[332] See below, p. 243. [333] _J.A.I._, xx. p. 58. [334] See below, pp. 195, 238 and 243. After this survey of what appear to me to be the most important points referring to the _Pirrauru_ custom, we see that nearly each one of them is involved in contradictions and obscurities. To draw any general conclusion we must proceed with the utmost care and precaution. Our information about _Piraungaru_ of the Urabunna is nearly worthless. And we may safely repeat with Mr. Thomas, that if the authors knew more facts and knew them better than we can do from their description, then perhaps their conclusions, drawn from these unknown facts, may be correct; but if they draw their general conclusions only from the facts they communicate to us, then we are justified in rejecting them. Our chief aim in discussing the features of the _Pirrauru_ relationship was to ascertain how far this relation possesses the character of marriage. That it is a "group relation" is beyond doubt.[335] That it is a form of marriage has been accepted by Howitt, Fison, and Spencer and Gillen without much discussion.[336] Mr. Thomas has shown already how unsatisfactory the reasons are, on the strength of which _Pirrauru_ is considered to be a form of group marriage, or even a survival of the previous stage of group marriage. He has shown how insufficient, in the light of an exact definition, the information is, how many essential points we still want to know to be able to make any more conclusive assertion. Mr. Thomas' criticism bears especially on the lack of a strict use of the term "group marriage." He gives a correct definition (page 128 of the work quoted) of this term, and consistently puts to its test the views propounded by the previously mentioned writers. From this discussion he concludes that in the _Pirrauru_ relationship we can find neither the features of an actual group marriage nor the traces of such a previous state of things.[337] This criticism and conclusion appear to me so convincing and final, that I would have simply referred to them without entering again upon this rather perplexing question, were it not a good opportunity for pointing out again by means of this example, that the sexual aspects of marriage and the family cannot be discussed separately, detached from each other; and for showing how incorrect it is to represent the sexual side of marital life as the complete and unique content of marriage. On the contrary, marriage may not be, as so often repeated here, detached from family life; it is defined in all its aspects by the problems of the economic unity of the family, of the bonds created by common life in one wurley, through the common rearing of, and affection towards, the offspring. In the above points I tried to show that in nearly all these respects the _Pirrauru_ relationship essentially differs from marriage and cannot, therefore, seriously encroach upon the individual family. This will appear still