462 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY 



this be true, then the system embodies a record of primitive customs 

 and institutions of great significance. We have seen that the system 

 of the Aryan family is a natural system, following the streams of the 

 blood ; but that it was founded upon marriage between single pairs. 

 Wherefore it rests exclusively upon this form of marriage, and not 

 upon natural suggestion. It is, at least, supposable that a state of 

 society might have existed in the primitive ages in which marriage 

 between single pairs, as well as the family in its modern sense, was 

 entirely unknown. Whilst mankind were in this state, a system of 

 consanguinity might have arisen entirely different from the Aryan 

 form, and yet follow the streams of the blood, and be in strict accord- 

 ance with the nature of descents. For example, it might rest, as be- 

 fore intimated, upon compound marriages in a communal family. In 

 some such state of society as this the classificatory system must have 

 originated. 



I propose to take up the Malayan , system of i-elationship as the 

 earliest stage of the classificatory, and to submit a conjectural solution 

 of its origin upon the assumed concurrent existence of "certain customs 

 and institutions. It will rest for the most part upon the assumed in- 

 termarriage or cohabitation of brothers and sisters in a communal 

 family. After this I shall present a further conjectural solution of 

 the origin of the remainder, or Turanian portion of the system, upon 

 the basis of the Tribal Organization. These are the essential condi- 

 tions ; but they draw to themselves other customs and institutions of 

 hardly secondary importance. 



These solutions will enable us to construct upon them, as founda- 

 tions, a great series of customs and institutions, in the order of their 

 development, by means of which the human family raised itself through 

 a long, and savage experience from a state of promiscuous intercourse 

 to a knowledge of the family in its modern sense. 



Mankind, if one in origin, must have become subdivided at a very 

 early period into independent nations, followed by the rapid formation 

 of dialects and stock-languages, the latter repeated over and over again 

 to the present time. Unequal progress has been .made by these sev- 

 eral stocks. Some of them still remain in a condition not far removed 

 from the primitive ; others are found in all the intermediate stages of 

 progress on to complete civilization. It is not improbable that all the 

 customs and institutions of mankind which have arisen at different 

 epochs are still existing in some portions of the human family. Those 



