$16 The American Naturalist. [September, 
as now, the active, dominant factor in those affairs outside the 
immediate pale of the fireside. Life was collective; “ com- 
munal was the habitation, and communal the wives with the 
children; the men pursued the same prey, and devoured it 
together after the manner of wolves; all felt, all thought, all 
acted in concert.” Primitive men were like their Simian 
ancestors which never paired, and which roamed through 
the forests in bands and troops. This collectivism is plainly 
noticeable in certain races of primitive folks which are yet in 
existence, notably the Autocthons of the Aleutian Islands. 
Huddled together in their communal Kachims, naked, without 
thought of immodesty, men, women and children share the 
same fire and eat from the same pot. They recognize no im- 
morality in the fact of the father cohabiting with his daughter 
—one of them naively remarking to Langsdorf, who re- 
proached him for having committed this crime: “ Why not? 
the otters doit!” Later in life the men and women mate; 
but even then there is no sanctity in the marriage tie, for the 
Aleutian will freely offer his wife to the stranger within his 
gates, and will consider it an insult if he refuses to enjoy her 
company. “As with many savages and half-civilized people, 
the man who would not offer his guest the hospitality of the 
conjugal couch, or the company of his best-looking daughter, 
would be considered an ill-bred person.” 
This laxity in sexual relations was, at first, common to all 
races of primitive men, but, after a time, there arose certain 
influences which modified, to a certain extent, this free and 
indiscriminate intercourse. Frequent wars must have occur- 
red between hostile tribes of primitive men, during which, 
some of them (physically or numerically weaker than their 
opponents) must have been repeatedly vanquished, and many 
of their females captured, for, in those old days (like those of 
more recent times, for that matter) the women were the prizes 
for which the men fought. 
Under circumstances like these, the few remaining women 
must have served as wives for all the men of the tribe; and, 
in this manner polyandry had its inception. Polyandry 
gives woman certain privileges which monandry denies, and 
