THE FORMS OF THE FAMILY
The family as an institution has varied greatly in its forms from age to
age and from people to people. This is what we should expect, seeing
that all organic structures are variable. Such variations in human
institutions are due partially to the influences of the environment,
partially to the state of knowledge, and partially to many other causes
as yet not well understood. The family illustrates in greater or less
degree the working of these causes of variation and of change in human
institutions.
The Maternal and Paternal Families.--As regards the general form of the
family we have to note first of all the two great forms which we may
characterize respectively as "the maternal family" and "the paternal
family." As we have already seen, Bachofen, Morgan, and others
discovered a condition of human society in which relationship was traced
through mothers only, and in which property or authority descended along
the female line rather than along the male line. Further investigation
and research have shown that up to recent times, say up to fifty years
ago, one half of all the peoples of the world, if we reckon them by
nations and tribes rather than by numbers, practiced this system of
reckoning kinship through mothers only, and passed property and
authority down along the female line. Ethnologists and sociologists have
practically concluded, from the amount of evidence now collected, that
this maternal or metronymic system was the primitive system of tracing
relationships, and that it was succeeded among the European peoples by
the paternal system so long ago that the transition from the one to the
other has been forgotten, except as some trace of it has been preserved
in customs, legends, and the like.
Among many tribes of the North American Indians this metronymic or
maternal system was peculiarly well-developed. Children took their
mother's name, not their father's name; belonged to their mother's clan,
not their father's clan; and the chief transmitted his authority, if
hereditary, not to his own son, but to his eldest sister's son. The
relatives on the father's side, indeed, were quite ignored. Frequently
the maternal uncle had more legal authority over the children than their
own father, seeing that the children belonged to his clan, that is, to
their mother's clan.
Now, Bachofen claimed not only that in this stage was kinship reckoned
through mothers only, but that women were dominant socially and
politically; that there existed a true matriarchy, or rule of the
mothers. Do the facts support Bachofen's theory? Let us see. The
Iroquois Indians, among whom Morgan lived, were a typical maternal or
metronymic people. Among them, without any doubt, the women had a
position of influence socially and even politically which often is not
found among peoples of higher culture. For example, among the Iroquois
the government of the clan was in the hands of four women councilors
(Matrons), who were elected by all the adults in the clan. These four
women councilors, however, elected a Peace Sachem, who carried out the
will of the clan in all matters pertaining to peace generally. Moreover,
the councilors of the several clans, four fifths of whom were women, met
together to form the Tribal Council; but in this Tribal Council the
women sat separate, not participating in the deliberations, but
exercising only a veto power on the decisions of the men. In matters of
war, however, government was intrusted to two war chiefs elected from
the tribe generally, the women here only having the right to veto the
decision of the tribe to enter upon the warpath. Thus we see that while
the women of the Iroquois Indians had a great deal of social and
political influence, the actual work of government was largely turned
over by them to the men, and especially was this true of directing the
affairs of the tribe in time of war. There is no doubt, however, that in
the maternal stage of social evolution women had an influence in
domestic, religious, and social matters much greater than they had at
many later stages of social development. Among the Zuni of New Mexico,
for example, another well-developed maternal people, marriage is always
arranged by the bride's parents. The husband goes to live with his wife,
and is practically a guest in his wife's house all his life long, she
alone having the right of divorce. Indeed, among all maternal peoples
the rule is that the husband goes to live with the wife, and not the
wife with the husband, the children, as we have already seen, keeping
the mother's name and belonging to her kindred or clan.
Nevertheless we cannot agree with Bachofen that a true matriarchy, or
government by women, ever existed. On the contrary, among all of these
maternal peoples, while the women may have much influence socially and
politically, the men, on account of their superior strength, are
intrusted with the work not only of protecting and providing for the
families and driving away enemies, but also largely with the work of
maintaining the internal government and order of the people. Strictly
speaking, therefore, there has never been a matriarchal stage of social
evolution, but rather a maternal or metronymic stage.
We have already said that this stage was probably the primitive one. How
are we to explain, then, that primitive man reckoned kinship through
mothers only? Was this due, as Morgan thought, to a primitive practice
of promiscuity which prevented tracing relationships through fathers?
The reply is, that among the many maternal peoples now well known, among
whom relationships are traced through mothers only, we find no evidence
of the practice of general promiscuity now or even in remote times. The
North American Indians, for example, had quite definite forms of the
family life and were very far removed from the practice of promiscuity,
though they traced relationship through mothers only. It is evident that
the causes of the maternal family and the maternal system of
relationship are not so simple as Morgan supposed. What, then, were the
causes of the maternal system? It is probable that man in the earliest
times did not know the physiological connection between father and
child. The physiological connection between mother and child, on the
other hand, was an obvious fact which required no knowledge of
physiology to establish; therefore, nothing was more natural than for
primitive man to recognize that the child was of the mother's blood, but
not of the father's blood. Therefore, the child belonged to the mother's
people and not to the father's people. If it be asked whether it is
possible that there could be any human beings so ignorant that they do
not know the physiological connection between father and child, the
reply is, that this is apparently the case among a number of very
primitive peoples, even down to recent times. It is not infrequent among
these peoples to find conception and childbirth attributed to the
influence of the spirits, rather than to relations between male and
female. While, therefore, a social connection between the father and the
children was recognized, leading the father to provide in all ways for
his children, as fathers do whether among civilized or uncivilized
peoples, yet the blood relationship between the father and the child
could not have been clear in the most primitive times.
Perhaps an even more efficient cause, however, of the maternal system
was the fact that the mother in primitive times was the stable element
in the family life, the constant center of the family. The husband was
frequently away from home, hunting or fighting, and oftentimes failed to
return. Nothing was more natural, therefore, than that the child should
be reckoned as belonging to the mother, take her name and belong to her
kindred or clan. Moreover, after the custom of naming children from
mothers and reckoning them as belonging to the mother's clan was
established, it could not be displaced by the mere discovery of the
physiological connection between the father and the child. On the
contrary social habits, like habits in the individual, tend to persist
until they work badly. We find, therefore, the maternal system
persisting among peoples who for many generations had come fully to
recognize the physiological connection of father and child. Indeed, the
maternal system could never have been done away with if social evolution
had not brought about new and complex conditions which caused the system
to break down and to be replaced by the paternal system.
_The Paternal or Patriarchal Family._ At a certain stage we find,
then, that a vast revolution took place in human society, especially in
the family life, and the family and society generally came to be
organized more definitely in regard to the male element. At a certain
period, indeed, we find that the authority of the husband and father in
the family has become supreme, and that he is practically owner of all
persons and property of the family group, the wife and children being
reduced, if not to the position of property, at least to the position of
subject persons. This is the patriarchal family, classical pictures of
which we find set forth in the pages of the Old Testament. How, then,
did the transition take place from the maternal system, in which the
mother was so important in the family, to the paternal system, in which
the father was so all-important? What were the causes which brought
about the breakdown of the maternal system and the gradual development
of the patriarchal family? Some of these causes we can clearly make out
from the study of social history.
(1) War was unquestionably a cause of the breakdown of the maternal
system through the fact that women were captured in war, held as slaves,
and made wives or concubines by their captors. These captured wives were
regarded as the property of the captor. Any children born to them were,
therefore, also regarded as the property of the captor. Furthermore,
these captured wives were separated from their kindred, and their
children could not possibly belong to any clan except their husband's.
Manifestly this cause could not have worked in the earliest times, when
slave captives were not valuable; but as soon as slavery became
instituted in any form, then women slaves were particularly valued, not
only for their labor, but because they might be either concubines or
wives. It is evident, then, that war and slavery would thus indirectly
tend to undermine the maternal system.
(2) Wife purchase would operate in the same way. Among peoples that had
developed a commercial life as well as slavery it early became the
practice to purchase wives. It is evident that these purchased wives
would be regarded as a sort of property, and the husband would naturally
claim the children as belonging to him. Among certain North American
Indians we find exactly this state of affairs. If a man married a wife
without paying the purchase price for her, then her children took her
name and belonged to her clan; but if he had purchased her, say with a
number of blankets, then the children took his name and belonged to his
clan.
(3) The decisive cause, however, of the breakdown of the maternal system
was the development of the pastoral stage of industry. Now, the grazing
of flocks and herds requires considerable territory and necessitates
small and compact groups widely separated from one another. Hence, in
the pastoral stage the wife must go with the husband and be far removed
from the influence and authority of her own kindred. This gave the
husband greater power over his wife. Moreover, the care of flocks and
herds accentuated the value of the male laborer, while primitively woman
had been the chief laborer. In the pastoral stage the man had the main
burden of caring for the flocks and herds. Under such circumstances
nothing was more natural than that the authority of the owner of the
family property should gradually become supreme in all matters, and we
find, therefore, among all pastoral peoples that the family is itself a
little political unit, the children taking the father's name, property
and authority passing down along the male line, while the eldest living
male is usually the ruler of the whole group.
(4) After all these causes came another factor--ancestor worship. While
ancestor worship exists to some extent among maternal peoples, it is
usually not well-developed for some reason or other until the paternal
stage is reached. Ancestor worship, being the worship of the departed
ancestors as heroes, seems to develop more readily where the line of
ancestors are males. It may be suggested that the male ancestor is apt
to be a more heroic figure than the female ancestor. At any rate, when
ancestor worship became fully developed it powerfully tended to
reenforce the authority of the patriarch, because he was, as the eldest
living ancestor, the representative of the gods upon earth, therefore
his power became almost divine. Religion thus finally came in to place
the patriarchal family upon a very firm basis.
Thus we see how each of these two great forms, the maternal family and
the paternal family, arose out of natural conditions, and therefore they
may be said to represent two great stages in the social evolution of
man. It is hardly necessary to point out that civilized societies are
now apparently entering upon a third stage, in which there will be
relative equality given to the male and the female elements that go to
make up the family.
Polyandry.--We must notice now the various forms of marriage by which
the family has been constituted among different peoples and in different
ages. Marriage, like the family itself, is variable, and an indefinite
number of forms may be found among various peoples. We shall notice,
however, only the three leading forms,--polyandry, polygyny, and
monogamy,--and attempt to show the natural conditions which favor each.
It is evident that if we assume that the primitive form of the family
was that of a simple pairing monogamy, the burden is laid upon us to
show how such different types as polyandry and polygyny arose.
Polyandry, or the union of one woman with several men, is a relatively
rare form of marriage and the family, found only in certain isolated
regions of the world. It is particularly found in Tibet, a barren and
inhospitable plateau north of India and forming a part of the Chinese
Empire. It is also found in certain other isolated mountainous regions
in India, and down to recent times also in Arabia. In none of these
places does it exist exclusively, but rather alongside of monogamy and
perhaps other forms of the family. Thus in Tibet the upper classes
practice polygyny and monogamy, while among the lower classes we find
polyandry and monogamy. In all these regions where polyandry occurs,
moreover, it is to be noted that the conditions of life are harsh and
severe. Tibet is an exceptionally inhospitable region, with a climate of
arctic rigor, the people living mainly by grazing. Under such
circumstances it is conceivably difficult for one man to support and
protect a family. At any rate, the form of polyandry which we find in
Tibet suggests that such economic conditions may have been the main
cause of its existence. Ordinarily in Tibet a polyandrous family is
formed by an older brother taking a wife, and then admitting his younger
brothers into partnership with him. The older brother is frequently
absent from home, looking after the flocks, and in his absence one of
the younger brothers assumes the headship of the family. Under such
circumstances we can see how the natural human instincts which would
oppose polyandry under ordinary circumstances, namely, the jealousy of
the male, might become greatly modified, or cease to act altogether.
Certain other conditions besides economic ones might also favor the
existence of polyandry, such as the scarcity of women. Summing up, we
can say, then, that this rare form of the family seems to have as its
causes: (1) In barren and inhospitable countries the labor of one man is
sometimes found not sufficient to support a family. (2) Also there
probably exists in such regions an excess of males. This might be due to
one of two causes: First, the practice of exposing female infants might
lead to a scarcity of women; secondly, in such regions it is found that
from causes not well understood a larger number of males are born. It
may be noted as a general fact that when the conditions of life are hard
in human society, owing to famine, war, or barrenness of the soil, a
larger number of male births take place. We may therefore infer that
this would disturb the numerical proportion of the sexes in such
regions. (3) A third cause may be suggested as having something to do
with the matter, namely, that habits of close inbreeding, or
intermarriage, might perhaps tend to overcome the natural repugnance to
such a relation. Moreover, close inbreeding also, as the experiments of
stock-breeders show, would tend to produce a surplus of male births, and
so would act finally in the same way as the second cause.
POLYGYNY, [Footnote: The word "polygamy" is too broad in its meaning to
use as a scientific term for this form of the family. "Polygamy" comes
from two Greek words meaning "much married;" hence it includes
"polyandry" (having several husbands) and "polygyny" (having several
wives).] or the union of one man with several women, is a much more
common form of marriage. It is, in fact, to be found sporadically among
all peoples and in all ages. It has perhaps existed at least
sporadically from the most primitive times, because we find that at
least one of the anthropoid apes, namely, the gorilla, practices it to
some extent. It is manifest, however, that it could not have existed to
any extent among primitive men, except where food supply was
exceptionally abundant. In the main, polygyny is a later development,
then, which comes in when some degree of wealth has been accumulated,
that is, sufficient food supply to make it possible for one man to
support several families. Polygyny came in especially after women came
to be captured in war and kept as slaves or wives. The practice of wife
capture, indeed, and the honor attached to the custom, had much to do in
making the practice of polygyny common among certain peoples. Wherever
slavery has existed, we may also note, polygyny, either in its legal
form or in its illegal form of concubinage, has flourished. Polygyny,
indeed, is closely related with the institution of slavery and is
practically coextensive with it. In the ancient world it existed among
the Hebrews and among practically all of the peoples of the Orient, and
also sporadically among our own Teutonic ancestors. In modern times
polygyny still exists among all the Mohammedan peoples and to a greater
or less degree among all semicivilized peoples. It exists in China in
the form of concubinage. It even exists in the United States, for all
the evidence seems to show that the Utah Mormons still practice polygyny
to some extent, although it may be doubted whether polygynous unions are
being formed among them at the present time.
Two facts always need to be borne in mind regarding polygyny: First,
that wherever it is practiced it is relatively confined to the upper and
wealthy classes, for the reason that the support of more than one family
is something which only the wealthy classes in a given society could
assume. Secondly, it follows that under ordinary circumstances only a
small minority of a given population practice polygyny, even in
countries in which it is sanctioned. In Mohammedan countries like Turkey
and Egypt, for example, it is estimated that not more than five per cent
of the families are polygynous, while in other regions the percentage
seems to be still smaller. The reason for this is not only the economic
one just mentioned, but that everywhere the sexes are relatively equal
in numbers, and therefore it is impossible for polygyny to become a
widespread general custom. If some men have more than one wife it is
evident that other men will probably have to forego marriage entirely.
This is not saying that under certain circumstances, namely, the
importation of large numbers of women, a higher per cent of polygynous
families may not exist. It is said that among the negroes on the west
coast of Africa the number of polygynous families reaches as high as
fifty per cent, owing to the fact that female slaves are largely
imported into that district, and that they serve not only as wives, but
do the bulk of the agricultural labor, the male negro preferring female
slaves, who can do his work and be wives at the same time, to male
slaves. But such cases as these are altogether exceptional and
manifestly could not become general.
Summing up, we may say that the causes of polygyny are, then:
(1) First of all, the brutal lust of man. No doubt man's animal
propensities have had much to do with the existence of this form of the
family. Nevertheless, while male sensuality is at the basis of polygyny,
it would be a mistake to think that sensuality is an adequate
explanation in all cases. On the contrary, we find many other causes,
chiefly, perhaps, economic, operating also to favor the development of
polygyny.
(2) One of these is wife capture, as we have already seen. The captured
women in war were held as trophies and slaves, and later became wives or
concubines. Among all peoples at a certain stage the honor of wife
capture has alone been a prolific cause of polygyny.
(3) Another cause, after slavery became developed, was the high value
set on women as laborers. Among many barbarous peoples the women do the
main part of the work. They are more tractable as slaves, and
consequently a high value is set upon their labor. As we have already
seen, these female slaves usually serve at the same time as concubines,
if not legal wives of their masters.
(4) Another cause which we can perhaps hardly appreciate at the present
time is the high valuation set on children. We see this cause operating
particularly in the case of the patriarchs of the Old Testament. Under
the patriarchal family great value was set upon children as necessary to
continue the family line. Where the device of adoption was not resorted
to, therefore, in case of barrenness or the birth exclusively of female
children, nothing was more natural than that polygyny should be resorted
to in order to insure the family succession. In the patriarchal family
also a high valuation was necessarily set upon children, because the
larger the family grew the stronger it was.
(5) Finally, religion came to sanction polygyny. The religious sanction
of polygyny cannot be looked upon as one of its original causes, but
when once established it reacted powerfully to reenforce and maintain
the institution. How the religious sanction came about we can readily
see when we remember that very commonly religions confuse the practice
of the nobility with what is noble or commendable morally. The
polygynous practices of the nobility, therefore, under certain
conditions came to receive the sanction of religion. When this took
place polygyny became firmly established as a social institution, very
difficult to uproot, as all the experience of Christian missionaries
among peoples practicing polygyny goes to show. We may note also the
general truth, that while religion does not originate human institutions
or the forms of human association, it is preeminently that which gives
fixity and stability to institutions through the supernatural sanction
that it accords them.
Some judgment of the social value of polygyny may not be out of place in
connection with this subject. Admitting, as all students of social
history must, that in certain times and places the polygynous form of
family has been advantageous, has served the interests of social
survival and even of civilization, yet viewed from the standpoint of
present society it seems that our judgment of polygyny must be wholly
unfavorable. In the first place, as we have already seen, polygyny is
essentially an institution of barbarism. It arose largely through the
practice of wife capture and the keeping of female slaves. While often
adjusted to the requirements of barbarous societies, it seems in no way
adjusted to a high civilization. Polygyny, indeed, must necessarily rest
upon the subjection and degradation of women. Necessarily the practice
of polygyny must disregard the feelings of women, for women are jealous
creatures as well as men. No high regard for the feelings of women,
therefore, would be consistent with the practice of polygyny. Finally,
all the evidence that we have goes to show that under polygyny children
are neglected, and, at least from the standpoint of a high civilization,
inadequately socialized. This must necessarily be so, because in the
polygynous family the care of the children rests almost entirely with
the mother. While we have no statistics of infant mortality from
polygynous countries, it seems probable that infant mortality is high,
and we know from experience with polygynous families in our own state of
Utah, according to the testimony of those who have worked among them,
that delinquent children are especially found in such households.
Fatherhood, in the full sense of the word, can hardly be said to exist
under polygyny.
Those philosophers, like Schopenhauer, who advocate the legalizing of
polygyny in civilized countries, are hardly worth replying to. It is
safe to say that any widespread practice of polygyny in civilized
communities would lead to a reversion to the moral standards of
barbarism in many if not in all matters. That polygyny is still a
burning question in the United States of the twentieth century is merely
good evidence that we are not very far removed yet from barbarism.
MONOGAMY, as we have already seen, has been the prevalent form of
marriage in all ages and in all countries. Wherever other forms have
existed monogamy has existed alongside of them as the dominant, even
though perhaps not the socially honored, form. All other forms of the
family must be regarded as sporadic variations, on the whole unsuited to
long survival, because essentially inconsistent with the nature of human
society. In civilized Europe monogamy has been the only form of the
family sanctioned for ages by law, custom, and religion. The leading
peoples of the world, therefore, practice monogamy, and it is safe to
say that the connection between monogamy and progressive forms of
civilization is not an accident.
What, then, are the social advantages of monogamy which favor the
development of a higher type of culture? These advantages are numerous,
but perhaps the most important of them can be grouped under six heads.
(1) The number of the two sexes, as we have already seen, is everywhere
approximately equal. This means that monogamy is in harmony with the
biological conditions that exist in the human species. The equal number
of the two sexes has probably been brought about through natural
selection. Why nature should favor this proportion of the sexes can
perhaps be in part understood when we reflect that with such proportion
there can be the largest number of family groups, and hence the best
possible conditions for the rearing of offspring.
(2) Monogamy secures the superior care of children in at least two
respects. First, it very greatly decreases mortality in children,
because under monogamy both husband and wife unite in their care. Again,
monogamy secures the superior upbringing and, therefore, the superior
socialization of the child. In the monogamous family much greater
attention can be given to the training of children by both parents. In
other forms of the family not only is the death rate higher among
children, but from the point of view of modern civilization, at least,
they are inferiorly socialized.
(3) The monogamic family alone produces affections and emotions of the
higher type. It is only in the monogamic family that the highest type of
altruistic affection can be cultivated. It is difficult to understand,
for example, how anything like unselfish affection between husband and
wife can exist under polygyny. Under monogamy, husband and wife are
called upon to sacrifice selfish desires in the mutual care of children.
Monogamy is, therefore, fitted as a form of the family to foster
altruism in the highest degree, and, as we have seen, the higher the
type of altruism produced by the family life, the higher the type of the
social life generally, other things being equal. It is especially to the
credit of monogamy that it has created fatherhood in the fullest sense
of the term, and therefore taught the male element in human society the
value of service and self-sacrifice. Under polygynous conditions the
father cannot devote himself to any extent to his children or to any one
wife, since he is really the head of several households, and therefore,
as we have already noted, fatherhood in the fullest sense scarcely
exists under polygyny.
(4) Under monogamy, moreover, all family relationships are more definite
and strong, and thus family bonds, and ultimately social bonds, are
stronger. In the polygynous household the children of the different
wives are half brothers and half sisters, hence family affection has
little chance to develop among them, and as a matter of fact between
children of different wives there is constant pulling and hauling.
Moreover, because the children in a polygynous family are only half
brothers this immensely complicates relationships, and even the line of
ancestors. Legal relations and all blood relationships are, therefore,
more entangled. It is no inconsiderable social merit of monogamy that it
makes blood relationships simple and usually perfectly definite. All of
this has an effect upon society at large, because the cohesive power of
blood relationship, even in modern societies, is something still worth
taking into account. But of course the main influence of all this is to
be found in the family group itself, because it is only under such
simple and definite relations as we find in the monogamous family that
there is ample stimulus to develop the higher family affections.
(5) From all this it follows that monogamy favors the development of
high types of religion and morals, family affection being an
indispensable root of any high type of ethical religion. That form of
the family which favors the development of the highest type of this
affection will, therefore, favor the development of the highest type of
religion. We see this even more plainly, perhaps, in ancient times than
in the present time, because it was monogamy that favored the
development of ancestor worship through making the line of ancestors
clear and definite, and thus monogamy helped to develop this type of
religion, which became the basis of still higher types.
(6) Monogamy not only favors the preservation of the lives of the
children, but also favors the preservation of the lives of the parents,
because it is only under monogamy that we find aged parents cared for by
their children to any extent. Under polygyny the wife who has grown old
is discarded for a young wife, and usually ends her days in bitterness.
The father, too, under polygyny is rarely cared for by the children,
because the polygynous household has never given the opportunity for
close affections between parents and children. That monogamy, therefore,
helps to lengthen life through favoring care of parents by children in
old age is an element in its favor, for it adds not a little to the
happiness of life, and so to the strength of social bonds, that people
do not have to look forward to a cheerless and friendless old age.
In brief, the monogamic family presents such superior unity and harmony
from every point of view that it is much more fitted to produce a higher
type of culture. From whatever point of view we may look at it,
therefore, there are many reasons why civilized societies cannot afford
to sanction any other form of the family than that of monogamy.
The Relation of the Form of the Family to the Form of Industry.--As we
have already seen, the form of the family is undoubtedly greatly
influenced by the form of industry. This is so markedly the case that
some sociologists and economists have claimed that the form of the
family life is but a reflection of the form of the industrial life; that
the family in its changes and variations slavishly follows the changes
in economic conditions. That such an extreme view as this is a mistake
can readily be seen from a brief review of the causes which have
produced certain types of family life in certain periods. Thus, the
maternal type of the family cannot be said by any means to have been
determined by economic conditions. On the contrary, primarily the
maternal family, as we have seen, was determined by certain intellectual
conceptions, namely, the absence of knowledge of the physiological
connection between father and child, though the economic conditions of
primitive life tended powerfully to continue the maternal family long
after intellectual conditions had changed. Again, it has been said that
the patriarchal family owed its existence entirely to a form of
industry, namely, pastoral industry, but, as we have seen, other factors
also operated to produce the patriarchal type of the family, such as
war, religion, and perhaps man's inherent desire to dominate. Moreover,
religion continued the patriarchal family in many cases long after
pastoral industry had ceased to be the chief economic form.
So too with the forms of marriage. While polygyny has been claimed to be
due entirely to economic causes, we have seen that these so-called
economic causes have only been the opportunities for the polygynous
instincts of man to assert themselves. These polygynous instincts of man
have asserted themselves more or less under all conditions of society,
but under certain conditions, when there was an accumulation of wealth,
and especially with the institution of slavery, they had greater
opportunity to assert themselves than elsewhere. Thus the basic cause of
polygyny is not economic, but psychological; and given certain moral and
economic conditions of society, these polygynous tendencies assert
themselves. Monogamy, on the other hand, has in no sense been determined
by economic conditions but is fundamentally determined by the biological
fact of the numerical equality of the sexes. This is doubtless the main
reason why monogamy has been the prevalent form of the family
everywhere. Certain moral and psychological factors which go along with
the development of higher types of culture have, however, powerfully
reenforced monogamy. It is doubtful if economic conditions can to any
extent be shown to have equally reenforced the monogamic life.
Our conclusion must be, then, that while the form of the family and the
form of industry are closely related, so closely that the form of
industry continually affects more or less the family life, yet there is
no reason for concluding that the form of the family is wholly or even
chiefly determined by the form of industry.
SELECT REFERENCES
_For brief reading:_
WESTERMARCK, _History of Human Marriage_, Chaps. XX-XXII.
_For more extended reading:_
MCLENNAN, _The Patriarchal Theory._
MORGAN, _Ancient Society._
PARSONS, _The Family._
WAKE, _The Development of Marriage and Kinship._