POLYANDRY.
I. _Sexual Proportion of Births: its Influence on
Marriage._--Sexual proportion amongst animals--The state of this
in Europe--Its variations according to race and profession--Its
oscillations--Proportion of the sexes disturbed by war, by
infanticide, and by the sale of daughters--Polyandry has not been
general.
II. _Ethnography of Polyandry._--Examples of polyandry--Great
polyandrous centres--The polyandry of Thibet--The polyandry of the
Naïrs.
III. _Polyandry in Ancient Arabia._--Its causes--Infanticide in
Arabia--The legend of Caïs, the infanticide--Evolution of polyandry in
Arabia--_Mot’a_ marriage--_Ba’al_ marriage.
IV. _Polyandry in General._--Matriarchal polyandry and patriarchal
polyandry.
I. _Sexual Proportion of Births, and its Influence on Marriage._
With the exception of the rare and singular forms of sexual or conjugal
association which we have just passed in review, matrimonial types
are not numerous among the peoples more or less civilised who have
already instituted a marriage--that is to say, a sexual association
regulated by generally admitted convention. The forms of marriage most
universally practised, those which the majority of mankind has reached
and stopped at, are polygamy and monogamy, or monandry. I shall have
much to say of these. For the moment I shall treat of another kind of
marriage, far less widely spread without doubt, but which, however,
exists or has existed at divers points of the globe; I allude to
polyandry.
I have no longer to prove that morality is variable and perfectible,
that it results from social life, and is only to be taken together
with the other needs, desires, and necessities of the struggle for
existence. Our moral sentiments are simply habits incarnate in our
brain, or instincts artificially created; and thus an act reputed
culpable at Paris or at London may be and frequently is held innocent
at Calcutta or at Pekin. In order to judge impartially of polyandric
marriage we must remember these elementary truths. Not, certainly, that
polyandry is rare amongst us, but it is censured, counted as criminal,
and obliged to hide itself. The legal and regulated possession,
publicly acknowledged, of one woman by several men, who are all
husbands by the same title, shocks our feelings and morality extremely
in the present day.
Nevertheless, human societies, small or large, must and will live, and
it is an imperious condition which imposes the polyandric _régime_,
namely, a considerable inequality between the number of men and that of
women. Now, this disproportion may result from divers causes. In the
first place, it may be natural, as it is among certain animal species.
Among the lepidoptera, for example, nine hundred and thirty-four males
have been counted as against seven hundred and sixty-one females.[169]
Although smaller, the disproportion is not less real amongst mankind.
As a general rule, and in nearly all countries where it has been
possible to ascertain it, the relation between masculine and feminine
births gives a certain excess of boys. This relation has been found
in Europe to be 106 for 70 million of births; but our great masculine
mortality re-establishes the equilibrium in the early years of life.
The proportion of births, besides, is far from being identical in
all the countries of Europe, and we even find oscillations in a
given country. In England it is generally 104.5, in France 106.3,
in Russia 108.9, at Philadelphia 110.5. In certain ethnic or social
categories the proportion of masculine births notably augments. It
rises to 113 for the Jews of Russia, to 114 for those of Breslau, to
120 for the Jews of Livonia. More singular still, the proportion of
masculine to feminine births augments for certain professions; it is,
for example, higher amongst the English clergy.[170] It is even seen
to vary spontaneously. In the year 1886, during several months, the
proportion of feminine births rose at Paris. In France, for a period
of forty-four years, it has happened five times in one department, and
six times in another, that the female births have been in excess. At
the Cape of Good Hope, among the whites, for several years there have
been ninety to ninety-nine masculine births. The reason or reasons of
these spontaneous oscillations in the proportion of the sexes still
escapes us. We verify it only, and we are warranted in concluding that
the production of sex in the embryo depends on some relatively second
causes. It is sure, for example, that the clergy of England are not
of a special race. If, however, they have more male children than the
other inhabitants of England, the fact can only depend on intimate
particulars of their kind of life. This reminds us of certain biblical
precepts relative to conjugal life, and the too neglected theory of M.
Thury (of Geneva) on the influence of the degree of ovular maturity on
the production of the sexes.
But spontaneous oscillations in the proportion of the sexes are always
feeble; even the matrimonial type does not seem to influence them, for
in the harems of Siam the sexual relation of births is the same as in
Europe.[171] On the other hand, it is proved that race-horses, which
are very polygamous, since they serve as stallions, have male and
female descendants in exactly equal proportions.[172]
It is the social actions of men which produce the most profound
disturbances in the proportion of the sexes. To begin with, in savage
or barbarous countries, where violent death has become an ordinary
occurrence for men, the number of adult females much exceeds that of
adult males. Thus, at Bantou, when the Dutch established themselves
there, they found ten women to one man.[173] In La Soñora, at the
end of a civil war, there were seven women to one man. In spite of
all moral and legal precepts, such conditions unfailingly result in
polygamy, disguised or not.
On the contrary, a custom very widely spread in savage countries, that
of the infanticide of girls, not less necessarily engenders polyandry,
if the equilibrium in the numerical proportion of the sexes is not
re-established in another manner. In reality, the infanticide of
girls has been largely practised in nearly all polyandrous countries.
It seems also that the custom of sacrificing the female children
influences in the long run the natural production of the sexes.
Thus the polyandrous Todas, who _formerly_ killed their girls, have
actually a sexual proportion of 133.3 for adults, and of 124 for the
children.[174]
In Polynesia, where the infanticide of girls was so largely practised,
the sexual relation to-day is altogether in favour of male births.
In New Zealand the proportion of the sexes in 1858 was 130.3 for
adults, and 122.2 for non-adults.[175]
In 1839, in the Sandwich Islands, the numerical proportion was 125.08
for adults, and 125.75 for non-adults.
In 1872 a general census of all the Sandwich Islands gave for the
numerical proportion of the sexes 125.36.
But there is more than one way of falsifying the proportion of the
sexes. It is not necessary to kill nearly all the female children,
as was the custom among the Gonds of Bengal, where in many villages
Macpherson did not see a single girl;[176] it suffices to sell them.
It is even the sale of girls which in many countries has at first
restrained the savage practice of feminine infanticide. Girls became a
merchandise negotiated by the parents, and afterwards redeemed by the
men, because they could not do without them; but then it happened, in
various countries and among various races, that men joined together to
lighten the expense, and that several of them contented themselves with
one wife in common, became polyandrous.
But we must not believe, with certain sociologists, that polyandry has
ever been a universal and necessary matrimonial phase. The enormous
consumption of men, necessitated by a savage or barbarous life, has
often given an impulse to polygamy. It is only in certain societies
where the practice of female infanticide exceeded all measure, or in
certain islands, or certain regions with little or no population,
where conquerors badly off for wives came to settle, that polyandry has
become general and enduring. It is surely only an exceptional form of
marriage, and we can enumerate the countries where it has been or is
still in use.
II. _Ethnography of Polyandry._
Cæsar speaks thus of the polyandry of the ancient Britons:--“By tens
and twelves the husbands have their wives in common, especially
brothers with brothers, and parents with children.”[177]
I have previously quoted Strabo on the polyandry of the primitive
Arabs, which was also fraternal.
In the sixteenth century the Guanches of two of the Canary Isles,
Lancerote and Tortaventura, were still polyandrous, but amongst them
the husbands did not number more than three.[178]
Polyandry also existed in New Zealand and in the Marquesas, but
restricted to certain women only.[179]
In America, amongst the Avaroes and the Maypures, according to
Humboldt, brothers had often only one wife.
But the great polyandric centres exist or have existed in Asia, in
India, Ceylon, and Thibet. Various aboriginal tribes of India, nearly
always much addicted to female infanticide, have practised polyandry.
The Miris and Dophlas of Bengal are still polyandrous.[180] Among the
Todas of Nilgherry polyandry was fraternal. When a man married a girl,
she became on that account the wife of all his brothers, and inversely
these became the husbands of all the sisters of the wife. The first
child born of these marriages was attributed to the eldest brother, the
second to the next brother, and so forth.[181]
But polyandry has not flourished only among the primitive races of
India. The Hindoo populations had also adopted it, and traces of it are
found in their sacred literature. Thus in the Mahabharata the five
Pandou brothers marry all together the charming Drâaupadi, with eyes
of lotus blue.[182] But in Brahmanic India polyandry is more than a
mere memory. Skinner has proved that near the sources of the Djemmah,
amongst a very fine race of Hindoo mountaineers, fraternal polyandry
still prevailed. “Having asked one of these women,” says the traveller,
“how many husbands she had--‘Only four,’ she replied. ‘And all living?’
‘Why not?’”
These customs, according to the traveller, did not hinder these
mountaineers from being, on other points, very moral men. Thus they
held lying in horror, and in their eyes to deviate from the truth, even
quite innocently, was almost a sacrilege.[183]
At the other extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric _régime_ is
still very flourishing, especially in the interior of the island, and
among the leisured classes. The number of husbands, generally brothers
or relatives, is variable; it varies from three to eight. According
to Emerson Tennent, polyandry was formerly general in the island, and
it is owing to the efforts of the Dutch and Portuguese that it has
disappeared from the coast.[184]
It is particularly in lamaic Thibet that the polyandric _régime_ is
in full vigour; and in this country religion strengthens it, for the
most distinguished men, the ruling classes, the chiefs or officers of
the State, _a fortiori_ the lamas, have the same disdain for marriage
so loudly professed by the saints of Catholicism. The greater number
exempt themselves from it, and leave to the common people the gross
care of producing children. Now, the latter, by reason of their
poverty, associate together to lighten the burden of the family. It is,
again, fraternal polyandry which is the rule in Thibet. It is in this
country that sociologists have sought the classic type of this kind of
polyandry.
In Thibet the right of primogeniture is combined with the right of
marriage, and the younger brothers follow the fate of their chief.
It is this last who marries for all of them, and chooses the common
wife.[185] However, if we may believe other accounts, a certain liberty
is allowed to younger brothers. The pressure on them is chiefly
economic. When the eldest son marries, the property is transmitted
to him in advance of his inheritance, with the charge of maintaining
his parents, who, however, can live in a separate house. The youngest
brother takes orders, and becomes a lama. The others, if they choose,
become inferior husbands of the wife, who with us would be their
sister-in-law, and they are almost forced to do this, since their
eldest brother is sole inheritor. Once within the polyandric _régime_,
the younger brothers have a subordinate position. The eldest, the
husband-in-chief, considers them as his servants, and has even the
right to send them away without any resource, if he pleases. If the
principal husband dies, then his widow, his property, and his authority
pass to the younger brother next in age. In the case of the brother not
being one of the co-husbands, he cannot inherit the property without
the wife, nor the wife without the property. We have here, then, a sort
of polyandrian levirate.[186]
The children springing from these unions give the name of father
sometimes to the eldest of the husbands, and sometimes to all.[187]
Travellers tell us that these polyandrous households are not more
troubled than our monogamous ones. Some Thibetans, living thus in
conjugal association, could not understand V. Jacquemont when he
asked them if the preference of their single wife for one or other of
them did not cause quarrels between the husbands. But if jealousy is
unknown to the husbands, it is, on the contrary, frequent with the
wife. “A Thibetan woman,” says Turner, “united to several husbands, is
as jealous of her conjugal rights as an Indian despot could be of the
beauties who people his zenana or harem.”[188]
As to the manner in which the intimate relations between husbands and
wife are regulated in the polyandric households of Thibet, we have
scarcely any information. Among the Todas the wife never had conjugal
commerce with more than one husband at a time, but she changed every
month; sometimes also the associated husbands add to their number
temporarily some young man belonging to the tribe, but not yet engaged
in the bonds of wedlock.[189]
There is another form of polyandry besides the fraternal, but quite
as curious, and which has been made to play a great _rôle_ in various
sociological theories. It is the polyandry of the Naïrs, an indigenous
high caste of Malabar.
However extraordinary the fraternal polyandry called Thibetan may
seem in our eyes, that of the Naïrs of Malabar is far more so. Here
the reality exceeds all that we could have imagined in the way of
conjugal customs. The Naïr parents married their daughters early. The
bride was rarely more than twelve years old. The proceedings began
with an ephemeral union, a sort of fictitious marriage, but celebrated
nevertheless with great rejoicings in presence of parents and friends.
The initiative and provisional husband passed round the neck of the
bride the conjugal collar, the _tali_, and henceforth the marriage
was concluded and had to be consummated; only at the end of four or
five days the new husband was obliged to quit the house of the wife
for ever. On the contrary, the young bride remained in the family, and
from this period contracted a series of partial but durable marriages.
The first marriage of the young Naïr girl had evidently no other
object than defloration; it was a service demanded of a fictitious
husband, and for which he was often paid. A traveller relates that
for this preliminary marriage a porter or a workman was employed and
paid. If his pretensions were too high, recourse was had to an Arab
or a stranger; and, says the narrator, the gratuitous services of
these last were always preferred if, when the ceremony was over, they
withdrew in time and with good grace. When once well and duly prepared
for marriage, the young Naïr girl might take for husband whomsoever
she liked, except the provisional husband of the first few days.[190]
The number of her husbands varied from four to twelve.[191] Each one
of them was at first presented to her either by her mother or by her
maternal uncle, an important personage in the family. Each co-partner
was in his turn husband in reality during a very short time, varying
from one day to ten, and he was free, on his side, to participate in
divers polyandric conjugal societies. We are assured that in these
curious _ménages_ all the associated husbands lived in very good
understanding with each other.[192]
Generally the Naïr husbands were neither brothers nor relatives, for
these polyandrous people seemed to have ideas about incest analogous to
our own. But the unions outside the caste were the only ones reputed
culpable; they constituted a sort of social adultery. The conjugal
prerogatives of the husbands were not unaccompanied by certain duties.
They had to maintain the common wife, and they agreed together to share
the expense. One took on himself to furnish the clothes, another to
give the rice.[193] On these conditions each one could in his turn
enjoy the common property, and, in order not to be troubled in the use
of his rights, it sufficed the husband on duty to hang on the door of
the house and on the wife’s door his shield and his sword or knife.
The Brahmins were obliged to tolerate these polyandric marriages, so
contrary, however, to their laws; they finished by even deriving a
profit from them. In the Brahmanic families in contact with the Naïrs
the eldest son alone married, so as not to scatter the patrimony; the
others entered the matrimonial combinations of the Naïrs, and thus
their children did not inherit.[194]
On their side, the Naïrs were naturally only acquainted with
matriarchal heredity. No Naïr, says Buchanan, knows his father, and
every man has for heirs the children of his sister. He loves them as
if they were his own, and unless he is reputed a monster, he must show
much more grief at their death than he would for his own possible
children--namely, those of his own wife.[195]
In comparing the two kinds of polyandry that I have just described, the
patriarchal polyandry of the Thibetans, and the matriarchal polyandry
of the Naïrs, the majority of sociologists consider the first as
superior to the other. In so doing they seem to me not to be able to
shake off sufficiently our European ideas. Doubtless the fraternal
Thibetan polyandry, while leaving undecided the paternal filiation of
the children, assures them a sort of collective paternal parenthood,
since the fathers are of the same blood. This polyandrian family
consequently differs less than the Naïr family from our own system of
patriarchal kinship, which is reputed superior; but surely the liberty,
and even the dignity of the woman, which must count for something, are
more respected under the Naïr system, which not only does not reduce
the woman to a thing possessed, that one lends to one’s friends, but
gives her the power of choosing her husbands.
Fraternal polyandry being declared superior to polyandry of the Naïr
type, it has been concluded that in virtue of the law of progress
it must have been preceded in all times and places by the latter.
As regards the greater number of cases of Thibetan polyandry, the
supposition is gratuitous; it seems, however, established as far as
ancient Arabia is concerned, where, thanks to a very learned treatise
recently published by Mr. W. Robertson Smith, professor of Arabic at
the University of Cambridge,[196] we may note the causes of polyandry
and follow its evolution.
III. _Polyandry in Ancient Arabia._
The chief cause of ancient Arabian polyandry was the one we find in
nearly all the polyandric countries--that is to say, the infanticide of
daughters.
The primitive Arabs, extremely savage and even anthropophagous, were
led to adopt the custom of female infanticide by the difficulty of
living in their arid country, where famines were very common. Down to
the present time the nomads of Arabia suffer constantly from hunger
during a great part of the year.[197]
The custom of infanticide was inveterate among the Arabs, and Mahomet
was obliged to condemn it over and over again in the Koran:--“They who
from folly or ignorance kill their children shall perish.[198] Kill not
your children on account of poverty.[199] Kill not your children for
fear of poverty; we will feed them, and you also.[200] When it shall be
asked of the girl buried alive for what crime she is put to death ...
every soul will then acknowledge the work that she had done.”[201]
In this last verse the Koran bears witness to the custom of killing the
girls, and it indicates the process in use, which actually consisted
in burying them alive. This was done openly, and often the grave of
the newly-born infant was dug by the side even of the couch of the
mother who had just given birth to it. According to the morality of
the primitive Arabs, these acts were not only very simple, but even
virtuous and generous,[202] which seems to indicate that they were
indeed only precautions against famine. An Arab legend, quoted by Mr.
R. Smith, paints in lively colours these atrocious customs. It relates
to a chief of Tamin, who became a constant practitioner of infanticide
in consequence of a wound given to his pride. He was called Caïs, and
was contemporary with Mahomet. The daughter of his sister was carried
off in a razzia and given to the son of her captor, as was the usage
in Arabia, where the captured women made part of the booty and were
divided with it. This time, when Caïs came to reclaim his niece by
offering to pay her ransom, the latter, being well pleased with the
adventure, refused to quit her husband. Caïs, the uncle, was mortally
offended, and from that moment he interred alive all his daughters,
according to the ancient custom. But one day, during his absence, a
daughter was born to him, whom the mother secretly sent to a relative
to save her, and then declared to her husband that she had been
delivered of a still-born child. Some years later, the girl, grown
tall, came to pay a visit to her mother. Caïs discovered her, while
her mother was plaiting her hair and ornamenting it with cowries. “I
arrived,” the father is made to say, speaking to Mahomet, “and I said,
‘Who is this young girl?’ ‘She is yours,’ replied the mother, weeping,
and she related how she had formerly saved her. I waited till the
emotion of the mother was calmed; then one day I led away the girl; I
dug a grave and I made her lie down in it. She cried, ‘Father, what do
you intend to do with me?’ Then I covered her with earth. She cried
again, ‘Father, do you wish to bury me? Are you going away, and will
you abandon me?’ But I continued to heap earth on her until her cries
were stifled. That was the only time it has happened to me to feel pity
in burying a daughter.”[203]
Such customs, combined with the sale to strangers of girls carried
off in razzias, and the polygamy of the rich men, must assuredly have
profoundly disturbed the numerical proportion of the sexes, and have
rendered polyandry almost a necessity, which, besides, could not
excite any scruple with the ancient Arabs, whose morals were very
licentious. Thus the captured women often remained common to a group of
relatives.[204] In the fifth century the Syrio-Roman law had even to
forbid the contracts of fraternity, by which all was held in common,
including the wives and children.[205]
That fraternal polyandry, called Thibetan, may have existed in Arabia,
the passage of Strabo, which I have previously quoted in regard to
promiscuity, would suffice to establish; but Arab writers expressly
attest it, and notably Bokhâri (vi. 127), according to whom the number
of polyandrous husbands was not allowed to exceed ten; besides this,
various customs of more modern date, as, for example, the passing of
the widow, by heritage, to the relatives of the husband, seem to arise
from it. Moreover, even at the present day in Arabia, the father cannot
give his daughter to another if the son of his brother demands her, and
the latter has the right to obtain her at a lower price;[206] this is
the right of pre-emption applied to the woman.
It seems, indeed, as if these were the vestiges of an antique
fraternal polyandry, and it is in fact of fraternal or Thibetan
polyandry that Strabo speaks. Has this fraternal patriarchal polyandry
been preceded by a matriarchal polyandry, after the mode of the
Naïrs--a polyandry which did not make the woman the property of the
husbands? Without being able to give a direct proof of this, we may,
however, consider it as very probable. In the present day the partial
marriages, by which the women of the Hassinyeh Arabs engage themselves
for some days of the week only, strongly resemble the matriarchal
polyandry of the Naïrs, and temporary marriage, or _mot’a_, of the
ancient Arabs approaches nearly to it also.
It is this kind of marriage, in all probability, that the prophet means
when he inveighs against “fornication.”
By the _mot’a_ marriage the woman does not leave her home; her tribe
preserves the rights it has over her, and her children do not belong
to the husband. In short, the conjugal union is only contracted for a
fixed time. These _mot’a_ marriages had nothing dishonourable in them,
and did not in the least prevent the women from finding fresh husbands
when, at the expiration of the lease, they became once more free.[207]
The custom of _mot’a_ marriage was long prevalent in Arabia. Ammianus
speaks of it,[208] saying that the wife received a price or indemnity
from her temporary husband, and that, if it happened to the contracting
parties to wish to continue to live together at the expiration of
the time fixed, they inaugurated a fresh and more durable union by
a symbolic ceremony, during which the wife offered to her husband a
javelin and a tent.
The prophet himself decided with great hesitation to condemn the
_mot’a_ marriage. A tradition makes him say that “if a man and a woman
agree together, their union should last for three nights, after which
they may separate or live together, as they please.”[209]
In fact, the _mot’a_ marriage was only abolished in the time of Omar;
and it is important to remark with regard to it, that this mode of
marriage, singular as it may appear to us, was, for the woman, very
superior to the servitude of the Mussulman harem. It was a personal
contract, in which her parents did not interfere, and which did not
degrade her from the rank of an independent person to the humiliation
of merely being a thing possessed. The _mot’ a_ marriage indicates,
besides, very free manners, as is attested by a number of facts and
traditions, particularly certain religious rites of the Canaanites, the
Aramites, and the pagan Hebrews, and also the licentious practices of
women and girls in the temple of Baalbek.
By degrees the _mot’ a_ marriage gave place to a definite marriage,
the _ba’al_ marriage, by which the young girl went to live with her
husband and owed him fidelity. Marriages of this kind were sought at
first by the chiefs, to whom they assured alliances. As a consequence
these unions became honourable, and dethroned the ancient matrimonial
custom.[210] Henceforth the women who continued to live in the ancient
mode were dishonoured, and treated as prostitutes, whose dwelling was
indicated by a special flag. At the same time the taste for paternity
was born in men, and, in case of doubt on this matter, sages whose
profession it was, declared the signs by which a man could recognise
his own offspring.[211]
IV. _Polyandry in General._
I have quoted or made a summary of nearly all the information that
has reached us on the subject of ancient and modern polyandry. From
thence we may conclude that in no way are we authorised to consider
this form of conjugal union as having been general. Still it has become
a necessity in a good number of gross societies. It has specially
prevailed in countries badly supplied with food, where the struggle
for existence was severe, where warlike conflicts with neighbouring
tribes were incessant, and where, in order to endure, the community
was forced to diminish the _impedimenta_ and the useless mouths. In
such conditions, men still savage or barbarous have recourse without
hesitation all over the world to female infanticide; and as, on the
other side, the chiefs and strong men monopolise as many women as
possible, the debauchery of unmarried women and polyandrian households
become necessary palliatives.
We have seen that there are two principal kinds of polyandry--the
matriarchal and patriarchal. In the first, the woman or girl does not
quit her family or her _gens_; sometimes even she is permitted the
right of choosing her husbands, who are not related to each other, and
upon whom the woman scarcely depends at all, since she remains with her
own relations, and bears children for them.
On the contrary, in the patriarchal polyandry, the woman, captured or
bought, is almost entirely uprooted; she leaves her natural protectors
to go and live with her husbands, to whom she belongs, who are limited
in number, are nearly always brothers or relations, and to whom she
cannot be unfaithful without authorisation.
Both forms of polyandric marriage suppose a complete absence of
modesty, of sexual reserve and moral delicacy. But we know that these
qualities can only be the fruit of long culture. In this respect both
matriarchal and patriarchal polygamy are equal. But it is important to
observe that the first enslaves woman much less. On the other hand,
the second already permits the establishment of a sort of paternal
filiation, since the husbands are generally of the same blood. For this
reason it is reputed superior.
In reality matriarchal polyandry always coincides with the primitive
family form, the matriarchate--that is to say, with a system that takes
no account of paternal filiation, and leaves the children to the tribe
of the mother.
Patriarchal polyandry, on the contrary, already presents the outline of
a sort of paternal family, with the right of primogeniture attributed
to the first-born.
We shall have to study in detail both the patriarchate and the
matriarchate. Polyandry, in its reputedly highest form, the Thibetan,
only constitutes a patriarchate of the most imperfect kind, since there
is still a confusion of fatherhood.
Proof is still wanting to force us to conclude that matriarchal
polyandry must always have preceded the other. This appears to be true
for ancient Arabia only. In all other places we can merely suppose
it to have been so. We should be equally mistaken if we admitted _a
priori_ that patriarchal polyandry implies a degree of civilisation
superior to that of the countries where matriarchal polyandry prevails.
The ancient Arabs, of whom Strabo speaks, practised fraternal
polyandry, and yet we know that they were scarcely civilised, they
were cannibals, and so ferocious that their wives accompanied them in
combats in order to despatch and mutilate the wounded enemies. These
furies made themselves necklaces and bracelets for their ankles with
the nose and ears of a dead enemy,[212] and sometimes even they ate his
liver.
In conclusion, polyandry is an exceptional conjugal form, as rare as
polygamy is common. It must be classed with experimental and term
marriages. With our European ideas on conjugal fidelity, obligatory
by the right of proprietorship, we can scarcely conceive even of the
possibility of this perfect absence of jealousy, this placidity of the
co-husbands. It is indelicate, doubtless. But how shall we describe our
morality and the laws that give to the deceived husband the right of
life and death over his faithless companion, and in this respect bring
us down to the level of the savage? Do indelicate manners rank lower
than ferocious manners? They are both those of the animal.
FOOTNOTES:
[169] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 278.
[170] A. Bertillon.
[171] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 270.
[172] _Id., ibid._
[173] Houzeau, _Facultés mentales des animaux_, t. I^{er.} p. 282.
[174] Darwin, _Descent of Man_, p. 270.
[175] _Id., ibid._ p. 282.
[176] Dalton, _Ethn. Bengal_, p. 289.
[177] _De bello Gallico_, v. p. 14.
[178] Berthelot, _Mém. Soc. Ethn._, pp. 121, 125, 155, 186, 210.
[179] Radiguet, _Derniers Sauvages_, p. 180.
[180] Dalton, _loc. cit._, pp. 33-36.
[181] Schortt, _Trans. Ethno. Soc._ (New Series), vol. viii. p. 240.
[182] _Mahabharata_, trad. Fauche, t. ii. p. 148.
[183] _Hist. Univ. des Voy_., vol. xxxi. pp. 458-468.
[184] Davy, _Ceylon_, p. 286.--O. Sachot, _L’île de Ceylon_, p. 25.
[185] Turner, _Thibet_, p. 348, and _Hist. Univ. des Voy_., vol. xxxi.
p. 434.
[186] Moorcroft and Trebeck’s _Travels_, vol. i. p. 320.
[187] Rousselet, _Ethnographie de l’Himalaya occidental_, in _Revue
d’anthrop._, 1878.
[188] Turner, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, vol. xxxi. p. 434.
[189] Major Ross King, _Journ. of Anthrop._ (1870), p. 32.
[190] Élie Reclus, _Les Primitifs_, p. 191.
[191] Hamilton, _Account of the East Indies_, vol. i. p. 308.
[192] Forbes, _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i. p. 385.
[193] _Lettres Edifiantes_, vol. x. p. 22.
[194] Robertson Smith, _Kinship_, etc., p. 313.
[195] Buchanan, _Journey_, vol. ii. p. 411, etc.
[196] _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, 1885.
[197] _Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 283.
[198] Sourate, vi. p. 141.
[199] _Ibid._ p. 152.
[200] _Ibid._ xvii. p. 33.
[201] _Ibid._ lxxxi. pp. 8-14.
[202] R. Smith, _Kinship_, p. 282.
[203] R. Smith, _Kinship_, etc., pp. 279, 280.
[204] _Id., ibid._ pp. 131-134.
[205] _Id., ibid._ p. 135.
[206] _Id., ibid._ p. 137.
[207] R. Smith, _Kinship_, etc., pp. 69, 141-143.
[208] _Id., ibid._ vol. xiv. p. 4.
[209] _Id., ibid._ p. 67.
[210] R. Smith, _Kinship_, etc., pp. 141-143.
[211] _Id., ibid._ p. 143.
[212] R. Smith, _Kinship_, etc., p. 284.