THEORIES OF PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 275 



ertheless, he admits that " the separate endogamous trihes are nearly 

 as numerous, and they are in some respects as rude, as the separate 

 exogamous tribes" (p. 145). Now, if, as he believes, exogamy and 

 wife-stealipg have " been practised at a certain stage ainong every 

 race of mankind" that stage being the primitive one and if, as he 

 seeks to prove, endogamy is a form reached through a long series of 

 social developments, it is difficult to understand how the endogamous 

 tribes can be as rude as the exogamous ones. 



Again, he names the fact that " in some districts as in the hills 

 on the northeastern frontier of India, in the Caucasus, and the hill- 

 ranges of Syria we find a variety of tribes, proved, by physical char- 

 acteristics and the affinities of language, of one and the same original 

 stock, yet in this particular differing toto ccelo from one another 

 some forbidding marriage within the tribe, and some prescribing mar- 

 riage without it" (pp. 147, 148) : a fact by no means congruous with 

 his hypothesis. 



Should Mr. McLennan reply that on pp. 4V, 48, he has recognized 

 the possibility, or probability, that there were tribes primordially 

 endogamous should he say that on pp. 144, 145, will be found the 

 admission that, perhaps, exogamy and endogamy " may be equally 

 archaic," the rejoinder is that, besides being inconsistent with his 

 belief that exogamy has "been practised at a certain stage among 

 every race of mankind," this possibility is one which he practically 

 rejects. On pp. 148-150, he sketches out a series of changes by which 

 exogamous tribes may eventually become endogamous ; and in sub- 

 sequent sections on the " Growth of Agnation," and " The Rise of 

 Endogamy," he tacitly asserts that endogamy has thus developed : if 

 not without exception, still, generally. Indeed, the title of one of his 

 chapters "The Decay of Exogamy in Advancing Communities " 

 clearly implies the belief that exogamy was general, if not universal, 

 with the uncivilized ; and that endogamy grew up along with civili- 

 zation. Thus the incongruity between the propositions quoted in the 

 last paragraph cannot be escaped. 



Sundry other of Mr. McLennan's statements and inferences con- 

 flict with one another. Assuming that, in the earliest state, tribes 

 were stock-groups " organized on the principle of exogamy," he speaks 

 of them as having " the primitive instinct of the race against marriage 

 between members of the same stock" (p. 118). Yet, as we have seen 

 above, he elsewhere speaks of wife-capture as caused by scarcity of 

 women within the tribe ; and attributes to this " usage, induced by 

 necessity," the prejudice against " marrying women of their own 

 stock." Moreover, if, as he says (and I believe rightly says) on p. 

 145, "men must originally have been free of any prejudice against 

 marriage between relations," it seems inconsistent to allege that there 

 was a "primitive instinct" "against marriage between members of 

 the same stock." 



