470 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



ordinate form, which are separate stages of growth of the same system ; and a third 

 form which ditfers from botli. In the Turanian and Ganowiinian families is found 

 the principal or highest form in full and perfect development, whilst in the Malayan 

 the same system is recognized in a lower stage. The Eskimo represents the third. 

 The three forms are distinct and independent of each other, although the first two 

 stand to each other in intimate relations. As complicated and apparently artificial 

 systems they are capable of delivering decisive testimony concernijig the ethnic 

 connection of the nations by whom they are severally possessed. Under the 

 classificatory system consanguinei are not described by a combination of the 

 primary terms, but each and all, however remote in degree, fall luidcr some one 

 of the recognized relationships. The gradus yields to the nexus. By comprehen- 

 sive, as well as apparently arbitrary, generalizations they are reduced to great classes 

 or categories, the members of each of which, irrespective of nearness or rempteness 

 in -degree, are placed upon the same level, and admitted into the same relationship. 

 In this manner, if marriage existed between single pairs, persons whose relationships 

 would be obviously dissimilar are confounded together. In the next place, persons 

 who would stand in the same degree of nearness are placed in diff'erent relationships 

 by a generalization true to the nature of descents as to one, and false as to the 

 other, in consequence of which those who should be classed together are separated 

 from each other ; and lastly, the several collateral lines are ultimately merged in 

 the lineal line, by means of which the otherwise natural outflow uf the streams of 

 the blood is arrested, and diverted from several channels into a single stream. The 

 ( lassificatory system becomes, in these several particulars, arbitrary, artifici-al and 

 complicated. 



When it is considered that the domestic relationships of the entire human family, 

 so far as the latter is represented in the Tables, fall inidcr the descriptive or the 

 classificatory form, and that they are the reverse of each other in their fundamental 

 conceptions, it furnishes a significant separation of the families of mankind into 

 two great divisions. Upon one side are the Aryan Semitic and Uralian, and upon 

 the other the Ganowanian the Turanian and the Malayan, which gives nearly the 

 line of demarcation between the civilized and uncivilized nations. Although both 

 forms are older than civilization, it tends to show that the family, as now consti- 

 tuted, and which grew out of the development of a knowledge of property, of its 

 uses, and of its transmission by inheritance, lies at the foundation of the first 

 civilization of mankind. Whilst the division introduces no new barriers between 

 the recognized families, it tends to draw nearer together the members of each 

 division. 



II. Do these systems of relationship rest upon and embody clearlj' defined ideas 

 and principles ; and do they contain the essential requisites of a domestic institution ? 



Some method of distinguishing the different degrees of consanguinity is an 

 absolute necessity for the daily purposes of life. The invention of terms to express 

 tlie primary relationships, namely, those for father and mother, brother and sister, 

 son and daughter, and husband and wife, would probably be one of the earliest 

 acts of human speech. W'ith these terms all of the remaining relatives, both by 

 blood and marriage, may be described by using the possessive case of the several 



