MARRIAGE 299 



been the earliest and most widely prevalent mode of union. 

 Judging from the fact that community-life has always been so 

 characteristic of man, and in its development has proved so 

 beneficial, Kohler l comes to the conclusion that an element so 

 intimately connected with the society as communal marriage may 

 have been one of the chief factors in the evolution of culture in the 

 dawn of the world's history. For " the race destined to rule the 

 world is not that which originally lived in strictest monogamy ". 



Communal marriage is closely bound up with totemism, 

 that primitive form of religion which may well be considered 

 now before we proceed to the comparative consideration of the 

 other early forms of religion, for totemism contains the germs 

 of the family, or national, idea. 



It is well known that the North American Indians, the 

 Dravidas of India, and the Australian blacks trace the descent 

 of each tribe from some animal which is on that account held 

 sacred and inviolate by them, whilst its characteristics and 

 various attributes are used as personal names in the particular 

 tribe. The influences affecting marriage and prosperity are 

 derived from the same superstition. Because a man is for- 

 bidden to marry a wife belonging to the same totem he is 

 compelled to find his consort in a tribe with a different totem ; 

 the result of further marriages between members of totems 

 A and B is that, as happens, for example, among the Indians, 

 the union of brothers and sisters can take place, of a man with 

 the sister, aunt or niece of his wife, or of a woman with the 

 uncle and nephew of her husband.- Furthermore, according 

 to the views of these savage races, no one can be descended 

 from two totems (two animals as a combined form), so that the 

 relationship must be derived from the father or the mother, and 

 naturally it tends to the maternal side ; thus "mother-right" 

 is established by which the mother's brother has more authority 

 over the children than the father. 



Out of totemism springs blood -affinity, the fundamental 

 human bond which finds direct expression in the family and 

 the family confederation, including the whole totem in one 

 body politic. Totemism has always led to mother-right, and 

 the latter is universally older than father-right. 

 1 Kohler, loc. cit., p. 6. z lbid., p. 66. 



