MAN-CHECKS TO SEXUAL SELECTION. 587 



experienced by the women in rearing children, their consequent 

 loss of beauty, the higher estimation set on them when few and 

 their happier fate, are assigned by the women themselves, and 

 by various observers, as additional motives for infanticide. In 

 Australia, where female infanticide is still common, Sir G. Grey 

 estimated the proportion of native women to men as one to three; 

 but others say as two to three. In a village on the eastern frontier 

 of India, Colonel MacCulloch found not a single female child." 



When, owing to female infanticide, the women of a tribe were 

 few, the habit of capturing wives from neighboring tribes would 

 naturally arise. Sir J. Lubbock, however, as we have seen, at- 

 tributes the practice in chief part, to the former existence of com- 

 munal marriage, and to the men having consequently captured 

 women from other tribes to hold as their sole property. Addi- 

 tional causes might be assigned, such as the communities being 

 very small, in which case, marriageable women would often be 

 deficient. That the habit was most extensively practiced during 

 former times, even by the ancestors of civilized nations, is clearly 

 shown by the preservation of many curious customs and cere- 

 monies, of which Mr. M'Lennan has given an interesting account. 

 In our own marriages the "best man" seems originally to have 

 been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture. 

 Now as long as men habitually procured their wives through vio- 

 lence and craft, they would have been glad to seize on any wom- 

 an, and would not have selected the more attractive ones. But 

 as soon as the practice of procuring wives from a distant tribe 

 was effected through barter, as now occurs in many places, the 

 more attractive women would generally have been purchased. 

 The incessant crossing, however, between tribe and tribe, which 

 necessarily follows from any form of this habit, would tend to 

 keep all the people inhabiting the same country nearly uniform 

 in character; and this would interfere with the power of sexual 

 selection in differentiating the tribes. 



The scarcity of women, consequent on female infanticide, leads, 

 also, to another practice, that of polyandry, still common in sev- 

 eral parts of the world, and which formerly, as Mr. M'Lennan 

 believes, prevailed almost universally; but this latter conclusion 

 is doubted by Mr. Morgan and Sir J. Lubbock." Whenever two 

 or more men are compelled to marry one woman, it is certain 



13 Dr. Gerland ('Uelber das Aussterben der Naturvolker,' 1868) has col- 

 lected much information on infanticide, see especially s. 27, 51, 54. 

 Azara ('Voyages,' &c. torn. ii. pp. 94, 116) enters In detail on the mo- 

 tives. See also M'Lennan (ibid. p. 139) for cases in India. 



" 'Primitive Marriage,' p. 208; Sir J. Lubbock, 'Origin of Civiliza- 

 tion,' p. lOO. See also Mr. Morgan, loc. cit., on the former prevalence 

 of polyandry. 



