132 PHYSICAL BASIS OF CIVILIZATION 



chapter, however, a very different view of the subject 

 seems rational, namely, that this form of sex relation 

 is the necessary result of permanent support by the 

 male and scantiness of population, which prevailed 

 during the earliest periods of brute-man's existence. 



During subsequent eras of warfare, the level of the 

 adult male population may sometimes have fallen 

 so very low that polygamy was the only remedy 

 which could save the race or the tribe from extinc- 

 tion. It is possible that such epochs occasionally 

 lasted for so many generations that the former 

 existence of monogamic marriage was only remem- 

 bered, if at all, as a tradition, or a reminiscence from 

 a former golden age. This ideal, in subsequent 

 periods of peace, may then have been resuscitated 

 and reinforced by governmental, religious, and con- 

 ventional regulations, and this would account for its 

 present existence. 1 



The original economic dependence of woman, 

 mentioned in the two last chapters, began only when 

 the infirmities of the final stages of pregnancy had 

 made it impossible for her to obtain her own food 

 supplies and defend herself against enemies. It, 

 therefore, could not possibly influence her in her 

 choice of a consort, which necessarily had to occur 

 long before that time. 



The kind of economic dependence which has 



*It seems strange that the obvious fact that family relations 

 and monogamic marriage have existed in the human race ever 

 since its advent should be called in question, seeing that they 

 are found among the anthropoid apes. 



