Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/34

24 F A M F A M looked upon with such contempt that they kill all the native females and buy wives from their neighbours." Now, iu each group, by the system of capture, are members of alien groups, namely, the women and their children, who, as wo have seen, are recognized as connexions of the mothers, not the fathers. Let these practices be formed into customary law, refuse a man permission to marry a woman of his own stock-name (marked by the totem), and you have exogamy, or what Mr Morgan calls " the gentile organization." Within the groups are several families of the earliest type, the female and her offspring. Next, conceive of the sets of mother s sons, as feeling a stronger bond of union between themselves and the other members of the group, and as living with their mother. They cannot marry their sisters (who are of the same name and totem as themselves), but they regard their sisters children as their heirs. To their own putative children, they can only make presents inter vivos, and the sisters are wedded each to a set of men in the manner of the Nairs. But, as pro perty was amassed, the brothers would prefer to keep their property in the hands of their putative children, and " there would be a disposition in favour of a system of marriage which would allow of the property passing to the brother s own children (Prim. Mar., 242). This form of marriage would be the one prevailing in Thibet. The elder brother, the first to marry, would have some of the attributes of the paterfamilias. Thus the idea of fatherhood attained some thing like maturity. Chiefs, moreover, would secure one or more wives to themselves, and their example imitated would produce monandry. The old state of things would leave its trace in the levirate, the duty of " raising up seed to a brother." Even before these changes, the custom of marrying out of the group would have introduced so many strangers of various names and totems, that the members of a local tribe could intermarry with one another and yet not violate the law of exogamy. Such a local tribe, flushed with success in war, might refuse to marry beyond its limits, and become, so to say, a caste divided into ghotras. Let this caste feign itself to be descended from a common ancestor (a process of which Sir John Lubbock gives many examples), and you have a caste believed to be of common blood, yet refusing to marry outside the blood, that is, an endogamous tribe. Within this tribe (as it were by a reac tion from the old kinship through females) grows kinship through males only, the agnatic system of Rome. The wife and children are the husband s property; agnates only can be a man s heirs and, failing these, gentiles, i.e., members of the kin still denoted by the common name. Many criticisms have been made, especially by Sir John Lubbock and Mr Herbert Spencer (Origin of Civilization, third edition ; Principles of Sociology, vol. i.), on the scheme here too briefly sketched. Sir John Lubbock holds that exogamy springs from marriage by capture (by which alone a member of a group could get a wife to himself), rather than marriage by capture from exogamy. Mr Spencer advocates the action of various " conspiring causes," " the stealing of a wife might become the required proof of fitness to have one" (op. cit., pp. 652, 653). The origin of exogamy lies so far behind us in the past that it may remain for ever obscure. It is probable that every variety of union of tho sexes has existed, while it seems possible that a few have been passed through, as necessary- stages, by all advancing races. In this notice we have said little of the custom by which a man is a member of several clubs of men, each with one^wife iu common. No hard and fast theory is likely to be accepted as more than provisional in the present state of knowledge, when science has only for a few years been busily occupied iu this investigation. (A. L.) FAMINES. War, pestilence, and famine are regarded by many as the natural enemies of the human race ; but in truth these are all more or less associated with the circum stances of civilization. In the highest state of civilized society there ought to be no war ; there need be no pesti lence ; and famine alone would stand as being beyond the range of human prevention subject to some conditions to be afterwards spoken of. The advancement in the social scale to a state of dependence upon cereal crops, while the facilities of intercommunication between different countries, or even parts of the same country, remained imperfect, led almost necessarily to the periodical recurrence of scarcity. Cereal crops are especially dependent upon conditions of climate for their regular production; and here at least are circumstances beyond human control. In a matter of such practical importance as the failure of the regular supply of the food of the people, it is not desirable to rely upon merely theoretical surmises ; nor is it necessary to do so. A table has recently been prepared 1 of over 350 famines which have occurred in the history of the world, beginning with those spoken of in the Scriptures as having been in Palestine and in the neighbouring nations in the time of Abraham (Gen. xii. 10), and again in the time of Isaac (Gen, xxvi, 1) ; passing on to the seven years famine in Egypt down through those which afflicted ancient Home; enumerating in their order those which have visited the three divisions of the United Kingdom (by far the most numerous in the table the records being more avail able), as also those devastating Europe iu the Middle Ages ; reviewing in special detail the 34 famines which have visited India, including, as the first recorded of this group, that of 1769-70 (above 20 have been on a large scale); and concluding with that terrible calamity which is now ravaging the populations in North China. It is not pretended that this table is entirely exhaustive. It is known that many famines have occurred in the Chinese empire of which no details have been found available; and it is supposed that many have desolated Persia and other portions of Asia of which exact particulars are not avail able. But as this is believed to be the only existing table of the kind, and as great pains have been taken to make it complete, it may for our present purpose be regarded at least as representative. We proceed then to an analysis of it, in view of ascertaining what have been the causes of famines, a point of the first importance when we come to a consideration of the problem which will naturally force itself into prominence can anything be done to avert these national calamities? The analysis discloses the following causes, or we may perhaps more accurately say attributed causes for in this matter we have to follow the authority of the original chronicle, or of such records as have reached us : 1, rain ; 2. frost; 3, drought; 4, other meteorological phenomena ; 5, insects and vermin; 6, war; 7, defective agriculture; 8, defective transport; 9, legislative interference ; 10, cur rency restrictions; 11, speculation; 12, misapplication of grain. These causes are named, as far as may be, in the order of their importance. It is immediately noticeable that they form themselves into the two distinct groups of natural and artificial causes. We proceed to consider the first group natural causes of famines. 1. Rain. By excess of rain floods are produced, the soil becomes saturated, and decomposition of the seed is occa sioned. In hilly countries the seed is not unfrequently washed entirely out of the ground, and so is destroyed. This cause of famine applies in a marked manner to 1 See Statistical Journal, vol. xli., paper by Mr Cornelius Wai ford, F.I. A., F.S.S., &c., " On the Famines of the World, past and present."