PROHIBITION OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN KINDRED
The horror of incest is 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.
Yet the degrees of kinship within which intercourse is forbidden, are
by no means everywhere the same. It is most, and almost universally,
abominated between parents and children, especially mother and
son. As an exception to this rule, v. Langsdorf states that, among
the Kaniagmuts, not only do brothers and sisters cohabit with each
other, but even parents and children.[1682] The Eastern Tinneh, or
Chippewyans, occasionally marry their mothers, sisters, or daughters,
but such alliances are not considered correct by general opinion.[1683]
In the Indian Archipelago, according to Schwaner, Wilken, and Riedel,
marriages between brothers and sisters, and parents and children,
are permitted among certain tribes;[1684] and similar unions, it is
said, took place among the ancient Persians.[1685] Again, in Nukahiva,
as we are told by Lisiansky, although near kinsfolk are forbidden to
intermarry, it sometimes happens that a father lives with his daughter,
and a brother with his sister; but on one occasion it was looked
upon as a horrible crime when a mother cohabited with her son.[1686]
Among the Kukis, as described by Rennel, marriages were generally
contracted without regard to blood-relationship; only a mother might
not wed her child.[1687] Among the Karens of Tenasserim, “matrimonial
alliances between brother and sister, or father and daughter, are not
uncommon.”[1688] Speaking of the King of the Warua, Mr. Cameron states
that in his harem are to be found his stepmothers, aunts, sisters,
nieces, cousins, as also his own daughters.[1689] Among the Wanyoro,
brothers may marry their sisters, and even fathers their daughters; but
a son does not marry his own mother, although the other widows of his
father become his property.[1690]
Unions between brothers and sisters, who are children of the same
mother as well as the same father, are likewise held in general
abhorrence. The primitive feeling against such connections is strongly
expressed in the Finnish Kullervo Myth. The unfortunate Kullervo, after
discovering that he had committed incest with his sister, wails—
“Woe is me, my life hard-fated!
I have slain my virgin-sister,
Shamed the daughter of my mother;
Woe to thee my ancient father!
Woe to thee, my gray-haired mother!
Wherefore was I born and nurtured,
Why this hapless child’s existence?”[1691]
The dishonoured sister threw herself into the river, and Kullervo fell
by his own sword.
The Californian Nishinam believe that, for the prevention of incest,
at the beginning of the world, not one but two pairs were created from
whom sprang all the Nishinam.[1692] When the missionary Jellinghaus
once asked some Munda Kols whether animals knew what is right and
wrong, the answer was, “No, because they do not know mother, sister,
and daughter.”[1693] Yet, as we have seen, there are exceptions to the
rule; and certain peoples who consider intercourse between parents and
children incestuous, allow unions between brothers and sisters. Among
the Kamchadales, says Krasheninnikoff, “marriage is forbidden only
between father and daughter, mother and son.”[1694] Not long ago, the
wild Veddahs of Ceylon regarded the marriage of a man with his younger
sister as not only proper and natural, but, in fact, as _the_ proper
marriage, though marriage with an elder sister or aunt would have been
as incestuous and revolting to them as to us.[1695] Among the Annamese,
according to a missionary who has lived among them for forty years,
no girl who is twelve years old and has a brother is a virgin.[1696]
Liebich tells us that the Gypsies allow a brother to marry his sister,
though such marriages are generally avoided by them.[1697] Among the
Wa-taïta, says Mr. Thomson, “very few of the young men are able to
marry for want of the proper number of cows—a state of affairs which
not unfrequently leads to marriage with sisters, though this practice
is highly reprobated.”[1698] Among the aborigines of Brazil, union with
a sister, or a brother’s daughter, is almost universally held to be
infamous. Such practices are not uncommon in small isolated hordes;
“but the ancient Tupinambases (ancestors of the Tupis) allowed
nothing of the kind openly.”[1699] In a song of the ‘Rig-Veda,’ Yamí
appears in support of the marriage of brother and sister, while the
opposition is personified in Yama.[1700] Buddhist legends mention
various cases of such unions;[1701] and it is stated in the ‘Ynglinga
Saga’ that “while Niord was with the Vans he had taken his own sister
in marriage, for that he was allowed by their law.”[1702] But we have
no evidence whatever that such unions were commonly allowed by the
ancient Scandinavians. “Among the Asas,” the ‘Ynglinga Saga’ adds,
“it was forbidden for such near relatives to come together.”[1703] In
Scandinavia, according to Nordström, as also among the ancient Germans,
according to Grimm, marriages between parents and children, brothers
and sisters, were prohibited.[1704]
Unions with sisters, or probably, in most cases, half-sisters, occur
in the royal families of Baghirmi,[1705] Siam,[1706] Burma,[1707]
Ceylon,[1708] and Polynesia.[1709] In the Sandwich Islands, brothers
and sisters of the reigning family intermarried, but this incestuous
intercourse was in other cases contrary to the customs, habits, and
feelings of the people.[1710] And, in Iboína of Madagascar, where the
kings were occasionally united with their sisters, such marriages
were preceded by a ceremony in which the woman was sprinkled with
consecrated water, and prayers were recited asking for her happiness
and fecundity, as if there was a fear that the union might call down
divine anger upon the parties.[1711] Cambyses and other Persian kings
married their sisters,[1712] and so did the Ptolemies of Egypt.[1713]
According to Sir Gardner Wilkinson, it is not only noticed by Diodorus,
but is fully authenticated by the inscriptions both of Upper and Lower
Egypt, that the same custom was in force among the Egyptians, from the
earliest times;[1714] but, except in the case of the Ptolemies, I have
seen no clear evidence that marriage took place between brothers and
sisters who had both the same father and the same mother. Garcilasso de
la Vega states that the Incas of Peru, from the first, established it
as a very stringent law that the heir to the kingdom should marry his
eldest sister, legitimate both on the side of the father and on that of
the mother;[1715] whereas, according to Acosta and Ondegardo, it had
always been held unlawful by the Peruvians to contract marriage in the
first degree, until Tupac Inca Yupanqui, at the close of the fifteenth
century, married his sister on the fathers side, and decreed “that
the Incas might marry with their sisters by the father’s side, and no
other.”[1716]
It has been asserted that, where the system of exogamy prevails, a
man is allowed to marry his sister either on the father’s or on the
mother’s side, according as descent is reckoned in the female or in
the male line.[1717] But it will be shown directly that, besides the
rules relating to exogamy, there are commonly others prohibiting
intermarriage of near relations belonging to different tribes or clans.
Yet the marriage of half-brother and half-sister is not rare. Among the
Ostyaks, for instance, union with a half-sister bearing another family
name is in great repute;[1718] and the South Slavonian Mohammedans
allow marriages between half-brothers and half-sisters who have
different mothers, though seducing a sister is regarded in their songs
as a crime punishable with death, or rather as something which cannot
occur.[1719] From the Book of Genesis we know that Abraham married
his half-sister, and looked upon the union as lawful, because she had
not the same mother.[1720] Among the Phœnicians at Tyre, down to the
time of Achilles Tatius, a man might marry his father’s daughter: and
the same thing appears at Mecca.[1721] Marriage with half-sisters on
the father’s side, not on the mother’s, was also allowed among the
Assyrians[1722] and the Athenians.[1723] In Guatemala and Yucatan,
on the other hand, no relationship on the mother’s side was a bar to
marriage: hence a man could marry his sister, provided she was by
another father.[1724]
Among certain peoples the relationships of uncle and niece, and of
aunt and nephew, are the remotest degrees of consanguinity which are a
hindrance to intermarriage. This is the case, for instance, with some
of the Dyak tribes;[1725] and among the Copper Indians, according to
Franklin, there is no prohibition of the intermarriage of cousins,
but a man is forbidden to marry his niece.[1726] On the whole, we may
say that marriage within these degrees of relationship is even more
commonly prohibited than intermarriage of cousins, and that, probably
in most cases, the prohibitions refer to persons so related either on
the father’s or mother’s side.[1727] Yet there are many instances to
the contrary.[1728] The Ossetes consider a marriage with a mother’s
sister quite a proper thing, though a marriage with a father’s sister
would be punished as highly incestuous.[1729] Among the Reddies of the
South of India, a man marries his sister’s daughter, but a nephew must
not marry his aunt;[1730] and, among the Brazilian Tupis, an uncle had
even a right to his niece’s hand.[1731] By the Prussian law, marriage
between uncle and niece is permitted; whilst, in France, such marriages
may be sanctioned by the Government, in Italy by the King.[1732]
In Europe, first cousins are not restricted from intermarriage,
except in Spain, where the old canonical prohibitions are still in
force; and in Russia, where third cousins are allowed to marry, but
no parties more nearly related.[1733] Among the Mohammedans[1734] and
several uncivilized peoples, marriages between cousins, both on the
paternal and maternal side, are permitted. So, apparently, among the
Aleuts,[1735] Eskimo at Igloolik,[1736] Apalachites,[1737] Maoris,
Bushmans[1738] and Ainos,[1739]—besides the people just referred to.
More commonly, however, the permission is one-sided, referring either
to the kinsfolk on the father’s, or to those on the mother’s side.
Among the Arabs, a man has even a right to the hand of his paternal
cousin, who cannot without his consent, become the wife of any other
person.[1740] Concerning the Moors of Ceylon, Mr. Ahamadu Bawa states
that in all cases where eligible sons of mothers’ brothers or fathers’
sisters were available for the girls, preference was accorded to them,
“almost as a matter of right.”[1741] Among the savage Miao of China,
the girls are obliged to marry the mother’s brothers’ sons.[1742] The
Gonds consider it correct for the brother’s daughter to marry the
sister’s son, whilst not so much stress is laid on the marriage of the
cousins, if the sister’s child happens to be a girl and the brother’s
a boy.[1743] Among the Yerkalas of Southern India, “the first two
daughters of a family may be claimed by the maternal uncle as wives for
his sons.”[1744]
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.
The Greenlanders, according to Egede, refrained from marrying their
nearest kin, even in the third degree, considering such matches to be
“unwarrantable and quite unnatural;”[1745] whilst Dr. Rink asserts
that “the Eskimo disapproves of marriages between cousins.”[1746]
The same is the case with the Ingaliks,[1747] the Chippewas,[1748]
and, as a rule, the Indians of Oregon.[1749] 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.[1750] “By the old custom of the Aht
tribes,” Mr. Sproat remarks, “no marriage was permitted within the
degree of second cousin;”[1751] and among the Mahlemuts, “cousins,
however remote, do not marry.”[1752] Commonly a man and woman belonging
to the same clan are prohibited from intermarrying. The Algonquins tell
of cases where men, for breaking this rule, have been put to death by
their nearest kinsfolk;[1753] and, among the Loucheux Indians, if a man
marries within the clan, he is said to have married his sister, though
there be not the slightest connection by blood between the two.[1754]
In some tribes, as Mr. Frazer points out, the marriage prohibition only
extends to a man’s own clan: he may marry a woman of any clan but his
own. But oftener the prohibition includes several clans, in none of
which is a man allowed to marry.[1755] Thus, for instance, the Seneca
tribe of the Iroquois was divided into two “phratries,” or divisions
intermediate between the tribe and the clan, each including four clans;
the Bear, Wolf, Beaver, and Turtle clans forming one phratry, and
the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk clans forming the other. Originally
marriage was prohibited within the phratry, but was permitted with any
of the clans of the other phratry; but the prohibition was long since
removed, and a Seneca may marry a woman of any clan but his own.[1756]
A like exogamous division existed among the other four tribes of the
Iroquois,[1757] as also among the Creeks, Moquis, Choctaws, Chickasaws,
Thlinkets, &c.[1758]
Among the Pipiles of Salvador, an ancestral tree, with seven main
branches, denoting degrees of kindred, was painted upon cloth, and
within these seven branches or degrees, no one was allowed to marry,
except as a recompense for some great public or warlike service
rendered. But within four degrees of consanguinity none, under any
pretext, might marry.[1759] In Yucatan, there was a strong prejudice
against a man wedding a woman who bore the same name as his own, and
so far was this fancy carried, that he who broke the rule was looked
upon as a renegade and an outcast. Nor could a man marry his mother’s
sister.[1760] Among the Azteks, too, marriages between blood-relations
or those descended from a common ancestor were not allowed.[1761]
Among the tribes of Guiana, according to Mr. Im Thurn, marriage is now
almost always, as formerly it was always, contracted between members
of different families, and, descent being traced through females, no
intermarriage with relations on the mother’s side is permitted.[1762]
The Mundrucûs are divided into clans, the members of which are strictly
prohibited from forming alliances with others of the same clan. “A
Mundrucû Indian,” says Professor Agassiz, “treats a woman of the same
order (clan) with himself as a sister, any nearer relation between them
is impossible.”[1763] The Indians of Peru are restricted from marriage
within the first four degrees.[1764] The Guaranies and Abipones abhor
alliances with even the remotest relations.[1765] And as to the Yahgans
of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges writes to me that “no marriage, no
intercourse ever takes place among blood-relations even to second
cousins.” Such intercourse is held in utter abomination and is never
heard of. Also between half-brothers and half-sisters marriages do not
occur.
Nowhere is marriage bound by more severe laws than among the Australian
aborigines. Their tribes are, as a rule—and probably as a rule without
exceptions[1766]—grouped in exogamous subdivisions, the number of which
varies considerably. There are tribes in which members of any clan
are free to marry members of any clan but their own; but such tribes
are exceptional.[1767] “Often,” says Mr. Frazer, “an Australian
tribe is divided into two (exogamous) phratries, each of which
includes under it a number of totem clans; and oftener still there
are sub-phratries interposed between the phratry and the clans, each
phratry including two sub-phratries, and the sub-phratries including
totem clans.”[1768] Most of Mr. Curr’s very numerous correspondents
who have touched on this question have, however, given the number of
subdivisions in their neighbourhood as four only.[1769] Before the
occupation of the country by the whites, which quickly breaks down
aboriginal customs, any departure from the marriage system founded on
this division was looked on with absolute horror, and even spoken of
with reluctance. Indeed, when marriage or sexual intercourse with a
person of a forbidden clan did occur, the regular penalty inflicted
on the parties implicated was death.[1770] And it is a noteworthy
fact, generally overlooked by anthropologists, that besides these
prohibitions arising from the clan-system and, naturally, applying only
to the father’s or, more generally, only to the mother’s relations,
there is, as it seems everywhere, a law which forbids the marriage of
persons near of kin.[1771] “A man,” says Mr. Curr, “may not marry
his mother, sister, half-sister, daughter, granddaughter, aunt, niece,
first or second cousin.”[1772] Among the Kurnai of Gippsland, according
to Mr. Bulmer, even third cousins are within the prohibited degrees
of relationship.[1773] Moreover, certain tribes, besides having the
clan-system, are entirely exogamous;[1774] and, among the tribes of
Western Victoria described by Mr. Dawson, the laws also forbid a man to
marry into his mother’s tribe, or his grandmother’s tribe or into an
adjoining tribe, or one that speaks his own dialect.[1775]
In Tasmania, a man was not permitted to marry a woman of his own tribe
(clan?);[1776] and in Polynesia, marriages with blood-relations were
everywhere avoided except in royal families.[1777] Thus in Samoa,
according to Mr. Turner, so much care was taken to prevent incest
that a list of what they deemed improper marriages would almost
compare with the ‘Table of Kindred and Affinity.’ They say that,
of old, custom and the gods frowned upon the union of those in whom
consanguinity could be closely traced.[1778]
Speaking of the aborigines of the Melanesian islands, Dr. Codrington
observes, “In the native view of mankind, almost everywhere in
the islands which are here under consideration, nothing seems more
fundamental than the division of the people into two or more classes,
which are exogamous, and in which descent is counted through the
mother.” Yet “the blood connection with the father and the father’s
near relations is never out of sight. Consequently the marriage of
those who are near in blood, though they are not ‘sogoi’ (_i.e._,
kindred), and may lawfully marry, is discountenanced.”[1779] In
New Britain, if a man were accused of adultery or fornication with
a woman, he would at once be acquitted by the public voice if he
could say, “She is one of us,” _i.e._, she belongs to my totem,
which in itself precludes the possibility of any sexual intercourse
between us.[1780] In Efate, of the New Hebrides, it would be a crime
punishable with death for a man or woman to marry a person belonging
to his or her mother’s clan, “though they may have no recent relation
of consanguinity to each other, and though neither they nor their
parents may have even seen each other before.”[1781] In Lifu, as I am
informed by Mr. Radfield, who is a resident of this island, marriages
are forbidden between first, but not second cousins, both on the
mother’s and father’s side, as well as between uncles and nieces,
aunts and nephews. Matrimonial alliances between first cousins are
also prohibited in the Caroline Islands;[1782] whilst, in the Pelew
Group, intermarriage between any relations on the mother’s side is
unlawful.[1783]
Among the Sea Dyaks, it is contrary to custom for a man to wed a first
cousin, who is looked upon as a sister, and no marriage is allowed with
aunt or niece. The Land Dyaks permit marriage between second cousins
only after the payment of a fine of two jars, one being given by the
woman to the relations of her lover, the other by the lover to her
relation.[1784] In other tribes of the Malay Archipelago, according
to Mr. Crawfurd, the union of near relatives is prohibited by the
native laws, and, when such a marriage does take place, the parties are
fined if within the third degree of consanguinity collaterally. In the
ascending and descending line marriage is strictly forbidden.[1785]
Among the Minahassers of Celebes, marriage was not permitted between
ascendants and descendants, brothers and sisters, uncles and nieces,
aunts and nephews, and cousins, or between kinsfolk connected by
combinations of these relationships.[1786] The Malays of the uplands
of Padang are forbidden to marry within the mother’s tribe; the Bataks
of Sumatra, Alfura of Ceram and Buru, Niasians, and Timorese, within
the father’s.[1787] Among the Italones of the Philippines, marriage
between blood-relations is not allowed.[1788] The Bugis[1789] and
Watubela Islanders[1790] prohibit the intermarriage of cousins,
paternal and maternal; whilst, among the Orang-Banûwa of Malacca,[1791]
the Macassars,[1792] and the natives of Aru, near New Guinea,[1793]
children of brothers cannot intermarry, though children of sisters,
or of brothers and sisters, can. Again, among the Lettis of the
Serwatty Islands, marriage may take place between brothers’ children,
and between brothers’ and sisters’ children, but not between children
of two sisters;[1794] and, among the Bataks, Rejangs, and natives of
Amboina, a sister’s son is allowed to marry a brother’s daughter,
whereas a brother’s son must not marry a sister’s daughter.[1795]
The penalty inflicted on incest is generally very severe in the
Archipelago. Submersion is a common punishment;[1796] and, among the
Bataka, the parties were killed and eaten.[1797]
With reference to the Karens of Burma, Dr. Bunker informs me that,
though they never marry outside their own tribe, they avoid marrying
with near relations, their prohibited degrees being nearly the same
as those of the ancient Hebrews. Among the Kukis, according to
Lieutenant Stewart, “the most strict rules exist forbidding too close
intermarriage in families; cousins cannot be so allied.”[1798] The
Nagas never permit marriage within the same family;[1799] and, among
the Chukmas, if near relatives, within certain prohibited degrees, fall
in love with each other, it is usual for both of them to pay a fine of
fifty rupees, corporal punishment being also administered.[1800] Among
the Kandhs, “intermarriage between persons of the same tribe, however
large or scattered, is considered incestuous and punishable with
death.”[1801] The Santals make it a rule not to intermarry into the
same tribe;[1802] and, among the Sakais, a man goes to a considerable
distance for a wife, generally to a tribe speaking quite a different
dialect.[1803] The Juángs, Hos, Mundas, and other peoples in India are
divided into clans, and a man is not allowed to marry a girl of his own
clan.[1804] Among the Garos, no one may take to wife a woman of the
same “mahári,” or motherhood.[1805]
According to Lieutenant-Colonel Tod, no Rajput can marry in his own
clan.[1806] “In all pure Hindu society,” Sir Alfred Lyall states,
“the law which regulates the degrees within which marriage is
interdicted, proceeds upon the theory that between agnatic relatives
_connubium_ is impossible.”[1807] Hence it is unlawful for a Brahman
to wed a woman whose clan-name is the same as his own, a prohibition
which bars marriage among relatives in the male line indefinitely.
But besides this, connections on the female side are also forbidden
to take place within certain wide limits.[1808] In the ‘Laws of
Manu’ we read that a damsel “who is neither a Sapindâ[1809] on the
mother’s side, nor belongs to the same family on the father’s side, is
recommended to twice-born men for wedlock and conjugal union.”[1810]
Yet in the older literature marriage with the daughters of the mother’s
brother, and sons of the father’s sister, is permitted.[1811] This
still holds good among the Reddies of Southern India, and, as it seems,
among other tribes belonging to the Hindu stock; whereas children
of fathers’ brothers and mothers’ sisters are considered equal to
brothers and sisters, and marriage with them is looked upon as highly
incestuous.[1812]
Speaking of the Andamanese, Mr. Man says that “their customs do not
permit of the union of any who are known to be even distantly related;
the fact of our allowing first cousins to marry seems to them highly
objectionable and immoral.”[1813] The Sinhalese consider a marriage
between the father’s sister’s son and the mother’s brother’s daughter
the most proper that they can contract; but they would regard a
marriage with the father’s brother’s daughter as incestuous, first
cousins so related being considered sisters.[1814]
As regards the prohibited degrees of the Chinese Penal Code, a very
minute account is given by Mr. Medhurst in his interesting paper on
‘Marriage, Affinity, and Inheritance in China.’[1815] Large bodies
of persons in that country bear the same surname; among the entire
Chinese population of the Empire, indeed, there are hardly more
than 530 surnames. A penalty of sixty blows is inflicted on any one
who marries a person with the same surname.[1816] The punishment
attached to the intermarriage of nearer relations on the father’s
side is much more severe. Thus, marriage or incestuous intercourse
with a grand-uncle, a father’s first cousin, a brother, or a nephew,
is punishable by death.[1817] Besides these prohibitions there are
others applying within a narrower range to relatives on the female
side. A man who marries his mother’s sister or his sister’s daughter
is strangled. Less severe punishment is inflicted on a person who
marries a uterine half-sister, and still less severe—eighty blows—on
any one who marries his father’s sister’s daughter, mother’s brother’s
daughter, or mother’s sister’s daughter. An after-clause abrogates this
prohibition, and permits intermarriage between children of brothers and
sisters, or of sisters, but intermarriage between those of brothers
is of course inadmissible.[1818] The Chinese Code also interdicts
occasional intercourse with any of those relatives with whom marriage
is prohibited, the punishment in both cases being the same.[1819]
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.[1820] The Yakuts,[1821]
Samoyedes,[1822] Cheremises,[1823] &c., also avoid marriage within
the paternal clan, and the ancient Finns did not marry kinsfolk.[1824]
Among the Ostyaks[1825] and Ossetes,[1826] marriage with a person
of one’s own family name, however distant the relationship, is
entirely prohibited. And in Circassia, according to Bell, not only
are cousins, or the members of the same fraternity restricted from
intermarrying, but even their serfs must wed with the serfs of another
fraternity.[1827]
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.[1828] Some of the clans of the Somals, as we are
informed by Sir R. F. Burton, refuse maidens of the same or even a
consanguineous family.[1829] In Western Equatorial Africa and Uganda,
marriages cannot take place within the clans, however remote the
relationship may be.[1830] Among the Mpongwé, “every care is taken to
avoid marriages of consanguinity.”[1831] With the Bateke, as Dr. Sims
writes from Stanley Pool, marriages are prohibited between brothers and
sisters of the same mother or father; between first cousins; between
uncle and niece, or aunt and nephew. The Bakongo also, according to Mr.
Ingham, hold all unions between near relatives, either on the father’s
or mother’s side, in utter abomination.
Mr. Cousins, to whom I am indebted for a valuable paper on the
Cis-Natalian Kafirs, writes that, among them, marriages often take
place within the tribe and village. But this is avoided, if possible;
like their chiefs they generally endeavour to marry out of their own
tribe. Among this people, however, there is some kind of class (clan?)
division, which Mr. Cousins is not fully acquainted with, and members
of the same class (clan?) do not seem to intermarry. At any rate, near
relations, paternal and maternal, avoid marriage with each other. No
penalty is attached to such a marriage, but custom is so strong on
the point that the general rule is seldom broken.[1832] According to
Mr. Shooter[1833] and Mr. Dugmore,[1834] a marriage is considered
incestuous if the man and woman are of any known or remembered degree
of relationship by common descent; and, if a man were to take a wife
within the degrees prohibited by custom, he would be denounced as an
“evildoer.”[1835] According to Mr. Brownlee, intercourse in such cases
is punished, whether it be by marriage or without marriage.[1836]
Again, with regard to the Zulus, Mr. Eyles states that there is no
intermarriage between the inhabitants of the village, the members of
which are, as a rule, related. All intermarrying with relations is
prohibited by custom, and such a thing is neither heard of nor thought
of. Even if the relationship is only traditional, the custom holds good.
A somewhat different account of the Bantu race is given by Mr.
McCall Theal. “A native of the coast region,” he says, “will not
marry a girl whose relationship by blood to himself can be traced,
no matter how distantly connected they may be. So scrupulous is he
in this respect that he will not marry even a girl who belongs to
another tribe, if she has the same family name as himself, though the
relationship cannot be traced. He regards himself as the protector of
those females whom he would term his cousins and second cousins, but
for whom he has only the same name as for the daughters of his own
parents, the endearing name of sister. In his opinion, union with one
of them would be incestuous, something horrible, something unutterably
disgraceful. The native of the mountains, almost as a rule, marries the
daughter of his father’s brother.”[1837]
Mr. Conder states that, among the Bechuanas, marrying out of their own
tribe seems to be the common practice;[1838] whereas, according to Mr.
Casalis, the Basutos frequently marry cousins. Yet, among them also,
there are some tribes who consider such marriages incestuous.[1839]
The Hottentots are said by Kolben to punish alliances between first
and second cousins with death.[1840] In Madagascar, though marriage
between brothers’ children is looked upon as the most proper kind
of connection, and brothers’ and sisters’ children can marry on the
performance of a slight but prescribed ceremony, supposed to remove
any impediment or disqualification arising out of consanguinity, the
descendants of sisters are not allowed to intermarry down to the fifth
or seventh generation, and a marriage of sisters’ children, when the
sisters have the same mother, is regarded with horror.[1841]
Among the Romans, alliances between persons under the same _patria
potestas_—_i.e._, _cognati_ related within the sixth degree—were
_nefariæ et incestuæ nuptiæ_; but these prohibitions were gradually
relaxed. From the time of the Second Punic War, according to Livy,
even first cousins were allowed to intermarry; and in 49 A.D. the
Emperor Claudius, wishing to marry his niece Agrippina, obtained from
the Senate a decree that marriage with a brother’s daughter should be
legal, though marriage with a sister’s daughter remained illegal.[1842]
In the fourth century, however, Constantius again forbade such unions,
on pain of death.[1843] Afterwards, under the influence of the ascetic
ideas prevalent in the Church, the prohibited degrees were gradually
extended. Theodosius the Great forbade under the severest penalties the
union of first cousins, paternal and maternal; and at the end of the
sixth century the prohibition was extended even to the seventh degree.
This prohibition continued in force until in the Western Church it was
once more reduced to the fourth degree by the Lateran Council under
Innocent III. in the year 1215; that is, marriage was permitted beyond
the degree of third cousins.[1844] Such is the nominal law at the
present time wherever the canon law prevails.[1845]
Besides the prohibitions relating to actual kinship, there are, among
several peoples, others applying to marriage between relatives by
alliance. Among the Andamanese, a man or woman may not marry into
the family of a brother-in-law or sister-in-law.[1846] The Eastern
Greenlanders and the Eskimo of the north-east coast of America forbid
or disapprove of marriage with two sisters;[1847] and, according to
Dr. Daniell, the same rule prevails among the natives of Accra at
the Gold Coast, who even prohibit a man from marrying two cousins of
the same parentage.[1848] Again, several tribes in Western Victoria
do not permit marriage with a deceased wife’s daughter by a former
husband.[1849] But prohibitions of this sort do not seem to be very
common among savage and barbarous races. In many of the Indian tribes
of North America, all the daughters of a family are, as a rule, married
to the same man. A brother very frequently marries his deceased
brother’s widow; and, in Africa, a son often weds all his father’s
widows except his own mother.
Among civilized peoples, on the other hand, relations by affinity
are frequently regarded in the same light as relations by blood. In
Yucatan, a man was not allowed to marry his sister-in-law.[1850]
According to the Chinese Code, marriage with a deceased brother’s
widow is punished with strangulation, whilst marriage with a deceased
wife’s sister is exceedingly common, and has always been regarded
as particularly honourable.[1851] In Japan, intercourse with a
father’s or a grandfather’s concubine, or a son’s or grandson’s wife,
involves the same punishment as intercourse with a paternal aunt or
a sister.[1852] The ‘Institutes of Vishnu’ declare that “sexual
connection with one’s mother, or daughter, or daughter-in-law, are
crimes in the highest degree,” there being no other way to atone for
these crimes than to proceed into the flames.[1853] According to the
laws of Moses[1854] and Mohammed[1855] and the Roman Law[1856] marriage
was prohibited with mother-in-law, step-mother, daughter-in-law,
and step-daughter—according to Mohammed, however, so far as the
step-daughter was concerned, only if she were under the guardianship of
her mother’s husband. Moses also forbade marriage with the sister of
a wife who was still living,[1857] and with a brother’s wife, if she
were widowed and had children by the brother; and Mohammed prohibited
marriage with two sisters at the same time.
* * * * *
From very early times thinkers have tried to account for the
prohibition of marriage between near kin. Some, says Mr. Huth, ascribe
them to a fear lest relationship may become too involved; others to a
fear lest affection may become concentrated within too narrow a circle;
because marriage would take place too early; because people would be
induced to marry each other in order that property might be kept in the
family; because such marriages are prohibited by “God’s law”; because
they outrage “natural modesty”; and, only in modern times, because
they are supposed to prove injurious to the offspring.[1858]
Comparative ethnography has changed the aspect of the question. The
horror of incest has been found to prevail among peoples who neither
know anything of “God’s law,” nor possess property to keep in the
family. New hypotheses have therefore been suggested more worthy of
consideration, as being founded on a much firmer basis of facts.
The late Mr. McLennan was the first to call attention to the general
prevalence of the rule which forbids the members of a tribe (or clan)
to intermarry with members of their own tribe (or clan). This rule
he called “exogamy,” in contradistinction to “endogamy,” or the
rule which forbids the members of a tribe to intermarry with members
of other tribes. In his celebrated essay on ‘Primitive Marriage’
he made an attempt to show that exogamy had arisen from female
infanticide, “common among savages everywhere.” He assumes that to
tribes surrounded by enemies, and unaided by art, contending with the
difficulties of subsistence, sons were a source of strength, both for
defence and in the quest for food, whilst daughters were a source of
weakness. Hence the cruel custom which left the primitive human hordes
with very few young women, thus seriously disturbing the balance of
the sexes within the hordes, and forcing them to prey upon one another
for wives. Usage, induced by necessity, would then in time establish
a prejudice among the tribes observing it—a prejudice strong as a
principle of religion, as every prejudice relating to marriage is apt
to be—against marrying women of their own tribe.[1859]
Mr. Herbert Spencer has subjected this hypothesis to a searching
criticism,[1860] and from an article in the ‘Fortnightly Review’ it
appears as if Mr. McLennan himself had in the end some doubts as to its
correctness.[1861] To Mr. Spencer’s objections others might be added.
A minute investigation of the extent to which female infanticide is
practised has convinced me that Mr. McLennan has much exaggerated the
importance of this custom. It certainly prevails in many parts of the
world; and it is true that, as a rule, female children are killed
rather than male. But there is nothing to indicate that infanticide
has ever been so nearly universal, or has anywhere been practised on
so large a scale as Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis presupposes. Among a
great many existing savage peoples it is almost unheard of—as, for
instance, among the Tuski,[1862] Ahts,[1863] Western Eskimo,[1864]
Botocudos,[1865] and in certain tribes of California.[1866] Among some
of these peoples new-born children are killed now and then—in case
of the birth of twins, if the children are weak and deformed, or for
some other reason—but always, it is said, without distinction of sex.
Among the Dacotahs and Crees, female infanticide is only occasionally
committed.[1867] The Blackfeet, according to Richardson, believe that
women who have been guilty of this crime will never reach the happy
mountain after death, but are compelled to hover round the seats
of their crimes, with branches of trees tied to their legs;[1868]
and the Aleuts think that a child-murder brings misfortune on the
whole village.[1869] Among the Abipones, the women often practised
infanticide, but it was the boy who was generally thus sacrificed, for
when a son grew up it was necessary to buy a wife for him, while a
grown-up daughter would always command her price.[1870]
In Africa I do not know of a single district where the people are in
the habit of destroying new-born children. Herr Valdau tells us of a
Bakundu woman who, accused of such a deed, was condemned to death.[1871]
Until the introduction of Christianity, the South Sea Islanders
practised infanticide probably to a greater extent than any other
people with whose history we are acquainted. But as the motive was
often want of food for the infant, or interference with the personal
charms of the wife, or the disagreeableness of baby life, boys as
well as girls were killed. Moreover, in Samoa, in the Mitchell’s and
Hervey Groups, and in part of New Guinea, infanticide was quite unheard
of;[1872] whilst, in most of the islands belonging to the Solomon
Group, it occurs only in extreme cases, such as that of the child being
a bastard.[1873] In the Caroline Islands, according to Chamisso, “the
prince would have the unnatural mother punished with death.”[1874]
And even in Australia, where, according to Mr. Curr’s belief, the
women reared as a rule, only two boys and one girl, the rest being
destroyed,[1875] there seem to be tribes in which the killing of
children rarely happens.[1876]
There are other reasons, besides those just given, for doubting whether
infanticide can ever have been so common as Mr. McLennan suggests. It
may be assumed, as Mr. Darwin remarks, that during the earliest period
of human development man did not partially lose one of the strongest of
instincts, common to all the lower animals, namely the love of their
young, and consequently did not practise infanticide.[1877] Later
on, the women, far from being useless to the savage tribe, rendered
valuable services as food-providers. Mr. Fison, who has lived among
uncivilized races for many years, thinks it will be found that female
infanticide is far less common among the lower savages than it is
among the more advanced tribes.[1878] And, speaking of one of the
very rudest, the Yahgans of Tierra del Fuego, Mr. Bridges states that
it occurred only occasionally among them, and then was almost always
the deed of the mother, who acted from “jealousy, or hatred of her
husband, or because of desertion and wretchedness.”[1879] Moreover, it
is very generally asserted that certain Californians never committed
infanticide before the arrival of the whites;[1880] whilst Ellis thinks
that there is every reason to suppose that this custom was practised
less extensively by the Polynesians during the early periods of their
history than it was afterwards.[1881]
But even if Mr. McLennan were right in his assumption that savages
everywhere used to kill female infants, this would not explain the
origin of exogamy. “In time,” he says, “it came to be considered
improper, because it was unusual, for a man to marry a woman of his
own group.”[1882] But why should such a marriage ever have become
unusual? Why should the men have refrained from marrying those women
of their own tribe who were not killed? Why should they have made
these beings whom they considered so useless, even more useless than
they naturally were, by preventing them from becoming mothers of sons
who would have increased the strength of the tribe? That the men may
have endeavoured to make up the deficiency of women by capturing wives
from foreign tribes is conceivable enough; but it is hard to see why
intercourse with women of their own tribe should on this account have
been prohibited, sometimes even on pain of death.
That the horror of incest is innate in the human race seems as
improbable to Mr. Herbert Spencer as to Mr. McLennan. According to Mr.
Spencer, this feeling is a result of evolution gradually acquired.
Primitive groups of men, he says, are habitually hostile. In all
times and places victory is followed by pillage; whatever portable
things of worth the conquerors find they take. And of course they take
women as they take other booty, because women are prized as wives, as
concubines, or as drudges. A captured woman, besides her intrinsic
value, has an extrinsic value: “like a native wife she serves as a
slave, but unlike a native wife, she serves also as a trophy.” Hence
members of the tribe thus married to foreign women are held to be
more honourably married than those married to native women. If the
tribe, becoming successful in war, robs adjacent tribes of their
women more frequently, there will then grow up the idea that the now
considerable class having foreign wives form the honourable class, and
non-possession of a foreign wife will come to be regarded as a proof of
cowardice. “An increasing ambition to get foreign wives will therefore
arise; and as the number of those who are without them decreases, the
brand of disgrace attaching to them will grow more decided; until in
the most warlike tribes, it becomes an imperative requirement that a
wife shall be obtained from another tribe—if not in open war, then by
private abduction.”[1883]
This interpretation is open to an objection similar to that which
may be brought against Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis. Even if it became
customary for a tribe to rob foreign tribes of their women, we have
no reason to believe that it therefore became customary not to marry
native women. Plurality of wives is for savage man a source of wealth
and reputation; even the wretched Fuegian endeavours to procure as
many as possible in order to obtain rowers for his canoe. Hence it
could scarcely be considered disgraceful to have some native wives
besides those of foreign birth. If Mr. Spencer’s explanation is the
correct one, what a deplorable lot it must have been for a woman to
belong to a tribe always successful in war! She had of course to live
unmarried till she was fortunate enough to fall into the hands of some
hostile suitor. But this would seldom happen, if the adjacent weaker
tribes were habitually worsted in war. In such tribes, according to
Mr. Spencer, “marrying within the tribe will not only be habitual,
but there will arise a prejudice, and eventually a law, against taking
wives from other tribes.”[1884]
Least of all can Mr. Spencer’s hypothesis explain the origin of
prohibitions of marriage between the nearest kin. It presupposes that
the tribe has been frequently successful in war during so long a period
that usage has had time to grow into law. But since such prohibitions
are practically common to all mankind, they cannot have originated
in the way suggested, because when there is a vanquisher there must
also be a vanquished. Moreover, it is impossible to suppose that that
powerful feeling which restrains parents from marrying their children,
brothers from marrying their sisters, can have been due to man’s vain
desire to have a trophy in his wife.[1885]
Sir John Lubbock explains the origin of exogamy in a quite different
way. Believing that in man’s primitive state all the men of a tribe
were married to all the women, and that no one could appropriate one of
them to himself without infringing on the general rights of the tribe,
he suggests that women taken in war from a foreign tribe were in a
different position. The tribe, as a tribe, had no right to these women,
and they would become wives in our sense of the term.[1886]
It is unnecessary to say much about this hypothesis, as it stands or
falls with Sir J. Lubbock’s theory of “communal marriage.” Why should
women taken in war have been the men’s personal property, if the women
of the tribe were not so? As Mr. McLennan justly remarks, war-captives
are usually obtained by group-acts, or quasi group-acts; hence capture
would be recognized as a regular mode of adding women to the group,
subject to the customary rights of its male members; and every man in
the group would claim the communal right to women taken by others.[1887]
Again, Professor Kohler has expressed his belief in the explanation
that exogamy was an early method of political self-preservation.[1888]
That intermarriage is valuable from a political point of view, and has
often taken place in order to increase intertribal or international
friendship, is beyond doubt.[1889] But it is another question whether
the strictly prohibitive exogamous rules, the infringement of which
is considered a most heinous crime, can be accounted for in this way.
It is worth noticing that not only marriage, but also less regular
connections between members of the same exogamous group are held in
horror. The Australians, for instance, consider cohabitation between
individuals belonging to clans that cannot intermarry not less
criminal than marriage, often punishing such unions with death.[1890]
Among the Melanesians, says Dr. Codrington, “intercourse within the
limit which restrains from marriage, where two members of the same
division are concerned, is a crime, is incest.”[1891] Holm makes
a similar observation on the prohibited degrees among the Eastern
Greenlanders.[1892] Speaking of the Samoans, Mr. Prichard remarks,
“Of all their customs, the most strictly observed, perhaps, was that
which forbade the remotest reference to anything, even by way of a
joke, that conveyed the slightest indelicacy in thought or word or
gesture, when brothers and sisters were together. In presence of his
sister, the wildest rake was always modest and moral. In presence
of her brother, the most accommodating _coquette_ was always chaste
and reserved. This custom remains intact to the present day.”[1893]
Dr. Tylor remarks that anthropologists have long had before them the
problem of determining how far clan-exogamy may have been the origin
of the prohibited degrees in matrimony.[1894] But we have seen that it
is practically impossible to trace any distinct limit between these
two sets of rules; hence they seem to be fundamentally identical—a
conclusion in which most anthropologists agree. And the prohibitions
of close intermarriage certainly cannot be explained as a “method of
political self-preservation.”
Other writers—and among them Mr. Morgan—have suggested that
prohibitions of the marriage of near kin have arisen from observation
of the injurious results of such unions.[1895] But most investigators
who have considered the subject believe that this knowledge could be
gained only by lengthened observation, and, to quote Dr. Peschel, is
“unattainable by unsettled and childishly heedless races,” among whom,
nevertheless, a horror of incest is developed most strongly.[1896] Sir
Henry Maine, on the other hand, thinks that the men who discovered
the use of fire and selected the wild forms of certain animals for
domestication and of vegetables for cultivation, might also have been
able to find out that children of unsound constitution were born
of nearly related parents.[1897] In the next chapter, I shall have
occasion to mention some instances which possibly may point in this
direction, but in no case does such knowledge appear to be generally
diffused among backward races. Mr. Curr has been unable to discover on
what ground consanguineous marriages are held to be objectionable by
the Australians, their replies to questions on this head invariably
being, “Our tribe always did as we do in this matter.” Yet they are
well aware, he says, that the aim of the exogamous restrictions is
to prevent the union of nearly related individuals.[1898] Dr. Sims
writes that no other reason for the avoidance of marriage between near
relations has been stated to him by the indigenous Bateke than that of
“shame.” Mr. Bridges informs me that the Yahgans point simply to the
fact of relationship as the reason; and, when Azara asked the Charruas
why a brother and sister never intermarried, they replied that they
did not know why.[1899] It is conceivable that the experience of the
injurious results of such marriages, once acquired, might afterwards
have fallen into oblivion, although the prohibition continued to exist.
But Azara expressly states that the Charruas have no law forbidding
incestuous alliances, yet he has never seen nor heard of any among them.
Whatever observations may have been made, the prohibition of incest is
in no case founded on experience. Had the savage man discerned that
children born of marriage between closely related persons are not so
sound and vigorous as others, he would scarcely have allowed this
knowledge to check his passions. Considering how seldom a civilised
man who has any disease, or tendency to disease, which is likely to be
transmitted to his descendants, hesitates to marry an equally unhealthy
woman, it would surely be unreasonable to suppose that savages have
greater forethought and self-command.[1900] But even if we admit
that man originally avoided marriage with near kin from sagacious
calculation, and that he did this during so long a period that usage
grew into law, we do not advance a step further. All the writers whose
hypotheses have been considered in this chapter, assume that men avoid
incestuous marriages only because they are _taught_ to do so. “It
is probable,” says Mr. Huth, “that, if brothers and sisters were
allowed to marry, they would do so while yet too young.”[1901] But
though law and custom may prevent passion from passing into action,
they cannot wholly destroy its inward power. Law may forbid a son to
marry his mother, a brother his sister, but it could not prevent him
from desiring such a union if the desire were natural. Where does
that appetite exist? The home is kept pure from incestuous defilement
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. An unwritten law, says Plato, defends
“as sufficiently as possible,” parents from incestuous intercourse
with their children, brothers from intercourse with their sisters:
“ἀλλ’ οὐδ’ ἐπιθυμία ταύτης τῆς συνουσίας τὸ παρ ‘παν εἰσέρχεται τοὺς
πολλοὺς”—“nor does even the desire for this intercourse come at all
upon the masses.”[1902]