ON THE ORGANISATION OF AUSTRALIAN TRIBES. 115 
the relationships which connect, in various degree and manner, the members of 
the community, and the very structure of the tribe in its local and social aspect, for 
these even are found to have a powerful influence upon marriage. 
I may commence by saying that the form of marriage which we are most 
accustomed to see among the Australian aborigines is that where a blackfellow has 
apparently one wife, or more rarely two or more wives. This may be termed 
individual marriage, in contradistinction to the less patent form under which a group 
of men have one or more women, or a number of women equal in number to 
themselves in common. ‘This may be spoken of as group marriage. Individual 
marriage in Australian tribes has been evident to everyone, but group marriage was 
first pointed out as existing by Mr. Fison and myself, and has even now been denied 
by the late Mr. E. M. Curr. 
I shall first note the different modes in which individual marriage is brought 
about, and then shall detail the evidence upon which the existence of group marriage 
is now proved to obtain in quite a large number of tribes simultaneously with 
individual marriage. 
Individual marriage in Australian tribes may be defined as that status under 
which a man claims a woman as his wife exclusively for himself, while he recognises 
no reciprocal obligation to restrict himself to monogamy. Yet it must be clearly 
understood that this individual right to his wife does not obtain in all tribes with the 
same exclusiveness. 
In the Kurnai tribe it was absolute, with the one exception to be hereafter 
noted. In the Dieri tribe, which may be chosen as the example standing at the 
opposite end of the series, the exclusive right of the husband did not affect his own 
brothers, or those tribal brothers who, as will be explained hereafter, became the 
Piraurus of his wife.* 
With this proviso, I now proceed to briefly discuss the different manner in 
which individual marriage arose, that is to say, the different ways in which an 
Australian blackfellow obtained his wife. 
It may be safely laid down as a broad and general proposition that among these 
savages a wife was obtained by the exchange of a female relative, with the alternative 
possibility of obtaining one by inheritance (Levirate), by elopement, or by capture. I 
have already shown that, in accordance with the laws of the classes, there is under- 
lying the whole system the principle of exchange of women by the great inter-marrying 
exogamous divisions of the tribe, and, to this law of exogamy, all the various means of 
obtaining a wife are subject. 
* As to Pirauru, see p. 124. 
