GROUP MARRIAGE AND RELATIONSHIP. 689 



marriage really is, touching as Ijriefly as possible on certain 

 controversial matters which cannot be kept out of the 

 subject. 



It will clear our way in the beginning* if we define our 

 terms. First of all, my friend and fellow-worker Mr. 

 Howitt and myself long ago found it advisable to drop the 

 term " comnmnal marriage " altogether because of its mis- 

 leading tendency, and to snixstitute " group marriage " for it. 



Then, again, the word " marriage " itself has to be taken 

 in a certain modified sense. It does not mean in this 

 connection all that it means in our own society. It does not 

 necessarily imply actual giving in marriage or cohabitation ; 

 what it imphes is a marital right, or rather a marital qualifi- 

 cation, which comes by birth. Certain groups of males are 

 born with this qualification as i-egards certain groups of 

 females; every male of a group has the qualification with 

 regard to every female of what we may call the com- 

 plementary group, subject however, to stringent restrictions 

 which prevent intercourse between individuals who are " too 

 near in blood." 



I will now endeavour to show what these groups are, and 

 how they come to be determined. In the year 1866 my 

 deeply lamented friend, the late Hon. Lewis H. Morgan, of 

 Rochester, New York, found among the Iroquois tribes a 

 " system of relationship for the designation and classification 

 of kindred," which he then supposed to be " unique," as well 

 as " extraordinary in its character." Subsequently, to his 

 great surprise, he found precisely the same system among the 

 Ojiljwas and other Alongkin tribes. Further investigations, 

 jirosecuted with the help of the Smithsonian Institution and 

 the U.S. Government, revealed the same system among the 

 tribes of southern India. I myself, making inquiry for Mr. 

 Morgan (to whom I was then a stranger) at the request of 

 Professor Goldwin Smith, discovered it in the South Seas 

 among the Fijians, Tongans, and other tribes : it was found 

 among many other jjeoples, and in 1868 the Smithsonian 

 Institution published Mr. Morgan's collected tables of terms 

 of relationship, with his remarks upon them in what has been 

 justly called "a truly magnificent volume," entitled 

 " Systems of Consanguinity and Affinity of the Human 

 Family." The system, thus discovered, in what is called 

 " The Classificatory System of Relationshi])." 



Although, on looking at one of Mr. Morgan's tables — 

 which extend to relationship such as that of " my mother's 



