STUDIES IN ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 COMPRISING A REPRINT OF 
 
 PKIMITIVE MAKKIAGE 
 
STUDIES IN ANCIENT HISTORY 
 
 COMPRISING A REPRINT OF 
 
 PKIMITIVE MARRIAGE 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 IN 
 
 BY THE LATE 
 
 JOHN FEKGUSON McLENNAN 
 
 A NEW EDITION 
 
 Eontion 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND NEW YORK 
 
 1886 
 
 The Right of Translation and Reproduction is Reserved 
 
RICHARD CLAY & SONS, 
 BREAD STREET HILL, LONDON, 
 
 Bungay, Suffolk. 
 
PREFACE TO THE PEESENT EDITION. 
 
 THIS volume is a reprint of Studies in Ancient 
 History as published in 1876, with notes added only 
 where they appeared to be indispensable. It is pro- 
 posed to follow it up with a second volume containing 
 other writings of the author writings for the most 
 part hitherto unpublished, and prepared for a work 
 which was left unfinished from which it will be 
 possible to gather, in a considerable measure at least, 
 how far the author's views had grown or been de- 
 veloped, how far they had changed or been added to, 
 subsequently to the appearance of Primitive Marriage. 
 It seemed best therefore to attempt no statement about 
 this at present. And there was equal reason against 
 doing the same thing fragmentarily in notes. The notes 
 have accordingly been confined to certain matters on 
 which the author had announced a change of view ; 
 and to some others e.g. Mr. Morgan's speculations 
 where circumstances had made an additional statement 
 
vi PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 imperative. No better opportunity could occur, how- 
 ever, for doing what (as appears from the Preface to 
 the former edition) the author had felt to be very 
 desirable making a pretty full collection of examples 
 of the form of capture ; and this has been done in the 
 Appendix to Primitive Marriage, upon the basis of a 
 collection which the author published in 1866. The 
 examples thus brought together suffice, at least, to show 
 an extraordinary diffusion for this marriage custom. 
 
 A reminder may be given that Primitive Marriage 
 was a first essay in a new field, and that the author 
 (always hoping to be able either to supplement or 
 supersede it) never revised it with a view to freeing 
 it from defects that are unavoidable in such a 
 case. There is, therefore (to say nothing of more im- 
 portant things) a minor proposition or two, casually 
 laid down and unrelated to the main purpose of the 
 book, which he probably would not have repeated. 
 There are cases, no doubt, in which he would have 
 amended his language ; sometimes for exactness' sake, 
 and sometimes on account of misconceptions which he 
 had not foreseen as possible. There are cases, too, in 
 which, with the fuller knowledge he subsequently had, 
 he would have supplemented, or amended, or re- 
 arranged his facts and, indeed, our knowledge of some 
 
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. vii 
 
 barbarous and savage peoples has been much enlarged 
 since 1865. There is nothing, however, he could have 
 added to or varied in the facts which would have 
 much affected the argument of the book ; and, for the 
 peoples whose customs are most likely to be helpful in 
 reasoning about early societies, the facts will be gone 
 into pretty fully in the projected volume already 
 spoken of. 
 
 Of misapprehensions as to his language there is one 
 which should be noticed here. This is a misapprehen- 
 sion as to the words exogamy and endogamy. These 
 terms ' were introduced on account of two particular 
 things two laws relating to marriage for each of 
 which a name seemed to be wanted. One of these 
 laws, when at its widest, forbids marriage between all 
 persons of the same blood-connection or kindred - 
 whether such kindred forms a local tribe by itself; or 
 whether it is one of several different kindreds which 
 together form a local tribe ; or whether (as often 
 happens) it occurs, along with other kindreds, as an 
 element in more than one local tribe. This law was, 
 when Primitive Marriage was written, unnamed ; and 
 the author termed it exogamy. It is not prohibition 
 of marriage between persons of the same tribal com- 
 munity because of tribesmanship, or of anything that 
 
viii PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 is necessarily involved in tribesmanship. When at its 
 widest, it is prohibition of marriage between all persons 
 recognised as being of the same blood, because of their 
 common blood whether they form one community, or 
 part only of a community, or parts of several com- 
 munities ; and, accordingly, it may prevent marriage 
 between persons who (though of the same blood) are 
 of different local tribes, while it frequently happens 
 that it leaves persons of the same local tribe (but who 
 are not of the same blood) free to marry one another. 
 Such is this law, and all the author had to do was to 
 find a name for it ; the sense of the term was not in 
 his choice. That it was convenient the law should 
 have a name will scarcely be disputed. Whether the 
 term exogamy might have been applied with more 
 propriety to something else is, no doubt, a different 
 matter ; but that to which, whether by choice or 
 through misconception, some later writers have applied 
 it, does not seem to be much in need of any special 
 name. The second marriage law for which a name 
 was wanted, allows marriage only between persons who 
 are recognised as being of the same blood-connection 
 or kindred ; and if, where it occurs, it confines marriage 
 to the tribe or community, it is because the tribe 
 regards itself as comprising a kindred. This law the 
 
PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. ix 
 
 author termed endogamy ; and here again it is not 
 his choice, but the nature of the law which had to be 
 named, which makes the term as proposed by him 
 inapplicable to local tribes in general. For the law 
 occurs in those local tribes only which regard them- 
 selves as one blood, and restrict intermarriage to men 
 and women of the tribe because of their blood ; and 
 it need not be said ^hat a multitude of tribes are 
 known in which those two conditions are not combined. 
 The tribes which do present them are numerous enough 
 nevertheless, to make it inconvenient that their marriage 
 law should have no name. No doubt there is again 
 the question whether the term proposed might not 
 have been applied with more propriety to something 
 else ; but that to which some later writers have applied 
 it might be left unnamed even with advantage. For 
 they have used endogamy to denote the mere fact 
 that marriages occur between persons belonging to the 
 same local tribe ; thereby combining under one name 
 the results in working of the marriage law last spoken 
 of, with certain of the results of the marriage law 
 which had been named exogamy things which, being 
 of different origin and of entirely different significance, 
 it seems best to study apart from one another. With 
 the uses to which the two words, exogamy and 
 
x PREFACE TO THE PRESENT EDITION. 
 
 endogamy, have been turned, moreover, marriage laws 
 have been forgotten altogether. 
 
 In so far as this has been the result of miscon- 
 ception, the author must have been in fault, no doubt. 
 It seems, nevertheless, to be made perfectly clear in 
 Primitive Marriage that it was two marriage laws he 
 found in want of names, and that it was for them he 
 proposed the terms exogamy and endogamy. 
 
 The notes written for this edition are distinguished 
 from the author's notes by being inclosed in brackets 
 the notes on Mr. Morgan's system being also placed at 
 the end of the Essay to which they refer. 
 
 D. McLENNAN. 
 
 SAN REMO, April 1886. 
 
PREFACE TO THE ORIGINAL EDITION. 
 
 [Dated 2Qth January, 1876.] 
 
 I SHOULD have brought out a new edition of 
 Primitive Marriage long since had it not been my 
 purpose to supersede it by a more comprehensive work, 
 a purpose defeated by circumstances, which have, 
 for several years past, and till within the last few 
 months, made literary work impossible for me. I now 
 bring out a reprint, because the book, which has long 
 been rare, is, for a work of its class, much in request ; 
 and because, though I am again free to resume the 
 studies necessary for its revision, it is uncertain whether 
 I could soon revise it in a satisfactory manner so that 
 I am without an answer to representations made to me, 
 that it is better it should be made accessible to students 
 with its imperfections than that it should remain in- 
 accessible to them. I have done this the more readily 
 that, on the whole, I still adhere to the conclusions I 
 had arrived at more than eleven years ago, on the 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 various matters which are discussed in Primitive 
 Marriage. 
 
 With a little trouble, I might make a paper on 
 examples of the form of capture, which I published in 
 the Argosy in 1866, take the place of Chapter II. But 
 that would be to depart from the idea of a reprint ; 
 and, besides, the paper I refer to has itself ceased to be 
 complete, so many examples of the form have since 
 been collected. The speculation is accordingly reissued 
 with the rather meagre list of cases which originally 
 prompted me to it. 1 
 
 With Primitive Marriage I reprint a paper on 
 Kinship in Ancient Greece, which was published in 
 April and May, 1866, in the Fortnightly Review. It 
 is the result of a special research to test, in the case of 
 the Greeks, the correctness of the scheme of the evo- 
 lution of systems of kinship propounded in Primitive 
 Marriage, and was undertaken on a challenge from 
 Mr. Gladstone, who believed that the scheme was 
 inconsistent with Homeric facts. The reader will 
 judge how far the evidence supports my views. I 
 think myself that the case is made out to such an 
 
 1 [The contents of the paper referred to in this paragraph 
 have, in this edition, been included in the Appendix to Primitive 
 Marriage.] 
 
PREFACE. xiii 
 
 order of probability as to demand an answer ; and 
 that, having regard to this case alone, Sir Henry 
 Maine, and others who agree with him, are no longer 
 entitled to say, that the proposition that kinship 
 through mothers only preceded kinship through fathers, 
 rests upon the observation of scattered savage com- 
 munities of other than Aryan race. 
 
 I hope yet to be able to throw some fresh light 
 on the structure of the primitive human groups by 
 an induction of the facts of Totemism, and exact 
 analysis of the conditions under which Totemism 
 arose. What I have already written on this subject 
 of Totemism will be found in a brief article on 
 Totemism in Chambers s Encyclopedia, published in 
 1867 ; and in a series of articles on "The Worship 
 of Animals and Plants," published in the Fortnightly 
 Review in the numbers for October and November, 
 1869, and for February, 1870. 1 A proof of the isola- 
 tion and independence of the original stock groups, 
 
 1 By a misprint, or slip of the pen, no'doubt, Sir John Lubbock 
 is made to state in the third edition of his Origin of Civilization 
 (footnote, p. 252), that the articles above mentioned appeared 
 " since the last," i.e. the second, edition of that book. The words 
 should have been " before the first." The first edition of the Origin 
 ( of Civilization was published in 1870, some time after the last of 
 the series of articles referred to had appeared. The preface to the 
 first edition of the Origin of Civilization bears date February, 1870. 
 
xiv PREFACE. 
 
 while as yet the idea of stock alone had appeared 
 as the germ from which systems of kinship were 
 destined to be evolved, will add fresh interest to the 
 discussion of the influence of exogamy and female 
 kinship on the progress of civilization. 
 
 The Essays which follow Kinship in Ancient Greece 
 are here published for the first time, and, taken to- 
 gether, are of the nature of a criticism of the principal 
 works treating of early marriage law that have come 
 to my knowledge, or been published, since Primitive 
 Marriage appeared. These are Professor Bachofen's 
 Das Mutterrecht, Mr. L. H. Morgan's work On the 
 Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human 
 Family, and, lastly, Sir John Lubbock's Origin of 
 Civilization. The account I have to give of the origin 
 of the classificatory system of relationships forms the 
 most important portion of the new matter ; and next 
 to this in interest will be found, I think, the explana- 
 tion I offer of the fourfold division of the ancient Irish 
 family, which Sir Henry Maine, in his recent work 
 on Early Institutions, has, in my opinion, failed to 
 account for. These Essays were originally intended 
 to serve as an Introduction to the reprint of Primitive 
 Marriage. Their scope and bulk making them un- 
 suitable for that service, I issue them in their present 
 
PREFACE. xv 
 
 form, and I have given the book a title suited to its 
 varied contents. It will be perceived that I have 
 not included Darwin's Descent of Man amongst the 
 works I have noticed. Having carefully studied all 
 that this great thinker has had to say of the primitive 
 state, I feel that I must postpone the consideration of 
 his views till after the completion of fresh investigations, 
 the chief of which, relating to Totemism, I have already 
 referred to. The excellent work, Les Origines de la 
 Famille, by Professor A. Giraud-Teulon, of the Uni- 
 versity of Geneva welcome as a proof that the study 
 of early history makes progress on the Continent 
 raises no questions which I have felt called on to dis- 
 cuss in the present volume. Of the series of remarkable 
 articles recently published in the Nuova Antologia 
 (Florence, 1875-76), which bring to bear on the primi- 
 tive state of man facts respecting the various (i family " 
 systems existing throughout the animal world, it must 
 suffice to say here that they will have to be well con- 
 sidered by any writer who shall hereafter treat of the 
 origin of the Family among men. 1 
 
 1 [Two paragraphs which followed, bearing upon the appearance 
 of the form of capture in connection with endogamy a . matter 
 fully discussed in Primitive Marriage are omitted, as having 
 served the purpose for which they were written.] 
 
xvi PREFACE. 
 
 Extract from the Preface to the Original Edition 
 
 of " Primitive Marriage" 
 
 [Jan., 1865.] 
 
 IN the course of some inquiries which I had been 
 making into the early history of civil society, the 
 meaning and origin of the form of capture in marriage 
 ceremonies fell to be investigated. The subject being in 
 itself curious, as well as obscure, and one which has 
 never hitherto, so far as I am aware, been handled, I 
 venture to lay the result of my investigation before the 
 public, hoping that it may to some extent interest by 
 its novelty. To the philosophic reader I humbly submit 
 my little book as an exercise in scientific history. If 
 I am right in my conclusions as to the origin of the 
 symbol of capture, my essay must be accepted as 
 throwing new light on the primitive state. For it 
 will be seen that the symbol is not peculiar to any of 
 the families of mankind. The frequency of its occur- 
 rence is such as strongly to suggest what I incline to 
 believe that the phase of society in which it originated 
 existed, at some time or other, almost everywhere. 
 Indeed, so far as my inquiries into early social pheno- 
 mena have extended, I have found such similarity, so 
 
PREFACE. xvii 
 
 many correspondences, so much sameness in the forms 
 of life prevailing among the races usually considered 
 distinct, that I have come to regard the ethnological 
 differences of the several families of mankind as of little 
 or no weight compared with what they have in common. 
 The most that can be attributed to those differences 
 is, that they have affected the rate of development of 
 the families, and the character of the development itself, 
 in some of its secondary aspects. 
 
 Apart from the interest attaching to the form of 
 capture as pointing out what most probably was the 
 primitive form of human association, it will be found 
 to have an important bearing on several social problems 
 which have hitherto remained unsolved. I think that 
 the most important portions of my work are Chapters 
 VIII. and IX., in which the solution of some of these 
 problems is attempted. These chapters, it will be 
 seen, are strictly pertinent to the main subject of 
 inquiry. In order to explain the appearance of the 
 form of capture among endogamous peoples, it was 
 necessary that I should examine the systems of kinship 
 which ancient] y prevailed, and their influence on the 
 structure of the primitive groups, so as to obtain a true 
 view of the rise of caste and of endogamy. 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS, 
 
 PEIMITIVE MAERIAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 LEGAL SYMBOLISM AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 
 
 Method of the inquiry set forth and justified. Study of races in 
 their primitive condition and study of legal symbols the chief 
 sources of information as to early history of society. Failure 
 here of usual methods of historical inquiry. Connection be- 
 tween facts from savage life and legal symbolism. How the 
 two may be used in combination for classification of social 
 phenomena in order of growth. Value for general historical 
 purposes of legal symbolism. Illustrated from history of 
 Roman law, pp. 1 8. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 Extent to which this symbol has been overlooked. Two cases in 
 which it has been noticed. Explanation by Festus of its 
 observance among the Romans. Mailer's explanation of its 
 
 b 2 
 
xx ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 observance among the Spartans. Cause shown for rejection of 
 Miiller's view. Nature of the symbol set forth. Instances of 
 its occurrence. Inference that may be made as to the extent 
 of its former prevalence, pp. 9 21. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE OKIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 
 
 This symbol must imply something more than the mere lawlessness 
 of savages. It does imply that wives were at one time syste- 
 matically obtained by theft or force. That women of foreign 
 tribes could be got for wives only by theft or by force cannot, 
 by itself, explain occurrence of symbolism. That the symbol 
 could nob have originated among endogamous tribes. When 
 symbol of capture used by an endogamous tribe, inference that 
 tribe had at one time not been endogamous. If exogamous tribes 
 existed, and a state of war usually prevailed between neigh- 
 bouring tribes, each tribe could get wives only by theft or 
 force. How this, supposing it fact, would originate the 
 symbol of capture, pp. 22 30. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES, 
 
 DE FACTO. 
 
 Its prevalence among Indians of South America. And of North 
 America also. In the Deccan and in Afghanistan. In old 
 times, in Muscovy, Lithuania, and Livonia, and other parts of 
 Northern Europe. Among Kalmucks, Kirghis, Nogais, Cir- 
 cassians, and other tribes who observe the form of capture. 
 Among the Australasians. Constantly referred to in legends 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxi 
 
 of New Zealanders. Conjoined, it seems, in New Zealand, 
 Feejee, and other" Pacific islands with cannibalism. Capture 
 among modes of constituting marriage enumerated in Institutes 
 of Menu. This the prototype of the Roman and Spartan forms. 
 Inference as to origin of symbol. Marriage of captured 
 Gentile women allowed by the Mosaic code. Additional evi- 
 dence of capture supplied by observance of the form of capture. 
 How far evidence of it is also supplied by Greek traditions. 
 By the rape of the Sabines. The Irish traditions. The 
 Scriptural account of carrying off of the daughters of Shiloh. 
 Summing up of evidence, pp. 31 49. 
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 -Or THE RULE AGAINST MARRIAGE BETWEEN MEMBERS OF THE SAME 
 TRIBE. OF THE COINCIDENCE OF THIS RULE WITH THE PRACTICE 
 OF CAPTURING WIVES DE FACTO, AND WITH THE FORM OF 
 CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 Exogamy and the form of capture coincident among the Khoiids, 
 among the Kalmucks, among the Circassians. Exogamy among 
 the Yurak Samoyeds of Siberia, the Kafirs, the Sodhas, and 
 other tribes. Among the Warali. The Magar tribes. Dr. 
 Latham on prevalence of exogamy. Provision of Institutes of 
 Menu. Theory of its origin. Social state of tribes of 
 Munniepore, and tribes of Australia, America, and Pacific 
 Islands examined with reference to that theory. Exogamy 
 in New Zealand and among the Feejees. Exogamy and cap- 
 ture of women among the Picts. Conclusion, that exogamy 
 has been a widely-prevailing principle, and usually coincident 
 with capture of wives, or the form of capture, pp. 50 71. 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY, pp. 72, 73. 
 
xxii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXOGAMY: ITS ORIGIN. COMPARATIVE ARCHAISM OF EXOGAMY* AND 
 
 ENDOGAMY. 
 
 That connection between exogamy and both the systematic capture 
 of women for wives and the form of capture has been estab- 
 lished. Origin of exogamy to be referred to female infanticide. 
 It cannot be referred to a feeling against marriage with kins- 
 folk. Grouping of the less advanced races of men according 
 to their rules as to marriage, which shows a series, with 
 exogamy and endogamy as extremes. Facts which suggest 
 that endogamous tribes have been exogamous. Conversion of 
 an endogamous into an exogamous tribe inconceivable. 
 Either, then, exogamy is more archaic than endogamy, or the 
 principles are both original and independent of each other. 
 Propositions to be maintained, in which it is involved that 
 exogamy preceded endogamy in order of appearance, pp. 
 7482. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP AND THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE 
 STRUCTURE OF PRIMITIVE GROUPS. 
 
 Growth of systems of kinship. The fact of consanguinity a fact of 
 observation, and, therefore, it must at one time have been un- 
 observed. The social state while it was unobserved. The first 
 effect of it being perceived would be the conception of stock, 
 or the common kindred of the members of a group. That the 
 most ancient system in which the idea of blood-relationship 
 was embodied, was a system of kinship through females 
 only. How the idea of blood-relationship must have 
 originated a system of kinship through females. Uncertainty 
 of fatherhood would prevent acknowledgment of kinship 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxiii 
 
 through males. And nothing else could have that effect. 
 Appropriation of a woman to a particular man, or to men of 
 one blood, as wife, the condition of the requisite certainty of 
 fatherhood. How it is probable that such appropriation of 
 women to particular men cannot have existed in the earliest 
 times. Effect of conditions of subsistence on balance of the 
 sexes. Males must have been in a majority. Promiscuous or 
 polyandrous arrangements therefore a necessity. How the 
 rise of a system of kinship would simplify the formation of 
 them. That systems of polyandry have existed, and still exist. 
 Polyandry a form of promiscuity, and seemingly an advance 
 from a grosser promiscuity. Its connection with kinship 
 through females only, and that the latter may be inferred 
 from it. Two types of polyandry. The prevalence of poly- 
 andry. The Nair type of polyandry, which leaves paternity 
 uncertain, described. The Deega and Beena marriages of 
 Ceylon. Incidents of Nair polyandry remaining amongst the 
 Kocch. Progress seems to have been from the lower, or Nair, 
 to the higher, or Tibetan, polyandry. Tibetan type of poly- 
 andry described. It admitted of kinship through males. 
 Tibetan polyandry in a state of decadence in Ladak. A test 
 of the former prevalence of polyandry obtained in the Levirate. 
 Inference as to former prevalence of polyandry from exist- 
 ence of the Levirate. Evidence of existence of kinship through 
 females only, and inference therefrom, where the two are not 
 found together, as to former prevalence of polyandry.- :i Philo's 
 report as to marriage law of Sparta considered. Evidence 
 that kinship through females only the first system of kinship 
 summed up. It must, at any rate, have prevailed wherever 
 exogamy prevailed. Sir H. S. Maine's views of ancient kin- 
 ship. That the primitive groups were, or were assumed to be, 
 homogeneous. That the system of kinship through females 
 only tended to render the exogamous groups heterogeneous, 
 and thus to supersede the system of capturing wives. That 
 the system of kinship through females only was succeeded by 
 a system which acknowledged kinship through males also, and 
 which, in most cases, passed into a system which acknowledged 
 kinship through males only. Attempt to sketch the history of 
 
xxiv ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 this revolution. That the system of kinship through males 
 tended to rear up homogeneous groups, and thus to restore the 
 original condition of affairs among exogamous races, as regards 
 both the practice of capturing wives and the evolution of the 
 form of capture. That under the combined influence of 
 exogamy and female kinship, there might be, within a tribe, 
 a balance of men and women regarded as of different descent, 
 and, therefore, free to marry each other, consistently with 
 exogamy. That, this stage reached, a tribe grown proud 
 through successes in war might become a caste. That caste 
 may appear while a people is still polyandrous. That, on 
 kinship becoming agnatic, the members of a caste might feign 
 themselves to be descended from a common ancestor, and so 
 become endogamous. Inference from observance of form of 
 capture by an endogamous race. Effects on early society of 
 the law of blood-feud, pp. 83146. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 
 
 Causes of break-down of exogamy, where it perished gradually and 
 without endogamy succeeding it, to be inquired into, for 
 example's sake, in the case of the Greeks and Romans. 
 Reasons for holding that Greeks and Romans were exogamous. 
 The composition and organisation of their tribes and 
 commonwealths. The old theory of the composition of States. 
 Reasons why it must be rejected. New theory suggested by 
 results of this inquiry. If this theory be admitted, area in 
 whi^h exogamy prevailed may be greatly extended. Break- 
 down of exogamy intimately connected with evolution of clans 
 and families, and of clan and family estates, within the tribe. 
 Effect of laws of succession in limiting the acknowledgment 
 of relationship. Exogamy died out, because relationship was 
 thus narrowed. Effect of the law of testaments. Motive for 
 violation of rule of exogamy in the case of female heiresses, 
 pp. 147158. 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxv 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 CONCLUSION, pp. 159 161. 
 
 APPENDIX TO PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE, pp. 165 
 
 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GEEECE. 
 
 Purpose of the inquiry to test, in case of the ancient Greeks, scheme 
 of development of systems of kinship propounded in Primitive^ 
 Marriage. Scheme set forth, and, as explanatory of it, outline 
 given of scheme of development of systems of marriage pro- 
 pounded in same work. -Jjrgjtj, of Greek kinship as it appears / - 
 in the Homeric poems. Position of the wedded wife. Blood- 
 ties acknowledged through both father and mother. Homeric 
 pedigrees traced through fathers. Inference from shortness of 
 those pedigrees. Evidence that blood-ties through mother held 
 more sacred in that period than those through father. Secondly, 
 of the post-Homeric history of kinship in Greece. Growth of 
 opinion unfavourable to idea of kinship through mother, and 
 close approach made to agnation. Evidence of this. Thirdly, 
 of the traditions of the Greeks and the customs of their con- 
 geners. (1) Incestuous connections among ancient Persians. '-' 
 Xanthus' account of the Medes. (2) Xenophon's account of 
 the Lacedaemonians. Polyandry prevailed among the Lacedae- 
 monians according to Polybius. Corroboration of this in legend ?> 
 of Lycurgus. (3) Suggestions of the Levirate in legends of 
 the house of Priam. (4) Evidence of female kinship, and 
 therefore of some degree of promiscuity in the sister-marriages 
 allowed at Athens, and in a provision of the laws of Solon. /%- 1 
 (5) Jndications in Greek legends of high position of women in 
 ancient times, and of kinship through females only. Facts 
 
xxvi ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 indicative of ancient supremacy of women in families. The 
 system of kinship through females only traced through the 
 custom of naming children after the mother. Tradition that 
 ancestors of Greeks emerged from the savage state, and had no 
 marriage. Facts relative to kinship among the Greeks, pre- 
 viously adduced, consistent with the tradition. Inference made 
 that polyandry preceded monandry, and that kinship through 
 females only preceded kinship through males as well as through 
 females, pp. 195246. 
 
 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF 
 RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION OF THE ORIGIN OF THE 
 CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP. 
 
 Mr. Morgan's first impression as to the Iroquois relationships. 
 Origin of his work on the Classificatory System of Relationships. 
 Its contents. Objects of his inquiry. His conjectural 
 solution and series of stages in social development involved in 
 it. Conjectural solution examined in reference to the three 
 most primitive forms of the classificatory system. If these 
 explained, origin of classificatory system is explained, and less 
 primitive forms easy of explanation. First, as to the origin of 
 the Malayan system of relationships. Main features of that 
 system set forth. Customs or "stages" assumed by Mr 
 Morgan to explain it, viz., brother and sister-marriages, the 
 communal family, and the Hawaian custom. What Mr. Morgan 
 claims to have shown about it. That it is a system of blood- 
 relationships assumed by him. Brother and sister-marriages 
 the only "stage" actually required for the solution. Defects 
 and oversights of Mr. Morgan's explanation. Conjectural 
 solution examined next, as to origin of the " Turanian " and 
 " Ganowanian " systems of relationships. Distinctive features 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxvii 
 
 of those systems set forth. Mr. Morgan's explanations of 
 them tested at two leading points. Were his Reason at the 
 first point well founded, the Hawaian custom would have given 
 Turanian and Ganowanian instead of corresponding Malayan 
 relationships. Supposing it failed to do this, exogamy super- 
 vening upon it, could not have had effects ascribed to it by 
 Mr. Morgan. The additional limitation on marriage that would 
 have been imposed by exogamy superinduced on Hawaian cus- 
 tom. Reason insufficient on Mr. Morgan's own ground, and 
 inconsistent with Mr. Morgan's assumptions. And insufficient 
 whether we start from the "Communal Family " or from the 
 " Hawaian custom." Mr. Morgan's Reasons at second point. 
 Both rest on pure assumption. What they assume, and a 
 " slight variation" between assumptions made in them. What 
 involved in them. They cannot be accepted. Two radical 
 mistakes which have vitiated Mr. Morgan's attempt at expla- 
 nation. Remarks on assumption that the classificatory system 
 is a system of blood-ties. Maintained, that it is a system of 
 mutual salutations merely, and not a system of blood-ties. 
 Observations on the " stages " of the conjectural solution, 
 pp. 249276. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
 Origin of the classificatory system to be looked for in some early 
 marriage-law. Systems of addresses and systems of blood-ties 
 must have originated in the same set of circumstances, and must 
 have had, for a time, a common history. Proposed to test the 
 hypothesis of rise of systems of kinship contained in Primitive 
 Marriage by its fitness to explain the classificatory system. 
 And, first, as to the Malayan form of that system. Further 
 explanations given as to Malayan relationships. A household 
 or family of the Nair type, and the nomenclature required for 
 it. How the type of such a family must have been altered in 
 
xxviii ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 the transition to Tibetan polyandry. Effect of that transition 
 in extending application of nomenclature. How the terms used 
 in it as extended would acquire definite signification as if relative 
 to descents. How they would become applicable to relatives at 
 law. Tibetan polyandry not essential to explanation of Malayan 
 relationships. Explanation summarised. Next, as to the 
 " Turanian " and " Ganowanian " forms. Extent of difference 
 between these and the Malayan form. The main difference is 
 introduction of cousinry, and those who are each other's cousins 
 are persons accounted of different blood. Varieties of blood 
 introduced into families by exogamy, and the differences between 
 forms of classificatory system are all referable to the extent to 
 which among different peoples the pressure of the notion of 
 blood was yielded to. Assumed, but for convenience only, that 
 " Turanian" and " Ganowanian" forms developed out of Mala- 
 yan. The five distinctive features in which the " Turanian " 
 and "Ganowanian" forms agree accounted for. Not inevitable 
 that exogamy should produce all these effects, and peculiarities 
 of nomenclature of some North American tribes thus explained. 
 How the differences between the " Ganowanian " and 
 " Turanian " forms may be accounted for. Cousin marriages, 
 and marriages made by cousins which would have the same 
 effect as cousin-marriages as regards blood of cousins' children. 
 Tibetan polyandry essential to explanation of " Turanian " 
 and '* Ganowanian " forms. Esquimo form of the classificatory 
 system may be similarly explained, pp. 277 301. 
 
 BACHOFEN'S " DAS MUTTEKBECHT." 
 
 Das Mutterrecht, an inquiry into the gynaikocracy of the ancient 
 world. It first announced that kinship through females only 
 everywhere preceded kinship through males. Account of 
 Bachofen's scheme of human progress. At first, human beings 
 lived in a state of hetairism. This put an end to, and 
 marriage (monogamous) introduced by women under the 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. xxix 
 
 influence of a religious inspiration. Marriage established by 
 force (Amazonianism), and women, whose combination intro- 
 duced it, accordingly became the heads of families. Children 
 named after mothers, and rights of succession traced through 
 women. Improvement of religious faith came along with the 
 triumph of women, and, for a time, fostered their cause. 
 Their position, however, lost through a religious influence. 
 Dionysos promulgated that fatherdom alone was divine, and 
 a mother a nurse only. Amazonian risings against this gospel 
 ineffectual. Bacchanalian excesses, by restoring hetairism, laid 
 fresh basis for gynaikocracy. It finally disappeared under 
 influence of a new religious growth, the " Apollonic," " Solar" 
 conception of fatherdom. With Bachofen religion is a mere 
 expression of the circumstances of a people, but of what 
 circumstances never explained, and causes of progress therefore 
 left undisclosed. His explanation of kinship being traced 
 through women only remarked upon. Extent of his contri- 
 bution to knowledge, pp. 319 325. 
 
 " COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 '' Communal Marriage," the starting-point of a scheme of social 
 progress propounded by Sir John Lubbock. As used by him, 
 it means two distinct things. Sense in which he regards it as 
 initial stage in social progress. His history of the growth of 
 marriage. The evidence offered by him for his initial stage in 
 two branches. Progress from initial stage shown by general 
 reasoning. General reasoning and second branch of evidence 
 turn on principles contradictory of each other. First branch / 
 of evidence adduced -by him of communism in woineil, being 
 cases in which communism reported to have existed. That 
 evidence examined. Amount of it small. Wanting in rele- 
 vancy. Second branch of evidence of communism in women, ^-*~ 
 being cases in which communism inferred to have existed. 
 Expiation for marriage. Conditions on which, frcm the facts 
 
xxx ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 aUeged to imply that, inference of ancient communism might 
 be drawn. Those conditions not satisfied, and inference of 
 communism conferring " communal rights " having existed not 
 maintainable. Of the contradictory principles set up by Sir 
 J. Lubbock, which to be preferred and which rejected. That 
 to be decided on facts relating to capture of women for wives. 
 As to most ancient nations, our knowledge of this matter 
 entirely derived from the form of capture. That in almost all 
 cases represents a group-act, a siege, a battle, or an armed 
 invasion. All cases of capture in its transition to a symbolism 
 have that character also. And so, mostly, have the facts of 
 actual capture of wives. Inference made that the capture of 
 women for wives has usually been the act of a group or of 
 a detachment from a group. And, accordingly, that there 
 could have been no system of appropriation of women by 
 individual captors, such as could have broken up the 
 "communal marriage" system had it prevailed, and intro- 
 duced monogamous marriage. The principle on which Sir 
 J. Lubbock's account of social progress is based must, there- 
 fore, be rejected, while the existence of his initial stage itself 
 had not been made probable. Inference made thereupon, 
 pp. 329347. 
 
 DIVISIONS OF THE ANCIENT IEISH FAMILY. 
 
 Account of singular arrangement of the family among the ancient 
 Irish. Sir H. S. Maine's theory of this arrangement. That 
 theory refuted. Text (in two branches) illustrating this family 
 arrangement cited from the Book of Aicill. Inference as to 
 nature of family arrangement made from first branch of text. 
 Authority in favour of this inference. Organization of 
 family arrangement according to new reading of text further 
 explained. Features of it which are intelligible on this view. 
 Construction of second branch of text. The organization 
 operated a departure from ordinary succession law. Object of 
 
ANALYTICAL TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 forming it, its functions, and its relation to the family. The 
 organization a division of the Fine or Sept. Within a sub- 
 group of the Fine, and therewith connected by sameness of 
 stock. Limits of recognized consanguinity. Geilfine tribe 
 relationship and Geilfine tribe terms of double meaning, and, 
 in wider sense, extended to all within recognized consanguinity. 
 Limits of recognized consanguinity in ancient Wales. 
 Geilfine tribe (in wider sense) and its chief answered to the 
 " kindred " and the " chief of kindred " of the Welsh, and the 
 Geilfine tribe, or body of kinsmen within recognized con- 
 sanguinity, was the sub-group of Fine which organization 
 represented. Use of divisional organization in levying assess- 
 ments for crimes of kinsmen. Its primary purpose, more 
 probably, to regulate possession of and succession to property. 
 This, at any rate, its most striking effect. It was not 
 confined to the chieftain class, but probably originated with 
 them, to regulate succession to ancestral lands, and spread, by 
 imitation, among tribesmen. Rights of succession between 
 the divisions. Apportionment of divisional property among 
 members of division. Working of organization, as to suc- 
 cession, illustrated. How such a system of entail of ancestral 
 lands may have arisen. Resemblances in Welsh laws of 
 succession to ancestral lands. And in rules of succession to 
 ancestral land in Western India, pp. 351 387. 
 
PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Legal Symbolism and Primitive Life. 
 
 THE chief sources of information regarding the early 
 history of civil society are, first, the study of races in 
 their primitive condition ; and, second, the study of the 
 symbols employed by advanced nations in the consti- 
 tution or exercise of civil rights. From these studies 
 pursued together, we obtain, to a large extent, the 
 power of classifying social phenomena as more or less 
 archaic, and thus of connecting and arranging in their 
 order the stages of human advancement. 
 
 None of the usual methods of historical inquiry 
 conduct us back to forms of life so nearly primitive 
 as many that have come down into our own times. 
 The geological record, of course, exhibits races as rude 
 as any now living, some perhaps even more so, but 
 then it goes no farther than to inform us what food 
 they ate, what weapons they used, and what was the 
 character of their ornaments. More than this was not 
 
2 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 to be expected from that record, for it was not in its 
 nature to preserve any memorials of those aspects of 
 human life in which the philosopher is chiefly in- 
 terested of the family or tribal groupings, the domestic 
 and political organisation. Again, the facts disclosed 
 by philology as to the civil condition of the Indo- 
 European race before its dispersion from its original 
 head- quarters, the earliest, chronologically considered, 
 which we possess respecting the social state of mankind, 
 cannot be said to tell us anything of the origin or 
 early progress of civilization. Assuming the correctness 
 of the generalization by which philologers have at- 
 tempted to reconstruct the social economy of the Aryans^ 
 we find that people, at an unknown date before the 
 dawn of tradition, occupying nearly the same point of 
 advancement as that now occupied by the pastoral 
 hordes of Kirghiz Tartary, and leading much the same 
 sort of life. They had marriage laws regulating the 
 rights and obligations of husbands and wives, of parents 
 and children ; they recognized the ties of blood through 
 both parents ; they had great flocks and herds, in de- 
 fence of which they often did battle, and they lived 
 under a patriarchal government with monarchical 
 features. It is interesting a short time ago we should 
 have said surprising to find that such progress had 
 been so early made. But in all other respects this so- 
 called revelation of philology is void of instruction. 
 Those Aryan institutions are to use the language of 
 geology post-pliocene, separated by a long interval 
 from the foundations of civil society, and throwing back 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 3 
 
 -7 
 
 upon them no light. Marriage laws, agnatic relation- 
 ship, and kingly government, belong, in the order of 
 development, to recent times. 
 
 For the features of primitive life, we must look, not 
 to tribes of the Kirghiz type, but to those of Central 
 Africa, the wilds of America, the hills of India, and the 
 islands of the Pacific ; with some of which we find 
 marriage laws unknown, the family system undeveloped, 
 and even the only acknowledged blood-relationship that ^ 
 through mothers. These facts of to-day are, in a sense, 
 the most ancient history. In the sciences of law and 
 society, old means not old in chronology but in 
 structure : that is most archaic which lies nearest to the 
 beginning of human progress considered as a develop- 
 ment, and that is most modern which is farthest re- 
 moved from that beginning. 
 
 And since the historical nations were so far advanced 
 at the earliest dates to which even philology can lead us 
 back, the scientific investigation of the progress of man- 
 kind must not deal with them, in the first instance, but 
 with the very rude forms of life still existing, and the 
 rudest of which we have accounts. The preface of 
 general history must be compiled from the materials 
 presented by barbarism. Happily, if we may say so, 
 these materials are abundant. So unequally has the 
 species been developed, that almost every conceivable 
 phase of progress may be studied, as somewhere ob- 
 served and recorded. And thus the philosopher, fenced 
 from mistake, as to the order of development, by the 
 interconnection of the stages and their shading into one 
 
 B 2 
 
4 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 another by gentle gradations, may draw a clear and 
 decided outline of the course of human progress in times 
 long antecedent to those to which even philology can 
 make reference. All honour to philology ; but in the 
 task of reconstructing the past, to which its professors 
 declare themselves to be devoted, they must be con- 
 tented to act as assistants rather than as principals. 
 
 We have said that the preface of general history must 
 be compiled from materials presented by barbarism. 
 Some may account it illogical to prefix a scheme of early 
 progress formed on a view of societies that have not yet 
 advanced far, if at all, from savagery, to a scheme of 
 further progress deduced from the written histories of 
 nations whose origin and early training we are un- 
 acquainted with. But, in point of fact, it is riot so. It 
 is the best proof of the propriety of such a course as 
 well as of the continuity and uniform character of human 
 progress that we can trace everywhere, disguised under 
 a variety of symbolical forms in the higher layers of 
 civilization, the rude modes of life and forms of law 
 with which the examination of the lower makes us 
 familiar. Indeed, were these remarks not merely general 
 and introductory to the investigation of the origin of 
 one particular symbol, many instances of this cor- 
 respondence between the higher and lower levels might 
 be cited, to show that the symbolism of law in the light 
 of a knowledge of primitive life, is the best key to un- 
 written history. 
 
 Of the value of that symbolism of that reverence 
 for the past to which it owes its origin there will be 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 5 
 
 occasion to say something hereafter. Meantime, we 
 observe that, wherever we discover symbolical forms, we -j 
 are justified in inferring that in the past life of the | 
 people employing them, there were corresponding reali- 
 ties ; and if, among the primitive races which we 
 examine, we find such realities as might naturally pass 
 into such forms on an advance taking place in civility, 
 then we may safely conclude (keeping within the con- 
 ditions of a sound inference) that what these now are, 
 those employing the symbols once were ; History is 
 thus made to ratify conclusions derived from the obser- 
 vation of rude tribes ; while such observation, again, is 
 made to furnish the key to many of the enigmas of 
 history. 
 
 For it is not as regards unwritten history merely that 
 the two sources of information specified at the outset 
 are of importance. Apart from the tests of truth 
 afforded by the minute knowledge of primitive modes 
 of life and their classification as more or less archaic, 
 nothing could be more delusive than written history 
 itself. In Eoman law, to take a convenient example, 
 Confarreatio has the foremost place among the modes of 
 constituting marriage. Usus is just mentioned in the 
 twelve tables, which contain a provision against the wife 
 coming into the Manus of her husband through Usus. 
 Coemptio does not appear in the old law of Borne at all, 
 nor is there any mention of it earlier than that by 
 Gaius. But it can easily be shown that Usus and 
 Coemptio come first in order of age, and Confarreatio 
 later ; that is 'to say, the two former are more archaic 
 
6 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 than the latter. Yet have recent learned writers, over- 
 looking this fact and the meaning of legal symbolism, 
 represented Usus and Coemptio as forms invented and 
 introduced by the legislators of Eome, whereby the 
 plebians might have their wives in Manu, and enjoy the 
 other advantages of Justse Nuptise ; Usus as an in- 
 vention ; and the fictitious sale in Coemptio as merely a 
 device of legislative ingenuity. The true explanation 
 of the late appearance of both Usus and the fictitious 
 sale in the Eoman law, is this that the law at first was 
 not that of the whole people but of a limited aristocracy, 
 who, with a Sabine king and priesthood, adopted the 
 Sabine religious ceremony of marriage ; that the law 
 long totally ignored the life and usages of the mass, and 
 that their modes of marrying and giving in marriage 
 began to appear, and to make their mark in the law, 
 only on the popular element in the city becoming of 
 importance. Instead of marriage per coemptionem 
 being the invention of legislators, it was of spontaneous 
 popular growth, and must have been as old as the 
 establishment of peaceful relations between tribes and 
 families. All fictions, or nearly all, have had their 
 germs in facts ; became fictions or merely symbolical 
 forms afterwards. And that the fictitious sale was 
 originally an actual sale and purchase, cannot be doubted 
 by any one who knows that marriage by the form of 
 actual sale has prevailed almost universally among rude 
 populations. 
 
 We see in the case of the Eoman law how incomplete 
 must necessarily be the history of the law of a country, 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 7 
 
 as written on the face of it. The law is at first that of 
 the dominant and presumably the most advanced classes v 
 the literates, warriors, and statesmen j the rest of the 
 community are beyond its pale^ a law unto themselves. 
 When the levelling processes^ by which the lower classes 
 succeed in the long run in acquiring rights more or less 
 equal, have gone on for some time, then the ruder cus- 
 toms followed by them before and since the commence- 
 ment of the State appear in a modified form in what is 
 now for the first time really becoming the law of the 
 people. Civility seems suddenly to assume the garb and 
 the air, and to use the gutturals of barbarism ; legal 
 processes are gone through with the frantic howls and 
 gesticulations of armed Ojibeways ; and while all this, 
 to those who are ignorant of primitive times, seems 
 mere idle pantomime, sometimes silly, sometimes odd, 
 sometimes puzzling by its intricacy, to those who are 
 prepared to receive their suggestions, the forms employed 
 are pregnant with meaning and instructions Fortunately 
 all the nations in the world have not advanced in civility 
 pari passu ; and what is pantomime with one people, i 
 we discern to be grimmest reality with another. Were it 
 not for this inequality of development, in what mys- ' 
 teries would the history of the race be enveloped ! What 
 Michelet calls the poetry of law would have to be 
 received as such simply ; as so many grotesqueries or 
 graces introduced into the ways of life to satisfy the 
 popular fancy. As it is, however, the so-called poetry 
 of law, the symbolic forms that appear in a code or in 
 popular customs, tell us as certainly of the early usages 
 
8 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of a people, as the rings in the transverse section of a 
 tree tell of its age. 
 
 The Libripens, with his scales, officiating at a will or 
 act of adoption, seems out of place ; but his presence 
 illustrates the source whence all ideas of formal dis- 
 positions were derived the sale of fungibles. So does 
 an old form of process preserved by Gaius the Legis 
 Actio Sacramenti of the Komans prove that cultivated 
 people to have been at one time in pari casu as regards 
 the administration of justice with many races which we 
 find ignorant of legal proceedings, and dependent for 
 the settlement of their disputes on force of arms or the 
 good offices of neutral parties interfering as arbiters. 
 
 So far, briefly, of the importance of the symbolism of 
 law and of the study of races in their primitive con- 
 dition. What follows is an attempt at a practical exem- 
 plification in a new direction of the aid derivable from 
 these sources in the task of unveiling the past. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 1 
 
 IN the whole range of legal symbolism there is no 
 symbol more remarkable than that of capture in mar- 
 riage ceremonies- the origin of which it is our purpose 
 to investigate nor is there any the meaning of which 
 has been less studied* So far as we know, neither has 
 the extent to which it prevails been made the subject of 
 inquiry ; nor its significance the subject of thought. In 
 two cases, indeed, the* occurrence of the symbol could 
 not fail to receive some attention. But naturally, it did 
 not lie in the way of the historians of either Greece or 
 Rome to examine the matter very minutely, or to follow 
 up the suggestions which, upon examination, it might 
 have yielded, as to the early condition of the Dorians or 
 Latins. Accordingly, the custom has been accepted as 
 meaning no more than Festus said it did among the 
 Romans, than Miiller says it did among the Spartans ; 
 as indicating nothing at Rome but the popular apprecia- 
 tion of the good fortune of Romulus in the rape of the 
 
 1 [A fuller collection of examples of the Form of Capture than 
 could be made when this chapter was written will be found in the 
 Appendix to Primitive Marriage, Note A.] 
 
10 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 Sabines ; l as indicating, at Sparta, the feeling that a 
 young woman " could not surrender her freedom and 
 virgin purity unless compelled by the violence of the 
 stronger sex." 2 It is surprising that writers so acute 
 should have rested content with such explanations, and 
 that their views should have been so generally adopted. 
 The theory of Festus we shall have occasion to notice 
 hereafter : of that of Mtiller we observe that before we 
 can entertain it, we must suppose that in the exceedingly 
 lax community of the Spartans, or at least within 
 certain of the tribes composing that community, there 
 had been an early period of austere virtue, the tradition 
 of which was still so influential as to compel the 
 Spartans to observe in their marriages this custom as 
 the shadow of their former delicacy. Now, of the 
 existence of such a period of prudery among the ancient 
 Dorians, or among the Pelasgi, or the Achseans, there is 
 not a tittle of evidence. On the contrary, such evidence 
 as we have, points to the Lacedaemonian customs as 
 having been an improvement on ancient practice. 
 Savages are not remarkable for delicacy of feeling in 
 matters of sex, and the wandering hordes, who in suc- 
 cession overrun the Peloponnesus, were no better than 
 savages when they first come under our observation. 3 
 Again, no case can be cited of a primitive people among 
 
 1 Festus, De Verborum Significatione Rapi. 
 
 2 Miiller's Dorians, Book iv., c. iv., sec. 2 ; and see Rawl in son's 
 Notes, Herod., Book vi., 65. 
 
 3 They were certainly as savage as the Khonds, with whom they 
 agreed in cultivating a religion requiring human sacrifices. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 11 
 
 whom the seizure of brides is rendered necessary by 
 maidenly coyness. On the contrary, it might be shown, 
 were it worth while to deal seriously with this view, 
 that women among rude tribes are usually depraved, 
 and inured to scenes of depravity from their earliest 
 infancy. In this state of the facts, it is remarkable 
 that any one should have been satisfied with so 
 improbable an explanation. 
 
 Eejecting, then, the primitive prudery hypothesis, 
 which requires for its basis a declension from ancient 
 standards of purity of the existence of which we have 
 no evidence we proceed to examine the various phases 
 in which the symbol of capture is presented. We shall 
 find it in places far from classic ground, and pointing, in 
 all its varieties, so steadily to the true theory of its origin, 
 that the mere exhibition of its phases will lead the reader 
 to anticipate much of what we have to say on the subject. 
 In order to see what is the precise state of the facts with 
 which we have to deal, it is necessary to say something 
 of the nature of the symbol, and to adduce at some length 
 such accounts of it as we find in our authorities. 
 
 The symbol of capture occurs whenever, after a con- 
 tract of marriage, it is necessary for the constitution of the 
 relation of husband and wife, that the bridegroom or his 
 friends should go through the form of feigning to steal 
 the bride, or carry her off from her relations by superior 
 force. The marriage is agreed upon by bargain, and the 
 theft or abduction follows as a concerted matter of form, to 
 make valid the marriage. The test, then, of the presence 
 of the symbol in any case is, that the capture is concerted, 
 
12 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 and is preceded by a contract of marriage. If there is no 
 preceding contract, the case is one of actual abduction. 
 
 So far of the nature of the symbol. We proceed to 
 examine some instances of its occurrence. That the 
 form was observed in the marriages of the Dorians, and 
 was, equally with betrothal, requisite as a preliminary 
 of marriage, rests chiefly on the authority of Herodotus 
 and Plutarch. 1 The evidence of Herodotus is indirect, 
 and is contained in the well-known passage in which he 
 explains how Demaratus robbed Lestychides of his bride 
 Percalus, to whom he had been betrothed -forestalling 
 him in carrying her off and marrying her. 2 The case 
 was one of actual abduction ; but the language of 
 Herodotus implies that it remained for Lestychides, in 
 order to make Percalus his wife, that he should go 
 through the form of carrying her off. With this must 
 be conjoined the express statement of Plutarch, 3 that 
 the Spartan bridegroom always carried off the bride 
 by feigned violence. He says, indeed, by violence ; but 
 at the same time he shows that the seizure was made by 
 friendly concert between the parties. These passages 
 must be held sufficiently to prove that the custom 
 existed at Sparta. It is equally certain that it was 
 observed at Rome, 4 in the plebeian marriages which were 
 not constituted by Confarreatio or Coemptio. The 
 
 1 Miiller's Dorians, ut supra. 
 
 2 Herodotus, Book vi. 65. 
 
 3 Life of Lycurgus. 
 
 4 Festus, ut supra Rapi : Pothier, Pandectse, etc., App., Title 
 II., Book xxiii. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES 13 
 
 bridegroom and his friends the time agreed upon 
 having arrived invaded the house of the bride and 
 carried off the lady with feigned force from the lap 
 of her mother, or of her nearest female relation if the 
 mother were dead or absent. The seizure is vividly 
 described by Apuleius l in the story of the " Captive 
 Damsel," in which he is understood to have had the 
 plebeian form of marriage in view. The lady, narrating 
 how she had been carried off, says that her mother having 
 dressed her becomingly in nuptial apparel/^was loading 
 her with kisses, and looking forward to a future line 
 of descendants, 'when on a sudden a band of robbers, 
 armed like gladiators, rushed in with glittering swords, 
 made straight for her chamber in a compact column, 
 and, without any struggle or resistance whatever on the 
 part of the servants, tore her away half dead with fear 
 from the bosom of her trembling mother. The custom 
 is said still to prevail to a great extent among the 
 Hindus. 2 It may well do so, for we find what must, 
 as we shall show, be held to be the form of capture, 
 prescribed as a marriage ceremony to the Hindus in the 
 Sutras. 3 It prevails among the Khonds in the hill 
 tracts of Orissa. The marriage being agreed upon, a 
 feast, to which the families of the parties equally con- 
 tribute, is prepared at the dwelling of the bride. " To 
 
 1 Apuleius, De Asino Aureo, Book iv. 
 
 2 M'Pherson's Report upon the Khonds of the Districts of Ganjam 
 and Cullack, p. 55. Calcutta, 1842. 
 
 3 Indische Studien, p. 325. By Dr. Weber. Berlin, 
 
 1862. 
 
14 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 the feast," says Major M'Pherson, 1 " succeed dancing 
 and song. When the night is far spent, the principals 
 in the scene are raised by an uncle of each upon his 
 shoulders, and borne through the dance. The burdens 
 are suddenly exchanged, and the uncle of the youth 
 disappears with the bride. The assembly divides into 
 two parties ; the friends of the bride endeavour to 
 arrest, those of the bridegroom to cover, her flight, and 
 men, women, and children mingle in mock conflict, 
 which is often carried to great lengths." " On one 
 occasion," says Major- General Campbell, 2 " I heard loud 
 cries proceeding from a village close at hand. Fearing 
 some quarrel, I rode to the spot, and there I saw a man 
 bearing away upon his back something enveloped in an 
 ample covering of scarlet cloth ; he was surrounded by 
 twenty or thirty young fellows, and by them protected 
 from the desperate attacks made upon him by a party of 
 young women. On seeking an explanation of this novel 
 scene, I was told that the man had just been married, 
 and his precious burden was his blooming bride, whom 
 he was conveying to his own village. Her youthful 
 friends as, it appears, is the custom were seeking to 
 regain possession of her, and hurled stones and bamboos 
 at the head of the devoted bridegroom, until he reached 
 the confines of his own village. 3 Then the tables were 
 
 1 M'Pherson's Report, ut supra. 
 
 2 Personal Narrative of Service, etc., in Khondistan, 1864, 
 p. 44. 
 
 3 The hurling of old shoes, etc., after the bridegroom among our- 
 selves, may be a relic of a similar custom. It is a sham assault on 
 the person carrying off the lady ; and in default of any more 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES?*^ 
 
 turned, and the bride was fairly won ; and off her young 
 friends scampered, screaming and laughing, but not 
 relaxing their speed till they reached their own village." 
 The custom may be presumed to prevail among the 
 Koles, the Ghonds, and the other congeners of the 
 Khonds ; but we are without authority on the subject. 
 
 According to De Hell, 1 the form of capture is observed 
 in the marriages of the noble or princely class among 
 the Kalmucks. The price to be paid for the bride to her 
 father having been fixed, the bridegroom sets out on 
 horseback, accompanied by the chief nobles of the horde 
 to which he belongs, to carry her off. "A sham resist- 
 ance is always made by the people of her camp, in 
 spite of which she fails not to be borne away on a richly 
 caparisoned horse, with loud shouts and feux de joie." 
 Dr. Clarke describes the ceremony differently, and it is 
 possible that it assumes different forms in the different 
 nations of the Kalmucks. " The ceremony of mar- 
 riage among the Kalmucks," he says, 2 " is performed on 
 horseback. A girl is first mounted, who rides off in full 
 speed. Her lover pursues ; if he overtakes her, she 
 becomes his wife, and the marriage is consummated on 
 the spot ; after this she returns with him to his tent. 
 But it sometimes happens that the woman does not wish 
 to marry the person by whom she is pursued ; in this 
 
 plausible explanation and we know of none such it may fairly 
 be considered as probable that it is the form of capture in its last 
 stage of disintegration. 
 
 1 Xavier Hommaire de Hell, Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian 
 Sea. Lond. 1847, p. 259. 
 
 2 Travels, etc., vol. i., p. 433. 
 
16 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 case, she will not suffer him to overtake her. We were 
 assured that no instance occurs of a Kalmuck girl being 
 thus caught, unless she have a partiality to the pursuer. 
 If she dislikes him, she rides, to use the language of 
 English sportsmen, ' neck or nought,' until she has com- 
 pletely effected her escape, or until her pursuer's horse 
 becomes exhausted, leaving her at liberty to return, and 
 to be afterwards chased by some more favoured admirer." 
 This ride for a wife is never undertaken until after the 
 price for her has been fixed between the friends of the 
 parties, the lover having to pay for as well as to catch 
 her. The custom is not mentioned in the account of 
 the Kalmucks by Pallas, who knew of their marriage 
 customs only by hearsay. But it favours the supposition 
 that there are varieties of the form in use among this 
 people, that Bergman 1 describes the ceremony somewhat 
 differently from both Clarke and De Hell. The necessity 
 for the appearance of using force is satisfied, according 
 to Bergman, by the act of putting the bride by 
 force upon horseback when she is about to be con- 
 ducted to the hut prepared for her by the 
 bridegroom. And, indeed, we find the form reduced 
 to this minimum of pretence in not a few cases. Thus 
 in North Friesland, 2 a young fellow, called the bride- 
 lifter, lifts the bride and her two bridesmaids upon 
 the waggon in which the married couple are to travel 
 to their home. 
 
 1 Bergman's Streifereien. Riga, 1804, vol. iii., p. 145, et seg. 
 
 2 Weinhold, pp. 250, 251 ; and see the other authorities for like 
 cases noted by Dr. Weber, Indische Studien, ut supra. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 17 
 
 Among the Tunguzes and Kamchadales, a matrimo- 
 nial engagement is not considered to be definitely 
 concluded until the suitor has overcome his beloved by 
 force, and torn her clothes the maiden being bound by 
 custom to defend her liberty to the utmost. 1 Also 
 among the Bedouin Arabs it is necessary for the bride- 
 groom to force the bride to enter his tent. 2 A similar 
 custom existed among the French, at least in some pro- 
 vinces, in the 17th century. 3 In all the cases just 
 mentioned the form assumed by the custom was analo- 
 gous to the rule prescribed in the Sutras, where it was 
 provided that at a certain vital stage of the marriage 
 ceremony, a strong man and the bridegroom should 
 forcibly draw the bride and make her sit down on a red 
 ox-skin. 4 
 
 There is good ground for believing that the form of 
 capture is observed in the marriage ceremonies of the 
 Nogay Tartars. The rule which prohibits a Kalmuck 
 bride from entering the yurt of her parents for a year or 
 more after her marriage, and which is undoubtedly con- 
 nected with the form of capture, prevails among the 
 Nogais, as it does also among the Kirghiz. At any rate, 
 we find the custom in the Caucasus in the immediate 
 neighbourhood of the Nogais. The form which it 
 
 1 Travels in Siberia, Erinan, vol. ii. p. 442, 1848 (Cowley's 
 trans.). 
 
 2 Burckhardt's Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys. Loiid. 1830, 
 vol. i. p. 108. 
 
 3 Marriage Ceremonies, &c.> Gaya, 2nd ed. Lond. 1698, p. 30. 
 
 4 Indische Studien, ut supra* 
 
 G 
 
18 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 assumes among the Circassians, indeed, closely resembles 
 that observed in ancient Rome. The wedding is cele- 
 brated with noisy feasting and revelry, " in the midst of 
 which the bridegroom has to rush in, and with the help 
 of a few daring young men, to carry off the lady by 
 force ; and by this process she becomes his lawful wife." 
 The custom also prevailed till a recent date in Wales. 
 Lord Kames 2 says that the following marriage ceremony 
 was in his day, or at least had till shortly before, been 
 customary among the Welsh : " On the morning of the 
 wedding day, the bridegroom, accompanied by his 
 friends on horseback, demands the bride. Her friends, 
 who are likewise on horseback, give a positive refusal, 
 upon which a mock scuffle ensues. The bride, mounted 
 behind her nearest kinsman, is carried off and is pursued 
 by the bridegroom and his friends, with loud shouts. It 
 is not uncommon on such an occasion to see two or 
 three hundred sturdy Cambro- Britons riding at full 
 speed, crossing and jostling to the no small amusement 
 of the spectators. When they have fatigued themselves 
 and their horses, the bridegroom is suffered to overtake 
 his bride. He leads her away in triumph, and the scene 
 is concluded with feasting and festivity." Some such 
 picture we should have had from De Hell had he ex- 
 panded his account of the mock scuffle among the 
 Kalmucks of the hordes of the bride and bridegroom. 
 
 1 Louis Moser, The Caucasus and its People, Lond. 1856, p. 31; 
 and see Spencer's Travels in Circassia, Lond. 1837, vol. ii. p. 375 ; 
 and Bell's Journal, vol. ii. p. 221, Lond. 1840. 
 
 2 Sketches of t/te History of Man, Book i. sec. 6, p. 449, Edin. 
 1807. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 19 
 
 We have now found the custom in various parts of 
 Europe and Asia ; it occurs also in Africa and in 
 America. Lord Kames vouches for the custom among 
 the Inland Negroes. 1 " When the preliminaries of the 
 marriage are adjusted, the bridegroom with a number of 
 his companions set out at night and surround the house 
 of the bride, as if intending to carry her off by force ; 
 she and her female attendants pretending to make all 
 possible resistance, cry aloud for help, but no person 
 appears." Speke 2 mentions an incident which he 
 observed in Karague, and which may have been the 
 sequel to a capture. " At night," he says, " I was struck 
 by surprise to see a long noisy procession pass by where 
 I sat, led by some men who carried on their shoulders 
 a woman covered up in a blackened skin. On inquiry, 
 however, I heard she was being taken to the hut of her 
 espoused, where bundling fashion she would be put to 
 bed; but it is only with virgins they take so much 
 trouble." Traces of the custom are indeed frequently 
 met with in Africa, but in so distinct and marked a form 
 as that mentioned by Lord Kames we have not found 
 it. His lordship has not given his authority. He 
 mentions the custom, however, merely for its singularity, 
 and apparently in ignorance of its connecting itself with 
 any widespread practice of mankind, which demanded 
 investigation. Among the primitive races throughout 
 the whole continent of America traces of the form of 
 capture (that is, customs seemingly of no significance, 
 
 1 Sketches, &c., ut supra. 
 
 2 Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the Nil ., 1863, p. 198. 
 
 /i O 
 
20 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 except in the light of this form) are of frequent occur- 
 rence. Among the people of Tierra del Fuego, however, 
 the form itself appears almost in perfection. "As 
 soon," says Captain Fitzroy, speaking of the Fuegiaus, 1 
 " as a youth is able to maintain a wife by his exertions 
 in fishing or bird-catching, he obtains the consent of her 
 relations, and does some piece of work, such as helping 
 to make a canoe, or prepare sealskins, &c., for her 
 parents. Having built or stolen a canoe for himself, ho 
 watches for an opportunity, and carries off his bride. If 
 she is unwilling, she hides herself in the woods, until 
 her admirer is heartily tired of looking for her, and 
 gives up the pursuit ; but this seldom happens." 
 
 These are among the best marked instances of the 
 form with which we are acquainted. The instances fix 
 our attention especially upon a few geographical points. 
 But nothing in nature stands by itself. Each example 
 of the form leads us to contemplate a great area over 
 which the custom once prevailed, just as a fossil fish in 
 rock on a hill-side forces us to conceive of the whole 
 surrounding country as at one time under water. Were 
 we to enumerate and examine all the customs which 
 seem to us connected with the form, we should be led 
 into discussions foreign to our purpose, and there would 
 be few primitive races with which we should not have to 
 deal. Suffice it, that the form which of old appeared 
 so well defined in the peninsulas of Italy and Greece, 
 may be traced thence, on the one hand, northwards 
 through France and Britain, south-westwards through 
 
 1 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. ii. p. 182 ; 1839. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 21 
 
 Spain, and north-eastwards through Prussia; on the 
 other hand, northwards through ancient Thessaly and 
 Macedonia, into the mountainous regions on the Black 
 Sea and the Caspian ; again, that the form which is 
 perfect among the Kalmucks shades away into faint and 
 fainter traces throughout almost all the races of the 
 Mongolidse ; that we may assume it of frequent occur- 
 rence in Africa, as it unquestionably was among the 
 red men of America ; that it occurs among the Hindus, 
 and may be assumed to have been common among the 
 aboriginal inhabitants of the plains of India, of whom 
 we have a well-preserved specimen in the Khonds of 
 Orissa. 
 
CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 
 
 THE question now arises, what is the meaning and 
 what the origin of a ceremony so widely spread, that 
 already on the threshold of our inquiry the reader must 
 be prepared to find it connected with some universal 
 tendency of mankind ? 
 
 Those who approach the subject with minds un- 
 disturbed by the views of Festus and Mtiller will most 
 naturally think, in the first instance, of an early period 
 of lawlessness, in which it was with women as with 
 other kinds of property, that he should take who had 
 the power, and he should keep who could. And it is a 
 trite fact, that women captured in war have universally, 
 in barbarous times and countries, been appropriated as 
 wives, or as worse. But little consideration is needed 
 to see that the symbol implies much more than this ; 
 for it is impossible to believe that the mere lawlessness 
 of savages should be consecrated into a legal symbol, or 
 to assign a reason could this be believed why a 
 similar symbol should not appear in transferences of 
 other kinds of property. To a certain extent, indeed, 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 23 
 
 the first impression must be held to be a correct one. 
 We cannot escape the conclusion that there was a stage 
 in the history of tribes observing this custom when 
 wives were usually obtained by theft or force. And 
 unless the practice of getting wives by theft or force 
 was so general where it prevailed that we may say it 
 was almost invariable, it is incredible that such an 
 association should be established in the popular mind 
 between marriage and the act of rapine, as would after- 
 wards require the pretence of rapine to give validity to 
 the ceremony of marriage. It must have been the 
 system of certain tribes to capture women necessarily 
 the women of other tribes for wives. But we may be 
 sure that such a system could not have sprung out of 
 the mere instinctive desire of savages to possess objects 
 cherished by a foreign tribe ; it must have had a deeper 
 source to be sought for in their circumstances, their 
 ideas of kinship, their tribal arrangements. 
 
 The fact that among savage tribes whose normal 
 relations with each other are those of war a man could 
 get a woman of a foreign tribe for his wife only by 
 carrying her off, cannot, ~by itself, explain a symbolism 
 which is so well established, so invariable, where it 
 occurs at all. Where savages had women of their own 
 whom they might marry, captive women would naturally 
 become slaves or concubines rather than wives ; the men 
 would find their wives, or their chief wives, within the 
 tribe ; and the capture of women could never become so 
 important in connection with marriage as to furnish a 
 symbolism for all marriages to a later time. It may be 
 
24 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 doubted whether, in the circumstances supposed, the 
 form of capture would, in a great number of cases, be 
 bequeathed to more peaceful and friendly generations, 
 even in the case of intertribal marriages in which only 
 the form could be expected to appear ; and at any rate 
 these, when first made subjects of friendly compact, 
 would be too infrequent for their ceremonies to override 
 those which were indigenous, and to be transferred into 
 the general marriage law. Much more likely is it that 
 indigenous marriage forms should be employed in the 
 celebration of intertribal marriages when they occurred. 
 It is a fortiori, that in the circumstances which we have 
 been considering those of tribes among which, as 
 among civilised peoples, the law of marriage is matri- 
 monium liberum no system of capturing women for 
 wives could have arisen. 
 
 What circumstances then, what social idea, existing 
 among rude tribes, could produce a system of capturing 
 the women of foreign tribes for wives ? It will be con- 
 venient that, before we make the answer we have to 
 offer to this question, we should consider the condition, 
 in respect of marriage, of a class of tribes with which we 
 believe this system did not originate. 
 
 It is clear that, if members of a family or tribe are 
 forbidden to intermarry with members of other families 
 or tribes, and free to marry among themselves, there is 
 not room for fraud or force in the constitution of 
 marriage. The bridegroom and bride will live together 
 in amity among their common relatives. With the 
 consent of her relations, a woman will become the wife 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 25 
 
 of a suitor peaceably. If a suitor forces her, or carries 
 her off against her will or that of her friends, he must 
 separate from these to escape their vengeance. Tt 
 follows that, among tribes of this class, which we shall 
 call endogamous tribes, 1 betrothal followed by cohabita- 
 tion at first, and, at a more advanced stage, betrothal 
 and a religious or other formal ceremony of appropriation 
 of the spouses to one another, are the natural modes of 
 
 ' V" 1 ' 
 
 marriage. To the practice of such tribes are to be 
 referred the two modes of constituting marriage of 
 which the Eoman Usus and Confarreatio may be taken 
 as the types. These are at any rate the forms appro- 
 priate to marriages between members of the same 
 family-group or tribe ; and, so far as appears at present, 
 they could only have originated among endogamous 
 tribes, or in the case of marriage within the tribe 
 among tribes which allowed their members to marry 
 among themselves or into other groups indifferently. 
 
 The form of marriage by gift, or that by sale and 
 purchase, could never have originated with purely en- 
 dogamous tribes. A tribe, in a primitive age, is just a 
 
 1 As the words endogamy and exogamy are new, an apology 
 must be made for employing them. Instead of endogamy we might, 
 after some explanations, have used the word caste. But caste con- 
 notes several ideas besides that on which we desire to fix attention. 
 On the other hand, the rule which declares the union of persons of 
 the same blood to be incest has been hitherto unnamed, and it was 
 convenient to give it a name. The words endogamy and exogamy 
 (for which botanical science affords parallels) appear to be well 
 suited to express the ideas which stood in need of names, and so we 
 have ventured to use them, taking care in the text to make their 
 meanings distinct. 
 
2fi PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 group of kindred more or less numerous, with common 
 interests and possessions, where they have any other 
 property besides their women ; living together as an 
 ungoverned fra/temity, or under the headship of a pater- 
 familias. Obviously within such a group there can be 
 neither barter nor sale neither the selling nor the 
 buying of wives. On a marriage between two of its 
 members, there is no foreign interest to be consulted or 
 satisfied. 
 
 It is different if we conceive a number of such tribes 
 aggregated in a political union to which the caste 
 principle of its parts is extended ; so that, while for- 
 merly the members of each could only marry among 
 themselves, the members of all have acquired the right 
 of intermarrying with one another. In forming this 
 conception, we pass from marriages within the tribe to 
 intertribal marriages. In an intertribal marriage one 
 tribe loses a woman, the other acquires one ; or, as 
 sometimes happens, one loses a man, the other acquires 
 one. In either case there is room and a necessity for 
 compensation. Such a marriage must be a subject of 
 bargain, a matter of sale and purchase. And we may 
 now perceive that the marriages of which coemptio may 
 be taken as the civilised type, have their origin in 
 intermarriages between distinct family - groups or 
 tribes. 
 
 But it is not in a primitive age, not until after a 
 very considerable advance has been made in civilisation, 
 that tribes are ever found joined in a political union. 
 Such union indicates a state of friendliness between the 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 27 
 
 tribes. And should intertribal marriages come to be 
 permitted among endogamous tribes, they could from 
 the first be carried through by friendly negotiation. 
 On the other hand, the degree of political union pre- 
 supposed to explain the intermarriages must be such as 
 to exclude the idea of the members of any tribe resorting 
 to violence to obtain wives from any other. We con- 
 clude that, among this class of tribes, marriage by 
 capture could have had no place. Still more certain is it 
 that they could never come to form such an association 
 between marriage and the act of rapine as would lead 
 them to adopt the symbol of capture in marriage cere- 
 monies ; on the contrary, we should expect to find that 
 they would, out of respect to immemorial usage in the 
 case of marriages within the tribe, celebrate even their 
 intertribal marriages though really brought about by 
 sale and purchase by such ceremonies as had been 
 customary among them in marriages between members 
 of the tribe. And if the symbol of capture be ever 
 found in the marriage ceremonies of an endogamous 
 tribe, we may be sure that it is a relic of an early time 
 at which the tribe was organised on another principle 
 than that of endogamy. 
 
 And now let us postulate the existence of tribes, or- 
 ganised on what we shall call, for the want of a better 
 name, the principle of exogamy that is, which pro- 
 hibited marriage within the tribe and whose tribesmen 
 were thus dependent on other tribes for their wives. It 
 is obvious that intertribal marriages could only be 
 peaceably arranged between tribes whose relations were 
 
28 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 friendly. But peace and friendship were unknown 
 between separate groups or tribes in early times, except 
 when they were forced to unite against common enemies. 
 The sections of the same family when it fell into sec- 
 tions became enemies by the mere fact of separation. 
 And while this state of enmity lasted, exogamous 
 tribes never could get wives except by theft or 
 force. 
 
 If it can be shown, firstly, that exogamous tribes 
 exist, or have existed ; and secondly, that in rude times 
 the relations of separate tribes are uniformly, or almost 
 uniformly, hostile, we have found a set of circumstances 
 in which men could get wives only by capturing them 
 a social condition in which capture would be the 
 necessary preliminary to marriage. And if it be shown 
 in a reasonable number of well -authenticated cases that 
 these conditions Exogamy as tribal law, and hostility 
 as the prevailing relation of separate tribes towards each 
 other exist or have existed, accompanied, as might 
 have been expected, by a system of capturing wives, we 
 shall be justified in concluding failing the appearance 
 of any phenomena inconsistent with such an expla- 
 nation that the same conditions have existed in 
 every case where the system of capture prevailed, 
 or where the form of capture has been observed 
 as a ceremony of marriage. Nothing more than 
 this is necessary to satisfy the conditions of a sound 
 hypothesis. 
 
 We are in a position to do this and more. We shall 
 be able to point to many tribes which habitually capture 
 
THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 29 
 
 . 
 
 or captured their wives from foreign tribes ; to show that 
 exogamy is or was the law of these tribes ; also, that there 
 are cases of exogamous tribes whose tribesmen, marrying 
 women by compact, always go through the form of 
 capturing such women ; that in all the modern instances 
 where the symbol of capture is best marked, marriage 
 within the tribe is prohibited as incestuous^ We shall 
 also find various circumstances common to exogamous 
 tribes, and traceable in their case to the principle of 
 exogamy, appearing more or less marked in the case of 
 historical tribes which have used the form of capture, 
 supporting the conclusion that such tribes had once been 
 exogamous. 
 
 It may easily be conceived how, among exogamous 
 tribes, out of respect to immemorial usage, when friendly 
 relations came to be established between tribes and 
 families, and their members intermarried by purchase 
 instead of capture, the form of invasion and capture 
 should become an essential ceremony at weddings. It 
 w r as unheard of from the remotest times that a woman 
 became a man's wife except through being made his 
 captive, forced or stolen away from her friends 
 by him or for him. Surely something shall be 
 wanting if there is not at least the appearance of 
 a capture I So the Eomaii youths rush in with 
 drawn swords, and feign to enact a tragedy ; so the 
 Kalmuck girl rides, as if for life, from her lord and 
 master by pre-arrangement ! 
 
 We now proceed to treat of the matter, in order, 
 under the three following heads : Firstly, The preva- 
 
30 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 lence of capturing wives de facto ; secondly, Whether, 
 where that practice prevails, marriage between members 
 of the same family-group, clan, or tribe, is forbidden, 
 and the prevalence of that limitation of the right of 
 marriage ; and, thirdly, How far the state of war 
 prevails among primitive groups 1 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRACTICE OF 
 WIVES, DE FACTO. 
 
 THE tribes amongst which prevails or has prevailed, 
 the practice of getting wives by theft or force, are both 
 numerous and widely distributed. We shall find them ' 
 in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in many of 
 the islands of the Pacific, and in various parts of Asia 
 and Europe. 
 
 It is among the tribes of American Indians that the 
 practice is to be found in the greatest perfection. In 
 particular, we find it fully displayed on the Orinoco, on 
 the Amazons, everywhere in fact, from the Caribbean 
 Sea to Cape Horn. The abject Fuegians, as we have 
 seen, 1 have the practice in a modified or symbolised 
 form in the marriages of men and women belonging to 
 groups at peace with one another. But they have the 
 reality as well as the fiction. Between many of their 
 tribes there is a chronic state of war. " Strangers," 
 reported Jemmy Button to Captain Fitzroy on one 
 
 1 See ante, p. 20. 
 
32 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 occasion/ " had been there, with whom he and his 
 people had 'very much jaw' ; they fought, threw ' great 
 many stone', and stole two women (in exchange for 
 whom Jemmy's party stole one), but were obliged to 
 retreat." The Horse Indians of Patagonia also, tribe 
 against tribe, are commonly at war with one another, 
 or with the Canoe Indians, the issues of victory, in 
 every case, being the capture of women and the 
 slaughter of men. But the Oens or Coin-men would 
 appear to be the most systematic of these savage marau- 
 ders, for every year at the time of "red leaf" they are 
 said to make excursions from the mountains in the north 
 to plunder Fuegians of their women, dogs, and arms. 2 
 Farther north still than the Oens men, we come succes- 
 sively on the tribes of the Amazons and of the Orinoco, 
 all of which, excepting those reduced into missions, are 
 continually at feud with one another, and in turns rich 
 in women or impoverished ; feelings of mutual hate and 
 the desire for means of subsistence being concurring 
 causes of war. Of the tribes on the Amazons the ac- 
 counts are not very distinct ; but the habits of the 
 Manaos in the Eio Negro district which, as reported 
 by Mr. Bates, 3 are similar to those of the Coin-men 
 may be assumed not to be exceptional. There is no 
 doubt, however, that the primitive habits of most of the 
 Indian tribes have been much changed by the slave- 
 hunting expeditions, at one time fostered by the Dutch 
 
 1 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, ut supra, vol. ii. p. 224. 
 
 2 Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, vol. ii. p. 205. 
 
 3 The Naturalist on the Amazon. Second Edition, 1864, p. 199. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. N$^ 
 
 and Portuguese. On slave-hunting being introduced in 
 America, as in Africa, a market was found for captives 
 of both sexes, and men as well as women became spoils 
 of victory. No argument is needed to show that when 
 women are systematically captured as in the above- 
 cited cases, they are captured with a view to the raising 
 of children in fact with a view to their performing the 
 part of wives. The fulness of the idea of a wife, ac- 
 cording to our conceptions, is not, we need scarcely say, 
 to be looked for amongst such savages. That idea can 
 nowhere be fully realised till the circumstances of a 
 people enable men and women to enjoy, or at least to 
 look forward with confidence to, a permanent 
 consortship. 
 
 Of the tribes of the great Caribbean nation we 
 have happily a pretty full account from the pen of 
 Alexander von Humboldt. 1 The Caribbees fall into 
 small tribes or family groups, often not numbering more 
 than from forty to fifty persons ; Humboldt, indeed, 
 takes frequent occasion to say that an Indian tribe is no 
 more than a family. Where groups break up into sec- 
 tions, as they tend to do, and live apart from one another, 
 the sections are found, though of one blood, and 
 originally of one language, soon to speak dialects so 
 different that they cannot understand one another. 
 Become strangers, they are enemies except when forced 
 
 1 Personal Narrative of Travels, &c. (1826). The passages 
 bearing on the capture of women among the tribes of the Orinoco, 
 from which our account is taken, will be found in vol. v. pp. 210, 
 293, 422, 425, 548, 565 ; vol. vi. pp. 20, 21, 26 ; vol. vii. p. 449. 
 
 D 
 
34 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 to unite to make common cause against some powerful 
 tribe which has proved a scourge to them all ; enemies, 
 and being at least at the time when Humboldt wrote, 
 cannibals, not only disposed to slay but to eat one 
 another. In their wars, we may imagine, that while 
 their male captives furnished means of subsistence, the 
 women were preserved to be wives and luxuries. 1 To 
 such an extent, indeed, did all the tribes of the Carib- 
 bean nation practise the capture of women depend on 
 aggression for their wives that the women of any 
 tribe were found to belong to different tribes, and to 
 tribes of other nations, and that to such an extent, 
 nowhere were the men and women of the Caribbean 
 race found to speak in one tongue. 
 
 Going northwards to the wild Indians everywhere, 
 as far as we follow them, the same account is applicable 
 in varying degrees. It would indeed be misleading to 
 omit to notice that in both North and South America 
 tribes are to be found occupying much more elevated 
 platforms of civility than those to which, for obvious 
 reasons, we have given our attention. As among 
 friendly groups of the Fuegians we find marriages of 
 consent and of purchase (by labour commonly), 2 so 
 also among friendly Patagonians ; so also with the 
 nations of the Huron tongue and the Attakapas, among 
 whom the position of the women is exceedingly good. 
 Indeed, all the processes have been going on through 
 which every species of marriage would in time be 
 
 1 Compare Erskine's Pacific, p. 425 (1863). 
 
 2 See ante, p. 20. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 35 
 
 developed. Even the red men of America are far 
 from being primitive. A really primitive people in 
 fact exists nowhere. For many thousands of years now, 
 the various races of men have been in the school of 
 experience, all making progress therein, though under 
 different masters and in different forms. Hereafter we 
 shall see how the old law of the red men, and of the 
 natives of Australia, which counts blood relationship 
 through females only, operates as an agent of civilisation, 
 and tends to supersede the barbarous practices of early 
 savagery, and especially to obviate the necessity of 
 capturing wives. 
 
 The capture of women for wives is found to prevail 
 among the aborigines of the Deccan/ and in Affghanistan. 2 
 It prevailed, according to Glaus Magnus, in Muscovy, 
 Lithuania, and Livonia. 3 The form which it assumed 
 among the peoples last named, so closely resembled 
 what Kames describes as the custom among the Welsh, 
 that we must quote the Archbishop's account of it : 
 " Quicunque enim paganorum, sive rusticorum, filius 
 suus uxorem ut ducat in animo habet, agnatos, cognatos, 
 cseterosque vicinos in unum convocat, illisque talem 
 isto in pago puellam nubilem versari, quam rapi, et 
 suo filio in conjugem adduci proponit : hi commodum 
 ad hoc tempus expectantes, ac tune armati, equites suo 
 more unius ad aedes conveniunt, posteaque ad earn 
 
 1 Colonel Walter Campbell's Indian Journal, 1864, p. 400. 
 
 2 Latham's Descriptive Ethnology, vol. ii. p. 215. 
 
 3 Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus, Book xiv. cap. ix. p. 481, 
 Romse, 1555. 
 
 D 2 
 
36 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 rapiendam proficiscuntur. Puella autem quoad matri- 
 monii contradictionem libera, ex insidiis opera explora- 
 torum ubi moretur per eos direpta, plurimum eiulando 
 opem consanguineorum amicorumque ad se liberandam 
 implorat : quod si consanguine! vicinique clamorem 
 istum exaudierunt, ipso momento armati adcurrunt, 
 atque pro ea liberanda proelium committunt ut qui 
 victores ista in pugna extiterunt his puella cedat." 
 The difference between the Welsh and the Muscovite 
 practice lay in this, that in Wales, in the celebration 
 of the marriage, betrothal came first and the (sham) 
 fight afterwards ; while among the Muscovites an actual 
 invasion came first, and if the bridegroom's party 
 succeeded in carrying off the lady, there followed the 
 consent of parents and the sponsalia : " Nee ante 
 completam hanc celebritatem mutua carnali copula, 
 pacto parentum interveniente, se commiscere solent 
 conjungendi ; quia immane cunctis gentibus crimen 
 apparere dignoscitur si ante sponsalia sacra stupri ille- 
 cebris virgo temeratur ; immo summopere cavent puellse 
 ne copulam anticipent quia perpetuam cum prole sic 
 suscepta infamiam luent." 1 The intervention of the 
 sponsalia and consent of parents before the consum- 
 mation of the marriage, marks this as a transitional 
 form of the practice. But it is none the less a case 
 of actual capture. Another advance and the sponsalia 
 will precede the capture, and the fight be a farce. 
 
 According to Seignior Gaya, 2 this transitional form 
 
 1 Olaus Magnus, ut supra, p. 482. 
 
 2 Marriage Ceremonies, &c., ut supra, p. 35. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 37 
 
 of the practice prevailed in his time in Poland, parts 
 of Prussia, Samogithia, and Lithuania. A lad's father 
 having found where a girl lived, who would make a 
 suitable wife for his son, he assembled his kindred 
 and carried the lady off, after which application was 
 made to her father for consent to complete the 
 marriage. 
 
 There is ample reason to believe that the practice 
 was general among the nations in the north of Europe 
 and Asia. Olaus Magnus, 1 indeed, represents the 
 tribes of the north as having been continually at war 
 with one another either on account of stolen women, 
 or with the object of stealing women, "propter raptas 
 virgines aut arripiendas." His brother Johannes 2 dilates 
 on the same topic, and mentions numerous cases in 
 which the plunderers were of the royal houses of 
 Denmark or Sweden. As did the kings, so did their 
 subjects. Among the Scandinavians, before they became 
 Christians, wives were almost invariably fought for and 
 wedded at the sword-point. In Sweden, even long 
 after the introduction of Christianity, women were often 
 carried off when on the way to the church to be 
 married. A wedding cortege was a party of armed 
 men, and for greater security, marriages were generally 
 celebrated at night. A pile of lances is said to be 
 still preserved in the ancient church of Husaby in 
 Gothland, into which were fitted torches ; these weapons 
 
 1 Ut supra, p. 328. 
 
 2 History of the Goths, Book xviii. ; and see Kames, ut supra, 
 vol. i. p. 393. 
 
38 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 were borne by the groomsmen, and served the double 
 purpose of giving light and protection. 1 Such a pre- 
 valence of lawlessness existing after the introduction 
 of Christianity and comparative civilisation, helps us 
 to conceive what the habits of these people were in a 
 more primitive age. 
 
 We find capture de facto co-existent with capture 
 as a form, and not unfrequent, among most of the 
 rude tribes observing the form ; its frequency depending 
 partly on the degree of friendliness established between 
 the tribes, and partly on the degree of fixity given 
 by usage to the price to be paid for a bride. Where 
 the parties cannot agree about the price, nothing is 
 more common among the Kalmucks, Kirghiz, Nogais, 
 and Circassians, than to carry the lady off by actual 
 force of arms. The wooer having once got the lady 
 into his yurt, she is his wife by the law, and peace 
 is established by her relations coming to terms as to 
 the price, after the thing has gone so far that they 
 cannot help themselves. It is important to observe, 
 that among these races the capture, though an irregular 
 proceeding, makes marriage, even previous to terms 
 being made between the capturer and the friends of 
 the lady, and whether they are made or nob. 
 
 That the practice of getting wives by capture de 
 facto, prevails among the natives of Australia, is a 
 fact familiar to most readers. It is not, however, now 
 
 1 Book of Days, vol. i. p. 720. The groomsmen are said to have 
 been called " best men " in the North from the strongest and stoutest 
 of the bridegroom's friends being chosen for this duty. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 39 
 
 the sole or regular mode of getting a wife among the 
 Australian tribes ; and we do not claim to do more 
 than show that there at present exists among them 
 a practice of capturing wives so common as almost 
 to be a system. And as we shall hereafter show that 
 they are exogamous, and also that exogamous tribes 
 which begin with a system of capturing wives, may 
 progress consistently with exogamy to a system of 
 betrothals, we shall ask the reader, conceding to us 
 for the present that we shall be able to do so, to agree 
 with us that so general a practice of capture, subsisting 
 as it does among the Australians alongside of a system 
 of betrothals, points unmistakably to a previous stage 
 when wives were usually captured. 
 
 Among the Australasians, according to one account, 
 when a man sees a woman whom he likes, he tells her 
 to follow him, and when she refuses, he forces her to 
 accompany him by blows, ending by knocking her 
 down and carrying her off. 1 The same account (some- 
 what suspiciously) bears that this mode of courtship 
 is rather relished by the ladies as a species of rough 
 gallantry. The cases must indeed be rare in which 
 a man finds a woman detached from her lord and 
 protector, or the other members of her family ; nor 
 is it in human flesh and blood to take kicks and cuffs 
 as compliments, in whatever spirit they may be 
 administered. The following is the account given by 
 Sir George Grey a good authority : " Even supposing 
 a woman to give no encouragement to her admirers," 
 
 1 Turnbull, Voyage Round the World, 1805, vol. i. pp. 81, 82. 
 
40 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 lie says, 1 " many plots are always laid to carry her off, 
 and in the encounters which result from these, she is 
 almost certain to receive some violent injury, for each 
 of the combatants orders her to follow him, and in 
 the event of her refusing, throws a spear at her. The 
 early life of a young woman at all celebrated for beauty 
 is generally one continued series of captivity to different 
 masters, of ghastly wounds, of wanderings in strange 
 families, of rapid flights, of bad treatment from other 
 females, amongst whom she is brought a stranger by 
 her captor; and rarely do you see a form of unusual 
 grace and elegance, but it is marked and scarred by 
 the furrows of old wounds; and many a female thus 
 wanders several hundred miles from the home of her 
 infancy, being carried off successively to distant and 
 more distant points." 
 
 As an Australian woman is always a wife, being 
 betrothed after birth to some man of a different tribe 
 or family-stock from her own, a stolen or captured wife 
 is always stolen or taken from a prior husband. And 
 as men do not readily part with their wives, and their 
 tribesmen are bound to make common cause with them 
 for the reparation of injuries, the capture of wives is 
 a signal for war ; and as the tribes have little property 
 except their weapons and their women, the women 
 are at once the cause of war, and the spoils of victory. 2 
 The tribes, as might be expected, are exceedingly 
 
 1 Travels in North - Western Australia, 1841, vol. ii. p. 
 249. 
 
 2 Turnbull, ut supra, p. 82. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 41 
 
 numerous, and exceedingly small, 1 being a species of 
 family groups, and, chiefly from the causes specified, 
 they are continually at war with one another. 2 The 
 reader may imagine the extent to which, among 
 these myriad hordes of savages, the women are being 
 knocked about, and the men accustomed to asso- 
 ciate the acquisition of a wife with acts of violence 
 and rapine. 3 
 
 The native songs make frequent allusion to the 
 practice of capturing wives. Here is the burden of 
 one, sung by a heavy-hearted woman, upbraiding 
 her lord, whose affections some recently acquired 
 captive has drawn away from her : 
 
 " Wherefore came you, Weerang, 
 In my beauty's pride, 
 Stealing cautiously, 
 Like the tawny boreang, 
 On an unwilling bride. 
 'Twas thus you stole me 
 From one who loved me tenderly. 
 A better man he was than thee, 
 Who having forced me thus to wed, 
 Now so oft deserts my bed. 
 
 Yang, yang, yang, yoh. 
 
 1 Sir George Grey says that the largest number of natives his 
 party ever saw together, " numbered nearly two hundred, women 
 and children included," ut supra, vol. i. p. 252. 
 
 2 Grey's Travels, ut supra, vol. i. p. 256. 
 
 3 The reader will find, p. 318, vol. ii. of Grey's Travels, a 
 curious illustrative instance of the way in which a war about 
 women may arise. 
 
42 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 " Oh, where is he who won 
 My youthful heart ; 
 Who oft used to bless 
 And call me loved one ? 
 You, Weerang, tore apart 
 From his fond caress 
 Her whom you desert and shun ; 
 Out upon the faithless one ! 
 Oh, may the Boyl-yas bite and tear, 
 Her, whom you take your bed to share. 
 . Yang, yang, yang, yoh." l 
 
 Concerning the New Zealanders, it must suffice 
 to say that the theft or capture of women plays a 
 leading part in their popular legends, testifying to 
 the prevalence of the practice, at least in their early 
 history. 2 In New Zealand, and in the Feejee and 
 other islands of the Pacific, the capture of wives 
 appears to have been conjoined with cannibalism 
 the object of intertribal war being at once to procure 
 women for wives and men for food, except in some 
 districts where there was a special relish for the 
 flesh of females. 3 
 
 In the Institutes of Menu we have marriage by 
 capture enumerated among " the eight forms of the 
 nuptial ceremony used by the four classes." 4 It is 
 the marriage called Eacshasa, and is thus defined : 
 
 1 Grey's Travels, vol. ii p. 313. 
 
 2 Polynesian Mythology, &c. Sir George Grey, 1855, pp. 138, 147, 
 207, 235, 301. 
 
 3 Erskine's Islands of the Western Pacific, and Jackson's 
 Narrative. 
 
 4 Chap. iii. p. 33 (Jones and Houghton). 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 43 
 
 " The seizure of a maiden by force from her 
 house while she weeps and calls for assistance, after 
 her kinsmen and friends have been slain in battle or 
 wounded, and their houses broken open, is the 
 marriage called Eacshasa." Elsewhere l in the code 
 it is mentioned as appropriated to the military class. 
 " For a military man the before-mentioned marriages 
 of Gandharvas and Eacshases whether separate or 
 mixed, as when a girl is made captive by her lover, 
 after a victory over her kinsmen are permitted by 
 law." The full scope and effect of this provision we 
 shall have to consider hereafter. Meanwhile we notice 
 that we have here the exact prototype of the Eoman 
 and Spartan forms, embalmed in a code of laws a 
 thousand years before the commencement of our era ; 
 not as a form, but as living substance. This we hold 
 to exclude any hypothesis except that which we are 
 maintaining. 2 
 
 We may notice, as further illustrating the subject, 
 and as being in itself curious, that by the Mosaic 
 Code the military class were, in defiance of the general 
 law which declared that there was no connubium 
 between Jews and Gentiles, allowed to take to wife 
 women whom they captured in war, to whatever 
 races they belonged. In Deut. xx. 10-14, the reader 
 will find forms and regulations provided for the 
 constitution of this species of marriage, and if 
 
 1 Chap. iii. p. 26 (Jones and Houghton). 
 
 2 For the probable origin of the name Jtacshases, see 
 Appendix B. 
 
PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 interested to know the meaning of the rules, he will 
 find a copious and learned discussion of them in the 
 works of Selden. 1 
 
 Thus far we have been dealing with facts. If we 
 are right in our theory of the symbol of capture, it must 
 be held that the Dorians, or at least some of the 
 tribes composing the Spartan nation, and the Latins, 
 or at least some of the tribes forming the commonalty 
 of Eome, long had experience in the capturing of 
 wives by force or stratagem. We leave to our 
 Hellenists to consider how far the Doric legends may 
 have new light thrown upon them by our view of the 
 Spartan custom. How far, for instance, may the 
 slaughter by Hercules of Eurylus and his sons, and 
 the carrying away of lole to be the wife of Hyllus 
 of Hyllus, who never occurs in mythology except in 
 connection with the Dorians be a mythical tradition 
 of a rape of women from another tribe ? How far may 
 the genealogies of Doric heroes connected with the 
 taking of Ephyra, the capture of Astyocheia, the 
 feat of Hercules at Thespise the stories of Pluto and 
 Proserpine, and of Boreas and Orithya be but tradi- 
 tions of a quasi Caribbean prowess ? It must be kept 
 in mind, too, that the case cited from Herodotus in 
 proof of the custom at Sparta is one of actual violence. 
 At least, the lady was not carried off in terms of 
 arrangement. Further, to judge by what is reported 
 of Theseus even accepting the tradition as fabulous 
 
 1 De Jure Naturali et Gentium juxta Disciplinain Ebrceorum, 
 lib. v. cap. xiii. fol. 617. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 45 
 
 we may conclude that the ancient Greeks generally 
 were very lawless in this matter. To that hero's charge 
 are laid numerous rapes of women whom he carried off 
 to be his wives his crimes of this description culmin- 
 ating in the seizure of Helen. Plutarch, indeed, in 
 describing that affair, mentions a compact as having 
 been entered into between Theseus and his companion 
 in the seizure Tyndarus to the effect that he who 
 should gain Helen by lot should have her to wife, but 
 be obliged to assist in procuring a wife for the other ; 
 which shows that these worthies trusted to their prowess 
 to procure them wives, 1 As to the Eomans upon our 
 theory the story of the. rape of the Sabines must be 
 accepted as a mere mythical tradition of the ancient 
 method of getting wives. The story, as might be 
 expected, is reproduced in the traditions of many tribes, 
 in many places, and in many forms. For instance, in 
 the Irish Nennius 2 there is a tradition of such a rape of 
 wives by the Picts from the Gael. In the very old 
 poem, ' ( The Cruithnians who propagated in the land of 
 
 1 There is no evidence that the Doric hordes who overran and 
 established themselves in the Peloponnesus, were accompanied by 
 their wives or children. It is most unlikely that they were so at- 
 tended ; and, except a surmise founded on the degree of influence 
 enjoyed at a subsequent period by the women of Sparta, there is 
 nothing in favour of the supposition. But that surmise proceeds on 
 the ground that wives of a race alien to that of their husbands are 
 not so likely to be well treated as they would be if they were of the 
 same blood. Against this we must simply pronounce as being 
 contrary to evidence. 
 
 2 Pp. 245251. 
 
46 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 noble Alba," 1 the Irish are represented as giving three 
 hundred wives to the Picts, on the condition that the 
 succession to the crown among the Picts should always 
 be through their females : 
 
 "There were oaths imposed on them, 
 By the stars, by the earth, 
 That from the nobility of the mother 
 Should always be the right to the sovereignty." 
 
 The story of the oaths is no doubt a fable to explain the 
 descensus per umbilicum of the Picts. But, in " Duan 
 Eiranash," 2 a poem on the origin of the Goedhel, reciting 
 the same event, the Picts are represented as stealing the 
 three hundred wives : 
 
 " Cruithne, son of Cuig, took their women from them 
 
 It is directly stated 
 Except Tea, wife of Hermion, 
 Son of Miledh." 
 
 And in consequence of the capture, the Gael, being left 
 wifeless, had to form alliances with the aboriginal tribes 
 of Ireland. 
 
 " There were no charming noble wives 
 
 For their young men ; 
 
 Their women having been stolen, they made alliance 
 With the Tuatha Dea." 
 
 We have the same story in the history of the Jews. 
 Chapters xx. and xxi. of the Book of Judges contain 
 
 1 Vv. 115120. The Irish version of Nennius, 1848, p. 141. 
 s Vv. 178180, ut supra, p. 245. 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 47 
 
 highly instructive matter on this point, in a story, 
 which, though laid in the time of the Judges, we 
 must hold to be of very old date a Jewish tradition 
 belonging to the earliest history of Israel. The women 
 of the tribe of Benjamin had been destroyed, and 
 certain of the tribes of Israel had sworn not to give their 
 daughters as wives to the men of Benjamin, who again 
 could not take wives to themselves from the Gentiles, 
 as by law they could marry only into one or other of the 
 tribes of Israel. The difficulty of procuring wives for 
 Benjamin which Israel made its own difficulty was 
 solved by the wholesale slaughter of the inhabitants 
 of Jabez-Gilead, whose population yielded 400 virgins : 
 and next by the men of Benjamin enacting a rape of the 
 Sabines for themselves, each man seizing and carrying 
 off one of the daughters of Shiloh to be his wife, on an 
 occasion when the women met for a festival in certain 
 vineyards near Bethel. 1 
 
 We can now say we have found the capture of 
 women very extensively practised ; and there can be no 
 doubt that ic most of the cases cited, the women 
 captured were kept to be used as wives. In a number 
 of well-marked cases we have found a system of capture 
 
 1 See Smith's Bible Dictionary Art. MARRIAGE where it is 
 remarked that the phrase in the Old Testament (e.g. Num. xii. 1, 
 1 Chron. ii. 21), " taking a wife," would seem to require to be taken 
 in its literal meaning in the run of cases ; " the taking " being the 
 chief ceremony in the constitution of marriage. If the writer of 
 that article is correct, we must believe that the Jews observed the 
 form of capture, for in many cases where the phrase occurs we know 
 the marriages were preceded by contracts. 
 
48 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 in the case of the Caribbean tribes of America, a 
 system so general, that the women of a tribe were 
 commonly not only not of the same tribe with the 
 men, but did not even speak the same language. 
 We have seen among tribes in a transition state, in 
 some cases, capture almost systematically practised, 
 alongside of more civilised institutions ; and in other 
 cases, the practice of capture in various stages of 
 progress towards a symbolism. We have seen the 
 marriage by capture embodied in the code of India as an 
 institution in favour of the only class which could be 
 benefited by it the warrior class ; and no argument is 
 needed to show that such a rule must have been a 
 generalisation founded upon practice. A similar rule 
 subsisted in favour of warriors among the Israelites. 
 The former of these cases is, perhaps, chiefly valuable as 
 presenting in a distinct shape the antetype of the form 
 of capture a description of marriage by an actual 
 capture so vividly recalling incidents of fictitious capture, 
 as practised at Eome and elsewhere, as (in our opinion) 
 to set at rest the question in what way the fiction 
 originated. The latter case shows a provision made for 
 marriage with foreign women, if captured, among tribes 
 which, in no other case, allowed of marriage with foreign 
 women ; a provision indicating a very remarkable 
 association between capture and marriage. It is not 
 easy to believe that such a regulation, existing among 
 endogamous tribes, is referable to the feeling that a 
 victorious warrior should have the full disposal of spoils 
 of war ; it is much more likely that it was a relic of a 
 
THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 49 
 
 time when the tribes or rather the race from which 
 they sprang were not endogamous ; and, if so, it carries 
 us back to a remote antiquity when marriage and 
 prowess in wa*r were closely associated. We have seen 
 that the mythic legends of various races, of which 
 hitherto no rational explanation has been given, can, 
 with great appearance of probability be, referred to the 
 existence amongst such races in ancient times of a 
 systematic capture of wives. 
 
 Further research, and the observation of tribes 
 hitherto unreported upon at present we have not 
 been able to say anything that would be satisfactory 
 of the races of the continent of Africa will, we 
 confidently expect, afford much additional evidence 
 of the prevalence of this practice. But we have done 
 enough to entitle us to affirm that there has existed 
 amongst various races of mankind a system of capturing 
 women for wives. 
 
 E 
 
CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE RULE AGAINST MARRIAGE BETWEEN MEMBERS 
 OF THE SAME TRIBE OF THE COINCIDENCE OF 
 THIS RULE WITH THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING 
 WIVES DE FACTO, AND WITH THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 WE proceed to show the prevalence of the rule 
 forbidding marriage within the tribe or group of 
 kindred, and the concurrence of this ban with the fact 
 or pretence of capturing wives. 
 
 Here, still more than in our former investigation, 
 we are made to feel how imperfect and unconnected is 
 the record from which our facts have to be drawn ; 
 and farther, how difficult it is to bring together such 
 facts as have been observed, owing to the wide field 
 over which they lie sparsely scattered. In many cases, 
 the authorities are silent just on the points on which we 
 are most eager for information ; while on matters of no 
 moment they enlarge ad nauseam. But, too often, 
 they have nothing to tell. Skirting a coast-line the 
 traveller sees natives at points here and there, and can 
 describe their dress and personal appearance ; of their 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 51 
 
 habits lie is as ignorant as a child of the free life of the 
 beasts he sees in a caravan. Where the opportunities 
 of observation are better, the observer often does not 
 know what to look for. Of the jus connubii among the 
 Kalmucks not one word is said by Clarke or Pallas or 
 Strahlenberg, and but for some remarks of Bergman's 
 we should be entirely in the dark on the subject. 
 
 We begin with the Khonds. This people presents 
 us with capture as a form. Major-General Campbell 
 says that the Khonds marry women from remote places, 
 the reason of which he takes to be, that they have to 
 buy their wives, and can get them at lower prices at a 
 distance. " They pretend, moreover," he adds, 1 " to 
 regard it as degrading to bestow their daughters in 
 marriage on men of their own tribe ; and consider it 
 more manly to seek their wives in a distant country/' 
 Major M'Pherson a more intelligent witness gives us 
 the distinct statement, that among the Khonds inter- 
 marriage between persons of the same tribe, however 
 large or scattered, is considered incestuous, and punish- 
 able by death ; 2 a view more consistent with other 
 known facts than that of General Campbell. " Mar- 
 riage," Major M'Pherson tells us, " can take place only 
 betwixt members of different tribes, and not even with 
 strangers who have been long adopted into or domesti- 
 cated with a tribe, and a state of war or peace appears 
 to make little difference as to the practice of inter- 
 
 1 Ut supra, p. 141. 
 
 2 An Account, of the Religion of the Khonds in Orissa, p. 57 ; and 
 see M'Pherson's Report on the Khonds, already referred to. 
 
 E 2 
 
52 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 marriage between tribes. The people of Bara Mootah 
 and of Burnt Des, in Goomsur, have been at war time 
 out of mind, and annually engage in fierce conflicts, 
 but they intermarry every day. The women of each 
 tribe, after a fight, visit each other to condole on the 
 loss of their nearest common relations." No doubt 
 these friendly intermarriages must in time alter the 
 relations of the tribes to one another ; no doubt also 
 the time was when the marriages were not effected in 
 friendly fashion. 
 
 Let us now examine the cases of the Kalmucks and 
 Circassians. To understand that of the former, we 
 must attend a little to their political system. The 
 Kalmucks are divided into four great nations or tribes 
 under hereditary chiefs or khans ; the Khoskots, the 
 Dzungars, the Derbets, and the Torgots. Each of these, 
 according to Pallas, 1 is under the command of many 
 little and nearly independent princes, called Noions. 
 The horde commanded by a Noion is called an Oulouss, 
 and is subdivided into several Aimaks, each of which 
 again is commanded by a noble called Saissang. The 
 Aimaks again are subdivided into many companies or 
 khatoun, consisting of from ten to twelve tents, for 
 convenience in pasturing ; and each khatoun has its 
 chief; but whether of the noble class we are not in- 
 formed. It will thus be seen that there is among the 
 Kalmucks a very large governing or princely class. 
 Now, it appears that they have two systems of marriage 
 
 1 Voyages dans plusieurs Provinces de V Empire de Russie, &c., 
 Paris (no date), vol. ii. p. 191. Nouvelle Edition. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 53 
 
 law ; one for the common people, and one for the 
 nobles, or princely class. The common people, we are 
 told by Bergman, 1 enter into no unions in which the. 
 parties are not distant from one another by three or 
 four degrees : but how the degrees are counted we are 
 not informed. We are told that they have great 
 abhorrence for the marriages of near relatives, and 
 have a proverb " The great folk and dogs know no 
 relationship," which Bergman says is due to members 
 of the princely class sometimes marrying sisters-in-law^ 
 We find, however, that these sisters-in-law are uniformly 
 women of an entirely different stock from their 
 husbands different, or what is taken for different. 
 For no man of the princely class (and it is in the mar- 
 riages of the Kalmucks of this class, according to 
 De Hell, that the form of capture is chiefly observed 2 ), 
 in any of the tribes, can marry a woman of his own 
 tribe or nation. Not only must his wife be a noble, 
 but she must be a noble of a different stocky For 
 princely marriages, says Bergman, " the bride is chosen 
 from another people's stock among the Derbets from 
 the Torgot stock ; and among the Torgots from the 
 Derbet stock ; and so on." Here, then, we have the 
 principle of exogamy in full force in regard to the 
 marriages of the governing classes a large body in 
 each nation, as we have seen, and, which is most to our 
 present purpose, the body in whose marriages the form 
 of capture is said to be observed. Whether or not the 
 
 1 Bergman's Streifereien, Riga, 1804, vol. iii. p. 145, et seq. 
 
 2 See atite, p. 15. 
 
54 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 commonalty, with whom the no/bles have no inter- 
 marriage the people of black birth, as they are called 
 were originally of an alien, inferior, and conquered 
 race ; and whether or not the governing classes were 
 originally independent exogamc/us tribes, we have the 
 prohibition against marriage within the stock here con- 
 current with the form of captjire in the weddings of 
 the nobility. How far the commonalty observe the 
 form we have no information, ibut it is not unlikely 
 that they mimic, after a fashion, the marriage cere- 
 monies of their superiors. 
 
 The case of the Circassians is simple, and quickly 
 told : " The Circassian word for their societies or 
 fraternities," says Bell, 1 " is c tleush/ which signifies also 
 ' seeds/ The tradition with regard to them is, that the 
 members of each all sprang from the same stock or 
 ancestry ; and thus they may be considered as so many 
 septs or clans, with this peculiarity, that, like seeds, all 
 are considered equal. These cousins-german or mem- 
 bers of the same fraternity, are not only themselves 
 interdicted from intermarrying, but their serfs, too, 
 must wed with the serfs of another fraternity ; and 
 where, as is generally the case, many fraternities enter 
 into one general bond, this law in regard to marriage 
 must be observed by all. The confidential dependent, 
 or steward, of our host here is a Tokao who fled to his 
 protection from Notwhatsh, because, having fallen in 
 
 1 James Stanislaus Bell, Journal of a Residence in Circassia, 
 1840, vol. i. p. 347. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 55 
 
 love with and married a woman of his own fraternity, 
 he had become liable to punishment for this infraction 
 of Circassian law. Yet his fraternity contained perhaps 
 several thousand members. Formerly, such a marriage 
 was looked upon as incest, and punished by drowning ; 
 now a fine of two hundred oxen, and the restitution of 
 the wife to her parents, only are exacted." Elsewhere, 1 
 Bell observes that these fraternities sometimes embrace 
 thousands of persons, between whom marriage is by this 
 ancient law totally prohibited. Here, too, as in Khond- 
 istan, and among the Kalmucks, we find the form of 
 capture as well as the principle of exogamy. 
 
 Our next case is that of the Yurak Samoyeds 
 (Siberia), among whom no man can take a wife from 
 the tribe to which he belongs. 2 These Samoyeds hold 
 kinsmanship to be coextensive with the tribe. All the 
 members of the tribe, however large or small, consider 
 themselves relations, even where the common ancestor 
 is unknown and the evidence of consanguinity is 
 wholly wanting. They fall into three divisions ; the 
 members of any of which may take wives from either 
 of the other two, but not from their own ; and as these 
 divisions occupy sites far removed from one another, 
 the Samoyeds have to go great distances for their 
 wives. 
 
 We find the same state of things among the Kafirs, 
 the Sodhas of northern India, the Beduanda Kallung 
 
 1 Ut supra, vol. ii. p. 110. 
 
 2 Latham, Descriptive Ethnology, vol. ii. p. 455. 
 
56 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 (Singapore) and many others, including the Kirghiz 
 and the Nogais. 1 
 
 The Warali (India) tribes fall into divisions, and no 
 man may marry a woman of his own division ; he must 
 go for a wife to one of the others. The Magar tribes 
 fall into thums, all the members of each of which are 
 supposed to be descended from a common ancestor ; the 
 Magar husband and wife must belong to different 
 thums ; within one and the same thum there is no 
 marriage. Latham, in noticing the Magars, says 
 " This is the first time 2 I have found occasion to 
 mention this practice. It will not be the last ; on the 
 contrary, the principle it suggests is so common as to be 
 almost universal. We find it in Australia, in North 
 and South America, in Africa, in Europe ; we shall 
 suspect and infer it in many places where the actual 
 evidence of its existence is incomplete." This is a 
 sweeping statement ; but before we conclude we hope to 
 show that it may fairly be accepted as correct. 
 
 In the Institutes of Menu it is laid down that a 
 twice-born man might elect for nuptials " a woman not 
 descended from his paternal or maternal ancestors 
 within the sixth degree, and who is not known by her 
 
 1 It must not be thought that the form of capture occurs where- 
 ever exogamy prevails that exogamy and the practice of capturing 
 wives, which at a certain stage must be the resource of exogamous 
 tribes, will in every case leave the form of capture behind them. 
 We shall see the explanation of this hereafter. We have no 
 information whether or not the Samoyeds practise the form of 
 capture. 
 
 2 Yol. i. p. 80, Descriptive Ethnology. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 57 
 
 family name to be of the same primitive stock with his 
 father." 1 This passage might be taken as a text for the 
 discussion of the whole question of prohibited marriages, 
 and we must dwell upon it somewhat, as it has an 
 important bearing on the present investigation. The 
 object of the rule is to prevent marriages between 
 members of the same primitive stock ; and it points out 
 the family name as the test whether persons are of the 
 same stock or not. It is as if a Fraser might not marry 
 a Fraser, nor a M'Intosh a M'Intosh. By comparing 
 the former state of the Highlands of Scotland with 
 their present condition, especially with the condition of 
 the town populations, we may clear our ideas regarding 
 the origin, meaning, and effect of this institution. Of 
 old, each clan inhabited its particular strath or glen, 
 and had its own well-defined hill-ranges. In the Aird 
 district there were none but Frasers ; about Moy were 
 none but M'Intoshes. The members of the clans are 
 now interfused even in the country districts, and in 
 towns like Inverness or Dingwall may be found mem- 
 bers of all the clans. Now, suppose that originally a 
 
 1 Institutes of Menu, cap. iii. sec. 5. The words "or mother" 
 occur in the gloss of Calluca. The rule fixing the stock by the 
 father is, as we hope to show, far from being archaic. The twice- 
 born classes are the sacerdotal, military, and commercial (Menu, 
 x. 4). Nearly all the Indian castes are now divided into nations 
 that do not intermarry ; the nations into sects, some of which do 
 not intermarry. All the nations are divided into certain families, 
 called gotrams ; a man cannot marry a woman of his own gotram. 
 Buchanan's Journey from Madras, 1807, vol. i. pp. 273, 300, 354, 
 396, 419, 421, 423 ; Muir's Sanskrit Texts, Part II., 1859, pp. 378, 
 387 ; Vivada Chintamani, Calcutta, 1863, Preface, p. 45. 
 
58 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 man was not allowed to marry a woman of his own 
 clan, and that, subsequent to the interfusion of the 
 clans, that ancient prejudice remained ; the rule for 
 enforcing it the question of degrees of affinity apart 
 would just be the rule of Menu. So, in considering 
 the origin of that rule, are we not remanded from the 
 social state in which it was fixed in a code, to an earlier 
 state, in which the population consisted of distinct clans 
 or tribes organised on the principle of exogamy, and 
 living apart from one another, as all tribes do in early 
 times, until they are brought, by conquest or otherwise, 
 under a common government ? We have already had 
 examples of tribes with this rule, so that, in this con- 
 ception of the early state of the Indian population, we 
 are making no improbable supposition. On the con- 
 trary, it is not only probable in itself, but it is the only 
 supposition that will explain the fact ; and if we accept 
 it as indicating the origin of the rule of Menu, it gives 
 us such an idea of the prevalence of this law of incest 
 as we could never reach by the contemplation of the 
 individual tribes among which it is the law. It will 
 be recollected that the form of capture is found among 
 the Hindus. 1 
 
 "We believe it may still be possible, in the case of 
 some communities in which marriage between persons 
 of the same family name is prohibited, to analyse the 
 population into its constituent (stock) tribes, and to 
 prove that the tribes had this law of incest. In one 
 case, in particular, investigation seems to be courted. 
 
 1 Ante, p. 13. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 59 
 
 The Munnieporees, and the following tribes inhabiting 
 the hills round Munniepore the Koupooees, the Mows, 
 the Murams, and the Murring are each and all divided 
 into four families Koomul, Looang, Angom, and Ning- 
 thaja. A member of any of these families may marry 
 a member of any other, but the intermarriage of mem- 
 bers of the same family is strictly prohibited. In 
 explanation, so far, of these family divisions, 1 we have 
 the fact, well authenticated in the history of Munnie- 
 pore, that the Koomul and Looang formerly existed as 
 distinct and powerful tribes, and that the Koomul, in 
 particular, at one time preponderated in the valley. 
 Presuming that these tribes held intermarriages of their 
 members to be incestuous, the origin of two of the 
 family divisions, and of the marriage law, is plain 
 enough, at least so far as the hill tribes are concerned ; 
 and it is in the hills alone that the law is strictly en- 
 forced. Most of the members of the tribes would 
 remain in the valley and mix with the Meithei, by 
 whose prowess they were vanquished; but we can 
 conceive that bands of the Koomul and Looang might 
 escape to the hills, and mix with each other and with 
 the tribes of the Angom and Ningthaja, whose existence 
 in former times we must postulate, in explanation of the 
 family divisions of the same names. Is it beyond hope 
 that the further examination of local traditions, or 
 exploration of the wilds to the south and north-east 
 of Munniepore, may yet furnish us with information 
 
 1 Account of the Valley of Munniepore and of the Hill Tribes. 
 M'Culloch, 1859, pp., 4969. 
 
60 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 regarding the Angom and Ningthaja, or with data from 
 which their existence in former times may be legitimately 
 inferred, apart from the present speculation ? 
 
 The conclusion at which we have arrived as to the 
 origin of the rule of Menu, will also explain the case of 
 the native populations of Australia, North and South 
 America, and the islands in the Pacific. In these 
 quarters we obtain light regarding the causes which 
 lead to the break-up of the primitive exogamous groups, 
 and to the intermixture in local tribes of people re- 
 cognised as being of different bloods. Let us first 
 attend to the Australians, whom we find divided into 
 small tribes named after the districts which they in- 
 habit ; for though they are nomads, their wanderings, 
 like those of the nomadic agriculturists of the Indian 
 hills, are circumscribed within well-defined bounds. 
 It appears that the tribe inhabiting a particular district 
 regards itself as the owner thereof, and the intrusion of 
 any other tribe upon that district as an invasion to be 
 resented and punished ; and that within the district 
 individuals have portions of land appropriated to them. 1 
 Thus the tribal system is in force, with an apparent 
 perfect separation and independence of the tribes. But, 
 on close examination, the tribes are found to be fused 
 and welded together by blood-ties in the most extra- 
 ordinary manner. According to credible accounts, 2 
 the natives of different tribes extending over a great 
 
 1 Letter, Dr. Laing to .Dr. Hodgkin, 1840. Reports of the 
 Aboriginal Protection Society. 
 
 2 Grey's Journals, <l-c., vol. ii. chap. xi. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 61 
 
 portion of the continent, are divided into a few families, 
 and all the members of a family, in whatever local 
 tribes they may be, bear the same name as a second or 
 family name. These family names and divisions are 
 perpetuated and spread throughout the country by the 
 operation of two laws : first, that the children of either 
 sex always take the name of the mother ; and second, 
 that a man cannot marry a woman of his own family 
 name. 
 
 The members of these families, though scattered 
 over the country, are yet to some intents as much 
 united as if they formed separate and independent 
 tribes ; in particular, the members of each family are 
 bound to unite for the purposes of defence and ven- 
 geance, the consequence being that every quarrel which 
 arises between the tribes is a signal for so many young 
 men to leave the tribes in which they were born, and 
 occupy new hunting-grounds, or ally themselves with 
 tribes in which the families of their mothers may happen to 
 be strong, or which contain their own and their mothers' 
 nearest relatives. This secession, if we may so call it, is 
 not always possible, but it is of frequent occurrence 
 notwithstanding ; where it is impossible, the presence of 
 so many of the enemy within the camp affords ready 
 means of satisfying the call for vengeance ; it being 
 immaterial, according to the native code, by whose blood 
 the blood-feud is satisfied, provided it be blood of the 
 offender's kindred. Thus, as the Australians are poly- 
 gamists, and a man often has wives belonging to different 
 families, it is not in quarrels uncommon to find children 
 
62 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of the same father arranged against one another; or, 
 indeed, against their father himself, for by their peculiar 
 law the father can never be a relative of his children. 1 
 
 1 Mr. Maine has been unable to conceive how human beings 
 could be grouped on any principle more primitive than that of the 
 patriarchal system, or be bound together by any ruder blood-ties 
 than those of agnation derived from the patria potestas. We think 
 his mistake has arisen from a too exclusive attention, in his re- 
 searches, to those systems of ancient law which, like the Hindoo, 
 Roman, and Jewish, belonged to races which were far advanced at 
 the earliest dates to which their history goes back. Had he 
 examined the primitive races now extant, he certainly would not 
 have written the following passage i 1 "It is obvious that the or- 
 ganisation of primitive societies would have been confounded if men 
 had called themselves relatives of their mothers' relatives. The 
 inference would have been that a person might be subject to two 
 distinct patrice potestates ; but distinct patrice potentates implied dis- 
 tinct jurisdictions, so that anybody amenable to two of them at the 
 same time would have lived under two dispensations. As long as 
 the family was an imperium in imperio, a community within the 
 commonwealth, governed by its own institutions, of which the parent 
 was the source, the limitation of relationship to the agnates was a 
 necessary security against a conflict of laws in the domestic forum." 
 Here we see the ingenious thinker trammelled by notions derived 
 from Roman jurisprudence. Among the Australian Blacks to 
 confine ourselves to a single instance we have seen that men are 
 relatives of their mothers' relatives, and of none other; and that 
 their societies are aliunde held together, notwithstanding the 
 conflict of laws in the domestic forum engendered by polygyny, 
 exogamy, and female kinship. Kinship depends, in fact, not at all 
 on convenience. The first kinship is the first possible that through 
 mothers, about whose parental relation to children there can be no 
 mistake. And the system of kinship through mothers only, operates 
 to throw difficulties in the way of the rise of the patria potestas, and 
 of the system of agnation. But of this hereafter. 
 
 1 Ancient Laic, 1861, p. 149. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 63 
 
 Among the Kamilaroi, a numerous tribe residing to the 
 north-west of Sidney, the rules in force are very com- 
 plex and peculiar. These tribesmen fall into divisions 
 resembling castes, and at the same time observe the 
 rule against marriages between members "of the 
 same family. 1 
 
 Our information is so imperfect that we do not know 
 whether there exist anywhere in Australia tribes whose 
 distinctive names are those of the families into which 
 the population is divided. But we should not expect to 
 find such tribes. The constant tendency of groups to fall 
 to pieces, and of the parts to separation and independence 
 of one another, and the practice of naming groups from 
 their lands, would tend to obliterate the traces of the 
 original stock-groups, except so far as they have been 
 preserved in the names of families to keep the blood 
 pure by avoidance of marriage between members of the 
 same stock. But we cannot doubt but that such stock- 
 groups at one time existed, organised on the principle 
 of exogamy, and were the germs of the native popula- 
 tion. Whencesoever they were derived, it was inevitable 
 that the law which recognised blood relationship as 
 existing only through females, conspiring with the 
 primitive instinct 2 of the race against marriage between 
 members of the same stock, should tend in process 
 
 1 Mr. Ridley's account, quoted p. 491, vol. ii., Pritchard's 
 Natural History of Man, Norris's edition. 
 
 [The marriage-law of the Kamilaroi will be fully considered in a 
 second series of Studies in Ancient History.] 
 
 2 [This phrase, it will be found, was only a slip of the pen.] 
 
64 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of time to transfuse the blood of each stock through 
 all the tribal divisions. The men of the group A 
 marrying women of the group B ; and the men of 
 the group B marrying women of the group A ; and 
 all the children of the women of B being counted of 
 the stock of B ; and all the children of the women 
 of A being counted of the stock of A ; we at once 
 have so many B's within A, and so many A's within 
 B. And so on, until in time A's from the northmost 
 point appear in the homes of Z at the southmost; 
 and Z's in the homes of A. Each local tribe would 
 thus contain within itself members between whom there 
 was connubium ; the original tribal divisions would be 
 lost sight of, and nothing would remain of the stock- 
 groups but the family names to which they gave birth. 
 Should the process of transfusion go far enough, the 
 state of matters which would lead to the practice of 
 capturing wives would be modified, but not extinct. 
 The system of polygamy of itself, and any want of 
 balance between the sexes of different families within a 
 tribe, would long tend to maintain this practice ; which, 
 moreover, like every other practice connected with 
 marriage or religion, must be credited with a special 
 tenacity of existence. As we have seen, there prevails 
 among the Australians a system of betrothals always 
 between persons of different stocks along with an 
 extensive practice of capturing wives. This is just 
 what might be expected if our theory of the origin of 
 capture be a sound one. Since the tribes of Australians, 
 while exogamous in principle, contain persons who 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 65 
 
 regard each other as of different descent and free to 
 intermarry, marriage can be, and is, made the subject of 
 bargain. Again, habits formed in previous times of 
 necessity and no doubt occasional necessity still exist- 
 ing keep up the practice of capture. 
 
 We now take the case of the American Indians 
 North and South. They have political and district 
 divisions ; 1 but besides these the nations among them 
 have had from time immemorial divisions into families 
 or clans. " At present, or till very lately " we quote 
 from the Archceologia Americana " every nation was 
 divided into a number of clans, varying in the several 
 nations from three to eight or ten, the members of 
 which respectively were dispersed indiscriminately 
 throughout the whole nation. It has been fully ascer- 
 tained that the inviolable regulations by which these 
 clans were perpetuated amongst the southern nations 
 were, first, that no man co.uld marry in his own clan ; 
 secondly, that every child should belong to his or her 
 mother's clan. Among the Choctaws there are two 
 great divisions, each of which is subdivided into four 
 clans, and no man can marry in any of the four clans 
 belonging to his division. The restriction among the 
 Cherookees, the Creeks, and the Natches does not ex- 
 tend beyond the clan to which the man belongs. There 
 are sufficient proofs that the same division into clans, 
 commonly called tribes, exists among almost all the 
 other primitive nations. But it is not so clear that they 
 are subject to the same regulations which prevail 
 1 Archceologia Americana, vol. ii. p. 109. 
 
 F 
 
66 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 amongst the southern Indians." At the root of these 
 divisions and prohibitions we find here, as in Australia, 
 the feeling that marriage between persons of the same 
 blood is incestuous. " They profess to consider it highly 
 criminal for a man to marry a woman whose totem 
 (family name) is the same as his own, and they relate 
 instances when young men, for a violation of this rule, 
 have been put to death by their own relatives." 1 The 
 
 1 From a circular letter by Mr. L. H. Morgan, of Rochester, 
 New York, issued by the United States Government to its diplo- 
 matic agents and consuls in foreign countries, a^d which contains 
 much interesting information regarding the laws of primitive 
 relationship, we quote the following passage as the most recent 
 and authoritative statement regarding the tribal divisions of the 
 Red Men : 
 
 " Nearly all, if not all, of the Indian nations upon this continent 
 were anciently subdivided into Tribes or Families. These tribes, 
 with a few exceptions, were named after animals. Many of them 
 are now thus subdivided. It is so with the Iroquois, Delawares, 
 lowas, Creeks, Mohaves, Wyandottes, Winnebagoes, Otoes, Kaws, 
 Shawnees, Choctaws, Ota was, Ojibewas, Potowottomies, &c. 
 
 " The following tribes are known to exist, or to have existed, 
 in the several Indian nations the number ranging from three to 
 eighteen in each : The Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, 
 Heron, Hawk, Crane, Duck, Loon, Turkey, Musk-rat, Sable, Pike, 
 Cat-fish, Sturgeon, Carp, Buffalo, Elk, Rein-deer, Eagle, Hare, 
 Rabbit, and Snake ; also the Reedgrass, Sand, Water, Rock, and 
 Tobacco-plant. 
 
 " Among the Iroquois and the rule is the same to the present 
 day in most of the nations enumerated no man is allowed to marry 
 a woman of his own tribe, all the members of which are consanguinii. 
 This was unquestionably the ancient law. It follows that husband 
 and wife were always of different tribes. The children are of the 
 tribe of the mother, in a majority of the nations ; but the rule, if 
 anciently universal, is not so at the present day. Where descent 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 67 
 
 Indian nations, they say, were divided into tribes, just 
 lest any one might, through temptation or accident, 
 marry a near relation, which "at present is scarcely 
 possible, for whoever intends to marry must take a 
 person of a different tribe ; " l and the same feeling has 
 been remarked by Dobrizh offer in South America. 2 
 
 What we have said of the Australians may be 
 assumed to have been true, at one time at least, of the 
 New Zealanders. In " The Curse of Manaia " 3 and several 
 other of the New Zealand legends we have evidence 
 
 in the female line prevailed, it was followed by several important 
 results, of which the most remarkable was the perpetual disin- 
 heritance of the male line. Since all titles as well as property 
 descended in the female line, and were hereditary, in strictness, 
 in the tribe itself, a son could never succeed to his father's 
 title of Sachem, nor inherit even his medal or his tomahawk. If 
 the Sachem, for example, was of the Wolf tribe, the title must 
 remain in that tribe, and his son, who was necessarily of the tribe 
 of his mother, would be out of the line of succession ; but the 
 brothers of the deceased Sachem would be of the Wolf tribe, being 
 of the same mother, and so would the sons of his sisters : hence we 
 find that the succession fell either upon a brother of the deceased 
 ruler or upon a nephew. Between a brother of the deceased, and 
 the son of a sister there was no law establishing a preference : 
 neither as between several brothers on one side, or several sisters 
 on the other, was there any law of primogeniture. They were all 
 equally eligible, and the law of election came in to decide between 
 them." Cambrian Journal, vol. iii., second series, p. 149. 
 
 1 Tanner's Narrative, p. 313, quoted in Arch. Amer., and by 
 Grey, ut supra. 
 
 2 Account of the Abipones, vol. i. p. 69. 
 
 3 Polynesian Mythology, ut supra, p, 162. In "The Curse of 
 Manaia " the reader will find an instance of children fleeing from 
 the tribe of birth to that of the mother's kindred. 
 
 P 2 
 
68 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 that the wife never belonged to the tribe of her husband, 
 and that the children belonged to the family of their 
 mother. So among the Feejees, who appear to count 
 blood relationship through the mother only. In the 
 system of vasu-ing, which determines the claims of 
 children upon the tribe of their mother, we have evi- 
 dence that the mother always belongs to a different 
 tribe from the father, and that the children are held to 
 be of the family or tribe of their mother. 1 At any rate, 
 vasu-ing is a relic of a stage in the development of the 
 Feejees wherein that was the rule. 
 
 Curiously enough, there is reason for believing that 
 exogamy prevailed among the Picts ; in other words, 
 according to the most approved doctrine, among the 
 Gael or Highlanders ; which fact bears at once on the 
 rapes of the Cruithnians, the old Welsh and French 
 customs, and the plebeian marriage-ceremonies of Eome, 
 for the Celtic element was strong in Eome. That the 
 Celts were anciently lax in their morals, and recognised 
 relationship through mothers only, are facts well 
 vouched ; 2 and of such facts it is the usual concomi- 
 tant, that the children should be named after the 
 mother. The facts brought out by the distinguished 
 antiquary, Mr. Skene, from a study of the list of Pictish 
 kings down to 731, when Bede says that the law of 
 succession through females was still in force, may to 
 some extent be explained by the sons taking the names 
 
 1 Erskine's Pacific, ut supra, pp. 153 215. 
 
 2 Ctesar, De Bella Gallico, lib. v. sec. 14. Xiphiline, Monum. 
 Ilistor., Ixi. Solinus, idem. Irish Nennius, liv. 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 69 
 
 of their mothers ; but they point to something beyond 
 this. By favour of Mr. Skene, we are at liberty to give 
 here the results at which he has arrived, and which have 
 not hitherto been published. 
 
 1st, That brothers always succeeded each other. 
 
 2nd, That in no case does a son succeed a father ; 
 after the brothers have reigned a new family comes in. 
 
 3rd, That the names of the fathers and of the sons 
 are quite different. In no case does the name borne by 
 any of the sons appear among the names of the fathers, 
 nor conversely is there an instance of a father's name 
 appearing among the sons. 
 
 4:th, The names of the sons consist of a few Pictish 
 names borne by sons of different fathers. These are 
 6 Drusts, 5 Talorgs, 3 Nectans, 2 Galans, 6 Gartnaidhs, 
 4 Brudes. In no case does the name of a father occur 
 twice in the list of fathers. 
 
 5t h, In the list there are two cases of sons bearing 
 Pictish names, whose fathers are known to have been 
 strangers, and these are the only fathers of whom we 
 have any account. They are 1. Talorg Macainfrit. 
 His father was undoubtedly Ainfrit, son of Aethelfrith, 
 King of Northumbria, who took refuge among the Picts, 
 and afterwards became King of Northumbria ; 2. Brude 
 Mac Bile. His father was a Welshman, King of the 
 Strath-Clyde Britons. In an old poem Brude Mac Bile 
 is called son of the King of Ailcluaide, i.e. Dumbarton ; 
 and when, by the battle of Drunichen, he became King 
 of the Picts, another old poem says, " to-day Brude 
 fights a battle about the land of his grandfather." 
 
70 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 The fact that the only fathers of whom we have any 
 account are known to have been strangers especially 
 when taken along with the other facts which we possess 
 about the Picts raises a strong presumption that all 
 the fathers were men of other tribes. At any rate 
 there remains the fact, after every deduction has been 
 made, that the fathers and mothers were in no case of 
 the same family name. 
 
 We have now, by an irresistible array of instances, 
 established the fact of exogamy being a most widely 
 prevailing principle of marriage law among primitive 
 races. We have found the areas to be, for the chief 
 part, conterminous within which exogamy and the 
 practice of capturing wives de facto prevails. Farther, 
 in all the modern instances in which the symbol of 
 capture is most marked, we have found that marriage 
 within the tribe is prohibited as incest, as among the 
 Khonds, the Fuegeans, the Kalmucks, and Circassians ; 
 also that in several cases where traces of the symbol 
 appear, as among the Nogais and the Kirghiz, exogamy 
 is more or less perfectly observed. We have seen good 
 reason for thinking that exogamy and the practice of 
 capture de facto, co-existed among the old Celts ; and 
 that in that co-existence lies the explanation of the 
 symbol among the French, the Welsh, and the plebeians 
 of Eome. Of the jus connubii of the Muscovites and 
 Livonians in former times we have no direct information. 
 Magnus is silent on the subject. But it is implied in 
 his narrative that husband and wife invariably belonged 
 to different kinships and village communities. We 
 
EXOGAMY AND THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 71 
 
 have found exogamy and the symbol co- existing in 
 ancient India. Not to dwell on the slighter and more 
 doubtful instances, we think it must now be admitted 
 that we have sufficiently proved both the existence of 
 exogamous tribes, and that among such tribes there 
 prevails, or has prevailed, a system of capturing women 
 for wives. 
 
CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 
 
 THE state of hostility is a theme which requires no 
 research to illustrate it. It is a fact too familiar to re- 
 quire demonstration. If war is a lamentable feature of 
 human life, it is not quite so ugly among savages as 
 when waged by civilised men. In proportion to their 
 masses and the weight of the interests at stake, the 
 advanced nations are perhaps quite as frequently em- 
 broiled as the most barbarous ; also in their case the 
 natural beneficence if we may so call it of the impulse 
 to feud is not always apparent. In the lower stages of 
 society we recognise war as a condition of the rise of 
 governments, and of the subordination of classes its 
 agonies as the growing pains of civil society ; in the 
 higher it appears too often as a mere scourge of man- 
 kind, deforming and impairing, if not destroying, the 
 precious results and accumulations of long periods of 
 peace and industry. 
 
 If the wars of savages are petty, they are habitual. 
 While the domestic affections are little pronounced, the 
 social are confined to the smallest fraction of humanity. 
 
ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 73 
 
 Whoever is foreign to a group is hostile to it. Even in 
 comparatively advanced stages of savagery, groups rarely 
 combine for common purposes ; when they do the ob- 
 ject of the combination being accomplished they return 
 to their isolated independence. And when tribes have 
 combined in nations, and the nations have become polite, 
 it is yet some time before a distinction is drawn between 
 strangers and enemies. No wonder if the distinction be 
 not made by savages. Whoever is not with them is 
 against them a rival in the competition for food, a 
 possible plunderer of their camp and ravisher of their 
 women. Lay out the map of the world, and wherever 
 you find populations unrestrained by the strong hand 
 of government, there you will find perpetual feud, tribe 
 against tribe, and family against family. 
 
 It would be superfluous to select particular districts 
 from which to illustrate this truth, exemplifications of 
 which we have already, in so many instances, had occa- 
 sion to see. The state of hostility is the normal state 
 of the race in early times. It is incidental to the 
 separation and independence of men in small commu- 
 nities ; and, while the arts are as yet in their infancy, 
 small communities are a necessary result of the conditions 
 of subsistence. Thus Lot separates from Abraham. 
 Jacob goes one way and Esau another. And with 
 separation comes estrangement differences . of language 
 and habits hostility. Till in a short time blood rela- 
 tions are as much apart as foreign to one another as 
 people of different races and states. 
 
CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXOGAMY : ITS ORIGIN COMPARATIVE ARCHAISM OF 
 EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY. 
 
 AT the outset of our argument it was seen that if it 
 could be shown that exogamous tribes existed, and that 
 the usual relations of savage tribes to each other were 
 those of hostility, we should have found a social con- 
 dition in which it was inevitable that wives should 
 systematically be procured by capture. It also appeared 
 that if the existence of exogamous tribes either actually 
 capturing their wives, or observing the symbol of capture 
 in their marriage ceremonies, should be established in a 
 reasonable number of cases, it would be a legitimate in- 
 ference that exogamy has prevailed wherever we find a 
 system of capture, or the form of capture, existing. We 
 now confidently submit that the conditions requisite for 
 this inference have been amply established in the three 
 preceding chapters ; so that we may conclude that 
 wherever capture, or the form of capture, prevails, or 
 has prevailed, there prevails, or has prevailed, exogamy. 
 Conversely, we may say that, wherever exogamy can be 
 found, we may confidently expect to find, after due 
 
EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY. 75 
 
 investigation, at least traces of a system of capture. We 
 have traced the law and the corresponding practice 
 among tribes scattered over a large portion of the globe. 
 "What farther knowledge of rude tribes now existing 
 may show to us it would be idle to conjecture ; but it 
 might be plausibly maintained, upon the facts already 
 known to us, that the principle of exogamy has in fact 
 prevailed, and the system of capturing wives in fact 
 been practised at a certain stage among every race of 
 mankind. 
 
 Perhaps there is no question leading deeper into the 
 foundations of civil society than that which regards the 
 origin of exogamy, unless it be the cognate question of 
 the origin of caste, which admits, however, more readily 
 of ingenious surmises, and what mathematicians call 
 singular solutions. We believe this restriction on mar- 
 riage to be connected with the practice in early times of 
 female infanticide which, rendering women scarce, led at 
 once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of 
 women from without. Female infanticide common 
 among savages everywhere prevails as a system, and 
 has been customary from time immemorial amongst 
 many of the races that exhibit the symbol of capture. 1 
 With some of the exogamous races it appears to be the 
 
 1 The Circassians have not the practice. But there is reason 
 to believe that they only commenced sparing their daughters when 
 they found a profitable market for them. For an explanation of 
 the effect of the law of blood-feud on the practice of infanticide, see 
 the end of Chap. VIII. 
 
 [A short essay on the origin of exogamy will be included in a 
 second series of Studies in Ancient History.] 
 
76 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 rule to kill all female children, except the first-born 
 when a female. To tribes surrounded by enemies, and, 
 unaided by art, contending with the difficulties of sub- 
 sistence, sons were a source of strength, both for defence 
 and in the quest for food, daughters a source of weak- 
 ness. Hence the cruel custom which, leaving the 
 primitive human hordes with very few young women 
 of their own occasionally with none l and, in any 
 case, seriously disturbing the balance of the sexes 
 within the hordes, forced them to prey upon one 
 another for wives. Usage, induced by necessity, would 
 in time establish a prejudice among the tribes observing 
 it a prejudice strong as a principle of religion, as 
 every prejudice relating to marriage is apt to be- 
 against marrying women of their own stock. A survey 
 of the facts of primitive life, and the breakdown of 
 exogamy in advancing communities, exclude the notion 
 that the law originated in any innate or primary feeling 
 against marriage with kinsfolk. Indeed, we shall here- 
 after see that it is probable that necessity may have 
 established the prejudice against marrying women of 
 the group even before the facts of blood-relationship 
 had made any deep impression on the human mind. 
 At present it may be observed that the existence of 
 infanticide, so widespread, in itself indicates how slight 
 the strength of blood-ties was in primitive times. To 
 form an adequate notion, on the other hand, of the 
 
 1 In one village of the Phweelongmai, on the eastern frontier of 
 India, Colonel Macculloch found in 1849 that there was not a single 
 female child. 
 
EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY. 77 
 
 extent to which tribes might, by means of infanticide, 
 deprive themselves of their women, we have only to 
 bear in mind the multitude of facts which testify to the 
 thoughtlessness and improvidence of men during the 
 childish stage of the human mind. 
 
 To show that the analysis by which the true 
 solution of the questions respecting endogamy and 
 exogamy is to be obtained, is the analysis of a series of 
 phenomena which appears to form a progression, we 
 notice the following as the divisions into which the 
 less advanced portions of mankind fall when ranked 
 according to their rules as to connubium : 
 
 EXOGAMY PURE. 1. Tribal (or family) system. 
 Tribes separate. All the members of each tribe of the 
 same blood, or feigning themselves to be so. Marriage 
 prohibited between the members of the tribe. 
 
 2. Tribal system. Tribe a congeries of family 
 groups, falling into divisions, clans, thums, etc. No 
 connubium between members of same division : con- 
 nubium between all the divisions. 
 
 3. Tribal system. Tribe a congeries of family 
 groups embracing several village communities or 
 nomadic hordes : members of families (or primitive 
 stock groups) somewhat interfused. No connubium 
 between persons whose family name points them out as 
 being of the same stock. 
 
 4 Tribal system. Tribe in divisions. No connu- 
 bium between members of the same division : connu- 
 bium between some of the divisions ; only partial 
 connubium between others e.g., a man of one may 
 
78 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 marry a woman of another, but a woman of the former 
 may not marry a man of the latter. Approach to 
 caste. 
 
 5. Tribal system. Tribe in divisions. No connu- 
 bium between persons of the same stock : connubium 
 between each division and some other. No connubium 
 between some of the divisions. Caste. 
 
 ENDOGAMY PURE. 6. Tribal (or family) system. 
 Tribes separate. All the members of each tribe of the 
 same blood, or feigning themselves to be so. Connu- 
 bium between members of the tribe : marriage without 
 the tribe forbidden and punished. 
 
 7. Tribal system indistinct. Members of primitive 
 (stock) groups interfused. (1.) Marriage forbidden 
 except between persons whose family name points them 
 out as being of the same stock. (2.) Marriage forbidden 
 except between the members of particular families. 
 Persons having connubium marked as a caste, old tribal 
 divisions being lost sight of. 
 
 Although these tribal systems may be arranged as 
 above so as to seem to form a progression, of which the 
 extremes are pure exogamy on the one hand, and 
 endogamy transmuted into caste of the Mantchu and 
 Hindu types on the other, we have at present no right 
 to say that these systems were developed in anything 
 like this order in tribal history. They may represent a 
 progression from exogamy to endogamy, or from en- 
 dogamy to exogamy ; or the middle terms, so to speak, 
 may have been produced by the combination of groups 
 severally organized on the one and the other of these 
 
EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY. 79 
 
 principles. The two types of organization may be 
 equally archaic. Men must originally have been free 
 of any prejudice against marriage between relations 
 not necessarily endogamous, i.e. forbidding marriage 
 except between kindred, but still more given to such 
 unions than to unions with strangers. From this 
 primitive indifference they may have advanced, some 
 to endogamy, some to exogamy. 1 
 
 The separate endogamous tribes are nearly as nu- 
 merous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the 
 separate exogamous tribes. It may be noted, however, 
 that endogamy appears in populations formed by the 
 fusion of many tribes, as the almost uniform character- 
 istic of the dominant race. Hereafter we shall see how 
 a tribe organized on the principle of endogamy might 
 be developed from one organized on the principle of 
 exogamy, in perfect consistency with the law against 
 the intermarriage of relations. And while the existence 
 of tribes like those of the Mantchu Tartars, who pro- 
 hibit marriages between persons whose family names are 
 different, is of great weight in favour of endogamy as a 
 primitive type of organization ; on the other hand, 
 castes like those of India, embracing members of several 
 different families, and with a marriage law like that of 
 Menu, strongly suggest that many endogamous tribes 
 have been developed from tribes organized on the oppo- 
 
 1 [As this sentence has been misunderstood by a distinguished 
 author, it seems necessary to suggest that it be read in connection 
 with the first sentence of this paragraph and the concluding 
 paragraph of this Chapter.] 
 
80 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 site principle. Since, moreover, the reconversion of a 
 caste or of an endogamous tribe into an exogamous 
 tribe is inconceivable we have no experience of caste 
 disappearing except in advanced communities, and then 
 only on a revolution of sentiment being produced by 
 political influences the choice seems to be between re- 
 garding the two classes of tribes as organized ab initio 
 on distinct principles, or holding the exogamous to be 
 the more archaic. 
 
 We may notice as strange, that frequently tribes 
 thus oppositely organized are found inhabiting the same 
 area. On the sub-Himalayan ranges, for example, are 
 the Sodhas, who intermarry with the Eajputs, not with 
 each other ; the Magars, who prohibit marriages between 
 members of the same thum ; and, again, the Kocch, 
 Bodo, Ho, and Dhumal, who are forbidden to marry 
 except to members of their own tribes or kiels. And, 
 in some districts as in the hills on the north-eastern 
 frontier of India, in the Caucasus, and the hill-ranges of 
 Syria we find a variety of tribes, proved, by physical 
 characteristics and the affinities of language, of one and 
 the same original stock, yet in this particular differing 
 toto coelo from one another some forbidding marriage 
 within the tribe, and some prescribing marriage with- 
 out it. 
 
 What has been said is enough to show that the 
 question of the comparative archaism of exogamy and 
 endogamy is as difficult as it is interesting. We shall 
 in the next chapter lead up to a fuller discussion of that 
 question, while investigating more minutely than we 
 
EXOGAMY AND "ENDOGA MY. 81 
 
 have hitherto done the conditions of the form of capture 
 being evolved. We shall there endeavour to establish 
 the following propositions : 1. That the most ancient 
 system in which the idea of blood-relationship was em- 
 bodied was the system of kinship through females only. 
 2. That the primitive groups were, or were assumed to 
 be, homogeneous. 3. That the system of kinship through 
 females only tended to render the exogamous groups 
 heterogeneous, and thus to supersede the system of 
 capturing wives. 4. That in the advance from savagery 
 the system of kinship through females only was suc- 
 ceeded by a system which acknowledged kinship 
 through males also ; and which, in most cases, passed 
 into a system which acknowledged kinship through 
 males only. 5. That the system of kinship through 
 males tended to rear up homogeneous groups, and thus 
 to restore the original condition of affairs where the 
 exogamous prejudice survived as regards both the 
 practice of capturing wives and the evolution of the 
 form of capture. 6. That a local tribe, under the com- 
 bined influence of exogamy and the system of female 
 kinship, might attain a balance of persons of different 
 sexes regarded as being of different descent, and that 
 thus its members might be able to intermarry with one 
 another, and wholly within the tribe, consistently with 
 the principle of exogamy. 7. That a local tribe, having 
 reached this stage and grown proud through success in 
 war, might decline intermarriage with other local tribes 
 and become a caste. 8, That on kinship becoming 
 
 G 
 
82 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 agnatic, the members of such a tribe might yield to the 
 universal tendency of rude races to eponomy, and feign 
 themselves to be all derived from a common ancestor, 
 and so become endogamous. And 9. That there is 
 reason to think that some endogamous tribes became 
 endogamous in this manner. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP AND THEIR INFLUENCE 
 ON THE STRUCTURE OF PRIMITIVE GROUPS. 
 
 THE earliest human groups can have had no idea of 
 kinship. We do not mean to say that there ever was a 
 time when men were not bound together by a feeling 
 of kindred. The filial and fraternal affections may be 
 instinctive.'" They are obviously independent of any 
 theory of kinship, its origin or consequences ; they are 
 distinct from the perception of the unity of blood upon 
 which kinship depends ; and they may have existed 
 long before kinship became an object of thought. What 
 we would say is, that ideas of kinship must be regarded 
 as growths must have grown like all other ideas related 
 to matters primarily cognisable only by the senses ; and 
 that the fact of consanguinity must have long remained 
 unperceived as other facts, quite as obvious, have done. 
 In other words, at the root of kinship is a physical fact, 
 which could be discerned only through observation and 
 reflection, a fact, therefore, which must for a time 
 have been overlooked. No advocate of innate ideas, we 
 should imagine, will maintain their existence on a 
 subject so concrete as relationship by blood. 
 
 G 2 
 
84 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 A group of kindred in that stage of ignorance is the 
 rudest that can be imagined. Though they were chiefly 
 held together by the feeling of kindred, the apparent 
 bond of fellowship between the members of such a 
 group would be that they and theirs had always been 
 companions in war or the chase joint- tenants of the 
 same cave or grove. To one another they would simply 
 be as comrades. As distinguished from men of other 
 groups, they would be of the group, and named 
 after it. 
 
 Hence, most naturally, on the idea of blood-relation- 
 ship arising, would be formed the conception of Stocks. 
 Previously individuals had been affiliated not to persons, 
 but to some group. The new idea of blood-relationship 
 would more readily demonstrate the group to be com- 
 posed of kindred than it would evolve a special system 
 of blood-ties between certain of the individuals in the 
 group. The members of a group would now have be- 
 come brethren. As distinguished from men of other 
 groups, they would be of the group-stock, and named 
 after the group. 1 
 
 The development of the idea of blood-relationship 
 into a system of kinship must have been a work of 
 
 1 It is a question for philologists how far the earliest words 
 which denote a human group involve the idea of blood. In one 
 case they seem not to have done so. Grant, in his Origin and 
 Descent of the Gael, says that teadhloch and cuedichc or coedichc, 
 Gaelic names for family, mean, the first, having a common residence ; 
 the second, those who eat together. The Gael had, however, the 
 more general terms finne and cinne the former meaning born of 
 the same stock, and the latter denoting the tribe. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 85 
 
 time at least the establishment over any great area of 
 any such system as an institution of customary law 
 must have been slowly effected. It is most improbable 
 that that idea, when first formed, was anywhere at once 
 embodied in a well-defined system of kinship. 
 
 We shall endeavour to show 
 
 I. That the most ancient system in which the idea of 
 blood-relationship was embodied, was a system of kin- 
 ship through females only./ 
 
 Once a man has perceived the fact of consanguinity 
 in the simplest case namely, that he has his mother's 
 blood in his veins, he may quickly see that he is of the 
 same blood with her other children,/ A little more reflec- 
 tion will enable him to see that he is of one blood with 
 the brothers and sisters of his mother. On further 
 thought he will perceive that he is of the same blood 
 with the children of his mother's sister. And, in process 
 of time, following the ties of blood through his mother, 
 and females of the same blood, he must arrive at a system 
 of kinship through females. The blood -ties through 
 females being obvious and indisputable, the idea of 
 blood-relationship, as soon as it was formed, must have 
 begun to develop, however slowly, into a system em- 
 bracing them. What further development this idea 
 might have whether it would simultaneously have a 
 development in the direction of kinship through males 
 must have depended on the circumstances connected 
 with paternity. If the paternity of a child were usually 
 as indisputable as the maternity, we might expect to find 
 kinship through males acknowledged soon after kinship 
 
86 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 through females. 1 But however natural it might be that 
 men should think of blood-ties as possible to be propa- 
 gated through fathers, blood-ties through fathers could 
 not find a place in a system of kinship, unless circum- 
 stances usually allowed of some degree of certainty as 
 to who the father of a child was, or of certainty as to 
 the father's blood. 2 A system of relationship through 
 fathers could only be formed as we have seen that a 
 system of relationship through mothers would be formed 
 after a good deal of reflection upon the fact of pater- 
 nity. And fathers must usually be known before men will 
 think of relationship through fathers indeed, before 
 the idea of a father can be formed. There could be no 
 system of kinship through males if paternity was usually, 
 or in a great proportion of cases, uncertain. The requisite 
 degree of certainty can be had only when the mother is 
 appropriated to a particular .man as his wife, or to men 
 of one blood as wife, and when women thus appropriated 
 are usually found faithful to their lords. 
 
 1 It has been doubted whether the blood-tie through the father 
 is entitled to rank with that through the mother. It may be that 
 the connection between father and child is less intimate than that 
 between mother and child as regards the transmission of character- 
 istics, mental or physical. And the former tie is unquestionably 
 less obvious than the latter. It is, however, an undoubted blood- 
 tie, and must have been thought of soon after that through mothers. 
 All that it concerns us to show in the text is, that when the idea 
 of it was formed it could only receive development into a system of 
 kinship on certain conditions, which were not easily satisfied. 
 7^* It will be seen that there may be certainty as to the father's 
 blood (as where all the possible fathers are brothers) without there 
 being certainty as to the father. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 87 
 
 Considering that -the history of all the races of men, 
 so far as we know it, is the history of a progress from 
 the savage state ; considering the social condition of 
 rude tribes still upon the earth, remembering that the 
 races which can be traced in history had all a previous 
 history, which remains unwritten, it cannot seem a 
 very strange proposition that there has been a stage in 
 the development of human races when there was no 
 such appropriation of women to particular men when, 
 in short, marriage, as it exists among civilised nations, 
 was not practised. "We believe we shall show, to a suffi- 
 cient degree of probability, that there have been times 
 when marriage, in this sense, was yet undreamt of. 
 Wherever this has been the case, the paternity of 
 children must have been uncertain ; the conditions 
 essential to a system of kinship through males being 
 formed would therefore be wanting ; no such system 
 would be formed; there would be there could be 
 kinship through females only. 
 
 Not to assume that the progress of the various races 
 of men from savagery has been a uniform process, that 
 all the stages which any of them has gone through have 
 been passed in their order by all, we shall be justified in 
 believing that more or less of promiscuity in the con- 
 nection of the sexes, and a system of kinship through 
 females only, have subsisted among races of men among 
 whom no traces of them remain, when we have shown 
 their existence in a considerable number of cases if in 
 these there appear nothing exceptional. After what has 
 been said above, it must be plain that kinship through 
 
88 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 females only, if it exist at all, must be a more archaic 
 system of relationship than kinship through males the 
 product of an earlier and ruder stage in human develop- 
 ment than the latter somewhat more than a step farther 
 back in the direction of savagery. To prove its existence 
 on such a scale as to entitle it to rank among the normal 
 phenomena of human development, is, we may now say, 
 to prove it the most ancient system of kinship. As 
 customs tend to perpetuate themselves and die hard, it 
 will not in any degree make against our explanation of 
 the origin of kinship through females only, that it 
 should be found in some cases along with marriage 
 relations which allow of certainty as to fathers. It is 
 inconceivable that anything but the want of certainty 
 on that point could have long prevented the acknowledg- 
 ment of kinship through males ; and in such cases we 
 shall be able to conclude that such certainty has formerly 
 been wanting that more or less promiscuous intercourse 
 between the sexes has formerly prevailed. The connec- 
 tion between these two things uncertain paternity and 
 kinship through females only, seems so necessary that 
 of cause and effect that we may confidently infer the 
 one where we find the other. 
 
 Let us see, then, what can be said for the proposition 
 that there has been a stage in the progress of men in 
 which a woman was not usually appropriated to a 
 particular man as his wife. 
 
 All the evidence we have goes to show that men 
 
 . were from the beginning gregarious. The geological 
 
 record distinctly exhibits them in groups naked hun- 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 89 
 
 tcrs or feeders upon shell-fish, leading a precarious life of 
 squalid misery. This testimony is confirmed by all 
 history. We hear nothing in the most ancient times 
 of individuals except as being members of groups. The 
 history of property is the history of the development of 
 proprietary rights inside groups, which were at first the 
 only owners ; l and of all other personal rights even 
 including the right in offspring it may be said that 
 their history is that of the gradual assertion of the 
 claims of individuals against the traditional rights of 
 groups. 
 
 We, of course, know nothing about the co-ordination 
 of the sexes in the earliest groups. The reader knows 
 already what must be our conjecture as to what it was. 
 We can trace the line of human progress far back to- 
 wards brutishness ; finding as we go back the noble 
 faculties peculiar to man weaker and weaker in their 
 manifestations, producing less and less effect, at 
 last scarcely any effect at all upon his position and 
 habits. As we go back, we find more and more in men 
 the traits of gregarious animals, slighter and slighter 
 indications of operative intellect. As among other 
 gregarious animals, the unions of the sexes were pro- 
 bably, in the earliest times, loose, transitory, and in some 
 degree promiscuous. 
 
 Before the invention of the arts, and the formation of 
 provident habits, the struggle for existence must often have 
 become very serious. The instincts of self-preservation, 
 therefore, must have frequently predominated and shaped 
 
 1 Ancient Law, ut supra, p. 268. 
 
90 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 the features of society freely, as if the unselfish affections 
 had no place in human nature. None of the races of 
 mankind can have been spared the cruel experience of 
 this initiatory stage ; or can have escaped the effects of 
 that experience on its character and customs. Even 
 those most favourably situated must have had long 
 periods of trial, and have suffered from the incessant 
 hostility of neighbours. So, without supposing the 
 course of human events to have been uniform, we must 
 conceive of early human society as having been through- 
 out affected by influences of the same general, unfriendly 
 character, and as having been determined, though per- 
 haps by unequal pressure, towards one uniform type in 
 all its parts. 
 
 Foremost among the results of this early struggle for 
 food and security, must have been an effect upon the 
 balance of the sexes. As braves and hunters were 
 required and valued, it would be the interest of every 
 horde to rear, when possible, its healthy male children. 
 It would be less its interest to rear females, as they 
 would be less capable of self-support, and^of contributing, 
 by their exertions, to the common good. In this lies 
 the only explanation which can be accepted of the origin 
 of those systems of female infanticide still existing, the 
 discovery of which from time to time, in out-of-the-way 
 places, so shocks our humanity. It is of no consequence 
 by what theories the races who practise infanticide now 
 defend the practice. 1 There can be no doubt that its 
 
 1 Often, as among the Khonds, it is found to be an institution 
 of religion. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 91 
 
 origin is everywhere referable to that early time of 
 struggle and necessity which we have been con- 
 templating. 
 
 What is now true in varying degrees of all the rudest 
 races may be assumed to have been true of all the 
 earliest groups. We may predicate of the primitive 
 groups that they were all or nearly all marked by a 
 want of balance between the sexes the males being in 
 the majority. The reader will have little difficulty in 
 granting that we may do so when he reflects on the 
 prevalence of exogamy, the origin of which must be 
 referred to that want of balance. And we think he will 
 be still more ready to make the concession when we 
 shall have surveyed the facts connected with polyandry 
 the origin of which must be referred to the same 
 cause. 
 
 What diminished the number of the female sex 
 would increase the importance of women. The first 
 result of the balance of the sexes being against the 
 females, must have been to give every woman more 
 than one, it might be several wooers. Apart from any dis- 
 proportion of the sexes, we might expect the more engaging 
 females of a horde to be surrounded by suitors. Savages 
 are unrestrained by any sense of delicacy from a co- 
 partnery in sexual enjoyments ; and, indeed, in the 
 civilised state, the sin of great cities shows that there 
 are no natural restraints sufficient to hold men back 
 from grosser copartneries. But within a horde possess- 
 ing few women, such copartneries would be a necessity. 
 And as savages assert for themselves a high degree of 
 
92 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 independence, it is obvious that grave difficulties must 
 have surrounded the constitution and regulation of such 
 copartneries. And to the consideration, of these diffi- 
 culties we are led the instant we conceive of the 
 primitive groups as containing fewer women than men. 
 
 The men of a group must either have quarrelled 
 about their women and separated, splitting the horde 
 into hostile sections ; or, in the spirit of indifference, 
 indulged in savage promiscuity. That quarrels and 
 divisions were of frequent occurrence cannot be 
 doubted. These were the first wars for women, and 
 they went to form the habits which established exogamy. 
 And whether quarrels arose or not, we are led to con- 
 template groups the horde or its sections indulging 
 in a promiscuity more or less general. The quarrels 
 must have been between sections of the hordes rather 
 than between individuals. No individual at that stage 
 could well carry off a woman, isolate himself, and found 
 a family. However brave and strong, he could scarcely 
 maintain his independence for any time against nume- 
 rous assailants. Unless these quarrels went the length 
 of completely disintegrating the groups a result which 
 the gregarious nature of men tended to prevent we 
 must arrive at last at groups within which harmony was 
 maintained through indifference and promiscuity. 
 
 These groups would hold their women, like their 
 other goods, in common. And the children, while 
 attached to mothers, would belong to the horde. 1 We 
 
 1 The tie between mother and child, which exists as a matter of 
 necessity during infancy, is not unfrequently found to be lost sight 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 93 
 
 find traces of the former existence of groups of this 
 description ; and it is probable that before the rise of 
 kinship, all the human groups were of that model. 
 
 On the rise of kinship, the difficulty due to the 
 scarcity of women would more easily be overcome. 
 The first advance from a general promiscuity assuming 
 its existence would naturally be to a promiscuity less 
 general to arrangements between small sets of men to 
 attach themselves to a particular woman. Previous to 
 the establishment of a system of kinship when men 
 were bound to each other only by the tribal tie it is 
 obvious that there would constantly be difficulties in 
 the way of their forming such combinations. When, 
 however, the system of kinship through females only 
 had been firmly established, every group stood resolved 
 into a number of small brotherhoods, each composed of 
 sons of the same mother. And within these, the feeling 
 of close kinship would simplify the constitution of the 
 polyandrous arrangement. 
 
 Now, here, at length, we are upon the firm ground 
 of fact. We have examples of general promiscuity ; 
 and examples of modified promiscuity, in which, with 
 a pretence of marriage, the woman may bestow her 
 favours upon any one, under certain restrictions as to 
 rank and family. We have numerous examples of 
 polyandry, and they are such as to show that polyandry 
 
 of among savages on the age of independence being reached. The 
 liability of mothers to be carried off would, among exogamous races, 
 simplify the general filiation of children to the group, rather than 
 to mothers. 
 
94 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 must be regarded as a modification of and advance from 
 promiscuity. We have examples of polyandry in which 
 the wife has several husbands, who are not necessarily 
 relatives ; and very many examples of polyandry in 
 which the husbands are all brothers. We often find 
 these two forms of polyandry in the same district, in 
 different sections of the population : here, the husbands 
 as a rule, are no relations ; there, the husbands as a rule, 
 are brothers. Further, where the husbands are not 
 brothers, we find the system of relationship through 
 females only ; and, so enduring is custom, we very often 
 find that system where marriage has long been so regu- 
 lated as to permit of kinship through males. In many 
 cases we find traces of the system of kinship through 
 females only lingering about the laws of marriage and 
 succession to estates and titles, even where male kinship 
 has been long established. Moreover, in nearly all the 
 cases in which traces are to be found of kinship through 
 females only, traces of polyandry also remain. Thus, 
 what we find is just what was to be expected, if the 
 account we have offered of the origin of polyandry were 
 correct. 
 
 We repeat, that in showing the prevalence of poly- 
 andry, we shall be showing the prevalence of a modifi- 
 cation of promiscuity. This is manifest as regards the 
 ruder species of polyandry, in which the husbands are 
 not relations. It is equally, though less obviously, true 
 of the less rude polyandry in which the husbands are 
 brothers. From the way in which polyandry is pre- 
 sented to us, we shall have a proof that the less rude 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 95 
 
 polyandry was developed from the ruder by the help of 
 the system of kinship through females only was super- 
 induced, that is, upon a promiscuity less qualified than 
 itself. Promiscuity, producing uncertainty of fatherhood, 
 led to the system of kinship through mothers only. This 
 kinship paved the way for polyandry such as we commonly 
 find it ; and this form of polyandry introduced male 
 kinship. 1 That, along with the ruder polyandry, we 
 always find the system of kinship through females only, 
 and that where the less rude form prevails we can gener- 
 ally trace that system, is moreover a proof a posteriori 
 of what we have shown must be the case, that the 
 origin of kinship through females only is referable to 
 uncertainty of male parentage, y/ 
 
 We shall not concern ourselves with the direct 
 evidence which might be adduced to show that there 
 once prevailed among men a promiscuity less qualified 
 than polyandry. We may however recall the fact, that 
 tradition is found everywhere pointing to a time when 
 marriage was unknown, and to some legislator to whom 
 it owed its institution : among the Egyptians to Menes ; 
 the Chinese to Fohi ; the Greeks to Cecrops ; the Hindus 
 to Svetaketu. 2 And we shall proceed to show how much 
 evidence remains to give verisimilitude to these tradi- 
 
 1 We shall see farther on how numerous the known cases are in 
 which the progress to male kinship and the patriarchal system was 
 a progress having this kind of polyandry for one of its stages. The 
 other main highway of progress must have lain through the system 
 
 - of confining women a system probably established by exogamy and 
 the practice of capturing wives. 
 
 2 See Muir's Sanskrit Texts, 1860. Part ii. p. 336. 
 
96 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 tions. Passing over communities in which, according 
 to ancient historians, something like a general promis- 
 cuity prevailed such as the Massagetse, Agathyrsi, and 
 the ancient Spartans ; passing over also the numerous 
 races now existing, which, according to modern travellers, 
 have no conception of conj ugal fidelity l we shall now 
 
 1 It may be as well to append some modern examples of pro- 
 miscuity, and of practices which have the same effect in rendering 
 uncertain male parentage. The Ansarians have their wives in 
 common ; the people of Martawan, of the tribe of Ansarians, let 
 out their wives and daughters (Yolney, Travels, chap, xxvii.). The 
 Keiaz (Paropamisans) lend their wives to their guests (Latham, 
 Des. Ethn., vol. ii. p. 246) ; so do the Eimauk (Caubul), Elphin- 
 stone, 1815, p. 483 ; so, we are informed, do the Kandyans. The 
 Mpongme (Africa) lend wives (Reade, Sav. Afr., p. 259); so do the 
 Koryaks and Chukchi, who lend out daughters as well (N.E. Siberia), 
 Erkman, vol. ii. p. 531, and see Cochrane's Journey, 1825, vol. i- 
 p. 336. The Koryaks are also polyandrous. The same disregard 
 of conjugal fidelity appeared in Caindu, Casca (Turkistan Tartary), 
 and in Cumana (Gaya, p. 104 ; Marco Polo, ut infra, p. 258). We 
 find it now among the Aimaks (Des. Ethno., vol. i. p. 333. It was 
 customary in Kamul (Marco Polo, Bohn's edition, p. 110). Mon- 
 tesquieu, b. 16, c. viii., remarks on the licentious wantonness of the 
 women of Patan, against which the men had to adopt measures of 
 self-protection. Mr. Wilson of Mussoorie, in an admirable report 
 on the Puharies of Gurwahl (A Summer Ramble in tlie Himalayas, 
 q. v. p. 182, says of the Gungarees and Perbuttees : "Their im- 
 morality is something incredible chastity being little appreciated 
 even where it does exist." In various other quarters we find prac- 
 tices fatal to certainty of male parentage ; such as frequent divorces, 
 e.g. among the Bedouins (Burckhardt, Notes, i. Ill); and marriages 
 for an agreed-upon term of endurance, usually short. Such mar- 
 riages were usual in Sounan, Arabia Felix (Hamilton's J\ T ew Account 
 of the East Indies, vol. i. p. 51) ; in Siam (Ibid., vol. ii. p. 279). In 
 China such marriages are said to be still customary. In a recent 
 report of the proceedings of the Society of Sainte-Enfance in China, 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 97 
 
 go on to consider the regulated promiscuity known as 
 polyandry, and see to what extent it exists, and what 
 traces of its former existence still remain. 
 
 Let us first see what is the area over which poly- 
 andry now prevails. It prevails universally in Tibet, 
 and is common in the Himalayan and sub-Himalayan 
 regions adjoining Tibet ; in the valley of Kashmir ; 
 among the Spiti, in Ladak ; in Kistewar and Sirmor. 
 It occurs among the Telingese ; in the Sivalik moun- 
 tains, and in Kasia. There are unmistakable traces 
 of its existence till recently in Gurwhal, Sylhet, and 
 Cachar. Farther south in India we find polyandry 
 among the Tudas of the Nilgherry Hills, the Coorgs 
 of Mysore, and the Nairs, the Maleres, and Poleres 
 
 in the Esperance of Nancy, it is said that, in many parts, Chinamen 
 may repudiate their wives, and marry again, every year. As a 
 result, the children belong to the mother, who has over them the 
 power of life or death. The same must have been the case in 
 Turkistan (Marco Polo, ut supra, p. 99). According to Livingstone 
 (^Travels, p. 394), marriage in Loando is almost unknown an un- 
 settled concubinage. And see Ibid, p. 496, for an example of 
 savage indifference as to marital purity. In the Polynesian 
 Mythology, we have an excellent casual proof of the uncertainty of 
 male parentage, even where there is marriage (polygamous). A 
 young man distinguishes himself, and turns out to be the chief's 
 son. He was " a young man, the name of whose father had never 
 been told by his mother." The lady was one of the chief's wives ! 
 And see Turner's Tibet, p. 10, and M'Culloch's Munniepore, for 
 examples of a system of pawning wives. See also, for similar or 
 worse customs, Buchanan's Journey from Madras, 1807, vol. ii. 
 pp. 129, 492, and vol. iii. p. 66; Krusenstern's Voyage, 1813, vol. ii. 
 p. 245 (Kamschatka) ; La Perouse's Voyage, 1798, vol. ii. p. 195 
 (Island of Maouna) ; Maundeville, chap, xxiii. (Chatay) ; and Hue's 
 Travels, vol. ii. p. 142, Nat. Illus. Lib. 
 
 H 
 
98 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of Malabar. We find it off the Indian coast in Ceylon ; 
 and going eastward strike on it as an ancient though 
 now almost superseded custom in New Zealand, and in 
 one or two of the Pacific islands. Going northward we 
 meet it again in the Aleutian islands ; and taking the 
 continent to the west and north of the Aleutians, we 
 find it among the Koryaks to the north of the Okhotsk 
 Sea. Crossing the Russian Empire to the west side, we 
 find polyandry among the Saporogian Cossacks : we thus 
 have traced it at points half round the globe. This is 
 not all, however. Polyandry is found in several parts 
 of Africa and of America. We have the authority of 
 Humboldt for its prevalence among the tribes on the 
 Orinoco, and he also vouches for its former prevalence 
 in Lanzerota, one of the Canary Islands. 1 
 
 From ancient history we learn that polyandry at one 
 time existed over even a greater area. Traces of it 
 
 1 Turner's Tibet, 1800, p. 348. Vigne's Kashmir, 1842, vol. i. 
 p. 37. Cunningham's Ladak, 1854, p. 306. Buchanan's Journey, 
 &c., 1807, vol. ii. pp. 408412. Archer's L r pper India, 1833, vol. i. 
 p. 185. Latham's Descriptive Ethnology, 1859, vol. i. pp. 24 28 ; 
 vol. ii. pp. 398, 496, and 462. Humboldt's Personal Narrative 
 (Williams's Translation), 1819, vol. i. chap. i. p. 84; and vol. v. 
 part ii. p. 549. Hamilton's New Account of the East Indies, 1727, 
 vol. i. pp. 274 and 308. Eeade's Savage Africa, p. 43. Erkman's 
 Travels in Siberia, vol. ii. p. 531. Marriage Ceremonies, by Seignior 
 Gaya, 1698, pp. 70 and 96. Tennent's Ceylon, 1859, vol. ii. p. 429. 
 "Legend of Rupe," Grey's Polynesian Mythology, 1854, p. 81. A Sum- 
 mer Ramble in the Himalayas, 1860, p. 202. Fisher's Memoir of 
 Sylhet, &c., in Journal of Asiatic Soc. Bengal, vol. ix. p. 834. 
 Asiat. Res., vol. v. p. 13. Our information regarding the Saporogian 
 Cossacks has been obtained from Sir John M'Neil. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 
 
 remained in the time of Tacitus among the Germans. 1 
 And while in certain cantons of Media, according to 
 Strabo, 2 polygyny was authorised by express law, which 
 ordained every inhabitant to maintain at least seven 
 wives ; in other cantons the opposite rule was in force : 
 a woman was allowed to have many husbands, and they 
 looked with contempt on those who had less than five. 
 Caesar informs us that in his time polyandry prevailed 
 among 'the Britons. 3 We find direct evidence of its 
 existence among the Picts in the Irish Nennius, 4 not to 
 mention traces of it in the Pictish Laws of Succession. 
 Further we find traditions of it among the Hindus 5 
 especially among the Eajputs. And we find it among 
 the Getes of Transoxiana (the Yuti or Yuechi of the 
 Chinese historians). 6 To see where else it prevailed we 
 must go back upon our authorities and examine the 
 various phases of polyandry which they present, and ob- 
 tain a test for detecting its presence where historical 
 evidence of its existence is wanting. 
 
 The ruder form of polyandry, as we have said, is that 
 in which the husbands are not brothers ; the less rude 
 is that in which they are brothers. The polyandry of 
 the Kasias, the Nairs, and the Saporogian Cossacks, 
 
 1 German, xx., Latham's edn., p. 67, et seq. 
 
 2 Lib. xi. Casaub, 526 ; and see Goguet, vol. iii. book vi. c. i. 
 
 3 De Bello Gallico, lib. v. c. xiv. 
 
 4 Appendix LI. 
 
 5 Tod's Annals, &c. of Rajasthan, 1829, vol. i. p. 48 ; and see 
 Max Miiller's Hist, of Sans. Anc. Lit., pp. 45, et seq. ; Tod's Travels, 
 1839, p. 464. 
 
 6 Tod's Travels, ut supra. 
 
 H 2 
 
100 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 appears to be purely of the ruder sort, and is attended 
 by the system of kinship through females only. It is 
 left doubtful what is the form of the institution in some 
 instances, as in the Aleutian Islands, and among the 
 Koryaks. But in all the other cases in which poly- 
 andry occurs, the authorities show that the ruder form 
 occurs among the lower classes wherever the less rude 
 occurs, except in Tibet, where polyandry is universal 
 and the husbands are always brothers ; except in Ma- 
 labar, where polyandry is universally practised by all 
 classes, saving the Brahmans only, but is of the ruder 
 species among the high caste Nairs, and of the less 
 rude among the lower castes, the Teers, Maleres, and 
 Poleres. It is in the nature of the case that all the 
 possible forms of polyandry must lie in between, or be 
 embraced in, the Nair and the Tibetan forms. 
 
 Let us attend then to the accounts we have of 
 these two forms. Of the Nair polyandry we have three 
 accounts. The account in the Asiatic Researches, 1 is 
 that among the Nairs it is the custom for one woman 
 " to have attached to her two males, or four, or perhaps 
 more, and they cohabit according to rules." With 
 this account that of Hamilton agrees, 2 excepting 
 that he states that a Nair woman could have no 
 more than twelve husbands, and had to select these 
 under , certain restrictions as to rank and caste. On 
 the other hand, Buchanan states 3 that the women after 
 
 1 Vol. v. p. 13. 
 
 2 Account of the East Indies, ut supra, vol. i. p. 308. 
 
 3 Buchanan's Journey, vol. ii. p. 411. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 101 
 
 marriage l are free to cohabit with any number of men, 
 under certain restrictions as to tribe and caste. It is 
 consistent with the three accounts, and is directly stated 
 by Hamilton, that a Nair may be one in several combi- 
 nations of husbands ; that is, he may have any number 
 of wives. The accounts, however, differ in regard to one 
 important particular. Buchanan represents the wife as 
 living in family with her mother or brother, while 
 Hamilton represents her as having "an house built for 
 her own conveniency " on being married to the first of 
 her husbands. In the Asiatic Researches the wife is 
 represented as living with her mother or brother. The 
 probability is that both arrangements are occasionally 
 adopted, the more usual course being for the wife to 
 remain in the family of her mother and brothers. In 
 Ceylon, where the higher and lower polyandry co-exist, 
 marriage is of two sorts Deega or Beena according 
 as the wife goes to live in the house and village of her 
 husbands, or as the husband or husbands come to live 
 with her in or near the house of her birth. 2 And 
 among the Kandyans the rights of inheritance of a 
 
 1 In the Asiatic Researches, it is said, " The Nairs practise not 
 marriage, except so far as may be implied from their tying a thread 
 round the neck of the woman on the first occasion." 
 
 2 See Forbes's Ceylon, 1840, vol. i. p. 333. Mr. Starke, late 
 Chief- Justice of Ceylon, says that " sometimes a deega married girl 
 returned to her parents' house and was there provided with a beena 
 husband who lived with her in family " (private letter). The beena 
 husband's tenure of office seems to have been very insecure. See 
 Forbes, ut supra. The Kandyans are now under British rule, and 
 their marriages regulated by a special ordinance. 
 
102 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 woman and her children are found to depend on whether 
 the woman is a beena or a deega wife. 
 
 The three accounts which we have of the Nair poly- 
 andry are agreed that the Nair husbands are usually 
 not brothers usually not relatives and that the in- 
 stitution leaves male parentage and the father's blood 
 quite uncertain. " In consequence of this strange 
 manner of propagating the species," says Buchanan, 1 
 " no Nair knows his father, and every man looks upon 
 his sister's children as his heirs. He indeed looks upon 
 them with the same fondness that fathers in other 
 parts of the world have for their own children, and he 
 would be considered as an unnatural monster were he 
 to show such signs of grief at the death of a child, 
 which, from long cohabitation with and love for its. 
 mother, he might suppose to be his own, as he did at 
 the death of a child of his sister. A man's mother 
 manages his family ; and after her death his eldest sister 
 assumes the direction. Brothers almost always live 
 under the same roof; but if one of the family separates 
 from the rest, he is always accompanied by his favourite 
 sister. A man's movable property, after his death, is 
 divided among the sons and daughters of all his sisters ; 
 and if there are lands, their management falls to the 
 eldest male of the family.' 12 
 
 Now here, derived from the ruder polyandry, is an 
 exceedingly rude, the rudest, form of family system 
 with which we are acquainted. And it is a sort of 
 
 1 Ut supra, vol. ii. p. 412. 2 See Buchanan, vol. ii. p. 594. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 103 
 
 family system which is found, more or less modified in 
 some of its features, in several cases, where marriage is 
 now either monogamous or polygamous. Its chief 
 features are the absence of a paternal head, and the 
 system of female succession. Among the Kocch, with 
 whom marriage is now monogamous, we find the same 
 system, excepting that the family circle includes the 
 daughter's husband, as a subordinate member of the 
 family. A Kocch man goes, on his marriage, like the 
 beena husband of Ceylon, to live in family with his wife 
 and her mother; on his marriage all his property is 
 made over to his wife ; and on her death her heirs are 
 her daughters. 1 Here we conclude that the advance 
 from the ruder polyandry to monogamy took place in 
 some way consistent with the preservation of the main 
 features of the family system peculiar to the ruder 
 polyandry consistent with the mother's maintaining 
 her position as the head of the family, and with an in- 
 crease of the influence of women as connecting links in 
 the social and proprietary systems. We shall pre- 
 sently see that the advance in this direction must 
 be counted exceptional ; at the same time it cannot 
 well be doubted that such a family system as we find 
 among the Kocch had its origin in the ruder species 
 of polyandr}^ 
 
 What, then, was the normal line of progress ? We 
 think that we shall be able to show what it was that 
 it lay between the lower and higher polyandry. In the 
 accounts we have, we can detect stages of preparation 
 
 1 Des. Ethn., vol. i. p. 96. 
 
 y 
 
104 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 for the change from the former species of poly- 
 andry to the latter. We must regard as the rudest 
 cases those in which the wife lives not with her hus- 
 bands, but with her mother or brothers. In these cases 
 a woman's children are born in and belong to her 
 mother's house. In the cases next in order of rudeness, 
 the wife passes into cohabitation, according to fixed 
 rules, with the husbands, in a house of her own be- 
 coming thus detached from her family, though still 
 connected with it through the right of her children to 
 become heirs to the family estate. Her children would 
 still belong to her mother's family the want of a com- 
 munity of blood and interests among the husbands pre- 
 venting the appropriation of the children to them. 
 Such cases, however detaching the woman from her 
 family would prepare the way for a species of mar- 
 riage still less rude, in which the woman passed from 
 her family, not into a house of her own, but into the 
 family of her husbands, in which her children would be 
 born, and to which they would belong. This could 
 only happen when the husbands were all of one blood, 
 and had common rights of property in short, when 
 they were brothers. 
 
 This last was a most important step in advance. 
 The girl of a house no longer remained at home with 
 her mother and brothers aiding in and succeeding to 
 the management ; she passed into another family, 
 associating with the sons thereof as wife ; while her 
 place at home was assumed by a stranger as wife to 
 her brothers. There being now a community of blood 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 105 
 
 and interests in the husbands, there was nothing to 
 prevent the appropriation to them of her children an 
 appropriation which would disqualify the children for 
 being heirs to the property of her mother and brothers. 
 To give effect now to the old law of succession, would 
 be, not to keep property in families, but to introduce a 
 system of exchanges of family estates. Moreover, 
 when this form of marriage became general, and when 
 conjugal fidelity was secured by penalties, we should 
 expect to find that the system of kinship through males 
 would appear this species of marriage allowing of 
 certainty as to the father's blood, though not of cer- 
 tainty as to fathers. A woman's children would become 
 the heirs of the husband's family in which they would 
 be born, and to which they would belong. 
 
 Now it is this highest development of polyandry, 
 and of the family system which polyandry admitted of, 
 which we find in Tibet. 
 
 " Here," says Turner, speaking of Tibet, 1 " we find 
 a practice that of polyandry universally prevailing ; 
 and see one female associating her fate and fortune with 
 all the brothers of a family without any restriction of 
 age or of numbers. The choice of a wife is the privi- 
 lege of the elder brother. . . . The number of 
 husbands is not, as far as I could learn, defined or re- 
 stricted within any limits ; it sometimes happens that 
 in a small family there is but one male ; and the num- 
 ber, perhaps, may seldom exceed that which a native 
 of rank, during my residence at Teshoo Loomboo, 
 1 Turner's Tibet, 1800, p. 348. 
 
106 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 pointed out to me in a family resident in the neighbour- 
 hood, in which five brothers were then living very 
 happily with one female, under the same connubial 
 compact. Nor is this sort of league confined to the 
 lower ranks of people alone : it is found also frequently 
 in the most opulent families." 
 
 Let us now see to what extent polyandry of the 
 Tibetan type can be traced elsewhere than in Tibet ; 
 and what evidence there is of its being an advance from 
 the Nair species of polyandry. The authorities already 
 cited 1 exhibit the Tibetan as the prevailing species of 
 polyandry in nearly the whole of the Himalayan and 
 sub-Himalayan regions : Kashmir, Ladak, Kinawer, 
 Kistewar, and Sirmor. It is the general form of 
 polyandry in Ceylon. It is the form which Humboldt 
 found among the red-men. " Among the Avaroes and 
 the Maypures," he says, "brothers have often but one 
 wife." It is the form which Caesar found among the 
 Britons. " Uxores habent deni cluodenique inter se 
 communes, et maxime fratres cum fratribus, et parentes 
 cum liberis ; sed si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum habentur 
 liberi a quibus primum virgines quseque ductse sunt." 2 
 And to show that the two forms of polyandry are stages 
 in a progress, we repeat that almost everywhere, outside 
 Tibet, we find the lower form accompanying the higher. 
 In some quarters the lower only is known as in Kasia 
 and among the Nairs. In others Kooloo, for example 
 
 1 Ante, p. 98. 
 
 2 De Bello Gallico, v. xiv. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSIIIP. 107 
 
 the lower form is prevalent ; the higher l also is 
 known, but is exceptional. Again, in numerous 
 quarters the higher is the general form, and the lower 
 the exceptional as in Ceylon ; and lastly, in some 
 quarters, as in Tibet, we lose sight of the lower form 
 altogether. The higher polyandry has become a national 
 institution. 
 
 And finding the higher polyandry a national institu- 
 tion, we observe that we are in a position to show that 
 most probably polyandry formerly prevailed over a still 
 vaster area than that within which we have hitherto 
 found it. We have seen that with polyandry, of the 
 Tibetan type, wherever it was long and generally 
 established, kinship through males must have been 
 introduced ; the father's blood, though not the father, 
 being certain, where the wife was faithful. We have 
 also seen, in the case of the Britons, that the children 
 of the woman were accounted to belong to the husband 
 who first espoused her ; and that in Tibet, the right of 
 choosing the wife belongs to the eldest brother, to 
 whom, also, the children of the marriage are held to 
 belong. We must now, to obtain what we have been 
 in search of a test of the former presence of polyandry 
 look at the Tibetan form of polyandry in a state of 
 decadence. We find it in such a state in Ladak. " In 
 
 1 Archer, in his Upper India (1833), vol. i. pp. 235-6, says of 
 the Grooah (Kooloo) : " Here one woman cohabits with two, three, 
 and four men, and they may even be all brothers ; this practice is 
 universal. I was informed of the rules and modes of intercourse, 
 all evincing a state of society least beholden to civilisation, or less 
 sophisticated than any yet known." 
 
108 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 Ladak," says Moorcroft, 1 "when an eldest son marries, 
 the property of his father (more properly the family 
 estate) descends to him, and he is charged with the 
 maintenance of his parents. The parents may continue 
 to live with him, if he and his wife please ; if not, a 
 separate dwelling is provided for them. 2 A younger 
 son is usually made a Lama. Should there be more 
 brothers, and they agree to the arrangement, the juniors 
 become inferior husbands to the wife ; all the children, 
 however, are considered as belonging to the head of the 
 family. The younger brothers have no authority ; they 
 wait upon the elder as his servants, and can be turned 
 out of doors at his pleasure, without it being incumbent 
 upon him to provide for them. On the death of the 
 eldest brother, his property, authority, and widow, 
 devolve upon his next brother." And that whether 
 the younger brother has agreed to the polyandrous 
 arrangement or not. He has a customary right of 
 succession to his brother's property, and to his widow, 
 and he cannot take the one without taking the other. 
 
 Here we are brought to consider the meaning and 
 origin of the legal obligation which we find laid on 
 younger brothers, among certain peoples, to marry in 
 their turn the widow of their deceased elder brother. 
 There can be no doubt that that obligation was in its 
 origin the counterpart of a legal right of succession. 
 It is so with the Kirghiz, Aenezes, and Mongols 
 
 1 Moorcroft and Trebeck's Travels, 1841, vol. i. p. 320. 
 
 2 See M'Culloch's Munniejwre, pp. 8 and 67, for a similar custom 
 among the Loohoopas. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 109 
 
 the next brother being heir even where the elder leaves 
 issue. 
 
 When history begins, the Hebrew law preferred the 
 issue to the next brother ; but when he or the next of 
 kin succeeded, it was on the old footing. This is clear 
 from the book of Euth. 1 The hereditatis emptor of the 
 deceased took to wife at the same time his widow, " to 
 raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance." 
 The obligation to marry the widow was the counterpart 
 of the right of succession. And we can see the connec- 
 tion between the obligation and heirship dropping slowly 
 out of view. In Deuteronomy 2 it is provided that the 
 husband's brother shall " perform the duty of an husband's 
 brother " to the widow, only when the brethren dwell to- 
 gether, and one of them dies childless. The obligation 
 is here presented pure as a duty falling on the brother, 
 which it was disgraceful to neglect. 3 
 
 1 Chap. iv. ver. 6. 
 
 2 Chap. xxv. ver. 510. 
 
 [ 3 In a subsequent essay ("The Levirate and Polyandry," 
 Fortnightly Review, 1877), portions of which will be included in 
 the second series of Studies in Ancient History, the author pointed 
 out two errors into which he has fallen in the argument upon the 
 Levirate now being stated. Misled by the case of Boaz and Ruth 
 (which he took, wrongly, to be an example of the Levirate), he has 
 concluded that he has found the Levirate to be the .counterpart of 
 a right of succession ; and then, owing to this error, he has con- 
 nected the Levirate and the law of inheritance noticed on 
 page 108 as if the two must have had something more in 
 common than their being both of them remainders of polyandry. 
 Now (as is shown in the essay referred to) the Levirate occurs only 
 where the succession of son to father has been established, and that 
 so firmly that even a fictitious son is preferred to a real brother so 
 
110 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 In India, by the time when the Institutes of Menu 
 were compiled, the obligation was laid on the brother 
 only in case the deceased left no son. Grave doubts 
 
 that it belongs to a different stage of the history of the Family from 
 the law of inheritance which preferred brothers to sons, and gave a 
 surviving brother right to his deceased brother's widow. And, in- 
 stead of being the counterpart of a right of succession, it cut out the 
 Levir from an inheritance. It imposed upon a surviving brother an 
 obligation, that of " raising up seed " to his childless brother de- 
 ceased ; and the Levirate child was counted the child of the deceased, 
 and was his heir excluding the Levir. 
 
 [These errors make some modifications necessary at this point. 
 It remains, nevertheless, that the same conception of marriage and 
 of fatherhood appears in the Levirate and in Tibetan Polyandry. 
 In the latter, a wife had all the brothers of a family for husbands. 
 With the former, on the husband's death without children, his 
 brother tilled his place generally without a marriage, as among 
 the Hindoos (among whom this might happen in the husband's life- 
 time also if he were childless). And the widow could claim this of 
 him so that she had in a husband's brother, as it were, a husband 
 in reserve. Moreover, custom held the deceased to be so effectually 
 replaced by his brother that her child by the brother was counted 
 the child of the deceased ; the one brother being taken as equivalent 
 to the other, as if it were an indifferent thing which of them was 
 father, it was assigned to the brother to whom she had been given 
 in marriage. And, with Tibetan Polyandry, her children, by which- 
 soever brother begotten, would have been the children of the man 
 who had taken her in marriage, the eldest brother, the head of the 
 family (see page 107). 
 
 [In either case, the brothers were, in relation to the wife, inter- 
 changeable with, and equivalent to, each other, her child being counted 
 the child of that brother who had taken her in marriage. Can this, 
 in the case of the Levirate, be accounted for consistently with an 
 original general practice of monandry ? If not, we are, it would 
 seem, forced to regard the Levirate as a relic of polyandrous practice 
 which held its ground for a certain contingency after polyandry had 
 disappeared, and monandry had become general. The Hindoos, it 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. Ill 
 
 had arisen as to the extent and propriety of the obli- 
 gation, the number of sons to be begotten on the 
 widow, 1 and the terms on which the brother should 
 live with her. "The first object of the appointment 
 being obtained, according to law, both the brother and 
 the widow must live together like a father and daughter 
 by affinity." Again, it is doubted whether the obliga- 
 tion extends to the twice-born classes. " Such a com- 
 mission to a brother or other near kinsman is nowhere 
 mentioned in the nuptial texts of the Veda. . . . This 
 practice, fit only for cattle, is reprehended by learned 
 Brahman s ; yet it is declared to have been the practice 
 even of men while Vena had sovereign power." 2 Yet 
 elsewhere in the code the obligation is contemplated as 
 legal, and provision is made for the rights of succession 
 of the issue of the Levirate union. " Should a younger 
 
 may be said, justified the niyoga on the ground that a bride was 
 given to the family of the bridegroom and not to the bridegroom 
 only which, of course, is the theory of Tibetan polyandry 
 (Apastamba II., 10, 27, 2 7. Sacred Books of the East, vol. ii. 
 p. 164). 
 
 [The relation of the Levirate to Tibetan polyandry, however, 
 cannot be adequately discussed in a note. A fuller consideration of 
 it will be found in the forthcoming work above-mentioned ; and 
 meanwhile reference may be made to the Patriarchal Theory (London, 
 1885), ch. 16 & 17. 
 
 [The case of Boaz and Ruth, as has been said above, is not an 
 example of the Levirate. Boaz came in, not as Levir, but as Gobi 
 or redeemer of the inheritance of the dead. The Goe'l was not re- 
 quired by law to marry the widow as a condition of the redemption, 
 though no doubt he generally did so.] 
 
 1 Chap. ix. ver. 61, 62. 
 
 2 Chap. ix. ver. 66. 
 
112 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 brother have begotten a son on the wife of his deceased 
 elder brother, the division (of the estate) must then be 
 made equally between that son, who represents the 
 deceased, and his natural father : thus is the law 
 settled." We repeat, that in Menu's time the obli- 
 gation had not only been, to some extent, dissociated 
 from the corresponding right of inheritance but was 
 falling into disrepute. We see it also falling into 
 desuetude among the Hebrews. In the earliest age 
 the Levir had no alternative but to take the widow ; 
 indeed she was his wife without any form of marriage. 1 
 By the Mosaic Law, however, he might get quit of her 
 if he chose by submitting to the ceremony of " loosing 
 the shoe." 
 
 It is impossible not to believe that we have here 
 presented to us successive stages of decay of one and 
 the same original institution ; impossible not to connect 
 the obligation, in its several phases, with what we have 
 seen prevailing in Ladak ; impossible not to regard it 
 as having originally been a right of succession, or the 
 counterpart of such a right, derived from the practice 
 of polyandry. Kegarded as in its origin a right of 
 succession, it exhibits the next younger brother as suc- 
 ceeding to the universitas of the elder taking up all 
 his rights and obligations inter alia, his widow. But 
 how came the right of succession to open, as in the 
 ruder cases, to the brother in preference to the son of 
 the deceased ? We repeat, that the only explanation 
 that can be given of this is, that the law of succession 
 
 1 Lewis's Hebrew Republic, 1725, vol. iii. p. 268. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 113 
 
 was derived from polyandry. The succession of 
 brothers to one another, in order of age, is a feature 
 of the law of succession under both forms of poly- 
 andry. Under the ruder, brothers succeed one 
 another ; and failing brothers, the sister's children 
 come in : under the less rude, brothers succeed one 
 another ; and failing brothers, comes in the eldest son 
 of the brotherhood. And nowhere, excepting where 
 there is or has been polyandry, have we such a 
 system of succession brothers succeeding in preference 
 to sons. 
 
 The same conclusion is forced upon us from another 
 point of view. In the lowest cases of polyandry the 
 children belong to the mother ; in the more advanced 
 to the eldest brother (an approach towards agnation). 
 Now the peculiarity of the obligation is, in all cases, 
 that it was an obligation "to raise up seed" to the 
 elder brother. The children begotten by the younger 
 brother were accounted the children of the elder 
 deceased. It is obvious that it could more easily 
 be feigned that the children belonged to the brother 
 deceased, if already, at a prior stage, the children of 
 the brotherhood had been accounted the children of the 
 eldest brother, i.e., if we suppose the obligation to be 
 a relic of polyandry. 
 
 Curiously enough, Dr. Latham would invert 
 the order of development by deducing the ruder 
 fact polyandry from the less rude obligation. 
 But, clearly, this is an inversion of the order of 
 nature which is progressive in which the ruder 
 
114 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 gives birth to the less rude, not the less rude to 
 the ruder. 1 
 
 Assuming the correctness of this view of the origin 
 of that obligation, we must hold that polyandry in the 
 Tibetan form prevailed at one time throughout India ; 2 
 among the race from which the ancient Hebrews were 
 descended and among the Moabites and the ancient 
 Persians ; 3 among the Druses and all the Arab tribes 
 in Syria ; 4 the Mongols, Ostiaks, Kirghiz Turks, and 
 tribes of the Caucasus ; 5 among the Makololo, and, we 
 may believe, many other peoples in Africa. 6 It is 
 needless to repeat that we must also conclude that 
 among the peoples just enumerated the Tibetan form 
 of polyandry was preceded by the Nair, and, at a still 
 earlier date, by utter promiscuity. 
 
 We have found polyandry in so many lands, among 
 so many races, and in such phases of progressive de- 
 velopment, that we are surely justified in classing it 
 among the phenomena most distinctive of the most 
 
 1 The subject of polyandry has been most carelessly, it seems to 
 us, handled by Dr. Latham. It is enough to refer to Des. Ethn. 
 vol. ii. p. 463, et seq., where he recklessly lays it down that the 
 descensus per umbilicum is part and parcel of polyandry. 
 
 2 Institutes of Menu, c. iii. 173, and c. ix. 57, 58, and 182 ; 
 As. Res., vol. iii. p. 35. 
 
 3 Deut. xxv. 5 11; Ruth i. 11 13; Klenker, Zendavesta, 
 iii. p. 226. 
 
 4 Yolney's Travels, vol. ii. p. 807 ; Burckhardt's Notes, vol. i. 
 p. 112. 
 
 5 Des. Ethn. vol. i. pp. 312, 346, and 455; Haxthausen, 
 Trans-Caucasia, p. 403. 
 
 Livingstone, p. 185. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 115 
 
 likely to occur at the earlier stages of the progress of 
 any race of men. Its origin can only be ascribed to a 
 scarcity of women as compared to men. And the vast 
 area over which it anciently prevailed, can leave no 
 doubt in the mind that in former times the balance of 
 the sexes must have been seriously disturbed (artificially), 
 and that we were right in predicating of the primitive 
 groups that they usually contained fewer women than 
 men. When the phenomena of exogamy also due to a 
 scarcity of women are contemplated along with the phe- 
 nomena of polyandry, the impression this fact produces 
 on the mind is almost as strong as the feeling produced 
 by demonstration. To whatever extent a want of 
 balance between the sexes prevailed, to that extent 
 certainty as to male parentage was in the earlier stages 
 of progress excluded. With polyandry itself there is 
 uncertainty upon this point. In the lower cases the 
 uncertainty is absolute. And regarding, as we must do, 
 the higher as an advance from the lower, we are forced 
 to conclude that wherever we have found polyandry, 
 or traces of it, there must anciently have prevailed the 
 system of kinship through females only. 
 
 In a preceding chapter we found the system of kin- 
 ship through females only, universally prevailing among 
 th Australian Blacks ; * prevailing among the majority 
 of the nations of the American Eed-men ; 2 and among 
 
 p. 60. [This statement, however, requires qualification. 
 It is now known that there are Australian tribes in which kinship 
 is counted through males.] 
 2 Ante, p. 65-7. 
 
 I 2 
 
116 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 the South-Sea Islanders. 1 That is, we found it among 
 peoples now practising polygyny, and which have 
 advanced far towards the patriarchal system. We in- 
 fer that with these peoples the unions of the sexes were 
 originally promiscuous or polyandrous. With regard 
 to the Red-men, indeed, there is little room for doubting 
 that they formerly all practised polyandry. It is now 
 occasionally to be found among them, and their system 
 of relationship their names for kinsmen and kins- 
 women point to its having been their universal custom. 
 Mr. Morgan of Rochester, New York, whose account 
 of the Indian nations we have already had occasion to 
 refer to, gives the following as radical features of the 
 system of relationship prevailing among them : 1. " All 
 the brothers of a father are equally fathers to his 
 children (this where there is now no polyandry). 2. 
 All the children of several brothers are brothers and 
 sisters to each other ; all the grandsons of a man's 
 brothers are his grandsons." 2 These features of the 
 system bear the stamp of a polyandrous origin ; 3 they 
 
 1 Ante, p. 67. ^ 
 
 2 Camb. Journ., 1860, pp. 144, 145. 
 
 3 It may be asked why the Red-men should not now have kin- 
 ship through males if they have passed, as they appear to have done, 
 through the stage of polyandry of the Tibetan type. Our answer 
 is, that in some cases they have male kinship, and that probably in 
 Australia, and among the majority of the nations of the Bed-men 
 the earlier species of kinship has been perpetuated by the system of 
 capturing wives. We shall hereafter see that the system of capture 
 introduces uncertainty as to male parentage, independently of the 
 causes of such uncertainty which we have been considering. We 
 shall also see that all polyandrous peoples may not have been 
 exogamous, while all exogamous peoples must have been polyandrous. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 117 
 
 are features of the system of relationship which might 
 be expected to accompany the higher polyandry. The 
 schedules returned to Mr. Morgan show that among 
 the Tamul and Telugu, peoples of Southern India, 
 numbering about twenty-four millions, " all the 
 brothers of a father are usually called fathers, but 
 in strictness, those who are older than the father 
 are called great fathers, and those who are younger, 
 little fathers." And both the Tamul and Telugu 
 are still, as we have seen, to some extent poly- 
 androus. The same system of relationship is found 
 among the Puharies, a people on the skirts of 
 the Tibetan region, and that manifestly practised 
 polyandry till a late date. With the Puharies, all 
 the brothers of a father are equally fathers to his 
 children. 1 
 
 We have seen that the Kasias, the Nairs, and the 
 Saporogian Cossacks, have the system of kinship through 
 females only. We find that system in Tulava, in the 
 neighbourhood of the Nairs. " Among the Buntar " 
 the ^ighest rank of Sudras in Tulava " a man's chil- 
 dren," says Buchanan, " are not his heirs. During his 
 lifetime he may give them money ; but all of which 
 he dies possessed goes to his sisters and to their chil- 
 dren." The cause must be the same in either case, 
 though marriage in Tulava has shifted from polyandry 
 to polygyny. 2 Among the Eajputs we have traces of 
 
 1 Report of Mr. Wilson, ut supra. 
 
 2 Buchanan, ut supra, vol. iii. p. 16. 
 
118 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 the system of female kinship. 1 The Kocch have kin- 
 ship and succession through females only ; and so have 
 the But (Bodo). 2 Farther we find that system among 
 the Banyai, 3 in Ashanti, Acjuapim, and Congo, and are 
 assured that traces of it are to be found all over Africa. 4 
 
 We have already had occasion to notice its occurrence 
 among the Chinese. 5 
 
 Let us now see what evidence there is of the former 
 existence of the system of kinship through females only. 
 We recall the fact that, in an earlier chapter, we saw 
 reason to believe that it anciently prevailed among the 
 Celts. 6 We infer that among the Celts there was an- 
 ciently no certainty of male parentage. We now notice 
 that we find traces of such a system in India in the 
 Sutras of Gautama. In these, marriage with the daughter 
 of a maternal uncle a cousin on the mother's side is 
 emphatically prohibited as being clearly against the prin- 
 ciples of the sacred writings. 7 Such a prohibition, found 
 with an exogamous race and almost all the Indian races 
 were and are, as we have seen, exogamous can be referred 
 only to the system of kinship through females only/ And 
 it is impossible to avoid connecting with this the tradition 
 that the five Pandava princes brothers so called were 
 husbands of one wife. " How is it," asks Max Mliller, 8 
 
 1 Tod's Annals, &c., ut supra, p. 48. 
 
 2 Des. Ethn., vol. i. pp. 96, 109. 
 
 3 Livingstone's Travels, pp. 617 622. 
 
 4 Reade's Savage Africa, p. 43. 
 
 5 Ante, p. 96-7. 6 Ante, p. 68. 
 
 7 Max Midler's Hist, of AUG. Sans. Liter., 1859, p. 53. 
 
 8 Hist, of Anc. Sans. Liter., 1859, p. 46. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 119 
 
 in discussing the character of the Mahabharata, " that 
 the five Pandava princes who are at first represented 
 as receiving so strictly Brahmanic an education, could 
 afterwards have been married to one wife ? This is 
 in plain opposition to Brahmanic law, where it is 
 said, ' they are many wives of one man ; not many 
 husbands of one wife.' Such a contradiction can 
 only be accounted for by the admission that in this 
 case epic tradition in the mouth of the people was too 
 strong to allow this essential and curious feature in the 
 life of its heroes to be changed." In other words, we 
 have here the tradition " that the races among whom the 
 five principal heroes of the Mahabharata were born and 
 fostered," practised polyandry. This is confirmed by all 
 that is related of the Pandava princes. They were the re- 
 puted sons of Pandu, but, in fact, three of them were sons 
 of one of his wives by three different gods, and the other 
 two were sons of another wife by the Aswini-Kumaras. 1 
 1 Williams's Indian Epic Poetry, 1863, p. 17. It is worthy of 
 notice that in a passage of the Mahabharata, book i., vv. 4719-22, 
 which has been translated by Dr. Muir (Sanscrit Texts, part ii. 
 p. 336), we have the following account of the freedom of women 
 in the early world. " Women were formerly unconfined, and roved 
 about at their pleasure, independent (within their respective castes). 
 Though in their youthful innocence they abandoned their husbands, 
 they were guilty of no offence ; for such was the rule in early times. 
 This ancient custom is even now the law for creatures born as 
 brutes, which are free from lust and anger. This custom is sup- 
 ported by authority, and is observed by great Rishis, and it is still 
 jwactised among the Northern Kurus" In a note, Dr. Muir adds 
 that the practice of promiscuous intercourse was, according to tho 
 legend, abolished by Svetaketu, son of the Rishi Uddalaka, who 
 was incensed at seeing his mother led away by a strange Brahman. 
 Svetaketu established conjugal fidelity. 
 
120 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 Pandu himself was the son of a marriage with a brother's 
 widow. When the five princes married one wife, the 
 eldest was first married to her by the family priest, and 
 then the other four in their order, according to priority 
 of birth. The princes are represented as living in family 
 with Kauli, their mother the head of their house. In 
 the poem, Bishma, their granduncle grandfather's 
 brother is often styled their grandfather ; and though 
 Bishma was really the uncle father's brother of Pandu, 
 he is sometimes styled his father. 1 All these circum- 
 stances point to a system of polyandry of the Tibetan 
 type. The very terminology is that of polyandry, and 
 which polyandry has left behind it among the Tamul, 
 the Telugu, the Puharies, and the Eed-men of America. 
 In short, though the original tradition has obviously 
 been tampered with, enough of it remains to oblige us 
 to acknowledge it as a genuine tradition of a stage of 
 Aryan civilisation, when the marriage system was poly- 
 androus as it is now in Tibet. It is almost needless to 
 point out that we have, in this tradition, a confirmation 
 of our view of the origin of the obligation which, in the 
 code of Menu, is recognised as imposed on brothers in 
 turn to marry the widow of a brother deceased. We 
 shall find a further confirmation of that view in the case 
 of the Hebrews. 
 
 We are not without evidence of the existence in 
 
 early times of the system of female kinship among the 
 
 Semitic races. It would appear that while Abraham 
 
 still lived, his tribesmen as yet recognised only that 
 
 1 See Williams's Indian Epic Poetry, 1863, pp. 93, 99, and 114. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 121 
 
 primitive kinship in some important relations in life 
 e.g., as affecting the right of intermarriage. Between 
 the times of Abraham and the promulgation of the 
 Levitical law, a complete revolution took place in 
 Jewish custom. The patriarch himself married his 
 sister-german, or by the same father ; and his brother 
 Nahor married his niece, 1 the daughter of a brother. 
 So Amram, the father of Moses and Aaron, married his 
 father's sister (Exod. vi. 20). These women were not 
 relatives, in a full legal sense, of their husbands. They 
 were connected with them through males only, and 
 through males in those times there was not, as yet, 
 a perfect kinship. We have similar evidence of the 
 existence of the system of kinship, through females 
 only, among the Phoenicians. 2 
 
 Among the Greeks, traces of this early law remained 
 in historic times. To pass over the tradition that in 
 Greece before Cecrops children always bore the names 
 of their mothers, 3 we have the fact that at Athens a 
 brother might marry a sister-german (or by the same 
 father only), but not a sister-uterine or consanguineous. 
 Here again we have a relic of the doctrine that a child 
 had no paternal relatives. A sister-uterine was a near 
 kinswoman, but a sister-german was no kinswoman at 
 all. Montesquieu 4 ascribes this Athenian rule to a 
 
 1 Genesis xi. 26 29; and see xx. 12. 
 
 2 Achilles Tatius, lib. i. 
 
 3 Varro, apud August, de Civ. Dei, 1. 18, c. 9. Suidas, voce 
 
 . t. iii. p. 189 ; and vide Goguet, vol. ii. book i. art. i. 
 
 4 Book v. c. 5. 
 
122 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 device of the legislature for regulating successions ; but 
 lie belongs to the class of philosophers who make more 
 of enactments than of popular usages. As Bunsen l has 
 pointed out, there can be no doubt that the true 
 meaning and origin of the rule were what we have 
 indicated. 
 
 There is one case which might be cited to throw 
 doubt upon some of the conclusions at which we have 
 arrived in this chapter. This is the report of Philo, 
 that the Spartans allowed a man to marry his sister- 
 uterine, but not his sister-german, or by the same 
 father. 2 This may have been circulated for the sake 
 of the contrast which it presented to Athenian custom ; 
 at any rate, we hold it to be incredible as discordant 
 with old law as with the habits of the Lacedaemonians. 
 It is beyond belief that there was this superior regard 
 for the father's blood in ancient Sparta, where the mar- 
 riage tie was so loose that men lent their wives to one 
 another, and cared little by whom children were be- 
 gotten, provided they turned out strong and healthy. It 
 is incredible, that in a community where any sort of 
 importance was attached to blood, the unquestionable 
 blood-tie between children of the same mother should 
 be so disregarded. If we are to credit the report at all, 
 it must be on the supposition that the Spartans were 
 
 1 De Jure Ilered. Athen., p. 148 ; Gottingen, 1813. 
 
 2 The reader may suspect that this is a relic of strict agnatic 
 law. But for the reasons stated in the text, we hold that view to 
 be excluded. The system of relationship through males only has 
 never, in any well-authenticated case, been developed into such a 
 rule as this. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF 
 
 exceptional in their development, like the ancient 
 sians (from whom the Druses derived their customs). 
 And we do not regard the case of the Persians as of 
 weight against our reasoning, but the contrary. The 
 Persian customs were just those of hordes who con- 
 secrated an incestuous promiscuity into a system. If 
 they allowed the marriage 'of brothers and sisters con- 
 sanguineous, they also sanctioned the unions of sons 
 and mothers, and of fathers and daughters, and in some 
 cases required them for the purposes of religion. 1 
 
 At the outset of our argument we saw that if the 
 system of kinship through females only could be shown 
 to exist, or to have existed, it must be accounted a more 
 archaic system of kinship than the system of relationship 
 through males, the product of an earlier and ruder 
 stage in human development; and that to prove its 
 existence on such a scale as to entitle it to rank among 
 the normal phenomena of human development would be 
 to prove it the most ancient system of kinship. We 
 now submit that we have amply established our pro- 
 position. We have collected abundant evidence of the 
 non-existence in many places of the conditions necessary 
 for the rise of kinship through males ; in many of these 
 cases some of them cases of great populations we 
 have been able to adduce evidence of the existence of 
 the system of kinship through females only. We have 
 seen that polyandry must be accepted as a stage in the 
 progress towards marriage proper and the patriarchal 
 
 1 See a full account of the Persian customs in Selden's Jus 
 Naturale, ut supra, chap. xi. 
 
124 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 system. The lower forms of polyandry we have found 
 to be accompanied by the system of kinship through 
 females only. We have seen polyandry change its form 
 till it allowed of kinship through males, and then die 
 away into an obligation on the younger brothers in turn 
 to espouse the widow of the eldest brother; and in some 
 cases, Indo-European as well as Semitic, in which we 
 found that relic of polyandry, we have found, or found 
 traces of, the system of kinship through females only. 
 Had the facts bearing on our inquiry ever been syste- 
 matically observed, noted, and collected, it is probable 
 our case might be made to appear stronger than it does. 
 But as it is, we submit that we have done quite enough 
 to establish the truth of our proposition. 
 
 Before leaving this subject we would observe that, 
 whether the system of kinship through females only 
 prevailed universally at the first or not, it must have 
 prevailed wherever exogamy prevailed exogamy and 
 the consequent practice of capturing wives. Certainty 
 as to fathers is impossible where mothers are stolen from 
 their first lords, and liable to be re-stolen before the 
 birth of children. And as exogamy and polyandry are 
 referable to one and the same cause a want of balance 
 between the sexes we are forced to regard all the ex- 
 ogamous races as having originally been polyandrous. 
 While polyandry supplied a method whereby the want 
 of balance might be the less felt, and may thus have 
 retarded, and in some cases prevented, the estab- 
 lishment of exogamy, wherever exogamy took root 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 125 
 
 polyandry must have been practised. Therefore we 
 must hold it to be beyond dispute that among exoga- 
 mous races the first system of kinship was that which 
 recognised blood-ties through mothers only. 
 
 We may be pardoned for here adverting to the 
 views of ancient kinship advanced by Mr. Maine. 
 We have already pointed out l that Mr. Maine seems 
 not to have been able to conceive of any social order 
 more primitive than the patriarchal. And as he found 
 agnation or kinship exclusively through males to be 
 a common concomitant of the patriarchal system, he 
 has committed himself to the opinion that that was 
 the only kinship known to primitive times. He argues, 
 indeed, against the possibility of kinship through 
 females in early times as being inconsistent with 
 social order and stability. The learned and ingenious 
 writer must be held to have taken up the threads of 
 legal history, where they began to unwind themselves, 
 anew, after the completion of a social revolution. It is 
 quite undoubted, as he says, that few indigenous bodies 
 of law belonging to communities of the Indo-European 
 stock do not exhibit peculiarities which are referable to 
 agnation. With the advance of society the growth of 
 marriage laws the superiority of the male sex must 
 have everywhere tended to establish that system. But, 
 before that result could be reached, many stages of 
 progress had to be traversed. And while traces of 
 
 1 Ante, p. 62. 
 
126 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 agnation are to be found in the early customs of most 
 of the Indo-European races, we have seen that the 
 indigenous customs of most early communities exhibit 
 peculiarities intelligible only on the supposition that 
 kinship and succession through females were the rule 
 before the rise of agnation. Farther, we have seen that 
 wherever non-advancing communities are to be found 
 isolated in islands or maintaining their savage liberties 
 in mountain fastnesses there to this day exists the 
 system of kinship through females only. The State of 
 old, says Mr. Maine, recognised as its units, not in- 
 dividuals, but families. True. But at a yet older 
 date we must conclude that neither the State, nor the 
 family, properly speaking, existed. And at that earlier 
 time the unnamed species of kinship the counterpart 
 and complement of agnation was the chief determinant 
 of social phenomena, 1 
 
 1 [In this passage the author, while maintaining that agnation, 
 the system of kinship through males only, was preceded by a system 
 of kinship through females only, does not question the prevalence of 
 agnation ; and it will appear immediately that, when this work was 
 written, he thought agnation in most cases supervened where kin- 
 ship through males had come to be acknowledged. It will be found, 
 however, on reference to The Patriarchal Theory (London, 1885), 
 that he afterwards saw reason for concluding that, while with male 
 kinship there was a tendency to agnation, agnation was actually 
 arrived at in exceptional cases only. His theory of the origin of 
 agnation will be found in that work. One of the reasons for re- 
 garding agnation as an exceptional form of kinship is that, 
 excepting in Rome, there is scarcely any example of it anywhere 
 to be found and no example of it to be found among the ancient 
 nations.] 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 127 
 
 We now go on to show 
 
 II. That the primitive groups were, or were 
 assumed to be, homogeneous. 
 
 It appeared at the outset that individuals must have 
 been primarily affiliated not to persons but to groups, 
 and that the first effect of the rise of the idea of kinship 
 must have been to give birth to the conception of 
 stocks : farther, that the establishment over any great 
 area of the system of kinship through females only 
 must have occupied a considerable period of time. 
 Until that system was firmly established, there could 
 be no such interference with the homogeneity of the 
 groups as to be worth consideration. An amount of 
 heterogeneity short of that which would introduce at 
 least the germ of a system of betrothals may fairly 
 be overlooked. While as yet there was no system of 
 kinship, the presence of captive women in a horde, in 
 whatever numbers, could not introduce a system of 
 betrothals. Heterogeneity as a statical force can only 
 have come into play when a system of kinship led 
 the hordes to look on the children of their foreign 
 women as belonging to the stocks of their mothers ; 
 that is, when the sentiments which grew up with the 
 system of kinship became so strong as to overmaster 
 the old filiation to the group (and its stock) of the 
 children born within it. We may depend upon it 
 that this was a stage of progress which it took long 
 to reach, and thus that it was long before the original 
 homogeneity of the groups was substantially impaired. 
 
128 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 That in the stage of progress we are contemplating, 
 adoption was practised (the adoption of one group by 
 another to which some writers ascribe such great 
 effects), is altogether unlikely. If it was, it would 
 most probably as in later times proceed on the 
 fiction that the uniting groups were of the same 
 original stock. But looking to the state of hostility 
 between groups at the stage we are considering, and 
 the degree of advancement implied in the conception 
 of adoption, we cannot believe that the groups then 
 tended to amalgamate, however they may have tended 
 to divide. We conclude that we must regard the 
 primitive groups as having been, or having been 
 assumed to be, homogeneous up to that stage when, 
 through the joint operation of exogamy and the sys- 
 tem of kinship through females only, foreigners 
 recognised as such began to be systematically born 
 within them. 
 
 III. The system of 'kinship through females only 
 tended to render the exogamous groups heterogeneous, 
 and thus to supersede the system of capturing wives. 
 
 We may here be very brief. We have already 
 seen 1 the effects of the joint operation of exogamy 
 and this system of kinship among the Australians. 
 Indeed, what their effects must have been is exceed- 
 ingly obvious. Owing to exogamy, the mothers in 
 each horde were foreigners, and, owing to the system 
 
 1 Ante, p. 60. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 129 
 
 of kinship, the children born to them were esteemed 
 foreigners also. Thus, so far as the system of infanti- 
 cide allowed, the hordes contained young men and 
 women accounted of different stocks, who might inter- 
 marry consistently with exogamy. Hence grew up a 
 system of betrothals, and of marriage by sale and 
 purchase. In Australia and America we saw that in 
 spite of the law of blood-feud, the heterogeneity is now 
 such that the system of betrothals is well established, 
 and that of the original stock-groups the names alone 
 appear to remain. 
 
 IV. As civilization advanced, the system of kinship 
 through females only was succeeded by a system which 
 acknowledged kinship through males also ; and which in 
 most cases passed into a system which acknowledged 
 kinship through males only. 1 
 
 It is obviously needless to say anything in support 
 of the first branch of this proposition. The difficulty 
 was to show, as we have done in our first proposition in 
 this chapter, that there was a more archaic system 
 which did not acknowledge kinship through males. 
 With the fact of kinship through males in advanced 
 communities, every reader is familiar. Farther as to 
 the second branch of the proposition, it is unnecessary 
 to adduce evidence, or to do more than give some expla- 
 nations. Those who are acquainted with Mr. Maine's 
 (in many respects admirable) chapter on primitive 
 society and ancient law, will see from the terms of our 
 1 [See note on p. 126.] 
 
130 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 proposition, that we have not altogether adopted his 
 view that agnation at one time or other prevailed 
 everywhere in the advancing communities ; but it is 
 beyond dispute that its prevalence was most general. 
 As it will be convenient hereafter to speak of agnation 
 as a familiar system, we must here say something of its 
 nature. This system, as it long prevailed in Eome, may be 
 best explained by using the terminology of Eoman Juris- 
 prudence, to which indeed its name belongs. Its general 
 description is that it embraced only the ties of blood 
 through males. But it will be well to see who were thus 
 included in the kindred. Those united by ties of blood 
 through descent from the same married pair being called 
 cognates, the agnates were those cognates who traced 
 their connection exclusively through males. By a fiction, 
 adopted persons and their descendants through males 
 were within the agnatic bond. All the children of a 
 married pair were agnates, as well as all the grandchildren 
 through sons, but the grandchildren through daughters 
 were not in the number of agnates. The children of the 
 same father by different mothers were kindred, but the 
 children of the same mother by different fathers were 
 not relations to any legal effect. The sons of brothers 
 were kinsmen, but the sons of sisters, or of brother and 
 sister, were no relations ; for a woman's children were 
 held to be not of the kin of their mother but of their 
 father. And in no case was there a tie of kinship 
 between a woman's children and her natural relatives 
 unless there was an affinity between her and her 
 husband. If the one system involved anomalies so 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 131 
 
 did also the other. Where female kinship prevails, a 
 Kajah's son may become a hodman taking the state of 
 his mother while the son of the Kajah's sister mounts 
 the throne. The nephew a sister's child is a relation 
 of the Kajah, but his son is none at all. No more is 
 his brother's son ; for through a male under that system 
 there is no blood-tie. 
 
 Under each system, while it prevailed, the effects of 
 kinship were confined to those who according to it were 
 relations. And often it is in the laws of succession 
 that we find the best evidence of the former existence 
 among a race of either system. The rule preserved in 
 the Customs of Normandy, which prohibited uterine 
 brothers from succeeding to one another's lands, attests 
 the former prevalence there of agnation ; l and, in some 
 quarters, as in Congo, the descent of the crown from the 
 uncle to the sister's son is nearly all that remains to 
 witness to the former prevalence of the system of kin- 
 ship through females. It will be a curious chapter in 
 history which successfully narrates the progress of the 
 revolution by which the passage from the earlier to the 
 later of these systems was effected ; exhibiting the 
 stages in the development of the family system, as 
 
 1 [After what has been said as to the prevalence of agnation (Note, 
 p. 126) it seems necessary to say that there is an error here. The 
 Customs of Normandy did exclude uterine brothers from succeeding 
 each other in property derived from their respective fathers ; but 
 did not exclude them from succeeding each other in property derived 
 from their mother. There was, therefore, the fullest admission of 
 the relationship of uterine brothers and nothing to attest the former 
 prevalence of agnation.] 
 
 K 2 
 
132 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 based upon the patria potestas and agnatic kinship as 
 deduced therefrom. 1 
 
 Let us see whether we cannot in a few sentences 
 suggest some of the steps in that progress. The reader 
 must suppose the progress to commence as soon as, 
 through the joint operation of exogamy and the system 
 of female kinship, the groups have been rendered so far 
 heterogeneous as to permit of marriage within the 
 group. 
 
 Children having been affiliated to mothers instead of 
 to groups, the first approach to a family system would 
 be through a separation of residences all of a group 
 having no longer a common haunt or dwelling, but at 
 first all of the same stock within a group associating as 
 a gens or house ; and next, mothers and their children 
 occupying separate homes. With this separation of 
 residences would come a closer knitting together of the 
 
 1 [The author has here been influenced by the well-known theory 
 of Ancient Law, which derives relationships from the patria potestas, 
 and holds them, as determined by the patria potestas, to have been 
 at first agnatic ; it is implied here that a family system based upon 
 patria potestas was common, and that agnatic kinship was deduced 
 from patria potestas. Of course, his own theory of the origin of 
 relationship, as stated in this work, is entirely different from that. 
 And it seems proper to note that he afterwards became convinced 
 that agnation was not derived from, nor founded upon, patria 
 potestas, and that he formed a new theory of the origin of agna- 
 tion (The Patriarchal Theory, London, 1885, chs. xii. and xiii.). On 
 this theory agnation might be expected to occur more rarely than a 
 high paternal power such as might grow into patria potestas or 
 some similar institution. But, in fact, patria potestas seems not 
 to have been found anywhere in the ancient world except in Rome. 
 Gaius declared it to be distinctively a Roman institution.] 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 133 
 
 kindred first in the gens, and next of mothers and 
 children in the family rude proprietary rights distinct 
 from the tribal, distinct from the gentile in the 
 common home, weapons, and garnered food. There 
 would be introduced such a species- of family system as 
 we find among the Nairs the rudest that can be 
 imagined. And from this to the family system, peculiar 
 to polyandry of the Tibetan type, we have seen the 
 stages of development. 
 
 In the Nair stage, kinship would be of importance 
 chiefly in two respects (l), as determining the right of 
 intermarriage ; (2), as determining the right of succes- 
 sion. It might be expected that the system of kinship 
 through females only would first lose importance in 
 regard to successions. 
 
 While the Nair family system lasted, we may assume 
 that the common home of the brothers and mother 
 would not often be such as to permit (conveniently) of 
 a general succession failing the brothers of all the 
 sisters' children, where there was more than one sister ; 
 and that the first advance to a restricted system of suc- 
 cession would be through the limitation of the right of 
 succession, primo loco, to the children of the eldest 
 sister. We have seen the practice * growing of fathers 
 making gifts inter vivos, to women's children whom 
 they had reason to think their own ; and as this practice 
 grew with the number of cases in which there was a 
 degree of certainty of male parentage, there would be a 
 farther practical restriction of the right of succession 
 1 Ante, p. 117. 
 
134 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 through females. And with the practice of gifts inter 
 vivos, to putative children, would grow a feeling against 
 allowing estates to pass from the house of the brothers 
 to that of, or to the putative children of, the polyaiidrous 
 husbands of the sister, and a corresponding disposition 
 towards a system of marriage which would allow of the 
 property passing to the brother's own children. The 
 system which would suggest itself would be the Tibetan 
 system to have a wife in common in the house of their 
 mother. This system would produce certainty of the 
 children being of their own blood ; they would be born 
 in the house, and would become its heirs. 
 
 The next step in advance is obvious. The succession 
 of the younger brother to the elder was a feature of the 
 earlier law sisters' sons only succeeded failing their 
 uncles. Now, everything conspired to invest the eldest 
 brother, when he came into the succession, with some of 
 the attributes of a paterfamilias. This he did only on 
 the death of all the polyandrous fathers. But in his 
 relation to his younger brothers in respect of his being 
 the first to marry, reaching puberty first, and choosing 
 the future wife of himself and brothers in respect of 
 the first-born, and frequently more than one of the 
 children of his marriage, being unquestionably his off- 
 spring it was natural that the fiction should be formed 
 that his were all the children. Women had already, 
 and in the recourse to Tibetan polyandry, been deposed 
 from the sovereignty and management of families ; and 
 now, with additional guarantees for the wife's fidelity, 
 parentage was either become certain, or feigned to be 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 135 
 
 so ; the elder brother was a sort of paterfamilias, the 
 right to succeed him being in his younger brothers in 
 their order ; after them, in their eldest son. Thus, the 
 idea of fatherhood formed under the system of Nair 
 polyandry attained something like maturity under the 
 Tibetan, and took its place in customary law. And so 
 far as it was a step towards, or accompanied by, kinship 
 through males, it was a step away from kinship through 
 females, and especially as regards rights of succession. 
 
 Apart from such certainty of fatherhood as was 
 incidental to the marriage of eldest sons, the earliest 
 examples of such married life as would give certainty of 
 male parentage would probably be furnished by the 
 chiefs of tribes, who might have the power to secure to 
 themselves one, or perhaps several wives. In Kandya, 
 Ceylon, where polyandry is universal among the lower 
 and middle classes, the chiefs are strictly monogamists, 
 apparently regarding polyandry as a low practice, un- 
 worthy of men in their position. As settled habits 
 arose, as property accumulated, and the sexes became 
 more evenly balanced, the example of the chiefs would 
 find more and more imitators, and their cases would 
 furnish a model for an improved system of succession. 
 Thus would arise a practice of monogamy or of poly- 
 gyny. Brothers would not now always be co-husbands ; 
 the Tibetan form of polyandry would die out, and the 
 marriage of a brother to his elder brother's widow would 
 become first an act of succession necessary for the 
 assumption of the brother's place as head of the family ; 
 next, as the succession of sons was introduced as in 
 
136 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 right prior to the brother of a father chiefly through 
 the brothers leaving the house and contracting separate 
 marriages it would become an obligation founded on 
 usage, and which, being unproductive of material 
 advantages, would not unfrequently, from men's other 
 marriages, be found irksome and inconvenient. Finally, 
 the obligation itself would die out under the influence 
 of ideas of propriety, which grew up with the improved 
 marriage system. In the Institutes of Menu the obli- 
 gation is seen in a state of decadence under the influence 
 of such ideas. 1 
 
 Paternity having become certain, a system of kinship 
 through males would arise with the growth of property, 
 and a practice of sons succeeding, as heirs direct, to the 
 estates of fathers ; and as the system of kinship through 
 males arose, that through females would and chiefly 
 under the influence of property die away. The cases 
 of Abraham and Nahor, however, show that it would be 
 long before that system ceased to be influential as re- 
 gards intermarriages ; that it might, as regards them, 
 linger to some effect even after men had reached the 
 patriarchal state. From the patriarchal state, with such 
 a customary law as prevailed in Abraham's time, to the 
 system of agnation as it prevailed in Eome, is still a 
 long progress. Every step in it, we may be sure, was 
 affected by considerations derived from property. While 
 wives were captured, if there was any sense of property 
 at all, wives would be regarded as property. When at 
 a later stage they came to pass from the houses of their 
 1 [See note 3 , p. 109.] 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 137 
 
 birth into alien houses by purchase they would still 
 be property. And with the wives considered as property, 
 it is easy to conceive how there would have arisen a 
 sense of property in children. Hence, additional 
 features of the patria potestas. And when a woman 
 had been sold to her husband by her father, and had 
 thus come to be considered the husband's property, it is 
 easy to see how neither her original family, nor that 
 into which she had married, should be able to inherit 
 any property through her. But the right of inheritance, 
 as property became abundant, tended to become, and 
 did become, the test of kinship. And in course of 
 time, the notion of kinship derived through females 
 would disappear among a people who cared nothing for 
 a kinship barren as regarded patrimonial advantages. 
 The result would be the system of agnation. 1 
 
 It is not necessary for us here to do more than 
 repeat that we have, in numerous cases, found agnation, 
 or at least kinship through males, preceded by the 
 system of kinship through females only. It was so in 
 the cases of the Hebrews, Hindus, Celts, and Greeks ; 
 it was presumably so in all those cases in which we find 
 kinship through males accompanied by that relic of 
 polyandry the obligation laid on younger brothers in 
 turn to marry the widow of the elder brother deceased. 
 And since we have shown special cause for believing 
 that all the exogamous races had originally the system 
 
 1 [For the theory of the origin of agnation subsequently formed 
 by the author, see The Patriarchal Theory, ch. xiii, London, 1885. 
 As already stated (note, p. 126), it is maintained in that work that 
 agnation was an exceptional form of kinship.] 
 
138 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of kinship through females only, we are entitled to 
 assume that it was so among those exogamous peoples 
 with which, as with the Khonds, the Circassians, and 
 the Kalmucks, we find relationship to be agnatic. 1 
 
 / 
 V. The system of kinship through males tended to 
 
 rear up homogeneous groups, and thus to restore the 
 original condition of affairs among exogamous races, 
 as regards both the practice of capturing wives and 
 the evolution of the form of capture. 
 
 The first effect of kinship through males must have 
 been to arrest the progress of heterogeneity. The 
 introduction of foreign women into a tribe no longer 
 brought into it children accounted foreigners ; for either 
 the children were no longer of the mother's stock, but 
 of the father's, or if of the mother's, they were yet of 
 the father's also. Where, then, in a tribe, a balance of 
 persons of different stocks had not been reached, it was 
 henceforth unattainable. Farther, with kinship through 
 males would arise the habit of feigning a common 
 descent from some distinguished man a fiction which 
 would lead in many cases to the denial or neglect of 
 
 1 [The word agnatic has here (and occasionally in subsequent 
 passages) been used incautiously owing to the author having at 
 the time the impression that agnation commonly supervened upon 
 the acknowledgment of kinship through males. But the Khonds 
 may really have had agnatic relationship. Succession to land and 
 agricultural stock was among them strictly limited to males and the 
 sons of males the village succeeding to land on the failure of heirs 
 male. The father's position was high ; but it is clear that they had 
 not patria potestas. See Macpherson, Memorials of Service in India, 
 p. 62, 1865.] 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 139 
 
 such heterogeneity as existed. Of the new groups that 
 were formed, the homogeneity was perfectly secured. 
 The family now tended to grow into the tribe of kins- 
 folk. The children born to a polygynous husband were 
 all kinsfolk, of whatever stocks their mothers were. 
 The children of brothers, though they married women 
 of different stocks, were kinsfolk. And however the 
 family increased by the addition of generations, its 
 members were all within the kindred. And that as 
 well where the exogamous prejudice survived as where 
 it perished. Where it survived, the women of a family 
 could find no mates within its bounds, and marrying 
 into other groups would follow, and their children with 
 them, the kindred of their husbands. They would be 
 out of the group. Thus, within such exogamous groups 
 as were remodelled, and within such new exogamous 
 groups as were formed, under this species of kinship, 
 there could be no marriage within the group. There 
 would be no place for a system of betrothals ; and 
 except where friendly relations subsisted between the 
 groups to allow of marriage by purchase, their members 
 would once more be able to get wives only by capturing 
 them. Thus, even if, in the first stage, the system of 
 capture had as we see in Australia that it partially has 
 been superseded, the exogamous races, in entering on 
 a new phase of advancement, had reserved for them a 
 farther experience of that system, to confirm or re- 
 establish the old association between marriage and the 
 act of rapine. And we cannot doubt that many exoga- 
 mous peoples have had this twofold experience. We 
 
140 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 know of several exogamous races which, after having 
 had kinship through females, had kinship through males ; 
 and we cannot doubt that the same was the case with 
 the other exogamous races that have had the form of 
 capture and agnatic relationship. And indeed, as in the 
 later stage, the experience must have been more uniform 
 and continuous, there being nothing, in the absence of 
 friendliness between the groups, to interfere with the 
 system of capture, so it is observable that the form of 
 capture is now most distinctly marked and impressive 
 just among those races which have male kinship. It 
 might be doubted, but for the case of the Fuegians and 
 traces of the symbol, as if of a thing decayed, occurring 
 in America, whether the experience of the earlier stage 
 could generate the form. There is no doubt it can, and 
 has frequently done so ; but the question whether it 
 could have done so, might, on mere general reasoning 
 have been decided in the negative. 
 
 VI. Under the combined influence of exogamy and 
 the system of female kinship, a local tribe might attain a 
 balance of persons regarded as being of different descent, 
 and its members might thus be able to intermarry with 
 one another, and wholly within the tribe, in consistency 
 with the principle of exogamy. 
 
 This sufficiently appears from what has preceded ; 
 and it farther appears from what has preceded, that such 
 a balance of the sexes as would render a group indepen- 
 dent of other groups in the matter of marriage would 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 141 
 
 more speedily be reached in respect of the practice of 
 polyandry. 
 
 VII. A local tribe Jiaviny reached the stage contem- 
 plated in the last proposition, and having grown proud 
 through successes in war, might become a caste. 
 
 It is obvious that the feeling of superiority to other 
 tribes, concurring with independence of them as re- 
 gards marriage, might lead a tribe first to avoid, and 
 then to decline and prohibit, intermarriage with the 
 tribes which it esteemed inferior. And a tribe with a 
 marriage-law restricted by such a prohibition is a caste, 
 or has made an approach towards being a caste. That 
 castes have, in fact, been produced in this way, is ren- 
 dered certain by the fact already referred to that nearly 
 all the Indian castes, from the highest to the lowest, 
 are divided into gotrams or families, and that marriage 
 is prohibited between persons of the same gotram, who, 
 according to the rule of Menu, are shown by their 
 common name to be of the same original stock. We 
 hold that this at once shows the caste to have been com- 
 posed of members of different original stocks, and the 
 stocks themselves to have been originally exogamous. 
 There can, we think, be little doubt that all castes of 
 this description were formed by the processes which we 
 have been explaining. The Kamilaroi among the Aus- 
 tralians appear to be such a caste. 1 And were the 
 natives of Australia to be left to themselves, their system 
 
 1 [See note on p. 63.] 
 
142 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of kinship remaining what it is, we might expect here 
 after to find among them numerous caste tribes of this 
 description. 1 
 
 It is a rider on what has preceded that caste may 
 appear at that stage of a people's progress while they 
 are yet polyandrous. And of caste among people at 
 that stage we have several instances. 
 
 VIII. On kinship becoming agnatic, the members 
 of a caste, formed as above explained, might yielding 
 to a common tendency of rude races feign themselves 
 to be all descended from a common ancestor, and thus 
 become endogamous. 
 
 On the appearance of kinship through males, much 
 confusion must for a time have prevailed in the applica- 
 tion of the principle of exogamy. Some marriages that 
 were formerly allowable would become illegal : as, for 
 instance, the marriage of brother and sister-german, or 
 of the children of brothers ; on the other hand, some 
 marriages that were before illegal would become allow- 
 able, as for instance the marriages of sisters' children. 
 
 1 It is worth mentioning that many of the rude caste tribes in 
 the hills of India, such as the Kocch, have the blood-tie through 
 mothers only. Whether marriage is subject to any, or what, re- 
 strictions within these caste tribes, we have no information. The 
 reader will understand that, in speaking of castes, we distinguish 
 between castes proper the divisions of a people as determined by 
 the right of intermarriage and the classical subdivisions of castes 
 proper, which are often met with, and which are also frequently 
 called castes. We believe with Dr. Roth that the division into 
 classes resulted from the growth and establishment of professions, 
 and was of later date than the division into castes proper. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 143 
 
 At least the marriages last mentioned would be consistent 
 with exogamy where relationship became agnatic. And 
 as the old rules thus became inapplicable new rules 
 would be formed, which in some cases might ignore the 
 principle upon which the old proceeded. At any rate it 
 is manifest that, while the application of the principle 
 in the new circumstances was in dubio, the fiction of a 
 common descent from an illustrious ancestor, should it 
 be put forward, would come in aid of the confusion to 
 destroy or render obsolete the principle of exogamy. 
 The members of the caste already restricted to marriages 
 among themselves, and now feigning themselves all to 
 be kindred, would become endogamous. 
 
 Indeed, all that is necessary for the production of an 
 endogamous tribe is, that a caste tribe composed of mem- 
 bers of different stocks should, anyhow, at any time, 
 yield to the tendency to eponomy. We see, however, 
 that in the stage of transition from the system of female 
 kinship to agnation, or to a system of male kinship, 
 there must have been a time highly favourable for the 
 introduction of the fiction of a common descent, and of 
 the destruction thereby of exogamy. Of the tendency 
 of rude races to employ that fiction, it is unnecessary 
 that we should say anything ; it is familiar to all students 
 of early history. Nothing is more common than to find 
 the belief in a common descent among peoples obviously 
 heterogeneous ; sometimes the belief is found even in 
 communities which are not only heterogeneous, but the 
 composition of which is known to be entirely artificial. 1 
 1 Ancient Law, p. 263, 1861. 
 
144 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 And if we anywhere find the form of capture among 
 an endogamous race, as we do among the Bedouin 
 Arabs, and appear to do among the Hebrews, it is not, 
 we think, too much to say that the presence of the form 
 is confirmatory of the supposition that the race became 
 endogamous through employing this fiction, and by the 
 processes which we have been explaining. At least this 
 is the only explanation which we can offer of the ap- 
 pearance among an endogamous people of the form of 
 v capture. 1 
 
 We have now gone over the ground laid out at the 
 close of the last chapter. It will be seen that some of 
 the propositions mutually support one another. For 
 example, the observed heterogeneity of certain castes 
 which are subject to the rule of exogamy, goes to show 
 that their ancestors must have had the system of kinship 
 through females only ; for exogamy, by itself, will not 
 explain the welding together, in a group, of persons of 
 different original stocks. And to those who, from the 
 earlier chapters, have formed the opinion that we are 
 
 1 As to the unity of physical characteristics observed in most 
 castes, we notice that even in the stage when exogamy is yet ob- 
 served, they were, owing to their intermarriages and the close 
 connections permitted by a system of kinship which ignored half of 
 the natural blood-ties, steadily advancing to one type, as consan- 
 guinii. Where the caste became properly endogamous the 
 circumstances were only just more favourable to the production 
 of that type. There is nothing in the observed unity discordant 
 with the assumption of original heterogeneity ; nothing, especially 
 when we consider the periods of time at our disposal, to allow for 
 the production of a uniform type among a people strictly limited to 
 marriages among themselves. 
 
ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 145 
 
 right in our theory of the origin of the form of capture 
 the appearance of the form among an endogamous race 
 will strengthen the supposition that many endogamous 
 races, which have not or which we do not know to 
 have the form, may originally have been exogamous. 
 
 We may fitly close this chapter with some surmises 
 thrown out for what they are worth as to some of 
 the effects on early society of the law of blood-feud, 
 which exists everywhere, so far as we know, among rude 
 races, and which of course grew up with, and out of, kin- 
 ship. So far as the law of blood-feud retarded the 
 production of heterogeneity within the groups in any 
 district, it was unfriendly to progress. From another 
 point of view it appears that it must have favoured pro- 
 gress, especially among exogamous races, at that stage 
 when kinship was through females only. It bound all 
 the kindred to avenge the death of any one, and the 
 obligation was a point of religion. At first, probably, 
 the protection to the person which this law afforded may 
 have extended only to adults, but in time it came to be 
 extended even to infants. This extension indeed was a 
 logical necessity. And when infants came within the 
 benefit of the law, their lives must often have been 
 spared to avoid the blood-feud with their mother's 
 kindred a body of protectors, as we have seen, usually 
 living outside and foreign to the gens or house of birth. 
 Thus the law of blood-feud must be credited with a 
 mitigation, perhaps in some cases with the suppression, 
 of infanticide, male as well as female, in exogamous 
 societies, at that stage when kinship is through mothers 
 
 L 
 
146 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 only. And by checking this practice it tended to restore 
 the balance of the sexes, to allow of the rise of polygyny 
 and the decay of polyandry. It is a curious fact that 
 nowhere now, that we are aware of, is infanticide a 
 system where exogamy and the earliest form of kinship 
 co-exist. 1 
 
 When, however, with agnation, groups became 
 homogeneous, containing none but kindred, and con- 
 taining in fact all the kindred, this beneficial action of 
 the blood-feud must have ceased. Where necessity or 
 convenience prompted to infanticide among agnatic 
 groups, the law of blood-feud opposed no impediment 
 to the practice. If the children perished it was at the 
 hands of their kindred. Accordingly the most impres- 
 sive systems of infanticide chiefly systems of female 
 infanticide now existing, occur among exogamous 
 races which have male kinship. 
 
 On the one hand, then, the law of blood - feud 
 would seem to have played an important part in 
 introducing monogamy, polygyny, and the patriarchal 
 system ; on the other hand, it would seem at a later 
 stage to have favoured the perpetuation of exogamy, 
 and of systems of infanticide. 
 
 1 [Since this reasoning, as to the tendency of the blood-feud with 
 female kinship, as time went on, to put a check upon infanticide was 
 first published (1865), two proofs of its soundness have appeared 
 one from New Zealand, the other from Australia. See Old New 
 Zealand, London, 1876, p. 85 ; and the Journal of the Anthropological 
 Institute, Feb. 1878, p. 250.] 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 
 
 IT will complete the view of early society, to which 
 we have been led by our investigation of the origin of 
 the form of capture, if we point out the principal causes 
 of the breakdown of exogamy in advancing communi- 
 ties. We have seen the liability of the principle to 
 decay in the confusion incident to the growth of the 
 system of kinship through males ; and have found 
 reason to think that it gave place to endogamy in 
 many tribes which had, previous to the revolution in 
 kinship, nearly attained a balance sufficient for the 
 purposes of marriage of persons accounted of different 
 stocks. It remains, then, that we should consider the 
 causes of the neglect of the principle where it perished 
 gradually, and without the people becoming endo- 
 gamous. 
 
 To indicate the causes in any case will be sufficient 
 for our purpose. We select the cases of Greece and 
 Eome as being those which, to the generality of readers, 
 are most familiar. That the Greeks and the Eomans 
 were originally exogamous may be inferred from three 
 
 L 2 
 
148 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 distinct grounds, separately, and in combination. (1), 
 They present us with the form of capture in marriage 
 ceremonies. (2), Many of their mythic traditions are 
 incapable of a rational explanation, except on the hypo- 
 thesis that they anciently had the system of capturing 
 women for wives. (3), The composition and organiza- 
 tion of their tribes and commonwealths cannot well be 
 explained, except on the hypothesis that they resulted 
 from the joint operation, in early times, of exogamy and 
 the system of kinship through females only. The two 
 first grounds we have already noticed ; on the third we 
 must now dwell somewhat. It not only affords new 
 evidence of the prevalence of exogamy, but intro- 
 duces us to the chief causes of its decay in advancing 
 communities. 
 
 The old theory of the composition of States was 
 based upon the tendency of families to multiply round 
 a central family, whose head represented the original 
 progenitor of them all. The family, under the govern- 
 ment of a father, was assumed to be the primary group 
 the elementary social unit ; in it were found at once 
 the germs of the State, and of sovereign authority. 
 Many circumstances recommended this theory, and none 
 more than its apparent simplicity. It was easy to find 
 abundant analogies for the prolongation of the family 
 into the State. A family tends to multiply families 
 around it, till it becomes the centre of a tribe, just as 
 the banyan tends to surround itself with a forest of its 
 own offshoots. And it is obvious to follow up this 
 figure, by remarking that the feelings of kindred, which 
 
THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. 149 
 
 hold families together in tribes, tend to bind together, 
 in nations, tribes which, like the Greek races, trace back 
 their descent to kinsmen. 
 
 The origin of the State on this view is so simple, 
 that a child may comprehend it. But it is very easily 
 shown that the theory cannot be supported. In the 
 first place, it is not borne out by history. The tribes 
 are numerous whose members claim to be descended 
 from a common progenitor. Inquiry, however, every- 
 where discloses the fact, that the common progenitor is 
 a fiction a hero or god, called into being to explain the 
 tribe from whom the tribe did not derive its being. 
 In many cases, not only the fact that the genealogy is 
 fictitious, but even the time when it was invented, can 
 be shown ; l and nowhere can tribes or nations be traced 
 back to individuals. Also, the theory turns on a funda- 
 mental error as to the primitive state. It postulates 
 that human history opens with perfect marriage, 
 conjugal fidelity, and certainty of male parentage ; 
 that, from the first, all the necessary conditions of the 
 rise of a perfect family system were satisfied. Demon- 
 strably, history did not so begin ; and hence, de- 
 monstrably, the family the social unit of the theory 
 is not the primary unit it is assumed to be. Farther, 
 and apart from these objections, the theory is wanting 
 in this essential quality of a good theory, viz., that it 
 should explain, or be capable of being made to appear 
 to explain, the facts. The more acute thinkers who 
 
 1 This can be done in regard to the Greek races which traced 
 their descent to the sons of Hellen. 
 
150 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 have adopted it, and who at the same time have re- 
 jected, as they felt constrained to do, the principle of 
 contiguity, as a principle on which groups in early times 
 united,^ have discerned serious difficulties in the way of 
 entertaining the theory. Mr. Maine especially seems to 
 have been impressed with these difficulties, and to have 
 been unable to find any proper solution of them. 
 
 " In most of the Greek States, and in Kome," says 
 Mr. Maine, 2 " there long remained vestiges of an 
 ascending series of groups, out of which the State was at 
 first constituted. The family, house, and tribe of the 
 Eomans, may be taken as the type of them ; and they 
 are so described to us, that we can scarcely help con- 
 ceiving them as a system of concentric circles, which 
 have gradually expanded from the same point. The 
 elementary group is the family connected by common 
 subjection to the highest male ascendant. The aggrega- 
 tion of families [which elsewhere 3 he calls the fictitious 
 extension of the family] forms the gens or house. The 
 aggregation of houses makes the tribe. The aggregation 
 of tribes forms the commonwealth." 
 
 Obviously, this is not an explanation of the growth 
 of the commonwealth. It does not show how, con- 
 sistently with the assumption of the family as the 
 elementary unit, the various aggregations spoken of 
 
 1 Aristotle kept clear of many of the difficulties which surround 
 the theory of the derivation of the State from the family, by making 
 the combination of families of different stocks depend on contiguity 
 of residence, and on convenience. 
 
 2 Ancient Law, p. 128. 3 IUd. p. 200. 
 
THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. 151 
 
 were effected. The gens, clan, or house, which occurs 
 in early tribes wherever we look, was in India, Greece, 
 and Rome, as elsewhere, composed of all the persons in 
 the tribe (included in families, of course), bearing the 
 same name, and accounted of the same stock. Were the 
 gentes really of different stocks, as their names would 
 imply, and as the people believed ? If so, how came 
 clans of different stocks to be united in the same tribe ? 
 The production of a tribe of one stock of a homo- 
 geneous agnatic group is readily conceivable on the 
 family hypothesis. But how came a variety of such 
 groups of different stocks to coalesce in a local tribe ? 
 On the other hand, how came a tribe of descent to be 
 divided into clans situated in different local tribes ; how 
 came such a tribe to be at all divided into clans or 
 houses ? 
 
 To these questions no proper answer has, so far 
 as we know, been given. The common supposition is, 
 that the heterogeneity of the local tribes was somehow 
 brought about by the fiction of adoption. It is supposed 
 that the agnatic groups must have united through this 
 fiction, the one adopting the other on the pretence of 
 kinship ; although, after their union, they preserved their 
 distinctive names. Mr. Maine does not expressly say 
 that the observed combination of heterogeneous elements 
 in tribes, and hence in the commonwealth often as- 
 sumed to be composed wholly of kindred was due to 
 the employment of the fiction of adoption ; but he leaves 
 that conclusion to be drawn by his readers. " If," he 
 says, " adoption had never existed, I do not see how any 
 
152 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 one of the primitive groups [i.e. the agnatic brother- 
 hoods, for he contemplates none other], whatever were 
 their nature, could have absorbed one another; or, on 
 what terms any two of them could have combined, except 
 those of absolute superiority on the one side, and 
 absolute subjection on the other." Here the difficulty is 
 distinctly perceived ; but, is it overcome ? What is the 
 evidence that the fiction of adoption was ever employed 
 on so grand a scale as we must suppose to explain 
 the heterogeneity of such groups as the tribes of Eome, 
 Greece, or India ? "We say that there is none. It is a 
 case of error, induced by the maxim " causa sequat 
 effectum." As the fiction of adoption was the only 
 cause conceived of that might have produced the 
 observed phenomena, it has been assumed to have been 
 employed on the scale required by its supposed effects. 
 But, we repeat, there is no evidence that it was so 
 employed. And there is no likelihood that it was so 
 employed. Our belief is, that adoption has been much 
 more extensively employed by philosophers to explain, 
 than it was by rude races to produce, heterogeneity. 
 It is of no consequence how families and gentes were 
 adulterated by the practice of adoption. The difficulty 
 to be got over does not lie so much in any want of 
 purity of the so-called stocks, as in the union of different 
 stocks admittedly different in the same tribe. 
 
 The phenomena we have been contemplating offer no 
 difficulty when regarded from the point of view to which 
 we have been led by our investigation. To satisfy the 
 reader of this, we must to some extent recapitulate. 
 
TEE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. 153 
 
 We started in the last chapter from the conception of 
 populations, the units of which were homogeneous groups 
 or tribes, which, on the introduction of kinship, became 
 the stock groups of each particular district or country, 
 and gave their names to the variety of stocks 
 subsequently known to the district or country. 
 And we saw how, into the groups, and into their 
 sections, if they divided, exogamy conjointly with the 
 system of kinship through females only, while it 
 endured, systematically imported strangers, and thus 
 in time rendered the groups heterogeneous, and the 
 general population to the same extent 1 homogeneous. 
 We saw how thus every local tribe came to consist of 
 persons of different stocks ; also how all of the same 
 stock, in each, were bound together by rights and 
 obligations springing out of kinship ; and how they were 
 also united though to less practical effect to all others 
 of the same stock in whatever local tribes residing. 
 Farther, we saw that, when kinship became agnatic, the 
 character of the local tribes became stereotyped, the 
 causes of heterogeneity ceasing to operate. 
 
 In each local tribe all the men of the same stock 
 and name were bound by kinship to common action, in 
 certain cases, against the men of other stocks, both in 
 the tribe and elsewhere. Here we have the gentes in 
 the local tribe. And gentes of the same stock and 
 name would exist in different neighbouring local tribes. 
 We shall learn from this how the causes which led to 
 
 1 That is, to the same recognized extent, but really to a much 
 greater, half the blood-ties being overlooked. 
 
154 PRIMITIVE MAERIAGE. 
 
 the diffusion of the stocks throughout the population, 
 favoured the union of the population in the common- 
 wealth. Most probably contiguous tribes would be 
 composed of precisely the same stocks- would contain 
 gentes of precisely the same names, and thus be in the 
 strictest sense akin kindred. There is no difficulty in 
 conceiving equal unions taking place between such tribes 
 under the influence of kinship, similarity of elements 
 and structure, contiguity and convenience. And on the 
 union of several local tribes under a common govern- 
 ment, the gentes of each stock in the combination would 
 be recognized as forming together a tribe of descent, as 
 in reality they would do. Thus, the tribes of descent 
 in the commonwealth would each embrace several gentes 
 which had taken shape, and acquired special rights and 
 property in the local tribes in which they respectively 
 were, before the union in the State. As the gens (or 
 the germ thereof) would arise under the influence of 
 female kinship, it would precede probably long precede 
 agnatic kinship and the family system as they existed 
 in Kome. And we have already seen something of the 
 processes by which the gentes would be resolved into 
 rude family groups, and the family system gradually 
 advanced into the patriarchal, till the gentes would be 
 resolved into a series of families of the Eoman type. 1 
 The order of social development, in our view, is then, 
 
 1 [It may be well to give a reminder here that the author was 
 afterwards led to regard the family of the Roman type the father's 
 power patria potestas, and the system of kinship agnation as not 
 normal but as altogether exceptional. That form of the family seems 
 to be discoverable nowhere except in Kome.] 
 
THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. 155 
 
 that the tribe stands first ; the gens or house next ; and 
 last of all, the family. We are satisfied that the more 
 the reader studies the phenomena of early tribal com- 
 position the phratries and such-like unions of persons 
 in different tribes the more he will be convinced that 
 this was the order of the genesis of tribes, gentes, and 
 families ; and that in no other way can the phenomena 
 of the composition of early states be satisfactorily 
 explained. 1 
 
 Assuming that we have given the true account of 
 the origin of clans of different names and stocks^in local 
 tribes, and of the appearance of distinct houses of the 
 same name in tribes of descent, in ancient common- 
 wealths, we might greatly extend the area of exogamy. 
 But to do so is not our present purpose. We observe 
 that the breakdown of exogamy in advancing com- 
 munities must have been most intimately connected 
 with this evolution of clans and families, and of clan 
 and family estates within the tribe. As we have already 
 
 1 We rcommend to the reader a perusal of the Translators' 
 Preface to the Oxford translation (1830) of C. 0. Miiller's History 
 and Antiquities of the Doric JRace, the translators being Henry 
 Tufnell and Sir George Cornewall Lewis. If the reader keeps in 
 view that we have good evidence of the existence at one time of the 
 system of kinship through females only among the Dorians, we 
 believe he will not be able to peruse the passage of Dicsearchus 
 translated in that preface, and the Editors' comments thereon, 
 without being strongly impressed that our views are the only views 
 on which the phenomena of early Doric communities can be made 
 intelligible. And if he farther study chap, x., part ii., of Mr. 
 Grote's History of Greece, we believe his impression of the correctness 
 of our views will be deepened. 
 
156 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 had occasion to point out, the only species of property 
 known anywhere originally appears to have been pro- 
 perty in common. Everywhere it would appear that 
 the groups were at the first the only owners. And the 
 history of the right of property, as we have it, is just 
 that of the growth inside groups of proprietary rights 
 distinct from the tribal. It was an advance when clan 
 estates were recognized as distinct from the tribal ; it 
 was a farther advance when family estates were re- 
 cognized as distinct from those of the clan. Barbarism 
 was already far in the rear when individual property 
 made its appearance. 
 
 Now, when the authentic history of Eome begins, 
 marriage laws had not only become stringent, but 
 modern in character, conjugal fidelity had become 
 common, and, as the consequence, relationship had be- 
 come agnatic. The tribal system, moreover, had been 
 stripped of several of its leading features. Property 
 had long been localized in families as distinct from 
 gentes ; and this localization had cut the families off 
 from one another, and to a large extent from the gentes. 
 Families were still associated in gentes, the gentes in 
 tribes, for political purposes ; and there remained to the 
 gentiles the right and spes successionis to family estates, 
 failing legitimate heirs. But already the laws of suc- 
 cession which had sprung up with family property 
 which were springing up with individual property 
 were training the people to consider a few persons only 
 as their kinsmen in any special sense. And the course 
 of decadence of the recognition of extended kinships in 
 
THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY. 
 
 Greece followed much the same path. However strongly 
 implanted the principle of exogamy may have originally 
 been, it must have succumbed to the influences which 
 thus disintegrated the old bonds of kinship. So com- 
 plete was the disintegration, that in Rome, while the 
 right of succession still remained in the gentiles as 
 evidence of kinship, and its rights and obligations, 
 having been originally co- extensive with the gens, we 
 find this so far lost sight of in the nebulosities of legal 
 terminology, that the lawyers declared that all con- 
 sanguinity ended with their names for its seven degrees 
 names invented with a view to the regulation of suc- 
 cessions ; ended there, " quia ulterius per rerum naturam 
 nee nomina inveniri nee vita succedentibus prorogari 
 potest." ] A maxim, by the way, which proved very 
 convenient to those pontiffs who maintained that the 
 Levitical rule prohibited marriage between all blood 
 relations, and which is probably found very convenient 
 now in Russia, where the Greek Church still asserts that 
 view of the Levitical rule. For the rest, it must be 
 enough to say that exogamy died out with the blood-ties 
 on which its existence depended, and that the process of 
 destruction of those ties which the laws of succession 
 inaugurated, was carried on and completed by the law 
 of Testaments. If to this general view anything 
 should be added, perhaps it is that the earliest viola- 
 tions of the rule of exogamy would appear to have been 
 called for in the case of female heiresses. Such ladies, 
 if they made proper marriages according to old law 
 1 Paulus, Senten. Recept., lib. iv. 
 
158 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 at that stage of progress when a wife was usually what 
 they call in Ceylon a deega wife, i.e. passed from her 
 own family into the family and village of her husband 
 must have carried their estates into other tribes or 
 gentes, and so have cut off their own gentiles from the 
 prospect of succeeding them. Numbers xxxvi. contains 
 an account of the origin among the Israelites of the 
 rule prohibiting a female heiress from marrying out of 
 the tribe of the family of her father. And the pro- 
 hibition is not uncommon. 
 
CHAPTEE X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 HERE our argument ends. Apparently simple as was 
 the problem to be solved, it has now received a solution 
 for the first time. That solution opens a new series of 
 problems for the consideration of the philosopher ; of 
 some of which, indeed, we have offered solutions, which, 
 in the fervour of the first conception, may have been 
 put forward in too sanguine a spirit. It will be some- 
 thing, however, if, in proposing and trying to solve such 
 problems, we have at least succeeded in showing their 
 importance, by displaying them on the level of the 
 foundations of civil society. The chief of these ques- 
 tions respect the origin of exogamy and of endogamy. 
 As to the origin of the former, it will be remarked that 
 we have not spent time on the consideration of the 
 question, whether it may not have been due to a natural 
 feeling against the union of near kinsfolk. Its general 
 description might dispose one to think that it might 
 have been due to such a feeling. But, owing to the 
 nature of ancient kinship, as we have seen it, exogamy 
 afforded no proper security against the intermixture of 
 
160 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 persons near of kin. It permitted, in reality, many 
 marriages which we now disallow. Ties of blood that 
 were not recognized though that they were ties of 
 blood must have been vaguely perceived were prac- 
 tically non-existent. And, in the first stages of human 
 development, it was agreeable to exogamy that brothers 
 and sisters of the half-blood should marry, while uncles 
 might marry nieces, and nephews aunts. Afterwards, 
 unions equally incestuous, as we should say, were allow- 
 able in consequence of the limitation in blood-ties 
 derived from agnation. One thing is very clear, that 
 in ancient times such questions as have been raised by 
 modern science, as to the propriety of the marriages of 
 near relatives, were never considered. On the whole, 
 the account which we have given of the origin of 
 exogamy appears the only one which will bear exami- 
 nation. The scarcity of women within the group led 
 to a practice of stealing the women of other groups, and 
 in time it came to be considered improper, because it 
 was unusual, for a man to marry a woman of his own 
 group. Another important question respects the uni- 
 versality of kinship through females only. The strong 
 a priori presumptions in favour of that, as the most 
 archaic system of kinship, backed by so much evidence 
 as we have been able to adduce, seem to us satisfactorily 
 to establish the position which we have taken up. On 
 the other hand, much labour and investigation will yet 
 be needed to show clearly that that kinship was not 
 merely a concomitant of exogamy and polyandry, 
 should cases occur in which it must be held that 
 
CONCLUSION. 161 
 
 neither polyandry nor exogamy was primitive cus- 
 tom. Assuming the universality of that kinship, 
 the question remains : What were the stages of de- 
 velopment of the family system, founded on the 
 principle of agnation, as at Eome ? Some of those 
 questions we have grappled with ; at others we have 
 done little more than glance. Are we too sanguine 
 if we venture to predict that their solution will yet 
 be reached, and will exhibit early human history in a 
 very different light from that in which it has hitherto 
 been regarded, by what Dugald Stewart calls " that 
 indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle whatever 
 appearance both in the natural and moral worlds it is 
 unable to explain " ? 
 
 M 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 M I' 
 
APPENDIX. 
 NOTE A. 
 
 THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 
 
 [NEARLY all the examples of the form of capture here 
 collected, and, indeed, all the clearest and best of them, have 
 been taken from works published before this symbol had been 
 made the subject of serious speculation. In general they were 
 noted by the writers who observed them simply because of 
 their singularity, without knowledge of the frequency of similar 
 customs in connection with marriage ; and, one or two excepted, 
 without any attempt to account for the appearance at the 
 initiation of marriage of a pretence of violence and capture. 
 Being described to us as curiosities of custom merely, they can 
 readily be taken as trustworthy. No doubt the description is 
 often briefer and more imperfect than it would have been hud 
 the writer known that what he was describing could help to 
 throw light upon the condition of early men. 
 
 Probably all the best-known examples of the form have 
 been brought together in this Appendix; and it may suffice to 
 show that, in one shape or another, this symbol has been very 
 widely spread. But there has been no attempt to make a full 
 collection of examples, though that, no doubt, would be o! 
 much value. 
 
 In relation to the significance of this symbol in case this 
 should be taken to be still matter of controversy it may be 
 pointed out that those cases of the form of capture in which 
 there was a pretence of conflict between the bride's relative's 
 and the bridegroom's, whether in the shape of a sham battle or 
 of a siege of the bride's house, are cases in which the modest 
 shrinking from marriage, which has been attributed to early 
 women, can have had nothing to do with what took place, and 
 which, moreover, disclose very clearly the real origin of the 
 
166 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 symbol. For the bride was passive, or nearly so, in those cases : 
 nothing, or at any rate very little, was expected from her; it 
 was assumed that she could not defend herself, and that she 
 ought to be defended. Her relatives went through the form 
 of resisting her being carried away; and the result of the 
 pretence of conflict was that she was taken from them as if by 
 superior force, and borne off like a captive by the bridegroom 
 and his friends. Such cases show us peoples among whom 
 (while what was done had meaning for them) a woman's 
 relatives, after they had agreed to part with her to a hus- 
 band, did not deliver her up to him, but made believe that 
 she was taken from them in fight by an enemy. And they 
 disclose nothing beyond the semblance of a fight in which 
 the forcible carrying away of the woman by strangers was 
 vainly resisted by her kindred. It will be found, with actual 
 capture and the form appearing side by side, that the effect of 
 a friendly arrangement, where there is one, is to make capture 
 easy the woman's friends do not give her up ; they make a 
 defence, though they let her be taken, and we even find them 
 afterwards pretending to resent the capture. And while wives 
 are commonly got by capture, peaceful delivery of the bride is 
 a thing unknown in these cases perhaps a thing not to be 
 thought of. 
 
 But the other varieties of this symbol all indicate the same 
 origin for it. In cases of bride-catching there was actual 
 capture ; the woman's friends, when they had been arranged 
 with, did not, give her up they let the bridegroom take her 
 when he could. And when the woman had notice, and might 
 hide herself (and the hiding had not become a mere form), if 
 she could elude her pursuer she got off the marriage. In bride- 
 racing, the bridegroom had to prove successful in a purely con- 
 ventional ordeal ; but the prevalence of capture and the cases 
 already noticed considered, it cannot be doubted that this 
 embodied the idea that capture should precede marriage that 
 a woman should not go out of her tribe except by capture. If 
 the bridegroom did not catch the bride he did not have her for 
 a wife. The woman seems to have usually had so good a chance 
 of escaping that her acquiescence in the lot proposed for her 
 might be inferred from her being overtaken.] 
 
 In the cases of the form of capture first to be presented, 
 the leading idea symbolised is the capture of the bride after a 
 conflict with her kinsmen. There appears in some of the earlier 
 
APPENDIX. 107 
 
 cases of the series a pretence of besieging the bride's house, or 
 invading it and carrying her off. 
 
 1. The people of Berry, in France, observe in their marriages 
 several complex ceremonials. Among them is the form of 
 capture, of which we have a lucid description from the pen of 
 George Sand. 
 
 The marriage-day having arrived, the bride and her friends 
 shut themselves up in the home of the bride, barricade the 
 doors, bar the windows, and otherwise prepare as if for a siege. 
 In due course the bridegroom and his friends arrive and seek 
 admittance. They try, at first, to obtain it by a variety of ruses, 
 made in course of a long conversation, after a prescribed tra- 
 ditionary pattern, which is carried on between spokesmen of the 
 parties. They are weary pilgrims wanting rest; they are robbers 
 tleeing from the police and seeking an asylum ; and so forth. 
 Admittance being refused, they assail and batter at the doors ; 
 they try, as it were, to take the place by storm. Those within 
 the house, on the other hand, become active in its defence. 
 Pistols are fired on both sides, and the barking of dogs, the shouts 
 of the men and the outcries of the women, swell the uproar. 
 When they are wearied there is a parley and another conver- 
 sation, which, like the preceding, is after a traditionary pattern. 
 The bridegroom's party are at last admitted on stating that 
 they have brought a husband and presents for the bride. Then 
 a struggle commences for the possession of the hearth. The 
 incidents of attack and defence are again simulated, but with 
 such an appearance of reality that broken ribs and heads are 
 not unfrequently the result. The issue, of course, is that the 
 assailants are victorious. , The bridegroom obtains his bride, 
 and the more peaceful ceremonies of the marriage are proceeded 
 with. Le Marc au Diable, by George Sand. App. p. 151 
 d scq. Paris, 18G3. 
 
 2. Several varieties of the form of capture appear among 
 the South Slavonians. 
 
 On the seaboard of Croatia marriages always take place on 
 Sunday, but the marriage festivities begin on Saturday after- 
 noon. When night comes (on Saturday), the bride and her 
 friends being assembled, all the doors of the bride's house are 
 closed to prevent a surprise by the bridegroom's party. The 
 assembled guests are on the alert, and as soon as they hear the 
 sound of singing at a distance (the expected visitors sing as 
 they come) all the lights are put out, and all keep silence. The 
 visitors, having come up, knock repeatedly without getting any 
 
1 OS riUMITlYi: MA KIUA CK. 
 
 uiiswor ; but at length a conversation (in this rase also on . 
 traditional pattern) begins, in which the people outside try, oq 
 
 various pretexts, to get admission. They are poor travel!* T 
 seeking lor a ewe that has strayed ; the weather is bad, tl,, 
 suow up to their knees, the water up to their shoulders ; :\\\,\ 
 this kind of colloquy is kept up for a loug time. At length tli, 
 door is opened; the first man who steps over the threslmlil 
 serves wine all round ; and, when every one has had to drink. 
 the girls of the house pass in tile before the visitors that t!u\ 
 may look out their "lost ewe." The bride fumes last.; Ih, 
 bridegroom embraees her ; and then singing and dancing 
 begin. 
 
 What happens among the Croats is evidently a disintegrated 
 form of what happens among the Herricors. There is less slimy 
 of resistance. There is less still iii some other South Slavonian 
 districts where the same sort of thing appears. 
 
 At (jradiska and at l>rod, on the night, before a wedding, tlu> 
 bridegroom's brother and some of his friends go to the brides 
 house. The doors an* elosed against, them ; but the resistance 
 offered, we are told, is not so great, nor kept up so long, as on 
 the coasts of Croatia. After a time the visitors pay something, 
 and the door is opened to them. The door is similarly elose.l 
 against the bridegroom's party, and admission bought by them, 
 among the Hulgars and among the Dalmatians, 
 
 Wherever the use of arms continues among the South Sla- 
 vonians, all the men go armed to a wedding. At Konavlje, t\v. 
 armed parties, one from the bridegroom's house, the other from 
 the bride's, start at the same time for the ehureh, meeting mid- 
 way. The one party claims delivery of the bride, the other 
 refuses; and a long dispute takes place which always ends in a 
 compromise the bride's party promising the other that thev 
 will deliver up the bride to it, but only at the church-door. 
 
 In many South Slavonian districts the bride goes through 
 the form of hiding herself. In Bulgaria, when she arrives at 
 her new home, she refuses to cross the threshold, and an attempt 
 is made to drag her over it. She resists; and at last her fom- 
 plianee is purchased by the promise of some present. L< 
 /h'oif Coutnmitr (/* Slave? un'ru/io/nut.r (Cttprfe Its 7ur//ovA<s 
 </<: M. V. J>tn/ixi<: J'xr Fedor Demelic. ]'. SJ), ct ,svy. Paris, 
 1S77. 
 
 Such aro the South Slavonian wedding customs of to-da\. 
 doing some way back, one learns without surprise from 
 Dobfowsky (^ /<>'<//. dcr .Hdlninsclt. S}tTtchc t p. f>(J) that, among 
 
APPKXDIX. Hi'.* 
 
 tlic Morlaken in Dalmatia, "a courtship always ends, when both 
 parties arc agreed, in carrying oil* the bride, .-is among the Cos- 
 sacks;" and, further (p. I 17), that, a dance in use among the 
 Krainers might be taken " to bo the allegorical representation of 
 Slavonic maiden-stealing." 
 
 The symbol of a siege is described to us in an indistinct form 
 in Transylvania, but the indistinctness ma.y in p:rt he due to 
 the brevity of the description. " When the bridegroom and his 
 friends arrive at the bride's house, they find the door locked. 
 The, bridegroom must, as best lie can, climb over into the court, 
 OJHMI the door from within, and admit his companions." Pinner's 
 Tmnsi/lvtmijt. P. 492. London, l.s(i(>. 
 
 tt. Among the Mussulmans of India., in their weddings, when 
 the bridegroom, attended by his friends in procession, arrives at 
 the house of the bride, he finds the gate shut and guarded. 
 He attempts to get in by a ruse. " Who are you that dare 
 obstruct the kind's cavalca.de I " r Phe answer is, "\\liv, at 
 night, so many thieves rove about, it is very possible you are 
 BOU1O of them." A long jocular conversation follows, ending in 
 ft struggle. "At times, out, of frolic, there is such pushing and 
 shoving, that frequently many a one falls down and is hurt." 
 The party are at last admitted on paving a sum of inoncv. Then 
 follows a sham tight within the. gates; after which, and other 
 ceremonials, the bridegroom carries otV his bride. llerklot's 
 (Juitmns of ///< Mnxxnhntin* <>/ Imlm. P. \'2(\. London, Is.Si*. 
 
 4. It is the form of a siege which Lord Kames has described 
 M occurring among negroes of Central Africa (si'e text, page 1!>). 
 Jn this case, the bridi'gfooiu is the midnight invader of the 
 hamlet, temporarily deserted by its guardians. The braves 
 feign absence; the women unprotected ness. The hou>e iseasilv 
 mastered, and the bride carried oil' in triumph. Kames's >'/, /// s 
 of the JlixttH'// of Mtui. Vol. I., p. 44!). Kilinburgh. I NOT. 
 
 5. At .Dungally (Straits of Macassar"), a marriage having 
 been arranged between the daughter of Tooa, lat< i Kajah of 
 Duugally who hail resigned in favour of his sou Ar\o and 
 the son of a Uajah, \\lio had visited the town \\ith a piratical 
 prow, on tlu day appointed for the marriage all the warriors of 
 the place were armed; ami, about one in the afternoon, the 
 young man with his father and all the men belonging to the 
 prow, armed as if for an engagement, came on shore. They 
 were received by the Kajah Arvo and others, and, alter some 
 preliminaries, about twenty of the crew were picked out 
 to walk before the bridegroom, all armed with spears and 
 
170 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 shields. "They then proceeded from the beach to the town 
 . . . At the same time about thirty men, armed with S|M-.US 
 and shields, came from the town as if to oppose them, wln-n 
 a sham fight was entered into, which they performed vnv 
 well, gradually retreating towards the town as the bridegroom 
 and his party advanced thereto. A jtatcnipore, or piece of oh hit/.. 
 was extended across the gateway as if to prevent their entrain -. -, 
 till the Rajah's son had made a present to the men of Dungallv ; 
 lie therefore gave them some betel-nut and some seme, wlm-h 
 they chew with the betel, on which they withdrew the jmli-m- 
 jutre. He then advanced some two rods farther, when tlic 
 2>((f,<>tti/j>ore was again put across. At the same time his prop!.; 
 and those of the opposite party appeared to show the greatest 
 anger towards each other by darting spears over each other's 
 heads, until another present was made. The 'juit^-mpnr^ was again 
 removed, and replaced as before at short distances, till he readied 
 the house where the bride was. He then went up, ascended 
 the steps to go into the house, at the door of which the 'nutcni- 
 2>ore was again placed, where he was required to make a largn- 
 present. He took out of his pocket a handful of betel-nut and 
 serric to give them, and as they were reaching for it, they let 
 the palcmjtftrc slip, when he went past without giving them any, 
 which caused considerable laughter. . . . The bridegroom NV.IS 
 then conducted to a large room where the bride was waiting t> 
 receive him. . . . After supper the couple were conveyed to 
 their apartment, which was richly hung with ]>alinporet" 
 Theophilus Moore, Marriage Cittitoms umi Modes of (Jowrlxkip of 
 tlie Various Nation* of the (fniw/nte. Second Edition. P. !!)(>, 
 et scq. London, 1820. [Quoted by Moore from a "respectable 
 author" not named. 
 
 In this case we have first a sham fight outside the town, then 
 a feint of resistance at the gateway, and thereafter a show of 
 disputing from point to point the advance of the bridegroom 
 and his party until they had made their way into the bride's 
 house. 
 
 G. Of the form of capture among the Circassians (described 
 at page; IS) all that need hen; be said is that in this case as also 
 in the plebeian marriage at Home it takes the shajK) of an in- 
 vasion of the house, and forcible carrying oil' of the bride. 
 
 7. "Dr. Krapf thinks that marriage is checked [among the 
 Wa Kamba, Africa] by the large amount required to be paid 
 for a wife, and by a, singular custom among the K am has, accord- 
 ing to which the bridegroom is .required to carry oil' his bride by 
 
AWEXDIX. 171 
 
 force after the preliminaries are completed. This is attempted 
 by the help of all the friends and relatives that the man can 
 muster, and resisted by the friends and relatives of the woman, 
 and the conflict now and then terminates in the discomfiture of 
 the unlucky husband, who is reduced to the necessity of way- 
 laying his wife when she may be alone in the fields or fetching 
 water from the well. When the lady is brought home, the 
 price is paid, and all contest is ended." Pritchard's Natural 
 History of Man. Vol. II. p. 402. London, 1855. 
 
 The statement in Krapf's Travel*, &c., is less detailed, but is 
 substantially the same. 
 
 8. The Kookies, of whom there are several tribes on tin; 
 north-east frontier of India, are fair representatives of the whole 
 population, from Cape Negrais northwards, through Chittugong 
 and Tipperah, to the Naga settlements above Munniepore. The 
 Kookies, according to Colonel McCulloch [long political agent 
 at Munniepore, author of the Account of t/tc Valley of Mun- 
 niepore referred to at p. 59 ; private letter], " have no marriage 
 ceremony. When they go to bring away the bride, after having 
 paid for her, they usually- receive more kicks than halfpence 
 from the village ; that is, they usually get well beaten. But, 
 after the fight is over, the woman is quietly brought from her 
 home and given to the party that came for her, outside the 
 village gate." 
 
 In this as in the preceding case there is so much of an 
 appearance of earnest in the fight for the bride that the bride- 
 groom's pfirty might be beaten and this seems to have been 
 the usual thing among the Kookies. Both, nevertheless, are 
 clearly examples of the simulated conflict. Among the Wa 
 Karriba the bridegroom was, in general, allowed to get his bride ; 
 while if he failed to get her in the fight he had to take her in 
 some other way. Among the Kookies, honour being satisfied 
 the proper form having been complied with she was sent 
 to him. 
 
 As may be seen at page 13, the simulated conflict occurs in 
 a disintegrated form among the Khonds of Orissa. 
 
 9. The country of the Kolatns extends all along the Kandi 
 Konda or Pindi Hills on the south of the \Vurda River, and along 
 the table-land stretching cast and north of Manikgad, and thence 
 south to Dan tan pall i, running parallel to the western bank of 
 the Panhita. " In the celebration of their marriages they follow 
 a custom which prevails also among the Khonds, as it does 
 among the tribes of the Caucasus, and did among not a few of 
 
172 PRIMITIVE MARKIAGE. 
 
 the ancient European nations, I mean the practice of carrying 
 off a bride by force. When a young man desires to enter .;, 
 the connubial state, two or three friends of the family, having 
 heard of a suitable partner in the neighbourhood, and most pro- 
 bably having come to a good understanding with her relations, 
 proceed thither on their errand of abduction. The men in tin- 
 village, who see what is going on, do not interfere, and the op- 
 position of the matrons is easily overcome. The nuptials ar< 
 celebrated in the bridegroom's house, after which he and his 
 bride pay a visit to the family of the latter, and the friendship, 
 which had been seemingly interrupted, is formally re-established." 
 Papers relating to the Aboriginal Tribes of the Central Proi'in \ 
 By the Rev. S. Hislop. Edited by R. Temple. 1866. 
 
 The description given here can only apply to cases in whirl i 
 marriage has been arranged for. There is no serious opposition. 
 The men hold aloof. It is the women who resent the capture, 
 but their resistance is meant to be of no avail. The Kolams. 
 however, appear to have capture and the form of capture si<le 
 by side. 
 
 10. The ancient and most general way of obtaining a wife 
 among the Maoris of New Zealand, Mr. Taylor tells us, was 
 for the man to get together a party of his friends and carry 
 off the woman by force. And " even in the case when all 
 were agreeable, it was still customary for the bridegroom to go 
 with a party, and appear to take her away by force, her friends 
 yielding her up after a feigned struggle. A few days afterwards 
 the parents of the lady, with all her relatives, came to the 
 bridegroom for his pretended abduction. After much speaking 
 and apparent anger the bridegroom generally made a handsome 
 present of tine mats, &c., giving the party an abundant feast." 
 Tc Ika A Maui ; or, New Zealand and its Inhabitants, p. 103. 
 By the Rev. Richard Taylor. London, 1855. 
 
 Here we have the form of capture in the shape of the 
 simulated conflict and, at the same time, a clear disclosure oi 
 its origin. 
 
 11. Among the Mongols of the Ortous, M. Hue tells us, 
 marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, which is clearly ex- 
 pressed in such phrases as " I have bought for my son the 
 daughter of so and so ; " " We have sold our daughter to such 
 and such a family." The marriage-day having arrived, " the 
 bridegroom sends early in the morning a deputation to fetch 
 the girl who has been betrothed to him, or rather whom he has 
 bought. When the envoys draw near, the relations and friends 
 
APPEXDIX. 17:> 
 
 of the bride place themselves in a circle before the door, as if to 
 oppose the departure of the bride ; and then begins a feigned 
 tight, which of course terminates in the bride being carried ofV. 
 She is placed on a horse, and having been led thrice round her 
 paternal home, is taken at full gallop to the tent which has been 
 prepared for her near the dwelling of her father-in-law." There- 
 after the relations and friends of both families repair to the 
 wedding feast. Hue's Journey through Tartu r;!, Thibet, n<l 
 China. Trans, by W. H. Hazlitt. Vol. I., p. 1*5. London, 
 1852. 
 
 At page 15 will be found de Hell's account of the same cere- 
 mony as observed in Kalmuck marriages, especially in those of 
 the noble and princely class. 
 
 12. In Abyssinia, Mr. Mansfield Parkyns tells us, on the 
 night before a wedding festivities take place both at the house 
 of the bridegroom and at the house of the bride, during which 
 the " deball," or war-dance (hereafter described) is from tin.e to 
 time performed. On the wedding-day the bridegroom and his 
 friends go to the bride's house, all riding on mules, armed with 
 guns, swords, and lances, and dressed in tine clothes clothes, 
 arms, and mules being often lent by some great man fur the 
 occasion. " When arrived near the bride's house the nearest 
 convenient plain is selected, and the horsemen commence 
 galloping about, the gunners fire off their matchlocks, and the 
 lancers dash here and there, enacting altogether a sort of sham 
 fight. This, I suppose [says Mr. Parkyns] is done to divert 
 the bridegroom's mind." On entering the house the bride- 
 groom's friends and the bride's range themselves on opposite 
 sides of it. The man expresses his willingness to marry the girl ; 
 the arrangements with the father are concluded ; and then ' the 
 bridegroom takes his bride, and &tn$ ctrcuionic turns her out, 
 giving her into the charge of his friends outside the door." He 
 returns to join in the "deball," or war-dance, in which both 
 parties engage. " This dance is performed by men armed with 
 sliields and lances, who with bounds, feints and springs attack 
 others armed with guns, so as to approach them, and at the 
 same time avoid their fire, while the gunners make similar 
 demonstrations, and at last fire off their guns either in the air 
 or into the earth, and then, drawing their swords, flourish them 
 about as a finish." By and by the bride is carried off on a mule 
 with one of the bridesmen seated behind her. She appears to 
 be treated on the wedding-night by the bridegroom and his 
 bridesmen as a woman who had fallen into the hands of a war- 
 
174 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 party might have been. Life in Abyssinia, by MansikM 
 Parkyns. Vol. II. pp. 51-56. London, 1853. 
 
 13. In the kingdom of Foutah, in the west of Africa, 
 marriage was by purchase, the terms being arranged before- 
 hand, and the agreement of the parties proclaimed at tlio 
 priest's house. "There remains," we are told, "only one 
 difficulty, which consists in withdrawing the wife from her 
 paternal home. All her cousins assemble in front of the door 
 to oppose the bridegroom's entrance, but he always finds means 
 to conciliate them with presents. He then puts forward one of 
 his relatives well mounted, commissioned to bring him his witV' 
 on horseback. But hardly has she mounted behind him whim 
 the women take to lamentations and endeavour to stop him. 
 Nevertheless, the rights of the husband carry the day."- 
 Walckenaer's Collection dcs Relations des Voyages. Vol. IV. pp. 20, 
 21. Paris, 1842. 
 
 Another account says that, after the marriage has boon 
 arranged, "the husband, accompanied by some friends of his 
 own age, comes in the evening, by moonlight, to the house 
 of his wife, and endeavours to carry her off. He is always 
 successful, notwithstanding her resistance and her cries, and 
 although she is seconded by all the young girls of the village 
 or town. The air resounds with their lamentations. As this? 
 is but a simple custom, and has nothing more serious in it 
 than the attempts of the young people to oppose the captor, 
 this comedy always ends in the bride falling happily into the 
 arms of her husband." Walckenaer's Collection. Vol. IV. pp. 
 173, 174. 
 
 14. " In their marriages," says Sir Henry Piers, of the Irish, 
 " especially in those countries where cattle abound, the parents 
 and friends on each side meet on the side of a hill, or, if the 
 weather be cold, in some place of shelter, about midway between 
 both dwellings. If agreement ensue, they drink the agreement 
 bottle, as they call it, which is a bottle of good usquebaugh, and 
 this goes merrily round. For payment of the portion which 
 is generally a determinate number of cows little care is taken. 
 .... On the day of bringing home, the bridegroom and his 
 friends ride out and meet the bride and her friends at the place 
 of meeting. Being come near each other, the custom was of 
 old to cast short darts at the company that attended the bride, 
 but at such distance that seldom any hurt ensued. Yet it is 
 not out of the memory of man that the Lord of Hoath on such 
 an occasion lost an eye. This custom of casting darts is now 
 
APPENDIX. 175 
 
 obsolete." Valleney's Collectanea (h Rclvx nilcmici*. Vol. I., 
 p. 122. 178G. No. 1, Description of Wcstmcath, by Sir Henry 
 Piers, written in 1682. 
 
 The symbol in this case is disintegrated to a great extent. 
 But, no doubt, at an earlier date there was the perfect semblance 
 of a battle. It is very singular to find, in the simulation of 
 attack by the bridegroom's party, the short darts of old Celtic 
 warfare used down to the seventeenth century. 
 
 It is well known that actual abduction was very common 
 among the Irish. Many provisions concerning " abduction 
 without leave" are to be found in the Irish law-books, from 
 which it is to be gathered that an arrangement was usually 
 come to after the event. Abduction with leave, abduction by 
 arrangement, would of course be the form of capture. 
 
 An account of the simulated conflict, as it is described to us 
 among the Welsh, will be found at page 18. Besides that this 
 is a good example of the simulated conflict, it is valuable as 
 affording the suggestion that this variety of the form of capture 
 might pass into " bride-racing." 
 
 Mr. Logan, in his book on the Highland clans, in noticing 
 Sir Henry Piers's account, above cited, gives some facts which 
 go to show that the Scottish Highlanders also had the form of 
 capture. And correspondents of good authority state that, in 
 some parts of the Highlands, and in some districts of Aberdeen- 
 shire, it was common for the parties of the bride and bridegroom 
 to go in procession to a point of meeting midway between their 
 dwellings, and on the way to the minister's house, and when 
 they came near each other, to fire volleys at one another from 
 pistols and muskets ; while, on the return home, the marriage 
 procession was fired at nearly all the way. After what has been 
 shown of the Irish and Welsh, it can scarcely be doubted that 
 this is a relic of the simulated conflict ; and this is made the 
 less doubtful by our finding in the Isle of Skye and in the West 
 Highlands a faint but unmistakable relic of another variety of 
 the form of capture in a ceremony known as " stealing the bride." 
 It occurred in the middle of a reel. The groomsman and brides- 
 maid slipped into the place in the dance of the bride and 
 bridegroom, while the bridegroom suddenly jerked the bride 
 out of the room. 
 
 15. The evidence that the Greeks observed the form of 
 capture otherwise than as "bride-racing" relates to the Dorians 
 only, and is noticed at page 12; but what was true of them 
 was most probably true, anciently, of all the Greek tribes, 
 
176 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 for the Dorians differed from the others chiefly through having 
 better preserved the ancient customs. That the Dorians had 
 the form of capture is proved by the story of Dernaratus; 
 but neither this nor Plutarch's statement, which proves the 
 form of capture among the Spartans among whom latterly 
 it sufficed to seize the bride and carry her from one room to 
 another shows whether the simulated combat occurred among 
 the Greeks or not. That they had it anciently, however, cannot 
 be doubted. In the practice of TrcuSepaarla the aha? was 
 always carried off by force, the intention of the ravisher having 
 been previously communicated to the youth's relations, who 
 made a feigned resistance. Here is the form of capture in 
 the shape of the simulated conflict ; and it may safely be con- 
 cluded that a people who had it in this shape in such a matter, 
 and had it also in their marriages, had it anciently in this shape 
 in their marriages. 1 Strabo, B. 10, c. 4, s. 21. 
 
 The cases which follow are examples of bride-catching 
 cases in which the bridegroom had to catch and carry away his 
 bride after having come to an understanding with her friends 
 proceeding, although the marriage was the subject of contract, 
 as if acting without consent. The old Norse word qudn-fang 
 wife-catching was used in the sense of marriage, which proves 
 that bride-catching was a Norse institution. An excellent 
 example of bride-catching, from Tierra del Fuego, is given in 
 
 1 [The case of the Garos (India Dalton's Descriptive Ethnology of 
 Bengal] has not been included among the examples here given for an 
 obvious reason ; but it is curious, and should not pass without notice. 
 
 Among the Garos proposals of marriage come from the woman's side. 
 The marriage having been arranged, the girl goes off to the hills. The 
 man follows her and finds her, and (having provisions with them) they 
 stay there for some days. On their return the marriage is publicly 
 announced and solemnised. After bathing the bride in a stream, her 
 friends proceed to the house of the bridegroom, "who pretends to be 
 unwilling, and runs away, but is caught and subjected to a similar 
 ablution, and then taken, in spite of the resistance and counterfeited grief 
 and lamentations of his parents, to the bride's house." 
 
 Here the bridegroom is the party taken in marriage, and there is, at 
 the last, a form of capturing the bridegroom. 
 
 But, first of all, the girl goes off to the hills by herself, and the man 
 follows and finds her. This looks very like a remainder of the form of 
 capture (as will appear immediately) ; and it suggests that there was a 
 time when, among the Garos, proposals did not come from the woman's 
 side, and that they have had their experience of getting wives by capture. 
 This is made more probable even if it is not put beyond doubt by their 
 being exogamous.J 
 
APPENDIX. 177 
 
 the text at page 20. The case of the Tunguzes and Kam- 
 chadales, mentioned at page 17, is also of this class. 
 
 1. Among the Tartars, William de Rubriquis tells us, " when 
 any man hath bargained with another man for a maid, the 
 father of the damsel makes him a feast ; in the meantime she 
 flies away to some of her kinsfolk to hide herself. Then her 
 father says to the bridegroom, ' My daughter is yours ; take her 
 wheresoever you can find her/ Then he and his friends seek 
 her till they find her, and, having found her, he takes her by 
 force and carries her to his own house." Pinkerton's Collection. 
 Vol. VI., p. 183. 
 
 2. Among the Wa-teita (Central Africa) marriage is by 
 purchase, but, after the contract is made, the woman has to be 
 captured. " When an M-teita marries he settles the prelimi- 
 naries with the father in accordance with the usual negro 
 custom that is to say, he buys her for three or four cows. 
 This important matter settled, the girl runs away and hides 
 among distant relatives until such time as her betrothed finds 
 out her hiding-place and catches her. He then gets some of 
 his friends, who carry her back to her future home, two men 
 holding her by the legs and two by the arms, shoulder high, 
 amidst much singing and dancing. The four men who carry 
 the girl are said to be rewarded in a very peculiar fashion." 
 Through Masai Land, by Joseph Thomson, p. 93. London, 1885. 
 
 3. " An instance of the manner in which the young men of 
 that country [the district near Kayaye on the river Gambia] 
 obtain wives also came under our observation. One of the 
 inhabitants of the neighbouring villages, having placed his 
 affections, or rather desires, on a young girl at Kayaye, made 
 the usual present of a few colas to her mother, who, without 
 
 iving her daughter any intimation of the affair, consented to 
 lis obtaining her in any way he could. Accordingly, when the 
 poor girl was employed preparing some rice for supper, she was 
 seized by her intended husband, assisted by three or four of 
 his companions, and carried off by force. She made much 
 resistance by biting, scratching, kicking, and roaring most 
 bitterly. Many, both men and women, some of them her own 
 relations, who witnessed the affair, only laughed at the farce, 
 and consoled her by saying that she would soon be reconciled 
 to her situation." Gray and Dochard's Travels in Wcst-ei'ii 
 Africa, p. 56. London, 1825. 
 
 4. Among the Zulus marriage is by purchase, and the bride 
 is, after much ceremonial, handed over to the bridegroom and 
 
178 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 his people by a party of her kinsfolk. But custom requires 
 that she should make three attempts to run back to her okl 
 home, and that she should be prevented by the bridegroom's 
 people. The last attempt, made on the second day, and after 
 she has been installed in her position as wife, is the only serious 
 one. " There have been cases where the bride got out of the 
 gate, which was a terrible disgrace to the young man who had 
 been appointed to stop her, to the husband, and all concerned, 
 besides the expense, seeing that the whole ceremony had to be 
 gone through again.'* Among the Zulus and Amatonyas, by 
 David Leslie, pp. 116-118. Second edition. Edinburgh, 1875. 
 
 5. The form of capture among the Maoris of New Zealand, 
 in the shape of the simulated combat, as described by Mr. 
 Taylor, has already been mentioned. Another account (Earle's 
 Residence in New Zealand) says that the bridegroom, after 
 obtaining consent, had to carry off the girl by force, and that a 
 severe struggle sometimes took place, in which the man was 
 not always successful. If the girl could manage to escape and 
 get into her father's house, the marriage was off. If the man 
 could carry her to his house, she was forthwith his wife. 
 
 6. " On the large islands [of the Fijian group] is often 
 found th custom prevalent among many savage tribes of 
 seizing upon a woman, by apparent or actual force, in order to 
 make her a wife. On reaching the home of her abductor, 
 should she not approve of the match, she runs to some one 
 who can protect her ; if, however, she is satisfied, the matter is 
 settled forthwith. A feast is given to her friends the next 
 morning, and the couple are henceforth considered as man and 
 wife." Fiji and the Fijians. By Thomas Williams, p. 174. 
 London, 1858. 
 
 7. In the Amazon valley the natives have no particular 
 ceremony at their marriages except that of always carrying the 
 girl away by force, or making a show of doing so, even when 
 she and her parents are quite willing. The way in which the 
 capture is made is very singular. " When a young man wishes 
 to have the daughter of another Indian, his father sends a 
 message to say he will come, with his son and relations, to visit 
 him. The girl's father guesses what it is for, and, if he is 
 agreeable, makes preparations for a grand festival. This lasts, 
 perhaps, two or three days, when the bridegroom's party suddenly 
 seize the bride, and hurry her off to their canoes. No attempt 
 is made to prevent them, and she is then considered as married." 
 Wallace's Travels on the Amazon, p. 497. London, 1853. 
 
APPEXDIX. 170 
 
 8. Among the Ahitas [Philippine Islands], when a marriage 
 is in question, the girl's parents send her, before sunrise, into 
 the woods, and the would-be husband follows her an hour after. 
 If he brings her back before sunset there is marriage; if not, 
 the affair is at an end. Earl's Native Races of the Imlwn 
 Archipelago, p. 183. London, 1853. 
 
 In this case there seems to be an approach to bride- 
 racing. 
 
 9. Among the Greenlanders, when a young man has re- 
 solved to marry, he first proposes the match to his parents, 
 whose consent in general is given readily. Then two old 
 women are sent to negotiate with the parents of the bride. 
 They at first say nothing of a marriage, but speak in praise of 
 the bridegroom and his family ; whereupon the girl " directly 
 falls into the greatest apparent consternation, and runs out of 
 doors tearing her bunch of hair ; for single women always affect 
 the utmost bashfulness and aversion to any proposal of marriage, 
 lest they should lose their reputation for modesty, though their 
 destined husbands be previously well assured of their acqui- 
 escence. . . . During their daughter's bashful fit, the parents 
 taritly comply with the proposal, without any express appro- 
 bation. The women then go in search of the refractory maid, 
 and drag her forcibly into her suitor's house, where she sits for 
 several days quite disconsolate, with dishevelled hair, and refuses 
 nourishment. When friendly exhortations are unavailing, she 
 is compelled by force, and even blows, to receive her husband. 
 Should she elope, she is brought back and treated more hardily 
 than before." Crantz's History of Greenland. Vol. I., p. 14(>. 
 London, 1820. 
 
 The same kind of thing occurs among the Esquimaux of 
 Cape York. The bridegroom is required to carry off his bride 
 by main force, and the woman to resist as much as possible 
 "until she is safely landed in the hut of her future lord, when 
 she gives up the combat very cheerfully, and takes possession 
 of her new abode." Hayes, The Open Polar Sea, p. 432. 1807. 
 
 10. Among the Indians of Canada, Carver tells us, after the 
 marriage was over, the bridegroom took his wife on his back, 
 and, amid the plaudits of the spectators, carried her to his tent. 
 Carver's Travels, p. 374. 1781. 
 
 11. Among the Soligas [India], "when a girl consents to 
 marry, the man runs away with her to some neighbouring 
 village, and they live there until the honeymoon is over. They 
 then return home, and give a feast to the people of their 
 
 N 2 
 
180 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 village." Buchanan's Journey from Madras. Vol. II., p. 17s 
 1807. 
 
 12. " The marriage ceremony is very simple among the 
 Aenezes [Arabs]. . . . The marriage-day being appointed 
 (usually five or six days after the betrothing), the bridegroom 
 comes with a lamb in^his arms to the tent of the girl's father, 
 and there cuts the lamb's throat before witnesses. As soon as 
 the blood falls upon the ground the marriage ceremony is 
 regarded as complete. The men and girls amuse themselves 
 with feasting and singing. Soon after sunset the bridegroom 
 retires to a tent pitched for him at a distance from the cani|i; 
 there he shuts himself up, and awaits the arrival of his bride. 
 The bashful girl meanwhile runs from the tent of one friend to 
 another till she is caught at last, and conducted in triumph by 
 a few women to the bridegroom's tent ; he receives her at the 
 entrance, and forces her into it ; the women who had accom- 
 panied her then depart." Burckhardt's Notes. Vol. T., p. 107. 
 
 13. Burckhardt, after noticing that, among the Bedouins of 
 Mount Sinai, marriage is a matter of sale and purchase, in which 
 the inclinations of the bride are not consulted, proceeds : 
 "Among the Arabs of Sinai the young maid comes home in the 
 evening with the cattle. At a short distance from the camp she 
 is met by the future spouse and a couple of his young friends, 
 and carried off by force to her father's tent. If she entertains 
 any suspicion of their designs, she defends herself with stones, 
 and often inflicts wounds on the young men, even though she 
 does not dislike the lover, for, according to custom, the more 
 she struggles, bites, kicks, cries, and strikes, the more she is 
 applauded ever after by her own companions. She is then 
 taken to her father's tent. There follows the throwing over her 
 of the abba, or man's cloak, and a formal announcement of the 
 name of her future husband. After this she is dressed in bridal 
 apparel, and mounted on a camel, although still continuing to 
 struggle in a most unruly manner, and held by the bridegroom's 
 friends on both sides. She is led in this way two, and three 
 times round, and finally into, the bridegroom's tent. The 
 resistance is continued till the last. The marriage, of course, 
 ends in a feast and presents to the bride." Burckhardt's Note*. 
 Vol. I., p. 263. 
 
 14. Among the Mezeyne marriage appears to be a matter of 
 sale and purchase, and to be constituted, as among the Aenezes, 
 through capture as a form. It is attended by a custom 
 which is met with in other cases, but scarcely in so striking 
 
APPEXDIX. 1JS1 
 
 a shape. " A singular custom," says Burckhardt (Notes. Vol. I. 
 p. 269), " prevails .among the Mezeyne tribe, within the 
 limits of the Sinai peninsula, but not among the other tribes of 
 that province. A girl having been wrapped in the abba at night 
 [i.e. after the capture, as in the preceding case], is permitted to 
 escape from her tent and fly into the neighbouring mountains. 
 The bridegroom goes in search of her next day, and remains 
 often many days before he can find her out, while her female 
 friends are apprised of her hiding-place, and furnish her with 
 provisions. If the husband finds her at last (which is sooner or 
 later, according to the impression that he has made upon the 
 girl's heart), he is bound to consummate the marriage in the 
 open country, and to pass the night with her in the mountains. 
 The next morning the bride goes home to her tent that she may 
 have some food, but again runs away in the evening, and repeats 
 these flights several times, till she finally returns to her tent. 
 She does not go to live in her husband's tent till she is far 
 advanced in pregnancy ; if she does not become pregnant, she 
 may not join her husband till after a full year from the wedding- 
 day." Burckhardt says the same custom is observed among the 
 Mezeyne Arabs elsewhere. 
 
 This custom must have been handed down from a state of 
 the greatest " wildness." The clandestine intercourse of husband 
 and wife at Sparta and in Crete seems to be a tradition of it. 
 Customs suggestive of it occur in other places. In Africa, in 
 some districts, husband and wife for years meet only in the 
 woods. The stealthy communication of husband and wife is 
 required by custom, also, among the Nogais and the Circassians. 
 
 Reference may here be made to page 47, where it appears 
 there is authority for believing that, among the Israelites, as 
 well as among the Arabs, " the taking " of the bride was the 
 chief ceremony in the constitution of marriage ; which would 
 show that the Israelites, also, had the form of capture. 
 
 The cases next given are examples of bride-racing cases in 
 which, after a woman's friends had agreed to a marriage for her, 
 the man had, as a condition of having her as his wife, to over- 
 take her in a race. The German word Irittloiifti, bride-racing 
 is used in the sense of marriage, which proves that bride- 
 racing was a German institution. In the Greek legends there 
 are numerous hints of it having been a Greek institution also. 
 At page 15 it is shown that bride-racing was practised among 
 the Kalmucks (who had the form of capture, also, in the shape 
 
182 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 of the simulated conflict). The " love-chase " of the Kirghiz, 
 shown in the first example following, is obviously a version of 
 the Kalmuck custom. 
 
 1. "There is one race, called the 'Love-chase,' which may 
 be considered a part of the form of marriage among the Kirghis, 
 In this the bride, armed with a formidable whip, mounts a fleet 
 horse, and is pursued by all the young men who make any 
 pretensions to her hand. She will be given as a prize to the 
 one who catches her ; but she has the right, besides urging on 
 her horse to the utmost, to use her whip, often with no nu-au 
 force, to keep off those lovers who are unwelcome to her, and 
 she will probably favour the one whom she has already chosen 
 in her heart. As, however, by the Kirghis' custom a suitor to 
 the hand of a maiden is obliged to give a certain kalyin, or 
 purchase-money, and an agreement must be made with the 
 father for the amount of dowry which he gives his daughter, the 
 ' Love-chase' is a mere matter of form." Schuyler's iW&Ufa*. 
 Two Vols. Vol. I, p. 43. London. 1876. 
 
 What follows shows us that another relic of capture appears 
 in the marriages of the Kirghis. " As mullahs are very rare in 
 the Steppe," says Mr. Schuyler, " a religious ceremony of any 
 kind at a marriage is unusual ; but one thing must be strictly 
 performed .... the young man must enter the kibitka where 
 the bride is seated and take her out, although both entrance and 
 exit are forcibly opposed by all her friends. This is probably a 
 remnant of the old primitive custom when marriage was an act 
 of capture." 
 
 "The Kirghiz race," Mr. Schuyler tells us (p. 34), "hns 
 almost as much of a Mongol as of a Turkish type. This is 
 especially noticeable," he says, " in the aristocratic class above 
 all, in their women; and one reason is said to be that the 
 Kirghiz, until recent times, preferred, whenever possible, to 
 marry Kalmuck women, carrying them off from the confines of 
 China or the Astrakhan Steppe." 
 
 2. Vdmbery says that this "marriage ceremonial" (bride- 
 racing), no doubt with modifications from case to case, is in use 
 among all the nomads of Central Asia. He describes it in the 
 case of the Turkomans. The young maiden, attired in bridal 
 costume, mounts a high-bred courser, taking on her lap the 
 carcase of a lamb or goat. She sets off at full gallop, followed 
 by the bridegroom and other young men of the party, also on 
 horseback. She has always to strive, by adroit turns, &c., to 
 avoid her pursuers, that no one of them approach near enough 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 to snatch from her the burden in her lap. The chase ends, it 
 may be believed, in her being caught. " The game " is called 
 Kokbiiri. Vdmbery's Travels in Central Asia, p. 323. London. 
 1864. 
 
 3. The natives of Singapore, who are accustomed to boating, 
 have an aquatic variety of bride-racing. They have it, also, in 
 the shape of a foot-race. They hold great jubilees, at the fruit 
 season, near the groves of the tribe, which often lie together, 
 and during these jubilees their marriages take place. "The 
 marriage ceremony," says Mr. Cameron, " is a simple one, and 
 the new acquaintance of the morning is often the bride of the 
 evening. On the part of the suitor it is more a matter of 
 arrangement with the parents than of courtship with the 
 daughter ; but there is a form generally observed which reminds 
 one strongly of the old tale of Hippomenes and Atalanta. If 
 the tribe is on the bank of a lake or stream, the damsel is given 
 a canoe and a double-bladed paddle, and allowed a start of some 
 distance ; the suitor, similarly equipped, starts off in chase. If 
 he succeeds in overtaking her, she becomes his wife ; if not, the 
 match is broken off. ... It is seldom that objection is offered 
 at the last moment, and the race is generally a short one. The 
 maiden's arms are strong, but her heart is soft, and her nature 
 warm, and she soon becomes a willing captive. If the marriage 
 takes place where no stream is near, a round circle of a certain 
 size is formed, the damsel is stripped of all but a waistband, and 
 given half the circle's start in advance ; and if she succeeds in 
 running three times round before her suitor comes up with her, 
 she is entitled to remain 'a virgin ; if not, she must consent to 
 the bonds of matrimony. As in the other case, but few outstrip 
 their lovers." Gur Tropical Possessions in Malayan India. By 
 J. Cameron, p. 116. London, 1865. 
 
 Bowrien, speaking of the Mantrays of the Malay peninsula, 
 describes the foot-race much as it is given above, and adds that 
 at times " a larger field is appointed for the trial, and they 
 pursue one another in the forest." Trans. Ethn. Soc., Vol. III., 
 p. 81. 
 
 4. Bride-racing is found also among the Koraks (North- 
 Eastern Asia). The race takes place within a large tent 
 containing numerous separate compartments, called pologs, 
 arranged in a continuous circle round its inner circumference, 
 and the girl is clear of the marriage if she can run through the 
 series of pologs without being caught. Besides that she has a 
 start, the women of the encampment throw every possible ini- 
 
184 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 pediment in the man's way, "tripping up his unwary foot, 
 holding down the curtains to prevent his passage, and applying 
 willow and alder switches unmercifully to a very susceptible 
 part of his body" as he stoops to raise them. Hampered as h,> 
 is, however strong and swift he may be, the man has scarcely 
 any chance of succeeding unless the woman wishes it. In a trial 
 described by Mr. Kennan he was hopelessly distanced, but the 
 bride waited for him in the last polog. The race, in fact, gives 
 the woman a veto upon the marriage. Kennan' s Tent Life in 
 Siberia. 1870. 
 
 The cases which follow illustrate in one way or another the 
 movement from capture in connection with marriage. 
 
 1. At pages 35-38 it is shown that at a period not remote, 
 in Muscovy, Lithuania, Livonia, and other parts of the north of 
 Europe, there prevailed a practice of capturing women for wives 
 by armed force, the capture being followed by a negotiation 
 with the parents, and, on that being completed, by marriage ; 
 and it is pointed out that, though there was actual capture, the 
 intervention of sponsalia and the consent of parents before the 
 consummation of the marriage shows this to be a mode of 
 transition from actual capture to marriage by contract with 
 capture as a form. We learn from the Chronicle of Nestor, 
 the oldest of the Russian Chronicles, what were, at an earlier 
 period, the marriage customs of some of the inhabitants of those 
 countries. 
 
 The Polians, Nestor tells us speaking of the neighbourhood 
 of Kieff had formal marriage. The bridegroom did not go to 
 fetch his bride, but she was carried to him in the evening, and 
 the price agreed to be given for her was sent the next day. 
 But the Polians were singular in that region in having marriage 
 so regularly conducted. Their neighbours, the Dreyvians, Nestor 
 says, had no marriage ; they carried away maidens by force, and 
 took them to their beds. So far as appears, they got their wives 
 by capture only, without agreement either before the capture 
 or after. The Radimitschans, the Viatitschans, and the 
 Severians, Nestor says, like the Dreyvians got their wives by 
 capture, without agreement with the parents either before or 
 after the capture; but they had hit upon a method of 
 making wiving by capture easy, so that they had the form 
 of capture in the germ. There was inter-tribal arrange- 
 ment before the capture, though there was no arrangement with 
 parents. " They arranged noisy, merry games, in which they were 
 
APPENDIX. 183 
 
 brought together ; they played, danced, and sang devilish songs ; 
 and, at the end, each man carried away a woman, who became 
 his wife." (R-ussiche A nnalcn. Edited by A. L. Schlozer. Part 
 II., p. 125.) 
 
 It is not surprising that reminiscences of the time when 
 wives were got by capture should linger to this day in the 
 marriage customs of the Russians as of the other Slav peoples. 
 
 " ' To the forcible carrying away of the bride seems to refer/ 
 says Orest Miller, ' a long series of nuptial songs from all parts, 
 not only of Russia, but of the whole Slavonic world.' In them 
 the bridegroom is spoken of as a foreigner and a stranger who 
 has been wafted Heaven knows whence ! by a black cloud, 
 and who is surrounded by brave companions hostile to the bride. 
 Even among the Czechs, whose ideas have been considerably 
 modified by foreign influences, the arrival of the bridegroom is 
 still announced by the words, ' The enemy is near at hand ! ' 
 ' The bridegroom, that evil thief, has come/ says a bologda song. 
 In Russia he is often called, after the invaders of the land, the 
 Tartars or the Lithuanians. In order to get at the bride, the 
 bridegroom has to batter down the walls of stone, to ' let fly the 
 arrow of pearl/ to ' shatter the guarding locks.' .... One of 
 the many acts in the long drama, as it were, which is per- 
 formed at every peasant's wedding, consists in a repre- 
 sentation of the attack and defence of the bride. Thus, in 
 Little Russia, when the bride's dresses have been unplaited and 
 the cap is being put on her head, she is bound to resist with all 
 her might, and even to fling her cap angrily on the ground. 
 Then the groomsmen, at, the cry of ' Boyars, to your swords !' 
 pretend to seize their knives and make a dash at the bride, who 
 is thereupon surrounded by her friends, who come rushing to the 
 rescue." Ralston's Songs of the Russian People. Pp. 284-, 285. 
 1872. 
 
 2. " The Mirdites," says Mr. Tozer, " never intermarry, but 
 when any of them, from the highest to the lowest, wants a wife, 
 he carries off a Mohammedan woman from one of the neighbouring 
 tribes, baptises her, and marries her. The parents, we are told, 
 do not usually feel much aggrieved, as it is pretty well under- 
 stood that a sum of money will be paid in return ; and, though 
 the Mirdites themselves are very fanatical in matters of religion, 
 yet their neighbours [the Christian and Mohammedan tribes being 
 alike Slavs] are reputed to allow the sentiment of nationality 
 to prevail over that of creed. . . . Prince Bib himself won his 
 spouse in this way. My reader will naturally inquire .... what 
 
186 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 becomes of the Mirdite women ? The answer is, they are given 
 in marriage to the neighbouring Christian tribes. If any one 
 considers this incredible in so large a population, he is at liberty 
 to adopt the more moderate statement of M. Hecquard, who 
 only speaks of this custom as existing among the chiefs ; but 
 I state the facts as they were stated to me, and, since the ground 
 of the custom was distinctly affirmed to be the feeling that 
 marriage within the tribe is incestuous, and, wherever in similar 
 cases this belief has existed, the custom of exogamy, as it is 
 called, together with the capture of wives, has existed also, I 
 feel very little doubt, in my own mind, that the stronger state- 
 ment is the true one." 
 
 Mr. Tozer goes on to observe that " the case of the Mirdites 
 is a peculiarly interesting one, because, while the system of 
 exogamy is perfect, it presents us with the reality of capture on 
 the eve of merging in the form since a sum of money is paid 
 afterwards, and but little resistance apparently offered but 
 permanently checked in doing so by the fact that the women 
 carried off are Mohammedans, who cannot, without violence, be 
 married to Christians." Researches in the Highlands of Turl\;i. 
 Vol. I., pp. 318 et seq. By the Rev. H. J. Tozer. London, 1860, 
 
 3. We find the following account of the constitution of 
 marriage among the Turkomans : 
 
 " The most singular customs of these people (the Turko- 
 mans) relate to marriage. The Turkomans do not shut up 
 their women, and there being no restraint on the social inter- 
 course between the sexes, as in most Mussulman countries, love 
 matches are common. A youth becomes acquainted with a girl ; 
 they are mutually attached, and agree to marry : but the young 
 man does not dare to breathe his wishes to the parents of his 
 beloved, for such is not etiquette, and would be resented as an 
 insult. What does he do ? He elopes with the girl, and carries 
 her to some neighbouring obah, where, such is the custom, there 
 is no doubt of a kind reception ; and there the young couple 
 live as man and wife for some six weeks, when the Reish- 
 suffeeds, or elders of the protecting obah, deem it time to talk 
 over the matter with the parents. Accordingly they represent 
 the wishes of the young couple, and, joined by the elders of 
 the father's obah, endeavour to reconcile him to the union, 
 promising, on the part of the bridegroom, a handsome lashloguc, 
 or price, for his wife. In due time the consent is given, on 
 which the bride returns to her father's house, where, strange to 
 say, she is retained for six months or a year, and sometimes two 
 
APPEXDIX. 1ST 
 
 years, according, as it appears, to her caprice or the parents' 
 "will, having no communication with her husband unless by 
 stealth. The meaning of this strange separation I never could 
 ascertain. . . . Afterwards the marriage presents and price of 
 the wife are interchanged, and she goes finally to live with her 
 husband." Fraser's Journey. Vol. II., p. 372. 1H38. 
 
 " Matches are also made up occasionally by the parents them- 
 selves, with or without the intervention of the Reish-sutfeeds, 
 but the order and ceremonies of the nuptials are the same. 
 There is a regular contract and a stipulated price ; the young 
 people are permitted to enjoy each other's society for a month 
 or six weeks ; and the bride then returns, as in the former case, 
 to spend a year or more with her parents." Ibid., vol. II., 
 p. 375.) 
 
 The stealthy communications of husband and wife, and 
 postponement for a period of open cohabitation, which appear 
 in this case, have already been noticed as occurring among the 
 Mezeyne after a contract for marriage, and after the form of 
 capture had been observed. In Sparta, too where also the 
 form of capture was observed the young wife was not, im- 
 mediately after the marriage, domiciled in her husband's house, 
 but had communications with him for some time clandestinely, 
 till he brought her, and frequently her mother, to his home. 1 
 Xenophon, Hep. Lac., 1-5. 
 
 Cases in which the form is greatly disintegrated have 
 already been mentioned as occasion served (some are given in 
 Chapter II.), and it does not seem necessary now to go at 
 
 1 [In other cases we have forcible abduction followed by an arrange- 
 ment, and thereupon marriage. In this case, circumstances having changed 
 without the contract having come (such, at any rate, is the statement) into 
 the foremost place, abduction has been succeeded by elopement an 
 arrangement following after the man and woman have lived for some time 
 together away from the woman's relatives. Then, as among the .Mezeyne 
 (after a contract and capture made of the woman again and again), the 
 woman returns, or is returned, to her family to be given up after a proper 
 interval. 
 
 It has already appeared, on the authority of Vambery, that the 
 Turkomans (or some of them) have a tradition of bride-racing. 
 
 According to Mr. A. W. Howitt, elopement was extensively practised 
 among an Australian tribe, the Kurnai. The lovers, after they had gone 
 off, were joined by a party of the man's kinsfolk, and thereupon the woman 
 was treated as she would have been by the same people had they t-ikeii 
 her in battle. She was, in general, pursued before long by her relatives. 
 When she was recovered, the man usually got her in the end. (Kd 
 and Kurmii, by Lorimer Fison and A. \V. Ilowitt, 18^0.)] 
 
188 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 length into such cases. The most important class of them, 
 perhaps, is that in which there occurs, either at leaving tin- 
 bride's house or on arrival at the husband's, some faint symbol 
 of the woman's captivity ; the meaning of which is sometimes 
 made more unquestionable by our finding along with it, or close 
 beside it, the form of capture in one of its clearer varieties. 
 With the patricians at Rome it sufficed that the bridegroom 
 should carry the bride over the threshold of his house ("be- 
 cause," Plutarch says, " the Sabine women did not go in 
 voluntarily, but were carried in by violence ") ; that he should 
 part her hair with a spear (" in memory of the first marriages 
 being brought about in a warlike manner"). At Sparta, lat- 
 terly, it was enough for the bridegroom to catch up the bride 
 and carry her from one room to another. At an earlier stage, 
 it was a necessary form at Sparta that the bride should be 
 carried off with violence. The Mussulman of India the same 
 who observed the mock siege had, besides, to carry in his bride 
 like the Roman. And in some districts of Abyssinia in parts 
 of which the sham fight (though in a disintegrated form) is still 
 kept up both after the wedding and before it it was proper 
 that the bridegroom should carry the bride on his shoulders the 
 whole way from her house to his own (Bruce's Travels. Vol. VII., 
 p. 67. 1804). In this last example, too, if the distance was 
 great, it sufficed to carry the bride entirely round her own house, 
 which shows us the form, as it were, in process of dwindling, 
 under the influence of convenience. Such cases as this would 
 assure us as to the meaning of similar acts in other cases, were 
 that doubtful ; would show us, for example, why the Bedouin 
 must force his bride to enter his tent (Burckhardt's Notes. 
 Vol. I., p. 108. 1830) ; why, in Egypt, when the bride arrives at 
 the bridegroom's door, he issues forth, " suddenly clasps her 
 in his arms, as if by violence, and runs off with her as a prize " 
 into the house. (Burckhardt, Arabic Proverbs. P. 116. 1830.) 
 In all such cases what is done is analogous to what is prescribed 
 to the Hindoos in the Sutras. At a vital stage of the marriage 
 ceremony a strong man and the bridegroom forcibly drew the 
 bride and made her sit down on a red ox-skin ; and this was 
 one of the essential ceremonies in the constitution of the 
 Hindoo marriage. 
 
 In many cases the bride is required to show reluctance to 
 enter her new home. An instance has occurred to us among 
 the Slavs, in which a pretence was made of dragging her in, 
 and she was ultimately bribed into entering. Cases have also 
 
APPEXDIX. 181) 
 
 been noticed in which she had to make some pretence of hiding 
 herself. In many parts of Italy, Gubernatis tells us, the bride, 
 on the wedding-day, has still to go through a ceremony of 
 weeping and the same has been noted in many other places. 
 Other forms some of them much more marked than that in 
 which the symbol of capture still appears in modern Italy, have 
 been noted by Signor de Gubernatis (Storia compamta dcgli -uxi 
 nuziale in Italia e prcsso gli altri popoli Imlo-Europci. Milan. 
 1860.) The pretence of tearing the bride from the arms of her 
 mother, which occurred among the plebeians at Rome, is men- 
 tioned by him as being marriage custom in Sardinia, and also 
 at Casalvieri. 
 
 NOTE R 
 
 PROBABLE ORIGIN OF THE NAME RACSHASA. 
 
 WE have seen (pp. 42, 43) that, in the code of Menu, one of the 
 eight legal forms of the marriage ceremony was that by capture 
 de facto, and called Racshasa, and that this marriage was per- 
 mitted to the military class. It is curious that the name of this 
 species of marriage should be that of a race of beings the 
 Rakshasas whom we find playing an important part, and that 
 connected with a legend of a capture, in the mythic 'history of 
 the Hindoos. The story of the Ramayana may be said to be 
 that of the carrying off of Rama's wife, Sita, by the Rakshasa, 
 Havana, and of the consequent war carried on by Rama against 
 the Rakshasas, ending in their defeat and the recovery of Sita. 
 (See Williams's Indian Epic Poetry. Pp. 74-76.) Wilson (India 
 Three Thousand Years Ago. P. 20. Bombay, 1858) speaks of 
 the Rakshasas as " a people, often alluded to, from whom the 
 Aryans suffered much, and who, by their descendants, were 
 transferred in idea to the most distant south, and treated by 
 them as a race of mythical giants." He ranks them with the 
 Dasyus, Ugras, Pishachas, and Asuras, as indigenous barbarian 
 races or tribes, which had to be overcome before the Aryans 
 could effect a settlement in part of Hindustan. Lassen takes 
 the same view. " The Samayana," he says (Lassen, Vol. I., 
 p. 535 ; we quote from Muir's Sanscrit Tc.cts, Vol. II., p. 425), 
 " contains the narrative of the first attempt of the Aryans to 
 
100 PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
 extend themselves to the south by conquest; but it presuppose* 
 the peaceable extension of Brahmanical missions in the same 
 direction as having taken place still earlier. . . . The Rakslmsas, 
 who are represented as disturbing the sacrifices and devouring 
 the priests, signify here, as often elsewhere, merely the sava^o 
 tribes which placed themselves in hostile opposition to Hi.' 
 Brahmanical institutions. The only other actors who appear 
 in the legend, in addition to these inhabitants, arc the monkeys, 
 which ally themselves to Rama and render him assistants. 
 This can only mean that, when the Aryan Kshatriyas first, 
 made hostile incursions into the south, they were aided hy 
 another portion of the indigenous tribes." Dr. Muir can iiiul 
 no authority for saying that the word Rakshasa was originally 
 the name of a tribe. At the same time (7V.r/x, Vol. II., p. 4rH\ 
 he inclines to hold the descriptions we have of them as having 
 more probably originated in hostile contact with the savages of 
 the south, than as the simple offspring of the poet's imagination. 
 Ho notices (Tufa, Vol. II., p. 426) that, even in the Vedi.- 
 period, the Rakshasas " had been magnified into demons :unl 
 giants by the poetical and superstitious imaginations of tin- 
 early (Aryan) bards." He quotes from the J&tmayitiut a passage 
 which represents them as cannibals feeding on blood, men- 
 devouring, changing their shapes, &C.; and another, in which 
 they arc described as "of fearful swiftness and unyielding in 
 battle;" while Havana, the most terrible of all the Rakshasas, 
 is stigmatised as ft "destroyer of religious duties, and nwisher 
 of the wites of others." Dr. Muir adds, that the description of 
 the Rakshasas in the Jinmai/ana, " corresponds in many respects 
 with the epithets applied to the same class of beings (whether 
 we take them for men or for demons) who are so often alluded 
 to in the llig Veda" and that it is quite possible that the author 
 of the Jfamayana may have borrowed therefrom many of the 
 traits which he ascribes to the Rakshasas. 
 
 But how came the name of a legal mode of marriage to lx 
 that of such a race of beings ? The only answer that we can 
 make is a surmise viz., that while the system of capture had 
 not as yet died out among the Kshatriyas, or warrior caste of 
 the Aryans, it was perfect among the races to which the name 
 Rakshasas was applied ; and that what was their system gave 
 its designation to the exceptional, although permitted, marriage 
 by capture among the Kshatriyas. This is the more probable, 
 since, so far as we can ascertain, there is nothing in the name 
 Rakshasa itself descriptive of the mode of marriage. 
 
APPENDIX. 191 
 
 From another point of view, it may bo observed that the 
 Rakshasas hold nearly the same place in Hindu tradition that 
 giants, ogres, and trolls occupy in Scandinavian and Celtic 
 legends. They arc supernatural beings robbers and plunderers 
 of human habitations men-devourers and women-stealcra. The 
 giants and ogres of the north share the characteristics of 
 Ravana. The cruel monsters are always carrying oil' kings' 
 daughters. As Rama's exploits culminate in the recovery of 
 Sita, so the northern giant-slayer is crowned with the greatest 
 glory when he has rescued the captive princesses and restored 
 them in safety to the king's their lather's palace. Are we 
 to hold all such beings giants, ogres, trolls, &c. wherever 
 they occur, as representing savage races, between whom and 
 the peoples in whose legends they appear as supernatural 
 beings there was chronic hostility ? 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GKEECE. 
 
 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 THE scheme of the development of systems of 
 kinship which I propound in Primitive Marriage, and 
 the truth of which I propose to test in the case of the 
 ancient Greeks, is briefly as follows : (1) That the 
 most ancient system of kinship in which the idea of 
 blood-relationship was embodied was the system of 
 kinship through females only ; (2) that in the advance 
 from savagery this system was succeeded by a system 
 which acknowledged kinship through males also, and 
 which (3) in most cases passed into a system (agnation) 
 which acknowledged kinship through males only 1 ; finally 
 (4), that agnation broke down, and there was again 
 kinship through females as well as through males. 
 
 I conceive that the causes of this progress excepting 
 the last step of it, which is undoubtedly the result of 
 the growing influence of humane and equitable con- 
 siderations are to be found in the successive stages of 
 the development of systems of marriage. And I con- 
 ceive that marriage was at first unknown ; and that its 
 
 1 [ See note on p. 126.] 
 
196 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 earliest form was that species of polyandry which now 
 prevails among the Nairs, in Malabar to one wife 
 several husbands, not necessarily related to one another. 
 When this was the form of marriage, there was no 
 certainty of male parentage, and the idea of blood- 
 relationship could only be developed into the system 
 of kinship through females. There being no regular 
 cohabitation of husbands and wives, families consisted 
 of mothers and their offspring ; the headship of families 
 was in mothers, and the right of succession thereto in 
 daughters. What family property there was went 
 ultimately to the daughters and their children, in whom 
 the family was prolonged ; a man's heirs were his 
 brothers, in order of age, and, after them, his sisters' 
 children. The consolidation of this primitive family 
 system led to the shifting of the form of marriage from 
 the Nair (in many cases through the British) to the 
 Tibetan species of polyandry the sons of a house 
 taking a wife between them into the family of their 
 mother. This change, while it left fatherhood un- 
 certain, destroyed uncertainty as to the paternal blood 
 in children, all the possible fathers being of the same 
 blood. It thus introduced kinship through males. It 
 involved the breaking up of the primitive form of the 
 family, and led in time to the transference of the 
 government from the mother to the eldest male of the 
 family. The supremacy of women depended on non- 
 cohabitation with their husbands ; its overthrow was 
 the necessary consequence of cohabitation. The family, 
 as I have said, was originally prolonged in the children 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE, 197 
 
 KJ|tf| 
 
 of the daughters ; the sons' wives were in other houses, 
 the continuers of other families. But now the daughters 
 passed as wives into foreign houses, and the sons found 
 representatives of their family in their own children. 
 The headship of the family could thus no longer 
 descend from mother to daughter ; and it was lost to 
 women, though, in virtue of their having once possessed 
 it, they would long retain a high position, and exercise 
 much of that authority amongst men which had been 
 assigned to them by the earlier system. The males, 
 therefore, took the upper hand, and among them the 
 first place was naturally assigned to the eldest. The 
 first in age and authority, the first to marry, and fre- 
 quently a father before his brothers reached maturity, 
 it came to be feigned that all the children were his, and 
 in time he assumed many of the powers of a pater- 
 familias. The headship of the family now devolved 
 from brother to brother, and failing brothers, on the 
 eldest son of the brotherhood. Then, a practice of 
 monandry arising, the younger brothers made separate 
 marriages, and Tibetan polyandry died out, leaving 
 behind it the Levirate the obligation on brothers to 
 marry in turn the widow of a brother deceased, which 
 will be familiar to the reader as having existed among 
 the Jews. 1 The Levirate next died out, as being 
 opposed to ideas of propriety derived from the practice 
 of monandry. And thus the family slowly assumed 
 either the form to which we are accustomed, or that 
 which it had in Eome. It is unnecessary for my 
 1 [See note at p. 109.] 
 
198 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 purpose to say anything here of the causes of the 
 growth of agnation. The changes in the form of the 
 family would, of course, in every case be gradual, 
 and not be effected throughout the whole of any 
 community at once. 
 
 This theory is supported by a very considerable 
 amount of evidence, of which it is impossible in this 
 place to give even a summary. As regards the initial 
 stage of the progress which it declares, I may, however, 
 state, that polyandry has been traced at points all over 
 the world, both ancient and modern ; and that, in most 
 cases, there has been found the system of kinship 
 through females only, or traces of that system. That 
 system is found to prevail amongst the great majority 
 of existing rude races, with not a few of which the 
 primitive form of the family is still preserved. And, 
 lastly, traces or traditions of polyandry, a,nd of the 
 system of kinship through females only, have been 
 found in the records of all the historical races. What 
 I now propose is, to see whether a somewhat minute 
 examination of the history of ancient Greece will yield 
 evidence for or against the theory. 
 
 If the reader will look back at the scheme of the 
 development of systems of kinship given at the outset, 
 he will see that the phenomena of kinship in the second 
 and in the fourth stages of the progress must be the 
 same ; that there must be correspondences between the 
 phases of transition from the second to the third, and 
 from the third to the fourth stages of the progress ; and 
 that where the phenomena of kinship exhibited in any 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 199 
 
 period may belong to the second or to the fourth, or to 
 a phase of transition from the former, or to the latter, 
 we must examine the periods antecedent and subsequent 
 to it, in order to ascertain to which stage the phenomena 
 really belong. 
 
 I propose then, firstly, to inquire into the state of 
 Greek kinship as it appears in the Homeric poems ; 
 secondly, to glance at the history of kinship in post- 
 Homeric Greece ; and, thirdly, to see what light can 
 be thrown on its pre-Homeric history by a study of 
 Greek traditions, and of the congeners of the Greeks. 
 
 I. In no respect has life in the Homeric times, so 
 modern an aspect as in regard to the position of 
 " wedded wives." The number of the wives acquired 
 by capture, and the frequent mention made of women 
 either as the end or the cause of war, remind us that 
 there is something peculiar in the position of women, 
 and even in the relation of the " wedded wife " to her 
 lord. But for this, the general description of the 
 married state might suggest to us the wedded life of 
 our own fathers and mothers. 
 
 The position and fortune of the wedded wife are 
 usually equal, sometimes superior, to those of her 
 husband. Not unfrequently he owes to her his rank 
 and wealth ; always she possesses a dignified place 
 and much influence. It is needless to cite examples 
 of this. The poet often assumes a perfectly chivalrous 
 tone in alluding to the wives of his heroes. 
 
 In Homer we find acknowledgment of the blood-ties 
 through both the father and the mother. There is not 
 
200 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 a hint in the poems of the relationship between mother 
 and child being less sacred or complete than that be- 
 tween father and child. On the contrary, in several 
 passages, as I shall show, that relationship is represented 
 as the more sacred of the two. And it is certainly 
 always so depicted, where it is depicted at all, as to 
 exclude the idea that it was not perceived to be a blood - 
 relationship. Anticleia's grief for the absent Ulysses, 
 and the meeting with her shade in Hades, are perfect 
 pictures of filial and motherly tenderness. It would be 
 hard for any one to read them, and imagine that in an 
 age when blood-ties were at all thought of, the tie of 
 blood was wanting to complete the bond between that 
 mother and son. 
 
 Homer prefers the father in tracing genealogies, 
 without denying the mother her place. On the other 
 hand, it is clear that the Greeks had not been long 
 accustomed to pedigrees traced through fathers. Few 
 of the Homeric genealogies ascend many steps till they 
 terminate in an unknown or divine father. Had pedi- 
 grees through fathers been old inheritances of the noble 
 families which figure in the Troica, the divine parent- 
 ages, whatever else besides uncertainty of fatherhood 
 they may imply, could not possibly have been either so 
 numerous or so commonly credited. 
 
 1. I instance the pleading of Lycaon in the Iliad, as 
 containing proof of kinship through the mother, and 
 proof that the tie through the father did not, in the 
 same degree, infer the rights and obligations of kinship. 
 This Lycaon was a son of Priam, by Laothoe, daughter 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 201 
 
 of Altes, King of the Leleges. She was one of Priam's 
 numerous " wedded wives," and had by him two sons, 
 Lycaon and Polydorus, the latter already slain by 
 Achilles, who had come forth to avenge the death of 
 Patroclus, his friend and kinsman. 1 
 
 Lycaon, being assailed by Achilles, begs for his life, 
 his main plea being that he is not related to Hector on 
 the mother's side ; 
 
 "AAAo Se rot epeco, crv 8' evt (pe<rt fidXXeo 
 
 Mr; /X KTtv', CTTCt OV\ OfJLOyaCTTpiOS "E/CTOpOS ei/U 
 
 "Os rot kralpov eVe^ve^ eV?yea re Kparepov re. 
 
 " Yet I'll say 
 
 This to thee, and cast it thou in heart ; 
 Do not slay me, since not from the same womb 
 Am I as Hector is, who killed thy friend, 
 At once both kind and brave." 2 
 
 The appeal is to the well-known law of blood-feud, 
 for though the assault takes place in battle, it is made 
 in the thirst for vengeance. What, then, is the meaning 
 and effect of the appeal ? Is it this : " Hector and 
 Hector's kindred are alone amenable to your vengeance, 
 for it was Hector who slew your friend. I am neither 
 kith nor kin of Hector. True, we have, as you know, 
 the same father. But I put it to you, what does that 
 matter ? He is not my brother uterine 
 
 1 The friendship of Achilles and Patroclus overshadows their 
 affinity. But according to tradition the affinity was undoubted. 
 ^Eacus and Menoetius were brothers uterine sons of ^Egina ; and 
 the former was the father of Peleus, the latter of Patroclus. 
 
 2 The translations of the Homeric passages are all from 
 Korgate. 
 
202 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 my relative through the mother " ? At least, it implies 
 that being a brother by the same father did not mark 
 him out one of those specially liable to be slain as a 
 relative of the wrong-doer. The pleading was ineffectual, 
 but it remained unanswered save by the sword. " Patro- 
 clus has died. I too, the magnificent Achilles, must 
 soon die. You had as well go, my friend. So there." 
 And the keen sword smote at the collar-bone beside the 
 neck. Achilles was avenging the death of a dear friend 
 as well as a kinsman ; and the limitations imposed by 
 the law of blood-feud, appealed to by Lycaon, were 
 powerless to restrain him. Should it be thought that 
 the inference made from this case is too large, it must 
 at any rate be allowed that the passage proves (l) that 
 the blood connection between the mother and son was 
 fully acknowledged ; (2) that the connection through 
 the father and mother made a closer kinship than that 
 through the father only, which would not have been the 
 case had agnation been established. And as it is obvious 
 that Lycaon could not have urged his plea had he and 
 Hector been uterine brothers, even had they been sons 
 of different fathers, it becomes probable (3) that the 
 blood-tie through the mother alone was practically, at 
 this time, a stronger one than that through the father 
 alone. 
 
 Further on, Priam speculates as to the fate of Lycaon 
 and Polydorus. "If they yet live captive with the 
 Greeks," he says, " then surely we shall ransom them 
 with brass and gold ; for the money is in the house, as 
 the aged Altes gave abundance with his daughter." 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 203 
 
 There is here a further note of relationship between 
 mother and child. The mother's wealth was specially 
 applicable for ransoming her sons. We may infer that 
 in the household of the polygynous Priam, the children 
 of a wife, whatever other rights of inheritance they had, 
 were heirs to her wealth. 
 
 It may be said that Lycaon's plea refers sole]y to a 
 state of feeling prevailing on the Asiatic side, and 
 peculiar to a people who practised polygyny. But if 
 it was of no force from Homer's point of view, he either 
 would not have stated it, or he would have made 
 Achilles meet it with an answer. The reply of Achilles 
 is irrelevant, being substantially what I have stated, 
 with the addition that he had made up his mind to 
 spare no child of Priam. It must be assumed that the 
 plea appeared of force to Homer's auditors, and that 
 could only be through their knowing what a difference 
 the want of a perfect kinship should have made. On 
 the Greek side, as well as on the Asiatic, there was, 
 owing to the system of " captive wives," abundance of 
 room for the distinction between the paternal and 
 maternal tie, and for its practical recognition in cases 
 of blood-feud. 1 That Lycaon is presumably of strictly 
 
 1 I know no better illustration of the incompleteness of kinship 
 through the father, at the stage of development in which I conceive 
 the Homeric Greeks to have been, than is afforded by the story of 
 Amnon and Tamar, in the Book of Samuel. Tamar was Amnon's 
 half-sister by the same father; yet they were marriageable. 2 Sam. 
 xii. 13: "Speak to the king, for he will not withhold me from 
 thee." And see v. 16. Her uterine brother Absalom revenged 
 the rape of Tamar by slaying Amnon. He then fled to the kindred 
 
204 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 Greek ancestry on both sides of his parentage, is a fact 
 on which I shall not rest an argument. 
 
 2. In the Iliad we have evidence of the existence of 
 kinship through the mother in the story of Tlepolemus, 
 the Ehoclian leader, son of Hercules and Astyoche. This 
 man, having inadvertently slain his grand-uncle I 'eym- 
 nius, the brother of Alcmene, mother of Hercules, had 
 to flee, "for the other sons, and grandsons too, of mighty 
 Herakles had threatened him." Not threatened to de- 
 liver him up to the kindred of Licymnius, but to avenge 
 the death. Now, what had they to do with the matter 
 as avengers ? Nothing except on the footing that they 
 were of the kindred of Licymnius ; for, by old law, the 
 right of vengeance belonged to the kindred of the slain. 
 They were therefore (being of the kin of Hercules) of 
 the kindred of Alcmene and of her brother Licymnius. 
 That is, some Hellenes for this is a strictly Hellenic 
 story recognized the blood-tie through the mother as 
 creating the right and obligation of the blood-feud. 
 Iliad, ii. 656, et se.q. 
 
 3. Helen, when she surveys the warriors from the 
 wall, looks for, but cannot see, Castor and Pollux 
 
 rw /x,ot //,ia yetaro 
 
 " Mine own brethren, 
 Whom both, as also me, one mother bare." 
 
 of his mother, viz. to the court of Talmai, King of Geshur. (2 Sam. 
 iii. 3, and xiii. 37.) In Primitive Marriage, p. 61, I point out how 
 the occurrence of cases of this sort among the aborigines of Australia 
 is one of the chief impediments in the way of the homogeneity of 
 the groups being destroyed. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 205 
 
 She cannot believe that they have not accompanied the 
 Greeks ; but if they have not, it must be because of the 
 shame and blame resting on her, their sister. There is 
 a legend which connects the three through a common 
 father, Zeus ; but that is not alluded to : Homer 
 represents her thoughts as wholly fixed on their com- 
 mon mother. 
 
 A similar passage occurs in the nineteenth book of 
 the Iliad. Briseis is represented as bewailing, over the 
 dead Patroclus, the accumulated woes which she has had 
 to suffer the loss of her husbands and of " three be- 
 loved brethren too (one mother bare us)." 
 
 rpets re Kaoryi^TovSj rovs /xot /xta yeiVa.ro ^rjrifjp. 
 
 This would scarcely have been repeated if the poet did 
 not feel its power to stir tender chords in the hearts of 
 his auditors. He always marks the distinction of Kaaiy- 
 VTJTOS Kal QTrarpos and ofioydo-rpios as an important one. 
 And he is not content with simply denoting the uterine 
 tie. The verse swells, as with feeling, in referring to it. 
 On the other hand, the word oTrarpos, which he uses 
 twice, is both times used abruptly, as if to state a fact 
 unconnected, or at least not specially connected, with 
 the feelings. 
 
 A passage in the twenty-fourth book puts it beyond 
 dispute that Homer attaches superior importance to the 
 tie through the mother. Apollo, addressing the gods in 
 favour of granting burial to Hector, strongly disapproves 
 the savage manner in which Achilles has treated the 
 body. There is usually an end, he urges, of tears and 
 
206 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 wailing for human losses, even when they are the 
 greatest, as when one loses 
 
 He Kaa-LjvrjTOV 6/xoyacrrptov, rje. /cat vlov. 
 
 " One right dear, 
 
 Either a brother born of self-same womb, 
 Or even a son." 
 
 Here a brother " of the self-same womb," and a son, 
 have the foremost place among dear relations. Why 
 not a brother oirarpos of the same sire ? Clearly 
 because such brothers were not so closely and tenderly 
 connected. That is, we must conclude that Homer 
 regarded the blood-tie through the mother as closer 
 and dearer than that through the father. 1 
 
 4. The beggar Arnaeus got his name through his 
 mother. Was it customary among the lower classes to 
 name the children after the mother ? Have we a hint 
 of such a custom among the higher classes in the 
 following passage ? 
 
 " Then in their palace 
 Anon the father and the lady mother 
 Did call their child ' Alcyone ' for surname ; 
 
 1 Iliad, iii. 235 ; xix. 290 et seg. ; xi. 257 j xii. 371 ; xxiv. 45. In 
 Odyssey, iv. 224, Homer places in the same category sorrow for a 
 mother, father, brother, or son naming the mother first. One is 
 reminded by the passages cited in the text of the special love and 
 tenderness felt by Joseph for his brother Benjamin, . " his mother's 
 son " : " His bowels did yearn upon his brother, and he sought 
 where to weep, and entered into his chamber and wept there." 
 How cold by comparison was his feeling for his brothers-german ! 
 Gen. xliii. 29. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 207 
 
 Because, forsooth, her mother had the fate 
 Of mournful Alcyon, and like her did weep 
 When the far-darting king, Apollo Phoebus, 
 Carried her daughter off." 
 
 This is from the tale of Meleager, and therefore very 
 old. We shall find that the custom of naming children 
 after the mother prevailed among the Lycians; and shall 
 be able to show that it anciently prevailed among many 
 of the Greek tribes. Odyssey, xviii. 5 ; Iliad, ix. 556, 
 et seq. 
 
 5. In the sixth book of the Iliad we have the gene- 
 alogies of Glaucus and Sarpedon. Sisyphus begets 
 Glaucus, who begets Bellerophon, who marries the 
 daughter of Proetus, King of Lycia, and by her begets 
 Isander (who is slain), Hippolochus, and Laodameia. 
 Then Hippolochus begets Glaucus ; and Laodameia, 
 embraced by Zeus, brings forth Sarpedon. Sarpedon 
 is the leader of the Lycian allies, and Glaucus is but one 
 of his lieutenants ! The daughter's son is the chief, and 
 the agnate the inferior. I shall recur to this when I 
 come to treat of the Lycians. It points to a system of 
 succession, through females, which prevails among nearly 
 all rude races, and which, we shall find, continued to be 
 in full force among the Lycians long after the Homeric 
 period. Iliad, vi. 150 210. 
 
 Here, meantime, I suspend the examination of the 
 poems. I think I have succeeded in showing that Homer 
 had no idea of there being no affinity between mother 
 and child ; that, on the contrary, he regarded uterine 
 
208 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 connections generally as especially close and tender. I 
 have shown that there are traditions in the poems which 
 prove that among some Hellenes affinity through the 
 mother founded the blood-feud, and gave rights of 
 succession; that among the " Pelasgi," and possibly 
 Hellenes in Troy and Lycia, the tie through the mother 
 was superior to that through the father, and that the 
 latter was not regarded as a perfect kinship. 
 
 I may say here that did we know that my scheme of 
 the normal development of systems of kinship was 
 correct, and were the question this, Finding in Homer's 
 time kinship through mothers as well as fathers, was the 
 stage of advancement one of departure from the system 
 of kinship through females only, or of advance from 
 agnation ? the question might be answered without 
 further inquiry. I do not find a single trace of agnation 
 a single legend which gives a hint that it ever existed. 
 I find some hints of kinship through the mother having 
 been the only kinship. I find the whole circumstances 
 of the people barbarous. The heroes are mag- 
 nificently accoutred and armed ; but their battles, 
 and even those of the gods, tend to degenerate 
 into stone-bickers. Their funeral orgies are those 
 of the Viti and some Scythic peoples mentioned by 
 Herodotus. Achilles, the hero of their imagination, is 
 a sulky and implacable savage ; Ulysses, their model 
 wise man, is cunning, treacherous, and profligate. It 
 would not be believed that this people had reached a 
 point which the Komans only reached late in their 
 history through the persistent efforts of a line of illus- 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 209 
 
 trious praetors. The question is not, however, what I 
 have now stated. It is the much more important and 
 difficult one whether I can show, to any high degree of 
 probability, that the Greeks came through the earlier 
 stages specified in my scheme. 
 
 II. "What, then, is the post-Homeric history of kin- 
 ship in Greece ? And does it supply an argument in 
 favour of the view that the Homeric Greeks were ad- 
 vancing from the system of kinship through females only 
 to the more modern system of agnation ? 
 
 It can be shown that in post-Homeric Greece there 
 grew up an opinion unfavourable to the idea of kinship 
 through the mother. The law, perhaps, never re- 
 cognized agnation ; but it made a close approach to 
 doing so. 
 
 1. By Solon's time the next of kin on the father's 
 side, to the fourth degree, succeeded before any right of 
 succession (ab intestato) opened to the kindred of the 
 mother ; and, on both sides of the house, males and the 
 children of males, cut out females and their children 
 even of a nearer degree. The law provided that the 
 estate of one dying childless and intestate should only 
 pass to the next of kin on the mother's side, " si nulli 
 supersint paterni proximi ad sobrinorum usque filios." 
 This cannot be said to have been very unfriendly to the 
 maternal relatives. I find, however, that by the time of 
 Isseus, in this field the greatest of Athenian jurists, the 
 law had so far changed, that Isseus denies a mother any 
 place among the heirs of her son. In the celebrated 
 suit about the succession of Hagnia it appears that the 
 
 p 
 
210 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 mother of Hagnia claimed the succession (1) " tanquam 
 cognata," she being the sister of his cousin Stratius. 
 Being defeated in this claim, her advisers next demanded 
 the estate for her (2) "tanquam matri filii." In this 
 claim also she was defeated, on the ground, as Isseus 
 states, that a mother had to her son no affinity carrying 
 any legal right. M^re/sa elvai avyyevearaTov fj,ev rjv rrj 
 (f>v(7i> TravTwv, ev Sfc Tals ayx^Mrrelais ofjLoXoyovfjievws OIK 
 <TTIV. It follows, of course, d fortiori, that none of her 
 kindred no one on the maternal side of the house- 
 could have any right of inheritance. This, practically, 
 is agnation. Bunsen combats the position taken up by 
 Isseus, and explains the lady's failure on other grounds. 
 Isaeus is, however, the greater authority ; and Bunsen's 
 argument, as I read it, turns chiefly on Solon's law, 
 without making allowance for the change in the law in 
 the interval between Solon and the suit. Leges Atticse 
 (S. Petiti, 1741), vol. iii. p. 51 ; tit. vi. ff\ Bunsen de 
 Jure hsered. Athen., p. 23 ; Isseus, ed. Schomann, 
 p. 145. 
 
 2. But whether the opinion that there was no 
 affinity between mother and child was ever realized in 
 Greek law or not, there is no doubt that such an opinion 
 came to be current in later Greece, as a new view, and 
 was the subject of controversy. I have said there is no 
 hint of such an opinion in Homer. Neither is there in 
 Hesiod. 1 The view (which is stated in the Orestes of 
 
 1 Is Hesiod to be regarded as serious when he speaks of the 
 general uncertainty of male parentage in his own, " the fifth age " ? 
 Works and Days, 182. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 211 
 
 Euripides) receives, so far as I know, its earliest and 
 best expression in the Eumenides of ^Eschylus, who 
 distinctly represents it as a new doctrine. 
 
 The Eumenides exhibits kinship through the mother 
 surviving as a subject of controversy. The plea which 
 succeeds in the trial of Orestes is that he was not of kin 
 to his mother Clytemnestra. On the other hand, success 
 is only attained after much argument. The jury are 
 equally divided on the plea, and Orestes gains his cause 
 by the casting vote of Athene. 
 
 The basis of the suit is the claim of the Erinnyes 
 to the right of punishing matricides. This was their 
 function, by special ordination, as representing a time 
 when kinship through the mother was unquestioned. 
 The claim is disputed. Would they, asks Orestes, drive 
 from his home the slayer of a wife that had killed her 
 husband ? The Erinnyes answer 
 
 " That would not be kindred blood shed by the hand of a relation." 
 
 "What," asks Orestes 
 
 " Do you call me related by blood to my mother ? " 
 
 On this they open upon him with reproaches. Would 
 you disown so dear a relationship ? Did she not bear 
 thee, murderer, in her womb ? They are shocked at his 
 impiety ; and their horror increases on discovering that 
 he is not alone in holding the new view that it is 
 adopted by the gods. 
 
 Apollo is clear as to the law of Zeus respecting 
 kinship. "The bearer of the so-called offspring," ho 
 
 p 2 
 
212 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 contends, " is not the mother of it, but only the nurse 
 of the newly-conceived foetus. It is the male who is 
 the author of its being ; while she, as a stranger, for a 
 stranger preserves the young plant for those for whom 
 the god has not blighted it in the bud. And I will 
 show you a proof of this assertion ; one may become a 
 father without a mother. There stands by a witness of 
 this in the daughter of Olympian Zeus, who was not 
 even nursed [much less engendered or begotten] in the 
 darkness of the womb." Pallas accepts this view of 
 the matter, and records her vote in favour of Orestes. 
 
 On judgment being pronounced against them, the 
 Erinnyes are plunged in despair 
 
 'Io> $cot vecurepot, TraXaiovs vd/xov? 
 , KOLK 
 
 " Ye younger gods, ye have over-ridden the old laws, and have 
 taken him out of my hands." 
 
 The lamentation and wail of dishonour are after- 
 wards repeated with outcries which farther fix the 
 attention on the fact that the new doctrine was sub- 
 versive of old beliefs. 
 
 " That I should be treated thus ! alas ; I of the ancient views, 
 and should have an abode in the land, forsooth, unhonoured and 
 detested ! Thereat I breathe out my fury and full resentment." 
 
 Now, were the views of kinship found in this play 
 those which prevailed in the time of ^iEschylus, or those 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 213 
 
 which, as he imagined, prevailed iri the time of 
 Orestes ? 1 
 
 It is most unlikely that the poet would have com- 
 posed a drama in which were to be exhibited in conflict 
 two sets of opinions, both archaic, and with neither of 
 which his auditors might have any sympathy. Thus I 
 think the idea is excluded that the play is an attempt 
 to reflect the spirit of the age of Orestes. Moreover, 
 Orestes is pre-Homeric, and neither in Homer's time, 
 nor presumably before it, since we have no trace of it 
 in the Homeric or Hesiodic poems, had the Greek mind 
 thought of agnation. If, then, the new views did not 
 prevail in the time of ^Eschylus himself, they were yet 
 certainly post-Homeric ; and, assuming this, it is im- 
 material to my argument whether ^Eschylus applied to 
 
 1 The solemn adjudication in the Eumenides that there is no 
 kinship between mother and child, and the acquittal on that ground 
 of Orestes, seem to me in remarkable contrast to the Homeric 
 account of Epicaste (Odyss. xi. 270), 
 
 " Next beauteous Epicaste, 
 Mother of (Edipus, I saw ; a deed 
 Heinous did she, through witlessness of mind, 
 To her own son got married ; his own father 
 Slew he in fight and spoiled, and her he married." 
 
 The gods made known the matter far and wide among mankind. 
 Epicaste hanged herself and left behind for (Edipus " full many a 
 woe, as heavy indeed as through a mother's curse the avenging 
 furies e'er bring to pass." In the Eumenides the furies have 
 nothing to do with matricides, there being no blood-relationship 
 between mother and child. Who can doubt but that in the mind 
 of Homer the whole horror came out of the closeness, as he con- 
 ceived it, of that as a blood-relationship. 
 
214 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 the story of Orestes an opinion current in his own day, 
 or one that had prevailed so recently as to be sufficiently 
 familiar to allow it to be made the pivot of a dramatic 
 plot. I would incline, however, to think, were there no 
 other means of settling the matter, that the only satis- 
 factory explanation which can be given of the almost 
 balanced state of contrary opinions in the Eumenides is, 
 that it reflects the state of popular feeling and belief 
 respecting kinship in the time of ^Eschylus himself. 
 
 We know that the new view was adopted by several 
 philosophers who (speaking roughly) were the con- 
 temporaries or immediate successors of ^Eschylus. That 
 the act of generation, the begetting, was wholly the 
 father's, and that the mere nutrition was the mother's, 
 is said to have been the opinion of Pythagoras and 
 Plato. Plutarch, in one place, represents these philo- 
 sophers as holding aaw/jLcnov f*ev elvai TTJV SvvajLiiv TOV 
 o-irepiJiaTos (like mind on its commencement), which 
 transforms o-co/jLartKrjv 8? Trjv v\rjv supplied by the mother ; 
 and, in another place, in speaking of that view of the 
 Cosmos which conceives it to be compounded of two 
 factors, mind and matter, he says, Plato calls mind 
 the conception, idea, model, and father ; and matter 
 the mother, nurse, or seat and region capable of births. 
 It would probably be found that Greek speculation went 
 no farther than to give the father the first and the 
 mother a subordinate place in the act of generation, and 
 correspondingly to elevate the father's relation to the 
 children and depress that of the mother. Chrysippus, 
 however, is said to have held the extreme view pro- 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 21 5 
 
 pounded by Apollo in the Eumenides. " The foetus is 
 nourished in the womb like a plant ; but being born, is 
 refrigerated and hardened by the air, and its spirit being 
 changed it becomes an animal." This constitutes the 
 mother the mere nurse of her child, just as a field is of 
 the seed sown in it. Plutarch de Plac. Phil. 5, 4 ; De 
 Is. et Os. 56 (Plut. Oper. Lips. 1778, vol. vii. 471);. -De 
 Stoic. Repug. Id. vol. x. 350. 
 
 That such views prevailed among the thinkers in or 
 about the time of ^Eschylus to whose time also Isseus 
 who denies the right of inheritance to the mother's side, 
 may be referred favours my opinion that the Eume- 
 nides reflects the feeling of the author's own day. And 
 whoever adopts that opinion must agree with me in 
 holding that we have proof in that drama, read in con- 
 nection with the Homeric poems, that kinship through 
 the mother had been in Homer's time undisputed among 
 the Greeks, and had come, by the time of ^Eschylus, to 
 be a subject of controversy, and to a great extent, if 
 not wholly, to be ignored. 
 
 3. We have a confirmation of this in the change 
 which took place in the status of women in post- 
 Homeric Greece. 
 
 Where the ruder forms of the family system prevail, 
 the position of women is necessarily very high. The 
 truth of this might be illustrated by numerous in- 
 stances. And their position is gradually lowered as 
 those changes take place which oust them from the 
 headship of families, and deprive connections through 
 them of importance. They first lose the headship of 
 
216 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 families ; next they are denied equality ; and, lastly, on 
 agnation being firmly established, they sink almost to 
 the level of slaves. 
 
 I have already had occasion to notice the high 
 position of women in the Homeric age. "We find," 
 says Mr. Gladstone, " in Homer the fulness of the 
 moral and intelligent being alike consummate, alike 
 acknowledged on the one side and the other [i.e. on 
 the female and on the male]. The conversation of 
 Hector and Andromache in the sixth Iliad, of Ulysses 
 and Penelope in the twenty-third Odyssey, the position 
 of Arete at the court of Alcinous, and that of Helen 
 in the palace of Menelaus, all tell one and the same 
 tale." "Women in the Homeric age," says Mitford, 
 " enjoyed more freedom, and communicated more in 
 business and amusement among men, than in after ages 
 has been usual in those Eastern countries ; far more 
 than at Athens in the flourishing times of the common- 
 wealth. Equally, indeed, Homer's eloquent eulogies 
 and Hesiod's severe sarcasms prove women to have 
 been, in their days, important members of society." 
 
 It is notorious that in later Greece all this was 
 changed. In Sparta alone, where the old customs were 
 best preserved, did the women retain anything of their 
 old dignity and influence. 1 Everywhere else they were 
 
 1 "Spartan mothers," says Miiller, "preserved a power over 
 their sons when arrived at manhood, of which we find no trace in 
 the rest of Greece." TJie Dorians, Book iv. chap. v. 1. Again 
 he says (Ibid. 5) that the Dorians generally, and more at Sparta 
 than elsewhere, preserved most rigidly and represented most truly 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 217 
 
 degraded. At Athens they were confined to home, and 
 their liberties restricted in a fashion quite Oriental. 
 Even the idea of marriage, as Mr. Gladstone observes, 
 was, in post-Homeric Greece, greatly lowered. " The very 
 name of ^a^os, with its kindred words, underwent a 
 change of sense, and was made applicable to such a re- 
 lation as that established between the Greek chieftains 
 in the war of Troy and their captives, in cases where 
 they had wives already." Elsewhere he observes : "In 
 truth, it would seem not only as if before Christianity 
 appeared, notwithstanding the advance of civilization, 
 the idea and place of women were below what they 
 should have been, but actually as if, with respect to 
 all that was most essential, tliey sank with the lapse of 
 time." Studies on Homer, vol. ii. 517, 518. 
 
 I claim this lowering of the position of women in 
 post-Homeric Greece as evidence that the change in the 
 popular feeling about kinship, which is proved to have 
 taken place, took place in post-Homeric times. Looking 
 at the degradation of women as an effect, we see that no 
 causes could well have produced it, so long as relation- 
 ships through women preserved their old importance. 
 On the other hand, we can discern a sufficient cause for 
 that degradation in the gradually-increasing prepon- 
 derance of male kinship, and in the changes in 
 the marriage system of which anon which made 
 
 the customs of the ancient Greeks. We shall hereafter see that 
 they preserved, among other things, much of the family and 
 marriage systems to which the early influence of women was 
 owing. 
 
218 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 possible that preponderance. So that we have here a 
 circumstance confirmatory of the conclusion at which 
 we had previously arrived. 
 
 On the whole, looking to the double kinship in 
 Homer, and the hints he furnishes of the former supe- 
 riority of female kinship ; to the high position of women 
 in Homer, and their subsequent degradation consenta- 
 neously with the appearance and growth of the principle 
 of agnation, does it not appear probable that in the 
 Homeric times the Greeks had but just left behind 
 them the system of kinship through females only, along 
 with all the other features of social and family life which 
 the presence of that system implies ? 
 
 III. Let us now see now far the conclusion at which 
 I am pointing is confirmed by the traditions of the 
 Greeks and a study of their congeners. 
 
 Bachofen, in his Das Mutterrecht, goes over this 
 field. He conceives that he has found proofs of "mother- 
 right " the primitive female government not only in 
 all the early Greek settlements, but in every branch of 
 the Indo-Germanic family. For my purpose it must 
 suffice to glance at some facts respecting the ancient 
 populations of Persia and Media, from which, according 
 to some writers, the Greeks were derived, and to make 
 a rapid examination of the customs and traditions of 
 the Greeks themselves in a few of their principal 
 settlements. 
 
 We shall find that in Persia there was anciently 
 general incestuous promiscuity. We shall find in 
 ancient Media various forms of marriage, including 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 219 
 
 polyandry, but no law of incest, and no conjugal 
 fidelity. In Sparta we shall find monandry without 
 conjugal fidelity, alongside of polyandry in the form in 
 which it now prevails in Tibet ; in Troy, the Levirate ; 
 and in Athens, sister-marriages and traces of the Levi- 
 rate. Farther, we shall find among the Lycians, whose 
 affinity to the Greeks was so pronounced, the system of 
 female kinship prevailing down to the time of Herod- 
 otus, and shall adduce evidence that that system the 
 result of promiscuity, or the lower polyandry anciently 
 prevailed in Attica, and in Crete, and in several other 
 Greek settlements. It is quite consistent with my views 
 that in all these quarters monandry, and even the patria 
 potestas, may have prevailed at points. What I main- 
 tain is, that anciently in the Greek settlements these 
 phenomena were exceptional. 
 
 1. The incest of the ancient Persians is a familiar 
 fact ; the evidence of it is reviewed at considerable 
 length by Selden, and was a few years ago carefully 
 sifted by a writer in the Fortnightly Review. They not 
 only allowed the union of brother and sister of the full 
 blood, but even of mother and son, and father and 
 daughter ; and in some cases they required such unions 
 for the production of persons qualified for religious 
 offices. I know no account that can be given of such a 
 total absence of restrictions on marriage, except that the 
 Persian customs were those of savage hordes, that some- 
 how (probably owing to their practice of polyandry) 
 never became exogamous, and so never attained to the 
 idea of incest. That Persian marriages were anciently 
 
220 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 polyandric, I conceive to be proved by their having the 
 Levirate. The Medes had no better manners than the 
 Persians. Strabo says they had marriage in various 
 forms, including polyandry ; but marriage meant little 
 with them, if Xanthus is to be believed, that they had 
 no law of incest, and freely interchanged their wives. 
 If the Greeks were really offshoots of the poorer and 
 hard-pressed portions of the hill-population of Media 
 and Persia, we may believe that when they set out for 
 Greece they were in bad training. And I am not aware 
 that there was any race between them and their new 
 home from whom they could learn much. 1 
 
 2. What Xanthus says of the Medes, Xenophon 
 says of the Lacedsemonians. They had no conjugal 
 fidelity. A Spartan husband had no scruple in calling 
 on a friend, or even a stranger, to be the father of his 
 
 1 Selden's Jus. Natur. chap. xi. art. " Consanguineous Mar- 
 riages " ; Fortnightly Review, No. xii. p. 715 ; Kleker, Zendavesta, 
 iii. p. 226; Strabo (Amsterdam, 1707), ii. 798; Xanthus, apud 
 Rawlinson, Herod. Life, cxlviii. I have discussed in Primitive 
 Marriage the connection between polyandry and exogamy, and 
 shown how the former may prevent the rise of the latter. I have 
 also discussed the connection between polyandry and the Levirate, 
 and have, as I believe, shown good reason for holding that the 
 latter is a relic of the former. The three well-marked stages of 
 polyandry may respectively be termed the Nair, the British, and 
 the Tibetan. In the British, or second of the three stages of poly- 
 andry, fathers and sons usually had a wife in common, and no such 
 idea had been formed as is conveyed by the word incest. The 
 solidifying of such customs as prevailed in ancient Britain, and 
 their perpetuation after marriage had become monandric, would 
 be sufficient to explain the strange peculiarities of Persian and 
 Median manners described above. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 221 
 
 children ; it was proper for a Spartan matron to be 
 mistress in two houses. Nay, they had polyandry in 
 the Tibetan form ; for we are told by Polybius that the 
 brothers of a house often had one wife between them. 
 This is interesting, as we thus see exhibited in Sparta, 
 at one and the same time, promiscuity in its highest 
 polyandric form, and lingering round a growing practice 
 of monandry. Xenophon, Rep. Laced. 1, 9 ; Polyb. 
 Frag. ap. Mail Collect. Vet. Scriptt. vol. ii. p. 384 ; 
 Grote's Greece, vol. ii. 520, 536, 556 ; Muller's 
 Dorians, book iii. ch. 10, 3. 
 
 It has been usual to throw discredit on the state- 
 ment of Polybius about the Spartans, as on that of 
 Csesar about the Britons, of Tacitus about the Finns, 
 and of Strabo about the ancient Irish. But it will not 
 do to put aside these statements as if those able 
 ancients were men of no sense ; as if the military officers 
 and political agents of the Eoman Empire, for instance, 
 were not as trustworthy authorities as our own officers 
 and agents in India, from whom we know of such 
 customs existing in our own day. As the statement of 
 Polybius is in itself probable, considering all we know 
 of the Lacedaemonians, we must accept it, and believe 
 that the Spartans practised this form of polyandry. 
 And as it is admitted that the Spartans longer than 
 any other Greeks preserved the ancient customs of the 
 Greeks, we are entitled to infer that this species of 
 polyandry had prevailed as a form of marriage among 
 the race at large. Even if we had not the statement of 
 Polybius, I should have considered that we had evidence 
 
222 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 that the Spartans anciently practised polyandry, in that 
 legend which represents Lycurgus as declining, on 
 purpose to set an example to his countrymen, to marry 
 his brother's widow, and so cut out from the succession 
 his brother's son. This is a tradition of the decay of 
 polyandry in the royal house of Sparta. It is a declina- 
 ture of the rights and obligations of the Levir ; 1 for by 
 the marriage, according to the story, Lycurgus would 
 have legally succeeded to the throne, notwithstanding 
 the appearance of a male child of his brother a law of 
 succession derived from polyandry. And I would have 
 inferred that though polyandry began so early to die 
 out in the upper ranks, yet, in all probability, it lingered 
 into the historical period among the poorer folk, so that 
 it might have been the subject of observation and 
 record. And I believe Polybius the more readily that 
 I had made these inferences before I knew of his 
 statement. 
 
 3. In the legends of the house of Priam we have 
 some instances of brothers succeeding to their brothers' 
 widows. Helen, on the death of Paris, fell to his next 
 brother, Deiphobus ; and Andromache, widow of 
 Hector, became ultimately the wife of Hector's only 
 surviving brother, Helenus. As to Helen, it is said the 
 right of succession to her was the subject of dispute 
 between Helenus and Deiphobus. She properly fell to 
 the elder of the rivals. As the pleading of Lycaon 
 assures us of the superiority of the tie through the 
 mother on the Trojan side a note of polyandry we 
 1 [See note at p. 109.] 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 223 
 
 may the more readily believe that we have here a 
 tradition of the Levirate. 1 
 
 4. At Athens we have strong evidence of the system 
 of female kinship, and therefore of some degree of 
 promiscuity, in the sister-marriages permitted by law. 
 A man might marry a sister by the same father, but not 
 a sister by the same mother. 'Efemu ja fjue.lv Tas IK 
 Trarepvv aSe\$as (Leges Atticce, lib. vi. t. i. 7?). Assum- 
 ing that the Greeks were anciently exogamous i.e. 
 forbidden to marry those who were counted to be of the 
 same blood with themselves, we must accept this law as 
 proof that in Attica there was kinship originally through 
 the mother only. It represents the system of female 
 kinship as regulating intermarriages after it had lost 
 importance in regard to successions. But other Attic 
 laws equally point out the ancient state of the Athenians. 
 For example, there is Solon's provision for the case of an 
 l7riK\r]po$ that had married an old man. " Dotalis 
 foamina, si maritus, qui earn sibi jure vindicavit, coire 
 non posset, cum mariti adgnatis concumbito " (Leg. Att. 
 lib. vi. t. i. ty). This is not the Levirate, but it some- 
 what resembles it ; and it is identical with the provision 
 in the code of Menu for the interference of an authorized 
 " sapinda " to discharge the duties of the Levir where 
 the Levir was incapable. The provision for securing 
 progeny in either case remands us to a state of society 
 for its origin in which polyandrous ideas of propriety 
 must have prevailed. Such a thing could never be 
 dreamed of in an age of monandry and conjugal fidelity. 
 
 1 [As to this also, see note at p. 109.] 
 
224 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 5. Having now found promiscuity and polyandry in 
 those districts from which the Greek races are believed 
 to have been derived ; polyandry and traces of pro- 
 miscuity in Sparta, where the ancient Greek customs are 
 believed to have been best preserved ; and traces of 
 polyandry in Troy and Attica, we might expect to find 
 in the Greek legends numerous indications of the 
 ancient supremacy of women, as well as of the system 
 of kinship through females only. And we do so to an 
 extent that is quite remarkable. Volumes might be 
 filled with the minuter items of evidence. 1 Let me 
 here give a single example of the sort of facts which I 
 have in view before proceeding to the evidence on which 
 I mainly rely. I refer to the Homeric legend of 
 Meleager, which, read in the light of tradition, shows 
 that at one time, among some Hellenes, heirship was 
 vested in the mother's kindred, and not in the father's. 
 No evidence need be adduced to show that this legend 
 is Hellenic. 
 
 The legend of the Boar-hunt, and of the quarrel 
 and war that rose out of it, is rapidly, and in some 
 respects imperfectly, related in Homer. The purpose 
 which Phoenix has in telling it is to induce Achilles to 
 lay aside his wrath, by illustrating the dangers of over- 
 
 1 Facts of the sort I have in view are to be found in abundance 
 in Cyprus, the home of Aphrodite ; in Lemnos, celebrated for the 
 cruelties of its women ; in the legends of Danaus and Atreus, and, 
 indeed, in almost every Greek genealogy. They are to be found 
 everywhere in connection with the Greek oracles and with religious 
 rites. I need scarcely add that tho legends of the Amazons 
 contribute their quota. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 225 
 
 indulgence in anger ; and this end is fully served, con- 
 sistently with some points of the story being left not a 
 little obscure. The origin of the war, for instance, is 
 thus described, immediately after the account of the 
 ravages of the boar, and its slaughter by Meleager and 
 his friends : 
 
 " And 'twas for sake of him, 
 E'en for the boar's head and the bristly skin, 
 The goddess brought about a mighty clamour, 
 And war-cry 'twixt the lofty-souled ^Etolians 
 And the Curetes." 
 
 How the clamour arose is not stated, but the cause 
 of Meleager's wrath is explained. He was angry at 
 heart against his mother Althaea, because of her 
 imprecations : 
 
 " Who invoked the Gods, indeed, in her deep grief 
 At blood- shed of her brother ; and full oft 
 The bounteous Earth, yea, smote she with her hands, 
 Down sinking, knees to ground, and drenched with tears 
 Was all her bosom, as she called on Hades 
 And dread Persephoneia, to bring Death 
 Upon her son." 
 
 Thus Homer's account is that the war rose out of a 
 dispute between the ^Etolians and Curetes, as to the 
 boar's head and bristles, and that Althaea had cursed 
 Meleager because he had killed her brother ; but it is 
 not part of the account that the brother of Althaea was 
 killed at the hunt, or because he preferred a claim to 
 the trophies of the chase. Phcenix, I may add, tells 
 the story as one of several " tales of the olden times,' 1 
 
 Q 
 
226 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 which might be made to illustrate his theme, and as 
 being one which he remembers. 
 
 Me/xv>7/x.ai roSe epyov eyw 7raA.ai, OVTL veov ye. 
 
 " I do remember this, a matter of yore 
 (Nothing of late, at least)." 
 
 We may assume that Homer here made an old legend- 
 old even in his time serve his poetic purposes, and 
 related it only so far as his purposes required. 
 
 But all the post-Homeric accounts are agreed that 
 Althaea's brothers were slain by Meleager at the hunt ; 
 and from Hyginus we learn the cause of the quarrel. 
 " When Meleager, having killed the boar, was for 
 making over to Atalanta the chief spoils, his uncles on 
 the mother's side took them away from her, asserting 
 their right as next of kin, if Meleager declined to keep 
 the prize to himself." Here then is the origin of the 
 dispute. Meleager 's maternal uncles denied his right to 
 grant away the spoils, and so extinguish their hope of 
 succeeding to them. If he did not choose to keep the 
 trophies which he had acquired by his prowess, they fell 
 to those who would inherit them, supposing him to die. 
 Seeing that Meleager had paternal relatives, this is a 
 distinct tradition of a time when a man's heirs were 
 on his mother's and not on his father's side of the 
 house. 
 
 What Hyginus relates is not a new or different 
 version of the Homeric story, but an addition to it. It 
 is in keeping with the Homeric account ; moreover it 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 227 
 
 consists (as I hope to show) with the statement that the 
 legend belonged to " the olden times " even when Homer 
 sang. And it is certainly (as we have seen) an addition 
 which could not have been made in the time of Hyginus, 
 nor indeed in the post-Homeric period. We have seen 
 that the farther we advance, leaving behind the Homeric 
 stage, the more monstrous and incredible would such a 
 claim on the part of a mother's brothers have appeared. 
 We must accept the tradition, therefore, as evidencing a 
 time when inheritances descended from a man to his 
 sister's children, and when e converse a man's maternal 
 uncles were among his nearest heirs. 1 
 
 1 II. ix. 525 et seq. ; Hyginus, Fab. 229 and 174; and see 
 Grote's Greece, vol. i. 200. In parting with the story of Meleager 
 and the boar-hunt, let me ask what is the meaning of the boar, and 
 of the collection of the flower of Greece the whole of its chivalry 
 to put him down 1 It seems ridiculous that any mortal boar should 
 cause such trouble and require an army of warriors to kill it ; that 
 the victory over it should ever after rank among the proudest exploits 
 of the nation. And what is meant by the oracle enjoining Adrastus 
 to give his daughters in marriage, one to a boar, the other to a lion ; 
 which was complied with by their marrying Tydeus and Polynices 
 respectively 1 What is meant by the relations of Pasiphae with a 
 bull the result the Minotaur ; by Jupiter in the form of a bull 
 carrying off Europa; by Phorbas attaining the supremacy in 
 Rhodes by freeing it of snakes ; by the conversion in .ZEgina of 
 the ants fiv/a/^Kcs into men, the Myrmidons ; by Cecrops being 
 half a snake : by the stories of the dragon's teeth at Colchis and 
 Thebes ; by the numerous horse names in Homer, and a score of 
 such-like facts 1 Is it at all possible that, most anciently, there 
 were among the Greeks tribes with totems, Bull, Boar, and Lion 
 tribes ; Snake, Ant, and Dragon tribes ? Here are a few names of 
 B-ed Indian (American) tribes drawn from the fauna of their 
 country Wolf, Bear, Snake, Deer, Snipe, Eagle, Hare, Babbit, 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 I now propose, first, to glance at some facts indica- 
 tive of the ancient supremacy of women in families ; 
 secondly, to see how far the system of kinship, through 
 females only, can be traced through the custom of 
 naming children after the mother ; and, thirdly, briefly 
 to consider the most ancient Greek traditions of the 
 primitive state, in their relation to my argument. 
 
 First. 1. Evidence of the ancient predominance of 
 women among the Greeks is to be found in the number 
 of their female divinities, and especially in the number 
 of their Eponymae. Looking to the Greek theogony, 
 and accepting that view of systems of polytheism which 
 represents them as resulting from the fusion of tribes or 
 races, and the combination, in one Olympus, of the 
 divinities which, before fusion, the tribes or races re- 
 spectively worshipped, we must believe that many of 
 the Greek tribes anciently worshipped only female 
 divinities. And it is in accordance with this that five 
 of the eight divinities of immemorial Greek worship 
 were female Here, Persephone, Athene, Demeter, and 
 Aphrodite. (Studies on Homer, vol. ii. p. 395.) As 
 to the Greek Eponymse, their number is remarkably 
 
 Crane, Duck, Sable, and Pike. It might be worth the while of 
 some one with leisure to see how the facts bearing on this question 
 would look when collected and marshalled. There are dozens of 
 existing races, some of them comparatively advanced, whose tribes 
 are thus named. Why may it not have been so among the ancient 
 Greeks ? 
 
 [The suggestion made in the preceding paragraph was afterwards 
 developed by the author in a series of papers " On the Worship of 
 Animals and Plants" (Fortnightly Review, 1869 70) which will be 
 republished in a new series of Studies in Ancient History.} 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 229 
 
 great, considering the disposition of the later Greeks to 
 substitute male for female pedigrees. Among the 
 Eponymee are Salamis, Corcyra, J^gina, Thebe, the 
 daughters of the river Asopus (Diod. iv. 13 ; Paus. ii. 
 5, 1), Messene, Sparta, Athene, and Mycene all of 
 them belonging to the pre-historic period, whereas we 
 know that many of the Eponymi of the genealogists 
 were invented within historic times. Sparta is older 
 than Spartus ; Mycene than Myceneus. Mycene as an 
 Eponyma is mentioned by Homer; Myceneus, who 
 supplanted her, is, as Mr. Grote points out, the creation 
 of post-Homeric Greece. How came it that there were 
 so many goddesses in the early times, that so many 
 cities and tribes were named after women ? Must we 
 not hold that women were anciently of high social 
 importance ? Is there not the suggestion that they 
 were the chiefs of the groups of kindred 1 
 
 2. Not only were the tribes named after women ; 
 they explained their affinities to one another by pointing 
 to the relationship of their primitive mothers. The 
 daughters of Asopus were carried off in various direc- 
 tions by gods, and became the mothers of tribes, which 
 were thus kindred to one another. The kinship was no 
 mythological dream, but a practical fact ; the myth was 
 its explanation. Let us, for example, take the case of 
 the Thebans and ^Eginetans. When the Thebans, says 
 Herodotus (v. 80, 81), in the sixty-eighth Olympiad, 
 were hard pressed in war by Athens, they were directed 
 by the Delphian oracle to ask assistance of their next of 
 kin. Kecollecting that Thebe and jEgina had been 
 
230 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 sisters, they were induced to apply to the jEginetans as 
 their next of kin ; and the ^Eginetans gave them aid, 
 first by sending their common heroes, the ^Eacidse, next 
 by actual armed force. How much of truth there is in 
 the myth explaining this connection between the The- 
 bans and the ^Eginetans is immaterial ; it is enough for 
 us that this tradition of the pre-historical period repre- 
 sents the two peoples as tracing their affinities through 
 women looking back to women as the heads of the 
 families from which they sprang, and seeking their next 
 of kin on the mother's side. A similar case is that of 
 the Lycteans in Crete, who claimed affinity with Athens 
 and with Sparta. In both cases the affinity was traced 
 through mothers only, the fathers being wholly dis- 
 regarded. 1 
 
 1 We find, by the way, a case something like that of the 
 Thebans and ^Eginetans in connection with the story of Boreas 
 and Oreithyia. On the invasion of Xerxes the Athenians were told 
 by the oracle to invoke the aid of their son-in-law. They remem- 
 bered Oreithyia and invoked Boreas, who sent a north-east wind, 
 which wrecked the Persian fleet. I may farther observe that the 
 ^Eacid genealogy establishes a connection between .^Egina, Salamis, 
 and Phthia. That between ./Egina and Salamis we know : they 
 were daughters of the river Asopus. Was the connection of these 
 and Phthia also established through women ? 
 
 Though I rest an argument upon the reception of these tribal 
 affinities through first mothers among the Greeks, it must not be 
 supposed that I believe that tribal affinities were really created 
 through the sisterhood of first mothers, or that any one of the 
 Greek tribes was really composed of all the descendants of one 
 woman or one married pair. I believe that the social unit, if one 
 may so speak, was not the family, but the tribe ; that the operation 
 of exogamy the law forbidding the marriage of persons of the same 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 231 
 
 The female divinities, the Eponymse, the traditions 
 of tribal affinities through women, seem all to be 
 indications of the ancient system of female kinship. 
 
 Second. Let us now see how far we can directly 
 trace that system in Greece through the custom of 
 naming children after the mother. This custom is an 
 unmistakable " note " of the system of kinship through 
 females only. Many illustrations of the connection 
 between the two will be found in Primitive Marriage. 
 To name one or two must suffice at present. The 
 native Australians have female kinship only ; among 
 them children always belong to the family of their 
 
 stock and of the system of kinship through females only, produced 
 the division of the tribe into gentes (the word is convenient), con- 
 sisting of persons born of mothers of the same stock ; and that 
 within the gens, when circumstances had developed the feeling of a 
 closer relationship between persons born of the same mother, there 
 arose the family, consisting at first of a mother and her children. 
 This view is in harmony with all that is known of the history of 
 property. The subject is discussed, though not so fully as it should 
 have been, in Primitive Marriage, chap. viii. Affinity between two 
 tribes would, on this view, be created through the marriage system 
 having produced within both of them a number of gentes of the 
 same stock. A family system in which the mother was the family 
 head, her children the heirs, and her daughters the continuers of 
 the family and gens to which she belonged her husband or hus- 
 bands being strangers to the gens would account for women 
 attaining a considerable position, and also for their being 
 reputed to be, as they really were, the means of allying tribes to 
 one another. I hope that before long I shall succeed in show- 
 ing by satisfactory evidence that this view of the growth of 
 society is supported by the facts of ancient Greek history. It seems 
 highly probable that the names of the first mothers, through whom 
 tribes were reputed to be connected, were really gentile names. 
 
232 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 mother, and take her family name. The American 
 Indians again, having the same limited kinship, their 
 children also take the totem or family name of the 
 mother. The Kocch in Northern India, the Celts 
 in ancient Britain; in fact, a great array of cases, 
 ancient and modern, might be cited to establish this 
 connection. But those cited will suffice if the reader 
 takes along with them the fact that, among ourselves, 
 in all European countries, wherever practically, or in 
 the eye of the law, there is kinship only through the 
 mother, as in cases of illegitimacy, it is customary to 
 call children by the name of the mother. This, while 
 it is the natural consequence of the non-acknowledg- 
 ment of the tie through the father, cannot, so far as I 
 can see, be the consequence of anything else. And so 
 far as I know, the custom of naming children after the 
 mother has never been found in a case where relationship 
 to the father was fully acknowledged. If it be a 
 clear sign of exclusively female kinship that children 
 should take the mother's family name, it is d for- 
 tiori, a note of it that they should be called by a 
 matronymic. 
 
 We saw an instance of naming w-rpbOev, in Ithaca, 
 in the case of the beggar Arnseus, and reasons to suspect 
 another in the aristocratic house of Idas and Marpessa 
 Evenine. I now proceed to show that what in these 
 two cases may have been exceptional was the custom 
 of the Lycians, the Athenians, the Cretans, and 
 Messenians. 
 
 (a) As regards the Lycians, whose close affinity to 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 233 
 
 the Greeks appears undoubted, we have the testimony 
 of several witnesses. Herodotus says of them, Kd\eovai 
 aiio TWV fjLTjTepwv eavrovs KCU, ov/ci airo TOOV TraTtpwv. " If 
 any one," he proceeds to say, " asks his neighbour who 
 he is, he will declare himself born of such a mother, and 
 will reckon up the female ancestors of his mother ; 1 and 
 if a female citizen should marry a slave, all her offspring 
 are deemed wellborn ; whereas, if a male citizen, and 
 even the chief one amongst them, should take a foreign 
 wife or a concubine, the children are without rights." 
 Not the name only, but the status also, was taken from 
 the mother. To like effect writes Nicolaus Damascenus, 
 AVKIOI ras yvval/cas pa\\ov % TOVS avSpas Tipwcrt,, Kal 
 /caXovvTai ^Tpcdev, rds 76 Kkypovopias rals Ovyarpaat 
 \et7rovaiv ov rots viols. * e The Lycians honour their 
 women rather than their men, and are called after the 
 mother. They leave their inheritance to their daugh- 
 ters, and not to their sons." Heraclides Ponticus 
 represents them as having been accustomed from of old 
 to be ruled by their women, IK 7ra\aiov yvvaiKOKparovvTai ; 
 while Plutarch attests that they had the custom of 
 naming children wrpoOev. Plutarch relates a fable 
 of the origin of the custom among the people of 
 Xanthus, which he concludes by saying, 8to /col 
 
 TJV rots AavQioif, fjurj iraTpoOev, aXV CLTTO fjurjrpwv, 
 
 . This fable seems to be referred to by Pausanias, 
 
 1 Have we a hint that this method of forming pedigrees had 
 not gone wholly into disuse among the Homeric Greeks, in Odyss. 
 i. 223? 
 
234 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 but curiously enough as a Troezenian and not a Lycian 
 tradition. 1 
 
 (/3) The ancient Attic traditions are full of recollec- 
 tions of female supremacy. It is not my purpose to 
 attempt to show this, which could only be done by 
 examining, at great length, a variety of old legends. 
 My present business is with the tradition that at one 
 time in Athens marriage was unknown in its modern 
 forms, and that children were named after their mothers. 
 This tradition is given by Justinus, Suidas, and Varro. 2 
 
 The Athenians, says Justinus (ii. 6), "Ante 
 Deucalionis tempora regem habuere Cecropa, quern, ut 
 omnis antiquitas fabulata est, biformem prodidere, quia 
 primus marem fceminse matrimonio junxit." To the 
 same effect Suidas (sub voce 
 
 1 See Herod, i. 173; Muller's Fr. Hist. Gr. 5, 461; Heracl. 
 Pont, de ret), pub.fr. 15 ; Muller's Fr. Hist. Gr. ; Plutarch de Mul. 
 Virt. cap. Lycice ; Pausan. ii. 32, 7. As there is ground for sus- 
 pecting an affinity between the Greeks and Egyptians, I notice what 
 Herodotus (ii. 35, 36) says of the latter : " No necessity binds sons 
 to keep their parents when they do not choose ; whereas daughters 
 are obliged to do so, even if against their choice. This custom Raw- 
 linson declares to be incredible. No doubt it was a relic of the 
 Lycian stage, in which the daughters were the heirs. The custom 
 is now in full force among the Kocch, with whom the women are 
 the heads of families (see Primitive Marriage, p. 151). I need 
 hardly say that in the Lycian customs we have the fullest explanation 
 of the superiority of Sarpedon to Glaucus. 
 
 2 As a specimen of the class of legends to which I refer, I may 
 cite that of the origin of the loxidse. They traced through loxus and 
 Melanippus to Perigune, the daughter of Sinis, as their primitive 
 mother, and from her derived their custom of reverencing as holy 
 and worshipping certain marsh plants. (Plut. Theseus, chap, iv.) 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 235 
 
 " Under the government of Cecrops," says Varro 
 (apud August, de Civ. Dei, xviii. 9), " a double wonder 
 sprang out of the earth at the same time ; in one place 
 the olive-tree, and in another water. The king, in 
 terror, sent to Delphi to ask what he should do. The 
 god answered that the olive-tree signified Minerva 
 (Athene), and the water Neptune (Poseidon) ; and that 
 it remained with the burgesses to choose after which 
 of the two they would name their town. Cecrops 
 called an assembly of the burgesses, both men and 
 women, for it was then the custom to let the women 
 take part in the public councils. The men voted for 
 Poseidon, the women for Athene ; and as there were 
 more women than men by one, Athene conquered. 
 Thereon Poseidon was enraged, and immediately the 
 sea flowed over all the lands of Athens. To appease 
 the god the burgesses found it necessary to impose a 
 threefold punishment on their wives. They were to 
 lose their votes ; the children were to receive no more 
 the mother's name ; and they themselves were no 
 longer to be called Athenians after the goddess." 
 "Ut nulla ulterius ferrent suffragia, ut nullus nas- 
 centium maternum nomen acciperet, ut ne quis eas 
 Athenseas vocaret." . . . " In mulieribus qusd sic 
 punitae sunt, et Minerva quse vicerat victa est ; nee 
 adfuit suffragatricibus suis, ut suffragiorum deinceps 
 perdita potestate, et alienatis filiis a nominibus matrum, 
 Athenseas saltern vocari liceret, et ejus dese mereri 
 vocabulum quam viri dei victricem fecerant ferendo 
 suffragium." Thus the tradition is, that before the 
 
236 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 struggle for the mastery in the city, between Athene 
 and Poseidon, of which we have so many accounts- 
 children in Attica, as in Lycia, bore the names of their 
 mothers, and the women, as a body, were named after 
 the goddess so long as they were called Athenians. 
 They were then true burgesses ; afterwards they were 
 only burgher's wives. The tradition at once affirms 
 that children at Athens were anciently named after 
 the mother, and illustrates the high position anciently 
 held by women among the Greeks. 1 It is a tradition 
 of a genuinely archaic state, and I believe it to be 
 a myth founded upon fact. When did it take shape ? 
 It certainly was not the invention of later Greece. 
 Athene is here the representative and champion of 
 what Bachofen calls " mother-right." In the Eumenides 
 it is Athene who by her vote decides that a child is 
 not of kin to its mother ! 
 
 (?) The Cretans, according to Plutarch, spoke of 
 Crete not as their fatherland but as their " mother- 
 land " ; they said not irarpis, but ^rpis. In his treatise 
 as to whether an old man should have the govern- 
 ment of a state (ed. Lips. 1777, vol. ix. p. 166) 
 Plutarch says : " Suppose that thou hadst a Tithonus 
 for father, who was immortal, but on account of his 
 great age always required care, thou wouldst doubt- 
 less not hesitate or find it burdensome to treat him 
 
 1 Strabo (ix. 402), on the authority of Ephorus, relates a story 
 in some respects similar to that of Yarro, which suggests that the 
 Breotian women had anciently the same standing and privileges as 
 the women of Athens. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 237 
 
 kindly, and do everything for his support, inasmuch 
 as he had for long done so much good to thee. But 
 thy fatherland, or as the Cretans are wont to say, thy 
 motherland, is immeasurably older and has far greater 
 rights than even parents." 
 
 It would follow from the custom of tracing pedigrees 
 through mothers, in conjunction with the notion of 
 Autochthonism, that a man giving his pedigree must 
 at last arrive at his first mother, his native land, and 
 that he must call his country motherland, and not 
 fatherland. That the Cretans thus spoke of their 
 country points to the prevalence in Crete, in ancient 
 times, of the custom of naming children from the 
 mother. That colonists should call their original home 
 Metropolis (fj,r)Tpo7ro\is) is a different matter ; yet even 
 this word, as it implies a preference for the mother, 
 must have come into use prior to those times in 
 which, as we have seen, the kinship between mother 
 and child was disputed. 
 
 There are numerous hints of the system of female 
 kinship in the Cretan legends. I shall just notice 
 one at which I have already glanced. The Lycteans 
 considered themselves a Lacedaemonian colony, and 
 kindred of the Athenians. The Athenian connection 
 went back to those women whom the Pelasgic Tyr- 
 rhenians carried off from Cape Brauron, and only the 
 mothers of the colonists were Spartans. In neither 
 case did the Lycteans take any notice of the fathers. 
 (Plut. de Mulier, Virt. cap. Tyrrhenes.) 
 
 (8) The evidence of the Messenians having had the 
 
238 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 custom of naming after the mother is similar to that 
 just seen in the case of the Cretans, but is a degree 
 more indirect. It is to be inferred from the dream 
 of Comon, the Messenian leader, and its interpretation 
 as recorded by Pausanias, that the Messenians called 
 their native place wrpls and not Trarpls. Comon 
 dreamed that he lay with his dead mother and she 
 came to life. " The dream signified that Messene 
 should be recovered again." The Messenians, it will 
 be remembered, had an Eponyma, Messene. 1 
 
 It is almost needless to repeat that we must believe 
 that the system of kinship through females only pre- 
 vailed wherever it was the custom to name children 
 after the mother. 
 
 Third. It only remains to consider whether any, 
 and what conclusions as to the early history of kin- 
 ship in Greece can be drawn from the body of tradition 
 preserved among the Greeks, declaring what were, in 
 the earliest times, the condition and habits of their 
 ancestors. 
 
 All Greek tradition represents the early inhabitants 
 
 1 Pausan. iv. 26, 3. Bachofen suggests that out of the idea 
 of a common motherland rose the conception of the general brother- 
 hood of members of the State. He notices the old Roman definition 
 of parricide as derived from that conception. " Nam paricida non 
 utique is, qui parentem occidisset, dicebatur, sed qualemcumque 
 hominem indemnatum. Ita fuisse indicat Lex Numse Pompilii 
 regis, his composita verbis ; si quis hominem liberum dolo sciens 
 morti duit, paricida esto." The suggestion is ingenious, and in 
 some cases the conception of the general brotherhood of citizens 
 may have had such an origin. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 239 
 
 of the country as emerging from the depths of the 
 savage state. The legends of Arcadia are equally 
 distinct as to the starting-point of the race with those 
 of the ^Eolid house of Athamas. Less horrible than 
 these, but equally unambiguous, and to the same effect, 
 are the traditions of Crete and Attica. Everywhere 
 the Greeks believed in a past of savage rudeness, and 
 cherished the memories of those who helped them to 
 take the first steps of progress. Their ancestors, 
 according to their legends, were cannibals, and offered 
 human sacrifices to the gods ; were ignorant of agri- 
 culture, and lived on roots and shell-fish ; had no 
 marriage and no laws. Then came one who taught 
 them to prune the vine and to plough the soil ; and 
 another who gave them marriage, laws, and social order. 
 The legends which have handed down the names of 
 these reputed founders of society were received as true 
 by the mass of the people ; but, of course, the con- 
 clusion that they are true cannot be founded upon 
 the popular acceptance of them. There is no doubt 
 whatever of their being of great antiquity. The fabled 
 golden age of Hesiod, had it been a popular faith and 
 not a mere poet's dream, would obviously not be in- 
 consistent with these legends, would raise no shadow 
 of obstacle to their reception, for they describe a 
 state of things existing long after it is said to have 
 vanished from the earth. 
 
 If a people were to emerge from a state of savage- 
 ness, in which the association of the sexes k had been 
 subject to no regulation, nobody need be surprised if 
 
240 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 they did not, at a single step, arrive at a practice of 
 monandry. Those who are acquainted with the usual 
 circumstances of savage tribes would be very much 
 surprised were they to do so. Owing to the practice 
 of female infanticide, which the difficulties of subsist- 
 ence force savages to adopt, and the liability to have 
 their wives carried off by envious neighbours, the 
 women in a group even at a comparatively advanced 
 stage are usually much less numerous than the men ; 
 so that, for savages, to say nothing of other considera- 
 tions, a general practice of monandry is, in the common 
 case, if not invariably, physically impossible. Their 
 first approaches to permanent cohabitation the first 
 regulated association of the sexes among them must 
 take the shape of a system of polyandry. I have 
 already described three distinct types of polyandry, 
 which I have severally called the Nair, the British, 
 and the Tibetan ; and I hold the British (notwith- 
 standing incidents to us revolting) to be superior to 
 the Nair, and the Tibetan to the British, because, in 
 either case, the one admits of a better family system 
 than the other. Since the two higher forms could 
 only exist among a people who had, independently of 
 them, acquired the idea of close kinship subsisting 
 between parent and child, and between children of the 
 same parent, it is obvious that a people with whom 
 marriage and the family had been unknown could not 
 at the first attempt arrive at either of these. For these 
 they must have been prepared by the experience of a 
 system like that of the Nairs, and possibly one still 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 241 
 
 uder, under which it would be possible for children 
 of the same mother to acquire the feelings of relation- 
 ship, and become bound to one another by a sense of 
 common interests. The Tibetan polyandry once reached, 
 an improving race would slowly advance, as we know 
 many races have done, from it to monandry ; and with 
 Monandry, when established, there would most probably 
 remain, in the Levirate, a trace of their previous 
 customs. 
 
 With such a people, at the Nair stage, women 
 would (as among the Nairs) be the heads of families, 
 daughters the heirs and continuers ; and the position 
 of women, if the system lasted long, would become 
 one of high consideration. There would be kinship 
 only through the mother, because paternity would be 
 uncertain : and men would, for distinction, be named 
 after the mother as naturally as at a subsequent stage 
 they were named after the father. 
 
 It would not be surprising to find a people with 
 such a history, after the family and the system of kin- 
 ship had taken a substantially modern shape, in some 
 respects treating the uterine connection as closer than 
 the tie through a common father; forbidding uterine 
 brother and sister, for example, while allowing brother 
 and sister german, to marry ; to find their tribes 
 tracing themselves back to common mothers, not 
 to common fathers their legends telling of a time 
 when not the patronymic, but the matronymic, was 
 in use ; least of all, to find them, at the beginning 
 
 n 
 
242 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 of history, remarkable for good treatment of their 
 
 women. 1 
 
 We have seen that in the most polished of the states 
 of Greece, long after the family system had assumed the 
 modern form after a movement which magnified the 
 tie of common fatherhood, and depreciated that of 
 common motherhood, had made considerable progress 
 marriage was still allowed between brother and 
 sister german, while between brother and sister 
 uterine it was prohibited. We have found that not a 
 few of the Grecian tribes deduced their descent, not 
 from a first father, but from a first mother ; that through 
 the kinship of their first mothers, some of them held 
 that they were closely allied one to the other ; and that 
 in several cases the tradition was preserved of a time 
 when men were named after their mothers. In addition 
 
 1 It is no mere conjecture that a people advancing from the 
 savage state should pass through the progress outlined above ; for 
 it can be shown that such has been the usual and so far as we 
 know it has been the invariable history of improving peoples. It 
 can be shown, on the one hand, that the successive stages pave the 
 way for one another the onward movement taking place under 
 influences which can be assigned ; on the other hand, that the 
 customs and institutions of races comparatively advanced usually 
 present many indications of an experience of the lower stages. And 
 even the Nairs, whose marriage system is the rudest form of poly- 
 andry, are an improving people there are improving influences at 
 work amongst them. There is nothing to show that the position of 
 their ancestors, at any former period, was better than theirs is now 
 nothing to contradict the hypothesis that they came out of the 
 savage state. 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 243 
 
 to these unmistakable vestiges of a period when fathers 
 were " nowhere," and mothers were the heads of families 
 when polyandry of the Nair type was prevalent, and 
 there was kinship through mothers only we have seen 
 that the greater number of the most ancient Greek 
 divinities were female, which not to make too much of 
 it seems to be an illustration of the ancient importance 
 of women. In the Homeric period, too, with a family 
 system of modern structure with double kinship, but 
 yet a preference for the uterine tie we have found that 
 women had great influence, and were held in high con- 
 sideration. Since they lost place after this, as the 
 movement toward agnation went on, 1 and since this 
 movement has always begun before the modern family 
 
 1 This proposition requires a few words of elucidation. The 
 movement towards agnation obviously rose out of or rather fol- 
 lowed upon the growth and consolidation of the patria potestas 
 (see Maine's Ancient Law, p. 149 et seq.). It was an indication of 
 the growth of paternal authority ; and as fathers continued to gain, 
 it was natural that mothers should continue to lose. At the begin- 
 ning of history, in most cases, we find the patria potestas already so 
 firmly established that, with or without agnation, fathers had the 
 power of life and death over their wives and children, and that these 
 were as devoid of rights as if they had been slaves. It is not neces- 
 sary to quote authorities to show that this has been found to be a 
 result usually a very early one of the monandric marriage sys- 
 tem. Agnation, where it exists, is always a sign that the paternal 
 supremacy is complete. My argument at this point may be put 
 thus : in a family system, in which the father is the head of the 
 family, it is found that all authority falls, and probably in no long 
 time, into the father's hands ; the tendency of such a family system 
 is found to be to exalt the husband and lower the wife. Such a 
 system could not result in women being treated with great con- 
 sideration, and if we find women among any people so treated under 
 
 E 2 
 
244 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 system has lasted long, and has ever been found un- 
 favourable to women, we must seek, in the circum- 
 stances of an earlier family system, the explanation of 
 their position at the earlier time. And we have it in 
 the position attained by women under the Nair form of 
 polyandry, of which so many indications have already 
 been pointed out. That suffices for the explanation, 
 and I know of nothing else that is sufficient for it. It 
 is so much the less difficult to believe that the Greek 
 
 it, the cause most probably is something earlier in the marriage 
 customs of the people. Of course all this refers to a period long 
 anterior to that at which humane and reasonable considerations 
 are influential enough to procure for women some approach to an 
 equality of rights. 
 
 [See, in connection with the earlier part of the preceding para- 
 graph, note on p. 126. Reference may also be made to The 
 Patriarchal Theory, ch. xiii. On the theory of agnation stated in 
 this work, there was, with kinship through males, a tendency to 
 agnation, but it had to overcome the resistance offered by the pre- 
 vious establishment of a system of kinship through females ; and 
 the circumstances which favoured it included the removal of the 
 most effective (often, no doubt, the only effective) check upon the 
 paternal power the protection of the wife's kindred. On this 
 theory, therefore, the paternal power was high wherever there was 
 much likelihood of kinship becoming agnatic. 
 
 Among savage or barbarous peoples it- is found with male kin- 
 ship that the wife's position is often very low, and that a man can 
 often do with his children pretty much what he pleases so long as 
 they are young and helpless, though the interest in them of their 
 father's relatives, that is the blood-feud, protects them more or less. 
 Patria potestas, in the Roman sense the highest power a savage 
 could possess over wife and young children, in consequence of his 
 freedom from control, recognised as a father's right by law over his 
 wife and his children at all ages has, nevertheless, been so rare 
 that no clear example of it has ever been found except in Rome.] 
 
KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 245 
 
 tribes had an experience of this marriage system, that 
 we have found the strongest possible evidence of its 
 existence among the Lycians, their close kinsfolk ; 
 among whom, long after Homer's time, not only was 
 the matronymic in use, but daughters were the heirs of 
 families, and pedigrees were counted through female 
 ancestors only. And, indeed, the shortness of the 
 genealogies in Homer raises a suspicion that the Greeks 
 themselves in Homer's time had not had long practice 
 in counting pedigrees through males. 
 
 Again not to dwell upon weak or doubtful matters, 
 such as the apparent operation of the Levirate among 
 the Trojans, 1 or the practice closely resembling it, found, 
 long after Homer's time, at Athens we have evidence, 
 both direct and inferential, that the Tibetan polyandry 
 prevailed in post-Homeric times in Sparta the state 
 reported to have best preserved the ancient customs of 
 the Greeks. The evidence, direct and inferential taken 
 together, seems sufficient to support this statement ; its 
 consistency with so much that we have seen of the 
 customs of the ancient Greeks is an additional reason 
 for receiving it. And again, the fact that Tibetan 
 polyandry prevailed in Sparta is, in no small degree, 
 corroborative of the conclusion, that the early Greeks 
 generally were polyandrous. We have seen that this 
 conclusion, supported on the one side by the Spartan 
 customs, is, from another point of view, made probable 
 by what has been handed down of the marriage customs 
 of the Medians and Persians the peoples to whom, in 
 1 [See page 222, and note at page 109.] 
 
246 KINSHIP IN ANCIENT GREECE. 
 
 all probability, the tribes of the Greeks are most 
 nearly akin. 
 
 Let me now ask whether the facts of Greek history, 
 summarized above, are not perfectly consistent with the 
 tradition that the early Greeks emerged from a state of 
 savageness in which marriage was unknown to them ? 
 The indications of the existence in Greece of the Nair 
 family system seem to me irresistible ; and the earliest 
 family system of a savage people would almost cer- 
 tainly be of the Nair type. It is remarkable that so 
 many traces of that system should remain, and no 
 doubt there are many which have escaped my search ; 
 but if, as I think, those which I have pointed out 
 support and verify the Greek tradition, on the other 
 hand the tradition should make some persons more 
 ready to believe that the family system, which has been 
 so often tracked in ancient Greece, is really that of 
 Nair polyandry, and the close relationship to the 
 mother, which forms an incident of it, the system of 
 kinship through females only. 
 
 If I have proved that the system of double kinship, 
 which prevailed in the time of Homer, was preceded by 
 a system of kinship through females only, then since 
 it cannot be disputed that the Greeks subsequently 
 made a very near approach to agnation, if they did not 
 actually reach it the scheme of the development of 
 systems of kinship propounded by me at the outset, 
 and the truth of which I proposed to test in the case of 
 the Greeks, has successfully stood that test. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATOKY SYSTEM OF 
 RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
THE CLASSIFICATOKY SYSTEM OF 
 RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION OF THE ORIGIN 
 OF THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
 IN the League of the Iroquois, published in 1854, 
 Mr. Morgan gave an account of " the system of relation- 
 ships " of that people, which he for a time considered as 
 an invention of theirs, and peculiar to them. After- 
 wards finding this system, or one similar to it, among 
 the other Indian nations, he thought it might be made 
 a means of solving what he calls " the great problem of 
 the Asiatic origin " of the Eed Indians. He accordingly 
 procured to be sent, with the sanction of the United 
 States Government, to the agents of that Government 
 in foreign countries, a letter explaining the Iroquois 
 relationship system, accompanied by blank schedules of 
 questions designed to elicit accounts of the systems of 
 relationships in use among the peoples among whom 
 those agents were severally stationed. His work on 
 
250 TEE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 The Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the 
 Human Family 1 consists (1, and chiefly) of the 
 returns made in answer to this letter; (2) of exposi- 
 tions connected with or explanatory of the returns ; 
 (3) of a conjectural solution of the origin of "the 
 classificatory system of relationships," 2 as he has called 
 the systems of the Iroquois type ; and (4 and lastly) 
 of an elaborate discussion of " the great problem " 
 above mentioned. If Mr. Morgan had any other 
 purpose in his inquiry than the solution of this 
 problem, it was to ascertain " the parent tribe " of 
 mankind, or, as he himself expresses it, " to re- ascend 
 the several lines of the outflow of the generations, and 
 reach and identify that parent stock from which we 
 believe we are all alike descended." Since the results 
 of an inquiry undertaken with such aims prove to be 
 of great value for the purposes of scientific history, 
 we may well admire the happy chance to which they 
 have been owing. 3 
 
 1 Washington City, 1871. 
 
 2 The system in use among ourselves he calls the Descriptive 
 System of Relationships. 
 
 3 See Mr. Morgan's circular letter, Cambrian Journal, vol. iii., 
 second series, pp. 149 66. How antipathetical to Mr. Morgan's 
 mind the historical method is, may be seen in his ascribing the 
 origin of what he calls " the Hawaian custom " to a reformatory 
 movement of society; and the origin of exogamy which he calls 
 the tribal organization to legislation. In his view they were both 
 of them " institutions designed to work out the amelioration of 
 society." This in his latest work : the same spirit breathed in his 
 earliest. "By the formation of societies and governments," he 
 says (League of the Iroquois, p. 56), " mankind are brought largely 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 251 
 
 The "conjectural solution" above mentioned, which 
 alone concerns us here, is comprised in twenty pages 
 of the work (pp. 474 94) ; and was suggested to 
 Mr. Morgan by his friend Professor Mcllwaine. It is 
 a supposition that in the progress of society certain 
 stages occurred in a certain order, as the normal stages 
 in the evolution of marriage and the family ; or, to 
 use Mr. Morgan's own words, it is " an assumption of 
 the existence and general prevalence of a series of 
 customs and institutions which sprang up, at intervals, 
 along the pathway of man's experience, and which 
 must, of necessity, have preceded a knowledge of 
 marriage between single pairs, and of the family 
 itself, in the modern sense of the term." 
 
 The stages comprised in the series are fifteen in 
 number, and are stated thus (p. 480) : 
 
 I. (The starting-point.) Promiscuous intercourse. 
 
 II. The intermarriage or cohabitation of brothers 
 and sisters. 
 
 III. The communal family (first stage of the 
 family). 
 
 IV. The Hawaian custom giving 
 
 V. The Malayan form of the classificatory system 
 of relationship. 
 
 VI. The tribal organization giving 
 
 VII. The Turanian and Ganowanian systems of 
 relationship. 
 
 under the influence of the social relations, and their progress has 
 been found to be in exact proportion to the wisdom of the institu- 
 tions under which their minds were developed." 
 
252 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 VIII. Marriage between single pairs giving 
 
 IX. The Barbarian family (second stage of the 
 family), 
 
 X. Polygamy giving 
 
 XL The Patriarchal family (third stage of the 
 family). 
 
 XII. Polyandria. 
 
 XIII. The rise of property, with the settlement of 
 lineal succession to estates giving 
 
 XIV. The civilized family (fourth and ultimate 
 stage of the family) producing 
 
 XV. The overthrow of the classificatory system 
 of relationship, and the substitution of the descriptive. 
 
 It will have been noticed that by means of the 
 first four of these stages Mr. Morgan undertakes to 
 explain the "Malayan form" of the classificatory 
 system of relationships, which is the form of that 
 system found in the Sandwich Islands, and one or 
 two other places. " The first four customs or institu- 
 tions being given," he says (p. 480 *), " the origin of 
 the Malayan system can be demonstrated from the 
 nature of descents, and the several relationships shown 
 to be those actually existing." Then by means of the 
 same stages in connection with the sixth stage, " the 
 tribal organization," he undertakes to explain the 
 " Turanian " and " Ganowanian " forms of the classi- 
 ficatory system the " Turanian " being the form found 
 
 1 The reference is to Mr. Morgan's work on The Systems of Con- 
 sanguinity and Affinity of the Human Family, whenever the page 
 only is given. 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 253 
 
 among the Hindus, the Chinese, and others, and the 
 " Granowdnian " being that found among American 
 Indians. 1 It may be taken as indisputable that, these 
 three forms explained, the origin of the classificatory 
 system is explained ; and that done, the other varieties 
 of the system present comparatively few points of diffi- 
 culty. I propose then to examine, in this chapter, the 
 explanations which Mr. Morgan offers of the origin of 
 those forms. In the next chapter I shall suggest a 
 new explanation of their origin. 
 
 The main features of the Malayan system of rela- 
 tionships, the form of the classificatory system which 
 stands first for explanation, are the following : 
 
 1. The children of my several brothers and of my 
 several sisters are my children, and their children again 
 are my grandchildren. 
 
 2. All the children of several own brothers and 
 all the children of several own sisters are brothers 
 and sisters to each other, and all the children of these 
 
 1 The terms " Turanian " and " Ganowanian " are, as employed 
 by Mr. Morgan, new and not very apt. His " Turanian family " 
 comprises "the people of South India, who speak the Dravidian 
 language, and number upwards of thirty millions ; the people of 
 North India, who speak the Gaura language, and number upwards 
 of one hundred millions ; the Chinese, who are supposed to number 
 upwards of three hundred millions ; and the Japanese, who are in- 
 cluded provisionally, numbering about thirty millions" (p. 385). 
 The " Ganowanians " are the American Indians, the name being 
 compounded of two Indian words, and meaning " the bow-and-arrow 
 people." 
 
254 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 collateral brothers and sisters are brothers and sisters : 
 and so on. 
 
 3. All the brothers of my father and of my mother 
 are my fathers, and all the sisters of my father and 
 of my mother are my mothers. 
 
 4. All the children of my several collateral brothers 
 and sisters are my children, and their children again 
 are my grandchildren. 
 
 5. All the brothers and sisters of my grandparents 
 are my grandparents. 1 
 
 Another feature of the system is that the brothers- 
 in-law of my father and of my mother are my fathers, 
 and their sisters-in-law are my mothers, and to this 
 Mr. Morgan thus refers (p. 48.3) when closing his 
 solution : " The several marriage-relationships may be 
 explained with more or less certainty on the same 
 principles." But he does not attempt to explain the 
 marriage relationships. 
 
 The means by which Mr. Morgan undertakes to 
 account for those relationships are, as we have seen, 
 the first four of his series of stages, or rather (the 
 first being the assumed starting-point), the second, 
 third, and fourth of these stages, of which he says 
 that they all came slowly into existence, and were 
 "of still slower diffusion among the nations as they 
 progressed in experience." 
 
 He offers no evidence of the former prevalence of 
 intermarriages of brothers and sisters as a general 
 custom, or of the existence of the " communal family." 
 1 See pages 482 and 483, from which the statement is abridged. 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 255 
 
 His case is, that if we can explain the Malayan system 
 on the assumption that such a general custom, and such 
 a family-system once existed prior to or along with the / 
 " Hawaian custom," then we must believe that they did 
 formerly exist. 
 
 As to the brother and sister marriages he puts the 
 case thus high : " Without this custom," he says (p. 
 488), "it is impossible to explain the origin of the 
 system from the nature of descents. There is therefore 
 a necessity for the prevalence of this custom amongst 
 the remote ancestors of all the nations which now pos- 
 sess the classificatory system, if the system itself is to 
 be regarded as having a natural origin." The " commu- 
 nal family " is a sort of corollary from this necessary 
 fact. It was a group of brothers and sisters living in 
 what Sir John Lubbock calls " communal marriage," the 
 husbands and wives knowing they were brothers and 
 sisters, and dwelling sufficiently on their close blood- 
 bond to elaborate a system of relationships from it 
 while yet the incestuous communism lasted. 
 
 The " Hawaian custom," as described by Mr. Morgan, 
 was a custom according to which several own brothers, 
 and their wives, or several own sisters and their 
 husbands, lived in a " communal family," the hus- 
 bands and wives in either case being unrelated by blood. 
 He mentions it (p. 457) "as now for the first time 
 announced," on the authority of Mr. Andrews, a judge 
 at Honolulu, and cites the Kev. Artemus Bishop as a 
 corroborating witness. The statements made by both 
 these gentlemen, however, they relate to the Sandwich 
 
256 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 Islands, are not of the nature of testimony, but are 
 guesses to explain the Malayan system, about which 
 they were giving information to Mr. Morgan. Mr. 
 Andrews says only that "the relationship of Pinalua is 
 rather amphibious. It arose from the fact that two or 
 more brothers with their wives, or two or more sisters 
 with their husbands, were inclined to possess each other 
 in common ; but the -modern use of the word is that of 
 dear friend or intimate companion," What Mr. Bishop 
 says does not necessarily refer to a custom of that sort 
 at all. He says that "the confusion of relationships 
 (among the Hawaians) is the result of the ancient 
 custom among relatives of the living together of hus- 
 bands and wives in common." This statement, putting 
 the strongest construction upon it, may as well refer to 
 what Mr. Morgan calls the " communal family " as to 
 the " Hawaian custom." The latter custom, therefore, 
 of which " no trace has been found in any part of 
 Asia or America," as Mr. Morgan admits, and no evidence 
 anywhere in the world, must be regarded as a pure 
 assumption made to explain the Malayan system. It 
 is in the same case as the " communal family," and 
 marriages of brothers and sisters, i.e. it is a "stage" 
 for which there is no evidence. 
 
 What Mr. Morgan claims to have shown (p. 483) 
 by means of the marriages of brothers and sisters, the 
 "communal family" and the "Hawaian custom," is, 
 (1) That the Malayan system of relationships is a 
 system of blood relationships ; and (2) That every 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 257 
 
 relationship in the system can be explained from the 
 nature of descents, and be shown to be the one actually 
 existing (when the system was formed), as near as 
 the parentage of individuals could be known. Let us 
 see how far he has succeeded. 
 
 1. The Malayan system of relationships is a system 
 of Hood relationships. 
 
 Mr. Morgan assumes this, and says nothing of the 
 obstacles to making the assumption. No doubt he 
 conceives this fundamental fact to be proved, as the 
 stages required for his explanation are proved, by the 
 success of the conjectural solution in the second branch 
 of his undertaking. 
 
 2. Every relationship in the Malayan system can 
 be explained from the nature of descents , and be shown 
 to be the one actually existing, as near as the parentage 
 of individuals could be known. 
 
 It will suffice if we attend to a few only of the 
 relationships in the system ; for it is plain that they 
 can all be explained, if it can be explained 1, Why 
 all the brothers of my father and all the brothers of 
 my mother are my fathers ; 2, Why all the sisters of 
 my father and all the sisters of my mother are my 
 mothers. Let us note Mr. Morgan's explanations of 
 these facts, and also to what customs the explanations 
 are referred (see pp. 481-83). 
 
 1, My father's brothers are my fathers, because 
 they all cohabit with my mother. One of them is 
 certainly my father, and it is uncertain which. There- 
 fore they are all called my fathers. [The reference 
 
 s 
 
258 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 may be either to brother and sister marriages or to 
 the " Hawaian custom."] 
 
 2. My mother's brothers are my fathers, because 
 " my mother is the wife of all her brothers." [The 
 reference is to brother and sister marriages.] 
 
 3. My father's sisters are my mothers, because they 
 and my mother are wives to my father and his brothers. 
 [The reference is to brother and sister marriages.] 
 
 4. My mother's sisters are my mothers, because they 
 are, along with my mother, the wives of their brothers. 
 [The reference is to brother and sister marriages.] 
 
 All the references are to brother and sister marriages, 
 unless under No. 1 the reference is to the "Hawaian 
 custom." But it is not necessary to resort to the 
 " custom " in explanation of this case, and it is obvious 
 that the " custom " could be of no avail to explain the 
 other cases. Indeed, Mr. Morgan says (p. 439), " The 
 existence of this custom ('the Hawaian') is not neces- 
 sary to an explanation of the origin of the Malayan 
 system." The Malayan system is found, then, to be 
 explainable by brother and sister marriages solely ; and 
 the " Hawaian custom " is, consequently, without even 
 such support as having a share in the solution could 
 give it. 
 
 As to the sufficiency of the explanation, need it be 
 pointed out that Mr. Morgan has failed, and must have 
 failed with Nos, 3 and 4 ? The explanation of my 
 having several mothers is not of the same sort as that 
 of my having several fathers. The several persons in 
 Nos. 1 and 2 are called my fathers because they are 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 259 
 
 all the husbands of my mother. One of them is 
 certainly my father, and it is uncertain which ; and 
 I am called the son of each of them, agreeably to this 
 condition of my uncertain descent. This reasoning is 
 familiar, and (so far as it goes) is all that could be 
 required. But why are the several women in Nos. 3 
 and 4 called my " mothers"? Mr. Morgan says it is 
 because they are the wives of my fathers, and, in the 
 absence of a term in the language to denominate their 
 exact relation to me, they must be called either my 
 " mothers " or nothing, and, e converso, I must be called 
 their " son." But this is giving up his case. This is 
 an explanation on the ground of poverty of language 
 (of which no proof is adduced nay more, which there 
 are facts to disprove), not an explanation from the 
 nature of descents. 1 And, indeed, if a man is called' 
 the " son " of a woman who did not bear him, his being 
 so called clearly defies explanation on the principles 
 of natural descent. The imputed relationship is not, 
 in that case, "the one actually existing as near as 
 the parentage of individuals could be known " ; and 
 accordingly Mr. Morgan's proposition is not made out. 
 
 Even had Mr. Morgan been able to surmount the 
 difficulties presented by the fact of a man having, 
 several mothers, he would still have been far from 
 explaining the peculiarities of the Malayan system. 
 Among the peoples with whom that system is in actual 
 use, a child's father's brothers are different persons from 
 
 1 See post, pp. 273 and 279. 
 
 s 2 
 
260 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 his -mother's brothers ; and the father's sisters are 
 different persons from the mother's sisters ; and the 
 relations in law also of a father and of a mother are 
 usually distinct persons from the brothers of the father 
 and of the mother. How then came a boy to be called 
 the " son " of each of several distinct sets of persons 
 his father's brothers, his mother's brothers, and his 
 father's and mother's brothers-in-law ? Of such facts 
 as these which were the facts he had to do with 
 Mr. Morgan offers positively no explanation. He has 
 not even attempted to connect them with the relation- 
 ships which would have been developed in his " com- 
 munal family." In the " communal family," the men 
 and women being brothers and sisters, the father's 
 brothers and the mother's brothers would have been 
 the same persons, the father's sisters and the mother's 
 sisters the same persons ; all the descriptions of persons 
 who under the Malayan system are called fathers would 
 have been coincident, and all the descriptions of persons 
 who under it are called mothers also coincident. How, 
 agreeably to the nature of descents, came the relation- 
 ships that could have been developed in this family 
 group, of persons all of one blood, to be applicable 
 to relationships in family groups of the existing type, 
 in which husbands and wives are no longer brothers and 
 sisters, and the bloods are diverse ? It is reasonable 
 to believe that Mr. Morgan never saw this difficulty. 
 In what manner, had he seen it, could he have over- 
 come it ? Could he have maintained that, while the 
 "communal family" lasted, the different descriptions 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 261 
 
 of persons referred to, several of which would have 
 been then coincident in a single person, were distin- 
 guished in idea the one from the other ; so that, when 
 the " communal family " passed away, the nomenclature 
 which had applied to those sets of persons while they 
 were yet coincident and ideally distinguished merely, 
 readily extended to them when they became distinct ? 
 Surely not. It is incredible that in the sort of family 
 contemplated, brothers should come to regard each other 
 not only as brothers but as brothers-in-law ; or to be 
 regarded by their children, while addressed by the name 
 of father, as also father's brothers, mother's brothers, 
 and father and mother's brothers-in-law. Mr. Morgan's 
 other course was to pass on from the " communal 
 family," in which the several descriptions of persons 
 would have been coincident, to the family founded on 
 the " Hawaian custom," in which they would have been 
 to some extent distinguished, and show how what lay 
 in germ in the earlier stage was unfolded in the later. 
 But this also he has not attempted ; and, as we have 
 seen, the " Hawaian custom " is only an hypothesis like 
 the " communal family " itself. 
 
 The explanation offered of the origin of the Malayan 
 system, then, is, to say the least, unsatisfactory so far 
 as it goes, and stops a long way short of being an 
 explanation of the origin of the system. It is simply 
 inconceivable how the system could have been developed 
 from that to which Mr. Morgan refers us as the germ 
 of it. 
 
262 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 Let us next see how, with the Malayan form given, 
 Mr. Morgan accounts for the " Turanian " and " Gano- 
 wa"nian" forms of the classificatory system. In these 
 forms, which agree with the Malayan in all other respects 
 (see pp. 485-86), 
 
 (1) All the children of my several sisters, myself 
 a male, are my nephews and nieces. 
 
 (2) All the children of my several brothers, myself 
 a female, are my nephews and nieces. 
 
 (3) All my father's sisters are my aunts. 
 
 (4) All my mother's brothers are my uncles. 
 
 (5) The children of my several uncles and aunts 
 are my cousins. 
 
 (6) The children of my male cousins, myself a male, 
 are, in the " Turanian " form, my nephews and nieces ; 
 and the children of my female cousins are my sons 
 and daughters. 
 
 (7) The children of my male cousins, myself a male, 
 are, in the " Ganowanian " form, my sons and daugh- 
 ters ; and the children of my female cousins are my 
 nephews and nieces. 
 
 It will be enough to see the explanations offered at 
 two leading points. Here they are : 
 
 Myself a male, my sisters' children are my nephews 
 and nieces. 
 
 " Keason. Under the ' tribal organization,' brothers 
 and sisters not being allowed to intermarry or cohabit, 
 the children of my sisters can no longer be my children, 
 but must stand to me in a different and more remote 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 263 
 
 relationship. Whence the relationships of nephew and 
 niece" (p. 485). 
 
 In considering the sufficiency of this Keason, we 
 must remember that, in Mr. Morgan's scheme, the 
 " Hawaian custom," which is introduced as " giving the 
 Malayan form of the classificatory system," appears 
 before the " tribal organization." 1 This custom is 
 represented as having given own brothers, in the run 
 of cases, wives unrelated to them ; and own sisters, in 
 the run of cases, husbands unrelated to them. It 
 must be assumed not to have made brother and sister 
 marriages unlawful, since, by the hypothesis, it is re- 
 served for the " tribal organization" to make them 
 unlawful. 2 But brothers and sisters having, de facto, 
 
 1 For the argument, it is of no consequence that, in point of 
 fact, the "Hawaian custom" has, in Mr. Morgan's explanation, 
 nothing to do with giving the Malayan form. It cannot be over- 
 looked that Mr. Morgan's scheme represents the custom as an 
 institution of " slow growth, and still slower diffusion among the 
 nations," precedent to the appearance of the tribal organization. 
 
 2 Mr. Morgan says, " It is to be inferred that the tribal organi- 
 zation was designed to work out a reformation with respect to the 
 intermarriages of brothers and sisters, from the conspicuous manner 
 in which it accomplishes this result." This is said on the view that 
 he had proved by his solution that these " communal marriages " of 
 brothers and sisters were anciently universal. As no trace of them 
 can now be found, he asks us to notice how conspicuously exogamy 
 did its work whether we can doubt, looking to the total disap- 
 pearance of "communal marriages" of brothers and sisters, that 
 exogamy had its origin in a reformatory movement to put an end to 
 them. The reader, by referring to page 139, will find that Mr. 
 Morgan there pretty fully explains the tribal organization as being 
 exogamy, and also its connection with female kinship. He says 
 (p. 140), "In a number of Indian nations descent is now limited to. 
 
264 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 under the custom, in the run of cases, ceased to inter- 
 marry or cohabit, the children of a man's sisters, as a 
 rule, would not have been his children. This being so, 
 were Mr. Morgan's Eeason sufficient, the " Hawaian 
 custom," in giving the Malayan relationships, should 
 have given them identical with the Turanian. The 
 representation, however, is that this effect was not pro- 
 duced, and that the custom allowed the children of a 
 man's sister to be still accounted his children, the 
 children of a man and those of his sister to be still 
 accounted brothers and sisters. 
 
 But the " tribal organization," as the reader may 
 see (p. 490), is simply exogamy, the prohibition of 
 marriage between persons of the same tribe of descent, 
 or having the same family name or totem. And exogamy 
 prohibits marriage between brothers and sisters only 
 when they are children of the same mother, or of mothers 
 of the same blood. It follows from this that a man's 
 son and his sister's daughter, while reputed brother and 
 sister, would have been free, when the " tribal organiza- 
 tion " had been established, to intermarry, for they 
 belonged to different tribes of descent. The man and 
 his sister being of one blood, the son of the former and 
 the daughter of the latter must, so far as the Hawaian 
 
 the male line, with the same prohibition of intermarriage in the 
 tribe, and the son succeeds to the father's office. There are reasons 
 for believing that this is an innovation upon the ancient custom, 
 and that descent in the female line was once universal in the Gano- 
 wdnian family." That kinship should change to the male line is 
 what should be expected, according to the hypothesis set forth in 
 Primitive Marriage. 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 265 
 
 custom prevailed, have been of different bloods, whether 
 kinship were traced through males or females only ; for 
 the hypothesis is that the man was married to women 
 unrelated to him, and his sister to men unrelated to her. 
 Similarly, it appears that the "tribal organization" 
 would have left the greater number of reputed brothers 
 and sisters free to intermarry. According to the 
 Malayan system, and under the Hawaian custom, so 
 far as it prevailed, a man would have for sisters the 
 daughters of his fathers by mothers of various tribes 
 of descent, and with every one of them he could inter- 
 marry, provided her mother was not of the same tribe 
 as his own mother; the daughters of his fathers' own 
 sisters, and with every one of them he could intermarry, 
 for they were all, as we have seen, of a different tribe 
 from his own ; the daughters of his mother's own 
 brothers, and with every one of them he could inter- 
 marry, for none of his mother's brothers had a relative 
 for wife. Exogamy would cut him off from his own 
 sisters, but from these he was already, de facto, cut off 
 by the " Hawaian custom." The precise extent of the 
 new restriction on marriage, then, would be that a man 
 would be cut off from marrying those of his " sisters " 
 who were the daughters of the own sisters of his mother. 
 Thus we see that the " tribal organization," coming after 
 the " Hawaian custom," would not, in the run of cases, 
 prevent the marriage of reputed brothers and sisters ; 
 and so far, the features of the established system of 
 relationships could not, or at least need not, have 
 undergone a radical change. Mr. Morgan's Eeason, 
 
266 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 then, is insufficient ; and his own assumptions make 
 it appear to be unfounded. 
 
 The preceding argument takes Mr. Morgan on his 
 own ground, so far as it assumes " the Hawaian custom" 
 to have been widely prevalent prior to the rise of 
 exogamy. But even if we put that custom out of the 
 field, Mr. Morgan's Eeason will not acquire validity. 
 The process by which exogamy would dissolve the 
 communal families would be a process by which the 
 Malayan system not being instantly transformed- 
 there would be produced several sets of "brothers" 
 and " sisters " free to intermarry for one set that would 
 not be so free ; and therefore, so far as the Reason goes, 
 the system of relationships should remain unchanged. 
 The reader will readily see the truth of this if he keeps 
 in view how many of the multitude of " brothers " and 
 " sisters " born of the first exogamous marriages would 
 be free to intermarry kinship as a bar to marriage 
 being counted through women only. Unless, then, we 
 could assume what seems wholly inadmissible that 
 exogamy could transform the system of relationships 
 in the course of a single generation, it appears that, 
 by the means specified in the Reason, it never could 
 transform the system at all. 1 
 
 1 If exogamy anciently recognized a broader kinship than that 
 through females only, it rested with Mr. Morgan to show that. But he 
 has not tried to do it. On the contrary, we shall presently see that he 
 explains one of the features of the " Turanian" form by supposing 
 " brother " and " sister " marriage on a grand scale to continue 
 after the rise of exogamy ; viz. the marriage of " brothers " to those 
 of their "sisters " who were, as we should say, " their cousins." 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 267 
 
 Now to take another case. In the " Turanian " 
 form 
 
 " All the children of my male cousins, myself a 
 male, are my nephews and nieces, and all the children 
 of my female cousins are my sons and daughters." 
 
 Keason. " Unless I cohabit with all my female 
 cousins, and am excluded from cohabitation with all 
 the wives of my male cousins, these relationships cannot 
 be explained from the nature of descents." 
 
 Mr. Morgan has no custom or other reason to account 
 for my ceasing to cohabit "with all the wives of my 
 male cousins," who, according to " the privilege of 
 barbarism," were my wives ; and he offers no explana- 
 tion of my being, as a matter of course, husband to 
 all my female cousins, who used to be my sisters, 
 notwithstanding the prohibition of marriage between 
 brothers and sisters. 
 
 Again : in the " Ganowdnian " form, " all the 
 children of my male cousins, myself a male, are my 
 sons and daughters ; of my female cousins, are my 
 nephews and nieces." 
 
 Eeason. This deviation, says Mr. Morgan, "in all 
 probability has a logical explanation of some kind. If 
 it is attributable to the slight variation upon the privi- 
 lege of barbarism above indicated, a singular solution of 
 the difference in the two systems is thereby afforded." 
 
 The " slight variation " indicated is that the Eed 
 Men of America cohabited with all the wives of their 
 male cousins, and were excluded from cohabiting with 
 all their female cousins. Here there was room for 
 
268 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 imagining some reformatory movement in America 
 counter to that which Asia had witnessed. But Mr. 
 Morgan suggests no cause for such a variance in the 
 marriage laws of the two continents, and hints at no 
 evidence apart from his solution that there ever was 
 such a variance. 
 
 Looking more closely at the Eeasons given in the 
 two cases last noticed, we reach results, some of which, 
 had he perceived them, would have gratified Mr. 
 Morgan. The Eeason in the " Ganowdnian " case makes 
 me and my male cousins who used to be " brothers " 
 have our wives in common, and these wives are no 
 longer our female cousins who used to be our " sisters." 
 We, who used to be " brothers/' have in common our 
 wives, who are strangers to us in blood. Here we have 
 " the Hawaian custom." Our female cousins formerly 
 our " sisters," from whom we are excluded, are no 
 doubt living in communism with stranger husbands. 
 Surprising as these results are, those derivable from the 
 Eeason in the Turanian case are still more remarkable. 
 This reason makes me and my male cousins cohabit with 
 our female cousins : it is thus that our female cousins' 
 children are sons and daughters to us their male cousins. 
 But cohabitation has ceased to imply marriage ; for our 
 female cousins, who used to be our wives, are our wives 
 no longer, albeit we cohabit with them. We have wives 
 however, and the peculiarity is that we, who are still 
 communists with our female cousins, are either inter- 
 dicted altogether from cohabiting with our wives, or 
 each of us has wives with whom he alone has a right to 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 269 
 
 cohabit. If the latter view must prevail, monandry 
 appears too soon for Mr. Morgan's scheme of develop- 
 ment ; if the former, we have a new " singular solution " 
 of the difficulty. It should not surprise us if in this 
 wild dream not to say nightmare of early institu- 
 tions, cohabitation having ceased to imply marriage, 
 marriage should have ceased to imply cohabitation. 
 
 No more need be said of explanations which not 
 even their author can think satisfactory. 1 
 
 In attempting to explain the origin of the classi- 
 ficatory system, Mr. Morgan made two radical mistakes. 
 His first mistake was, that he did not steadily con- 
 template the main peculiarity of the system its classi- 
 fication of the connected persons ; that he did not seek the 
 origin of the system in the probable origin of the classi- 
 fication. To attempt to solve the problem by explaining 
 the relationships comprised in the system in detail, was } 
 to take securities for failure. The second mistake, or 
 rather I should say error, was to have so lightly assumed 
 the system to be a system of blood- ties. From the 
 second error he almost certainly would have been safe 
 had he not fallen into the first. 
 
 In the explanation of the system which I shall pre- 
 sently offer, the importance of attending to the classifi- 
 cation of the related persons will be made sufficiently 
 apparent. No more need here be said on that head. 
 But the examination I have made of Mr. Morgan's 
 solution may be fitly closed by some remarks on the 
 
 1 [See Note B appended to this Essay.] 
 
270 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 assumption that the classificatory system is a system of 
 blood-ties. For the following reasons I think that 
 assumption was an error : 
 
 (1) It is apparent, on the slightest inspection of 
 Mr. Morgan's tables, that " son " and " daughter/' in the 
 classificatory system, do not mean son or daughter " be- 
 gotten by " or " born to " ; that " brother " and " sister " 
 are terms which do not imply connection by descent 
 from the same mother or father; and that " mother" 
 does not mean the bearing mother. From the analogies 
 of the case, we must believe that " father " does not mean 
 the begetting father. It would be most extraordinary 
 if " father " had had that meaning on the first emergence 
 of men from the state of promiscuity, which is the 
 Malayan case. These facts surely ought to have 
 strongly suggested that the classificatory system cannot 
 be a system of blood-ties at all, for it appears incon- 
 ceivable that the most stupid savages could form a 
 system of blood- connections, disregarding the limitation 
 of connections set by the obvious fact of motherhood. 1 
 
 (2) The suggestion received from the non-natural 
 senses in which the terms of relationships are employed 
 is confirmed by the consideration that all, or almost all, 
 the peoples using a form of the classificatory system, 
 have, besides, some well-defined system of blood-ties 
 
 1 It seems almost incredible," says Mr. Darwin of Mr. Morgan's 
 explanations at this point, " that the relationship of the child to its 
 mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women 
 in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time." Descent 
 of Man, second edition, p. 588. 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 271 
 
 the system which traces blood-ties through women only, 
 or some other. It is inconceivable that any people 
 should have at the same time two and entirely different 
 systems of blood relationship. And it may be con- 
 fidently affirmed that in every case it is the system 
 which is unquestionably a system of blood-ties, and not 
 the classificatory system, that alone is of practical force 
 which regulates the succession, for instance, to 
 honours or estates. 
 
 Of the fact that the system of kinship through 
 females only existed among many peoples having the 
 so-called " classificatory form of relationships," there can 
 neither be doubt nor dispute. I make Mr. Morgan 
 himself a witness as to the Iroquois. An Iroquois child 
 is a relation of its mother, but not of its father. Mr. 
 Morgan even goes so far as to say that among this 
 people "no right in the father to the custody of his 
 children's persons or to their nurture was recognized." 
 Husband and wife having separate rights of property, 
 the wife's property passes on her death to her children ; 
 but when the husband dies, his property does not pass 
 to his children. It passes to his sister's children " his 
 near relatives in his own tribe." 1 A man's brother by 
 the same mother is his near relation, and all who are 
 related to him through his mother tracing blood 
 through women only are his relations. Those rela- 
 tions share with him the obligations of the blood-feud, 
 and stand by him in all his quarrels. His brother by 
 the same father only is not his blood-relation at all, if 
 1 The League of tJie Iroquois, p. 327. 
 
* 
 
 272 THE CLASSIFICATOEY SYSTEM. 
 
 their mothers are not kindred, and may be arrayed 
 against him in his quarrels. The two are not only not 
 of the same kindred ; they are of different tribal, and, it 
 may be, of different national connections. " If a Cayuga 
 woman," says Mr. Morgan, " married a Seneca, her 
 children were Cayugas, and her descendants in the 
 female line, to the latest posterity, continued to be 
 Cayugas, although they resided with the Senecas, and 
 by intermarriage with them had lost every particle of 
 Cayuga blood. In the same manner, if a Mohawk 
 married a Delaware woman, her children were not only 
 Dela wares but aliens." l And what is true of one tribe 
 or nation of the American Indians is, speaking broadly, 
 true of all. " It is noticeable," says Schoolcraft, speak- 
 ing of the Indians generally, "that they trace blood- 
 kindred and consanguinities to the remotest ties and 
 that where there is a lapse of memory or tradition, the 
 totem is confidently appealed to as the test of blood 
 affinities, however remote. It is a consequence of the 
 importance attached to this ancient family tie that no 
 person is permitted to change or alter his totem, and 
 that such a change is absolutely unknown." 2 The totem, 
 here rightly called the test of kinship, is taken from the 
 mother, who, belonging to a different tribe, has always 
 a different totem from the father. But the "relation- 
 ships " in the classificatory system have nothing to do 
 with the totem, and embrace persons of numerous 
 diverse totems. 
 
 1 League of the Iroquois, p. 325. 
 
 2 Indian Tribes, Part T. p. 420. Philadelphia, 1853. 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 273 
 
 Not only is the system of kinship through females 
 only an undoubted system of blood-ties : it determines 
 all successions ; the transmission of honours and offices ; 
 the right of intermarriage ; the tribal connection, and 
 all the duties and privileges of blood-relationship. What 
 duties or rights are affected by the " relationships " 
 comprised in the classificatory system ? Absolutely 
 none. They are barren of consequences, except indeed 
 as comprising a code of courtesies and ceremonial 
 addresses in social intercourse. 
 
 (3) That the classificatory system is a system of 
 mutual salutations merely, appears from many of its 
 peculiar features. For one thing, the names for relation- 
 ships are framed as for use in addresses. They want 
 generality. The relation of brother to sister, for 
 instance, is unnamed ; in the Hawaian example of the 
 Malayan form there is no name for brother or for sister. 
 On the other hand, there are a variety of names for use 
 in salutations between "brother" and "sister," according 
 to the age and sex of the person speaking in relation 
 to the age and sex of the person addressed. And this 
 peculiarity is shown, I believe, in almost every example 
 of the classificatory system. Then, for another thing, 
 Mr. Morgan has not shown that these relationships are 
 of any force or effect whatever as blood-ties, while he 
 has shown that they are in daily use for the purposes of 
 mutual salutation, and has explained why, among the 
 " Ganowanians " at least, a system of terms for this 
 purpose was indispensable a necessity. " The American: 
 Indians," he says (p. 132), "always speak to each other, 
 
 T 
 
274 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 when related, by the term of relationship, and never by 
 the personal name of the individual addressed. In 
 familiar intercourse, and in formal salutation, they 
 invariably address each other by the exact relationship 
 [of consanguinity or affinity] in which they stand 
 
 related It is not only the custom to salute by 
 
 kin, but an omission to recognize in this manner a 
 relative would, amongst most of these nations, be a 
 discourtesy amounting to an affront. In Indian society 
 the mode of address when speaking to a relative is the 
 possessive form of the term of relationship ; e.g. my 
 father, my elder brother, my grandson, my nephew, my 
 niece, my uncle, my son-in-law, my brother-in-law, and 
 so on throughout the recognized relationships. If the 
 parties are not related, then my friend. . . . There is 
 another custom which renders this one a practical 
 necessity. From some cause, of which it is not neces- 
 sary here to seek an explanation, an American Indian 
 is reluctant to mention his own personal name. It 
 would be a violation of good manners for an Indian to 
 speak to another Indian by his name." Surely all this 
 points to the system being one of mutual salutations. 1 
 
 In parting with Mr. Morgan 1 cannot refrain from 
 making one or two observations on the scheme of pro- 
 gress which he has put forward in connection with his 
 conjectural solution. Two stages only of that scheme 
 are employed in the solution ; the others are unsup- 
 ported either by the solution or by evidence. Moreover, 
 1 [See Note A appended to this Essay.] 
 
MR. MORGAN'S CONJECTURAL SOLUTION. 275 
 
 the parts of his scheme are far from being consistent 
 with one another. " The Barbarian family " (Stage ix.), 
 for example, is exhibited "with, the family name still 
 unknown " (personal names having appeared), notwith- 
 standing that exogamy, which strictly operates through 
 totems and kobongs in short, through " family names," 
 had appeared (Stage vi.) a very long time, possibly 
 thousands of years before. Polygamy again (Stage x.) 
 is exhibited as springing out of the " Hawaian custom " 
 (Stage iv.) ; "the strongest of several brothers taking 
 to himself all the wives and refusing to share them 
 longer with his brothers." A simple natural fact is 
 thus explained by a " custom " not known to have ever 
 existed. The marriage of single pairs, too (Stage viii.) 
 had long before been exhibited as normal, and yet it 
 had left the " Hawaian custom " vitality enough to 
 beget polygamy as normal. We are even asked to 
 observe how polygamy, " a reformatory movement," put 
 an end to the Hawaian custom that had outlived a 
 practice of monandry. Polyandry next is exhibited 
 (Stage xii.) as one of the consequences of this " refor- 
 matory movement," and, as such, " requiring no farther 
 notice." Lastly (Stage xiii.) appears, for the first time, 
 the succession of sons to fathers, although a practice of 
 monandry had (Stage viii.) been established ever so 
 long, possibly many thousands of years, previously. 
 
 I need not say that the whole of this scheme 
 collapses with the conjectural solution in connection 
 with which it was put forward. That solution, assign- 
 ing for the phenomena of the classificatory system 
 
 T 2 
 
276 THE CLASSIF1CATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 causes not known to have ever operated, could not 
 have ranked as a scientific hypothesis, however suc- 
 cessfully the phenomena had been explained on the 
 assumption that such causes were at one time in opera- 
 tion. Failing to explain the phenomena, the solution 
 must sink below the level of reasonable guessing, to 
 which level, indeed, it must have sunk, even had it 
 explained the phenomena, if by any other set of mere 
 conjectures the phenomena could be equally well ex- 
 plained. The space I have devoted to the consideration 
 of the solution may seem disproportioned to its import- 
 ance ; but issuing from the Press of the Smithsonian 
 Institution, and its preparation appearing to have been 
 aided by the United States Government, Mr. Morgan's 
 work has been very generally quoted as a work of 
 authority, and it seemed worth while to take the 
 trouble necessary to show its utterly unscientific 
 character. 
 
CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF 
 RELATIONSHIPS. 
 
 IT cannot be doubted that the classificatory system 
 in the Malayan form illustrates a very early social 
 condition of man. We must also believe, from its 
 connecting itself with the family, that it had its origin -j 
 in some early marriage-law. Indeed, an examination ! 
 of the leading points of difference presented by the 
 various forms of the classificatory system leaves no doubt 
 that the phenomena presented in all the forms are 
 ultimately referable to the marriage-law; and that 
 accordingly its origin must be so also. 
 
 Though a system of modes of addressing persons 
 which, for reasons already sufficiently explained, I take 
 the classificatory system to be must have grown up 
 with greater freedom than a system of kinship that 
 inferred rights and obligations, it seems reasonable to 
 believe that the system of blood-ties and the system of 
 addresses would begin to grow up together, and for 
 some little time have a common history. If so, one 
 should look to the same set of circumstances for the~~ 
 origin of both. Now the rise of the system of kinship 
 
278 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 through females only, and the subsequent development 
 of kinship, have been made the subject of an hypothesis. 
 It will be a test of that hypothesis to see whether, while 
 explaining the history of kinships, it will also account 
 for the rise of such a system as the classificatory system 
 of addresses ; and it will be confirmatory of any pre- 
 sumptions otherwise existing in its favour, should the 
 hypothesis stand the test especially considering that 
 the phenomena of the classificatory system were not 
 as yet collected when the hypothesis was framed. 
 
 I propose then to see whether the classificatory 
 system can be explained on the hypothesis stated in 
 Primitive Marriage, that the first form of the family 
 was the Nair, founded on Nair polyandry, and the 
 second the Tibetan, founded on Tibetan polyandry. 
 These two types of marriage-law and of the family have 
 been traced so extensively that in assigning them as 
 causes of the phenomena of the classificatory system no 
 one can question that I assign real, and not imaginary 
 causes. And first of the classificatory system in its 
 Malayan form : 
 
 1. Origin of the Malayan form of the classificatory 
 system of relationships. 
 
 As I propose to make more or less use in this expo- 
 sition, by way of illustration, of the terms used in the 
 Hawaian, which is the most complete, example of the 
 Malayan form, it will be convenient to attend for a 
 moment to a few of these respecting which we have 
 (p. 452) some information from Judge Andrews : 
 
 1. The Hawaians have no definite term for father 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 279 
 
 [or for mother] : mkua, signifies parent, male or female. 
 If we wish to say father or mother we add kane [kana], 
 male, or wahina [waheena], female. 
 
 2. The Hawaian has no specific word for son [or 
 for daughter]. Keiki signifies child, or originally the 
 little : iki, little, small ; the article ke has in modern 
 times become prefixed. 
 
 To express the idea of son or daughter, the words 
 kana = male, waheena = female, must be added. Son = 
 little one male ; daughter = little one female. 1 
 
 3. The Hawaian has no word for brother [or for 
 sister] in the sense of the languages of Western Europe. 
 The word h6ahanau, from hoa, companion, and hanati, 
 born, is of common gender, and is seldom used in 
 speaking of one born of the same parents. 2 
 
 4. Wahine or waheena, which appears in Mr. Morgan's 
 tables as meaning " wife," and is applied to a variety of 
 different persons, as well as to a wife, e.g. wife's sister, 
 brother's wife, &c., means literally "female," a woman ; 
 and kane or kana, which appears in the tables as 
 " husband," u husband's brother," and "sister's husband," 
 means literally " male," a man. 3 
 
 1 In the Indo- Germanic speeches the terms for "son" and 
 " daughter " have the same meanings, viz. child male and child 
 female. See Dr. Deecke's Die Deutschenwerwandschaftsnamen. 
 Weimar, 1870. 
 
 2 Mr. Andrews simply adds, " I have used the terms hoahanaii 
 and hoahanau wahine [waheena] for brothers and sisters, because 
 they may be so used, and without them / could not go on with the 
 degrees of relationships.' 1 
 
 3 While the language is thus poor in terms to denote persons of 
 the highest importance in a system of blood-ties, it is rich in terms 
 
280 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 5. There are of course 110 special terms for father's 
 brother or mother's brother, or for father's sister or 
 mother's sister. They are all equally mkua, parents, 
 distinguished as male or female by the addition of kana 
 or waheena ; thus makua kana signifies a male parent, 
 and makua waheena a female parent. 
 
 6. There are no terms for grandfather or grand- 
 mother. Kupuna, common gender, means an ancestor 
 of any degree above that of mkua. There are no terms 
 for grandson or granddaughter. Moopuna, common 
 gender, means a grandchild. With kana or waheena 
 added, it means grandson or granddaughter. 
 
 Let us now contemplate the classificatory system, as 
 it appears in the Hawaian example, apart from the 
 details on which Mr. Morgan founded his solution. 
 What we find is this, that " the Hawaians have held, 
 pure and simple, to the five primary grades of relatives " 
 (p. 454), according to the Chinese text: "aH men who 
 are born into the world have five ranks of relatives. 
 My own generation is one grade ; my father's is one ; 
 and my grandfather's is one. Thus above me there are 
 two grades. My son's generation is one grade, and my 
 grandson's is one ; thus below me are two grades of 
 relations : including myself in the estimate, there are 
 
 required in a nomenclature of courtesies. There are no terms for 
 brother and sister, but there are terms by which a younger brother 
 or a younger sister may address an elder of the same sex, and vice 
 versd ; and terms by which a sister may address an older brother, 
 and even a term by which a brother may address a sister older than 
 himself. There are also terms for use in addressing various relations 
 in law. 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 281 
 
 five grades." Let us arrange these grades to the eye, 
 and name them as they are named in the Hawaian 
 system. 
 
 1st Generation = Kupuna = my grandparenl 
 
 2nd Generation = Mkua = my parents. 
 
 3rd Generation [no name], I and those of 
 generation. 
 
 4th Generation = Kaikee or Keiki = my children. 
 
 5th Generation = Moopuna = my grandchildren. 
 
 The names applied to the persons in each generation 
 are, we have seen, of common gender. A man of the 
 grade is named by adding kana = male, to the grade 
 name ; a woman, by adding waheena = female. 
 
 We do not know the meaning of the names of the 
 grades, except that that of the fourth is " little ones," 
 from "iki," little. The other terms have not been 
 philologically examined, as it is desirable they should 
 be, but their precise meaning is not essential to the 
 present purpose, for we may be certain, meantime, that 
 such a term in common gender as " mkua " did not 
 explicitly, at least at first, convey the idea of begetting 
 father or bearing mother, much less both ideas in 
 combination. 
 
 It is obvious that in these five grades there is a 
 reduplication, and that all the real relationships can be 
 illustrated from a family containing persons of three 
 generations. 
 
 Let us then suppose a family of the Nair type to 
 contain persons of three generations as follows : 
 
 First generation, comprising one or more women, 
 
282 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 and one or more men, with, say, one or more men or 
 women remaining over from an earlier generation 1 
 (= Kupuna). 
 
 Second generation, comprising the children of the 
 women of the first (= Mkua). 
 
 Third generation, comprising the children of the 
 women of the second (= Keiki). 
 
 This family is held together solely by uterine ties, 
 and all its members, if they think of the matter at all, 
 trace their descent back to a common mother. In the 
 house there are no husbands of any of the women, and 
 no wives of any of the men. The men have their wives 
 in various other houses, and the women similarly have 
 their husbands in various other houses. The group 
 contains no " begetting " father of any of the children ; 
 but the men of the group are, of course, the natural 
 protectors of all the children. 2 
 
 In a household of this type, the women marrying 
 while yet young, there probably would be found persons 
 of as many as five generations, though, not to com- 
 
 1 It is a feature of the system that these are " Kupuna " equally 
 with the others. 
 
 2 It is to a group of this sort that we must refer "avus " = 
 protector = old man of the first generation in the family supposed 
 above, i.e. "grandfather"; avunculus = younger protector = 
 " mother's brother," "father" to all the children of his sisters = 
 man of the second generation. Indeed, we may well believe, on 
 the analogies of Indo-Germanic speech, that mkua had the sense of 
 "protector" or "guardian." "Father," and "brother" used as a 
 general term, equally mean protector or guardian ; and " mother's 
 brother," as we have just seen, means the same tiling. (See Dr. 
 Deecke's work, loc. cit.) 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 283 
 
 plicate the matter, I take, as the case to deal with, a 
 family with practically three generations only. It is 
 obvious, that there being no common father or mother, 
 the members of the family cannot be affiliated as in a 
 family derived from a pair. Yet, in their intercourse 
 they must have terms by which to address one another ; 
 and personal (individual) names not being in use an 
 invincible prejudice against the use of them being 
 general among backward races * the terms employed 
 must be general terms, applicable " to the members of 
 the family in classes." Indeed, apart from this con- 
 sideration, it is obvious that they fall naturally into 
 classes, and that the convenience of naming these would 
 be the greater the more numerous the classes. What 
 the name should be for those of the third generation in 
 the household supposed is obvious enough. They are 
 " the little ones " (keiki) of the family, but will be so 
 called only by those of the second generation, which 
 comprises their mothers, to whom they directly belong 
 the persons in that generation continuing to be called 
 keiki by the generation above. Those of the first 
 generation are as clearly "the oldest," whether they 
 shall as a class be named from that fact or not. But 
 they will be called " the oldest " (kupuna) only by those 
 of the third generation the second generation con- 
 tinuing to them the name applied to them when there 
 was in the family a generation above them ; some 
 members of which, indeed, as we have supposed, may 
 
 1 Schuyler, vol. i. p. 40, says even of the Kirghiz that they are 
 not allowed to use the real names of their relations. 
 
284 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 still survive. Those of the second generation will be to 
 those of the third mkua say elders, which, in their 
 turn, those of the first are to them. Lastly, to those of 
 the first those of the third will be, say, " little ones' 
 little ones " (moopuna). If any members of a genera- 
 tion earlier than the first survive, " the little ones' little 
 ones " will probably class them with " the oldest," and 
 not have a special term for them ; while by " the elders " 
 they will be properly named so far as they are of no 
 more than one generation before the first. As the 
 members of any class must address one another as well 
 as members of the other classes, we shall see a necessity 
 for a new series of terms. The class name comprising 
 them all, they will address one another by terms varying 
 with the seniority, or juniority, or sex of the person 
 addressed. And these terms will be of use in all the 
 classes. 
 
 Suppose such a system of class names in use in the 
 Nair families of a district, and I think we may see the 
 origin of the Malayan system, by considering what 
 would be the effects upon the nomenclature of the 
 transition from Nair to Tibetan polyandry. We shall 
 see that whatever the class names signified at first, keiki 
 inevitably must come to signify child ; mkua, parent ; 
 moopuna, grandchild ; and kupuna, grandparent. 
 
 Though I have supposed this typical Nair family to 
 be of one household, i.e. under one roof, the supposition 
 has been made for the sake of clearness merely. It is a 
 supposition, however, which the facts of primitive life 
 would fairly justify. At the same time it is obvious 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 285 
 
 that the filiation of the members of such a family to 
 one another, and their arrangement in classes for that 
 purpose, are independent of their all having a common 
 home, and would, if once established, survive the re- 
 solution of the family into sub-groups in separate 
 homes. 
 
 That resolution was an inevitable consequence in 
 time of the special blood-bonds between mothers and 
 their own children, and between uterine brothers and 
 sisters. Accordingly, the Nair household would in time 
 come to be constituted, as it is described by Buchanan, 
 a mother and her sons and daughters living together 
 under the same roof, together, of course, with the 
 daughters' children. The various ways in which this 
 separation of homes would be brought about are suffi- 
 ciently explained by the authorities cited in Primitive 
 Marriage, p. 100 ; and at p. 104 it will be seen that I 
 have explained how the separation of homes would not 
 at once have the effect of disrupting the family bond 
 between those who, if the separation had not occurred, 
 would have been all of one family. They would long 
 remain and be classed as members of one family, as if 
 they were all still of one household. 
 
 Let us now see how the type of the family must 
 have been altered in the course of the transition from 
 Nair to Tibetan polyandry. 
 
 The cases which would favour a beginning of 
 Tibetan polyandry would be those in which a mother 
 and her sons and daughters had a home to themselves. 
 The sons and daughters when grown up would, not- 
 
286 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 withstanding the separate home, remain affiliated to 
 their mother's family (call it A), and would class in it, 
 say, as mkua. 
 
 If, now, we suppose the brothers to take a wife into 
 their home from another family (B), and their wife and 
 their sisters to have children the sisters by their Nair 
 husbands we shall have the following results : 
 
 1. The wife having entered family A as a member by 
 
 marriage, must class in that family with her hus- 
 bands and their sisters. She will therefore be of 
 class mkua in A ; but by birth she is already of 
 class mkua in B. 
 
 2. The children born to her and her husbands' sisters 
 
 are keiki in A. Some of them are her own 
 children, and will call her makua waheena and 
 all the children can have but one name for her. 
 She will be makua waheena to all the children of 
 A ; but by birth she is makua waheena to all the 
 children of B. 
 
 3. The men of B (class mkua) are makua kana to their 
 
 sisters' children by immemorial usage, and will 
 long continue to be so after these are born to her 
 in another family. Her keiki will call them makua 
 kana ; but that is what they call the men of A 
 (class mkua). 
 
 4. Similarly, the women of B (class mkua) will continue 
 
 to be makua waheena to their sisters' keiki, though 
 born in A. The keiki of A will call them makua 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 287 
 
 waheena, which is what they call the women (class 
 mkua) of A. 
 
 5. The new relationship thus introduced will, through 
 the force of old custom, have full effect throughout 
 all the classes in the connected houses. The elder 
 people who are mkua to those persons in both 
 houses who are mkua to a woman's keiki, will to 
 these keiki be kupuna, and the keiki to them moo- 
 puna. The wife's children will thus class as keiki 
 in the fullest sense in both families. 
 When Tibetan polyandry has come to supersede, or 
 greatly preponderate over, Nair polyandry, the men 
 (class mkua) of a household will, as a rule, be all 
 brothers uterine, and the women (class mkua), except 
 any wife, will, as a rule, be sisters uterine. The sisters, 
 when of age, leave the household to become wives in 
 other homes, and the brothers take into their home a 
 wife between them. Whatever the various class names 
 meant originally, they will now acquire definite signifi- 
 cations, as if they were relative to descents. The 
 brothers' wife will be own mother to all the keiki in 
 their house ; the brothers will be their fathers ; and the 
 keiki will be own brothers and sisters. The keiki will 
 still call their mother makua waheena, however, and their 
 fathers makua kana. And these terms will come accord- 
 ingly to mean father and mother respectively. But 
 these class names being, by force of custom, as compre- 
 hensive as formerly, it will follow that the father's 
 sisters, in whatever family they are as wives, being 
 " makua waheena " to their brothers' children, will be 
 
288 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 their "mothers/' and so, too, on precisely the same 
 grounds, the sisters of the own mother of the children 
 will be. Their father's brothers will, of course, be their 
 " fathers," l and so will their mother's brothers. Far- 
 ther, the keiki, classing as such at once in the family of 
 their birth, and in that of their mother's birth, will 
 come to be " brothers and sisters " of all the children 
 counting as keiki in the two families, i.e. of their 
 father's sisters' children, and their mother's sisters' chil- 
 dren, and mother's brothers' children, and, of course, of 
 their father's brothers' children, should any of the 
 brothers make separate marriages. In short, they will 
 as keiki be "brothers " and "sisters" of all the children 
 of every person entitled to be classed as mkua, in any 
 family, with their mother or mother's sisters or brothers, 
 or tiieir father or father's sisters or brothers. And these 
 new and widely- extended relationships will, through the 
 force of custom, have their full effect throughout all the 
 classes in the connected houses. Those who are mkua, 
 in any house, to those called makua kana or makua 
 waheena by any children will, to the children, be 
 kupuna, and the children to them moopuna. When in 
 turn the keiki grow up and class as mkua, the children 
 of all of them, as far as the newly-extended class goes, 
 will to their mkua be moopuna, and the latter kupuna 
 to these children. In short, the changes due to causes 
 affecting only the classes of mkua and keiki, broaden 
 
 1 See post, p. 289. Their father's brothers, even if not co- 
 husbands of their mother, would, as classing mkua with their father, 
 be to them makua kana, i.e. " fathers." 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 289 
 
 these classes without otherwise disturbing their relations 
 to the other classes ascending or descending. 
 
 Marriage relationships being now recognized, we 
 may see how relatives in law come to be classed and 
 take their place in the system. To explain this in one 
 case will be to explain it in all. Take the husband of 
 one's father's sister father's brother-in-law. My father's 
 sister is to me makua waheena ; I to her am keiki. But 
 her keiki are her husband's if not as a direct conse- 
 quence of usage, then by courtesy, which even among 
 ourselves is strong enough to have such an effect. On 
 another view, on a marriage, the wife classes mkua in the 
 husband's family, and the husband classes as mkua in 
 the wife's family. It is a direct consequence of this 
 that my father's and mother's brothers-in-law should be 
 to me makua kana, i.e. " fathers," and their sisters-in- 
 law makua waheena, i.e. " mothers." 
 
 The reader will see that in this way every feature of 
 the Malayan system is fully and simply accounted for. 
 Also he will see, what I have pointed out in a footnote 
 (ante, p. 288), that from the manner in which they are 
 accounted for, they might as well be accounted for as 
 consequences of the sons and daughters of houses of 
 the Nair type making monandrous marriages, as by their 
 making Tibetan polyandrous marriages. For my father's 
 brothers, classing as mkua with my father, will be to me 
 makua kana, i.e. " fathers," whether they are co-husbands 
 with my father or not. But we shall immediately see 
 strong reasons for believing that the system was mainly 
 an effect of Tibetan polyandry, to the production of which 
 
 u 
 
290 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 effect a growing practice of monandry could, from the 
 nature of the case, oppose no obstacle. And I have pre- 
 sented the explanation of the Malayan form in its present 
 shape accordingly. Speaking broadly, the explanation 
 of the Malayan form comes to this : 1, A necessity or con- 
 venience for classifying kindred united in families while 
 as yet husbands and wives did not live together within 
 the same family ; and 2, The broadening of the classes 
 of kindred thus arising through the connection of 
 families by marriage, on wives passing as a rule into 
 the families of their husbands. 
 
 I now proceed to consider, 
 
 2. The origin of the "Turanian" and " Ganowd- 
 nian " .forms of the classificatory system. 
 
 In these forms of the classificatory system every 
 feature of the Malayan form remains undisturbed, ex- 
 cept that the class of keiki has been disrupted, and 
 certain of its members put in a new class as cousins ; 
 and that along with cousinry has come the relationship 
 of uncle and aunt to nephew and niece, and consequently 
 a disturbance in the class of mkua. Beyond this no 
 change has occurred. If I formerly belonged to the 
 class mkiia, for instance, the children of those who 
 used to be my keiki, and have become my nephews 
 and nieces, are still my grandchildren (moopuna). I to 
 them am grandfather kupuna, and my mkua are the 
 kupuna of my nephews and nieces. When we seek the 
 precise limits of the change, again, we see that the 
 children of several brothers are classed together keiki 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 291 
 
 as before ; and so are the children of several sisters ; 
 and that the new class of cousins comprises only the 
 children of several sisters, in relation to the children of 
 their several brothers. 
 
 When we consider these facts a little, we shall see 
 that those remaining classed together as keiki are all 
 of one blood, tribe, or kinship, and that those classed 
 as cousins are of different bloods, tribes, or kinships. 
 
 Eecurring to my hypothesis : with female kinship 
 still prevailing, the children of several brothers are 
 necessarily of one blood, tribe, or kinship, namely, that 
 of their mother, the wife of the brothers of a house 
 under Tibetan polyandry. The children of several 
 sisters are also necessarily of one blood, tribe, or kin- 
 ship, namely, that of their mothers, who are of one 
 blood. And the children of the brothers are, neces- 
 sarily, of a different blood from the children of the 
 sisters if exogamy is the law. The brothers and their 
 sisters being of the same blood, the brothers' children 
 are of a different blood, for the brothers must marry 
 a woman of a different blood from themselves, and their 
 children are of the mother's blood. 
 
 In the Nair stage there had been but one blood in 
 a family. Its members were all of one tribe or kin- 
 ship; and could be of no other ; for exogamy, if it were 
 then law, would be of importance only in limiting the 
 women of the house in their choice of husbands. This 
 homogeneity of the family was destroyed at once on 
 polyandry becoming Tibetan. The brothers' wife and 
 her children were then of a different blood and kinship 
 
 u 2 
 
292 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 from that of the old Nair family to which the brothers 
 belonged ; and that fact could not fail to tell in time 
 upon the system in use for the purposes of mutual 
 salutation. 
 
 To the various ways and degrees in which the 
 pressure of that fact upon that system was yielded to 
 in different areas, we may refer all the differences in 
 the forms of the classificatory system. 
 
 In proceeding to consider these differences as they 
 appear in the " Turanian" and " Ganowdnian " forms, 
 it will be convenient, though merely for the purposes 
 of exposition, to think of those forms as having been 
 developed out of the Malayan form. We have no 
 reason to believe, however, that they ever passed 
 through what may be called the Malayan stage no 
 ground for doubting that they, in the course of a single 
 movement, became what they now are. It may reason- 
 ably be supposed that exogamy was law as early as the 
 Nair stage ; and exogamy might have acted instantly 
 on the system of addresses, as it formed itself under 
 the influence of Tibetan polyandry. All the peoples 
 having the classificatory system in the " Turanian " 
 or " Ganowdnian " forms are, or were, exogamous. 
 Whether the Hawaians, and those few tribes connected 
 with them by the Malayan form, are exogamous I 
 cannot ascertain. If they are not, the Malayan form 
 is precisely what it might, on that footing, be expected 
 to be ; if they are, the Hawaian case is a proof that 
 the pressure of exogamy on the system might be 
 resisted. We shall see in the other cases to be noticed 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 293 
 
 that it was not a pressure incapable of being partially 
 resisted ; that in some cases its effects were less than, 
 or different from what they were in others. At any 
 rate, it will readily be seen that it is immaterial to the 
 explanation now to be offered whether exogamy acted 
 on the system of addresses instantly, or only began to 
 act upon it after it had assumed the Malayan form. 
 It is worthy of notice that exogamy may not, from the 
 first establishment of the family, have been the law. 
 As I showed in Primitive Marriage (pp. 116 and 124) 
 many years since, an extensive practice of polyandry 
 may long retard, and even prevent, the rise of exogamy. 
 
 We have seen that with exogamy prevailing, the 
 children of brothers will be of a different blood from 
 the children of their sisters who represent the old 
 Nair family. This is reason enough why the brothers' 
 children should no longer be classed as keiki along with 
 those of the sisters. Ceasing to be keiki along with 
 them, they are put in a new class and called their 
 cousins. Their fathers' sister becomes their aunt, and 
 they her nephews and nieces ; and, on the principle 
 of reciprocity, the sisters' children become nephews and 
 nieces to the brothers, and the brothers become their 
 uncles. 
 
 The first five distinctive features (ante, p. 262) of 
 the " Turanian " and " Ganow^nian " forms are thus 
 simply accounted for. It will be observed, however, 
 that it was not inevitable that exogamy should produce 
 all of these effects. For instance, the brothers are of 
 the same blood as their sisters' children. It was not 
 
294 TEE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 inevitable, therefore, that they should cease to be 
 makua kana to their sisters' children ; and if they 
 ceased to be so, it was only on the principle of reci- 
 procity, because the sisters ceased to be makua waheena 
 to their children. But the principle of reciprocity was 
 capable of a contrary application : the brothers con- 
 tinuing to be makua kana to their sisters' children, that 
 is, the sisters would continue to be makua waheena to 
 theirs. This explains what we find among the Crow 
 and Minnitaree, and in one or more of the Athapascan 
 nations of American Indians (see Morgan, p. 148). 
 And in precisely the same way may be explained the 
 absence of terms for nephew and niece among a few of 
 the American tribes (Morgan, p. 148). The sisters' 
 children being of one blood with their mother's brother 
 may continue to be his keiki after cousinry has been 
 instituted. And they being called by him keiki, his 
 children will, on the principle of reciprocity, be called 
 keiki by his sister. This will be not inconsistent with 
 a change in the relative terms with the. brother 
 becoming uncle and the sister aunt to the children of 
 each other respectively. It will be seen that, on the 
 view I am taking, the institution of cousinry was 
 inevitable cousins being of different kinships but 
 that none of the other usual accompaniments of it 
 were inevitable. 
 
 It remains for me to offer 
 
 3. Explanations of the differences between the 
 " Ganowdnian " and " Turanian " forms. 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 295 
 
 These differences are noted ante, p. 262. They are 
 as follows : 
 
 (1.) In the Ganowdnian form the children of my 
 male cousins, myself a male, are my sons and daughters, 
 and the children of my female cousins are my nephews 
 and nieces. 
 
 (2.) In the Turanian form all the children of my 
 male cousins, myself a male, are my nephews and nieces, 
 while all the children of my female cousins are my sons 
 and daughters. 
 
 What has happened in the first case is easily ac- 
 counted for. I used to be makua kana to the children 
 of all my cousins when my cousins and I were of one 
 class. I am now makua kana to the children only of 
 my male cousins who used to be my brothers. Now, 
 men are still makua kana " fathers " to their brothers' 
 children. I have ceased to be makua kana to the 
 children of my female cousins, who used to be my 
 sisters ; these children have become my nephews and 
 nieces. And men are now uncles to their sisters' chil- 
 dren. It appears, then, that though we have come to 
 be called cousins, the disturbance due to the test of 
 blood, while following the natural line so far as it goes, 
 has been the least that, following that line, it could 
 have been. My male cousin's son is called my son, as 
 he formerly was, and as my brother's son now is. My 
 female cousin's son has applied to him the term now 
 given to my own sister's son. There has been no dis- 
 turbance in the relationships arising to one brother 
 through another, and (no doubt in some way as a 
 
296 THE CLASSIFIGATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 consequence of that) there has been no disturbance, as 
 there might have been, in the relationships arising to 
 one male cousin through another. There has been a 
 disturbance in the relationships arising to a brother and 
 sister through each other ; and the same amount of 
 change has been made in the relationships arising 
 between male and female cousins through each other. 
 Here, then, is a simple case of imperfect development. 
 Practically the relationships arising to cousins through 
 each other are the same as if they had been brother 
 and sister instead of cousins. In fact, attention among 
 the " Ganowa*nians " seems to have been exclusively 
 fixed upon the women as the persons through whom it 
 was that blood ties were created ; and no change was 
 made in the case of relationships arising to men through 
 other men. 
 
 The second case requires closer consideration, and 
 it is necessary to set forth all the facts of it, which are 
 given by Mr. Morgan in his analysis of the Tamilian 
 system (Morgan, footnote, pp. 387, ff). 
 
 (a) Myself a male, my male cousin's children are 
 my nephews and nieces. 
 
 (b) Myself a male, my female cousin's children are 
 my children. 
 
 (c) Myself a female, my male cousin's children are 
 my children. 
 
 (d) Myself a female, my female cousin's children are 
 my nephews and nieces. 
 
 Under the Malayan form, the children in each case 
 would be my children. Cases (b) and (c) are true to 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 297 
 
 the Malayan form, i.e. I, a male, and my female cousin, 
 are still addressed as parents of each other's children. 
 
 To begin with the simplest case, which is case (d). 
 It is plain that my female cousin and I, a female, being 
 of different bloods, her children also and I (kinship 
 being traced through the mother) are of different bloods. 
 The new terms evolved under the influence of the idea 
 of blood are accordingly applied to my relationship with 
 them. I become their aunt, and they become my 
 nephews and nieces. 
 
 Take next case (a). My male cousin and I, a male, 
 are strangers in blood. His children do not follow him 
 in blood ; but unless there is between them and me 
 a connection not made through him, plainly they and 
 I are strangers in blood, and the new terms applicable 
 primarily to connections, not regarded as blood- 
 relations, are those which are properly applicable to 
 us. It was by no means, however, of necessity that 
 those terms should be applied. A blood-connection 
 between the children of male cousins, made in frequent 
 cases through their mothers a connection which would 
 make them " brothers," and the one cousin, therefore 
 the father, rather than the uncle, of the other's children 
 might have prevented the application of them, even 
 in cases where no such blood-connection existed. And 
 the mere force of ancient usage might have had the 
 same effect. We have seen that among the American 
 Indians the old terms were continued in this case. 
 Except the difficulty of making any change, however, 
 there can have been no powerful cause in action to 
 
298 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 retard the application in this case of the new terms 
 among the " Turanians," and very probably there was 
 some cause in action which, making it obvious in very 
 frequent cases that a man's children and his male 
 cousin's children were of different bloods, accelerated 
 their application. A cause which might have so 
 operated we shall immediately have to notice. 
 
 There remain the two cases (b) and (c) in which the 
 Malayan form has been followed. They certainly are 
 cases in which this could not have been looked for ; for 
 when a man's sister's son, though of his blood, has 
 become his nephew, and his male cousin's son is also 
 his nephew, it is extraordinary that his female cousin's 
 son (who is not of his blood) should remain his son. 
 It is safe to say that there must have been some 
 powerful and widely- operating cause, the action of 
 which in this case arrested change. That cause, 
 too, must have been connected with the marriage 
 system. 
 
 A prevalence of cousin-marriages in the early times 
 of the Turanian peoples for cousins not being of the 
 same blood were free to intermarry would be a full 
 explanation. Where a male cousin married his female 
 cousin, the children would truly be at once the children 
 of the male cousin and of the female cousin. 1 And 
 
 1 See Buchanan's Journey from Madras through Mysore, &c. 
 vol. iii. p. 16, for a case in which a man was bound to marry one 
 female cousin his mother's brother's daughter. In this case a 
 man's children were not his heirs. His heirs were his sisters and 
 their children. 
 
ITS ORIGIN' CONSIDERED. . 299 
 
 it is to the frequency of cousin -marriages, and of 
 other marriages through which, though not between 
 cousins, the one cousin's children were of the other 
 cousin's tribe and blood (which brother's and sister's 
 children never could be), that I think the pre- 
 servation of the old terms must in those two cases be 
 referred. In cousin-marriages, too, and other marriages 
 having the same effect as cousin-marriages as regards 
 blood through which, that is, a man's children and his 
 wa?e-cousin's children would not be of the same tribe or 
 blood which would be the effect, for example, of two 
 male cousins marrying each other's sisters) we may find 
 the accelerating force that seemed to be required for the 
 establishment between a man and his male-cousin's son 
 of the relation of uncle and nephew. 
 
 There is nothing violent in the supposition of a fre- 
 quency of cousin-marriages and other marriages having 
 the same effect upon blood ; indeed, in the small and 
 scattered communities of early times, it is difficult to be- 
 lieve that cousin-marriages, being allowed, were infrequent. 
 Something very far short of a practice of them might well 
 suffice to preserve (in cases Z> and c) the nomenclature 
 of address, which had immemorial custom in its favour ; 
 especially if supported by a frequency of marriages 
 through which the same effects as regards blood 
 would be produced through which, that is, the 
 children of a male cousin would be of the same 
 blood as those of his female cousin. To believe 
 in the frequency of marriages of the latter sort is 
 simply to believe that the persons within a community 
 
300 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 between whom the jus connubii existed were given 
 to marrying one another, which requires no effort ; and 
 this alone might have been almost enough to keep the 
 old nomenclature in use. 
 
 It will be evident that the hypothesis that Tibetan 
 polyandry succeeded Nair polyandry as a normal stage 
 of progress is essential to my explanation of the Tura- 
 nian and Ganowa"nian forms of the classificatory system. 
 If brothers made separate marriages, I can see no reason 
 why their children should not have been classed as 
 cousins. If we could assume that there existed a pretty 
 uniform practice of brothers of one family marrying 
 sisters of another, or women of the same tribe or blood, 
 we should have such a reason ; but I am not aware of 
 a practice of this sort on a scale to justify our making 
 such an assumption. On the other hand, Tibetan poly- 
 andry we know to have been common, and to have left 
 traces everywhere in the laws of succession ; and we 
 know it, moreover, in connection with the very fact 
 to which the broadening of the class connections has 
 been ascribed the change from non- cohabitation of 
 husbands and wives to cohabitation ; from their being 
 resident in different families, that is, to their residing 
 together in the same family. Tibetan polyandry seems, 
 then, essential to the explanation of the Turanian and 
 Ganowdnian forms. To the explanation of the Malayan 
 it is not essential. But if, which is not impossible 
 (though I have shown that it is not certain), all the 
 forms had a common history, so far as their development 
 to the Malayan form is concerned, it becomes very 
 
ITS ORIGIN CONSIDERED. 301 
 
 probable that Tibetan polyandry was a factor in deter- 
 mining the Malayan form. Moreover, if the Hawaians, 
 and those connected with them by the Malayan form, 
 are not exogamous, we may be sure they passed through 
 a full experience of polyandry in all its phases ; and this 
 consideration increases the probability that the disrup- 
 tion of the family of the Nair type among them was not 
 owing to a practice of monandry. 
 
 At any rate, I venture to think that all the features 
 of the more primitive forms of the classificatory system 
 have now been accounted for on a hypothesis which was 
 framed independently of them, and while they were yet 
 unknown, if it be not also proved that that hypothesis is 
 absolutely necessary to the explanation of them. On 
 the same hypothesis the Esquimo form of the classi- 
 ficatory system can easily be accounted for ; but the 
 consideration of this, and of the transition from the 
 classificatory form to the descriptive, must be reserved 
 for another occasion. My impression is that the study 
 of that transition may yet be made to throw much new 
 light on the primitive condition of man, and to demon- 
 strate that a]l the races of men have had, to speak 
 broadly, a development from savagery of the same 
 general character. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 NOTE A. 
 
 [THE CLASSIFICATOKY SYSTEM. 
 
 [MR. MORGAN was not the first to describe the classificatory 
 system of the Iroquois ; and his account of it, though derived 
 from his own observations and not from any authority, might, 
 up to a certain point, have been taken bodily from Lafitau, 
 who wrote in 1724. The use of its terms between relations 
 was explained alike by both, 1 and Lafitau also showed that this 
 was not peculiarly Indian but had prevailed among other 
 peoples. In regarding the terms as for the use of blood 
 relations only (see supra, page 274), and as always employed to 
 denote blood-relationship, however, Mr. Morgan parted company 
 with the earlier writer. For Lafitau distinctly mentions that, 
 among the Indians, "my brother," "my father," " my child," 
 "my nephew," and so forth, were conventional modes of saluta- 
 tion, severally addressed to people in proportion to the dis- 
 tinction in which they were held. He tells us that they were 
 commonly applied as relative age and station determined 
 not only to all fellow-tribesmen and friends but to strangers 
 (and he might have said, even to enemies) ; and that this was 
 because of the objection the Indians had to being addressed by 
 name. The terms of the classificatory system were, therefore, 
 according to Lafitau, not only used where there was no blood- 
 relationship, but were terms of address universally employed ; and 
 were commonly used without thought of blood-relationship to 
 indicate not degrees of blood-relationship but simply degrees of 
 
 1 Mceurs des Sauvages Americains, Comparees avec Mceurs des Premiers 
 Temps. Par le P. Lafitau de la Compagne de Jesus. Paris, 1724. 2 vols. 
 (See vol. i. p. 552.) 
 
 X 
 
306 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 respect. " Communement," he says, 1 " les sauvages ne s'enten- 
 dent pas volontier nommer par le nom qui leur est affecte, et la 
 demande qu'on leur en feroit est une espece d' affront qui les 
 feroit rougir. En se parlant les uns aux autres, ils se donnent 
 tous des nonis de parente", de frere, de soeur, d'oncle, de neveu, 
 &c. observant exactement les degrds de subordination et toutes les 
 proportions de I' age a moins qu'il n'y ait une parente reelle par le 
 sang ou par adoption ; car alors un enfant se trouvera quelque- 
 fois le grandpere de ceux qui, selon 1'ordre de la nature, pour- 
 roient etre facilement le sien. Ils pratiquent la meme civilite a 
 1'egard des etrangers, a qui ils donnent, en leur parlant, des 
 noms de consanguinite, comme s'il y avait une vrai liaison du 
 sang, plus proche ou plus eloignee a proportion de 1'honrieur 
 qu'ils veulent leur faire, coutume qui Nicolas de Damas rapporte 
 aussi des anciens peuples de Scythie." 
 
 Mr. Morgan's statement that every person who was not a 
 relative was, among the Indians, addressed, not by any of the 
 classificatory terms, but as "my friend," was consistent with his 
 theory (which, indeed, could not have been formed without 
 it) that the terms of the classificatory system were descriptive 
 of acknowledged blood-relationships. But the theory and the 
 statement fail together if we must accept the evidence of Lafitau. 
 If Lafitau is right, the classificatory terms were, among the 
 Iroquois, terms of address ; everybody used them (that is, 
 commonly used them) whether addressing a relative or not; 
 and, in general, they certainly did not carry any implication of 
 blood-relationship, but were used to indicate the respect due 
 from the speaker to the age and station of the person spoken of. 
 And that Lafitau was right (though, no doubt, the phrase " my 
 friend " might have been used in speaking to a person who was 
 not a relative) is simply unquestionable. One cannot read 
 much of any early writer on the American Indians without 
 finding the terms which it is natural for us to speak of as terms 
 of relationship, and which it has become convenient to describe 
 as classificatory, interchanged, as Lafitau said they were, between 
 persons who clearly were not relations. And, indeed, it is doubtful 
 whether any writer before Mr. Morgan ever thought of them 
 except as forming a system of modes of address varying with 
 the degree of deference demanded or desired to be shown. An 
 apt example of the way in which they were used occurs in the 
 Documents Relative to the Colonial History of the State of New 
 
 1 Mc&urs des Sauvages Americains, Comparees avec Mceurs des Premiers 
 Temps, vol. i. pp. 75, 76. 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 York (Albany, 1853-58. Vol. iv. p. 758), where we find the 
 Onondagas (Iroquois) solemnly offering to bind themselves to call 
 the Mohawks (Iroquois) fathers if the latter joined them in a 
 war against the Governor of Canada. It is perfectly clear that 
 father was, in this case, to be used as a term of respect, and 
 that the offer would have been meaningless had the term not 
 had its recognised value simply as a term of respect. Mr. 
 Morgan, curiously enough, has himself given excellent examples 
 of this use of the classificatory terms between tribe and tribe. 
 (See Ancient Society, p. 138, for the Iroquois; also p. 106.) 
 
 If farther illustration of their uses be wanted, it can easily 
 be found in the Relations des Jesuites writings of high authority 
 about the manners of the Indians (though not all of equal 
 authority), and which, though more concerned with the Huron s 
 than the Iroquois, contain accounts of both (and, besides, they 
 were really the same people). In the Relations to take a few 
 examples we find Father Le Jeune saying : " As soon as they 
 could see me from the village [Huron] everybody ran out, each 
 calling me by my name. 'What, Echom, my nephew, my 
 brother, my cousin, art thou come back ? ' " (Relations des 
 Jemites. Quebec Reprint. Vol. i. p. 29. Quebec, 1858.) They 
 addressed him, that is, in the term of the classificatory system 
 which was appropriate in each case. Again (the speaker 
 this time is Simon le Moine, and the people were Iroquois) 
 " One regards me as his brother, another as his uncle, a third 
 as his cousin never had I so numerous a body of relatives." 
 (Ibid. vol. ii. p. 13.) Once more, " The Huron chief," says 
 Joseph Poncet, " addressing the Iroquois chief, his prisoner, 
 says to him, 'My nephew/ for it is a term of compliment 
 used among these peoples." The captive Iroquois replying, 
 addressed the Huron as "my uncle/' (Ibid. vol. ii. p. 21.) 
 We find, too, an Iroquois, in trying to console Simon le Moine 
 upon the death of two Frenchmen, speaking of them as Simon's 
 nephews, and assuring him that when he wants nephews to 
 build for him he will find that all his nephews are not dead 
 meaning that the Iroquois would help him. (Ibid. vol. iii. 
 p. 37.) We find a great chief speaking of the French as his 
 nephews (vol. i. p. 89) ; the chiefs of a village addressing Le 
 Jeune as " my nephew," (vol. i. p. 84) ; a Huron chief 
 addressing an Iroquois prisoner as "my nephew," and the 
 Iroquois, when brought out for the torture, saying to the 
 assembled Huron s, " My brothers, do your worst " (vol. i. pp. 
 110-113); another prisoner addressed as "my uncle," and 
 
 x 2 
 
308 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 answering "my nephew " (vol. i. p. 11.6) ; a Huron chief address- 
 ing a stranger as " my brother," and speaking of " my cousins 
 of the two other nations " (vol. iii. p. 21) : Father Jogues 
 addressed by an old woman with whom he stayed as " my 
 nephew " (vol. ii. p. 75) ; a present offered in the name of the 
 young men of the Iroquois to " their uncle," the great chief of 
 the French ; Frenchmen also addressed by an Iroquois as " my 
 brothers," and the governor spoken of as an eldest brother 
 (vol. ii. pp. 22 and 28). These are instances enough to show 
 \ that Mr. Morgan was wrong in supposing that the classificatory 
 terms were only used between relations, and to denote blood- 
 relationship ; and enough to show that they were regularly used 
 without thought of relationship, and between people who were 
 not relations, one or another being used age and station being 
 both considered according to the degree of respect to be 
 conveyed. 
 
 Lafitau tells us that, even in his time, the Indians were said 
 to have departed greatly from their ancient customs. It is 
 intelligible indeed it is certain that they have changed very 
 much since then ; and this may explain the difference between 
 Lafitau and Mr. Morgan. To study contemporary Indians 
 towards the middle of the nineteenth century was not, by itself, 
 the best way to learn the truth about Indian customs and in- 
 stitutions, when there were accessible copious records of these 
 dating from more than two hundred years earlier. 
 
 It is not necessary, however, to go to early writers about the 
 Red Men to find proof that Mr. Morgan entirely misconceived 
 the classificatory system as used among them. In James's 
 Rocky Mountains (1823) there occur (without any theorising) 
 excellent casual illustrations of the way in which it was actually 
 used. " The Big Elk/' we find it said in one place (vol. 
 i. p. 174), " made us a considerable harangue, with all the 
 remarkable vivacity, fluency, and nerve of Indian eloquence, in 
 which he said that he would address me by the title of ' father.' 
 ' And you,' said he to Mr. Dougherty, ' whom I know so well, I 
 will call brother.' " This is pretty well, but a few pages further 
 on (vol. i. p. 185), we meet with something better. " They then 
 serve out the food to the guests [this occurs in a description of 
 a feast among Indians], placing the best portions of it before 
 the chiefs. Each individual, on the reception of his portion, 
 returns his thanks to the host in such respectful expressions as 
 become his relative consequence, as "How-je-ne-ha, How-we- 
 sun-guh, How-na-ga-ha, &c. (thank you x father, thank you, 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 younger brother, thank you, uncle, &c.), after which they eat 
 in silence." Here we find the classificatory terms used precisely 
 as Lafitau said they were used, to express degrees of respect, 
 and not degrees of relationship. After this, one finds, without 
 surprise, that when the terms used between relations come to 
 be expressly spoken of, the writer tells us of their use in ad- 
 dresses, and has nothing else to say of them ; and shows, inci- 
 dentally, that particular terms were used where there was a 
 propriety in using them, whether there was blood-relationship or 
 not. " The designations by which the Omawhaws distinguish their 
 various degrees of consanguinity," he says (vol. i. p. 231), " are 
 somewhat different in meaning from ours ; children universally 
 address their father's brother by the title of father, and their 
 mother's brother by that of uncle ; their mother's sister is called 
 mother, and their father's sister aunt. The children of brothers 
 and sisters address each other by the titles of brother and 
 
 sister A man distinguishes his wife's brother by the title 
 
 of 'Tahong,' or brother-in-law, and his son also ly the same 
 designation. He calls the wife of his brother-in-law ' Cong-ha/ 
 or mother-in-law. [These two must be mere terms of address.] 
 A woman calls her husband's brother ' Wish-e-a,' or brother-in-law, 
 and speaks of his children as her own. Her husband's sister she 
 distinguishes by the title of relationship ' Wish-e-cong,' or sister-in- 
 law. Men who marry sisters address each other by the title of 
 brother. All women who marry the same individual, even though 
 not previously related, apply to each other the title of sister."] 
 
 [In Ancient Society (published in 1877, after the appearance 
 of the criticism here reprinted) Mr. Morgan seems to have 
 allowed for the fact that the American Indians (and other peoples 
 who have the classificatory system) use the classificatory terms 
 freely in addresses ; he remodelled his theories, apparently, to 
 account for the terms being employed between larger classes 
 than he had originally contemplated. He still, however, held 
 to the untenable position that they were never used except 
 between people who knew they were each other's relations, and 
 never used by such people except to denote the relationship 
 known to them as subsisting between them. And " where no 
 relationship subsists," he said again, " the form of salutation is 
 simply ' my friend.' " (Ancient Society, pp. 436, 441, 328.) It 
 is for the classificatory system as thus misconceived of, that Mr. 
 
310 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 Morgan tried to account in Ancient Society. If the misconcep- 
 tion has to be admitted, his theories are worthless ; since, even 
 if well devised, they have been devised to account for that 
 which is not the fact. It is clear that this was Mr. Morgan's 
 own view. 
 
 If, moreover, the classificatory terms were freely used as terms 
 of address, with nothing thought of but age and station, large 
 suppositions about early marriage which transcend experience 
 (and perhaps also probability) even apart from the risk of 
 their proving too much or something other than what is wanted 
 are not needed in accounting for those terms. If it be thought 
 they must have originated in some form of the family, it is 
 unnecessary to imagine a form of the family large and complex 
 beyond anything which observation has informed us of. More 
 modest suppositions will suffice; for there need not be any 
 proportion there may be any degree of disparity between the 
 nucleus in which the terms originated and the circle throughout 
 which they were commonly used.] 
 
 [No Lafitau has written of the Blacks of Australia, and we 
 have no casual records of their customs such as the Relations 
 des Jesuites have given us for the Indians of the Canadas. 
 There is evidence, however, that, among them also, the terms of 
 relationship were commonly used as terms of address, and not 
 to denote known relationships only. 
 
 The explorer, Eyre, had excellent opportunities of being 
 informed on such matters, and his evidence, while given quite 
 casually, is very clear as to this. " In their intercourse with 
 each other," he says, " natives of different tribes are exceedingly 
 punctilious and polite, the most endearing epithets are passed 
 between those who never met before ; almost everything that is 
 said is prefaced by the appellation of father, son, brother, mother, 
 sister, or some other similar term, corresponding to that degree 
 of relationship which would have been most in accordance with 
 their relative ages and circumstances." J 
 
 This shows that the terms of relationship were used among 
 the Australians precisely as Lafitau says they were used among 
 the Iroquois. They were interchanged between persons who 
 never met before not between some strangers only, but be- 
 tween all whom occasion brought together ; and that, as Mr. 
 
 1 Eyre's Central Australia, vol. ii. p. 214. 1845. 
 
APPENDIX. 311 
 
 Eyre clearly conveys, not in recognition of relationship actual or 
 probable, but for politeness' sake the term used being that 
 which " age and circumstances " showed to be proper. 
 
 Some confirmatory statements may be found in a work 
 deeply imbued with Mr. Morgan's theories Mr. Brough Smith's 
 work, The Aborigines of Victoria. The most distinct of these 
 is that of Mr. Bridgman (vol. i. p. 92), and it is virtually iden- 
 tical with Mr. Eyre's, though less detailed. " Blacks in their 
 native state, before they pick up our manners and customs," 
 Mr. Bridgman says, " never call each other by name. They 
 always use a term of relationship"; which, unless no blacks 
 ever spoke to each other except those who knew each other to 
 be relations, is simply Eyre's statement over again. It appears, 
 too, that Mr. Bridgman himself, in his intercourse with the 
 natives, addressed them by the terms of relationship. To this 
 may be added Mr. Wilhelmi's statement (vol. i. p. 87), that 
 " forms and names strictly in use among relations only " are so 
 used, through friendship, between persons who are not relations, 
 that " it becomes totally impossible to make out who are really 
 relations and who are not." 
 
 The theories of Mr. Morgan's ingenious disciple, the Rev. 
 Lorimer Fison (Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Melbourne, 1880) are 
 all, more or less, founded upon the fact that terms of relation- 
 ship are in use among the Australians as terms of address. A 
 correspondent, whose means of getting knowledge are usually 
 very imperfect, reports, in answer to a question, that certain rather 
 large classes of people, or whole populations, as the case may 
 be, call each other brothers and sisters (or whatever other term 
 suits their relative ages), and Mr. Fison forthwith assumes that 
 throughout those classes or populations there is full acknowledg- 
 ment of blood-relationship. 
 
 It may be added that the Australian terms of relationship, 
 so far as they are known to us, are, even more clearly than the 
 classificatory terms in general, framed for use in addresses ; while 
 some of them are now in certain cases within the family, ob- 
 viously terms of address only, and others can never have been 
 descriptive of relationships actual or probable, as, according to 
 Mr. Morgan, they all were originally. Not a few are reciprocal. 
 Among the Kurnai (Gippsland), for example, wehntwin is the 
 term applied to a paternal grandfather, his brother, and so on ; 
 and it is also the term applied by such persons to their grand- 
 sons and grandnephews. It cannot, therefore, have been framed 
 to describe either the relationship of father's father or that of 
 
312 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 son's son. It must have originated as a terra of address between 
 men and their connections on the father's side of the generation 
 above the father. There is a term, nakun, similarly used be- 
 tween a mother's father and his brothers and sisters, on the one 
 hand, and her children on the other ; and there are also terms 
 which are similarly interchanged between people and their 
 paternal and maternal grandmothers and their respective 
 brothers and sisters. Among the Kurnai also, the wives of 
 two brothers call each other sister, which so used can only be 
 a term of address ; and, similarly, the husbands of two sisters 
 call each other brother ; while, to confirm the indications thus 
 received, in the Bra-brolung section of the Kurnai, bra meaning 
 husband and wrukut wife, a man and his sister's husband call 
 each other bra, and a woman and her brother's wife call each 
 other wrukut. (The Aborigines of Victoria, vol. ii. p. 328). 
 The terms used between grandparents, &c., and grandchildren, 
 given above, do not carry the suggestion of communal marriage 
 with them ; and this is even less the case with the terms used 
 in the Port Fairy district. These, according to Mr. Dawson, are 
 in a great many cases varied, according as the person addressed 
 is married or single. 1 ] 
 
 NOTE B. 
 
 [MR. MORGAN'S LATEST WORK. 
 
 [In a work published after the appearance of this criticism 
 (Ancient Society, London, 1877) Mr. Morgan made some changes 
 in, and additions to, his reasonings, enlarged his family systems, 
 and remodelled his nomenclature. His first form of the family 
 was now founded upon the " marriage in a group" of men and 
 women of the same blood calling themselves brothers and sisters 
 of " brothers and sisters own and collateral " of all brothers 
 and sisters and cousins of the same grade or generation. This he 
 named the consanguine family. And he made use of -this alone 
 (omitting at this stage the " Hawaiian custom ") in trying to 
 account for the Malayan nomenclature. The Hawaiian custom 
 
 1 Australian Aborigines. By James Dawson. Melbourne. 1881. 
 
APPENDIX. 313 
 
 was, in this work, re-named punaluan marriage (see page 256) ; 
 the definition of the new term was expanded (as in the previous 
 case) so as to admit collateral brothers and collateral sisters (that 
 is, male and female cousins) into the punaluan married groups ; 
 and Mr. Morgan declared punaluan marriage good for explaining, 
 not the Malayan terms, but the Turanian. Their sufficiency to 
 account for the former of these consistently with the nature of 
 descents, " as near as the parentage of children could be known," 
 was now to form the reason for believing in the consanguine 
 family and the group marriage of " brothers " and " sisters " out 
 of which it was said to spring. Its sufficiency in accounting in 
 like manner for the Turanian terms was to prove the prevalence 
 at one time of punaluan marriage the proof of which had, 
 with the former name, been rested upon the help it gave in 
 accounting for the Malayan terms. 
 
 And his view still being that the terms he was dealing with 
 denoted actual relationships "as near as the parentage of 
 children could be known," Mr. Morgan now perceived the diffi- 
 culty it made for his view that there should be in the Malayan 
 system no distinctive term for mother. He suggested that the 
 affiliation of children to the group to which they belonged 
 would be so strong " that the distinction between relationships 
 by blood and by affinity would, not be recognized in every 
 case " (but he should rather have said in any case) and that 
 thus the distinction between a real mother and the many other 
 women known by the same name escaped observation, or, at 
 any rate, left no impression. This, however, is equivalent to 
 saying that, from the nature of the case, note could- not be taken 
 in the consanguine family of the parentage of children in the cases 
 in which it could be known. And it is an abandonment of the 
 hypothesis. 
 
 As to punaluan marriage, the Hawaiian custom of the text 
 expanded as above-mentioned, and the family springing from it, 
 though there was nothing to show that they ever were prevalent 
 among men unless their fitness to account for the Turanian 
 nomenclature, it will be found that, in Ancient Society, Mr. 
 Morgan did not use them in accounting for any one of the 
 Turanian terms. Those Turanian terms which coincide, or 
 partly coincide, with Malayan terms he had already tried to 
 account for by the hypothesis of the consanguine family, and he 
 did this over again ; the others he tried to account for (Ancient 
 Society, pp. 442 445) by means of exogamy alone. His reason- 
 ing was exactly what it would have been had punaluan marriage 
 
314 THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM. 
 
 never occurred to him so that this was, on his own showing, a 
 purely gratuitous assumption. Not only that, it was an em- 
 barrassing assumption. Instead of finding it indispensable for 
 his explanations and so being enabled to justify it, more or 
 less, as a hypothesis he had carefully to keep it out of his 
 reasonings. An obvious difficulty with it was that, on the 
 assumption, there were two forms of the punaluan family (see 
 page 255), and that neither could " as near as the parentage 
 of children could be known," yield him, even with his own 
 reasoning, both the Turanian sense of father and the Turanian 
 sense of mother. In the case in which the husbands were not 
 brothers, Mr. Morgan's reasoning would not account for a father's 
 brothers being called fathers; in the case in which the wives 
 were not sisters, it would not account for a mother's sisters being 
 mothers. The punaluan hypothesis at this critical point was, 
 even in Mr. Morgan's hands, worse than useless for explanation ; 
 and, accordingly, he could not use it for any purpose of explana- 
 tion. He attempted, however, to make it consistent with his 
 system, or not adverse to it, by giving it a farther expansion. 
 .He supposed that the punaluan marriage group included, as a 
 sort of honorary members, all the brothers "own and collateral " 
 of each of the husbands where they were not each other's 
 brothers, and all the sisters " own and collateral " of each of 
 the wives where they were not each other's sisters. That 
 would make it, for the explanation of the terms for father 
 and mother, equivalent to the consanguine family. More than 
 this is needed, motherhood being admittedly recognized when 
 punaluan groups first began to be formed so fully recog- 
 nized that children of the same mother could no longer marry 
 one another. But, at any rate, this involved, and Mr. Morgan 
 saw this clearly, that neither the Turanian nomenclature nor 
 the Malayan had received the impression of the punaluan family, 
 as described by him, or of the Hawaiian custom as he had 
 originally conceived of it. 
 
 Mr. Morgan's consanguine family is, in fact, a tribe or body of 
 kinsfolk, the members of which never made outside marriages, 
 while within there was promiscuity or communal marriage, not 
 between all marriageable men and women, but between all men 
 and women of the same grade or generation. It is indispensable 
 to the hypothesis (as Mr. Morgan points out) that people of 
 different grades should have been kept apart from one another ; 
 so that the hypothesis supposes that, with an extreme of licence 
 up to a certain point, there was combined an unprecedented 
 
APPENDIX. 315 
 
 severity of restriction. The men and women who cohabited so 
 freely were those of about the same age only the older people, 
 the middle-aged, and perhaps even the youngish people, being 
 strictly cut off from the young. With punaluan marriage, ac- 
 cording to the hypothesis, cohabitation was similarly restricted 
 to men and women of the same grade or age. This, in either 
 case, because (a thing not surprising in itself, nor needing any 
 wonderful explanation) the people who use the classificatory 
 system consider age among other things in addressing one 
 another. 
 
 Punaluan marriage, like consanguine marriage, was on the 
 hypothesis, confined to the tribe, as well as to people of about 
 the same age within the tribe. How it could grow up within 
 a consanguine tribe, in which those who were free to marry 
 were all, to begin, " brothers " and " sisters," is a matter left 
 obscure by Mr. Morgan ; nor could he have worked this out 
 without coming upon fatal difficulties. It is needless to remark 
 upon the discrepancy between punaluan customs as described in 
 Ancient Society, and the laxities hinted at (p. 256) by Mr. 
 Morgan's correspondent, Mr. Andrews. 
 
 Mr. Lorimer Fison (Kamilaroi and Kurnai, Melbourne, 
 1880), while not accepting the consanguine family, on which 
 Mr. Morgan's whole system rests, professes himself a believer in 
 punaluan marriage and the punaluan family. But Mr. Fison's 
 hypothesis (as stated in the work above mentioned) is not quite 
 the same as Mr. Morgan's. Mr. Fison's " intermarrying classes," 
 by the way, have sometimes been taken for matter of fact ; but 
 they are a hypothesis only.] 
 
BACHOFENS "DAS MUTTEEKECHT." 
 
BACHOFEN'S "DAS MUTTEKRECHT." 
 
 Das Mutterrecht an inquiry into the gynaikocracy 
 of the ancient world in its connection with religion 
 and law the work of a Swiss jurist, published in 1861, 
 announced to the world, for the first time, the discovery 
 that a system of kinship through females only had 
 everywhere preceded the rise of kinship through males. 1 
 The general exposition prefixed to this great work makes 
 it possible to form a view of the scope of the evidence 
 adduced of this as the true history of kinships, as well as 
 a view of the causes of that history as they appeared to 
 Bachofen. From the work itself, owing to peculiarities 
 in its composition, one might well despair of being able 
 
 1 It was in the spring of 1866 that I first heard of Das Mutter- 
 recht, and then I found that I had been anticipated by Herr 
 Bachofen in this discovery. No two routes, however, could be 
 more widely apart than those by which Bachofen and I had arrived 
 at this conclusion. I was led to it by reasoning on the exigencies 
 of my explanation of the origin of the form of capture. To 
 Bachofen the fact seems to have revealed itself as everywhere 
 underlying the traditions, and especially the mythologies, of anti- 
 quity which his prodigious learning comprehended in all their vast 
 details. 
 
320 BACHOFEN'S " DAS MUTTERRECHT." 
 
 to form any such views ; l and, indeed, even the general 
 exposition referred to is of so mystic a nature that it is 
 difficult to obtain from it distinct propositions. The 
 account of Bachofen's scheme of human progress which 
 follows is wholly founded on that general exposition : 
 
 At first there were no laws regulating the intercourse 
 of the sexes, and human beings lived in a state of 
 hetairism. The women, by nature nobler and more 
 sensitive than the men, were at last disgusted with this 
 life, and under the impulse of a strong religious aspira- 
 tion combined to put an end to hetairism and introduce 
 marriage. They succeeded, and established monogamy, 2 
 but not without an appeal to force. Bachofen compares 
 the Amazonian movements of later days with those by 
 which marriage was first introduced. After referring to 
 the myth of Bellerophon as suggesting an armed rebel- 
 lion of the women of Lycia for the assertion of their 
 rights, he adds : " The importance of Amazonianism, as 
 
 1 Since this paper was printed I have obtained, and read with 
 pleasure, Profesor Giraud-Teulon's La Mere, chez certains Peuples de 
 I'Antiquite, which is founded on Das Mutterrecht itself, of the evi- 
 dence contained in which it bears to be a brief and orderly exposi- 
 tion. The reader who might despair of mastering Bachofen's 
 ponderous German quarto, will find the gist of it in La Mere, in 
 some sixty pages of pleasant reading. 
 
 2 The form of marriage which they introduced is not expressly 
 mentioned by Bachofen, but the whole scope of his exposition shows 
 that he believed it to be monogamy. This is, indeed, what he 
 always means by marriage, a gradual evolution of modes of marriage 
 not being within his contemplation. 
 
BACHOFEN'S "DAS MUTTERREGUTr 321 
 
 opposed to Hetairism, for the elevation of the feminine 
 sex, and through them of mankind, cannot be doubted." 
 It resulted, at once from the spiritual superiority of 
 the women, which gave origin to the progress from 
 hetairism, and the superiority in arms by which they 
 conquered for themselves the benefits of a marriage-law, 
 that in the families founded upon marriage, which grew 
 up after the change, the women and not the men held 
 the first place. They assigned this place to themselves, 
 or had it conceded to them. They were the heads of 
 families ; the children were named after their mothers 
 and not after their fathers ; and all the relationships 
 to which rights of succession attached were traced 
 through women only. Farther, they assigned to them- 
 selves, or had conceded to them, the political as well as 
 the domestic supremacy. 
 
 Even in the stage of hetairism, religion albeit of a 
 low " telluric, chthonic " type exercised a beneficent 
 influence, and was a cause, if not the prime one, of the 
 state of hetairism being departed from. Thereafter, an 
 improviDg religious faith was everywhere the accompani- 
 ment and, in a sense, the cause of the triumph of the 
 women and 'of the improving social condition. On the 
 rise and consolidation of the gynaikocratical power in 
 the Greek area, Aphrodite made way for DemBter and 
 Hera- divinities in some sense, still, " chthonic, telluric," 
 but which, in another sense, were lunar divinities, and 
 in every way superior to their predecessor. [ " Wherever 
 gynaikocracy meets us," says Baehofen, 1 " the mystery 
 
 1 P. XV. 
 
 Y 
 
322 BAG HOPE N'S "DAS MUTTERRECHT." 
 
 
 of the c chthonic ' religion is bound up with it, whether 
 this connects itself with Demeter's name or lends to 
 motherdom an incorporation in some divinity of a 
 similar character." Lastly, religion is represented as 
 fostering the cause of women, chiefly through its mys- 
 teries assigning a divine character, as it were, to 
 motherdom as compared with fatherdom. 
 
 What was gained through religion was destined to 
 be lost through it. The loss came in the Greek area 
 through Dionysos promulgating that fatherdom alone 
 was divine the father the only true parent, the mother 
 a nurse merely. The women at first opposed this new 
 gospel, and fresh Amazonian risings were the common 
 feature of their opposition. But the resistance was 
 ineffectual, and the women, presently becoming converts 
 to the new idea, were, after that, its warmest supporters. 
 Their support cost them less in position than might have 
 been expected, for Bacchanalian excesses, restoring in a 
 measure the ancient hetairism, laid afresh the basis of 
 gynaikocracy. It was before a very different and more 
 modern religious thought that gynaikocracy was destined 
 to disappear. This thought was "the immaterial, 
 spiritual, Appollonic "- " solar" conception of father- 
 dom. It secured what remained of the advantages of 
 Dionysos' previous triumph, and combined it with the 
 fruits of fresh victories never again to be lost. For it 
 was a pure celestial thought that promoted pure prac- 
 tices only, and so was destructive of hetairism, and all 
 that was founded thereon. Fathers now took the first 
 places in the family and the state ; children were named 
 
BACHOFEN'S "DAS MUTTEEEEGIITr 323 
 
 after them ; and all relationships to which rights of 
 succession attached were traced through fathers only : 
 the " motherless " Athene became the symbol of the 
 overthrow of motherdom and of gynaikocracy. Not 
 that the cause of mothers ceased to be the subject of 
 farther conflicts. There was, indeed, a succession of 
 these, between the principles of various creeds, before 
 the fruits of the victory of fatherdom were securely 
 garnered. When the final triumph came, it was de- 
 termined by an influence outside the domain of religion 
 namely, the all-powerful authority of the Eoman 
 jurisprudence. 
 
 Such, in outline, are Bachofen's views, as explained 
 in the introduction to Das Mutterrecht. He often states 
 that he regards religion as a mere expression of the 
 circumstances of a people, but then he always refers to 
 religion as a cause, 1 without telling us what were the 
 circurastanees it represented, and so has failed to put 
 the stages of progress before us in the light of the 
 causes determining them, except in so far as we may 
 take some religion for such a cause. In other respects 
 his methods and results are equally unscientific. 
 
 He saw the fact that kinship was anciently traced 
 through women only, but not why it was the fact. 
 Admitting him to be correct in thinking that women, 
 revolting from hetairism, introduced monogamous 
 marriage, surely it is a pure dream of the imagination 
 
 1 At p. xiii. Baehofen calls religion " the only powerful lever of 
 all civilization." His various views on this subject are, in fact, 
 in no small degree inconsistent with one another. 
 
 Y 2 
 
324 BACHOFEN 1 S " DAS MUTTEREECHTr 
 
 that they effected this by force of arms. Were it 
 true that marriage was, from its beginning, monoga- 
 mous, kinship would certainly (human nature being 
 as it now is) have been traced through fathers, if not 
 indeed through fathers only, from the first. Will any 
 one accept it as genuine history that this consequence 
 of monogamy did not follow at first because the women 
 willed it otherwise ? That, apart from the force of 
 some custom established by a more primitive and earlier 
 marriage system, the children of a man and woman 
 Jiving together as husband and wife should be subject 
 to the mother's authority and not the father's, be named 
 after her and not after the father, be her heirs and not 
 the father's, is simply incredible ; and is surely not 
 rendered credible by the statement that these singulari- 
 ties were the direct consequences of women having been 
 victorious in a war with men. But this is Bachofen's 
 view of the facts. He wholly failed to see that all 
 those signs of superiority on the woman's part were 
 the direct consequences (1) of marriage not being 
 monogamous or such as to permit of certainty of 
 fatherhood ; and (2) of wives not as yet living in 
 their husband's houses, but apart from them, in the 
 houses of their own mothers. It can scarcely be 
 doubted, moreover, that Bachofen has misinterpreted 
 many of the facts bearing on ancient gynaikocracy. 1 
 
 1 Partly it is misinterpretation, partly exaggeration merely, of 
 these facts, which may be charged against Bachofen. Sir John 
 Lubbock appears (Origin of Civilization, p. 92) to dispute the facts 
 altogether, asserting that, " among the lowest races of men," 
 
BACHOFEN'S "DAS MUTTERRECHT." 325 
 
 It remains, however, after all qualifications and de- 
 ductions, that he, before any one else, discovered the 
 fact that a system of kinship through mothers only 
 had anciently everywhere prevailed before the tie of 
 blood between father and child had found a place in 
 systems of relationships. And the honour of that 
 discovery, the importance of which, as affording a new 
 starting-point for all history, cannot be over-estimated, 
 must, without stint or qualification, be assigned to 
 him. 
 
 woman's place is one of abject subjection, and he instances the 
 case of the Australians. But obviously, such an instance tells in 
 no degree against Bachofen, and indeed it shows a misconception of 
 the evidence adduced by him. At present, it is not easy to say 
 what the exact condition of the Australians is ; but it is clear 
 that they have monogamy and polygamy as their forms of marriage, 
 and so that, with them, husbands are the heads of families. No 
 case is producible of woman being ill-treated under a form of 
 marriage which assigns to her the headship of the family. The 
 reader will find an admirable review of the facts in connection with 
 this matter, and with ancient gynaikocracy, in Professor Millar's 
 Origin of Ranks, a work in which Bachofen has almost been antici- 
 pated, and that by a treatment of the facts in every sense strictly 
 scientific. I became acquainted with this work, which has gone 
 out of sight, in 1871, exactly a century after it was published. 
 Mr. Millar was professor of law in Glasgow, a coadjutor of Adam 
 Smith, and friend of David Hume. Adam Smith is said to have 
 suggested to him to write the work I refer to, which every student 
 of history should be acquainted with The Origin of the Distinction 
 of Ranks. Fourth Edition, Edinburgh, 1806 ; First Edition, 1771. 
 
COMMUNAL MAERIAGE.' 
 
COMMUNAL MABBIAGE.' 
 
 THE scheme of social progress propounded by Sir 
 John LuBbock in his Origin of Civilization has, for its 
 starting-point, a system of " communal marriage," which, 
 though different from, reminds us of, Mr. Morgan's 
 " Communal " family. 
 
 Sir John Lubbock (p. 91) uses for convenience, as 
 he says, the term " communal marriage " to mean at 
 least two distinct things, viz., the condition of man 
 socially, (1) When " marriage did not exist " ; and 
 (2) When " all the men and women in a small com- 
 munity were regarded as equally married to one 
 another." "Communal marriage" is thus, in one 
 sense, an equivalent for promiscuity ; while, in another, 
 it denotes the initial stage of a progress which Sir John 
 sketches, and means something very different from pro- 
 miscuity. In the latter sense, it confers " communal 
 rights" (see p. 97) on all the men of a community, and 
 is thus as a species of marriage conferring marital 
 rights on many contrasted with " individual marriage/' 
 which confers such rights on one person only. The two 
 
330 "COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 significations of the phrase are obviously inconsistent 
 with one another, for the state of hetairism knows no 
 " rights" in matters of sex. 1 
 
 The speculation as to the size of the primitive 
 groups, to which the second meaning of communal 
 marriage points, is not developed by Sir John Lubbock. 
 Once he enters on the exposition of his scheme of pro- 
 gress, he neglects the size of the communities and speaks 
 of them as "tribes," which may mean groups of any 
 magnitude. The other qualifying terms in the definition 
 of communal marriage are similarly neglected. The 
 phrase is used to denote " the primitive social condition 
 of man," a condition under which, while it lasted, all 
 the men of a group were " equally " the husbands of 
 every woman in the group, and had, over her, communal 
 rights. 
 
 The history which Sir John Lubbock has to give of 
 marriage is that the communal marriage system at first 
 prevailed universally ; and that the communism was 
 everywhere gradually abridged, and finally, in most 
 quarters, destroyed, by individual marriages between 
 men and their war-captives. " Even under communal 
 marriage," he says, "a warrior who had captured a 
 beautiful girl would claim a peculiar right to her, and, 
 when possible, would set custom at defiance," i.e. appro- 
 priate her to himself as a wife. Were he to appropriate 
 a girl of the group, " he would infringe the rights of 
 
 See p. 91, Origin of Civilization. The references are all to this 
 book, and to the third edition. 
 
SIR J. LUBBOCK'S THEORY. 331 
 
 the whole tribe " ; but he might appropriate a war- 
 captive without infringing those rights, because " the 
 tribe had no right to her." The appropriation of war- 
 captives as wives by individuals, accordingly, in Sir 
 John Lubbock's opinion, instituted (l) monandry, i.e. 
 the marriage of one man to one woman or to several 
 women ; (2) exogamy, since a man could only get 
 a wife to himself from another group ; and (3) the 
 practice of capturing women for wives, since, the state 
 of hostility prevailing, wives could only be obtained 
 from other tribes by capture. 
 
 The evidence offered of the initial stage of this pro- 
 gress is in two branches : (1) what purports to be evidence 
 of the communal marriage system deduced from recorded 
 instances of communism in women; and (2) what pur- 
 ports to be evidence of this system deduced from facts 
 brought forward to show that, on a marriage, compen- 
 sation was given to the men of the husband's group as 
 for an infringement of their rights over the woman. 
 The initial stage being assumed as proved by this 
 evidence, the progress therefrom, through individual 
 marriage founded on capture, bears to be demonstrated 
 by general reasoning. 
 
 But the general reasoning turns on one principle, 
 and the evidence, in its second branch, on another 
 principle. The first principle is that a man might 
 appropriate a war- captive to himself, because over her 
 the tribe had no right ; the other principle is, that the 
 appropriation must be expiated, because it infringed 
 the right of the tribe to the woman. The contradiction 
 
332 " COMMUNAL MARRIAGE" 
 
 between these principles is obviously absolute, and that 
 it exists is beyond dispute. 1 
 
 The evidence adduced of ancient communism in 
 women involves facts so few that we may recite them, 
 noting their value as we go on. 
 
 I. First branch of the evidence of communism in 
 women. 2 
 
 1. Of the population of the Andaman Islands, 
 Belcher states that it is the custom " for the man 
 and woman to remain together till the child is 
 weaned." But this (see Lubbock,- /. c. pp. 74 and 
 133) means "pairing," i.e. monogamous marriage, for 
 
 1 With Sir J. Lubbock, marriage means only monandry, be- 
 ginning with and developed through marriages by capture. If 
 monandrous marriages between persons of the same group have 
 a history apart from such marriages between persons of different 
 groups, Sir John has not written he has not even made allusion 
 to that history. Had he done so, it might be believed that the 
 cases in which expiation for marriage was required were considered 
 by him, although he did not say so, as cases in which the man and 
 woman were of the same group ; and it is clear that the proof of 
 the expiation and its purpose being forthcoming, the ancient com- 
 munal right might be legitimately inferred from such cases. The 
 marriage, in such a case, would infringe the communal right, while 
 a marriage with a war-captive might not. But these are considera- 
 tions which seem not to have in any degree occupied Sir John's 
 attention. At p. 98 he says, " Mr. McLennan's view [of the origin 
 of marriage by capture] throws no light on the remarkable cere- 
 monies of expiation for marriage"; and again (at p. 116), "the 
 explanation I have suggested [of the origin of marriage by capture] 
 derives additional probability from the evidence of a general feeling 
 that marriage was an act for which some compensation was due to 
 those whose rights were invaded." 
 
 2 See Origin of Civilization, pp. 82 90. 
 
THE EVIDENCE FOR IT. 333 
 
 a term which may extend even to four years. It 
 would permit of kinship through fathers. 
 
 2. TJie Bushmen are stated to be without marriage. 
 Here is evidence of communal marriage in the first sense 
 of the term. 
 
 3. The Nairs. The facts are well known. They 
 present one of the best known cases of undoubted 
 polyandry. 
 
 4. The Teehurs. They "live almost indiscrimin- 
 ately, and even when two people are regarded as 
 married, the tie is but nominal." Here marriage of 
 pairs is known ; conjugal fidelity slight. 
 
 5. "China before Fouhi : Greece before Cecrops." The 
 trite tradition that in these countries marriage was un- 
 known till the reigns of Fouhi and Cecrops respectively 
 is thus paraphrased : " In China, communal marriage is 
 stated to have prevailed down to the time of Fouhi, &c." 
 
 6. Marriage did not exist among the Message t88, 
 the Auses, or the Garamantes, or, at one time, in 
 
 7. Queen Charlottes Island. Mr. Poole says that 
 "marriage is altogether unknown." 
 
 8. The Sandivich Islanders. Inference made from 
 the Hawaiian system of relationships that children " be- 
 longed to the group rather than to their parents." I do 
 not clearly understand what this means in its bearing 
 on communism. But my views of the Hawaiian system 
 are before the reader. 
 
 9. The Todas. Offered as evidence of communal 
 marriage. But the Todas give us one of the best 
 
334 "COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 vouched cases of polyandry, presenting both the Nair 
 and the Tibetan types of polyandry. 
 
 10. The Tottiyars of India. A case of " brothers, 
 uncles and nephews, holding their wives in common." 
 
 11. The Galactophagi. Nicolaus (cited from Bach- 
 ofen) says, " They called all old men fathers, young 
 men sons, and those of equal age brothers." But what 
 does this do to prove communal marriage ? And see 
 my examination of Morgan's "conjectural solution." 
 
 12. The Sioux, &c. Here we have a case of poly- 
 gamy the wives being sisters. The case of Jacob 
 might as well have been cited. 
 
 13. (pp. 88 90). Cases of adoption, supposed to 
 have to do with the subject, but, so far as I can see, 
 absolutely unrelated to it. The practice of adoption, 
 indeed, is a proof of the existence of some settled form, 
 not very primitive, of the family. 
 
 Looking back, we see that the cases referred to under 
 Nos. 2, 5, 6 and 7, are cases in which the fact adduced 
 is that marriage was altogether unknown ; under Nos. 
 3 and 9 are cases of unquestionable polyandry ; under 
 Nos. 1, 4, and 12 are cases of the marriage of pairs, or of 
 polygamy, where the consortship is, in No. 1 , not for life, 
 and in No. 4 unaccompanied by strict conjugal fidelity. 
 There remain only Nos. 8 and 11, both of them con- 
 nected with the Malayan form of the classificatory 
 system which, if I am right, implies Nair polyandry, 
 followed by Tibetan, or by monandry ; No. 10, which 
 goes for little; and No. 13, the cases comprised 
 in which seem to have no bearing on the matter 
 
THE EVIDENCE FOR IT. 335 
 
 in hand, and which, indeed, illustrate a settled 
 family system the family presided over by parents 
 united in monogamous marriage. It is surprising to 
 find adoption as practised in Kome cited as part of this 
 evidence. 1 
 
 II. Second Branch of the Evidence of Communism 
 in Women. It is Bachofen who is really responsible 
 for the proof here tendered. His idea is that evidence 
 of the primitive hetairism is afforded by the acts of 
 expiation for marriage (individual marriage, that is), 
 that continued to be performed, on marriage being in- 
 stituted, for the appeasement of the outraged divinity 
 who presided over and cherished hetairism. A marriage 
 was, as it were, a violation of a religious command ; 
 and its exclusiveness could only be atoned for by a 
 period of " choiceless abandonment of herself to all " 
 on the part of the woman. 2 The notion in this form 
 is purely fanciful. The facts connected with the history 
 of religion give no countenance to the supposition that 
 men in the stage of savagery had thought out for them- 
 
 1 That this evidence was adduced if not as proof, at least as 
 justifying the assumption of " communal marriage " in the sense 
 in which it conferred " communal rights," the reader may see, 
 on referring to the summing-up of evidence on p. 90. "Assum- 
 ing, then, that the communal marriage system shown in the pre- 
 ceding pages to prevail, or have prevailed so widely among races in 
 a low stage of civilization, represents the primitive and earliest 
 social condition of man, we come now to consider the various ways in 
 which it may have been broken up, and replaced by individual 
 marriage" 
 
 2 See Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht," p. xix. 
 
336 " COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 selves any divinity of the type of Aphrodite, whom 
 Bachofen chiefly contemplates in connection with 
 hetairism. To this fancy of Bachofen, however, Sir 
 John Lubbock has given a scientific turn by represent- 
 ing the expiation, compensation, or whatever it may be 
 called, as being offered, not to the goddess, but to the 
 tribesmen of the bridegroom. It is they, and they alone, 
 whose rights he supposes the marriage to infringe, and 
 to whom accordingly compensation should be given. 
 
 Now, if we were to find a large number of well- 
 vouched cases in which, on a marriage, extraordinary 
 freedoms with the bride were permitted to the men of 
 the bridegroom's kindred, it might be plausibly main- 
 tained, in the absence of any more satisfactory explan- 
 ation, that such cases furnished a proof of the sort that 
 Sir John was in search of that there was an assertion 
 on the one side and a recognition on the other of an 
 ancient right. But the cases ought to point clearly 
 to this. The privileged persons should be men of the 
 bridegroom's group only ; and the cases should be 
 capable of no simpler explanation than that which refers 
 them to an ancient communal right. 1 Let us see, then, 
 
 1 [There are cases which, in some measure, fulfil the other 
 conditions here spoken of ; but there is in every one of them a 
 simpler explanation. With a single exception, they are cases in 
 which the form of capture occurs ; and there are none which 
 show more clearly the origin of that marriage custom. In actual 
 capture, among the Australians (to take a convenient example), 
 " in any case where the abduction has taken place for the benefit 
 of some one individual, each of the members of the party claims 
 as a right a privilege which the intended husband has no power to 
 
THE EVIDENCE FOR IT. 337 
 
 what are the facts adduced. The evidence is comprised 
 in pp. 116122 and pp. 510-11 of The Origin of 
 Civilization, and is introduced by a general allusion to 
 
 refuse " (The Aborigines of Victoria. By R. Brough-Smith, vol. ii 
 p. 316. Melbourne, 1878). And this is claimed by those persons 
 only who have taken part in the capture ; it is, indeed, a common 
 war-right, exercised whenever, under any circumstances, capture of 
 a woman is made by a war-party ; so that it belongs to those who 
 exercise it in the, case mentioned as captors of the woman and, 
 accordingly, is not claimed by, nor allowed to, any others of the 
 husband's friends or kinsfolk. In the cases referred to, after the 
 bridegroom's party have been allowed to carry off the bride, there 
 is precisely the same custom. Though the carrying off is but a 
 form, they treat her as an Australian party treats a woman when 
 they have carried her off by force for one of their number or, as 
 an Australian party would treat any woman who had fallen into 
 their hands in warfare. With the form of capture occurring in 
 these cases, it seems to be beyond question that this is a tradition 
 from actual capture, that the members of the bridegroom's party 
 (it may be, without any theory about it), have continued to them the 
 right of captors. As in actual capture among the Australians, 
 this is granted only to those who have been brought to carry off 
 the bride ; it is neither granted to, nor claimed by, any others of the 
 bridegroom's kinsfolk or friends. 
 
 The case above alluded to in which the form of capture did not 
 occur is a case in which it could not occur in any of the usual forms. 
 It is that of an Australian people, the Kurnai. The Kurnai (who 
 were exogamous) practised capture ; they had marriage by exchange, 
 with something very like a form of capture (The Aborigines of 
 Victoria, vol. i., p. 84) ; but elopements were also common among 
 them. And in their elopements, when a man and woman had 
 arranged to run away together, the man summoned a party of his 
 friends, as he might have done for a capture, and thereupon the 
 woman was treated as she would have been if the party had helped 
 him in carrying her off. There was no form of carrying her off- 
 the circumstances did not admit of it ; there is that difference 
 
 Z 
 
338 "COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 the facts given by Dulaure, in his chapter on the Wor- 
 ship of Venus, to which Dulaure correctly thinks that 
 these facts belong. Sir John Lubbock says he cannot 
 but think that they " have a different and a deeper 
 signification." 
 
 1. ^Babylonian and Cyprian Custom, reported by 
 Herodotus (Clio, 199). This custom was in Babylonia 
 a feature and outcome of the worship of Mylitta. The 
 freedoms allowed are not said to have been accorded to 
 men of the bridegroom's group, or of the bride's group, 
 but to " strangers." They, moreover, were not accorded 
 on the eve of, or in contemplation of, marriage, or 
 necessarily before marriage rather than after it, but by 
 each woman " once in her life " ; and it is expressly 
 stated that they were accorded " for the satisfaction of 
 the goddess." Herodotus says that a similar custom 
 prevailed in parts of Cyprus. 
 
 between this case and the cases already noticed. But against this 
 must be set the fact that the Kurnai actually practised capture. 
 That considered, the connection of what happened with capture 
 appears to be as unmistakable at least as it is in the other cases. 
 It is, indeed, a form of capture in itself. And there could scarcely 
 be better proof than it affords that a long and systematic practice 
 of abduction preceded the practice of elopement among the Kurnai 
 influencing their wedding customs so deeply that even a willing 
 bride was treated like a captive woman. Here again nothing was 
 allowed to any persons except those whom the men brought to play 
 the part of captors. 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to say that no custom of exogamous 
 peoples, no custom, at any rate, which had its origin in war- 
 capture, can help to sustain Sir J. Lubbock's theory of expiation 
 for marriage, as he has himself stated it.] 
 
THE EVIDENCE FOR IT. 339 
 
 2. Armenian Custom, reported by Strabo. This 
 custom was a feature of the worship of Anaitis a 
 phallic divinity like Mylitta to whom males as well as 
 females were dedicated. The daughters of good families 
 were " consecrated " to this goddess, and often married 
 well after a long period of service in her temple. In 
 this case the women appear to have given themselves to 
 the worshippers of the goddess indiscriminately. 
 
 3. Nasamones, "and other ^Ethiopians ." The^s 
 primce noctis accorded among the Nasamones and 
 Auziles to all the guests at a marriage indiscriminately. 
 There is no indication that the guests were of the 
 kinship of the bridegroom only, and it is not likely 
 that they were. 
 
 4. Carthage ; parts of Greece ; Hindustan. " Du- 
 laure asserts it occurred " in these places it meaning 
 the custom which prevailed at Babylon. 
 
 5. The Lydians. Sir John says: "The account 
 which Herodotus gives of the Lydians, though not so 
 clear, seems to indicate a similar law." 
 
 What Herodotus says is that the daughters of the 
 common people in Lydia were prostitutes before 
 marriage. 
 
 6. The Thracians. Sir John says that their cus- 
 toms, " as described by Herodotus, point to a similar 
 feeling," the feeling, I presume, that compensation was 
 due for marriage. 
 
 Here are their customs (Herod., b.v. 5 and 6). They 
 are polygamous and have suttee ; buy their wives and 
 sell their children (male and female). " On their maidens 
 
 z 2 
 
340 COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 they keep no watch . . . while on their wives they 
 keep a most strict watch/' 
 
 7. Italy. Allusion by St. Augustine to the newly- 
 married performing (harmless) acts recognizing the 
 divinity of Priapus. 
 
 8. Balearic Islands ; the Manias ; Nukahiva. A 
 custom said to prevail similar to that of the Nasamones. 
 
 9. India, in various quarters. Virgins required to 
 permit liberties in the temples. 
 
 10. The Sonthals. Marriages take place once a year. 
 A period of license for six days before among the 
 candidates for matrimony. 
 
 11. Case of profligacy on the part of a woman of 
 the Nando wessies, such as not " once in an age " any of 
 their women was guilty of, though it was in accordance 
 with an old custom. She entertained 40 warriors. It 
 is not said that they belonged to any one tribe, or that 
 the act had relation to her marriage. 
 
 12. A series of instances of lending wives (pp. 118- 
 120). The case of the Tapyrians, referred to by Sir 
 John Lubbock, is not exactly stated. It is not said by 
 Strabo that they were obliged to leave their wives, but 
 that it was their custom "to surrender them, even when 
 they had had two or three children by them, to other 
 men, as Cato surrendered Marcia in our own times, &c." 
 This may mean no more than that it was sometimes 
 done. At any rate, there is no hint that the wives were 
 surrendered only to men of the same tribe as the 
 husbands. 
 
 13. A series of instances of courtesans being either 
 
THE EVIDENCE FOR IT. 341 
 
 highly respected or " by no means despised." Sir John 
 regards the class of courtesans as representatives of the 
 " communal wives " of primitive times. The existence 
 of this class admits of a simpler explanation (pp. 
 120-122). 
 
 Such is the evidence. Nos. 1, 2, 4, 7, and 9 include 
 cases which specifically relate themselves to phallic- 
 worship ; Nos. 3, 8, and 10, cases referring to the "first 
 night," or the days preceding marriage ; Nos. 5 and 6. 
 cases in regard to which the statements made seem not 
 to be supported by the authorities; and Nos. 11, 12, 
 and 13, cases which appear to be without bearing on the 
 matter at issue. Not one case satisfies the indispensable 
 conditions specified ; not one is a case of privileges 
 accorded to the men of the bridegroom's group only, 
 in clear connection with marriage, and incapable of a 
 simpler explanation than that which refers them to an 
 ancient communal right. With reference to the cases of 
 phallic origin more particularly the Indian cases I 
 cannot help observing that they occur among peoples 
 who had advanced far from the primitive state. Indian 
 history carries us thousands of years closer to the com- 
 munal stage, if it ever existed, than we now are ; and, 
 in India, the farther back we go, the less we find of this 
 sort of thing. The germ only of phallic-worship shows 
 itself in the Vedas, and the gross luxuriance of licen- 
 tiousness, of which the cases referred to are examples, is 
 of later growth. The lending of wives, again, is a mere 
 proof that conjugal attachment depends on sentiments 
 which develop but slowly, and which, as the case of 
 
342 " COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 Cato proves, prevail only after monogamy has had a 
 long and uninterrupted history. Of the cases comprised 
 under Nos. 3, 8, and 10, which will make the strongest 
 impression on the reader though they prove nothing, 
 in my opinion, for Bachofen or for Lubbock this is 
 not the place to attempt to offer an explanation. For 
 the present purpose, it is enough to point out that they 
 are not cases of privilege granted to the men of the 
 husband's tribe. In the case of the Nasamones the 
 freedoms allowed were granted to " the guests " present 
 at the nuptial feast ; in the case of the Balearic Islanders, 
 to the " intimates and friends " it is not said whether 
 of the bridegroom, or of the bride, or of both ; and in 
 neither case is it stated whether the nuptial feast was 
 given at the home of the bridegroom or of the bride. 
 In neither case is a reference made to relatives or tribes- 
 men. How entirely unconnected these cases may be, 
 with either the propitiation of a divinity or compensa- 
 tion to the men of a tribe, the reader may see on 
 reference to what Gubernatis has written on similar 
 customs. 1 " fe da notarsi," says Gubernatis, " come 
 nell' antica credenza vedica si supponeva che un demonic 
 nascondesse nella vergine, il quale ne venisse via col 
 sangue"; in support of which he refers to Hymn 85, 
 Book x. of the Rig- Veda. Where such a view prevailed, 
 it is easily conceivable how for a time the post of 
 husband should be ceded, and how the exercise of the 
 jus primce noctis should really be of the nature of a 
 
 1 See titoria comparata degli Usi Nuziali in Italia e presso gli 
 altri popoli Indo-Europei, pp. 197-8. Milan, 1869. 
 
SIR J. LUBBOCK'S THEORY. 343 
 
 ,- 
 
 friendly or neighbourly act. Lastly, I have only to 
 remark of the " communal wives," as Sir John courteously 
 calls them, that if any inference is to be made from 
 their standing in Athens, in the brilliant age of Pericles, 
 as to the state of matters in the primitive groups, proof 
 of primitive communism in women might as well be 
 sought in London or Paris in our own day. Far back 
 in the interval between savagery and the age of Pericles 
 are the heroes of Homer, with their noble wedded 
 wives. 
 
 I have now examined, in both of its branches, the 
 evidence of ancient communism (" communal rights") 
 over women on which Sir John Lubbock founds his 
 speculation, and I submit that it has been proved to 
 be of no value. 
 
 Let us now recur to, and try to choose between, 
 the contradictory principles on which Sir John Lubbock 
 relies in setting up his initial stage on the one hand, 
 and demonstrating the progress therefrom on the other. 
 The question raised is whether " the tribe had no right 
 to a war-captive" so that her captor might easily 
 appropriate her, or whether " the tribe had a right 
 to her," so that he could as easily appropriate a woman 
 of the group as a war-captive. 
 
 This question must be answered by an appeal to 
 the facts relating to the ancient practice of capturing 
 women for wives, regarded in their bearing on the 
 communal rights which, as Sir John asserts, at first 
 everywhere prevailed. Of the practice of capture we 
 know nothing, as regards the great majority of the 
 
344 COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 ancient nations, except what we learn from the form 
 of capture. The practice, then, must be assumed to 
 have been what that form indicates. Now in almost 
 all cases the form of capture is the symbol of a group 
 act of a siege, or a pitched battle, or an invasion of 
 a house by an armed band ; while in a few cases only, 
 and these much disintegrated, it represents a capture 
 by an individual. On the one side are the kindred 
 of the husband ; on the other the kindred of the wife. 
 This is so manifest that it cannot be contradicted ; it 
 appears clearly from the examples of the form adduced 
 in my paper referred to in the Preface to this work, 1 
 which are classed as they represent sieges or battles or 
 armed invasions. It also sufficiently appears from the 
 collection of examples of the form furnished by Sir 
 John Lubbock himself. Moreover, all the cases we 
 have illustrating the practice of capture in its transition 
 to a symbolism, are cases ,of the same sort actual 
 conflicts, in which the woman is the prize of victory 
 and the combatants are on one side the kindred of the 
 man, on the other the kindred of the woman. Such 
 are the cases recorded by Olaus Magnus, and such is 
 the case of the Mirdites, of which Mr. Tozer has recently 
 given an excellent account. Lastly, the facts of actual 
 capture, as they appear both in ancient literature and 
 among existing races, prove the same thing ; the captures 
 usually occur in the course of raids upon enemies made 
 by tribes or their war-parties. Even as capture is 
 
 1 See Appendix to Primitive Marriage. 
 
J. LUBBOCK'S THEORY. 
 
 practised in Australia, the captures are usually made 
 by two or more persons acting in concert. Our con- 
 clusion must be that in the most primitive times, of 
 which, through this symbol, we have a far-off reflection, 
 the capture of women for wives was usually the act 
 of a group or- of a detachment from a group. 
 
 But if women were commonly captured by the men 
 of a group, or parties of them, and there was communism 
 in women, I do not see how an individual who had 
 captured " a beautiful girl " could appropriate her 
 more easily than he could appropriate any beautiful 
 girl of his own group for whom he had a fancy. War- 
 captives being usually obtained by group-acts, or quasi 
 group-acts, capture would be recognized as a regular 
 mode of adding women to the group, subject to the 
 customary rights of its male members ; and there would 
 be no man in the group who had not exercised the 
 communal right over women taken by others. If, in 
 this state of affairs, one were to capture " a beautiful 
 girl," and plead the capture as a reason why he should 
 be permitted to keep her to himself exclusively, he 
 would be met by the answer that he had been used 
 to benefit by captures made by others, and so was 
 bound to allow others to benefit by that which he had 
 made. And I do not see that to this he could reply. 
 The case would go against him in a court of strict 
 justice ; tried by savages in a stage so low as we are 
 asked to believe in possession of "a beautiful girl" 
 turning on the decision it would be heard with im- 
 patience and settled by force. " Men surely would 
 
346 " COMMUNAL MARRIAGE." 
 
 reserve to themselves exclusively their own prizes," 
 says Sir John. They might wish to do so, no doubt, 
 but power is not always proportioned to inclination. 
 It was not Achilles who got Chryseis. 
 
 The correct view, then, seems to be that, granting 
 communism and a practice of capture, the individual 
 captor would have no exclusive right to a war-captive. 
 Our conclusion must be that, even had there been 
 proof of the general prevalence of what Sir John 
 Lubbock has called the communal marriage system, 
 the history he offers of the disruption of that system 
 would have to be rejected. 
 
 Were the practice of capture to give an individual 
 captor a right to exclude the custom 'of the tribe as 
 regards his captive, it would surely give a similar right 
 to several joint captors as regards women taken by 
 them. If, then, it led to individual marriages, it must 
 much more frequently have led to polyandrous arrange- 
 ments. In thinking of these, again, we may be sure 
 that those entitled to have one or two women exclusively 
 to themselves would not forego the benefits of the 
 custom, over all the women in the group, for this right 
 of the same communal type over one or two. And 
 we must ask, would the individual captor be likely to 
 forego those benefits for the exclusive possession of 
 one ? Unless he did so, there could be no commence- 
 ment made of the training of the men in those habits 
 which develop the sentiments that foster monandry. 
 But if he did so, he would in effect be no longer of 
 the group, even did he remain in it with his wife, 
 
Silt J. LUBBOCK'S THEORY. 347 
 
 which it is scarcely conceivable he should do, and his 
 example would accordingly be ineffectual for the group's 
 improvement. 
 
 We have seen that Sir John Lubbock has not only 
 failed to show that the initial stage of his scheme ever 
 existed, but has failed also to make it in any the least 
 degree probable that it ever existed. And we have 
 farther seen that even had he shown that stage to have 
 existed, he has failed to show, by reasoning that will 
 bear examination, how it came to be departed from. 
 "With his explanation of the origin -of monandry fall 
 his explanations of the origin of exogamy, the practice 
 of capture, female infanticide, and all the customs with 
 these connected. 
 
DIVISIONS OF 
 THE ANCIENT IKISH FAMILY. 
 
DIVISIONS OF 
 THE ANCIENT IEISH FAMILY. 
 
 IN his recent work on Early Institutions, Sir Henry 
 Maine draws attention to the singular distribution of 
 certain members of the old Irish family in four divisions. 
 The reciprocal rights of succession of these divisions to 
 each other's property is the subject of a number of 
 regulations contained in the Book of Aicill, and various 
 scattered scraps of information regarding the divisions 
 are to be found elsewhere in the first three volumes of 
 the Senchus MOT. In the preface to the third volume 
 of that work we find the following account of the 
 divisions : " The most remarkable custom described 
 in the Book of Aicill is the fourfold distribution of the 
 family into the ' geilfine/ ' deirbfine/ ' iarfine/ and 
 ' indfine ' divisions. . . . Within the family seventeen 
 members were organized in four divisions, of which the 
 junior class, known as the ' geilfine ' division, consisted 
 of five persons ; the ' deirbfine ' the second in order, 
 the ' iarfine ' the third in order, and the ' indfine ' the 
 
352 THE ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 
 
 ^ senior of all, consisted respectively of four persons. 
 The whole organization consisted, and could only con- 
 sist, of seventeen members. If any person was born 
 into the * geilfine ' division, its eldest member ivas 
 promoted into the ' deirbfine ' ; the eldest member of 
 the ' deirbfine ' passed into the ' iarfine ' ; the eldest 
 member of the ' iarfine ' moved into the ' indfine/ and 
 the eldest member of the ' indfine ' passed out of the 
 organization altogether. It would appear that this 
 transition from a lower to a higher grade took place 
 upon the introduction of a new member into the 
 ' geilfine ' division, and therefore depended upon the 
 introduction of new members, and not upon the death 
 of the seniors." 
 
 This account seems correct, according to all the 
 facts yet disclosed, except that, for " persons/' " men," 
 or " male persons," should have been substituted, and 
 that, perhaps, it should have been stated that the 
 organization might consist of fewer, though it could not 
 include more, than seventeen persons. (Senchus Mor, 
 vol. iii. p. 333.) 
 
 Sir Henry Maine considers this strange arrange- 
 ment to be " a monument of that power of the father 
 which is the first and greatest landmark in the course 
 of legal history." (Early Institutions, p. 216.) Any 
 
 / man of a sept, he thinks, might become a root from 
 which might spring as many of these groups of seven- 
 
 Lteen men as he had sons. " As soon as any one of the 
 sons had four children, a full geilfine sub-group of five 
 persons was formed, but any fresh birth of a male 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 353 
 
 'child to this son, or to any of his male descendants, 
 had the effect of sending up the eldest member of the 
 geilfine sub-group, provided always he lucre not the 
 person from whom it had sprung, into the deirbfine. 
 A succession of such births completed in time the 
 deirbfine division, and went on to form the iarfine 
 and the indfine." (Idem^._2W^) The fifth person 
 in the geilfine sub-group was the father of whom the 
 other sixteen men in the organization were descend- 
 ants, and Sir Henry thinks that this person always 
 j remained in that sub-group, and was its chief " the 
 geilfine chief" or paterfamilias. The geilfine sub- 
 group, consisting of the natural or adoptive sons (or 
 descendants) immediately under the power of the father, 
 was his "hand-family"; the other groups consisted of 
 the emancipated descendants, " diminishing in dignity 
 in proportion to their distance from the group [i.e. the 
 geilfine J, which, according to archaic notions, consti- 
 tutes the true or representative family." (Idem, p. 217.) 
 Whyjtlifi^Jiand-family " should consist of five persons 
 only Sir Henry explains by a reference to Mr. Tylor's 
 views on finger-counting, and to Jive being " a primitive 
 natural maximum number " ; but he offers no explana- 
 /^tion of the fact that the other divisions consisted of 
 S four persons each only, although he seems to have been 
 C impressed by the fact as remarkable, and says (p. 210), 
 " The essential principle of the system seems to me a 
 distribution into fours." 
 
 The accounts we have from ancient writers of the 
 habits and customs of the early Irish would justify a 
 
 A A 
 
354 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 strong belief that they knew nothing of could have 
 known nothing of the patria potestas or a family 
 system at all resembling the Eoman. And the learned 
 editors of the Senchus Mor (vol. ii. p. Iv.) state, as the 
 result of their study of early Irish family law, that no 
 trace of the patria potestas is to be found in that law. 
 " The Irish law," they say, " demands for the mother 
 a position equal to that of the father, and there is no 
 trace of the exercise of that arbitrary power which was 
 wielded by a Eoman father over the members of his 
 family." If, then, Sir Henry Maine had really dis- 
 covered in the fourfold division of the ancient Irish 
 family a proof that the patria potestas was formerly 
 known to the Irish, the fact would be of the highest 
 interest. It would show how little trust we should 
 put in mere impressions drawn from recorded facts, 
 and what a powerful instrument of research compara- 
 tive jurisprudence is, compared with direct historical 
 inquiry by means of records and documents. 
 
 There are, however, overwhelming difficulties in the 
 way of Sir Henry's explanations. Some objections to 
 them, though by no means, in my opinion, the most 
 important, he himself has seen and stated with his usual 
 clearness and candour. 
 
 1. The supposition that the geilfine division con- 
 sisted of a father and four sons, or descendants real or 
 adoptive, and that the father always remained in the 
 division, is contrary to what is expressly stated ; 
 namely, that on any person " being born into the 
 geilfine division [the division being full] its eldest 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 355 
 
 member was promoted into the deirbfine." (Senchus 
 MOT, vol. iii. p. cxl.) * 
 
 2. Emancipation could but account for two divisions 
 at the most the emancipated and the unemancipated. 
 
 The emancipated having once passed out of the 
 power of the father, that power could not again be 
 exercised on them. It must then have been by some 
 other power than that of the father, that the men, 
 supposing them sons of the head of the geilfine division, 
 were grouped outside of the " hand-family," and made 
 to pass on from group to group. Sir Henry has failed 
 to indicate what that power was, or on what rule or 
 principle it was exercised, and of course he has failed to 
 account for there being four divisions. 
 
 3. All the information we have respecting the 
 divisions represents them as existing together as an 
 organization. There is no authority for conceiving that 
 all the members of the deirbfine, iarfine, and indfine 
 divisions were originally members of the geilfine group ; 
 or that a geilfine group could exist except in relation to 
 the three other groups co-existing with it. The only 
 case mentioned in which a man passed from one division 
 
 1 How can the following passage be reconciled with the suppo- 
 sition that the father of four sons or descendants forming, together 
 with him, the geilfine division, was the geilfine chief 1 " That 
 every one who is head or chief of the geilfine tribe be of the people 
 of the tribe ; i.e. he is the head of the tribe before men, i.e. the per- 
 son who is most experienced." (Senchus Mor, vol. ii. pp. 279-81.) 
 If the chief were the progenitor of all the others, how could he fail 
 to be of the people of the tribe ? But by the time this was written, 
 the office of chief had become elective. 
 
 A A 2 
 
356 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 to another occurred when a new man entered the organi- 
 zation of seventeen men, and when, in consequence, a 
 man had to go out of that organization ; so that the 
 organization is assumed as complete already before the 
 commencement of the transference of the seniors from 
 division to division,' and of the senior member of the 
 indfine division "into the community." These are the 
 only cases of transference for which there is authority. 
 
 4. Emancipation would disinherit the emancipated ; 
 but our knowledge of these divisions is mainly derived 
 from the laws of succession to property which connected 
 each of them with all the others. 
 
 .5. It is essential to Sir Henry's explanation that the 
 geilfine division should be at once " the highest and the 
 youngest." (See Early Institutions, p. 216.) It was 
 unquestionably the youngest, as the indfine was the 
 oldest. This is expressly stated, but I can nowhere find 
 it called " the highest." It was certainly, as we shall see, 
 the least-favoured division but one as regards successions, 
 if, indeed, the law can be said to have shown a preference 
 for one division over another. 1 The editors of the Senchus 
 
 1 Sir Henry says (ut supra, p. 216), "the geilfine group is 
 several times stated by the Brehon writers to be at once the highest 
 and the youngest." He gives no reference to passages in which 
 this is stated, and I can only say, as I have said above, that after a 
 careful search I have not found any such passage. As regards 
 successions, he has plainly fallen into a misconception of his au- 
 thorities. At p. 223, in endeavouring to assign the origin of 
 " Borough English," he says " It appears to me that the institu- 
 tion [Borough English] is founded on the same ideas as those which 
 gave a preference [in successions] to the geilfine division of the 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 357 
 
 MOT, as we have seen, speak of the eldest member of the 
 geilfine class as being " promoted " to the deirbfine, and 
 clearly consider the " indfine " as the highest division ; 
 for of the transitions from division to division they 
 speak as, in every case, a " transition from a lower to 
 a higher grade" (Senchus Mor, vol. iii. p. cxl.) 
 
 6. The case is provided for, of the geilfine division 
 becoming extinct and its property being distributed 
 between the other divisions. The extinguishment of 
 the " hand-family," with the " paterfamilias," by death 
 nowise affected the fourfold organization. Other men 
 from the family stepped into the vacant places and 
 formed a new geilfine division, related to the other 
 divisions precisely as its predecessor had been. This 
 clearly appears from the provisions of the code for the 
 simultaneous extinguishment by death of the indfine 
 and geilfine divisions. (Senchus Mor, vol. iii. p. 333.) 
 Their property was to be divided in certain proportions 
 between the iarfine and the deirbfine divisions, but on 
 this condition, that " the whole number of seventeen 
 men should then be forthcoming " ; which is explained 
 to mean that the indfine division and the geilfine 
 division should be instantly filled up anew by fresh 
 men " out of the family if it were numerous enough 
 
 Celtic family." But as clearly appears by the table, p. cxli. vol. 
 iii., Senchus Mor, the deirbfine was the most favoured in successions, 
 the iarfine next, and the geilfine third in order. The law had, 
 indeed, no preference, and that the deirbfine fared so well was due 
 to the fact that property (with trivial exceptions) descended from 
 the higher divisions to the lower, and ascended only when it could 
 go no lower. (See pp. 493-5.) 
 
358 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 for the purpose." If the seventeen men were not forth- 
 coming, there was no partition of the property between 
 the remaining divisions. In that case it went to the 
 nearest of kin. We thus see that the divisions did not 
 contain the family, but were an organization within it 
 composed of certain members of the family, whose 
 places, when a division became extinct, could be filled 
 up by other members of it. The organization need not 
 have been more than temporarily deranged by the ex- 
 tinction of the geilfine group. But if Sir Henry's view 
 were correct, the whole organization should have collapsed 
 on the death of the paterfamilias and all the members of 
 his " hand-family." 
 
 These objections are fatal to Sir Henry Maine's 
 account of the system. He has failed to throw light 
 either on its purposes or its principles. He has made 
 no single feature of it clear in the light of Eoman law, 
 and, after all his ingenious reasonings, has left its main 
 features as mysterious as he found them. 
 
 What then was the real nature of this divisional 
 arrangement ? The fragment in the Book of Aicill 
 which treats of it occurs under the heading " What is 
 the reciprocal right among families ? " Towards the 
 close of the answer to this question there is a passage, 
 apparently of later date than the rest, without bearing 
 on the question discussed, but bearing directly on the 
 constitution of the organization, and the rights, between 
 themselves, of the members of the several "families." 
 This passage, which is very obscure, is undoubtedly 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 359 
 
 our chief authority on the matters it deals with. Sir 
 Henry Maine's view of the divisions turns on an in- 
 terpretation of it which must be put aside as incorrect ; 
 and, so far, the way is clear for a fresh and wholly 
 different interpretation. 
 
 The passage referred to is an instance of the in- 
 corporation in the text of " the opinion of lawyers " 
 on a hypothetical case, which, to judge from other 
 such cases scattered, about in the code, may have been 
 fanciful as well as hypothetical. All the same, it may 
 be possible to gather from it what the lawyers under- 
 stood about this family system. The case is strictly 
 in two parts, which are run into one another, but may 
 be put separately and presented thus : 
 
 1. "If the father is alive and has two sons, and 
 each of these sons has a family of the full number, i.e. 
 four, it is the opinion of the lawyers that the father 
 would claim a man's share in every family of them, 
 and that in this case they form 1 [Irish and literally, 
 there are~] two geilfine divisions." 
 
 2. "And if the property has come from another 
 place, from a family outside, though there should be 
 in the family a son or brother of the person whose 
 property came into it, he [in the opinion of the lawyers] 
 shall not obtain it more than any other man of the 
 family." 
 
 From the first part, which bears upon the genesis 
 
 1 The words " they form " have clearly been adopted in the text 
 on that reading of it which the editors, though not without hesita- 
 tion, have followed equally with Sir Henry Maine. 
 
360 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 of divisional organizations, Sir Henry Maine has inferred 
 that any man of a sept might become the root of as 
 many divisional organizations as he had sons ; that 
 as soon as one of his sons had four children, a geilfine 
 sub-group of five persons was formed, and hence that 
 a geilfine division consisted of a father and four sons. 
 This is the interpretation which must be rejected. How 
 then is the case to be construed ? 
 
 The leading point of the opinion is that " the father 
 would claim a man's share in every family of them" 
 and it is added, as if it were consequential on that 
 view, that " in this case 1 there are two geilfine divisions." 
 What families are referred to ? They cannot be the 
 two geilfine divisions, for the reference is in terms ap- 
 plicable to several families and inapplicable to two ; and 
 is, moreover, followed by a reference to these divisions 
 as if they were distinct from, or only among the num- 
 ber of, the families. For the same reasons the reference 
 cannot be to the two families of the sons, apart from 
 certain members of them forming two geilfine divisions. 
 Remembering that a division is never mentioned 
 except as co- existing with three others in an organiza- 
 tion, may we not infer that if in this case there were 
 two geilfine divisions, there must have been eight 
 divisions in all ? As the divisions are constantly called 
 " families," and are specially so called in the heading 
 to the fragment in which this case occurs, we should 
 then have to conclude that the point of the opinion is 
 
 1 If a father and four sons formed a geilfine division, what room 
 was there for these qualifying words 1 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 361 
 
 tnat in the family of the father there would be formed 
 two divisional organizations, and in all " eight families," 
 in each of which the father would have right to "a 
 man's share " whatever that may mean. 
 
 How does this view consist with the facts of the 
 case ? A turning-point of Sir Henry Maine's interpre- 
 tation is in the words " a family of the full number, 
 i.e. four," which he correctly takes to mean four sons. 
 Now this number is directly related to the number of 
 divisions in a divisional organization, while it can be 
 connected with the number of persons in the geilfine 
 division only by the assumption, which we have seen 
 to be unjustifiable, that the common progenitor of the 
 other members of the organization always remained in 
 that division. The words, " a family of the full number, 
 i.e. four," may have been used then in reference to the 
 number of brothers needed as a basis for the fourfold 
 organization. Let us follow this idea and see to what 
 conclusions it will lead. 
 
 What is contemplated is plainly the formation of 
 divisional organizations within the family as derived 
 from the father. There being two sets of four brothers 
 each among his grandsons, it is clear that bases have 
 been formed, in the opinion of the lawyers, for two such 
 organizations. On the view I am putting, each brother 
 in a set of four, whether he was already himself a 
 father or merely regarded as a possible father, was 
 assumed by them to represent a division or " family " ; 
 the eldest, the indfine ; the next, the iarfine ; the 
 third, the deirbfine ; and the youngest the geilfine. 
 
362 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 Altogether there were thus represented eight divisions 
 or " families " (comprised in two divisional organizations) 
 in each of which the father had right to a man's share. 
 
 "We need not now inquire what kind of property 
 was vested in a division, or how or why it was vested ; 
 but when we ask how the father could have such a 
 right in the several "families," it is plain that the 
 lawyers must have held him to be actually, as common 
 senior to them all, or otherwise constructively, a member 
 of each of the families. Again, the reasoning which 
 would support this view would clearly constitute each 
 of the two sons of the father a member of each of the 
 four families which his sons represented. We are thus 
 led to think that in the opinion of the lawyers there 
 were already, actually or constructively, three men, 
 related as father, son, and grandson, in each of the 
 eight divisions. Assume that this gives us, so far, the 
 true idea of the composition of the divisions, and it 
 may be inferred from the analogies of the case that 
 the fourth man in each division would be a son of the 
 brother who represented it, and the fifth man in the 
 geilfine divisions a grandson of the youngest brother 
 in each set of brothers. We thus arrive at the con- 
 clusion that the divisions formed in the way con- 
 templated by the lawyers would each come to consist 
 of a father, son, grandson, and great-grandson ; and in 
 case of the geilfine division, of a father, son, grandson, 
 great-grandson, and great-great-grandson ! Singular 
 as this result is, it is directly deducible from the first 
 branch of the case pronounced upon by the lawyers, 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 163 
 
 when construed on the assumption that the words " a 
 family of the full number, i.e. four/' have reference to 
 four brothers as presenting a basis for the formation of 
 a divisional organization. 1 
 
 But all the authority there is on the subject goes to 
 show that this singular inference gives a correct descrip- 
 tion of the composition of the divisions. Besides being 
 called " families " they were called " tribes," and the 
 relationship connecting the members of a division was 
 called geilfine tribe relationship. Now what this was is 
 expressly stated. The editors of the second volume of 
 the Senchus MOT expressly say (vol. ii. p. xlvi.) that the 
 geilfine tribe relationship "was that of a father, son, 
 grandson and great-grandson, and grandsons to the fifth 
 generation, and in what was called the reverse line 
 [? any other division] i.e. the brother of the father and 
 his sons to the fifth generation " ; and there is what 
 seems to be a confirmation of this statement at vol. ii. 
 p. 209, where the relations of a chief to the chief 
 " next " to him are discussed. 2 
 
 Sir Henry Maine, indeed, says (Early Institutions, 
 p. 211) : " The Brehon writers speak of its [the geilfine 
 division] consisting of a father, son, grandson, great- 
 
 1 According to my interpretation the father is the most im- 
 portant man in both of the organizations formed within his family. 
 On Sir Henry Maine's view he was outside both, and the only one 
 of the kindred omitted. Of this violence done by himself to the 
 principle of the patria potestas Sir Henry justly remarks (p. 219), 
 that it has no analogy in Roman law. 
 
 2 Mr. W. F. Skene is of opinion that these divisions existed 
 only in the families of the chieftain class. See his edition of 
 Fordun, article on "Tribe Communities." 
 
364 
 
 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 grandson, and great-great-grandson, which is a con- 
 ceivable case of geilfine relationship, though it can 
 scarcely be a common one." If our reading of the 
 passage under consideration is correct, it was, actually 
 or constructively, the only one when the division was 
 full, i.e. when all its possible members were in being ; 
 and this, moreover, enables us to see why a division 
 should be called a " tribe." It consisted of the heads 
 of four or five families, lineally (or quasi-lineally) con- 
 nected, i.e. of a man and three or four others repre- 
 senting the whole group of his descendants to the 
 fourth or fifth generation. 
 
 If we conceive one of the organizations, initiated as 
 in -the case pronounced upon by the lawyers, to be com- 
 pleted (t) through the death of the father and his two 
 sons, leaving a set of four grandsons in their places, each 
 as the oldest member of his division ; and (2) through 
 the filling up of the divisions by the birth of des- 
 cendants to the several grandsons, the following table 
 will then represent the organization : 
 
 Indflne. 
 
 larfine. 
 
 Deirbflne. 
 
 Geilflne. 
 
 
 A! 
 
 ^ 
 
 AS 
 
 A 4 
 
 Fathers and Brothers. 
 
 B, 
 
 B 2 
 
 B 3 
 
 B, 
 
 Sons and First Cousins. 
 
 Oi 
 
 C 2 
 
 o, 
 
 c, 
 
 Grandsons and Second 
 Cousins. 
 
 Di 
 
 D 2 
 
 D 3 
 
 I>4 
 
 Great-Grandsons and 
 Third Cousins. 
 
 
 
 
 E, 
 
 Great-Great-Grandson. 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 365 
 
 The seniors of the divisions are A 19 A 2 , &c., the 
 brothers who constituted the "family of the full 
 number, i.e. four " ; and the other men in the divisions 
 along with them respectively, are their first-born sons, 
 grandsons, &c. : A x is the eldest of the four brothers, 
 A 2 the next eldest, and A 4 is the youngest. The 
 following features of the system now become 
 intelligible : 
 
 1. It is at once obvious why it is said "the geilfine 
 division is the youngest and the indfine division is the 
 oldest." 
 
 2. We can see a reason why, as a rule, there should 
 be four men only in a division, and why there should be 
 a fifth man in the geilfine division. 
 
 The age of marriage among the ancient Irish was 
 seventeen years the age for finishing fosterage. Thus 
 AX would be at least fifty-four years old before his great- 
 grandson D l would be born ; and he would be between 
 eighty and ninety years old before E 4 could have a son, 
 which would be the signal to A x to " go out into the 
 community." As a rule, then, there could be only four 
 generations of men in existence at a time, and re- 
 presented in the divisions. 
 
 The fifth man or rather boy in the geilfine divi- 
 sion must have been added to postpone the going out 
 "into the community" of the senior of the indfine. 
 When he went out, he became, as we shall see, a 
 pensioner on his division, and were he to go out when 
 E 4 was born, he might be a charge on that division for a 
 term of years. Before E 4 could have a son, however, 
 
366 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 A! would be a very old man. Indeed, the " going out " 
 must have been rare. The law, however, provided for 
 it, as it did for the divisions not being full, and even for 
 their becoming extinct. Whatever the purposes of the 
 organization were, the existence of the whole number of 
 the seventeen men was not essential to them, and in the 
 eye of the law a division existed so long as there was 
 one man in it. (Senchus Mor, vol. iii. p. 333.) 
 
 3. So far as the organization was an artificial institu- 
 tion, it may have been a sufficient reason for limiting 
 the number of divisions to four, that there were four 
 men only in a division. More probably the reason was 
 that four was, on the average, the full number of sons 
 in a family. 
 
 4. We have a clue to " the self-acting principle," as 
 Sir Henry Maine aptly calls it, according to which the 
 eldest member of each division passed into the next on 
 a new man " coming up " into the geiJfine division. 
 Among the Irish the next brother, or other nearest 
 male agnate next in seniority to a deceased chief, 
 succeeded to the chieftaincy in preference to a son. 
 We can therefore understand how they should provide 
 for the succession of brother to brother, in order of 
 seniority, in the headship of divisions, and, failing 
 brothers, for the succession of cousin to cousin (of the 
 same class) in order of seniority. It accords with this 
 succession law that when AI " went out," A 2 should 
 succeed to him as head of the indfine division ; that 
 A 3 should succeed A 2 as head of the iarfine, and A 4 
 succeed A 3 as head of the deirbfine. But we saw that 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 367 
 
 before A! went out he would be very old. Before 
 another "going out" could occur through the birth 
 of a grandson to E 4 , the brothers A x &c., would certainly 
 be all dead, and the first cousins B! &c., would be the 
 heads of divisions. It would next be B/s turn to go 
 out, and he would be succeeded in the headship of the 
 indfine division by B 2 as the cousin next in seniority ; 
 and B 2 being succeeded by B 3 and B 3 by B 4 all the 
 seniors would be promoted as before. By the fourth 
 occurrence of such an occasion it would be D/s turn 
 to go out ; if, indeed, before then the organization had 
 not collapsed through the extinction of divisions and 
 the want of men to re-form them. 
 
 The second branch of the case pronounced upon by 
 the lawyers (see ante, p. 359) is more easily construed 
 than the first. It points out that the men of a division 
 shared equally the divisional property, whencesoever 
 it came ; that the common law of succession, by which 
 a man might have the whole of any property coming 
 to him from his father or brother, was overridden by 
 this law of the organization. It thus is indicative of 
 the organization operating a departure from ordinary 
 succession law, and we shall see reason for believing 
 that it was primarily a device designed to have such 
 an effect. 
 
 The somewhat enigmatical terms in which this 
 branch of the case and opinion is couched present little 
 difficulty in the light cast on them by the interpretation 
 of the first branch which I have suggested. If it be 
 
368 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 asked, for example, how could a member of one of the 
 " families " have a father or brother in another, we see 
 that that would happen were A 2 to become head of the 
 indfine, for there would then be in the iarfine his 
 brother A 3 and his son B 2 . Were A 2 to be thereafter 
 the last survivor of the indfine, three-fourths of his 
 property would come to the iarfine division, and then, 
 according to the opinion, his son B 2 would get but " a 
 man's share " of it, and no more. Again, on the view 
 that the words " from another place, from a family 
 outside," point to a family outside the organization, 
 observe that there is but one son of any father in a 
 division. If A l had a fifth brother, younger than A 4 , 
 and that brother were to die, ]eaving property, and 
 without a son, his estate would fall to his brothers, 
 and a share of it to each of the divisions ; and, in that 
 case, the opinion of the lawyers says that the brothers 
 would have to share their shares of it with their co- 
 divisioners. On the same view, the case of a man 
 within the organization having property left to him 
 by a father outside of it would have to be regarded as 
 a case of adoption into the organization. 
 
 It must be felt that our interpretation of this lead- 
 ing passage in the Book of Aicill still leaves this family 
 arrangement mysterious and unintelligible. Grant that 
 we have now a correct conception of the composition of 
 a division, of the self-acting principle that promoted the 
 seniors, of the reason for there being four men in each 
 of three of the divisions, and a fifth man in the fourth, 
 the questions remain, Why were such organizations 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 369 
 
 formed at all? What were their functions? Were 
 they really formed within the family as composed of 
 the descendants of a surviving ancestor, and if not, 
 within what species of family were they formed ? l 
 
 Let us see whether we cannot obtain answers to 
 some of these questions. 
 
 That the divisional organization was one of the 
 divisions of the Fine, or Sept, 2 appears from a curious 
 passage in the Book of Aicill (vol. iii. p. 489), which 
 discusses the question from whom a forced exaction, 
 as in payment of a penalty or fine, might lawfully be 
 levied. Here the " seventeen men" are several times 
 "referred to as specially liable to such an exaction if 
 levied on account of the crime of any man connected 
 with them, in terms which seem to imply that every 
 tribesman had, necessarily, a connection with a divisional 
 organization which was liable for his defaults. In one 
 place, the text, which as it stands reads as nonsense, 
 must have been intended to indicate that the distant 
 relatives of the criminal were liable for him only when 
 the divisional organization was incomplete, or had 
 collapsed a reading which is confirmed by the text : 
 " The four nearest tribes bear the crimes of each 
 kinsman of their stock : geilfine and deirbfine, iarfine 
 
 1 It is obvious that in the Irish code the words " family " and 
 " tribe " have the most various significations, whether the confusion 
 be due to the text or to the translators. 
 
 2 I agree with Sir Henry Maine in regarding the Fine as the 
 whole clan, or tribe of descent, holding together and deriving their 
 descent from a common progenitor, known, or believed, to have 
 existed in the remote past, 
 
 B B 
 
370 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 and indfine." (Senchus Mor, vol. i. p. 261.) Here 
 the connection is disclosed between a tribesman, him- 
 self not the member of a divisional organization, and 
 the organization responsible for him. It is sameness 
 of stock. As the seventeen men were all of one stock, 
 being brothers or brothers' descendants, the question 
 arises, Who were with them within the bond of a 
 recognized consanguinity ? If we can answer this 
 question, we can define the sub-group of the Fine 
 which a divisional organization specially represented. 
 The editors of the second volume of the Senchus 
 Mor remark (p. xlvi.) that the system of fosterage 
 appears to have been connected with the " geilfine " tribe 
 relationship. "It is mentioned, 7 ' they say, " that the 
 relations who were within this degree were those who 
 received the children in fosterage." It plainly appears 
 from this that " geilfine " tribe relationship which we 
 saw was defined as in the direct and in what was called 
 the reverse line was a general term for the relationship 
 of the men in the organization ; and in this, if not in 
 a more extended sense, we find the term used in the 
 Corns Bescna (vol. iii. p. 41), where "ten sons" not 
 necessarily sons of the same parents are spoken of 
 as being in "the geilfine relationship," the limiting 
 term "tribe" being omitted. We may be sure that 
 fostering did not take place between families that were 
 in the direct lines of this relationship ; the families 
 would belong to different generations, and be unable 
 to render fostering services to one another. It took 
 place, then, between families in different lines. But if 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 371 
 
 it were limited to the families represented by the 
 seventeen men, no one beyond a third cousin could 
 be required to foster a child. All the evidence we 
 have goes to show that fostering had a wider range 
 than this; and in the Senchus MOT (vol. ii. p. 285), 
 we find that the limits within which fostering might 
 take place are declared to be the same as the limits of 
 recognized consanguinity. " By consanguinity, i.e. the 
 person who is so near him of his tribe as to foster the 
 children which descend from him, if he should require 
 it." We have thus an inference that geilfine relation- 
 ship, in its broadest sense, was co- extensive with re- 
 cognized consanguinity, and hence that the " geilfine 
 tribe" was a term of double meaning in one sense 
 denoting the youngest division of a divisional organi- 
 zation, in another, denoting the whole group of persons 
 connected with such an organization, and who, in a 
 special sense, acknowledged themselves to be kindred. 
 The latter group was, I believe, the true "geilfine 
 tribe," over which presided the geilfine chief a person 
 always of much importance, and who might even be 
 the king of a territory. 
 
 Recurring to the hypothetical case of the lawyers, 
 and assuming the two organizations which, according 
 to the lawyers, would be formed among the descend- 
 ants of the father, to have been completed as already 
 described (ante, p. 359) after the death of the father 
 and his two sons, we see that kinship must have been 
 recognized as far at least as sixth cousins and the eighth 
 
 B B 2 
 
372 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 descent from the father or common ancestor ; 1 for the 
 sons of the youngest members of the geilfine divisions, 
 whose birth, while the organizations still existed, is 
 contemplated, would be sixth cousins, and necessarily, 
 as connected with the organizations, within the limits 
 of the recognized consanguinity. Whether the lawyers 
 were right or wrong in the opinion that there would, in 
 the case supposed, be two geilfine divisions, this conclu- 
 sion may be legitimately drawn from their opinion. The 
 same conclusion is even more unequivocally indicated 
 by the fact that the old Irish named their relatives, as 
 far at least as sixth cousins, in the third collateral line. 
 (Morgan, Systems of Consanguinity, &c., p. 45.) It 
 seems certain, then, that all the descendants of a 
 common ancestor to the eighth descent, holding together 
 
 on the same lands, were counted of one stock to be 
 
 > 
 
 in a special sense, kindred. But the conclusion cannot, 
 I think, be avoided that all connected with a common 
 ancestor within nine descents were, in such a sense, 
 kindred. The geilfine divisions connecting men of five 
 generations, a man counting above him four generations 
 of ancestors, would almost necessarily count below him 
 four of descendants ; so that his own generation counting 
 as one, there would be nine generations of relatives 
 whom a man would think of as his kindred. This 
 view, if it be adopted, presents the Irish " kindred " 
 as corresponding in all respects with the Welsh. 
 
 The terms in which the excellent editors of the third 
 volume of the Senchus Mor state the old Irish law as 
 1 See Manu, chap. iii. v. 146. 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 373 
 
 to fines and compensations are word for word applicable 
 as a general statement of the old Welsh law. "The 
 compensation and honour-price," they say (p. cxv.), 
 "awarded in respect of any injury, were primarily 
 payable by the wrong-doer, and received by the person 
 injured ; but there existed a solidarite between persons 
 standing in certain relations to each other, whereby 
 parties [the family or kindred] strangers to the trans- 
 action might be required to pay, or entitled to receive, 
 a portion of the award." Who the " kindred " of any 
 criminal or injured person were in the Irish case, they 
 think unascertainable. Who they were in the Welsh 
 case, we know ; and it will be more readily credible 
 that the limits of consanguinity recognized in Ireland 
 were truly those we have mentioned, if it be found 
 that those were the limits recognized among the Celts 
 of Wales. 
 
 The question, who were counted to be of the same 
 stock with a criminal or injured person according to 
 old Welsh law ? is discussed in the Ancient Laws, dc., 
 of Wales (vol. ii. p. 21), where the matter is introduced 
 as follows : " Torwaith, the son of Madog, says that the 
 right meaning of inquiry as to a stock is this namely, 
 when a relative is a refuser to the murderer of his share 
 of the galanas [corresponding to the Irish Eric], and 
 asking ' Whence the stock I am related to thee ? ' 
 Then it is necessary for the murderer to explain to 
 him the stock from which he is derived, and his con- 
 sanguinity." Here "stock" is equivalent to "common 
 ancestor," as may be seen in the plaints of kin and 
 
374 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 descent (idem, p. 45), where the common ancestor is 
 called "the holding stock." How far removed this 
 ancestor might be appears (idem, p. 569) from the 
 text, which says : " The parentage of a man includes 
 his father, his grandfather, and his great-grandfather, 
 and thence unto the ninth degree and descent they are 
 called 'gerni' i.e. relatives." This is confirmed by 
 passages too numerous to be cited. " The chief of 
 kindred " is, for instance, described as " the oldest 
 efficient man in the kindred to the ninth descent" 
 (idem, p. 517) ; a description recalling that of the 
 geilfine chief given in the Senchus Mor, " that every 
 one who is head or chief of the ' geilfine ' tribe be of 
 the people of the tribe the person who is most ex- 
 perienced" (Senchus Mor, vol. ii. p. 281). But while, 
 in Wales, the kindred thus comprised all descendants 
 of a man to the ninth descent, it is noticeable that the 
 only example given of the details of a "dispersed ga- 
 lanas " represents the levy, in payment of the galanas, as 
 assessed on the kinsmen rateably as far as sixth cousins 
 only (Ancient Laws, &c., of Wales, vol. ii. p. 21); 
 which would indicate a common ancestor in the eighth 
 generation. Sixth cousins were, of course, as entering 
 the divisional organizations, in Ireland assessed for fines 
 on account of kinsmen of their stock. The Irish and 
 Welsh cases are thus at all points parallel, even to 
 the doubt, in both cases, as to seventh cousins, in the 
 ninth descent, being, for practical purposes, within the 
 kindred. 
 
 In Wales, the " kindreds," with their chiefs, appear 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 375 
 
 everywhere as the constituent units of the population. 
 They were assessed to pay fines for their kinsmen's 
 crimes, and they shared the compensations paid for 
 injuries to their kinsmen, as we know the Irish kindred 
 did. It appears to me that we must believe that the 
 " geilfine tribe," as an extended group, including 
 divisional organizations, answered in every respect to 
 the "kindred" of the Welsh ; and its chief the geilfine 
 chief to the " chief of kindred " among the Welsh. 
 
 It is obvious that within the same Fine, or Sept, 
 all the men of which derived a real or supposed descent 
 from a very remote ancestor, there might be several 
 " kindreds," or " geilfine " tribes, with common ancestors 
 no farther removed than the ninth [or eighth] genera- 
 tion. There might be as many divisional organizations, 
 then, at the least within the Fine, as there were such 
 kindreds. The hypothetical case, so often referred to, 
 indicates that there might be more than one such 
 organization within a kindred ; and assuming that there 
 might, we see a meaning in the word nearest in the text 
 which says that the four nearest tribes bear the crimes 
 of all the kinsmen of their stock. In the kindred de- 
 rived from the father mentioned in the hypothetical 
 case, the descendants of each son of the father would 
 be those for which the organization formed in his family 
 would be specially liable. In one place, however, there 
 is a distinction drawn between a middle kinsman and a 
 kinsman in general, which shows that this meaning of 
 the word, nearest, is doubtful. Kinship, in its widest 
 sense, was co-extensive with the Fine ; middle kinship 
 
376 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 was that of the geilfme tribe or the kindred, and the 
 "middle kinsman" was the man for whom "the 
 seventeen" were liable. (Senchus Mor, vol. i. pp. 259 
 and 273.) At any rate, we have the conclusion that, 
 within a Fine, there might be at least as many divi- 
 sional organizations as there were " kindreds" or geilfme 
 tribes. 
 
 The difficulties of levying on the Fine an assessment 
 for the crime of a kinsman in general would be very 
 great, if not insuperable ; and there would be an obvious 
 convenience in arrangements for replacing the ancient 
 tribal liability by that of kindreds, and even in im- 
 posing, within a kindred, the liability on a small assort- 
 ment of families, which bore it in respect of their 
 possessing property specially liable for it, such as the 
 ancestral lands. But it can hardly be believed that 
 divisional organizations were designed primarily, or 
 solely, to bear the crimes, of kinsmen. It is much more 
 probable that the organization was (primarily) a device 
 for regulating the possession of, and succession to, the 
 property itself ; and this view is indeed forced on us by 
 the case pronounced upon by the lawyers, which one 
 can hardly read without perceiving that the commence- 
 ment of an organization must have been accompanied 
 by a sharing of property. Mr. W. F. Skene, with an 
 instinct for the truth in that field of ancient history 
 which he has most studied, seems to me to have come 
 near the mark when he says, in the four lines he has 
 published on this subject, that these organizations were 
 designed to regulate the succession of the Flaith, or 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 377 
 
 chieftain class, to their orba, or inheritance lands. 1 The 
 numerous texts which indicate that all the Septmen, and 
 not merely those of the chieftain grades, had their place 
 in " kindreds," or " geilfine tribes," represented by divi- 
 sional organizations, make it impossible to believe that 
 these organizations were known only to the Flaith, and 
 affected only succession to landed estates. But it may 
 well have been that such organizations had their origin 
 among the Flaith, and had reference, at first, to the 
 succession to landed estate only. It is not difficult to 
 imagine that arrangements of such obvious convenience, 
 as defining and limiting the liabilities of kinsmen for 
 one another, if once successfully established among the 
 superior classes, would, in time, be imitated by the in- 
 ferior ; and the peculiar settlement of property, worked 
 through a divisional organization, as may easily be seen, 
 is nowise, in its nature, inapplicable to movable estate. 
 Thus much at least is certain, that the most striking 
 effect, if not the primary purpose, of a divisional or- 
 ganization, was the regulation of succession to property. 
 
 The rights of succession established between the 
 divisions were as follows : 
 
 (1.) No such right opened to the property of any 
 
 1 Mr. Skene has stated no grounds for this opinion, and I am 
 unaware of his views of the composition of the divisions themselves. 
 When he wrote, the third volume of the Senchus Mor had not yet 
 appeared : he was ignorant that there were four divisions, and mis- 
 took the indfine for the commonalty of the tribe. What he says is, 
 " The law which regulated the succession of the Flaith to their own 
 orba is somewhat intricate and obscure, and for this purpose they 
 were grouped in three classes, called the geilfine, deirbfine, and 
 iarfine." (See Fordun, article on " Tribe Communities.") 
 
378 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 division so long as any member of it lived. " All the 
 ' indfine ' division became extinct in this case ; but if 
 any one of them had been in existence, he would take it 
 [the property] when the other three divisions should not 
 share it between them" (vol. iii. p. 333). 
 
 (2.) When a division became extinct through the 
 death of all its members, its property was divided into 
 sixteen parts. If it was the " indfine " that became 
 extinct, 12 parts went to the iarfine, 3 to the deirbfine, 
 and 1 to the geilfine. If it was the " iarfine," 12 parts 
 went to the deirbfine, 3 to the geilfine, and 1 to the 
 indfine. If it was the "deirbfine," 12 parts went to the 
 geilfine, 3 to the iarfine (next nearest ascending), and 1 
 to the indfine. If it was the " geilfine," 12 parts went 
 to the deirbfine, 3 to the iarfine, and 1 to the indfine. 
 Thus, as regards succession, the " deirbfine " was the 
 favoured tribe if any can be said to have been 
 favoured. It got 12 parts in two cases and 3 in one. 
 The "iarfine " was the next most favoured, for it got 12 
 parts in one case and 3 in two cases ; the " geilfine " 
 the next, getting 12 in one case, 3 in one case, and 1 in 
 one case. The " indfine," least favoured, got only one 
 share in each of three cases. 
 
 The law farther contemplated the simultaneous ex- 
 tinction of two divisions, and divided their property 
 between the other two on the same principles. On the 
 failure of the geilfine and deirbfine divisions, three- 
 fourths of their property passed to the iarfine, and one- 
 fourth to the indfine ; on the failure of the indfine 
 and iarfine, three-fourths of their property passed to 
 
*+ 
 
 ANCIENT IEISH FAMILY. N$7 ' 
 
 in.,, -< 
 
 the deirbfine, and one-fourth to the geilfine ; on the 
 failure of the deirbfine and iarfine, three-fourths 
 of their property passed to the geilfine, and one- 
 fourth to the indfine ; on the failure of the geilfine 
 and indfine, three-fourths of the property of the 
 geilfine passed to the deirbfine, and one-fourth to 
 the iarfine, while of the property of the " indfine " 
 three-fourths passed to the iarfine, and one-fourth 
 to the deirbfine. For two possible cases of two divi- 
 sions becoming extinct together there was no pro- 
 vision made the cases apparently not having been 
 thought out. In none of the cases of two divisions 
 failing did the distribution, according to this law, take 
 place unless there were forthcoming men of the family 
 to complete the organization. If that condition could not 
 be complied with, the property went to the next of kin. 
 
 How the property of a division was apportioned 
 between its members we are not informed ; but I have 
 inferred, from the hypothetical case, that it was shared 
 equally among the members of the division, which shows 
 again that the geilfine was the least desirable division 
 to be in. The common senior, on his going out " into 
 the community," left behind him his share (see Senchus 
 MOT, vol. ii. pp. 283-287), and when a man died, his share 
 must have been equally divided among the survivors. 
 
 The most simple way of regarding the rules estab- 
 lished for the fourfold organization, in order to see how 
 they operated as a succession law, is to conceive the 
 organization to be started by four brothers, A 1? A 2 , &c. 
 (see table, ante, p. 364), on the death of their father, 
 
380 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 leaving to them ancestral lands, which had come to him 
 as next of kin, and which, at common law, they were 
 entitled to divide equally between them. Thus regarded, 
 the arrangement operated, in the first instance, as a 
 settlement of the respective shares of the brothers on 
 their heirs of line, the survivors or survivor of them, as 
 far as great-grandsons. When a son B! appeared, A x 
 shared the division lands with him ; when a grandson 
 appeared, they were shared again between the father, 
 son, and grandson ; and they were finally redistributed 
 on the appearance of a great-grandson. After that, 
 there were redivisions as the men in turn died, till, they 
 being all dead, the land was shared, in the proportions 
 specified, between the remaining divisions. The chief 
 peculiarities of the system, it will be seen, are (l) that 
 it stopped succession in the direct line, except in the 
 geilfine division, at great-grandsons ; (2) that the prin- 
 ciple of primogeniture appears in the formation of the 
 groups of co-inheritors and parceners ; and (3) that a 
 life-tenancy only was given to any heir. To compre- 
 hend the working of the system, we must think of the 
 four brothers as having had one or more brothers who 
 shared with them the lands on the death of their father, 
 but remained outside the organization. These, I conceive, 
 were the men of the family who, with their descendants, 
 or whose descendants, if they were dead, might, on the 
 extinction of one or more divisions, enter the organiza- 
 tion by forming new divisions. If the indfine, for 
 example, became extinct, the iarfine would become the 
 indfine in the re-formed organization, the deirbfine the 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 381 
 
 iarfine, the geilfine, dropping the fifth man, would be- 
 come the deirbfine, and the next eldest brother to A 4 , 
 with his descendants, would become the new geilfine 
 division. The new division would enter with a share 
 of the ancestral lands equal to that possessed by the 
 others, except so far as the others had their shares in- 
 creased by the distribution between them of the lands 
 of the indfine. And thus the organization would con- 
 tinue, confining the lands to great-grandsons, till it 
 collapsed through the extinction of two of the lines 
 and the failure of men of the family to re-form it. 
 The succession law acting no longer, the lands of the 
 extinct groups would then go to the next of kin, and 
 be subject to the common law of succession, whatever 
 that was, till the lands were again re-settled by the 
 formation of a divisional organization. 
 
 It will diminish the surprise one may naturally feel 
 in considering such an arrangement as this,' to remember 
 that, by the common law of the Irish tribes, the land 
 which made up the Tuath, or possession of a tribe, 
 consisted of two distinct allotments, the fechtfine, or 
 tribe land, and the orba, or inheritance land. The 
 fechtfine land, when arable, was distributed at stated 
 intervals among the ceile, or free members of the tribe, 
 a redistribution taking place as fresh claimants for a 
 share appeared ; and when pasture, was pastured in 
 common. (See Skene, Fordun, vol. ii. p. 444.) The 
 orbcij or inheritance land, belonged as individual property 
 to the men of the chieftain grades, and most probably 
 came to exist as such, solely through being continually 
 
382 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 reserved to particular families in the periodical distri- 
 butions of the tribal lands. It would follow, from such 
 reservations having been often made, that the families 
 in whose favour they were made whose chiefs, indeed, 
 made them should come to regard the reserved lands 
 as their special family property. On the first rise of 
 such property, they would be without rules for regulating 
 the succession to it, would be put to contriving such 
 rules, and would almost certainly import into the rules 
 they devised the principle of sharing to which they had 
 been habituated in regard to the community lands the 
 fechtfine. Thus the share of the land coming to A l 
 came to be shared by him with his first-born son, 
 grandson, &c., to the fourth generation. When on the 
 death of the co-tenants in tail, so to speak, it left his 
 family, it was shared with his brothers and their sons, 
 grandsons, &c. 3 the bulk of it going to his next younger 
 brother's family. The portion going to any family was 
 again shared among the members of that fami]y. That 
 the brothers of B 1? or his sons other than C 1? should 
 have no interest, or right of succession, in the lands, 
 should not surprise us who are accustomed to entails 
 and primogeniture. These men were at least better 
 off than younger brothers among ourselves, for, as free 
 men, they would be entitled to their shares of the 
 fechtfine. 
 
 The Welsh laws of succession to ancestral lands (tir 
 gwelyawg) ignored any right of primogeniture, as, in- 
 deed, we must believe the Irish common law did the 
 divisional succession law being strictly of the nature of 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 383 
 
 a settlement. When a uchelwr died, his hereditary land 
 was divided equally among his sons ; on the death of 
 the sons it was divided equally among the grandsons 
 (first cousins) ; on the death of the grandsons it was 
 divided equally among the great-grandsons (second 
 cousins). On the death of the great-grandsons, how- 
 ever, there was no division among the great-great- 
 grandsons (third cousins), but each family of them took 
 between them the share that, under the last division 
 (that between the great-grandsons), had fallen to their 
 father. (Ancient Laws, &c.> vol. i. p. 169.) The co- 
 inheritors were thus, to the fourth generation from the 
 man who left the lands, sharers on a principle which 
 applied no farther. Here the equal sharing between the 
 sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons of the common 
 ancestor, and the limit set to it, exhibit brothers and 
 their sons and grandsons as groups of co-inheritors, 
 according to a law which was as powerfully, though 
 differently, affected by the principle of sharing applicable 
 to the tribe land (tyr cyvriv), as the Irish divisional law 
 itself. 
 
 But more curious and interesting, as bearing on the 
 Irish divisional law, were the rules of succession to 
 ancestral land in Western India. On the death of an 
 owner of ancestral estate, his sons divided the land 
 between them equally. When the sons died, the 
 grandsons did not divide the land again between them 
 equally, as in Wales ; the grandsons in any family 
 shared between them the share that in the first division 
 had fallen to their father. But the peculiar feature of 
 
384 DIVISIONS OF THE 
 
 the law was, that succession, according to some authori- 
 ties, stopped at grandsons. The great-grandsons were 
 not heirs at all to their fathers' shares of the ancestral 
 lands, so that when a grandson of the original owner 
 died, the land he had inherited went not to his own 
 sons, but to the sons or grandsons of the brothers of the 
 original owner. In default of persons entitled to inherit 
 in the families of these brothers, it went to persons 
 entitled to inherit in the second collateral line, and so 
 on. According to other authorities, especially the author 
 of the Vivada Chintamani and the author of the Mitak- 
 shara, this peculiar stoppage of the right of lineal suc- 
 cession took place not on the death of grandsons, but of 
 great-grandsons. (Vivada Chintamani, Calcutta, 1863. 
 Table of succession prefixed, and see pp. 237, ff.) On 
 the latter view, this old Indian law arrested the right of 
 succession lineally at the very point at which the Irish 
 divisional law arrested it ; and, so far as it provided 
 that the lands should, on the death of a great-grandson, 
 go to the sons, grandsons, &c., of the brothers of his 
 great-grandfather, it was the same law as that of the 
 Irish divisional organization the same, that is, apart 
 from primogeniture as a feature of the latter, and the 
 limitation of the number of divisions to four. And as 
 regards this limitation in Irish law, it must be observed 
 that its effects were only temporary ; that it was a rule 
 of the Irish settlements that ultimately, before the 
 collapse of an organization and, indeed, this was a 
 condition of such collapse being averted all the 
 brothers and their descendants might enter the 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 385 
 
 organization, and have the prospect of becoming heirs 
 to the family estate. 
 
 Kecurring, for the last time, to the opinion of the 
 lawyers, from which the view I have given of the 
 divisions of the Irish family has been spelled out, I ask 
 whether, in the light that has now been thrown upon it, 
 the interpretation I have given does not seem a sound 
 one ? It presents the case of a man probably an only 
 son, to whom inheritance land has come as next of kin 
 settling the land on his descendants. Had he four 
 sons, or more, the case would present no difficulty ; but 
 he had only two ; there were, however, four sons to each 
 of his sons, so that the peculiar customary settlement 
 had become possible possible, obviously, for his sons, 
 at his death, when his property had been divided be- 
 tween them ; and, in the opinion of the lawyers, possible 
 for him to make in his lifetime, upon conditions essen- 
 tially the same as would have arisen had the settlements 
 been made by the sons. A simple arithmetical calcula- 
 tion will show that it was immaterial to the father 
 whether there should be two divisional organizations or 
 one only except so far as there being one such organi- 
 zation only might involve leaving half of his property 
 unsettled. In either case the divisions getting equal 
 shares of the land he would be reserving to himself 
 one-fourth of the whole land. It was material to his 
 sons, however ; and indeed I do not see how, without 
 violation of principle, the two sons could enter the same 
 organization. From the opinion, assuming its sound- 
 ness, we learn that principle did not restrict the father 
 
 c c 
 
386 DIVISIONS IN THE 
 
 to forming in his family one divisional organization only, 
 that, viz., which would be formed through the grandsons 
 descended from the elder of his two sons as its basis 
 the younger son getting at common law, on the father's 
 death, an equal share with the elder, but not subject to 
 settlement. As the partition and settlement were 
 voluntary acts of the father, we may believe that he 
 would have been free there could be no hindrance 
 except in custom to make two settlements or one, as 
 he chose ; but if he wished to settle his whole property, 
 and had fewer sons than four, it would seem that he 
 had no choice but to form as many divisional organi- 
 zations among his descendants as he had sons. That 
 a man should share the inheritance lands with his sons 
 and grandsons in his lifetime need not surprise us. 
 The Indian law as to partition of inheritance land by a 
 father in his lifetime shows that the partition, usually 
 made with sons, might extend even to grandsons. 
 
 I think it will now be felt that the Irish divisional 
 system is no longer so mysterious or exceptional as it 
 at first appeared. The view I have taken of it may be 
 familiar to Irish scholars. Except so far as has been 
 disclosed, I have written in total ignorance of the 
 literature of the subject, if there is any which, from 
 the recentness of the publication of the Book of Aicill, 
 seems improbable. What attracted me to it was its 
 appearing to connect itself with the classificatory system 
 of relationships, but with that, I am now satisfied, it has 
 nothing to do. That the description of geilfine tribe 
 relationship remained true, while brothers shifted from 
 
ANCIENT IRISH FAMILY. 387 
 
 division to division, was the chief hint of classification ; 
 but this feature was temporary, and in the geilfine 
 division never showed itself, for in that the members, 
 necessarily, always were a father and his heirs of line 
 to the fifth generation. And this may be the reason 
 why the relationship of the whole group was named 
 from the geilfine division. 1 
 
 1 I may here, in a note, insert an explanation of the fact of the 
 geilfine tribe, represented by "the seventeen men," being called 
 "the hand-family" which I have some time fancied, or somewhere 
 seen. If the reader, turning down the palm of his hand, will look 
 at the back of the hand, holding down the thumb, he will see in the 
 five joints nearest to him the geilfine division ; and in the next two 
 series of joints and the tips of his four fingers, the deirbfine, iarfine 
 and indfine divisions respectively ! Of course the suggestion is that 
 some humorous or fanciful Celt early observed this correspondence, 
 and that thence came the name, which, after many centuries, has been 
 lately adduced, with the support of much high Celtic scholarship, as 
 a proof of the former existence of the patria potestas among the 
 ancient Irish. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 RICHARD CLAY & SONS, 
 
 BREA.D STREET HILL, LONDON, 
 
 Sungay, Suffolk. 
 

 
 iate recall. 
 
 
 
 iEEUBRARY LOAM 
 
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