Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 3.djvu/789

 RELATION OF SEX TO PRIMITIVE SOCIAL CONTROL 77$

with one another, but these artificial bonds and their display to the eye are among the first attempts to synthetize the male forces of the group, and it is quite apparent that such unions are unfavorable to the continuance of the influence of women and of the system which they represent. In West Africa and among some of the negro tribes the initiatory ceremony is apparently deliberately hostile to the maternal organization. The youth is taken from the family of his mother and symbolically killed and buried, and resurrected by the priests into a male organization, and dedicated to his father's god. 1

Spatial conditions have played an important role in the development of societies. Through movements the individual or the group is able to pick and choose advantageous relations, and by changing its location adjust itself to changes in the food conditions. That the success of the group is definitely related to its motor capacity is revealed by the following law of popula- tion, worked out by statisticians for the three predominant races of modern Europe : In countries inhabited jointly by these three races, the race possessing the smallest portion of wealth and the smallest representation among the more influential and educated classes constitutes also the least migratory element of the popula- tion, and tends in the least degree to concentrate in the cities and the more fertile regions of the country ; and in countries inhabited jointly by the three races, the race possessing the largest por- tion of wealth and the largest representation among the more influential and educated classes is also the* most migratory ele- ment of the population, and tends in the greatest degree to con- centrate in the cities and the more fertile portions of the coun- try. 3 The primitive movements of population necessitated by climatk: change, geological disturbances, the failure of water or exhaustion of the sources of food, were occasions for the exj sion of the superior motor disposition of the male and for the dislodgiiK nt i.!' the female from her position of advantage.

I PPERT, Kultttrg ean Races," AMEKI I:NAI.

OP SOCIOLOGY, Vol. Ill, pp. 315 ff.