"Although here and there a hypothesis of Morgan may have proved itself
false, and some others may be allowed only a qualified approval, that
merit none can gainsay him that he has been the first to establish the
identity of the North American totem-group with the gentile organization
of the Romans; and, secondly, to demonstrate that our modern systems of
consanguinity and family-forms are the result of a long process of
development. In a measure he has thereby first made recent
investigations possible; he has first built the foundation on which we
may build further." In the introduction also to his book he says
expressly that his own work is partly a supplement to Morgan's book on
primitive man.
The Westermanns, the Starckes, the Zieglers--the latter of whom, in his
book, criticized in the introduction to the twenty-fifth edition of this
work, refers mainly to the first named, in order to attack our
statements with theirs--will have to submit, with good grace or bad, to
the fact that the rise and development of the family has not taken the
course that fits in with their bourgeois prejudices. The refutation
that, in the last part of his work, Cunow bestows upon Westermann and
Starcke, Ziegler's authorities, are calculated to enlighten their most
fanatic followers upon the value of their caviling criticisms of, and
arguments against, Morgan.
According to Morgan, the punaluan family has its start with the
exclusion of consanguineous brothers and sisters, on the mother's side.
Where a woman has several husbands, the evidence of paternity is
impossible. Paternity becomes a fiction. Even to-day, under the rule of
strict monogamous marriage, paternity, as Goethe, in his
"Apprenticeship," lets Frederick say, "rests only upon faith." If with
monogamy, paternity is often doubtful, it is impossible of proof in
polygamy: only descent from the mother is certain and unquestionable.
Accordingly, descent from the mother afforded the only criterion. As all
deep-reaching transformations in the social relations of primitive man
are accomplished only slowly, the change of the so-called consanguine
into the punaluan family must unquestionably have engaged vast periods
of time, and been broken through by many relapses, still noticeable in
much later days. The proximate external inducement for the development
of the punaluan family was, possibly, the necessity of splitting up the
strongly swollen membership of the family, to the end that new grounds
could be occupied for cattle ranges and agriculture. Probably, also,
with the reaching of a higher grade of civilization, a sense gradually
asserted itself of the harmfulness and indecorousness of sexual
intercourse between brothers and sisters, and close relatives. In favor
of this theory stands a pretty tradition, that, as related by Cunow,
Gaston found among the Dieyeries, one of the South Australian tribes, on
the rise of the "Mordu" consanguine group. He says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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