Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/747

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usually defined as the legitimate union between hus- thus described by Howard: " The researches of seviefal

band and wife. "Legitimate'' indicates the sanction recent writers, notably those of Starcke and Wester-

of some kind of law, natural, evangelical, or civil, marck, confirming in part and further developing the

whilethephrase,*' husband and wife", implies mutual- earlier conclusions of Darwin and Spencer, have es-

rights of sexual intercourse, life in common, and an tablished a probability that marriage or pairi^ be-

enduring xmion. The last two characters distinguish tween one man and one woman, though the union be

marriage, respectively, from concubinage and fomica- often transitory and the rule frequently violated, is

tion. The aefinition, however, is br^id enough to the typical form of sexual imion from the infancy of

comprehend polygamous and pol^androus unions the human race" (History of Matrimonial Instito-

when the^ are permitted by the civil law; for in such tions, I, pp. 90, 91).

relationships there are as many marriages as there are (2) Polyandry and Polygamy. — One deviation from

individuals of the numerically larger sex. Whether the typical form of sexiial imion which, however, is

promiscuity, the condition in which all the men of a also called marriage, is polyandry, the union of several

group maintain relations and live indiscriminately husbands with one wife. It has been practised at

with all the women, can be properly called marriage, various times by a considerable number of peoples or

may well be doubted. In such a relation cohabita- tribes. It existed amon^ the ancient Bntons, the

tion and domestic life are devoid of that exclusi veness primitive Arabs, the inhabitants of the Canary Islands,

which is commonly associated with the idea of con- the Aborigines of America, the Hottentots, the inhabi-

jugal imion. tants of India, Ceylon, Thibet, Malabar, and New

(1) The Theory of Primitive Promiscuity, — ^All au- Zealand. In the great majority of these instances thorities agree t^t during historical times promia- polyandry was the exceptional form of conjugal union, cuity has l^n either non-existent or confined to a few Monogamy and even polygamy were much more small groups. Did it prevail to any extent during the prevalent. The greater number of the polyandrous prehistoric period of the race? Writing between 1860 unions seem to have been of the kind called iratemal: and 1890, a considerable number of anthropologists, that is, the husbands in each conjugal group virere au such as Bachofen, Mor^n, McLennan, Lubbock, and brothers. Frequently, if not generally, the first hu»- Giraud-Teulon, maintamed that this was the original hand enjoyed conjujgal and domestic rights superii^ relationship between the sexes amon^ practically all to the others, was, in fact, the chief husband. The peoples, oo rapidly did the theory wm favour that in others were husbands only in a secondary and limited 1891 it was, aocorciing to Westermarck, " treated by sense. Both these circumstances show that even in many writers as a demonstrated truth" (History of the comparatively few cases in which polyandry ex- Human Marri^e, p. 51). It appealed strongly to isted it was softened in the direction of monogamy; those believers m organic evolution who assumeni that for the wife belonged not to several entirely independ- the social customs of primitive man, including sex re- ent men, but to a group united by the closest ties of lations, must have dinered but slightly from the cor- blood; she was married to one family rather than to responding usages among the brutes. It has been one person. And the fact that one of her consorts poe- ea^rly adopted by the Marxian Socialists, on account sessed superior marital privileges shows that she had cd its agreement with their theories of primitive com- only one husband in the full sense of the term. Some mon property and of economic determinism. Accord- writers, e. g. McLennan (Studies in Ancient History, ing to the latter hypothesis, all other social institutions pp. 1 12, sq.) have asserted that the Levirate, the cus- are, and have ever been, determined by the underlying tom which compelled the brother of a deceased hus- eeonomic institutions; hence in the original condition band to many his widow, had its origin in polyandry, of common propertv, wives and husbands must like- But the Levirate can be explained without any sudb wise have been hela in common (see Engels, "The hypothesis. In many cases it merely indicated that Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the the wife, as the property of her husband, was inherited State '\ tr. from German, Chicago, 1902). Indeed, by his nearest heir, i. e. his brother j in other instances, the vogue which the theory of promiscuity for a time as among the ancient Hebrews, it was evidently a enjoyed seems to have been due far more to a priori means of continuing the name, family, and individo- considerations of the kind just mentioned, and to the ality of the deceased husband. If the Levirate wish to believe in it, than to positive evidence. pointed in all cases to a previous condition of polyan-

About the only direct testimony in its favour is dry, the latter practice must have been much more found in the fra^entary statements of some ancient common than it is shown to have been by direct evi- writers, such as Herodotus and Strabo, concerning a dence. It is certain that the Levirate existed among few unimportant peoples, and in the accounts of some the New Caledonians, the Redskins, the Mongols, modern travellers regarding some uncivilized tribes of Afghans, Hindoos, Hebrews, and Abyssinians; yet the present day. Neither of these classes of testi- none of these peoples shows any trace of polyandry, mony clearly shows that the peoples to which they re- The principal causes of polyandiv were the scarcity of fer practised promiscuity, and both are entirely too women, due to female infanticide and to the appro- few to justify the generalization that all peoples lived priation of many women by polygamous chiefs and originally in the conditions which they describe. As strong men in a tribe, and to the scarcity of the food for the indirect evidence in favour of the theory, con- supplv, which made it impossible for e verymale mem- sisting of inferences from such social customs as the her of a family to support a wife alone. Even today tracing of kinship through the mother, religious pros- polyandry is not entirely unknown. It is found to titution, unrestrained sexual intercourse previous to some extent in Thibet, in the Aleutian Islands, among marriage among some savage peoples, and primitive the Hottentots, and the Zaporogian Cossacks, commimity of goods, — none of these conditions can be Polygamy (man^ marriages) or, more correctly,

S roved to have been universal at any stage of human polygyny (many wives) has oeen, and is still, much

evelopment, and every one of them can be explained more common than polyandry. It existed among

more easily and more naturally on other groimds than most of the ancient peoples known to history, and oe-

on the assumption of promiscuity. We may say that curs at present in some civilized nations and in the

the positive ar^ments in favour of the theory of majority of savage tribes. About the only important

Srimitive promiscuity seem insufficient to give it any peoples of ancient times that showed little or no traces

egree of probaUlity, while the biological, economic, of it were the Greeks and the Romans. Nevertheless,

psychological, and historical arguments brought against concubinage, which may be regarded as a higher form

it by many recent writers, e. g. Westermarek (op. of polygamy, or at least as nearer to pure monogamy,

dt., iv-vi) seem to render it unworthy of serious con- was for many centuries recognized by the customs and

nderation. The attitude of oontemporaiy scholars is even by the legislation of these two nations (fiee CoK-