[678] For many examples in America, Africa, Asia, and the island groups, see WESTERMARCK, _op. cit._, 215-21; DARWIN, _op. cit._, chap. xx, 597-99. [679] POST, _op. cit._, 158; VÁMBÉRY, _Das Türkenvolk_ (1885), 229, 230. IV. PRIMITIVE FREE MARRIAGE SURVIVING WITH PURCHASE, AND THE DECAY OF THE PURCHASE-CONTRACT It is commonly assumed that where marriage by purchase exists woman must necessarily be in an abject condition. The "average facts," says Spencer, "show that at first women are regarded by men simply as property, and continue to be so regarded through several later stages: they are valued as domestic cattle."[680] Such also is the opinion of Letourneau, who takes a very pessimistic view of the early condition of woman. During a long period her wishes in marriage were utterly ignored. The sale of women and children for slaves or wives is the result of brute force and the primitive despotism of man. Marriage by purchase, he says, "implies a profound disdain of woman, her complete assimilation to movables, to cattle, to things in general."[681] Doubtless among low races the lot of woman is often extremely harsh and degraded. The examples already given demonstrate that she is sometimes treated merely as an object of sale or exchange; and where polygyny exists wife-purchase may have a strong tendency to reduce her to slavery.[682] But a more careful examination of the evidence proves that marriage by purchase is not inconsistent with a high degree of matrimonial choice on the part of the woman. As already suggested, purchase is far from being the original method of contracting marriage. Like the patriarchal authority in general,[683] by which the liberty of the son as well as that of the daughter is sometimes destroyed, it is of comparatively late origin, arising with the institution of property and an appreciation of the economic value of labor. "It may be said generally that in a state of nature every grown-up individual earns his own living. Hence there is no slavery, as there is, properly speaking, no labour." A man then had no reason "to retain his full-grown daughter; she might go away, and marry at her pleasure."[684] [680] SPENCER, _Principles of Sociology_, I, 748, 750. Elsewhere he says: "The only limit to the brutality women are subjected to by men of the lowest races is the inability to live and propagate under greater;" but, he adds, savage women are just as selfish and just as cruel as men, they only lack the _power_. A captured or purchased woman is an "absolute possession."--_Ibid._, I, 746-49.