76 The Growth of the Marriage Relation. 



have had considerable influence over the formal develop- 

 ment of the law of marriage. There are other and objec 

 tive conditions, however, those which constitute the exter- 

 nal environment, which are at first the most important in 

 relation to such development. The phase of marriage 

 which may fit a people dwelling in the midst of plenty, may 

 not be suited for those who are not so highly favored by 

 natural or other circumstances ; and so also with a city or 

 agricultural population as compared with those whose lives 

 are more unsettled. The hunting condition of life is sup- 

 posed to be the most primitive, and it is not difficult to see 

 what phase of marriage might under its influence be devel- 

 oped among a rude people. The men would be often away 

 from home for a considerable time, and they would have to 

 leave their wives behind them to take care of their house- 

 holds and children. They would be, nevertheless, desirous 

 of having female companions during their absence, which 

 would not be possible if each man had a wife to himself 

 and the males and females were equal in number. In this 

 case, the only plan that could be adopted would be for the 

 men to join with their wives. Some of the women could 

 then remain at home to take care of the families of the 

 community, while the others would accompany the men to 

 the hunting-ground. We have here the very simplest form 

 of the marriage relation, and it is found in actual existence 

 among the lowest of all human races, the aborigines of 

 Australia. The Australian tribe was originally divided 

 into two groups, or ''classes," each of which consisted of 

 a body of kinsfolk, male and female, tracing descent from 

 a common female ancestor, and forbidden to marry among 

 themselves, answering to the gens of the American aborig- 

 ines. The llev. Lorinier Fison states that, under this 

 system, marriage is founded on the rights, not of individ- 

 uals, but of the "classes," and theoretically all the men of 

 each group are married to all the women of the group to 

 which they do not belong. With descent in the female 

 line, each group may be supposed to have consisted origi- 

 nally of a woman and her offspring, forming two families 

 which entered into the marriage relation with each other, 

 and thus originated what is termed ^ro^;-marriage. Tlie 

 original community would form one large group divided 

 into two exogamous intermarrying sub-groups ; answering 

 somewhat to the jninaluan family of the I'olynesian 



