o 



62 SEXUAL SELECTION : MAN. Part IL 



American species, and each family lives separate. 

 Even when this occurs, the families inhabiting the 

 same district are probably to a certain extent social : 

 the Chimpanzee, for instance, is occasionally met with 

 in large bands. Again, other species are polygamous, 

 but several males, each with their own females, live 

 associated in a body, as with several species of Baboons.'^ 

 AVe may indeed conclude from what we know of the 

 jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed, as many of them 

 are, with special weapons for battling with their rivals, 

 tl]at promiscuous intercourse in a state of nature is 

 extremely improbable. The pairing may not last for 

 life, but only for each birth ; yet if the males which are 

 the strongest and best able to defend or otherwise assist 

 their females and young offspring, were to select the 

 more attractive females, this would suffice for the w^ork 

 of sexual selection. 



Therefore, if we look far enough back in the stream 

 of time, it is extremely improbable that primeval men 

 and w^omen lived promiscuously together. Judging from 

 the social habits of man as he now exists, and from 

 most savages being polygamists, the most probable 

 view is that primeval man aboriginally lived in small 

 communities, each with as many waves as he could 

 support and obtain, whom he would have jealously 

 guarded against all other men. Or he may have lived 

 with several wives by himself, like the Gorilla ; for 

 all the natives ^' agree that but one adult male is 

 " seen in a band ; when the young male grows up, a 

 " contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by 



^ Brehm (' Illust. Thierleben,' B. i. p, 77) says Cynocephalus hama- 

 clryas lives in great troops containing twice as many adult females as 

 adult males. See Eengger on American polygamous sjiecies, and Owen 

 (' Anat. of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 746) on American monogamous 

 species. Other references might be added. 



