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Chap. XX.
Man—Checks to Sexual Selection.
589

tribe alone, to the exclusion even of the mother. It seems possible that the connection between the related members of the same barbarous tribe, exposed to all sorts of danger, might be so much more important, owing to the need of mutual protection and aid, than that between the mother and her child, as to lead to the sole use of terms expressive of the former relationships; but Mr. Morgan is convinced that this view is by no means sufficient.

The terms of relationship used in different parts of the 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 I can see, there is no necessity on this ground for believing in 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, might formerly have entered into strict though temporary unions for 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 selection 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 relationship, other lines of reasoning indicate the former wide prevalence of communal marriage. Sir. J. Lubbock accounts[1] for the strange and widely-extended habit of exogamy—that is, the men of one tribe taking wives from a distinct tribe,—by communism having been the original form of intercourse; so that a man never obtained a wife for himself unless he captured her from a neighbouring and hostile tribe, and then she would naturally have become his sole and valuable property. Thus the practice of capturing wives might have arisen; and from the honour so gained it might ultimately have become the universal habit. According to Sir J. Lubbock,[1] we can also thus understand "the necessity of expiation for marriage as an infringement of tribal rites, since, according to old ideas, a man had no right to appropriate to himself that which belonged to the whole tribe." Sir J. Lubbock farther gives a curious body of facts shewing that in old times high honour was bestowed on women who were utterly licentious; and this, as he explains, is

  1. 1.0 1.1 Address to British Association 'On the Social and Religious Condition of the Lower Races of Man,' 1870, p. 20.