OF T H K II U M A N F A Al I L Y. 



491 



pairs may have, and probably did occur in all periods of man's history ; but they 

 must have been exceptional from tlie necessity of the case in the primitive a<'es. 

 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 capture 

 by force. The evidence of these practices in Asia and America is ample. 

 Wives thus gained by personal effort, and by personal sacrifices for their pur- 

 chase, would not be readily shared with others. In its general tendency it would 

 lead to individual contracts to procure a single wife for a single husband, and 

 thus inaugurate marriage between single pairs. Such must have been the 

 direct result of the tribal organization ; but these marriages were followed down the 

 ages with polygynia and polyandria of the Hawaiian and other types.' Tliis 

 argument upon the basis of authenticated facts, will bear great amplification, and 

 would tend in a remarkable manner to confirm tlic conclusion that marriage between 

 single pairs cannot be placed earlier in the sequence than the place here assigned. 



IX. The Barbarian Family. 



The family in its second stage thus developed is far removed from the family in 

 its modern sense, or the civilized family. It is rather an aggregation of families, 

 with communism in living more or less prevalent, and with tribal authority holding' 

 the place of parental. The family name, in addition to the personal, and the idea 

 of property and of its transmission by inheritance were still unknown. 



X. Polygamy. 



In its relation to pre-existing customs and institutions polygamy is essentially 

 modern. It presupposes, as elsewhere stated, a very great advance of society from 

 its primitive condition, with settled governments, 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, by natural suggestion, out of antecedent customs 

 akin to the Hawaiian. With strength and wealth suflicient to defend and support 

 several wives the strongest of several brothers takes them to himself, and refuses 

 to share them longer with his brothers. Regarded from this stand point polygamy 

 becomes a reformatory instead of a retrograde movement, and a decisive advance 

 in the direction of the true family. 



XI. The Patriarchal Family. 



Polygamy resulted in the establishment of the patriarchal family, or the family 

 in its third stage. A family, having a single male head, was an immense 

 advance upon the communal, and even upon the barbarian. 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 ajjeS of dawning: civilization. 



■ The passion of love was unknown amongst the North American aborigines of pure blood. The 

 fact is sufficiently established by their marriage customs. They were given in marriage without 

 being consulted, and often to entire strangers. Such, doubtless, is also the fact and the u.sage among 

 barbarous nations in general. 



