Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/318

 As for the terms of kinship, they are always general and classificatory. The relations are denominated by groups, and the titles of kinship do not in the least correspond to the ties of blood.

Lastly, among certain nomad Mongols of Asia, the strict prohibition to marry within the clan, and the terms of kinship applying to groups, show that formerly a familial system, analogous to that of the American Redskins, has been in use.

Moreover, this classificatory system is preserved entire in the denominations of kinship by the Tamils of India. But among these last, and also among certain Mongol populations of Thibetan Himalaya, the primitive family, at once polygamic and polyandric, that of the Hawaian islanders, has evolved after its own manner, which it is interesting to notice.

The Polynesian, or rather the Hawaian family, formed essentially by the conjugal union of a group of brothers with a group of sisters, may evidently be restricted in two ways. Either, in the long run, polyandry is found irksome; the men will no longer share their wives, even with brothers, but find polygamy very convenient; in this case the brothers contract isolated marriages, preserving nothing of the old ways but the custom of marrying, when possible, a group of sisters: the Redskins have done and still do this. Or, on the contrary, for one reason or another, and most often on account of the relative scarcity of women, the Hawaian marriage evolves in another direction. The brothers continue to marry in a group; but, instead of marrying simultaneously several sisters, they take only one wife and possess her in common: this time it is in the direction of polyandry that primitive group-marriage has evolved. From the Himalaya to Ceylon we find a long track of ethnic groups who have thus transformed their marriage. The mountaineers of Bhootan, the Naïrs, certain other aboriginal tribes of India, and a part of the population of Ceylon, where the Tamils have largely immigrated, are all of them the remains or landmarks of an ancient layer of polyandric population traversing the whole of Hindostan.

All these facts can be classed in a satisfactory manner. Thus united, and placed in a series, they complete and