The psycho-analytic study of the familyFlugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Science
The psycho-analytic study of the family
Flugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Families; Marriage; Parent and child; Psychoanalysis
superior advantages of outbreeding. The largeness of the result would be
manifestly out of proportion to the cause, and it would seem that although
we may allow some considerable influence to this factor, we have to admit
that it must be supplemented by some other cause or causes of appreciable
magnitude[253].
[Sidenote: Influence of non-sexual factors]
(4) According to one type of explanation (_e. g._ that held by Wundt[254])
the horror of incest is not the cause of exogamy, but the consequence of
it--the origin of exogamy itself being due to some other influences only
indirectly connected with the sex life. Of such theories of the origin of
exogamy a number have been put forward by eminent authorities.
Thus McLennan[255], the discoverer of both Totemism and Exogamy, held the
view that exogamy was a consequence of the wide prevalence of marriage
by capture; this latter being itself a result of the preponderance of
the male sex over the female in primitive communities and of the general
condition of hostility existing between neighbouring tribes. Herbert
Spencer[256] similarly thought that exogamy arose from marriage by
capture, men belonging to successful tribes nearly always acquiring their
brides in this way, so that it eventually became a disgrace to marry
within the tribe. Lord Avebury[257], believing that group marriage or
promiscuity was the rule in primitive society, suggests that women taken
in war belonged to their individual captor, marriage in a narrow sense
being thus exogamous from the start. Kohler[258] believes on the contrary,
that exogamy arose as a means of bringing about inter-tribal friendships
or alliances. Andrew Lang[259] has suggested that exogamy is due to the
fact that the younger brothers of a family were frequently driven out by
the stronger and older ones in order to ward off any want that might arise
from the living together of a large number of brothers and sisters--the
younger brothers being then obliged to marry outside the family group.
[Sidenote: Such factors cannot fully explain exogamy]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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