Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 24, 1913.djvu/433

 J^ez'/civs. 407

was the necessity of a previous or subsequent sanction of society, and if this were absent society used actually to interfere with the union " (p. 66).

How, then, do these facts agree with the group-marriage theory? If group marriage meant nothing but sexual licence, there would be no disagreement between them ; for, although the Australian husband had generally a definite sexual " over-right " over his wife which secured to him the privilege of disposing of her, or at least of exercising a certain control over her conduct in sexual matters, this " over-right " did not, as a rule, amount to an exclusive right. There were customs like wife-lending, exchange of wives, cere- monial defloration of girls by old men, tlie different forms of licence practised at large tribal gatiierings, and especially the Firrauru relationship found in several of the southern central tribes. But all this does not constitute group marriage, the com- plete content of which does not consist in sexual relations alone. Dr. Malinowski duly emphasizes the fact that marriage cannot be detached from family life : '' it is defined in all its aspects by the problems of the economic unity of the family, of the bonds created by common life in one wurley, through the common rearing of, and affection towards, the off"spring." In nearly all these respects even the Firrauru relationship essentially differs from marriage, and cannot, therefore, seriously encroach upon the individual family. Xor can we regard this relationship as a survival of previous group marriage ; in this point Dr. Malinowski is in com- plete agreement with Mr. X. W. Thomas, although it lies outside the scope of his inquiry to speculate upon the past history of marriage in Australia.

In an interesting chapter, where he often refers to Mr. G. C Wheeler's scholarly book on The Tribe and Intertribal Relations in Australia, the author demonstrates how the individuality of the family unit shows itself in the aboriginal mode of living. A single family is normally in contact with a few other families only, some- times roaming alone over its own area. But, even when there are several families living togetlier, the camp rulers keep them apart from each other in nearly every function of daily life, and the children, who live in intimate contact with their parents in the same hut, must necessarily set them apart from all their other