402 



NATURE 



\March 25, 1875 



equally brothers and sisters, and, therefore, a time when a 

 mother's brother was a father, and a father's sister was 

 a mother. The systems can be ranged in a series which 

 makes the truth of this view almost self-evident. In the 

 rudest systems noticed by Mr. Morgan the mother's 

 brother is a father, and the father's sister is a mother ; 

 brother and sister's children are brothers and sisters, 

 fathers or mothers of each other's children, grandfathers 

 or grandmothers of each othert grandchildren. Above 

 these are the systems in which special terms have been 

 devised for the pecuhar relationship between children 

 and their mother's brother, and (in most cases) for the 

 father's sister also— in which, as has been seen, the 

 children of brother and sister are in some cases called 

 brother and sister, but more commonly cousin, while the 

 children of one of such cousins are in many instances 

 regarded by the other cousins as their children, and his 

 grandchildren in every case are regarded by them as 

 their grandchildren. So far there is unmistakable evi- 

 dence of a progress made through dint of thinking over 

 social facts. Extension of our survey to more advanced 

 systems simply shows that in them a similar progress 

 has been carried further. Such terms as little father or 

 stepfather applied to a father's brother, for example, are 

 not hard to reconcile with the view that a father's brother 

 was at a former stage regarded as a father ; and when 

 it is considered that a grandfather's brother is in such 

 cases a grandfather, no shadow of doubt on the subject can 

 remain. That there are some facts of which Sir John 

 Lubbock cannot give the solution must be admitted, and 

 these are not unimportant ; but they in no way affect the 

 validity of his argument that there has been a develop- 

 ment of relationships from a very rude germ, and that 

 what may be called the modern system of relationships 

 has been arrived at by a long and very gradual progress. 

 The explanation of them must be sought in a more 

 careful examination of the marriage customs of the races 

 in which they occur. Moreover, there are not wanting 

 eccentricities of terminology, the key to which cannot in 

 all cases be had ; but usually these are obviously the result 

 of the over-rigid application of general rules foUowingupon 

 a false start. The Crow Indians, for example, call their 

 mother's brother an elder brother, which is not so very 

 wrong in itself ; but they go on to call his son (as being 

 the son of one called brother) by the name of son. De- 

 partures from the normal type of this kind are, of course, 

 to be looked for wherever a system has been indepen- 

 dently developed by many bodies of men. 



It is among what Mr. Morgan calls the Turanian, 

 American Indian, and Malayan families of men that the 

 systems of relationship above considered are known to pre- 

 vail. The lowest forms are found in the Sandwich Islands 

 and their neighbourhood, and among one or two of the 

 American Indian tribes ; the middle systems among the 

 Tamil races of India, the American Indians, the Fijians, 

 and the Tongans ; while the Karens and the Esquimaux 

 supply the most advanced. One of Mr. Morgan's theories 

 (for he has, or seems to have, two which it is no 

 business of ours to reconcile with each other) is, that 

 these systems are, to use the words of Sir John Lubbock, 

 " arbitrary, artificial, and intentional." Mr. Morgan 

 holds that ethnological affinities can be traced by their 

 aid, and accordingly he is disposed to believe in the 



common origin of the Tamil and Red-skin races. The 

 same reasoning would identify the Fijians and the 

 Tongans with both these races, and with one another — if 

 it would not also show that the Two-mountain Iroquois 

 of North America are of the same descent as the Malayan 

 races, and no relatives of their Red-skin neighbours. This 

 looks like a rcditctio ad absurdum ; but it really is not 

 necessary to consider the hypothesis that the systems ot 

 relationship under notice are purely factitious — a wildly im- 

 probable hypothesis — when a sufficient explanation of their 

 relation to each other, which traces them all to a com- 

 paratively simple low form, is forthcoming. Of the origin 

 of this lowest known system of relationships Sir John 

 Lubbock wisely offers no theory, content with suggesting 

 that the right which a husband among the American 

 Indians is said to possess, of marrying his wife's sisters 

 as they successively come to maturity, may explain why a 

 woman's sisters are considered the mothers of her children. 

 The so-called " communal marriage " clearly cannot be 

 the explanation. Supposing that " communal marriage " 

 could give rise to a system of relationships, all the 

 full-grown men of a tribe must have been equally con- 

 sidered fathers of all the children of the tribe. But the 

 facts collected by Mr. Morgan all point to a more 

 limited amount of fatherhood than this ; and to ac- 

 count, from the communal marriage point of view, for 

 the Hawaiian hmitation, is about as difficult as it is, from 

 the European point of view, to understand the Hawaiian 

 extension, of fatherhood. The influence of the custom ot 

 counting kindred through females only on the develop- 

 ment of systems of relationship has been indicated ; 

 it is by means of it that the departure from the sim- 

 plicity of the Hawaiian system was made. This Sir 

 John Lubbock has clearly pointed out. It is only fair 

 to Mr. Morgan to state that, notwithstanding his theory 

 above referred to, he has not neglected to do the same. 



After so much exposition a little criticism may be 

 riot out of season, and to begin with a phrase which 

 has just been mentioned, " communal marriage," we 

 cannot help regretting that Sir John Lubbock, in his 

 chapter on Marriage, has made so much use of it, 

 since beyond question it is unprecise and misleading. 

 Sir John exhibits a number of facts, all of which, 

 with one doubtful exception, point to the entire absence 

 among certain tribes of the very germ of a marriage 

 law, and to this he gives the name of communal mar- 

 riage. If this were a mere matter of phraseology, it 

 would be hypercritical to say anything about it ; but Sir 

 John goes on to argue as if he had shown that, in a tribe 

 without any law of marriage, every man was the lawful 

 husband of every woman — as if, in fact, there were a 

 defined, though unusually free system of marriage >'ig^if, 

 while what the evidence goes to show is that such 

 a thing never was even thought of The view just 

 noticed has had no inconsiderable influence over his 

 opinions about Marriage ; and it seems, to say the 

 least, unsafe to allow it any weight whatever. Of 

 tribes which [have had no marriage law, all we really 

 know is, that in the intercourse of the sexes nothing 

 was deemed by them wrong, and this state of feeling 

 seems to involve the non-existence of any idea of 

 marriage right. Without evidence, at any rate, we 

 are unable to believe that this idea, as postulated 



