THE 



POPULAR SCIENCE 

 MONTHLY. 



JUNE, 1877. 



OK THE EVOLUTION OF THE FAMILY. 



By HERBERT SPENCER. 



LET US now look at the connections between types of family and 

 social types. Do societies of different degrees of composition 

 habitually present different forms of domestic arrangement? Are 

 different forms of domestic arrangement associated with the militant 

 system of organization and the industrial system of organization ? 



To the first of these questions, no satisfactory answer can be given. 

 The same marital relation occurs in the simplest groups and in the 

 most compound groups. A strict monogamy is observed by the mis- 

 erable Wood Veddahs, living so widely scattered that they can scarce- 

 ly be said to have reached the social state ; and the wandering 

 Bushmen, similarly low, though not debarred polygyny, are usually 

 monogamic. Certain settled and slightly advanced tribes, too, are 

 monogamic ; as instance the New Guinea people, and as instance also 

 the Dyaks, who have reached a stage passing from simple into com- 

 pound. And then we have monogamy habitual with nations which 

 have become vast by aggregation and reaggregation. Polyandry, 

 again, is not restricted to societies of one order of composition. We 

 find it in simple groups, as among the Fuegians, the Aleutians, and 

 the Todas ; and we find it in compound groups in Ceylon, in Malabar, 

 in Thibet. Similarly with the distribution of polygyny. It is common 

 to simple, compound, doubly-compound, and even trebly-compound 

 societies. 



One kind of connection between the type of family and the degree 

 of social composition may, however, be alleged. Formation of com- 

 pound groups, implying greater coordination and the strengthening 

 of restraints, implies more settled arrangements, public and private. 



VOL. XI. 9 



