PRIMITIVE MONOGAMY.
I. _The Monogamy of Inferior Races._--The causes of monogamy--The
gynecocratic theory of Bachofen--Inferior monogamic races--Races
which are polygamic, although superior--Co-existence of monogamy and
polygamy.
II. _Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America._--Monogamy of
the common people in Mexico and Peru--Civil marriage in Peru.
III. _Monogamy in Ancient Egypt._--Gynecocracy in Egypt--Its _raison
d’être_.
IV. _Monogamy of the Touaregs and Abyssinians._--Gynecocracy among the
Touaregs--Fragility of Marriage in Abyssinia.
V. _Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia._--Monogamy in reality
in Thibet--Modified monogamy among the Tartars--Marriage in
China--Matrimonial legislation in China--Conjugal docility of the
Chinese women--Japanese marriage.
VI. _Monogamy and Civilisation._
I. _The Monogamy of Inferior Races._
After having successively studied the inferior forms of sexual and
conjugal unions, it now remains for us to investigate the most elevated
of them--the one that all, or nearly all, the great civilised societies
have ended by adopting, at least in appearance, in their legal
systems--monogamy.
Of the great causes which have led to the adoption of monogamic
marriage, the first is the sexual equilibrium of births as soon as
it was no longer disturbed by the casualties of savage life. Without
doubt, in a society composed sensibly of equal numbers of men and
women, the more powerful and rich may monopolise several women by the
right of the strongest, but in doing so they wrong the community, and
public opinion becomes hostile to the practice. It is thus that with
the Dyaks the chiefs lose their authority and see their influence
diminish when they indulge in polygamy, although no law forbids it.[499]
Another cause quite as powerful which contributed greatly to lead
to legal monogamy was the institution of individual and hereditary
property. L. Morgan does not hesitate to refer monogamic marriage to
this sole origin. Indeed, in all societies more or less civilised, the
desire for heritable property has quickly assumed a capital importance;
the more or less equitable regulation of questions of interest, and
the anxiety to safeguard these interests, form the solid basis of all
written codes. Now, nearly everywhere the heritage is transmitted
according to filiation, sometimes maternal, sometimes paternal; but it
is only in the monogamic _régime_ that the parentage of children is the
same for all in the paternal as well as the maternal line.[500]
Over and above this, moral motives have reinforced the great influences
resulting from the laws of natality and the all-powerful questions of
interest. In theory or ideal, the life-long union of two beings, giving
and devoting themselves to each other, engaging to share good and evil
fortune, is surely very noble; but, as we shall see, the realisation of
monogamic marriage has everywhere been most gross, and it is difficult
to refer it to elevated aspirations. Unless we are intoxicated with
sentimentalism, we cannot believe, with Bachofen,[501] that women,
naturally more noble and more sensitive than their gross companions,
grew tired of primitive hetaïrism, and, obeying powerful religious
aspirations, enthroned monogamic marriage by force, becoming by the
same stroke heads of the family, and inaugurating gynecocracy. These
Amazonian fables are very energetically contradicted by history and
ethnography.
Nearly in every age, and nearly in every place, woman, by reason of
her native weakness, has been subordinate to her companion, often
oppressed by him, and her subjection is the more severe as the
civilisation is the more primitive. It is a great error to believe
that in all times and places monogamic union is the sign and necessary
seal of an advanced civilisation. A number of primitive tribes are
monogamous; certain monkeys are so too. Among the inferior monogamous
races I will mention the Veddahs[502] of the woods of Ceylon, so low
in intelligence that they have not even names for the numbers; the
Bochimans of South Africa,[503] scarcely more developed; the Kurnais of
Australia, among whom monogamy, though not obligatory, is general.[504]
Certain aborigines of India,[505] less primitive, no doubt, than these
very humble specimens of our species, but still very savage, are also
monogamous. These are: the Nagas, who are contented to make their one
wife work very hard; the Kisans, who limit themselves to a single wife,
and have not even any concubines;[506] the Padans, who set a good
example to more than one superior race, for not only do they blame
polygamy and only practise it exceptionally, but they do not buy their
wives, and leave to their young people the liberty of marrying as they
please.[507]
The form of marriage is therefore not necessarily connected with the
degree of general civilisation. The contrary is well proved, since
very civilised peoples have adopted polygamy, sometimes openly, and
very often in a masked form. Man is willingly polygamous by instinct,
but he is often forced to bend to the necessities of social existence.
Therefore, in the same country, and in the same race, we may meet
with tribes and ethnic groups very analogous in everything else, but
practising very dissimilar conjugal forms. It is not rare, for example,
to see monogamy and polygamy elbowing each other. Thus the Redskins
are willingly polygamous, and yet the Pimas, the Cocomaricopas, and
a number of tribes on the banks of the Gilo, of Colorado and of New
Mexico, only marry one wife, whilst with the Navajos, the Comanches,
etc., a man has as many wives as he can buy.[508]
With the Zapotecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec there is no polygamy;
it is forbidden.[509] On the contrary, with all the Indians of Columbia
polygamy is general; but the Otomacs, who are reckoned among the most
savage, are monogamous.[510] Necessity makes the law; and although
it may be the legal form of marriage adopted by the superior races,
monogamy does not imply in itself an advanced civilisation. Besides,
the numerous facts that I have previously quoted abundantly prove that
polygamy and monogamy can coexist in the same society--the former for
the sole use of the ruling classes, the latter for the common people.
II. _Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America._
It was thus in Mexico,[511] where, among the wives of the great men,
one alone was called lawful; her children inherited the paternal title
and wealth, to the exclusion of the others.[512] In Peru, as in Mexico,
the law, with the bold partiality which there is no attempt to disguise
in barbarous societies, permitted polygamy to the Inca and to the
enormous family of the Incas, while exacting a strict monogamy from the
poor. State communism, imposed on the country, regulated the sexual
unions somewhat as our rural proprietors regulate the coupling of their
domestic animals. Peruvian marriage was a civil act, very comparable to
enforced military service in modern Europe. Every year in the kingdom
of Cuzco it was the practice to assemble together in the squares of
the towns and villages all the individuals of marriageable age, from
twenty-four to twenty-six years for the men, and from eighteen to
twenty for the women. At Cuzco the Inca himself married the persons of
his own family, and always in a public square, by putting in each other
the hands of the different couples. In their respective boundaries
the chiefs of districts, resembling our mayors, fulfilled the same
function for the persons of their own rank or of an inferior rank. We
are indeed told that the consent of parents was necessary, but it was
not a question of the consent of the interested parties.[513] Besides,
it was strictly forbidden to marry outside the civil group of which the
individuals formed a part. In this case marriages must often have been
contracted between relatives more or less near. As to incest, there
was little severity, since the Inca was legally bound to marry one of
his sisters, with the reservation that she might not be his uterine
sister,[514] and the same rule was at last extended to the nobles of
the empire.
In sanctioning the civil marriage of the country, the public
functionary, the _Curaca_, administered to the couple the oath of
conjugal fidelity, which, according to P. Pizzarre, was generally kept;
perhaps because, as we shall see later, the Peruvian law was not tender
to adulterers.
There does not appear to have been the least nuptial ceremony in Peru.
In Mexico, on the contrary, marriage was celebrated with much show,
and it was religious. The bride was conducted in great pomp to the
house of the bridegroom, who came with his family to meet her. The
two processions mutually perfumed each other with boxes of burning
incense. After this the future spouses sat down on the same mat, and
a priest married them by tying the robe of the bride to the mantle of
the bridegroom. The precaution had previously been taken to consult
the diviners and augurs. Nuptial festivals followed, in which the
newly-married couple took no part. They lasted four days, and the
marriage was not to be consummated until their termination.
III. _Monogamy in Ancient Egypt._
In the ancient empires of central America the position of the wife was
very subordinate;--this is an ordinary fact in barbarous countries. But
in this respect, a singular exception seems to have existed in ancient
Egypt, which nevertheless offers so many analogies to ancient Peru.
This anomaly must be described with some details, because the believers
in a prehistoric gynecocracy complacently rely on it to support their
theory.
The general assertions of the writers of antiquity on this point have
been confirmed by the demotic deeds recently deciphered. I shall
briefly quote both.
Let us listen first to Herodotus on the subject of Egyptian women:
“They have established laws and customs opposite, for the most part,
to those of the rest of mankind. With them the women go to market and
traffic; the men stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on
the head, the women on the shoulders.... The boys are never forced to
maintain their parents unless they wish to do so; the girls are obliged
to, even if they do not wish it.”[1] From this last rule it is already
logical to infer that the women possessed and inherited property,
which is not ordinary in primitive monarchies. Herodotus adds that “no
woman performs sacerdotal duties towards a divinity of either sex; the
priests of all the divinities are men.”[515] In a country so profoundly
religious this interdict clearly proves that in public opinion, at
least, the woman was held to be an inferior being. Besides, polygamy
was permitted in Egypt, which suffices of itself to exclude the idea of
feminine domination in the family. However, Herodotus relates that many
Egyptians, especially “those that dwelt on the marshes,” have, like the
Greeks, adopted monogamy.[516]
Diodorus goes further than Herodotus. He affirms that in the Egyptian
family it is the man who is subjected to the woman: “Contrary to the
received usage of other nations, the laws permit the Egyptians to marry
their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in
fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death,
never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed
according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains
why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why,
among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is
stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract,
that the man shall obey the woman.”[517]
The assertion of Diodorus seems at first sight inadmissible;
nevertheless, the demotic deeds, in a measure, confirm it. If the
family subjection of the man was not general in Egypt, at least it
existed in a number of cases. In reality, the Egyptian law did not
deal with marriages, and the interested parties contracted them at
their will. Now, in virtue of the law of matriarchal inheritance,
the woman was often richer than the man. She could therefore dictate
how the marriage contract should be drawn up. The conjugal union was
manifestly before every thing a commercial agreement, since the word
_husband_ does not appear in the documents until after the reign
of Philopator.[518] The Egyptian woman generally married under the
_régime_ of the separate possession of property; she did not change
her condition, and preserved the right of making contracts without
authorisation; she remained absolute mistress of her dowry. The
contract also specified the sums that the husband was to pay to his
wife, either as nuptial gift, or as annual pension, or as compensation
in case of divorce.[519]
Sometimes even, by acts subsequent to marriage, the Egyptian wife could
succeed in completely dispossessing her husband, and therefore the
latter was careful to stipulate, as a precaution, that his wife should
take care of him during his life, and pay the expenses of his burial
and tomb.[520]
To sum up, it appears, indeed, that in ancient Egypt no marital power
existed, at least in the families of private individuals.
This state of things lasted till the time of Philopator, who, in the
fourth year of his reign, established the pre-eminence of the husband
in the family by deciding that thenceforth all the transfers of
property made by the wife should be authorised by the husband.[521]
These facts, certainly very curious, have seemed decisive to a number
of sociologists who, with Bachofen, like to believe that in prehistoric
times there has existed a gynecocratic period--an age of gold, when
women reigned as mistresses, and of which the mythic Amazons were
a survival. The very incomplete accounts that we possess of the
condition and _rôle_ of woman in Egypt do not seem to me to warrant
the importance that is attached to them.
In barbarous, as in civilised societies, there are three great means
of influence--religion, military power, and money. In ancient Egypt,
Diodorus tells us, woman was judged unworthy of the priesthood, and
therefore inferior from a religious point of view. She did not possess
any warlike power. Neither monuments, nor writings, nor traditions
make any mention of female warriors, analogous either to the Amazons
of fable or those of the king of Dahomey. There remains the influence
of money, doubtless an enormous influence in all societies where it
can accumulate in the hands of certain individuals to the detriment of
others. Now, everything proves that if in ancient Egypt women have more
or less enjoyed great independence, and have even abused it so as to
subject their husbands, they obtained it simply by the power of money.
Evidently the organisation of property and the laws of succession in
Egypt permitted women to be rich or to become so, and in consequence
to domineer over husbands less favoured in this respect. We shall see
that in ancient Greece and Rome the same causes produced the same
effects. Is it even necessary to go to ancient times to seek examples
of feminine emancipation, even very insolent emancipation, based only
on the dowry or fortune? We also have an abundance of plutocratic
Amazons. But these facts are not incompatible with the legal subjection
of women. If they seem to have been very common in ancient Egypt, it
is because legislation did not meddle with marriage; and it must also
be remembered that the demotic documents only mention, as is natural,
the contracts of the upper or middle classes, the propertied classes,
which, of course, are a minority.
So little was gynecocracy inscribed in the laws and customs of Egypt
that a simple royal decree depriving women of the disposition of their
property sufficed to cast them into the subordinate rank which they
have occupied until the present time in all human societies, but which,
perhaps, they will not always occupy.
Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy fact that in a society so rigid as the
Egyptian, a minority of women should have been able to obtain legally
a great amount of independence; it constitutes a remarkable exception,
and may, perhaps, be referred to the influence of the Berber races,
which, according to Egyptian traditions themselves, played an important
part in the foundation of primitive Egypt.
IV. _The Monogamy of the Touaregs and Abyssinians._
We have already seen that our contemporary Kabyles, although of
Berber origin, make the yoke of their wives very hard; but it may
be admitted that, in this respect, they have been influenced by
numerous conquerors. A certain emancipation of women seems to be a
characteristic trait of Berber societies. Even at the present time,
among the Touaregs of the Sahara, who have preserved their independence
and the purity of their race better than the Kabyles, the rich woman
enjoys a social position analogous to that of the ladies of ancient
Egypt.
In spite of the Mussulman law, the Targui woman practically imposes
monogamy on the man. She would immediately seek a divorce if her
husband attempted to give her a rival.
Amongst the Touaregs filiation is still maternal, and confers the rank.
“The child follows the blood of the mother;” the son of a slave or
serf father and a noble woman is noble. “It is the womb which dyes the
child,” they say in their primitive language.[522] “Absolute mistress
of her fortune, her actions, and her children, who belong to her and
bear her name, the Targui lady goes where she will and exercises a
real authority.”[523] She seldom marries before the age of twenty, and
she marries as she pleases, the fathers only intervening to prevent
_mésalliances_. She eats with her husband, to whom, however, she owes
obedience, and who can kill her in case of adultery.--(Duveyrier,
339-340.)
The Targui women know how to read and write in greater numbers than the
men. It is well known, besides, that rudimentary instruction in reading
and writing is widely spread among the Mahometan population of North
Africa.
It is to the Targui ladies, says Duveyrier, that is due the
preservation of the ancient Lybian and ancient Berber writing.[524]
Leaving domestic work to their slaves, the Targui ladies occupy
themselves with reading, writing, music, and embroidery;[525] they live
as intelligent aristocrats.
“The ladies of the tribe of the Ifoghas are renowned,” says again
Duveyrier, “for their _savoir-vivre_ and their musical talent; they
know how to ride _mehari_ better than all their rivals. Secure in their
cages, they can ride races with the most intrepid cavaliers, if one
may give this name to riders on dromedaries; in order, also, to keep
themselves in practice in this kind of riding, they meet to take short
trips together, going wherever they like without the escort of any
man.”[526] Targui gallantry has preserved for the women of the tribe of
Imanan, who are descended from the ancient sultans, the title of royal
women (_timanôkalîn_) on account of their beauty and their superiority
in the art of music.
They often give concerts, to which the men come from long distances
decked out like male ostriches. In these concerts the women sing while
accompanying themselves on the tambourine and a sort of violin or
rebâza. They are much sought after in marriage, because of the title of
cherif which they confer on their children.”[527]
The Targui lady often sings in the evenings, improvising and
accompanying herself on the rebâza. If she is married, says Duveyrier,
she is honoured all the more in proportion to the number of her
masculine friends, but she must not show preference to any one of
them. The lady may embroider on the cloak, or write on the shield of
her chevalier, verses in his praise and wishes for his good fortune.
Her friend may, without being censured, cut the name of the lady on
the rocks or chant her virtues. “Friends of different sexes,” say the
Touaregs, “are for the eyes and the heart, and not for the bed only, as
among the Arabs.”[528]
Such customs as these indicate delicate instincts which are absolutely
foreign to the Arabs and to the Kabyles. They strongly remind us of
the times of our southern troubadours, and of the _cours d’amour_,
which were the quintessence of chivalry. But it is important to notice
that with the Touaregs, as with the Provençals and the Acquitainers
of the twelfth century, who may well have had Berber ancestors, these
diversions and gallantries were for aristocrats and princes, and in no
way prevented the general slavery of women. These customs are curious;
they show a degree of moral nobility, and are worthy of note, but at
the same time we must guard against according them a general value
which they do not possess. It is important, also, to remark that the
independence of the Berber lady, who is saved the trouble of grinding
the corn, of cooking, etc., rests on the magic power of money. “By
means of accumulation,” says Duveyrier, “the greatest part of the
fortune is in the hands of women”--(p. 339). In short, it is only by an
extraordinary power of illusion that we can recognise in the relatively
favourable situation of the Berber lady a case of Amazonian gynecocracy.
In Abyssinia, which also is not a gynecocratic country, the women
enjoy very great liberty; their conduct is very dissolute, and their
marriage very easily broken. Bruce, who first made known to us these
curious customs, likens them to those of ancient Egypt. “In Abyssinia,”
he says, “the women live as if they were common to every one. They
pretend, however, to belong, by principle, to one man only when they
marry, but they do not act up to it.”[529] Divorce is so easy in
Abyssinia that Bruce says he has seen a woman surrounded by seven
former husbands.[530] The most distinguished Abyssinian ladies have
cicisbei, after the Italian fashion of old times. At their feasts,
according to Bruce again, the lovers yield themselves publicly to each
other. Their neighbours at table simply take care to hide them very
imperfectly by improvising with their cloaks a waving partition.[531]
The young women of the province of Samen, says Bruce, came alone to
trade with the travellers. “They were hard in their bargains, with the
exception of one only, in which they seemed very reasonable and very
generous. They agreed to give rather than sell their favours, alleging
that long solicitations on one side and refusals on the other wasted
time that might be more agreeably employed.”[532] It is clear from this
that the monogamic _régime_ of the Abyssinians is more apparent than
real, that it is much modified by the extreme cicisbeism, by the use of
concubines, of which I have already spoken, and lastly by the abuse of
divorce, turning it into a successive polygamy.
V. _Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia._
Among the Asiatic Mongols monogamy is also not very strict. In Thibetan
Himalaya polyandry seems to predominate. It is not rare, either, in
Thibet proper, where, on the other hand, polygamy is not forbidden,
for there is no rigid legislation in regard to marriage. Besides, in
these countries, as in many others, girls enjoy complete liberty before
marriage, and they use it without suffering at all in reputation.[533]
It is singular that in Lamaïc Thibet, in full theocracy, in a country
where the prayers and the practices of religion enter into nearly
all the actions of civil life, marriage escapes all ecclesiastical
interference. In fact, the priests have nothing to do with it, and
all the matrimonial ceremony, which is purely laïc, consists in a
simple mutual engagement entered into by the interested parties before
witnesses.[534]
This laïc anarchy of marriage in Thibet must no doubt be attributed
to Lamaïc bigotry itself. The Lamas avoid women, holding marriage in
contempt, and all the great functionaries, as well as many Thibetans
of the other classes, are of the same opinion.[535] Religion does not
concern herself with it; she disdains it, as in Egypt, which seems to
show that a sufficient degree of religious madness hinders theocratic
legislators from thinking of civil institutions.
But in regard to marriage, both civil and religious laws are always
subordinate to the necessities resulting from the social condition and
the proportion of the sexes. In Thibet, therefore, in spite of the
entire liberty allowed to individuals, the marriage of the greatest
number is monogamic quite as much as if the law had prescribed it.[536]
In Tartary the nomad Mongols have adopted for their matrimonial type
monogamy tempered by the domestic concubinate. I have spoken previously
of their “lesser wives,” of their marriage by purchase with the
ceremonial of capture. I need not, therefore, repeat all this. I will
only note in passing that their girls have also very loose manners,
which are not always corrected by marriage.[537] According to one of
the most recent explorers of Mongolia, the proportion of the sexes in
that country is the inverse of that in Europe. The women are much less
numerous than the men. This may probably be the principal reason of the
celibacy of the Lamas, and of the real monogamy of the greater number
of laymen who do not belong to the aristocracy.[538]
Chinese marriage essentially resembles Mongol marriage, but with a more
settled ritual and a more uniform legislation. It is also monogamic,
with the palliative of the concubinate, the “lesser wives” of whom I
have already spoken.[539] Besides this, the subjection of women in
China is extreme. When a Chinaman has only daughters he is said to
have no children.[540] The Chinese woman is submissive in all states,
as a daughter to her parents, as a wife to her husband, and as a widow
to her sons, especially to her eldest son.[541] (Pauthier, _Chine
Moderne_, p. 239). The young Chinese girl has not even an idea that
she may be consulted in the choice of a husband.[542] She is bought
from her parents, and a part of the sum agreed on is paid when the
contract is signed.[543] As in Mongolia, matrimonial arrangements
are often settled, not only from the infancy of the future wife and
husband, but even before their birth, on the hypothesis of a difference
of sex.[544] These agreements are made by the fathers and mothers, or,
in default of them, by the grandparents or nearest relatives.[545]
Lastly, the women are excluded by law from inheritance,[546] and kept
as much as possible in seclusion, so that they scarcely see any one
besides their parents.[547] By marrying, the young Chinese girl simply
changes masters. “The bride,” says a Chinese author, “ought only to be
a shadow and an echo in the house.” The married woman eats neither with
her husband nor with her male children; she waits at table in silence,
lights the pipes, must be content with the coarsest food, and has not
even the right to touch what her son leaves.[548]
China is a country of very ancient civilisation, where the laws and
rites have regulated everything, and consequently there exists a whole
legislation with regard to marriage.
To begin with, conjugal union is forbidden between persons having the
same family name,[549] and I shall have to return to this circumstance.
As in ancient Rome, the law prohibits marriage between slaves and free
persons.[550] It absolutely forbids marriage to the priests of _Fo_,
and to those of the _tao_ sect.[551] It orders public functionaries
not to contract marriage with actresses, comedians, or musicians.[552]
It seems that in ancient times, in China as in Greco-Latin antiquity,
the father had the excessive right to unmarry his daughter, for to
remedy this abuse the Chinese law pronounces the punishment of a
hundred strokes of bamboo on the father-in-law who should send away
his son-in-law in order to re-marry his daughter to another.[553] The
Chinese widow, no longer belonging to her original family, but to the
family of her husband, can be re-married by the latter.[554] Moreover,
the contract of betrothal concluded between the parents having a legal
value, the family of the betrothed man who dies before the conclusion
of the marriage has the right to marry the bereaved _fiancée_, or false
widow,[555] who, by-the-bye, is much honoured when she has the courage
to devote herself to a celibate life.[556]
We have seen that Chinese women are excluded from inheritance; they
have a right, however, in marrying, to a small dowry, either in money
or furniture, but the value of it is optional. It must be at least
a chest of drawers or a small _trousseau_, which the bridegroom is
obliged to supply if the parents fail to do so. Moreover, he must
also give the nuptial bed.[557] Primitive and even cruel as are the
conditions and rules of Chinese marriage, the Chinese women submit to
them not only without murmuring, but with a sort of devotion, broken
in as they are by a long ancestral education. And besides, for the
Chinese in general, it is a strict duty to marry, from a triple point
of view--social, political, and religious. Everybody marries in the
Celestial Empire, and the number of male celibates over twenty-four
years of age is quite insignificant. If a suitable opportunity of
marriage does not present itself, the parents, who are sovereign
arbiters in this matter, do not hesitate to go to an orphanage to seek
a son or daughter-in-law.[558]
In Japan, during the feudal age, the end of which we are now
witnessing, marriage was nearly identical with Chinese marriage, and
there would be nothing to say about it in particular, if during the
last few years the fever of reformation, with which Japan is carried
away, had not happily modified marriage, at least in practice, by
giving the young girl a voice in the matter,[559] and by awakening in
some Japanese consciences doubts on the subject of the prostitution
of young girls. At the present moment, everything in Japan is being
Europeanised, and the adaptation of our Civil Code to the old Japanese
customs is only a question of time.
VI. _Monogamy and Civilisation._
The foregoing facts are sufficiently numerous to enable us to deduce
certain conclusions from them. These facts, taken as they are from
nearly all the non-Aryan races, prove in the first place that the
monogamic _régime_ is in no way the appanage of the superior races,
for among the lowest of human races some are monogamic. In regard to
marriage, we find that primordial conditions impose the various forms
of sexual union, quite independently of the caprice of individuals, or
of the degree of culture and social development.
In attempting to estimate the moral worth of a people, a race, or a
civilisation, we are much more enlightened by the position given to
woman than by the legal type of the conjugal union. This type, besides,
is usually more apparent than real. In many civilisations, both dead
and living, legal monogamy has for its chief object the regulation
of succession and the division of property. With much _naïveté_ and
effrontery, many legislators have sanctioned polygamy in reality by
recognising the domestic concubinate by the side of legal monogamy. As
for the position of the wife who is reputed to be specially legitimate,
it is often much inferior to that enjoyed by the woman who lives under
other conjugal _régimes_ which are theoretically less elevated. In the
greater number of countries more or less monogamic, which I have just
passed in review, woman, whether married or not, has been subjected to
extreme subordination. In an exceptional case she acquires a certain
independence, where, thanks to maternal inheritance, she can become
possessed of personal or real estate. It is to money alone, and not to
the moralising influence of monogamy, that woman in barbarous countries
owes the power of attaining a certain independence, for the two peoples
who have granted it to her, the Egyptians in antiquity and the Touaregs
of our own day, lived or live under a legislation which authorises
polygamy. It is important also to notice that in the valley of the
Nile, and in the Sahara, feminine emancipation is only the privilege of
those women who belong to the ruling and propertied classes.
Upon the whole, in every country and in every time, woman, organically
weaker than man, has been more or less enslaved by him, unless in the
case where legislation has allowed her to use an artificial force to
serve her as a shield. This fictitious force, before which virile
brutality has lowered its flag, has been money, wherever the laws
regulating succession have permitted women to raise themselves to the
dignity of proprietors.
A similar lesson will be given us by the study of the monogamic
_régime_ among the white races of Asia and of Europe. There also
we shall see riches serve woman as a defensive, and sometimes even
offensive weapon, against the severity of laws and customs.
FOOTNOTES:
[499] Herbert Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 301.
[500] _Id., ibid._ vol. ii. pp. 301, 302.
[501] _Das Mutterrecht._
[502] _Das Mutterrecht._
[503] Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 299.
[504] Fison and Howitt, _Kamilaroi and Kurnai_.
[505] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 41.
[506] _Id., ibid._ p. 132.
[507] _Id., ibid._ p. 28.
[508] Doménech, _Voyage Pittoresque dans les Déserts du Nouveau Monde_,
p. 510.
[509] Bancroft, _Native Races_, etc., vol. ii. p. 661.
[510] Mollien, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xlii. p. 416.
[511] Fr. Müller, _Allgem. Ethnogr._, etc., p. 263.
[512] _Id., ibid._ p. 263.
[513] W. Prescott, _Hist. of the Conq. of Peru_, vol. i. p.
121.--Garcilaso de la Vega, _Com. de los Incas_, pp. 25, 113, 218.
[514] _Id., ibid._
[515] Herodotus, bk. ii. p. 35.
[516] _Id._, bk. ii. p. 42.
[517] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27.
[518] Révillout, _Revue égyptienne_, 1880.
[519] _Id., ibid._
[520] _Id., ibid._
[521] _Id., ibid._
[522] Duveyrier, _Toûareg du Nord_, 337.
[523] _Id., ibid._
[524] Duveyrier, _Toûareg du Nord_, p. 387.
[525] _Id., ibid._ p. 430.
[526] _Id., loc. cit._ p. 362.
[527] _Id., ibid._ pp. 345, 347.
[528] _Id., loc. cit._ p. 429.
[529] Bruce, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xxiii. p. 358.
[530] Bruce, _Travels_, etc., vol. iv. p. 487.--A. d’Abbadie, _Douze
ans dans la haute Éthiopie_, t. I^{er.} pp. 100, 128.
[531] Bruce, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xxiii. p. 365.
[532] Bruce, _loc. cit._, t. xxiii. p. 255.
[533] Turner, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xxxi. p. 437.
[534] _Id., ibid._ t. xxxi. pp. 437, 454.
[535] _Id., ibid._ p. 435.
[536] _Lettres édifiantes_, t. xv. p. 200.
[537] Préjévalsky, _Mongolia_, t. I^{er.} p. 69.--Huc, _Tartarie_, t.
I^{er.} p. 301.
[538] _Id., ibid._ t. I^{er.} p. 71.
[539] Huc, _L’Empire chinois_, t. ii. p. 258.--Sinibaldo de Mas, _Chine
et puissances Chrétiennes_, t. I^{er.} p. 51.
[540] Duhaut Cily, _Voyage autour du monde_, t. ii. p. 369.
[541] Milne, _Real Life in China_, p. 159.
[542] _Id., ibid._ p. 159.
[543] Huc, _Empire chinois_, t. ii. p. 255.
[544] Milne, _loc. cit._ p. 151.
[545] Huc, _loc. cit._ p. 255.
[546] G. E. Simon, _La famille chinoise_, _Nouvelle Revue_, 1883.
[547] Milne, _loc. cit._ p. 154.
[548] Huc, _Empire chinois_, t. I^{er.} p. 268.
[549] Pauthier, _Chine Moderne_, p. 238.
[550] _Id., ibid._ p. 238.
[551] _Id., ibid._
[552] _Id., ibid._
[553] _Id., ibid._ p. 288.
[554] E. Simon, _Famille Chinoise_, _Nouvelle Revue_, 1883.
[555] _Id., ibid._
[556] Milne, _loc. cit._ p. 153.
[557] E. Simon, _loc. cit._
[558] _Id., ibid._
[559] Masana Maeda, _La Société japonaise_, in _Revue Scientifique_,
1878.