GROUP MARRIAGE AND MORGAN'S THEORIES.
Passage from Promiscuity. Reformatory Movements. Incest. Relative
harmfulness of such unions. Natural aversion. Australian facts.
The arguments for group marriage in Australia are of two kinds--(1) from
the terms of relationship, that is to say of a mixed philological and
sociological character, and (2) from the customs of the Australian
tribes.
The argument from the terms of relationship is so intimately connected
with the theories of Lewis Morgan that it may be well to give a brief
critical survey of Morgan's hypotheses. I therefore begin the treatment
of this part of the subject by a statement of Morgan's views on the
general question of the origin and development of human marriage.
As a result of his enquiries into terms of relationships, mainly in
North America and Asia, Morgan drew up a scheme of fifteen stages,
through which he believed the sexual relations of human beings had
passed in the interval between utter savagery and the civilised family.
We are only concerned with the earlier portion of his scheme. It is not
even necessary to discuss that in all its details. Morgan's first eight
(properly five) stages are:
I. Promiscuous Intercourse.
II. Intermarriage or Cohabitation of Brothers and Sisters.
III. The Communal Family (First stage of the Family).
IV. The Hawaian Custom of Punalua[145], giving the Malayan Form of the
Classificatory System[146].
V. The Tribal Organisation, i.e. totemic exogamy plus promiscuity,
giving the Turanian and Ganowanian System[147].
VI. Monogamy.
The objections to this theory or group of theories are numerous, and it
will not be necessary to consider them all here. Were it not that no one
has since Morgan's day attempted to trace in detail the course of
evolution from promiscuity to monogamy, it would be almost superfluous
to discuss the theories of a work on primitive sociology dating back
nearly thirty years.
With some points Morgan has failed to deal in a way that commends itself
to us in the light of knowledge accumulated since his day; with others
he has not attempted to deal, apparently from a want of perception of
their importance.
First and foremost among the points with which Morgan has failed to deal
is that of the constitution of the primitive group. Was it composed of
parents and children only or were more than two generations represented?
If the former, why were the children expelled? if the latter, how are
brother and sister marriages introduced, when _ex hypothesi_ the father
of any given child was unknown and may have been any adult male? If
Morgan and his supporters evade this difficulty by defining brother and
sister as children of the same mother, they are met by the obvious
objection that no revolution in a promiscuous group would result in the
marriage of children of the same mother. _Ex hypothesi_ there were
several child-bearing women in the group, and their children, if a
reform were introduced prohibiting marriage outside one's own
generation, would intermarry; but the children of these women are, on
the definition adopted, not brothers and sisters.
If brother and sister does not mean children of the same mother, what
does it mean?
By what process are these names supposed to have come into existence in
a promiscuous group? If brother in this sense is taken to imply common
parentage, the name must clearly denote the relation between two males
because, although a whole group of men had access to the mother, the
male parent was or may have been the same person in each case, and this
whether the mother was the same or not. Now, quite apart from the fact
that primitive man was unlikely to have evolved a term for such an
indefinite relationship, except in so far as it involved rights or
duties, it is obvious that great complications would arise which would
in practice make the nomenclature unworkable. For to call two boys
brothers because they have the same group of men as possible fathers is
only practicable in a society which has already evolved a system of age
grades, and has established restrictions on intercourse between
different generations, to use a somewhat indefinite term. For it is
clear that in a state of promiscuity the class of adults is continually
being recruited and that the boy passes at puberty, in so far as
restrictions in the nature of initiation ceremonies are not imposed,
from the class of sons to that of fathers. In other words, if a group
consists of M_1 M_2 M_3 M_4, and they have male children of all
ages N_1 N_2 N_3 N_4, as soon as N_1 reaches puberty he
becomes a possible father of the children O_1 O_2 O_3 O_4, who
differ in age from N_4 only by a few years at most and reckon as his
brothers. But this means that N_1 is the son of M_1, for example,
but at the same time the father of O_1, who is likewise the son of
M_1; in the same way O_1 is the brother of N_4, who is the brother
of N_1; but O_1 is not the brother of N_1. The extraordinary
complexity of the relations that would arise is at once obvious, and it
seems clear that relationship terms could never come into existence
under such circumstances unless they implied something beyond mere
relationship and denoted rights and duties[148]. But if they denoted
rights and duties, these must have preceded the relationship term, which
consequently need not be held to apply to kinship in any proper sense of
the term.
It is clear that the same difficulties apply when we try to work out the
development on the hypothesis that a group of mothers existed. We are
therefore reduced to the supposition that the term brother denoted
originally a person born within a given period of time, and that this
period was the same for whole sections of the community; in other words
that the name brother was given to all males born between, let us say,
B.C. 10,000 and B.C. 9,990. This is of course equivalent to the
establishment of age grades and is in itself not unthinkable; age grades
are of course perfectly well known among primitive peoples; but the
establishment of age grades implies a degree of social organisation;
and, what is more important, this hypothesis makes the term brother
quite meaningless as a kinship term; for at the present day a common
term of address for members of an age grade does not imply any degree of
consanguinity, and unless it be proved that age grades are a product of
the period of "group marriage" it cannot be argued that they ever did
imply kinship.
It is sufficiently clear from these examples that Morgan entirely failed
to work out the process by which the transition from pure to regulated
promiscuity came about. But if the process is uncertain the causes are
equally obscure. In Mr Morgan's view, or at any rate in one of the
theories on which he accounted for the change, it was due to "movements
which resulted in unconscious reformation"; these movements were, he
supposes, worked out by natural selection. These words, it is true,
apply primarily to the origin of the "tribal" or "gentile" organisation,
as Mr Morgan terms totemism, but they probably apply to the original
passage from promiscuity to "communal marriage," and I propose to
examine how far such a theory has any solid basis.
Natural selection is a blessed phrase, but in the present case it is
difficult to see in what way it is supposed to act. The variation
postulated by Mr Morgan as a basis for the operation of natural
selection is one of ideas, not physical or mental powers. Now under
ordinary circumstances we mean by natural selection the weeding out of
the unfit by reason of inferiorities, physical or psychical, which
handicap them in the struggle for existence. But it cannot be said that
the tendency to marry or practice of marrying outside one's own
generation is such a handicap to the parents. How far is it injurious to
the children of such unions? Or rather, how far have children who are
the offspring of brothers and sisters or of cousins a better chance of
surviving than the offspring of unions between relatives of different
generations?
It is at the outset clear that savages are not in the habit of taking
account of such matters. Even if it were otherwise, it is not clear how
far they would have data as to the varying results of unions of near
kin. For though on this question, so far as the genus homo is concerned,
we have very few data on which to go, such data as we have hardly bear
out his view. Modern statistics relate almost exclusively to the
intermarriage of cousins, and apply, not to primitive tribes, such as
those with which, _ex hypothesi_, Mr Morgan is dealing, but to more or
less civilised and sophisticated peoples, among whom the struggle for
existence is less keen owing to the advance of knowledge and the
progress of invention, and among whom possibly the rise of humanitarian
ideas not only tends to counteract the weeding out of the unfit, but
even makes it relatively easy for them to propagate their species. What
the result of the intermarriage of cousins is when war, famine, and
infanticide are efficient weeders out of the unfit, we cannot say.
Possibly or even probably the ill results would be inappreciable. It
must not be forgotten that the marriage of near relatives is only
harmful because or if it hands on to the children of the union an
hereditary taint in a strengthened form, a result which is likely to
follow in civilised life because hereditary taints are allowed to
flourish unchecked by prudence and controlled by natural selection only
so far as humanitarianism will permit it. These hereditary degeneracies
however are probably largely if not entirely absent among savages. It is
therefore open to question how far intermarriage of cousins would prove
harmful under such conditions.
Statistics of the influence of cousin-marriage are not however what Mr
Morgan wants. It is essential for him to prove that father-daughter
marriage is more harmful than brother-sister unions.
It might be imagined that the data for estimating the effect of the
union of father and daughter would be non-existent, but this is not so.
Within the last few years it has been stated that such unions are common
in parts of South America, and that the children, so far from being
degenerates, are remarkably healthy and vigorous[149]. This is of
interest in connection with Mr Atkinson's speculations as to the history
of the family. In this connection it may be pointed out that such
unions, _ex hypothesi_, are unlikely to result in continual in-and-in
breeding, and would in all probability seldom be continued beyond the
first alliance of this nature.
We are practically in complete darkness as to the results of brother and
sister marriage in the human species. We have of course various cases of
ruling families who perpetuated themselves in this way, but the data
from such peoples refer to an advanced stage of culture and to a
favoured class. They are not therefore applicable to similar unions
among savages where they formed, as Mr Morgan suggests, the invariable
practice. It is however possible to deduce from very simple
considerations the probabilities as to the respective effects of
adelphic and father-daughter unions. In the first place, as has been
already pointed out, the father-daughter union implies only one family
of in-and-in-bred children; in the case of brother and sister marriage,
on the other hand, this state of things may go on indefinitely. If this
is not enough to turn the scale against adelphic unions there is the
further fact that, taking the descendants of the first pair of
intermarrying descendants of common parents, whose tendency to disease
or deformity is we will suppose x^1 on both sides, and assuming that
this tendency increases in a simple ratio, the offspring have the same
tendencies to the second power of x. If their children marry each other
the measure of degeneracy in the third generation is x^4. Suppose now
a father and mother with index of degeneracy each x^1; a daughter of
this union will have as her index x^2; if the daughter bears children
to the father, their index will be not x^4, but x^3, if the simple
law which I have assumed for the purposes of argument holds good.
It is therefore clear that the offspring of adelphic unions, so far from
being at an advantage compared with the offspring of father-daughter
unions, are at a disadvantage in the proportion of 4 to 3. In the third
place, in father-daughter unions the male is physically as well as
sexually mature. In adelphic unions both parties are probably immature.
Consequently from this point of view also the advantage is with the
supposed injurious type of union. Now if the father-daughter union was
less harmful than the brother-sister union, _a fortiori_ are uncle-niece
and similar unions less harmful. Yet Morgan supposes them to have been
prohibited in favour of brother and sister unions.
Mr Morgan's reformation therefore turns out to have been no reformation
at all, but a retrograde step. Assuming however that the facts were as
he supposed them to be, and that the reformation was a real one, it is
by no means clear how he supposes it to have been brought about. It was,
as we have seen, an unconscious[150] reformation; it is not supposed
therefore that the primeval savage detected more pronounced signs of
degeneracy in the offspring of one class of union and by the force of
public opinion caused such unions to fall into disrepute and ultimately
into desuetude. So far as can be seen the method which Mr Morgan had in
his mind was this: certain unions resulted in offspring less able to
maintain the struggle for existence, and these families consequently
tended to die out. Other unions--those of sisters and brothers--on the
other hand produced more vigorous children, and tended to perpetuate
themselves. Whereas originally there was no tendency either one way or
the other, some families developed from unknown causes, which, whatever
they were, were neither moral nor utilitarian, the practice of brother
and sister marriage. This diathesis followed the ordinary laws of
descent, and eventually those families which were fortunate enough to be
affected in that way exterminated their rivals.
Now, as will be shown immediately, this course of events seems to be in
contradiction with the facts of savage society at the present day and
with all probability. Apart from that however, how does Mr Morgan
suppose his eugenic diathesis to be transmitted? It can hardly be
maintained that this was the result of the different social conditions
of the families in which brothers and sisters intermarried. Obviously
there would be nothing to prevent the male in one of these unions from
reverting to the other type of marriage. This would indeed be highly
probable for reasons to be developed in the next paragraph. But if
social conditions were not the determining factor, we are left with the
somewhat grotesque theory of innate ideas. It is hardly necessary to
refute this origin of social evolution.
Perhaps the strongest objection, however, to Mr Morgan's theory is the
fact that in the most primitive communities the female tends to be
younger, often much younger, than her mate. It is a readily
ascertainable fact, though it seems to have been neglected by Mr Morgan,
that the age of puberty does not coincide with the greatest development
of the physical powers, but precedes it in the human subject by many
years. The result of this is that the younger males are, as a rule, in
the case of many mammals, held in subjection by the patriarch of the
herd, the result being what I have termed above patriarchal polygyny, as
long as the old male retains his powers. We have, it is true, no
evidence of any such conditions among the anthropoids; but it must not
be forgotten that we have no evidence of the consanguine family either
among anthropoids, other mammals or human beings.
It tells against the hypothesis of patriarchal polygyny that both among
horses and among camels there is evidence of the existence of actual
sexual aversion between both sire and filly and dam and colt in the
first case; and, as Aristotle tells us, at least between dam and colt in
the case of camels; but we can hardly argue from Ungulata to Primates.
However this may be, the objections to Morgan's theories do not lose
their strength. Enough has perhaps been said of them from the point of
view of theory. We may look at them in the light of the known facts of
social evolution among races of low stages of culture.
If we now turn for a moment to see what light Australian facts throw on
the first two stages postulated by Mr Morgan, we find that the
theoretical objections are amply supported by the course of evolution
which can be traced in Australian social regulations. It will be
recollected that in his view father-daughter marriage disappeared first,
then brother and sister marriage. Totemism apart, there are in
Australia, as we have seen, two kinds of organisation for the regulation
of marriage--phratries, the dichotomous division of the southern tribes,
and classes, the four-fold or eight-fold division of the other areas as
to which we have any knowledge. Of these the phratry is demonstrably
older than the class. But the result of the division of a tribe into two
phratries is to prevent brother and sister marriage, while, so far as
phratry rules are concerned, father and daughter are still free to marry
in those tribes where the descent is matrilineal. The result (though not
necessarily the original object) of the class-system, on the other hand,
is to prevent the marriage of fathers and daughters and generally of the
older generation with the younger, so far as the classes actually
represent generations. In actual practice the class into which a man may
marry includes females of all ages, so that he is only debarred from
marrying young females if they are his own daughters. But if we may
assume that the original object of the classes was to prevent the
intermarriage of different generations, it is at once obvious that in
Australia the evolution postulated by Mr Morgan, if it took place at
all, took place in reverse order, the brother and sister marriage being
the first to be brought under the ban.
The objections to which attention has been called seem to make it
difficult if not impossible to accept Morgan's explanations either of
the processes or of the causes which led to the passage from promiscuity
to communal marriage.
FOOTNOTES:
[145] This is not really material.
[146] Properly speaking these are not stages in the same sense as the
other forms.
[147] See note 2 on previous page. [Transcriber's Note: Refers to [146]]
[148] We find that in practice change of age grade, i.e. of relationship
term, does exist; a clearer proof could not be given that the term of
relationship has nothing to do with descent.
[149] _Wiener Med. Wochenschrift_, 1904; cf. _Fort. Rev._ LXXXIII, 460,
n. 18. There is, as Mr Lang informs me, a curious Panama case in records
of the Darien expedition, 1699.
[150] Sometimes but usually not, for Morgan is utterly inconsistent.