A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3Howard, George Elliott
History
A History of Matrimonial Institutions, Vol. 1 of 3
Howard, George Elliott
Families; Marriage -- History
Similar to the view of Hildebrand, in respect to the initial
stage, is the theory of Kautsky.[159] The starting-point is the
horde. In this absolute equality of the sexes prevails; and the
only divisions are the different generations. Neither the maternal
nor the paternal line is recognized, for the children belong
to the group. Not promiscuity, but "hetairism,"[160] or rather
"hetairistic monogamy," exists. Incessant feuds, however, lead to
wife-capture; and wife-capture tends directly to communism, for
the captured woman belongs as a slave to the band. But the rights
of the band may pass to the individual. The free native woman is
"wooed;" the war-captive is "fought-for;" and so she becomes the
slave-wife of the strongest, who may win other wives in the same
way. Marriage by capture thus conquers the original monogamy,
in whose place polygyny appears, either at once, or after a
transition-period of community in women. Moreover, in this process
may be discerned the genesis of modern individual marriage under
the sanction of the law. But the consequences of wife-capture are
not yet exhausted. The presence in the horde of women taken from
several neighboring bands leads at once to the formation of clans
and to the matriarchate; for the connection of children with the
clan is naturally determined by the mother. The development of
private property produces still further results. The individual
may buy his wife. She becomes his chattel; and the offspring also
belong to him. Thus marriage by purchase gains the victory over
wife-capture; and the patriarchate triumphs over mother-right.
This is the order of development in the more war-like hordes. But
wife-capture does not always precede wife-purchase as a general
phase. In the more peaceful and industrious groups wife-capture
does not appear at all. Here hetairistic monogamy runs its natural
course. Partly under the external influence of tribes where
mother-right existed as the result of wife-capture, but mainly under
the powerful influence of private property, the matriarchate arose.
In the earlier stage kinship with the father was disregarded or
unknown. Naturally, therefore, under the new condition, name and
also property were transmitted to the children through the mother,
with whom their physical connection was always manifest. So it
appears that the conception of private property is the basis of
"hetairistic mother-right" as it is of father-right; and hetairistic
mother-right, as distinguished from the mother-right which owes
its origin to wife-capture, implies the precedence of woman in the
family.[161] "Gynocracy and patriarchalism are therefore parallel
branches of the same stem," the original hetairism of the horde: the
one cannot be a further development of the other. Gynocracy, and
with it polyandry, which is its result,[162] is the highest stage
in the evolution of hetairistic mother-right; just as polygyny and
the patriarchal family are the highest stage in the evolution of
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