GROUP MARRIAGE AND THE TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP.
Mother and Child. Kurnai terms. Dieri evidence. _Noa._ Group Mothers.
Classification and descriptive terms. Poverty of language. Terms
express status. The savage view natural.
We may now turn to consider the terms of relationship from the point of
view of marriage, more especially in connection with Australia. We have
already seen that there are great difficulties in the way of Morgan's
hypothesis that the names accurately represent the relations which
formerly existed in the tribes which used them. I propose to discuss the
matter here from a somewhat different standpoint.
It seems highly probable that if any individual term came into use,
whether monogamy, patriarchal polygyny, "group marriage," or promiscuity
prevailed, it would be that which expresses the relationship of a mother
to her child. The only other possibility would be that in the first two
conditions mentioned the relation of husband to wife might take
precedence.
In actual practice we find that the name which a mother applies to her
own child is applied by her equally to the children of the women whom
her husband might have married. This state of things may obviously arise
from one of three causes, (_a_) In the first place the name may have
been originally that which a mother applied to her own son, and it may
have been extended to those who were her nephews in a state of monogamy,
or stepsons (=sons of other women by the same father) in a state of
polygyny either with or without polyandry. (_b_) The theory that a name
was applied originally to own and collateral relatives has already been
discussed, so far as it refers to the "undivided commune." The case of
regulated promiscuity is different and must be considered here. (_c_) On
the other hand the name which she uses may have been expressive of
tribal status or group status, and may have had nothing to do with
descent.
It is unnecessary to say much about the first of these possibilities.
First, there is no evidence to show that such a thing has taken place;
secondly, we can see no reason why such a thing should take place;
thirdly, if such a change of meaning did take place, it is quite clear
that we have no grounds for regarding the philological evidence for
group marriage as having the slightest significance.
In connection with the second hypothesis--that the names actually
represent the relations formerly existing, it may be well to preface the
discussion by a few remarks on the regulation of marriage in Australia.
The rules by which the Australian native is bound, when he sets out to
choose a wife, make the area of choice as a rule dependent on his
status, that is to say, he must, in order to find a wife, go to another
phratry, class, totem-kin, or combination of two of these, membership of
which depends on descent, direct or indirect; on the other hand he may
be limited by regulations dependent on locality, that is to say he may
have to take a wife from a group resident in a certain area. There is
reason to suppose that the latter regulations are the outcome of earlier
status regulations which have fallen into desuetude. However this may
be, all that we are here concerned with is the fact that regulations in
this case also are virtually dependent on descent, inasmuch as a man is
not in practice free to reside where he likes, but remains in his own
group, though occasionally he joins that of his wife (this does not
apparently affect the exogamic rule). The groups are therefore to all
intents and purposes totem-kins with male descent.
Taking the Kurnai as our example of the non-class-organised groups, we
find that the fraternal relationship once started goes on for ever; the
result of this is that with few exceptions the whole of the
intermarrying groups, so far as they are of the same generation, are
brothers and sisters. Dr Howitt, whose authority on matters of
Australian ethnology is final, recognises that on the principles on
which group marriage is deduced from terms of relationship, this fact
should point to the Kurnai being yet in the stage of the undivided
commune (why, it is difficult to see, when they are definitely
exogamous), but regards the argument from terms of relationship as
untrustworthy in this instance. If it is not reliable in one case it may
well be unreliable in all; we are entitled to ask supporters of the
hypothesis of group marriage what differentiates this case from those in
which they have no doubt of the validity of the philological argument.
Now if Dr Howitt's doubts as to the interpretation to be put upon the
Kurnai terms of relationship are correct, we may reasonably, in the
absence of proof that they originated in a different way from the
Malayan terms, ask ourselves upon what basis the case for promiscuity
rests. Beyond a few customs, and it will be shown below that it is
unnecessary to regard them as survivals of a period when marriage was
unknown, the proof is purely philological, and on examination the
philological proof is found to be wanting.
Dr Howitt, in his recent book, rests the case for the undivided commune
(i.e. promiscuity) on the Australian terms of relationship which he
discusses, viz. those of the Dieri and the Kurnai. He will not admit
that the Kurnai terms point to the undivided commune; we are therefore
left with the Dieri terms. But the Dieri organisation, so far from being
that of an undivided commune, is the two-phratry arrangement by which a
man is by no means free to marry any woman in his tribe, but is limited
to one-half of the women; further, tribal customs limit his choice still
further and compel him to marry his mother's mother's brother's
daughter's daughter (these terms do not refer to blood but so-called
"tribal" relationship, i.e. it is a woman with a certain tribal status
whom he has to marry). Where then does Dr Howitt find his proof of
promiscuity?
We have, it is true, a certain number of tribal legends, according to
which the phratry organisation was instituted to prevent the marriage
of too near kin. But, quite apart from the fact that tribal legends are
not evidence, the legends merely point to a period when marriage was
unregulated, when a man was free to marry any woman, not when he was _de
facto_ or _de jure_ the husband of every woman. Even if it be proved
beyond question that marriage was once unregulated, it does not follow
that promiscuity prevailed.
The existence of the undivided commune is a proof of promiscuity only
for those who discover proofs of group marriage in the divided commune,
in other words in the terms of relationship and the customs of the
ordinary two-phratry tribe of the present day. We may therefore let the
decision of the question of the validity of terms of relationship as a
proof of extensive connubial activities rest upon the discussion of the
evidence to be drawn from the tribes selected by Dr Howitt and Messrs
Spencer and Gillen, viz. the Dieri and the Urabunna.
It may however be pointed out that neither of these writers has dealt
with the passage from promiscuity to "group marriage," nor shown how
under the former system terms of relationship could come into existence
at all. With the difficulties we have dealt above.
We must now revert to the question of the origin of the so-called "terms
of relationship." Are they expressive of kinship or only of status and
duties? Neither Lewis Morgan nor the authorities on Australian marriage
customs--Dr Howitt and Messrs Spencer and Gillen--discuss the question
at length, but seem to regard it as an axiom (although they warn us that
all European ideas of relationship must be dismissed when we deal with
the classificatory system) that all these terms may be interpreted on
the hypothesis that the European relationships to which they most nearly
correspond actually existed in former times, not, as in Europe, between
individuals, but between groups. The case on which Spencer and Gillen
rely is that of the _unawa_ relationship. They argue that a man is
_unawa_ to a whole group of women, one of whom is his individual wife;
for this individual wife no special name exists, she is just _unawa_
(=_noa_) like all the other women he might have married. Consequently
the marital relation must have existed formerly between the man in
question and the whole group of _unawa_ women. The reasoning does not
seem absolutely conclusive, and our doubts as to the validity of the
argument are strengthened when we apply it to another case and find the
results inconsistent with facts which are known to the lowest savage.
Not only has a man only one name for the women he might have married,
and for the woman he actually did marry, but a mother has only one name
for the son she actually bore, and for the sons of the women who, if
they had become her husband's wives, would have borne him sons in her
stead. From this fact by parity of reasoning we must draw the obvious
conclusion that during the period when group marriage was the rule,
individual mothers were unknown. If we are entitled to conclude from the
fact that a man's wife bears the same name for him as all the other
women whom he might have married, that he at one time was the husband of
them all, then we are obviously equally entitled to conclude, from the
fact that a woman's son is known to her by the same name as the sons of
other women, either that during the period of group marriage she
actually bore the sons of the other women or that the whole group of
women produced their sons by their joint efforts. Finding that the term
which is translated "son" is equally applied by the remainder of the
group of women to the son of the individual woman, whose case we have
been considering, we may discard the former hypothesis and come to the
conclusion that if there was a period of group marriage there was also
one of group motherhood. This interesting fact may be commended to the
attention of zoologists.
It is perhaps unnecessary to pursue the argument any further. The single
point on which Spencer and Gillen rely is sufficiently refuted by a
single _reductio ad absurdum_. If more proof is needed it may be found
in Dr Howitt's work[151]. We learn from him that a man is the younger
brother of his maternal grandmother, and consequently the maternal
grandfather of his second cousin. Surely it is not possible in this case
to contend that the "terms of relationship" are expressive of anything
but duties and status. It seems unreasonable to maintain in the
interests of an hypothesis that a man can be his own great uncle and
the son of more than one mother.
From the foregoing discussion it will be clear that there are very
grave, if not insurmountable, difficulties in the way of regarding the
"terms of relationship" as being in reality such. In reply to those who
regard them as status terms it is urged that if they are not terms of
relationship, then the savages have no terms of any sort to express
relationships which we regard as obvious, the implication being that
this is unthinkable.
Now in the first place it may be pointed out that the converse is
certainly true. Civilised man has a large number of terms of
relationship, but he has none for such ideas as _noa_; a boy has no term
for all men who might have been his father; a woman has no name for the
children of all women who might have married her husband, if she had not
anticipated them. To the savage this is just as unthinkable as the
converse seems to be to some civilised men.
In the second place it is perfectly obvious that the savage has, as a
matter of fact, no names for the quite unmistakeable relationship of
mother and child. The name which an Australian mother applies to her
son, she applies equally to the sons of all other women of her own
status; the name which a son applies to his mother, he applies equally
to all the women of her status, whether married or unmarried, in old
age, middle life, youth, or infancy. If there is no term for this
relation we can hardly argue that the absence of terms for other
relations is unthinkable.
Morgan attempted to meet this objection by urging that in a state of
promiscuity a woman would apply the same name to the children of other
women as to her own, because they were or might be by the same father.
But in the first place this assumes that the relationship to the father
was considered rather than the relationship to the mother, and this is
against all analogy. In the second place, even granting Morgan's
postulate, the relation of a mother to her son is not that of a wife to
the children of other wives of a polygynous husband. Poverty of language
is therefore established in this case, and may be taken for granted
where the obvious relationships are concerned.
It has been pointed out more than once that there are grave difficulties
in the way of any hypothesis which assumes that terms of relationship,
properly so called, were evolved in a state of pure promiscuity. It has
now been shown that no intelligible account of the meaning of such terms
can be given, even if we dismiss the difficulties just mentioned and
assume that terms were somehow or other evolved, and a transition
effected to a state of regulated promiscuity. If on the other hand we
regard the "terms of relationship" as originally indicative of tribal
status and suppose they have been transformed in the course of ages into
"descriptive" terms such as we use in everyday life, the difficulties
vanish.
For one proof of this hypothesis we need look no further than the terms
of relationship applied by a mother to her own (and other) children, an
illustration which has already done duty more than once. It is
abundantly clear that what this term expresses is not relationship but
status, the relation of one generation to the next in the Malayan
system, of the half of a generation to the next generation in the same
moiety of the tribe among the Dieri, and so on.
It is admitted even by believers in group marriage that the terms of
relationship do not correspond to anything actually existing; beyond the
"survivals" which we shall consider below, they can produce no shadow of
proof that the terms ever did correspond to actual relationships, as
they understand them. They can give no proof whatever that they did not
express status.
It is therefore a fair hypothesis that _unawa_ (_noa_) and similar terms
express status and not relationship. From the example of mother and son
we see that the Australian does not select for distinction by a special
term that bond which is most obvious both to him and us. It is therefore
by no means surprising that by _unawa_ he should mean, not the existence
of marital relations, but their possibility, from a 'legal' point of
view. Just as he is struck, not by the genetic relation between mother
and son, but by the fact that they belong to different generations, so
in the case of husband and wife the _existence_ of marital relations
between them is neglected, and the point selected for emphasis is the
_legality_ of such marital relations, whether existent or not.
It is singular that anyone should regard this savage view of life as
anything but natural. For the Australian the due observance of the
marriage regulations is a tribal matter; their breach, whether the
connection be by marriage or free love, is a matter of more than private
concern. The relations of a man with his legal wife however concern
other members of the tribe but little. Public opinion among the Dieri,
it is true, condemns the unfaithful wife, but her punishment is left to
the husband; among the Kamilaroi the tribe indeed takes the matter up
but only on the complaint of the husband; and generally speaking it is
the husband who, possibly with his totemic brethren, pursues the
abductor. We have therefore in this insistence on the legal status of
the couple and the comparative indifference to the husband's rights a
sufficiently exact parallel to the insistence on status and not marital
relations in the use of the term _unawa_.
The course of evolution has been, not, as group-marriagers contend, from
group to individual terms of relationship but from terms descriptive of
status to terms descriptive of relationship.
It is, in fact, on any hypothesis, impossible to deny this. Whatever
terms of relationship may have meant in the past, no believer in group
marriage contends that they represent anything actually existing. But
this is equivalent to admitting that they express status and not
relationship, and no proof has ever been given that they were ever
anything else.
FOOTNOTES:
[151] p. 163.