OF ARTS AND SCIENCES : FEBRUARY 11, 1868. 475 



ages in its influence upon human progress, as well as the most widely 

 distributed in the human family. This gave, also, the Turanian sys- 

 tem of relationship. 



8. Marriage between Single Pairs. — Instances of marriage between 

 single pairs may have, and probably did, occur in all periods, of man's 

 history ; but they must have been exceptional, from the necessity of 

 the case, in the primitive ages. After the tribal organization came 

 into existence, and the cohabitation of brothers and sisters was broken 

 up, as well as all intermarriage in the tribe, there must have been a 

 very great curtailment of the license of barbarism. Women for wives 

 became objects of negotiation out of the tribe, of barter, and of cap- 

 ture by force. The prevalence of these practices throughout Asia and 

 America is well established. Wives thus gained by personal effort, 

 and by purchase, would not be readily shared with others. In its gen- 

 eral tendency it would lead to individual contracts to procure a single 

 wife for a single husband, and thus tend directly to inaugurate mar- 

 riage between single paii-s. The immense influence of the tribal or- 

 ganization upon human progress toward the true family state cannot 

 be overestimated. 



9. The Barbarian Family. — In the early ages this stage of the 

 family could scarcely be distinguished from the communal. 



10. Polygamy. — In its relation to pre-existing customs and insti- 

 tutions polygamy is essentially modern. It presupposes a very great 

 advance of society from its primitive condition, with settled govern- 

 ments, with stability of such kinds of property as existed, and with 

 enlargement of the amount, as well as permanence, of subsistence. It 

 seems to spring out of antecedent customs, akin to the Hawaiian, by 

 natural suggestion. If this be so, then polygamy must be regarded as 

 having been a reformatory institution. Considered from this stand- 

 point, instead of a retrograde movement, it was a powerft^ advance in 

 the direction of the true family. 



11. The Patriarchal Family. — Polygamy resulted in the establish- 

 ment of the patriarchal family, or the family in its third stage. A 

 family with a single male head was an immense advance upon the 

 communal. It necessitated, to some extent, a privileged class in society, 

 before one person would be able to support several sets of children by 

 several different mothers. Polygamy in its higher forms belongs to 

 the dawning ages of civilization. 



12. Polyandria. — This custom requires no further notice. 



