[301] WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 19, 20; STARCKE, _op. cit._, 13. FRIEDRICHS, "Familienstufen und Eheformen," _ZVR._, X, 253-56, accepts Starcke's conception of marriage, but finds his definition inadequate. He offers the following: "Eine von der Rechtsordnung anerkannte und privilegirte Vereinigung geschlechtsdifferenter Personen, entweder zur Führung eines gemeinsamen Hausstandes und zum Geschlechtsverkehr, oder zum ausschliesslichen Geschlechtsverkehr." _Cf._ HEUSLER, _Institutionen_, II, 271-76, on the distinction between _Familie_ and _Sippe_. "Die Familie des Rechtes," he says, "ist nicht ein Verband von Blutsverwandten sondern eine Gemeinschaft der Hausgenossen;" but the _Sippe_ (_gens_) is based on blood-relationship (271). He combats the view of ROSIN, _Der Begriff der Schwertmagen_, §5. Hellwald, as already seen, prefers the term "mother-group" for the so-called primitive family; and does not find marriage proper until the stage of property and full "mother-right" is reached; see chap. ii. The second or physiological argument may be very briefly stated. It rests upon the evidence, referred to by Sir Henry Maine, that promiscuous intercourse between the sexes "tends nowadays to a pathological condition very unfavorable to fecundity; and infecundity, amid perpetually belligerent savages, implies weakness and ultimate destruction."[302] Thus Dr. Carpenter, "who visited the West Indies before the abolition of slavery, well remembers the efforts of the planters to form the negroes into families, as the promiscuity into which they were liable to fall produced infertility, and fertility had become important to the slave-owner through the prohibition of the slave-trade."[303] Again "it is a well-known fact that prostitutes very seldom have children, while, according to Dr. Roubaud, those of them who marry young easily become mothers."[304] Furthermore, as Westermarck urges, "in a community where all the women equally belonged to all the men, the younger and prettier ones would of course be most sought after, and take up a position somewhat akin to that of the prostitutes of modern society."[305] Nor is the objection, that "the practice of polyandry prevails among several peoples without any evil results as regards fecundity being heard of," insuperable. For "polyandry scarcely ever implies continued promiscuous intercourse of many men with one woman;" and where it exists the relations of the woman with her husbands is often so regulated as to make the union practically monogamous.[306] In this connection also should be considered the infertility and other evils resulting from the intermarriage of near kindred.[307] For in a state of promiscuity such unions must have been very frequent; and at one stage of social development, if the theory of Morgan were to be accepted, they must have constituted the general rule. [302] _Early Law and Custom_, 204, 205; _cf._ also WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 115-17.