MAN-CHECKS TO SEXUAL SELECTION. 585 



dence it seems probable' that the habit of marriage, In any strict 

 sense of the word, has been gradually developed; and that al- 

 most promiscuous or very loose intercourse was once extremely 

 common throughout the world. Nevertheless from the strength 

 of the feeling of jealousy all through the animal kingdom, as well 

 as from the analogy of the lower animals, more particularly of 

 those which come nearest to man, I cannot believe that absolutely 

 'promiscuous intercourse prevailed in times past, shortly before 

 man attained to his present rank in the zoological scale. Man, as 

 I have attempted to show, is certainly descended from some ape- 

 like creature. With the existing Quadrumana, as far as their 

 habits are known, the males of some species are monogamous, 

 but live during only a part of the year with the females; of this 

 the orang seems to afford an instance. Several kinds, for ex- 

 ample some of the Indian and American monkeys, are strictly 

 monogamous, and associate all the year round with their wives. 

 Others are polygamous, for example the gorilla and several Amer- 

 ican species, and each family lives separate. Even when this oc- 

 curs, the families inhabiting the same district are probably some- 

 what social: the chimpanzee, for instance, is occasionally met 

 with in large bands. Again, other species are polygamous, but 

 several males, each with his own females, live associated in a 

 body, as with several species of baboons." We may indeed con- 

 clude from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, 

 armed, as many of them are, with special weapons for battling 

 with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of nature 

 is extremely improbable. The pairing may not last for life, but 

 only for each birth; yet if the males which are the strongest and 

 best able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young, 

 were to select the more attractive females, this would suffice for 

 sexual selection. 



Therefore, looking far enough back in the stream of time, and 

 judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most 

 probable view is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, 

 each with a single wife, or if powerful with several, whom he 

 jealously guarded against all other men. Or he may not have 

 been a social animal, and yet have lived with several wives, like 

 the gorilla; for all the natives "agree that but one adult male 



8 Mr. C. Staniland Wake argues strongly ('Anthropologia,' March, 

 1874, p. 19'?) against the views held by these three writers on the former 

 prevalence of almost promiscuous intercourse; and he thinks that the 

 classiflcatory system of relationship can be otherwise explained. 



» Brehm ('Illust. Theirleben,' B. 1. p. 77) says Cynocephalus hama- 

 dryas lives in great troops containing twice as many adult females as 

 adult males. See Kengger on American polygamous species, and Owen 

 ('Anat. of Vertebrates,' vol. ill. p. 746) on American monogamous spe- 

 cies. Other references might be added. 



