588 



TJie Descent of Man. 



Part 111, 



the subject, 5 and whose judgment is worth much more than mine, 

 believe that communal marriage (this expression being variously 

 guarded) was the original and universal form throughout the 

 world, including therein the intermarriage of brothers and sisters. 

 The late Sir. A. Smith, who had travelled widely in S. Africa, and 

 knew much about the habits of savages there and elsewhere, ex- 

 pressed to me the strongest opinion that no race exists in which 

 woman is considered as the property of the community. I believe 

 that his judgment was largely determined by what is implied by 

 the term marriage. Throughout the following discussion I use 

 the term in the same sense as when naturalists speak of animals 

 as monogamous, meaning thereby that the male is accepted by or 

 chooses a single female, and lives with her either during the 

 breeding-season or for the whole year, keeping possession of 

 her by the law of might ; or, as when they speak of a polygamous 

 species, meaning that the male lives with several females. This 

 kind of marriage is all that concerns us here, as it suffices for 

 the work of sexual selection. But I know that some of the 

 writers above referred to, imply by the term marriage, a recog- 

 nised right, protected by the tribe. 



The indirect evidence in favour of the belief of the former 

 prevalence of communal marriages is strong, and rests chiefly on 

 the terms of relationship which are employed between the 

 members of the same tribe, implying a connection with the tribe, 

 and not with either parent. But the subject is too large and 

 complex for even an abstract to be here given, and I will confine 

 myself to a few remarks. It is evident in the case of such 

 marriages, or where the marriage tie is very loose, that the 

 relationship of the child to its father cannot be known. But it 

 seems almost incredible that the relationship of the child to its 

 mother should ever be completely ignored, especially as the women 

 in most savage tribes nurse their infants for a long time. 

 Accordingly, in many cases the lines of descent are traced 

 through the mother alone, to the exclusion of the father. But 

 in other cases the terms employed express a connection with the 



ally pp. 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 

 "promiscuous." Mr. M'Lennan and 

 Sir J. Lubbock have collected much 

 evidence on the extreme licentious- 

 ness of savages at the present time. 

 Mr. L. H. Morgan, in his interesting 



memoir on the classificatory system 

 of relationship (' Proc. American 

 Acad, of Sciences,' vol. vii. Feb. 

 1868, p. 475), concludes that poly- 

 gamy and all forms of marriage 

 during primeval times were essen- 

 tially unknown. It appears also, 

 from Sir J. Lubbock's work, that 

 Bachofen likewise believes that 

 communal intercourse originally 

 prevailed. 



