Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/105

 women and polyandrian households become necessary palliatives.

We have seen that there are two principal kinds of polyandry—the matriarchal and patriarchal. In the first, the woman or girl does not quit her family or her gens; sometimes even she is permitted the right of choosing her husbands, who are not related to each other, and upon whom the woman scarcely depends at all, since she remains with her own relations, and bears children for them. On the contrary, in the patriarchal polyandry, the woman, captured or bought, is almost entirely uprooted; she leaves her natural protectors to go and live with her husbands, to whom she belongs, who are limited in number, are nearly always brothers or relations, and to whom she cannot be unfaithful without authorisation. Both forms of polyandric marriage suppose a complete absence of modesty, of sexual reserve and moral delicacy. But we know that these qualities can only be the fruit of long culture. In this respect both matriarchal and patriarchal polygamy are equal. But it is important to observe that the first enslaves woman much less. On the other hand, the second already permits the establishment of a sort of paternal filiation, since the husbands are generally of the same blood. For this reason it is reputed superior. In reality matriarchal polyandry always coincides with the primitive family form, the matriarchate—that is to say, with a system that takes no account of paternal filiation, and leaves the children to the tribe of the mother. Patriarchal polyandry, on the contrary, already presents the outline of a sort of paternal family, with the right of primogeniture attributed to the first-born. We shall have to study in detail both the patriarchate and the matriarchate. Polyandry, in its reputedly highest form, the Thibetan, only constitutes a patriarchate of the most imperfect kind, since there is still a confusion of fatherhood. Proof is still wanting to force us to conclude that matriarchal polyandry must always have preceded the other. This appears to be true for ancient Arabia only. In all other places we can merely suppose it to have been so. We should be equally mistaken if we admitted a priori