Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/284

 when men lived either in a freedom almost bordering on promiscuity, or in groups half polyandric or polygamic, and more especially in polyandrous countries, there was no actual widowhood, or state of being a widow, for woman. The disappearance of one of the men with whom she lived in intimate relations made no great change in her position. Under a polygamic régime it is quite otherwise; for then the wives are private property. Their master has nearly always bought them, and their subjection is very great. Therefore, at the death of their master, they are treated exactly like things; they follow the fate of the goods, and pass into the hands of the heir, who can keep or sell them. Sometimes, however, they are sacrificed in greater or less numbers on the tomb of the dead husband, whom they must continue to serve and love in the future life.

Under a monogamic régime societies are generally more civilised, and the dominating ideas are then the care of property, and sometimes the perpetuation of the name. The widow cannot inherit, for the property must not be divided. She is then a most embarrassing incumbrance. Sometimes she is persuaded to follow still into the next world the husband who has preceded her thither; this is the most radical solution. Sometimes her relations marry her again, and obtain a second price for her; sometimes she is provided for by the levirate.

Traces of these ancestral iniquities are still preserved in our modern codes, which, though nearly emancipating the widow, push the fanaticism of consanguinity so far as not to consider her as the relative of her husband as concerns property. From a social point of view, the whole of this survey of the treatment of widows is not flattering for humanity. In short, from a moral point of view, the easy resignation with which men and women bear widowhood, places mankind, as regards nobility of sentiment, far below certain species of animals, as, for example, the Illinois paraquet (Psittacus Illinois), for whom widowhood and death are synonymous, as well for the male as the female. Doubtless it might be alleged that even in so-called highly civilised societies people do not marry as a rule from any lofty sentiment; but that is surely a poor excuse.