Kinship and Social OrganisationRivers, W. H. R. (William Halse Rivers)
General
Kinship and Social Organisation
Rivers, W. H. R. (William Halse Rivers)
Anthropology; Consanguinity; Ethnology -- Melanesia; Marriage
The subject of group-marriage is one about which I do not find it
possible to speak so dogmatically. It would take me more than another
lecture to deal adequately with the Melanesian evidence alone, and I
must content myself with two remarks. Firstly, I think it desirable
to throw aside the term group-marriage as only confusing the issue,
and to speak rather of a state of organised sexual communism, in which
sexual relations are recognised as orthodox between the men of one
social group and the women of another. Secondly, the classificatory
system has several features which would follow naturally from such a
condition of sexual communism. I have evidence from Melanesia which
places beyond question the former presence of such a condition, with
features of culture which become readily explicable if they be the
survivals of such a state of sexual communism as is suggested by the
terminology of the classificatory system. This evidence comes from
only one part of the world, but it is enough to convince me that we
have no right to dismiss from our minds a state of organised sexual
communism as a feature of the social development of mankind. The wide
distribution of the classificatory system would suggest that this
communism has been very general, but it need not have been universal,
and even if the widespread existence of organised sexual communism be
established, it would not follow that it represents the earliest stage
in the evolution of human society. There are certain features even of
the classificatory system itself which suggest that, if this system be
founded in sexual communism, this communism was not primitive, but grew
out of a condition in which only such ties of kinship were recognised
as would result from the social institution of the family.
I must be content with this brief reference to the subject. The object
of these lectures is to demonstrate the dependence of the terminology
of relationship upon social conditions, and the dependence of the
classificatory system upon a condition of sexual communism is not
now capable of demonstration. The classificatory mode of denoting
relationship should, however, act as a suggestion and stimulus, and as
a preventative of dogmatic statement in a part of our subject which, in
spite of its entrancing interest, still lies only at the edge of our
slowly spreading circle of exact knowledge.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account