign civilization has got a footing
among them.[356]
Again, Professor Ahlqvist believes that illicit intercourse between the
sexes was almost unknown among the ancient Finns, as the terms used
by them with reference to such connections are borrowed from other
languages.[357] And Professor Vámbéry makes the same observation as
regards the primitive Turko-Tartars. “The difference in morality,”
he says, “which exists between the Turks affected by a foreign
civilization and kindred tribes inhabiting the steppes, becomes very
conspicuous to any one living among the Turkomans and Kara-Kalpaks; for
whether in Africa or Asia, certain vices are introduced only by the
so-called bearers of culture.”[358]
Apart from such cases of foreign influence, we may perhaps say that
irregular connections between the sexes have on the whole exhibited
a tendency to increase along with the progress of civilization. Dr.
Fritsch remarks that the Bushmans are much stricter in that matter
than their far more advanced neighbours.[359] Robert Drury assures
us that, in Madagascar, “there are more modest women, in proportion
to the number of people, than in England.”[360] Tacitus praised the
chastity of the Germanic youth, in contrast to the licentiousness of
the highly civilized Romans. These statements may to a certain extent
be considered typical. In Europe, there are born among towns-people, on
an average, twice as many bastard children, in proportion to the number
of births, as among the inhabitants of the country, who generally
lead a more natural life. In France, according to Wappäus, the ratio
was found even so great as 15·13 to 4·24; though in Saxony, with its
manufacturing country people, it was only as 15·39 to 14·64.[361] Nay,
in Gratz and Munich the illegitimate births are even more numerous
than the legitimate.[362] The prostitution of the towns makes the
difference in morality still greater; and unfortunately the evil is
growing. Almost everywhere prostitution increases in a higher ratio
than population.[363] In consideration of these facts, it is almost
ridiculous to speak of the immorality of unmarried people among savages
as a relic of an alleged primitive stage of promiscuity.
There are several factors in civilization which account for this bad
result. The more unnatural mode of living and the greater number of
excitements exercise, no doubt, a deteriorating influence on morality;
and poverty makes prostitutes of many girls who are little more than
children. But the chief factor is the growing number of unmarried
people. It is proved that, in the cities of Europe, prostitution
increases according as the number of marriages decreases.[364] It has
also been established, thanks to the statistical investigations of
Engel and others, that the fewer the marriages contracted in a year,
the greater is the ratio of illegitimate births.[365] Thus, by making
celibacy more common, civilization promotes sexual irregularity. It
is true that more elevated moral feelings, concomitants of a higher
mental development, may, to a certain extent, put the drag on passion.
But in a savage condition of life, where every full-grown man marries
as soon as possible; where almost every girl, when she reaches the age
of puberty, is given in marriage; where, consequently, bachelors and
spinsters are of rare occurrence,—there is comparatively little reason
for illegitimate relations.[366] Marriage, it seems to me, is the
natural form of the sexual relations of man, as of his nearest allies
among the lower animals. Far from being a relic of the primitive life
of man, irregularity in this respect is an anomaly arising chiefly from
circumstances associated with certain stages of human development.
Dr. Post’s argument, as I have said, is open to another objection. Free
sexual intercourse previous to marriage is quite a different thing
from promiscuity, the most genuine form of which is prostitution. But
prostitution is rare among peoples living in a state of nature and
unaffected by foreign influence.[367] It is contrary to woman’s natural
feelings as involving a suppression of individual inclinations. In free
sexual intercourse there is selection; a woman has for one man, or for
several men, a preference which generally makes the connections more
durable.
Nowhere are unmarried people of both sexes less restrained than among
the savage nations of India and Indo-China. Yet among these savage
nations there is no promiscuity. Among the Toungtha, for instance,
according to Captain Lewin, prostitution is not understood, and, when
explained, it is regarded by them with abhorrence. “They draw rightly
a strong distinction between a woman prostituting herself habitually
as a means of livelihood, and the intercourse by mutual consent of
two members of opposite sexes, leading, as it generally does, to
marriage.”[368] Among the Tipperahs,[369] Oráons,[370] and Kolyas[371],
unmarried girls may cohabit freely with young men, but are never found
living promiscuously with them. Among the Dyaks on the Batang Lupar,
too, unchastity is not rare, but a woman usually confines herself
to one lover. “Should the girl prove with child,” says Sir Spenser
St. John, “it is an understanding between them that they marry”;
and the men seldom, by denying the paternity, refuse to fulfil their
engagements.[372] Again, in Tonga, it was considered disgraceful for a
girl to change lovers often. And in Scotland, prior to the Reformation,
there was a practice called “hand-fasting,” which certainly may be
characterized as unrestrained freedom before marriage, but not as
promiscuity. “At the public fairs,” the Rev. Ch. Rogers states, “men
selected female companions with whom to cohabit for a year. At the
expiry of this period both parties were accounted free; they might
either unite in marriage or live singly.”[373]
The attempt to explain free intercourse between unmarried people as
a relic of a primitive condition of general promiscuity or rather,
to infer the latter from the former, must thus, in every respect, be
considered a complete failure.
* * * * *
Sir John Lubbock thinks that his hypothesis of “communal marriage”
derives additional support from some curious customs, which he
interprets as acts of expiation for individual marriage. “In many
cases,” he says, “the exclusive possession of a wife could only
be legally acquired by a temporary recognition of the pre-existing
communal rights.”[374]
Thus Herodotus states that, in Babylonia, every woman was obliged once
in her life to give herself up, in the temple of Mylitta, to strangers,
for the satisfaction of the goddess; and in some parts of Cyprus, he
tells us, the same custom prevailed.[375] In Armenia, according to
Strabo, there was a very similar law. The daughters of good families
were consecrated to Anaitis, a phallic divinity like Mylitta,
giving themselves, as it appears, to the worshippers of the goddess
indiscriminately.[376] Again, in the valleys of the Ganges, virgins
were compelled before marriage to offer themselves up in the temples
dedicated to Juggernaut. And the same is said to have been customary in
Pondicherry and at Goa.[377]
These practices, however, evidently belong to phallic-worship,
and occurred, as Mr. McLennan justly remarks, among peoples who
had advanced far beyond the primitive state. The farther back we
go, the less we find of such customs in India; “the germ only of
phallic-worship shows itself in the Vedas, and the gross luxuriance
of licentiousness, of which the cases referred to are examples, is of
later growth.”[378]
Ancient writers tell us that, among the Nasamonians and Augilæ,
two Libyan tribes, the _jus primae noctis_ was accorded to all the
guests at a marriage.[379] Garcilasso de la Vega asserts that, in
the province Manta in Peru, marriages took place on condition that
the bride should first yield herself to the relatives and friends of
the bridegroom.[380] In the Balearic Islands, according to Diodorous
Siculus, the bride was for one night considered the common property
of all the guests, after which she belonged exclusively to her
husband.[381] And v. Langsdorf reports the occurrence of a very similar
practice in Nukahiva.[382]
With regard to Sir J. Lubbock’s interpretation of these customs,
as acts of expiation for individual marriage, Mr. McLennan remarks
that they are not cases of privileges accorded to the men of the
bridegroom’s group only, which they should be, if they refer to an
ancient communal right.[383] It may also be noted that, in Nukahiva,
the license was dependent upon the will of the bride. Moreover, the
freedom granted to the wedding guests may be simply and naturally
explained. It may have been a part of the nuptial entertainment—a
horrible kind of hospitality, no doubt, but quite in accordance with
savage ideas, and analogous to another custom, which occurs much more
frequently; I mean the practice of lending wives.
Among many uncivilized peoples, it is customary for a man to offer his
wife, or one of his wives, to strangers for the time they stay in his
hut. Even this practice has been adduced by several writers as evidence
of a former communism.[384] To Sir John Lubbock it seems to involve the
recognition of “a right inherent in every member of the community, and
to visitors as temporary members.” Were this so, we should certainly
have to conclude that “communal marriage” has been very prevalent in
the human race, the practice of lending wives occurring among many
peoples in different parts of the world.[385] But it is difficult to
see how the practice could ever have been in any way connected with
communism in women for all men belonging to the same tribe. It is
not always the wife that is offered; it may as well be a daughter, a
sister, or a servant.[386] Thus the people of Madagascar warn strangers
to behave with decency to their wives, though they readily offer their
daughters;[387] and it is asserted that a Tungus “will give his
daughter for a time to any friend or traveller that he takes a liking
to,” and if he has no daughter, he will give his servant, but not his
wives.[388]
It can scarcely be doubted that such customs are due merely to savage
ideas of hospitality. When we are told that, among the coast tribes
of British Columbia, “the temporary present of a wife is one of the
greatest honours that can be shown there to a guest;”[389] or that
such an offer was considered by the Eskimo “as an act of generous
hospitality;”[390] or, that “this is the common custom when the
negroes wish to pay respect to their guests,”[391]—I cannot see why we
should look for a deeper meaning in these practices than that which
the words imply. A man offers a visitor his wife as he offers him a
seat at his table. It is the greatest honour a savage can show his
guest, as a temporary exchange of wives—a custom prevalent in North
America, Polynesia, and elsewhere[392]—is regarded as a seal of the
most intimate friendship. Hence, among the Greenlanders, those men
were reputed the best and noblest tempered, who, without any pain or
reluctance, would lend their friends their wives:[393] and the men of
Caindu, a region of Eastern Tibet, hoped by such an offering to obtain
the favour of the gods.[394] Indeed, if the practice of lending wives
is to be regarded as a relic of ancient communism in women, we may
equally well regard the practice of giving presents to friends, or
hospitality in other respects, as a remnant of ancient communism in
property of every kind.
The _jus primae noctis_ granted to the friends of the bridegroom may,
however, be derived from another source. Touching the capture of wives,
Mr. Brough Smyth states that, in New South Wales and about Riverina,
“in any instance where the abduction has taken place by a party of
men for the benefit of some one individual, each of the members of the
party claims, as a right, a privilege which the intended husband has
no power to refuse.”[395] A similar custom prevails, according to Mr.
Johnston, among the Wa-taïta in Eastern Central Africa, though the
capture here is a symbol only. After the girl has been bought by the
bridegroom, she runs away and affects to hide. Then she is sought out
by him and three or four of his friends. When she is found, the men
seize her and carry her off to the hut of her future husband, where she
is placed at the disposal of her captors.[396] In such cases the _jus
primae noctis_ is a reward for a good turn done, or perhaps, as Mr.
McLennan suggests,[397] a common war-right, exercised by the captors
of the woman. If we knew all the circumstances, this explanation
might prove to hold good also with regard to the right granted to the
wedding-guests in the cases we have mentioned. At any rate, it must
be admitted that these strange customs may be interpreted in a much
simpler way than that suggested by Sir John Lubbock.
There are some instances of _jus primae noctis_ accorded to
a particular person, a chief or a priest. Thus, among the
Kinipetu-Eskimo, the Ankut, or high-priest has this right.[398] Among
the Caribs, the bridegroom received his bride from the hand of the
Piache, or medicine-man, and certainly not as a virgin.[399] A similar
custom is met with among certain Brazilian tribes, though in some of
these cases it is to the chief that the right in question belongs.[400]
The Spanish nobleman Andagova states that, in Nicaragua, a priest
living in the temple was with the bride during the night preceding her
marriage.[401] And among the Tahus in Northern Mexico according to
Castañeda, the _droit du seigneur_ was accorded to the cacique.[402]
In descriptions of travel in the fifteenth century, the aboriginal
inhabitants of Teneriffe are represented as having married no woman who
had not previously spent a night with the chief, which was considered
a great honour.[403] The same right, according to Dr. Barth, was
presumably granted to the chief of Bagele in Adamáua;[404] and,
according to Herodotus, to the king of the ancient Adyrmachidae.[405]
Navarette tells us that, on the coast of Malabar, the bridegroom
brought the bride to the king, who kept her eight days in his palace;
and the man took it “as a great honour and favour that his king would
make use of her.”[406] Again, according to Hamilton, a Samorin could
not take his bride home for three nights, during which the chief priest
had a claim to her company.[407] Sugenheim believes even that, in
certain parts of France, a similar right was accorded to the higher
clergy during the Middle Ages.[408]
Yet Dr. Karl Schmidt has endeavoured, in a learned work, to prove that
the _droit du siegneur_ never existed in Europe, the later belief in it
being merely “ein gelehrter Aberglaube,” which arose in various ways.
Thus there was classical witness to ancient traditions of tyrants, who
had distinguished themselves by such proceedings as that right was
supposed to legalize. From various parts of the world came reports of
travellers as to tribes among whom defloration was the privilege or
duty of kings, priests, or other persons set apart for the purpose.
A grosser meaning than the words will warrant had, besides, in Dr.
Schmidt’s opinion, been attached to the fine paid by the vassal to
his feudal lord for permission to marry. That law, he says, which is
believed to have extended over a large part of Europe, has left no
evidence of its existence in laws, charters, decretals, trials, or
glossaries.[409]
This is not the proper place to discuss Dr. Schmidt’s hypothesis; but
his arguments do not seem to be conclusive.[410] Several writers speak
of estate-owners in Russia who claimed the _droit du seigneur_ in the
last and even the present century;[411] and a friend of mine informs me
that, when travelling in that country, he met with aged men whose wives
had been victims of the custom. It was certainly a privilege taken by
the law of might. But how in such cases shall we draw the line between
might and what is properly accepted as right?
Bachofen, Giraud-Teulon, Kulischer, and other writers[412] regard the
_jus primae noctis_ accorded to a special person, as a remnant of a
primitive state of promiscuity or “communal marriage.” It is, in
their opinion, a transformation of the ancient communal right, which
was taken away from the community and transferred to those who chiefly
represented it—the priest, the king, or the nobility.
But why may not the practice in question have been simply a consequence
of might? It may be a right taken forcibly by the stronger, or it
may be a privilege voluntarily given to the chief man as a mark of
esteem,—in either case, it depends upon his authority. Indeed, the
right of encroaching upon the marital rights of a subject is not
commonly restricted to the first night only. Where the chief or the
king has the power of life and death, what man can prohibit him from
doing his will? “Quite indisputed,” Dr. Holub says, with reference to
the Marutse, “is the king’s power to put to death, or to make a slave
of any one of his subjects in any way he choses; he may take a man’s
wife simply by providing him with another wife as a substitute.”[413]
In Dahomey, all women belong to the king, who causes every girl to
be brought to him before marriage, and, if he pleases, retains her
in the palace.[414] Among the Negroes in Fida, according to Bosman,
the captains of the king, who have to supply him with fresh wives,
immediately present to him any beautiful virgin they may see; and none
of his subjects dare presume to offer objections.[415] In Persia, it
was a legal principle that whatever was touched by the king remained
immaculate, and that he might go into the harem of any of his
subjects.[416] Among the Kukis, “all the women of the village, married
or single, are at the pleasure of the rajah,” who is regarded by his
people with almost superstitious veneration.[417] The Kalmuck priests,
who are not suffered to marry, may, it is said, pass a night with any
man’s wife, and this is esteemed a favour by the husband.[418] And
in Chamba (probably Cochin China), Marco Polo tells us, no woman was
allowed to marry until the king had seen her.[419]
According to Dr. Zimmermann, it is a dogma among many Malays that
the rajah has the entire disposal of the wives and children of his
subjects.[420] In New Zealand, when a chief desires to take to himself
a wife, he fixes his attention upon one and takes her, if need be by
force, without consulting her feelings and wishes, or those of any one
else.[421] In Tonga, the women of the lower people were at the disposal
of the chiefs, who even used to shoot the husbands, if they made
resistance;[422] whilst in Congo, as we are told by Mr. Reade, when the
king takes a fresh concubine, her husband and all her lovers are put to
death.[423]
In the interesting ‘Notes of a Country Clergyman’ in _Russkaja
Stariná_ (‘Russian Antiquity’), much light is thrown on the life of
Russian landlords before the emancipation of the serfs. Here is what is
said of one of them:—“Often N. I—tsch would stroll late in the evening
about his village to admire the prosperous condition of his peasants;
he would stop at some cottage, look in at the window, and tap on the
pane with his finger. This tapping was well known to everybody, and
in a moment the best-looking woman of the family went out to him....
Another landlord, whenever he visited his estate, demanded from the
manager, immediately after his arrival, a list of all the grown-up
girls. Then,” the author continues, “the master took to his service
each of the girls for three or four days, and as soon as the list was
finished, he went off to another village. This occurred regularly every
year.”[424]
Here we have a collection of facts, belonging, as I think, to the same
group as the _jus primae noctis_ is of a chief or a priest. And it is
obvious that they have nothing to do with “communal marriage.” The
privilege accorded to the priest, however, seems, in some cases, to
have a purely religious origin. Thus, Egede informs us that the native
women of Greenland thought themselves fortunate if an Angekokk, or
prophet, honoured them with his caresses; and some husbands even paid
him, because they believed that the child of such a holy man could not
but be happier and better than others.[425] Von Martius thinks that
the right granted to the medicine-man among the Brazilian aborigines
is owing to savage ideas of woman’s impurity.[426] And on the coast
of Malabar, Hamilton says, the bride was given to the chief priest,
“because the first fruits of her nuptials must be a holy oblation to
the god she worships.”[427]
* * * * *
Yet another group of facts is adduced as evidence for the hypothesis of
ancient communism in women. Sir J. Lubbock and Professor Giraud-Teulon
cite some cases of courtesans being held in greater estimation than
women married to a single husband, or, at least, being by no means
despised.[428] Such feelings, Sir John believes, would naturally arise
“when the special wife was a stranger and a slave, while the communal
wife was a relative and a free woman,” and would, in some instances,
long survive the social condition to which they owed their origin.[429]
The courtesans are thus regarded as representatives of the communal
wives of primitive times. But it seems to me much more reasonable to
suppose that if, in Athens and India, courtesans were respected and
sought after even by the principal men, it was because they were the
only educated women.[430] Besides, as Mr. McLennan justly remarks with
regard to such “communal wives,” “if any inference is to be made from
their standing in Athens, in the brilliant age of Pericles, as to the
state of matters in the primitive groups, proof of primitive communism
in women might as well be sought in London or Paris in our own day. Far
back in the interval between savagery and the age of Pericles are the
heroes of Homer with their noble wedded wives.”[431]
It is true that, among some uncivilized peoples, women having many
gallants are esteemed better than virgins, and are more anxiously
desired in marriage. This is, for instance, stated to be the case with
the Indians of Quito,[432] the Laplanders in Regnard’s days,[433] and
the Hill Tribes of North Aracan.[434] But in each of these cases we
are expressly told that want of chastity is considered a merit in the
bride, because it is held to be the best testimony to the value of
her attractions. There are thus various reasons why courtesans and
licentious women may be held in respect and sought after, and we need
not, therefore, resort to Sir John Lubbock’s far-fetched hypothesis.