The Evolution of Marriage and of the FamilyLetourneau, Ch. (Charles)
Science
The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family
Letourneau, Ch. (Charles)
Families; Marriage
partial marriages, but is much more widely spread. Like everything else, polyandric
marriage has evolved, from its most complete form, that of the Naïrs,
to the polyandry in use in Thibet, which already inclines towards
monandry and the paternal family. Primitive polyandry has easily arisen
from the marriage by classes practised by many savage clans; but most
often it is polygamy which has sprung from it. And the latter must
frequently have been established from the first in primitive hordes,
simply by the right of the strongest.
Man may be monogamous in the very lowest degree of savagery and
stupidity; certain animals are so; but in humanity it is more often the
instinct of polygamy which predominates; and therefore, when in the
course of the progressive evolution of societies monogamy at length
became moral and legal, men have been careful to soften its rigour
by maintaining together with it concubinage and prostitution, and by
generally leaving to the husband the right of repudiation, which has
nearly always been refused to the wife. This injustice appeared quite
natural, for as the wife had usually been captured or bought, she was
considered as the property of the man, and held in strict subjection.
At length, in its last form, monogamic marriage, which had at first
been the association of a master and a slave, tended more and more to
become the union of two persons, living on a footing of equality.
The family has undergone a similar evolution. Apart from a few
exceptional cases of precocious monogamy (Veddahs, Boshimans, etc.),
ethnography shows us the greater number of savage races living in
little consanguine groups, in which the kinship is still confused
and the solidarity strong. The degrees of consanguinity are not well
defined; real kinship is easily confounded with fictitious kinship, and
classes of relations are created, ranged under the same title, although
very differently united by ties of blood. The woman nearly always bears
children for her group, or clan, and this clan is very often exogamic;
this exogamy is practised from clan to clan, and only within the tribe.
There is no absolute rule, however, and it is not unusual to see
endogamy elbow exogamy.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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