The peoples who may possibly live in a state of promiscuity have thus been reduced to a very small number. Considering the erroneousness of so many of the statements on the subject, it is difficult to believe in the accuracy of the others.[297] Ethnography was not seriously studied by the ancients, and their knowledge of the African tribes was no doubt very deficient. Pliny, in the same chapter where he states that, among the Garamantians, men and women lived in promiscuous intercourse, reports of another African tribe, the Blemmyans, that they had no head, and that the mouth and eyes were in the breast.[298] Besides, marriage is an ambiguous word. The looseness of the marital tie, the frequency of adultery and divorce, and the absence of the marriage ceremony may entitle us to say that, among many savage peoples, marriage in the European sense of the term does not exist. But this is very different from promiscuity. Even if some of the statements are right, and the intercourse between the sexes among a few peoples really is, or has been, promiscuous, it would be a mistake to infer that these utterly exceptional cases represent a stage of human development which mankind, as a whole, has gone through. Further, nothing would entitle us to consider this promiscuity as a survival of the primitive life of man, or even as a mark of a very rude state of society. It is by no means among the lowest peoples that sexual relations most nearly approach to promiscuity. Mr. Rowney, for instance, states that, among the Butias, the marriage tie is so loose that chastity is quite unknown, that the husbands are indifferent to the honour of their wives, that “the intercourse of the sexes is, in fact, promiscuous.” But the Butias are followers of Buddha, and “can hardly be counted among the _wild_ tribes of India, for they are, for the most part, in good circumstances, and have a certain amount of civilization among them.”[299] On the other hand, among the lowest races on earth, as the Veddahs, Fuegians, and Australians, the relation of the sexes are of a much more definite character. The Veddahs are a truly monogamous people, and have a saying that “death alone separates husband and wife.”[300] And with reference to the Australians, Mr. Brough Smyth, states that “though the marriages of Aboriginals are not solemnized by any rites, ... it must not be supposed that, as a rule, there is anything like promiscuous intercourse. When a man obtains a good wife, he keeps her as a precious possession, as long as she is fit to help him, and minister to his wants, and increase his happiness. No other man must look with affection towards her.... Promiscuous intercourse is abhorrent to many of them.” Among the aborigines of the northern and central parts of Australia, there are certainly women wholly given up to common lewdness, and a man is said to be considered a bad host who will not lend his wife to a guest. But Mr. Brough Smyth thinks that