860 
sexual selection: man. 
Pakt II. 
tile world may be divided, according to the author just 
quoted, into two great classes, the classificatory and 
descriptive,— the latter being employed by us. ' It is 
the classificatory system which so strongly leads to the 
belief that communal and other extremely loose forms 
of marriage were originally universal. But as far as 
1 can see, there is no necessity on this ground for be- 
lieving m absolutely promiscuous intercourse; and I am 
glad to find that this is Sir J. Lubbock’s view. Men 
and women, like many of the lower animals, mio-ht for- 
merly have entered into strict though temporary” unions 
tor each birth, and in this case nearly as much confusion 
would have arisen in the terms of relationship as in the 
case of promiscuous intercourse. As far as sexual selec- 
tion is concerned, all that is required is that choice should 
be exerted before the parents unite, and it signifies little 
whether the unions last for life or only for a season. 
Besides the evidence derived from the terms of re- 
ationship, other lines of reasoning indicate the former 
wide prevalence of communal marriage. Sir J. Lub- 
bock ingeniously accounts 6 for the strange and widely- 
extended habit of exogamy, -that is, the men of one 
tn le always taking wives from a distinct tribe.— by 
communism having been the original form of mar- 
riage ; so that a man never obtained a wife for himself 
un ess he captured her from a neighbouring and hostile 
tribe, and then she would naturally have become Ids 
sole and valuable property. Thus the practice of cap- 
turing wives might have arisen; and from the honour 
so gained might ultimately have become the universal 
habit. Vie can also, according to Sir J. Lubbock, 5 
thus understand “the necessity of expiation for mar- 
' *° Briti ^ Association ‘On the Social and It ligious Con- 
dition of the Lower Race s of Man,’ 1870, p. 20. 
