Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/72

 with the extremely low position that has been granted to women in the greater number of savage and barbarous societies. The married woman, being exactly assimilated to a slave or a thing possessed, might thenceforth be treated as such; and the right of property, soon becoming sacred, easily stood before any scruples of decency which were still rare and weak.

After the preceding investigation, there appears to be no difficulty in refuting the sociological theory, far too prevalent, according to which the entire human race has passed through a primitive period of promiscuity followed by hetaïrism. Our first ancestors, the precursors of man, were surely very analogous to the other primates. We may, therefore, conclude that, like them, they generally lived in polygamous families. When these almost human little groups were associated in hordes or tribes, it is quite possible that great laxity of morals may have prevailed amongst them, but not a legal or obligatory promiscuity. In a society sufficiently numerous and savage it is no easy task for a man to guard his feminine property, for the women are not by any means averse to adventures. Their modesty is still very slight, and before belonging specially to one man they have generally been given or sold to many others. At that period of the social evolution public opinion saw no harm in all this. And, besides, the husband or the proprietor of the woman considered her absolutely as his thing, and did not scruple to lend her to his friends, to barter her, or to hire her out.

These primitive customs, combined with polyandrous or collective marriage and the matriarchate, have deceived many observers, both ancient and modern.

When we come to scrutinise these facts, and to view them in the light of animal sociology, we arrive at the conclusion that human promiscuity can only have been rare and exceptional, and that the theory of the community of wives and of obligatory hetaïrism will not bear examination.

The procreative need is one of the most tyrannical, and primitive man has satisfied it as he best could, without the least delicate refinement; but the egotism of individuals has had for its result, from the origin of human societies, the formation of unions based on force, and, correlatively, a