The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 75 



societies. There can be little doubt that sympathy is a 

 much more important factor in the formation of the 

 marriage relation with the lower races than is generally 

 allowed. The desire for companionship, at least, is uni- 

 versal, and it is an expression of sympathetic feeling. It 

 must be influential wherever a man leaves his own home to 

 reside with another family to secure the hand of a woman ; 

 especially where, as is often the case, such residence entails 

 service which amounts to considerable self-sacrifice. When 

 a change took place, consequent on its being customary for 

 a wife to leave the hut of her parents to reside in that of 

 her husband, especially if this were among his kinsfolk, 

 the desire to have some one to take charge of his house- 

 hold during his absence, and to cook the food supplied by 

 his labors as a hunter or a fisherman, would acquire in- 

 creased force as an inducement to marriage. 



It is by the birth of children that the sexual instinct 

 effects the perpetuation of the race which is its true aim in 

 marriage, and we must assume, therefore, that this aim 

 operates as a strong motive for marriage itself. We must 

 suppose it, indeed, to be included in the desire for compan- 

 ionship which is the earliest inducement for entering into 

 the marriage relation. There is no doubt that the feeling 

 of sympathy which underlies that desire would be increased 

 by the birth of children, for whom real affection is enter- 

 tained by one or both parents among all peoples, however 

 uncultured. The importance of this feeling in connection 

 with the development of the family was referred to by 

 your President in his admirable lecture of last season on 

 the "Evolution of Morals." He said that the long period 

 of infancy ''held the family together and necessitated a 

 continuance of those acts of mutual forbearance and affec- 

 tion which cease among animals when the young are able 

 to make shift for themselves. The mother ministered to 

 the child, while the father gathered food and protected the 

 family from wild beasts and savage men. Other children 

 came, perhaps, before the care of the mother over the first- 

 born could be relaxed. So, in the rude cave-dwelling, grew 

 up the germ of the home the earliest example of the 

 permanent family relation." 



The inducements to, or motives for, entering into the 

 marriage relation referred to, and which may be termed 

 internal or subjective conditions, must in course of time 



