THE LEGAL POSITION OF MARRIED WOMEN. 645 



discover the law which underlies the varieties and changes in the con- 

 dition of married women to be a law which concerns itself first, not 

 with the rights of any individual inside the family, but with the de- 

 velopment and defense of the family itself. For this development 

 and defense of the family the following conditions must necessarily 

 be secured : 



a. Certainty of parentage of offspring on both male and female 

 side, that inheritance may be secured. 



h. Protection of the family from external encroachments of war, 

 conquest, etc. 



c. Nourishment of offspring, and such protection of the mother as 

 will secure that end. 



d. Repression of sexual passion to certain recognized limits. 



e. Preservation of the family against the disruptive tendencies of 

 internal strife. 



Bearing these general principles in mind, we turn to the next di- 

 vision of our subject, viz. : 



The Classification of the PRijirciPAL Types of Marriage. 

 If our previous positions are correct, we must rank marriage types, 

 from lowest to highest, by their growing ability to fulfill these con- 

 ditions, tabulated above, of the development and defense of the family 

 order : 



We find the first primitive marriage to be a simple announce- 

 ment of intention to live together by a man and woman, ratified by 

 some such rude ceremony as that of the " Navajos, who sit down on 

 opposite sides of a basket made to hold water and filled with some 

 kind of food, and partake of it. . . . This proceeding makes them 

 husband and wife." This type of union offers perfect freedom of 

 choice to both parties to the contract, and, being broken at pleasure, is 

 repeated as many times and dissolved as often as caprice indicates. 

 Hence it offers but slight protection to the offspring, and the society in 

 which it is found the prevailing type of sexual union is among the 

 lowest in grade of development. 



The next step up in marriage conditions is that called polyan- 

 dry, or the union of several husbands to one wife. It is not to be 

 inferred from this definition that polyandry at first, or generally, re- 

 strains the sexual indulgence of men to the fractional marital rights 

 indicated. Far from it. Polyandry simply lays the corner-stone of 

 the family foundation-wall by making a local home i. e., a place 

 where children can be generally known to belong. Let us see how 

 this is done. Nature makes certain the parentage of the child on the 

 mother's side, as she does not on the father's. Hence the primitive 

 necessity in building the family is to put the mother in a definite 

 place, and cluster her children round her, whether you can know the 

 paternity of those children or not. Descent of name and inheritance 



