TYPES OF SEXUAL UNIONS.
Terminology of Sociology. Marriage. Classification of Types. Hypothetical
and existing forms.
Students of the sociology of white races enjoy conspicuous advantages
over those who devote themselves to the investigation of the
organisation of races in the lower stages of culture. In the first place
they deal with conditions and forms with which they are personally
familiar; and this familiarity is shared by those who form the audience,
or the reading public, of these investigators, who may thus count on
making themselves understood. Even should they find the already existing
terminology insufficient, the knowledge of the phenomena enables them to
introduce suitable modifications or innovations without fear of causing
misunderstanding. It is true that terminology is often loose, but it
exists and can be made to express what is meant.
The student of primitive sociology, on the other hand, is called upon to
digest the reports of other observers, who have not always understood
the conditions which they describe, who have failed to define to
themselves what they are endeavouring to make clear to others, and who
make use of a terminology created for an entirely different set of
conditions, as if exact definition and care in the use of terms were the
last and not the first duty of the observer when he frames his report.
Thus, to take a concrete example, there is not much danger that a writer
who discusses the question of marriage in civilised communities will
deal with one form of union of the sexes, while his readers may imagine
that he is dealing with another form. For marriage is the form of
sexual union recognised by the law of the land, and its legal sanction
distinguishes it from all other forms of sexual union, however permanent
they may be, and however short may be the period before the marriage is
dissolved by an appeal to the courts of law. In fact in civilised
communities the fulfilment of legal forms and ceremonies constitutes
marriage, whatever might be said of a union sanctioned by legal forms
but unaccompanied by the cohabitation of the parties. When, however, we
are dealing with a people ruled by custom and not by law, the case is
far different. The force of custom may and usually does in such cases
far exceed the force of law in civilised communities. In the lower
stages of culture there is far more reluctance to overstep the
traditional lines of behaviour than is felt by the ordinary member of a
European state, and this though there are penalties in the latter which
do not necessarily exist in the former case. But law, in the sense of a
rule of conduct, promulgated by a legislator and enforced by penalties
inflicted by law courts and carried out by the agents of the state, does
not necessarily exist, and, at most, exists only in a very inchoate
state. If therefore we read of marriage among such a people, we are left
in complete uncertainty whether it is a union corresponding to marriage
in civilised lands, or whether it belongs to a different category. The
difficulty of the case lies partly in the inability of the observer to
distinguish _de jure_ from _de facto_ unions, partly in the fact that
one may be transformed into the other, and no ceremony of any sort mark
the change. An Australian may, for example, have a wife who is
recognised as his by tribal custom and tradition; if she is abducted the
aggrieved husband may vindicate his rights but will not necessarily be
supported by even his own kin, and will certainly not find anything to
correspond to the tribunal before which an Englishman would sue for the
restitution of conjugal rights. If the aggrieved husband proves the
weaker, he necessarily abandons his wife, and she becomes _ipso facto_
the wife of the aggressor; divorce is in fact pronounced by the issue of
an ordeal by combat. So far the matter is clear to the observer.
But if the aggrieved husband take no steps to vindicate his rights, the
woman will equally pass to the aggressor, and in this case there will
be no customary ceremonial to mark for the benefit of the observer the
exact moment of the transition from a marriage, recognised by public
opinion, or tribal custom, with the first husband A to the same kind of
union with B.
Again, even where no second mate intervenes to complicate the question,
the observer may be confronted with delicate problems; at what point,
for example, does a mere liaison pass into something worthy of the name
of marriage? What is the status of a union in which the parties are more
or less permanently associated, but which confers no rights as against
aggressors? If by native custom the union is not of such a nature as to
confer on the male party to it any rights over the female, such as the
liberty to chastise or punish without fear of the intervention of the
woman's kin, are we to regard the tie as equivalent to marriage if only
it is permanent? At what point does mere cohabitation pass into
marriage?
All these are questions which have to be debated and decided before we
are in possession of a suitable terminology for dealing with the unions
of the sexes in the lower stages of culture. But they are commonly
neglected in controversies as to the origin and history of human
marriage.
We have seen above that in a European community we mean by marriage a
union between two persons of opposite sexes, entered into with due legal
formalities, and not dissoluble simply at the will of either or both the
parties concerned. When we go further afield the connotation of the term
is extended to embrace (1) polygyny, in which one male is associated
with two or more females, (2) polyandry, in which one female is
similarly associated with more than one male, and (3) the condition
which I propose to term polygamy, in which both these conditions are
found. In all these cases the union is properly termed marriage, in so
far as it cannot be entered upon without due formalities nor be
dissolved without the concurrence of the authority upon the carrying out
of whose conditions in the preliminary steps the union depends for its
marriage-character.
When however we come to the so-called group marriage, using the term in
its original sense of limited promiscuity, we are dealing with an
entirely different state of things, and it is difficult to see any
justification for the use of the term marriage in this connection at
all. By group marriage is meant a condition only removed from absolute
promiscuity by the existence of age-classes or of two or more exogamous
classes in the community; it demands no special ceremonies prior to the
individual union[141], it permits this union to be dissolved at will,
and it consequently confers no rights on either of the parties to it,
other than perhaps the right to the produce, or some of the produce, of
each other's labour.
If the confusion did not extend beyond the terminology, the advance of
knowledge would perhaps be but little impeded; but experience shows that
confusion in terminology is apt to go hand in hand with confusion in
ideas. As will be shown later, this seems to be particularly true of
investigations into the history of marriage and sexual relationships. It
seems desirable therefore to clear the way by classifying the ideas with
which we have to deal, and by defining the terms corresponding to them.
Before classifying the various forms of sexual relationships, it may be
well to say a few words on the definition of marriage in general. Dr
Westermarck has defined it from the point of view of natural history as
a more or less durable connection between male and female, lasting
beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the
offspring.
It may not be possible to propose a better definition from the point of
view selected by Dr Westermarck, which is certainly the one from which
anthropology must regard sexual relationships. At the same time it is
not entirely free from objection. In the first place we are employing
the word marriage in a sense which has but little in common with its
ordinarily accepted meaning. Suppose, for example, we are dealing with
marriage in Europe, it is confusing to be compelled by our definition to
regard as a marriage the _faux ménage_, not to speak of the not uncommon
fairly permanent unions in which there is no common residence. Such
monogamous relationships may be, technically speaking, marriages, in Dr
Westermarck's sense, but it seems desirable to make use of some other
term for them and reserve marriage for the unions sanctioned by legal
forms. Or take the union of two people, each of whom has prior
matrimonial engagements. Such a union may, as the records of the divorce
court show, be anything but impermanent; but it does not make for
clearness to call such an union marriage. Let us take a third example--a
New Hebridean girl purchased, or in Upa stolen, for the use of the young
men, who, of course, reside in their club-house. If any of the bachelors
there resident chooses to recognise her children, they are regarded as
his children; if not, they are supported by the whole of the residents
in the club-house. How are we to classify the position of the mother of
these children? The union is obviously fairly permanent, although some
of the group enter into sexual relationships of an ordinary type and
join the ranks of the married men, and others enter the club-house from
the ranks of those hitherto shut out from the enjoyment of the
privileges of the adult unmarried male. But the relationship established
with the whole body of unmarried men and indistinguishable, so far as
definition goes, from polyandry, hardly seems to be a permanent union of
the type which Dr Westermarck had in mind when he framed his definition,
much less a marriage in any accepted sense of the term.
For Dr Westermarck's general term marriage it would be well to
substitute _gamé_ or gamic union, to express all kinds of sexual
relationships other than temporary ones. As sub-heads under this we
have:
(1) Marriage, a union recognised by law or custom, which imposes duties
and confers rights on one, both, or all the parties to it.
(2) Free union, a relationship not recognised by the community as
conferring rights, but at the same time not punished and not necessarily
regarded as immoral. Temporary unions we may classify as (_a_)
promiscuity where marriage does not exist or is temporarily in abeyance:
(_b_) free love, the relationships of the unmarried: (_c_ i.) temporary
polyandry or polygyny of married people, where the unions are limited
and recognised by custom: (_c_ ii.) marital licence where the husband is
complaisant in the face of public opinion: (_c_ iii.) adultery where
neither the husband nor public opinion permits them.
(3) Liaison, a union in which one or both parties have other ties, which
renders them liable to punishment, or to some kind of atonement.
Ten various possible forms of sexual relationship actually found or
assumed to have existed may now be classified.
A. PROMISCUITY.
I. Unregulated Promiscuity. (_a_) Primary unregulated promiscuity is the
hypothetical state assumed by Morgan and others to be the primitive
state of mankind. It may be noted that promiscuity _de jure_, which is
all that is implied by Morgan's hypothesis, is not necessarily also _de
facto_ promiscuity. Unless it be assumed that jealousy was absent at
this stage, it is clear that free unions must have been the rule rather
than the exception. But if this be so, the only distinction between
Morgan's promiscuity and the ordinary state of things in an Australian
tribe is constituted, intermarrying rules apart, by the fact that the
Australian husband is at liberty to reclaim his wife, if he can, without
fear of blood feud if perchance he slays his successor in the
affections, or perhaps rather in the possession, of his wife, whereas in
Morgan's primitive stage might was right and the abductor was on an
equal footing with his predecessor and successor. (_b_) Secondary
unregulated promiscuity is distinguished from primary promiscuity by the
co-existence of other forms of sexual relations. It may temporarily
supersede these as in Australia; or it may take their place, as among
the Nairs.
II. Regulated Promiscuity. This again falls into (_a_) primary regulated
promiscuity, the hypothetical stage postulated for Australia before the
introduction of individual marriage; and (_b_) secondary regulated
promiscuity, which is found in certain tribes as an exceptional
practice. With this custom I deal in greater detail below.
B. MARRIAGE.
III, Polygamy. This state is constituted by the union of several men
with several women. It may be distinguished, as before, into primary and
secondary polygamy. We may further distinguish (_α_) simple and (_β_)
adelphic polygamy; and the latter may be (i) unilateral or (ii)
bilateral, according as either the males or females, or both males and
females, are brothers and sisters. A further sub-division is constituted
by the relations of the groups of males or females, or both, within
themselves. I distinguish these unions by the names of dissimilar (M.)
and dissimilar (F.) according as one husband or one wife has a position
superior to the others[142].
IV, Polyandric and V. polygynic unions fall into the same divisions,
save that they are naturally always unilateral. As a designation for the
hypothetical stage postulated by Mr Atkinson in _Primal Law_, we may
take "patriarchal polygyny," meaning thereby the state in which (_a_) in
the earlier stage all the females of the horde[143] are _ipso facto_
mates of the one adult male of the horde; or (_b_) in the second stage
all females born in the horde are equally allotted to him.
Finally we have VI, monogamy.
To the three forms of marriage we can apply the determinants "regulated"
and "unregulated," "temporary[144]," "permanent," as in the case of
promiscuity.
We have further two well-marked types of marriage and a mixed form in
which (_a_) the husband goes to live with the wife; (_b_) he lives with
the wife for a time and then removes to his own village or tribe; and
(_c_) the wife removes to the husband. For the first of these Maclennan
has proposed the name _beena_ marriage; Robertson Smith has proposed to
call the third type _ba‘al_ marriage, and to include both _beena_ and
_mot‘a_ marriages under the general name of _ṣadīca_. This terminology
is unnecessarily obscure and has the further disadvantage of connoting
the domination or subjection of the husband, a feature not necessarily
bound up with residence. I therefore propose to term the three types
matrilocal, removal, and patrilocal marriages. I suggest compounds of
_pater_ and _mater_, not as being specially appropriate, but as being
parallel to matrilineal and patrilineal, denoting descent in the female
and male lines respectively.
For the somewhat complicated relationships of _potestas_ in the family I
propose two main divisions, (_a_) patri-potestal, (_b_) matri-potestal;
the latter may be further subdivided according as the authority is in
the hands (1) of the actual mother, (2) of the maternal uncles, (3) of
the mother's relatives in general, and so on.
FOOTNOTES:
[141] The _pirrauru_ union is preceded by a ceremony, but this is no
proof that primitive group marriage, if it existed, was contracted in
the same way.
[142] Dissimilar polygamy is, in respect of the inferior spouses, hardly
to be distinguished from promiscuity, save that the number of them is
limited. But in Australia the lending of _pirraurus_ sweeps away even
this distinction.
[143] He says family, or Cyclopean family. Harem in fact is the idea.
[144] i.e. not life-long.