THE MATERNAL FAMILY.
I. _The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called._--The
probable evolution of the family--It cannot have been uniform--Why the
uterine family has been common.
II. _The Family in Africa._--The maternal family among the negroes of
Africa, in Egypt, in Abyssinia, in Madagascar, among the Arabs and
Kabyles.
III. _The Family in Malaya._
IV. _The Family among the Naïrs of Malabar._--The female progenitrix,
the mother-bee--The uncle among the Naïrs.
V. _The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal._--Co-existence of the
maternal and paternal family; exogamy and endogamy.
VI. _The Couvade._--It exists in very different countries--The couvade
in antiquity--The couvade in contemporary Europe--Signification of the
couvade.
VII. _The Primitive Family._
I. _The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called._
At the conclusion of the preceding chapter I have ventured to sketch
the probable evolution of the family, or at least that which must have
been effected among the greater number of Melanesians, Polynesians,
American Redskins, Tamils, and ancient Mongols. The small primitive
societies founded by these races seem to have begun, not with the
family, in the sense we give to this word, but by groups of consanguine
individuals with still very confused filiation. The familial form which
first emerged from this primitive clan was most often a matrimonial
association between several sisters on the one hand and several
brothers on the other. Then, from this household, at once polygamic
and polyandric, sprang sometimes the polyandric family, when several
brothers had a single wife in common, and sometimes the polygynic
family, when a single man married or bought several women, who might,
or might not, be sisters to each other.
But has the familial group evolved in the same manner all over the
earth and among all races? Except for the countries previously
enumerated, precise and detailed information is wanting, and we
are reduced to conjectures which are more or less probable. With
rare exceptions, the races which it remains for us to examine have
definitely emerged from primitive familial confusion, and they have
adopted either maternal or paternal filiation. Have they first passed
through the familial clan with classes of fictitious or real relations?
We cannot certainly affirm it. The existence of a _totem_ and the
custom of exogamy seem to bear witness in favour of this hypothesis;
but these are insufficient proofs. The _totem_ does not necessarily
imply consanguinity; and exogamy may be dictated by very diverse
reasons, for we often find exogamic tribes living side by side with
endogamic tribes.
What is still more general than the clan, is the institution of the
maternal family, or uterine filiation; but this familial type is not
invariably deduced from a previous familial clan. Among many animal
species the maternal family exists without there ever having been
either clan or _gens_. As a matter of fact, in humanity as well as
in animality, the uterine family establishes itself spontaneously,
whenever the male abandons the female and her progeny. This familial
type will therefore necessarily appear in every horde where there is no
durable pairing of males and females, of men and women. In every ethnic
group living in promiscuity, for example, uterine filiation shows
itself, and it will be the same under a polyandric _régime_, unless
fictitious paternity is established. In short, for the adoption of the
paternal family, it is imperative that the wives should be appropriated
by a particular man, though it is of no importance whether the marriage
be monogamic or polygamic. But this possession of one or more women by
one man to the exclusion of all others, presupposes already a complex
social condition, which has necessarily been preceded by a period of
gross savagery, when only uterine filiation was possible. Now, it is
a rule that ancient customs endure for a long time, and survive the
social condition which had given birth to them.
II. _The Family in Africa._
The uterine family is far from being rare in negro Africa, but this
does not in any way hinder the man from exercising a discretionary
power over his wife or wives, and still more over his children. We
have previously seen how lamentable the fate of woman is among the
negro Africans, and how excessive are “the rights of the father of
the family,” since he can traffic in his children without rebuke.
This virile despotism may easily coexist with the adoption of uterine
filiation. In one Kaffir tribe, the men used their own children to
bait their traps for catching lions,[976] and yet maternal filiation
prevails in Kaffraria; only it does not govern inheritance. This mode
of filiation is adopted by other races as well as Kaffirs. “In Guinea,”
says Bosman,[977] “if it pleases the daughter of a king to marry a
slave, her children are free.” Among the Fantees, the chief slave has
the rights of succession, to the exclusion of the son; but the latter
is only deprived of paternal succession; the property of his mother, as
distinct from that of his father, comes to him.[978] At Dahomey there
seems to be, in the royal family, a symbolic survival of the maternal
family. At the death of the king, his sister exercises a regency of
several days, and her duty is to occupy the throne in reality, and to
remain seated on it as long as a successor has not been appointed.[979]
But this does not in any way hinder the populations of Dahomey from
adopting as a general custom, not only masculine succession, but even
the right of primogeniture.[980] Barbarous as Dahomey may be, it is
already a society of too complex a structure to accommodate itself
easily to the maternal family. Has this savage mode of filiation been
formerly in use there? It is possible; but the short regency of the
king’s sister is a very insufficient proof of it. In eastern Africa,
among the Vouazegouras, and also among the Bangalas of Cassanga, the
uncle has the indefeasible right to sell his nephews, and in so doing
he has the strong approval of public opinion. “Why,” say they, “should
a man remain in need while his brothers and sisters have children?” Yet
this relates to tribes long under Arab influence. In the same region,
the Vouamrimas generally consider the son of their sister as their
heir, in preference to their own children.[981] Among the Bazes and the
Bareas, succession is also in the maternal line, and the heirs are,
in the first degree, the eldest son of the eldest sister; and in the
second degree, the second son of the same sister,[982] etc. In southern
Africa the children belong to the maternal uncle, who also has the
right to sell them.[983] It is the same among the Basuto Kaffirs. With
these last, as a Kaffir chief informed me, it is again the nephew who
succeeds to the throne.[984] The Makololo Kaffirs, however, seem to be
in process of adopting paternal filiation; or at least they combine
it with maternal filiation, by compelling the husband, as Livingstone
informs us, to redeem his children by the payment of a tax, without
which they would belong to the maternal grandfather.
In short, there is no uniform rule among the Kaffirs, for Levaillant
has seen a tribe with whom the inheritance was transmitted at a
man’s death to his wife and male children, to the exclusion of the
daughters,[985] which is again a transitional _régime_.
In some districts of central Africa, among populations that are
half-civilised, and more or less converted to Mahometanism, matriarchal
customs still persist. On the Niger, at Wowow and at Boussa, it is the
grandmother who grants or refuses to her grand-daughter the permission
to marry.[986] The curious privilege that, according to Laing, the
Soulima have, to quit their husband when they please, is perhaps of
matriarchal origin also.[987]
The exogamy of the clan, which frequently coexists with uterine
filiation, is met with here and there in Africa. Burton has proved
the existence of it among the Somals,[988] and Du Chaillu has found
it at the Gaboon.[989] Traces of the maternal family still exist, or
have existed, in African societies that are more or less barbarous,
but which have, however, emerged from savagery; in Madagascar,
Nubia, Abyssinia, and especially in ancient Egypt. Among the Hovas
of Madagascar, not only wealth, but political dignities, and even
sacerdotal functions, are transmitted to the nephew, the sister’s son.
The Saccalavas do the same as the Hovas, and among them the women of
high rank willingly take husbands of inferior rank, who simply become
their servants. As for the children, they inherit the rank and rights
of their mother.[990] The same customs prevail among the Nubians, or
did formerly prevail; the Arab chroniclers tell us that among them the
heritage belonged, not to the son of the deceased, but to the nephew,
the sister’s son. The Nubians justified this custom pertinaciously, by
saying that the consanguinity of the sister’s son had the advantage of
being incontestable.[991] And lastly, Nicholas of Damascus says the
same thing of the Ethiopians.[992]
Without the proof of any absolutely precise text, we have an
accumulation of facts which render it very probable that, in ancient
Egypt, maternal filiation was in force. In a preceding chapter I have
spoken of the exceptional position granted to the free woman in the
kingdom of the Pharaohs. I will recall, in passing, that until the time
of Philometor, who deprived women of the right to dispose of their
property, the word _husband_ never occurs in marriage deeds.[993]
Besides this, public deeds often only mention the mother, up to the
time of this same King Philometor, who, being evidently a determined
partisan of the patriarchate, ordered the names of contractors to be
registered according to the paternal name.[994] Also, in the valley of
the Nile, the hieroglyphic funeral inscriptions frequently bear the
name of the mother without indicating that of the father, and it is
only in demotic inscriptions that paternal filiation is mentioned.[995]
We must add that in Egypt women could reign, and that during the
lifetime of the monarch who was their husband they divided with him the
sovereign honours, and even, according to Diodorus,[996] received the
larger share of them. All these facts seem to attest that in Egypt free
women enjoyed an exceptionally favourable position, and they render
probable the ancient existence of uterine filiation in the valley of
the Nile. There are, however, some contradictory facts, especially the
genealogy of the chief priests, of which Herodotus speaks, and also
the incestuous endogamy customary in the royal families. According to
Herodotus, the Egyptian priests showed him, at Thebes, three hundred
and forty-one wooden statues representing high-priests, all born one
of the other in the masculine line: “Each of these statues,” he says,
“represents a Piromis born of a Piromis.”[997] From which it would
result that in Egypt, at least in the sacerdotal caste, masculine
filiation was established from the highest antiquity, for a hundred and
forty-one generations represent something like ten or eleven thousand
years. Maternal filiation is also generally connected with exogamy,
while the Pharaohs habitually married their sisters. According to
Diodorus, this was even obligatory.[998] In the ancient royal records
the qualities of sister and wife of kings are often found united.
Under the Ptolemies, all the queens have borne both these titles;
and we may perhaps refer to an ancient tradition of Egyptian origin
certain customs which recently existed in the Soudan, Abyssinia, and
Madagascar. At Massegna, in the Soudan, Barth tells us that Othman
Bougoman, Sultan of Massegna, had among his wives one of his sisters
and one of his daughters. At the end of the seventeenth century, the
sister of the king of Abyssinia displayed a sumptuous style of living
peculiarly feminine: “The sister of the emperor appears in public
mounted on a mule richly caparisoned, having by her side her women
bearing a daïs over her. From four to five hundred women surround her,
singing verses in her praise, and playing the tambour in a lively and
graceful manner.”[999] And at the present time, among the Malagasy
nobility, marriage between brother and sister is very common.[1000]
There is certainly nothing farther from exogamy than marriages between
brothers and sisters; but, to say the truth, there is no logical and
necessary connection between the form of filiation and exogamic or
endogamic customs.
The Malagasy contract what we should call incestuous marriages,
while preserving maternal filiation; the Arabs and Kabyles, on the
contrary, in obedience to the prescriptions of the Koran, have a
horror of incest. The sacred book prohibits a man from taking to wife
his mother, daughter, sister, his paternal or maternal aunt, his
grand-daughter, his mother-in-law, his daughter-in-law, or even his
nurse and foster-sister. A man was not to marry two sisters at the
same time.[1001] This is indeed a limited exogamy; and yet the Koran
establishes the paternal and even patriarchal family very clearly.
The study of the family in Malaya and among the aborigines of India
will complete the proof that in the same country, and in the same
race, various systems of marriage, family, and filiation, may coexist,
and that consequently we must guard against formulating too strict
sociological laws in regard to them.
III. _The Family in Malaya._
At Sumatra there were three kinds of marriages--1st, the wife, or
rather the family of the wife, bought the man, who henceforth became
her property, worked for her, possessed nothing of his own, was liable
to be dismissed, and could commit no fault without the proprietary
family being responsible for it, exactly as the Roman master answered
for his slaves; 2nd, the man and the woman could marry on a footing of
equality; 3rd, the man bought his wife or wives.[1002] The first form
of marriage, that of servitude of the man, who, instead of marrying,
is married by the family of his wife, has fallen into desuetude in
Malaya, but it has left behind it, in certain districts, the system of
maternal filiation. It is the maternal uncle who is the head of the
family, or, in default of him, the eldest son of the wife’s family.
If there is neither uncle nor son old enough, it is the mother who
becomes the head of the family, and the father only takes her place
in case she has disappeared, and when all the children are minors. At
the death of a man, his property does not go to his wife or children,
but to his maternal family, and in the first place to his brothers
and sisters. The married man also continues to live in his maternal
family; it is the field of his own family that he cultivates, and he
only accidentally assists his wife.[1003] In short, under this system
the individual, whether man or woman, is not set free in the least from
the family in which he is born; it is for this family that the woman
bears children; filiation and inheritance must therefore follow the
maternal line. But it is not at all the same throughout Malaya. Marsden
tells us that a man sometimes buys his wife by giving a sister in
exchange;[1004] he must therefore be the proprietor of his sister, and
consequently of the wife whom he procures by means of this barter.
In the Arroo Isles the men buy their wives, by giving gongs, clothes,
etc., to the parents of the women.[1005]
At Timor the son-in-law buys his wife thus from his father-in-law, and
the latter can remain owner of the children if they are not included
in the bargain;[1006] but these customs are not easily compatible with
the system of the maternal family, and, taken altogether, they prove
that in Malaya the family is not by any means constituted in a uniform
manner. We shall see that it is the same with the primitive races of
India.
IV. _The Family among the Naïrs of Malabar._
In the first place, we have to inquire what the family is among the
Naïrs of Malabar, whose curious polyandry I have previously described.
The Naïrs of Malabar are not by any means savages; they form an
aristocratic caste. We have seen how, from a very early age (ten
to twelve years), the young Naïr girls, after having been solemnly
deflowered by a stranger, who has been paid to perform this task,
practised the widest polyandry, without any other restriction than
the prohibitions relative to caste and tribe. As is usual and even
natural, Naïr polyandry coexists with a system of maternal filiation.
Precautions are taken in order that the free and numerous unions of
the Naïr ladies should not destroy the family. The Naïr husbands are
reduced to the modest _rôle_ of progenitors; and it is to the wife that
the fortune of the family belongs. It is not, however, the mother who
governs the family, but her brother. To this brother belongs the duty
of bringing up his nephews, of protecting them, and of mourning for
them, if they happen to die; in reality, he is an avuncular father, and
when he dies his nephews inherit his personal property. In the Naïr
family the polyandrous mother is much respected, and the next in honour
to her is her eldest daughter, who will replace her in her _rôle_ of
mother-bee, the producer of children. The Naïr husbands, the fathers,
only enter the house of their common wife by turns and on certain days;
they have not even the right to sit down by the side of their wife or
their children; they are mere passing guests, almost strangers.[1007]
If we regard these facts on a certain side, it appears as if we may at
last have found among the Naïrs, in a country where the matriarchate
incontestably reigns, the legal pre-eminence of woman over man, or the
_materna potestas_. It is, in fact, the Naïr woman who possesses; it
is through her that wealth is transmitted, and, given the _régime_ of
free polyandry, it is difficult for Naïr children to know their own
father. Moreover, in various polyandric countries of Malabar, the
pre-eminence of the woman in the family has influenced the political
organisation, and thus an entire female feudal system has arisen, the
bonds of suzerainty and vassalage reposing on a fictitious polyandry.
Thus, in February 1887, the English journals announced that the Sultan
of the Laccadives, having become the vassal of England, had notified
to his subjects his new position by means of a proclamation, in which
he explained that he had ceased to be the _husband_ and subject of his
ancient suzerain, the Bibi of Cannanor; for by a special favour the
government of Ceylon had consented to admit him to the number of the
_husbands_, that is to say, of the direct vassals, of the Queen of
England. We must note that for the Indians of this region the Queen
of England is “the daughter” of the East India Company, and lives in
a palace in London with many men. And now what is the real value of
this polyandric matriarchate? It is surely more apparent than real.
Among the Naïrs, as everywhere else, property assures to the man or
woman who possesses it an importance in proportion to its value. The
Naïr lady then, being a proprietor, is highly esteemed. But it does not
follow that this esteem is equal to undisputed domination. Doubtless
among the Naïrs the man, as husband, does not exist; nevertheless he
is a warrior, and even a very fierce one. But military force has this
in common with money, that it is nowhere despised. Therefore, in the
family of his sister, the Naïr man is anything but a subordinate. We
have just seen this. It is he who governs and brings up the children of
his sister by her numerous husbands. He is, in reality, the chief of
his sister’s family, and what he loses as husband he gains as uncle.
Reduced to their true value, the polyandry and the familial _régime_ of
the Naïrs still remain a sociological fact of the greatest interest.
It is at once the most complete and the most logical of polyandric
systems. In reality, the Naïr marriage does not only or specially
include groups of brothers or sisters; full liberty is given to the
woman, save only the restrictions of class. There is no attempt, as
in Thibet, to create a masculine pseudo-filiation, by arbitrarily
attributing such or such children to such or such husbands. Among
the Naïrs, the maternal family is instituted in all its plenitude;
and lastly, their polyandry is in no way thwarted by the proportion
of the sexes, for if the woman may contract marriage with several
men, each one of the latter in his turn has power to enter several
conjugal associations. This matrimonial _régime_ is therefore perfectly
compatible with the maintenance of the population and the equilibrium
of the sexes.
V. _The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal._
If we proceed with our investigations by studying the familial and
matrimonial _régime_ of the aborigines of Bengal, we shall find, among
populations having probably a common origin, systems of family and
marriage which are very dissimilar.
Here and there we discover the maternal family, or customs proving that
this familial fashion has formerly been in force.
According to Buchanan, among the Buntar, who are neighbours to the
Naïrs, a father is free during his lifetime to make presents to his
children, but at his death all that he possesses goes to his sisters
and their children. The Kochh, also, have no kinship or succession
except through the women. The mothers arrange the marriages; the
fathers never interfere, and the husband goes to live with his wife and
his mother-in-law, whom he obeys. As for widows, they choose themselves
young husbands when they are rich. Among the Yerkalas of Southern
India, the maternal uncle has the right to claim for his sons the two
eldest daughters of his sister.[1008] Among the Khasias, it is to the
son of the sister that the power of the Rajah is transmitted; but
this princess (_Kunwari_) has not the right to marry herself; she is
subject to reasons of state, and her husband is chosen by the assembled
people.[1009] The Garos have established the rule, that in marriages
the right of initiative belongs to the woman; it is the young girl who
distinguishes the man of her choice, tells him so, and invites him to
follow her. Any advance made by a man is considered as an insult to all
the clan (_mahari_) of the girl, and in order to expiate it, libations
of beer and sacrifices of pigs are required, all of them at the expense
of the _mahari_ of the man. The marriage of the Garos answers exactly
to the ceremony of capture, only the actors change parts; it is here
the bridegroom who pretends to refuse the bride, runs away and is
conducted by force to his future wife amidst the lamentations of his
relations.[1010] At the death of a man, among the Garos, the widow
remains mistress of the house, but the other property passes to a
collateral heir, who marries the widow and sometimes her daughter also.
If we were to confine ourselves to the consideration and interpretation
of these facts only, we might naturally conclude that the familial
_régime_ of the aborigines of Bengal is maternal; but contradictory
facts are not wanting. Among the Bhuiyas, although the demand in
marriage is made by the girls, as with the Garos, the sons receive the
names of their male ascendants; the eldest son takes the name of the
grandfather; the second son takes that of the great-grandfather, and
the names of collaterals are given to the other sons.[1011] Among the
Muasis, it is the father who negotiates the marriage of his daughter,
or who sells her, rather, for a certain number of measures of rice
solemnly measured and delivered.[1012]
Among the Malers of Rajmahal, it is again the father who places his
daughter’s hand in that of her future husband and exhorts him to love
his wife.[1013] The Kandhs have adopted succession in the masculine
line, with a division of property amongst the sons.[1014] The servitude
of the women amongst the Korwas is very great; they are oppressed with
work, and till the fields and gain the daily bread, whilst the men
hunt or repose.[1015] The Mishmis buy their wives, have as many as
they can procure, and own them like chattels, since at a man’s death
all his wives, except the mother of the heir, pass to the nearest male
relation.[1016] Among the Mundas, after the decease of the father of
a family, the sons live together until the majority of the youngest
of them; they then proceed to divide the property, including their
sisters, who are exactly assimilated to cattle.[1017] The Oraons share
the widows amongst the brothers and cousins in the same way as the
Mundas share their sisters.[1018]
We find, therefore, no uniformity in the familial organisation of the
Bengalese aborigines; and it is the same in regard to their exogamy
or endogamy. Exogamy is common. Thus the Juangas are divided into
exogamous tribes.[1019] The Khonds think it humiliating to marry the
women of their own tribe. It is more manly, in their opinion, to go
and _take_ a wife from a distant neighbourhood.[1020] The Munniporees
are divided into four clans, who do not intermarry.[1021] Among the
Santals, it is forbidden to men to marry in their own clan; but
their children belong to the paternal clan.[1022] The Limboos (near
Darjeeling) are also exogamous, but evidently oscillate between the
maternal and paternal family; for the daughters remain in the tribe
or rather in the clan of their mother, whilst the sons belong to the
paternal clan, but only after the father has paid a certain sum to the
mother.[1023] The Garos are divided into several clans or _maharis_,
and, amongst them, a man must not marry in his own clan, but in another
appointed clan, in which from time immemorial his family has been
accustomed to take wives.
Other aborigines of Bengal are endogamous. Thus it is imperative for
the daughters of the Abors to marry in their own clan, or the sun and
moon would cease to shine.[1024] According to Heber, the Karens of
Tenasserim are more than endogamous, for among them marriages between
brother and sister, father and daughter, are frequent enough in the
present day.[1025]
What may we deduce from these contradictory facts? A general
conclusion, which I have expressed several times over: namely, that in
what concerns the evolution of marriage and of the family, there is no
absolute law. Nevertheless, by reason of the familial and matrimonial
confusion usual in the greater number of primitive societies, maternal
filiation has been adopted more often than paternal, and has frequently
preceded it.
VI. _The Couvade._
There is a custom, at first sight extraordinary but still common
enough, which must have arisen during transitional epochs, when,
polygamic or monogamic marriage having become established, the husbands
have exerted themselves to affirm their parental rights, and to
substitute masculine filiation for the ancient uterine filiation. In
the same way as in certain countries, Abyssinia,[1026] for example,
in order to proclaim an adoption, the adoptive father simulates some
maternal practice, sometimes goes so far as to offer his breast
solemnly to his adoptive son, so, in very different countries, the
husband has found no better way to prove his paternity than to simulate
childbirth; and hence the very singular custom of the couvade.
At first sight, it seems very foolish for the husband to take to his
bed immediately after the delivery of his wife, and for a certain
number of days to be nursed and tended by the mother herself.
The existence of the custom has often been questioned. It will not be
out of place, therefore, to quote authentic facts which put all doubt
to silence. These facts are numerous enough, and have been observed in
various parts of the globe; in America, Asia, and Europe.
In New Mexico, among the Lagunero and the Ahomana, when a woman is
delivered of a child, the father goes to bed for six or seven days,
and scrupulously abstains from eating fish or meat.[1027] As soon as a
Carib became a father, he at once went to bed and simulated childbirth
by suitable cries and contortions; the women of the hamlet hastened
to his side and congratulated him on his happy delivery.[1028] The
Choctaw Redskins formerly had an analogous custom. Brett and Im Thurn
have observed this “lying-in” among the Indians of Guiana. The father,
Brett says, goes to his hammock quite naked, taking the most indecent
posture, and he remains there some days as if he were ill, receiving
the congratulations of his friends and tended by the women of the
neighbourhood, whilst the mother of the new-born infant goes about her
cooking without receiving any attention.[1029]
The testimony of the Jesuit Dobritzhoffer, in regard to the Abipones,
is not less explicit: “Among the Abipones of South America,” he says,
“as soon as the wife has given birth to a child, the husband is put to
bed, and carefully tended; he fasts for a certain time. You would swear
that it is he who has just been delivered. I had formerly read of this
and smiled at it, not being able to credit such folly, and supposing
that this barbarous custom was related more as a joke than seriously,
but at last I have seen it with my own eyes amongst them.”[1030] More
recent testimony confirms what I have just quoted. In 1842 M. Mazé,
Commissioner-General in French Guiana, himself proved the custom of
couvade among the Indian tribes on the river Oyapok. In 1852 M. Voisin,
justice of the peace in a commune of French Guiana, ascending in a
canoe the river Mana, received hospitality one night in the hut of some
Galibi Indians. On awaking he learned that during the night, and behind
a partition of foliage which separated his hammock from the household
of his hosts, a child had been born. The mother had uttered no sound,
and at daybreak M. Voisin saw her go to the river-side and make her
toilet, then take her new-born child and throw it several times into
the water, catching it as it rose to the surface, and then wiping it
with her hands. The husband, on the contrary, remained all the while
in his hammock, acting the invalid, and receiving with the greatest
seriousness the attention lavished on him by his wife.[1031]
The couvade comedy is not always so complete. In certain tribes it is
attenuated, and becomes more symbolic.
Thus in California, when the mother is delivered, the father is content
to keep to the house and abstain from eating fish and meat.[1032]
Among various tribes of South America the husband of the woman limits
the practice to a few hygienic precautions; this is the couvade reduced
to its simplest expression.[1033]
This custom was found in Asia, among the Tartars, by Marco Polo. It
still exists in Bengal, among the Larkas, although attenuated; on
the occasion of a birth the parents quit the house, the wife and
husband are both declared unclean for eight days, and during that
time the husband cooks the food. After which the masculine filiation
of the child is proclaimed by solemnly giving him the name of his
grandfather.[1034] We shall be mistaken if we imagine that the couvade
is special to very inferior races. The Greco-Roman writers have quoted
a certain number of examples observed among the barbarians of the
ancient world. Strabo relates that the Iberian women, after the example
of those of the Celts, Thracians, and Scythians, quit their beds as
soon as they are delivered, and give them up to their husbands, whom
they tend.[1035] Diodorus tells us that in Corsica, after a woman
has given birth to a child, the husband goes to bed as if he were
ill, and he remains there an appointed number of days like a lying-in
woman.[1036]
In his _Argonautica_ Apollonius of Rhodes speaks of a people of
Tibarenedes, on the north-west coast of Asia Minor, who had the custom
of the couvade: “As soon as the married women are delivered, their
husbands groan, lie on beds, and cover their heads. All this time their
wives give them strengthening food, and prepare baths for them suitable
for lying-in women.”[1037] It is probable that more than one trace of
this “lying-in” still exists in Europe, in superstitious and popular
practices. Quite recently a Russian has informed me that it is still in
use in the Baltic provinces, but naturally in a form of survival in
which the meaning is lost. It is, however, complete enough; the husband
goes to bed, utters groans and cries, and his neighbours hasten to his
side. And lastly, M. Léon Donnat told me lately that he had discovered
the couvade still practised in the little island of Marken, in the
Zuydersee.
However strange it may be, a custom that is thus widely spread in
countries, races, and epochs extremely diverse must have had a serious
_raison d’être_. It cannot be attributed to mere caprice.
Now the only plausible explanation is that which gives to the couvade
the value of our registry of birth. Not, perhaps, all over the world,
but here and there, at the moment when the effort was being made
to found the paternal family, or at least to determine masculine
filiation, some very simple-minded tribes conceived the idea of
symbolising the share of the man in procreation by the gross mimicry
of childbirth. By this practice, so well calculated to strike the
attention, the father openly affirmed his paternity, and doubtless
acquired certain rights over the new-born child. Let us note that the
custom has been especially preserved among the American Indians, that
is to say, in a country where the system of the maternal family has
been, and still is, widely spread. The couvade probably represents
an effort to emerge from it. It shows that the man will no longer
share his wife or wives, that he claims to have children which are
certainly his own, and who will doubtless inherit his possessions. It
is, in short, a revolt of individualism against primitive communism.
The mimicry is gross and strange, but in a social condition where
there exists neither lawyer, nor mayor, nor register of civil acts,
testimonial proof is the great resource, and, in order to make it
sure and durable, men have willingly had recourse to striking and
complicated practices which are calculated to engrave the remembrance
of a fact on the memory of those present.
The procedure of primitive Rome offers us many examples of the same
kind; and notably in the formalities of emancipation, when the Roman
father made, three times in succession, a simulation of selling his
son.
VII. _The Primitive Family._
In the preceding pages I have collected together, with as much
exactitude as I could, all that we know of the familial clan and the
maternal family. It would be bold to assert that such have been the
primitive and always necessary forms of the family. It is indisputable,
however, that they are or have been very common in all countries and
in all races. But these are types of familial association already
regulated and complicated. Anterior to them there must have existed, in
the little human hordes, a complete anarchy, most often characterised
by the despotism of the strongest male, dominating a small flock of
women and children, who were meekly submissive to his caprices--in
fact, a sort of bestial patriarchate. Among thinly-scattered races,
without intelligence or industry, practical monogamy was established at
the very outset. We know that this was the case with the stupid Veddahs
of Ceylon, when they wandered in simple families in the virgin forests
of their island, incapable of constituting even the smallest horde. As
soon as men have grouped themselves in small societies, regulated even
in a slight degree, the familial clan with its confused kinship must
frequently have been constituted, but on plans which were necessarily
variable according to the conditions and exigencies of the social life.
All that was possible has surely been attempted; sometimes regulated
promiscuity, for each man claimed his rights, sometimes the mixed
polyandric and polygynic household, elsewhere simple polyandry, when
the women were scarce, and at other times monogamy.
I repeat, all that was compatible with the maintenance of the little
social group must have been tried at first; and then selection assured
the permanent adoption of such or such a system. As soon as men began
to take note of descent, it was always uterine filiation that they held
in account; paternal descent was less evident, and less easy to prove;
it has been nearly everywhere the latest, and the widely-spread custom
of the couvade proves that it was not established without difficulty.
It has ended, however, by triumphing, all over the world, in the
states that are still barbarous, but which have a complex social and
political structure, where the primitive tribal _régime_ has more or
less disappeared, and where a line of demarcation sufficiently strong
separates the interests of the individual from those of the group to
which he belongs. In short, the social transformation from which the
paternal family has arisen has nearly always coincided with a radical
change in the _régime_ of property, which has simultaneously become
individual or, at least, familial.
FOOTNOTES:
[976] Layland, _Journal of Ethnological Society_, 1869.
[977] Bosman, _Voyage en Guinée_, p. 197.
[978] Bowdich, _Observations sur le Gouvernement des Achantis_
(collection Walkenær, t. xii.).
[979] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 216.
[980] Herbert Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 340.
[981] Burton, _Journey to the Great Lakes_, p. 37.
[982] A. Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, p. 211.
[983] L. Magyar, _Reisen in Süd-Africa_, pp. 256, 284.
[984] Ch. Letourneau, _Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop._, 1872.
[985] Levaillant, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xxiv. p. 210.
[986] R. and J. Lander, _Hist. Univ. des Voy._, t. xxx. p. 244.
[987] Laing, _Hist. Univ. des Voyages_, t. xxviii. p. 106.
[988] Burton, _First Footsteps_, etc., p. 420.
[989] _Equatorial Africa._
[990] Noël, _Bull. Soc. de Geogr._, t. xx. p. 294 (quoted by
Giraud-Teulon).
[991] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 209.
[992] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 208.
[993] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 248.
[994] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 233.
[995] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 232.
[996] Diodorus, i. 27.
[997] Herodotus, ii. 143.
[998] _Id._, i. 27.
[999] _Lettres édifiantes_, t. iv. p. 327 (_Voyage en Éthiopie du
médecin, Ch. J. Poncet_, en 1698-1700).
[1000] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. de la Famille_, p. 258.
[1001] Surat, iv. 27.
[1002] Marsden, _Hist. of Sumatra_, p. 262.
[1003] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. de la Famille_, pp. 199, 200, etc.
[1004] Marsden, _Hist. of Sumatra_.
[1005] Wallace, _Malay Archipelago_, vol. ii. p. 169.
[1006] A. Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, p. 265.
[1007] Bachofen, _Antiq. Briefe_, pp. 216, 278 (quoted by A.
Giraud-Teulon, _loc. cit._, pp. 150, 154).
[1008] Schortt, _Trans. Ethn. Soc._, vol. vii. (New Series).
[1009] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 54.
[1010] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 63.
[1011] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 142.
[1012] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 233.
[1013] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 273.
[1014] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 294.
[1015] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 226.
[1016] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 16.
[1017] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 200.
[1018] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 272.
[1019] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 158.
[1020] Macpherson, _Report on the Khonds.--Account of the Religion of
the Khonds in Orissa_, p. 57.
[1021] MacCulloch, _Account of the Valley of Munniporees_, etc., pp.
49, 69.
[1022] Hunter, _Annals of Rural Bengal_, p. 236.
[1023] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. du Mariage_, p. 266.
[1024] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 28.
[1025] Herbert Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 218.
[1026] D’Abbadie, _Douze ans dans la haute Éthiopie_, p. 272.
[1027] Bancroft, _Native Races_, etc., vol. i. p. 585.
[1028] Du Tertre, _Histoire des Antilles_ (1667), t. ii. p. 371.
[1029] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. du Mariage_, p. 138.
[1030] _Historia de Abiponibus_ (1784), vol. ii. p. 231.
[1031] _Bull. Soc. d’Anthrop._ (July 1884).
[1032] Bancroft, _Native Races_, vol. i. p. 412.
[1033] A. d’Orbigny, _L’homme Américain_, t. i. p. 237.
[1034] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 190.
[1035] Strabo, iii. 16.
[1036] Diodorus, v. 14.
[1037] _Argonautica_, ii.