MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY IN THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE.
I. _The Past._--Sociology and evolution--Sociology and scientific
method--The biological reason of marriage and the family--Primitive
forms of marriage--Its evolution--Consanguineous primitive groups--The
evolution of the family--The stages of this evolution--From communism
to individualism--Advantages of the primitive clan--Polygamy and
statistics of births.
II. _The Present._--Present marriage in Europe--The dangers of
celibacy according to A. Bertillon--They marry who can--Imperfect
categories of celibates--Money and matrimony--Selection by
money--Marriages by purchase.
III. _The Future._--Prehistoric peoples still surviving--Progress
is the law of the world--The meaning of matrimonial and familial
evolution--Sociological rhythms--Future collective societies--The
family and society--Progress of conjugal discord--The marriage
of the future--Herbert Spencer and Montaigne--Slowness of social
evolutions--Conservatives and innovators--Nothing dies; everything is
renewed.
I. _The Past._
In the preceding chapters I have attempted to describe how men of all
countries and all races have more or less constituted and organised
their marriage and their family, and for this purpose I have patiently
classified a multitude of facts collected singly by an army of
observers.
Moreover, in conformity with the method of evolution, and in order not
to neglect the most distant sources, I have prefaced my minute inquiry
into marriage and the family among men by an investigation of the same
kind in regard to animals. Man is neither a demi-god nor an angel; he
is a primate more intelligent than the others, and his relationship
with the neighbouring species of the animal kingdom is more strongly
shown in his psychic than in his anatomical traits.
More than once, I fear, the accumulation of detailed facts which forms
the groundwork of this book may have fatigued my readers; but this is
the only condition on which it is possible to give a solid basis to
sociology. It is, in fact, nothing less than a matter of creating a
new science. We are scarcely beginning to be really acquainted with
mankind, to take a complete survey of it in time and space. Now this
would be quite impossible without the help of comparative ethnography.
We must regard the existing inferior races as survivals, as prehistoric
or protohistoric types that have persisted through long ages, and are
still on different steps of the ladder of progress; it is this view
alone which we shall find suggestive and enlightening; and it is in
strict correlation with the method of evolution, to which, indeed, it
owes its value.
The innumerable dissertations on the history of marriage and of the
family which appeared previous to the rise of scientific method, have
necessarily been devoid of accuracy and especially of breadth of
thought. A thick veil concealed the real origin of these institutions;
religious legends, that had become venerable on account of their
antiquity, paralysed scientific investigation. To submit our social
institutions to the great law of evolution, by means of disagreeable
researches, was not to be tolerated by public opinion. In fact, if
marriage and the family have been constantly modified in the past,
we cannot maintain that these institutions will remain for ever
crystallised in their present state. Until this revolutionary idea had
taken root and become sufficiently acclimatised in public opinion, all
so-called social studies were scarcely more than empty lucubrations.
From time to time, no doubt, a few bold innovators, braving scoffs or
even martyrdom, have dared to construct theories of new societies;
but, being insufficiently informed, they could only create Utopias
contemned by the mass of the public. Scientific sociology builds
its edifice stone by stone; its duty is to bind the present to the
most distant past; its honour will lie in furnishing a solid basis
of operation to the innovators of the future; but this new branch
of human knowledge can only grow by submitting to the method of the
natural sciences. Before everything else, it is important to classify
the facts that have been observed. This course is imperative. It is
dry, and lends itself with difficulty to oratorical effusions, but no
other path can lead to the truth. My constant anxiety has been to be
faithful to it, and as an anthropologist I have especially borrowed
my materials from ethnography. Step by step, and following as much as
possible the hierarchic order of human races and of civilisations, I
have described the modes of marriage and of the family adopted by the
numerous varieties of the human type; I have endeavoured to note the
phases of their evolution, and to show how superior forms have evolved
from inferior ones. Now that I am at the end of my inquiry, it will be
well to sum up clearly its result.
The prime cause of marriage and the family is purely biological; it is
the powerful instinct of reproduction, the condition of the duration
of species, and the origin of which is necessarily contemporaneous
with that of primal organisms, of protoplasmic monads, multiplying
themselves by unconscious scissiparity. By a slow specialisation
of organs and functions, in obedience to the laws of evolutionary
selection, various animal types have been created; and when they have
been provided with separate sexes and conscious nervous centres,
procreation has become a tyrannic need, driving males and females to
unite in order to fulfil the important function of reproduction.
In this respect man is strictly assimilable to the other animals, and
with him as with them all the intoxication of love has for its initial
principle the elective affinity of two generating cellules of different
sex. So far, this is mere biology, but it results, among superior
animals, in sociological phenomena, in pairings which endure after the
satisfaction of procreative needs, and produce in outline some forms
of human marriage, or rather, of sexual union in humanity--namely,
promiscuity, polygamy, and even monogamy. Our most primitive ancestors,
our precursors, half men and half apes, have certainly had extremely
gross customs, which are still in great measure preserved among the
least developed races.
The study, however, of contemporary savage societies proves to us that
absolutely unbridled promiscuity, without rule or restraint, is very
rare even in inferior humanity. In exceptional cases, individuals
of both sexes may have abandoned themselves, of common accord, to
promiscuity, as did the Polynesian _areoïs_; but these instances
relate to acts of debauchery, and not to a regulated social condition
compatible with the maintenance of an ethnic group. The conjugal form
nearest to promiscuity is the collective marriage of clan to clan--as,
for example, that of the Kamilaroi, amongst whom all the men of one
clan are reputed brothers to each other, and at the same time husbands
of all the women of a neighbouring clan, reputed also sisters to each
other. Other varieties of sexual association are more common, and
may be arranged under the general heads of promiscuity, polygamy,
polyandry, and monogamy. We hear also of temporary unions, marriages
for a term, and partial marriages concluded at a debated price for
certain days of the week only, etc. Every possible experiment,
compatible with the duration of savage or barbarous societies, has
been tried, or is still practised, amongst various races, without the
least thought of the moral ideas generally prevailing in Europe, and
which our metaphysicians proclaim as innate and necessary. Having
elsewhere demonstrated at length the relativity of morality, I will
not go over the ground again, but will quote on this point some lines
of Montaigne:--“The laws of conscience, which we pretend to be derived
from nature, proceed from custom; every one having an inward veneration
for the opinions and manners approved and received amongst his own
people, cannot without very great reluctancy depart from them, nor
apply himself to them without applause.... The common fancies that we
find in repute everywhere about us, and infused into our mind with the
seed of our fathers, appear to be most universal and genuine. From
whence it comes to pass, that whatever is off the hinges of custom
is believed to be also off the hinges of reason.”[1108] The partial
marriages of the Hassinyeh Arabs are surely off the hinges of our
custom; and it is the same with polyandry, which borders on these
partial marriages, but is much more widely spread. Like everything else, polyandric
marriage has evolved, from its most complete form, that of the Naïrs,
to the polyandry in use in Thibet, which already inclines towards
monandry and the paternal family. Primitive polyandry has easily arisen
from the marriage by classes practised by many savage clans; but most
often it is polygamy which has sprung from it. And the latter must
frequently have been established from the first in primitive hordes,
simply by the right of the strongest.
Man may be monogamous in the very lowest degree of savagery and
stupidity; certain animals are so; but in humanity it is more often the
instinct of polygamy which predominates; and therefore, when in the
course of the progressive evolution of societies monogamy at length
became moral and legal, men have been careful to soften its rigour
by maintaining together with it concubinage and prostitution, and by
generally leaving to the husband the right of repudiation, which has
nearly always been refused to the wife. This injustice appeared quite
natural, for as the wife had usually been captured or bought, she was
considered as the property of the man, and held in strict subjection.
At length, in its last form, monogamic marriage, which had at first
been the association of a master and a slave, tended more and more to
become the union of two persons, living on a footing of equality.
The family has undergone a similar evolution. Apart from a few
exceptional cases of precocious monogamy (Veddahs, Boshimans, etc.),
ethnography shows us the greater number of savage races living in
little consanguine groups, in which the kinship is still confused
and the solidarity strong. The degrees of consanguinity are not well
defined; real kinship is easily confounded with fictitious kinship, and
classes of relations are created, ranged under the same title, although
very differently united by ties of blood. The woman nearly always bears
children for her group, or clan, and this clan is very often exogamic;
this exogamy is practised from clan to clan, and only within the tribe.
There is no absolute rule, however, and it is not unusual to see
endogamy elbow exogamy.
In the large and confused family of the clan, all the members of which
were bound together by a strict solidarity of interests and a real or
fictitious kinship, the restricted family became gradually established
by a reaction of individual interests. On account of the more or less
complete confusion of sexual unions, the first to become detached
from the consanguine clan was the maternal family, based on uterine
filiation, the only filiation capable of sure proof; but the great
association of all the members of the clan still existed. By the simple
fact of birth in this little ethnic group, the individual had rights to
the territory of the clan and his share in the common resources; his
clan were bound to give him aid, assistance, and, at need, vengeance
also. In proportion as the family assumed more distinct proportions
in the clan, it tended to become separate from it, and then, nearly
always, it was based not on maternal but on paternal filiation. This
did not come to pass in a day; it took a long time to arrive at the
point of attributing to such or such a man the ownership of one or
more women and their progeny. The ridiculous ceremonial of the couvade
was probably invented during this period of transition, when it was no
easy matter for a man to obtain the recognition of his paternal title
and rights by the other men of the clan. For a long time the maternal
family resisted the enthronisation of the paternal family, and here
and there it succeeded in maintaining its existence, and in serving as
a basis for the transmission of inheritance. For, whether paternal or
maternal, the institution of the family, when well consolidated, had
for its result the parcelling out of the possessions of the ancient
clans, and the creation of familial or individual property on the ruins
of the ancient common property. Finally, nothing more remained of the
clan, or _gens_, but the sign or _totem_, the name, and a kinship, also
nominal, between the various families that had come from it.
The system and the vocabulary of kinship were then renewed; to the
classificatory mode, grouping the relations by classes, without much
care as to consanguinity, has succeeded the descriptive mode, which
carefully specifies the degree of consanguinity of each person, and
distinguishes a direct line from collateral lines, and in which each
individual is the centre of a group of relations.
In a remarkable book, which has not yet had all the success it
deserves, Lewis Morgan believes he has recognised five stages in the
evolution of the family: 1st, the family is consanguineous--that is
to say, founded on the marriage of brothers and sisters of a group;
2nd, several brothers are the common husbands of their wives, who
are not sisters; 3rd, a man and woman unite, but without exclusive
cohabitation, and with faculty of divorce for one or the other; 4th,
then comes the pastoral family of the Hebrews, the marriage of one man
with several women; but this patriarchal form has not been universal;
5th, at last appeared the family of civilised societies, the most
modern, characterised by the exclusive cohabitation of one man and one
woman. Not taking this classification too literally, and reserving a
place for varieties and exceptions, we have here five stages which mark
tolerably well the evolution of the family in humanity.
The moral direction of this slow transformation is evident; it proceeds
from a communism more or less extensive to individualism; from the
clan, where all is solidarity, to the family and the individual, having
their own interests, which are as distinct as possible from those
of other families and other individuals. Each one has endeavoured
to get for himself as large a share as possible of that which was
formerly held in common; each man has aimed at obtaining a more and
more exclusive right over property, wife, and children. From these
appetites, more economic than ethereal, have at length proceeded
the patriarchal family, monogamy, and familial property, and later,
individual property;[1109] the _régime_ of the family and that of
property have evolved in company. But this transformation has been
effected by extremely slow degrees; for a long time the new _régime_
bore the mark of the old one in certain rights reserved to the clan, in
certain prohibitions, in certain obligations, which still imposed some
solidarity on individuals--as, for example, the legal injunction to
help a man in peril, to hasten to the assistance of a village plundered
by robbers, the general duty of hospitality, etc.--all of them precepts
formulated by the codes of Egypt and India, and still to be found in
Kabylie, and which have disappeared from our frankly individualistic,
or rather egoistic, modern legislations.
It is indisputable that this evolution has everywhere coincided with
a general progress in civilisation, and the advance has been sensibly
the same among the peoples of all races, on the sole condition that
they should have emerged from savagery. Everywhere, in the end, the
paternal family and monogamic marriage have become a sort of ideal to
which men have striven to conform their customs and institutions. It
has very naturally been concluded that these last forms of the family
and of conjugal union have an intrinsic sociologic superiority over the
others, that in all times and places they strengthen the ethnic group,
and create for it better conditions in its struggle for existence. But
this reasoning has nothing strict in it; civilisation is the result
of very complex influences, and if a certain social practice has been
adopted by inferior races, it does not logically follow that it is,
for that reason only, bad in itself. What seems indisputable is, that
man tends willingly towards individualism, and yields himself up to
it with joy as soon as that becomes possible to him, thanks to the
general progress of civilisation. At the origin of civilisations, in
a tribe of savages, surrounded with perils, and painfully struggling
for existence, a more or less strict solidarity is imperative; the
co-associates must necessarily form as it were a large family, in which
a more or less communal _régime_ is essential. The children, the weak
ones, and the women have more chance of surviving if in some measure
they belong to the entire clan; perpetual war soon cuts down a great
number of men; it is therefore necessary that their widows and children
should find support and protection without difficulty, and the _régime_
of the clan, with its wide and confused kinship, lends itself better to
this helpful fraternity than a strict distinction of _tuum_ and _meum_
applied to property and persons. The same may be said of patriarchal
polygamy, which often flourished on the ruins of the clan. For this
_régime_ to become general, it is necessary that, in the ethnic group,
the proportion of the sexes should be to the advantage of the feminine
sex; in this case it is imperative, and evidently becomes favourable to
the maintenance of the social body; in fact it guarantees the women
against desertion, augments the number of births, and assures to the
children the care of one or more adoptive mothers, if the real mother
happens to die. The opinion of Herbert Spencer, who quite _à priori_
attributes to monogamy a diminution in the mortality of children,[1110]
is a most hazardous one. By the last census taken in Algeria we learn,
not without surprise, that the increase in the indigenous Mussulman and
polygamic population was much superior to that of the most prolific
of the European monogamous states. Polygamy may therefore have its
utilitarian value, and this is the case as soon as it adapts itself to
the general conditions of social life.
II. _The Present._
It is many centuries since Europe adopted monogamic marriage as the
legal type of the sexual union. That there exists by the side of
regular marriage a considerable margin, in which are still found
nearly all the other forms of sexual association, we do not deny; but
in France, for example, two-thirds of the population live so entirely
under the _régime_ of legal monogamy, that it would be evidently
superfluous to describe it here; it is, in substance, the Roman
marriage, the bonds of which Christianity has striven to lighten. In
the general opinion, marriage such as our laws and customs require it
to be, is the most perfect type possible of conjugal union; and this
current appreciation has not been a little strengthened by a learned
treatise, frequently quoted, and of which I cannot dispense with saying
a few words.
In 1859, a justly celebrated demographer, whom I have the honour to
call friend, Dr. Adolphe Bertillon, published a monograph on marriage,
which made a great sensation.[1111]
This work, bristling with figures, scrupulously collected and strictly
accurate, proves or seems to prove that the celibate third of the
French population is, by reason of its celibacy, struck with decay,
and plays the part of an inferior race by the side of the married
two-thirds. In comparative tables, which are extremely clear, A.
Bertillon follows step by step the different fates of the married and
unmarried, and he shows us that at every age the celibate population
is struck by a mortality nearly twice as great as the other; that its
births merely make up 45 per cent. of its annual losses; that it counts
every year twice as many cases of madness, twice as many suicides,
twice as many attempts on property, and twice as many murders and acts
of personal violence. Consequently, the State has to maintain for this
celibate population twice as many prisons, twice as many asylums and
hospitals, twice as many undertakers,[1112] etc. These revelations,
absolutely true as raw results, caused a great commotion in the little
public specially occupied with demography and sociology. Their alarm
was soon calmed.
From his interesting work A. Bertillon had drawn conclusions which were
very doubtful, taking surely the effect for the cause, by attributing
the inferiority of the celibate population solely to its celibacy. If
this be so, we have only to marry these weak ones in order to raise
them; but the superiority of the married population, which on the whole
is indisputable, does not necessarily imply the superiority of the
marriage state.
It is in consequence of economic hindrances, and of physical or
psychical inferiority, that, in the greater number of cases, people
resign themselves to celibacy. Those who wish to marry cannot always
do so, and A. Bertillon knew better than any one that the number of
marriages, the age at marriage, the number of children by marriage,
etc., depend in the mass not on individual caprice, but on causes
altogether general. Setting aside money considerations--which are so
powerful, and to which I shall presently return--and confining our
calculation to persons of normal endowment, it is probable that there
is more energy, more moral and intellectual vitality, in those who
bravely face the risk of marriage than in the timid celibates; but it
is certain that the celibate population, taken as a whole, includes the
majority of the human waste of a country. At the time when A. Bertillon
wrote his learned treatise, in 1859, statistics prove the existence in
France of 370,018 infirm persons,[1113] of whom the greater number were
evidently condemned to celibacy by the very fact of their infirmity.
On the other hand, it is probable that among the beggars, properly so
called, there is a large proportion of celibates, without counting the
infirm; now in 1847 there were 337,838 beggars in France.[1114]
To these lists of unwilling celibates must be added, especially, the
virile population in the army, the mortality in which was, as we well
know, double that of the civil population. Now, on the 1st January
1852, the French army counted 354,960 men.[1115] To these matrimonial
non-values, contributing a larger tithe to sickness and death, must
be further joined the celibates from religious vows. The census shows
52,885 of the latter. Without any ill-feeling towards the Catholic
clergy, we may be allowed to hold the opinion that the very fact of
a man’s vowing himself to celibacy--that is to say, of setting at
nought the desires of nature and the needs of the society of which
he forms a part--merely for metaphysical motives, often implies a
certain degree of mental inferiority. The special statistics of the
little ecclesiastical world are not published in France; but M. Duruy
having once had the happy thought of ascertaining from the judicial
pigeon-holes the number of crimes and misdemeanours committed by the
members of religious orders engaged in teaching, compared with those
of lay schoolmasters, during a period of thirty months, the result of
the inquiry showed that, proportionally to the number of schools, the
former were guilty of four times as many misdemeanours and twelve times
as many crimes as the latter.[1116] Short as the period of observation
was, this enormous difference gives matter for reflection, although it
may not have the value of a law.
But the principal causes which influence matrimony are the greater or
less facility of existence, and the extreme importance attached to
money. As a general rule, life and death tend to balance each other,
and the populations whose mortality is great have, as compensation, a
rich birthrate. We invariably see the number of marriages and births
increasing after a series of prosperous years, and _vice versâ_.
General causes have naturally a greater influence on the population
living from hand to mouth. The well-to-do classes escape this, and we
even find that the chances of marriage for the rich increase during
years of high prices.[1117]
We can scarcely attribute to anything else but an excessive care for
money and a forethought pushed to timidity some very disquieting traits
in our marriage and birth rates in France. I will merely recall, by the
way, the continually decreasing excess of our births, which, if not
stopped by radical social reforms, can only end in our final decay.
The fear of marriage and the family is the particular feature of
French matrimoniality. The desirable age for marriage, says A.
Bertillon,[1118] is from twenty-two to twenty-five for men, and from
nineteen to twenty for women. In England more than half the marriages
for men (504 in 1000) and nearly two-thirds of those of women are
contracted before the age of twenty-five. Now, this is only the case
in France for 0.29, and in Belgium for 0.20 of the marriages. A
demographical phenomenon of the same kind is observed in Italy, where
only 232 men out of 1000 marry before the age of twenty-five.[1119]
At Paris, where the struggle for existence is more severe, and where
the care for money is more predominant, late marriages abound, and
it is only above the age of forty for men and thirty-five for women
that the marriage rate equals, and even exceeds, that of the whole
of France;[1120] it is self-evident that the result of this must be
a decrease in the total of births by marriage. Whether these facts
proceed from the growing difficulties of existence, or from a fear,
always augmenting also, of trouble and care, or from these two causes
combined and mutually strengthening each other, the consequence is
the same: marriages are becoming more and more simple commercial
transactions, from whence arises the worst and most shameful of
selections--selection by money. As a moral demographer, A. Bertillon
thunders against what he calls “the system of dower” more peculiar
to the Latin races, since we get it from Rome, where recourse was
doubtless had to it in order to emancipate patrician women from strict
conjugal servitude. But the remedy has become an evil, and it is
surely to the love of the dowry rather than to “the beautiful eyes of
the casket” that must be attributed a whole list of true marriages
by purchase, much more common in our own country than elsewhere.
Sometimes it is old men who conjugally purchase young girls, and
sometimes old women who buy young husbands. I will especially notice
this last category of marriages by purchase. As regards them, France
is unworthily distinguished beyond other nations. In our tables of
statistics, for example, the proportionate number of marriages between
bachelors from eighteen to forty years and women of fifty and upwards,
is ten times greater than in England.[1121]
_Marriages with Women of Fifty Years and upwards. (In a million
marriages.)_
IN FRANCE. IN ENGLAND.
Age of Number of | Age of Number of
Bachelors. Marriages. | Bachelors. Marriages.
18 to 20 years 64 | 16 to 20 years 0
20 ” 25 ” 109 | 20 ” 25 ” 5
25 ” 30 ” 151 | 25 ” 30 ” 12
30 ” 35 ” 188 | 30 ” 35 ” 22
35 ” 40 ” 257 | 35 ” 40 ” 40
--- | ---
769 | 79
We must remark, in comparing these tables, that the first group,
including the married men from eighteen to twenty years with women of
fifty and upwards, is unknown in England; and that the second group,
that of the married men of twenty to twenty-five years with women of
fifty years and upwards, is scarcely represented. The comparison is not
flattering for us. It is important to note, also, that these figures
only refer to first marriages. Tables of the same kind, showing the
marriages between young girls and old men, or between aged widows
and young men, would add to our confusion, and bring to our thoughts
the picturesque exclamation which Shakespeare puts into the mouth of
King Lear--“Fie! Fie! Fie! Pah! Pah! Give me an ounce of civet, good
apothecary, to sweeten my imagination.”[1122]
_Marriages with Men of Sixty Years and upwards._
IN FRANCE. | IN ENGLAND.
Age of Girls. Number of | Age of Girls. Number of
Marriages.| Marriages.
15 to 20 years 94 | 15 to 20 years 2
20 ” 25 ” 139 | 20 ” 25 ” 15
25 ” 30 ” 176 | 25 ” 30 ” 32
30 ” 35 ” 242 | 30 ” 35 ” 49
--- | ---
651 | 98
III. _The Future._
What will marriage and the family become in the future? For one who
is not a prophet by supernatural inspiration, it is hazardous to make
predictions. The future, nevertheless, is born from the womb of the
past, and, after having patiently scrutinised the evolution of bygone
ages, we may legitimately risk a few inductions with regard to the ages
to come. Doubtless the primitive forms of marriage and the family will
persist, if not for ever, as Herbert Spencer believes, at least for a
very long time among certain inferior races, protected and at the same
time oppressed by climates which the civilised man cannot brave with
impunity. These backward prehistoric races will continue to subsist in
unwholesome regions, as witnesses of a distant past, recalling to more
developed races their humble origin. But with these last the form of
marriage and of the family, which has incessantly been evolving, cannot
evidently remain immutable in the future. The little human world knows
no more repose than the cosmic environment from whence it has sprung,
and which encloses it. Among peoples, as among individuals, vital
concurrence and selection do their work. Now, when it is a matter of
institutions so essentially vital as marriage and the family, the least
amelioration is of the highest importance; it has an influence on the
number and quality of fresh generations, and on the flesh and spirit of
peoples. All things being equal, the preponderance, whether pacific or
not, will always fall to the nations which produce the greatest number
of the most robust, most intelligent, and best citizens. These better
endowed nations will often absorb or replace the others, and always
in the long run will be docilely imitated by them. Ethnography and
history show us the true sense of evolution in the past. Societies have
constantly advanced from confusion to distinction. Monogamic marriage
has succeeded to various more confused modes of sexual association.
So also the family is the ultimate residuum of vast communities of
ill-defined relationships. In its turn, the family itself has become
restricted. At first it was still a sort of little clan; and then
it was reduced to be essentially no more than the very modest group
formed by the father, the mother, and the children. At the same time
the familial patrimony crumbled, just as that of the clan had been
previously parcelled out; it became individual. What is reserved for
us in the future? Will the family be reconstituted by a slow movement
of retrogression, as Herbert Spencer believes?[1123] Nothing is less
probable.
Institutions have this in common with rivers, that they do not easily
flow back towards their source. If they sometimes seem to retrograde,
it is generally a mere appearance, resulting from a sort of sociologic
rhythm. In truth, the end and the beginning may assume a superficial
analogy, masking a profound difference. Thus the unconscious atheism of
the Kaffirs has nothing in common with that of Lucretius, and nothing
can be less analogous than the anarchic equality of the Fuegians
and American individualism. If, as is probable, the individualist
evolution, already so long begun, continues in the future, the
civilised family--that is to say, the last collective unit of
societies--must again be disintegrated, and finally subsist no longer
except in genealogy scientifically registered with ever-increasing
care; for it is, and always will be, important to be able to prejudge
how “the voice of the ancestors” may speak in the individual. But even
from the crumbling of the family will result the reconstitution of a
larger collective unit, having common interests and resuscitating under
another form that solidarity without which no society can endure.
But this new collectivity will in no way be copied from the primitive
clan. Whether it be called State, district, canton, or commune, its
government will be at once despotic and liberal; it will repress
everything that would be calculated to injure the community, but
in everything else it will endeavour to leave the most complete
independence to individuals. Our actual family circle is most often
very imperfect; so few families can give, or know how to give, a
healthy, physical, moral, and intellectual education to the child,
that in this domain large encroachments of the State, whether small or
great, are probable, even desirable. There is, in fact, a great social
interest before which the pretended rights of families must be effaced.
In order to prosper and live, it is necessary that the ethnic or social
unit should incessantly produce a sufficient number of individuals
well endowed in body, heart, and mind. Before this primordial need all
prejudices must yield, all egoistic interests must bend.
But the family and marriage are closely connected; the former cannot be
modified so long as the latter remains unchanged. If the legal ties of
the family are stretched, while social ties are drawn closer, marriage
will have the same fortune. For a long time, more or less silently, a
slow work of disintegration has begun, and we see it accentuated every
day. Leaving aside morals, which are difficult to appreciate, let us
simply take the numerical results which statistics furnish us with in
regard to divorce and illegitimate births.
In the five countries compared as follows, the increase of divorces has
been continuous and progressive during thirty years, and in France the
number has doubled.
The number of illegitimate births followed simultaneously an analogous
progression. In France, during the period 1800-1805, it was 4.75 per
100; now, wrote M. Block in 1869, it has gradually risen to 7.25 per
100.[1124] At the same time, and as a consequence of this demographic
movement, the proportion of free unions has considerably increased.
INCREASE OF DIVORCES.[1125]
_The frequency of divorces in 1851-55 being 100, what has it become
during the following years?_
France. Saxony. Belgium. Holland. Sweden.
Separations. Divorces. Divorces. Divorces. Divorces.
1851-55 100 100 100 100 100
1856-60 128 83 140 100 98
1861-65 150 75 160 112 109
1866-70 190 72 190 115 113
1871-75 163 80 280 139 132
1876-80 225 105 420 151 161
A. Bertillon calculated this proportion for Paris at about a tenth.
But these results are simply the logical continuation of the evolution
of marriage. It is in the sense of an ever-increasing individual
liberty, especially for woman, that this evolution is being effected.
Between men and women the conjugal relations have at first been
nearly everywhere from masters to slaves; then marital despotism
became slowly attenuated, and at Rome, for example, where the gradual
metamorphosis may be traced during a long historic period, the power
of the _paterfamilias_, which at first had no limit, at length became
curbed; the personality of the woman was more and more accentuated, and
the rigid marriage of the first centuries of the Republic was replaced
under the Empire by a sort of free union. Doubtless this movement
necessarily retrograded under the influence of Christianity; but, as
always happens in the logic of things, it has, nevertheless, resumed
its course; it will become more and more evident, and will surely pass
the point at which it stopped in imperial Rome.
Monogamic marriage will continue to subsist; it is the last-comer,
and much the most worthy, and besides, the balance of the sexes makes
it almost a necessity; but it will have more and more equality in it,
and less and less of legal restraint. On this point I am glad to find
myself in accord with the most celebrated of modern sociologists,
Herbert Spencer, who is not very bold, however, on these delicate
points. “In primitive phases,” he says, “while permanent monogamy was
developing, union in the name of the law--that is, originally, the
act of purchase--was accounted the essential part of the marriage,
and union in the name of affection was not essential. In the present
day union in the name of the law is considered the most important,
and union by affection as less important. A time will come when union
by affection will be considered the most important, and union in the
name of the law the least important, and men will hold in reprobation
those conjugal unions in which union by affection is dissolved.”[1126]
Montaigne once wrote: “We have thought to make our marriage tie
stronger by taking away all means of dissolving it; but the more we
have tightened the constraint, so much the more have we relaxed and
detracted from the bond of will and affection.”[1127]
It is therefore probable that a future more or less distant will
inaugurate the _régime_ of monogamic unions, freely contracted, and, at
need, freely dissolved by simple mutual consent, as is already the case
with divorces in various European countries--at Geneva, in Belgium,
in Roumania, etc., and with separation in Italy. In these divorces of
the future, the community will only intervene in order to safeguard
that which is of vital interest to it--the fate and the education of
the children. But this evolution in the manner of understanding and
practising marriage will operate slowly, for it supposes an entire
corresponding revolution in public opinion; moreover, it requires as a
corollary, profound modifications in the social organism. The _régime_
of liberty in marriage and the disintegration of our actual familial
type are only possible on condition that the State or the district, in
a great number of cases, is ready to assume the _rôle_ of guardian and
educator of children; but, before it can take on itself these important
functions, it must have considerable resources at its disposal which
to-day are wanting. In our present _régime_, the family, however
defective it may be, still constitutes the safest, and almost the only
shelter for the child, and we cannot think of destroying this shelter
before we have constructed a larger and better one.
Transformations so radical as these cannot evidently be wrought
instantaneously, by a mere change of view, after the fashion of
political revolutions. Nothing is more chimerical than to fear or
to hope for the sudden destruction of our actual forms of marriage,
of the family, and of property; but there is no doubt that all this
is tottering. The alarm and the lamentations of so many moralists,
both lay and religious, are not therefore without some foundation.
Societies have always evolved, but the rapidity of this evolution is
accelerating; it is, in some sort, proportionate to the square of the
time elapsed. I fear that in the eyes of our descendants we shall
appear slaves of routine, as our ancestors are in ours.
For those who have not firmly rallied to the side of the great law
of progress, the future is full of terror. It has always been thus;
the apostles of progress have always had to overcome the resistance
of the sectaries of the past. From time immemorial, certain Dyak
tribes were accustomed to fell trees by chopping at the trunk with a
hatchet, perpendicularly to the fibres. One day some revolutionaries
proposed making V-shaped cuttings, in the European method. The Dyak
conservative party, inspired by the regard due to custom, were wroth at
this, and punished the innovators by a fine.[1128] Nevertheless, I do
not doubt that the new method has triumphed in practice; it was found
advantageous. But this incident is, in miniature, the history of all
transformations, small or great.
It is very certain that in societies where marriage by groups half
polyandric and half polygamic had been instituted for centuries,
the bold agitators who attempted to substitute individual union
were considered at first as dangerous revolutionaries, and those
who dismembered into families the communal clan only succeeded at
the cost of great difficulty and peril. Thus in the _Oresteia_ of
Æschylus, of which I have spoken in the last chapter, the chorus of
the Eumenides gives voice to the protestations of public opinion
against the establishment of the paternal family in Greece. The
prospects which alarm the conservative spirits of to-day are, in truth,
but the last consequence of that ancient evolution. Statisticians
who are not evolutionists prove, without understanding it, that the
indissolubility of marriage becomes more and more intolerable for
individuals.[1129]There is, as it were, a tide of discord continually
rising which renders conjugal stability more and more precarious. This
grievous state of things distresses, on the other hand, the moralists,
for neither do they see the reason of it. The surprise of the former is
not more justified than the lamentation of the latter. It is nothing
more than the future, which, with its habitual effrontery, persists in
rising out of the past. The faint-hearted cry to us that everything is
coming to an end. It is not so; on the contrary, everything is about to
be renewed. From the most distant stone age, the history of humanity
has only been a long series of regenerations. Far from mourning when
the world seems to be entering a period of fresh life, let us rather
rejoice and say again with Lucretius--
“Cedit enim rerum novitate extrusa vetustas
Semper et ex aliis aliud reparare necesse est.”
FOOTNOTES:
[1108] Montaigne, _Essays_; _Custom_.
[1109] A. Giraud-Teulon, _Orig. du Mariage_, etc., p. 428.--L. Morgan,
_Ancient Societies_, p. 389.
[1110] _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 304.
[1111] Article, “Mariage,” in the _Dictionnaire encyclopédique des
sciences médicales_.
[1112] A. Bertillon, _loc. cit._
[1113] M. Block, _Statistique de la France_, t. ii. p. 55.
[1114] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 298.
[1115] _Id._, _ibid._ p. 506.
[1116] A. Bertillon, article “Mariage,” _loc. cit._
[1117] A. Bertillon, article “Mariage,” _loc. cit._
[1118] _Id._, _ibid._
[1119] _Id._, _ibid._
[1120] _Id._, _ibid._
[1121] A. Bertillon, _loc. cit._
[1122] _King Lear_, Act iv. Sc. 6.
[1123] _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 418.
[1124] M. Block, _Europe politique et sociale_, p. 204.
[1125] J. Bertillon, _Étude démographique du divorce_, p. 61.
[1126] Herbert Spencer, _Sociology_, vol. ii. p. 410.
[1127] Montaigne, _Essays_, vol. ii. p. 15.
[1128] _Journal Ind. Archip._, vol. ii. p. 54.
[1129] J. Bertillon, _loc. cit._, p. 61.
INDEX
Abyssinia, The concubinate in, 162
Monogamy in, 179
Dissolute morals of women in, 181
Facility of divorce in, 181
Cicisbei in, 181
Divorce in, 232
Levirate by emasculation in, 265
Adoption in, 316
Abyssinian women, Licentious manners of, 51
Adoption among the Redskins, 291
in Polynesia, 296
in Abyssinia, 316
Adultery in the Middle Ages, 204, 226
Of, in general, 208
considered as a theft, 208
in Melanesia, 209
in New Caledonia, 209
in negro Africa, 210
among the Hottentots, 210
at the Gaboon, 210
in Bornou, 211
at Kaarta, 211
among the Soulimas, 211
at Youida, 211
in Uganda, 211
in Senegal, 212
in Abyssinia, 212
in Polynesia, 212
in New Zealand, 212
at Tahiti, 212
at Noukahiva, 213
in the American savage, 213
among the Esquimaux, 213
among the Redskins, 213
among the Omahas, 214
in South America, 214
in barbarous America, 214
in ancient Mexico, 215
in Peru, 215
in Guatemala, 215
among the Mongols, 216
in Thibet, 216
in China, 216
in Japan, 217
in Malaya, 217
in Egypt, 218
among the Hebrews, 218
among the Arabs, 218
among the Kabyles, 219
in Persia and India, 220
in the Greco-Roman world, 222
at Sparta, 222
at Athens, 223
at Rome, 222-225
among the Tcherkesses of the Caucasus, 225
in barbarous Europe, 225
among the ancient Saxons, 226
among the Germans, 226
in feudal France, 226
The evolution of, 227
and Christianity, 245
Africa, The concubinate in middle, 161
Adultery in negro, 210
The family in, 305
Agathyrses, Promiscuity of the, 40
Akilisenus, Sacred prostitution in, 46
Amazons, The so-called age of, 105
_Amblyornis inornata_, Love architecture of, 14
America, Prostitution in central, 156
Concubinate in, 163
Familial clan in, 267
The family in, 274
Amorous combats of sticklebacks, 10
_Analis crystellatus_, Amorous combats of, 11
Andamanites, Promiscuity of, 43
Prostitution of girls amongst the, 58
Animals, Love among, 10
Amorous preferences of, 17
Grossness of the male among, 18
Durable pairing among, 18
Marriage and the family among, 20
Matriarchate among, 21
Patriarchate among, 21
Divers types of sexual association among, 21
Marriage among, 21
Inferior, have not maternal love, 21
Various forms of sexual association among, 26
The family among, 26
Shortness of love for the young among, 31
Variation of the matrimonial type among, 35
Divers types of marriage among, 35
Ansarians, Religious promiscuity of, 43
Anses, Promiscuity of, 41
Anthropophagy, Familial, of the Redskins, 26
Ants, Originality of Republics of, 23
Workers, ancestral forms, 23
Arabs, Fraternal polyandry of the ancient, 39
Loan of wife among the, 52
Temporary marriages among, 68
Causes of polyandry of the, 82
Polyandry of ancient, 82
Infanticide of daughters among the ancient, 83
Caïs, legend of infanticide, 83
Community of wives among the, 84
Fraternal polyandry of the, 84
Term-marriage among the, 85
Patriarchal marriage among the, 86
Marriage by capture among the, 99
Polygamy of the, 139
Concubinate among the, 161
Adultery among the, 218
Repudiation among the, 237, 239
Widowhood among the, 259
Areoïs in Polynesia, 61
Aryas, Polygamy among Vedic, 135, 150
Infanticide among, 150
Aryomania, 134
Association, Singular forms of sexual, 56
Assyria, Concubinate in, 165
Athens, Dotal marriage in, 120
Prostitution at, 156
Adultery at, 222
Widowhood at, 261
Attica, Density of population in, 198
Australia, Licentious morals of young girls in, 50
Rape in, 90
Capture of women in, 90
Loan of wife in, 123
Familial clan in, 261, 270
Communal marriage in, 270, 272
Fraternity of clan in, 271
_Totem_, amongst the Kamilaroi of, 273
Communal marriage transitory in, 273
Maternal family in, 274
Australians, Law of amorous battle among the, 58
_Avesta_, Marriage in the, 191
Avunculate, The, among the Naïrs, 311
Babylon, Hetaïrism at, 45
Religious prostitution at, 45
Battas, Monogamic tendencies of, 134
Battle, Law of, among vertebrates, 16
Law of, 11
Amorous, among the _Analis cristellatus_, 11
of blue herons, 12
of Canadian geese, 12
of gallinaceæ, 12
of grouse, 12
of _Tetras urogallus_, 12
of _Tetras umbellus_, 13
Bees, Republic of, 23
Workers, ancestral forms, 23
Matriarchate of, 24
Death of Queen of, 24
Berbers, The family amongst, 327
Meaning of the word, 328
The maternal family amongst, 328
Birds, Love amongst, 11
Æsthetic tournaments of, 13
Love dances of, 13
Love parades of, 13
Intentional love parades of, 13
_Cours d’amour_ of, 13
Decorated nests of humming, 14
Preliminaries abridged with old, 15
Females of certain, stronger than males, 15
Males more ardent, 15
Amorous attempts of males of, 15
more delicate in love than other vertebrates, 15
Amorous selection among the females of, 17
Monogamy among, 27
Fickle monogamy of certain, 28
Amorous fancies of certain, 28
The family amongst, 29
Absence of paternal love amongst certain males of, 29
Polygamous, often devoid of paternal love, 30
Paternal love developed among many, 30
Shortness of love for the young amongst, 31
Births, Sexual relation of, and marriage, 73
Sexual relation of, 74
Bitches, Amorous preferences of, 18
Blackcock, Amorous battles of, 12
Bochimans, Loan of woman among the, 58
Californian Indians, Promiscuity of, 43
Celibacy, Disadvantages of, according to A. Bertillon, 349
Celibates comprise the waste of the population, 350
Celts, Warlike rape among the, 93
Ceylon, Polyandry in, 78
Child marriages in Rome, 198
China, Primitive promiscuity in, 42
Marriage by capture in, 116
Prostitution in, 156
Concubinate in, 164
Monogamy in, 183
Marriage by purchase in, 183
Submission of woman in, 185
Adultery in, 216
Repudiation in, 245
Widowhood in, 255
Widowhood of brides in, 255
The family in, 322
Family nomenclature in, 323
Trace of fraternal marriage in, 323
Traces of familial clan in, 324
The paternal family in, 324
Fictitious kinship in, 324
_Chlamydera maculata_, Love bowers of, 14
_Chorda dorsalis_, 6
_Chromis paterfamilias_, Paternal love of, 24
Civilisation depraves certain birds, 25
Clan, Familial, in America, 267
Familial, in Australia, 267, 270
Fraternity of, in Australia, 271
Exogamy of, among the Redskins, 275
Duties of, among the Redskins, 275
Common house of the, among the Redskins, 275
The, of the _Pueblos_, 277
Communism in the Redskin, 278
The familial, and its evolution, 285
among the Redskins, 285
and the family, 301
“Social cellule,” 301
Familial, and the family, 303
Traces of the familial, in China, 323
Traces of communal, among the Hebrews, 326
Traces of ancient, among the Kabyles, 328
Not found in Persia, 330
Vestiges of ancient, in India, 334
Primitive, at Rome, 334
Primitive, in Greece, 334
Primitive, in Ireland, 338
Clergy, The concubinate among ancient Catholic, 168
Clergymen, Sexual relation of births among, 75
_Coemptio_ at Rome, 201
Communism in the Redskin clan, 278
From, to individualism, 347
Concubinage in general, 154
Concubinage and prostitution, 154
Various forms of, 160
in Europe, 168
Absence of, in Kabylie, 169
Evolution of, 169
and morality, 170
Concubinate, 160
among the Hebrews, 161
among the Arabs, 161
in primitive Greece, 161
in modern Peru, 162
in Livonia, 162
in middle Africa, 162
in Abyssinia, 162
in Central America, 163
in ancient Mexico, 163
in Mongolia, 164
in China, 164
in ancient Assyria, 165
at Mecca, 165
in ancient Persia, 166
in Greece, 166
at Rome, 166
among the Catholic clergy, 168
Concubine bought by labour of wife among Zulus, 125
offered by wife at Fiji, 124
_Confarreatio_ at Rome, 201
Conjugation, 4
among algæ, 4
Conservation of species, 20
Coquetry among insects, 10
The law of, 10
among butterflies, 10
among fishes, 10
among vertebrates, 11
Couvade, 316
in New Mexico, 316
among the Redskins, 317
among the Abipones, 317
among the Galibis, 317
in California, 318
in South America, 318
among the Tartars, 318
in Bengal, 318
among the Celts, 318
among the Thracians, 318
among the Scythians, 318
in Corsica, 318
in the Tibarenede, 318
in Europe of to-day, 318
Reason of the, 319
Crete, Sodomy in, 63
_Culage, Droit de_, 48
Cynicism, Erotic, in India, 40
of the Massagetes, 40
Debauchery, Savage, and that of civilised peoples, 72
Decency, Rules of, among Redskins, 290
Defloration, Religious, in Cambodia, 47
Maternal, with the Saccalaves, 67
in India, 67
Divorce, Facility of, in Abyssinia, 181
in savage countries, 228
among the Bongos, 229
among the Soulimas, 229
among the Fantees, 230
in Polynesia, 230
in the Caroline Islands, 230
among the Moxos, 231
in Abyssinia, 232
among the Arabs, 238
in ancient Peru, 240
in lamaic Thibet, 240
among the Mongols, 241
among the Hebrews, 242
in Greece, 243
at Rome, 244
and repudiation, 228
among barbarous peoples, 232
condemned by Christianity, 245
The evolution of, 247
and Christianity, 247
among the Germans, 246
among the ancient Irish, 246
Modern, 247
Increase in number of, in Europe, 357
Dogs, Sexual coarseness of, 18
Dower and its results in France, 352
Duck, Love at first sight in a wild, 28
Egypt, Polygamy in, 149
Royal incest in, 66
Monogamy in ancient, 175
Pretended gynecocracy in ancient, 176, 177
Adultery in, 218
The maternal family in, 308
The paternal family in, 308
Emasculation in Abyssinia, 265
Endogamy in New Zealand, 294
in Bengal, 315
Incestuous, in Persia, 330
Esquimaux, Licentious morals of, 58
Letting of wives among the, 58
Sodomy among the, 58
Marriage by capture among the, 94
Etruscans, The maternal family among the, 336
Europe, Increase of illegitimate births in, 169
Exogamy in Bengal, 315
of the clan among the Redskins, 276
at Samoa, 294
Family, _Rôle_ of the male in the animal, 21
Maternal, amongst the animals, 21
amongst the mammifers, 25
amongst the animals, 29
Maternal, amongst the Naïrs, 81
Maternal, at Rome, 202, 233
in Melanesia, 268, 335
Origin of the, 267
Maternal, in Australia, 274
in America, 274
Maternal, among the Redskins, 278
Origin and evolution of the, 284
Maternal, and the matriarchate, 282
among the Omahas, 287
among the Redskins, 287
among the Iroquois Senecas, 287
Nomenclature of, among the Redskins, 288
Evolution of the, among the Redskins, 292
Genesis of the paternal family among the, 292
The paternal, among the Incas, 293
Maternal, in Peru, 293
Paternal, in Peru, 293
Paternal, in Mexico, 293
in Polynesia, 294
Nomenclature of the, at Hawaii, 295
Genesis of the maternal, at Hawaii, 295
Genesis of the paternal, in Polynesia, 295
among the Mongols, 296
among the Tamils, 296
and the clan, 301
The maternal, 303
and the familial clan, 303
Genesis of the uterine, 301
in Africa, 305
The maternal, In Kaffirland, 305
among the Fantees, 305
in eastern Africa, 306
among the Nubians, 307
in Egypt, 307
The paternal, in Dahomey, 305
The maternal, in Africa, 305
The maternal, in Madagascar, 307
The paternal, in Egypt, 308
in Malaya, 309
among the Naïrs, 311
among the aborigines of Bengal, 313
The maternal, in Bengal, 313
The paternal, in Bengal, 314
The primitive, 320
in civilised countries, 322
in China, 322
in Japan, 323
The paternal, in China, 323
among the Semites, 325
Traces of the maternal, among the Hebrews, 326
The maternal, in Phœnicia, 327
among the Berbers, 327
The maternal, among the Berbers, 327
in Persia, 330
in India, 332
The patriarchal, in Vedic India, 332
The maternal, in India, 333
The maternal, among the Tamils, 334
The Greco-Roman, 334
The maternal, in Greece, 335
The maternal, in Etruria, 336
Genesis of the paternal, in Greece, 336
Evolution of the, at Rome, 347
in barbarous Europe, 338
The paternal, in barbarous Europe, 339
The maternal, in Germany, 339
in the past, present, and future, 341
in the past, 341
Stages of the, according to L. Morgan, 347
Actual state of the, 349
Father, The _potestas_ of, at Rome, 199
Fecundation, 4
among superior animals, 7
Feudality, Polyandric, in Malabar, 311
Filiation, Maternal, among the Touaregs, 179
Fishes, Paternal love in certain, 24
Coquetry in, 10
France, Prostitution in mediæval, 160
Adultery in feudal, 226
Repudiation in feudal, 246
Late marriages in, 352
Malthusianism in, 352
Dowry and its results on marriage in, 352
Disproportionate marriages in, 323
Gallinaceæ, Amorous combats of, 12
Vertigo of love in, 27
_Gasterosteus leiurus_, Paternal love of, 25
Gauls, Polygamy of, 135
Geese of Canada, Amorous battles of, 12
Generation by budding, 4
by division, 4
a product of nutrition, 4
among animals, 18
by ovulation, 5
by conjugation, 4
the aim of life, 5
in the cochineal, 5
Evolution of, 5
in the paramœcia, 6
Essential phenomenon of, 6
_Gens_ in Greece, 335
at Rome, 334
Germans, Polygamy of, 135
The maternal family among the, 339
The paternal family among the, 339
Laws of succession among the, 339
Marriage by purchase among the, 204
Subjection of women among the, 204
Adultery among the, 225
Repudiation among the, 246
Divorce among the, 246
Widowhood among the, 262
Girls, Prostitution of, among the Andamanites, 58
Prostitution of, in Polynesia, 59
married by the father in India, 192
Marriage of little, in India, 193
Gymnastic exercises of naked, in Sparta, 195
Marriage of little, at Rome, 198
Conjugal sale of little, 107
married by the grandmother at Boussa, 112
Free conjugal choice of, at Nicaragua, 115
Consent of the, in Mussulman marriage, 144
How, inherit in India, 334
Greece, Loan of wife in ancient, 53
Sodomy in, 63
Marriage by capture in, 100
Concubinate in primitive, 161
Concubinate in, 166
Subjection of women in, 195
Hetaïræ in, 166
Subjection of women in, 194
Marriage in ancient, 194
Dotal marriage in, 196
Evolution of marriage in, 197
Adultery in, 222
Repudiation in, 243
Divorce in, 243
The primitive clan in, 334
The maternal family in, 335
The _gens_ in, 335
Genesis of the paternal family in, 336
Greeks, Promiscuity of the ancient, 41
Guaranis, Qualities exacted of the husband among the, 115
Gynecocracy according to Bachofen, 172
Pretended, in ancient Egypt, 175
Pretended, among the Touaregs, 179
Hawaii, Kinship by classes in, 294
Familial nomenclature at, 295
Genesis of the maternal family in, 294
Hebrews, Concubinate among the, 161
Marriage among the, 189
Monogamy among the, 189
Virginity among the, 190
Levirate among the, 190
Adultery among the, 218
Divorce among the, 242
Repudiation among the, 242
Widowhood among the, 259
The levirate among the, 263
Laws of succession among the, 326
Traces of communal clans among the, 326
Herons, Amorous battles of blue, 12
Hetaïræ in Greece, 166
Hetaïrism, 45
No primitive, 45
at Babylon, 45
Hiring out of wives in Polynesia, 60
Humming-birds, Decorated nests of, 14
Husbands, Brutality of, at Gaboon, 125
Jealousy of, unknown in Africa, 128
Duties of Mussulman, 145
Rights of punishment of Kabyle, 147
_Manus_ of, at Rome, 200
_Icterus pecoris_, Promiscuity of the, 26
Immodesty, Primitive, 56
Immorality, Primitive sexual, 56
Incas, Polygamy of the, 148
Incest permitted among various American peoples, 65
permitted among the Karens, 66
among the Parthians, 66
in ancient Persia, 66
among the Scythians, 66
Royal, in Egypt, 66
of the Incas, 66
in ancient Ireland, 66
Royal, in Siam, 66
in Bhootan, 133
among the Malagasies, 309
Horror of, in Kabylie, 309
India, Primitive promiscuity in, 42
Religious prostitution in, 46
Marriage by capture in, 93
Polygamy in Brahmanic, 151
Prostitution in, 159
Polygamy among the aborigines of, 135
Monogamic tendencies in the aborigines of, 133
Repudiation in, 242
Widowhood in, 256
Mitigated monogamy in, 191
Inferiority of women in, 191
Daughter married by the father in, 192
Marriage by purchase in, 192
Prohibitions to marriage in, 192
Subjection of woman in, 192
Marriage of little girls in, 193
Adultery in, 220
The levirate in, 263
The family in, 332
The patriarchal family in Vedic, 332
The patriarchate in, 332
Primogeniture in, 333
Paternity by suggestion in, 333
How daughters inherit in, 333
The maternal family in, 334
Vestiges of ancient clans in, 334
Individualism has succeeded to communism, 347
Infanticide committed by male mammifers, 34
of girls among the ancient Arabs, 83
Legend of Caïs, 83
The paternal right of, in Polynesia, 113
among the Vedic Aryans, 150
Innovators, Fate of, 359
Insects, Maternal prescience of, 22
Coquetry amongst, 10
Ireland, The primitive clan in, 338
Irish, Promiscuity of the ancient, 41
Incest among the ancient, 66
Temporary marriages among the, 246
Divorce among the ancient, 246
Japan, Prostitution of young girls in, 51
Prostitution in, 157
Marriage in, 185
Adultery in, 217
The maternal family in, 322
Familial nomenclature in, 324
Jews of Morocco, Temporary marriages among the, 67
_Jus primæ noctis_, 45
Religious, in Malabar, 47
among the Nasamons, 47
in the Balearic Isles, 47
Seignorial, 47
in Cochin-China, 48
of parents and friends, 50
Kabyles, Adultery amongst the, 219
Repudiation amongst the, 234
Right of insurrection of the wife, 236
Widowhood among the, 260
Horror of incest among the, 309
Traces of the clan among the, 328
Mutual assistance amongst the, 329
Disinheritance of the wife, 329
Laws of succession among the, 329
Kabylie, Marriage by purchase in, 145
Tariff of the woman in, 146
Essential condition of marriage in, 146
Loan of jewels to the wife in, 146
Subjection of the wife in, 145
Rights of correction of the husband in, 147
The wife a thing possessed in, 147
Fate of woman in, 147
Absence of concubinage in, 169
Kaffirs, Right of the chief among the, 47
Kamilaroi, Regulated promiscuity of the, 44
Marriage among the, 271
Kinship, Origin of ideas of, 283
by classes in the Hawaii Isles, 294
The evolution of, by classes, 297, 301
Fictitious, in China, 325
Koran, The, and the inferiority of women, 140
Restrictions on polygamy in the, 140
Celestial polygamy in the, 142
Purchase of the wife in the, 141
Kurnai, Marriage among the, of Australia, 273
Lark, Loves of, 12
Larva, The, is a survival, 23
Larvæ, Fertile, 23
Maternal love in sterile, 23
Law of amorous battle among the Australian women, 57
Levirate, The, among the Hebrews, 191
and widowhood, 191
The, 263
in Malaya, 263
in New Caledonia, 263
among the Redskins, 263
among the Mongols, 263
among the Afghans, 263
in India, 263
among the Hebrews, 263
in Abyssinia, 265
Loan of the wife among savages, 52
among the Redskins, 52
among the Arabs, 53
in antique Greece, 53
in antique Rome, 53
in Australia, 57
among the Bushmen, 58
Love, The snare of, 3
according to Haeckel, 6
and rut, 7, 8
according to Schopenhauer, 9
and pairing, 9
according to Imitation of Christ, 10
in insects, 10
in birds, 11
in the lark, 12
dances of birds, 13
parades of _Tetras phasaniellus_, 13
parades of birds, 13
Intentional, parades of birds, 13
courts of birds, 14
bowers of _Chlamydera maculata_, 14
house of the _Amblyornis inornata_, 14
tourneys of nightingales, 14
songs of weaver birds, 15
The instinct of, is not blind, 17
Choice in, among animals, 17
Selection in, among females, 17
Selection in, among female birds, 17
Exclusive, of bitches, 18
Essential identity of, with animals and man, 19
Maternal, wanting in lower animals, 21
Maternal, in spiders, 22
Paternal, wanting in spiders, 22
Biological reason of maternal, 22
Maternal, in the sterile larvæ, 23
Paternal, in certain fishes, 24
Paternal, of Chinese _Macropus_, 24
Paternal, of _Chromis paterfamilias_, 24
Paternal, of the _Gasterosteus leiurus_, 25
Paternal, of toads, 25
Paternal, in the _Pipa_, 25
Maternal, in reptiles, 25
Vertigo of, in gallinaceæ, 26
at first sight in a wild duck, 28
Passion of, analogous in animal and man, 29
Paternal, absent in certain male birds, 29
Paternal, wanting in polygamous birds, 31
Paternal, developed in many birds, 31
Paternal and maternal, is brief in duration with birds, 31
Conjugal, in female chimpanzees,33
_Macropus_, Chinese, paternal love of, 24
Madagascar, The maternal family in, 307
Incest in, 309
Mahomet, Conjugal freedom of, 141
and the _debitum conjugale_, 142
Malagasies, Civil marriage among the, 129
Malaya, Adultery in, 217
The levirate in, 263
The family in, 309
Marriage by purchase in, 310
Malays of Sumatra, Three modes of marriage with the, 119
Male, Part of the, in the animal family, 21
Malthusianism, Natural, 20
in France, 352
Mammals, Marriage among, 25
Marriage and the family among, 25
Promiscuity in the, 31
No polyandry in the, 31
Polygamous societies of, 32
Conjugal devotion of females of, 32
Male infanticides amongst, 34
Man, The taxonomic place of, 2
Grandeur and inferiority of, 2
Real place of, 2
Origin of, 71
Manus, The, of husband at Rome, 200
Marquette, Right of, 48
Marriage, Biological origin of, 1
Object of, 2
among animals, 20
among mammals, 25
Various types of, among animals, 35
Primitive evolution of, 54
Strange forms of, 64
a simple pairing with many savages, 64
Experimental, 67
Experimental, in Canada, 67
Experimental, among the Otomies, 67
Experimental, among the Sonthals, 67
Experimental, among the Tartars, 67
Experimental, at Ceylon, 67
Temporary, among the Jews of Morocco, 67
Temporary, among the Tapyres, 68
Free, at Noukahiva, 68
Free, among the Hottentots, 68
Free, in Abyssinia, 68
Partial, of the Hassinyehs, 68
Temporary, in Persia, 68
Temporary, among the Arabs, 69
the right of the strongest among many savage peoples, 69
and the sexual proportion of births, 73
Initiation into, by the Naïrs, 80
Term, _mot’a_, with the Arabs, 85
Patriarchal, with the Arabs, 85
by capture, 89
by capture in India, 93
by capture, 93
by capture among the Esquimaux, 95
by capture among the Redskins, 95
among the Kamstchatdales, 95
among the Kalmucks, 96
among the Tannganses, 96
among the Turcomans, 97
among the aborigines of Bengal, 97
in New Zealand, 98
in Arabia, 99
in Java, 100
among the Bœotians, 100
at Sparta, 100
at Rome, 100
in Circassia, 101
in Wales, 101
among the Slavs, 101
by capture, Signification of, 102
by purchase at Fiji, 103
by purchase of servitude, 106
Premature, by girls in New Caledonia, 107
among the Hottentots, 107
in Ashantee, 107
in Polynesia, 107
in South America, 107
in India, 108
in ancient Italy, 108
Premature, of little boys among the Reddies, 108
in Russia, 108
of deceased children among the Tartars, 108
by servitude, 109
among the Redskins, 109
in Central America, 109
among the aborigines of Bengal, 110
among the Hebrews, 110
by purchase, 110
among the Hottentots, 111
among the Kaffirs, 111
in Central Africa, 111
at Sackatoo, 112
at Kouranko, 112
in Polynesia, 113
among the Redskins, 113
in California, 114
in New Mexico, 114
in Central America, 115
among the Guaranis, 115
among the Mongols, 115
among the Turcomans, 116
in China, 116
among the aborigines of India, 117
among the Arabs, 118
among the Afghans, 118
in Brahmanic India, 119
among the Scandinavians, 119
among the Germans, 119
in primitive Greece, 120
at Rome, 120
by capture in China, 116
by _usus_ at Rome, 120
Dotal, at Athens, 120
Dotal, at Rome, 120
by coemption at Rome, 120
by confarreation at Rome, 120
State, among the Bongos, 129
by purchase, Signification of, 120
Civil, with the Malagasies, 129
Mussulman and laic, 143
by purchase with the Mussulmans, 143
Mussulman, is a contract of sale, 143
Virginity in the Mussulman, 143
Consent of girl in Mussulman, 144
_Debitum conjugale_ in Mussulman, 144
Marital rights in Mussulman, 145
by purchase in Kabylie, 145
Essential condition of Kabyle, 146
Free, at Paris, 169
The form of, and civilisation, 173
Civil, in Thibet, 182
by purchase in China, 183
in Japan, 185
Hebrew, 184
in ancient India and Persia, 191
in the _Avesta_, 191
by purchase in India, 191
Prohibitions of, in India, 192
in ancient Greece, 194
obligatory at Sparta, 195
Dotal, in Greece, 196
in ancient Rome, 198
Evolution of, in Greece, 198
by _confarreatio_ at Rome, 201
by _coemptio_ at Rome, 201
by _usus_ at Rome, 201
Dotal, at Rome, 200
The evolution of, at Rome, 201
Barbarous and Christian, 204
by purchase with the Germans, 204
Christian, 205
Free, at Hayti, 233
Temporary, among the Irish, 246
Communal, in Australia, 270
Communal, transitory in Australia, 273
among the Redskins, 275
Incestuous, with the Redskins, 293
Three sorts of, at Sumatra, 309
by purchase in Malaya, 309
by purchase in Bengal, 315
Traces of fraternal, in China, 323
Term, in Persia, 331
in the past, present, and future, 341
Influence of money on the frequency of, 351
The age of election of, 352
Late, in France, 352
Disproportionate in France, 353
The future of, 354
by affection in the future, 358
Matriarchate in animals, 24
in bees, 24
and the maternal family, 202
Pecuniary, of the Touareg women, 328
Mecca, The concubinate in, 165
Melanesia, Adultery in, 209
The family in, 268
Menstruation and ovulation, 8
Mexico, Polygamy of the great in, 148
Monogamy of the people in, 149
The concubinate in ancient, 163
Monogamy in, 174
The paternal family in, 293
Adultery in, 215
Modesty, Genesis of, 56
Mongols, Polygamy of the, 133
The concubinate among the, 164
Monogamy among the, 182
Adultery among the, 216
Repudiation among the, 240
Divorce among the, 240
The family among the, 296
Monkeys, Polygamy of certain, 33
Monogamy in certain, 33
Polygamy of anthropomorphous, 33
Monogamy of, 33
Conjugal love of females amongst, 33
Monogamy of golden woodpeckers, 27
of the Illinois parrot, 27
of rapacious animals, 27
of anthropomorphous apes, 33
of certain apes, 42
in Polynesia, 129
dawning among the Battas, 133
dawning among the Redskins, 131
dawning among the aborigines of India, 133
Proletarian, obligatory in Peru, 149
of the populace in Mexico, 149
Primitive, 171
of inferior races, 171
Causes of, 171
Ideal of, 171
in Central America, 174
Administrative, in Peru, 174
in Mexico, 175
in ancient Egypt, 175
of the Touaregs and Abyssinians, 179
among the Mongols, 182
in Thibet, 182
in China, 185
and civilisation, 186
Hebraic and Aryan, 189
of superior races, 189
Hebrew, 189
Ideal, and in reality, 189
mitigated in India, 191
in the future, 357
Advantages of, according to A. Bertillon, 349
Montaigne, Origin of laws of conscience according to, 349
Morality, Variability of, 73
various amongst birds, 27
Morgan, L., Stages of the family according to, 347
Moses and rape in war, 93
_Mumbo Jumbo_, 128
Naïrs, Polyandry of, 80
Initiation in marriage among the, 80
The maternal family among the, 81
The avuncular family among the, 311
The family among the, 311
Rational polyandry of the, 312
Namaquois, Promiscuity of chiefs of the, 44
Natality, unregulated, among fishes, 24
Nature, the personification of natural forces, 5
Absence of design in, 34
_Nefir_, The, among the Djebel-Taggalé, 233
_Nemesia Eleonora_, Rearing of young with the, 22
Nests, Decorated, of humming-birds, 14
New Caledonia, Sodomy in, 62
Adultery in, 209
The levirate in, 263
Nightingale, Amorous song of, 14
_Noces, justes_, at Rome, 202
Nutrition the basis of generation, 3
Omahas, The family amongst the, 287
Paramœcia, Generation in the, 6
Parents, The power of, 105
Right of propriety of, over children, 106
Paris, Free marriages at, 169
Parrot, Conjugal fidelity of Illinois, 27
_Paterfamilias_ at Rome, 333
Paternity by suggestion in India, 333
_Patria Potestas_ at Rome, 337
Patriarchate among the animals, 21
Semitic, 325
in India, 332
at Rome, 337
Persia, Incest in ancient, 66
Polygamy in ancient, 150
The concubinate in ancient, 166
Adultery in, 220
The family in, 330
No clans in, 330
Incestuous endogamy in, 330
Term-marriage in, 331
Laws of succession in, 332
Peru, Sodomy in, 62
Proletarian monogamy obligatory in, 149
Concubinage in, 162
Administrative monogamy in, 174
Adultery in, 215
Divorce in ancient, 240
The paternal family among the Incas of, 293
Pigeons, Maternal love in, 30
_Pipa_, Paternal love in, 25
Polyandry does not exist in mammals, 31
Fraternal, of the ancient Arabs, 39, 73
and the sexual proportion of births, 74
and infanticide of girls, 76
and sale of girls, 76
has not been general, 76
The ethnography of, 77
of the ancient Britons, 77
of the Arabs, 77
of the Guanches, 77
of the New Zealanders, 77
of the Marquesas Islanders, 77
in America, 77
of the aborigines of India, 77
of the Hindoos, 77
at Ceylon, 78
Fraternal, in Thibet, 78
among the Todas, 80
of the Naïrs, 80
of Thibet and of Naïrs, 81
in ancient Arabia, 82
Causes of Arab, 84
Fraternal, in Arabia, 84
in general, 86
Matriarchal, 87
Patriarchal, 87
The evolution of, 88
and polygamy in Bhootan, 133
Feudal, in Malabar, 311
Rational, of the Naïrs, 312
Polygamy of gallinaceæ, 26
favoured by sociability, 31
of mammals, 32
of certain monkeys, 33
of anthropomorphous apes, 33
Primitive, 122
in Oceania, Africa, and America, 122
Causes restraining, 122
Object of, in New Caledonia, 123
and concubinage at Fiji, 124
the measure of wealth on the Zambesi, 125
Economic motives for, in Africa, 125
restrained by the dearness of women amongst the Bongos, 126
Excessive, in Central Africa, 127
in Polynesia, 129
of the Indians in South America, 130
among the Redskins, 131
a sign of wealth among the Redskins, 131
in Asia and in Europe, 132
and polyandry in Bhootan, 133
of the Vedic Aryans, 135
of the Gauls, 135
of the Germans, 135
Primitive, 136
Evolution of, 137
of civilised peoples, 138
The stage of, 138
Arab, 139
Islamism and, 139
Restrictions on, in the Koran, 140
Celestial, in the Koran, 142
in Egypt, in Mexico, and in Peru,148
and the subjection of women, 148
in Egypt, 148
of the great in Mexico, 148
in ancient Persia, 150
among the Vedic Aryans, 150
in Brahmanic India, 151
The evolution of, 152
Genesis of the instinct of, 155
may favour the growth of population, 349
Polynesia, Licentious morals of young girls in, 50
Licentious morals in, 59
Prostitution of girls in, 59
Leasing of wives in, 60
Freedom of women in, 60
Shameless language of the women in, 61
The Areoïs of, 61
Sodomy in, 61
Paternal right of infanticide in, 113
Polygamy in, 129
Monogamy in, 129
Adultery in, 212
The family in, 294
Genesis of paternal family in, 295
Adoption in, 296
Population, density of, in Attica, 198
Increase of, favoured sometimes by polygamy, 349
_Potestas_, The, of the father at Rome, 199
Prelibation, Right of, 48
The right of, and the right of conquest, 48
Prescience, Maternal, of insects, 22
Primogeniture, Right of, 333
Procreative instinct, Origin of, 9
Promiscuity among sociable animals, 26
of the _Icterus pecoris_, 26
among the mammals, 31
If there has been a stage of, 37
is the lowest form of sexual association, 38
rare amongst vertebrates, 38
is exceptional in humanity, 39
Case of human, 39
in the Troglodyte, 39
of the Agathyrses, 40
of the Anses, 41
of the ancient Irish, 41
of primitive Greeks, 42
in the _Timæus_, 42
Primitive, in China, 42
Primitive, in India, 42
of the Andamanites, 43
of the Indians of California, 43
of certain aborigines of India, 43
of the Zaporog Cossacks, 43
Religious, of the Ansarians, 43
of the Yazidies, 44
of the Namaquois chiefs, 44
Regulated, of the Kamilaroi, 44
No universal stage of, 44
Property, Right of, of parents over children, 106
Prostitution, Religious, in India, 46
Religious, at Babylon, 46
Religious, in the Akilisenus, 46
of young girls in Japan, 51
Dotal, in ancient Rome, 51
honourable in Tasmania, 57
of girls among the Andamanites, 58
of girls in Polynesia, 59
Religious, among the ancient Semites, 86
Evolution of, 155
in primitive Athens, 156
in Central America, 156
in Japan, 157
in Brahmanic India, 159
in Buddhist India, 159
in modern India, 159
in France in the Middle Ages, 160
and concubinage, 154
Pueblos, Marriages of love in the, 114
The clans of the, 277
Rapacious animals, Monogamy of, 27
Rape, 89
in Australia, 90
among the negroes of Africa, 92
The expiation of, in Australia, 91
in New Guinea, 91
among the Indians of America, 92
among the Tartars, 93
among the Hebrews, 93
in war, and Moses, 93
in war among the Celts, 93
Rearing of young among animals, 21
with the _Nemesia Eleonora_, 22
Redskins, Familial anthropophagy of the, 26
Sodomy among the, 62
Marriage by capture among the, 95
Right of protection of relations over women of, 114
Polygamy among the, 131
Sister wives among the, 131
Polygamy a sign of wealth among the, 132
Conjugal submission of women among the, 132
Monogamic tendencies among the, 130
Subjection of women among the, 132
Adultery among the, 213
Widowhood among the, 252
Rules of decency among the, 298
The levirate among the, 263
The _totems_ of the, 275
The clan among the, 275
The common house of the clan among the, 275
Duties of the clan among the, 275
Exogamy of the clan among the, 276
Marriage among the, 276
Inheritance among the, 275
The maternal family among the, 277
Communism in the clan of the, 278
The power of the women among the, 278
Subjection of woman among the, 283
The clan among the, 285
The family among the, 286
Familial nomenclature among the, 287
Adoption among the, 291
Incestuous marriages among the, 294
The evolution of the family among the, 292
Genesis of paternal filiation among the, 293
Repudiation and divorce, 228
in savage countries, 228
in New Caledonia, 229
among the Hottentots, 229
among the Redskins, 231
among the Esquimaux, 231
at Madagascar, 233
among the Djebel-Taggalé, 233
among the Touaregs, 234
among the Kabyles, 234
among the Arabs, 237
among the Mongols, 240
in China, 241
in India, 242
among the Hebrews, 242
in Greece, 243
at Rome, 244
among the Germans, 246
among the Scandinavians, 246
among the Tcherkesses, 246
in feudal France, 246
Rome, Loan of the wife in ancient, 53
Marriage by capture at, 100
The wife assimilated to a slave at, 104
Marriage by confarreation at, 120
Marriage by purchase at, 120
Marriage by _usus_ at, 120
Marriage by _coemption_ at, 120
Dotal marriage at, 120
The concubinate at, 166
Marriage in ancient, 198
Marriages of children at, 198
Relative liberty of the wife at, 198
The wife considered as a daughter of her husband at, 198
The _potestas_ of the father at, 199
The _manus_ of the husband at, 200
Dotal marriage at, 200
Marriage by _usus_ at, 201
Marriage by _coemptio_ at, 201
Marriage by _confarreatio_ at, 201
Loan of women at, 201
The evolution of marriage at, 201
The _jus connubii_ at, 202
The maternal family at, 202
The _spurii_ at, 202
Divorce at, 244
Repudiation at, 244
Widowhood at, 261
The _gens_ at, 335
The primitive clan at, 335
The patriarchate at, 337
The right of succession of the _gentiles_ at, 338
The evolution of the family at, 338
The evolution of marriage at, 357
Rut and love, 7
Sociologic importance of, 7
The madness of, 8
a sort of puberty, 8
among toads, 8
among mammals, 8
The physiological reason of, 9
and human love, 9
Moral position of, 17
Salmon, Battles of amorous, 11
Maternal love among, 24
Savages, Loan of the wife among, 52
Schopenhauer and his theory of love, 9
Scythians, Incest among the, 66
Seignor, Right of the, among the Kaffirs, in New Zealand and New
Mexico, etc., 47
Selection, Sexual, by females, 17
Semites, The family among the, 325
The patriarchate of the, 325
Senecas, The family among the Iroquois, 287
Sexes, Proportion of the, 75
The proportion of the, and infanticide, 75
Sociability often comes from weakness, 31
engenders altruism, 31
favourable to polygamy, 31
Sociology, Biological origin of, 3
The animal sources of, 10
The rhythms of, 355
The method of, 342
Sodomy among the Esquimaux, 58
in New Caledonia, 62
in New Zealand, 62
among the Redskins, 62
in Peru, 62
at Mecca, 63
in the East, 63
repressed by the Celts and the Germans, 63
in Greece, 63
in Crete, 63
Sparta, Gymnastic exercises of naked girls at, 195
Obligatory marriage at, 195
Adultery at, 322
Species, Preservation of, 20
Spiders, Maternal love of, 22
_Spurii_ at Rome, 202
Sticklebacks, Amorous battles of, 11
Suttees of widows in India, 257
Suttees, Indian, in the time of Alexander, 257
in modern times, 258
Succession, Customs of, among the Redskins, 277, 278
Laws of, among the Kabyles, 329
Laws of, in Persia, 331
The right of, of the _gentiles_ at Rome, 338
Laws of, among the Germans, 339
Tamils, The family among the, 296
The maternal family among the, 334
Tasmania, Honourable prostitution in,57
Tatoways, Coupling of the, 16
_Tchin-than_, Cambodian, 49
Termites, Republics of, 3
_Tetras phasaniellus_, Amorous parades of, 13
_Tetras umbellus_, Amorous combats of, 13
_Tetras urogallus_, Amorous battles of, 12
Thibet, Polyandry in, 78
Civil marriage in, 182
Monogamy in, 182
Adultery in, 216
Divorce in, 240
Widowhood in, 254
Toads, Paternal love of, 25
Todas, Polyandry among the, 80
_Totem_, The, among the Kamilaroi of Australia, 273
of the Redskins, 275
Touaregs, Paternal right redeemed by prostitution among the, 118
Monogamy among the, 179
Maternal filiation among the, 179
Independence of woman among the, 179
Pretended gynecocracy of, 181
Repudiation among the, 234
The pecuniary matriarchate of the women, 328
Tournaments, Æsthetic, of birds, 13
Troglodytes, Promiscuity among the, 39
Turkeys, League of female, against the males, 30
_Usus_ at Rome, 200
Vertebrates, Coquetry among the, 10
Strength greater in males among the, 15
Law of battle among the, 16
Promiscuity rare among the, 38
Virginity among the Hebrews, 190
Weaver bird, Amorous music of, 15
Widowhood and the levirate, 249
in savage countries, 249
Societies without, 250
among the Hottentots, 250
at the Gaboon, 250
in equatorial Africa, 250
at Madagascar, 251
in Central America, 251
among the Redskins, 252
in Bhootan, 254
in Thibet, 254
in China, 255
of brides in China, 255
in India, 256
in the Koran, 259
in the Bible, 259
in Afghanistan, 260
among the Kabyles, 260
among the Arabs, 260
at Athens, 261
at Rome, 261
among the Germans, 262
among the Lombards, 262
in general, 265
Widows, Right of, at Kouranko, 112
Immolation of, 253
Suicides of, in China, 255
Suttees of, in India, 257
Wives, Loan of, in America, 52
Loan of, among the Esquimaux, 52
Loan of, 52
Loan of, among the Redskins, 52
Loan of, among the Arabs, 53
Loan of, in antique Greece, 53
Loan of, in antique Rome, 53
Loan of, in Australia, 57
Loan of, among Bushmen, 58
Lease of, among the Esquimaux, 58
Lease of, in Polynesia, 60
Community of, among Arabs, 84
Assimilated to slaves at Rome, 104
Right of refusal of the, among the Moors of Senegambia, 112
Subjection of, 105
Food in reserve in Melanesia, 106
Seizure of, in Australia, 123
Servility of, in Africa, 126
the “oxen” of the husband, among Kaffirs, 128
Labour of, among the Guaranis, 130
Sister, among the Redskins, 131
Conjugal submission of Redskin, 132
Subjection of, by Redskins, 132
Sisters, in Bhootan, 133
Sisters, among the Ostiaks, 133
Purchase of, in the Koran, 141
Rights of the, in Mussulman marriage, 144
Subjection of, in Kabylie, 145
Loan of jewels to the Kabyle, 146
Price of the, tariffed in Kabylie, 146
Kabyle, is a thing possessed, 146
Fate of the Kabyle, 147
Independence of Touareg, 149
considered as daughters of husband at Rome, 199
Loan of, at Rome, 201
Christian subjection of, 205
Independence of, among the Saxons of England, 205
Subjection of, among the Germans, 204
Kabyle, have “right of insurrection,” 236
Power of, among Redskins, 280
Subjection of, among Redskins, 282
Women, Freedom of, in Polynesia, 60
Shameless language of, in Polynesia, 61
Shamelessness of, in Africa, 127
Inferiority of, in the Koran, 140
Dissolute morals of, in Abyssinia, 181
Submission of, in China, 185
Emancipated by money, 187
Virtuous, of Proverbs, 190
Inferiority of, in India, 191
Subjection of, in India, 192
Subjection of, in primitive Greece, 194
Subjection of, in Greece, 195
Relative liberty of, in Rome, 198
Yazidies, Promiscuity of, 44
Young girls, Licentious manners of, in Australia, 50
Licentious manners of, in Polynesia, 50
Licentious manners of, in savage countries, 50
Zaporogs, Promiscuity of, 43
THE WALTER SCOTT PRESS, NEWCASTLE-ON-TYNE.
Transcriber’s Notes
Obvious errors in punctuation, accents and spacing have been corrected.
The original table of contents was missing V. The Evolution of the
System of Kinship by Classes. in Chapter XVII. This has been added and
The Clan and the Family. has been renumbered to VI.
Page 2: “terrestial animals” changed to “terrestrial animals”
Page 12: In the footnote, “_Scènes de la Nature dans les Etats Unis_”
changed to “_Scènes de la Nature dans les États-Unis_”
Page 29: “Amor ch’a null’” changed to “Amor ch’a nullo”
Page 32: “Asaitic _antilope saiga_” changed to “Asiatic _antilope
saiga_”
Page 43: In the footnote, “_Bemark. über Russland_” changed to
“_Bemerk. über Russland_”
Page 44: In the footnote, “_Les Bédouins ou Arabes du Desert_” changed
to “_Les Bédouins ou Arabes du Désert_”
Page 50: “aux iles” changed to “aux îles”
Page 67: “to deflour their daughters” changed to “to deflower their
daughters”
Page 83: “the noses and ears” changed to “the nose and ears”
Page 96: “the husband captured slaves” changed to “the husband of
captured slaves”
Page 100: “without confarrearation” changed to “without confarreation”
Page 116: In the footnote, “_Journal d’un interprète en China_” changed
to “_Journal d’un interprète en Chine_”
Page 122: “sociable of amimals” changed to “sociable of animals”
Page 125: In the footnote, “_Voy. dans l’Afrique equatoriale_” changed
to “ _Voy. dans l’Afrique équatoriale_”
Page 143: “all that that concerns marriage” changed to “all that
concerns marriage” “hands of the women” changed to “hands of the woman”
Page 164: “has precedence and rule over them” changed to “has
precedence and rules over them” In the footnote on this and the
subsequent page, _L’Empire Chinoise_ changed to “_L’Empire Chinois_”
Page 171: “monogamy and pologamy” changed to “monogamy and polygamy”
Page 174: “Déserts du Nouvean Monde” changed to “Déserts du Nouveau
Monde”
Page 179: “Duveyrier, 339-430” changed to “Duveyrier, 339-340”
Page 184: A missing footnote anchor was added after “law from
inheritance,”
Page 200: In the footnote, “Stychus” changed to “Stichus”
Page 201: “Tahitan marriage” changed to “Tahitian marriage” and “at the
time _enciente_” changed to “at the time _enceinte_”
Page 219: A missing footnote anchor was added after “rose-water duels.”
Page 228: “In Abyssinia, at Haïti” changed to “In Abyssinia, at Hayti”
Page 246: “among the Teherkesses” changed to “among the Tcherkesses”
Page 254: In the footnote, “Revue Brittanique” changed to “Revue
Britannique” and “Morcroft and Trebeck’s” changed to “Moorcroft and
Trebeck’s”
Page 256: In the footnote, “_Chine et les Puissances Chretiennes_”
changed to “_La Chine et les Puissances Chrétiennes_”
Page 292: In the footnote, “Völker des Russichen” changed to “Völker
des Russischen”
Page 298: “of the Himalayah” changed to “of the Himalaya”
Page 314: “The Michmis buy their wives” changed to “The Mishmis buy
their wives”
Page 315: “The Ooraons share” changed to “The Oraons share”
Page 328: “In Kabylie, however” changed to “In Kabyle, however”
Page 329: “for woman there remains” changed to “for women there remains”
Page 334: “_l’Ile de Ceylon_” changed to “_l’Île de Ceylan_”
Page 349, 351 & 352: In the footnote, “Article, “Marriage”” changed to
“Article, “Mariage””
A few minor adjustments were made to the index to match the spelling
and page numbers in the rest of the text.
The spelling of MacLennan, author of _Primitive Marriage_, was
corrected to McLennon.
The spelling of Moerenhaut, author of _Voy. aux îles_, was corrected to
Moerenhout.
The spelling of Shortt, author of _Trans. Ethn. Soc._, was corrected to
Schortt.