THE CANNIBAL IN EVOLUTION 153 



knowledge of the why or wherefore is common enough, 

 and the origin of many surprising facts can be explained 

 by certain developments in modern psychological theory 

 and practice. Not a few men object to the presence 

 of other men in their house, especially when they are 

 not present, even when all thoughts of purely marital 

 jealousy are wanting. They even object to the "party," 

 that feminine function which tends to lead to love 

 affairs. But the main fact is that the resistance such 

 show to the marriage of their daughters cannot be ex- 

 plained on acknowledged social principles. The young 

 people may exhibit every sign of true affection, the 

 suitor may be of good character, even of high social 

 standing, and yet the father will raise every imaginable 

 objection, and put every conceivable obstacle in the way 

 of the desired marriage. In many cases I have known 

 the young men forbidden the house on the mere ground, 

 the last the father had, that he did not like the man, 

 whom he slandered in the bosom of his family without 

 being aware he was precipitating flight and an elopement, 

 which is the modern form of marriage by capture. There 

 arc cases, well known in later literary history, in which, 

 after furious struggles, this result has occurred, and in 

 biographies we see the parent's resistance put down to 

 anything but its real cause. That is said to have been 

 his great affection for his daughter, her necessity in the 

 house, her father's need of companionship, or the needs 

 of her mother; but never in any instance to deep-seated 

 sex jealousy of instinctive origin. Without relating in 

 any detail my own observations and experiences in this 

 matter, I may say that on making inquiry of many men 

 with daughters, quite a number of them owned that they 

 had seen in others what I had seen, and a few, who had 



