502 SYSTEMS OF CONSANGUINITY AND AFFINITY 



and, having nothing in the nature of descents to uphold its classification of con- 

 sanguinei, it stands before us as a purely artificial system. The only existing 

 causes which could have exercised any influence upon its formation are polygamy 

 and polyandria, since there are no traces of the Hawaiian custom either in the 

 Turanian or Ganowanian families as yet produced. Polygamy, as has been seen, 

 must have been restricted to the privileged few, whilst polyandria came in, as its 

 consequence, to repair the disturbed balance of the sexes, so far as it was caused 

 by the former, leaving the masses of the people unaffected by either custom. As 

 to the latter, and their children, who were living in a state of marriage between 

 single pairs, the reasons for the relationships established by the- system would not 

 exist, and, therefore, the latter must be supposed to have been adopted without any 

 reference to polygamy and polyandria. Considered as an arbitrary and purely arti- 

 ficial system, without ascertained causes of its origin, similar conditions and similar 

 wants are voiceless with respect to the manner of its production. In whatever direc- 

 tion this argument is produced nothing can be elicited, because the reasoning must be 

 disconnected from a probable cause of its origin. It is contrary to the nature of 

 descents as they now exist both in the Turanian and Ganowanian families, amongst 

 whom marriage between single pairs is now recognized, and has been as far back as 

 our direct knowledge extends. If it sprang up spontaneously in two disconnected 

 families, the causes must have operated with remarkable power and uniformity to 

 have produced two systems so complicated and elaborate, and yet in such minute 

 agreement as the Seneca and the Tamil. Causes adequate to produce and maintain 

 such results must necessarily be within reach of discovery. It Avill not be necessary 

 to pursue this branch of the argument further than to remark that if the question 

 of the Asiatic origin of the Ganowanian family turned upon the necessary adoption 

 of one of the two following alternative propositions, namely; either that the system 

 sprang up in the two families by spontaneous growth, from similar wants in similar 

 conditions of society, or ; that it was transmitted to each with the streams of the 

 blood from a common original source, the latter must of necessity be adopted, 

 provided it can be shown that the channel of its transmission is adequate, the 

 common origin of the two families being for that purpose assumed. 



The second branch of the argument whether this system originated in Asia, and 

 also in America, through the rise and development independently of the same 

 series of customs and institutions, presents several difficult questions. It has been 

 seen that the influence of the bond of kin for mutual protection, and of the tribal 

 relationships have no connection with the origin of the system. Further than 

 this, it has been shown that polygamy and polyandria, whilst they touch the family 

 relationships, quite nearly, are incapable of explaining its origin, from the necessary 

 limitations upon their influence. And, finally, it has been rendered extremely 

 probable, so probable as scarcely to admit of a doubt, that the tribal organization 

 by breaking up the intermarriage of brothers and sisters produced an epoch in the 

 growth of the system which developed its Turanian element. With these points 

 considered established the first appearance of the Turanian system is carried back 

 to a period of time coeval with the introduction of the tribal organization, thus 

 giving to it an antiquity in Asia immensely remote. It must be accepted as a 



