360 SEXUAL SELECTION : MAN. Part IL 



the world may be divided, according to tlie autlior just 

 quoted, into two great classes, the classificatory and 

 descriptive, — the latter being employed by us. It is 

 the classificatory system which so strongly leads to the 

 belief that communal and other extremely loose forms 

 of marriage were originally nniversal. But as far as 

 I can see, there is no necessity on this ground for be- 

 lieving in absolutely promiscuous intercourse. Men and 

 women, like many of the lower animals, might formerly 

 have entered into strict though temporary unions for 

 each birth, and in this case nearly as much confusion 

 would have arisen in the terms of relationship as in 

 the case of promiscuous intercourse. As far as sexual 

 selection is concerned, all that is required is that choice 

 should be exerted before the parents unite, and it 

 signifies little whether the unions last for life or only 

 for a season. 



Besides the evidence derived from the terms of re- 

 lationship, other lines of reasoning indicate the former 

 wide prevalence of communal marriage. Sir J. Lub- 

 bock ingeniously accounts ^ for the strange and widely- 

 extended habit of exogamy, — that is, the men of one 

 tribe always taking wives from a distinct tribe, — by 

 communism having been the original form of mar- 

 riage ; so that a man never obtained a wife for himself 

 unless he captured her from a neighbouring and hostile 

 tribe, and then she would naturally have become his 

 sole and valuable property. Thus the practice of cap- 

 turing wives might have arisen ; and from the honour 

 so gained might ultimately have become the universal 

 habit. We can also, according to Sir J. Lubbock,^ 

 thus understand " the necessity of expiation for mar- 



^ Address to British Association 'On the Social and Ktligious Con- 

 dition of the Lower Kaces of Man,' 1870, p. 20. 



