592 The Descent of Man. Pabt III. 



difficult to support themselves and their children, and it is a 

 simple plan to kill their infants. In South America some tribes, 

 according to Azara, formerly destroyed so many infants of both 

 sexes, that they were on the point of extinction. In the Poly- 

 nesian Islands women have been known to kill from four or five, 

 to even ten of their children ; and Ellis could not find a single 

 woman who had not killed at least one. Wherever infanticide 

 prevails the struggle for existence will be in so far less severe, 

 and all the members of the tribe will have an almost equally good 

 chance of rearing their few surviving children. In most cases a 

 larger number of female than of male infants are destroyed, for 

 it is obvious that the latter are of more value to the tribe, as 

 they wiU, when grown up, aid in defending it, and can support 

 themselves. But the trouble experienced by the women in rearing 

 children, their consequent loss of beauty, the higher estima- 

 tion 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 MacOuUoch 

 found not a single female child.^^ 



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

 few, the habit of capturing wives from neighbouring tribes would 

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

 attributes the practice in chief part, to the former existence of 

 communal marriage, and to the men having consequently 

 captured women from other tribes to hold as their sole property. 

 Additional 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 practised 

 during former times, even by the ancestors of civilised nations, 

 is clearly shewn by the preservation of many curious customs 

 and ceremonies, of which Mr. M'Lennan has given an interesting 

 account. In our own marriages the " best man " seems origin- 

 ally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act 

 of capture. Now as long as men habitually procured their wives 

 through violence and craft, they would have been glad to seize on 

 any woman, and would not have selected the more attractive ones. 

 But as soon as the practice of procuring wives from a distinct 

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



*' Dr. Gerland (' Uebei* das Aus- 54. Azara ('Voyages,* &c. torn. ii. 



sterbea der Naturvolker,' 1868) has -jp. 94, 116) enters in detail on th< 



collected much information on .-a- motives. See also M'Lennan (ibsd. 



fanticide, see especially s. '11, 51, p. ^39) for cases in India. 



