Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of MankindWundt, Wilhelm Max
Science
Elements of Folk Psychology: Outline of a Psychological History of the Development of Mankind
Wundt, Wilhelm Max
Ethnopsychology
The above view, therefore, was for the most part abandoned in favour
of other, apparently more natural, explanations. Of these we would
mention, as a second theory, the biological hypothesis of Andrew Lang.
This author assumes that the younger brothers of a joint family were
driven out by the stronger and older ones in order to ward off any want
that might arise from the living together of a large number of brothers
and sisters, and that these younger brothers were thus obliged to marry
outside the group. Even this, however, is not an adequate theory of
exogamy, since it does not explain how the custom has come to apply
also to the older members of the family group. As a final hypothesis,
we may mention one which may perhaps be described as specifically
sociological. In its fundamental aspects it was proposed by MacLennan,
the investigator who also gave us the word 'exogamy.' MacLennan does
not regard exogamy as having originated in times of peace, nor even as
representing voluntarily established norms of custom. He derives it
from war, and in so doing he appeals to the testimony both of history
and of legend. As is well known, even the Iliad, the greatest epic of
the past, portrays as an essential part of its theme a marriage by
capture. The dissension between Achilles and Agamemnon arose from the
capture of Briseis, for whom the two leaders of the Achæans quarrelled
with each other. According to MacLennan, the capture of a woman from a
strange tribe represents the earliest exogamy. The rape of the Sabines
is another incident suggesting the same conclusion. True, this is not
an event of actual history. Nevertheless, legend reflects the customs
and ideas of the past. Now, in the case under discussion, it is clear
that marriage by capture involves a foreign and hostile tribe, for this
is the relation which the Sabines originally sustained to the Romans.
A significant indication of the connection between marriage by capture
and war with hostile tribes occurs also in Deuteronomy (ch. xxi.),
where the law commands the Israelites: 'If in war you see a beautiful
woman and desire her in marriage, take her with you. Let her for
several weeks bewail her relatives and her home, and then marry her.
But if you do not wish to make her your wife, then let her go free;
you shall not sell her into slavery.' This is a remarkable passage in
that it forbids the keeping and the selling of female slaves, but, on
the other hand, permits marriage with a woman of a strange tribe. A
parallel is found in Judges (ch. xxi.), where it is related that the
elders of Israel, being prevented by an oath to Jahve from giving their
own daughters in marriage to the children of Benjamin, advised the
latter to fall, from ambush, upon a Canaanitic tribe and to steal its
maidens.
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