THE INTEGRATION OF THE SEXES MARRIAGE 275 



claim the young girls, the disparity of age will be greater 

 still. On the other hand, the scarcity of available brides 

 may be so great that a number of young men will marry 

 women much older than themselves. In general, however, 

 the tendency is for the age of the groom to exceed that of 

 the bride, whatever the state of society. 



The term, child marriage, recently given wide pubhcity 

 in "Mother India," suggests the marriage of immature 

 girls to adult men. Such a marriage custom is found in 

 India, where infant marriages are frequent and in cases 

 where the male reaches maturity many years in advance, 

 grave abuses may occur. Child betrothal, however, is 

 widespread; usually it is found to some degree in all polygy- 

 nous countries where competition for the marriageable 

 women is keen. On the whole, however, society frowns upon 

 the consummation of marriage before puberty, even the 

 crudest of peoples regarding such practices as abnormal 

 and injurious. 



POSSIBLE BIOLOGICAL CONTROL OF MARRIAGE 



In any consideration of social behavior and sex functions, 

 it is well not to forget that whatever form institutions 

 take, they rest upon a biological foundation. As we have 

 stated, a discussion of marriage involves both biological 

 and social factors, between which we cannot always clearly 

 distinguish. It may be that the two are always in process 

 of integration, the result being community hfe as we find 

 it. Some of the biological factors involved are obvious, as 

 the external sex characters, the physiology of reproduction, 

 the urges that express themselves as interest in the opposite 

 sex, love of sex companionship, jealousy, etc. Participation 

 in sex Hfe, as the functioning of the biological organism, may 

 be said to involve psychological as well as physiological 

 activities, more or less integrated. It is usual, however, to 

 consider anything beyond the most temporary association 

 of the human pair as not a biological matter, but a social 

 or conventional one, to which the term marriage is apphed. 

 Here is the parting of the ways in the interpretation of 

 human sex hfe. If one takes a birdseye view of the hterature 

 of the subject, from Morgan, McLennan, Westermarck, 



