SEXUAL SELECTION IN RELATION TO MAN 761 



Although savages are now extremely licentious, and 

 although communal marriages may formerly have largely 

 prevailed, yet many tribes practice some form of marriage, 

 but of a far more lax nature than that of civilized 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 scandalized at the utter barba- 

 rism of living with only one wife, and never parting until 

 separated by death." It was, he said, "just like the Wan- 

 deroo monkeys." Whether savages who now enter into 

 some form of marriage, either polygamous or monogamous, 

 have retained this habit from primeval times, or whether 

 they have returned to some form of marriage, after pass- 

 ing through a stage of promiscuous intercourse, I will not 

 pretend to conjecture. 



Infanticide. — This practice is now very common through- 

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

 much more extensively during former times." Barbarians 

 find it difficult to support themselves and their children, and 

 it is a simple plan to kill their infants. In South America 

 Bome tribes, according to Azara, formerly destroyed so many 

 infants, of both sexes, that they were on the point of extinc- 

 tion. In the Polynesian 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 noLltilled at 

 least one. Wherever infanticide prevails they^ruggle for 

 existence will be in so far less severe, and &W the members 

 of the tribe will have an almost equally good chance of 



" "Prehiatoric Times," X869, p. 424. 



12 Mr. M'Lennan, "Primitive Marriage," 1865. See especially on exogamy 

 and inlaaticide, pp. 130, 138, 166. 



