Our conclusion, then, is this: the groups into which the population of capitalistic countries is divided do not originate in the circumstance that men differ in their innate capacities, but in the system of production that is in force; it is chiefly chance that determines to which class an individual belongs; there are inferior beings in each group, but among the lower proletariat they are more numerous than elsewhere; but these inferior beings may still be useful enough on condition that they be placed in a favorable environment. CHAPTER III. THE RELATION OF THE SEXES AND OF THE FAMILY. A. MARRIAGE. As between the two commonplaces, “There have always been poor people”, and “The present institution of marriage springs from human nature itself and is as old as society”, it is hard to say which is repeated oftenest, but it is quite certain that one is no more exact than the other. Sociology has proved that marriage, as it exists at present, is the result of a long process of evolution, and every serious observer must be convinced that its present form will be no more constant than those which preceded it, and that the ideas concerning it have undergone important modifications. The question to solve is this: “How has monogamy taken its rise?” With the aid of sociology I shall endeavor to give the answer as summarily as possible. [294] It will, however, be necessary to recall the ancient forms of marriage, without which it would be impossible to grasp the origin and evolution of the present form. Most sociologists are of the opinion that primitive man lived in promiscuity, which, if true, must have been in the most remote period, when man was hardly distinguishable from the anthropoid apes. Other authors, on the contrary, have attempted to show that such a state of things has never existed. [295] However, the only thing proved is that no case of promiscuity has ever been established among peoples observed by serious ethnologists. But all these peoples, however far removed they may be from us, had already attained a certain degree of development, and were by no means in their primitive state. No amount of observation can prove whether or not primitive man really lived in a state of promiscuity, and we can only take refuge in hypotheses.