PROHIBITION OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN KINDRED
(_Concluded_)
It has been asserted that, if there be really an innate horror of
incest, it ought to show itself intuitively when persons are ignorant
of any relationship. But ancient writers state that, in Rome,
incestuous unions often resulted from the exposure of infants who were
reared by slave-dealers. Not long ago Selim Pasha unwittingly married
his sister, who, like himself, had been a Circassian slave. The story
told in the ‘Heptameron’ of a double incest was probably true, and
became widely spread; and so on. Man has thus no horror of marriage
with even the nearest kindred if he is unaware of their consanguinity;
consequently, Mr. Huth concludes, there is no innate feeling against
incest.[1903]
Of course I agree with Mr. Huth in thinking that there is no innate
aversion to marriage with _near relations_. What I maintain is, that
there is an innate aversion to sexual intercourse between persons
living very closely together from early youth, and that, as such
persons are in most cases related, this feeling displays itself chiefly
as a horror of intercourse between near kin.
The existence of an innate aversion of this kind has been taken
by various writers as a psychological fact proved by common
experience;[1904] and it seems impossible otherwise to explain the
feeling which makes the relationships between parents and children,
and brothers and sisters, so free from all sexual excitement. But the
chief evidence is afforded by an abundance of ethnographical facts
which prove that it is not, in the first place, by the degrees of
consanguinity, but by the close living together that prohibitory laws
against intermarriage are determined.
Egede asserts that, among the Greenlanders, it would be reckoned
uncouth and blamable, if a lad and a girl who had served and been
educated in one family, desired to be married to one another;[1905]
and, according to Dr. Nansen, it is preferred that the contracting
parties should belong to different settlements.[1906] Colonel
Macpherson states that, among the Kandhs, marriage cannot take place
even with strangers who have been long adopted into, or domesticated
with, a tribe.[1907] And Mr. Cousins writes to me that the Cis-Natalian
Kafirs dislike marriage between persons who live very closely together,
whether related or not. In the Northern New Hebrides, a girl betrothed
in childhood is sometimes taken to her future father-in-law’s house and
brought up there. Dr. Codrington says that “the boy often thinks she
is his sister, and is much ashamed when he comes to know the relation
in which he stands.”[1908]
Many peoples have a rule of exogamy that does not depend on kinship
at all. Piedrahita relates of the Panches of Bogota that the men and
women of one town did not intermarry, as they held themselves to be
brothers and sisters, and the impediment of kinship was sacred to them;
but such was their ignorance that, if a sister were born in a different
town from her brother, he was not prevented from marrying her.[1909]
The Yaméos, on the river Amazons, will not suffer an intermarriage
between members of the same community, “as being friends in blood,
though no real affinity between them can be proved.”[1910] The Uaupés,
according to Mr. Wallace, “do not often marry with relations, or
even neighbours, preferring those from a distance, or even from
other tribes.”[1911] The Australian tribe, as Mr. Howitt points out,
is organized in two ways. On the one hand, it is divided socially
into phratries and clans; and, on the other hand, it is divided
geographically into hordes. The two organizations are co-existent, but
the divisions of the one do not correspond with those of the other.
For while all the people who belong to any given local group are found
in one locality alone, those who belong to any given social group are
to be found distributed among many, if not among all, of the local
groups. Now, in many tribes, local proximity by birth is quite an
insuperable obstacle to marriage, a man being absolutely forbidden to
marry, or have sexual intercourse with, a woman of the same horde or
sub-horde. “However eligible she may be in other respects,” says Mr.
Howitt, “the fact that both parties belong to the same locality is
held by certain tribes, the Kurnai, for example, to make them ‘too near
each other.’” It is chiefly in tribes where the clan-system has been
weakened, or has become almost extinct, that the local organization
has assumed such overwhelming preponderance, but even in some of
the tribes which have a vigorous clan-system, local restraints upon
marriage are strictly enforced.[1912] In Sumatra, according to Mr.
Forbes, the country was originally divided into native districts
called “margas,” each marga, as a rule, having its several villages.
Each of these village communities is a collection of families, either
related or not to each other by the ties of blood;[1913] and we
know that, at least among certain tribes, marriage between members
of the same village or village cluster, and in some districts even
between those of the same marga, is prohibited.[1914] The Kotars of
the Neilgherries,[1915] Galela,[1916] Fijians,[1917] Zulus,[1918]
Wakamba,[1919] and Kamchadales[1920] avoid, as a rule, marriage with
members of the same village. So also do the Nogai, who consider it most
honest for a man to marry a woman whom he has never seen before.[1921]
In various of the smaller islands belonging to the Indian Archipelago,
according to Riedel, women prefer marriage with strangers.[1922] The
Assamese have a national festival named the “Baisakh Bihu,” which is
as gay as a carnival, the women, and especially the maidens, enjoying
unusual liberty as long as it lasts. “For many days before the actual
festival,” says Colonel Dalton, “the young people in the villages may
be seen moving about in groups gaily dressed or forming circles, in the
midst of which the prettiest girls dance with their long hair loose on
their shoulders.” But on these occasions the girls “do not like to
dance before the men of their own village.”[1923] Professor Kovalevsky
observes that, in some parts of Russia, the bride is always taken from
another village than the bridegroom’s; and, even in provinces in which
no similar custom is known to exist, “the bridegroom is constantly
spoken of as a foreigner (‘choujoy,’ ‘choujaninin’), and his friends
and attendants are represented as coming with him from a distant
country, in order to take away the future spouse.”[1924] Sir Richard
Burton says, “As a general rule Somali women prefer _amourettes_
with strangers, following the well-known Arab proverb, ‘The new comer
filleth the eye.’”[1925]
We have seen how variously defined the prohibited degrees are in the
laws of nations. Facts show that the extent to which relatives are
not allowed to intermarry is nearly connected with their close living
together. Generally speaking, the prohibited degrees are extended much
farther among savage and barbarous peoples than in civilized societies.
As a rule, the former, if they have not remained in the most primitive
social condition of man, live, not in separate families, but in large
households or communities, all the members of which dwell in very close
contact with each other.
The communism in the family life of the exogamous Indians of North
America has been exhaustively illustrated by Mr. Morgan in his work on
‘Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines.’ “The household of
the Mandans,” he says, “consisting of from twenty to forty persons,
the households of the Columbian tribes of about the same number, the
Soshonee household of seven families, the households of the Sauks, of
the Iroquois, and of the Creeks, each composed of several families,
are fair types of the households of the Northern Indians at the epoch
of their discovery. The fact is also established that these tribes
constructed, as a rule, large joint tenement houses, each of which was
occupied by a large household composed of several families, among whom
provisions were in common, and who practised communism in living in the
household.”[1926] Among the Iroquois, each household was made up on
the principle of kinship through females, so that the married women,
usually sisters, own or collateral, being of the same gens or clan,
together with their children made a family circle, within which, as we
have seen, intermarriage was entirely prohibited.[1927] The Senel in
California live sometimes from twenty to thirty together in the same
immense dome-shaped or oblong lodge of willow-poles, including all
who are blood relations.[1928] According to Egede, the Greenlanders,
who prohibit marriage between cousins, continue after marriage to
live in their parents’ house together with other kindred; and what
they get they all enjoy in common.[1929] The Chippewas, who consider
cousins german in the same light as brothers and sisters, but do not
recognize relationship beyond this degree, are divided into small bands
consisting of but few families each.[1930] Among the exogamous Uaupés,
the houses are the abode of numerous families, and sometimes of a whole
horde.[1931] Among the Yahgans, who regard marriage between first and
second cousins as incestuous, “occasionally as many as five families
are to be found living in a wigwam, but generally two families.”[1932]
The Australian aborigines live mostly in small hordes, often consisting
of from thirty to fifty men, women, and children. Such a horde,
according to Mr. Brough Smyth, “is in fact but an enlargement of
a family circle, and none within it can intermarry.”[1933] Among
the Efatese, in whose clan-system the prohibition of incest is a
fundamental law, each clan is regarded as one family. “A child of
_a_,” says Mr. Macdonald, “calls her own mother mother, and all
her mother’s tribe (clan) sisters mother; and calls by the name of
father not only her own father but all his tribe (clan) brothers; and
they all call the child their child.”[1934] The Malays, according
to Professor Wilken, live, as a rule, in large houses containing a
great number of differently related persons.[1935] “In Nanusa,”
Dr. Hickson remarks, “I understood that marriage was not permitted
between members of the same household. The enormous households of the
Nanusa archipelago are probably the remnants of a much more complete
system of intra-tribal clanships, which has become almost obliterated
in the more highly developed races of Sangir and Siauw.”[1936] Among
the Nairs, a household, the members of which are strictly prohibited
from sexual relation with each other, includes, as a rule, many allied
men, women, and children, who not only live together in large common
houses, but possess everything in common.[1937] Among the Kafirs, the
dimensions of a kraal are determined by the number of a man’s family
and dependants, the family consisting of the father together with his
children, including married sons.[1938]
The South Slavonians live in house-communities, each consisting
of a body of from fifteen to sixty members or even more, who are
blood-relations to the second or third degree, of course only on
the male side.[1939] These related families associate in a common
dwelling or group of dwellings, governed by a common chief. “At the
present moment,” Sir Henry Maine remarks, “the common residence of
so many persons of both sexes in the same household may be said to
be only possible through their belief that any union of kinsmen and
kinswomen would be incestuous. The South Slavonian table of prohibited
degrees is extremely wide.”[1940] Again, Professor Kohler points out
the connection between the extensive prohibitions of the Hindus and
their large households.[1941] In Wales there existed, as a national
institution, a joint-family called “trev,” consisting of four
generations. Marriage, says Mr. Lewis, was to be “outside the trev, or
kindred who lived together within one enclosure.”[1942]
Montesquieu, indeed, observed long ago that marriage between cousins
was prohibited by peoples among whom brothers and their children used
to live in the same house. “Chez ces peuples,” he says, “le mariage
entre cousins germains doit être regardé comme contraire à la nature;
chez les autres, non.” According to him, this prohibition has the
same origin as the aversion to sexual relations between brothers and
sisters, _i.e._, “les pères et les mères ayent voulu conserver les
mœurs de leurs enfans et leurs maisons pures.”[1943] Holding a similar
opinion, Dr. Bertillon maintains that, properly speaking, it was not
consanguinity, but the purity of home, that the ancient legislators
were thinking of when they forbade close intermarriage.[1944] It
is scarcely necessary to say how far I am from thinking that these
prohibitions are, in the first place, due to the providence of parents
or legislators.
On the other hand, where the families live more separately such
extensive prohibitions to close intermarrying do not generally
exist. Among the Isánna Indians of Brazil, who prefer marriage with
relations, cousins with cousins, uncles with nieces, and nephews
with aunts, each family has a separate house.[1945] The endogamous
Maoris, who frequently marry near relations, have their villages
generally scattered over a large plot of ground, the personal rights
of possession being held most sacred.[1946] “There is no national
bond of union amongst them,” says Mr. Yate; “each one is jealous of
the authority and power of his neighbour; the hand of each individual
is against every man, and every man’s hand against him.”[1947] Among
the Todas, who live in strict endogamy, families reside in permanent
villages having each a certain tract of grazing ground around it,
and containing from two to three huts. Most of these huts consist of
only one room or cabin, and each room holds one entire subdivision of
a family.[1948] The Bushmans, among whom no degree of consanguinity
prevents a matrimonial connection, except between brothers and sisters,
parents and children,[1949] live a solitary life in small family huts,
not high enough to admit even of a Bushman standing upright within
it.[1950] As regards the Wanyoro, whose table of prohibited degrees is
unusually small, Emin Pasha states, “Brother, sister, brother-in-law,
and son-in-law, are the recognized grades of relationship. I have never
noticed any intimate connection between more distant relations.”[1951]
The Sinhalese, who frequently marry their cousins on the paternal
side, have from time immemorial lived either in very small villages,
consisting of a few houses, or in detached habitations, separated from
each other. Each dwelling is a little establishment in itself, and each
little village, so far as its wants are concerned, may be considered
independent. “They seldom visit each other, except it be to beg or
borrow something. Even near relations manifest no affection to each
other in their visits, but sit with the gravity of strangers.”[1952]
It is easy to explain, says Ewald, why, among the Hebrews, marriage
between brothers and sisters in the widest sense was forbidden, while
that between cousins was permitted:—“The latter did not form one
united household, and the more each house stood strictly by itself
in the ancient fashion, the wider seemed the separation between
cousins.”[1953] Tacitus states that the ancient Germans, whose
prohibitions against incest seem to have included only the nearest
relations, lived in scattered families at some distance from each
other.[1954] And a comparison between the forbidden degrees of the
Greeks and Romans clearly shows where we have to seek the real cause
of the prohibitions. Among the former, even very close relationship
was no hindrance to intermarriage, whereas, among the latter, it was
not allowed between rather distantly related persons. This difference,
as Rossbach justly points out, was due to the fact that the family
feeling of the Greeks was much weaker than that of the Romans, among
whom, in early times, a son used to remain in his father’s house even
after marriage, so that cousins on the father’s side were brought up
as brothers and sisters. Later on, the several families separated from
the common household, and the prohibited degrees were considerably
retrenched.[1955]
The reader may perhaps be disposed to reproach me for selecting only
such instances as are in favour of my theory; but statistical data
will show that such an imputation would be groundless. In speaking of
the “classificatory system of relationship,” I pointed out that this
system springs, to a great extent, from the close living together
of considerable numbers of kinsfolk. Now it is most interesting to
note that Dr. Tylor, by his method of adhesions, has found the two
institutions, exogamy and classificatory relationship, to be in fact
two sides of one institution. “In reckoning,” he says, “from the
present schedules the number of peoples who use relationship names more
or less corresponding to the classificatory systems here considered,
they are found to be fifty-three, and the estimated number of these
which might coincide accidentally with exogamy, were there no close
connection between them, would be about twelve. But in fact the number
of peoples who have both exogamy and classification is thirty-three,
this strong coincidence being the measure of the close casual
connection subsisting between the two institutions. The adherence is
even stronger as to cross-cousin marriage (_i.e._, that the children
of two brothers may not marry, nor the children of two sisters, though
the child of the brother may marry the child of the sister), of which
twenty-one cases appear in the schedules, no less than fifteen of the
peoples practising it being also known as exogamous.”[1956] Among
the Reddies, a father’s elder brother and a mother’s elder sister
are called, respectively, “great-father” and “great mother,” and a
father’s younger brother and a mother’s younger sister, respectively,
“lesser-father” and “lesser mother”; whereas the father’s sisters and
the mother’s brothers are denoted by quite different terms. Mr. Kearns
remarks that they consider the difference as well as the distance of
relationship between these two groups of relations to be so great
that they think it unlawful and incestuous to marry the daughter of a
father’s brother or of a mother’s sister, she being equal to a sister,
whilst it is perfectly legal to marry the daughter of a father’s sister
or of a mother’s brother.[1957]
We have seen that the prohibitions against incest are very often more
or less one-sided, applying more extensively either to the relations
on the father’s side or to those on the mother’s, according as descent
is reckoned through men or women. We have also seen that the line
of descent is intimately connected with local relationships; and
we may now fairly infer that the same local relationships exercise
a considerable influence on the table of prohibited degrees. Among
the Rejangs of Sumatra, says Marsden, a marriage must not take place
between relations within the third degree; “but there are exceptions
for the descendants of females who, passing into other families, become
as strangers.”[1958] A Chinese woman, on marriage, alienates herself
from her own family to be incorporated into that of her husband;
hence, as Mr. Medhurst observes, children of brothers and sisters may
marry at pleasure, while those of brothers cannot be united on pain of
death.[1959]
In a large number of cases, prohibitions of intermarriage are only
indirectly influenced by the close living together. Aversion to the
intermarriage of persons who live in intimate connection with each
other has provoked prohibitions of the intermarriage of relations; and,
as kinship is traced by means of a system of names, the name comes to
be considered identical with relationship. This system, as Dr. Tylor
remarks,[1960] is necessarily one-sided. Though it will keep up the
record of descent either on the male or female side, it cannot do both
at once. The other line, not having been kept up by such means of
record, even where it is recognized as a line of relationship, is more
or less neglected, and is soon forgotten; hence the prohibited degrees
often extend very far on the one side, but not on the other. We have
seen many instances of a common surname being a bar to intermarriage.
This is especially the case with peoples among whom the clannish
feeling is highly developed. Thus even the commonest Chinese are often
able to trace their descent through lines of ancestry more remote than
any that England’s most ancient families can claim.[1961] And, among
the Ossetes, a man is bound to take blood-revenge for a cousin a
hundred times removed who bears his name, whereas relationship on the
mother’s side is not recognized.[1962]
Generally speaking, the feeling that two persons are intimately
connected in some way or other may, through an association of ideas,
give rise to the notion that marriage or intercourse between them is
incestuous. Hence the prohibitions of marriage between relations by
alliance and by adoption. Hence, too, the prohibitions on the ground of
what is called “spiritual relationship.” The Emperor Justinian passed
a law forbidding any man to marry a woman for whom he had stood as
godfather in baptism, the tie of the godfather and godchild being so
analogous to that of the father and child as to make such a marriage
appear improper.[1963] In the Roman Church sponsorship creates a bar to
the marriage even of co-sponsors, and the restriction can be removed
only by a dispensation.[1964] In Eastern Europe, the groomsman at a
wedding comes under a set of rules which forbids intermarriage with the
family of the bride to exactly the same extent as if he were naturally
the brother of the bridegroom.[1965] A similar _cognatio spiritualis_,
according to the old law-books of India, occurs between a pupil and his
“guru,” that is, the teacher who instructs him in the Veda. The pupil
lived in his guru’s house for several years, and regarded him almost
as a father.[1966] Hence adultery with a guru’s wife was considered a
mortal sin.[1967]
But how, then, are we to explain the exceptions, apparent or real,
to the rule that close living together inspires an aversion to
intermarriage? How are we to explain the fact that, besides tribes that
are exogamous, there are others that are endogamous, and that, besides
peoples with very extensive laws against intermarriage, there are
others among whom unions take place between very near relations, such
as brothers and sisters, and even parents and children.
In the next chapter we shall examine the psychological principle which
underlies the endogamous marriage. For the present it is sufficient to
say that endogamy never, except in cases of extreme isolation, seems
to occur among peoples living in very small communities with close
connections between their members. Concerning the Australians, Mr.
Curr expressly states that those tribes which are endogamous are, as
a rule, stronger in numbers than those in which exogamous marriage
obtains.[1968]
The marriage of brother and sister means, as we have seen, in most
cases, marriage between a half-brother and a half-sister, having the
same father but different mothers. Such marriages are not necessarily
contrary to the principle here laid down. Polygyny breaks up the one
family into as many sub-families as there are wives who have children,
and it is not possible for the father of these sub-families to be a
member of each of them in the same sense as the father is a member of
the monogamous family. Nor are the children of the different mothers
brought into such close contact as the children of one mother, every
wife with her own family forming a little separate group, and generally
living in a separate hut.[1969] On the contrary, hatred and rivalry are
of no rare occurrence among the members of the various sub-families.
In the Pelew Islands, according to Herr Kubary, it very seldom happens
that the several wives of the same man even see each other.[1970] After
speaking of the marriage of half-brother and half-sister allowed among
the ancient Arabs, Professor Robertson Smith remarks, “Whatever is the
origin of bars to marriage, they certainly are early associated with
the feeling that it is indecent for housemates to intermarry.”[1971]
Most of the recorded instances of intermarriage of brother and sister
refer to royal families, to the exclusion of others; and there is no
difficulty in accounting for incestuous unions of this sort. Among
lower races, as well as in Europe, it is considered improper for royal
persons to contract marriage with persons of less exalted birth.
But whilst European princes may go to some friendly Court for their
consorts, a similar course is not open to African or Asiatic potentates.
Incestuous unions may also take place on account of necessity, as
among the Wa-taïta, or on account of extreme isolation, as among
the Karens of the Tenasserim Provinces,[1972] several of the small
tribes of Brazil, and especially the Veddahs of Ceylon. Among the wild
Veddahs, the different families are separated from each other by great
distances, and it is only accidentally or occasionally that any others
besides the members of one family are brought together.[1973] The
reason for the practice of marrying a sister, says Professor Virchow,
“was probably the same everywhere, in the royal families as with the
naked Veddahs, the lack of suitable women or of women altogether.”[1974]
Certain instances of incestuous connection are evidently the results of
vitiated instincts, the origin of which we are not able to trace. It
is a remarkable fact that several of the peoples among whom incestuous
intercourse is said to be practised are, at the same time, expressly
stated to indulge in bestiality or other unnatural vices.[1975] This
shows that their sexual feelings are altogether in a perverted state.
Much stress has been laid by anthropologists on the few instances
of peoples who habitually or occasionally contract unions which we
should consider criminal. They have been taken for surviving types
of the primitive condition of man, proving that “sentiments such as
those which among ourselves restrain the sexual instincts are not
innate.”[1976] But it is obvious that they prove nothing of the
kind. Students of early history have often paid too much regard to
exceptions, and too little to rules, overlooking the fact that there is
no rule which has no exceptions.
It may be objected that no feeling of incest exists among the lower
animals.[1977] According to Mr. Huth, incest “is constantly practised
by animals, and habitually by those which are polygamous.”[1978] But,
as we have previously seen, among species that live in families, the
young, without exception, leave the family as soon as they are able
to shift for themselves; and Mr. Huth has adduced not the slightest
evidence for his statement that “polygamy among animals means the
closest incest.”[1979]
The hypothesis here advocated can, I think, account for all the facts
given in the last chapter. It explains how the horror of incest may be
independent of experience as well as of education; why the horror of
incest refers not only to relations by blood, but very frequently to
persons not at all so related; why the prohibitions of consanguineous
marriages vary so considerably with regard to the prohibited degrees,
applying, however, almost universally to persons who live in the
closest contact with each other; and why these prohibitions are so
commonly extended much farther on the one side, the paternal or the
maternal, than on the other. The question now arises:—How has this
instinctive aversion to marriage between persons living closely
together originated?
* * * * *
We have seen that a certain degree of similarity as regards the
reproductive system of two individuals is required to make their union
fertile and the progeny resulting from this union fully capable of
propagation. It might, then, be supposed that the highest degree of
similarity must be the most beneficial; but in all probability this
is not the case. It seems to be necessary not only that the sexual
elements which unite shall be somewhat like, but that they shall be in
some way different. The similarity must not be _too_ great.
Mr. Darwin, by his careful studies on the effects of cross- and
self-fertilization in the vegetable kingdom, contributed more largely
than any one else to the discovery of this law. He watched, from
germination to maturity, more than a thousand individual plants,
produced by crossing and self-fertilization, belonging to fifty-seven
species, fifty-two genera, and thirty large families, and including
natives of the most various countries.[1980] The result established by
this research was, that cross-fertilization is generally beneficial,
and self-fertilization injurious; which is shown by the difference in
height, weight, constitutional vigour, and fertility of the offspring
from crossed and self-fertilized flowers, and in the number of seeds
produced by the parent-plants.[1981] Hence, whenever plants which are
the offspring of self-fertilization are opposed in the struggle for
existence to the offspring of cross-fertilization, the latter have the
advantage. And this follows, according to Mr. Darwin, from individuals
of two distinct kinds having been subjected during previous generations
to different conditions, or to their having varied from some unknown
cause in a manner commonly called spontaneous, because of that innate
tendency to vary and to advance in organization which exists in all
beings; so that in either case their sexual elements have been in some
degree differentiated.[1982]
As for the animal kingdom, Mr. Darwin remarks that almost all who
have bred many kinds of animals, and have written on the subject,
have expressed the strongest conviction on the evil effects of close
interbreeding.[1983] “Indeed,” says Sir J. Sebright, “I have no
doubt but that, by this practice being continued, animals would, in
course of time, degenerate to such a degree as to become incapable of
breeding at all.... I have tried many experiments by breeding in-and-in
upon dogs, fowls, and pigeons; the dogs became, from strong spaniels,
weak and diminutive lap-dogs, the fowls became long in the legs, small
in the body, and bad breeders.”[1984] Mr. Huth, on the other hand,
denies that breeding in-and-in, however close, has proved to be in
itself hurtful, and quotes the evidence of numerous breeders whose
choicest stocks have always been so bred. But in these cases, as Mr.
Wallace remarks, “there has been rigid selection by which the weak or
the infertile have been eliminated, and with such selection there is
no doubt that the ill effects of close interbreeding can be prevented
for a long time; but this by no means proves that no ill effects
are produced.”[1985] The consensus of opinion on this point among
eminent breeders is indeed overwhelming, and cannot be reasoned away.
According to Crampe’s experiment with the brown rat (_Mus decumanus_),
thirty-nine animals out of 153 born by related parents, _i.e._, 25·5
per cent., died soon after birth, whereas of 299 animals of parents
not related this was the case with twenty-eight only, _i.e._, 8·4 per
cent. The animals of incestuous broods were much smaller and lighter
than others, and their fecundity was diminished.[1986] Mr. Huth himself
observed, when breeding rabbits in-and-in, that “after the fourth
generation there was a diminution of fecundity analogous to the disgust
that the stomach would feel at the same diet long continued,” though he
found no evil effect in any other way. On the contrary, the in-and-in
bred offspring were somewhat heavier than the non-related parent
animals.[1987] Professor Preyer has made a similar observation with
regard to guinea-pigs: breeding in-and-in produced a considerable loss
of fertility, but was accompanied with an increase of weight.[1988]
This seems to indicate that the effects of close interbreeding are not
always the same.
There are certainly breeders who prefer connecting together the animals
nearest allied in blood to one another. But, as Dr. Mitchell observes,
“when breeding in-and-in has been practised with so-called good
results, the issue is nothing but the development of a saleable defect,
which, from the animal’s point of view, must be regarded as wholly
unnatural and artificial, and not calculated to promote its well-being
or natural usefulness.”[1989]
Many writers suppose that all the evils from close interbreeding depend
upon the combination and consequent increase of morbid tendencies
common to both parents, the state of whose health decides whether union
would be favourable or not to the offspring. “If the parents are
perfectly healthy,” says M. Pouchet, “and exempt from all commencing
degeneracy, they can only give birth to children _at least_ as healthy
as themselves.... But if the same degeneracy has already tainted both
the parents, the offspring will show it in a greater degree, and will
tend towards entire disappearance.”[1990] The same opinion is held by
Sir John Sebright. But being, as an experienced breeder, well aware of
the injurious results which almost always follow from interbreeding
animals too closely, he adds that, according to his belief, there never
did exist an animal without some defect, in constitution, in form, or
in some other essential quality, or that at least a tendency to the
same imperfection generally prevails in the same family.[1991]
Mr. Darwin, however, has shown it to be highly probable that, though
the injury has often partly resulted from the combination of morbid
tendencies, the general cause is different. Considering the number of
self-fertilized plants that were tried, he thinks it is nothing less
than absurd to suppose that in all these cases the mother-plants,
though not appearing in any way diseased, were weak or unhealthy in so
peculiar a manner that their self-fertilized seedlings, many hundreds
in number, were rendered inferior in height, weight, constitutional
vigour, and fertility to their crossed offspring.[1992] Moreover,
self-fertilization and close interbreeding induce sterility, and this
indicates something quite different from the augmentation of morbid
tendencies common to both parents.[1993] Hence it seems to be almost
beyond doubt that, just as the sterility of distinct species when
first crossed, and of their hybrid offspring, depends on their sexual
elements having been differentiated in too great a degree, the evils of
close interbreeding, or self-fertilization in plants, result chiefly
from their sexual elements not having been sufficiently differentiated.
But we do not know why a certain amount of differentiation is necessary
or favourable for the fertilization or union of two organisms, any more
than for the chemical affinity or union of two substances.[1994] It
must, however, be observed that no case of complete sterility is met
with in self-fertilized seedlings, as is so common with hybrids,[1995]
and that interbreeding even of the nearest relations may sometimes,
under very favourable circumstances, be continued through several
generations without any evil results making their appearance.
It is impossible to believe that a law which holds good for the rest of
the animal kingdom, as well as for plants, does not apply to man also.
But it is difficult to adduce direct evidence for the evil effects of
consanguineous marriages. We cannot expect very conspicuous results
from other alliances than those between the nearest relations—between
brothers and sisters, parents and children. And the injurious results
even of such unions would not necessarily appear at once. Sir J.
Sebright remarks that there may be families of domestic animals which
go through several generations without sustaining much injury from
having been bred in-and-in,[1996] and the offspring of self-fertilized
plants do not always show any loss of vigour in the first generations.
Man cannot, in this respect, be subjected to experiments like those
tried in the case of other animals, and habitual intermarriage of the
very nearest relations is, as we have seen, exceedingly rare. Mr. Adam
argues that there is no proof of the physical deterioration of those
divisions of mankind amongst whom incestuous unions are known more or
less to have prevailed—as the Egyptians and Persians.[1997] But among
these nations marriage certainly did not always take place between
closely related persons; and breeders of domestic animals inform us
that the mixing-in even of a drop of unrelated blood is sufficient
almost to neutralize the injurious effects of long continued close
interbreeding. Again, Mr. Huth asserts that, though the Ptolemies
habitually married their sisters, nieces, and cousins, they were
neither sterile nor particularly short-lived.[1998] Mr. Galton, on the
contrary, sees in Ptolemaic experience a proof that close intermarriage
is followed by sterility.[1999] In ten marriages between brothers and
sisters, uncles and nieces, or between first-cousins, the average
number of children was not quite two, and three of the unions were
entirely sterile.[2000]
The Veddahs of Ceylon are probably the most in-and-in bred people that
ever existed. Among them, the practice of a man marrying his younger
sister did not occur only occasionally; according to Mr. Bailey, it
was _the_ proper marriage. Among the Bintenne Veddahs, it may be said
to have been, for perhaps two generations or so, extinct, whilst among
those of Nilgala, it is at most only disappearing. Mr. Bailey believes
that this practice is quite sufficient to account for the short stature
as well as the weak and vacant expression of this people. He did not
find many traces of insanity, idiocy, and epilepsy—maladies which
such marriages, according to a common belief, might be supposed to
produce. “But in other respects,” he says, “the injurious effects of
this custom would seem to be plainly discernible. The race is rapidly
becoming extinct; large families are all but unknown, and longevity
is very rare. I have been at some pains to obtain reliable data to
elucidate these points. Out of seventy-two Veddahs in Nilgala, fifty
were adults, and twenty-two children. In one small sept, or family,
there were nine adults and one child; in another, one child and eight
adults; and so on. In Bintenne, out of three hundred and eight Veddahs,
a hundred and seventy-five were adults and a hundred and thirty-three
children. Here the disproportion is not so marked; but in one of the
smaller tribes, more isolated than the rest, there were twenty adults,
and but four children. The paucity of children, I think, must be
ascribed to the degeneracy produced by such close intermarriages, for
I have never heard a suspicion of infanticide existing among them.
Out of fifty adults in Nilgala, only one appeared to have numbered
seventy years, and but eight to have exceeded fifty. In Bintenne, of a
hundred and seventy-five adults, two only seemed to have reached their
seventieth, and but fourteen to have exceeded their fiftieth year. Such
statistics seem to show the practical results of such connections.
The Nilgala Veddahs, who still maintain an almost total isolation
from other people, are rapidly disappearing. The Veddahs of Bintenne,
who have abandoned the pernicious custom which I have described, and
still intermarry among themselves, are becoming extinct, though more
gradually.”[2001]
With the exception of this case, the closest kind of intermarriage
which we have opportunities of studying is that between first cousins.
Unfortunately, the observations hitherto made on the subject are
far from decisive. Several writers, as M. Périer, Dr. Voisin, and
Mr. Huth, believe that there are no injurious results at all from
those marriages, unless the parents are afflicted with the same
hereditary morbid tendencies,[2002] whilst others, as M. Devay and
M. Boudin, express the most alarming opinions as to the bad effects
of consanguineous marriages. Such alliances are supposed to bring
evils of many different kinds upon a population, as sterility,
idiocy, epilepsy, insanity, deaf-muteism, congenital malformations
in the offspring, cretinism, albinoism,[2003] &c. But how little the
statements of the various writers agree with each other appears,
for instance, from the fact that M. Boudin found the proportion
of deaf-mutes born in consanguineous marriages, in the Imperial
Institution of Deaf-Mutes at Paris, to be 28·35 per cent., whereas,
according to Dr. Mitchell, it amounts to 5·17 per cent. in Scotch and
English institutions.[2004]
As it is impossible to dwell here upon the investigations of the
several writers, of which Mr. Huth has given so complete an account,
I shall confine myself to a statement of the general results attained
by those investigators who have founded their inquiries on a more
trustworthy statistical basis.
Adopting a method different from that of his predecessors, Professor
G. H. Darwin has endeavoured first to discover the proportion of
consanguineous marriages in the whole population, and then to find out
whether the offspring of those marriages exhibit a greater percentage
of individuals, defective in one way or another, than the offspring
of non-consanguineous marriages. His investigations tend decidedly to
invalidate the exaggerated conclusions of many previous writers, but
he thinks that “there are nevertheless grounds for asserting that
various maladies take an easy hold of the offspring of consanguineous
marriages.”[2005] He did not find evidence that the marriage of
first cousins had any effect in the production of infertility,
deaf-muteism, insanity, or idiocy, but he observed a slightly lowered
vitality amongst the offspring of first cousins, and a somewhat
higher death-rate than amongst the families of non-consanguineous
marriages.[2006] Moreover, the numbers of boating men belonging to the
twenty boats at Oxford and thirty at Cambridge, in the first and second
division, and those of selected athletes from some schools in England,
justified, to some extent, the belief “that offspring of first cousins
are deficient physically, whilst at the same time they negative the
views of alarmist writers on the subject.”[2007] It is curious that, in
spite of such unambiguous statements, Mr. Darwin’s paper has generally
been quoted as an evidence of the perfect harmlessness of first cousin
marriages.
M. Stieda has found that, in the departments of France, the number
of bodily or mentally infirm people increases almost constantly in
proportion to the number of consanguineous marriages, as will be seen
from the following table:—
Number of
Number of consanguineous Number of
Group. departments. marriages in infirm people in
each thousand each thousand
marriages. inhabitants.
I. 10 5·4 2·3
II. 10 8·3 2·8
III. 14 9·95 3
IV. 10 11·2 2·4
V. 13 12·5 2·8
VI. 8 13·8 3
VII. 14 15·8 3·5
VIII. 10 19·2 3·25
—————————————————————————————————-———————————-———————————-—————-—
I.—IV. 44 9·2 2·65
V.—VIII. 45 14·8 3·1[2008]
The Danish physician, Dr. Mygge, published in 1879 a book on ‘Marriage
between Blood-Relations,’ which unfortunately has received much less
attention than it deserves.[2009] Thanks to the trustworthiness of the
method, the number of cases considered, and the author’s impartiality,
it is probably the most important statistical contribution hitherto
issued on this subject. Dr. Mygge found, from the information he
received from various parts of Denmark, that in that country, or at
least in the parishes of it which came under his observation, there
occur, among the children of related persons, comparatively more
idiots, lunatics, epileptics, and deaf-mutes than among others. He
considers it probable, too, though not proved, that such children die
in a higher ratio and are more liable to certain diseases. But, on the
other hand, he did not notice any perceptible difference in fertility
between consanguineous and crossed marriages.[2010]
In these inquiries, Dr. Mygge followed the method applied by the
Norwegian physician Ludvig Dahl twenty years earlier. Through careful
investigation of 246 marriages, eighty-five of which were between
first cousins and four between still nearer relations, this inquirer
was led to the conclusions that consanguineous marriages are somewhat
less fertile than crossed marriages; that they produce comparatively
many more still-born and sickly children; and that insanity, idiocy,
deaf-dumbness, and epilepsy occur about eleven times as often among the
offspring of relations, as among the offspring of unrelated parents.
But he admitted that the numbers compared were too small to make his
conclusions decisive.[2011]
These results are of course to a great extent conjectural. But it is
noteworthy that, of all the writers who have discussed the subject,
the majority, and certainly not the least able of them, have expressed
their belief in marriages between first cousins being more or less
unfavourable to the offspring.[2012] And no evidence which can stand
the test of scientific investigation has hitherto been adduced against
this view.
Some writers have, indeed, cited instances of communities where
consanguineous marriages have occurred constantly without any evil
effects having appeared. Thus the Pitcairn Island, uninhabited till the
year 1790, was at that time peopled by nine white men, and six men and
twelve women of Tahiti. In 1800 the population consisted of one man,
five women, and nineteen children; and the descendants of these persons
are stated by later travellers to be strong and healthy without any
traces of degeneration. Omitting whatever else may be said against
this case as evidence for the harmlessness of consanguineous marriages,
I need only call attention to the facts that, since the colonization
of this island, a few strangers have joined the little colony; that it
was once removed to Norfolk Island, and that, of those who returned,
one was a Norfolk Islander who had married a Pitcairn girl; that the
island has frequently been visited by ships with their crews;[2013] and
that, as Beechey expressly states, the same restrictions with regard to
intermarriage of relations exist here as in England.[2014]
There are several isolated communities—in Java, Peru, Great Britain,
France, Scandinavia, &c.—which intermarry solely among themselves
without any evil effects being discernible. An often-quoted case is
the community of Batz (3,300 persons), situated near Croisic on a
peninsula. The inhabitants of this community have been in the habit
of closely intermarrying among themselves from time immemorial.
Nevertheless, they are almost all very well in health without any
hereditary affection. But Dr. Voisin observes, “Les conditions
climatériques de la commune de Batz, son voisinage de la mer, l’hygiène
et les habitudes de ses habitants, semblent s’accorder pour empêcher
la dégénérescence de l’espèce et paraissent expliquer l’innocuité
des mariages entre consanguins qui s’y pratiquent depuis plusieurs
siècles.”[2015] In other isolated communities the population is not so
numerous, and the sanitary conditions are not perhaps so favourable:
but in any case we may say that this local endogamy is generally
something quite different from marriage with near relations. Dr.
Mitchell found that, in almost all the isolated communities along
the coasts of Scotland, which had been given as instances of close
interbreeding, such marriages were comparatively rare. According to
Dr. Mygge, the like is true of the population of Lyø and Strynø in
Denmark.[2016] And Dr. Andrew Wood states, of the fisher-folk of
Newhaven, that, though they keep themselves much segregated, they are
very careful regarding intermarriage, and look upon the union of
relatives as an infringement of the laws of morality.[2017]
Moreover, even if it could be proved that, in particular cases, close
intermarrying, though continued for a long time, has been followed by
no bad consequences, this would be no evidence that consanguineous
marriages are as a rule innocuous. In some parishes of Denmark Dr.
Mygge found no evil effects of such marriages, whilst in others they
were very conspicuous.[2018] And from the investigations of Mr. Darwin
it appears that, notwithstanding the injury which most plants suffer
from self-fertilization, a few have almost certainly been propagated
in a state of nature for thousands of generations without having been
once intercrossed. It is impossible to understand, he says, why some
individuals even of the _same species_ are sterile, whilst others are
quite fertile, with their own pollen.[2019]
There is evidence that the bad consequences of self-fertilization
and close interbreeding may almost fail to appear under favourable
conditions of life. In-and-in bred plants, when allowed enough space
and good soil, frequently show little or no deterioration: whereas,
when placed in competition with another plant, they often perish or
are much stunted.[2020] Crampe’s experiments with brown rats proved
that the breeding in-and-in was much less injurious, if the offspring
of the related parents were well fed and taken care of, than if it was
otherwise.[2021] And this is in striking accordance with Dr. Mitchell’s
observations as to consanguineous marriages in Scotland. The results
there appear to be least grave, and are frequently almost _nil_, if
the parents and children live in tolerable comfort, without anxiety or
much thought for the morrow, and easily earning enough to procure good
food and clothing—in short, when they work, but do not struggle for
existence. On the other hand, when they are “poor, pinched for food,
scrimp of clothing, badly housed, and exposed to misery; when they have
to toil and struggle for the bare necessaries of life—never having
enough for to-day and being always fearful of to-morrow,”—the evil may
become very marked.[2022]
If this is the case, we must expect to find that consanguineous
marriages are much more injurious in savage regions, where the struggle
for existence is often very severe, than they have proved to be in
civilized society, especially as it is among the well-off classes that
such marriages occur most frequently.[2023] In England, according to
Mr. G. H. Darwin, cousin-marriages among the aristocracy are probably
4½ per cent.; among the middle and upper middle class, or among the
landed gentry, 3½ per cent.; but in London, comprising all classes,
they are probably only 1½ per cent.[2024] He thinks that the slightness
of the evils which he found to result from first-cousin marriages
perhaps depends upon the fact that a large majority of Englishmen live
under what are on the whole very favourable circumstances.[2025] We
must also, however, remember that there has been a great mixture of
races in Europe, and that this necessarily makes marriage of kinsfolk
less injurious, so far as the evil results of such unions depend upon
too great a likeness between the sexual elements.
The conclusion that closely related marriages produce more destructive
effects among savage than civilized peoples, derives perhaps, some
additional probability from certain ethnological facts. These facts
may, at least, serve to show that such marriages, and the experience
of isolated communities, are not everywhere in favour of Mr. Huth’s
conclusions. Several statements on the subject have, indeed, scarcely
any value as direct evidence for the harmfulness of consanguineous
marriages, but to two or three considerable weight must be attached.
According to v. Martius, who is a great authority on Brazilian
ethnography, it is a well-established fact, observed everywhere, that
the smaller and more isolated of the Indian communities, scarcely any
members of which marry members of other communities, are much more
liable to every kind of deterioration than the larger groups.[2026]
“It is probable,” Mr. Bates, another most capable judge, remarks with
reference to the savage tribes on the Upper Amazons, “that the strange
inflexibility of the Indian organization, both bodily and mental, is
owing to the isolation in which each small tribe has lived, and to
the narrow round of life and thought, and close intermarriages for
countless generations, which are the necessary results. Their fecundity
is of a low degree, for it is very rare to find an Indian family having
so many as four children, and we have seen how great is their liability
to sickness and death on removal from place to place.”[2027] Touching
the Isánna Indians, Mr. Wallace asserts that they are said not to be
nearly so numerous, nor to increase so rapidly, as the Uaupés; which
may perhaps be owing to their marrying with relations, while the latter
prefer strangers.[2028] And v. Tschudi supposes that the low fecundity
of the Botocudos is caused by their endogamous habits; for when their
women marry out of their own horde, especially with whites or negroes,
they are generally very fertile.[2029]
The Calidonian Indians of the Isthmus of Darien, according to Mr.
Gisborne, are bound never to cross the breed with foreigners;
hence intermarriage is very constant, and, as he remarks, the race
degenerates.[2030] The Pueblos in New Mexico, too, are said to
deteriorate because of their constant intermarriage in the same
village.[2031] As regards the Hottentots, Barrow remarks, “The
impolitic custom of hording together in families, and of not marrying
out of their own kraals, has no doubt tended to enervate this race of
men, and reduced them to their present degenerated condition, which is
that of a languid, listless phlegmatic people, in whom the prolific
powers of nature seem to be almost exhausted.” Few of the women have
more than two or three children, and many of them are barren. But this
is not the case when a Hottentot woman is connected with a white man.
“The fruit of such an alliance,” says Barrow, “is not only in general
numerous, but they are beings of a very different nature from the
Hottentot.”[2032]
In too early marriages, the licentious habits of both sexes, and
the intermarriage of near relatives, the Rev. J. Sibree finds the
causes of the infertility of the women of Madagascar.[2033] Among
the Garos, the chiefs have, in comparison with the lower classes,
degenerated physically, and Colonel Dalton is inclined to think that
this degeneration is a result of close interbreeding.[2034] The
Lundu Sea Dyaks, according to Sir Spenser St. John, have decreased
greatly in numbers—from a thousand families to ten. “They complain
bitterly,” he says, “that they have no families, that their women are
not fertile; indeed, there were but three or four children in the
whole place. The men were fine-looking and the women well-favoured and
healthy—remarkably clean and free from disease. We could only account
for their decreasing numbers by their constant intermarriages.”[2035]
Mr. Foreman thinks that the low intellect and mental debility
perceptible in many families among the domesticated natives of the
Philippines are due to consanguineous marriages.[2036] Mr. Bachelor
connects the rapid decrease of the Ainos with their endogamous
habits.[2037] And Mr. Meade remarks, with regard to the Maoris, that
one of the principal causes of the diminishing population is said to be
their intermarriages, which cause barrenness among the women.[2038]
Of no little interest to us are the Todas of the Neilgherry Hills. Mr.
Marshall remarks that, among them, relationship is intimate far beyond
that witnessed in any country approaching civilization—“intimate to
such a degree, that the whole tribe, where not parents and children,
brothers and sisters, are all first cousins, descended from lines of
first cousins prolonged for centuries.”[2039] As regards the general
appearance of the people, a large proportion of both sexes and of all
ages are doubtless in excellent health, and their fecundity, according
to Dr. Shortt, is by no means of a low degree.[2040] Nevertheless, the
Todas are dying out. In infancy the mortality is so great that, as a
rule, there is in each family only a small number of children.[2041]
“It is rarely that there are more than two or three children,” says
the missionary Metz, “and it is not at all an uncommon thing to
find only a single child, while many families have none at all.” The
numbers of the Todas have, consequently, for years past been gradually
declining, and probably the time is not far distant when they will have
passed away.[2042] Of course, we do not know whether this depends upon
their close intermarriages, but there is, at any rate, some reason to
suspect that this is the case. That the intermarrying has not produced
more evil effects on the population, may possibly be owing to the
wealth for which the Neilgherry Hills are remarkable, and to their
climate, which, for mildly invigorating properties and equable seasonal
changes throughout the year, is perhaps unrivalled anywhere within the
tropics.[2043]
Another very much in-and-in bred people are the Persians. Among them,
husband and wife are generally of the same family, and very often
cousins. Yet Dr. Polak who has lived in Persia for nine years, partly
as a teacher in the medical school of Teheran, partly as physician to
the Shah, and during this residence has had excellent opportunities of
acquainting himself with the conditions of the people, has not observed
that the diseases which are supposed to result from consanguineous
marriages prevail more frequently there than elsewhere. Nor has he
found that the Persian women are generally less fertile than others.
Yet the families are exceedingly small, as the mortality among children
is enormous. Of six, perhaps two as a rule survive, but very often none
at all, most of them dying in their second year. Dr. Polak believes,
indeed, that, on an average, scarcely more than one living child comes
to each woman. A princess in Teheran was looked upon quite as a wonder
because she had eight children alive, and the European physician
was asked if he ever before, in his own country, had seen a similar
case.[2044]
More important than any of these statements is the following testimony
concerning the Karens of Burma, for which I am indebted to the Rev.
Dr. Alonzo Bunker, who has been a resident among that people during
more than twenty years. He says that, in some of their villages,
exogamy prevails, in others endogamy, but marriages between parents
and children, brothers and sisters, are prohibited everywhere, and
even first cousins very seldom marry, though there is no law against
such connections. There is a striking difference with regard to
stature, health, strength and fecundity, between the inhabitants of
the exogamous and those of the endogamous villages, the latter being
much inferior in all these respects. Dr. Bunker has no doubt that this
inferiority is owing to the intermarriage of kinsfolk, and he asserts
that even the natives themselves ascribe it to this cause, though they
obstinately keep up the old custom, regarding marriages out of their
own village as highly unbecoming. In cases in which missionaries have
been able to persuade young men to choose wives from another village,
Dr. Bunker assures me that the good effects of a cross appeared at
once.[2045]
There are some other peoples who ascribe evil results to close
intermarriage. Mr. Cousins informs me that the Cis-Natalian Kafirs
believe “that their offspring would be of a more sickly nature if
such were allowed”; and Mr. Eyles writes that the Zulus, on the border
of Pondoland, regard sterility and deformity as consequences of
consanguineous unions. The Australian Dieyerie, according to Mr. Gason,
have a tradition that, after the creation, fathers, mothers, sisters,
brothers, and others of the closest kin intermarried promiscuously,
until the bad effects of these marriages became manifest. A council of
the chiefs was then assembled to consider in what way the evil might be
averted, and the result of their deliberations was a petition to the
Muramura, or Good Spirit. In answer to this he ordered that the tribe
should be divided into branches, and distinguished one from the other
by different names, after objects animate and inanimate, such as dogs,
mice, emu, rain, and so forth, and that the members of any such branch
should be forbidden to marry other members of the same branch.[2046]
Again, touching the Kenai, in the north-western part of North America,
Richardson states, “It was the custom that the men of one stock should
choose their wives from another, and the offspring belonged to the race
of the mother. This custom has fallen into disuse, and marriages in the
same tribe occur; but the old people say that mortality among the Kenai
has arisen from the neglect of the ancient usage.”[2047]
In a Greenland Eskimo tale, the father of Kakamak, finding that all his
grandchildren have died before reaching the age of puberty, suggests to
his son-in-law, “Perhaps we are too near akin.”[2048] Two Mohammedan
travellers of the ninth century tell us that the Hindus never married
a relation, because they thought alliances between unrelated persons
improved the offspring.[2049] In Hadîth, the collection of Mohammedan
traditions, it is said, “Marry among strangers; thus you will not
have feeble posterity.” “This view,” says Goldziher, “coincides
with the opinion of the ancient Arabs that the children of endogamous
marriages are weakly and lean. To this class also belongs the proverb
of Al-Meydânî, ‘ ... Marry the distant, marry not the near’ (in
relationship).” A poet, praising a hero, says, “He is a hero, not
borne by the cousin (of his father), he is not weakly; for the seed of
relations brings forth feeble fruit.”[2050]
In opposition to the view that these opinions are the results of
experience, it may be urged that any infraction of the customs or
laws of ancestors is commonly thought to call down divine vengeance.
Father Veniaminof tells us that, among the early Aleuts, incest,
which was considered the gravest crime, was believed to be always
followed by the birth of monsters with walrus-tusks, beard, and other
disfiguration;[2051] and among the Kafirs, according to Mr. Fynn, it
is a general belief that the offspring of an incestuous union will be
a monster—“a punishment inflicted by the ancestral spirit.”[2052]
But whatever may be said of the other cases referred to, no such
explanation can possibly hold good for the Arabs. Among them, marriage
with a near relation involved no infringement of their marriage
regulations. On the contrary, in spite of the opinions in favour of
exogamy, the preference for marriage with a cousin was dominant among
them, and a man had even a right to the hand of his “bint ‘amm,” the
daughter of a paternal uncle.[2053]
Taking all these facts into consideration, I cannot but believe that
consanguineous marriages, in some way or other, are more or less
detrimental to the species. And here, I think, we may find a quite
sufficient explanation of the horror of incest; not because man at an
early stage recognized the injurious influence of close intermarriage,
but because the law of natural selection must inevitably have operated.
Among the ancestors of man, as among other animals, there was no doubt
a time when blood-relationship was no bar to sexual intercourse. But
variations, here as elsewhere, would naturally present themselves;
and those of our ancestors who avoided in-and-in breeding would
survive, while the others would gradually decay and ultimately perish.
Thus an instinct would be developed which would be powerful enough,
as a rule, to prevent injurious unions. Of course it would display
itself simply as an aversion on the part of individuals to union with
others with whom they lived; but these, as a matter of fact, would
be blood-relations, so that the result would be the survival of the
fittest.
Whether man inherited the feeling from the predecessors from whom he
sprang, or whether it was developed after the evolution of distinctly
human qualities, we do not know. It must necessarily have arisen at
a stage when family ties became comparatively strong, and children
remained with their parents until the age of puberty, or even longer.
Exogamy, as a natural extension of this instinct, would arise when
single families united in small hordes. It could not but grow up if
the idea of union between persons intimately associated with one
another was an object of innate repugnance. There is no real reason
why we should assume, as so many anthropologists have done,[2054] that
primitive men lived in small endogamous communities, practising incest
in every degree. The theory does not accord with what is known of the
customs of existing savages; and it accounts for no facts which may not
be otherwise far more satisfactorily explained.
The objection will perhaps be made that the aversion to sexual
intercourse between persons living very closely together from early
youth is too complicated a mental phenomenon to be a true instinct,
acquired through spontaneous variations intensified by natural
selection. But there are instincts just as complicated as this
feeling, which, in fact, only implies that disgust is associated with
the idea of sexual intercourse between persons who have lived in a
long-continued, intimate relationship from a period of life at which
the action of desire is naturally out of the question. This association
is no matter of course, and certainly cannot be explained by the mere
liking for novelty. It has all the characteristics of a real, powerful
instinct, and bears evidently a close resemblance to the aversion to
sexual intercourse with individuals belonging to another species.
* * * * *
Besides the horror of incest, there is another feeling to which
reference may here be made. “L’amour,” says Bernardin de
Saint-Pierre, “ ... ne résulte que des contrastes; et plus ils sont
grands, plus il a d’énergie. C’est ce que je pourrois prouver par
mille traits d’histoire.... L’influence des contrastes en amour est si
certaine, qu’en voyant l’amant on peut faire le portrait de l’objet
aimé sans l’avoir vu, pourvu qu’on sache seulement qu’il est affecté
d’une forte passion.”[2055] Schopenhauer likewise observes that every
person requires from the individual of the opposite sex a one-sidedness
which is the opposite of his or her own. The most manly man will seek
the most womanly woman, and _vice versa_. Weak or little men have a
decided inclination for strong or big women, and strong or big women
for weak or little men. Blondes prefer dark persons, or brunettes;
snub-nosed persons, hook-nosed; persons with excessively slim, long
bodies and limbs, those who are stumpy and short; and so on.[2056]
A similar view is held by M. Prosper Lucas, Mr. Alexander Walker,
Professor Mantegazza, Mr. Grant Allen, and other writers.[2057] “In
the love of the sexes,” says Professor Bain, “the charm of disparity
goes beyond the standing differences of sex; as in contrasts of
complexion, and of stature.”[2058]
Some writers have suggested that love thus excited by differences is
favourable to fecundity, those marriages in which it exists being more
prolific than others.[2059] Thus Mr. Andrew Knight, a most experienced
breeder, remarks, “I am disposed to think that the most powerful
human minds will be found offspring of parents of different hereditary
constitutions. I prefer a male of a different colour from the breed of
the female, where that can be obtained, and I think that I have seen
fine children produced in more than one instance, where one family
has been dark and the other fair. I am sure that I have witnessed the
bad effects of marriages between two individuals very similar to each
other in character and colour, and springing from ancestry of similar
character. Such have appeared to me to be like marriages between
brothers and sisters.”[2060]
These statements, of course, prove nothing, but they may perhaps
derive some value from the fact that they are made by so many different
observers. The statistical investigation of Professor Alphonse de
Candolle, bearing upon the same question, rests on firmer ground. He
has found, from facts collected in Switzerland, North Germany, and
Belgium, that marriages are most commonly contracted between persons
with different colours of the eye, except in the case of brown-eyed
women, who are generally considered more attractive than others.[2061]
He has noted, further, that the number of children is considerably
smaller in families where the parents have the same colour of the eye
than where the reverse is the case.[2062] But Professor Wittrock could
not, in Sweden, find any such difference in fecundity between the two
categories of marriages;[2063] and Mr. Galton observes, “Whatever may
be the sexual preferences for similarity or for contrast, I find little
indication in the average results obtained from a fairly large number
of cases, of any single measurable personal peculiarity, whether it be
stature, temper, eye-colour or artistic tastes, influencing marriage
selection to a notable degree.”[2064]
If contrasts instinctively seek each other, this may partly account
for the readiness with which love awakens love. Every one knows some
unhappy lover who has never been able to win the heart of the person
he adores; but in most cases, I should say, love is mutual. And this,
perhaps, is owing not only to the contagiousness of the passion, but
also to the attractive power of contrasts, which acts equally upon both
parties. Thus we might explain, to some extent, the extreme variation
of tastes, and the fact that, besides the general standard of beauty
common to the whole race, there exists a more detailed ideal special to
each individual.