12 MARRIAGE AND HEREDITY 



would be regarded as a mark of prowess in a tribe, 

 and that it would become every warrior's ambition to 

 capture women as a Eed Indian captures scalps. 

 Another inducement to the establishment of a form 

 of marriage is probably the desire of men to know 

 their own particular children. This feeling would grow 

 up with the recognition of property. The pleasures of 

 paternity are unknown to men living under the most 

 primitive conditions. At first cliildren are affiliated 

 not to particular couples, but to the tribe ; their kin- 

 ship through females is recognised, children being 

 sure of their mother although not of their father. In 

 such circumstances we may suppose it is felt as a 

 hardship that men who have accumulated property 

 should not be able to leave it to their sons, and the 

 next step towards the constitution of society, as we 

 know it, is the exclusive appropriation of wives. 



Some form of marriage is always well established 

 before religion intervenes in the ceremony. Un- 

 questionably, however, religion has profoundly influ- 

 enced the marriage customs of the world, sometimes 

 for good, more often for evil. The establishment of 

 caste in India had the advantage of checking pro- 

 miscuous relationships to begin with, but its unbend- 

 ing rules have since been productive of much abuse 



