NOTE.--That in Vienna the conjugal conditions so graphically described in the above extracts are still much the same as formerly, and that marriage needs and marriage lies are there exceptionally painful is shown by the foundation in Vienna of a “Society for Marriage Reform,” which sent to the Assembly of German Jurists, meeting at Kiel in the beginning of September, 1906, the telegraphic request that they would undertake a revision of Austrian marriage law, since hitherto no cure had been found for unhappy marriage in Austria, no divorce was possible, and those who had obtained a judicial separation could, according to Canon Law, sue one another on account of adultery (_cf._ _Neue Freie Presse_, No. 15108, September 13, 1906). It is hardly credible, but, according to a report in the _Berlin Aerzte-Correspondenz_, 1907, No. 8, it is true, that the Medical Court of Honour for the town of Berlin and the province of Brandenburg, in the year of our Lord 1906, punished physicians on the ground of adultery! [155] P. Näcke, one of the most trustworthy authorities on sexual anthropology, writes as follows: “That in ancient times, before monogamy, there was polygamy, or even a state resembling promiscuity, =is very probable= (Westermarck notwithstanding), =and can, in fact, be assumed a priori=” (“Einiges zur Frauenfrage und zur sexuellen Abstinenz”--“A Contribution to the Woman’s Question and to the Problem of Sexual Abstinence”), published in the _Archiv f. Kriminalanthropologie_, vol. xiv., p. 52 (Hans Gross, 1903). _Cf._ also Lohsing’s “Zustimmung zur Annahme einer ursprünglichen Promiscuität,” _ibid._, vol. xvi., p. 332. The question of sexual promiscuity has recently been further considered by P. Näcke (“Earliest Beginnings of Human Society,” in _Die Umschau_ of August 17, 1907). He believes that the state of pure promiscuity lasted a short time only, and gave place to certain nuclei of family structure, a kind of semi-promiscuity, which, prior to the complete development of the family union, lasted much longer than the state of pure promiscuity. Still, these earliest families were merely temporary, and only later became fixed and permanent. This assumption, however, does not affect the fact of a primordial pure promiscuity. Näcke himself also recognizes promiscuity as the natural state of primitive man. [156] H. Schurtz, “Altersklassen und Männerbünde: eine Darstellung der Grundformen der Gesellschaft”--“Age Classes and Associations of Men: a Demonstration of the Fundamental Forms of Society,” p. 176 (Berlin, 1902). [157] N. Melnikow, “The Buryats of the District of Irkutsk,” published in the Transactions of the Berlin Society of Anthropology, Ethnology, and Primeval History, p. 440 (1899). [158] Marco Polo, translated by Yule, 2nd edition, vol. ii., pp. 38, 39 (London, 1875). [159] _Cf._ my “Contributions to the Etiology of Psychopathia Sexualis,” vol. i., pp. 165-169.