Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/363

 but is much more widely spread. Like everything else, polyandric marriage has evolved, from its most complete form, that of the Naïrs, to the polyandry in use in Thibet, which already inclines towards monandry and the paternal family. Primitive polyandry has easily arisen from the marriage by classes practised by many savage clans; but most often it is polygamy which has sprung from it. And the latter must frequently have been established from the first in primitive hordes, simply by the right of the strongest.

Man may be monogamous in the very lowest degree of savagery and stupidity; certain animals are so; but in humanity it is more often the instinct of polygamy which predominates; and therefore, when in the course of the progressive evolution of societies monogamy at length became moral and legal, men have been careful to soften its rigour by maintaining together with it concubinage and prostitution, and by generally leaving to the husband the right of repudiation, which has nearly always been refused to the wife. This injustice appeared quite natural, for as the wife had usually been captured or bought, she was considered as the property of the man, and held in strict subjection. At length, in its last form, monogamic marriage, which had at first been the association of a master and a slave, tended more and more to become the union of two persons, living on a footing of equality.

The family has undergone a similar evolution. Apart from a few exceptional cases of precocious monogamy (Veddahs, Boshimans, etc.), ethnography shows us the greater number of savage races living in little consanguine groups, in which the kinship is still confused and the solidarity strong. The degrees of consanguinity are not well defined; real kinship is easily confounded with fictitious kinship, and classes of relations are created, ranged under the same title, although very differently united by ties of blood. The woman nearly always bears children for her group, or clan, and this clan is very often exogamic; this exogamy is practised from clan to clan, and only within the tribe. There is no absolute rule, however, and it is not unusual to see endogamy elbow exogamy.

In the large and confused family of the clan, all the