GENESIS OF MAN, MORALLY 



those which ally them to members of adjacent 

 clans, with whom they may indeed combine 

 to resist the aggressions of yet further outly- 

 ing clans, or of formidable beasts, but towards 

 whom their feelings are usually those of hostile 

 rivalry. It remains to add, that the family 

 groups thus constituted differ widely in many 

 respects from modern families, and do not af- 

 ford the materials for an idyllic picture of pri- 

 meval life. Though always ready to combine 

 against the attack of a neighbouring clan, the 

 members of the group are by no means indis- 

 posed to fight among themselves. The social- 

 ity is but nascent : infants are drowned, wives 

 are beaten to death, and there are deadly quar- 

 rels between brothers. So in modern families 

 evanescent barbarism shows itself in internal 

 quarrels, while nevertheless injury offered from 

 without is resented in common. A more con- 

 spicuous difference is the absence of monogamy 

 in the primitive clan. It has been, I think, 

 demonstrated, — and for the evidence in detail 

 I would refer to Sir John Lubbock's excellent 

 treatise on the " Origin of Civilization," and to 

 the learned works of M'Lennan and Tylor, — 

 that in the primitive clan all the women are the 

 wives of all the men.^ Traces of this state of 



^ [For Spencer's later published views as to the primitive 

 family, and as to the primitive relations of the sexes, see 

 Part III. of the Principles of Socio logy. ~\ 



135 



