“A very ancient custom,” says Hearne, “obliges the men to wrestle for any woman to whom they are attached; and of course the strongest party always carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter and well beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks worth his notice. This custom prevails throughout all the tribes.”[165] In the same way, among the Copper and Chippeway Indians woman is a property which is little respected, and which the strong may always take from the weak.[166] Richardson also says that among the Redskins every man has the right to challenge another to fight, and if he is victor, to carry off his wife.[167] The same customs prevail among the Indians of South America--at least among certain of them. Thus Azara relates that the Guanas never marry before they are over twenty, for earlier than this they would be beaten by their rivals.[168] It has been attempted to show that these conflicts are the equivalent of what is called in regard to animals “the law of battle,” but the comparison is not exact, for animals seem in this respect much more delicate than men. If they fight it is before pairing, and besides, as we have seen, their combats are often courteous, like the tournaments of our ancestors; frequently, too, the object of these assaults is much less to capture the female than to seduce her by displaying before her eyes the qualities with which they are endowed--courage, force, address, and beauty. On her part, the female for whom they are competing is so little alarmed at their violence that, in general, she tranquilly looks on at the duels, and afterwards gives herself, one may say, freely to the victor. With certain species of birds a lyric tourney is substituted for the fight, and so ardently do the birds engage in it that a competitor will often die of exhaustion. Lastly, when the tourney is over, the couples paired, and the marriage concluded, all rivalry ceases, the newly-mated birds isolate themselves more or less, and devote all their energies to the production of a family. Now these are delicate refinements unknown to primitive man, whose rivalries on the subject of the possession of women resemble far more the struggles of the old males with the young in the hordes of the gorillas or chimpanzees. We are forced to acknowledge that the sexual morality of primitive man does not much differ from that of anthropoid apes, and it is quite a stranger to the æsthetic and poetic refinements of certain birds. I here end my short inquiry into the morals of primitive man and the eccentric modes of conjugal union which have preceded the institution of a more durable, exclusive, and solemn marriage. We are filled with astonishment when we find such complete animal laxity in our undeveloped ancestors, and we can hardly understand the total absence of scruples which are now profoundly incarnate in us.