Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 7, 1896.djvu/319

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is the most formidable treatise on primitive economics which we have seen—formidable, that is, in that it is based upon statistical methods and not upon a selection of certain customs and ideas of primitive people. Dr. Mucke puts the case most forcibly, and it will be somewhat difficult for anthropologists to dismiss his method from their view. An observed fact of social or early life is never isolated. If it were, it would be almost useless as evidence for the history of human institutions; as it is not, it must be studied in connection with the other facts with which it is intimately associated. Such is the basis of Dr. Mucke's method; and as recent studies in this country have led to the same conclusion, more and more deliberately every year, it is of supreme importance that the tendency in other countries should be known and compared.

Dr. Mucke concludes that the first form of human organisation was governed by territorial space and not by blood kinship. The relationship between the sexes was one of perpetual monogamic pairing. This is an important factor which has been missed by many inquirers in this country. Monogamic pairing is quite consistent with Mr. Westermarck's researches into the physical and biological evidence for primitive monogamy; but it is far short of, and does not by any possibility of proof imply, monogamous marriage. It may last just as long or just as short a time as the pair may desire or as circumstances may admit. It may include the tending of children by both parents. But it does not imply the construction of a primitive family unit, based upon the monogamous marriage of two human beings; the germs of the family unit may be there, but the family unit itself is not recognised nor used for social organisation. Dr. Mucke discusses some of the important details of this system with masterly precision ; and he accounts for many of the more unpleasant customs which occur as survivals among savage people who have passed from the horde stage of society.

The fourth section of the book is very important, dealing with the children of the horde. Paternity in the sense understood to-day, namely the result of procreation, was not known. All that