590 The Descent of Man. Pabt III 



intelligible, if we admit that promiscuous intercourse was the 

 aboriginal, and therefore long revered custom of the tribe.' 



Although the manner of development of the marriage-tie is an 

 obscure subject, as we may infer from the divergent opinions on 

 several points between the tliree authors who have studied it 

 most closely, namely, Mr. Morgan, Mr. M'Lennan, and Sir J. 

 Lubbock, yet from the foregoing and several other lines of 

 evidence it seems probable' that the habit of marriage, in any 

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

 almost promiscuous or very loose intercourse was once ex- 

 tremely 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 shew, 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 example some of the 

 Indian and American monkeys, are strictly monogamous, and 

 associate all the year round with their wives. Others are poly- 

 gamous, for example the gorilla and several American species, 

 and each family lives separate. Even when this occurs, the 

 famiUes inhabiting the same district are probably somewhat 

 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 conclude fropi 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 



' 'Oi'igiu of Civil;satinn/ 1H70, classificatory system of relationship 

 p. 80. In tliG several works above ctin be otiierwise explained, 

 qaoied, tliere will be found copious " Brehm (' lllust. Tlieirleben,* B. 

 evidence on relationship throui^h i. p. 77) says Cynoceplialus harnO' 

 the females alone, or with the tribe dri/as lives in great troops contain- 

 alone, ing twice as many adult females as 



* Mr. C. Staniland Wake argues adult males. See Rengger on Ame* 



strongly (' Anthropologia,' March, rican polygamous species, and Owen 



1874, p. 197) against the views held (' Auat. of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 



by these three writers on the formfi 746j on American monogamou? 



prevalence of almost promiscuous species. Other references might bi 



in'ercouise; and he thinks that the added 



