Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/641

Rh ETHNOGBAPHY G19 had come to tlie same conclusions as the author of Mutterrecht, about the system of kinship through females only. He made the system clear, not by abstract aud far- i etched considerations, or on scanty testimony transmitted by Herodotus, Hesiod, or yEschylus, but by the unmis takable instances which ethnography most abundantly supplies. It is now admitted as a fact that maternal kinship was anterior to the paternal, or, as Sir John Lubbock puts it, &quot; children were not in the earliest times regarded as related equally to their father and their mother ; but the natural progress of ideas is, first, that a child is related to his tribe generally; secondly, to his mother, and not to his father; thirdly, to his father, and not to his mother; lastly, and lastly only, that he is related to both.&quot; M Lennan had been led to formulate the principle by a c. ireful study of that old Roman legend, the Rape of the Subines. He demonstrated that the legend was iu accord ance, not only v ith the practice still prevalent in many swage countries of capturing wives by violence, but with the sham fights and mock scuffles which, even in our days and in Europe, take place between the bridegroom s party, protending to carry off the bride, and the bride s party, pretending to ward off the bridegroom s attack. He showed tli it the symbol implied something more than the mere law- le-sness of savages, and proved the fact that at one time wives were systematically obtained by theft or force. And as real capture could not have been practiced by peaceful neighbours in the midst of the same community, it was necessary to infer that wives were captured from other tribes, whence the distinction between exogamoics tribes, marrying outside the pale of their community, and endogamous tribes, marrying within it. He supposes that the origin of exogamy is to be connected with the practice in early times of female infanticide, which, rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the tribe, and the capturing of women from without. To tribes surrounded with enemies, struggling against the difficulties of existence, sons were a source of strength, both for defence and in the quest for food; daughters a source of weakness, they ate and did not hunt. They weakened their mothers when young, and when grown up were a temptation to surrounding tribes. Hence the cruel custom which made the primitive human hordes prey upon one another for wives. Tylor, who has also called attention to exogamy, regards it as mainly due, not to infanticide, but to the beneficial effect of marrying out-and-out, and to the physiological evils of marrying in-and-in. This theory is favoured by estab lished maxims, breeding in-and-in being perhaps held by public opinion as more noxious to the human species than professional breeders think it for animal stock. As an exogamous tribe increased and enlarged its territory, it may have become endogamous for practical reasons. Sir John Lubbock suggests another motive. &quot; Endogamy seems to have arisen from a feeling of race pride, and a disdain of surrounding tribes, which were either really or presumably in a lower condition.&quot; Sir Henry Maine is very suggestive : The barbarous Aryan is not generally monogamous, but exogamous. He has a most prodigious table of prohibited degrees. The Mussulman, however, is not only poly- gunous, but endogamous; his law permits comparatively near relatives to intermarry. The comparative liberty of intermarriage is a part of the secret of Mahometan isni s suc cess in India.&quot; Lewis Morgan, an American who had studied by per sonal intercourse the organization of the family among the Seneca Indians, into whose tribe he was adopted, says, in his Ancient Society, that exogamy aud endogamy are not as antagonistic and contradictory to each other as they are supposed to be. According to him, the com munity at large is often practically eudogamous, while the gentes, or set of families, which constitute it are rigorously exogamous. The lineage is in most cases through descent in the female line, and the males aro obliged to marry into other gentes. Family institutions are in themselves an interesting object of study, and they have besides a wide practical bearing, as they are everywhere inseparably connected with the rules of property and inheritance. They may be conveniently discussed under the following heads : Marriages communal and free to all members of the tribe Hefcerism or Promiscuity Woman Capture Female Infanticide Marriages communal, but restricted to certain sets of iwrsons Endogamy Exogamy Adfilphogamy Levirate Polygamy- Polyandry Marriages by Pairs Monogamy Courtships Bridals Marriage by trial Nuptial customs Divorce Widowhood Re-marriage Birth Ceremonies The Couvade (a custom which was held to be the quintessence of absurdity, until it was shown to be a symbol by which the father acknowledged the child, and especially the son, to be his) Ceremonies observed at the givinw of the name, at the cutting of the first tooth, and upon arrival at puberty or nubility Old age and infirmities Parents killed by their children through filial piety, or from poverty Funeral rites, few of which, if any, can be explained unless they are looked at in the light of religious ceremonies. VL Social Develoimient. Sociology narrates how men became grouped iu political communities, how they con stituted authority and property, how they originated castes and guilds, aud by degrees separated into high and low, rich and poor. Of all ths fields in ethnology, none is at present cultivated with more care and intelligence than that which deals with the history of society, and none perhaps with a greater prospect of fruitful results. Grouping in Horde*, Tribe*, or Nations. Man is a gregarious animal. Society develops intelligence, comfort, the sentiments of justice and equality, of fraternity, good will, and cheerfulness to a degree which would have been unattainable iu a severe and prolonged solitude. The first hordes were scattered over vast areas, and were each very small. It is probable that they were recruited not only from within by births, but from without by capture of women and children, and by the voluntary or forced accession of their neighbours to their ranks. We draw a distinction between the human horde, whioh we hold to be superior only in degree to a herd of brutes, and the tribe, in which we recognize the first buddings of culture. The love of the mother for* the young is an impulse to in telligence and devotion among all higher animals. The certainty of parturition at a period fixed for every species induces precaution and forethought. The rudiments of true humanity we conjecture therefore to have been the acknowledgment of motherhood by the tribe, aud the first regular provision for the care of the expected infant. As it has been said already, the family had its origin iu the gathering of children round their mother. These children became to one another brothers and sisters by the remembrance of the care they had enjoyed in common. They kept together ; so did their children and their children s children ; and the gens took shape and life. Probably the original horde was by degrees remodelled into tribes by the gentes which had taken birth in it. The word gens, equivalent to clan, sept, or totem, beiug the best known of all, may be used in a general sense to denote all kindred institutions. The tribe became an organization of gentes. An Indian tribe, according to Lewis Morgan, is composed of several gentes, developed from two or more, all the members of which are inter mingled by marriage, and all of whom speak the same dialect. To a stranger the tribe is visible, and not the gens. It is highly convenient for a tribe to contain at least two gentes, which, if they choose to intermarry, would tind wives at their own door. A fundamental law of the