Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/142

 130 Increasing rigidity of custom and growth of it into law, which goes along with the extending governmental organization holding larger masses together, affects the domestic relations along with the political relations; and thus renders the family arrangements, be they polyandric, polygynic, or monogamic, more definite.

Can we, then, allege special connections between the different types of family and the different social types classed as militant and industrial? None are revealed by a cursory inspection. Looking first at simple tribes, we find among the unwarlike Todas a mixed polyandry and polygyny; and among the Esquimaux, so peaceful as not even to understand the meaning of war, we find, along with monogamic unions, others that are polyandric and polygynic. At the same time, the warlike Caribs show us a certain amount of polyandry and a greater amount of polygyny. If, turning to the other extreme, we compare with one another large nations, ancient and modern, it seems that the militant character in some cases coexists with a prevalent polygyny and in other cases with a prevalent or universal monogamy. Nevertheless, we shall, on examining the facts more closely, discern general connections between the militant type and polygyny, and between the industrial type and monogamy.

But first we must recognize the truth that a predominant militancy is not so much to be measured by armies and the conquests they achieve, as by constancy of predatory activities. The contrast between the militant and the industrial is properly between a state in which life is occupied in conflict with other beings, brute and human, and a state in which life is occupied in peaceful labor—energies spent in destruction instead of energies spent in production. So conceiving militancy, we find polygyny to be its habitual accompaniment. To trace the coexistence of the two from Australians and Tasmanians on through the more developed simple societies up to the compound and doubly compound, would be tedious and is needless; for observing, as we have already done, the prevalence of polygyny in the less advanced societies, and admitting as we must their state of unceasing hostility to their neighbors, the coexistence of these traits is a corollary. That this coexistence results from causal connection is suggested by certain converse cases. Among the Dorians, a division of the New Guinea people, there is strict monogamy, with forbidding of divorce, in a primitive community comparatively unwarlike and comparatively industrial. Another instance is furnished by the Land Dyaks, who are monogamic to the extent that pologyny is an offense, and who, though given to tribal quarrels about their lands, and to the taking of heads as trophies, have such degree of industrial development that the men, instead of making war and the chase habitual occupations, do all the heavy work, and some division of trades and commercial intercourse exists. The Hill-tribes of India furnish other instances. There are the amiable Bodo and Dhimals, without military