E-text prepared by Turgut Dincer, Les Galloway, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net) from page images generously made available by HathiTrust Digital Library (https://www.hathitrust.org/) Note: Images of the original pages are available through HathiTrust Digital Library. See https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo1.ark:/13960/t2d79wm16;view=1up;seq=9 Transcriber’s note: Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_). Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=). A caret character is used to denote superscription. A single character following the caret is superscripted (xix^e). THE HISTORY OF HUMAN MARRIAGE by EDWARD WESTERMARCK Lecturer on Sociology at the University of Finland, Helsingfors London Macmillan and Co., Limited New York: The Macmillan Company 1901 All rights reserved Richard Clay and Sons, Limited London and Bungay. First Edition, 1891. Second Edition, 1894. Third Edition, 1901. INTRODUCTORY NOTE BY ALFRED R. WALLACE Having read the proofs of Mr. Westermarck’s book I am asked by the publishers to say a few words by way of introducing the work to English readers. This I have great pleasure in doing, because I have seldom read a more thorough or a more philosophic discussion of some of the most difficult, and at the same time interesting problems of anthropology. The origin and development of human marriage have been discussed by such eminent writers as Darwin, Spencer, Morgan, Lubbock, and many others. On some of the more important questions involved in it all these writers are in general accord, and this agreement has led to their opinions being widely accepted as if they were well-established conclusions of science. But on several of these points Mr. Westermarck has arrived at different, and sometimes diametrically opposite, conclusions, and he has done so after a most complete and painstaking investigation of all the available facts. With such an array of authority on the one side and a hitherto unknown student on the other, it will certainly be thought that all the probabilities are against the latter. Yet I venture to anticipate that the verdict of independent thinkers will, on most of these disputed points, be in favour of the new comer who has so boldly challenged the conclusions of some of our most esteemed writers. Even those whose views are here opposed, will, I think, acknowledge that Mr. Westermarck is a careful investigator and an acute reasoner, and that his arguments as well as his conclusions are worthy of the most careful consideration.