swanton: institutional marriage 225 



in the first generation and a choice of two only out of the four 

 every time afterward. In the case of the men the succession 

 would be to some extent determined along certain lines, though 

 of course there is no necessity that; the line should return regu- 

 larly to the beginning. Nevertheless, absolute regularity would 

 be attained if the repugnance to close marriages should extend 

 one generation back of that of the parents — on the male side 

 in case descent is matrilineal and on the female side in case 

 it is patriUneal. Supposing that this actually took place and 

 that the parents of self are Wolf and Panther, and the father's 

 father or mother's father (as the case may be) is Bear, there 

 would be, under the conditions laid down, but one clan into which 

 self could marry, viz.. Deer. Assuming male descent we should 

 then find that the wives of a succession of Wolf men were Deer, 

 Bear,, and Panther in order, this order being repeated over and 

 over indefinitely. In the case of a woman we should have 

 Wolf, Deer, Bear, Panther, back to Wolf again. With matri- 

 lineal descent we would have the converse. 



Limitation of marriage in these cases would be due to the 

 extension of the repugnance toward marriage in related groups, 

 an exceptional distance from the parties concerned, and the 

 inevitable result would be that a man or woman must marry 

 into some particular clan, not because that clan was arbitrarily 

 picked out but because all others happened to contain persons 

 supposed to be too closely connected. Some of the complica- 

 tions we observe in Australian society may be due to this cause, 

 but many must be attributed to the segmentation of two or 

 four original major divisions or the affiliation of groups of four 

 or eight into two major divisions or moities. In any case the 

 direct result is to limit the choice of a prospective bridegroom 

 or bride to a small fraction of an already small tribe. In this 

 way there has grown up an artificial determination of marriage 

 which has become so much a part of the habitual life of the 

 tribe as to appear not merely right but necessary. 



As if the limitations brought about in this way were not 

 sufficient we have in many tribes in addition separation into 

 castes. Besides dividing into or combining together several 



