EXOGAMY IN CHINA 



127 



bearing the same surname as himself, as "paternal 

 uncles," if of a different surname, "maternal uncles." 



The use of such terms in formal address as "poor," 

 "inferor, " "unworthy," is part of that depreciation of 

 oneself, and of one's own which is a mark of oriental 

 courtesy, the more marked and extravagant, the lower 

 the relative rank of the person speaking or described. 



Even so, such forms of description did not conceal 

 the high status of women in classical China. 



"The partner of the son of heaven is called 'the Op.cit. Pt. ill. 



B 113 



queen'; of a feudal prince, 'the helpmate'; of a Great 

 officer, 'the attendant'; of an inferior officer, 'the serv- 

 ing woman'; and of a common man 'the mate'." 



The wife of a feudal prince it is true, called herself 

 before the son of Heaven "the aged servant," and 

 before the prince (of another state), "the small and 

 unworthy ruler. 



Is Exogamy in China Founded on Name-Avoidance? 



McLennan in his "Primitive Marriage" after 

 quoting Latham's "Descriptive Ethnology" in proof of 

 the wide prevalence of the practice of exogamy, laid it 

 down as an exiom that "wherever capture, or the form 

 of capture, prevails, or has prevailed, there prevails, 

 or has prevailed, exogamy. Conversely, we may say 

 that, wherever exogamy can be found, we may con- 

 fidently expect to find, after due investigation, at least 

 traces of a system of capture." 



McLennan further says "We believe this restriction 

 on marriage to be connected with the practice in early 

 times of female infanticide which, rendering women 

 scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and 

 the capturing of women from without. 



Lord Avebury, unshaken in his opinions by the 

 various criticisms and deductions of McLennan, 

 Letourneau, Starcke, Lang, Atkinson, Frazer, Crawley, 

 and others, still adheres in his "Marriage Totemism 

 and Eeligion" to the views he expressed in "The Origin 

 of Civilization and the Primitive Condition of Man," 

 that "communal marriage" was the earliest form of 

 human society. 



Lord Avebury restates the opinion expressed in 

 his "Origin of Civilization" that "originally no man 

 could appropriate any woman of his own tribe ex- 

 clusively to himself, nor could any woman dedicate 

 herself to one man, without infringing tribal rights; 



McLennan, 

 Studies in 

 Ancient Hist Dry, 

 p. 110. 



Op. eit. p. 111. 



Avebury. 

 Marriage 

 Totemism and 

 Exogamy, p. 3. 



Avebury, 

 Op. cit. p. 67. 



