Page:The evolution of marriage and of the family ... (IA evolutionofmarri00letorich).pdf/94

 countries, that of the infanticide of girls, not less necessarily engenders polyandry, if the equilibrium in the numerical proportion of the sexes is not re-established in another manner. In reality, the infanticide of girls has been largely practised in nearly all polyandrous countries. It seems also that the custom of sacrificing the female children influences in the long run the natural production of the sexes. Thus the polyandrous Todas, who formerly killed their girls, have actually a sexual proportion of 133.3 for adults, and of 124 for the children.

In Polynesia, where the infanticide of girls was so largely practised, the sexual relation to-day is altogether in favour of male births.

In New Zealand the proportion of the sexes in 1858 was 130.3 for adults, and 122.2 for non-adults.

In 1839, in the Sandwich Islands, the numerical proportion was 125.08 for adults, and 125.75 for non-adults.

In 1872 a general census of all the Sandwich Islands gave for the numerical proportion of the sexes 125.36.

But there is more than one way of falsifying the proportion of the sexes. It is not necessary to kill nearly all the female children, as was the custom among the Gonds of Bengal, where in many villages Macpherson did not see a single girl; it suffices to sell them. It is even the sale of girls which in many countries has at first restrained the savage practice of feminine infanticide. Girls became a merchandise negotiated by the parents, and afterwards redeemed by the men, because they could not do without them; but then it happened, in various countries and among various races, that men joined together to lighten the expense, and that several of them contented themselves with one wife in common, became polyandrous.

But we must not believe, with certain sociologists, that polyandry has ever been a universal and necessary matrimonial phase. The enormous consumption of men, necessitated by a savage or barbarous life, has often given an impulse to polygamy. It is only in certain societies where the practice of female infanticide exceeded all measure, or in certain islands, or certain regions with little or no