358 
SEXUAL SELECTION : MAN. 
Part II. 
women, is not so surprising as it may at first appear ; 
for I have elsewhere shewn 3 that negroes fully appre- 
ciate the importance of selection in the breeding of 
their domestic animals, and I could give from Mr. lieade 
additional evidence on this head. 
On the Ccmses which prevent or checlc the Action of 
Sexual Selection with Savages. — The chief causes are, 
firstly, so-called communal marriages or promiscuous 
intercourse ; secondly, infanticide, especially of female 
infants; thirdly, early betrothals; and lastly, the low 
estimation in which women are held, as mere slaves. 
These four points must be considered in some detail. 
It is obvious that as long as the pairing of man, or 
of any other animal, is left to chance, with no choice 
exerted by either sex, there can be no sexual selection ; 
and no effect will be produced on the offspring by 
certain individuals having had an advantage over others 
in their courtship. Now it is asserted that there exist 
at the present day tribes which practise what Sir J. 
Lubbock by courtesy calls communal marriages ; that 
is, all the men and women in the tribe are husbands and 
wives to each other. The licentiousness of many savages 
is no doubt astonishingly great, but it seems to me 
that more evidence is requisite before we fully admit 
that their existing intercourse is absolutely promiscuous. 
Nevertheless all those who have most closely studied 
the subject , 4 and whose judgment is worth much more 
3 ‘The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,’ vol. 
i. p. 207. 
4 Sir J . Lubbock, ‘ The Origin of Civilisation,’ 1870, chap. iii. especi- 
ally p. (iO-67. Mr. M'Lennan, in his extrunely valuable work on 
‘ Primitive Marriage, 1865, p. IG3, speaks of the union of the sexes 
“ in the earliest tim< s as loose, transitory, and in some degree pronvs- 
“ cuous.” Mr. M'Lennan and Sir J. Lubbock have collected much 
evidence on the extreme licentiousness of savages at the present time. 
Mr. L. 11. Morgan, in his interesting memoir on the classilicatory system 
