August, 1903.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



187 



THE STRUGGLE FOR EXISTENCE IN 

 SOCIOLOGY. 



By J. Collier. 

 II. 



The Marital Struggle. 

 At a date lieyond the oldest history, for we find traces of 

 the division in all but the lowest peoples, the " order " of 

 the family split into two great genera, which MacLeunan 

 liajipilv named endogamy and exogamy, or marriage 

 within the clan (not the tribe) and marriage without the 

 clan. The struggle between the two is the tragedy of 

 barbaric races. It leads incessantly to wa.r among them, 

 as it led to war in ancient Troy, and as it has led to war 

 in modern Morocco within the last few years. All through 

 the European Middle Ages the two forms bittled against 

 one another. The Greek Church upheld, and still iij^holds 

 endogamy, by permitting marriage between uncles and 

 nieces. The Catholic Church ensured the victory of 

 exogamy in Western Europe by refusing pennission to 

 Tnarry wherever the most distant relationship could be 

 traced between the parties. Some of the most question- 

 able acts of the Papacy were done in avowed defence of 

 the principle, and the most frivolous pretexts were accepted 

 for dissolving marriages of royal persons between whom 

 some relationship was alleged. Yet it has more than once 

 yielded to endogamy by celebrating the marriages of 

 imcles and nieces, as not long ago of an Italian royal duke 

 and his niece. 



Under Protestantism, which breaks down many barriers, 

 endogamy has recovered some of its lost ground. Cousins 

 may lawfully intermarry, though the scientific battle rages 

 round the point of prudence. Still, a wholesome exogamy 

 remains everywhere the conquering type, and in our own 

 days it has received a new extension through the marriages 

 of the daughters of American millionaires to European 

 noblemen. Endogamy survives or survived in spots or 

 spheres removed from the action of natural selection ; in 

 out-of-the-way villages, in fishing and mining quarters of 

 towns, and on thrones, as on those of the Ptolemies and 

 the Braganza. 



Exercising the privileges of an Englishwoman in the 

 middle of the eighteenth century, Lady Mary Wortley 

 Montague gained access to the harems of Constantinople, 

 and let in the light of day upon Oriental wedlock. 

 A century later the Princess Belgiojoso revealed the 

 mingled squalor and animalism of the Anatolian harem. 

 A few years ago a French cosmopolite, C. de Varigny, 

 described courtship, marriage, and divorce in the United 

 States as an authroj>ologist might describe the manners 

 and customs of a strange people. Those are the two 

 extreme forms of the marital relationship ; is it credible 

 that there can be any genetic connection between them ? 

 Yes, the one is the remote ancestor of the other, and 

 between the two — between incestuous polygamy, as lately 

 practised in Salt Lake City, and the purest monogamy, as 

 observed in neighbouring Denvei" — there is an unbroken 

 chain of descent, ot which almost every link can be dis- 

 covered. Indeed, most of the intermediate species and varie- 

 ties are our coutcmporarii's, and an inclined ]ilane would 

 let the sociologist easily down from IJostun tn Bassorah. 



Thus, the llDsnian ftlussulma.n, who is piu'c Sclave, 

 has yet his separated harem, where his one wife lives 

 sequestered. The Q-reek woman is still rarely seen ou the 

 streets ; CDUiuiercc is hampered because she iMunot become 

 a slio[)-a,ssistuiit ; the harem has disaiipcarcd. but the 

 husWand's Oriental jealousy remains. Tlie status of the 

 upper-class Spanish woman is stamped with Orientalism, 

 though the cigar factories at Seville are tilled \vith girls 

 and women. French marriage reveals its barbarous origin 



in the universal dowry, the requisite consent of the parents, 

 and their choice of the bride. The English mfe is, in the 

 middle and upper classes, almost her husband's pqual. 

 The Australian and New Zealand TOfa^ w4i>TitS^a vote for 

 Licensing Committee, County ?5ouncil,.Stiite, and Common-, 

 wealth, has the equality and something more tliat (Jeriyes* 

 from a time (only non^^.ntvsmng-.^awa v i when h^r suialj," 

 numbers permitted heHTe'i^kfe Ik us.' The 



North American wife is a qu_e.eu, v. .. l4|q|i»-ous 



laws are converting into a sultBJife.''^^-''"^"' 



AU these varieties and species are constantly (in a sense) 

 at war with one another. Thus (to take a present-day 

 instance), the controversy between the Bishop of London 

 and his Chancellor represents the struggle between the 

 sacred and the secular types of marriage. When the 

 Bishop of London announces that he will visit no church 

 where divorcees are remarried, he commits an act of war 

 against the type of marriage legalised by the State. 

 (Jreat part of the Anglican clergy, both in England and 

 the colonies, is thus at war with the State. 



In the United States, the struggle among the many 

 varieties is reflected in the legislation of the States. The 

 prosperity of a State depending on the increase of its 

 population, and emigrants having usually an independence 

 of character that will brook few restraints, each State seeks 

 to attract settlers by abolishing formalities, simplif_\-ing all 

 social acts, and especially by facilitating both marriage 

 and divorce. Hence a conflict of laws extending over the 

 entu-e territory of the Union. According to the Stale he 

 resides in, a man is married to a woman or divorced from 

 her, married to a woman or never married to her at all. 

 In virtue of the practice of " limited divorce," a woman 

 may be receiving ahmentary allowances from two or three 

 former husbands, while she is living ^vitha third or fourth. 

 The way in which a man, without his intention and by 

 some innocent act, becomes, in Persia, the legal husband 

 of a woman, is a subject for comedy, in certain American 

 States it may be matter of tragedy, and in any case it is 

 part of the written law. 



A new species of marriage comes in like a new species oE 

 plants or animals. A high authority, the late Lewis 

 Morgan, who naturalized himself as an Iroquois in order 

 to study the development of the Indian family, believed 

 that the passage from one domestic type to another was 

 effected by means of a " refonnatory movement." The 

 most normal evolution is never quite regular ; even the 

 growth of a language takes place by ilisruptious and 

 bi-eaches of continuity, and the history of the family 

 reveals many a struggle. But if it is implied that, once 

 upon a time, some one individual or some group, perceiving 

 the disadvantages of the old and the advantage of a new 

 type of marriage, deliberately introduced a new system, 

 the view must be pronounced anti-evolutionaiy. A modern 

 instance is typical. The first man who married his deceased 

 wife's sister was the progenitor of a new variety. A few 

 slowlv fi>llowed his example. The old type showed fight 

 hv inflicting on them a social ban so severe that many 

 women refused to marry their deceased sister's husband. 

 As the numbers of the innovators grew, they gained 

 friends, and a Bill was introduced into Parliament. After 

 a succession of battles it was carried in the Commons ; 

 had it been carried in the Lords, the new variety would 

 have conquered, and such marriages would have become 

 numerous. In the British Colonies, where the forces of 

 resistance are far fi-ebler, the struggle was brief, and the 

 old type was defeated along great part of the Une ; though 

 Anglican and Catholic priests may for a time refuse to 

 recognize it by refusing to celebrate such marriages. It is 

 the history in a nutshell of the rise of polyandry, polyg-ainy, 

 and monogamv. 



