358 SEXUAL selection: man. PartIL 



women, is not so surprising as it may at first appear ; 

 for I have elsewhere shewn ^ that negroes fully appre- 

 ciate the importance of selection in the breeding of 

 their domestic animals, and I could give from Mr. Keade 

 additional evidence on this head. 



On the Causes which jprevent or check the Action of 

 Sexual Selection with Savages. — The chief causes are, 

 firstly, so-called communal marriages or promiscuous 

 intercourse ; secondly, infanticide, especially of female 

 infants ; thirdly, early betrothals ; and lastly, the low 

 estimation in which women are held, as mere slaves. 

 These four points must be considered in some detail. 



It is obvious that as long as the pairing of man, or 

 of any other animal, is left to chance, with no choice 

 exerted by either sex, there can be no sexual selection ; 

 and no effect will be produced on the offspring by 

 certain individuals having had an advantage over others 

 in their courtship. Now it is asserted that there exist 

 at the present day tribes which practise what Sir J. 

 Lubbock by courtesy calls communal marriages ; that 

 is, all the men and women in the tribe are husbands and 

 wives to each other. The licentiousness of many savages 

 is no doubt astonishingly great, but it seems to me 

 that more evidence is requisite before we fully admit 

 that their existing intercourse is absolutely promiscuous. 

 Nevertheless all those who have most closely studied 

 the subject,* and whose judgment is worth much more 



2 ' The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. 

 i. p. 207. 



■* Sir J. Lubbock, ' The Origin of Civilisation,' 1870, chap. iii. especi- 

 ally p. 60-67. Mr. M'Lennan, in his extremely valuable work on 

 ' Primitive Marriage,' 1865, p. 163, speaks of the union of the sexes 

 " in the earliest times as loose, transitory, and in some degree promis- 

 " cuous." Mr. M'Lennan and Sir J. Lubbock have collected much 

 evidence on the extreme licentiousness of savages at the jDresent time, 

 Mr. L. H. Morgan, in his interesting memoir on the classificatory system 



