PRIMITIVE EUGENICS 33 



but she herself is enabled to recuperate for several 

 years between one birth and another. There can 

 be no doubt that this gives the progeny a good chance, 

 for they are fed through a sufficiently prolonged 

 period with natural food. But of necessity it must 

 tend to the production of small families. This is 

 remedied by polygamy. 



Westermarck and others have pointed out that in 

 a country where intermarriage is prohibited and 

 where prosperity reigns, the number of female children 

 who survive is considerably greater than the number 

 of males. This must be the case in Central Africa, 

 where marriage between people who can trace the 

 slightest relationship to each other, or who belong to 

 the same village, or the same clan, or who own the 

 same totem, is looked upon as incest. And in this 

 region of Africa incest is considered the most des- 

 picable of crimes, and poverty is unknown. 



It is in the name of the poor black woman that the 

 abolition of polygamy is claimed by philanthropists 

 in Europe ; in Africa it is not so much the negro man 

 who objects to the introduction of monogamy as the 

 woman. It is easier for a negro to get a second wife 

 than a first, and his wife will soon urge him to give 

 her a companion. I remember a case where a black 

 trooper presented himself before the Registrar in 

 order to have the banns of his contemplated marriage 

 with a dusky beauty published. The only paper of 

 identity he could produce was his marriage certificate 

 with another woman ! He was greatly astonished 

 when informed that, although his real wife was 

 c 



