Chap. XX. Mati — Checks to Sexual Selection. 591 



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 

 " is seen in a band ; when the young male grows up, a contest 

 " takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing and 

 " driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the 

 " community." '° The younger males, being thus expelled and 

 wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a 

 partner, prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the 

 same family. 



Although savages are now extremely licentious, and although 

 communal marriages may formerly have largely prevailed, yet 

 many tribes practise some form of marriage, but of a far more lax 

 nature than that of civilised nations. Polygamy, as just stated, 

 is almost universally followed by the leading men in every tribe. 

 Nevertheless there are tribes, standing almost at the bottom of 

 the scale, which are strictly monogamous. This is the case with 

 the Veddahs of Ceylon : they have a saying, according to Sir J. 

 Lubbock," " that death alone can separate husband and wife." 

 An intelligent Kandyan chief, of course a polygamist, " was 

 " perfectly scandalised at the utter barbarism of living with 

 " only one wife, and never parting until separated by death." 

 It was, he said, "Just like the Wanderoo monkeys." Whether 

 savages who now enter into some form of marriage, either poly- 

 gamous or monogamous, have retained this habit from primeval 

 times, or whether they have returned to some form of marriage, 

 after passing through a. stage of promiscuous intercourse, I will 

 not pretend to conjecture. 



Infanticide. — This practice is now very common throughout 

 the world, and there is reason to believe that it prevailed much 

 more extensively during former times.'" Barbarians find it 



" Di'. Savage, iu ' Boston Journal " Mr. M'Lennan, ' Primitive 



of Nat. Hist.' vol. v. 1845-47, p. Marriage,' 1865. See especially ou 



423. exogamy iind infanticide, pp. 130| 



" 'Prehistoric 'I'imes,' 1869, p. 1B8, 165. 



