Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/139

 Reviews. 107

controverted continually at his elbow. The conclusion to which he comes is that Australian customs, " so far from proving the present or even former existence of group-marriage in that continent, do not even render it probable," and that on terms of relationship " no argument of any sort can be founded which assumes them to refer to consanguinity, kinship, or affinity."

He seems, indeed, to go further, and to deny the primitive promiscuity of the human race, though he actually denies only that the case for it has yet been made out, His criticism is purely negative. Nowhere can I find that he definitely adopts any theory of the condition from which human society, as it exists to-day, whether in savagery or civilization, has been evolved. He states, indeed, what Mr. Lang's theory of the origin of the phratries is — a theory based on the assumption of early organizations in groups, each consisting of an adult male with an attendant horde of adult females and an immature progeny of both sexes. He speaks of it with approval as "holding the field," as "internally consistent," and as "colligating the facts far better " than one rival theory — that of reformation ; but whether he adopts it as a sufficient and accurate exposition of the facts, I do not gather.

The results, therefore, so far as they are definite, are purely negative, and it may reasonably be asked, From what did society start, if not from promiscuity ? It is evident that the groups postulated by Mr. Lang are a rudimentary form of organization, and not in the strict sense of the term primitive. They them- selves must have evolved out of something still ruder. That jealousy was a primitive passion has yet to be shown ; there are savage customs which appear to indicate the contrary. Mr. Thomas acutely points out that there is a difference between kinship and consanguinity : the two terms are not synonymous. But it may well be argued that the distinction between them is a gradual and later growth, arising from truer physiological conceptions. If I understand him rightly, he argues that kinship terms have been evolved from terms merely signifying status ; and status, of course, implies some sort of regulation. Assum- ing he is correct, does it not follow that relationships were