difficult to support themselves and their children, and it is a simple plan to kill their infants. In South America some tribes, according to Azara, formerly destroyed so many infants of both sexes, that they were on the point of extinction. In the Polynesian Islands women have been known to kill from four or five, to even ten of their children; and Ellis could not find a single woman who had not killed at least one. Wherever infanticide prevails the struggle for existence will be in so far less severe, and all the members of the tribe will have an almost equally good chance of rearing their few surviving children. In most cases a larger number of female than of male infants are destroyed, for it is obvious that the latter are of more value to the tribe, as they will, when grown up, aid in defending it, and can support themselves. But the trouble experienced by the women in rearing children, their consequent loss of beauty, the higher estimation set on them when few and their happier fate, are assigned by the women themselves, and by various observers, as additional motives for infanticide. In Australia, where female infanticide is still common, Sir G. Grey estimated the proportion of native women to men as one to three; but others say as two to three. In a village on the eastern frontier of India, Colonel MacCulloch found not a single female child.[1]
When, owing to female infanticide, the women of a tribe were few, the habit of capturing wives from neighbouring tribes would naturally arise. Sir J. Lubbock, however, as we have seen, attributes the practice in chief part, to the former existence of communal marriage, and to the men having consequently captured women from other tribes to hold as their sole property. Additional causes might be assigned, such as the communities being very small, in which case, marriageable women would often be deficient. That the habit was most extensively practised during former times, even by the ancestors of civilised nations, is clearly shewn by the preservation of many curious customs and ceremonies, of which Mr. M'Lennan has given an interesting account. In our own marriages the "best man" seems originally to have been the chief abettor of the bridegroom in the act of capture. Now as long as men habitually procured their wives through violence and craft, they would have been glad to seize on any woman, and would not have selected the more attractive ones. But as soon as the practice of procuring wives from a distinct tribe was effected through barter, as now occurs in many places,
- ↑ Dr. Gerland ('Ueber das Aussterben der Naturvölker,' 1868) has collected much information on infanticide, see especially s. 27, 51, 54. Azara ('Voyages,' &c. tom. ii. pp. 94, 116) enters in detail on the motives. See also M'Lennan (ibid. p. 139) for cases in India.
