Chapter XII 

 THE INTEGRATION OF THE SEXES— MARRIAGE 



Clark Wissler 



ONE of the most difficult problems man faces is the 

 understanding of his own community hfe. Modern 

 society has proved so baffling that, in despair, many 

 have turned to the study of primitive hfe, assuming that 

 there the fundamentals may be found in high rehef. Something 

 has been gained by such study of primitive communities, 

 but the result is rather disappointing, since experience 

 proves it Httle less difficult to penetrate the complexity of 

 a savage community than to comprehend a present-day 

 town. Nevertheless, a Httle has been gained in the way of 

 perspective, and looking at human community life in the 

 large, the integration of the sexes is seen as the core of 

 the structure. In the social science of the past, stress was 

 laid upon the family, or the biological pair, which was 

 considered the fundamental social unit. According to this 

 conception, a community is an aggregation of mated pairs, 

 engaged even in reproduction and the rearing of their offspring. 

 In time, however, students of society came to feel that this 

 was too narrow a view; there is still universal agreement 

 that the rearing of children is the chief business of these 

 mated pairs, but it nevertheless appears that a community 

 is something more than a mere aggregation of such pairs. 

 Everything we know of primitive man indicates that he is 

 by nature a camp dweller, which is to say, that he Hves in 

 communities, or groups. Further, these communities are, 

 in constitution, groups of cooperating mated pairs, with 

 their children. One often meets the statement that in 

 primitive communities there is no speciahzation in labor 

 or social function, that each individual does everything for 

 himseff. This is contrary to the observed facts, because 

 we encounter individual speciahzation in handicraft and 

 organized team work, a savage camp presenting in outhne a 

 rephca of a civihzed community. So we can feel on safe 



266 



