CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 THIS BOOK IS ONR OF A 
 COLLECTION MADE BY 
 
 BENNO LOEWY 
 1854-1919 
 
 AND BEQUEATHED TO 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924101874190 
 
PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE. 
 
PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE 
 
 AN INQUIRY INTO 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 BY JOHN F. M'LENNAN, M.A., 
 
 ADVOCATE. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 
 ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK. 
 
 1865. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 In the course of some .inquiries which I 
 had been making into the early history 
 of civil society, the meaning and origin 
 of the Form of Capture in Marriage 
 Ceremonies fell to be investigated. The 
 subject being in itself curious, as well as 
 obscure, and one which has never J iither- 
 to, so far as I am aware, been handled, I 
 venture to lay the result of my investi- 
 gation before the public, hoping that it 
 may to some extent interest by its novelty. 
 To the philosophic reader, I humbly sub- 
 mit my little book as an exercise in scien- 
 tific history. If I am right in my con- 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 elusions as to the origin of the symbol of 
 capture, my essay must be accepted as 
 throwing new light on the primitive state^ 
 For it will be seen that the symbol is not 
 peculiar to any of the families of mankind. 
 It is at once Indo-European, Turanian, 
 and Semitic ; and the frequency of its oc- 
 currence is such as strongly to suggest — 
 what I incline to believe — that the phase 
 of society in which it originated existed, 
 at some time or other, almost every- 
 where. Indeed, so far as my inquiries 
 into early social phenomena have ex- 
 tended, I have found such similarity, so 
 many correspondences, so much sameness 
 in the forms of life prevailing among the 
 races usually considered distinct, that I 
 have come to regard the ethnological 
 differences of the several families of man- 
 
PREFACE. vii 
 
 kind as of little or no weight compared 
 with what they have in common. (Xhe 
 most that can be attributed to those diffe- 
 rences is, that they have affected the rate 
 of development of the families, and the 
 character of the development itself, in 
 some of its secondary aspec^ 
 
 Apart from the interest attaching to 
 the Form of Capture as pointing out 
 what most probably wa s the primitive 
 Torrn of human association^ it_will be 
 fomi3'ToTiave an important bearing on 
 several social problems which have 
 hitherto remained unsolved. I think 
 that the most important portions of my 
 work are Chapters VIII. and IX., in 
 which the solution of some of these pro- 
 blems is attempted. These chapters, it 
 will be seen, are strictly pertinent to the 
 
viii PREFA CE. 
 
 main subject of inquiry. In order to 
 explain the appearance of the Form of 
 Capture among endogamous peoples, it 
 was necessary that I should examine 
 the systems of kinsh ip which ancie ntly 
 prevailed, and their influence on the 
 structure of the primitive groups , so as 
 to obtain a tr ue view of the rise of ca ste 
 and o fendogamy.^ 
 
 I ought to mention that, in some 
 cases, I have had much difficulty in 
 ascertaining the proper names of places. 
 For instance, Munniepore is sometimes 
 written Munipur, and sometimes Manni- 
 poor. In every such case I have followed 
 the authority which I have had most fre- 
 quent occasion to cite in regard to the 
 glace. I have farther to notice, that I 
 have discarded the use of the signs 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 "_.'"', and so on, commonly em- 
 ployed to indicate the orthoepy of foreign 
 words. Such signs are of no use to the 
 unlearned ; and, in the run of cases, the 
 learned may be presumed not to require 
 their assistance. Besides, I have not 
 found much agreement, among writers, in 
 the use of such signs. The word Ra- 
 mayana, for example, is written Rdmdy- 
 ana by Professor Monier Williams, Ra- 
 mayana by Dr. Muir, and Rdm^yana by 
 Professor Max Miiller. In writing it 
 simply Ramayana, I follow Mr. Tagore, 
 in his recent translation of the ' Vivada 
 Chintamani,' in which work, as in the 
 present, the signs referred to are wholly 
 discarded. 
 
 Edinburgh, Jan. 6, 1865. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 Page 
 
 Legal Symbolism and Primitive Life - 5 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 The Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies 19 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 The Origin of the Form of Capture 43 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 On the Prevalence of the Practice of Capturing 
 
 Wives, de facto 59 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 Of the Rule against Marriage between mem- 
 bers of the same Tribe — Of the coincidence 
 of- this rule with the Practice of Capturing 
 Wives, de facto, and with the Form of Cap- 
 ture in Marriage Ceremonies 93 
 
xii CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 Faoe 
 
 On the State of Hostility - - 132 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Exogamy : its Origin — Comparative Archaism 
 
 of Exogamy and Endogamy - - 136 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Ancient Systems of Kinship, and their Influence 
 on the Structure of the Primitive Groups - 151 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 The Decay of Exogamy ... 266 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 Conclusion - - 287 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Note A. — Additional Examples of the Form 
 
 of Capture - - - . . 293' 
 
 Note B.— On the Practice of Capturing Women 
 for Wives - - . . 302 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Legal Symbolism and Primilive Life. 
 
 The chief sources of information rega rd- 
 ing the early history of c ivil society a re, 
 first, th e study of races in t heir primitive 
 condition ; and, second, the study of the 
 symbols employed by advanced nation s 
 in the constitution or exercise of civil 
 rights. From these studies pursued to- 
 'gether, we obtain, to a large extent, the 
 power of classifying social phenomena as 
 more or less archaic, and thus of connect- 
 ing and arranging in their order the 
 stages of human advancement. 
 
 None of the usual methods of his- 
 torical inquiry conduct us back to forms 
 
 B 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 of life so nearly primitive as many that 
 have come down into our own times. 
 The geological record, of course, exhibits 
 races as rude as any now living, some per- 
 haps even more so, but then it goes no 
 farther than to inform us what food they 
 ate, what weapons they used, and what 
 was the character of their ornaments. 
 More than this was not to be expected 
 from that record, for it was not in its 
 nature to preserve any memorials of 
 those aspects of human life in which the 
 philosopher is chiefly interested — of the 
 family or tribal groupings, the domestic 
 and political organisation. Again, the 
 facts disclosed by philology as to the civil 
 condition of the Indo-European race be- 
 fore its dispersion from its original head- 
 quarters, — the earliest, chronologically 
 considered, which we possess respecting 
 the social state of mankind, — cannot be 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 
 
 said to tell us anything of the origin or 
 early progress of civilization. Assuming 
 the correctness of the generalization by 
 which philologers have attempted to re- 
 construct the social economy of the 
 Aryans, we find that people, at an un- 
 known date before the dawn of tra- 
 dition, occupying nearly the same point 
 of advancement as that now occupied 
 by the pastoral hordes of Kirghiz Tar- 
 tary, and leading much the same sort 
 of life. They had marriage laws re- 
 gulating the rights and obligations of 
 husbands and wives, of parents and chil- 
 dren ; they recognised the ties of blood 
 through both parents ; they had great 
 flocks and herds, in defence of which 
 they often did battle, and they lived under 
 a patriarchal government with monarchi- 
 cal features. It is interesting — a short 
 time ago we should have said surprising 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 — to find that such progress had been so 
 early made. But in all other respects this 
 so-called revelation of philology is void of 
 instruction. Those Aryan institutions are 
 — -to use the language of geology — post- 
 pliocene, separated by a long interval from 
 the foundations of civil society, and throw- 
 ing back upon them no light. Marriage 
 laws, agnatic relationship, and kingly go- 
 vermnent, hel ongf, in the order of deve lop- 
 me nt, to recent t imes. 
 
 For the features of primitivejife, we 
 must look, not to tribes of the Kirghiz type, 
 I but to those of CentraLAiricaJiiejwilds of 
 ' America, the hillsoflndia, and the islands 
 Qfj HeTac ificiwith some of whom we find 
 marriage laws unknown, the family system 
 undeveloped, and even the only acknow- 
 ledged blood-relationship that through 
 mothers. These facts of to-day are, in a 
 sense, the most ancient history. In the 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 
 
 sciences of law and society, old means not 
 old in chronology, but in structure: that, 
 is most archaic which lies nearest to the 
 beginning of human progress considered 
 as a development, and that is most modern 
 which is farthest removed from that be- 
 ginning. 
 
 And since the historical nations were 
 so far advanced at the earliest dates to 
 which even philology can lead us back, the 
 scientific investigation of the progress of 
 mankind must not deal with them, in the 
 first instance, but with the very rude forms 
 of life still existing, and the rudest of 
 which we have accounts. The preface of 
 general history must be compiled from the 
 materials presented by barbarism. Hap- 
 pily, if we may say so, these materials are 
 abundant. So unequally has the species 
 been developed, that almost every con- 
 ceivable phase of progress may be studied, 
 
lo LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 as somewhere observed and recorded. And 
 thus the philosopher, fenced from mistake, 
 as to the order of development, by the in- 
 terconnection of the stages and their shad- 
 ing into one another by gentle gradations, 
 may draw a clear and decided outline of 
 the course of human progress in times 
 long antecedent to those to which even 
 philology can make reference. All honour 
 to philology; but in the task of recon- 
 structing the past, to which its professors 
 declare themselves to be devoted, they 
 must be contented to act as assistants 
 rather than as principals. 
 
 We have said that the preface of gene- 
 ral history must be compiled from mate- 
 rials presented by barbarism. Some may 
 account it illogical to prefix a scheme of 
 early progress formed on view of socie- 
 ties that have not yet advanced far, if at 
 all, from savagery, to a scheme of further 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. ii 
 
 progress deduced from the written histories 
 of nations whose origin and early training 
 we are unacquainted with. But, in point 
 of fact, it is not so. It is the best proof 
 of the propriety of such a course — as well 
 as of the continuity and uniform charac- 
 ter of human progress — that we can trace 
 everywhere, disguised under a variety of 
 symbolJcaLforms in the higher layers -of 
 civilization, the rude modes of life and 
 formi of law with which the examination 
 of the lower makes us familiar. Indeed, 
 were these remarks not merely general and 
 introductory to the investigation of the 
 origin of one particular symbol, many in- 
 stances of this correspondence between 
 the higher and lower levels might be 
 cited, to show that the symbolism of law 
 in the light of a knowledge of primi- 
 tive life, is the best key to unwritten 
 history. 
 
12 LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 Of the value of that symbolism — of 
 that reverence for the past to which it owes 
 its origin — there will be occasion to say 
 something hereafter. Meantime, we ob- 
 serve that, Wherever we discover sym- 
 'bolical forms, we are justified in inferring 
 that in the past life of the people em- 
 ploying them, there were corresponding 
 realities |\and if, among the primitive races 
 which we examine, we find such realities 
 as might naturally pass into such forms on 
 an advance taking place in civility, then 
 we may safely conclude (keeping within 
 the conditions of a sound inference) that 
 what these now are, those employing the 
 symbols once were. History is thus 
 made to ratify conclusions derived from 
 the observation of rude tribes ; while 
 such observation, again, is made to fur- 
 nish the key to many of the enigmas of 
 history. 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 13 
 
 For it is not as regards unwritten 
 history merely that the two sources of 
 information specified at the outset are of 
 importance. Apart from the tests of truth 
 afforded by the minute knowledge of 
 primitive modes of life and their classi- 
 fication as more or less archaic, nothing 
 could be more delusive than written his- 
 tory itself. In Roman law, to take a con- 
 venient, example, Confarreatio has the 
 foremost place among the modes of con- 
 stituting marriage. Usus is just men- 
 tioned in the twelve tables, which contain 
 a provision against the wife coming into 
 the Manus of her husband through Usus. 
 Coemptio does not appear in the old law 
 of Rome at all, nor is there any mention 
 of it earlier than that by Gains. But it 
 can easily be shown that Usus and Co- 
 emptio come first in order of age, and 
 Confarreatio later ; that is to say, the two 
 
14 LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 former are more archaic than the latter. 
 Yet have recent learned writers, overlook- 
 ing this fact and the meaning of legal 
 symbolism, represented Usus and Co- 
 emptio as forms invented and introduced 
 by the legislators of Rome, whereby the 
 plebeians might have their wives in Manu, 
 and enjoy the other advantages of Justae 
 Nuptise ; Usus as an invention ; and the 
 fictitious sale in Coemptio as merely a 
 device of legislative ingenuity. The true 
 explanation of the late appearance of 
 both Usus and the fictitious sale in the 
 Roman law, is this — that the law at first 
 was not that of the whole people but of a 
 limited aristocracy, who, with a Sabine 
 king and priesthood, adopted the Sabine 
 religious ceremony of marriage ; that the 
 law long totally ignored the life and 
 usages of the mass, and that their modes 
 of marrying and giving in marriage be- 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 15 
 
 gan to appear, and to make their mark 
 in the law, only on the popular element 
 in the city becoming of importance. In- 
 stead of marriage per coemptionem being 
 the invention of legislators, it was of 
 spontaneous popular growth, and must 
 have been as old as the establishment of 
 peaceful relations between tribes and fami- 
 lies. All fictions, or nearly all, have had 
 their germs in facts ; became fictions or 
 merely symbolical forms afterwards. And 
 that the fictitious sale was originally an 
 actual sale and purchase, cannot be doubted 
 by any one who knows that marriage by 
 the form of actual sale has prevailed 
 almost universally among rude popula- 
 tions. 
 
 We see in the case of the Roman law 
 how incomplete must necessarily be the 
 history of the law of a country, as written 
 on the face of it. The law is at first that of 
 
i6 LEGAL SYMBOLISM 
 
 the dominant and presumably the most ad-« 
 vanced classes — the literates, warriors, and^ 
 statesmen ; the rest of the community are 
 beyond its pale, a law unto themselves. 
 When the levelling processes, by which 
 the lower classes succeed in the long run in 
 acquiring rights more or less equal, have 
 gone on for some time, then the ruder cus- 
 toms followed by them before and since 
 the commencement of the State appear in 
 a modified form in what is now for the 
 first time really becoming the law of the 
 people. Civility seems suddenly to as- 
 sume the garb and the air, and to use 
 the gutturals of barbarism ; legal pro- 
 cesses are gone through with the frantic 
 howls and gesticulations of armed Ojibe-j 
 ways ; and while all this, to those who are 
 ignorant of primitive times, seems mere 
 idle pantomime, sometimes silly, some- 
 times odd, sometimes puzzling by its in- 
 
AND PRIMITIVE LIFE. 17 
 
 tricacy, to those who are prepared to 
 receive their suggestions, the forms em- 
 ployed are pregnant with meaning and in- 
 struction, ^fortunately all the nations in 
 the world have not advanced in civility 
 pari passu ; and what is pantomime with 
 one people, we discern to be grimmest 
 reality with another/ Were it not for this 
 inequality of development, in what mys- 
 teries would the history of the race be 
 enveloped! What Michelet calls the 
 poetry of law would have to be received 
 as such simply ; as so many grotesqueries 
 or graces introduced into the ways of life 
 to satisfy the popular fancy. As it is, 
 however, ^he so-called poetry of law, the 
 symbolic forms that appear in a code or in 
 popular customs, tell us as certainly of the 
 early usages of a people, as the rings in the 
 transverse section of a tree tell of its ag^ 
 The Libripens, with his scales, ofh- 
 
LEGAL SYMBOLISM. 
 
 elating at a will or act of adoption, seemsi 
 out of place ; but his presence illustratesj 
 the source whence all ideas of formal dis- 
 positions were derived — the sale of fun- 
 gibles. So does an old form of process 
 preserved by Gains — the Legis Actio. 
 Sacramenti of the Romans — prove that 
 cultivated people to have been at one 
 time in pari casu as regards the adminis- 
 tration of justice with many races which 
 we find ignorant of legal proceedings, and 
 dependent for the settlement of their dis- 
 putes on force of arms or the good offices 
 of neutral parties interfering as arbiters. 
 
 So far, briefly, of the importance of 
 the symbolism of law and of the study of 
 races in their primitive condition. What 
 follows is an attempt at a practical exem- 
 plification in a new direction of the aid 
 derivable from these sources in the task 
 of unveiling the past. 
 
FORM OF CAPTURE. 19 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The Form of Capture in Marriage 
 Ceremonies. 
 
 In the whole range of legal symbolism 
 there is no symbol more remarkable than 
 that of capture in marriage ceremonies 
 — the origin of which it is our purpose 
 to investigate — nor is there any the 
 meaning of which has been less studied. 
 So far as we know, neither has the 
 extent to which it prevails been made 
 the subject of inquiry ; nor its signifi- 
 cance the subject of thought. In two 
 cases, indeed, the occurrence of the 
 symbol could not fail to receive some 
 attention. But, naturally, it did not lie 
 in the way of the historians of either 
 Greece or Rome to examine the matter 
 
20 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 very minutely, or to follow up the sugges- 
 tions which, upon examination, it might 
 have yielded, as to the early condition 
 of the Dorians or Latins. Accordingly, 
 the custom has been accepted as meaning 
 no more than Festus said it did among the 
 Romans, than Muller says it did amdng 
 the Spartans ; as indicating nothing at 
 Rome but the popular appreciation of the 
 good fortune of Romulus in the rape of the 
 Sabines ;* as indicating, at Sparta, the feel- 
 ing that a young woman " could not sur- 
 render her freedom and virgin purity 
 unless compelled by the violence of the 
 stronger sex."t It is surprising that 
 writers so acute should have rested con- 
 tent with such explanations, and that 
 their views should have been so gene- 
 
 * Festus, De Verborum Significatione — Rapi. 
 t Muller's " Dorians," Book iv., c. iv., sec. 2 ; and 
 see "Rawlinson's Notes," Herod., Book vi. 65. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 21 
 
 rally adopted. The theory of Festus we 
 shall have occasion to notice hereafter : 
 of that of Muller we observe that before 
 we can entertain it, we must suppose 
 that in the exceedingly lax community of 
 the Spartans, or at least within certain of 
 the tribes composing that community, 
 there had been an early period of austere 
 virtue, the tradition of which was still so 
 influential as to compel the Spartans to 
 observe in their marriages this custom 
 as the shadow of their former delicacy. 
 Now, of the existence of such a period 
 of prudery among the ancient Dorians, 
 or among the Pelasgi, or the Achaeans, 
 there is not a tittle of evidence. On the 
 contrary, such evidence as we have, points 
 to the Lacedaemonian customs as having 
 been an improvement on ancient prac- 
 tice. Savages are not remarkable for 
 delicacy of feeling in matters of sex, and 
 
22 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 the wandering hordes, who in succession 
 overran the Peloponessus, were no better 
 than savages when they first come under 
 our observation.* Again, no case can be 
 cited of a primitive people among whom 
 the seizure of brides is rendered neces- 
 sary by maidenly coyness. On the con- 
 trary, it might be shown, were it worth 
 while to deal seriously with this view, 
 that women among rude tribes are usu- 
 ally depraved, and inured to scenes of 
 depravity from their earliest infancy. In 
 this state of the facts, it is remarkable 
 that any one should have been satisfied 
 with so improbable an explanation. 
 
 Rejecting, then, the primitive prudery 
 hypothesis, which requires for its basis 
 a declension from ancient standards of 
 
 * They were certainly as savage as the Khonds, 
 with whom they agreed in cultivating a religion 
 requiring human sacrifices. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. .23 
 
 purity— of the existence of which we have 
 no evidence — we proceed to examine the 
 various phases in which the symbol of 
 capture is presented. We shall find it in 
 places far from classic ground, and point- 
 ing, in all its varieties, so steadily to the 
 true theory of its origin, that the mere 
 exhibition of its phases will lead the 
 reader to anticipate much of what we 
 have to say on the subject. In order 
 to see what is the precise state of the 
 facts with which we have to deal, it is 
 necessary to say something of the nature 
 of the symbol, and to adduce at some 
 length such accounts of it as we find in 
 our authorities. 
 
 The symbol of capture occurs when- 
 ever, after a contract of marriage, it is 
 necessary for the constitution of the rela- 
 tion of husband and wife that the bride- 
 groom or his friends should go through 
 
24 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 the form of feigning to steal the bride, 
 or carry her off from her friends by 
 superior force. The marriage is agreed 
 upon by bargain, and the theft or abduc- 
 tion follows as a concerted matter of form, 
 to make valid the marriage. The test, 
 then, of the presence of the symbol in any 
 case is, that the capture is concerted, and 
 is preceded by a contract of marriage. If 
 there is no preceding contract, the case is 
 one of actual abduction. 
 
 So far of the nature of the symbol. 
 We proceed to examine the instances of 
 its occurrence. That the form was ob- 
 served in the marriages of the Dorians, 
 and was, equally with betrothal, requi- 
 site as a preliminary of marriage, rests 
 chiefly on the authority of Herodotus 
 and Plutarch.* The evidence of Hero- 
 dotus is indirect, and is contained in 
 
 * MuUer's " Dorians," ut supra. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 25 
 
 the well-known passage in which he ex- 
 plains how Demaratus robbed Lestychides 
 of his bride Percalus, to whom he had 
 been htivoi\].td— forestalling him in carry- 
 ing her off and marrying her.* The case 
 was one of actual abduction ; but the 
 language of Herodotus implies that it 
 remained for Lestychides, in order to 
 make Percalus his wife, that he should 
 go through the form of carrying her off. 
 With this must be conjoined the express 
 statement of Plutarch,! that the Spartan 
 bridegroom always carried off the bride 
 by feigned violence. He says, indeed, by 
 violence ; but at the same time he shews 
 , , that the seizure was made by friendly 
 concert between the parties. These pas- 
 sages must be held sufficiently to prove 
 that the custom existed at Sparta. It 
 is equally certain that it was observed 
 
 * " Herodotus," B. vL, 65. f " Life of Lycurgus." 
 
26 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 at Rome,* in the plebeian marriages 
 which were not constituted by Confar- 
 reatio or Coemptio. The bridegroom 
 and his friends — the time agreed upon 
 having arrived — invaded the house of the 
 bride, and carried off the lady with feigned 
 force from the lap of her mother, or of 
 her nearest female relation if the mother 
 were dead or absent. The seizure is 
 vividly described by Apuleiusf in the 
 story of the Captive Damsel, in which 
 he is understood to have had the ple- 
 beian form of marriage in view. The 
 lady, narrating how she had been carried 
 off, says that her mother having dressed 
 her becomingly in nuptial apparel, was 
 loading her with kisses, and looking for- 
 ward to a future line of descendants, when 
 
 * Festus, ut supra — Rapi : Pothier, Pandectae, etc., 
 App., Title II. book xxiii. 
 
 t Apuleius, de Asino Aureo, Book iv. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 27 
 
 on a sudden a band of robbers, armed 
 like gladiators, rushed in with glittering 
 swords, made straight for her chamber 
 in a compact column, and, without any 
 struggle or resistance whatever on the 
 part of the servants, tore her away half 
 dead with fear from the bosom of her 
 trembling mother. The custom is said 
 still to prevail to a great extent among 
 the Hindus.* It may well do so, for we 
 find what must, as we shall show, be held 
 to be the form of capture, prescribed as a 
 marriage ceremony to the Hindus in the 
 Sutras.f It prevails among the Khonds 
 in the hill tracts of Orissa. The marriage 
 being agreed upon, a feast, to which the 
 families of the parties equally contribute, 
 
 * M'Pherson's "Report upon the Khonds of the dis- 
 tricts of Ganjam and CuUack," p. 55. Calcutta, 1842. 
 
 t " Indische Studien," p. 325. Edited by Dr. 
 Weber. Berlin, 1862. 
 
28 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 is prepared at the dwelling of the bride. 
 "To the feast," says Major M'Pherson,* 
 " succeed dancing and song. When the 
 night is far spent, the principals in the 
 scene are raised by an uncle of each upon 
 his shoulders, and borne through the 
 dance. The burdens are suddenly ex- 
 changed, and the uncle of the youth dis- 
 appears with the bride. The assembly 
 divides into two parties ; the friends of 
 the bride endeavour to arrest, those of the 
 bridegroom to cover her flight, and men, 
 women, and children, mingle in mock 
 conflict, which is often carried to great 
 lengths." " On one occasion," says Major- 
 General Campbell,! " I heard loud cries 
 proceeding from a village close at hand. 
 Fearing some quarrel, I rode to the spot, 
 
 * M'Pherson's " Report," ut supra. 
 t " Personal Narrative of Service, etc., in Khond- 
 istan,'' 1864, p. 44. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 29 
 
 and there I saw a man bearing away upon 
 his back something enveloped in an ample 
 covering of scarlet cloth ; he was sur- 
 rounded by twenty or thirty young fel- 
 lows, and by them protected from the 
 desperate attacks made upon him by a 
 party of young women. On seeking an 
 explanation of this novel scene, I was 
 told that the man had just been married, 
 and his precious burden was his bloom- 
 ing bride, whom he was conveying to 
 his own village. Her youthful friends — 
 as, it appears, is the custom — were seek- 
 ing to regain possession of her, and hurled 
 stones and bamboos at the head of the 
 devoted bridegroom, until he reached the 
 confines of his own village.* Then the 
 
 * The hurling of old shoes, etc., after the bride- 
 groom among ourselves, may be a relic of a similar 
 custom. It is a sham assault on the person carrying 
 off the lady ; and in default of any more plausible 
 
30 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 tables were turned, and the bride was 
 fairly won ; and off her young friends 
 scampered, screaming and laughing, but 
 not relaxing their speed till they reached 
 their own village." The custom may be 
 presumed to prevail among the Koles, the 
 Ghonds, and the other congeners of the 
 Khonds ; but we are without authority on 
 the subject. 
 
 According to De Hell,* the form of 
 capture is observed in the marriages of 
 the noble or princely class among the 
 Kalmucks. The price to be paid for the 
 bride to her father having been fixed, the 
 bridegroom sets out on horseback, accom- 
 panied by the chief nobles of the horde 
 
 explanation, and we know of none such, it may fairly 
 be considered as probable that it is the form of capture 
 in its last stage of disintegration. 
 
 * Xavier Hommaire de Hell, "Travels in the 
 Steppes of the Caspian Sea." Lond. 1847, P- 259. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 31 
 
 to which he belongs, to carry her ofif. 
 " A sham resistance is always made 
 by the people of her camp, in spite of 
 which she fails not to be borne away on 
 a richly caparisoned horse, with loud 
 shouts and feux de Joie." Dr. Clarke 
 describes the ceremony differently, and 
 it is possible that it assumes different 
 forms in the different nations of the Kal- 
 mucks. " The ceremony of marriage 
 among the Kalmucks," he says,* " is per- 
 formed on horseback. A girl is first 
 mounted, who rides off in full speed. 
 Her lover pursues ; if he overtakes her, 
 she becomes his wife, and the marriage is 
 consummated on the spot ; after this she 
 returns with him to his tent. But it 
 sometimes happens that the woman does 
 not wish to marry the person by whom 
 she is pursued ; in this case, she will not 
 
 * " Travels," etc., vol. i., p. 433- 
 
32 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 suffer him to overtake her. We were 
 assured that no instance occurs of a Kal- 
 muck girl being thus caught, unless she 
 have a partiality to the pursuer. If she 
 dislikes him, she rides, to use the language 
 of English sportsmen, ' neck or nought,' 
 until she has completely effected her 
 escape, or until her pursuer's horse be- 
 comes exhausted, leaving her at liberty to 
 return, and to be afterwards chased by 
 some more favoured admirer." This ride 
 for a wife is never undertaken till after 
 the price for her has been fixed between 
 the friends of the parties, the lover hav- 
 ing to pay for as well as to catch her. 
 The custom is not mentioned in the ac- 
 count of the Kalmucks by Pallas, who 
 knew of their marriage customs only 
 by hearsay. But it favours the sup- 
 position that there are varieties of the 
 form in use among this people, that 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 33 
 
 Bergman * describes the ceremony some- 
 what differently from both Clarke and 
 De Hell. The necessity for the appear- 
 ance of using force is satisfied, according 
 to Bergman, by the act of putting the 
 bride by force upon horseback when she 
 is about to be conducted to the hut pre- 
 pared for her by the bridegroom. And, 
 indeed, we find the form reduced to this 
 minimum of pretence in not a few cases. 
 Thus in North Friesland,t a young fellow, 
 called the bride-lifter, lifts the bride and 
 her two bridesmaids upon the waggon 
 in which the married couple are to travel 
 to their home. 
 
 Among the Tunguzes and Kamcha- 
 
 * Bergman's " Streifereien." Riga 1804, vol. 3, p. 
 145, ^/ seq. 
 
 ,t Weinhold, pp. 250, 25 1 ; and see the other au- 
 thorities for like cases noted by Dr. Weber, "Indische 
 Studien," ut supra. 
 
34 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 dales, a matrimonial engagement is not 
 considered to be definitely concluded until 
 the suitor has overcome his beloved by 
 force, and torn her clothes — the maiden 
 being bound by custom to defend her 
 liberty to the utmost. * Also among 
 the Bedouin Arabs it is necessary for 
 the bridegroom to force the bride to en- 
 ter his tent.f A similar custom existed 
 among the French, at least in some pro- 
 vinces, in the 17th century. J In all the 
 cases just mentioned the form assumed 
 by the custom was analogous to the* rule 
 prescribed in the Sutras, where it was 
 provided that at a certain vital stage of 
 
 * "Travels in Siberia," Erman, vol. ii., p. 442— 
 1848 (Cowley's trans.) 
 
 t Burckhardt's " Notes on the Bedouins and 
 Wahabys." Lond. 1830, vol. i., p. 108. 
 
 \ " Marriage Ceremonies," etc., Gaya, 2d ed. Lond. 
 1698, p. 30. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 35 
 
 the marriage ceremony, a strong man and 
 the bridegroom should forcibly draw the 
 bride and make her sit down on a red 
 ox-skin.* 
 
 There is good ground for believing 
 that the form of capture is observed in 
 the marriage ceremonies of the Nogay 
 Tartars. The rule which prohibits a Kal- 
 muck bride from entering the yurt of 
 her parents for a year or more after her 
 marriage, and which is undoubtedly con- 
 nected with the form of capture, pre- 
 vails among the Nogais, as it does also 
 among the Kirghiz. At any rate, we 
 find the custom in the Caucasus in the 
 immediate neighbourhood of the Nogais. 
 The form which it assumes among the 
 Circassians, indeed, closely resembles that 
 observed in ancient Rome. The wedding 
 is celebrated with noisy feasting and 
 
 * " Indische Studien," ut supra. 
 
36 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 revelry, " in the midst of which the bride- 
 groom has to rush in, and with the help 
 of a few daring young men, to carry off 
 the lady by force; and by this process 
 she becomes his lawful wife."* The cus- 
 tom also prevailed till a recent date 
 in Wales. Lord Kamesf says that the 
 following marriage ceremony was in his 
 day, or at least had till shortly before 
 been customary among the Welsh. " On 
 the morning of the wedding day, the 
 bridegroom, accompanied with his friends 
 on horseback, demands the bride. Her 
 friends, who are likewise on horseback, 
 give a positive refusal, upon which a mock 
 scuffle ensues. The bride, mounted be- 
 
 * Louis Moser, " The Caucasus and its People." 
 Lond. 1856, p. 31 ; and see Spencer's "Travels in 
 Circassia." Lond. 1837, vol. ii. p. 375 ; and "Bell's 
 Journal," vol. ii. p. 221. Lond. 1840. 
 
 f " Sketches of the History of Man," Book i., sec. 
 6, p. 449. Edin. 1807. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 37 
 
 hind her nearest kinsman, is carried ofif 
 and is pursued by the bridegroom and 
 his friends, with loud shouts. It is 
 not uncommon on such an occasion to 
 see two or three hundred sturdy Cambro- 
 Britons riding at full speed, crossing 
 and jostling to the no small amuse- 
 ment of the spectators. When they have 
 fatigued themselves and their horses, 
 the bridegroom is suffered to overtake 
 his bride. He leads her away in triumph, 
 and the scene is concluded with feasting 
 and festivity." Some such picture we 
 should have had from De Hell had he 
 expanded his account of the mock scuffle 
 among the Kalmucks of the hordes of the 
 bride and bridegroom. 
 
 We have now found the custom in 
 various parts of Europe and Asia ; it 
 occurs also in Africa and in America. 
 Lord Kames vouches for the custom 
 
 D 
 
38 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 among the Inland Negroes.* "When 
 the preliminaries of the marriage are 
 adjusted, the bridegroom with a number 
 of his companions set out at night and 
 surround the house of the bride as if in- 
 tending to carry her off by force ; she and 
 her female attendants pretending to make 
 all possible resistance, cry aloud for help, 
 but no person appears." Spekef men- 
 tions an incident which he observed in 
 Karague, and which may have been the 
 sequel to a capture. " At night," he 
 says, " I was struck by surprise to see a 
 long noisy procession pass by where I sat, 
 led by some men who carried on their 
 shoulders a woman covered up in a 
 blackened skin. On inquiry, however, I 
 heard she was being taken to the hut of 
 
 * " Sketches," etc., ut supra. 
 
 t " Journal of the Discovery of the Source of the 
 Nile," 1863, p. 198. 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 39 
 
 her espoused, where bundling fashion 
 she would be put to bed ; but it is only 
 with virgins they take so much trouble." 
 Traces of the custom are indeed frequently 
 met with in Africa, but in so distinct and 
 marked a form as that mentioned by Lord 
 Kames, we have not found it. His lord- 
 ship has not given his authority. He 
 mentions the custom, however, merely 
 for its singularity, and apparently in ig- 
 norance of its connecting itself with any 
 wide-spread practice of mankind, which 
 demanded investigation. Among the pri- 
 mitive races throughout the whole con- 
 tinent of America traces of the form of 
 capture (that is, customs seemingly of no 
 significance, except in the light of this 
 form) are of frequent occurrence. Among 
 the people of Tierra del Fuego, however, 
 the form itself appears almost in perfec- 
 tion. " As soon," says Captain Fitzroy, 
 
40 THE FORM OF CAPTURE 
 
 Speaking of the Fuegians,* " as a youth is 
 able to maintain a wife by his exertions 
 in fishing or bird-catching, he obtains the 
 consent of her relations, and does some 
 piece of work, such as helping to make 
 a canoe, or prepare seal-skins, etc., for 
 her parents. Having built or stolen a 
 canoe for himself, he watches for an 
 opportunity, and carries off his bride. 
 If she is unwilling she hides herself in 
 the woods, until her admirer is heartily 
 tired of looking for her, and gives up 
 the pursuit, but this seldom happens." 
 
 These are among the best marked in- 
 stances of the Form with which we are ac- 
 quainted.f The instances fix our attention 
 
 * " Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle." Vol. 
 ii., p. 182 ; 1839. 
 
 t The reader will find in the Appendix A, a 
 marked example of the Form, occurring in Ireland, 
 and several other examples occurring elsewhere, 
 
IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 41 
 
 especially upon a few geographical points; 
 But nothing in nature stands by itself. 
 Each example of the Form leads us to 
 contemplate a great area over which the 
 custom once prevailed, just as a fossil 
 fish in rock on a hill-side forces us to con- 
 ceive of the whole surrounding country 
 as at one time under water. Were we to 
 enumerate and examine all the customs 
 which seem to us connected with the 
 Form, we should be led into discussions 
 foreign to our purpose, and there would 
 be few primitive races with which we 
 should not have to deal. Suffice it, 
 that the Form which of old appeared so 
 well defined in the peninsulas of Italy 
 and Greece, may be traced thence, on 
 the one hand, northwards through France 
 and Britain, south-westwards through 
 
 which the author has not thought it necessary to in- 
 corporate in the text. 
 
42 THE FORM OF CAPTURE, ETC. 
 
 Spain, and north - eastwards through 
 Prussia ; on the other hand, northwards 
 through ancient Thessaly and Macedonia, 
 into the mountainous regions on the Black 
 Sea and the Caspian ; again, that the 
 form which is perfect among the Kal- 
 mucks shades away into faint and fainter 
 traces throughout almost all the races of 
 the Mongolidae ; that we may assume it 
 of frequent occurrence in Africa, as it 
 unquestionably was among the red men 
 of America; that it occurs among the 
 Hindus, and may be assumed to have 
 been common among the aboriginal in- 
 habitants of the plains of India, of whom 
 we have a well-preserved specimen in the 
 Khonds of Orissa. 
 
THE ORIGIN OF FORM OF CAPTURE. 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 
 
 The question now arises, what is the 
 meaning and what the origin of a cere- 
 mony so widely spread, that already on 
 the threshold of our inquiry, the reader 
 must be prepared to find it connected 
 with some universal tendency of man- 
 kind ? 
 
 Those who approach the subject with 
 minds undisturbed by the views of Festus 
 and Muller will most naturally think, in 
 the first instance, of an early period of 
 lawlessness, in which it was with women 
 as with other kinds of property, that he 
 should take who had the power, and he 
 should keep who could. And it is a trite 
 fact, that women captured in war have 
 
44 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 universally, in barbarous times and coun- 
 tries, been appropriated as wives, or as 
 worse. But little consideration is needed to 
 see that the symbol implies much more than 
 this ; for it is impossible to believe that 
 the mere lawlessness of savages should 
 be consecrated into a legal symbol, or to 
 assign a reason — could this be believed — 
 why a similar symbol should not appear 
 in transferences of other kinds of pro- 
 perty. To a certain extent, indeed, the 
 first impression must be held to be a cor- 
 rect one. We cannot escape the conclu- 
 sion that there was a stage in the history 
 of tribes observing this custom when 
 wives were usually obtained by theft or 
 force. And unless the practice of get- 
 ting wives by theft or force was so general 
 where it prevailed that we may say it was 
 almost invariable, it is incredible that such 
 an association should be established in the 
 
THE 'FORM OF CAPTURE. 45 
 
 popular mind between marriage and the 
 act of rapine, as would afterwards require 
 the pretence of rapine to give validity to 
 the ceremony of marriage. It must have 
 been the system of certain tribes to cap- 
 ture women — necessarily the women of 
 other tribes — for wives. But we may be 
 sure that such a system. could not have 
 sprung out of the mere instinctive desire 
 of savages to possess objects cherished 
 by a foreign tribe ; it must have had a 
 deeper source — to be sought for in their 
 circumstances, their ideas of kinship, 
 their tribal arrangements. 
 
 The fact that among savage tribes — 
 whose normal relations with each other 
 are those of war — a man could get a 
 woman of a foreign tribe for his wife only 
 by carrying her off, cannot, by itself, ex- 
 plain a symbolism which is so well estab- 
 lished, so invariable, where it occurs at 
 
46 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 all. Where savages had women of their 
 own whom they might marry, captive 
 women would naturally become slaves or 
 concubines rather than wives ; the men 
 would find their wives, or their chief 
 wives, within the tribe ; and the capture 
 of women could never become so impor- 
 tant in connection with marriage as to 
 furnish a symbolism for all marriages to 
 a later time. It may be doubted whether, 
 in the circumstances supposed, the form 
 of capture would, in a great number of 
 cases, be bequeathed to more peaceful and 
 friendly generations, even in the case of 
 intertribal marriages — in which only the 
 form could be expected to appear ; and at 
 any rate these, when first made subjects 
 of friendly compact, would be too infre- 
 quent for their ceremonies to override 
 those which were indigenous, and to be 
 transferred into the general marriage law. 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 47 
 
 Much more likely is it that indigenous 
 marriage forms should be employed in 
 the celebration of intertribal marriages 
 when they occurred. It is a fortiori, that 
 in the circumstances which we have been 
 considering — those of tribes among which 
 as among civilized peoples, the law of 
 marriage is mafrimoniMm liberum — no 
 system of capturing women for wives 
 could have arisen. 
 
 What circumstances then, what social 
 idea, existing among rude tribes, could 
 produce a system of capturing the women 
 of foreign tribes for wives ? It will be 
 convenient, that before we make the 
 answer we have to offer to this question, 
 we should consider the condition, in re- 
 spect of marriage, of a class of tribes with 
 which we believe . this system did not 
 originate. 
 
 It is clear, that if members of a family 
 
48 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 or tribe are forbidden to intermarry with 
 members of other families or tribes, and 
 free to marry among themselves, there is 
 not room for fraud or force in the consti- 
 tution of marriage. The bridegroom and 
 bride will live together in amity among 
 their common relatives. With the con- 
 sent of her relations, a woman will be- 
 come the wife of a suitor peaceably. If 
 a suitor forces her, or carries her off 
 against her will or that of her friends, 
 he must separate from these to escape 
 their vengeance. It follows that, among 
 tribes of this class, which we shall call 
 endogamous tribes* betrothal followed by 
 
 * As the words endogamy and exogamy are new, 
 an apology must be made for employing them. In- 
 stead of endogamy we might, after some explanations, 
 have used the word caste. But caste connotes several 
 ideas besides that on which we desire to fix attention. 
 On the other hand, the rule which declares the union 
 <if persons of the same blood to be incest has been 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 49 
 
 cohabitation at first, and, at a more ad- 
 vanced stage, betrothal and a religious or 
 other formal ceremony of appropriation 
 of the spouses to one another, are the 
 natural modes of marriage. To the prac- 
 tice of such tribes are to be referred the 
 two modes of constituting marriage of 
 which the Roman usus and confarreatio 
 may be taken as the types. These are 
 at any rate the forms appropriate to mar- 
 riages between members of the same 
 family-group or tribe ; and, so far as 
 appears at present, they could only have 
 originated among endogamous tribes, or — 
 in the case of marriage within the tribe — 
 
 hitherto unnamed, and it was convenient to give it a 
 name. The words endogamy and exogamy (for 
 which botanical science affords parallels) appear to 
 be well suited to express the ideas which stood in 
 need of names, and so we have ventured to use them, 
 taking care in the text to make their meanings dis- 
 tinct. 
 
so THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 among tribes which allowed their mem- 
 bers to marry among themselves or into 
 other groups indifferently. 
 
 The form of marriage by gift, or that by 
 sale and purchase, could never have origi- 
 nated with purely endogamous tribes. A 
 tribe, in a primitive age, is just a group 
 of kindred — more or less numerous, with 
 common interests and possessions, where 
 they have any other property besides their 
 women ; living together as an ungo- 
 verned fraternity, or under the headship 
 of a pater-familias. Obviously within 
 such a group there can be neither barter 
 nor sale — neither the selling nor the buy- 
 ing of wives. On a marriage between 
 two of its members, there is no foreign 
 interest to be consulted or satisfied. 
 
 It is different if we conceive a number 
 of such tribes aggregated in a political 
 union to which the caste principle of its 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 51 
 
 parts is extended ; so that, while formerly 
 the members of each could only marry 
 among themselves, the members of all 
 have acquired the right of intermarrying 
 with one another. In forming this con- 
 ception, we pass from marriages within 
 the tribe to inter-tribal marriages. In an 
 inter-tribal marriage one tribe loses a 
 woman, the other acquires one; or, as 
 sometimes happens, one loses a man, the 
 other acquires one. In either case, there 
 is room and a necessity for compensa- 
 tion. Such a marriage must be a subject 
 of bargain, a matter of sale and purchase. 
 And we may now perceive that the mar- 
 riages of which coemptio may be taken 
 as the civilised type, have their origin in 
 intermarriages between distinct family 
 groups or tribes. 
 
 But it is not in a primitive age, not 
 until after a very considerable advance 
 
52 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 has been made in civility, that tribes are 
 ever found joined in a political union. 
 Such union indicates a state of friendli- 
 ness between the tribes, brought about by 
 common action for common objects. And 
 should inter-tribal marriages come to be 
 permitted among endogamous tribes, they 
 could from the first be carried through by 
 friendly negotiation. On the other hand, 
 the degree of political union presupposed to 
 explain the intermarriages must be such as 
 to exclude the idea of the members of any 
 tribe resorting to violence to obtain wives 
 from any other. We conclude that, among 
 this class of tribes, marriage by capture 
 could have had no place. Still more 
 certain is it that they could never come 
 to form such an association between 
 marriage and the act of rapine as would 
 lead them to adopt the symbol of capture 
 in marriage ceremonies ; on the contrary. 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 53 
 
 we should expect to find that they would, 
 out of respect to immemorial usage in 
 the case of marriages within the tribe, 
 celebrate even their intertribal mar- 
 riages — though really brought about 
 by sale' and purchase — by such cere- 
 monies as had been customary among 
 them in marriages between members of 
 the tribe. And if the symbol of capture 
 be ever found in the marriage ceremonies 
 of an endogamous tribe, we may be sure 
 that it is a relic of an early time at which 
 the tribe was organised on another prin- 
 ciple than that of endogamy. 
 
 And now let us postulate the exist- 
 ence of tribes, organised on what we shall 
 call, for the want of a better name, the 
 principle of exogamy — that is, which /;'^- 
 hibited marriage within the tribe — and 
 whose tribesmen were thus dependent on 
 other tribes for their wives. It is obvious 
 
 E 
 
54 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 that inter-tribal marriages could only be 
 peaceably arranged between tribes whose 
 relations were friendly. But peace and 
 friendship were unknown between sepa- 
 rate groups or tribes in early times, ex- 
 cept when they were forced to unite 
 against common enemies. The sections 
 of the same family — when it fell into sec- 
 tions — became enemies by the mere fact 
 of separation. And while this state of 
 enmity lasted, exogamous tribes never 
 could get wives except by theft or force. 
 
 If it can be shown, firstly, that exoga- 
 mous tribes exist, or have existed ; and 
 secondly, that in rude times the relations 
 of separate tribes are uniformly, or almost 
 uniformly, hostile, we have found a set of 
 circumstances in which men could get 
 wives only by capturing them — a social 
 condition in which capture would be the 
 necessary preliminary to marriage. And 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 55 
 
 if it be shown in a reasonable number of j 
 well-authenticated cases that these con- 
 ditions — exogamy as tribal law, and 
 hostility as the prevailing relation of 
 separate tribes towards each other — exist 
 or have existed, accompanied, as might 
 have been expected, by a system of cap- 
 turing wives, we shall be justified in con- 
 cluding — failing the appearance of any 
 phenomena inconsistent with such an ex- 
 planation — that the same conditions have 
 existed in every case where the system of 
 capture prevailed, or where the form of 
 capture has been observed as a ceremony 
 of marriage. Nothing more than this is 
 necessary to satisfy the conditions of a 
 sound hypothesis. 
 
 We are in a position_to^^ojthis anii 
 more-'WelhaUbe able to point to many^ 
 tribes which habitually capture or cap- 
 tured their wives from foreign tribes ; to 
 
S6 THE ORIGIN OF 
 
 show that exogamy is or was the law of 
 these tribes ; also, that there are cases of 
 exogamous tribes whose tribesmen, marry- 
 ing women by compact, always go through 
 the form of capturing such women ; that 
 in all the modern instances where the 
 symbol of capture is best marked, mar- 
 riage within the tribe is prohibited as in- 
 cestuous. We shall also find various cir- 
 cumstances common to exogamous tribes, 
 and traceable in their case to the prin- 
 ciple of exogamy, appearing more or less 
 marked in the case of historical tribes 
 which have used the form of capture, sup- 
 porting the conclusion that such tribes 
 had once been exogamous. 
 
 It may easily be conceived how, 
 among exogamous tribes, out of respect 
 to immemorial usage, when friendly rela- 
 tions came to be established between 
 tribes and families, and their members 
 
THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 57 
 
 intermarried by purchase instead of cap- 
 ture, the form of invasion and capture 
 should become an essential ceremony at 
 weddings. It was unheard of from the 
 remotest times that a woman became a 
 man's wife except through being made his 
 captive, forced or stolen away from her 
 friends by him or for him. Surely some- 
 thing shall be wanting if there is not at 
 least the appearance of a capture! So 
 the Roman youths rush in with drawn 
 swords, and feign to enact a tragedy ; so 
 the Kalmuck girl rides, as if for life, 
 from her lord and master by pre-arrange- 
 ment ! 
 
 We now proceed to treat of the mat- 
 ter, in order, under the three following 
 heads : — Firstly , The prevalence of cap- 
 turing wives de facto /secondly, Whether 
 where that practice prevails, marriage be- 
 tween members of the same family-group, 
 
58 THE FORM OF CAPTURE. 
 
 clan, or tribe, is forbidden, and the pre- 
 valence of that limitation of the right 
 of marriage ; and, thirdly. How far the 
 state of war prevails among primitive 
 groups ? 
 
PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 59 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ON THE PREVALENCE OF THE PRACTICE 
 OF CAPTURING WIVES, DE FACTO. 
 
 The tribes amongst which prevails or 
 has prevailed, the practice of getting wives 
 by theft or force, are both numerous and 
 widely distributed. We shall find them 
 in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, 
 in many of the islands of the Pacific, and 
 in various parts of Asia and Europe. 
 
 It is among the tribes of American 
 Indians that the practice is to be found 
 in the greatest perfection. In particular, 
 we find it fully displayed on the Ori- 
 noco, on the Amazons, everywhere in 
 fact, from the Caribbean Sea to Cape 
 Horn. The abject Fuegians, as we have 
 
6o THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 seen,* have the practice in a modified or 
 symbolised form in the marriages of men 
 and women belonging to groups at peace 
 with one another. But they have the 
 reality as well as the fiction. Between 
 many of their tribes there is a chronic 
 state of war. ''Strangers" reported 
 Jemmy Button to Captain Fitzroy on 
 one occasion,t "had been there, with 
 whom he and his people had ' very much 
 jaw ;' they fought, threw ' great many 
 stone,' and stole two women (in exchange 
 for whom Jemmy's party stole one), but 
 were obliged to retreat." The Horse In- 
 dians of Patagonia also, tribe against 
 tribe, are commonly at war with one 
 another, or with the Canoe Indians, the 
 issues of victory in every case, being the 
 
 * See ante, p. 40. 
 
 t " Voyages of Adventure and Beagle," ut supra, 
 vol. ii., p. 224. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 6i 
 
 capture of women and the slaughter of 
 men. ' But the Oens or Coin-men would 
 appear to be the most systematic of these 
 savage marauders, for every year at the 
 time of ' red leaf ' they are said to make 
 excursions from the mountains in the north 
 to plunder the Fuegians of their women, 
 dogs, and arms.* Farther north still than 
 the Oens men, we come successively on 
 the tribes of the Amazons and of the 
 Orinoco, all of which, excepting those re- 
 duced into missions, are continually at 
 feud with one another, and in turns rich 
 in women or impoverished ; feelings of 
 mutual hate and the desire for means of 
 subsistence being concurring causes of 
 war. Of the tribes on the Amazons the 
 accounts are not very distinct; but the 
 habits of the Manaos in the Rio Negro 
 
 * Idem, p. 205. 
 
62 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 district — which, as reported by Mr Bates,* 
 are similar to those of the Coin-men — 
 may be assumed not to be exceptional. 
 There is no doubt, however, that the pri- 
 mitive habits of most of the Indian tribes 
 have been much changed by the slave- 
 hunting expeditions, at one time fostered 
 by the Dutch and Portuguese. On slave- 
 hunting being introduced in America, as 
 in Africa, a market was found for captives 
 of both sexes, and men as well as women 
 became spoils of victory. No argument 
 is needed to show that when women 
 are systematically captured as in the 
 above cited cases, they are captured with 
 a view to the raising of children — in fact, 
 with a view to their performing the part 
 of wives. The fulness of the idea of a 
 wife, according to our conceptions, is not, 
 
 * "The Naturalist on the Amazons." Second 
 Edition, 1864, p. 199. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 63 
 
 we need scarcely say, to be looked for 
 amongst such savages. That idea can 
 nowhere be fully realised till the circum- 
 stances of a people enable men and women 
 to enjoy, or at least to look forward with 
 confidence, to a permanent consortship. 
 
 Of the tribes of the great Caribbean 
 nation we have happily a pretty full ac- 
 count from the pen of Alexander Von 
 Humboldt.* The Caribbees fall into 
 small tribes or family groups, often not 
 numbering more than from 40 to 50 per- 
 sons; Humboldt, indeed, takes frequent 
 occasion to say that an Indian tribe is no 
 more than a family. Where groups break 
 up into sections, as they tend to do, and 
 
 * "Personal Narrative of Travels, etc." (1826). The 
 passages bearing on the capturing of women among 
 the tribes of the Orinoco, from which our account is 
 taken, will be found at'vol. v., pp. 210, 293, 422, 425, 
 S48, 565 ; vol. vi., pp. 20, 21, 26; vol. vii., p. 449. 
 
64 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 live apart from one another, the sections 
 are found, though of one blood, and ori- 
 ginally of one language, soon to speak 
 dialects so different that they cannot un- 
 derstand one another. Become strangers, 
 they are enemies except when forced to 
 unite to make common cause against some 
 powerful tribe which has proved a scourge 
 to them all; enemies, and being at least 
 at the time when Humboldt wrote, can- 
 nibals, not only disposed to slay but to 
 eat one another. In their wars, we may 
 imagine, that while their male captives 
 furnished means of subsistence, the women 
 were preserved to be wives and luxuries.* 
 To such an extent, indeed, did all the 
 tribes of the Caribbean nation practise 
 the capture of women — depend on aggres- 
 sion for their wives — that the women of 
 any tribe were found to belong to different 
 
 * Compare Erskine's "Pacific," p. 425 (1863). 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 65 
 
 tribes, and to tribes of other nations, and 
 that to such an extent, that nowhere were 
 the men and women of the Caribbean 
 race found to speak in one tongue. 
 
 Going northwards — to the wild In- 
 dians everywhere, as far as we follow them, 
 the same account is applicable in varying 
 degrees. It would indeed be misleading 
 to omit to notice that in both North and 
 South America tribes are to be found 
 occupying much more elevated platforms 
 of civility than those to which, for obvious 
 reasons, we have given our attention. As 
 among friendly groups of the Fuegians 
 we find marriages of consent and of pur- 
 chase (by labour commonly),* so also 
 among friendly Patagonians ; so also with 
 the nations of the Huron tongue and the 
 Attakapas, among whom the position of 
 
 * See ante, p. 40. 
 
66 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 the women is exceedingly good. Indeed, 
 all the processes have been going on 
 through which every species of marriage 
 would in time be developed. Even the 
 red men of America are far from being 
 primitive. A really primitive people in 
 fact exists nowhere. For many thou- 
 sands of years now, the various races 
 of men have been in the school of ex- 
 perience, all making progress therein, 
 though under different masters and in 
 different forms. Hereafter we shall see 
 how the old law of the red men, and of the 
 natives of Australia, which counts blood 
 relationship through females only, operates 
 as an agent of civilization, and tends to 
 supersede the barbarous practices of early 
 savagery, and especially to obviate the 
 necessity of capturing wives. 
 
 The capture of women for wives is 
 found to prevail among the aborigines 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 67 
 
 of the Deccan,* and in Affghanistan.f 
 It prevailed, according to Olaus Mag- 
 nus, in Muscovy, Lithuania, and Livo- 
 nia.J The form which it assumed among 
 the peoples last named, so closely re- 
 sembled what Kames describes as the 
 custom among the Welsh, that we must 
 quote the Archbishop's account of it : — 
 " Quicunque enim paganorum, sive rus- 
 ticorum, filius suus uxorem ut ducat 
 in animo habet, agnatos, cognatos, 
 caeterosque vicinos in unum convocat, 
 illisque talem isto in pago puellam nubi- 
 lem versari, quam rapi, et suo filio in 
 conjugem adduci proponit: hi commo- 
 dum ad hoc tempus expectantes, ac tunc 
 
 * Colonel Walter Campbell's "Indian Journal," 
 
 1864, p. 400. 
 
 t "Latham's Descriptive Ethnology." Vol. ii., 
 
 p. 215. 
 
 t " Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus." Book 
 
 xiv., cap. ix., p. 481. Romx, 1555. 
 
68 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 armati, equites suo more unius ad aedes 
 conveniunt, posteaque ad earn rapiendam 
 profisciscuntur. Puella autem quoad 
 matrimonii contradictionem libera, ex in- 
 sidiis opera- exploratorum ubi moretur 
 per eos direpta, plurimum eiulando opem 
 consanguineorum amicorumque ad se libe- 
 randam implorat : quod si consanguinei 
 vicinique clamorem istum exaudierunt, 
 ipso momento armati adcurrunt, atque 
 pro ea liberanda proelium com^mittunt ut 
 qui victores ista in pugna extiterunt his 
 puella cedat." The difference between 
 the Welsh and the Muscovite practice 
 lay in this, that in Wales, in the celebra- 
 tion of the marriage, betrothal came first, 
 and the (sham) fight afterwards ; while 
 among the Muscovites an actual invasion 
 came first, and if the bridegroom's party- 
 succeeded in carrying off the lady, there 
 followed the consent of parents and the 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 69 
 
 sponsalia: — "Nee ante completam hanc 
 celebritatem mutua carnali copula, pacto 
 parentum interveniente, se commiscere 
 Solent conjungendi ; quia immane cunctis 
 gentibus crimen apparere dignoscitur si 
 ante sponsalia sacra stupri illecebris 
 virgo temeratur ; immo summoper6 cavent 
 puellae ne copulam anticepent quia per- 
 petuam cum prole sic suscepta infamiam 
 luent."* The intervention of the spon- 
 salia and consent of parents before the 
 consummation of the marriage, marks this 
 as a transitional form of the practice. 
 But it is none the less a case of actual 
 capture. Another advance and the spon- 
 salia will precede the capture, and the 
 fight be a farce. 
 
 According to Seignior Gaya,t this 
 transitional form of the practice prevailed 
 
 * " Olaus Magnus," ut supra, p. 482. 
 t "Marriage Ceremonies," etc., ut supra, p. 35. 
 F 
 
70 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 in his time in Poland, parts of Prussia, 
 Samogithia and Lithuania. A lad's father 
 having found where a girl lived, who 
 would make a suitable wife for his son, 
 he assembled his kindred and carried the 
 lady off, after which application was made 
 to her father for consent to complete the 
 marriage. 
 
 There is ample reason to believe that 
 the practice was general among the nations 
 in the north of Europe and Asia. Olaus 
 Magnus,* indeed, represents the tribes 
 of the north as having been continually 
 at war with one another either on account 
 of stolen women, or with the object of 
 stealing women, " propter raptas virgines 
 aut arripiendas." His brother Johannest 
 dilates on the same topic, and mentions 
 
 * Ut supra, p. 328. 
 
 t History of the Goths, Book xviii. ; and see 
 " Kames," ut supra, vol. i., p. 393. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. n 
 
 numerous cases in which the plunderers 
 were of the royal houses of Denmark or 
 Sweden. As did the kings, so did their 
 subjects. Among the Scandinavians, be- 
 fore they became Christians, wives were 
 almost invariably fought for and wedded 
 at the sword-point. In Sweden, even 
 long after the introduction of Chris- 
 tianity, women were often carried off 
 when on the way to the church to be 
 married. A wedding cortege was a party 
 of armed men, and for greater security, 
 marriages were generally celebrated at 
 night. A pile of lances is said to be still 
 preserved in the ancient church of Husaby 
 in Gothland, into which were fitted torches; 
 these weapons were borne by the grooms- 
 men, and served the double purpose of 
 giving light and protection.* Such a 
 
 * " Book of Days," vol. i., p. 720. The grooms- 
 men are said to have been called "best men" in the 
 
72 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 prevalence of lawlessness existing after 
 the introduction of Christianity and com- 
 parative civilization, helps us to conceive 
 what the habits of these people were in a 
 more primitive age. 
 
 We find capture de facto coexistent 
 with capture as a form, and not unfre- 
 quent, among most of the rude tribes 
 observing the form ; its frequency depend- 
 ing partly on the degree of friendliness 
 established between the tribes, and partly 
 on the degree of fixity given by usage to 
 the price to be paid for a bride. Where 
 the parties cannot agree about the price, 
 nothing is more common among the Kal- 
 mucks, Kirghiz, Nogais, and Circassians, 
 than to carry the lady off by actual force 
 of arms. The wooer having once got the 
 lady into his yurt, she is his wife by the 
 
 north from the strongest and stoutest of the bride- 
 groom's friends being chosen for this duty. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 73 
 
 law, and peace is established by her rela- 
 tions coming to terms as to the price, after 
 the thing has gone so far that they cannot 
 help themselves. It is important to ob- 
 serve, that among these races the capture, 
 though an irregular proceeding, makes 
 marriage, even previous to terms being 
 made between the capturer and the friends 
 of the lady, and whether they are made 
 or not. 
 
 That the practice of getting wives by 
 capture de facto, prevails among the 
 natives of Australia, is a fact familiar to 
 most readers. It is not, however, now 
 the sole or regular mode of getting a wife 
 among the Australian tribes ; and we do 
 not claim to do more than show that there 
 at present exists among them a practice of 
 capturing wives so common as almost to 
 be? a system. And as we shall hereafter 
 show that they are exogamous, and also 
 
74 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 that exogamous tribes which begin with 
 a system of capturing wives, may pro- 
 gress — consistently with exogamy— to a 
 system of betrothals, we shall ask the 
 reader, conceding to us for the present 
 that we shall be able to do so, to agree 
 with us that so general a practice of cap- 
 ture, subsisting as it does among the 
 Australians alongside of a system of 
 betrothals, points unmistakeably to a 
 previous stage when wives were usually 
 captured. 
 
 Among the Australasians, according to 
 one account,* when a man sees a woman 
 whom he likes, he tells her to follow him, 
 and when she refuses, he forces her to 
 accompany him by blows, ending by 
 knocking her down and carrying her 
 
 * See Appendix B, for an account of the practice 
 among the Australian Blacks, which has appeared as 
 this work was going through the press. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 75 
 
 off.* The same account (somewhat suspi- 
 ciously) bears that this mode of courtship 
 is rather relished by the ladies as a 
 species of rough gallantry. The cases 
 must indeed be rare in which a man 
 finds a woman detached from her lord 
 and protector, or the other members of 
 her family ; nor is it in human flesh and 
 blood to take kicks and cuffs as compli- 
 ments, in whatever spirit they may be 
 administered. The following is the ac- 
 count given by Sir George Grey — a good 
 authority : — " Even supposing a woman 
 to give no encouragement to her admirers," 
 he says,t " many plots are always laid to 
 carry her off, and in the encounters which 
 result from these, she is almost certain to 
 
 *Turnbull, "Voyage Round the World," 1805. 
 Vol. i., pp. 81, 82. 
 
 t "Travels in North-Western Australia," 1841, 
 Vol. ii., p. 249. 
 
76 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 receive some violent injury, for each of the 
 combatants orders her to follow him, and 
 in the event of her refusing, throws a 
 spear at her. The early life of a young 
 woman at all celebrated for beauty is 
 generally one continued series of cap- 
 tivity to different masters, of ghastly 
 wounds, of wanderings in strange fami- 
 lies, of rapid flights, of bad treatment 
 from other females, amongst whom she 
 is brought a stranger by her captor ; and 
 rarely do you see a form of unusual grace 
 and elegance, but it is marked and scarred 
 by the furrows of old wounds ; and many 
 a female thus wanders several hundred 
 miles from the home of her infancy, be- 
 ing carried off successively to distant 
 and more distant points." As an Aus- 
 tralian woman is always a wife, being 
 betrothed after birth to some man of a 
 different tribe or family-stock from her 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 77, 
 
 own, a stolen or captured wife is always 
 stolen or taken from a prior husband. 
 And as men do not readily part with their 
 wives, and their tribesmen are bound to 
 make common cause with them for the re- 
 paration of injuries, the capture of wives 
 is a signal for war; and as the tribes 
 have little property, except their weapons 
 and their women, the women are at once 
 the cause of war, and the spoils of victory.* 
 The tribes, as might be expected, are 
 exceedingly numerous, and exceedingly 
 small,t being a species of family groups, 
 and, chiefly from the causes specified, 
 they are continually at war with one 
 another.^ The reader may imagine the 
 
 * " Turnbull," ut supra, p. 82. 
 
 t Sir George Grey says that the largest number 
 of natives his party ever saw together, " numbered 
 nearly two hundred, women and children included," 
 ut supra. Vol. i., p. 252. 
 
 X Grey's "Travels," ut supra. Vol. i., p. 256. 
 
78 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 extent to which, among these myriad 
 hordes of savages; the women are being 
 knocked about, and the men accustomed 
 to associate the acquisition of a wife with 
 acts of violence and rapine.* 
 
 The native songs make frequent allu- 
 sion to the practice of capturing wives. 
 Here is the burden of one, sung by a 
 heavy-hearted woman, upbraiding her 
 lord, whose affections some recently ac- 
 quired captive has drawn away from her, — 
 
 Wherefore came you, Weerang, 
 In my beauty's pride, 
 Stealing cautiously, 
 Like the tawny boreang, 
 On an unwilling bride. 
 'Twas thus you stole me 
 From one who loved me tenderly. 
 A better man he was than thee, 
 
 * The reader will find, p. 318, vol. ii. of " Grey's 
 Travels," a curious illustrative instance of the way in 
 which a war about women may arise. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 79 
 
 Who having forced me thus to wed, 
 Now so oft deserts my bed. 
 
 Yang, yang, yang, yoh. 
 
 Oh, where is he who won 
 My youthful heart ; 
 Who oft -used to bless 
 And call me loved one : 
 You, Weerang, tore apart 
 From his fond caress 
 Her whom you desert and shun ; 
 Out upon the faithless one ! 
 Oh, may the Boyl-yas bite and tear 
 Her, whom you take your bed to share. 
 Yang, yang, yang, yoh.* 
 
 Concerning the New Zealanders, it 
 must suffice to say that the theft or cap- 
 ture of women plays a leading part in 
 their popular legends, testifying to the 
 prevalence of the practice, at least in their 
 early history.t In New Zealand, and 
 in the Feejee and other islands of the 
 
 * Grey's " Travels," vol. ii., p. 313. 
 t " Polynesian Mythology, etc.," Sir George Grey, 
 1855, pp. 138, 147, 207, 235, 301. 
 
8o THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 Pacific, the capture of wives appears to 
 have been conjoined with cannibalism — 
 the object of inter-tribal war being at once 
 to procure women for wives and men for 
 food, except in some districts where there 
 was a special relish for the flesh of 
 females. * 
 
 In the Institutes of Menu we have 
 marriage by capture enumerated among 
 " the eight forms of the nuptial ceremony 
 used by the four classes."! It is the 
 marriage called Racshasa, and is thus 
 defined: — "The seizure of a maiden by 
 force from her house while she weeps 
 and calls for assistance, after her kins- 
 men and friends have been slain in battle 
 or wounded, and their houses broken 
 open, is the marriage called Racshasa." 
 
 * Erskine's " Islands of the Western Pacific," and 
 Jackson's "Narrative." 
 
 t Chap. iii. 33 (Jones and Houghton). 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 
 
 Elsewhere* in the code it is mentioned 
 as appropriated to the military class. 
 " For a military man the before-men- 
 tioned marriages of Gandharvas and 
 Racshases — ^whether separate or mixed, 
 as when a girl is made captive by her 
 lover, after a victory over her kinsmen — 
 are permitted by law." The full scope 
 and effect of this provision we shall have 
 to consider hereafter. Meanwhile we 
 notice that we have here the exact pro- 
 totype of the Roman and Spartan forms, 
 embalmed in a code of laws a thousand 
 years before the commencement of our 
 era ; not as a form, but as living sub- 
 stance. This we hold to exclude any 
 hypothesis except that which we are 
 maintaining.f 
 
 * Chap. iii. 26 (Jones and Houghton), 
 t For the probable origin of the name Racshases, 
 see Appendix B. 
 
82 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 We may notice, as further illustrating 
 the subject, and as being in itself curi- 
 ous, that by the Mosaic Code the mili- 
 tary class were, in defiance of the gene- 
 ral law which declared that there was no 
 connubium between Jews and Gentiles, 
 allowed to take to wife women whom they 
 captured in war, to whatever races they 
 belonged. In Deut. xx. 10-14, the reader 
 will find forms and regulations provided 
 for the constitution of this species of mar- 
 riage, and if interested to know the mean- 
 ing of the rules, he will find a copious 
 and learned discussion of them - in the 
 works of Selden. * 
 
 Thus far we have been dealing with 
 facts. If we are right in our theory of thfe 
 symbol of capture, it must be held that 
 the Dorians, or at least some of the tribes 
 
 * "De Jure Natural! et Gentium Juxta Disciplinam 
 Ebraeorum." Lib. v., cap. xiii., fol. 617. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 83 
 
 composing the Spartan nation, and the 
 Latins, or at least some of the tribes form- 
 ing the commonalty of Rome, long had 
 experience in the capturing of wives by 
 force or stratagem. We leave to our 
 Hellenists to consider how far the Doric 
 legends may have new light thrown upon 
 them by our view of the Spartan custom. 
 How far, for instance, may the slaughter 
 by Hercules of Eurylus and his sons, and 
 the carrying away of lole to be the wife 
 of Hyllus — of Hyllus, who never occurs 
 in mythology except in connection with 
 the Dorians — be a mythical tradition of a 
 rape of women from another tribe ? How 
 far may the genealogies of Doric heroes 
 connected with the taking of Ephyra,— 
 the capture of Astyocheia,— the feat of 
 Hercules at Thespiae— the stories of Pluto 
 and Proserpine, and of Boreas and Orithya 
 — be but traditions of a quasi Caribbean 
 
84 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 prowess ? It must be kept in mind, 
 too, that the case cited from Herodotus in 
 proof of the custom at Sparta is one of 
 actual violence. At least, the lady was 
 not carried off in terms of arrangement. 
 Farther, to judge by what is reported of 
 Theseus — even accepting the tradition as 
 fabulous — we may conclude that the an- 
 cient Greeks generally were very lawless 
 in this matter. To that hero's charge are 
 laid numerous rapes of women whom he 
 carried off to be his wives — his crimes of 
 this description culminating in the seizure 
 of Helen. Plutarch, indeed, in describing 
 that affair, mentions a compact as having 
 been entered into between Theseus and 
 his companion in the seizure — ^Tyndarus 
 — to the effect that he who should gain 
 Helen by lot should have her to wife, but 
 be obliged to assist in procuring a wife 
 for the other; which shows that these 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 85 
 
 worthies trusted to their prowess to pro- 
 cure them wives.* As to the Romans — 
 upon our theory — the story of the rape of 
 the Sabines must be accepted as a mere 
 mythical tradition of the ancient me- 
 thod of getting wives. The story, as 
 might be expected, is reproduced in the 
 traditions of many tribes, in many places, 
 and in many forms. For instance, in 
 the Irish Nenniusf there is a tradition 
 
 * There is no evidence that the Doric hordes who 
 overran and established themselves in the Peloponnesus, 
 were accompanied by their wives or children. It is 
 most unlikely that they were so attended ; and, except 
 a surmise founded on the degree of influence en- 
 joyed at a subsequent period by the women of Sparta, 
 there is nothing in favour of the supposition. But 
 that surmise proceeds on the ground that wives of a 
 race alien to that of their husbands are not so likely 
 to be well treated as they would be if they were of 
 the same blood. Against this we must simply pro- 
 nounce as being contrary to evidence. 
 
 t Pp. 245-251. 
 
 G 
 
86 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 of such a rape of wives by the Picts from 
 the Gael. In the very old poem, "The 
 Cruithnians who propagated in the land 
 of noble Alba,"* the Irish are represented 
 as giving three hundred wives to the Picts, 
 on the condition that the succession to the 
 crown among the Picts should always be 
 through their females : — 
 
 " There were oaths imposed on them, 
 By the stars, by the earth, 
 That from the nobility of the mother 
 Should always be the right to the sovereignty." 
 
 The story of the oaths is no doubt a fable 
 to explain the descensus per umbilicum 
 of the Picts. But, in " Duan Gircan- 
 ash,"t a poem on the origin of the Goed- 
 hel, reciting the same event, the Picts are 
 represented as stealing the three hundred 
 wives : — 
 
 * Vv. 115-120. The Irish version of Nennius, 
 1848, p. 141. 
 
 t Vv. 178-180, ut supra, p. 245. 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 87 
 
 " Cruithne, son of Cuig, took their women from them — 
 It is directly stated — 
 Except Tea, wife of Hermion, 
 Son of Miledh." 
 
 And in consequence of the capture, the 
 Gael, being left wifeless, had to form 
 alliances with the aboriginal tribes of 
 Ireland. 
 
 " There were no charming noble wives 
 For their young men, 
 Their women having been stolen, they made alliance 
 With the Tuatha Dea." 
 
 We have the same story in the history 
 of the Jews. Chapters xx. and xxi. of the 
 Book of Judges contain highly instructive 
 matter on this point, in a stoiy, which, 
 though laid in the time of the Judges, we 
 must hold to be of very old date — a Jewish 
 tradition belonging to the earliest history 
 of Israel. The women of the tribe of 
 Benjamin had been destroyed, and certain 
 of the tribes of Israel had sworn not to 
 
88 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 give their daughters as wives to the men 
 of Benjamin, who again could not take 
 wives to themselves from the Gentiles, as 
 by law they could marry only into one or 
 other of the tribes of Israel. The difficulty 
 of procuring wives for Benjamin — ^which 
 Israel made its own difficulty — ^was solved 
 by the wholesale slaughter of the inhabi- 
 tants of Jabez-Gilead, whose population 
 yielded 400 virgins: and next by the men 
 of Benjamin enacting a rape of the Sabines 
 for themselves, each man seizing and 
 carrying off one of the daughters of Shiloh 
 to be his wife, on an occasion when the 
 women met for a festival in certain vine- 
 yards near Bethel.* 
 
 * See Smith's Bible Dictionary — Art. MARRIAGE — 
 where it is remarked, that the phrase in the Old 
 Testament {e.g., Num. xii. i ; i Chron. ii. 21), "taking 
 a wife," would seem to require to be taken in its literal 
 meaning in the run of cases ; "the taking" being the 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 89 
 
 We can now say we have found the 
 capture of women very extensively prac- 
 tised ; and there can be no doubt that in 
 most of the cases cited, the women cap- 
 tured were kept to be used as wives. In 
 a number of well-marked cases we have 
 found a system of capture — in the case 
 of the Caribbean tribes of America, a 
 system so general, that the women of a 
 tribe were commonly not only not of the 
 same tribe with the men, but did not 
 even speak the same language. We have 
 seen among tribes in a transition state, 
 in some cases, capture almost systemati- 
 cally practised, alongside of more civi- 
 lized institutions ; and in other cases, the 
 
 chief ceremony in the constitution of marriage. If the 
 writer of that article is correct, we must beheve that 
 the Jews observed the form of capture, for in many 
 cases where the phrase occurs we know the marriages 
 were preceded by contracts. 
 
90 THE PRACTICE OF 
 
 practice of capture in various stages of 
 progress towards a symbolism. We have 
 seen the marriage by capture embodied 
 in the code of India as an institution in 
 favour of the only class which could be 
 benefited by it — the warrior class ; and 
 no argument is needed to show that such 
 a rule must have been a generalisation 
 founded upon practice. A similar rule 
 subsisted in favour of warriors among the 
 Israelites. The former of these cases is, 
 perhaps, chiefly valuable as presenting in 
 a distinct shape the ante-type of the form 
 of capture — a description of marriage 
 by an actual capture so vividly recalling 
 incidents of fictitious capture, as practised 
 at Rome and elsewhere, as (in our opinion) 
 to set at rest the question in what way 
 the fiction originated. The latter case 
 shows a provision made for marriage 
 with foreign women, if captured, among 
 
CAPTURING WIVES. 91 
 
 tribes which, in no other case, allowed of 
 marriage with foreign women ; a provi- 
 sion indicating a very remarkable asso- 
 ciation between capture and marriage. 
 It is not easy to believe that such a regu- 
 lation, existing among endogamous tribes, 
 is referable to the feeling that a victorious 
 warrior should have the full disposal of 
 spoils of war ; it is much more likely that 
 it was a relic of a time when the tribes — 
 or rather the race from which they sprung 
 — ^were not endogamous ; and, if so, it 
 carries us back to a remote antiquity 
 when marriage and prowess in war were 
 closely associated. We have seen that the 
 mythic legends of various races, of which 
 hitherto no rational explanation "has been 
 given, can, with great appearance of pro- 
 bability, be referred to the existence 
 amongst such races in ancient times of a 
 systematic capture of wives. 
 
92 PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES. 
 
 Farther research, and the observation 
 of tribes hitherto unreported upon — at 
 present we have not been able to say any- 
 thing that would be satisfactory of the 
 races of the continent of Africa* — will, 
 we confidently expect, afford much addi- 
 tional evidence of the prevalence of this 
 practice. But we have done enough to 
 entitle us to affirm that there has existed 
 amongst various races of mankind a 
 system of capturing women for wives. 
 
 * See Appendix B. 
 
EXOGAMY. 93 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 OF THE RULE AGAINST MARRIAGE BETWEEN 
 
 MEMBERS OF THE SAME TRIBE OF 
 
 THE COINCIDENCE OF THIS RULE WITH 
 THE PRACTICE OF CAPTURING WIVES 
 DE FACTO, AND WITH THE FORM OF 
 CAPTURE IN MARRIAGE CEREMONIES. 
 
 We proceed to show the prevalence of 
 the rule forbidding marriage within the 
 tribe or group of kindred, and the con- 
 currence of this ban with the fact or 
 pretence of capturing wives. 
 
 Here, still more than in our former 
 investigation, we are made to feel how 
 imperfect and unconnected is the record 
 from which our facts have to be drawn ; 
 and farther, how difficult it is to bring 
 together such facts as have been observed, 
 
94 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 owing to the wide field over which they 
 lie sparsely scattered. In many cases, the 
 authorities are silent just on the points 
 on which we are most eager for informa- 
 tion ; while on matters of no moment they 
 enlarge ad nauseam. But, too often, they 
 have nothing to tell. Skirting a coast- 
 line the traveller sees natives at points 
 here and there, and can describe their 
 dress and personal appearance; of their 
 habits he is as ignorant as a child of the 
 free life of the beasts he sees in a caravan. 
 Where the opportunities of observation are 
 better, the observer often does not know 
 what to look for. Of the jus connubii 
 among the Kalmucks not one word is said 
 by Clarke or Pallas or Strahlenberg ! and 
 but for some remarks of Bergman's we 
 should be entirely in the dark on the 
 subject. 
 
 We begin with the Khonds. This 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 95 
 
 people presents us with capture as a form. 
 Major-General Campbell says that the 
 Khonds marry women from remote places, 
 the reason of which he takes to be, that 
 they have to buy their wives, and can 
 get them at lower prices at a distance. 
 " They pretend, moreover," he adds,* 
 " to regard it as degrading to bestow 
 their daughters in marriage on men of 
 their own tribe ; and consider it more 
 manly to seek their wives in a distant 
 country." Major M'Pherson — a more in- 
 telligent witness — gives us the distinct 
 statement, that among the Khonds inter- 
 marriage between persons of the same 
 tribe, however large or scattered, is con- 
 sidered incestuous, and punishable by 
 death ;t a view more consistent with other 
 
 * Ut supra, p. 141. 
 
 t " An Account of the Religion of the Khonds in 
 
96 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 known facts than that of General Camp- 
 bell. " Marriage," Major M'Pherson 
 tells us, "can take place only betwixt 
 members of different tribes, and not even 
 with strangers who have been long adopted 
 into or domesticated with a tribe, and a 
 state of war or peace appears to make 
 little difference as to the practice of inter- 
 marriage between tribes. The people 
 of Bara Mootah and of Burra Des, in 
 Goomsur, have been at war time out of 
 mind, and annually engage in fierce con- 
 flicts, but they intermarry every day. 
 The women of each tribe, after a fight, 
 visit each other to condole on the loss of 
 their nearest common relations." No 
 doubt these friendly intermarriages must 
 in time alter the relations of the tribes 
 to one another; no doubt also the time 
 
 Orissa," p. S7 ; and see M'Pherson's Report on the 
 Khonds, already referred to. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 9; 
 
 was when the marriages were not effected 
 in friendly fashion. 
 
 Let us now examine the cases of the 
 K almucks and Cir cassia ns. To under- 
 stand that of the former, we must attend 
 a little to their political system. The 
 Kalmucks are divided into four great 
 nations or tribes under hereditary chiefs 
 or khans ; — the Khoskots, the Dzun- 
 gars, the Derbets, and the Torgots. Each 
 of these, according to Pallas,* is under 
 the command of many little and nearly 
 independent princes, called Noions. The 
 horde commanded by a No'ion is called 
 an Oulouss, and is subdivided into 
 several Aimaks, each of which again is 
 commanded by a noble called Sai's- 
 sang. The Aimaks again are sub- 
 
 * "Voyages dans Plusieurs Provinces de I'Empire 
 de Russia, etc.," Paris (no date), vol. ii., p. 191. Nou- 
 velle Edition. 
 
98 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 divided into many companies or khatoun, 
 consisting of from ten to twelve tents, for 
 convenience in pasturing; and each kha- 
 toun has its chief, but whether of the 
 noble class we are not informed. It will 
 thus be seen that there is among the 
 Kalmucks a very large governing or 
 princely class. Now, it appears that they 
 have two systems of marriage law ; one for 
 the common people, and one for the nobles, 
 or princely class. The common people, 
 we are told by Bergman,* enter into no 
 unions in which the parties are not dis- 
 tant from one another by three or four 
 degrees ; but how the degrees are counted 
 we are not informed. We are told that 
 they have great abhorrence for the mar- 
 riages of near relatives, and have a pro- 
 verb — "The great folk and dogs know 
 
 * Bergman's "Streiferein." Riga, 1804, vol. iii., 
 p. 145, et seq. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 99 
 
 no relationship" — which Bergman says is 
 due to members of the princely class some- 
 times marrying sisters-in-law. We find^ 
 however, that these sisters-in-law are 
 uniformly women of an entirely different 
 stock from their husbands — different, 
 or what is taken for different. For no 
 man of the princely class (and it is in 
 the marriages of the Kalmucks of this 
 class, according to De Hell, that the form 
 of capture is chiefly observed*), in any of 
 the tribes, can marry a woman of his own 
 tribe or nation. Not only must his wife 
 be a noble, but she must be a noble of a 
 different stock. For princely marriages, 
 says Bergman, " the bride is chosen from 
 another people's stock — among the Der- 
 bets from the Torgot stock ; and among 
 the Torgots from the Derbet stock ; and 
 so on." Here, then, we have the principle 
 
 * See ante, p. 30. 
 
lOO EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 of exogamy in full force in regard to the 
 marriages of the governing classes — a 
 large body in each nation, as we have seen, 
 and, which is most to our present purpose, 
 the body in whose marriages the form of 
 capture is said to be observed. Whether 
 or not the commonalty, with whom the 
 nobles have no intermarriage — the people 
 of black birth, as they are called — ^were 
 originally of an alien, inferior, and con- 
 quered race ; and whether or not the go- 
 verning classes were originally independ- 
 ent exogamous tribes, we have the pro- 
 hibition against marriage within the stock 
 here concurrent with the form of capture 
 in the weddings of the nobility. How 
 far the commonalty observe the form we 
 have no information, but it is not un- 
 likely that they mimic, after a fashion, the 
 marriage ceremonies of their superiors. 
 The case of the Circassians is simple, 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. loi 
 
 and quickly told:— "The Circassian word 
 for their societies or fraternities," says 
 Bell,* " is ' tleush,' which signifies also 
 ' seeds. ' The tradition with regard to them 
 is, that the members of each all sprang 
 from the same stock or ancestry ; and thus 
 they may be considered as so many septs 
 or clans, with this peculiarity, that, like 
 seeds, all are considered equal. These 
 cousins-german, or members of the same 
 fraternity, are not only themselves inter- 
 dicted from intermarrying, but their serfs, 
 too, must wed with the serfs of another 
 fraternity ; and where, as is generally the 
 case, many fraternities enter into one 
 general bond, this law in regard to mar- 
 riage must be observed by all. The con- 
 fidential dependant, or steward, of our 
 host here is a tokao who fled to his pro- 
 
 * James Stanislaus Bell. "Journal of a Residence 
 in Circassia," 1840, vol. i., p. 347. 
 
 H 
 
I02 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 tection from Notwhatsh, because, having 
 fallen in love with and married a woman 
 of his own fraternity, he had become liable 
 to punishment for this infraction of Cir- 
 cassian law. Yet his fraternity contained 
 perhaps several thousand members. For- 
 merly, such a marriage was looked upon 
 as incest, and punished by drowning ; now 
 a fine of two hundred oxen, and the resti- 
 tution of the wife to her parents, only are 
 exacted." Elsewhere,* Bell observes that 
 these fraternities sometimes embrace thou- 
 sands of persons, between whom marriage 
 is by this ancient law totally prohibited. 
 Here, too, as in Khondistan, and among 
 the Kalmucks, we find the form of capture 
 as well as the principle of exogamy. 
 
 Our next case is that of the Yurak Sa- 
 moyeds (Siberia) among whom no man can 
 
 Ut supra, vol. ii., i lo. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 103 
 
 take a wife from the tribe to which he be- 
 longs.* These Samoyeds hold kinsman- 
 ship to be coextensive with the tribe. All 
 the members of the tribe, however large 
 or small, consider themselves relations, 
 even where the common ancestor is un- 
 known, and the evidence of consanguinity 
 is wholly wanting. They fall into three 
 divisions ; the members of any of which 
 may take wives from either of the other 
 two, but not from their own ; and as these 
 divisions occupy sites far removed from 
 one another, the Samoyeds have to go 
 great distances for their wives. 
 
 We find the same state of things 
 among the Kafirs, the Sodhas of northern 
 India, the Beduanda Kallung (Singapore), 
 and many others, including the Kirghiz 
 and the Nogais.t 
 
 * Latham, "Descriptive Ethnology," vol. ii. p. 455- 
 t It must not be thought that the form of capture 
 
104 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 The Warali (India) tribes fall into divi- 
 sions, and no man may marry a woman 
 of his own division ; he must go for a 
 wife to one of the others. The Magar 
 tribes fall into thums, all the members of 
 each of which are supposed to be de- 
 scended from a common ancestor: the 
 Magar husband and wife must belong to 
 different thums ; within one and the same 
 thum there is no marriage. Latham, in 
 noticing the Magars, says — "This is the 
 first time* I have found occasion to men- 
 tion this practice. It will not be the last ; 
 on the contrary, the principle it suggests 
 is so common as to be almost universal. 
 
 occurs wherever exogamy prevails — that exogamy 
 and the practice of capturing wives, which at a certain 
 stage must be the resource of exogamous tribes, will 
 in every case leave the form of capture behind them. 
 We shall see the explanation of this hereafter. We 
 have no information whether or not the Samoyeds 
 practise the form of capture. 
 
 * Vol. i. p. 80, " Descriptive Ethnology." 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 105 
 
 We find it in Australia, in North and 
 South America, in Africa, in Europe ; we 
 shall suspect and infer it in many places 
 where the actual evidence of its existence 
 is incomplete." This is a sweeping state- 
 ment ; but before we conclude we hope to 
 show that it may fairly be accepted as 
 correct. 
 
 In the institutes of Menu it is laid 
 down that a twice-born man might elect 
 for nuptials " a woman not descended from 
 his paternal or maternal ancestors within 
 the sixth degree, and who is not known by 
 her family name to be of the same primitive 
 stock with his father."* This passage might 
 
 * " Institutes of Menu," cap. iii., sec. 5. The words 
 "or mother" occur in the gloss of Calluca. The rule 
 fixing the stock by the father is, as we hope to show, 
 far fi-om being archaic. The twice-born classes are 
 the sacerdotal, military, and commercial (Menu x. 4). 
 Nearly all the Indian castes are now divided into 
 nations that do not intermarry ; the nations into sects. 
 
io6 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 be taken as a text for the discussion of the 
 whole question of prohibited marriages, 
 and we must dwell upon it somewhat, as 
 it has an important bearing on the present 
 investigation. The object of the rule is 
 to prevent marriages between members of 
 the same primitive stock ; and it points 
 out the family name as the test whether 
 persons are of the same stock or not. It 
 is as if a Fraser might not marry a Fraser, 
 nor a M'Intosh a M'Intosh. By compar- 
 ing the former state of the Highlands of 
 Scotland with their present condition, 
 especially with the condition of the town 
 populations, we may clear our ideas regard- 
 some of which do not intermarry. All the nations 
 are divided into certain families, called gotrams ; a 
 man cannot marry a woman of his own gotram. 
 Buchanan's "Journey from Madras," 1807, vol. i. pp. 
 273. 300, 354, 396, 419, 421, 423; Muir's "Sanskrit 
 Texts," Part II., 1859, PP- 378> 387 ; " Vivada Chinta- 
 mani," Calcutta, 1863, Preface, p. 45. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 107 
 
 ing the origin, meaning, and effect of this 
 institution. Of old each clan inhabited 
 its particular strath or glen, and had its 
 own well-defined hill ranges. In the Aird 
 district there were none but Erasers ; about 
 Moy were none but M'Intoshes. The mem- 
 bers of the clans are now interfused even 
 in the country districts, and in towns like 
 Inverness or Dingwall may be found mem- 
 bers of all the clans. Now, suppose that 
 originally a man was not allowed to marry 
 a woman of his own clan, and that, sub- 
 sequent to the interfusion of the clans, 
 that ancient prejudice remained ; the rule 
 for enforcing it — the question of degrees 
 of affinity apart — would just be the rule 
 of Menu. So, in considering the origin of 
 that rule, are we not remanded from the 
 social state in which it was fixed in a code, 
 to an earlier state, in which the population 
 consisted of distinct clans or tribes organ- 
 
io8 £XOGAMY AND THE 
 
 ised on the principle of exogamy, and liv- 
 ing apart from one another, as all tribes 
 do in early times, until they are brought, 
 by conquest or otherwise, under a com- 
 mon government ? We have already had 
 examples of tribes with this rule, so that, 
 in this conception of the early state of the 
 Indian population, we are making no im- 
 probable supposition. On the contrary, 
 it is not only probable in itself, but it is 
 the only supposition that will explain the 
 fact ; and if we accept it as indicating the 
 origin of the rule of Menu, it gives us 
 such an idea of the prevalence of this law 
 of incest as we could never reach by the 
 contemplation of the individual tribes 
 among which it is the law. It will be re- 
 collected that the form of capture is found 
 among the Hindus.* 
 
 * Ante, p. 27, and see Appendix A. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 109 
 
 We believe it may still be possible, in 
 the case of some communities in which 
 marriage between persons of the same 
 family name is prohibited, to analyse the 
 population into its constituent (stock) 
 tribes, and to prove that the tribes had 
 this law of incest. In one case, in par- 
 ticular, investigation seems to be courted. 
 The Munnieporees, and the following 
 tribes inhabiting the hills round Munnie- 
 pore — the Koupooees, the Mows, the 
 Murams, and the Murring — are each 
 and all divided into four families — Koo- 
 mul, Looang, Angom, and Ningthaj^. A 
 member of any of these families may 
 marry a member of any other, but the 
 intermarriage of members of the same 
 family is strictly prohibited. In explana- 
 tion, so far, of these family divisions,* 
 
 * "Account of the Valley of Munniepore and of the 
 Hill Tribes." M'CuUoch, 1859, PP- 49-69- 
 
no EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 we have the fact, well authenticated 
 in the history of Munniepore, that the 
 Koomul and Looang formerly existed as 
 distinct and powerful tribes, and that the 
 Koomul, in particular, at one time pre- 
 ponderated in the valley. Presuming that 
 these tribes held intermarriages of their 
 members to be incestuous, the origin of 
 two of the family divisions, and of the 
 marriage law, is plain enough, at least 
 so far as the hill tribes are concerned ; and 
 it is in the hills alone that the law is 
 strictly enforced. Most of the members 
 of the tribes would remain in the valley 
 and mix with the Meithei, by whose 
 prowess they were vanquished ; but we 
 can conceive that bands of the Koomul 
 and Looang might escape to the hills, and 
 mix with each other and with the tribes 
 of the Angom and Ningthajjl, whose ex- 
 istence in former times we must postulate. 
 
FA CT & FORM OF CA P TURE. 1 1 1 
 
 in explanation of the family divisions of 
 the same names. Is it beyond hope that 
 the farther examination of local tradi- 
 tions, or exploration of the wilds to the 
 south and north-east of Munniepore, may 
 yet furnish us with information regarding 
 the Angom and Ningthaja, or with data 
 from which their existence in former times 
 may be legitimately inferred, apart from 
 the present speculation ? 
 
 The conclusion at which we have ar- 
 rived as to the origin of the rule of 
 Menu, will also explain the case of the 
 native populations of Australia, North 
 and South America, and the islands in 
 the Pacific. In these quarters we obtain 
 light regarding the causes which lead to 
 the break up of the primitive exogamous 
 groups, and to the intermixture in local 
 tribes of people recognised as being of dif- 
 ferent bloods. Let us first attend to the 
 
112 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 Australians, whom we find divided into 
 small tribes named after the districts 
 which they inhabit ; for though they are 
 nomads, their wanderings, like those of 
 the nomadic agriculturists of the Indian 
 hills, are circumscribed within well-defined 
 bounds. It appears that the tribe inhabit- 
 ing a particular district regards itself as 
 the owner thereof, and the intrusion of any 
 other tribe upon that district as an invasion 
 to be resented and punished ; and that 
 within the district individuals have por- 
 tions of land appropriated to them.* Thus 
 the tribal system is in force, with an ap- 
 parent perfect separation and independ- 
 ence of the tribes. But, on close exami- 
 nation, the tribes are found to be fused 
 and welded together by blood-ties in the 
 most extraordinary manner. According 
 
 * Letter, Dr. Laing to Dr. Hodgkin, 1840. " Re- 
 ports of the Aboriginal Protection Society." 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 113 
 
 to credible accounts,* the natives of dif- 
 ferent tribes extending over a great por- 
 tion of the continent, are divided into a 
 few families, and all the members of 
 a family, in whatever local tribes they 
 may be, bear the same name as a second 
 or family name. These family names 
 and divisions are perpetuated and spread 
 throughout the country by the operation 
 of two laws : first, that the children of 
 either sex always take the name of the 
 mother; and second, that a man cannot 
 marry a woman of his own family name. 
 The members of these families, though 
 scattered over the country, are yet to some 
 intents as much united as if they formed 
 separate and independent tribes ; in par- 
 ticular, the members of each family are 
 bound to unite for the purposes of de- 
 
 * " Grey's Journals," etc., vol. ii., chap. xi. 
 
114 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 fence and vengeance, the consequence 
 being that every quarrel which arises be- 
 tween the tribes is a signal for so many- 
 young men to leave the tribes in which 
 they were born, and occupy new hunting 
 grounds, or ally themselves with tribes 
 in which the families of their mothers 
 may happen to be strong, or which con- 
 tain their own and their mother's nearest 
 relatives. This secession, if we may so 
 call it, is not always possible, but it is 
 of frequent occurrence notwithstanding ; 
 where it is impossible, the presence of so 
 many of the enemy within the camp affords 
 ready means of satisfying the call for ven- 
 geance ; it being immaterial, according to 
 the native code, by whose blood the blood- 
 feud is satisfied, provided it be blood of 
 the offender's kindred. Thus, as the Aus- 
 tralians are polygamists, and a man often 
 has wives belonging to different families, 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 115 
 
 it is not in quarrels uncommon to find chil- 
 dren of the same father arranged against 
 one another ; or, indeed, against their 
 father himself, for by their peculiar law 
 the father can never be a relative of his 
 children.* Among the Kamilaroi, a nume- 
 
 * Mr. Maine has been unable to conceive how 
 human beings could be grouped on any principle more 
 primitive than that of the patriarchal system, or 
 be bound together by any ruder blood-ties than 
 those of agnation derived from the patria potestas. 
 We think his mistake has arisen from a too exclusive 
 attention, in his researches, to those systems of an- 
 cient law which, like the Hindoo, Roman, and Jewish, 
 belonged to races . which were far advanced at the 
 earliest dates to which their history goes back. Had 
 he examined the primitive races now extant, he cer- 
 tainly would not have written the following passage:* 
 " It is obvious that the organisation of primitive so- 
 cieties would have been confounded if men had called 
 themselves relatives of their mother's relatives. The 
 inference would have been that a person might be 
 subject to two distinct patriae potestates ; but distinct 
 patriae potestates implied distinct jurisdictions, so that 
 
 ' "Ancient Law," 1861, p. I49- 
 
ii6 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 rous tribe residing to the north-west of 
 Sidney, the rules in force are very complex 
 and peculiar. These tribesmen fall into 
 
 anybody amenable to two of them at the same time 
 would have lived under two dispensations. As long 
 as the family was an imperium in imperio, a com- 
 munity within the commonwealth, governed by its 
 own institutions, of which the parent was the source, 
 the limitation of relationship to the agnates was a 
 necessary security against a conflict of laws in the 
 domestic forum." Here we see the ingenious thinker 
 trammelled by notions derived from Roman jurispru- 
 dence. Among the Australian Blacks — to confine our- 
 selves to a single instance — we have seen that men are 
 relatives of their mother's relatives, and of none other ; 
 and that their societies are, aliunde, held together, 
 notwithstanding the conflict of laws in the domestic 
 forum, engendered by polygamy, exogamy, and female 
 kinship. Kinship depends, in fact, not at all on con- 
 venience. The first kinship is the first possible — that 
 through mothers, about whose parental relation to 
 children there can be no mistake. And the system 
 of kinship through mothers only, operates to throw 
 difficulties in the way of the rise of the patria potestas, 
 and of the system of agnation. But of this here- 
 after. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 117 
 
 divisions resembling castes, and at the 
 same time observe the rule against mar- 
 riages between members of the same 
 family.* 
 
 Our information is so imperfect that 
 we do not know whether there exist any- 
 where in Australia tribes whose distinc- 
 tive names are those of the families into 
 which the population is divided. But 
 we should not expect to find such tribes. 
 The constant tendency of groups to fall 
 to pieces, and of the parts to separa- 
 tion and independence of one another, 
 and the practice of naming groups from 
 their lands, would tend to obliterate the 
 traces of the original stock-groups, except 
 so far as they have been preserved in the 
 names of families to keep the blood pure 
 by avoidance of marriage between mem- 
 
 * Mr. Ridley's account quoted, p. 491. vol. ii., 
 Pritchard's " Natural History of Man." Norris' edition. 
 
 I 
 
ii8 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 bers of the same stock. But we cannot 
 doubt that such stock-groups at one time 
 existed, organised on the principle of exo- 
 gamy, and were the germs of the native 
 population. Whencesoever they were 
 derived, it was inevitable, that the law 
 which recognised blood relationship as 
 existing only through females, conspir- 
 ing with the primitive instinct of the race 
 against marriage between members of the 
 same stock, should tend in the process of 
 time to transfuse the blood of each stock 
 through all the tribal divisions. The 
 men of the group A marrying women of 
 the group B ; and the men of the group 
 B marrying women of the group A ; and 
 all the children of the women of B being 
 counted of the stock of B ; and all the 
 children of the women of A being 
 counted of the stock of A ; we at once 
 have so many B's within A, and so 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 119 
 
 many A's within B. And so on, until in 
 time A's from the northmost point appear 
 in the homes of Z at the southmost ; and 
 Z's in the homes of A. Each local tribe 
 would thus contain within itself members 
 between whom there was connubium ; the 
 original tribal divisions would be lost sight 
 of, and nothing would remain of the stock- 
 groups but the family names to which 
 they gave birth. Should the process of 
 transfusion go far enough, the state of 
 matters which would lead to the practice 
 of capturing wives would be modified, but 
 not extinct. The system of polygamy of 
 itself, and any want of balance between 
 the sexes of different families within a 
 tribe, would long tend to maintain this 
 practice; which, moreover, like every other 
 practice connected with marriage or reli- 
 gion, must be credited with a special 
 tenacity of existence. As we have seen. 
 
120 ■ EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 there prevails among the Australians a 
 system of betrothals — always between 
 persons of different stocks — along with 
 an extensive practice of capturing wives. 
 This is just what might be expected if 
 our theory of the origin of capture be a 
 sound one. Since the tribes of Austra- 
 lians, while exogamous in principle, con- 
 tain persons who regard each other as of 
 different descent and free to intermarry, 
 marriage can be, and is, made the subject 
 of bargain. Again, habits formed in pre- 
 vious times of necessity — and no doubt 
 occasional necessity still existing — keep 
 up the practice of capture. 
 
 We now take the case of the Ameri- 
 can Indians — North and South. They 
 have political and district divisions;* but 
 besides these the nations among them 
 
 * " Archseologia Americana," vol. ii. p. 109. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 121 
 
 have had from time immemorial divisions 
 into families or clans. " At present, or 
 till very lately" — ^we quote from the Ar- 
 chaeologia Americana — " every nation was 
 divided into a number of clans, varying in 
 the several nations from three to eight or 
 ten, the members of which respectively 
 were dispersed indiscriminately through- 
 out the whole nation. It has been fully 
 ascertained that the inviolable regulations 
 by which these clans were perpetuated 
 amongst the southern nations were, first, 
 that no man could marry in his own clan ; 
 secondly, that every child should belong 
 to his or her mother's clan. Among the 
 Choctaws there are two great divisions, 
 each of which is subdivided into four 
 clans, and no man can marry in any of 
 the four clans belonging to his division. 
 The restriction among the Cherookees, the 
 Creeks, and the Natches, does not extend 
 
122 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 beyond the clan to which the man belongs. 
 There are sufficient proofs that the same 
 division into clans, commonly called tribes, 
 exists among almost all the other primi- 
 tive nations. But it is not so clear that 
 they are subject to the same regulations 
 which prevail amongst the southern In- 
 dians." At the root of these divisions and 
 prohibitions we find here, as in Austra- 
 lia, the feeling that marriage between 
 persons of the same blood is incestuous, 
 "They profess to consider it highly cri- 
 minal for a man to marry a woman whose 
 totem (family name) is the same as his 
 own, and they relate instances when young 
 men, for a violation of this rule, have been 
 put to death by their own relatives."* The 
 
 * From a circular letter by Mr. L. H. Morgan of 
 Rochester, New York, issued by the United States 
 Government to its diplomatic agents and consuls in 
 foreign countries, and which contains much interesting 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 123 
 
 Indian nations, they say, were divided into 
 tribes just lest any one might, through 
 
 information regarding the laws of primitive relation- 
 ,ship, we quote the following passage as the most 
 recent and authoritative statement regarding the tribal 
 divisions of the red men : — 
 
 " Nearly all, if not all, of the Indian Nations upon 
 this continent were anciently subdivided into Tribes 
 or Families. These tribes, with a few exceptions, were 
 named after animals. Many of them are now thus 
 subdivided. It is so with the Iroquois, Delawares, 
 lowas. Creeks, Mol^ves, Wyandottes, Winnebagoes, 
 Otoes, Kaws, Shawnees, Choctaws, Otawas, Ojibewas, 
 Potowottomies, etc. 
 
 "The following tribes are known to exist, or to 
 have existed in the several . Indian Nations — the 
 number ranging from three to eighteen in each : The 
 Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk, 
 Crane, Duck, Loon, Turkey, Musk-rat, Sable, Pike, 
 Cat-fish, Sturgeon, Carp, Buffalo, Elk, Rein -deer, 
 Eagle, Hare, Rabbit, and Snake ; also, the Reed- 
 grass, Sand, Water, Rock, and Tobacco-plant. 
 
 " Among the Iroquois— and the rule is the same to 
 the present day in most of the nations enumerated— 
 no man is allowed to marry a woman of his own tribe, 
 all the members of which are consanguinii. This was 
 
124 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 temptation or accident, marry a near rela- 
 tion, which "at present is scarcely-possible, 
 
 unquestionably the ancient law. It follows that hus- 
 band and wife were always of different tribes. The 
 children are of the tribe of the mother, in a majority 
 of the nations ; but the rule, if anciently universal, is 
 not so at the present day. Where descent in the 
 female line prevailed, it was followed by several im- 
 portant results, of which the most remarkable was the 
 perpetual disinheritance of the male line. Since all 
 titles as well as property descended in the female line, 
 and were hereditary, in strictness, in the tribe itself, a 
 son could never succeed to his father's title of Sachem, 
 nor inherit even his medal or his tomahawk. If the 
 Sachem, for example, was of the Wolf tribe, the title 
 must remain in that tribe, and his son, who was neces- 
 sarily of the tribe of his mother, would be out of the 
 line of succession ; but the brothers of the deceased 
 Sachem would be of the Wolf tribe, being of the same 
 mother, and so would the sons of his sisters : hence 
 we find that the succession fell either upon a brother 
 of the deceased ruler or upon a nephew. Between a 
 brother of the deceased, and the son of a sister, there 
 was no law establishing a preference : neither as be- 
 tween several brothers on one side, or several sisters 
 on the other, was there any law of primogeniture. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 125 
 
 for whoever intends to marry must take a 
 person of a different tribe,"* and the same 
 feeling has been remarked by Dobuzhof- 
 fer in South America. + 
 
 What we have said of the Australians 
 may be assumed to have been true, at 
 one time at least, of the New Zealanders. 
 In " The Curse of Mania"| and several 
 other of the New Zealand legends we have 
 evidence that the wife never belonged to the 
 tribe of her husband, and that the children 
 belonged to the family of their mother. So 
 among the Feejees, who appear to count 
 
 They were all equally eligible, and the law of election 
 came in to decide between them." — Cambrian yournal, 
 vol. iii., second series, p. 149. 
 
 * Tanner's "Narrative," p. 313, quoted in Arch. 
 Amer., and by Grey, ut supra. 
 
 ■)■ " Account of the Abipones," vol. i. p. 69. 
 
 \ " Polynesian Mythology," ui supra, p. 162. In 
 " The Curse of Mania" the reader will find an instance 
 of children fleeing from the tribe of birth to that of 
 the mother's kindred. 
 
126 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 blood relationship through the mother 
 only. In the system of vasu-ing, which 
 determines the claims of children upon 
 the tribe of their mother, we have evi- 
 dence that the mother always belongs 
 to a different tribe from the father, and 
 that the children are held to be of the 
 family or tribe of their mother.* At any 
 rate, vasu-ing is a relic of a stage in the 
 development of the Feejees wherein that 
 was the rule. 
 
 Curiously enough, there is reason for 
 believing that exogamy prevailed among 
 the Picts ; in other words, according to 
 the most approved doctrine, among the 
 Gael or Highlanders ; which fact bears at 
 once on the rapes of the Cruithnians, the 
 old Welsh and French customs, and the 
 plebeian marriage-ceremonies of Rome, 
 for the Celtic element was strong in 
 
 * Erskine's "Pacific," ut supra ^ pp. 153-215. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 127 
 
 Rome. That the Celts were anciently lax 
 in their morals, and recognised relation- 
 ship through mothers only, are facts well 
 vouched;* and of such facts it is the 
 usual concomitant, that the children 
 should be named after the mother. The 
 facts brought out by the distinguished 
 antiquary, Mr. Skene, from a study of the 
 list of Pictish kings down to 731, when 
 Bede says that the law of succession 
 through females was still in force, may 
 to some extent be explained by the sons 
 taking the names of their mothers; but 
 they point to something beyond this. By 
 favour of Mr. Skene, we are at liberty to 
 give here the results at which he has ar- 
 rived, and which have not hitherto been 
 published. 
 
 * Caesar, "De Bello Gallico," lib. v. § 14. Xiphiline, 
 Monum. Histor..lxi. Solinus, idem. Irish Nennius, 
 liv. 
 
128 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 \st, That brothers always succeeded 
 each other. 
 
 2d, That in no case does a son suc- 
 ceed a father ; after the brothers have 
 reigned a new family comes in. 
 
 %d, That the names of the fathers 
 and of the sons are quite different. In 
 no case does the name borne by any 
 of the sons appear among the names of 
 the fathers, nor conversely is there an 
 instance of a father's name appearing 
 among the sons. 
 
 6fth, The names of the sons consist of a 
 few Pictish names borne by sons of dif- 
 ferent fathers. These are — 6 Drusts, 5 
 Talorgs, 3..Nectans, 2 Galans, 6 Gart- 
 naidhs, 4 Brudes. In no case does the 
 name of a father occur twice in the list of 
 fathers. 
 
 5/^, In the list there are two cases of 
 sons bearing Pictish names whose fathers 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 129 
 
 are known to have been strangers, and these 
 are the only fathers of whom we have any 
 account. They are — i.Talorg Macainfrit. 
 His father was undoubtedly Ainfrit, son 
 of Aethelfrith, King of Northumbria, who 
 took refuge among the Picts, and after- 
 wards became King of Northumbria; 2. 
 Brude Mac Bile. His father was a Welsh- 
 man, King of the Strath-Clyde Britons. 
 In an old poem Brude Mac Bile is called 
 son of theKingof Ailcluaide, i.e., Dumbar- 
 ton; and when, by the battle of Drunichen, 
 he became King of the Picts, another old 
 poem says, " to-day Brude fights a battle 
 about the land of his grandfather." 
 
 The fact that the only fathers of whom 
 we have any account are known to have 
 been strangers — especially when taken 
 along with the other facts which we pos- 
 sess about the Picts— raises a strong pre- 
 sumption that all the fathers were men of 
 
130 EXOGAMY AND THE 
 
 Other tribes. At any rate there remains 
 the fact, after every deduction has been 
 made, that the fathers and mothers were 
 in no case of the same family name. 
 — We have now, by an irresistible array 
 of instances, established the fact of exo- 
 gamy being a most widely prevailing 
 principle of marriage-law among primitive 
 races. We have found the areas to be, 
 for the chief part, conterminous within 
 which exogamy and the practice of captur- 
 ing wives de facto prevails. Farther, in 
 all the modern instances in which the 
 symbol of capture is most marked, we 
 have found that marriage within the tribe 
 is prohibited as incest, as among the 
 Khonds, the Fuegeans, the Kalmucks, 
 and Circassians; also that in several cases 
 where traces of the symbol appear, as 
 among the Nogais and the Kirghiz, exo- 
 gamy is more or less perfectly observed. 
 
FACT & FORM OF CAPTURE. 131 
 
 We have seen good reason for thinking 
 that exogamy and the practice of capture 
 de facto, co-existed among the old Celts ; 
 and that in that co-existence lies the ex- 
 planation of the symbol among the French, 
 the Welsh, and the plebeians of Rome. 
 Of ih^Jus connubii of the Muscovites and 
 Livonians in former times we have no 
 direct information. Magnus is silent on 
 the subject. But it is implied in his nar- 
 rative that husband and wife invariably 
 belonged to different kinships and village 
 communities. We have found exogamy 
 and the symbol co-existing in ancient 
 India. Not to dwell on the slighter and 
 more doubtful instances, we think it must 
 now be admitted that we have sufficiently 
 proved both the existence of exogamous 
 tribes, and that among such tribes there 
 prevails, or has prevailed, a system of 
 capturing women for wives. ^ 
 
132 ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 
 
 The state of hostility is a theme which 
 requires no research to illustrate it. It is 
 a fact too familiar to require demonstra- 
 tion. If war is a lamentable feature of 
 human life, it is not quite so ugly among 
 savages as when waged by civilized men. 
 In proportion to their masses and the 
 weight of the interests at stake, the ad- 
 vanced nations are perhaps quite as 
 frequently embroiled as the most bar- 
 barous ; also in their case the natural 
 beneficence — if we may so call it — of the 
 impulse to feud is not always apparent. 
 In the lower stages of society we recognise 
 war as a condition of the rise of govern- 
 ments, of the subordination of classes, of 
 
ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 133 
 
 civility — its agonies as the growing pains 
 of civil society ; in the higher it appears 
 too often as a mere scourge of mankind, de- 
 forming and impairing, if not destroying, 
 the precious results and accumulations of 
 long periods of peace and industry. 
 
 If the wars of savages are petty, they are 
 habitual. While the domestic affections 
 are little pronounced, the social are con- 
 fined to the smallest fraction of humanity. 
 Whoever is foreign to a group is hostile 
 to it. Even in comparatively advanced 
 stages of savagery, groups rarely combine 
 for common purposes ; when they do — 
 the object of the combination being ac- 
 complished — they return to their isolated 
 independence. And when tribes have 
 combined in nations, and the nations have 
 become polite, it is yet some time before a 
 distinction is drawn between strangers 
 and enemies. No wonder if the dis- 
 
 K 
 
134 ON The state of hostility. 
 
 tinction be not made by savages. Who- 
 ever is not with them is against them 
 — a rival in the competition for food, 
 a possible plunderer of their camp and 
 ravisher of their women. Lay out the 
 map of the world, and wherever you 
 find populations unrestrained by the 
 strong hand of government there you 
 will find perpetual feud, tribe against 
 tribe, and family against family. 
 
 It would be superfluous to select 
 particular districts from which to illus- 
 trate this truth, exemplifications of which 
 we have already, in so many instances, 
 had occasion to see. The state of hosti- 
 lity is the normal state of the race in 
 early times. It is incidental to the sepa- 
 ration and independence of men in small 
 communities; and, while the arts are as 
 yet in their infancy, small communities 
 are a necessary result of the conditions of 
 
ON THE STATE OF HOSTILITY. 135 
 
 subsistence. Thus Lot separates from 
 Abraham. Jacob goes one way and Esau 
 goes another. And with separation comes 
 estrangement — differences of language and 
 habits — hostility. Till in a short time 
 blood relations are as much apart — as 
 foreign to one another — as people of dif- 
 ferent races and states. 
 
136 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EXOGAMY : ITS ORIGIN — COMPARATIVE 
 ARCHAISM OF EXOGAMY AND EN- 
 DOGAMY. 
 
 At the outset of oi^r argument it was 
 seen that if it could be shown that exo- 
 gamous tribes existed, and that the usual 
 
 relations of savage tribes to each other 
 were those nf hnt;ti]ity^ w^ should have_ 
 f ound a social condition in which it was , 
 Jnpvif:ahle that wives should svstemati- 
 xallv be procured by capture. It also ap- 
 peared that if the existence of exogamous 
 tribes either actually capturing their 
 wives, or observing the symbol of cap- 
 ture in their marriage ceremonies, should 
 be established in a reasonable number of 
 cases, it would be a legitimate inference 
 
ENDOGAMY. 137 
 
 that exogamy has prevailed wherever we 
 find a system of capture, or the form of 
 capture, existing. We now confidently 
 submit that the conditions requisite for 
 this inference have been amply esta- 
 blished in the three preceding chapters ; 
 so that we may conclude that wherever 
 capture, or the form of capture, prevails, 
 
 or has preva iled, there prevails, or has 
 
 prevailed, exogamy. | Conversely, we may 
 
 say that, wherever exogamy can be found, 
 
 Iwe may confidently expect to find, after 
 
 (due investigation, at least traces of a 
 
 ^system of capture. We have traced the 
 
 law and the corresponding practice among 
 
 tribes scattered over a large portion of 
 
 the globe. What farther knowledge of 
 
 rude tribes now existing may show to us 
 
 it would be idle to conjecture; but it 
 
 might be plausibly maintained, upon the 
 
 facts already known to us, that the prin- 
 
138 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 ciple of exogamy has in fact prevailed, 
 and the system of capturing wives in fact 
 been practised at a certain stage among 
 every race of mankind. 
 
 Perhaps there is no question leading 
 deeper into the foundations of civil so- 
 ciety than that which regards the origin 
 of exogamy, unless it be the cognate 
 question of the origin of caste, which ad- 
 mits, however, more readily of ingenious 
 surmises, and what mathematicians call 
 singular solutions. W£_hdieYe-_this_rer 
 stric tion on marri a g-e to he rnnnprfH ^^f ^^ 
 th e^ practice in early times of female jn- 
 
 fanticide. which, rep derinor wnmpn grarr-P 
 kd at onre tn pnl^^anHr^r wjfli in thp tn'hp 
 an d the capturing of wnmpn frnm ■.yi'thont 
 Female infanticide — common among 
 savages everywhere — prevails as a sys- 
 tem, and has been customary from time 
 immemorial amongst many of the races 
 
ENDOGAMY. 139 
 
 that exhibit the symbol of capture.* With 
 some of the exogamous races it appears 
 to be the rule to kill all female children, 
 except the first-born when a female. To 
 tribes surrounded by enemies, and, un- 
 aided by art, contending with the diffi- 
 culties of subsistence, sons were a source 
 of strength, both for defence and in the 
 quest for food, daughters a source of 
 weakness. Hence the cruel custom 
 which, leaving the primitive human 
 hordes with very few young women of 
 their own — occasionally with nonef — 
 
 * The Circassians have not the practice. But 
 there is reason to believe that they only commenced 
 sparing their daughters when they found a profitable 
 market for them. For an explanation of the eifect of 
 the law of blood-feud on the practice of infanticide, 
 see the end of chap. viii. 
 
 t In one village of the Phweelongmai, on the 
 eastern frontier of India, Colonel Macculloch found 
 in 1849 that there was not a single female child. 
 
I40 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 and, in any case, seriously disturbing 
 the balance of the sexes within the 
 hordes, forced them to prey upon one 
 another for wives. Usage, induced by 
 necessity, would in time establish a pre- 
 judice among the tribes observing it — 
 a prejudice strong as a principle of reli- 
 gion, as every prejudice relating to mar- 
 riage is apt to be — against marrying 
 women of their own stock. A survey of 
 the facts of primitive life, and the break- 
 down of exogamy in advancing commu- 
 nities, exclude the notion that the law 
 originated in any innate or primary feel- 
 ing against marriage with kinsfolk. In- 
 deed, we shall hereafter see that it is 
 probable that necessity may have estab- 
 lished the prejudice against marrying 
 women of the group even before the facts 
 of blood-relationship had made any deep 
 impression on the human mind. At pre- 
 
ENDOGAMY. 141 
 
 sent it may be observed that the exist- 
 ence of infanticide, so wide-spread in it- 
 self, indicates how slight the strength of 
 blood-ties was in primitive times. To 
 form an adequate notion, on the other 
 hand, of the extent to which tribes might, 
 by means of infanticide, deprive them- 
 selves of their women, we have only to 
 bear in mind the multitude of facts which 
 testify to the thoughtlessness and impro- 
 vidence of men during the childish stage 
 of the human mind. 
 
 To show that the analysis by which 
 the true solution of the questions respect- 
 ing endogamy and exogamy is to be 
 obtained, is the analysis of a series of 
 phenomena which appears to form a pro- 
 gression, we notice the following as the 
 divisions into which the less advanced 
 portions of mankind fall when ranked ac- 
 cording to their rules as to connubium : — 
 
142 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 Exogamy Pure.— i. Tribal (or family) 
 system. — Tribes separate. All the mem- 
 bers of each tribe of the same blood, or 
 feigning themselves to be so. Marriage 
 prohibited between the members of the 
 tribe. 
 
 2. Tribal system. — Tribe a congeries 
 of family groups, falling into divisions, 
 clans, thums, etc. No connubium be- 
 tween members of same division : connu- 
 bium between all the divisions. 
 
 3. Tribal system. — Tribe a congeries 
 of family groups embracing several village 
 communities or nomadic hordes : mem- 
 bers of families (or primitive stock groups) 
 somewhat interfused. No connubium be- 
 tween persons whose family name points 
 them out as being of the same stock. / 
 
 4. Tribal system. — Tribe in divisions. 
 No connubium between members of the 
 same divisions : connubium between some 
 
ENDOGAMY. 143 
 
 of the divisions ; only partial connubium 
 between others — e.g., a man of one may 
 marry a woman of another, but a woman 
 of the former may not marry a man of the 
 latter. Approach to caste. 
 
 5. Tribal system. — Tribe in divisions. 
 No connubium between persons of the 
 same stock : connubium between each 
 division and some other. No connubium 
 between some of the divisions. Caste. 
 
 Endogamy Pure. — 6. Tribal (or 
 family) system. — Tribes separate. All the 
 members of each tribe of the same blood, 
 or feigning themselves to be so. Connu- 
 bium between members of the tribe : mar- 
 riage without the tribe forbidden and 
 punished. 
 
 7. Tribal system indistinct. — Mem- 
 bers of primitive (stock) groups interfused, 
 (i.) Marriage forbidden except between 
 persons whose family name points them 
 
144 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 out as being of the same stock. (2.) Mar- 
 riage forbidden except between the mem- 
 bers of particular families. Persons having 
 connubium marked as a caste, old tribal 
 divisions being lost sight of. 
 
 Although these tribal systems may be 
 arranged as above so as to seem to form 
 a progression, of which the extremes are 
 pure exogamy on the one hand, and en- 
 dogamy — transmuted into caste of the 
 Mantchu and Hindu types — on the 
 other, we have at present no right to say 
 that these systems were developed in 
 anything like this order in tribal history. 
 They may represent a progression from 
 exogamy to endogamy, or from endo- 
 gamy to exogamy ; or the middle terms, 
 so to speak, may have been produced by 
 the combination of groups severally or- 
 ganised on the one and the other of these 
 principles. The two types of organisa- 
 
ENDOGAMY. 145 
 
 tion may be equally archaic. Men must 
 originally have been free of any pre- 
 judice against marriage between relations 
 — not necessarily endogamous, /. e., for- 
 bidding marriage except between kindred, 
 but still more given to such unions than 
 to unions with strangers. From this 
 primitive indifference they may have ad- 
 vanced, some to endogamy, some to exo- 
 gamy. 
 
 The separate endogamous tribes are 
 nearly as numerous, and they are in some 
 respects as rude, as the separate exoga- 
 mous tribes. It may be noted, however, 
 that endogamy appears in populations 
 formed by the fusion of many tribes, as 
 the almost uniform characteristic of the 
 dominant race. Hereafter we shall see 
 how a tribe organised on the principle of 
 endogamy might be developed from one 
 organised on the principle of exogamy, 
 
146 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 in perfect consistency with the law against 
 the intermarriage of relations. And 
 while the existence of tribes like those 
 of the Mantchu Tartars, who prohibit 
 marriages between persons whose family 
 names are different, is of great weight in 
 favour of endogamy as a primitive type 
 of organisation ; on the other hand, 
 castes like those of India, embracing 
 members of several different families, and 
 with a marriage law like that of Menu, 
 strongly suggest that many endogamous 
 tribes have been developed from tribes 
 organised on the opposite principle. 
 Since, moreover, the reconversion of a 
 caste or of an endogamous tribe into an 
 exogamous tribe is inconceivable — we 
 have no experience of caste disappearing 
 except in advanced communities, and then 
 only on a revolution of sentiment being 
 produced by political influences — the 
 
ENDOGAMY. 147 
 
 choice seems to be between regarding the 
 two classes of tribes as organised ab 
 initio on distinct principles, or holding 
 the exogamous to be the more archaic. 
 
 We may notice as strange, that fre- 
 quently tribes thus oppositely organised 
 are found inhabiting the same area. 
 On the sub-Himalayan ranges, for ex- 
 ample, are the Sodhas, who intermarry 
 with the Rajputs, not with each other; 
 the Magars, who prohibit marriages be- 
 tween members of the same thum ; and, 
 again, the Kocch, Bodo, Ho, and Dhumal, 
 who are forbidden to marry except to mem- 
 bers of their own tribes or kiels. And, in 
 some districts— as in the hills on the 
 north-eastern frontier of India, in the Cau- 
 casus, and the hill ranges of Syria — ^we find 
 a variety of tribes, proved, by physical 
 characteristics and the affinities of lan- 
 guage, of one and the same original stock, 
 
148 EXOGAMY AND 
 
 yet in this particular differing fo^o ccelo 
 from one another — some forbidding mar- 
 riage within the tribe, and some proscrib- 
 ing marriage without it. 
 
 What has been said is enough to show 
 that the question of the comparative 
 archaism of exogamy and endogamy is as 
 difficult as it is interesting. We shall in 
 the next chapter lead up to a fuller dis- 
 cussion of that question, while investigat- 
 ing more minutely than we have hitherto 
 done the conditions of the form of cap- 
 ture being evolved. We shall there 
 endeavour to establish the following pro- 
 positions : — I. That the most ancient 
 system in which the idea of blood-rela- 
 tionship was embodied, was the system 
 of kinship through females only. 2. That 
 the primitive groups were, or were as- 
 sumed to be, homogeneous. 3. That the 
 system of kinship through females only 
 
ENDOGAMY. 149 
 
 tended to render the exogamous groups 
 heterogeneous, and thus to supersede 
 the systerti of capturing wives. 4. That 
 in the advance from savagery the system 
 of kinship through females only was suc- 
 ceeded by a system which acknowledged 
 kinship through males also ; and which, 
 in most cases passed into a system which 
 acknowledged kinship through males only. 
 5. That the system of kinship through 
 males tended to rear up homogeneous 
 groups, and thus to restore the original 
 condition of affairs — -where the exoga- 
 mous prejudice survived — as regards both 
 the practice of capturing wives and the 
 evolution of the form of capture. 6. That 
 a local tribe, under the combined influ- 
 ence of exogamy and the system of female 
 kinship, might attain a balance of persons 
 of different sexes regarded as being of 
 different descent, and that thus its mem- 
 
ISO EXOGAMY AND ENDOGAMY. 
 
 bers might be able to intermarry with 
 one another, and wholly within the tribe, 
 consistently with the principle of exo- 
 gamy. 7. That a local tribe, having 
 reached this stage and grown proud 
 through success in war, might decline 
 intermarriage with other local tribes and 
 become a caste. 8. That on kinship be- 
 coming agnatic, the members of such a 
 tribe might yield to the universal tendency 
 of rude races to eponomy, and feign them- 
 selves to be all derived from a common 
 ancestor, and so become endogamous^ 
 And 9. That there is reason to think that 
 some endogamous tribes became endo- 
 gamous in this manner. 
 
SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP. 151 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 ANCIENT SYSTEMS OF KINSHIP AND 
 THEIR INFLUENCE ON THE STRUC- 
 TURE OF PRIMITIVE GROUPS. 
 
 The earliest human groups can have had 
 no idea of kinship. We do not mean to 
 say that there ever was a time when men 
 were not bound together by a feeling of 
 kindred. The filial and fraternal affec- 
 tions may be instinctive. They are ob- 
 viously independent of any theory of 
 kinship, its origin or consequences ; they 
 are distinct from the perception of the 
 unity of blood upon which kinship de- 
 pends ; and they may have existed long 
 before kinship became an object of 
 thought. What we would say is, th^t 
 ideas of kinship must be regarded as 
 
152 ANCIENT SYSTEMS 
 
 growths — must have grown like all other 
 ideas related to matters primarily cogniz- 
 able only by the senses ; and that the 
 fact of consanguinity must have long re- 
 mained unperceived as other facts, quite 
 as obvious, have done. In other words, 
 at the root of kinship is a physical fact, 
 which could be discerned only through 
 observation and reflection — a fact, there- 
 fore, which must for a time have been 
 overlooked. No advocate of innate ideas, 
 we should imagine, will maintain their 
 existence on a subject so concrete as 
 relationship by blood. 
 
 A group of kindred in that stage of 
 ignorance is the rudest that can be ima- 
 gined. Though they were chiefly held 
 together by the feeling of kindred, the 
 apparent bond of fellowship between the 
 members of such a group would be that 
 they and theirs had always been com- 
 
OF KINSHIP. 153 
 
 panions in war or the chase — joint-ten- 
 ants of the same cave or grove. To one 
 another they would simply be as com- 
 rades. As distinguished from men of 
 other groups, they would be of the 
 group, and named after it. 
 
 Hence, most naturally, on the idea 
 of blood-relationship arising, would be 
 formed the conception of Stocks. Previ- 
 ously individuals had been affiliated not 
 to persons, but to some group. The new 
 idea of blood-relationship would more 
 readily demonstrate the group to be 
 composed of kindred than it would evolve 
 a special system of blood-ties between 
 certain of the individuals in the group. 
 The members of a group would now have 
 become brethren. As distinguished from 
 men of other groups, they would be of the 
 group-stock, and named after the group.* 
 
 * It is a question for philologists how far the 
 
154 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 The development of the idea of blood- 
 relationship into a system of kinship, 
 must have been a work of time — at least 
 the establishment over any great area of 
 any such system as an institution of cus- 
 tomary law must have been slowly ef- 
 fected. It is most improbable that that 
 idea, when first formed, was anywhere at 
 once embodied in a well-defined system 
 of kinship. 
 
 We shall endeavour to show — 
 I. That the most ancient system in 
 which the idea of blood-relationship was 
 
 earliest words which denote a human group involve 
 the idea of blood. In one case they seem not to have 
 done so. Grant, in his "Origin and Descent of the 
 Gael," says that teadhloch and cuedichc or coedichc, 
 Gaelic names for family, mean the first having a com- 
 mon residence ; the second those who eat together. 
 The Gael had, however, the more general terms finne 
 and cinne — the former meaning born of the same 
 stock, and the latter denoting the tribe. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 155 
 
 embodied, was a system of kinship 
 through females only. 
 
 Once a man has perceived the fact 
 of consanguinity in the simplest case — 
 namely, that he has his mother's blood 
 in his veins, he may quickly see that he 
 is of the same blood with her other child- 
 ren. A little more reflection will enable 
 him to see that he is of one blood with 
 the brothers and sisters of his mother. 
 On further thought he will perceive that 
 he is of the same blood with the chil- 
 dren of his mother's sister. And, in pro- 
 cess of time, following the ties of blood 
 through his mother, and females of the 
 same blood, he must arrive at a system 
 of kinship through females. The blood- 
 ties through females being obvious and 
 indisputable, the idea of blood-relation- 
 ship, as soon as it was formed, must have 
 begun to develop, however slowly, into a 
 
IS6 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 system embracing them. What further 
 development this idea might have — 
 whether it would simultaneously have a 
 development in the direction of kinship 
 through males — must have depended 
 on the circumstances connected with 
 paternity. If the paternity of a child 
 were usually as indisputable as the ma- 
 ternity, we might expect to find kinship 
 through males acknowledged soon after 
 kinship through females.* But however 
 
 * It has been doubted whether the blood-tie 
 through the father is entitled to rank with that 
 through the mother. It may be that the connec- 
 tion between father and child is less intimate than 
 that between mother and child as regards the trans- 
 mission of characteristics, mental or physical. And 
 the former tie is unquestionably less obvious than 
 the latter. It is, however, an undoubted blood-tie, 
 and must have been thought of soon after that 
 through mothers. All that it concerns us to show in 
 the text is, that when the idea of it was formed it 
 could only receive development into a system of 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 157 
 
 natural it might be that men should think 
 of blood-ties as possible to be propa- 
 gated through fathers, blood-ties through 
 fathers could not find a place in a system 
 of kinship, unless circumstances usually 
 allowed of some degree of certainty as 
 to who the father of a child was, or of 
 certainty as to the father's blood.* A 
 system of relationship through fathers 
 could only be formed — as we have seen 
 that a system of relationship through 
 mothers would be formed — after a good 
 deal of reflection upon the fact of pater- 
 nity. And fathers must usually be 
 known before men will think of relation- 
 ship through fathers — indeed, before the 
 
 kinship on certain conditions, which were not easily 
 satisfied. 
 
 * It will be seen that there may be certainty 
 as to the father's blood (as where all the possible 
 fathers are brothers) without there being certainty 
 as to the father. 
 
158 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 idea of a father can be formed. There 
 could be no system of kinship through 
 males if paternity was usually, or in a 
 great proportion of cases, uncertain. The 
 requisite degree of certainty can be had 
 only when the mother is appropriated to 
 a particular man as his wife, or to men 
 of one blood as wife, and when women 
 thus appropriated are usually found 
 faithful to their lords. 
 
 Considering that the history of all 
 the races of men, so far as we know it, 
 is the history of a progress from the 
 savage state ; considering the social con- 
 dition of rude tribes still upon the earth, 
 — remembering that the races which can 
 be traced in history had all a previous 
 history, which remains unwritten, — it 
 cannot seem a very strange proposition 
 that there has been a stage in the de- 
 velopment of human races when there 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 159 
 
 was no such appropriation of women to 
 particular men — when, in short, marriage, 
 as it exists among civilized nations, was 
 not practised. We believe we shall 
 show, to a sufficient degree of proba- 
 bility, that there have been times when 
 marriage, in this sense, was yet undreamt 
 of. Wherever this has been the case the 
 paternity of children must have been 
 uncertain ; the conditions essential to 
 a system of kinship through males being 
 formed would therefore be wanting; no 
 such system would be formed ; there 
 would be — there could be — kinship 
 through females only. 
 
 Not to assume that the progress of the 
 various races of men from savagery has 
 been a uniform process, that all the stages 
 which any of. them has gone through have 
 been passed in their order by all, we shall 
 be justified in believing that more or less 
 
i6o THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 of promiscuity in the connection of the 
 sexes, and a system of kinship through 
 females only have subsisted among races 
 of men among which no traces of them 
 remain, when we have shown their exist- 
 ence in a considerable number of cases — 
 if in these there appear nothing exceptional. 
 After what has been said above, it must 
 be plain that kinship through females only, 
 if it exist at all, must be a more archaic 
 system of relationship than kinshipthrough 
 males — the product of an earlier and ruder 
 stage in human development than the latter 
 — somewhat more than a step farther back 
 in the direction of savagery. To prove its 
 existence on such a scale as to entitle it to 
 rank among the normal phenomena of 
 human development, is, we may now say, 
 to prove it the most ancient system of 
 kinship. As customs tend to perpetuate 
 themselves and die hard, it will not in any 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. i6i 
 
 degree make against our explanation of 
 the origin of kinship through females only, 
 that it should be found in some cases 
 along with marriage relations which allow 
 of certainty as to fathers. It is inconceiv- 
 able that any thing but the want of cer- 
 tainty on that point could have long pre- 
 vented the acknowledgment of kinship 
 through males ; and in such cases we 
 shall be able to conclude that such cer- 
 tainty has formerly been wanting — that 
 more or less promiscuous intercourse be- 
 tween the sexes has formerly prevailed. 
 The connection between these two things 
 — uncertain paternity and kinship through 
 females only, seems so necessary — that of 
 cause and effect — that we may confidently 
 infer the one where we find the other. 
 
 Let us see, then, what can be said for 
 the proposition that there has been a 
 stage in the progress of men in which a 
 
i62 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 woman was not usually appropriated to 
 a particular man as his wife. 
 
 All the evidence we have goes to show 
 that men were from the beginning gre- 
 garious. The geological record distinctly 
 exhibits them in groups — naked hunters 
 or feeders upon shell fish leading a pre- 
 carious life of squalid misery. This 
 testimony is confirmed by all history. 
 We hear nothing in the most ancient 
 times of individuals except as being 
 members of groups. The history of pro- 
 perty is the history of the development of 
 proprietary rights inside groups, which 
 were at first the only owners,* and of all 
 other personal rights — even including the 
 right in offspring — it may be said that 
 their history is that of the gradual asser- 
 tion of the claims of individuals against 
 the traditional rights of groups. 
 
 * " Ancient Law," ut supra, p. 268. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL V. 163 
 
 We, of course, know nothing about the 
 co-ordination of the sexes in the earliest 
 groups. The reader knows already what 
 must be our conjecture as to what it was. 
 We can trace the line of human progress 
 far back towards brutishness ; finding as 
 we go back the noble faculties peculiar to 
 man weaker and weaker in their manifest- 
 ations, producing less and less effect, — at 
 last scarcely any effect at all — upon his 
 position and habits. As we go back, we 
 find more and more in men the traits of 
 gregarious animals ; slighter and slighter 
 indications of operative intellect. As 
 among other gregarious animals, the 
 unions of the sexes were probably in the 
 earliest times, loose, transitory, and in 
 some degree promiscuous. 
 
 Before the invention of the arts, and 
 the formation of provident habits, the 
 struggle for existence must often have be- 
 
i64 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 come very serious. The instincts of self- 
 preservation, therefore, must have fre- 
 quently predominated and shaped the 
 features of society freely, as if the unsel- 
 fish affections had no place in human 
 nature. None of the races of mankind 
 can have been spared the cruel experience 
 of this initiatory stage; or can have 
 escaped the effects of that experience on 
 its character and customs. Even those 
 most favourably situated must have had 
 long periods of trial, and have suffered 
 from the incessant hostility of neighbours. 
 So, without supposing the course of human 
 events to have been uniform, we must 
 conceive of early human society as having 
 been throughout affected by influences of 
 the same general, unfriendly, character, 
 and as having been determined, though 
 perhaps by unequal pressures, toward^s. 
 one uniform type in all its parts. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 165 
 
 Foremost among the results of this 
 early struggle for food and security, must 
 have been an effect upon the balance of 
 the sexes. As braves and hunters were 
 required and valued, it would be the in- 
 terest of every horde to rear, when possi- 
 ble, its healthy male children. It would 
 be less its interest to rear females, as they 
 would be less capable of self-support, and 
 of contributing, by their exertions, to the 
 common good. In this lies the only ex- 
 planation which can be accepted of the 
 origin of those systems of female infanti- 
 cide still existing, the discovery of which 
 from time to time, in out of the way 
 places, so shocks our humanity. It is 
 of no consequence by what theories the 
 races who practise infanticide now de- 
 fend the practice.* There can be no 
 
 * Often, as among the Khonds, it is found to be 
 an institution of religion. 
 
 M 
 
1 66 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 doubt that its origin is ever3rwhere re- 
 ferable to that early time of struggle 
 and necessity which we have been con- 
 templating. 
 
 What is now true in varying degrees 
 of all the rudest races may be assumed to 
 have been true of all the earliest groups. 
 We may predicate of the primitive groups 
 that they were all or nearly all marked by 
 a want of balance between the sexes — the 
 males being in the majority. The reader 
 will have little difficulty in granting that 
 we may do so when he reflects on the pre- 
 valence of exogamy, the origin of which 
 must be referred to that want of balance. 
 And we think he will be still more ready 
 to make the concession when we shall 
 have surveyed the facts connected with 
 polyandry — the origin of which must be 
 referred to the same cause. 
 
 What diminished the number of the 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 167 
 
 female sex would increase the importatnce 
 of women. The first result of the balance 
 of the sexes being against the females, 
 must have been to give every woman 
 more than one, it might be several wooers. 
 Apart from any disproportion of the 
 sexes, we might expect the more engag- 
 ing females of a horde to be surrounded 
 by suitors. Savages are unrestrained by 
 any sense of delicacy from a copartnery 
 in sexual enjoyments ; and, indeed, in 
 the civilised state, the sin of great cities 
 shows that there are no natural restraints 
 sufficient to hold men back from grosser 
 copartneries. But within a horde possess- 
 ing few women, such copartneries would 
 be a necessity. And as savages assert 
 for themselves a high degree of independ- 
 ence, it is obvious that grave difficulties 
 must have surrounded the constitution 
 and regulation of such copartneries. And 
 
1 68 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 to the consideration of these difficulties 
 we are led, the instant we conceive of 
 the primitive groups as containing fewer 
 women than men. 
 
 The men of a group must either have 
 quarrelled about their women and se- 
 parated, splitting the horde into hostile 
 sections ; or, in the spirit of indifference, 
 indulged in savage promiscuity. That 
 quarrels and divisions were of frequent 
 OQCurrence cannot be doubted. These 
 were the first wars for women, and they 
 went to form th^ habits which established 
 exogamy. And whether quarrels arose 
 or not, we are led to contemplate groups 
 — the horde or its sections — indulging in 
 a promiscuity more or less general. The 
 quarrels must have been between sections 
 of the hordes rather than between indivi- 
 duals. No individual at that stage could 
 well carry off a woman, isolate himself. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 169 
 
 and found a family. However brave and 
 strong, he could scarcely maintain his 
 independence for any time against nume- 
 rous assailants. Unless these quarrels 
 went the length of completely disin- 
 tegrating the groups — a result which 
 the gregarious nature of men tended 
 to prevent — we must arrive at last 
 at groups within which harmony was 
 maintained through indifference and pro- 
 miscuity. 
 
 These groups would hold their women, 
 like their other goods, in common. And 
 the children, while attached to mothers, 
 would belong to the horde.* We find 
 
 * The tie between mother and child, which exists 
 as a matter of necessity during infancy, is not unfre- 
 quently found to be lost sight of among savages on 
 the age of independence being reached. The liability 
 of mothers to be carried off would, among exogamous 
 races, simplify the general filiation of dhildren to the 
 group, rather than to mothers. 
 
I/O THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 traces of the former existence of groups 
 of this description ; and it is probable 
 that before the rise of kinship, all the 
 human groups were of that model. On 
 the rise of kinship, the difficulty due to 
 the scarcity of women would more easily 
 be overcome. The first advance from a 
 general promiscuity — assuming its exist- 
 ence — would naturally be to a promiscuity 
 less general— to arrangements between 
 small sets of men to attach themselves 
 to a particular woman. Previous to the 
 establishment of a system of kinship — 
 when men were bound to each other only 
 by the tribal tie — it is obvious that there 
 would constantly be difficulties in the 
 way of their forming such combinations. 
 When, however, the system of kinship 
 through females only, had been firmly 
 established, every group stood resolved 
 into a number of small brotherhoods. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 171 
 
 each composed of sons of the same 
 mother. And within these, the feeling 
 of close kinship would simplify the con- 
 stitution of the polyandrous arrange- 
 ment. 
 
 Now, here, at length, we are upon the 
 firm ground of fact. We have examples 
 of general promiscuity ; and examples of 
 modified promiscuity, in which, with a 
 pretence of marriage, the woman may 
 bestow her favours upon any one, under 
 certain restrictions as to rank and family. 
 We have numerous examples of poly- 
 andry, and they are such as to show that 
 polyandry must be regarded as a modi- 
 fication of and advance from promiscuity. 
 We have examples of polyandry in which 
 the wife has several husbands, who are 
 not necessarily relatives ; and very many 
 examples of polyandry in which the hus- 
 bands are all brothers. We often find 
 
172 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 these two forms of polyandry in the same 
 district, in different sections of the popu- 
 lation : here, the husbands as a rule, are 
 no relations ; there, the husbands as a rule, 
 are brothers. Farther, where the hus- 
 bands are not brothers, we find the system 
 of relationship through females only; and, 
 so enduring is custom, we very often find 
 that system where marriage has long 
 been so regulated as to permit of kin- 
 ship through males. In many cases we 
 find traces of the system of kinship 
 through females only, lingering about 
 the laws of marriage and succession to 
 estates and titles, even where male kinship 
 has been long established. Moreover, in 
 nearly all the cases in which traces are 
 to be found of kinship through females 
 only, traces of polyandry also remain. 
 Thus, what we find is' just what was 
 to be expected if the account we have 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 173 
 
 offered of the origin of polyandry were 
 correct. 
 
 We repeat, that in showing the pre- 
 valence of polyandry, we shall be showing 
 the prevalence of a modification of pro- 
 miscuity. This is manifest as regards 
 the ruder species of polyandry, in which 
 the husbands are not relations. It is 
 equally, though less obviously, true of 
 the less rude polyandry in which the 
 husbands are brothers. From the way 
 in which polyandry is presented to us, 
 we shall have a proof that the less rude 
 polyandry was developed from the ruder 
 by the help of the system of kinship 
 through females only — was superinduced, 
 that is, upon a promiscuity less quali- 
 fied than itself. Promiscuity, produ- 
 cing uncertainty of fatherhood, led to 
 the system of kinship through mothers 
 only. This kinship paved the way for 
 
174 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 polyandry such as we commonly find it ; 
 and this form of polyandry introduced 
 male kinship.* That, along with the 
 ruder polyandry, we always find the sys- 
 tem of kinship through females only, and 
 that where the less rude form prevails we 
 can generally trace that system, is more- 
 over a proof a posteriori of what we have 
 shown must be the case, that the origin 
 of kinship through females only is refer- 
 able to uncertainty of male parentage. 
 
 We shall not concern ourselves with 
 the direct evidence which might be ad- 
 duced to show that there once prevailed 
 
 * We shall see farther on how numerous the known 
 cases are in which the progress to male kinship and the 
 patriarchal system was a progress having this kind 
 of polyandry for one of its stages. The other main 
 highway of progress must have lain through the 
 system of confining women — a system probably es- 
 tablished by exogamy and the practice of capturing 
 wives. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL V. 175 
 
 among men a promiscuity less quali- 
 fied than polyandry. We may how- 
 ever recall the fact, that tradition is 
 found everywhere pointing to a time 
 when marriage was unknown, and to 
 some legislator to whom it owed its 
 institution : among the Egyptians to 
 Menes ; the Chinese to Fohi ; the Greeks 
 to Cecrops ; the Hindus to Svetaketu.* 
 And we shall proceed to show how much 
 evidence remains to give verisimilitude 
 to these traditions. Passing over com- 
 munities in which, according to ancient 
 historians, something like a general pro- 
 miscuity prevailed — such as the Massa- 
 getae, Agathyrsi, and the ancient Spar- 
 tans ; passing over also the numerous 
 races now existing, which, according to 
 modern travellers, have no conception 
 
 * See Muir's Sanskrit Texts, i860. Part ii. p. 336. 
 
1/6 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 of conjugal fidelity* — we shall now go 
 on to consider the regulated promiscuity 
 
 * It may be as well to append some modern ex- 
 amples of promiscuity, and of practices which have the 
 same effect in rendering uncertain male parentage. 
 The Ansarians have their wives in common ; the people 
 of Martawan, of the tribe of Ansarians, let out their 
 wives and daughters (Volney, " Travels," chap, xxvii.) 
 The Keiaz (Paropamisans) lend their wives to their 
 guests (Latham, "Des.Ethn.," vol. ii. p. 246) ; so do the 
 Eimauk (Caubul), — Elphinstone, 18 15, p. 483; so, 
 we are informed, do the Kandyans. The Mpongme 
 (Africa) lend wives (Reade, " Sav. Afr.," p. 259) ; so 
 do the Koryaks and Chukchi, who lend out daugh- 
 ters as well (N. E. Siberia) — Erkman, vol. ii. p. 531, 
 and V. Cochrane's "Journey," 1825, vol.i. p. 336. The 
 Koryaks are also polyandrous. The same disregard 
 of conjugal fidelity appeared in Caindu, Cascar (Turk- 
 istan Tartary), and in Cumana (Gaya, p. 104 ; Marco 
 Polo, ut infra, p. 258). We find it now among the 
 Aimaks ("Des. Ethno.," vol. i. p. 333). It was cus- 
 tomary in Kamul (Marco Polo, Bohn's edition, p. 
 1 10). Montesquieu, b. 16, c. viii., remarks on the 
 licentious wantonness of the women of Patan, against 
 which the men had to adopt measures of self-prdtec- 
 tion. Mr. Wilson of Mussoorie, in an admirable report 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL V. 177 
 
 known as polyandry, and see to what ex- 
 tent it exists, and what traces of its 
 former existence still remain. 
 
 on the Puharies of Gurwhal ("A Summer Ramble 
 in the Himalayas," q. v. p. 182), says of the Gun- 
 garees and Perbuttees : "Their immorality is some- 
 thing incredible — chastity being little appreciated, 
 even where it does exist." In various other quarters 
 we find practices fatal to certainty of male parentage, 
 such as frequent divorces, e. g., among the Bedouins, 
 Burckhardt, " Notes," I. 1 1 1 ; and marriages for an 
 agreed upon term of endurance, usually short. 
 Such marriages were usual in Sounan, Arabia 
 Felix (Hamilton's "New Account of the East 
 Indies," vol. i. p. 51); in Siam (Id., vol. ii. p. 279). 
 In China such marriages are said to be still cus- 
 tomary. In a recent report of the proceedings of 
 the Society of Sainte-Enfance in China, in the Esper- 
 ance of Nancy, it is said that, in many parts, China- 
 men may repudiate their wives, and marry again, every 
 year. As a result, the children belong to the mother, 
 who has over them the power of life or death. The 
 same must have been the case in Turkistan (Marco 
 Polo, ut supra, p. 99). According to Livingstone 
 ("Travels," p. 394), marriage in Loando is almost un- 
 known — an unsettled concubinage. And see Idem, 
 
178 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 Let US first see what is the area over 
 which polyandry now prevails. It pre- 
 vails universally in Tibet, and is common 
 in the Himalayan and Sub-Himalayan 
 regions adjoining Tibet ; in the valley of 
 Kashmir ; among the Spiti, in Ladak ; 
 in Kistewar and Sirmor. It occurs 
 
 p. 436, for an example of savage indifference as to 
 marital purity. In the Polynesian Mythology, we 
 have an excellent casual proof of the uncertainty of 
 male parentage, even where there is marriage (poly- 
 gamous). A young man distinguishes himself, and 
 turns out to be the chief's son. He was " a young 
 man, the name of whose father had never been told 
 by his mother." The lady was one of the chief's 
 wives! And see Turner's "Tibet," p. 10, and M'Cul- 
 loch's " Munniepore," for examples of a system of 
 pawning wives. See also, for similar or worse cus- 
 toms, Buchanan's "Journey from Madras," 1807, vol. ii. 
 pp. 129, 492, and vol. iii. p. 66 ; Krusenstern's "Voy- 
 age," 18 1 3, vol. ii.p. 24s (Kamschatka) ; La Perouse's 
 Voyage," 1798, vol. ii. p. 195 (Island of Maouna) ; 
 Maundeville, chap, xxiii. (Chatay) ; and Hue's 
 "Travels," vol. ii. p. 142, Nat. Illus. Lib. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY 179 
 
 among the Telingese ; in the Sivalik 
 mountains, and in Kasia. There are un- 
 mistakeable traces of its existence till re- 
 cently in Gurwhal, Sylhet and Cachar. 
 Farther south in India we find poly- 
 andry among the Tudas of the Nil- 
 gherry Hills, the Coorgs of Mysore, and 
 the Nairs, the Maleres, and Poleres of 
 Malabar. We find it off the Indian 
 coast in Ceylon ; and going eastward 
 strike on it as an ancient though now 
 almost superseded custom in New Zea- 
 land, and in one or two of the Pacific 
 Islands. Going northward we meet it 
 again in the Aleutian Islands ; and taking 
 the continent to the west and north of the 
 Aleutians we find it among the Koryaks 
 to the north of the Okhotsk Sea. Cross- 
 ing the Russian Empire to the west side 
 we find polyandry among the Saporogian 
 Cossacks ; we thus have traced it at 
 
i8o THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 points half round the globe. This is not 
 all, however. Polyandry is found in 
 several parts of Africa and of America. 
 We have the authority of Humboldt for 
 its prevalence among the tribes on the 
 Orinocco, and he also vouches for its 
 former prevalence in Lancerota one of 
 the Canary Islands.* 
 
 * Turner's " Tibet," 1800, p. 348. Vigne's " Kash- 
 mir," 1S42, vol. i. p. 37. Cunningham's "Ladak," 
 1854, p. 306. Buchanan's "Journey," etc., 1807, 
 vol. ii. pp. 408-412. Archer's "Upper India," 1833, 
 vol. i. p. 185. Latham's "Descriptive Ethnology," 
 1859, vol. i. pp. 24-28 ; vol. ii. pp. 398, 496, and 462. 
 Humboldt's "Personal Narrative" (William's Transla- 
 tion), 1 8 19, chap, i., vol. i. p. 84, and vol. v., part ii., 
 p. 549. Hamilton's " New Account of the East 
 Indies," 1727, vol. i., p. 274 and 308. Reade's 
 " Savage Africa," p. 43. Erkman's " Travels in 
 Siberia," voL ii. p. 531. "Marriage Ceremonies," by 
 Seignior Gaya, 1698, pp. 70 and 96. Tennent's 
 "Ceylon," 1859, vol. ii. p. 429. "Legend of Rupe," 
 Grey's "Polynesian Mythology," 1854, p. 81. "A 
 Summer Ramble in the Himalayas," i860, p. 202. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. i8i 
 
 From ancient history we learn that 
 polyandry at one time existed over even a 
 greater area. Traces of it remained in 
 the time of Tacitus among the Germans.* 
 And while in certain cantons of Media, 
 according to Strabo,t polygunia was au- 
 thorised by express law which ordained 
 every inhabitant to maintain at least 
 seven wives ; in other cantons the op- 
 posite rule was in force : a woman was 
 allowed to have many husbands, and they 
 looked with contempt on those who had 
 less than five. Caesar informs us that in 
 his time polyandry prevailed among the 
 
 Fisher's "Memoir of Sylhet, etc.," in Journal of Asiatic 
 Soc, Bengal, vol. ix. p. 834. " Asiat. Res.," vol. v. 
 p. 13. Our information regarding the Saporogian 
 Cossacks has been obtained from Sir John M'Neil. 
 
 * " German." xx., Latham's Edn., p. 67, et seq. 
 
 t Lib. ii. p. 798 ; and see Goquet, vol. iii. book 
 vi. c. i. 
 
 N 
 
1 82 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 Britons.* We find direct evidence of its 
 existence among the Picts in the Irish 
 NenniuSjt not to mention traces of it in 
 the Pictish Laws of Succession. Fur- 
 ther we find traditions of it among the 
 Hindus! — especially among the Raj- 
 puts. And we find it among the Getes 
 of Transaxiana (the Yuti or Yuechi of 
 the Chinese historians).! To see where 
 else it prevailed we must go back upon 
 our authorities and examine the various 
 phases of polyandry which they present, 
 and obtain a test for detecting its pre- 
 sence where historical evidence of its 
 existence is awanting. 
 
 The ruder form of polyandry, as we 
 
 * " De Bello Gallico," lib. v., c. xiv. 
 
 t Appendix LI. 
 
 I Tod's "Annals, etc., of Rajasthan,'' 1829, p. 48 ; 
 and see Max Milller's " Hist, of Sans. Anc. Lit." pp. 
 45, et seq.; Tod's "Travels," 1839, p. 464. 
 
 § Tod's " Travels," ut supra. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 183 
 
 have said, is that in which the husbands 
 are not brothers ; the less rude is that in 
 which they are brothers. The polyandry 
 of the Kasias, the Nairs, and the Saporo- 
 gian Cossacks, appears to be purely of 
 the ruder sort, and is attended by the 
 system of kinship through females only. 
 It is left doubtful what is the form of the 
 institution in some instances, as in the 
 Aleutian Islands, and among the Koryaks. 
 But in all the other cases in which poly- 
 andry occurs, the authorities show that the 
 ruder form occurs among the lower classes 
 wherever the less rude occurs, except in 
 Tibet, where polyandry is universal and 
 the husbands are always brothers ; except 
 in Malabar, where polyandry is universally 
 practised by all classes, saving the Brah- 
 mans only, but is of the ruder species 
 among the high caste Nairs, and of the 
 less rude among the lower castes, the 
 
1 84 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 Teers, Maleres, and Poleres. It is in the 
 nature of the case that all the possible 
 forms of polyandry must lie in between, 
 or be embraced in, the Nair and Tibetan 
 forms. 
 
 Let us attend then to the accounts we 
 have of these two forms. Of the Nair 
 polyandry we have three accounts. The 
 account in the "Asiatic Researches"* is 
 that among the Nairs it is the custom for 
 one woman " to have attached to her two 
 males, or four, or perhaps more, and they 
 cohabit according to rules." With this 
 account that of Hamilton agrees,! except- 
 ing that he states that a Nair woman 
 could have no more than twelve husbands, 
 and had to select these under certain re- 
 strictions as to rank and caste. On the 
 
 * 
 
 Vol. V. p. 13. 
 
 t "Account of the East Indies," ut supra, vol. i. 
 p. 308. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 185 
 
 other hand, Buchanan states* that the 
 women after marriagef are free to co- 
 habit with any number of men, under 
 certain restrictions as to tribe and 
 caste. It is consistent with the three 
 accounts, and is directly stated by Hamil- 
 ton, that a Nair may be one in several 
 combinations of husbands ; that is, he 
 may have any number of wives. The 
 accounts, however, differ in regard to one 
 important particular. Buchanan repre- 
 sents the wife as living in family with 
 her mother or brother, while Hamilton 
 represents her as having " an house built 
 for her own conveniency" on being mar- 
 ried to the first of her husbands. In the 
 
 * Buchanan's "Journey," vol. ii. p. 411. 
 
 f In the "Asiatic Researches" it is said, "The Nairs 
 practice not marriage, except as far as may be implied 
 from their tying a thread round the neck of the woman 
 on the first occasion." 
 
1 86 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 "AsiaticResearches"thewifeisrepresented 
 as living with her mother or brother. The 
 probability is that both arrangements are 
 occasionally adopted, the more usual 
 course being for the wife to remain in the 
 family of her mother and brothers. In 
 Ceylon, where the higher and lower poly- 
 andry co-exist, marriage is of two sorts — 
 Deega or Beena — according as the wife 
 goes to live in the house and village of 
 her husbands, or as the husband or hus- 
 bands come to live with her in or near 
 the house of her birth.* And among the 
 Kandyans the rights of inheritance of a 
 
 * See Forbes' "Ceylon," 1840, vol. i. p. 333. Mr. 
 Starke, late Chief-Justice of Ceylon, says that " some- 
 times a deega married girl returned to her parents' 
 house and was there provided with a beena husband 
 who lived with her in family" (private letter). The 
 beena husband's tenure of office seems to have been 
 very insecure. See Forbes, ut supra. The Kandyans 
 are now under British rule, and their marriages regu- 
 lated by a special ordinance. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 187 
 
 woman and her children are found to de- 
 pend on whether the woman is a beena or 
 a deega wife. 
 
 The three accounts which we have of 
 the Nair polyandry are agreed that the 
 Nair husbands are usually not brothers — 
 usually not relatives — and that the institu- 
 tion leaves male parentage and the father's 
 blood quite uncertain. "In consequence 
 of this strange manner of propagating 
 the species," says Buchanan,* "no Nair 
 knows his father, and every man looks 
 upon his sister's children as his heirs. 
 He indeed looks upon them with the 
 same fondness that fathers in other parts 
 of the world have for their own children, 
 and he would be considered as an un- 
 natural monster were he to show such 
 signs of grief at the death of a child, 
 which from long cohabitation and love 
 
 Ut supra, vol. ii. p. 412. 
 
1 88 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 with its mother, he might suppose to be 
 his own, as he did at the death of a child 
 of his sister. A man's mother manages 
 his family ; and after her death his eldest 
 sister assumes the direction. Brothers 
 almost always live under the same roof ; 
 but if one of the family separates from the 
 rest he is always accompanied by his 
 favourite sister. A man's movable pro- 
 perty, after his death, is divided among 
 the sons and daughters of all his sisters ; 
 and if there are lands, their management 
 falls to the eldest male of the family."* 
 
 Now here, derived from the ruder 
 polyandry, is an exceedingly rude, the 
 rudest, form of family system with which 
 we are acquainted. And it is a sort of 
 family system which is found, more or 
 less modified in some of its features, in 
 several cases, where marriage is now 
 
 See Buchanan, vol. ii. p. 594. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 189 
 
 either monogamous or polygamous. Its 
 chief features are the absence of a pater- 
 nal head, and the system of female suc- 
 cession. Among the Kocch, with whom 
 marriage is now monogamous, we find 
 the same system, excepting that the 
 family circle includes the daughter's hus- 
 band, as a subordinate member of the 
 family. A Kocch man goes, on his mar- 
 riage, like the beena husband of Ceylon, 
 to live in family with his wife and her 
 mother ; on his marriage all his property 
 is made over to his wife ; and on her 
 death her heirs are her daughters.* Here 
 we conclude that the advance from the 
 ruder polyandry to monogamy took place 
 in some way consistent with the pre- 
 servation of the main features of the 
 family system peculiar to the ruder poly- 
 andry — consistent with the mother's 
 
 * " Des. Ethn.," vol. i. p. 96. 
 
I go THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 maintaining her position as the head of 
 the family, and with an increase of the 
 influence of women as connecting links 
 in the social and proprietary systems. 
 We shall presently see that the advance 
 in this direction must be counted excep- 
 tional ; at the same time it cannot well be 
 doubted that such a family system as we 
 find among the Kocch had its origin in 
 the ruder species of polyandry. 
 
 What, then, was the normal line of 
 progress ? We think that we shall be 
 able to show what it was — that it lay 
 between the lower and higher polyandry. 
 In the accounts we have, we can detect 
 stages of preparation for the change 
 from the former species of polyandry to 
 the latter. We must regard as the rudest 
 cases those in which the wife lives not 
 with her husbands, but with her mother 
 or brothers. In these cases a woman's 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 191 
 
 children are born in and belong to her 
 mother's house. In the cases next in 
 order of rudeness, the wife passes into 
 cohabitation, according to fixed rules, 
 with the husbands, in a house of her 
 own — becoming thus detached from her 
 family, though still connected with it 
 through the right of her children to be- 
 come heirs to the family estate. Her 
 children would still belong to her mother's 
 family — the want of a community of 
 blood and interests among the husbands 
 preventing the appropriation of the child- 
 ren to them. Such cases, however — de- 
 taching the woman from her family — 
 would prepare the way for a species of 
 marriage still less rude, in which the 
 woman passed from her family, not into 
 a house of her own, but into the family 
 of her husbands, in which her children 
 would be born, and to which they would 
 
192 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 belong. This could only happen when 
 the husbands were all of one blood, and 
 had common rights of property — in short, 
 when they were brothers. 
 
 This last was a most important step 
 in advance. The girl of a house no longer 
 remained at home with her mother and 
 brothers — aiding in and succeeding to the 
 management; she passed into another 
 family, associating with the. sons thereof 
 as wife ; while her place at home was 
 assumed by a stranger — as wife to her 
 brothers. There being now a commu- 
 nity of blood and interests in the hus- 
 bands, there was nothing to prevent the 
 appropriation to them of her children 
 — an appropriation which would dis- 
 qualify the children for being heirs to 
 the property of her mother and brothers. 
 To give effect now to the old law of 
 succession, would be, not to keep pro- 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 193 
 
 perty in families, but to introduce a 
 system of exchanges of family estates. 
 Moreover, when this form of marriage 
 became general, and when conjugal fide- 
 lity was secured by penalties, we should 
 expect to find that the system of kinship 
 through males would appear — this species 
 of marriage allowing of certainty as to 
 the father's blood, though not of certainty 
 as to fathers. A woman's children would 
 become the heirs of the husband's family 
 in which they would be born, and to 
 which they would belong. 
 
 Now it is this highest development of 
 polyandry, and of the family system which 
 polyandry admitted of, which we find in 
 Tibet. 
 
 " Here," says Turner, speaking of 
 Tibet,* " we find a practice — that of poly- 
 andry — universally prevailing ; and see 
 
 * Turner's "Tibet," 1800, p 348. 
 
194 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 one female associating her fate and for- 
 tune with all the brothers of a family, 
 without any restriction of age or of num- 
 bers. The choice of a wife is the privilege 
 
 of the elder brother The number 
 
 of husbands is not, as far as I could learn, 
 defined or restricted within any limits ; it 
 sometimes happens that in a small family 
 there is but one male ; and the number, 
 perhaps, may seldom exceed that which a 
 native of rank, during my residence at 
 Teshoo Loomboo, pointed out to me in 
 a family resident in the neighbourhood, 
 in which five brothers were then living 
 very happily with one female, under the 
 same connubial compact. Nor is this 
 sort of league confined to the lower ranks 
 of people alone : it is found also fre- 
 quently in the most opulent families." 
 
 Let us now see to what extent poly- 
 andry of the Tibetan type can be traced 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 195 
 
 elsewhere than in Tibet ; and what evi- 
 dence there is of its being an advance from 
 the Nair species of polyandry. The autho- 
 rities already cited* exhibit the Tibetan 
 as the prevailing species of polyandry in 
 nearly the whole of the Himalayan and 
 sub-Himalayan regions: Kashmir, Ladak, 
 Kinawer, Kistewar, and Sirmor. It is 
 the general form of polyandry in Ceylon. 
 It is the form which Humboldt found 
 among the red -men. " Among the 
 Avaroes and the Maypures," he says, 
 "brothers have often but one wife." It 
 is the form which Caesar found among 
 the Britons. " Uxores habent deni duo- 
 denique inter se communes, et maxime 
 fratres cum fratribus, et parentes cum 
 liberis ; sed si qui sunt ex his nati, eorum 
 habentur liberi a quibus primum virgines 
 quseque ductae sunt."t And to show that 
 
 * Ante,- p. 180. t " De Bello Gallico," v. xiv. 
 
196 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 the two forms of polyandry are stages in 
 a progress, we repeat that almost every- 
 where, outside Tibet, we find the lower 
 form accompanying the higher. In some 
 quarters the lower only is known — as in 
 Kasia and among the Nairs. In others 
 — Kooloo, for example — the lower form 
 is prevalent ; the higher* also is known, 
 but is exceptional. Again, in numerous 
 quarters the higher is the general form, 
 and the lower the exceptional — as in 
 Ceylon ; and lastly, in some quarters, as 
 in Tibet, we lose sight of the lower form 
 
 % 
 
 Archer, in his "Upper India" (1833), v. i. pp. 
 235-6, says of the Grooah (Kooloo) : " Here one 
 woman cohabits with two, three, and four men, and 
 they may even be all brothers ; this practice is univer- 
 sal. I was informed of the rules and modes of inter- 
 course, all evincing a state of society least beholden 
 to civilization, or less sophisticated than any yet 
 known." 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 197 
 
 altogether. The higher polyandry has 
 become a national institution. 
 
 And finding the higher polyandry a 
 national institution, we observe that we 
 are in a position to show that most pro- 
 bably polyandry formerly prevailed over 
 a still vaster area than that within which 
 we have hitherto found it. We have 
 seen that with polyandry, of the Tibetan 
 type, wherever it was long and generally 
 established, kinship through males must 
 have been introduced ; the father's blood, 
 though not the father, being certain, 
 where the wife was faithful. We have 
 also seen, in the case of the Britons, that 
 the children of the woman were accounted 
 to belong to the husband who first es- 
 poused her ; and that in Tibet, the right 
 of choosing the wife belongs to the eldest 
 brother, to whom, also, the children of 
 
 the marriage are held to belong- We 
 
 o 
 
198 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 must now, to obtain what we have been 
 in search of — a test of the former presence 
 of polyandry — look at the Tibetan form 
 of polyandry in a state of decadence. 
 We find it in such a state in Ladak. 
 " In Ladak," says Moorcroft,* "when an 
 eldest son marries, the property of his 
 father (more properly the family estate) 
 descends to him, and he is charged with 
 the maintenance of his parents. The 
 parents may continue to live with him, if 
 he and his wife please ; if not, a separate 
 dwelling is provided for them.f A 
 younger son is usually made a Lama. 
 Should there be more brothers, and they 
 agree to the arrangement, the juniors 
 become inferior husbands to the wife ; 
 
 * Moorcroft's and Trebeck's "Travels," 1841, v. 
 i. p. 320. 
 
 t See M'Culloch's " Munniepore," pp. 8 and 67, for 
 a similar custom among the Loohoopas. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 199 
 
 all the children, however, are considered 
 as belonging to the head of the family. 
 The younger brothers have no authority ; 
 they wait upon the elder as his servants, 
 and can be turned out of doors at his 
 pleasure, without it being incumbent 
 upon him to provide for them. On the 
 death of the eldest brother, his property, 
 authority, and widow, devolve upon his 
 next brother." And that whether the 
 younger brother has agreed to the poly- 
 androus arrangement or not. He has a 
 a customary right of succession to his 
 brother's property, and to his widow, and 
 he cannot take the one without taking the 
 other. 
 
 Here we are brought to consider the 
 meaning and origin of the legal obli- 
 gation which we find laid on younger 
 brothers, among certain peoples, to marry 
 in their turn the widow of their de- 
 
200 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 ceased elder brother. There can be no 
 doubt that that obligation was in its 
 origin the counterpart of a legal right of 
 succession. It is so with the Kirghiz, 
 Aenezes, and Mongols — the next brother 
 being heir even where the elder leaves 
 issue. 
 
 When history begins, the Hebrew law 
 preferred the issue to the next brother; 
 but when he or the next of kin succeeded, 
 it was on the old footing. This is clear 
 from the book of Ruth.* The hereditatis 
 emptor of the deceased took to wife at 
 the same time his widow, " to raise up 
 the name of the dfead upon his inheri- 
 tance." The obligation to marry the 
 widow was the counterpart of the right 
 of succession. And we can see the con- 
 nection between the obligation and heir- 
 
 * Chap. iv. ver. 6. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 201 
 
 ship dropping slowly out of view. In 
 Deuteronomy* it is provided that the 
 husband's brother shall " perform the 
 duty of an husband's brother" to the 
 widow, only when the brethren dwell 
 together, and one of them dies childless. 
 The obligation is here presented pure — 
 as a duty falling on the brother, which 
 it was disgraceful to neglect. 
 
 In India, by the time when the In- 
 stitutes of Menu were compiled, the ob- 
 ligation was laid on the brother only in 
 case the deceased left no son. Grave 
 doubts had arisen as to the extent and 
 propriety of the obligation, the number 
 of sons to be begotten on the widow, f 
 and the terms on which the brother 
 should live with her. " The first object 
 of the appointment being obtained, ac- 
 
 * Chap. XXV. ver. 5-10. + Chap. ix. ver. 61, 62. 
 
202 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 cording to law, both the brother and the 
 widow must live together like a father 
 and daughter by affinity." Again, it is 
 doubted whether the obligation extends 
 to the twice-born classes. " Such a com- 
 mission to a brother or other near kins- 
 man is nowhere mentioned in the nuptial 
 texts of the Veda. . . . This practice, fit 
 only for cattle, is reprehended by learned 
 Brahmans ; yet it is declared to have 
 been the practice even of men while Vena 
 had sovereign power."* Yet elsewhere 
 in the code the obligation is contemplated 
 as legal, and provision is made for the 
 rights of succession of the issue of the 
 Levirate union. " Should a younger bro- 
 ther have begotten a son on the wife of 
 his deceased elder brother, the division 
 (of the estate) must then be made equally 
 
 Chap. ix. ver. 66. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 203 
 
 between that son, who represents the de- 
 ceased, and his natural father : thus is 
 the law settled." We repeat, that in 
 Menu's time the obligation had not only 
 been, to some extent, dissociated from the 
 corresponding right of inheritance, but 
 was falling into disrepute. We see it 
 also falling into desuetude among the 
 Hebrews. In the earliest age the Levir 
 had no alternative but to take the widow ; 
 indeed she was his wife without any form 
 of marriage!^ By the Mosaic Law, how- 
 ever, he might get quit of her if he chose 
 by submitting to the ceremony of " loos- 
 ing the shoe." 
 
 It is impossible not to believe that 
 we have here presented to us successive 
 stages of decay of one and the same ori- 
 ginal institution ; impossible not to con- 
 
 * Lewis' "Hebrew Republic," 1725, vol. iii. p. 268. 
 
204 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 nect the obligation, in its several phases, 
 with what we have seen prevailing in 
 Ladak ; impossible not to regard it as 
 having originally been a right of succes- 
 sion, or the counterpart of such a right, 
 derived from the practice of polyandry. 
 Regarded as in its origin a right of 
 succession, it exhibits the next younger 
 brother as succeeding to the universi- 
 tas of the elder — taking up all his rights 
 and obligations — inter alia, his widow. 
 But how came the right of succession 
 to open, as in the ruder cases, to the 
 brother in preference to the son of the 
 deceased ? We repeat, that the only ex- 
 planation that can be given of this is, 
 that the law of succession was derived 
 from polyandry. The succession of bro- 
 thers to one another, in order of age, is a 
 feature of the law of succession under 
 both forms of polyandry. Under the 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 205 
 
 ruder, brothers succeed one another ; and 
 failing brothers, the sister's children come 
 in : under the less rude, brothers succeed 
 one another ; and failing brothers, comes 
 in the eldest son of the brotherhood. And 
 nowhere, excepting where there is or has 
 been polyandry, have we such a system 
 of succession — brothers succeeding in 
 preference to sons. 
 
 The same conclusion is forced upon 
 us from another point of view. In the 
 lowest cases of polyandry the children 
 belong to the mother ; in the more ad- 
 vanced to the eldest brother (an approach 
 towards agnation). Now the peculiarity 
 of the obligation is, in all cases, that it 
 was an obligation " to raise up seed " 
 to the elder brother. The children 
 begotten by the younger brother were 
 accounted the children of the elder de- 
 ceased. It is obvious that it could more 
 
2o6 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 easilybe feigned that the children belonged 
 to the brother deceased, if already, at a 
 prior stage, the children of the brother- 
 hood had been accounted the children of 
 the eldest brother, i.e., if we suppose the 
 obligation to be a relic of polyandry. 
 
 Curiously enough, Dr. Latham would 
 invert the order of development by pro- 
 ducing the ruder fact — polyandry — from 
 the less rude obligation. But, clearly, 
 this is an inversion of the order of nature 
 — which is progressive — in which the 
 ruder gives birth to the less rude, not the 
 less rude to the ruder.* 
 
 Assuming the correctness of this view 
 of the origin of that obligation, we must 
 
 * The subject of polyandry has been most care- 
 lessly, it seems to us, handled by Dr. Latham. It is 
 enough to refer to " Des. Ethn.," vol. ii. p. 463, et seq., 
 where he recklessly lays it down that the descensus 
 per umbilicum is part and parcel of polyandry. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 207 
 
 hold that polyandry in the Tibetan form 
 prevailed at one time throughout India.* 
 Among the race from which the ancient 
 Hebrews were descended ; among the 
 Moabites and the ancient Persians, t 
 Among the Druses and all the Arab tribes 
 in Syria ; \ the Mongols, Ostiaks, Kirghiz 
 Turks, and tribes of the Caucasus. § 
 Among the Makololo, and, we may be- 
 lieve, many other peoples in Africa.! It is 
 needless to repeat that we must also con- 
 clude that among the peoples just enume- 
 rated the Tibetan form of polyandry was 
 preceded by the Nair, and, at a still earlier 
 date, by utter promiscuity. 
 
 * " Institute of Menu," c. iii., § 173, and c ix., § 
 57-58, and § 182 ; " Asi. Res.," vol. iii. p. 35. + Deut. 
 XXV. 5-1 1 ; Ruth i. 11- 13; Kleuker " Zendavesta," 
 iii. p. 226. X Volney's " Travels," vol. ii. p. 807 ; 
 
 Burckhardt's " Notes," vol. i. 1 12. § " Des. Ethn,," 
 
 vol. i. pp. 312, 346, and 455 ; Hanthausen, "Trans- 
 Caucasia," p. 403. II Livingstone, p. 185. 
 
2o8 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 We have found polyandry in so many 
 lands, among so many races, and in such 
 phases of progressive development, that 
 we are surely justified in classing it among 
 the phenomena most distinctive of — the 
 most likely to occur at — the earlier stages 
 of the progress of any race of men. Its 
 origin can only be ascribed to a scarcity 
 of women as compared to men. And the 
 vast area over which it anciently prevailed, 
 can leave no doubt in the mind that in 
 former times the balance of the sexes must 
 have been seriously disturbed (artificially), 
 and that we were right in predicating of 
 the primitive groups that they usually 
 contained fewer women than men. When 
 the phenomena of exogamy — also due to 
 a scarcity of women — are contemplated 
 along with the phenomena of polyandry, 
 the impression of this fact produced on 
 the mind is almost as strong as the feel- 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 209 
 
 ing produced by demonstration. To 
 whatever extent a want of balance between 
 the sexes prevailed, to that extent certainty 
 as to male parentage was in the earlier 
 stages of progress excluded. With poly- 
 andry itself there is uncertainty upon this 
 point. In the lower cases the uncertainty 
 is absolute. And regarding, as we must 
 do, the higher as an advance from the 
 lower, we are forced to conclude that 
 wherever we have found polyandry, or 
 traces of it, there must . anciently have 
 prevailed the system of kinship through 
 females only. 
 
 In a preceding chapter we found the 
 system of kinship through females only, 
 universally prevailing among the Aus- 
 tralian Blacks;* prevailing among the 
 majority of the nations of the American 
 
 * Ante, p. 113. 
 
210 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 Red-men ; * and among the South Sea 
 Islanders.f That is, we found it among 
 peoples now practising polygunia, and 
 which have advanced far towards the patri- 
 archal system. We infer that with these 
 peoples the unions of the sexes were origin- 
 ally promiscuous or polyandrous. With 
 regard to the Red-men, indeed, there is 
 little room for doubting that they formerly 
 all practised polyandry. It is now occa- 
 sionally to be found among them, and 
 their system of relationship — their names 
 for kinsmen and kinswomen — point to 
 its having been their universal custom. 
 Mr. Morgan of Rochester, New York, 
 whose account of the Indian nations we 
 have already had occasion to refer to, 
 gives the following as radical features 
 of the system of relationship prevailing 
 
 Ante, p. 124. f Ante, p. 126. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 211 
 
 among them: i. "All the brothers of a 
 father are equally fathers to his children 
 (this where there is now no polyandry). 
 2. All the children of several brothers 
 are brothers and sisters to each other; 
 all the grandsons of a man's brothers 
 are his grandsons."* These features of 
 the system bear the stamp of a poly- 
 androus origin ;t they are features of 
 the system of relationship which might 
 
 * Camb. Journ., i860, pp. 144, 145. 
 
 -f- It may be asked why the Red-men should not 
 now have kinship through males if they have passed, 
 as they appear to have done, through the stage of 
 polyandry of the Tibetan type. Our answer is, that 
 in some cases they have male kinships, and that pro- 
 bably in Australia, and among the majority of the 
 nations of the red-men, the earlier species of kinship 
 has been perpetuated by the system of capturing 
 wives. We shall hereafter see that the system of 
 capture introduces uncertainty as to male parentage, 
 independently of the causes of such uncertainty which 
 we have been considering. We shall also see that 
 all polyandrous peoples may not have been exoga- 
 
2 1 2 THE S YS TEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 be expected to accompany the higher 
 polyandry. The schedules returned to 
 Mr. Morgan show that among the Tamul 
 and Telugu, peoples of Southern India, 
 numbering about twenty-four millions, 
 " all the brothers of a father are usually 
 called fathers, but in strictness, those who 
 are older than the father are called great 
 fathers, and those who are younger, little 
 fathers." And both the Tamul and Telugu 
 are still, as we have seen, to some extent 
 polyandrous. The same system of relation- 
 ship is found among the Puharies, a peo- 
 ple on the skirts of the Tibetan region, 
 and that manifestly practised polyandry 
 till a late date. With the Puharies, all 
 the brothers of a father are equally fathers 
 to his children.* 
 
 mous, while all exogamous peoples must have been 
 polyandrous. 
 
 * Report of Mr. Wilson, ut supra. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 213 
 
 We have seen that the Kasias, the 
 Nairs, and the Saporogian Cossacks, have 
 the system of kinship through females 
 only. We find that system in Tulava, in 
 the neighbourhood of the Nairs. "Among 
 the Buntar " — the highest rank of Sudras 
 in Tulava — "a man's children," says Buch- 
 anan, " are not his heirs. During his life- 
 time he may give them money ; but all of 
 which he dies possessed goes to his sisters 
 and to their children." The cause must be 
 the same in either case, though marriage 
 in Tulava has shifted from polyandry to 
 polygunia.* Among the Rajputs we 
 have traces of the system of female kin- 
 ship.f The Kocch have kinship and 
 succession through females only ; and so 
 have the But {^Q)^6).i Farther, we find 
 
 * Buchanan, ut supra, vol. iii., p. 16. 
 t Tod's " Annals," etc., ut supra, p. 48^ 
 X "Des. Ethn.," vol. i., pp. 96, 109. 
 P 
 
214 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 that system among the Banyai,* in Ashanti, 
 Aquapim, and Congo, and are assured 
 that traces of it are to be found all over 
 Africa.f We have already had occasion to 
 notice its occurrence among the Chinese.^ 
 Let us now see what evidence there is 
 of the former existence of the system of 
 kinship through females only. We recal 
 the fact that, in an earlier chapter, we saw 
 reason to believe that it anciently prevailed 
 among the Celts. § We infer that among 
 the Celts there was anciently no certainty 
 of male parentage. We now notice that 
 we find traces of such a system in India 
 in the Sutras of Gautama. In these, 
 marriage with the daughter of a maternal 
 uncle — 2i cousin on the mother's side — is 
 emphatically prohibited as being clearly 
 
 * Livingstone's "Travels," pp. 617-622. 
 
 + Reade's " Savage Africa," p. 43. 
 
 J Ante, p. 177. § Ante, p. 127. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL V. 215 
 
 against the principles of the sacred writ- 
 ings.* Such a prohibition, found with 
 an exogamous race — and almost all the 
 Indian races were and are, as we have 
 seen, exogamous — can be referred only to 
 the system of kinship through females 
 only. And it is impossible to avoid con- 
 necting with this the tradition that the five 
 Pandava princes — brothers so called — 
 were husbands of one wife. " How is it," 
 asks Max Muller.f in discussing the cha- 
 racter of the Mahabharata, "that the five 
 Pandava princes who are at first repre- 
 sented as receiving so strictly Brahmanic 
 an education, could afterwards have been 
 married to one wife? This is in plain 
 opposition to Brahmanic law, where it is 
 said ' they are many wives of one man ; 
 
 * Max MuUer's "Hist, of Anc. Sans. Liter.," 1859, 
 
 P- 53. 
 
 t Idem, p. 46. 
 
2 1 6 THE S YS TEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 not many husbands of one wife.' Such a 
 contradiction can only be accounted for by 
 the admission that in this case epic tradi- 
 tion in the mouth of the people was too 
 strong to allow this essential and curious 
 feature in the life of its heroes to be 
 changed." In other words, we have here 
 the tradition " that the races among whom 
 the five principal heroes of the Mahabha- 
 rata were born and fostered," practised 
 polyandry. This is confirmed by all that 
 is related of the Pandava princes. They 
 were the reputed sons of Pandu, — but, in 
 fact, three of them were sons of one of his 
 wives by three different gods, and the 
 other two were sons of another wife by 
 the Aswini-Kumaras.* Pandu himself was 
 
 * Williams' "Indian Epic Poetry," 1863, p. 17. It 
 is worthy of notice that in a passage of the Maha- 
 bharata, Book i., w. 4719-22, which has been trans- 
 lated by Dr. Muir ("Sanskrit Texts," Part ii. p. 336), 
 
THR O UGH FEMA LES ONL V. 217 
 
 the son of a marriage with a brother's 
 widow. When the five princes married 
 one wife, the eldest was first married 
 to her by the family priest, and then the 
 other four in their order, according to 
 priority of birth. The princes are repre- 
 sented as living in family with Kauli, 
 their mother — the head of their house. 
 
 we have the following account of the freedom of 
 women in the early world. " Women were formerly 
 unconfined, and roved about at their pleasure, in- 
 dependent (within their respective castes). Though 
 in their youthful innocence they abandoned their 
 husbands, they were guilty of no offence ; for such 
 was the rule in early times. This ancient custom is 
 even now the law for creatures born as brutes, which 
 are free from lust and anger. This custom is supported 
 by authority, and is observed by great Rishis, and it is 
 still practised among the Northern Kurus!' In a note. 
 Dr. Muir adds that the practice of promiscuous inter- 
 course was, according to the legend, abolished by 
 Svetaketu, son of the Rishi Uddalaka, who was in- 
 censed at seeing his mother led away by a strange 
 Brahman. Svetaketu established conjugal fidelity. 
 
2i8 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 In the poem, Bishma, their granduncle — 
 grandfather's brother — is often styled their 
 grandfather ; and though Bishma was 
 really the uncle — father's brother — of 
 Pandu, he is sometimes styled his father * 
 All these circumstances point to a system 
 of polyandry of the Tibetan type. The 
 very terminology is that of polyandry, and 
 which polyandry has left behind it among 
 the Tamul, the Telugu, the Puharies, and 
 the red-men of America. In short, though 
 the original tradition has obviously been 
 tampered with, enough of it remains to 
 oblige us to acknowledge it as a genuine 
 tradition of a stage of Aryan civilization, 
 when the marriage system was polyandrous 
 as it is now in Tibet. It is almost need- 
 less to point out that we have, in this 
 tradition, a confirmation of our view of 
 
 * See Williams' "Indian Epic Poetry," 1863, pp. 
 93, 99, and 1 14. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONLY. 219 
 
 the origin of the obligation which, in the 
 code of Menu, is recognised as imposed 
 on brothers in turn to marry the widow 
 of a brother deceased. We shall find a 
 further confirmation of that view in the 
 case of the Hebrews. 
 
 We are not without evidence of the 
 existence in early times of the system of 
 female kinship among the Semitic races. 
 It would appear that while Abraham still 
 lived, his tribesmen as yet recognised 
 only that primitive kinship in some im- 
 portant relations in life — e.g., as affecting 
 the right of intermarriage. Between the 
 times of Abraham and the promulgation 
 of the Levitical law, a complete revolu- 
 tion took place in Jewish custom. The 
 patriarch himself married his sister-ger- 
 man, or by the same father ; and his 
 brother Nahor married his niece,* the 
 
 * Genesis x j. 26-29 ! ^"'^ ^^^ ^^' ' 2- 
 
220 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 daughter of a brother. So Amram, the 
 father of Moses and Aaron, married his 
 father's sister (Exod. vi. 20). These 
 women were not relatives, in a full legal 
 sense, of their husbands. They were con- 
 nected with them through males only, 
 and through males in those times there 
 was not, as yet, a perfect kinship. We 
 have similar evidence of the existence of 
 the system of kinship, through females 
 only, among the Phoenicians.* 
 
 Among the Greeks, traces of this early 
 law remained in historic times. To pass 
 over the tradition that in Greece before 
 Cecrops children always bore the names 
 of their mothers,+ we have the fact that 
 at Athens a brother might marry a sister- 
 
 * " Achilles Tatius," lib. i. 
 
 + Varro, apud August: de Civ. Dei, 1. 18, c. 9. 
 Suidas, voce wjo^^tf, t. 3, p. 189 ; and v. Goquet, B. i., 
 vol. 2. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 221 
 
 german, but not a sister-uterine or con- 
 sanguineous. Here again we have a relic 
 of the doctrine that a child had no pater- 
 nal relatives. A sister-uterine was a 
 near kinswoman, but a sister-german was 
 no kinswoman at all. Montesquieu* 
 ascribes this Athenian rule to a device of 
 the legislature for regulating successions ; 
 but he belongs to the class of philoso- 
 phers who make more of enactments 
 than of popular usages. As Bunsenf has 
 pointed out, there can be no doubt that 
 the true meaning and origin of the rule 
 were what we have indicated. 
 
 There is one case which might be 
 cited to throw doubt upon some of the 
 conclusions at which we have arrived 
 in this chapter. This is the report 
 of Philo, that the Spartans allowed 
 
 * Book v., c. 5. 
 
 + De Jure Hered. Athen., p. 148 ; Gottingen, 1813. 
 
222 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 a man to marry his sister-uterine, but 
 not his sister-german, or by the same 
 father.* This may have been circulated 
 for the sake of the contrast which it pre- 
 sented to Athenian custom ; at any rate, 
 we hold it to be incredible — as discordant 
 with old law as with- the habits of the 
 Lacedaemonians. It is beyond belief 
 that there was this superior regard for the 
 father's blood in ancient Sparta, where the 
 marriage tie was so loose that men lent 
 their wives to one another, and cared 
 little by whom children were begotten, 
 provided they turned out strong and 
 healthy. It is incredible, that in a com- 
 munity where any sort of importance was 
 
 * The reader may suspect that this is a relic of 
 strict agnatic law. But for the reasons stated in the 
 text, we hold that view to be excluded. The system 
 of relationship, through males only, has never, in any 
 well authenticated case, been developed into such a 
 rule as this. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL V. 223 
 
 attached to blood, the unquestionable 
 blood tie between children of the same 
 mother should be so disregarded. If we 
 are to credit the report at all, it must be 
 on the supposition that the Spartans were 
 exceptional in their development like the 
 ancient Persians (from whom the Druses 
 derived their customs). And we do not 
 regard the case of the Persians as of 
 weight against our reasoning, but the 
 contrary. The Persian customs were 
 just those of hordes who consecrated an 
 incestuous promiscuity into a system. 
 If they allowed the marriages of brothers 
 and sisters consanguineous, they also 
 sanctioned the unions of sons and 
 mothers, and of fathers and daughters, 
 and in some cases required them for the 
 purposes of religion.* 
 
 See a full account of the Persian customs in Sel- 
 den's "Jus Naturale," iit supra, chap. xi. 
 
224 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 At the outset of our argument we saw 
 that if the system of kinship through 
 females only could be shown to exist, or 
 to have existed, it must be accounted a 
 more archaic system of kinship than the 
 system of relationship through males, — 
 the product of an earlier and ruder stage 
 in human development ; and that to prove 
 its existence on such a scale as to entitle 
 it to rank among the normal phenomena 
 of human development would be to prove 
 it the most ancient system of kinship. 
 We now submit that we have amply 
 established our proposition. We have 
 collected abundant evidence of the non- 
 existence in many places of the conditions 
 necessary for the rise of kinship through 
 males ; in many of these cases — some of 
 them cases of great populations — we 
 have been able to adduce evidence of the 
 existence of the system of kinship through 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 225 
 
 females only. We have seen that poly- 
 andry must be accepted as a stage in the 
 progress towards marriage proper and 
 the patriarchal system. The lower forms 
 of polyandry we have found to be accom- 
 panied by the system of kinship through 
 females only. We have seen polyandry 
 change its form till it allowed of kinship 
 through males, and then die away into 
 an obligation on younger brothers in 
 turn to espouse the widow of the eldest 
 brother; and in some cases, Indo-Euro- 
 pean as well as Semitic, in which we 
 found that relic of polyandry, we have 
 found, or found traces of, the system of 
 kinship through females only. Had the 
 facts bearing on our inquiry ever been 
 systematically observed, noted, and col- 
 lected, it is probable our case might be 
 made to appear stronger than it does. 
 But as it is, we submit that we have 
 
226 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 done quite enough to establish the truth 
 of our proposition. 
 
 Before leaving this subject we would 
 observe that, whether the system of 
 kinship through females only prevailed 
 universally at the first or not, it must 
 have prevailed wherever exogamy pre- 
 vailed — exogamy and the consequent 
 practice of capturing wives. Certainty 
 as to fathers is impossible where mothers 
 are stolen from their first lords, and liable 
 to be re-stolen before the birth of child- 
 ren. And as exogamy and polyandry 
 are referable to one and the same cause — 
 a want of balance between the sexes — 
 we are forced to regard all the exogamous 
 races as having originally been polyan- 
 drous. While polyandry supplied a method 
 whereby the want of balance might be 
 the less felt, and may thus have retarded, 
 and in some cases prevented, the estab- 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 227 
 
 lishment of exogamy, wherever exo- 
 gamy took root polyandry must have 
 been practised. Therefore we must hold 
 it to be beyond dispute that among exo- 
 gamous races the first system of kinship 
 was that which recognised blood-ties 
 through mothers only. 
 
 We may be pardoned for here advert- 
 ing to the views of ancient kinship ad- 
 vanced by Mr. Maine. We have already 
 pointed out* that Mr. Maine seems not 
 to have been able to conceive of any 
 social order more primitive than the 
 patriarchal. And as he found agnation 
 — or kinship exclusively through males 
 — to be a common concomitant of the 
 patriarchal system, he has committed 
 himself to the opinion that that was the 
 only kinship known to primitive times. 
 
 * Ante, p. 115. 
 
228 THE SYSTEM OF KINSHIP 
 
 He argues, indeed, against the possibility 
 of kinship through females in early times 
 as being inconsistent with social order 
 and stability. The learned and ingenious 
 writer must be held to have taken up the 
 threads of legal history where they be- 
 gan to unwind themselves, of new, after 
 the completion of a social revolution. It 
 is quite undoubted, as he says, that few 
 indigenous bodies of law belonging to 
 communities of the Indo-European stock 
 do not exhibit peculiarities which are 
 referable to agnation.* With the ad- 
 vance of society^-the growth of mar- 
 riage laws — the superiority of the male 
 sex must have everywhere tended to 
 establish that system. But, before that 
 result could be reached, many stages of 
 progress had to be traversed. And while 
 
 See post, p. 235. 
 
THROUGH FEMALES ONL Y. 229 
 
 traces of agnation are to be found in the 
 early customs of most of the Indo- 
 European races, we have seen that the 
 indigenous customs of most early com- 
 munities — ^whether of the Indo-European, 
 Turanian, or Semitic race — exhibit pecu- 
 liarities intelligible only on the supposi- 
 tion that kinship and succession through 
 females were the rule before the rise of 
 agnation. Farther, we have seen that 
 wherever non-advancing communities are 
 to be found — isolated in islands or main- 
 taining their savage liberties in mountain 
 fastnesses — there to this day exists the 
 system of kinship through females only. 
 The state of old, says Mr. Maine, recog- 
 nised as its units not individuals, but 
 families. True. But at a yet older date 
 we must conclude that neither the state, 
 nor the family, properly speaking, existed. 
 And at that earlier time the unnamed 
 
 Q 
 
230 THE STRUCTURE OF 
 
 species of kinship — the counterpart and 
 complement of agnation — ^was the chief 
 determinant of social phenomena. 
 We now go on to show — 
 
 II. — That the primitive groups were, 
 or were assumed to be, homogeneous. 
 
 It appeared at the outset that indivi- 
 duals must have been primarily affiliated 
 not to persons but to groups, and that the 
 first effect of the rise of the idea of kin- 
 ship must have been to give birth to the 
 conception of stocks ; farther, that the 
 establishment over any great area of the 
 system of kinship through females only 
 must have occupied a considerable period 
 of time. Until that system was firmly 
 established, there could be no such inter- 
 ference with the homogeneity of the 
 groups as to be worth consideration. An 
 amount of heterogeneity short of that 
 
THE PRIMITIVE GROUPS. 231 
 
 which would introduce at least the germ 
 of a system of betrothals may fairly be 
 overlooked. While as yet there was no 
 system of kinship, the presence of captive 
 women in a horde, in whatever numbers, 
 could not introduce a system of betrothals. 
 \Heterogeneity as a statical force can only 
 lave come into play when a system of kin- 
 ship led the hordes to look on the children 
 )f their foreign women as belonging to the 
 stocks of their mothers ; that is, when the 
 sentiments which grew up with the system 
 of kinship became so strong as to over- 
 master the old filiation to the group (and 
 its stock) of the children born within it. 
 We may depend upon it that this was a 
 stage of progress which it took long to 
 reach, and thus that it was long before 
 the original homogeneity of the groups 
 was substantially impaired. That in the 
 stage of progress we are contemplating, 
 
232 THE STRUCTURE OF 
 
 adoption was practised (the adoption of 
 one group by another to which some 
 writers ascribe such great effects), is alto- 
 gether unlikely. If it was, it would most 
 probably — as in later times — proceed on 
 the fiction that the uniting groups were 
 of the same original stock. But looking 
 to the state of hostility between groups at 
 the stage we are consid enhgT^nd the de- 
 gree^r~advahce ment implied in th e^con- 
 ception of adoption, we cannot believe that 
 the "groups then tended to amalgamate, 
 howe-ver. J:hey_inayLJia¥e^tended to d i vide. 
 We conclude that we must regard the 
 primitive groups as having been, or hav- 
 ing been assumed to be, homogeneous up 
 to that stage when, through the joint 
 operation of exogamy and the system of 
 kinship through females only, foreigners 
 recognised as such began to be systema- 
 tically born within them. 
 
THE PRIMITIVE GROUPS. 233 
 
 III. — The system of kinship through 
 females only tended to render the exoga- 
 mous groups heterogeneous, and thus to 
 supersede the system of capturing wives. 
 
 We may here be very brief. We have 
 already seen* the effects of the joint ope- 
 ration of exogamy and this system of 
 kinship among the Australians. Indeed, 
 what their effects must have been is ex- 
 ceedingly obvious. Owing to exogamy^ 
 the mothers in each horde were foreign- 
 ers, and, owing to the system of kin- 
 ship, the children born to them were es- 
 teemed foreigners also. Thus, so far as 
 the system of infanticide allowed, the 
 hordes contained young men and women 
 accounted of different stocks, who might 
 intermarry consistently with exogamy. 
 Hence grew up a system of betrothals. 
 
 * Ante, p. 118. 
 
234 AGNATION. 
 
 and of marriage by sale and purchase. 
 In Australia and America we saw that in 
 spite of the law of blood-feud, the hetero- 
 geneity is now such that the system of 
 betrothals is well established, and that of 
 the original stock-groups the names alone 
 appear to remain. 
 
 IV. — As civilization advanced, the 
 system of kinship through females only 
 was succeeded by a system which acknow- 
 ledged kinship through males also : and 
 which in most cases passed into a system 
 which acknowledged kinship through 
 males only. 
 
 It is obviously needless to say any- 
 thing in support of the first branch of this 
 proposition. The difficulty was to show, 
 as we have done in our first proposition 
 in this chapter, that there was a more 
 archaic system which did not acknowledge 
 
AGNATION. 23s 
 
 kinship through males. With the fact of 
 kinship through males in advanced com- 
 munities, every reader is familiar. Farther, 
 as to the second branch of the proposi- 
 tion, it is unnecessary to adduce evidence, 
 or to do more than give some explana- 
 tions. Those who are acquainted with 
 Mr. Maine's (in many respects admirable) 
 chapter on primitive society and ancient 
 law, will see from the terms of our pro- 
 position, that we have not altogether 
 adopted his view that agnation at one 
 time or other prevailed everywhere in the 
 'advancing communities ; but it is beyond 
 dispute that its prevalence was most 
 general. As it will be convenient hereafter 
 to speak of agnation as a familiar system, 
 we must here say something of its nature. 
 This system, as it long prevailed in Rome, 
 may be best explained by using the ter- 
 minology of Roman Jurisprudence — to 
 
236 AGNATION. 
 
 which indeed its name belongs. Its 
 general description is that it embraced 
 only the ties of blood through males. 
 But it will be well to see who were thus 
 included in the kindred. Those united 
 by ties of blood through descent from the 
 same married pair being called cognates ; 
 the agnates were those cognates who 
 traced their connection exclusively through 
 males. By a fiction, adopted persons 
 and their descendants through males 
 were within the agnatic bond. All the 
 children of a married pair were agnates, 
 as well as all the grandchildren through' 
 sons, but the grandchildren through 
 daughters were not in the number of 
 agnates. The children of the same father 
 by different mothers were kindred, but 
 the children of the same mother by dif- 
 ferent fathers were not relations to any 
 legal effect. The sons of brothers were 
 
AGNATION. 237 
 
 kinsmen, but the sons of sisters or of 
 brother and sister were no relations ; for 
 a woman's children were held to be not of 
 the kin of their mother but of their father. 
 And in no case was there a tie of kinship 
 between a woman's children and her 
 natural relatives unless there was an af- 
 finity between her and her husband. It 
 is needless to say that the cognates who 
 remain over, after deducting the agnates, 
 are those who would be relatives under 
 the system of kinship through females 
 only. If the one system involved ano- 
 malies so did also the other. Where 
 female kinship prevails, a Rajah's son may 
 become a hodman — taking the state of 
 his mother — while the son of the Rajah's 
 sister mounts the throne. The nephew 
 — a sister's child — is a relation of the 
 Rajah, but his son is none at all. No 
 more is his brother's son ; for through 
 
238 THE GROWTH OF 
 
 a male under that system there is no 
 blood-tie. 
 
 Under each system, while it prevailed, 
 the effects of kinship were confined to 
 those who according to it were relations. 
 And often it is in the laws of succession 
 that we find the best evidence of the former 
 existence among a race of either system. 
 The rule preserved in the customs of Nor- 
 mandy, which prohibited uterine brothers 
 from succeeding to one another's lands, 
 attests the former prevalence there of 
 agnation ; and, in some quarters, as in 
 Congo, the descent of the crown from the 
 uncle to the sister's son is nearly all that 
 remains to witness to the former preva- 
 lence of the system of kinship through 
 females. It will be a curious chapter in 
 history which successfully narrates the 
 progress of the revolution by which the 
 passage from the earlier to the later of 
 
AGNATION. 239 
 
 these systems was effected ; exhibiting the 
 stages in the development of the family 
 system, as based upon the patria-potestas, 
 and of agnatic kinship as deduced there- 
 from. 
 
 Let us see whether we cannot in a few 
 sentences suggest some of the steps in 
 that progress. The reader must suppose 
 the progress to commence as soon as, 
 through the joint operation of exogamy 
 and the system of female kinship, the 
 groups have been rendered so far hetero- 
 geneous as to permit of marriage within 
 the group. 
 
 Children having been affiliated to 
 mothers instead of to groups, the first 
 approach to a family system would be 
 through a separation of residences^ — all 
 of a group having no longer a common 
 haunt or dwelling, but at first all of the 
 same- stock within a group associating as 
 
240 THE GROWTH OF 
 
 a gens or house ; and next, mothers and 
 their children occupying separate homes. 
 With this separation of residences would 
 come a closer knitting together of the 
 kindred first in the gens, and next of 
 mothers and children in the family — rude 
 proprietary rights distinct from the tribal, 
 distinct from the gentile — in the common 
 home, weapons, and garnered food. There 
 would be introduced such a species of 
 family system as we find among the Nairs 
 — the rudest that can be imagined. And 
 from this to the family system, peculiar 
 to polyandry of the Tibetan type, we 
 have seen the stages of development. 
 
 In the Nair stage, kinship would be of 
 importance chiefly in two respects — (i), 
 as determining the right of intermar- 
 riage'; (2), as determining the right of 
 succession. It might be expected that 
 the system of kinship through females 
 
AGNATION. 241 
 
 only would first lose importance in regard 
 to successions. 
 
 While the Nair family system lasted, 
 we may assume that the common home 
 of the brothers and mother would not 
 often be such as to permit (conveniently) 
 of a general succession — failing the 
 brothers — of all the sister's children, 
 where there was more than one sister ; 
 and that the first advance to a restricted 
 system of succession would be through 
 the limitation of the right of succession, 
 primo loco, to the children of the eldest 
 sister. We have seen the practice* grow- 
 ing of fathers making gifts, inter "vivos, 
 to women's children whom they had reason 
 to think their own ; and as this practice 
 grew with the number of cases in which 
 there was a degree of certainty of male 
 
 Ante, p. 213. 
 
242 THE GROWTH OF 
 
 parentage, there would be a farther prac- 
 tical restriction of the right of succession 
 through females. And with the practice 
 of gifts, inter vivos, to putative children, 
 would grow a feeling against allowing es- 
 tates to pass from the house of the brothers 
 to that of, or to the putative children 
 of, the polyandrous husbands of their 
 sister, and a corresponding disposition 
 towards a system of marriage which would 
 allow of the property passing to the bro- 
 ther's own children. The system which 
 would suggest itself would be the Tibetan 
 system — to have a wife in common in the 
 house of their mother. This system would 
 produce certainty of the children being of 
 their own blood; they would be born in 
 the house, and would become its heirs. 
 
 The next step in advance is obvious. 
 The succession of the younger brother to 
 the elder was a feature of the earliest law 
 
AGNATION. 243 
 
 — sister's sons only succeeded failing their 
 uncles. Now, everything conspired to in- 
 vest the eldest brother, when he came into 
 the succession, with some of the attri- 
 butes of a paterfamilias. This he did 
 only on the death of all the polyan- 
 drous fathers. But — in his relation to his 
 younger brothers — in respect of his being 
 the first to marry, reaching puberty first, 
 and choosing the future wife of himself 
 and brothers — in respect of the first-born, 
 and frequently more than one of the child- 
 ren of his marriage being unquestionably 
 his offspring — it was natural that the fic- 
 tion should be formed that his were all 
 the children. Women had already, and 
 in the recourse to Tibetan polyandry, 
 been deposed from the sovereignty and 
 management of families ; and now, with 
 additional guarantees for the wife's fide- 
 lity, parentage was either become certain. 
 
244 THE GROWTH OF 
 
 or feigned to be so ; the elder brother was 
 a sort of paterfamilias, the right to suc- 
 ceed him being in his younger brothers 
 in their order ; after them, in their eldest 
 son. Thus, the idea of fatherhood — 
 formed under the system of Nair poly- 
 andry — attained something like maturity 
 under the Tibetan, and took its place in 
 customary law. And so far as it was a 
 step towards, or accompanied by kinship 
 through males, it was a step away from 
 kinship through females, and especially as 
 regards rights of succession. 
 
 Apart from such certainty of father- 
 hood as was incidental to the marriage of 
 eldest sons, the earliest examples of such 
 married life as would give certainty of 
 male parentage would probably be fur- 
 nished by the chiefs of tribes, who might 
 have the power to secure to themselves 
 one, or perhaps several wives. In Kan- 
 
AGNATION. 245 
 
 dya, Ceylon, where polyandry is universal 
 among the lower and middle classes, the 
 chiefs are strictly monogamists, appa- 
 rently regarding polyandry as a low prac- 
 tice, unworthy of men in their position. 
 As settled habits arose, as property accu- 
 mulated, and the sexes became more evenly 
 balanced, the example of the chiefs would 
 find more and more imitators, and their 
 cases would furnish a model for an im- 
 proved system of succession. Thus would 
 arise a practice of monogamy or of poly- 
 gamy. Brothers would not now always 
 be co-husbands ; the Tibetan form of poly- 
 andry would die out, and the marriage 
 of a brother to his elder brother's widow 
 would become first an act of succession 
 necessary for the assumption of the bro- 
 ther's place as head of the family; next, as 
 the succession of sons was introduced as 
 in right prior to the brother of a father — 
 
 R 
 
246 THE GROWTH OF 
 
 chiefly through the brothers leaving the 
 house and contracting separate marriages 
 — it would become an obligation founded 
 on usage, and which, being unproductive 
 of material advantages, would not unfre- 
 quently, from men's other marriages, bfe 
 found irksome and inconvenient. Finally, 
 the obligation itself would die out under 
 the influence of ideas of propriety, which 
 grew up with the improved marriage sys- 
 tem. In the Institutes of Menu the ob- 
 ligation is seen in a state of decadence 
 under the influence of such ideas. 
 
 Paternity having become certain, a 
 system of kinship through males would 
 arise with the growth of property, and a 
 practice of sons succeeding, as heirs 
 direct, to the estates of fathers ; and as 
 the system of kinship through males 
 arose, that through females would — and 
 chiefly under the influence of property — 
 
agnation: 247 
 
 die away. The cases of Abraham and 
 Nahor, however, show that it would be 
 long before that system ceased to be 
 influential as regards intermarriages ; 
 that it might, as regards them, linger to 
 some effect even after men had reached 
 the patriarchal state. From the patri- 
 archal state, with such a customary law 
 as prevailed in Abraham's time, to the 
 system of agnation as it prevailed in 
 Rome, is still a long progress. Every 
 step in it, we may be sure, was affected 
 by considerations derived from property. 
 While wives were captured, if there was 
 any sense of property at all, wives would 
 be regarded as property. When at a 
 later stage they came to pass from the 
 houses of their birth into alien houses — 
 by purchase — they would still be pro- 
 perty. And with the wives considered as 
 property, it is easy to conceive how there 
 
248 THE GROWTH. OF 
 
 would have arisen a sense of property in 
 children. Hence, additional features of 
 the patria potestas. And when a woman 
 had been sold to her husband by her 
 father, and had thus come to be con- 
 sidered the husband's property, it is easy 
 to see how neither her original family, nor 
 that into which she had married, should be 
 able to inherit any property through her. 
 But the right of inheritance, as property 
 became abundant, tended to become, and 
 did become, the test of kinship. And in 
 course of time, the notion of kinship de- 
 rived through females would disappear 
 among a people who cared nothing for a 
 kinship barren as regarded patrimonial 
 advantages. The result would be the 
 system of agnation. 
 
 It is not necessary foi* us here to do 
 more than repeat that we have, in nume- 
 rous cases, found agnation, or at least 
 
AGNATION. 249 
 
 kinship through males, preceded by the 
 system of kinship through females only. 
 It was so in the cases of the Hebrews, 
 Hindus, Celts, and Greeks; it was pre- 
 sumably so in all those cases in which 
 we find kinship through males accom- 
 panied by that relic of polyandry — the 
 obligation laid on younger brothers in 
 turn to marry the widow of the elder 
 brother deceased. And since we have 
 shown special cause for believing that all 
 the exogamous races had originally the 
 system of kinship through females only, 
 we are entitled to assume that it was so 
 among those exogamous peoples with 
 which, as with the Khonds, the Circas- 
 sians, and the Kalmucks, we find rela- 
 tionship to be agnatic. 
 
 Y.—The system of kinship through, 
 males tended to rear up homogeneous 
 
2SO THE EFFECTS OF 
 
 groups, and thus to restore the original 
 condition of affairs among exogamous 
 races, as regards both the practice of 
 capturing wives and the evolution of the 
 form of capture. 
 
 The first effect of kinship through 
 males must have been to arrest the pro- 
 gress of heterogeneity. The introduc- 
 tion of foreign women into a tribe no 
 longer brought into it children accounted 
 foreigners ; for either the children were 
 no longer of the mother's stock, but of 
 the father's, or, if of the mother's, they 
 were yet of the father's also. Where, 
 then, in a tribe, a balance of persons of 
 different stocks had not been reached, it 
 was henceforth unattainable. Farther, 
 with kinship through males would arise 
 the habit of feigning a common descent 
 from some distinguished man — a fiction 
 which would lead in many cases to the de- 
 
AGNATION. 251 
 
 nial or neglect of such heterogeneity as 
 existed. Of the new groups that were 
 formed, the homogeneity was perfectly 
 secured. The family now tended to 
 grow into the tribe of kinsfolk. The 
 children born to a polygamist husband 
 were all kinsfolk, of whatever stocks 
 their mothers were. The children of 
 brothers, ' though they married women 
 of different stocks, were kinsfolk. And 
 however the family increased by the 
 addition of generations, its members 
 were all within the kindred. And that, 
 as well where the exogamous prejudice 
 survived as where it perished. Where 
 it survived the women of a family could 
 find no mates within its bounds, and 
 marrying into other groups would fol- 
 low, and their children with them, the 
 kindred of their husbands. They would 
 be out of the group. Thus, within such 
 
252 THE EFFECTS OF 
 
 exogamous groups as were remodelled, 
 and within such new exogamous groups 
 as were formed, under this species of 
 kinship there could be no marriage with- 
 in the group. There would be no place 
 for a system of betrothals; and except 
 where friendly relations subsisted be- 
 tween the groups to allow of marriage 
 by purchase, their members would once 
 more be able to get wives only by cap- 
 turing them. Thus, even if, in the first 
 stage, the system of capture had — as we 
 see in Australia that it partially has — 
 been superseded, the exogamous races, 
 in entering on a new phase of advance- 
 ment, had reserved for them a farther 
 experience of that system, to confirm or 
 re-establish the old association between 
 marriage and the act of rapine. And 
 we cannot doubt that many exogamous 
 peoples have had this twofold experience. 
 
AGNATION. 253 
 
 We know of several exOgamous races 
 which, after having had kinship through 
 females, had kinship through males ; and 
 we cannot doubt that the same was the 
 case with the other exogamous races that 
 have had the form of capture and ag- 
 natic relationship. And indeed, as in 
 the later stage, the experience must 
 have been more uniform and continuous, 
 there being nothing, in the absence of 
 friendliness between the groups, to inter- 
 fere with the system of capture, so it is 
 observable that the form of capture is 
 now most distinctly marked and impres- 
 sive just among those races which have 
 male kinship. It might be doubted, but 
 for the case of the Fuegians and traces of 
 the symbol, as if of a thing decayed, oc- 
 curring in America, whether the expe- 
 rience of the earlier stage could generate 
 the form. There is no doubt it can, and 
 
2S4 THE RISE OF 
 
 has frequently done so ; but the question 
 whether it could have done so, might, on 
 mere general reasoning, have been de- 
 cided in the negative. 
 
 VI. — Under the combined influence of 
 exogamy and the system of female kin- 
 ship, a local tribe might attain a balance 
 of persons regarded as being of different 
 descent, and its members might thus be 
 able to intermarry with one another, and 
 wholly within the tribe, in consistency 
 with the principle of exogamy. 
 
 This sufficiently appears from what 
 has preceded ; and it farther appears 
 from what has preceded, that such a 
 balance of the sexes as would render a 
 group independent of other groups in 
 the matter of marriage would more 
 speedily be reached in respect of the 
 practice of polyandry. 
 
CASTE. 255 
 
 VII. — A local tribe having reached 
 the stage contemplated in the last pro- 
 position, and having grown proud through 
 successes in war, might become a caste. 
 
 It is obvious that the feeling of supe- 
 riority to other tribes, concurring with 
 independence of them as regards mar- 
 riage, might lead a tribe first to avoid, 
 and then to decline and prohibit, inter- 
 marriage with the tribes which it es- 
 teemed inferior. And a tribe with a 
 marriage-law restricted by such a pro- 
 hibition is a caste, or has made an ap- 
 proach towards being a caste. That castes 
 have, in fact, been produced in this way, 
 is rendered certain by the fact already 
 referred to — that nearly all the Indian 
 castes, from the highest to the lowest, are 
 divided into gotrams or families, and that 
 marriage is prohibited between persons 
 of the same gotram, who, according to the 
 
256 THE RISE OF 
 
 rule of Menu, are shown by their common 
 name to be of the same original stock. 
 We hold that this at once shows the 
 caste to have been composed of members 
 of different original stocks, and the stocks 
 themselves to have been originally exo- 
 gamous. There can, we think, be little 
 doubt that all castes of this description 
 were formed by the processes which we 
 have been explaining. The Kamilaroi 
 among the Australians appear to be such 
 a caste. And were the natives of Aus- 
 tralia to be left to themselves, their 
 system of kinship remaining what it is, 
 we might expect hereafter to find among 
 them numerous caste tribes of this de- 
 scription.* 
 
 * It is worth mentioning that many of the rude caste 
 tribes in the hills of India,— such as the Kocch,— have 
 the blood-tie through mothers only. Whether mar- 
 riage is subject to any, or what, restrictions within 
 
CASTE. 257 
 
 It is a rider on what has preceded 
 that caste may appear at that stage of a 
 people's progress while they are yet poly- 
 androus. And of caste among people at 
 that stage we have several instances. 
 
 VIII. — On kinship becoming agnatic, 
 the members of a caste, formed as above 
 explained, might — yielding to a common 
 tendency of rude races— feign themselves 
 to be all descended from a common an- 
 cestor, and thus become endogamous. 
 
 On the appearance of kinship through 
 
 these caste tribes, we have no information. The 
 reader will understand that, in speaking of castes, 
 we distinguish between castes proper — the divisions of 
 a people as determined by the right of intermarriage 
 - — and the classical subdivisions of castes proper, 
 which are often met with, and which are also frequently 
 called castes. We believe with Dr. Roth that the di- 
 vision into classes resulted from the growth and es- 
 tablishment of professions, and was of later date than 
 the division into castes proper. 
 
258 THE RISE OF 
 
 males, much confusion must for a time 
 have prevailed in the application of the 
 principle of exogamy. Some marriages 
 that were formerly allowable would be- 
 come illegal : as, for instance, the marriage 
 of brother and sister-german, or of the 
 children of brothers ; on the other hand, 
 some marriages that were before illegal 
 would become allowable, as for instance 
 the marriages of sisters' children. At 
 least the marriages last mentioned would 
 be consistent with exogamy where rela- 
 tionship became agnatic. And as the old 
 rules thus became inapplicable new rules 
 would be formed, which in some cases 
 might ignore the principle upon which the 
 old proceeded. At any rate it is manifest 
 that, while the application of the principle 
 in the new circumstances was in dubio, 
 the fiction of a common descent from an 
 illustrious ancestor, should it be put for- 
 
ENDOGAMY. 259 
 
 ward, would come in aid of the confu- 
 sion to destroy or render obsolete the 
 principle of exogamy. The members of 
 the caste already restricted to marriages 
 among themselves, and now feigning 
 themselves all to be kindred, would be- 
 come endogamous. 
 
 Indeed, all that is necessary for the 
 production of an endogamous tribe is, that 
 a caste tribe composed of members of dif- 
 ferent stocks should, anyhow, at any time, 
 yield to the tendency to eponomy. We 
 see, however, that in the stage of transi- 
 tion from the system of female kinship to 
 agnation, or to a system of male kinship, 
 there must have been a time highly favour- 
 able for the introduction of the fiction of a 
 common descent, and of the destruction 
 thereby of exogamy. Of the tendency of 
 rude races to employ that fiction, it is un- 
 necessary that we should say anything ; it 
 
26o THE RISE OF 
 
 is familiar to all students of early history. 
 Nothing is more common than to find the 
 belief in a common descent among peoples 
 obviously heterogeneous ; sometimes the 
 belief is found even in communities which 
 are not only heterogeneous, but the com- 
 position of which is known to be entirely 
 artificial.* 
 
 And if we anywhere find the form of 
 capture among an endogamous race, as we 
 do among the Bedouin Arabs, and appear 
 to do among the Hebrews, it is not, we 
 think, too much to say that the presence of 
 the form is confirmatory of the supposi- 
 tion that the race became endogamous 
 through employing this fiction, and by the 
 processes which we have been explain- 
 ing. At least this is the only explanation 
 which we can offer of the appearance 
 
 " Ancient Law," 1861, p. 263. 
 
ENDOGAMY. 261 
 
 among an endogamous people of the form 
 of capture.* 
 
 We have now gone over the ground 
 laid out at the close of the last chapter. 
 It will be seen that some of the proposi- 
 tions mutually support one another. For 
 example, the observed heterogeneity of 
 certain castes which are subject to the 
 rule of exogamy, goes to show that their 
 ancestors must have had the system of 
 
 * As to the unity of physical characteristics ob- 
 served in most castes, we notice that even in the stage 
 when exogamy is yet observed, they were, owing to 
 their intermarriages and the close connections per- 
 mitted by a system of kinship which ignored half of 
 the natural blood-ties, steadily advancing to one type, 
 as consanguinii. Where the caste became properly 
 endogampus the circumstances were only just more 
 favourable to the production of that type. There is 
 nothing in the observed unity discordant with the as- 
 sumption of original heterogeneity; nothing, especially 
 when we consider the periods of time at our disposal, 
 to allow for the production of a uniform type among a 
 people strictly limited to marriages among themselves. 
 
 S 
 
262 THE LA W OF 
 
 kinship through females only ; for exo- 
 gamy, by itself, will not explain the 
 welding together, in a group, of persons 
 of different original stocks. And to those 
 who, from the earlier chapters, have formed 
 the opinion that we are right in our theory 
 of the origin of the form of capture, the 
 appearance of the form among an endo- 
 gamous race will strengthen the supposi- 
 tion that many endogamous races, which 
 have not — or which we do not know to 
 have — the form, may originally have been 
 exog'amous. 
 
 We may fitly close this chapter with 
 some surmises — thrown out for what they 
 are worth — as to some of the effects on 
 early society of the law of blood-feud 
 which exists everywhere, so far as we 
 know, among rude races, and which of 
 course grew up with, and out of kinship. 
 So far as the law of blood-feud retarded 
 
BLOOD-FEUD. 263 
 
 the production of heterogeneity within 
 the groups in any district, it was un- 
 friendly to progress. From another point 
 of view it appears that it must have fa- 
 voured progress, especially among exo- 
 gamous races, at that stage when kinship 
 was through females only. It bound all 
 the kindred to avenge the death of any 
 one, and the obligation was a point of 
 religion. At first, probably, the protec- 
 tion to the person which this law af- 
 forded may have extended only to adults, 
 but in time it came to be extended even 
 to infants. This extension indeed was a 
 logical necessity. And when infants 
 came within the benefit of the law, their 
 lives must often have been spared to avoid 
 the blood-feud with their mother's kin- 
 dred — a body of protectors, as we have 
 seen, usually living outside and foreign 
 to the gens or house of birth. Thus the 
 
264 THE LA W OF 
 
 law of blood-feud must be credited with a 
 mitigation, perhaps in some cases with 
 the suppression, of infanticide, male as 
 well as female, in exogamous societies, 
 at that stage when kinship is through 
 mothers only. And by checking this 
 practice it tended to restore the balance 
 of the sexes, to allow of the rise of poly- 
 gunia and the decay of polyandry. It is 
 a curious fact that nowhere now, that we 
 are aware of, is infanticide a system where 
 exogamy and the earliest form of kinship 
 co-exist. 
 
 When, however, with agnation, groups 
 became homogeneous, containing none but 
 kindred, and containing in fact all the 
 kindred, this beneficial action of the 
 blood-feud must have ceased. Where 
 necessity or convenience prompted to in- 
 fanticide among agnatic groups, the law of 
 blood-feud opposed no impediment to the 
 
BLOOD-FEUD. 265 
 
 practice. If the children perished it was 
 at the hands of their kindred. Accord- 
 ingly the most impressive systems of in- 
 fanticide — chiefly systems of female in- 
 fanticide — now existing, occur among 
 exogamous races which have male kin- 
 ship. 
 
 On the one hand, then, the law of 
 blood-feud would seem to have played an 
 important part in introducing monogamy, 
 polygunia, and the patriarchal system ; on 
 the other hand, it would seem at a later 
 stage to have favoured the perpetuation of 
 exogamy, and of systems of infanticide. 
 
266 THE DEC A Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE DECAY OF EXOGAMY IN ADVANCING 
 COMMUNITIES. 
 
 It will complete the view of early society, 
 to which we have been led by our investi- 
 gation of the origin of the form of cap- 
 ture, if we point out the principal causes 
 of the breakdown of exogamy in advanc- 
 ing communities. We have seen the 
 liability of the principle to decay in the 
 confusion incident to the growth of the 
 system of kinship through males ; and 
 have found reason to think that it gave 
 place to endogamy in many tribes which 
 had, previous to the revolution in kinship, 
 nearly attained a balance — sufficient for 
 the purposes of marriage — of persons ac- 
 counted of different stocks. It remains. 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 267 
 
 then, that we should consider the causes 
 of the neglect of the principle where it 
 perished gradually, and without the people 
 becoming endogamous. 
 
 To indicate the causes in any case 
 will be sufficient for our purpose. We 
 select the cases of Greece and Rome as 
 >being those which, to the generality of 
 readers, are most familiar. That the 
 Greeks and the Romans were originally 
 exogamous may be inferred from three 
 distinct grounds, separately, and in com- 
 bination, (i). They present us with the 
 Form of Capture in marriage ceremonies. 
 (2), Many of their mythic traditions are 
 incapable of a rational explanation, except 
 on the hypothesis that they anciently had 
 the system of capturing women for wives. 
 (3), The composition and organization of 
 their tribes and commonwealths cannot 
 well be explained, except on the hypothe- 
 
268 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 sis that they resulted from the joint ope- 
 ration, in early times, of exogamy, and. 
 the system of kinship through females 
 only. The two first grounds we have 
 already noticed ; on the third, we must 
 now dwell somewhat. It not only affords 
 new evidence of the prevalence of exo- 
 gamy, but introduces us to the chief causes 
 of its decay in advancing communities. 
 
 The old theory of the composition of 
 States, was based upon the tendency of 
 families to multiply round a central fa- 
 mily, whose head represented the original 
 progenitor of them all. The family, 
 under the government of a father, was 
 assumed to be the primary group — the 
 elementary social unit ; in it were found at 
 once the germs of the State, and of sove- 
 reign authority. Many circumstances re- 
 commended this theory, and none more 
 than its apparent simplicity. It was easy 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 269 
 
 to find abundant analogies for the pro- 
 longation of the family into the State. 
 A family tends to multiply families around 
 it, till it becomes the centre of a tribe, 
 just as the banyan tends to surround 
 itself with a forest of its own offshoots. 
 And it is obvious, to follow up this figure, 
 by remarking that the feelings of kindred 
 which hold families together in tribes, 
 tend to bind together, in nations, tribes 
 which, like the Greek races, trace back 
 their descent to kinsmen. 
 
 The origin of the State on this view 
 is so simple, that a child may comprehend 
 it. But it is very easily shown that the 
 theory cannot be supported. In the first 
 place, it is not borne out by history. The 
 tribes are numerous whose members claim 
 to be descended from a common progeni- 
 tor. Inquiry, however, everywhere dis- 
 closes the fact, that the common progenitor 
 
270 THE DECA V OF EXOGAMY 
 
 is a fiction — a hero or god, called into 
 being to explain the tribe — from whom 
 the tribe did not derive its being. In 
 many cases, not only the fact that the 
 genealogy is fictitious, but even the time 
 when it was invented, can be shown ;* and 
 nowhere can tribes or nations be traced 
 back to individuals. Also, the theory 
 turns on a fundamental error as to the 
 primitive state. It postulates that human 
 history opens with perfect marriage, con- 
 jugal fidelity, and certainty of male parent- 
 age-^that, from the first, all the necessary 
 conditions of the rise of a perfect family 
 system were satisfied. Demonstrably, 
 history did not so begin ; and hence, 
 demonstrably, the family — the social 
 unit of the theory — is not the primary 
 unit it is assumed to be. Farther, and 
 
 * This can be done in regard to the Greek races 
 which traced their descent to the sons of Helen. 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 271 
 
 apart from these objections, the theory 
 is wanting in this essential quality of 
 a good theory, viz., that it should ex- 
 plain, or be capable of being made to 
 appear to explain, the facts. The more 
 acute thinkers who have adopted it, and 
 who at the same time have rejected, 
 as they felt constrained to do, the prin- 
 ciple of contiguity, as a principle on 
 which groups in early times united,* 
 have discerned serious difficulties in the 
 way of entertaining the theory. Mr. 
 Maine especially seems to have been im- 
 pressed with these difficulties, and to have 
 been unable to find any proper solution 
 of them. 
 
 * Aristotle kept clear of many of the difficulties 
 which surround the theory of the derivation of the 
 state from the family, by making the combination 
 of families of different stocks depend on contiguity of 
 residence, and on convenience. 
 
272 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 " In most of the Greek States, and in 
 Rome," says Mr. Maine,* " there long re- 
 mained vestiges of an ascending series of 
 groups, out of which the State was at 
 first constituted. The family, house, and 
 tribe of the Romans, may be taken as the 
 type of them ; and they are so described 
 to us, that we can scarcely help conceiv- 
 ing them as a system of concentric circles, 
 which have gradually expanded from the 
 same point. The elementary group is the 
 family connected by common subjection 
 to the highest male ascendant. The ag- 
 gregation of families (which elsewheret he 
 calls the fictitious extension of the family) 
 forms the gens or house. The aggrega- 
 tion of houses makes the tribe. The ag- 
 gregation of tribes forms the common- 
 wealth." 
 
 * "Ancient Law," p. 128. t P. 200. 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 273 
 
 Obviously, this is not an explanation 
 of the growth of the commonwealth. It 
 does not show how, consistently with the 
 assumption of the family as the elemen- 
 tary unit, the various aggregations spoken 
 of were effected. The gens, clan, or house, 
 which occurs in early tribes wherever we 
 look, was in India, Greece, and Rome, as 
 elsewhere, composed of all the persons in 
 the tribe (included in families, of course), 
 bearing the same name, and accounted 
 of the same stock. Were the gentes 
 really of different stocks, as their names 
 would imply, and as the people believed ? 
 If so, how came clans of different stocks 
 to be united in the same tribe ? The pro- 
 duction of a tribe of one stock — of a 
 homogeneous agnatic group — is readily 
 conceivable on the family hypothesis. 
 But how came a variety of such groups 
 ^— of different stocks— to coalesce in a 
 
274 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 local tribe? On the other hand, how 
 came a tribe of descent to be divided into 
 clans situated in different local tribes ; 
 how came such a tribe to be at all divided 
 into clans or houses ? 
 
 To these questions no proper answer 
 has, so far as we know, been given. The 
 common supposition is, that the hetero- 
 geneity of the local tribes was somehow 
 brought about by the fiction of adoption. 
 It is supposed that the agnatic groups 
 must have united through this fiction, 
 the one adopting the other on the pre- 
 tence of kinship; although, after their 
 union, they preserved their distinctive 
 names. Mr. Maine does not expressly 
 say that the observed combination of 
 heterogeneous elements in tribes, and 
 hence in the commonwealth — often as- 
 sumed to be composed wholly of kindred 
 —was due to the employment of the 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 275 
 
 fiction of adoption; but he leaves that 
 conclusion to be drawn by his readers. 
 " If," he says, " adoption had never 
 existed, I do not see how any one of the 
 primitive groups (?>., the agnatic brother- 
 hoods, for he contemplates none other), 
 whatever were their nature, could have 
 absorbed one another ; or, on what terms 
 any two of them could have combined, 
 except those of absolute superiority on 
 the one side, and absolute subjection on 
 the other," Here the difficulty is dis- 
 tinctly perceived ; but, is it overcome ? 
 What is the evidence that the fiction of 
 adoption was ever employed on so grand 
 a scale as we must suppose, to explain 
 the heterogeneity of such groups as the 
 tribes of Rome, Greece, or India? We 
 say that there is none. It is a case of 
 error, induced by the maxim " causa aequat 
 effectum." As the fiction of adoption 
 
276 THE DEC A Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 was the only cause conceived of, that 
 might have produced the observed phe- 
 nomena, it has been assumed to have been 
 employed on the scale required by its 
 supposed effects. But, we repeat, there 
 is no evidence that it was so employed. 
 And there is no likelihood that it was so 
 employed. Our belief is, that adoption 
 has been much more extensively employed 
 by philosophers to explain, than it was by 
 rude races to produce, heterogeneity. It 
 is of no consequence how families and 
 gentes were adulterated by the practice of 
 adoption. The. difficulty to be got over 
 does not lie so much in any want of purity 
 of the so-called stocks, as in the union of 
 different stocks— admittedly different— in 
 the same tribe. 
 
 The phenomena we have been con- 
 templating offer no difficulty when re- 
 garded from the point of view to which 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 277 
 
 we have been led by our investigation. 
 To satisfy the reader of this, we must to 
 some extent recapitulate. We started in 
 the last chapter from the conception of 
 populations, the units of which were 
 homogeneous groups or tribes, which, on 
 the introduction of kinship, became the 
 stock groups of each particular district or 
 country, and gave their names to the 
 variety of stocks subsequently known to 
 the district or country. Arid we saw 
 how, into the groups, and into their sec- 
 tions, if they divided, exogamy con- 
 jointly with the system of kinship through 
 females only, while it endured, systemati- 
 cally imported strangers, and thus in 
 time rendered the groups heterogeneous, 
 and the general population to the same* 
 
 * That is to the same recognised extent, but really 
 to' a much greater, half the blood-ties being over- 
 looked. 
 
 T 
 
278 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 extent homogeneous. We saw how thus 
 every local tribe came to consist of per- 
 sons of different stocks ; also how all of 
 the same stock, in each, were bound to- 
 gether by rights and obligations spring- 
 ing out of kinship ; and how they were 
 also united — though to less practical 
 effect — to all others of the same stock in 
 whatever local tribes residing. Farther, 
 we saw that, when kinship became agnatic, 
 the character of the local tribes became 
 stereotyped, the causes of heterogeneity 
 ceasing to operate. 
 
 In each local tribe all the men of the 
 same stock and name were bound by 
 kinship to common action, in certain 
 cases, against the men of other stocks, 
 both in the tribe and elsewhere. Here 
 we have the gentes in the local tribe. 
 And gentes of the same stock and name 
 would exist in different neighbouring 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 279 
 
 local tribes. We shall learn from this 
 how the causes which led to the diffusion 
 of the stocks throughout the population, 
 favoured the union of the population in 
 the commonwealth. Most probably con- 
 tiguous tribes would be composed of pre- 
 cisely the same stocks — would contain 
 gentes of precisely the same names, and 
 thus be in the strictest sense akin — kin- 
 dred. There is no difficulty in conceiv- 
 ing equal unions taking place between 
 such tribes under the influence of kin- 
 ship, similarity of elements and struc- 
 ture, contiguity and convenience. And 
 on the union of several local tribes under 
 a common government, the gentes of each 
 stock in the combination would be recog- 
 nised as forming together a tribe of de- 
 scent, as in reality they would do. Thus, 
 the tribes of descent in the common- 
 wealth would each embrace several gentes 
 
28o THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 which had taken shape, and acquired 
 special rights and property in the local 
 tribes in which they respectively were, 
 before the union in the State. As the 
 gens (or the germ thereof) would arise 
 under the influence of female kinship, it 
 would precede — probably long precede^ 
 agnatic kinship and the family system as 
 they existed in Rome. And we have 
 already seen something of the processes 
 by which the gentes would be resolved 
 into rude family groups, and the family 
 system gradually advance into the patri- 
 archal, till the gentes would be resolved 
 into a series of families of the Roman 
 type. The order of social development, 
 in our view, is then, that the tribe stands 
 first ; the gens or house next ; and last of 
 all, the family. We are satisfied that the 
 more the reader studies the phenomena 
 of early tribal composition — the phratries 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 281 
 
 and such-like unions of persons in dif- 
 ferent tribes — the more he will be con- 
 vinced that this was the order of the 
 genesis of tribes, gentes, and families ; 
 and that in no other way can the pheno^ 
 mena of the composition of early states 
 be satisfactorily explained.* 
 
 Assuming that we have given the true 
 
 * We recommend to the reader a perusal of the 
 Translator's Preface to the Oxford translation (1830) 
 of C. O. MuUer's " History and Antiquities of the 
 Doric Race"— the translators being Henry Tufnell 
 and Sir George Cornwall Lewis. If the reader keeps 
 in view that we have good evidence of the existence 
 at one time of the system of kinship through females 
 only among the Dorians, we believe he will not be 
 able to peruse the passage of Dicaearchus translated 
 in that preface, and the Editor's comments thereon, 
 without being strongly impressed that our. views are 
 the only views on which the phenomena of early 
 Doric communities can be made intelligible. And if 
 he farther study Chap, x.. Part ii. of Mr. Grote's 
 " History of Greece," we believe his impression of the 
 correctness of our views will be deepened. 
 
282 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 account of the origin of clans of different 
 names and stocks in local tribes, and of 
 the appearance of distinct houses of the 
 same name in tribes of descent, in ancient 
 commonwealths, we might greatly extend 
 the area of exogamy. But to do so is not 
 our present purpose. We observe that 
 the breakdown of exogamy in advancing 
 communities must have been most inti- 
 mately connected with this evolution of 
 clans and families, and of clan and family 
 estates within the tribe. As we have 
 already had occasion to point out, the 
 only species of property known anywhere 
 originally appears to have been pro- 
 perty in common. Everywhere it would 
 appear that the groups were at the first 
 the only owners. And the history of the 
 right of property, as we have it, is just 
 that of the growth mstc^e groups of pro- 
 prietary rights distinct from the tribal. 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 283 
 
 It was an advance when clan estates were 
 recognised as distinct from the tribal ; it 
 was a farther advance when family estates 
 were recognised as distinct from those of 
 the clan. Barbarism was already far in 
 the rear when individual property made 
 its appearance. 
 
 Now, when the authentic history of 
 Rome begins, marriage-laws had not only 
 become stringent, but modern in char- 
 acter, conjugal fidelity had become com- 
 mon, and, as the consequence, relationship 
 had become agnatic. The tribal system, 
 moreover, had been stripped of several of 
 its leading features. Property had long 
 been localized in families as distinct from 
 gentes ; and this localization had cut the 
 families off from one another, and to a 
 large extent from the gentes. Families 
 were still associated in gentes ; the gentes 
 in tribes, for political purposes ; and there 
 
284 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY 
 
 remained to the gentiles the right and 
 spes successionis to family estates, failing 
 legitimate heirs. But already the laws of 
 succession which had sprung up with 
 family property — which were springing 
 up with individual property — ^were train- 
 ing the people to consider a few persons 
 only as their kinsmen in any special 
 sense. And the course of decadence of 
 the recognition of extended kinships in 
 Greece followed much the same path. 
 However strongly implanted the principle 
 of exogamy may have originally been, it 
 must have succumbed to the influences 
 which tlius disintegrated the old bonds of 
 kinship. So complete was the disintegra- 
 tion, that in Rome while the right of isuc- 
 cession still remained in the gentiles as 
 evidence of kinship, and its rights and 
 obligations, having been originally co- 
 extensive with the gens, we find this so 
 
IN ADVANCING COMMUNITIES. 285 
 
 far lost sight of in the nebulosities of 
 legal terminology, that the lawyers de- 
 clared that all consanguinity ended with 
 their names for its seven degrees— names 
 invented with a view to the regulation of 
 successions ; ended there, " quia ulteriuS 
 per rerum naturam nee nomina inveniri 
 nee vita succedentibus prorogari potest."* 
 A maxim, by the way, which proved 
 very convenient to those pontiffs who 
 maintained that the Levitical rule pro- 
 hibited marriage between all blood 
 relations, and which is probably found 
 very convenient now in Russia where the 
 Greek church still asserts that view of 
 the Levitical rule. For the rest, it must 
 be enough to say that exogamy died 
 out with the blood-ties on which its 
 existence depended, and that the process 
 
 * Paulus, Senten. Recept., Lib. iv., Tit ii. 
 
286 THE DECA Y OF EXOGAMY. 
 
 of destruction of those ties which the laws 
 of succession inaugurated, was carried on 
 and completed by the law of Testaments. 
 If to this general view anything should be 
 added, perhaps it is that the earliest viola- 
 tions of the rule of exogamy would appear 
 to have been called for in the case of fe- 
 male heiresses. Such ladies, if they made 
 proper marriages according to old law — at 
 that stage of progress when a wife was 
 usually what they call in Ceylon a deega 
 wife, i.e., passed from her own family into 
 the family and village of her husband- 
 must have carried their estates into other 
 tribes or gentes, and so have cut off their 
 own gentiles from the prospect of succeed- 
 ing them. Numbers xxxvi. contains an 
 account of the origin among the Israelites 
 of the rule prohibiting a female heiress 
 from marrying out of the tribe of the 
 family of her father. And the prohibition 
 is not uncommon. 
 
CONCL USION. 287 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 Here our argument ends. Apparently 
 simple as was the problem to be solved, 
 it has now received a solution for the first 
 time. That solution opens a new series 
 of problems for the consideration of the 
 philosopher; of some of which, indeed, 
 we have offered solutions, which, in the 
 fervour of the first conception, may have 
 been put forward in too sanguine a spirit. 
 It will be something, however, if, in pro- 
 posing and trying to solve such problems, 
 we have at least succeeded in showing 
 their importance, by displaying them on 
 the level of the foundations of civil society. 
 The chief of these questions respect the 
 origin of exogamy and of endogamy. As 
 
288 CONCL USION. 
 
 to the origin of the former, it will be re- 
 marked that we have not spent time on 
 the consideration of the question, whether 
 it may not have been due to a natural feel- 
 ing against the union of near kinsfolk. Its 
 general description\might dispose one to 
 think that it might have been due to such 
 a feeling. But, owing to the nature of 
 ancient kinship, as we have seen it, exo- 
 gamy afforded no proper security against 
 the intermixture of persons near of kin. 
 It permitted, in reality, many marriages 
 which we now disallow. Ties of blood 
 that were not recognised — though that 
 they were ties of blood must have been 
 vaguely perceived — were practically non- 
 existent. And, in the first stages of 
 ihuman development, it was agreeable to 
 exogamy that brothers and sisters of the 
 half-blood should marry, while uncles 
 might marry nieces, ^nd nephews aunts. 
 
CONCL USION. 289 
 
 Afterwards, unions equally incestuous, 
 as we should say, were allowable in con- 
 sequence of the limitation in blood-ties 
 derived from agnation. One thing is 
 very clear, that in ancient times such 
 questions as have been raised by modern 
 science, as to the propriety of the mar- 
 riages of near relatives, were never consi- 
 dered. On the whole, the account which 
 we have given of the origin of exogamy , 
 appears the only one which will bear 
 examination. The scarcity of women 
 within the group led to a practice of 
 stealing the women of other groups, and 
 in time it came to be considered im- 
 proper, because it was unusual, for a man 
 to marry a woman of his own group. 
 Another important question respects the 
 universality of kinship through, females 
 only. The strong a priori presump- 
 tions in favour of that, as the most 
 
290 CONCL USION. 
 
 archaic system of kinship, backed by 
 so much evidence as we have been able 
 to adduce, seem to us satisfactorily to 
 establish the position which we have 
 taken up. On the other hand, much 
 labour and investigation will yet be 
 needed to show clearly that that kinship 
 was not merely a concomitant of exo- 
 gamy and polyandry, should cases occur 
 in which it must be held that neither poly- 
 andry nor exogamy was primitive custom. 
 Assuming the universality of that kinship, 
 the question remains : What were the 
 stages of development of the family sys- 
 tem, founded on the principle of agnation, 
 as at Rome ? Some of these questions we 
 have grappled with; at others we have 
 done little more than glance. Are we too 
 sanguine if we venture to predict that 
 their solution will yet be reached, and 
 will exhibit early human history in a very 
 
CONCL USION. 291 
 
 different light from that in which it has 
 hitherto been regarded, by what Dugald 
 Stewart calls " that indolent philosophy 
 which refers to a miracle whatever ap- 
 pearance both in the natural and moral 
 worlds it is unable to explain "? 
 
APPENDIX 
 
 Note A. — Additional Examples of the 
 Form of Capture. 
 
 It is to be remarked of the examples of 
 the Form of Capture in the text, as of those 
 which follow, that they have never before 
 been collated or made the subject of serious 
 speculation. They are just noted as matters of 
 curiosity where they occur, the authorities ven- 
 turing no explanation, except in. one or two 
 cases, of their meaning or origin ; and only in 
 some cases noticing similar customs as having 
 prevailed elsewhere than in the district reported 
 upon. They are thus presented to us in a 
 trustworthy shape as materials for an induction. 
 It may be added, as regards the additional 
 examples of the Form of Capture here appended, 
 that, like the examples in the text, they, with 
 two exceptions, show that the central idea in 
 the symbol was the carrying off of the woman, 
 
 u 
 
294 APPENDIX. 
 
 in defiance of her kindred and of their efforts 
 to protect her. The first of the following 
 examples of the form is in some respects the 
 most striking of any of which we have an 
 account. 
 
 I. "In their marriages," says Sir Henry Piers 
 of the Irish, " especially in those countries where 
 cattle abound, the parents and friends on each 
 side meet on the side of an hill, or, if the weather 
 be cold, in some place of shelter, about midway 
 between both dwellings. If agreement ensue, 
 they drink the agreement bottle, as they call it, 
 which is a bottle of good usquebaugh, and this 
 goes merrily round. For payment of the por- 
 tion — which is generally a determinate number 
 of cows — little care is taken. The father or 
 next of kin to the bride sends to his ndghbours 
 and friends sub mutucB vicissitudinis obtentu, 
 and every one gives his cow or heifer, and thus 
 the portion is quickly paid. Nevertheless, 
 caution is taken from the bridegroom on the 
 day of delivery for restitution of the cattle, in 
 case the bride die childless within a certain day, 
 limited by agreement ; and, in this case, every 
 man's own beast is restored. Thus, care is 
 
APPENDIX. 29s 
 
 taken that no man shall grow rich by frequent 
 marriages. On the day of bringing home, the 
 bridegroom and his friends ride out and meet 
 the bride and her friends at the place of meet- 
 ing. Being come near each other, the custom was 
 of old to cast short darts at the company that at- 
 tended the bride, but at such distance that seldom 
 any hurt ensued. Yet it is not out of the 
 memory of man that the Lord of Hoath on 
 such an occasion lost an eye. This custom of 
 casting darts is now obsolete." — Vallency's 
 " Collectanea de Rebus Hibernicis," vol. i. p. 
 122, 1786, No. I, Description of Westmeath, by 
 Sir Henry Piers — ^written a.d. 1682. 
 
 2. We have an account from M. Hue of the 
 constitution of marriage among the Mongols of 
 the Ortous. After stating that marriage is with 
 the Mongols a matter of sale and purchase; 
 that this is clearly expressed, in their language, 
 in such phrases as—" I have bought for my son 
 the daughter of So-and-so ;" " We have sold our 
 daughter to such-and-such a family;" -and that 
 the lady for some time after the sale remains 
 with her family, M. Hue proceeds to say that 
 the day having arrived, " the bridegroom sends 
 
296 APPENDIX. 
 
 early in the morning a deputation to fetch the 
 girl who has been betrothed to him, or rather 
 whom he has bought. When the envoys draw 
 near, the relations and friends of the bride place 
 themselves in a circle before the door, as if to oppose 
 the departure of the bride, and then begins a 
 feigned fight, which of course terminates in the 
 bride being carried off. She is placed on a horse, 
 and having been thrice led round her paternal 
 house, she is then taken at full gallop to the 
 tent which has been prepared for the purpose, 
 near the dwelling of her father-in-law. Mean- 
 time, all the Tartars of the neighbourhood, the 
 relations and friends of both families, repair to 
 the wedding-feast, and offer their presents to 
 the newly-married pair."— Hazlitt 's Translation 
 of Hue's "Travels," vol. i. p. 185, illustrated 
 library edition. 
 
 3. We find the following account of the con- 
 stitution of marriage among the Toorkomans : — 
 
 " The most singular customs of these people 
 (the Toorkomans) relate to marriage. The 
 Toorkomans do not shut up their women, and 
 there being no restraint on the social inter- 
 course between the sexes, as in most Mussul- 
 
APPENDIX. 297 
 
 man countries, love matches are common. A 
 youth becomes acquainted with a girl ; they 
 are mutually attached, and agree to marry ; but 
 the young man does not dare to breathe his 
 wishes to the parents of his beloved, for such is 
 not etiquette, and would be resented as an in- 
 sult. What does he do ? He elopes with the 
 girl and carries her to some neighbouring obah, 
 where, such is the custom, there is no doubt of 
 a kind reception ; and there the young couple 
 live as man and wife for some six weeks, when 
 the Reish-suffeeds, or elders of the protecting 
 obah, deem it time to talk over the matter with 
 the parents. Accordingly they represent the 
 wishes of the young couple, and, joined by the 
 elders of the father's obah, endeavour to recon- 
 cile him to the union, promising on the part of 
 the bridegroom, a handsome bashlogue, or price, 
 for his wife. In due time the consent is given, 
 on which the bride returns to her father's house, 
 where, strange to say, she is retained for six 
 months or a year, and sometimes two years, 
 according, as it appears, to her caprice or the 
 parent's will, having no communication with 
 her husband, unless by stealth. The meaning 
 
298 APPENDIX. 
 
 of this strange separation I never could ascer- 
 tain Afterwards the marriage 
 
 presents and price of the wife are interchanged, 
 and she goes finally to live with her husband." 
 — Eraser's "Journey" (1838), vol. ii. p. 372. 
 
 " Matches are also made occasionally by the 
 parents themselves, with or without the inter- 
 vention of the Reish-suffeeds, but the order and 
 ceremonies of the nuptials are the same. There 
 is a regular contract and a stipulated price ; the 
 young people are permitted to enjoy each other's 
 society for a month or six weeks ; and the bride 
 then returns, as in the former case, to spend a 
 year or more with her parents." — Idem., vol. ii. 
 
 P- 375-_ 
 
 This c^se illustrates a stage of transition 
 
 from the system of actual capture to a symbolism, 
 of which stage traces remained in Sparta in his- 
 toric times. In Sparta the young wife was not, 
 immediately after the marriage, domiciled in her 
 husband's house, but cohabited with him for 
 some time clandestinely, till he brought her, 
 and frequently her mother also, to his home. 
 (Xenophbn, Rep. Lac. 1-5). And the same 
 custom prevailed in Crete. (Strabo, x., p. 
 
APPENDIX. 299 
 
 432.) In example No. 7 we shall again see 
 these peculiarities in combination with the Form 
 of Capture. 
 
 4. Among the Soligas (India), "when a girl 
 consents to marry, the man runs away with 
 her to some neighbouring village, and they live 
 there until the honeymoon is over. They then 
 return home, and give a feast to the people 
 of their village." — Buchanan's " Journey from 
 Madras," vol. ii. p. 178. 
 
 5. " The marriage ceremony is very simple 
 among the Aenezes. . . The marriage-day 
 being appointed (usually five or six days after 
 the betrothing), the bridegroom comes with a 
 lamb in his arms to the tent of the girl's father, 
 and there cuts the lamb's throat before wit- 
 nesses. As soon as the blood falls upon the 
 ground the marriage ceremony is regarded as 
 complete. The men and girls amuse them- 
 selves with feasting and singing. Soon after 
 sunset, the bridegroom retires to a tent pitched 
 for him at a distance from the camp; there 
 he shuts himself up, and awaits the arrival 
 of his bride. The bashful girl meanwhile 
 runs from the tent of one friend to another 
 
300 APPENDIX. 
 
 till she is caught at last, and conducted in 
 triumph by a few women to the bridegroom's 
 tent ; he receives her at the entrance, and forces 
 her into it ; the women who had accompanied 
 her then depart." — Burckhardt's " Notes," vol. 
 i. p. 107. 
 
 6. Burckhardt, after noticing that, among the 
 Bedouins of Mount Sinai, marriage is a matter of 
 sale and purchase, in which the inclinations of 
 the bride are not consulted, proceeds : — "Among 
 the Arabs of Sinai the young maid comes home 
 in the evening with the cattle. At a short 
 distance from the camp she is met by the future 
 spouse and a couple of his young friends, and 
 carried off by force to her father's tent. If she 
 entertains any suspicion of their designs, she 
 defends herself with stones, and often inflicts 
 wounds on the young men, even though she 
 does not dislike the lover; for, according to 
 custom, the more she struggles, bites, kicks, 
 cries, and strikes, the more she is applauded 
 ever after by her own companions." She is then 
 taken to her father's tent. There follows the 
 throwing over her of the abba, or man's cloak, 
 and a formal announcement of the name of 
 
APPENDIX. 301 
 
 her future husband ; after this she is dressed 
 in bridal apparel, and mounted on a camel, 
 "although still continuing to struggle in a 
 most unruly manner, and held by the bride- 
 groom's friends on both sides." She is led in 
 this way to, and three times round, and finally 
 into, the bridegroom's tent. The resistance is 
 continued till the last. The marriage, of course, 
 ends in a feast, and presents to the bride. — 
 Burckhardt's " Notes," vol. i. p. 263. 
 
 7. Among the Mezeyne, marriage appears to 
 be a matter of sale and purchase,. and to be con- 
 stituted, as among the Aenezes, through capture 
 as a form. It is attended, however, by a 
 peculiar custom, which we have already met, 
 though not in so striking a shape. " A singular 
 custom," says Burckhardt (" Notes," vol. i. p. 
 269), " prevails among the Mezeyne tribe, within 
 the limits of the Sinai peninsula, but not among 
 the other tribes of that province. A girl having 
 been wrapped in the abba at night (?. e., after 
 the capture as in the preceding case), is per- 
 mitted to escape from her tent and fly into the 
 neighbouring mountains . The bridegroom goes 
 in search of her next day, and remains often 
 
302 APPENDIX. 
 
 many days before he can find her out, while her 
 female friends are apprised of her hiding-place,, 
 and furnish her with provisions. If the husband 
 finds her at last (which is sooner or later, accord- 
 ing to the impression that he has made upon 
 the girl's heart), he is bound to consummate 
 the marriage in the open country, and to pass the 
 night with her in the mountains. The next morn- 
 ing the bride goes home to her tent, that she may 
 have some food ; but again runs away in the 
 evening, and repeats these flights several times, 
 till she finally returns to her tent. She does not 
 go to live in her husband's tent till she is far 
 advanced in pregnancy ; if she does not become 
 pregnant she may not join her husband till after 
 a full year from the wedding-day." Burckhardt 
 says the same custom is, observed among the 
 Mezeyne Arabs elsewhere. 
 
 Note B. — On the Practice of Capturing 
 Wives. 
 
 I. An anonymous writer in " Chambers* Jour- 
 nal," October 22, 1864, gives the following ac- 
 
APPENDIX. 303 
 
 count of the position of women, and of the 
 practice of capturing wives, among the Austra- 
 lian Blacks. The writer would appear to have 
 had good opportunities of being acquainted with 
 the native customs : — 
 
 " In nothing is the brutality of their nature 
 more clearly shown than in their treatment of 
 their females. Amongst them, women are con- 
 sidered as an inferior class, and are used almost 
 as beasts of burden ; so that it is not at all un- 
 common to meet a huge black fellow travelling 
 merrily along with no load but his spear or war- 
 club, whilst his unfortunate leubra is panting 
 under the weight of their goods and chattels, 
 which she is compelled to carry from camp to 
 camp. Courtship, as the precursor to marriage, 
 is unknown amongst them. When a young 
 warrior is desirous of procuring a wife, he gene- 
 rally obtains one by giving in exchange for her 
 a sister, or some other female relative of his 
 own ; but if there should happen to be no eli- 
 gible damsel disengaged in the tribe to which 
 he belongs, then he hovers round the encamp- 
 ment of some other blacks until he gets an op- 
 portunity of seizing one of their leubras, whom 
 
304 APPENDIX. 
 
 perhaps he has seen and admired when attend- 
 ing one of the grand corroborries. His mode 
 of paying his addresses is simple and efficacious. 
 With a blow of his nulla-nulla (war-club), he 
 stuns the object of his 'affections,' and drags 
 her insensible body away to some retired spot, 
 whence, as soon as she recovers her senses, he 
 brings her home to his own gunyah in triumph. 
 Sometimes two join in an expedition for the 
 same purpose, and then for several days they 
 watch the movements of their intended victims, 
 using the utmost skill in concealing their pre- 
 sence. When they have obtained the know- 
 ledge they require, they wait for a dark, windy 
 night ; then quite naked, and carrying only their 
 long 'jag-spears,' they crawl stealthily through 
 the bush until they reach the immediate vicinity 
 of the camp-fires, in front of which the girls 
 they are in search of are sleeping. Slowly and 
 silently, they creep close enough to distinguish 
 the figure of one of those leubras ; then one of 
 the intruders stretches out his spear, and inserts 
 its barbed point amongst her thick flowing locks ; 
 turning the spear slowly round, some of her hair 
 speedily becomes entangled with it ; then, with 
 
APPENDIX. 305 
 
 a sudden jerk, she is aroused from her slumber, 
 and as her eyes open, she feels the sharp point 
 of another weapon pressed against her throat. 
 She neither faints nor screams ; she knows well 
 that the slightest attempt at escape or alarm 
 will cause her instant death, so, like a sensible 
 woman, she makes a virtue of necessity, and 
 rising silently, she follows her captors. They 
 lead her away to a considerable distance, tie 
 her to a tree, and return to ensnare their other 
 victim in like manner. Then, when they have 
 accomplished their design, they hurry off to 
 their own camp, where they are received with 
 universal applause, and highly honoured for 
 their gallant exploit. Occasionally an alarm is 
 given, but even then the wife-stealers easily 
 escape amidst the confusion, to renew their 
 attempt at some future period. When a dis- 
 tinguished warrior carries off a bride from a 
 strange tribe, he will frequently volunteer to 
 undergo 'the trial of spears,' in order to prevent 
 the necessity of his people going to war in his 
 defence ; then both the tribes meet, and ten of 
 their smartest and strongest young men are 
 picked out by the aggrieved party. These are 
 
3o6 APPENDIX. 
 
 each provided with three reed-spears, and a 
 wommera, or throwing-stick ; and the offender, 
 armed only with his heiliman (a bark-shield 
 eighteen inches long by six wide), is led out in 
 front, and placed at the distance of forty yards. 
 Then, at a given signal, the thirty spears are 
 launched at him in rapid succession ; these he 
 receives and parries with his shield, and so skil- 
 ful are the blacks in the use of their own wea- 
 pons, that very seldom is any wound inflicted. 
 Having successfully passed through this ordeal, 
 the warrior is considered to have fairly earned 
 his leubra, and to have atoned for his offence in 
 carrying her off; so the ceremony generally 
 concludes by the two tribes feasting together in 
 perfect harmony." 
 
 It is impossible, in reading this account of 
 the Australian mode of capturing women, not 
 to recall what Plutarch says of the ceremonies 
 of Roman marriage, apropos of the Rape of the 
 Sabines : — " It is a custom still observed for 
 the bride not to go over the threshold of her 
 husband's house herself, but to be carried over ; 
 (compare additional example of the Form No. 
 5, p. 300), because the Sabine virgins did not 
 
APPENDIX. 307 
 
 go in voluntarily, but were carried in by vio- 
 lence. Some add that the brides hair is parted 
 with the point of a spear, in memory of the first 
 marriages being brought about in a warlike 
 
 manner." 
 
 2. Probable Origin of the Name Racshasa. 
 — We saw (pp. 80-81) that, in the code of 
 Menu, one of the eight legal forms of the mar- 
 riage ceremony was that by capture de facto, 
 and called Racshasa, and that this marriage 
 was permitted to the military class. It is curi- 
 ous that the name of this species of marriage 
 should be that of a race of beings — the Rak- 
 shasas — whom we find playing an important 
 part, and that connected with a legend of a 
 capture, in the mythic history of the Hindus. 
 The story of the Ramayana may be said to be 
 that of the carrying off of Rama's wife, Sita, by 
 the Rakshasa, Ravana, and of the consequent 
 war carried on by Rama against the Rakshasas, 
 ending in their defeat and the recovery of Sita. 
 (See Williams's " Indian Epic Poetry," pp. 74- 
 76.) Wilson (" India Three Thousand Years 
 Ago;" Bombay, 1858, p. 20) speaks of the 
 
3o8 APPENDIX. 
 
 Rakshasas as " a people, often alluded to, from 
 whom, the Aryas suffered much, and who, by 
 their descendants, were transferred in idea to 
 the most distant south, and treated by them as 
 a race of mythical giants.*' He ranks them 
 with the Dasyus, Ugras, Pishachas, and Asuras, 
 as indigenous barbarian races or tribes, which 
 had to be overcome before the Aryans could 
 effect a settlement in part of Hindustan. Lassen 
 takes the same view. " The Ramayana," he 
 says (Lassen, vol. i. p. 535 ; we quote from 
 Muir's " Sanscrit Texts," vol. ii. p. 425) "contains 
 the narrative of the first attempt of the Aryans 
 to extend themselves to the south by conquest; 
 but it presupposes the peaceable extension of 
 Brahmanical missions in the same direction as 
 having taken place still earlier. . . . The 
 Rakshasas, who are represented as disturbing 
 the sacrifices and devouring the priests, signify 
 here, as often elsewhere, merely the savage 
 tribes which placed themselves in hostile oppo- 
 sition to the Brahmanical institutions. The 
 only other actors who appear in the legend, in 
 addition to these inhabitants, are the monkeys, 
 which ally themselves to Rama and render him 
 
APPENDIX. 309 
 
 assistance. This can only mean that, when the 
 Arian Kshatriyas first made hostile incursions 
 into the south, they were aided by another por- 
 tion of the indigenous tribes." Dr. Muir can find 
 no authority for saying that the word Rakshasa 
 was originally the name of a tribe. At the same 
 time (" Texts," vol. ii. p. 434), he inclines to hold 
 the descriptions we have of them as having more 
 probably originated in hostile contact with the 
 savages of the south, than as the simple off- 
 spring of the poet's imagination. He notices 
 (" Texts," vol. ii. p. 426) that, even in the Vedic 
 period, the Rakshasas " had been magnified into 
 demons and giants by the poetical and supersti- 
 tious imaginations of the early (Arian) bards." 
 He quotes from the Ramayana a passage which 
 represents them as cannibals — feeding on blood, 
 men-devouring, changing their shapes, etc. ; 
 and another, in which they are described as " of 
 fearful swiftness and unyielding in battle;" while 
 Ravana, the most terrible of all the Rakshasas, 
 is stigmatised as a " destroyer of religious du- 
 ties, and rayisher of the wives of others." Dr. 
 Muir adds, that the description of the Rak- 
 shasas in the Ramayana "corresponds in many 
 
 X 
 
3IO APPENDIX. 
 
 respects with the epithets applied to the same 
 class of beings (whether we take them for men 
 or for demons) who are so often alluded to in 
 the Rigveda," and that it is quite possible that 
 the author of the Ramayana may have bor- 
 rowed therefrom many of the traits which he 
 ascribes to the Rakshasas. 
 
 But how came the name of a legal mode of 
 marriage to be that of such a race of beings ? 
 The only answer that we can make is a surmise 
 — viz., that while the system of capture had not 
 as yet died out among the Kshatriyas, or war- 
 rior caste of the Aryans, it was perfect among 
 the races to which the name Rakshasas was 
 applied ; and that what was their system gave 
 its designation to the exceptional, although per 
 mitted, marriage by capture among the Kshat- 
 riyas. This is the more probable, since, so far 
 as we can ascertain, there is nothing in the name 
 — Rakshasa — itself, descriptive of the mode of 
 marriage. 
 
 From another point of view, it may be ob- 
 served that the Rakshasas hold nearly the same 
 place in Hindu tradition that giants, ogres, and 
 trolls occupy in Scandinavian and Celtic legends. 
 
APPENDIX. 311 
 
 They are supernatural beings — robbers and 
 plunderers of human habitations — men-devour- 
 ers and women-stealers. The giants and ogres 
 of the north share the characteristics of Ravana. 
 The cruel monsters are always carrying off 
 kings' daughters. As Rama's exploits culmi- 
 nate in the recovery of Sita, so the northern 
 giant-slayer is crowned with the greatest glory 
 when he has rescued the captive princesses and 
 restored them in safety to the king's— their 
 father's — palace. Are we to hold all such beings 
 — giants, ogres, trolls, etc. — wherever they occur, 
 as representing savage races, between whom 
 and the peoples in whose legends they appear, 
 as supernatural beings, there was chronic hos- 
 tility ? 
 
 3. Africa. — The following is the account 
 which poor Speke received from the Queen of 
 Uganda regarding marriage there :— "There are 
 no such things as marriages in Uganda : there 
 are no ceremonies attached to it. If any Mkun- 
 gu possessed of a pretty daughter committed 
 an offence, he might give her to the king as a 
 peace-offering ; if any neighbouring king had a 
 
312 APPENDIX. 
 
 pretty daughter, and the king of Uganda wanted 
 her, she might be demanded as a fitting tribute. 
 The Wakungu in Uganda are supplied with 
 women by the king, according to their merits, 
 from seizures in battle abroad, or seizures from 
 refractory officers at home. The women are 
 not regarded as property according to the Wan- 
 yamii^zi practice, though many exchange their 
 daughters ; and some women, for misdemean- 
 ours, are sold into slavery; whilst others are 
 flogged, or are degraded to do all the menial 
 services of the house"— (Speke's "Journal," etc., 
 1863, p. 361). 
 
INDEX. 
 
 -000- 
 
 Abipones, DobuzhofFer's account of the, 125 
 
 Abraham married his sister-german, 219 
 
 Achaeans, 21 
 
 Achilles Tatius, 220 
 
 Adoption, Libripens present at, 18; fiction of, 236; sup- 
 posed explanation of the heterogeneity of primitive 
 groups, 274 
 
 Aenezes, form of capture, 299 
 
 Affghanistan, practice of capturing wives, 67 
 
 Africa, form of capture, 38 ; defective information respect- 
 ing, 92 ; marriage in Equatorial, 311 
 
 Agathjnrsi, said to have had wives in common, 175 
 
 Agnation, system of, explained, 234 ; the growth of the . 
 system of, 240 ; effect on the structure of the primitive 
 groups, 250 
 
 Aimaks, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 
 
 Aleutian Islands, polyandry, 179, 183 
 
 Americari Indians, traces of the form of capture, 39 ; prac- 
 tice of capturing wives, 59-66 ; exogamous, 120 ; system 
 of kinship through females only, 124, 211; anciently 
 polyandrous, 211 
 
 Amram married his father's sister, 220 
 
 " Ancient law," Maine's, 115, 152, 227, 235 
 
 Ansarians, said to have wives in common, 176 
 
 Apuleius, De Asino Aureo, 26 
 
 Aquapim, kinship through females only, 214 
 
 Y 
 
314 INDEX. 
 
 Arabs, Bedouin, form of capture, 34, 300 
 
 " Archselogia Americana," 1 20 
 
 Archer's " Upper India," 180, 196 
 
 Aristotle, Theory of the origin of the State, 271 
 
 Asiatic Researches, 181, 185, 207 
 
 Aryans, earliest account of, 7 ; anciently polyandrous, 207, 
 214 
 
 Ashantee, kinship through females only, 2 14 
 
 Aswini-Kumaras, 216 
 
 Australian Elacks, system of capturing women for wives, 73, 
 303; exogamous, 113; system of kinship through 
 females only, 115 ; effects of exogamy and female kin- 
 ship, 118 j caSte, 256 
 
 Avaroes, polyandry, 195 
 
 Banyai, system of kinship through females only, 214 
 
 Bates' " NaturaUst on the Amazons," 62 
 
 Bedouin Arabs, form of capture, 34, 300 ; frequency of 
 divorce, 177. 
 
 Beduanda Kallung, exogamous, 103 
 
 Beena husband, 186. 
 
 Bell, James Stanislaus, " Journal of a Residence in Cir- 
 cassia," 101 
 
 Benjamin, tribe of, tradition respecting, 88 
 
 Bergman's " Streifereien," 33, 98 
 
 Betrothals, 74, 120, 252 
 
 Blood feud, the law of, effect on the structure of the primi- 
 tive groups, 1 1 4, 262 
 
 Bodo, endogamous, 147 
 
 " Book of Days," 71 
 
 Boreas and Orithya, the story, of, 83 
 
 Britons, ancient, polyandry, 182, 185 
 
INDEX. 315 
 
 Buchanan's " Journey from Madras," 178, 180, 185, 187, 
 
 213, 299 
 Bunsen " De Jure Hereditario Atheniensium," 221. 
 Buntar, Talava, system of kinship through females only, 213 
 Burckhardt, " Notes on the Bedouins and Wahabys," 34, 
 
 177, 207, 300, 302 
 But (Bodo), the system of kinship through females only, 213 
 
 Cachar, traces of polyandry, 179 
 
 Cagsar de Bello Gallico, 127, 182 
 
 Caindu, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 
 
 "Cambrian Journal," 125, 211 
 
 Campbell, Col. Walter, " Indian Journal," 67 
 
 Campbell, Major-General, " Personal Narrative," 28 
 
 Capture, form of. See Form of Capture. 
 
 Capture, system or practice of capturing women for wives, 
 
 59-92- 
 
 Capture. See under following heads : Affghanistan, Aus- 
 tralian Blacks, Caribbean Tribes, Coin-men, Deccan, 
 Feejees, Fuegians, Greeks, Hebrews, Hindus, Lith- 
 uania, Livonia, Manaos, Muscovy, New Zealanders, 
 Patagonians, Picts, Poland, Prussia, Romans, Scandi- 
 navians. 
 
 Capture. Instances of the system of capture in transition 
 towards a symbolism, 67-70, 298. 
 
 Caribbean tribes, system of capture, 63-65 
 
 Cascar, absence of conjugal fideUty, 176 
 
 Caste, 255, 257, 261 
 
 Caucasus, tribes of, have the Levirate obligation, 207 
 
 Cecrops, tradition of, 175, 220 
 
 Celts, anciently had kinship through females only, 127, 
 214; anciently exogamous, 126. 
 
 Ceylon, polyandry among the Kandyans, 179. 
 
3i6 INDEX. 
 
 Cherookees, 121 
 
 Chinese, their tradition regarding the origin of marriage, 
 17s ; the frequency of divorce among the, 177 ; infan- 
 ticide, 177 ; kinship through the mother only, 177, 214 
 
 Choctaws, 121 
 
 Chukchi, system of lending wives, 176 
 
 Caucasians, form of capture, 35; exogamous, 100; capture 
 de facto, 72 
 
 Clarke, Dr., « Travels," 31 
 
 Cochrane's " Journey," 176 
 
 Coemptio, Roman form of marriage, 13 
 
 Coin-men, practice of capturing women, 61 
 
 Comparative archaism of coemj)tio and confarreatio, 13; 
 of exogamy and endogamy, 136-150 
 
 Confarreatio, Roman form of marriage, 13 
 
 Congo, system of kinship through females only, 214, 238 
 
 Continuity of human progress, 1 1 
 
 Coorgs of Mysore, polyandry, 179 
 
 Creeks, 121 
 
 Crukhnians, the, 86 
 
 Cumana, absence of conjugal fidelity, 176 
 
 Cunningham's " Ladak," 180 
 
 Decay of Tibetan polyandry, 19&; of exogamy in advancing 
 
 communities, 266. 
 Deccan, practice of capturing women, 67 
 Deega wife, 186 
 
 De Hell, Xavier Hommaire, " Travels," 30 
 Demaratus, 25 
 
 Deuteronomy, Levirate obligation, 200, 207 
 Dhumal, caste or endogamous, 147 
 Dorians, ancient state of, 22, 267 ; form of capture, 24 
 Doric hordes, 85 
 
INDEX. 
 
 317 
 
 Druses, Levirate obligation, 207 
 Duan Gircanash, 86 
 
 EiMAUK, system of lending wives, 176 
 
 Elphinstone's "Caubul," 176 
 
 Egyptian tradition respecting the origin of marriage, 175 
 
 Eponomy, tendency to, 259 
 
 Erkman's "Travels in Siberia," 34, 176, 180 
 
 Erskine's "Islands of the Western Pacific," 80, 126 
 
 Endogamy defined, 48 
 
 Endogamy, the growth of, 257, 261 
 
 Exogamous peoples. See American Indians, Australian 
 Blacks, Beduanda Kallung, Circassians, Hindus, Kafirs, 
 Kalmucks, Kirghiz, Khonds, Koupooees, Magars, 
 Mows, Munnieporees, Muraras, Murfing, New Zea- 
 landers, Nogais, Sodhas, Somoyeds, Warali ; and see 
 267 
 
 Exogamy defined, 48, 53 
 
 Exogamy, its decay in advancing communities, 266 
 
 Exogamy and Endogamy, comparative archaism of, 136, 
 150 
 
 Feejees, practice of capture, 79 ; system of kinship, 126 
 
 Female infanticide, 165 
 
 Females only, system of kinship through, 154, 230 
 
 Fisher's " Memoir of Sylhet," 181 
 
 Fitzroy, " Adventure and Beagle," 40, 60 
 
 Fohi, tradition of, 175 
 
 Forbes's "Ceylon," 186 
 
 Form of capture, definition of, 23 ; the origin of, 43i S^ j its 
 
 coincidence with exogamy, 93, 131 
 Form of capture, examples of See Aenezes, Africa, 
 
 Bedouin Arabs, Circassians, Doria»s, France, Friesland, 
 
3i8 INDEX. 
 
 Fuegians, Hebrews, Hindus, Irish, Kamchadales, Kal- 
 mucks, Khonds, Mezeyne Arabs, Mongols, Rome, 
 Toorkomans, Tunguzes, Soligas 
 
 Eraser's "Journey," 298 
 
 Friesland, form of capture, 33 
 
 Fuegians, form of capture, 40 ; practice of capture de 
 facto, 60 
 
 Gaius, 18 
 
 Gaya "Marriage Ceremonies," 69, 180 
 
 Generalization respecting the early Aryans, 7 
 
 Geological record, 6 
 
 Getes of Transaxiana, 182 
 
 Goquet, "Origin of Laws," 181, 220 
 
 Gotrams, Indian, 106, 255 
 
 Grant "Origin and Descent of the Gael," 154 
 
 Greeks, tradition of the origin of marriage, 175 
 
 Grey's "Travels in North-Western Australia," 75, 113; 
 
 "Polynesian Mythology," 79, 180 
 Grote, " History of Greece," 281 
 Groups, men in earliest times found in, 162 
 Grooah (Kooloo) polyandry, 166 
 Gurwhal, traces of polyandry, 179 
 
 « 
 
 Hamilton's " New Account of the East Indies," 180, 184 
 
 Hanthausen, "Trans-Caucasia," 207 
 
 Hebrews, form of capture among the, 88 
 
 Hebrews, traces of the system of capture, 82, 87 
 
 Hebrews, Levirate obligation, 207 
 
 Helen, capture of, 84 
 
 Hercules, traditions respecting, 83 
 
 Herodotus, 25 
 
 Heterogeneity of the primitive groups, how produced, 233 
 
INDEX. 319 
 
 Himalayan tribes, 147 
 
 Hindus, form of capture among, 27, 34 ; exogamous, 105 ; 
 traditions respecting marriage, 175, 182 ; anciently 
 polyandrous, 207 ; ancient Hindu kinship, 20"], et seq. 
 
 Ho, the, endogamous, 147 
 
 Homogeneity of the primitive groups, 230 
 
 Homogeneity of the primitive groups destroyed by exogamy 
 and female kinship, 233 
 
 Homogeneity of the groups restored by agnation, 250 
 
 Hostility, the state of, 132 
 
 Hue's "Travels," 178, 295 
 
 Humboldt, Alex. Von, " Personal Narrative," etc., 63, 180 
 
 Hurling shoes at bridegroom, the custom of, 29 
 
 Husaby, Gothland, traces of the practice of capture, 71 
 
 Hyllus, 83 
 
 " INDISCHE Studien," Dr Weber, 27 
 
 Indo-European race, 6 
 
 lole, capture of, 83 
 
 Irish, the form of capture, 294 
 
 " Irish Nennius," 85, 127, 182 
 
 Jews, 82, 87, 88, 260 
 
 Kafirs, exogamous, 103 
 
 Kalmucks, form of capture, 30, 3i 5 exogamous, 99 i Poli- 
 tical system, 97 rA/r",/; 
 Karnes's, Lord, « Sketches of the History of Man, 36 
 Kamilaroi, exogamous, 115, 256 
 Kamul, loose morality, 176 
 
 Kamschatka, 178 , . , 
 
 Kandyans lend wives, 176 ; polyandrous, 186 , their ch.ets 
 
 monogamists, 245 
 
320 INDEX. 
 
 Karague, 38 
 
 Kashmir, polyandry, 178, 195 
 
 Kasias, polyandrous, 179, 183, 196 
 
 Keiaz system of lending wives, 176 
 
 Kinship, ancient systems of, 151, et seq.; system of through 
 females only, 154, et seq.; instances of the system 
 of kinship through females only, 209, etseq. 
 
 Kirghiz, 35, 78, 207 
 
 Kistewar, polyandry, 178, 195 
 
 Khonds, form of capture, 27 
 
 Khonds, exogamous, 94 
 
 Khonds, female infanticide, 165 
 
 Kinship through males, conditions of, 158, 161 
 
 Kleuker, " Zendavesta," 207 
 
 Kocch, peculiar family system, 189, 213 
 
 Kocch, endogamous, 147, 256 
 
 Koryaks, lend wives, 176 ; polyandrous, 176, 179 
 
 Koupooees, exogamous, 109 
 
 Krusenstern's " Voyage," 178 
 
 Ladak, polyandry, 178, 195, 198 
 
 Laing, Letter to Dr. Hodgkin, 112 
 
 Lancerota, Canary Islands, polyandry, 180 
 
 La Perouse's " Voyage," 178 
 
 Latham's "Descriptive Ethnology," 67, 176, 180, 189, 206 
 
 Legis Actio Sacramenti, 18 
 
 Lestychides, 25 
 
 Lewis'",Hebrew Republic," 203 
 
 Libripens at act of adoption^ 18 
 
 Lithuania, transitional form of capture, 67 
 
 Levir, originally co-husband with, and heir of, deceased 
 
 brother, 203 
 Livingstone's " Travels," 177, 207, 214 
 
INDEX. 321 
 
 Livonia, transitional form of capture, 67 
 Loanda, low state of marriage, 177 
 Loohoopas, peculiar custom, 198 
 Lycurgus, 25 
 
 Macculloch, Col., "Account of Munniepore," etc., 109, 198 
 Macpherson, Major, " Report on the Khonds," 27 ; " Re- 
 ligion of the Khonds," 95 
 Magar tribes exogamous, 104 
 
 Magnus Olaus, " Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus," 67 
 Magnus Johannes, " History of the Goths," 70 
 Mahabharata, tradition of polyandry, 215 
 Maine, " Ancient Law," 115, 235 
 Maine, on kinship through the mother, 115, 227 
 Makololo, brother must marry brother's widow, 207 
 Malabar polyandry. See Nairs, Maleres, and Poleres 
 Maleres of Malabar, polyandry, 179 
 "Mania, the Curse of," 125 
 Manaos, the, 61 
 Marco Polo, 176, 177 
 Marriage, fulness of the idea of, 62 
 Martawan, tribe of Ansarians, lend wives, 176 
 Maypures, polyandry, 195 
 
 Massagetse, said to have practised promiscuity, 175 
 Maundeville, 178 
 Media, polyandry, 181 
 Meithei, the, no 
 
 Menu, Institutes of, 80, 105, 201, 207 
 Mezeyne, form of capture, 301 
 
 Mongols, form of capture, 295 : levirate obligation, 207 
 Montesquieu, "The Spirit of Laws," 176, 221 
 "Monumenta Historica," 127 
 Moorcroft and Trebeck's " Travels," 198 
 
322 INDEX. 
 
 Morgan, Mr. L. H., Rochester, New York, circular letter 
 
 from, 123, 211 
 Moser, Louis, " The Caucasus and its People,'' 36 
 Mows, exogamous, 109 
 Mpongme lend wives, 176 
 Muir's " Sanskrit Texts," 106, 175, 216 
 Mailer's " Dorians," 20, 281 
 Muller, Max, " History of Sanscrit Ancient Literature, 
 
 182, 215 
 Munnieporees exogamous, 109 
 Murring exogamous, 109 
 Muscovites, transitional form of capture, 67 
 Mysore, polyandry, 179 
 Myths referable to system of capture, 83, 84 
 
 Nahor married his brother's daughter, 219 
 
 Nairs, Malabar, polyandry, 179, 184, 196 
 
 Natches, the, 121 
 
 New Zealanders exogamous, 125 ; practice of capture, 79 
 
 Nogay Tartars, 35 
 
 Normandy, old law of succession, 238 
 
 Obligation on yoimger brother to marry widow of elder, 
 
 Levirate, 200, 207 
 Oens or Coin-men, practice of capture, 61 
 Orinoco, practice of capture, 63 ; pol)randry, 180 
 Orissa, form of capture, 27 
 Ostiaks, brother marries brother's widow, 207. 
 Outline may be drawn of the course of human progress, 10 
 
 Pallas, " Voyages dans Plusieurs Provinces," etc., 32, 97 
 Pandava princes, wife in common, 215 
 Pandu, son of a levir, 2 1 7 
 
INDEX. S2S 
 
 Patagonians, 60, 65 
 
 Patan, wantonness of women, 176 
 
 Patxia potestas, the growth of, 246 
 
 Paulus, " Sententiae Receptse," 285 
 
 Pawning wives, 178 
 
 Pelasgi, 21 
 
 Percalus, the carrying off of, 25 
 
 Persians, obligation on brother to marry his brother's widow, 
 
 207 ; Persian incest, 223 
 Philo, 221 
 Philology, its function in history, 8-10 
 
 Phweelongmai, female infanticide, 139 
 
 Piers, Sir Henry, " Account of Westmeath," 294 
 
 Pictish kings, analysis of list of, 127 
 
 Picts, tradition of the system of capture, 85-87; exogamous, 
 126-129; polyandrous, 182 
 
 Plutarch, 25, 84, 306 
 
 Pluto and Proserpine, the story of, 83 
 
 Poetry of law, the, 17 
 
 Poland, transitional form of capture, 70 
 
 Poleres, Malabar, polyandry, 179 
 
 Polyandry, 178 ef se^. 
 
 Pothier, " Pandectse," 25 
 
 Preface of general history, the, 9, 10 
 
 Primitive groups, the, were homogeneous, 230 
 
 Primitive life, importance of the knowledge of, 1 1 
 
 Primitive prudery hypothesis, 22 
 
 Primitive races, 67 
 
 Progress of mankind, 158 
 
 Promiscuity, the state of, 168, et se^. 
 
 Prussia, transitional form of capture, 7° 
 
 Puharies of Gurwhal, 176 
 
324 INDEX. 
 
 Racshasas, 8o, 307 
 
 Rajputs, 213 
 
 Rape of the Sabines, 30, 85 
 
 Reade, " Savage Africa," 176, 180, 214 
 
 Ridley's account of the Kamilaroi, 117 
 
 Roman law, view of its growth, 15, 16 
 
 Rome, form of capture, 26, 306 
 
 Ruth, book of — Levirate obligation, 200, 207 
 
 Sabine origin of confarreatio, 15 
 
 Sabinfes, rape of the, 85 
 
 Samoyeds, exogamous, 102 
 
 Saporogian Cossacks, polyandry, 179, 183 
 
 Scandinavians, traces of practice of capture, 7 1 
 
 Selden " Jus Naturale et Gentium,'' 82, 223 
 
 Sexes, the union of the, among savages, 167 
 
 Siam, marriages for a term, 177 
 
 Sirmor, polyandry, 178 
 
 Sivalik mountains, polyandry, 179 
 
 Skene. Note on the Pictish Kings, 127 
 
 Sodhas exogamous, 103, 147 
 
 Solinus, 127 
 
 Soligas, form of capture, 299 
 
 Sounan, marriages for a term, 177 
 
 Sources of information regarding early civil society, 5 
 
 Spartans, form of capture among, 24 ; said to have practised 
 
 promiscuity, 175, 222 
 Speke, "Journal of Discovery," etc., 38, 312 
 State, the, theories of the origin of, 269 
 Stocks, formation of conception of, 163 
 Strabo, 181, 298 
 Struggle for existence, 163, 164 
 Suidas, 220 
 
INDEX. 325 
 
 " Summer Ramble in the Himalayas," 180 
 
 Sutias of Gautama, 214 
 
 Svetaketu, tradition of, 175, 217 
 
 Sylhet, polyandry, 179 
 
 Symbolism of law, 1 1 
 
 System of capture, traces of, in the north, 70, 71 
 
 System of kinship through females only, 154, et seq. 
 
 Tacitus, "Germania," 181 
 
 Tamul and Telugu, 212, 218 
 
 Tanner's " Narrative," 125 
 
 Telingese polyandry, 178 
 
 Tennent's " Ceylon," 180 
 
 Theseus, traditions of, 84 
 
 Tibet, polyandry, 178, 193 
 
 Tibetan type of polyandry, prevalence of, 194 
 
 Terra del Fuego, form of capture, 39 ; practice of capture, 60 
 
 Tod's "Annals, etc. of Rajasthan," 182, 213 
 
 Tod's " Travels," 182 
 
 Transitional stages of system of capture, 67-70 
 
 Tribal systems, view of, 142-144 
 
 Tudas, Nilgherry hills, polyandry, 179 
 
 Tulava, kinship through females only, 213 
 
 Tunguses, 33 
 
 Toorkomans, form of capture, 296 
 
 Turner's " Tibet," 178, 180 
 
 TumbuU's " Voyage round the World," 75 
 
 Uganda, marriages in, 312 
 
 Usus. Roman mode of marriage, 13 
 
 Varro, 220 
 
 Vasu-ing, 126 
 
 Vigne's " Kashmir," 180 
 
326 INDEX. 
 
 "Vivada Chintamani," io6 
 Volney's " Travels," 176, 207 
 
 Wales, form of capture, 36 
 
 Warali, exogamous, 104 
 
 Weber, Dr., " Indische Studien," 33 
 
 Williams' "Indian Epic Poetry," 216, 218 
 
 Wilson, " Report on the Puharies," 176, 212 
 
 Xenophon, 298 
 Xiphaline, 127 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by R. & R. Clark, Edinburgh.