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Title: The Evolution of Marriage and of the Family

Author: Ch. Letourneau

Release date: March 30, 2022 [eBook #67739]
Most recently updated: October 18, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Walter Scott, Ltd., 1891

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE AND OF THE FAMILY ***

THE CONTEMPORARY SCIENCE SERIES.

Edited by HAVELOCK ELLIS.

EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE

THE EVOLUTION

OF MARRIAGE

AND OF THE FAMILY

BY

CH. LETOURNEAU,
General Secretary to the Anthropological Society of Paris, and Professor in the School of
Anthropology.

LONDON
WALTER SCOTT, 24 WARWICK LANE
PATERNOSTER ROW
1891.

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.
PAGE
The Biological Origin of Marriage
1-19
I. The True Place of Man in the Animal Kingdom.
II. Reproduction.
III. Rut and Love.
IV. Love of Animals.
CHAPTER II.
Marriage and the Family amongst Animals 20-36
I. The Preservation of Species.
II. Marriage and the Rearing of the Young among Animals.
III. The Family amongst Animals.
CHAPTER III.
Promiscuity 37-55
I. Has there been a Stage of Promiscuity?
II. Cases of Human Promiscuity.
III. Hetaïrism.
CHAPTER IV.
Some Singular Forms of Sexual Association 56-72
I. Primitive Sexual Immorality.
II. Some Strange Forms of Marriage.
CHAPTER V.
Polyandry 73-88
I. Sexual Proportion of Births: its Influence on Marriage.
II. Ethnography of Polyandry.
III. Polyandry in Ancient Arabia.
IV. Polyandry in General.
CHAPTER VI.
Marriage by Capture 89-104
I. Rape.
II. Marriage by Capture.
III. Signification of the Ceremonial of Capture.

CHAPTER VII.
Marriage by Purchase and by Servitude 105-121
I. The Power of Parents.
II. Marriage by Servitude.
III. Marriage by Purchase.
CHAPTER VIII.
Primitive Polygamy 122-137
I. Polygamy in Oceania, Africa, and America.
II. Polygamy in Asia and in Europe.
CHAPTER IX.
Polygamy of Civilised People 138-153
I. The Stage of Polygamy.
II. Arab Polygamy.
III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.
IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.
CHAPTER X.
Prostitution and Concubinage 154-170
I. Concubinage in General.
II. Prostitution.
III. Various Forms of Concubinage.
CHAPTER XI.
Primitive Monogamy 171-187
I. The Monogamy of Inferior Races.
II. Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America.
III. Monogamy in Ancient Egypt.
IV. Monogamy of the Touaregs and Abyssinians.
V. Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia.
VI. Monogamy and Civilisation.
CHAPTER XII.
Hebrew and Aryan Monogamy 188-206
I. Monogamy of the Races called Superior.
II. Hebrew Marriage.
III. Marriage in Persia and Ancient India.
IV. Marriage in Ancient Greece.
V. Marriage in Ancient Rome.
VI. Barbarous Marriage and Christian Marriage.
CHAPTER XIII.

Adultery 207-227
I. Adultery in General.
II. Adultery in Melanesia.
III. Adultery in Black Africa.
IV. Adultery in Polynesia.
V. Adultery in Savage America.
VI. Adultery in Barbarous America.
VII. Adultery among the Mongol Races and in Malaya.
VIII. Adultery among the Egyptians, the Berbers, and the Semites.
IX. Adultery in Persia and India.
X. Adultery in the Greco-Roman World.
XI. Adultery in Barbarous Europe.
XII. Adultery in the Past and in the Future.
CHAPTER XIV.
Repudiation and Divorce 228-248
I. In Savage Countries.
II. Divorce and Repudiation among Barbarous Peoples.
III. The Evolution of Divorce.
CHAPTER XV.
Widowhood and the Levirate 249-266
I. Widowhood in Savage Countries.
II. Widowhood in Barbarous Countries.
III. The Levirate.
IV. Summary.
CHAPTER XVI.
The Familial Clan in Australia and America 267-284
I. The Family.
II. The Family in Melanesia.
III. The Family in America.
CHAPTER XVII.
The Familial Clan and its Evolution 285-302
I. The Clan among the Redskins.
II. The Family among the Redskins.
III. The Family in Polynesia.
IV. The Family among the Mongols.
V. The Evolution of the System of Kinship by Classes.
VI. The Clan and the Family.
CHAPTER XVIII.

The Maternal Family 303-321
I. The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called.
II. The Family in Africa.
III. The Family in Malaya.
IV. The Family among the Naïrs of Malabar.
V. The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal.
VI. The Couvade.
VII. The Primitive Family.
CHAPTER XIX.
The Family in Civilised Countries 322-340
I. The Family in China.
II. The Family among the Semitic Races.
III. The Family among the Berbers.
IV. The Family in Persia.
V. The Family in India.
VI. The Greco-Roman Family.
VII. The Family in Barbarous Europe.
CHAPTER XX.
Marriage and the Family in the Past, the Present, and the Future 341-360
I. The Past.
II. The Present.
III. The Future.
Index 361

PREFACE.

A few preliminary observations in regard to the aim and method of this
work may be useful to the reader.
He will do well to begin by persuading himself, with Montaigne, that the
“hinges of custom” are not always the “hinges of reason,” and still less
those of reality in all times and places. He will do better still to steep
himself in the spirit of scientific evolution, and to bear in mind that
incessant change is the law of the social, quite as much as of the physical
and organic world, and that the most splendid blossoms have sprung from
very humble germs. This is the supreme truth of science, and it is only when
such a point of view has become quite familiar to us that we shall be neither
troubled nor disconcerted by the sociological history of humanity; and
however shocking or unnatural certain customs may appear, we shall guard
ourselves against any feeling of indignation at them, and more especially
against a thoughtless refusal to give credence to them, simply because they
run counter to our own usages and morality.
All that social science has a right to ask of the facts which it registers is
that they should be authentic; this duly proved, it only remains to accept,
classify, and interpret them. Faithful to this method, without which there
could be no science of sociology, I have here gathered together as proofs a
number of singular facts, which, improbable as they may appear according
to our pre-conceived notions, and criminal according to our moral sense, are
nevertheless most instructive. Although in a former work I have taken care
to establish the relativity of morality, the explanations that I am about to
make are not out of season; for the subject of this book is closely connected
with what, par excellence, we call “morals.”
On this point I must permit myself a short digression.
No one will pretend that our so-called civilised society has a very strict
practical morality, yet public opinion still seems to attach a particular
importance to sexual morality, and this is the expression of a very real

sentiment, the origin of which scientific sociology has no difficulty in
retracing. This origin, far from being a lofty one, goes back simply to the
right of proprietorship in women similar to that in goods and chattels—a
proprietorship which we find claimed in savage, and even in barbarous
countries, without any feeling of shame. During the lower stages of social
evolution, women are uniformly treated as domestic animals; but this
female live-stock are difficult to guard; for, on the one hand, they are much
coveted and are unskilful in defending themselves, and on the other, they do
not bend willingly to the one-sided duty of fidelity that is imposed on them.
The masters, therefore, protect their own interests by a whole series of
vexatious restraints, of rigorous punishments, and of ferocious revenges,
left at first to the good pleasure of the marital proprietors, and afterwards
regulated and codified. In the chapter on adultery, especially, will be found
a great number of examples of this marital savagery. I have previously
shown, in my Evolution de la Morale, that the unforeseen result of all this
jealous fury has been to endow humanity, and more particularly women,
with the delicate sentiment of modesty, unknown to the animal world and to
primitive man.
From this evolution of thousands of years there has finally resulted, in
countries and races more or less civilised, a certain sexual morality, which
is half instinctive, and varies according to time and place, but which it is
impossible to transgress without the risk of offending gravely against public
opinion. Civilisations, however, whether coarse or refined, differ from each
other. Certain actions, counted as blameworthy in one part of the world, are
elsewhere held as lawful and even praiseworthy. In order to trace the origin
of marriage and of the family, it is therefore indispensable to relate a
number of practices which may be scandalous in our eyes. While submitting
to this necessity, I have done so unwillingly, and with all the sobriety which
befits the subject. I have striven never to depart from the scientific spirit,
which purifies everything, and renders even indecency decent.
Like the savages of to-day, our distant ancestors were very little removed
from simple animal existence. A knowledge of their physiology is
nevertheless necessary to enable us to understand our own; for, however
cultivated the civilised man may be, he derives from the humble progenitors
of his race a number of instincts which are energetic in proportion as they
are of a low order. More or less deadened, these gross tendencies are latent

in the most highly developed individuals; and when they sometimes break
out suddenly in the actions of a man’s life, or in the morals or literature of a
people, they recall to us our very humble origin, and even show a certain
mental and moral retrogression.
Now it is to this primitive man, still in such a rudimentary state, that we
must go back for enlightenment on the genesis of all our social institutions.
We must take him at the most distant dawn of humanity, follow him step by
step in his slow metamorphoses, without either disparaging or poetising
him; we must watch him rising and becoming more refined through
accumulated centuries, till he loses by degrees his animal instincts, and at
length acquires aptitudes, inclinations, and faculties that are truly human.
Nothing is better adapted to exemplify the evolution which binds our
present to our past and to our future than the sociological history of
marriage and of the family.
After having spoken of the aim of this book, it remains for me to justify
its method. This differs considerably from what the mass of the public like
far too well. But a scientific treatise must not take purely literary works for
its models; and I can say to my readers, with much more reason than old
Rabelais, that if they wish to taste the marrow, they must take the trouble to
break the bone. My first and chief consideration is to assist in the
foundation of a new science—ethnographical sociology. Elegant and vain
dissertations, or vague generalities, have no place here. It is by giving way
to these, and in attempting to reap the harvest before sowing the seed, that
many authors have lost themselves in a pseudo-sociology, having no
foundation, and consequently no value.
Social science, if it is to be seriously constituted, must submit with
docility to the method of natural science. The first task, and the one which
especially falls to the lot of the sociologists of the present day, is to collect
the facts which will form materials for the future edifice. To their
successors will fall the pleasure of completing and adorning it.
The present work is, therefore, above all, a collection of facts which,
even if taken alone, are curious and suggestive. These facts have been
patiently gleaned from the writings of ethnographers, travellers, legists, and
historians. I have classed them as well as I could, and naturally they have

inspired me here and there with glimpses of possible inductions, and with
some slight attempts at generalisation.
But whether the reader rejects or accepts my interpretations, the
groundwork of facts on which they rest is so instructive of itself that a
perusal of the following pages cannot be quite fruitless.
CH. LETOURNEAU.

THE EVOLUTION OF MARRIAGE AND OF
THE FAMILY.

CHAPTER I.

THE BIOLOGICAL ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE.

I. The True Place of Man in the Animal Kingdom.—Man is a
mammiferous, bimanous vertebrate—Biology the starting-point of
sociology—The origin of love.
II. Reproduction.—Nutrition and reproduction—Scissiparity—
Budding—Ovulation—Conjugation—Impregnation—Reproduction
in the invertebrates—The entity called Nature—Organic
specialisation and reproduction—A dithyramb by Haeckel.
III. Rut and Love.—Rut renders sociable—Rut is a short puberty
—Its organic adornment—The frenzy of rut—Physiological reason
of rut in mammals—Love and rut—Schopenhauer and the designs
of Nature.
IV. Love of Animals.—Love and death—The law of coquetry—
The law of battle—Jealousy and æsthetic considerations—Love
amongst birds—Effects of sexual selection—The loves of the
skylark—The males of the blue heron and their combats—Battles of
male geese and male gallinaceæ—Courteous duels between males—
Æsthetic seduction among certain birds—Æsthetic constructions—
Musical seduction—Predominance of the female among certain
birds—Greater sensuality of the male—Effect of sexual exaltation
—A Cartesian paradox—Individual choice amongst animals—
Individual fancies of females—General propositions.

I. The True Place of Man.

We have too long been accustomed to study human society as if man
were a being apart in the universe. In comparing human bipeds with
animals it has seemed as if we were disparaging these so-called demi-gods.
It is to this blind prejudice that we must attribute the tardy rise of

anthropological sociology. A deeper knowledge of biological science and of
inferior races has at last cured us of this childish vanity. We have decided to
assign to man his true place in the organic world of our little globe. Granted
that the human biped is incontestably the most intelligent of terrestrial
animals, yet, by his histological texture, by his organs, and by the functions
of these organs, he is evidently only an animal, and easily classed in the
series: he is a bimanous, mammiferous vertebrate. Not that by his most
glorious representatives, by those whom we call men of genius, man does
not rise prodigiously above his distant relations of the mammal class; but,
on the other hand, by imperfectly developed specimens he descends far
below many species of animals; for if the idiot is only an exception, the
man of genius is still more so. In fact, the lowest human races, with whose
anatomy, psychology, and sociology we are to-day familiar, can only inspire
us with feelings of modesty. They furnish studies in ethnography which
have struck a mortal blow at the dreams of “the kingdom of man.”
When once it is established that man is a mammal like any other, and
only distinguished from the animals of his class by a greater cerebral
development, all study of human sociology must logically be preceded by a
corresponding study of animal sociology. Moreover, as sociology finally
depends on biology, it will be necessary to seek in physiological conditions
themselves the origin of great sociological manifestations. The first
necessity of societies is that they should endure, and they can only do so on
the condition of providing satisfaction for primordial needs, which are the
condition of life itself, and which imperatively dominate and regulate great
social institutions. Lastly, if man is a sociable animal, he is not the only one;
many other species have grouped themselves in societies, where, however
rudimentary they may be, we find in embryonic sketch the principal traits of
human agglomerations. There are even species—as, for example, bees, ants,
and termites—that have created true republics, of complicated structure, in
which the social problem has been solved in an entirely original manner. We
may take from them more than one good example, and more than one
valuable hint.
My present task is to write the history of marriage and of the family. The
institution of marriage has had no other object than the regulation of sexual
unions. These have for their aim the satisfaction of one of the most
imperious biological needs—the sexual appetite; but this appetite is only a

conscious impulse, a “snare,” as Montaigne calls it, which impels both man
and animal to provide, as far as concerns them, for the preservation of their
species—to “pay the ancestral debt,” according to the Brahmanical formula.
Before studying the sexual relations, and their more or less regulated form
in human societies, it will not be out of place to say a few words on
reproduction in general, to sketch briefly its physiology in so far as this is
fundamental, and to show how tyrannical are the instincts whose formation
has been determined by physiological causes, and which render the fiercest
animals mild and tractable. This is what I shall attempt to do in the
following chapter.

II. Reproduction.

Stendhal has somewhere said that the beautiful is simply the outcome of
the useful; changing the phrase, we may say that generation is the outcome
of nutrition. If we examine the processes of generation in very simple
organisms, this great function seems to answer to a superabundance of
nutritive materials, which, after having carried the anatomic elements to
their maximum volume, at length overflows and provokes the formation of
new elements. As long as the new-born elements can remain aggregated
with those which already constitute the individual, as long as the latter has
not acquired all the development compatible with the plan of its being, there
is simply growth. When once the limit is attained that the species cannot
pass, the organism (I mean a very rudimentary organism) reproduces itself
commonly by a simple division in two halves. It perishes in doubling itself
and in producing two beings, similar to itself, and having nothing to do but
grow. It is by means of this bi-partition that hydras, vorticellæ, algæ, and
the lowest mushrooms are generally propagated.
In the organisms that are slightly more complicated the function of
reproduction tends to be specialised. The individual is no longer totally
divided; it produces a bud which grows by degrees, and detaches itself from
the parent organism to run in its turn through the very limited adventures of
its meagre existence.
By a more advanced step in specialisation the function of reproduction
becomes localised in a particular cell, an ovule, and the latter, by a series of
repeated bi-partitions, develops a new individual; but it is generally

necessary that the cellule destined to multiply itself by segmentation should
at first dissolve by union with another cell. Through the action of various
organic processes the two generating cells arrive in contact. The element
which is to undergo segmentation—the female element—then absorbs the
element that is simply impulsive; the element called male becomes
impregnated with it, and from that moment it is fertilised, that is to say,
capable of pursuing the course of its formative work.
This phenomenon, so simple in itself, of the conjugation of two cellules,
is the foundation of reproduction in the two organic kingdoms as soon as
the two sexes are separated. Whether the sexes are represented by distinct
or united individuals, whether the accessory organic apparatus is more or
less complicated, are matters of no consequence; the essential fact reappears
always and everywhere of the conjugation of two cellules, with absorption,
in the case of superior animals, of the male cellule by the female cellule.
The process may be observed in its most elementary form in the algæ and
the diatomaceæ, said to be conjugated. To form a reproductive cellule, or
spore, two neighbouring cellules each throw out, one towards the other, a
prolongation. These prolongations meet, and their sides absorb each other at
the point of contact; then the protoplasms of the two elements mingle, and
at length the two cellules melt into a single reproductive cellule (Spirogyra
longata).
Between this marriage of two lower vegetal cellules, which realises to the
letter the celebrated biblical words, “they shall be one flesh,” or rather one
protoplasm, and the fundamental phenomenon of fecundation in the
superior animals, including man, there is no essential dissimilarity. The
ovule of the female and the spermatozoon of the male become fused in the
same manner, with this difference only, that the feminine cellule, the ovule,
preserves its individuality and absorbs the masculine cellule, or is
impregnated by it.
But, simple as it is, this phenomenon of fecundation is the sole reason of
the duration of bi-sexual species. Thanks to it, organic individuals that are
all more or less ephemeral,
“Et, quasi cursores, vitaï lampada tradunt.”
(Lucretius, ii. 78.)

For many organised beings reproduction seems in reality the supreme
object of existence. Numbers of vegetables and of animals, even of animals
high in the series—as insects—die as soon as they have accomplished this
great duty. Sometimes the male expires before having detached himself
from the female, and the latter herself survives just long enough to effect
the laying of eggs. Instead of laying eggs, the female cochineal fills herself
with eggs to such a degree that she dies in consequence, and the tegument
of her body is transformed into a protecting envelope for the eggs.
At the not very distant time when animism reigned supreme, these facts
were attributed to calculations of design. Nature, it was believed, occupied
herself chiefly with perpetuating organised species; as for individuals, she
disdained the care of them. We now know that Nature, as an
anthropomorphic being, does not exist; that the great forces called natural
are unconscious; that their blind action results, however, in the world of life,
in a choice, a selection, a progressive evolution, or, to sum up, in the
survival of the individuals best adapted to the conditions of their existence.
Without any intention of Dame Nature, the preservation of the species was
necessarily, before anything else, the object of selection; and during the
course of geological periods primitive bi-partition gradually became
transformed through progressive differentiation into bi-sexual procreation,
requiring the concurrence of special and complicated apparatus in order to
be effected. But, at the same time as procreation, other functions also
became differentiated by the formation of special organs; the nervous
system vegetated around the chorda dorsalis; and, finally, conscious life
awoke in the nervous centres. Thenceforth the accomplishment of the great
function of procreation assumed an entirely different aspect. In the lowest
stages of the animal kingdom reproduction is effected mechanically and
unconsciously. A paramœcium, observed by M. Balbiani, produced in forty-
two days, by a series of simple bi-partitions, 1,384,116 individuals, who
very certainly had not the least notion of the phenomena by which they
transmitted existence. But with superior animals it is very different; in their
case the act of procreation is a real efflorescence, not only physical, but
psychical. For the study that I am now undertaking it will not be without
use to recall the principal features of this amorous efflorescence, since it is,
after all, the first cause of marriage and of the family. At the same time, not
to lose our standpoint, it is important to bear in mind that at the bottom all
this expenditure of physical and psychical force has for motive and for

result, both in man and animal, the conjugation of two generative cellules.
Haeckel has written a dithyramb on this subject in his Anthropogenia,
which is in the main so true that I take pleasure in quoting it—“Great
effects are everywhere produced, in animated nature, by minute causes....
Think of how many curious phenomena sexual selection gives rise to in
animal life; think of the results of love in human life; now, all this has for its
raison d’être the union of two cellules.... There is no organic act which
approaches this one in power and in the force of differentiation. The
Semitic myth of Eve seducing Adam for the love of knowledge, the old
Greek legend of Paris and Helen, and many other magnificent poems, do
they not simply express the enormous influence that sexual love and sexual
selection have exercised since the separation of the sexes? The influence of
all the other passions which agitate the human heart cannot weigh in the
balance with love, which inflames the senses and fascinates the reason. On
the one hand, we celebrate in love the source of the most sublime works of
art, and of the noblest creations of poetry and of music; we venerate it as
the most powerful factor in civilisation, as the prime cause of family life,
and consequently of social life. On the other hand, we fear love as a
destructive flame; it is love that drives so many to ruin; it is love that has
caused more misery, vice, and crime than all other calamities together. Love
is so prodigious, its influence is so enormous on psychic life and the most
diverse functions of the nervous system, that in regard to it we are tempted
to question the supernatural effect of our natural explanation. Nevertheless,
comparative biology and the history of development conduct us surely and
incontestably to the simplest, most remote source of love; that is to say, the
elective affinity of two different cellules—the spermatic cell and the
ovulary cell.”[1]

III. Rut and Love.

In a former work on the evolution of morality I have described the
manner in which the hereditary tendencies and instincts arise from habit,
induced in the nervous cellules by a sufficient repetition of the same acts.
The instinct of procreation has, and can have, no other origin. The animal
species, during the long phases of their evolution, have reproduced
themselves unconsciously, and by very simple processes, which we may
still observe in certain zoophytes. By degrees these mere sketches of

animals have become perfected and differentiated, and have acquired
special organs over which the biological work has been distributed;
thenceforth the play of life has echoed in the nervous centres, and has
awakened in them impressions and desires, the energy of which strictly
corresponds to the importance of the functions. Now, there is no more
primordial function than procreation, since on it depends the duration even
of the species; and for this reason the need of reproduction, or the rut,
breaks out in many animals like a kind of madness. The psychic faculties of
the animal, whether great or small, are then over-excited, and rise above
their ordinary level; but they all tend to one supreme aim—the desire for
reproduction. At this period the wildest and most unsociable species can no
longer endure solitude; both males and females seek each other; sometimes,
even, they are seen to form themselves into groups, or small provisional
societies, which will dissolve again after the coupling time is over.
Each period of rut is for animals a sort of puberty. The hair, the plumage,
and the scales often assume rich tints which afterwards disappear.
Sometimes special epidermic productions appear in the male, and serve him
for temporary weapons with which to fight his rivals, or for ornaments to
captivate the female. It is with a veritable frenzy that the sexual union is
accomplished among certain species. Thus Dr. Günther has several times
found female toads dead, smothered by the embrace of the males.[2]
Spallanzani was able to amputate the thighs of male frogs and toads during
copulation, without diverting them from their work.
In the animal class which more particularly interests us, that of mammals,
rut produces analogous, though less violent, phenomena. Now, in this case,
we know that erotic fury is closely related to congestive phenomena, having
for their seat the procreative glands, which swell in both male and female,
and provoke in the latter a veritable process of egg-laying. We must not
forget that man, in his quality of mammal, is subject to the common law,
that female menstruation is essentially identical with the intimate
phenomena of rut in the females of mammals, and corresponds also to an
ovarian congestion, or to the swelling and bursting of one or more of the
Graafian follicles; it is, in short, a production of eggs. I need not lay stress
on these facts, but it is right to recall them by the way, since they are the
raison d’être of sexual attraction, without which there would be neither
marriage nor family.

If we are willing to descend to the foundation of things, we find that
human love is essentially rut in an intelligent being. It exalts all the vital
forces of the man just as rut over-excites those of the animal. If it seems to
differ extremely from it, this is simply because in man the procreative need,
a primordial need beyond all others, in radiating from highly developed
nervous centres, awakens and sets in commotion an entire psychic life
unknown to the animal.
There is nothing surprising to the naturalist in this procreative explosion,
which evolves altruism out of egotism. We know too well, however, that it
has not appeared so simple a matter to many philosophers and celebrated
literary men, little familiar with biological sciences. A belated
metaphysician, Schopenhauer, who has lately become fashionable, adopting
the ancient stereotyped doctrine which makes Nature an anthropomorphic
personage, has gratuitously credited her with quite a profound diplomatic
design. According to him, it is a foregone conclusion that she should
intoxicate individuals with love, and thus urge them on, without their
suspecting it, to sacrifice themselves to the major interest of the
preservation of the species. The glance that we have just thrown on the
processes of reproduction, from the paramœcium up to man, suffices to
refute this dream. I will not, however, dwell on this. What is here of great
interest is to inquire how the superior animals comport themselves when
pricked by desire, and to note the principal traits of their sexual psychology;
for here again we shall have to recognise more than one analogy to what
happens in regard to man; and we shall also see later that there exists both
in the animal and the man some relation between the manner in which
sexual attraction is felt and the greater or less aptitude for durable pairing,
and consequently for marriage and the family.
Without giving more time than is necessary to these short excursions into
animal psychology, it will be well to pause on them for a moment. They
throw a light on the sources of human sociology; they force us also to break
once for all with the abstract and trite theories which have inspired, on the
subject of marriage and the family, so much empty writing and so many
satiating trivialities. It is in animality that humanity has its root; it is there,
consequently, that we must seek the origins of human sociology.

IV. Loves of Animals.

In a well-known mystic book occurs an aphorism which has become
celebrated—“Love is strong as death.” The expression is not exaggerated;
we may even say that love is stronger than death, since it makes us despise
it. This is perhaps truer with animals than with man, and is all the more
evident in proportion as the rational will is weaker, and prudential
calculations furnish no check to the impetuosity of desire. For the majority
of insects to love and to die are almost synonymous, and yet they make no
effort to resist the amorous frenzy which urges them on. But however short
may be their sexual career, one fact has been so generally observed in
regard to many of them, that it may be considered as the expression of a law
—the law of coquetry. With the greater number of species that are slightly
intelligent, the female refuses at first to yield to amorous caresses. This
useful practice may well have arisen from selection, for its result has
invariably been to excite the desire of the male, and arouse in him latent or
sleeping faculties. However brief, for example, may be the life of
butterflies, their pairing is not accomplished without preliminaries; the
males court the females during entire hours, and for a butterfly hours are
years.
We can easily imagine that the coquetry of females is more common
amongst vertebrates. When the season of love arrives, many male fishes,
who are then adorned with extremely brilliant colours, make the most of
their transient beauty by spreading out their fins, and by executing leaps,
darts, and seductive manœuvres around the females.
Among fishes we begin already to observe another sexual law, at least as
general as the law of coquetry, which Darwin has called the law of battle.
The males dispute with each other for the females, and must triumph over
their rivals before obtaining them. Thus, whilst the female sticklebacks are
very pacific, their males are of warlike humour, and engage in furious
combats in their honour. In the same way the male salmon, whose lower
jaw lengthens into a crook during the breeding season, are constantly
fighting amongst each other.[3]
The higher we ascend in the animal kingdom the more frequent and more
violent become two desires in the males—the desire of appearing beautiful,
and that of driving away rivals. In South America, the males of the Analis
cristellatus, a fissilingual saurian, have terrible battles in the breeding
season, the vanquished habitually losing his tail, which is bitten off by the

victor. An old observer also describes the amorous male alligator as
“swollen to bursting, the head and tail raised, spinning round on the surface
of the water, and appearing to assume the manner of an Indian chief relating
his exploits.”[4]
But it is particularly among birds that the sentiment, or rather the passion,
of love breaks out with most force and even poetry. It is especially to birds
that the celebrated Darwinian theory of sexual selection applies. It is
difficult, indeed, not to attribute to this influence the production of the
offensive and defensive arms, the armaments, the organs of song, the glands
of odoriferous secretion of many male birds, also their courage, the warlike
instinct of many of them, and lastly, the coquetry of the females. Let us
listen to Audubon, as he relates the loves of the skylark:—“Each male is
seen to advance with an imposing and measured step, swinging his tail,
spreading it out to its full extent, then closing it again like a fan in the hands
of a fine lady. Their brilliant notes are more melodious than ever; they
repeat them oftener than usual as they rest on the branch or summit of some
tall meadow reed. Woe to the rival who dares to enter the lists, or to the
male who simply comes in sight of another male at this moment of veritable
delirium: he is suddenly attacked, and, if he is the weaker, chased beyond
the limits of the territory claimed by the first occupant. Sometimes several
birds are seen engaged in these rude combats, which rarely last more than
two or three minutes: the appearance of a single female suffices to put an
instant end to their quarrel, and they all fly after her as if mad. The female
shows the natural reserve of her sex, without which, even among larks,
every female would probably fail to find a male [this is a little too flattering
for larks, and even for men]. When the latter,” continues Audubon, “flies
towards her, sighing forth his sweetest notes, she retreats before her ardent
admirer in such a way that he knows not whether he is repulsed or
encouraged.”[5]
In this little picture the author has noted all the striking traits of the love
of birds—the courage and jealousy of the male, his efforts to charm the
female by his beauty and the sweetness of his song, and finally, the
coquetry of the female, who retreats, and thus throws oil on the fire. The
combats of the amorous males among many species of birds have been
observed and described minutely. “The large blue male herons,” says
Audubon, “attack each other brutally, without courtesy; they make passes

with their long beaks and parry them like fencing masters, often for half-an-
hour at a time, after which the vanquished one remains on the ground,
wounded or killed.”[6]
The male Canadian geese engage in combats which last more than half-
an-hour; the vanquished sometimes return to the charge, and the fight
always takes place in an enclosed field, in the middle of a circle formed by
the band or clan of which the rivals form part.
But it is especially among the gallinaceæ that love inspires the males
with warlike fury. In this order of birds nearly all the males are of bellicose
temperament. Our barn-door cock is the type of the gallinaceæ—vain,
amorous, and courageous. Black cocks are also always ready for a fight,
and their females quietly look on at their combats, and afterwards reward
the conqueror. We may observe analogous facts, only somewhat masked, in
savage, and even in civilised humanity. The conduct of certain females of
the Tetras urogallus is still more human. According to Kowalewsky, they
take advantage of a moment when the attention of the old cocks is entirely
absorbed by the anxiety of the combat, to run off with a younger male.[7]
If we may believe certain authors, these amorous duels must not always
be taken seriously. They are often nothing more than parades, tourneys, or
courteous jousts, merely giving the males an opportunity of showing their
beauty, address, or strength. This is the case, according to Blyth, with the
Tetras umbellus.[8] In the same way, the grouse of Florida (Tetras cuspido)
are said to assemble at night to fight until the morning with measured grace,
and then to separate, having first exchanged formal courtesies.[9]
But among animals, as well as men, love has more than one string to his
bow. It is especially so with birds, who are the most amorous of vertebrates.
They use several æsthetic means of attracting the female, such as beauty of
plumage and the art of showing it, and also sweetness of song. Strength
seems often to be quite set aside, and the eye and ear are alone appealed to
by the love-stricken males.
Every one has seen our pigeons and doves courteously salute their mates.
Many male birds execute dances and courting parades before their females.
Thus, for example, do the Tetras phasaniellus of North America, herons
(Cathartes jota), vultures, etc. The male of the red-wing struts about before

his female, sweeping the ground with his tail and acting the dandy.[10] The
crested duck raises his head gracefully, straightens his silky aigrette, or
bows to his female, while his throat swells and he utters a sort of gutteral
sound.[11] The male chaffinch places himself in front of the female, that she
may admire at her ease his red throat and blue head.[12]
All this æsthetic display is quite intentional and premeditated; for while
many pheasants and gallinaceous birds parade before their females, two
pheasants of dull colour, the Crossoptilon auritum and the Phasianus
Wallichii, refrain from doing so,[13] being apparently conscious of their
modest livery.
Birds often assemble in large numbers to compete in beauty before
pairing. The Tetras cuspido of Florida and the little grouse of Germany and
Scandinavia do this. The latter have daily amorous assemblies, or cours
d’amour, of great length, which are renewed every year in the month of
May.[14]
Certain birds are not content with their natural ornaments, however
brilliant these may be, but give the rein to their æsthetic desire in a way that
may be called human. Mr. Gould assures us that some species of humming-
birds decorate the exterior of their nests with exquisite taste, making use of
lichens, feathers, etc. The bower-birds of Australia (Chlamydera maculata,
etc.) construct bowers on the ground, ornamented with feathers, shells,
bones, and leaves. These bowers are intended to shelter the courting
parades, and both males and females join in building them, though the
former are more zealous in the work.[15] But in this erotic architecture the
palm is carried off by a bird of New Guinea, the Amblyornis inornata, made
known to us by M. O. Beccari.[16] This bird of rare beauty, for it is a bird of
Paradise, constructs a little conical hut to protect his amours, and in front of
this he arranges a lawn, carpeted with moss, the greenness of which he
relieves by scattering on it various bright-coloured objects, such as berries,
grains, flowers, pebbles, and shells. More than this, when the flowers are
faded, he takes great care to replace them by fresh ones, so that the eye may
be always agreeably flattered. These curious constructions are solid, lasting
for several years, and probably serving for several birds. What we know of
sexual unions among the lower human races suffices to show how much
these birds excel men in sexual delicacy.

Every one is aware that the melodious voice of many male birds
furnishes them with a powerful means of seduction. Every spring our
nightingales figure in true lyric tournaments. Magpies, who are ill-endowed
from a musical point of view, endeavour to make up for this organic
imperfection by rapping on a dry and sonorous branch, not only to call the
female, but also to charm her; we may say, in fact, that they perform
instrumental music. Another bird, the male of the weaver-bird, builds an
abode of pleasure for himself, where he goes to sing to his companion.[17]
Audubon has made one observation in regard to Canadian geese which is
in every point applicable to the human species. The older the birds are, he
says, the more they abridge the preliminaries of their amours. Their poetic
and æsthetic sense has become blunted, and they go straight to their object.
Wherever amongst the animal species supremacy in love is obtained by
force, the male, nearly always the more ardent, has necessarily become,
through the action of selection, larger, stronger, and better armed than the
female. Such is in reality the case in regard to the greater number of
vertebrates; certain exceptions, however, exist, and naturally these are
chiefly found among birds, as they are more inclined than other types to put
a certain delicacy in their sexual unions. With many species of birds,
indeed, the female is larger and stronger than the male. It is well known to
be the same with certain articulates, and these facts authorise us to admit
that there is no necessary correlation between relative weakness and the
female sex. Must we therefore conclude, with Darwin, that the females of
certain birds owe their excess of size and height to the fact that they have
formerly contested also for the possession of the males? We may be allowed
to doubt it. Almost universally, whether she is large or small, the female is
less ardent than the male, and in the amorous tragi-comedy she generally
plays, from beginning to end, a passive rôle; in the animal kingdom, as well
as with mankind, amazons are rare.
Among birds and vertebrates generally the male is much more impetuous
than the female, and therefore he has no difficulty in accepting for the
moment any companion whatever.[18] This uncontrollable ardour sometimes
even urges the males to commit actual attempts on the safety of the family.
Thus it happens that the male canary (Fringilla canaria) persecutes his
female while she is sitting, tears her nest, throws out the eggs, and, in short,
tries to excite his mate to become again a lover, forgetting that she is a

mother. In the same way our domestic cock pursues the sitting hen when
she leaves her eggs in order to feed.[19]
With the cousins-german of man, the mammals, sexual psychology has a
general resemblance to that of birds, but more often it is far less delicate.
And besides this, the sexual customs are naturally less refined in proportion
as the nervous centres of the species are less perfected. Thus the stupid
tatoways meet by chance, smell each other, copulate and separate with the
greatest indifference. Our domestic dog himself, although so civilised and
affectionate, is generally as gross in his amours as the tatoway.
With birds, as we have seen, the law of battle plays an important part in
sexual selection; but it is often counter-balanced by other less brutal
influences. This is rarely the case in regard to mammals, with whom
especially the right of the strongest regulates the unions. The law of battle
prevails among aquatic as well as land mammals. The combats of the male
stags, in the rutting season, are celebrated. The combatants have been
known to succumb without being able to disentangle their interlocked
antlers; but seals and male sperm-whales fight with equal fury, and so also
do the males of the Greenland whale.[20]
In mammals, as in birds, and as in man, sexual desire raises and
intensifies all the faculties, and seems to elevate the individual above the
level of normal life. Animals in a state of rut become bolder, more
ferocious, and more dangerous. The elephant, pacific enough by nature,
assumes a terrible fury in the rutting season. The Sanskrit poems constantly
recur to the simile of the elephant in rut to express the highest degree of
strength, nobility, grandeur, and even beauty.
But obviously I must not linger very long over the loves of the animals.
My chief object is to study sexual union and marriage amongst human
beings. The rut of animals and their sexual passions merely interest us here
as preliminary studies, which throw light on the origin of analogous
sentiments in mankind. Before leaving this subject, however, it will be
useful to note a few more facts which, from the point of view of sexual
psychology, bring animals and men near to each other.
The old Cartesian paradox, which makes the animal an unconscious
machine, has still many partisans. A widely-prevailing prejudice insists that
animals always obey blind instincts, while man alone, homo sapiens, made

after the image of God, weighs motives, deliberates and chooses. Now, as
procreation constitutes one of the great necessities of organised beings, and
is an imperious law which no species can elude without disappearing,
surely we ought to find amongst animals the most exact regularity in the
acts connected with it. Man alone ought to have the privilege of introducing
caprice and free choice into love. It is not so, however. On this side of his
nature, as on all the others, man and animal approach, resemble, and copy
each other. In his celebrated invocation to Venus, Lucretius has truly said,
proclaiming the universal empire of the instinct of reproduction—
“Per te quoniam genus omne animantum
Concipitur, visitque exortum lumine solis.”
The animal, as well as the morally developed man, is capable of
preference and individual passion; he does not yield blindly and passively
to sexual love.
According to observers and breeders, it is the female who is specially
susceptible of sentimental selection. The male, even the male of birds, is
more ardent than the female, that is to say, more intoxicated and more
sharply pricked by instinct, and thus generally accepts any female whatever:
all are alike to him. This is the rule, but it is not without exceptions; thus,
the male pheasant shows a singular aversion to certain hens. Amongst the
long-tailed ducks some females have evidently a particular charm for the
males, and are courted more than the others.[21] The pigeon of the dovecot
shows a strong aversion to the species modified by breeders, which he
regards as deteriorated.[22] Stallions are often capricious. It was necessary,
for example, to use stratagem in order to induce the famous stallion
Monarch to beget Gladiateur, who became still more famous.[23] Analogous
facts have been observed in regard to bulls.[24]
But it is more especially the females who introduce individual fancy into
sexual love. They are subject to singular and inexplicable aversions. Mares
sometimes resist, and it is necessary to deceive them.[25] Female pigeons
occasionally show a strong dislike to certain males without apparent cause,
and refuse to yield to their caresses. At other times a female pigeon,
suddenly forgetting the constancy of her species, abandons her old mate or
legitimate spouse to fall violently in love with another male. In the same
way peahens sometimes show a lively attachment to a particular peacock.

[26]
High-bred bitches, led astray by passion, trample under foot their
dignity, honour, and all care for nobility of blood, to yield themselves to
pug-dogs of low breed or mongrel males. We are told of some who have
persisted for entire weeks in these degrading passions, repulsing between
times the most distinguished of their own race.[27]
Even among species noted for their fidelity it sometimes happens that
acts of sexual looseness are committed. The female pigeon often abandons
her mate if the latter is wounded or becomes weak.[28] Misfortune is not
attractive, and love does not always inspire heroism.
In concluding this short study of sexual union in the animal kingdom, I
will attempt to formulate the general propositions which may be drawn
from it.
All organic species undergo the tyranny of the procreative function,
which is a guarantee of the duration of the type.
The phenomenon of reproduction, when detached from all the
complicated accessories which often conceal it in bi-sexual species, goes
back essentially to the conjugation of two cellules.
With intelligent animals the procreative function echoes in the nervous
centres under the form of violent desires, which intensify all the psychic
and physical faculties in awakening what we call love.
At its base, the love of animals does not differ from that of man.
Doubtless it is never such a quintessence as the love of Petrarch, but it is
often more delicate than that of inferior races, and of ill-conditioned
individuals, who, though belonging to the human race, seek for nothing in
love but, to use an energetic expression of Amyot’s Plutarch, to “get drunk.”
But among many of the animal species the sexual union induces a
durable association, having for its object the rearing of young. In nobility,
delicacy, and devotion these unions do not yield precedence to many human
unions. They deserve attentive study.
I have now, therefore, to consider marriage and the family amongst the
animals.

FOOTNOTES:
[1] Anthropogenia, p. 577.
[2] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 384.
[3] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 365.
[4] Bartram, Travels through Carolina, p. 128 (1791).
[5] Audubon, Scènes de la Nature dans les États-Unis, vol. i. p. 383.
[6] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 66.
[7] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 399.
[8] Ibid. p. 403.
[9] Espinas, Sociétés Animales, p. 326.
[10] Audubon, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 305.
[11] Ibid. vol. ii. p. 50.
[12] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 438.
[13] Ibid. p. 438.
[14] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 433.—Espinas, Soc. Animales, p. 326.
[15] Ibid. pp. 418, 453.
[16] Annali del Museo civico di storia naturale di Genova, t. ix. fase 3-4,
1877.
[17] Espinas, loc. cit., pp. 299, 438.
[18] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 460.

[19] Houzeau, Facultés mentales des animaux, t. ier. p. 292.
[20] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 550, 556.
[21] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 460, 461.
[22] Ibid. p. 457.
[23] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 575.
[24] Ibid. p. 576.
[25] Ibid. p. 576.
[26] Ibid. pp. 458, 459.
[27] Ibid. p. 574.
[28] Ibid. p. 234.

CHAPTER II.

MARRIAGE AND THE FAMILY AMONGST ANIMALS.

I. The preservation of species.—Two great processes of
preservation—Different rôles of the male and the female in the
animal family.
II. Marriage and the rearing of the young among animals.—
Abandonment of the young in the inferior species—The superior
molluscs guard their eggs—Solicitude of spiders for their eggs and
their young—Instinctive foresight of insects—Its origin—Larvæ are
ancestral forms—The familial instinct amongst birds—Frequency of
monogamy amongst birds.
III. The family amongst animals.—Intoxication of egg-laying
with birds—Absence of paternal love in certain birds—The familial
instinct very developed in certain species—Transient nature of their
love for the young—Promiscuity, polygamy, and monogamy among
mammals—Hordes of sociable animals—Polygamous monkeys—
Monogamous monkeys—General observations.

I. The Preservation of Species.

Two great processes are employed in the animal kingdom to assure the
preservation of the species: either the parents do not concern themselves at
all with their progeny, in which case the females give birth to an enormous
number of young; or, on the other hand, they are full of solicitude for their
offspring, cherishing and protecting them against the numerous dangers that
menace them; and, in this last case, the young are few in number. Nature
(since the expression is consecrated) proceeds sometimes by a lavish and
lawless production, and sometimes by a sort of Malthusianism. Thus a cod
lays every year about a million eggs, on which she bestows no care, and of
which only the thousandth, or perhaps even the hundred thousandth part,

escapes destruction; turtle-doves, on the contrary, only lay two eggs, but
nearly all their young attain maturity. In short, the species is maintained
sometimes by prodigality of births and sometimes by a great expenditure of
care and affection on the part of the parents, especially of the female. It is
almost superfluous to remark that analogous facts are observed in human
natality, according as it is savage or civilised.
With animals, as with men, sexual association, when it endures, becomes
marriage, and results in the family, that is to say, a union of parents for the
purpose of protecting their young. The care of the male for his progeny is
more rare and tardy than that of the female. Among animals, as among men,
the family is at first matriarchal, and it is only in the higher stages of the
animal kingdom that the male becomes a truly constituent part of the family
group; but even then, except among certain species of birds, his chief care is
less to rear the young than to govern in order to protect them. He plays the
rôle of a despotic chief, guiding the family when it remains undivided after
the rearing of the young, and most frequently acting like a polygamous
sultan, without the purely human scruple in regard to incest.
Just as we find amongst animals the two principal types of the human
family, the matriarchate and the patriarchate, or rather the maternal and
paternal family, so we may observe equally among them all the forms of
sexual union from promiscuity up to monogamy; but for enlightenment on
these interesting points of sociology, a rapid examination of the animal
kingdom is worth far more than all generalities.

II. Marriage and the Rearing of Young amongst Animals.

We shall leave entirely unnoticed the inferior kingdom of zoophytes,
which are devoid of coalescing nervous centres, and consequently of
conscious life. Even the lower types of molluscs do not begin to think of
their progeny; they scatter their eggs as plants do their seeds, and leave
them exposed to all chances. We must go to the superior molluscs to see any
care of offspring awakening. In this order, indeed, the most highly
developed species watch more or less over their eggs. The taredos carry
them stuck together in rings round their bodies; snails often deposit them in
damp ground, or in the trunk of a tree; cephalopods fix them in clusters

round algæ, and sometimes watch them till they open, after which they
leave them to get on as they can in the great world.
With spiders and insects the eggs are often the object of a solicitude and
even prolonged forethought, which rejoice greatly the lovers of design. We
must observe, however, that the males of spiders and that of the greater
number of insects entirely neglect their young; it is again in the female that
the care for offspring first awakens. And this is natural, for the eggs have
been formed in her body; she has laid them, and has been conscious of
them; they form, in a way, an integral part of her individuality.
The females of spiders also take care of their eggs after laying them,
enclose them in a ball of thread arranged in cocoons, carry them about with
them, and at the moment of hatching set them free, one by one, from the
envelope. Amongst some species there is even a certain rearing of the
young. Thus the Nemesia Eleonora lives for some time in her trapped nest
with her young, numbering from twenty to forty.[29]
With insects maternal forethought sometimes amounts to a sort of
divining prescience, which the doctrine of evolution alone can explain.
There is really something wonderful in the actions of a female insect, as she
prepares for her descendants, whom she will never see any more than she
has seen her own parents, a special nourishment which differs from her
own. It is thus that the sphinx, the pompilus, the sand-wasp, and the
philanthus dig holes in the sand, in which they deposit with the eggs a
suitable food for the future larvæ.[30]
In order to understand these facts, apparently so inexplicable, we must
look not only to the powerful influence of selection, but also to the
zoögenic past of the species. With the insect the perfect form is always the
last which it assumes, the outcome of all the previous metamorphoses. But
the larval form, though actually transitory, must have been for a long time
the permanent form, and it had different tastes and needs. At the present
time there are still numbers of insects whose larval existence has a much
longer duration than that of the so-called perfect insect (May-flies,
cockchafers). There are even larvæ which reproduce themselves. Certain
others, even though sterile, have not lost the maternal instinct. Thus at the
time of the hatching of the nymphs the larvæ of the termites assist the latter
to get rid of their envelope. It is therefore probable that, though now

transitory, the larval forms of insects have formerly been permanent; they
represent ancestral types, which evolution has by degrees metamorphosed
into insects that we call perfect. The larvæ, now actually sterile, descend
from ancestors which were not so, and in the larvæ of certain species the
maternal instinct has survived the reproductive function.[31]
This is doubtless the case with bees and ants; their workers must
represent an ancestral form, having preserved the maternal fervour of its
anterior state; the winged form, on the contrary, must be relatively recent. It
even appears probable that in the republics of ants and bees the laborious
workers may have succeeded, in a certain way, in getting rid of sexual
needs which cause animals and even men to commit so many mad actions.
With them the old maternal instinct has taken the place ceded to it by sexual
instinct, and has become enlarged and ennobled. Their affection is no longer
exclusively confined to a few individuals produced from their own bowels,
but is shared by all the young of the association. In their sub-œsophagian
ganglion one care takes precedence of all others—the care of rearing the
young. This is their constant occupation and the great duty to which they
sacrifice their lives. Maternal love, usually so selfish, expands with them
into an all-embracing social affection. It is not impossible that a psychic
metamorphosis of the same kind may one day take place in future human
societies.
It would even seem that the workers appreciate the faculty of
reproduction all the more for being deprived of it. The queen bee, or rather
the fertile female, who is the common mother of all the tribe, has every
possible care lavished on her, and is publicly mourned when she dies. If she
happens to perish before having young, and then cannot be replaced, the
virgin workers despair of the republic; losing for ever “les longs espoirs et
les vastes pensées,” they give way to an incurable and mortal pessimism.
One primitive form of the family, the matriarchate, which we shall study
later, is realised, even in an exaggerated form, by ants and bees. In human
societies we shall only find very faint imitations of this system, which has
been so strictly carried out by the primates of the invertebrates, and which
seems to have inspired the ancients with their fables about the amazons.
The vertebrated species, with the exception of mankind, have founded no
society that can be even distantly compared to that of hymenoptera and of

ants. With nearly all fishes and amphibia the parents are very poorly
developed as regards consciousness, and take no care of their eggs after
fecundation. Some species of fishes are, however, endowed with a certain
familial instinct, and strange to say, here it is the male who tends his
offspring. So true is it, that the imaginary being called Nature has no
preference for any special methods, and that in her eyes all processes are
good on the one condition that they succeed! Thus the Chinese Macropus
gathers the fecundated eggs into his jaws, deposits them in the midst of the
froth and mucous exuding from his mouth, and watches over the young
when they are hatched.[32] The male of synagnathous fishes and the sea-
horses carry their eggs in an incubating pouch; the Chromis paterfamilias,
of the lake of Tiberias, protects and nourishes in his mouth and bronchial
cavity hundreds of small fishes.[33]
Other fishes also have more or less care for their young. Salmon and
trout deposit their eggs in a depression which they have hollowed out in the
sand for the purpose. Fishes, belonging to various families, construct nests
and watch over the young when hatched (Cranilabrus massa, Cranilabrus
melops). Often again it is the male who undertakes all the work. Thus the
male of the Gasterosteus leiurus is incessantly occupied in fetching the
young ones home, and driving away all enemies, including the mother.[34]
The male stickleback, who is polygamous, builds a nest and watches with
solicitude over the safety and rearing of the young.[35]
Many reptiles are unnatural parents; some, however, already possess
some degree of familial instinct. Thus several males of the batrachians
assist the female to eject her eggs. The male accoucheur toad rolls the eggs
round his feet, and carefully carries them thus. The Surinam toad, the Pipa
Americana, after having aided the female in the operation of laying the
eggs, places them on the back of his companion, in little cutaneous cavities
formed for their reception.[36]
The Cobra capella bravely defends its eggs. The saurians often live in
couples, and the females of crocodiles escort their new-born little ones.
Female tortoises go so far as to shelter their young in a sort of nest.[37]
But it is especially among birds and mammals that we find forms of
union or association very similar to marriage and the family in the human
species. Nothing is more natural; for anatomical and physiological analogy

must of necessity lead in its train the analogy of sociology. There is no more
uniformity either amongst mammals than amongst men; the needs, the
habitat, and the necessities of existence dominate everything, and in order
to secure adjustment to these, recourse is had to various processes.
Like men, birds live sometimes in promiscuity, and sometimes in
monogamy or polygamy; the familial instinct is also very unequally
developed among them. Sometimes even we find their conjugal customs
modified by the kind of life they lead. Thus the wild duck, which is strictly
monogamous in a wild state, becomes very polygamous when
domesticated, and it is the same with the guinea fowl. Civilisation depraves
these birds, as it does some men. As may be supposed, it is generally the
animals living in troops who are degraded most easily by habitual
promiscuity. But this is not always the case; the character of the animal, his
mode of life, and the degree of morality previously acquired, determine his
manner of acting. It is probable also that certain animals, living in troops
during the breeding season, have formerly been less sociable than at
present, for they leave the troop and retire apart in couples as soon as they
have paired. Social life is burdensome to them.
It is especially interesting to study the various modes of conjugal and
familial association amongst birds. This may easily be inferred from the
ardour, the variety, and the delicacy they bring to their amours; the moral
level among them, to borrow a human expression, is very diverse,
according to the species. There are some birds absolutely fickle and even
debauched—as, for example, the little American starling (Icterus pecoris),
which changes its female from day to day; that is to say, it is in the lowest
stage of sexual union, a debauched promiscuity, which we only
exceptionally find in some hardly civilised human societies.[38] The starling,
nevertheless, is not ferocious, like the asturides, to whom, according to
Brehm, love seems unknown, and amongst whom the female devours her
male, the father and the mother feast on their own young, and the latter,
when full grown, willingly eat their parents. These ferocious habits denote a
very feeble moral development. But if we may believe a French missionary,
Mgr. Farand, bishop of the Mackenzie territory, similar customs still prevail
among the Redskins of the extreme north.[39] We shall not, therefore, be too
much scandalised at the birds. These cases of moral grossness are, besides,
rare enough with them.

Other species, while they have renounced promiscuity, are still
determined polygamists. The gallinaceæ are particularly addicted to this
form of conjugal union, which is so common, in fact, with mankind, even
when highly civilised and boasting of their practice of monogamy. Our
barn-door cock, vain and sensual, courageous and jealous, is a perfect type
of the polygamous bird. But the polygamous habits of the gallinaceæ do not
prevent them from experiencing very strong sexual passion. When seized
by this frenzy of desire, some of them appear to be senseless of all danger.
The firing of a gun, for example, does not alarm a male grouse when
swinging his head and whistling to charm his female;[40] but this ardour
does not hinder him from being a fickle animal, always in search of new
adventures, and always seeking fresh mates.[41]
These examples of wandering fancy are for the most part rare among
birds, the majority of whom are monogamous, and even far superior to most
men in the matter of conjugal fidelity.
Nearly all the rapacious animals, even the stupid vultures, are
monogamous. The conjugal union of the bald-headed eagle appears even to
last till the death of one of the partners. This is indeed monogamic and
indissoluble marriage, though without legal constraint.[42] Golden eagles
live in couples, and remain attached to each other for years without even
changing their domicile.[43] But these instances, honourable as they are,
have nothing exceptional in them; strong conjugal attachment is a sentiment
common to many birds.
With the female Illinois parrot (Psittacus pertinax) widowhood and death
are synonymous, a circumstance rare enough in the human species, yet of
which birds give us more than one example. When, after some years of
conjugal life, a wheatear happens to die, his companion hardly survives him
a month. The male and female of the panurus are always perched side by
side. When they fall asleep, one of them, generally the male, tenderly
spreads its wing over the other. The death of one, says Brehm, is fatal to its
companion. The couples of golden wood-peckers, of doves, etc., live in a
perfect union, and in case of widowhood experience a violent and lasting
grief. The male of a climbing wood-pecker, having seen his mate die,
tapped day and night with his beak to recall the absent one; then at length,
discouraged and hopeless, he became silent, but never recovered his gaiety

(Brehm). These examples of a fidelity that stands every test, and of the
religion of memory, although much more frequent in the unions of birds
than in those of human beings, are not, however, the unfailing rule. With
birds, as with men, there seems to be a good number of irregular cases—
individuals of imperfect moral development and of fickle disposition. This
may be inferred from the facility with which, among certain species of
monogamous birds, the dead partner is replaced. Jenner, who introduced
vaccination, relates that in Wiltshire he has seen one of a couple of magpies
killed seven days in succession, and seven times over immediately replaced.
Analogous facts have been observed of jays, falcons, and starlings. Now,
when it concerns animals that are paired, each substitution must correspond
to a desertion, the more so as the observations were made in the same
locality and in the height of the breeding season.[44]
Very peculiar fancies sometimes arise in the brains of certain birds. Thus
we see birds of distinct species pairing, and this even in a wild state. These
illegitimate unions have been observed between geese and barnacle geese,
and between black grouse and pheasants.
Darwin relates a case of this kind of passion suddenly appearing in a wild
duck. The fact is related by Mr. Hewitt as follows:—“After breeding a
couple of seasons with her own mallard, she at once shook him off on my
placing a male pintail in the water. It was evidently a case of love at first
sight, for she swam about the new-comer caressingly, though he appeared
evidently alarmed and averse to her overtures of affection. From that hour
she forgot her old partner. Winter passed by, and the next spring the pintail
seemed to have become a convert to her blandishments, for they nested and
produced seven or eight young ones.”[45] It is difficult not to attribute such
deviations as these to motives similar to those by which we are ourselves
actuated—to passion, caprice, or depravity. They certainly cannot be
accounted for by the theory of mechanical and immutable instinct. Such
facts clearly prove that animal psychology, although less complicated than
our own, does not differ essentially from it, and consequently throws much
light on our present investigation. The adventure of the wild duck, for
example, may, without any alteration, be read as a human adventure,
proving for the hundred-thousandth time that the heart, or what we call by
that name, is versatile; that conjugal fidelity does not always resist a strong
impression arising from a chance encounter; that novelty has a disturbing

effect; and, finally, that indifference and coldness can rarely hold out
against the persistent advances of one who loves ardently enough not to
yield to discouragement. Dante has already made this last reflection in his
celebrated line—
“Amor ch’a nullo amato amar perdona.”
To quote Dante à propos of the illicit amours of a pintail and a wild duck
may shock the learned, but the aptness of the quotation proves once more
the essential identity of the animal and human organisms.

III. The Family amongst Animals.

If the study of the modes of sexual union amongst animals is not useless
to the sociologist, that of the animal family is at least quite as interesting.
This latter confirms the inductions of theorists relative to the primitive form
of the human family. The animal family is especially maternal. The female
of birds, immediately she has laid her eggs, experiences a sort of
intoxication; to sit becomes for her an imperious need, which completely
transforms her moral nature. In January 1871, during the bombardment of
Paris, a German shell, bursting in the loft of a house inhabited by one of my
friends, was powerless to disturb a female pigeon absolutely enchained by
the passion of incubation.
It is amongst birds that the animal family is best constituted; this,
however, differs much according to the species, especially as regards the
participation of the male in the rearing of the young.
Amongst ducks, the male has no care for his progeny. The male eider
resembles the duck in this respect (Audubon). Male turkeys do much worse:
they often devour the eggs of their females, and thus oblige the latter to hide
them.[46] Female turkeys join each other with their young ones for greater
security, and thus form troops of from sixty to eighty individuals, led by the
mothers, and carefully avoiding the old males, who rush on the young ones
and kill them by violent blows on the head with their beaks.[47]
Among certain species of gallinaceæ the male leaves to the female the
care of incubation and of rearing the young. During this time he is running
after adventures, but returns when the young are old enough to follow him

and form a docile band under his government.[48] It is important to notice
that, amongst birds, the fathers devoid of affection generally belong to the
less intelligent species, and are most often polygamous. It seems, therefore,
that polygamy is not very favourable to the development of paternal love.
[49]

But bad fathers are rare amongst birds. Often, on the contrary, the male
rivals the female in love for the young; he guards and feeds her during
incubation, and sometimes even sits on the eggs with her. The carrier
pigeon feeds his female while she is sitting;[50] the Canadian goose[51] and
the crow do the same; more than that, the latter takes his companion’s place
at times, to give her some relaxation. The blue marten behaves in the same
manner.[52] Among many species, male and female combine their efforts
without distinction of sex; they sit in turn, and the one who is free takes the
duty of feeding the one who is occupied. This is the custom of the black-
coated gull,[53] the booby of Bassan,[54] the great blue heron,[55] and of the
black vulture.[56] According to Audubon, the blue bird of America works so
ardently at the propagation of its species that a single brood does not satisfy
him; each couple, therefore, exerts itself zealously, rearing two or three
broods at the same time, the female sitting on one, while the male feeds the
little ones of the preceding brood.[57]
But however violent the love of birds for their progeny may be, it lasts
only a short time, and is suddenly extinguished when the young can manage
for themselves. It is then quite surprising to see the parents drive away by
strokes of the beak the little ones they had been nursing with such devoted
tenderness a few days before. The birds of several species, however, teach
their young to fly before separating from them. The white-headed sea-eagle
carries them on its back to give them lessons in flying; grebes, swans, and
eiders teach their young to swim, etc. But the family is only of short
duration among birds and animals generally, unless, as is the case with
some gallinaceæ, the male keeps a few of his daughters to enrich his harem.
As a matter of fact, both with birds and other animals, the paternal or
maternal sentiment hardly lasts longer than the rearing time. When once the
young are full grown, the parents no longer distinguish them from strangers
of their species, and it is thus even with monogamic species when the
conjugal tie is lifelong; the marriage alone endures, but the family is

intermittent and renewed with every brood. We may remark that it is almost
the same with certain human races of low development. But, before
speaking of man, it will be well to investigate conjugal union and the family
amongst the animals nearest to man—the mammals.
From the point of view of duration and strength of the affections, or that
which we as men should call their morality, the mammals are far from
occupying the first rank in the animal hierarchy; many birds are very
superior to them. We find, however, great differences in the morals,
according to the species. Many mammals have stopped at the most brutal
promiscuity; males and females unite and separate at chance meetings,
without any care for the family arising in the mind of the male. The females
of mammals being always weaker than the males, no sexual association
comparable to polyandry is possible in this class, since, even if she wished
it, the female could not succeed in collecting a seraglio of males. But as to
polygamy, it is quite different, and this is very common with mammals,
especially with the sociable kinds, living in flocks. It is even a necessity of
the struggle for existence. Sociability generally proceeds from weakness.
The species that are badly armed for fierce combats, and that have besides
some difficulty in finding food, are glad to live in association. Union is
strength. The ruminants, for example, do this. Certain carnivorous animals,
ill-furnished with teeth and claws, dogs also, and jackals, live in troops for
the same reason—that of opposing a respectable front to the enemy. This
life in common is certainly favourable to the development of social virtues;
it cannot but soften primitive cruelty, and develop altruistic qualities; but it
is little conducive to sexual restraint and monogamy. Thus the greater
number of sociable mammals are polygamous. The ruminants live in hordes
composed of females and young, grouped around a male who protects them,
but who expels his rivals and becomes a veritable chief of a band. Very
various species compose familial societies in the same manner, and strongly
resembling each other.
When the Indian adult elephant renounces the solitary life which strong
animals generally adopt, it is in order to found a little polygamous society,
from which he expels all the males weaker than himself.[58]
The moufflons of Europe and of the Atlas also form little societies of the
same kind in the breeding season.[59]

Among the walrus, says Brehm, the male, who is of very jealous
temperament, collects around him from thirty to forty females, without
counting young, making altogether a polygamous family sometimes
amounting to a hundred and twenty individuals.
The male of the Asiatic antilope saiga is inordinately polygamous; he
expels all his rivals, and forms a harem numbering sometimes a hundred
females.[60]
The polygamic régime of animals is far from extinguishing affectionate
sentiments in the females towards their husband and master. The females of
the guanaco lamas, for example, are very faithful to their male. If the latter
happens to be wounded or killed, instead of running away, they hasten to
his side, bleating and offering themselves to the shots of the hunter in order
to shield him, while, on the contrary, if a female is killed, the male makes
off with all his troop; he only thinks of himself.
In regard to mammals, there is no strict relation between the degree of
intellectual development and the form of sexual union. The carnivorous
animals often live in couples for the reason previously given; but this is not
an absolute rule, for the South African lion is frequently accompanied by
four or five females.[61] Bears, weasels, whales, etc., on the contrary,
generally go in couples. Sometimes species that are very nearly allied have
different conjugal customs; thus the white-cheeked peccary lives in troops,
whilst the white-ringed peccary lives in couples.[62]
There is the same diversity in the habits of monkeys. Some are
polygamous and others monogamous. The wanderoo (Macacus silenus) of
India has only one female, and is faithful to her until death.[63] The Cebus
capucinus, on the contrary, is polygamous.[64]
Those cousins-german of man, the anthropoid apes, have sometimes
adopted polygamy and sometimes monogamy. Savage tells us that the
Gorilla gina forms small hordes, consisting of a single adult male, who is
the despotic chief of many females and a certain number of young.
Chimpanzees are sometimes polygamous and sometimes monogamous.
The polygamous family of monkeys is always subject to the monarchic
régime. The male, who is at the same time the chief, is despotic; he exacts a
passive obedience from his subordinates, and he expels the young males as

soon as they are old enough to give umbrage to him. To sum up, he is at
once the father, the protector, and the tyrant of the band. Nevertheless, the
females are affectionate to him, and the most zealous among them prove it
by assiduously picking the lice from him, which, with monkeys, is a mark
of great tenderness.[65] But the master who has been thus flattered and
cringed to sometimes comes to a bad end. One fine day, when old age has
rendered him less formidable, when he is no longer capable of proving at
every instant that right must yield to might, the young ones, so long
oppressed, rebel, and assassinate this tyrannous father. We must here
remark, that whatever the form of sexual association among mammals, the
male has always much less affection for the young than the female. Even in
monogamous species, when the male keeps with the female, he does so
more as chief than as father. At times he is much inclined to commit
infanticides and to destroy the offspring, which, by absorbing all the
attention of his female, thwart his amours. Thus, among the large felines,
the mother is obliged to hide her young ones from the male during the first
few days after birth, to prevent his devouring them.
I shall here conclude this very condensed study of sexual association and
the family in the animal kingdom. My object is not so much to exhaust the
subject, as to bring into relief the analogies existing between man and the
other species. The facts which have been cited are amply sufficient for this
purpose, and we may draw the following general conclusions from them:—
In the first place there is no premeditated design in nature; any mode of
reproduction, of sexual association and of rearing of young that is
compatible with the duration of the species may be adopted. But in a
general manner it may be said that a sort of antagonism exists between the
multiplicity of births and the degree of protection bestowed on the young by
the parents.
A rough outline of the family is already found in the animal kingdom; it
is sometimes patriarchal, as with sticklebacks, etc., but most often it is
matriarchal. In the latter case the female is the centre of it, and her love for
the young is infinitely stronger and more devoted than that of the male. This
is especially true of mammals, with whom the male is generally an egoist,
merely protecting the family in his own personal interest.

The familial instinct, more or less developed, exists in the greater number
of vertebrates, and in many invertebrates. From an early period it must have
been an object of selection, since it adds considerably to the chances of the
duration of the species. With some species (ants, bees, termites) this instinct
has expanded into a wide social love, resulting in the production of large
societies of complex structure, in which the family, as we understand it, is
unknown. I lay stress on this fact, for it is of great importance in theoretical
sociology; it proves, in fact, that large and complicated societies, with
division of social labour, can be maintained without the institution of the
family. We are not, therefore, warranted in pretending, as is usually done,
that the family is absolutely indispensable, and that it is the “cellule” of the
social organism. Let us observe, by the way, that the expression “social
organism” is simply metaphorical, and we must beware of taking it literally,
as Herbert Spencer, with a strange naïveté, seems to have done. Societies
are agglomerations of individuals in which a certain order is necessarily
established; but it is almost puerile to seek for, and to pretend to find in
them, an actual organisation, comparable, for example, to the anatomic and
physiologic plan of a mammal.
Terminating this short digression, I revert to my subject by summing up
the results of our examination of sexual associations among the animals.
In regard to marriage, as well as to the family, nature has no preference;
all means are welcome to her, provided the species profits by them, or, at
least, does not suffer too much from them.
We find amongst animals temporary unions, at the close of which the
male ceases absolutely to care for the female; but we also find, especially
among birds, numbers of lasting unions, for which the word marriage is not
too exalted. It does not appear that polyandry—that is, a durable society
between one female and many males—has been practised by animals. The
female, nearly always weaker than the male, could not reduce a number of
them to sexual servitude, and the latter have never been tempted to share
one female systematically. On the contrary, they are often polygamous. But
it is especially amongst mammals that polygamy is common, and it must
often have had its raison d’être either in the sexual proportion of births, or
in a greater mortality of males. These are reasons I shall have to refer to
later, in speaking of human polygamy.

But if polygamy is frequent with mammals, it is far from being the
conjugal régime universally adopted; monogamy is common, and is
sometimes accompanied by so much devotion, that it would serve as an
example to human monogamists.
It is important also to notice that, in regard to animals, the mode of
sexual association may vary without much difficulty. No species is of
necessity and always restricted to such or such a form of sexual union. An
animal belonging to a species habitually monogamous may very easily
become polygamous. In short, there does not seem to be any relation
between the degree of intelligence in a species and its conjugal customs.
In the following chapters it will be seen that, in great measure, these
observations do not apply exclusively to animals.

FOOTNOTES:
[29] Espinas, Soc. Animales, pp. 343, 344.
[30] Ibid. pp. 344, 345.
[31] Espinas, Soc. Animales, pp. 336-396.
[32] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 375.
[33] Lortet, Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, 1878.
[34] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 379.
[35] Ibid. p. 244.
[36] Espinas, Soc. Animales, p. 415.
[37] Ibid. pp. 416, 417.
[38] Houzeau, Fac. mentales des animaux, t. ii. p. 380.
[39] Dix-huit ans chez les sauvages, etc., p. 374.
[40] Espinas, Soc. anim., p. 427.
[41] Ibid. p. 421.
[42] Audubon, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 83.

[43] Ibid. t. ier. p. 292.
[44] Darwin, Descent of Man, pp. 446, 449.
[45] Ibid. p. 455.
[46] Espinas, Soc. Animales, p. 422.

[47] Audubon, Scènes de la Nature, t. ier. p. 29.
[48] Espinas, loc. cit. pp. 421-423.

[49] Audubon, loc. cit. t. ier. p. 209.
[50] Ibid. t. ii. p. 13.
[51] Ibid.

[52] Ibid. t. ier. p. 167.
[53] Ibid. t. ii. p. 199.
[54] Ibid. t. ii. p. 476.
[55] Ibid. t. ii. p. 70.

[56] Ibid. t. ier. p. 347.

[57] Audubon, Scènes de la Nature, t. ier. p. 317.
[58] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 238.
[59] Espinas, Soc. Animales, p. 448.
[60] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 238.
[61] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 443.
[62] Espinas, loc. cit. p. 443.
[63] Houzeau, Facultés mentales des animaux, t. ii. p. 394.
[64] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 238.
[65] Espinas, loc. cit. p. 453.

CHAPTER III.

PROMISCUITY.

I. Has there been a Stage of Promiscuity?—Promiscuity rare
among the superior vertebrates—It has been exceptional in
mankind.
II. Cases of Human Promiscuity.—Promiscuity among the
Troglodytes, the ancient Arabs, the Agathyrses, the Anses, the
Garamantes, the ancient Greeks, in the Timæus, in China, in India,
among the Andamanites, in California, among the aborigines of
India, among the Zaporogs, and the Ansarians—Insufficience of
these proofs.
III. Hetaïrism.—Jus primæ noctis—Religious hetaïrism at
Babylon, in Armenia—Religious prostitution—Religious
defloration—The jus primæ noctis with the Nasamons, in the
Balearic Isles, in ancient Peru, in Asia, etc.—The right of the chief
with the Kaffirs, in New Zealand, in New Mexico, in Cochin-China,
in feudal Europe—The right of religious prelibation—Religious
defloration in Cambodia—The reason of the right of prelibation—
The jus primæ noctis confounded with the simple licence of
unmarried women—Shamelessness of girls in Australia, Polynesia,
America, Malaya, Abyssinia, etc.—The indotata in primitive Rome
—Loan and barter of women in America and elsewhere, and among
the ancient Arabs—Actual promiscuity has been rare in humanity.

I. Has there been a Stage of Promiscuity?

Having made our preliminary investigation of love, sexual unions,
marriage, or what corresponds to it, and the family in the animal kingdom,
we are now in a position to approach the examination of corresponding
social facts in regard to man. The method of evolution requires us to begin

our inquiry with the lowest forms of sexual association, and there is none
lower, morally and intellectually, than promiscuity; that is to say, a social
condition so gross that within a group, a horde, or a tribe, all the women
belong, without rule or distinction, to all the men. In a society so bestial
there is surely no room for what we call love, however grossly we may
understand this sentiment. There is no choice, no preference; the sexual
need is reduced to its simplest expression, and absolutely debased to the
level of the nutritive needs; love is no more than a hunger or thirst of
another kind; there is no longer any distinction between the man and the
tatoway.
Some sociologists have affirmed, without hesitation, that community of
women represented a primitive and necessary stage of the sexual
associations of mankind. Surely they would have been less dogmatic on this
point if, before approaching human sociology, they had first consulted
animal sociology, as we have done. We have seen that many vertebrated
animals are capable of a really exclusive and jealous passion, even when
they are determined polygamists. As a matter of fact, the vertebrates with
whom love is merely a need, like any other, seem to be a very small
minority. Some among them, especially birds, are models of fidelity,
constancy, and devoted attachment, which may well inspire man with
feelings of modesty. Mammals, while less delicate in their love than many
birds, are, however, for the most part, already on a moral level incompatible
with promiscuity. The mammals nearest to man, those whom we may
consider as the effigies of our nearest animal ancestors, the anthropoid apes,
are sometimes monogamous and sometimes polygamous, but, as a rule,
they cannot endure promiscuity. Now, this fact manifestly constitutes a very
strong presumption against the basis of the theory according to which
promiscuity has been, with the human species, the primitive and necessary
stage of sexual unions. Do we thus mean to say that there is no example of
promiscuity in human societies, primitive or not? Far from it. It would be
impossible to affirm this without neglecting a large number of facts
observed in antiquity or observable in our own day. But we are warranted in
believing that the very inferior stage of promiscuity has never been other
than exceptional in humanity. If it has existed here and there, it is that by
the very reason of the relative superiority of his intelligence, man is less
rigorously subject to general laws, and that he knows sometimes how to

modify or infringe them; there is more room for caprice in his existence
than in the life of the animals.

II. Some Cases of Human Promiscuity.

Human groups have, then, practised promiscuity, and it is not quite
impossible that some of them practise it still. Exceptional as these facts may
be, they are interesting to sociologists, and it is important to mention and to
criticise them also. We are indebted for our knowledge of a certain number
of them to the writers of Greco-Latin antiquity. I will give them in full, at
least those that deserve or have obtained more or less credit.
“Throughout the Troglodyte country,” relates Strabo, “the people lead a
nomad life. Each tribe has its chief, or tyrant. The women and the children
are possessed in common, with the exception of the wives and children of
the chief, and whoever is guilty of adultery with one of the wives of the
chief is punished by a fine consisting of the payment of a sheep.”[66]
Another passage of Strabo’s, which is better known, is often quoted as
proving a primitive epoch of promiscuity among the ancient Arabs also.
This passage is curious and interesting, but it has not in the least the extent
of signification that is attributed to it. Concerning the conjugal customs of
the peoples of Arabia Felix, Strabo speaks as follows:—“Community of
goods exists between all the members of the same family, but there is only
one master, who is always the eldest of the family. They have only one wife
between them all, and he who can forestall the others enters her apartment
the first, and enjoys her, after having taken the precaution of placing his
staff across the door (it is the custom for every man to carry a staff). She
never spends the night with any but the eldest, the chief. This promiscuity
makes them all brothers. We must add that they have commerce with their
own mothers. On the other hand, adultery, which means for them commerce
with a lover who is not of the family, is pitilessly punished with death. The
daughter of one of the kings of the country, who was marvellously
beautiful, had fifteen brothers, all desperately in love with her, and who, for
this reason, took turns in enjoying her without intermission. Fatigued with
their assiduity, she invented the following stratagem. She procured staffs
exactly similar to those of her brothers, and when one of them left her, she
quickly placed across the door the staff similar to that of the brother who

had just quitted her, then replaced it shortly after by another, and so on,
taking care not to place there the staff like the brother’s whose visit she was
expecting. Now, one day, when all the brothers were together in the public
place, one of them went to her door, and concluded, at the sight of the staff,
that some one was with her; but, as he had left all his brothers together, he
believed in a flagrant act of adultery, hastened to seek their father, and led
him to the spot. He was, however, forced to acknowledge in his presence
that he had slandered his sister.”[67]
Even admitting the perfect accuracy of the fact related by Strabo (and
there is nothing in it to surprise an ethnographical sociologist), the word
promiscuity is here quite inappropriate. The custom of maternal incest,
which is not without example, perhaps warrants the supposition of ancient
familial promiscuity; but in reality the Arabs of whom Strabo speaks were
simply polyandrous, and they were so precisely in the manner of the
Thibetans of the present day; they practised fraternal polyandry—a conjugal
form to which we shall presently return.
The other examples of so-called promiscuity related by the writers of
antiquity are, unfortunately, so briefly given that it is difficult to judge of
their value.
“The Agathyrses” (Scythians), says Herodotus, “are the most delicate of
men; their ornaments are chiefly of gold. They have their women in
common in order that they may all be brothers, and that, being so nearly
related, they may feel neither hatred nor envy against each other.”[68]
In another passage Herodotus says of the Massagetes (Scythians), “Each
man marries a wife, but they use them all in common.” The assertion is
grossly contradictory, and can only relate to the extremely loose manners of
the unmarried women. As a matter of fact, amongst many savage or
barbarous peoples chastity is not imposed on the women, as long as they
have no proprietors. “When one of them desires a woman,” continues
Herodotus, “he suspends his quiver in front of his chariot, and tranquilly
unites with her.”[69]
This is merely a trait of very free manners, which may be placed by the
side of many others, proving that modesty has been slow of growth in the
human brain. The Tahitians were still more cynical than the Massagetes.
Herodotus himself speaks of black Indians (Tamils) “who coupled as

publicly as beasts” (iii. 101), and V. Jacquemont has related that Runjeet
Singh would ride with one of his wives on the back of an elephant and take
his pleasure publicly with his companion, careless of censure (V.
Jacquemont, Corres., 16th March 1831). It would be very easy, by
searching into ethnography, to accumulate facts of this kind; but for the
moment I have only to continue my examination of old Greco-Roman texts
relating more or less to promiscuity. I therefore return to them. Herodotus
again relates, in speaking of the Anses, an Ethiopian tribe: “Their women
are common; they do not live with them, but couple after the manner of
beasts. When a vigorous child is born to a woman, all the men go to see it at
the third month, and he whom it most resembles acknowledges it for
his.”[70] And here we have Pliny saying also of the Garamantes:
Garamantes matrimoniorum exsortes, passim cum feminis degunt.[71]
Strabo, too, affirms of the Celtic population of Ierne (Ireland), “the men
have public commerce with all kinds of women, even with their mothers
and sisters.”[72]
The passages that I have just quoted are those which are most frequently
used to support the pretension that human societies have begun with
promiscuity; they are at once the most ancient, most authentic, and most
explicit. We may add to them the assertion of Varro, quoted by Saint
Augustine,[73] according to which the Greeks, prior to the time of Cecrops,
lived in promiscuity. But how is it possible not to be struck with the
weakness of these historical proofs? Some of them are mere general
assertions, while others plainly relate either to social anomalies or to cases
of polyandry. There is no doubt as to this in regard to the ancient Arabs of
whom Strabo speaks, and also to the Protohellenes of Varro. This last
instance certainly relates to the matriarchal family, of which I shall have to
speak again at some length. In fact, after having stated that the
Protohellenes had no marriage, Varro adds that the children only knew their
mother and bore her name. The proof is decisive, for the matriarchate does
not in the least exclude marriage, as we shall see later, and in the case of the
Lydians it lasted until the time of Herodotus.
In order to complete this review of ancient texts, I will mention further
the passage of the Timæus in which Socrates speaks of the community of
wives:—“On the subject of the procreation of children we established a

community of wives and children; and we devised means that no one
should ever know his own child. They were to imagine that they were of
one family, and to regard those who were within a certain limit of age as
brothers and sisters; and again, those who were of an elder generation as
parents and grandparents, and those who were of a younger generation as
children and grandchildren.”
But Plato had a lively imagination. He was a “great dreamer,” as Voltaire
said of him, and this passage evidently describes a purely utopian society.
Traditions relative to a very ancient epoch of promiscuity are found here
and there outside the Greco-Roman world. In China, for example, the
women are said to have been common until the reign of Fouhi.[74] A
tradition of the same kind, but more explicitly stated, is mentioned in the
Mahabharata (i. 503): “Formerly it was not a crime to be faithless to a
husband; it was even a duty.... This custom is observed in our own days
among the Kourous of the north.... The females of all classes are common
on the earth; as are the cows, so are the women; each one has her caste.... It
is Civéta-Ketou who has established a limit for the men and women on the
earth.”[75] This assertion is vague, and has not the least proof to support it.
If, continuing our inquiry, we attempt to correct these historical
documents by ethnographical information, we shall hardly find, on this side
of the subject more than on the other, anything but simple assertions, which
are either too vague or too brief, or evidently open to dispute.
In the Andaman Islands, or at least in certain of them, the women are said
to have been held in common till quite recently. Every woman belonged to
all the men of the tribe, and resistance to any of them was a crime severely
punished.[76] This time we seem to have found, at length, a case of actual
legal promiscuity. But, according to other accounts, the Andamanite man
and woman contract, on the contrary, a monogamic and temporary union,
and remain together, in case of pregnancy and maternity, until the child is
weaned, as do many animals.[77] Now, however short a conjugal union may
be, it is incompatible with promiscuity.
The indigenous Indians of California, who are among the lowest of
human races, couple after the manner of inferior mammals, without the
least formality, and according to the caprice of the moment.[78] They are

said even to celebrate feasts and propitiatory dances, which are followed by
a general promiscuity.[79]
According to Major Ross King, some aboriginal tribes of India, notably
the Kouroumbas and the Iroulas, have no idea of marriage, and live in
promiscuity.[80] The only prohibitory rule consists in not having intimate
commerce with a person belonging to another class or caste; but there seem
only to be two classes in the tribe.
Barbarous tribes belonging to white races are said also to have practised
promiscuity in modern times. Among certain tribes of the Zaporog
Cossacks the women are said to be common, and are confined in separate
camps.[81] Besides these, the Ansarians, mountaineers of Syria, are said to
practise, not promiscuity pure and simple, or civil promiscuity, but a
religious promiscuity, analogous to that of the ancient Gnostics[82] and the
Areoïs of Tahiti. These Ansarians must doubtless have been confounded
with the Yazidies, a sect of Arabs, also Syrians, practising a sort of
manichæism, and who, it is said, assemble periodically every month, or
every three months, in fraternal agapæ, at the conclusion of which they
unite in the darkness without heed as to adultery or incest. Throughout the
Syrian Orient the erotic festival of the Yazidies is called by a significant
name, Daour-el-Cachfeh—the game of catching.[83] But even if the fact
were true, what does it show? Only one more aberration to the score of the
phallic religions.
Here I end my enumeration. Evidently nothing very convincing results
from it. The greater number of the facts that I have just quoted have either
been carelessly observed, or contested, or affirmed by a single witness, or
depend merely on hearsay evidence. It is prudent, therefore, to regard them
with lawful suspicion, and even if certain of them are exact, we must be
careful not to draw general conclusions from them. Promiscuity may have
been adopted by certain small human groups, more probably by certain
associations or brotherhoods. Thus the chiefs of the Namaquoi Hottentots
willingly held their wives in common.
When we come to study the family we shall find that among the
Kamilaroi of Australia all the women of one clan are reputed to be the
wives of all the men of another. But this community is often only fictitious,
and, besides, it is already regulated; it is not promiscuity pure and simple.

So far, nothing proves sufficiently that there has been a universal stage of
promiscuity among mankind. Some theorists have been so hasty to come to
a conclusion on this point that they have gone beyond actual experience.
Moreover, as I have been careful to remark, the simple fact that man is a
mammalian primate weakens this hypothesis in advance, since the nearest
relations of man in the animal kingdom are in general polygamous, and
even sometimes monogamous.

III. Hetaïrism.—Jus primæ noctis.

Not only is it impossible to admit that mankind has, in all times and
places, passed through a necessary stage of promiscuity, but we must go
further, and also renounce a theory which has had some degree of success
lately—the theory of obligatory primitive hetaïrism. According to this
theory, when the instinct of holding feminine property arose in man, some
individuals arrogated the right to keep for themselves one or more of the
women hitherto common. The community then protested, and while
tolerating this derogation from ancient usage, exacted that the bride, or
purchased woman, should make an act of hetaïrism, or prostitution, before
belonging to one man only.
It is Herodotus who has transmitted to us the most striking example of
this kind, the one invoked by all the theorists of hetaïrism. I shall, therefore,
quote it at length: “The most disgraceful of the Babylonian customs is the
following. Every native woman is obliged, once in her life, to sit in the
temple of Venus and have intercourse with some stranger. And many,
disdaining to sit with the rest, being proud on account of their wealth, come
in covered carriages, and take up their station at the temple with a numerous
train of servants attending them. But the far greater part do this: many sit
down in the temple of Venus, wearing a crown of cord round their heads;
some are continually coming and others are going out. Passages marked out
in a straight line lead in every direction through the women, along which
strangers pass and make their choice. When a woman has once seated
herself, she must not return home till some stranger has thrown a piece of
silver into her lap and lain with her outside the temple. He who throws the
silver must say thus: ‘I beseech the goddess Mylitta to favour thee;’ for the
Assyrians call Venus Mylitta. The silver may be ever so small, for she will

not reject it, inasmuch as it is not lawful for her to do so, for such silver is
accounted sacred. The woman follows the first man that throws, and refuses
no one. But when she has had intercourse, and has absolved herself from
her obligations to the goddess, she returns home; and after that time,
however great a sum you may give her, you will not gain possession of her.
Those that are endowed with beauty and symmetry of shape are soon set
free; but the deformed are detained a long time, from inability to satisfy the
law, for some wait for a space of three or four years. In some parts of
Cyprus there is a custom very similar.”[84]
After having read this passage, we are surprised at the import that has
been attributed to it. Even admitting the obligation and universality of the
custom in ancient Babylon, it is only an example of religious prostitution,
with traces of exogamy. The Babylonians honoured Mylitta, just as the
Armenians, according to Strabo,[85] venerated the goddess Anaïtis. “They
have erected temples to Anaïtis in various places, especially in the
Akilisenus, and have attached to these temples a good number of
hierodules, or sacred slaves, of both sexes. So far, indeed, there is no
ground for astonishment; but their devotion goes further, and it is the
custom for the most illustrious personages to consecrate their virgin
daughters to the goddess. This in no way prevents the latter from easily
finding husbands, even after they have prostituted themselves for a long
time in the temples of Anaïtis. No man feels on this account any repugnance
to take them as wives.”
I quote in full these venerable passages, which have been so much used
and abused, in order that it may not be possible to mistake their
signification. Once more we repeat that they merely relate to erotico-
religious aberrations. The procreative need, or delirium, has inspired men
with many foolish ideas, and probably will continue to do so. A very slight
knowledge of mythology is enough to show us that numerous cults have
been founded on the sexual instinct, and these cults are naturally
accompanied by special practices, little in accordance with our European
morality. Religious prostitution, which was widely spread in Greek
antiquity, has been also found in India, where every temple of renown had
its bayadères, the only women in India to whom, until quite recently, any
instruction was given.

The far more peculiar custom of Tchin-than, or religious defloration,
formerly in use in Cambodia[86] and in Malabar, is evidently akin to
religious prostitution. But this custom is nothing else than a mystic
transformation of what was called the jus primæ noctis, of which I must
first speak. It is important to distinguish several varieties of it. The first and
most simple was the custom by which every newly-married woman, before
belonging to her husband, was obliged to give herself, or be given, to a
certain number of men, either relatives, friends, or fellow-citizens. This was
the custom among the Nasamons, according to Herodotus: “When a
Nasamon marries, custom requires that his bride should yield herself on the
first night to all his guests in turn; each one who has had commerce with her
makes her a present, which he has been mindful to bring with him.”[87]
A similar custom is said to have existed in various countries of the globe,
in ancient times in the Balearic Isles, more recently among the ancient
Peruvians, in our own times among several aboriginal tribes of India; in
Burmah, in Cashmere, in the south of Arabia, in Madagascar, and in New
Zealand;[88] but always as an exceptional practice, in use only in a small
group or tribe. It is not impossible that here and there this usage, which is
rare enough, may have been derived traditionally from an ancient marriage
by classes, analogous to that still found among the Kamilaroi of Australia;
but it may have been simply a mark of good-fellowship, or of conjugal
generosity on the part of the bridegroom.
The seignorial jus primæ noctis, the right of the lord, is much more
widely spread, and its existence cannot be contested. Among the Kaffirs,
says Hamilton,[89] the chiefs have the choice of the women for several
leagues round. So also, until lately, in New Zealand, every pretty girl was
taboo for the vulgar, and had to be first reserved for the chief.[90] In New
Mexico, with the Tahous, as Castañeda informs us, it is necessary, after
having purchased the girl from her parents, to submit her to the seignorial
right of the cacique, or to a priest of high rank. Religion already begins to
insinuate itself into this singular right.[91]
According to Marco Polo, the same custom existed in the thirteenth
century in Cochin-China. “Know,” says the old chronicler, “no woman can
marry without the king first seeing her. If she pleases him, he takes her to

wife; if she does not please him, he gives her enough from his own property
to enable her to marry.
“In the year 1280 of Christ, when Messire Marco Polo was in that
country, the king had three hundred and eighty-six children, male and
female.”[92]
Under the feudal system in Europe this right of prelibation, or marquette
(designated in old French by the expressive term droit de culage), has been
in use in many fiefs, and until a very recent epoch. Almost in our own days
certain lords of the Netherlands, of Prussia, and of Germany, still claimed it.
In a French title-deed of 1507 we read that the Count d’Eu has the right of
prelibation in the said place when any one marries.[93] More than this,
ecclesiastics, and even bishops, have been known to claim this right in their
quality of feudal lords. “I have seen,” says Boetius, “in the court at
Bourges, before the metropolitan, an appeal by a certain parish priest, who
pretended to claim the first night of young brides, according to the received
usage. The demand was rejected with indignation, the custom unanimously
proscribed, and the scandalous priest condemned to pay a fine.”
“In a kingdom of Malabar,” says J. Forbes, “the ecclesiastical power took
precedence of the civil on this particular point, and the sovereign himself
passed under the yoke. Like the other women, the queen had to submit to
the right of prelibation exercised by the high priest, who had a right to the
first three nights, and who was paid fifty pieces of gold besides for his
trouble.”[94] In Cambodia, according to an ancient Chinese traveller,
religious prelibation was obligatory on all the young girls, and was
performed every year with great ceremony. The parents who had daughters
to marry made a declaration of it, and a public functionary fixed the day for
the celebration of Tchin-than, or the legal and religious defloration. For this
the intervention of a Buddhist priest, or a tao-sse priest, was indispensable.
The parents entreated his service, which was very costly, and for this reason
girls who were poor retained their virginity longer than the rich. It even
sometimes happened that pious persons, moved by a sentiment of charity,
took on themselves the payment of the costs of the ceremony for those who
had been waiting a long time. Great display attended it. On the appointed
day the officiating priest was carried in the evening with much pomp to the
festive house, and the next morning he was reconducted home in a

palanquin with parasol, drum, and music, and not without being offered
fresh presents. A. de Rémusat has given, in Latin, some curious particulars
of the intimate details of the ceremony, which I cannot relate here.[95]
These few examples suffice to show how very much morality is a relative
thing, but they cannot serve as a basis to a general theory of hetaïrism.
The seignorial right of prelibation is simply an abuse of force and good
pleasure; only, viewed in the light of our morality, it shocks us more than
the others. One might justify it, however, by reasons which Bossuet
considered sufficient to render slavery lawful. The right of conquest has
given, or still gives, all over the world, every sort of right over the
vanquished, even the right of life and death. The conqueror, “in a just war,”
says the sage of Meaux, may legitimately kill the vanquished and, a fortiori,
enslave him; and one may add, following out a logical conclusion, that it is
lawful for him to dispose as he pleases of his wife and daughter. As a matter
of course, the priest, in his quality of lord, can claim the same privileges as
the layman; but besides this, if it should happen that his particular religion
lends itself to the idea by being founded in some manner on the worship of
the principle of procreation, as is so frequently the case with oriental
religions, a sort of superstitious prestige will come to adorn and clothe this
sacerdotal shamelessness.
In all this there is hardly any room for hetaïrism considered as a
compensation to the community for damage to its ancient rights.
Admitting that the jus primæ noctis of relatives and friends does not
imply simple polyandry, it may very naturally be explained by primitive
laxity of morals. Among the greater number of peoples who are very
slightly or not at all civilised, the women are free to give or sell themselves
before marriage as they please, and as it does not entail any disgrace, they
use the liberty largely. Besides, in many countries the husband had, or still
has, over his wife or wives all the rights of a proprietor over the thing
possessed. Now, considering he is a stranger to all modesty and sexual
restraint, nothing seems more natural, if he has some instinct of sociability,
than to lend his wife to his friends, just as he would do them an act of
politeness, make them a present, or invite them to a feast, all without
thinking any evil. This view of the practice is supported by many facts.

Doubtless it is the great sexual licence accorded to young girls in so
many countries which has led many observers and travellers to conclude
that promiscuity has been systematically established. In Australia the girls
cohabit from the age of ten with young boys of fourteen or fifteen, without
rebuke from any one, and there are even great sexual orgies in which the
signal is given to the young people for liberty to unite freely in open day.[96]
In the greater number of savage countries these customs are common. At
Nouka-Hiva, or more generally all over Polynesia, the young girls did not
marry, that is to say, did not become the chattel of a man, before the age of
nineteen or twenty, and until then they contracted a great number of
capricious unions, which became lasting only in case of the birth of
children.[97]
In all these islands, moreover, modesty was unknown, and the members
of each family passed the night side by side on mats, and entirely naked.
The place of honour, in the centre, was occupied by the master of the house,
flanked by his wife or wives.[98]
Analogous customs, extremely licentious in our eyes, but perfectly
natural for primitive peoples, were in full force among all the indigenous
races of America.
The Chinouk girls give or hire themselves out as they please. In the latter
case the parents often take the payment.[99]
The Aymaras, who have no word for marriage, and who are such a simple
folk that, in their opinion, any crime can be committed with impunity on
Good Friday, since God is dead on that day, contract without scruple free
unions merely for the duration of the evening of a feast. The contract is
made in mimic language, and in settling it the man and woman exchange
head-gear only.[100]
Similar manners prevail among the Esquimaux, the Kaffirs, and the
Dyaks of Borneo. In Japan the parents willingly hire out their daughters,
either to private individuals or to houses of prostitution, for a period of
several years, and the girls are in no way dishonoured thereby. In Abyssinia,
says Bruce, outside of the conjugal bond, which is easily tied or untied, the
women dispose of their person as they please.

In primitive Rome, as with us, the young girl without dowry, the
indotata, was held in moderate esteem; and therefore many young girls
procured themselves a dowry by trafficking their persons. An old Latin
proverb has handed down the souvenir of this ancient fashion of procuring a
dowry: Tusco more, tute tibi dotem quæris corpore.[101]
Now, in all these customs, at once so simple and so gross, it is impossible
to see the traces of an enforced hetaïrism, derived from an antique period of
promiscuity, which was also equally obligatory. They are simply traits of
animal laxity. Men were still almost devoid of moral training, and the care
for decency and modesty was of the slightest.
If in a primitive country a certain amount of restraint is imposed on a
woman who is married, or rather owned by a man, it is solely because she is
considered as property, held by the same title as a field or a domestic
animal. For her to dispose of her person without authorisation is often a
capital crime; but the husband, on the contrary, has in many countries the
undisputed right to lend, let out, or barter his wife or wives: jus utendi et
abutendi. I will mention a few of these marital customs.
In America, from the land of the Esquimaux to Patagonia, the loan of the
wife is not only lawful, but praiseworthy. Egidius says of the Esquimaux,
“that those who lend their wives to their friends without the least hesitation
are reputed in the tribe as having the best and noblest character.”[102] The
English traveller, Captain Ross, relates that one of the Esquimaux prowling
around his ship was accompanied by the wives and children of one of his
intimate friends, to whom he had, in the preceding autumn, confided, on his
side, his own two wives. The exchange was to terminate at a fixed time, and
the Esquimaux of whom Captain Ross speaks was very indignant with his
friend because the latter, having forgotten himself while chasing the deer in
distant regions, was not exact in keeping the engagement.[103]
On this point the Redskins are not more delicate than the Esquimaux.
Thus the Natchez make no difficulty of lending their wives to their friends.
[104]
In New Mexico the Yuma husbands willingly hire out their wives and
their slaves, without making any difference. And, besides, with them, as in
many other countries, to furnish a guest with a temporary wife is simply
one of the duties of hospitality.[105] The chiefs of the Noutka Columbians
barter their wives among each other as a sign of friendship.[106] Nothing

would be easier than to enumerate a great number of facts of the same kind
observed in Australia, Africa, Polynesia, Mongolia, and almost everywhere.
But it is more remarkable to meet with the same custom in a Mussulman
country. Nevertheless, Burckhardt relates that the Merekedeh, a branch of
the great tribe of Asyr, understood hospitality in this primitive manner. To
every stranger received under their tents or in their houses, they offered a
woman of the family, and most often a wife of the host himself. The young
girls alone were exempt from this strange service. It was considered the
duty of the traveller to conform with a good grace to the custom, otherwise
he was hooted and chased from the village or camp by the women and
children. This extreme manner of understanding hospitality was very
ancient and deeply rooted, and it was not without difficulty that the
conquering Wahabites brought the Asyrs to renounce it.[107] But these
customs were not specially confined to the Asyrs; they were in force
throughout prehistoric Arabia. An old Arab writer, Ibn al Moghawir,
mentions them. “Sometimes,” he says, “the wife was actually placed at the
disposition of the guest; at other times, the offer was only symbolic. The
guests were invited to press the wife in their arms, and to give her kisses,
but the poignard would have revenged any further liberties.”[108] It is not
very long since the same practice prevailed in Kordofan and Djebel-
Taggale.[109] Certain traits of morals related by the Greco-Latin writers
show that in Rome, and Greece also, if it was not the husband’s duty to lend
his wife to his friends, he had at least the right to do so. At Sparta, Lycurgus
authorised husbands to be thus liberal with their wives whenever they
judged their friends worthy of this honour. And, further, the public opinion
of Sparta strongly approved the conduct of an aged husband who took care
to procure for his wife a young, handsome, and virtuous substitute.[110]
The same customs prevailed at Athens, where Socrates, it is said, lent his
wife Xantippe to his friend Alcibiades; and at Rome,[111] where the austere
Cato the elder gave up his wife Marcia to his friend Hortensius, and
afterwards took her back, much enriched, it is true, at the death of this
friend.
All these facts relate, therefore, to a very widely-spread and almost
universal custom, which is in perfect accord 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 right
of property which fettered more or less rigorously the liberty of the women
who were thus possessed.
These primitive unions were concluded according to the chance caprices
or needs of extremely gross societies, who cared little to submit to a
uniform conjugal type. There are some very singular ones among them,

which differ essentially from the legal forms of marriage finally and very
tardily adopted by the majority of mankind. It is these isolated conjugal
unions, extravagant and immoral in our eyes, that we now have to consider.

FOOTNOTES:
[66] Herodotus, Book xvi. p. 17.
[67] Strabo, vol. xvi. ch. iv. p. 25.
[68] Herodotus, Book i. p. 216.
[69] Herodotus, iv. 104.
[70] Ibid. iv. 180.
[71] Pliny, v. 8.
[72] Strabo, iv. 4.
[73] Varro, Apud. August. de Civit. Dei., xviii. 9.
[74] Goguet, Orig. des lois, t. iii. p. 388.
[75] Quoted by Giraud-Teulon, Orig. de la Famille, p. 66.
[76] Trans. Ethn. Soc., New Series, vol. ii. p. 35.
[77] Ibid. vol. v. p. 45.
[78] Bagaert, Smithsonian Report, p. 368, 1863.
[79] Bancroft, Native Races of Pacific, vol. i. p. 352.
[80] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 110.
[81] Campenhausen, Bemerk. über Russland.
[82] Volney, Syria, ch. iii.

[83] Mayeux, Les Bédouins ou Arabes du Désert (1816), t. ier. pp. 187,
189.
[84] Herodotus, Book i. 199.
[85] Strabo, vol. xi. 14.
[86] Abel de Rémusat, Nouv. mél. Asiatiques, p. 116.
[87] Herodotus, iv. 172.
[88] Giraud-Teulon, Orig. de la Famille, p. 69.
[89] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 651.
[90] Ibid. p. 651.
[91] Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. i. p. 584.
[92] Marco Polo, Edition Populaire, p. 187.

[93] Laurière, Glose du droit Français, at the word Culage ou Culiage.
[94] James Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 446; vol. iv. 1813.

[95] A. Rémusat, Nouv. mél. Asiatiques, t. ier. p. 118.
[96] Eyre, Discoveries, vol. ii. p. 320.
[97] Porter, Hist. Univ. des Voy.., vol. xvi. p. 323.
[98] Cook, First Voy. (Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. v. p. 252). Moerenhout, Voy.
aux îles du Grand Océan, t. ier. p. 263.
[99] Bancroft, Native Races, etc.
[100] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 219.
[101] Giraud-Teulon, Orig. de la Famille, p. 83.
[102] History of Greenland, p. 142.
[103] Ross, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xl. p. 158.
[104] Lettres Edifiantes, t. xx. p. 116.
[105] Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. i. p. 514.
[106] Meares, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xiii. p. 375.
[107] Burckhardt, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxii. p. 380.
[108] R. Smith, Kinship, etc., p. 276.
[109] Les Abyssiniennes et les Femmes du Soudan Oriental, p. 97.
[110] Plutarch, Lycurgus.
[111] Ibid., Cato.

CHAPTER IV.

SOME SINGULAR FORMS OF SEXUAL ASSOCIATION.

I. Primitive Sexual Immorality.—Origin of modesty—Absence of
modesty in the savage—Loan of wives in Melanesia and among the
Bochimans—Absence of modesty in the Esquimaux, the Redskins,
and Polynesians—Right of the husband in Polynesia—Loan or
barter of wives—Erotic training of little girls in Polynesia—Society
of the Areoïs—Man in a state of nature—Unnatural love in New
Caledonia, in the two Americas, among Asiatic peoples, and in
Greco-Roman antiquity—The erastes of Crete.
II. Some Strange Forms of Marriage.—Coarseness of primitive
marriage—Horror of incest artificially created—Incest among
various peoples—Artificial defloration—Experimental marriages
among the Redskins, the Otomies, the Sonthals, the Tartars, and in
Ceylon—Temporary marriages among the Jews of Morocco and the
Tapyres—Free unions—Partial marriages and marriages for a term
among the Arabs—Marriage and the right of the strongest in savage
countries—Savage coarseness and civilised depravity.

I. Primitive Sexual Immorality.

In a former work[112] I have attempted to trace the genesis of a sentiment
peculiar to humanity—the sentiment of modesty. It would be inexpedient
here to treat the subject afresh in detail, but I will recall the conclusions
arrived at by that investigation. Modesty is par excellence a human
sentiment, and is totally unknown to the animals, although the procreative
need inspires them with desires and passions essentially identical with what
in man we call love; it is therefore certainly an artificial sentiment, and
comparative ethnology proves that it must have resulted from the enforced
chastity imposed on women under the most terrible penalties. In reality,
primitive marriage hardly merits the name; it is simply the taking

possession of one or several women by one man, who holds them by the
same title as all other property, and who treats adultery, when unauthorised
by himself, strictly as robbery. This ferocious restraint has resulted,
especially in the woman, in the formation of particular mental impressions,
corresponding psychically to the sentiment of modesty, and inducing a
certain sexual reserve which has become instinctive. But this moral
inhibition is still very weak in races of low development, and, taking the
whole human species, it exists chiefly in the woman; it is a sexual
peculiarity of character, and is of relatively recent origin.
If we keep well in mind these preliminary considerations, we shall not be
much surprised at the forms of sexual association which we are about to
consider, although they are singularly repulsive to our ideas of morality. We
shall be still less surprised at them when we are acquainted with the
extreme licence permitted in many savage and barbarous societies.
There is nothing more difficult for us to realise, civilised as we are, than
the mental state of the man far behind us in cultivation as regards what we
call par excellence “morality.” It is not indecency; it is simply an animal
absence of modesty. Acts which are undeniably quite natural, since they are
the expression of a primordial need, essential to the duration of the species,
but which a long ancestral and individual education has trained us to subject
to a rigorous restraint, and to the accomplishment of which, consequently,
we cannot help attaching a certain shame, do not in the least shock the still
imperfect conscience of the primitive man. On this point facts are eloquent
and abundant; I will quote a few of them.
In Tasmania it way thought an honour for women to prostitute
themselves to Europeans, who were ennobled in the eyes of the natives by
the prestige of their superiority.[113] The Australians, who were a little more
developed than the Tasmanians, willingly lent or hired out their women—at
least those that were their own property—to their friends.[114]
The women were not less bestial than their males. They often engaged,
says Peltier, in furious combats, fighting with spears, for the possession of a
man. This is a peculiar case, and is an entirely human instance of that law of
battle of which I have spoken in regard to animals. Like the females of
animals also the Australian women adored strength, and when the men of
their own horde were beaten in battle they sometimes went over to the camp

of the conquerors of their own accord (Mitchell).[115] In these facts there is
nothing exceptional, and we may change the country without changing the
customs. Thus the Bochimans treat their wives as simple domestic animals,
and offer them willingly to strangers,[116] as do also the Australians.
In the Andaman Islands and elsewhere the women give themselves up
before marriage—that is, before becoming the property of one man—to the
most unbridled prostitution,[117] and yet the most innocent, according to the
morality of the country.
Among the Esquimaux the laxity of sexual customs, both for men and
women, is extreme. The husbands feel no shame in selling, or rather hiring
out, their wives; and the latter, as soon as their proprietors are gone to the
chase or to fish, abandon themselves to an uncontrolled debauch, taking
care to post their children outside the hut to warn them in case of the
unexpected return of the master.[118] Sexual morality does not yet exist
among the Esquimaux, and an Aleout said quite simply to the missionary
Langsdorff, “When my people couple they do it like the sea-otters.”[119] In
fact, if the cold permitted, the Esquimaux would not be any more clothed
than the sea-otters. In their common houses, where two or three hundred
people are crowded together, and a high degree of temperature is
maintained, they throw off their clothing without distinction of age or sex.
[120]
They go further still, and, like many savages, practise what is called
Socratic love openly and without shame. Thus, among the Inoits, well-
favoured boys are brought up with care, dressed as girls, and sold at a high
price towards the age of fifteen,[121] without any harm being seen in it.
The Redskins of the extreme north are scarcely more modest than the
Esquimaux. Carver relates that among the Nandowessics a woman was
particularly honoured because she had first entertained and then treated as
husbands the forty chief warriors of the tribe.[122]
But it is especially in Polynesia that the naïve immodesty of primitive
peoples was displayed with the greatest indifference to the opinions of
others.
“The principal difficulty of the missionaries in the Sandwich Isles,” says
M. de Varigny, “consisted in teaching the women chastity; they were
ignorant of the name and of the thing. Adultery, incest, and fornication were

common things, approved by public opinion, and even consecrated by
religion.”[123]
These customs are of ancient date in Polynesia. The travellers of last
century had observed them still the same. The Tahitian women, if they were
free, openly bartered their persons, and the fathers, mothers, brothers, and
sometimes the husbands, often brought them to the European sailors and
hired them out, after a lively bargaining, for nails, red feathers, etc.[124]
At Noukahiva “the young girls of the island,” says Porter, “are the wives
of all those who can buy their favours, and a beautiful daughter is
considered by her parents as a means of procuring them for a time riches
and plenty. However, when they are older, they form more lasting
connections, and seem then as firmly attached to their husbands as women
of any other country.”[125]
In the same archipelago, the surgeon Roblet says that the French sailors
were frequently offered girls of eight years; “and,” he adds, “they were not
virgins.”[126]
“Virtue,” says Porter, “such as we understand it, was unknown among
them, and they attached no shame to acts which they regarded not only as
natural, but as an inoffensive amusement. Many parents thought themselves
honoured by the preference given to their daughters, and showed their
satisfaction by presents of pigs and fruits, which, on their part, was an
extreme of munificence.”[127]
In Polynesia public opinion forbade married women to yield themselves
without the authorisation of their owners, and this was almost the only strict
rule of morals existing; but the husbands trafficked in their wives without
scruple. “Tawee,” says Porter, “was one of the handsomest men of the
island, and loved to adorn his person; a bit of red stuff, some morsels of
glass, or a whale’s tooth, had irresistible charms for him, and in order to
procure these objects he would offer any of the most precious things he
possessed. Thus, though his wife was of remarkable beauty, and he was the
tenderest of husbands, Tawee offered his wife more than once for a
necklace.”[128]
To offer a woman to a visitor to whom one would do honour was, for that
matter, a simple act of courtesy in Polynesia, and the same courtesy

prescribed the immediate acceptance of the offer, coram populo
(Bougainville). It was frequently his own wife that the husband thus gave
up to his guest, and the case of Porter, which I have just quoted, had nothing
exceptional in it. A similar thing happened to Captain Beechey,[129] and to
many other travellers. This conjugal liberality was one of the customs of the
country; the friend, or tayo, acquired conjugal rights over the wife or wives
of his friend. Between brothers and relations the exchange of wives was
frequent,[130] to such a degree that at Toubouai, etc., Moerenhout tells us the
women were nearly held in common, and that in the Marquesas a woman
had sometimes as many as twenty lovers.[131]
For the Polynesians the pleasures of sensual love were the chief business
of life; they neither saw evil nor practised restraint in them. The women
were trained with a view to amorous sports;[132] they were fattened on a
soup of bread fruit, and from earliest infancy taught by their mothers to
dance the timorodie, a very lewd dance, accompanied by appropriate words.
[133]
The conversation also was in keeping with the morals. “One thing
which particularly struck me,” says Moerenhout, “as soon as I began to
understand their language, was the extreme licence in conversation—a
licence pushed to the limit of most shameless cynicism, and which is the
same even with the women; for these people think and talk of nothing but
sensual pleasure, and speak openly of everything, having no idea of the
euphemisms of our civilised societies, where we use double meanings and
veiled words, or terms that are permitted in mentioning things which would
appear revolting and cause scandal if plainly expressed; but these islanders
could not understand this, and the missionaries have never been able to
make them do so.”[134]
Lastly, the existence of the religious and aristocratic society of the Areoïs,
in Tahiti and other archipelagoes, finishes the picture of the mental
condition of the Polynesians as regards morals. Without describing afresh
this curious association, I shall only remind my readers that it had for its
object an unrestrained and public abandonment to amorous pleasures, and
that, for this reason, the community of women and the obligation of
infanticide were decreed.
During the last century sentimentality invaded the brains of thinkers and
writers like an epidemic, and gave rise to the belief that primitive man, or

“man in a state of nature,” as the phrase went, was the model of all virtues.
But we must discount much of this. As we might naturally expect, the
uncultivated man is a mammal of the grossest kind. We have already seen
that his sexual morality is extremely loose, and necessarily so; we are,
however, surprised to find him addicted to certain aberrations from nature
which the chroniclers of the Greco-Latin world have accustomed us to
regard as the result of a refined and depraved civilisation,—an opinion
which is quite erroneous, as comparative ethnography irrefutably proves.
Nothing is more common among primitive races than what is called
Socratic love, and on this point I will briefly quote a few facts, without
pausing longer on them than my subject requires. In the vast sociological
investigation which I am undertaking, moral bestiality must not discourage
scientific analysis any more than putrefaction arrests the scalpel of the
anatomist; it does not therefore follow that we take delight in it.
As a matter of fact, many human races have practised, from the first,
vices contrary to nature. The Kanaks of New Caledonia frequently assemble
at night in a cabin to give themselves up to this kind of debauchery.[135] The
New Zealanders practised it even among their women.[136] It was also a
widely-spread custom throughout Polynesia, and even a special deity
presided over it. In the whole of America, from north to south, similar
customs have existed or still exist. We have previously seen that the
Esquimaux reared young boys for this purpose. The Southern Californians
did the same, and the Spanish missionaries, on their arrival in the country,
found men dressed as women and assuming their part. They were trained to
this from youth, and often publicly married to the chiefs.[137] Nero was
evidently a mere plagiarist. The existence of analogous customs has been
proved amongst the Guyacurus of La Plata, the natives of the Isthmus of
Darien, the tribes of Louisiana, and the ancient Illinois, etc.[138]
The two chief forms of sexual excess of which I have been speaking,
unnatural vice and the debauchery of girls or free women, are habitual in
savage countries; and later, when civilisation and morality have evolved,
the same inveterate inclinations still persist for a long time, in spite of
public opinion and even of legal repression.
The Incas, according to the chronicler Garcilaso, were merciless in
regard to these sexual aberrations, and the Mexican law was equally severe,

but all without much effect, if we may believe the accounts of Garcilaso
himself, Gomara, Bernal Diaz, etc. I have elsewhere related how the ancient
legislations of the great Asiatic states repressed these base aberrations of the
procreative sense, and nevertheless, at the present day, the Arabs frequently
give way to them, even in the holy Mosque at Mecca;[139] and other Eastern
peoples, Hindoos, Persians, and Chinese, are also very imperfectly
reformed on this point.
When we remember that morality is essentially relative, and that
ancestral impressions are extremely tenacious in the human brain, we shall
not be much surprised to see these low tendencies persist as survivals in the
midst of civilisations already far advanced. Nevertheless, the theoretic
morality of all the great nations of the East has for centuries condemned
these repugnant excesses, which our European ancestors, both Celts and
Teutons, have early reproved and repressed. It is all the more singular to
find the most intelligent race of antiquity, the ancient Greeks, practising the
greatest tolerance on this subject, so much so that the names of Socrates and
Plato, those fathers of ethereal spiritualism, are attached to amours the mere
thought of which now excites disgust in a civilised European.
A very slight acquaintance with Greco-Roman literature furnishes
abundant information on this matter. I have no need, therefore, to dwell on
it, but I must quote a curious passage of Strabo, from which we learn that
the ancient Cretans associated with so-called Socratic amours the
ceremonial of marriage by capture, of which I shall soon have to speak.
This strange passage is as follows:—“It is not by persuasion, but by
capture, that they obtain possession of the beloved object. Three days or
more in advance the erastes apprises the friends of the young boy of his
project of abduction. It would be considered the greatest disgrace for them
to conceal the child, or prevent him from passing by the road indicated. By
so doing they would appear to confess that he did not merit the favours of
such a distinguished erastes. What do they do therefore? They meet
together, and if the ravisher is equal or superior in rank and all other
respects to the family of the child, they are content in their pursuit to
comply with the idea of the law, and to make a semblance of attack only,
allowing the child to be carried off, and even testifying their satisfaction;
but if, on the contrary, the ravisher should be of greatly inferior rank, they
invariably rescue the child from his hands. In any case the pursuit comes to

an end when the child has crossed the threshold of the andrion of his
captor.” We may doubtless presume, from this passage, that the ancient
Cretans were no longer in the state of bestial coarseness of the New
Caledonians. With them the capture was a symbol or comedy. It was a mark
of esteem, paid less to the beauty of the child than to his valour and
propriety of manners. In fact, the boy had the legal right to revenge himself,
if he had suffered any violence in his capture; and in restoring him to liberty
his ravisher loaded him with presents, some of which were obligatory and
legal, namely, a warrior’s cloak, an ox, and a goblet; it was a kind of
initiation in virility, and it was considered a disgrace for a young boy not to
obtain an erastes.[140]
But even if we admit that all the ceremonial of this singular platonic
marriage among the Cretans was perfectly innocent, it arose, none the less,
from a moral laxity, plainly showing that ancient morals were gross in the
extreme.
I here conclude my enumeration. Short as it has been, for I have
purposely limited my facts to a small number, it is sufficient to prove that
for an immense period man has been a very coarse animal. We may,
therefore, expect to find him adapting without scruple forms of marriage or
sexual association quite unusual among Europeans, and which it now
remains for me to describe briefly.

II. Some Strange Forms of Marriage.

In savage societies, where no delicacy yet exists in regard to sexual
union, and where, on the other hand, woman is strictly assimilated to things
and domestic animals, marriage, or what we please to call so, is an affair of
small importance, which is regulated according to individual caprice. More
generally the parents, and sometimes the friends or the chiefs, pair the
young people as they think fit, and quite naturally they have little regard for
monogamic marriage, to the strictness of which, even in civilised societies,
man finds it so difficult to bend.
The young people, on their part, have hardly any individual preferences.
The young boys of the Redskins, as Lafitau tells us, never even troubled to
see, before marriage, the wife chosen for them by their parents.[141] In

Bargo, according to R. and J. Lander, they marry with perfect indifference;
“a man does not care any more about choosing a wife than about which ear
of corn he shall pick.” There is never any question as to the sentiments of
the contracting parties.[142]
It is quite certain, also, that during the first ages of the evolution of
societies, the ties of kinship, even those we are accustomed to regard as
sacred, and respect for which seems to be incarnate in us, have not been any
impediment to sexual unions. Like the sentiment of modesty, the horror of
incest has only been engraved on the human conscience with great
difficulty and by long culture. Scruples of this kind are unknown to the
animal, and before they could arise in the human brain it was first necessary
that the family should be constituted, and then that, from some motive or
other, the custom of exogamous marriage should be adopted. Now, as we
shall see later, the family has at first been matriarchal or rather maternal,
and with such a familial system, the children have no legal father; the
prohibitions relative to incest could therefore, at the most, only exist in
regard to the female line, and, in fact, we find it to be so in many countries
where this system of filiation prevails. But primitive morals, existing before
the formation of a morality condemning incest, have left many traces in the
past, and even in the present. “The Chippeways,” says Hearne, “frequently
cohabit with their mother, and oftener still with their sisters and
daughters.”[143] And yet he is speaking here of Redskins, a people reputed
to be fanatical on the matter of exogamy. Langsdorff says the same of the
Kadiaks, who unite indiscriminately, brothers with sisters, and parents with
children.[144] It is well known, besides, that in the matter of sexual unions
no race has fewer prejudices than the Esquimaux. The Coucous of Chili,
and the Caribs also, willingly married at the same time a mother and
daughter. With the Karens, too, of Tenasserim, marriages between brother
and sister, or father and daughter, are frequent enough, even in our own day.
[145]

But these unions, though incestuous for us, have not been practised
amongst savages and inferior races only. According to Strabo, the ancient
Irish married, without distinction, their mothers and sisters.[146]
We are told by Justin and Tertullian[147] that the Parthians and Persians
married their own mothers without scruple. In ancient Persia, religion went

so far even as to sanctify the union of a son with his mother.[148] Priscus
relates that these marriages were also permitted among the Tartars and
Scythians, and it is reported, too, that Attila married his daughter Esca.[149]
Whether from a survival of ancient morals, or the care to preserve purity
of race, conjugal unions between brother and sister were authorised, or even
prescribed, in various countries, for the royal families. The kings of ancient
Egypt were obliged to marry their sisters, and Cleopatra thus became the
wife of her brother Ptolemy Dionysius. The Incas of Peru were subject to a
similar law; and at Siam also, when the traveller La Loubère visited it, the
king had married his sister.[150] But I shall have to return to the subject of
marriage between relations in treating of the endogamic régime which has
been, or is, in force among many peoples.
These incestuous marriages astonish us, and certain of them are even
revolting to our ideas, as, for example, the union of the mother with the son.
Another custom will probably surprise, if not shock us quite as much. I
allude to experimental marriages, which are far from being rare. They will
appear, however, less singular, if we remember that in societies of low order
little value is set on the chastity of young girls; virginal purity is not at all
prized, and there are even some peoples, as the Saccalaves of Madagascar,
[151]
for instance, and also certain indigenous peoples of India,[152] among
whom it is regarded as a duty for the mothers themselves to deflower their
daughters before marrying them.
With such morals prevailing, experimental marriages seem natural
enough. De Champlain, an ancient French traveller in North America,
relates that the Redskins of Canada always lived a few days together, and
then quitted each other if the trial had not been satisfactory to either of
them.[153]
A Spanish chronicler, Herrara, reports that the Otomies of Mexico spent a
night of trial with the woman that they desired to marry; they could quit her
afterwards, but only on condition of not retaining her during the following
day.[154]
Among the Sonthals also, an aboriginal tribe of India, whose marriages
are celebrated simultaneously once a year, the candidates for marriage must
first live six days together, and it is only after this trial that it is lawful for

them to marry.[155] With certain Tartar tribes of Russia in Europe and of
Siberia there existed an institution of experimental marriages lasting for a
year, if the woman did not become a mother during that period.[156] In the
island of Ceylon, according to Davy, there are also provisional marriages,
confirmed or annulled at the end of a fortnight.[157]
Among the Jews in Morocco the Rabbis consecrate temporary marriages,
for three or six months, according to agreement. The man only engages to
acknowledge the child if needful, and to make a certain donation to the
mother.[158]
Strabo tells us of an analogous custom prevailing in antiquity among the
Tapyres (Parthians), according to which a woman, after having had two or
three children by a man, was forced by law to change her husband.[159] This
is almost exactly what Marshal Saxe demanded for Frenchwomen in the last
century.
We must not confound these experimental marriages, which are
regulated, and in some sort legal, with free and easily cancelled unions still
more common, as, for example, those of the Nouka-Hivians, that are broken
at will, provided there are no children;[160] those of the Hottentots;[161]
those of the Abyssinians, who marry, part, and re-marry at will.[162] These
last unions, founded merely on individual caprice, have nothing
extraordinary about them, and we know that they are not rare in civilised
countries.
Much more curious, from a point of view of sexual and conjugal
morality, are the partial marriages, which only bind the parties for certain
days of the week. This is a rare kind of marriage that seems improbable to
us, yet it has been proved to have existed among the Hassinyehs of the
White Nile, of Arab or perhaps Berber race.
By an agreement, which is sharply discussed beforehand, the Hassinyeh
woman engages to be a faithful wife for a fixed number of days in the
week, generally three or four, but this is in proportion to the number of
heads of cattle given to the parents by the bridegroom as the price of their
daughter, and it is the mother herself who makes the bargain. Naturally, on
the days that are not reserved the woman is free, and she has a right to use
her liberty as she pleases.[163]

These strange customs amongst the Arabs must surely date from old pre-
Islamite ages, and we may class them with other antique customs, as, for
example, marriage for a term, called mot’a marriage, which was in use with
the Arabs until the time of Mahomet, and which doubtless they imported
later into Persia, where it exists in our own day. And again, in the kingdom
of Omân, in the fourteenth century, the Sultan could still grant to a woman,
indeed to any woman he pleased, the permission to have lovers according to
her fancy, and her relations had no right to interfere.[164]
The partial marriage of the Hassinyeh Arabs is therefore not so surprising
as it seems at first sight when isolated from other practices of the same
kind. And it must be confessed that, immoral as it may appear to us, it is
superior to the other modes of primitive conjugal association in use among
the greater number of savage peoples. Doubtless it denotes an extreme of
moral grossness, but at the same time it shows a certain respect for feminine
independence, contrasting strongly with the animal subjection imposed on
women in the greater number of societies of little or no civilisation. The
situation of the woman who is owned and treated as a simple domestic
animal, hired out or lent to strangers or to friends, according to the caprice
of her master, but not allowed, at the peril of her life, to be unfaithful to her
owner without his leave, is surely far more abject still.
I shall not dwell any more on these mere sketches of marriage, free and
transient unions broken as soon as made, experimental marriages, three-
quarter marriages, and marriages for a term, all of which show the very
slight importance attached to sexual union by man in a low stage of
development. And yet we must not refuse the name of marriage to these
ephemeral and incomplete unions, since they are arranged by means of
serious contracts which have been well discussed beforehand, and by
agreements entered into at least between the husband and the relatives of
the wife. The men of the horde or tribe do not, however, profess a very
strict respect for these marriages; the husband is often uneasy in the
enjoyment of his feminine property, and although legally obtained, he must
always be ready to defend it.
Among the Bochimans, says Liechtenstein, with whom marriage is
reduced to its most simple expression, “the strongest man often carries off
the wife of the weakest,” because it is the proper thing for him to do, since
he is called “the lion.”

In fact, these abuses of strength exist, more or less, in all countries and all
races; but among the Redskins of America and the Esquimaux it seems that
public opinion ratifies them, and that might has morally become right.
“When a Toski,” says Hooper, “desires the wife of another man, he
simply fights with her husband.”
“A very ancient custom,” says Hearne, “obliges the men to wrestle for
any woman to whom they are attached; and of course the strongest party
always carries off the prize. A weak man, unless he be a good hunter and
well beloved, is seldom permitted to keep a wife that a stronger man thinks
worth his notice. This custom prevails throughout all the tribes.”[165]
In the same way, among the Copper and Chippeway Indians woman is a
property which is little respected, and which the strong may always take
from the weak.[166]
Richardson also says that among the Redskins every man has the right to
challenge another to fight, and if he is victor, to carry off his wife.[167]
The same customs prevail among the Indians of South America—at least
among certain of them. Thus Azara relates that the Guanas never marry
before they are over twenty, for earlier than this they would be beaten by
their rivals.[168]
It has been attempted to show that these conflicts are the equivalent of
what is called in regard to animals “the law of battle,” but the comparison is
not exact, for animals seem in this respect much more delicate than men. If
they fight it is before pairing, and besides, as we have seen, their combats
are often courteous, like the tournaments of our ancestors; frequently, too,
the object of these assaults is much less to capture the female than to seduce
her by displaying before her eyes the qualities with which they are endowed
—courage, force, address, and beauty. On her part, the female for whom
they are competing is so little alarmed at their violence that, in general, she
tranquilly looks on at the duels, and afterwards gives herself, one may say,
freely to the victor. With certain species of birds a lyric tourney is
substituted for the fight, and so ardently do the birds engage in it that a
competitor will often die of exhaustion.
Lastly, when the tourney is over, the couples paired, and the marriage
concluded, all rivalry ceases, the newly-mated birds isolate themselves

more or less, and devote all their energies to the production of a family.
Now these are delicate refinements unknown to primitive man, whose
rivalries on the subject of the possession of women resemble far more the
struggles of the old males with the young in the hordes of the gorillas or
chimpanzees. We are forced to acknowledge that the sexual morality of
primitive man does not much differ from that of anthropoid apes, and it is
quite a stranger to the æsthetic and poetic refinements of certain birds.
I here end my short inquiry into the morals of primitive man and the
eccentric modes of conjugal union which have preceded the institution of a
more durable, exclusive, and solemn marriage.
We are filled with astonishment when we find such complete animal
laxity in our undeveloped ancestors, and we can hardly understand the total
absence of scruples which are now profoundly incarnate in us.
Those anthropologists who insist on making man a being apart in the
universe shut their eyes to these gross aberrations. Evolutionists are not so
timid, and do not fear to face the truth.
If, as it is impossible to deny, man is subject to the laws of evolution like
all other beings, we are forced to admit that he must have passed through
very inferior phases of physical and moral development. Homo sapiens
surely descends from an ancient pithecoid ancestor, and this original blot
has necessarily been a drawback to his moral evolution.
But here it is important to make a distinction. The resemblance between
the moral coarseness of the savage and the depravation of the civilised man
is quite superficial. Who thinks of being shocked at the morals of animals?
Now those of primitive man are quite as innocent, and the brutality of the
savage has nothing in common with the moral retrogression of the civilised
man struck with decay.
How unlike is the Aleout, imitating the sea-otter, without thinking any
evil, to the European degraded by the vices of our civilisation! For the latter
the future is closed; there are some declivities that can never be remounted.
The posterity of the savage, on the contrary, may, with the aid of time and
culture, attain to great moral elevation, for there are vital forces within him
which are fresh and intact. The primitive man is still young, and he
possesses many latent energies susceptible of development. In short, the

savage is a child, while the civilised man, whose moral nature is corrupt,
presents to us rather the picture of decrepid old age.

FOOTNOTES:
[112] L’Évolution de la Morale.
[113] Wake, vol. i. p. 77.
[114] Id. vol. i. p. 71.
[115] H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 213.
[116] Wake, vol. i. p. 205.
[117] Giraud-Teulon, Orig. de la Famille, p. 68.
[118] Parry (Third Voyage), Hist. Univ. des Voyages, t. xl. p. 456.
[119] Giraud-Teulon, loc. cit., p. 96.
[120] Élie Reclus, Les Primitifs, p. 70.
[121] Élie Reclus, Les Primitifs, p. 80.
[122] Carver, Travels in North America, p. 245.
[123] De Varigny, Quatorze ans aux îles Sandwich, p. 159.
[124] Wallis, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xviii. p. 364.—Edwards, ibid. t. xiii.
p. 426.
[125] Porter, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xvi. p. 232.

[126] Marchand, ibid. t. xv. p. 406.—Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, t. ier. p.
313.
[127] Porter, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xvi. p. 229.
[128] Id., loc. cit., t. xvi. p. 245.
[129] Ibid. t. xix. p. 213.
[130] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 79.
[131] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ii. p. 56.

[132] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ier. p. 206.
[133] Cook, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. v. p. 268.

[134] Moerenhout, loc. cit., t. ier. p. 229.
[135] Bourgarel, Des Races de l’Océanie française, in Mém. Soc.
d’Anthropologie, t. ii. p. 390.—De Rochas, Nouvelle Calédonie, p. 235.
[136] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ii. p. 167.—Marion, Hist. Univ.
des Voy., t. iii. p. 487.

[137] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 241.
[138] Peschel, Races of Man, p. 408.
[139] Burckhardt, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxii. p. 155.
[140] Strabo, x. 21.

[141] Démeunier, Esprit des Différents Peuples, t. ier. p. 153
[142] Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxx. p. 94.
[143] H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 218.
[144] Langsdorff, Voyages, t. ii. p. 64.
[145] Heber, quoted by H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 248.
[146] Geography, Lib. iv. par. 4.
[147] Justin, Agatha, vol. ii. Tertullian, in Apologet.
[148] A. Hovelacque, L’Avesta, pp. 465, 466.

[149] Démeunier, t. ier. pp. 465, 466.
[150] Ibid. p. 166.
[151] Noël, Bull. de la Soc. de Géog., Paris, 1843.

[152] Collection Ramusio, t. ier. libro di Odoardo Barbosa, portoghese.

[153] Démeunier, t. ier. p. 155.
[154] Ibid.
[155] The People of India, vol. i. p. 2.
[156] Travels through the Russian Empire and Tartary, by D. J. Cook,
vol. i.
[157] Davy, Ceylon, p. 286.
[158] Dr. Decugis, Bull. de la Soc. de Géog., Paris.
[159] Strabo, vol. ii. p. 514.
[160] Porter, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xvi. p. 323.
[161] Levaillant, ibid. t. xxi. p. 164.
[162] Bruce, Travels, vol. ix. p. 187; vol. v. p. 1.
[163] Ausland, Jan. 1867, p. 114.
[164] Ibn Batûta, vol. ii. p. 230 (quoted by R. Smith in Kinship and
Marriage in Early Arabia).
[165] Hearne, A Journey from Prince of Wales Fort, p. 104 (1796).
[166] Franklin, Journey to the Shores of the Polar Sea, vol. viii. p. 43.
[167] Richardson, Boat Journey, vol. ii. p. 21.
[168] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 614.

CHAPTER V.

POLYANDRY.

I. Sexual Proportion of Births: its Influence on Marriage.—
Sexual proportion amongst animals—The state of this in Europe—
Its variations according to race and profession—Its oscillations—
Proportion of the sexes disturbed by war, by infanticide, and by the
sale of daughters—Polyandry has not been general.
II. Ethnography of Polyandry.—Examples of polyandry—Great
polyandrous centres—The polyandry of Thibet—The polyandry of
the Naïrs.
III. Polyandry in Ancient Arabia.—Its causes—Infanticide in
Arabia—The legend of Caïs, the infanticide—Evolution of
polyandry in Arabia—Mot’a marriage—Ba’al marriage.
IV. Polyandry in General.—Matriarchal polyandry and
patriarchal polyandry.

I. Sexual Proportion of Births, and its Influence on Marriage.

With the exception of the rare and singular forms of sexual or conjugal
association which we have just passed in review, matrimonial types are not
numerous among the peoples more or less civilised who have already
instituted a marriage—that is to say, a sexual association regulated by
generally admitted convention. The forms of marriage most universally
practised, those which the majority of mankind has reached and stopped at,
are polygamy and monogamy, or monandry. I shall have much to say of
these. For the moment I shall treat of another kind of marriage, far less
widely spread without doubt, but which, however, exists or has existed at
divers points of the globe; I allude to polyandry.

I have no longer to prove that morality is variable and perfectible, that it
results from social life, and is only to be taken together with the other
needs, desires, and necessities of the struggle for existence. Our moral
sentiments are simply habits incarnate in our brain, or instincts artificially
created; and thus an act reputed culpable at Paris or at London may be and
frequently is held innocent at Calcutta or at Pekin. In order to judge
impartially of polyandric marriage we must remember these elementary
truths. Not, certainly, that polyandry is rare amongst us, but it is censured,
counted as criminal, and obliged to hide itself. The legal and regulated
possession, publicly acknowledged, of one woman by several men, who are
all husbands by the same title, shocks our feelings and morality extremely
in the present day.
Nevertheless, human societies, small or large, must and will live, and it is
an imperious condition which imposes the polyandric régime, namely, a
considerable inequality between the number of men and that of women.
Now, this disproportion may result from divers causes. In the first place, it
may be natural, as it is among certain animal species. Among the
lepidoptera, for example, nine hundred and thirty-four males have been
counted as against seven hundred and sixty-one females.[169] Although
smaller, the disproportion is not less real amongst mankind. As a general
rule, and in nearly all countries where it has been possible to ascertain it,
the relation between masculine and feminine births gives a certain excess of
boys. This relation has been found in Europe to be 106 for 70 million of
births; but our great masculine mortality re-establishes the equilibrium in
the early years of life. The proportion of births, besides, is far from being
identical in all the countries of Europe, and we even find oscillations in a
given country. In England it is generally 104.5, in France 106.3, in Russia
108.9, at Philadelphia 110.5. In certain ethnic or social categories the
proportion of masculine births notably augments. It rises to 113 for the Jews
of Russia, to 114 for those of Breslau, to 120 for the Jews of Livonia. More
singular still, the proportion of masculine to feminine births augments for
certain professions; it is, for example, higher amongst the English clergy.
[170]
It is even seen to vary spontaneously. In the year 1886, during several
months, the proportion of feminine births rose at Paris. In France, for a
period of forty-four years, it has happened five times in one department,
and six times in another, that the female births have been in excess. At the

Cape of Good Hope, among the whites, for several years there have been
ninety to ninety-nine masculine births. The reason or reasons of these
spontaneous oscillations in the proportion of the sexes still escapes us. We
verify it only, and we are warranted in concluding that the production of sex
in the embryo depends on some relatively second causes. It is sure, for
example, that the clergy of England are not of a special race. If, however,
they have more male children than the other inhabitants of England, the fact
can only depend on intimate particulars of their kind of life. This reminds us
of certain biblical precepts relative to conjugal life, and the too neglected
theory of M. Thury (of Geneva) on the influence of the degree of ovular
maturity on the production of the sexes.
But spontaneous oscillations in the proportion of the sexes are always
feeble; even the matrimonial type does not seem to influence them, for in
the harems of Siam the sexual relation of births is the same as in Europe.
[171]
On the other hand, it is proved that race-horses, which are very
polygamous, since they serve as stallions, have male and female
descendants in exactly equal proportions.[172]
It is the social actions of men which produce the most profound
disturbances in the proportion of the sexes. To begin with, in savage or
barbarous countries, where violent death has become an ordinary
occurrence for men, the number of adult females much exceeds that of adult
males. Thus, at Bantou, when the Dutch established themselves there, they
found ten women to one man.[173] In La Soñora, at the end of a civil war,
there were seven women to one man. In spite of all moral and legal
precepts, such conditions unfailingly result in polygamy, disguised or not.
On the contrary, a custom very widely spread in savage 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.[174]

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.[175]
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;[176] 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 population, where conquerors badly off for
wives came to settle, that polyandry has become general and enduring. It is
surely only an exceptional form of marriage, and we can enumerate the
countries where it has been or is still in use.

II. Ethnography of Polyandry.

Cæsar speaks thus of the polyandry of the ancient Britons:—“By tens and
twelves the husbands have their wives in common, especially brothers with
brothers, and parents with children.”[177]

I have previously quoted Strabo on the polyandry of the primitive Arabs,
which was also fraternal.
In the sixteenth century the Guanches of two of the Canary Isles,
Lancerote and Tortaventura, were still polyandrous, but amongst them the
husbands did not number more than three.[178]
Polyandry also existed in New Zealand and in the Marquesas, but
restricted to certain women only.[179]
In America, amongst the Avaroes and the Maypures, according to
Humboldt, brothers had often only one wife.
But the great polyandric centres exist or have existed in Asia, in India,
Ceylon, and Thibet. Various aboriginal tribes of India, nearly always much
addicted to female infanticide, have practised polyandry. The Miris and
Dophlas of Bengal are still polyandrous.[180] Among the Todas of Nilgherry
polyandry was fraternal. When a man married a girl, she became on that
account the wife of all his brothers, and inversely these became the
husbands of all the sisters of the wife. The first child born of these
marriages was attributed to the eldest brother, the second to the next
brother, and so forth.[181]
But polyandry has not flourished only among the primitive races of India.
The Hindoo populations had also adopted it, and traces of it are found in
their sacred literature. Thus in the Mahabharata the five Pandou brothers
marry all together the charming Drâaupadi, with eyes of lotus blue.[182] But
in Brahmanic India polyandry is more than a mere memory. Skinner has
proved that near the sources of the Djemmah, amongst a very fine race of
Hindoo mountaineers, fraternal polyandry still prevailed. “Having asked
one of these women,” says the traveller, “how many husbands she had
—‘Only four,’ she replied. ‘And all living?’ ‘Why not?’”
These customs, according to the traveller, did not hinder these
mountaineers from being, on other points, very moral men. Thus they held
lying in horror, and in their eyes to deviate from the truth, even quite
innocently, was almost a sacrilege.[183]
At the other extremity of India, in Ceylon, the polyandric régime is still
very flourishing, especially in the interior of the island, and among the

leisured classes. The number of husbands, generally brothers or relatives, is
variable; it varies from three to eight. According to Emerson Tennent,
polyandry was formerly general in the island, and it is owing to the efforts
of the Dutch and Portuguese that it has disappeared from the coast.[184]
It is particularly in lamaic Thibet that the polyandric régime is in full
vigour; and in this country religion strengthens it, for the most distinguished
men, the ruling classes, the chiefs or officers of the State, a fortiori the
lamas, have the same disdain for marriage so loudly professed by the saints
of Catholicism. The greater number exempt themselves from it, and leave to
the common people the gross care of producing children. Now, the latter, by
reason of their poverty, associate together to lighten the burden of the
family. It is, again, fraternal polyandry which is the rule in Thibet. It is in
this country that sociologists have sought the classic type of this kind of
polyandry.
In Thibet the right of primogeniture is combined with the right of
marriage, and the younger brothers follow the fate of their chief. It is this
last who marries for all of them, and chooses the common wife.[185]
However, if we may believe other accounts, a certain liberty is allowed to
younger brothers. The pressure on them is chiefly economic. When the
eldest son marries, the property is transmitted to him in advance of his
inheritance, with the charge of maintaining his parents, who, however, can
live in a separate house. The youngest brother takes orders, and becomes a
lama. The others, if they choose, become inferior husbands of the wife, who
with us would be their sister-in-law, and they are almost forced to do this,
since their eldest brother is sole inheritor. Once within the polyandric
régime, the younger brothers have a subordinate position. The eldest, the
husband-in-chief, considers them as his servants, and has even the right to
send them away without any resource, if he pleases. If the principal
husband dies, then his widow, his property, and his authority pass to the
younger brother next in age. In the case of the brother not being one of the
co-husbands, he cannot inherit the property without the wife, nor the wife
without the property. We have here, then, a sort of polyandrian levirate.[186]
The children springing from these unions give the name of father
sometimes to the eldest of the husbands, and sometimes to all.[187]
Travellers tell us that these polyandrous households are not more troubled

than our monogamous ones. Some Thibetans, living thus in conjugal
association, could not understand V. Jacquemont when he asked them if the
preference of their single wife for one or other of them did not cause
quarrels between the husbands. But if jealousy is unknown to the husbands,
it is, on the contrary, frequent with the wife. “A Thibetan woman,” says
Turner, “united to several husbands, is as jealous of her conjugal rights as
an Indian despot could be of the beauties who people his zenana or
harem.”[188]
As to the manner in which the intimate relations between husbands and
wife are regulated in the polyandric households of Thibet, we have scarcely
any information. Among the Todas the wife never had conjugal commerce
with more than one husband at a time, but she changed every month;
sometimes also the associated husbands add to their number temporarily
some young man belonging to the tribe, but not yet engaged in the bonds of
wedlock.[189]
There is another form of polyandry besides the fraternal, but quite as
curious, and which has been made to play a great rôle in various
sociological theories. It is the polyandry of the Naïrs, an indigenous high
caste of Malabar.
However extraordinary the fraternal polyandry called Thibetan may seem
in our eyes, that of the Naïrs of Malabar is far more so. Here the reality
exceeds all that we could have imagined in the way of conjugal customs.
The Naïr parents married their daughters early. The bride was rarely more
than twelve years old. The proceedings began with an ephemeral union, a
sort of fictitious marriage, but celebrated nevertheless with great rejoicings
in presence of parents and friends. The initiative and provisional husband
passed round the neck of the bride the conjugal collar, the tali, and
henceforth the marriage was concluded and had to be consummated; only at
the end of four or five days the new husband was obliged to quit the house
of the wife for ever. On the contrary, the young bride remained in the
family, and from this period contracted a series of partial but durable
marriages. The first marriage of the young Naïr girl had evidently no other
object than defloration; it was a service demanded of a fictitious husband,
and for which he was often paid. A traveller relates that for this preliminary
marriage a porter or a workman was employed and paid. If his pretensions
were too high, recourse was had to an Arab or a stranger; and, says the

narrator, the gratuitous services of these last were always preferred if, when
the ceremony was over, they withdrew in time and with good grace. When
once well and duly prepared for marriage, the young Naïr girl might take
for husband whomsoever she liked, except the provisional husband of the
first few days.[190] The number of her husbands varied from four to twelve.
[191]
Each one of them was at first presented to her either by her mother or
by her maternal uncle, an important personage in the family. Each co-
partner was in his turn husband in reality during a very short time, varying
from one day to ten, and he was free, on his side, to participate in divers
polyandric conjugal societies. We are assured that in these curious ménages
all the associated husbands lived in very good understanding with each
other.[192]
Generally the Naïr husbands were neither brothers nor relatives, for these
polyandrous people seemed to have ideas about incest analogous to our
own. But the unions outside the caste were the only ones reputed culpable;
they constituted a sort of social adultery. The conjugal prerogatives of the
husbands were not unaccompanied by certain duties. They had to maintain
the common wife, and they agreed together to share the expense. One took
on himself to furnish the clothes, another to give the rice.[193] On these
conditions each one could in his turn enjoy the common property, and, in
order not to be troubled in the use of his rights, it sufficed the husband on
duty to hang on the door of the house and on the wife’s door his shield and
his sword or knife.
The Brahmins were obliged to tolerate these polyandric marriages, so
contrary, however, to their laws; they finished by even deriving a profit
from them. In the Brahmanic families in contact with the Naïrs the eldest
son alone married, so as not to scatter the patrimony; the others entered the
matrimonial combinations of the Naïrs, and thus their children did not
inherit.[194]
On their side, the Naïrs were naturally only acquainted with matriarchal
heredity. No Naïr, says Buchanan, knows his father, and every man has for
heirs the children of his sister. He loves them as if they were his own, and
unless he is reputed a monster, he must show much more grief at their death
than he would for his own possible children—namely, those of his own
wife.[195]

In comparing the two kinds of polyandry that I have just described, the
patriarchal polyandry of the Thibetans, and the matriarchal polyandry of the
Naïrs, the majority of sociologists consider the first as superior to the other.
In so doing they seem to me not to be able to shake off sufficiently our
European ideas. Doubtless the fraternal Thibetan polyandry, while leaving
undecided the paternal filiation of the children, assures them a sort of
collective paternal parenthood, since the fathers are of the same blood. This
polyandrian family consequently differs less than the Naïr family from our
own system of patriarchal kinship, which is reputed superior; but surely the
liberty, and even the dignity of the woman, which must count for
something, are more respected under the Naïr system, which not only does
not reduce the woman to a thing possessed, that one lends to one’s friends,
but gives her the power of choosing her husbands.
Fraternal polyandry being declared superior to polyandry of the Naïr
type, it has been concluded that in virtue of the law of progress it must have
been preceded in all times and places by the latter. As regards the greater
number of cases of Thibetan polyandry, the supposition is gratuitous; it
seems, however, established as far as ancient Arabia is concerned, where,
thanks to a very learned treatise recently published by Mr. W. Robertson
Smith, professor of Arabic at the University of Cambridge,[196] we may note
the causes of polyandry and follow its evolution.

III. Polyandry in Ancient Arabia.

The chief cause of ancient Arabian polyandry was the one we find in
nearly all the polyandric countries—that is to say, the infanticide of
daughters.
The primitive Arabs, extremely savage and even anthropophagous, were
led to adopt the custom of female infanticide by the difficulty of living in
their arid country, where famines were very common. Down to the present
time the nomads of Arabia suffer constantly from hunger during a great part
of the year.[197]
The custom of infanticide was inveterate among the Arabs, and Mahomet
was obliged to condemn it over and over again in the Koran:—“They who
from folly or ignorance kill their children shall perish.[198] Kill not your

children on account of poverty.[199] Kill not your children for fear of
poverty; we will feed them, and you also.[200] When it shall be asked of the
girl buried alive for what crime she is put to death ... every soul will then
acknowledge the work that she had done.”[201]
In this last verse the Koran bears witness to the custom of killing the
girls, and it indicates the process in use, which actually consisted in burying
them alive. This was done openly, and often the grave of the newly-born
infant was dug by the side even of the couch of the mother who had just
given birth to it. According to the morality of the primitive Arabs, these acts
were not only very simple, but even virtuous and generous,[202] which
seems to indicate that they were indeed only precautions against famine. An
Arab legend, quoted by Mr. R. Smith, paints in lively colours these
atrocious customs. It relates to a chief of Tamin, who became a constant
practitioner of infanticide in consequence of a wound given to his pride. He
was called Caïs, and was contemporary with Mahomet. The daughter of his
sister was carried off in a razzia and given to the son of her captor, as was
the usage in Arabia, where the captured women made part of the booty and
were divided with it. This time, when Caïs came to reclaim his niece by
offering to pay her ransom, the latter, being well pleased with the adventure,
refused to quit her husband. Caïs, the uncle, was mortally offended, and
from that moment he interred alive all his daughters, according to the
ancient custom. But one day, during his absence, a daughter was born to
him, whom the mother secretly sent to a relative to save her, and then
declared to her husband that she had been delivered of a still-born child.
Some years later, the girl, grown tall, came to pay a visit to her mother. Caïs
discovered her, while her mother was plaiting her hair and ornamenting it
with cowries. “I arrived,” the father is made to say, speaking to Mahomet,
“and I said, ‘Who is this young girl?’ ‘She is yours,’ replied the mother,
weeping, and she related how she had formerly saved her. I waited till the
emotion of the mother was calmed; then one day I led away the girl; I dug a
grave and I made her lie down in it. She cried, ‘Father, what do you intend
to do with me?’ Then I covered her with earth. She cried again, ‘Father, do
you wish to bury me? Are you going away, and will you abandon me?’ But I
continued to heap earth on her until her cries were stifled. That was the only
time it has happened to me to feel pity in burying a daughter.”[203]

Such customs, combined with the sale to strangers of girls carried off in
razzias, and the polygamy of the rich men, must assuredly have profoundly
disturbed the numerical proportion of the sexes, and have rendered
polyandry almost a necessity, which, besides, could not excite any scruple
with the ancient Arabs, whose morals were very licentious. Thus the
captured women often remained common to a group of relatives.[204] In the
fifth century the Syrio-Roman law had even to forbid the contracts of
fraternity, by which all was held in common, including the wives and
children.[205]
That fraternal polyandry, called Thibetan, may have existed in Arabia, the
passage of Strabo, which I have previously quoted in regard to promiscuity,
would suffice to establish; but Arab writers expressly attest it, and notably
Bokhâri (vi. 127), according to whom the number of polyandrous husbands
was not allowed to exceed ten; besides this, various customs of more
modern date, as, for example, the passing of the widow, by heritage, to the
relatives of the husband, seem to arise from it. Moreover, even at the
present day in Arabia, the father cannot give his daughter to another if the
son of his brother demands her, and the latter has the right to obtain her at a
lower price;[206] this is the right of pre-emption applied to the woman.
It seems, indeed, as if these were the vestiges of an antique fraternal
polyandry, and it is in fact of fraternal or Thibetan polyandry that Strabo
speaks. Has this fraternal patriarchal polyandry been preceded by a
matriarchal polyandry, after the mode of the Naïrs—a polyandry which did
not make the woman the property of the husbands? Without being able to
give a direct proof of this, we may, however, consider it as very probable. In
the present day the partial marriages, by which the women of the Hassinyeh
Arabs engage themselves for some days of the week only, strongly
resemble the matriarchal polyandry of the Naïrs, and temporary marriage,
or mot’a, of the ancient Arabs approaches nearly to it also.
It is this kind of marriage, in all probability, that the prophet means when
he inveighs against “fornication.”
By the mot’a marriage the woman does not leave her home; her tribe
preserves the rights it has over her, and her children do not belong to the
husband. In short, the conjugal union is only contracted for a fixed time.
These mot’a marriages had nothing dishonourable in them, and did not in

the least prevent the women from finding fresh husbands when, at the
expiration of the lease, they became once more free.[207]
The custom of mot’a marriage was long prevalent in Arabia. Ammianus
speaks of it,[208] saying that the wife received a price or indemnity from her
temporary husband, and that, if it happened to the contracting parties to
wish to continue to live together at the expiration of the time fixed, they
inaugurated a fresh and more durable union by a symbolic ceremony,
during which the wife offered to her husband a javelin and a tent.
The prophet himself decided with great hesitation to condemn the mot’a
marriage. A tradition makes him say that “if a man and a woman agree
together, their union should last for three nights, after which they may
separate or live together, as they please.”[209]
In fact, the mot’a marriage was only abolished in the time of Omar; and it
is important to remark with regard to it, that this mode of marriage, singular
as it may appear to us, was, for the woman, very superior to the servitude of
the Mussulman harem. It was a personal contract, in which her parents did
not interfere, and which did not degrade her from the rank of an
independent person to the humiliation of merely being a thing possessed.
The mot’a marriage indicates, besides, very free manners, as is attested by a
number of facts and traditions, particularly certain religious rites of the
Canaanites, the Aramites, and the pagan Hebrews, and also the licentious
practices of women and girls in the temple of Baalbek.
By degrees the mot’a marriage gave place to a definite marriage, the
ba’al marriage, by which the young girl went to live with her husband and
owed him fidelity. Marriages of this kind were sought at first by the chiefs,
to whom they assured alliances. As a consequence these unions became
honourable, and dethroned the ancient matrimonial custom.[210] Henceforth
the women who continued to live in the ancient mode were dishonoured,
and treated as prostitutes, whose dwelling was indicated by a special flag.
At the same time the taste for paternity was born in men, and, in case of
doubt on this matter, sages whose profession it was, declared the signs by
which a man could recognise his own offspring.[211]

IV. Polyandry in General.

I have quoted or made a summary of nearly all the information that has
reached us on the subject of ancient and modern polyandry. From thence we
may conclude that in no way are we authorised to consider this form of
conjugal union as having been general. Still it has become a necessity in a
good number of gross societies. It has specially prevailed in countries badly
supplied with food, where the struggle for existence was severe, where
warlike conflicts with neighbouring tribes were incessant, and where, in
order to endure, the community was forced to diminish the impedimenta
and the useless mouths. In such conditions, men still savage or barbarous
have recourse without hesitation all over the world to female infanticide;
and as, on the other side, the chiefs and strong men monopolise as many
women as possible, the debauchery of unmarried women and polyandrian
households become necessary palliatives.
We have seen that there are two principal kinds of polyandry—the
matriarchal and patriarchal. In the first, the woman or girl does not quit her
family or her gens; sometimes even she is permitted the right of choosing
her husbands, who are not related to each other, and upon whom the woman
scarcely depends at all, since she remains with her own relations, and bears
children for them.
On the contrary, in the patriarchal polyandry, the woman, captured or
bought, is almost entirely uprooted; she leaves her natural protectors to go
and live with her husbands, to whom she belongs, who are limited in
number, are nearly always brothers or relations, and to whom she cannot be
unfaithful without authorisation.
Both forms of polyandric marriage suppose a complete absence of
modesty, of sexual reserve and moral delicacy. But we know that these
qualities can only be the fruit of long culture. In this respect both
matriarchal and patriarchal polygamy are equal. But it is important to
observe that the first enslaves woman much less. On the other hand, the
second already permits the establishment of a sort of paternal filiation, since
the husbands are generally of the same blood. For this reason it is reputed
superior.
In reality matriarchal polyandry always coincides with the primitive
family form, the matriarchate—that is to say, with a system that takes no

account of paternal filiation, and leaves the children to the tribe of the
mother.
Patriarchal polyandry, on the contrary, already presents the outline of a
sort of paternal family, with the right of primogeniture attributed to the first-
born.
We shall have to study in detail both the patriarchate and the
matriarchate. Polyandry, in its reputedly highest form, the Thibetan, only
constitutes a patriarchate of the most imperfect kind, since there is still a
confusion of fatherhood.
Proof is still wanting to force us to conclude that matriarchal polyandry
must always have preceded the other. This appears to be true for ancient
Arabia only. In all other places we can merely suppose it to have been so.
We should be equally mistaken if we admitted a priori that patriarchal
polyandry implies a degree of civilisation superior to that of the countries
where matriarchal polyandry prevails. The ancient Arabs, of whom Strabo
speaks, practised fraternal polyandry, and yet we know that they were
scarcely civilised, they were cannibals, and so ferocious that their wives
accompanied them in combats in order to despatch and mutilate the
wounded enemies. These furies made themselves necklaces and bracelets
for their ankles with the nose and ears of a dead enemy,[212] and sometimes
even they ate his liver.
In conclusion, polyandry is an exceptional conjugal form, as rare as
polygamy is common. It must be classed with experimental and term
marriages. With our European ideas on conjugal fidelity, obligatory by the
right of proprietorship, we can scarcely conceive even of the possibility of
this perfect absence of jealousy, this placidity of the co-husbands. It is
indelicate, doubtless. But how shall we describe our morality and the laws
that give to the deceived husband the right of life and death over his
faithless companion, and in this respect bring us down to the level of the
savage? Do indelicate manners rank lower than ferocious manners? They
are both those of the animal.

FOOTNOTES:

[169] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 278.
[170] A. Bertillon.
[171] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 270.
[172] Id., ibid.

[173] Houzeau, Facultés mentales des animaux, t. ier. p. 282.
[174] Darwin, Descent of Man, p. 270.
[175] Id., ibid. p. 282.
[176] Dalton, Ethn. Bengal, p. 289.
[177] De bello Gallico, v. p. 14.
[178] Berthelot, Mém. Soc. Ethn., pp. 121, 125, 155, 186, 210.
[179] Radiguet, Derniers Sauvages, p. 180.
[180] Dalton, loc. cit., pp. 33-36.
[181] Schortt, Trans. Ethno. Soc. (New Series), vol. viii. p. 240.
[182] Mahabharata, trad. Fauche, t. ii. p. 148.
[183] Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxxi. pp. 458-468.
[184] Davy, Ceylon, p. 286.—O. Sachot, L’île de Ceylon, p. 25.
[185] Turner, Thibet, p. 348, and Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxxi. p. 434.
[186] Moorcroft and Trebeck’s Travels, vol. i. p. 320.
[187] Rousselet, Ethnographie de l’Himalaya occidental, in Revue
d’anthrop., 1878.
[188] Turner, Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxxi. p. 434.
[189] Major Ross King, Journ. of Anthrop. (1870), p. 32.
[190] Élie Reclus, Les Primitifs, p. 191.
[191] Hamilton, Account of the East Indies, vol. i. p. 308.
[192] Forbes, Oriental Memoirs, vol. i. p. 385.
[193] Lettres Edifiantes, vol. x. p. 22.
[194] Robertson Smith, Kinship, etc., p. 313.
[195] Buchanan, Journey, vol. ii. p. 411, etc.
[196] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, 1885.
[197] Kinship and Marriage in Early Arabia, p. 283.
[198] Sourate, vi. p. 141.
[199] Ibid. p. 152.
[200] Ibid. xvii. p. 33.
[201] Ibid. lxxxi. pp. 8-14.
[202] R. Smith, Kinship, p. 282.

[203] R. Smith, Kinship, etc., pp. 279, 280.
[204] Id., ibid. pp. 131-134.
[205] Id., ibid. p. 135.
[206] Id., ibid. p. 137.
[207] R. Smith, Kinship, etc., pp. 69, 141-143.
[208] Id., ibid. vol. xiv. p. 4.
[209] Id., ibid. p. 67.
[210] R. Smith, Kinship, etc., pp. 141-143.
[211] Id., ibid. p. 143.
[212] R. Smith, Kinship, etc., p. 284.

CHAPTER VI.

MARRIAGE BY CAPTURE.

I. Rape.—Rape and marriage—Rape in Tasmania, Australia, New
Guinea, Africa, America, among the Tartars, the Hindoos, the
Hebrews, and the Celts—The rape of concubines in ancient Greece.
II. Marriage by Capture.—The ceremonial of capture in marriage
—Symbolic capture among the Esquimaux, the Indians of Canada,
in Guatemala, among the Mongols, the aborigines of Bengal, in
New Zealand, among the Arabs, the ancient Greeks, in ancient
Rome, in Circassia, among the modern Celts, and in Livonia.
III. Signification of the Ceremonial of Capture.—Violent
exogamy has not been universal—Rape and marriage by purchase—
What the ceremonial of capture means.

I. Rape.

The marriage by capture, which we have now to consider, is not actually
a form of marriage; it is only a manner of procuring one or more wives,
whatever at the same time may be the prevailing matrimonial régime. If,
however, we cannot dispense with the special study of marriage by capture,
it is because it has been made to play a chief rôle in sociology. According to
some authors, it has been a universal necessity, and must have preceded
exogamy in all times and places.
Surely this too general theory may be contested; but it is beyond doubt
that the rape of women has been widely practised all over the world, that
very often it has been considered glorious, and that in many countries it has
been attenuated into pacific marriage.
Nothing is more natural and simple than rape among savage or barbarous
tribes, who hold violence in esteem and use it largely, and who, as we have

previously seen, are almost always addicted to female infanticide. But has
the widely-spread custom of rape the great importance in sociological
theory that has been attributed to it? This is a question to which we can only
reply after having consulted the facts.
Throughout Melanesia capture has been the primitive means of procuring
wives, or rather slaves-of-all-work, absolutely at the discretion of the
ravisher. Bonwick, indeed, tells us that in Tasmania, and consequently in
Australia, capture was more often simulated only, and resulted from a
previous agreement between the man and woman;[213] but the savage
manner in which the rape was effected abundantly proves that amiable
agreement was exceptional. The Australian who desires to carry off a
woman belonging to another tribe prowls traitorously around the camp. If
he happens to discover a woman without a protector he rushes on her, stuns
her with a blow of his club (douak), seizes her by her thick hair, drags her
thus into the neighbouring wood; then, when she has recovered her senses,
he obliges her to follow him into the midst of his own people, and there he
violates her in their presence, for she has become his property—his
domestic animal.[2] The captured woman generally resigns herself without
difficulty;[214] in truth, she has, generally, changed her master, but not in the
least changed her condition.
Sometimes two men unite to commit one of these rapes. They glide
noiselessly into a neighbouring camp in the night; one of them winds round
his barbed spear the hair of a sleeping lubra, the other points his spear at
her bosom. She awakes, and dares not cry out; they take her off, bind her to
a tree, and then return in the same manner to make a second capture; after
that they return in triumph to their own people.[215] The captives rarely
revolt, for they are, in a way, accustomed to the capture. From infancy they
have been familiarised with the fate that awaits them, for the simulation of
the rape is one of the games of the Australian children.[216] Later the life of
a pretty Australian girl is marked by a series of plots to carry her off, and of
successive rapes, which force her to pass from hand to hand, and expose her
to wounds received in conflicts, and to bad treatment inflicted by the other
women amongst whom she is introduced. Sometimes she is dragged very
far, even hundreds of miles from the place of her birth.[217]

It is the duty of the tribe to which the ravished woman belongs to avenge
her, and the Australian has, after his own manner, a strong sentiment of
certain obligations, which for him are moral; but more frequently, to escape
too great damages, the tribes hold a meeting, and the ravisher submits to a
symbolic retaliation agreed on beforehand. Armed with his little shield of
bark, he takes his place at about forty yards from a group of ten warriors
belonging to the aggrieved tribe, and each one of these throws two or three
darts at him, which are nearly always avoided or parried. Thenceforth the
offence is effaced, and peace re-established.[218]
The same customs prevail among the Papuans of New Guinea. At Bali
the men carry off and violate brutally the solitary women they may meet;
and afterwards they agree with the tribe as to compensation.[219] In like
manner, in the Fiji Isles, rape, real or simulated, was general and even
glorious. A particular divinity presided over it. The ravished woman either
fled to a protector or resigned herself, and then a feast given to the parents
terminated the affair.[220]
To be able to see in these bestial customs anything resembling marriage,
one must be a prey to a fixed idea—a positive matrimonial monomania.
There is here no marriage by capture, but rather slavery by capture. This is
not the only method of procuring wives practised by the Australians. They
often proceed pacifically by traffic, and a man acquires a wife by giving in
exchange another woman of whom he has power to dispose—a sister or
relative.[221] Certain tribes had also instituted a sort of regulated
promiscuity—a collective marriage between all the men of one clan and all
the women of another. I shall have to return to the consideration of this
singular form of sexual association. For the moment I confine myself to
noticing that rape is not always obligatory in Australia.
Neither is it so among the negroes of Africa; it is even more rare there
than in Melanesia, but there also it does not constitute a marriage. Women
are carried off just in the same way as other things are carried off. Thus the
Damara Hottentots often steal wives from the Namaquois Hottentots.[222]
Among the Mandingos and the Timanis there is no marriage by capture,
properly speaking; already they purchase the daughter from her parents,
without, of course, consulting her; then the intending purchaser, aided by
his friends, carries off his acquisition in a brutal manner, whether she will or

not. It is a simple commercial affair; the daughter is an exchange value
representing a certain number of jars of palm wine, of stuffs, etc.
Amongst the natives of America brutal rape was, or still is, very
common. In Terra del Fuego, the young Fuegians carry off a woman as soon
as they are able to construct or procure a canoe.[223] From tribe to tribe the
Patagonians at war exterminate the men and carry off the women. The Oen
Patagonians make incursions every year at the time of “the red leaf” on the
Fuegians to seize their women, their dogs, and their weapons.[224] The
Indians on the banks of the Amazon and Orinoco continually capture
women, and thus every tribe is sometimes nearly without women and
sometimes overflowing with them.[225] The Caribs so frequently procured
wives in this way that their women did not often speak the language of the
men.[226] In the Redskin tribe of the Mandans the rape of young women was
a perpetual cause of trouble, of disorder, and of vengeance, proportioned to
the power and to the anger of the relations of the ravished woman.[227]
We find similar customs among savage or barbarous peoples nearly
everywhere. The Tartars, says Barnes, make their wives of the prisoners that
they capture in battles.[228]
The Code of Manu also mentions this primitive mode of union more or
less conjugal:—“When a young girl is carried off by force from the parental
house, weeping and crying for succour, and those who oppose this violence
are killed or wounded, and a breach is made in the walls, this mode (of
marriage) is called that of the giants.”[229]
The Bible relates several facts of the same kind. Thus the tribe of
Benjamin procured themselves wives by massacring the inhabitants of
Jabez-Gilead and capturing four hundred of their virgins. Another time the
Benjamites practised a Sabine rape in carrying off the women during a feast
near Bethel.
The Israelites, having vanquished the Midianites, killed all the men,
according to the Semitic custom, and took away the cattle, the children, and
the women.[230] But Moses, always directly inspired by the Lord, ordered
them to put to death the women and even the male children, and to keep the
young girls and virgins.[231] There were sixteen thousand maidens, of whom
thirty-two were reserved for the Lord’s share, which doubtless means for

the priests. Of the sheep, oxen, asses, and maidens that remained, Moses
further deducted the fiftieth part, which he gave to the Levites of the
tabernacle.[232]
This ferocity and this coarse assimilation of captured women to cattle are
not peculiar to the people of God, but prevailed amongst the primitive
Arabs,[233] or rather amongst all the Semites, who were still savage or
barbarous.
Capture in war has, besides, been largely practised by all races and
throughout the world. An old Irish poem, the “Duan Eiranash,” speaks of
three hundred women carried off by the Picts from the Gaels, who, finding
themselves thus deprived of their women by a single blow, allied
themselves then with the Irish.
I will confine myself to these examples, gleaned from all parts, and
which it would be easy to multiply. They amply suffice to establish that in
primitive societies woman, being held in very low esteem, is absolutely
reduced to the level of chattels and of domestic animals; that she represents
a booty like any other; that her master can use and abuse her without fear.
But in these bestial practices there is nothing which approaches, even
distantly, to marriage, and we are not in the least warranted to call these
brutal rapes marriages. Even in the countries where a true marriage exists,
the customs and the laws tolerate for a long time the introduction into the
house of the husband of captured slaves, who are treated by the master as
concubines by the side of the legitimate wife or wives. The heroes of
Homer profit largely by this legal tolerance, and when the Clytemnestra of
Æschylus justifies herself for having killed her husband, she alleges, among
other extenuating circumstances, the intimacy of Agamemnon with his
slave Cassandra.
Assuredly in all this there is no marriage. We shall presently see that in
many countries the concubinate, legal and patent, has co-existed, or co-
exists, by the side of marriage without being confounded with it. It is
important to reserve the name of marriage by capture to legal and pacific
marriage, in the ceremonial of which we find practices recalling or
simulating by survival the primitive rape of woman.

II. Marriage by Capture.

It is to be observed that this symbolic rape does not always signify that
the capture of the woman has preceded pacific conjugal union. It represents
especially a mental survival, the tradition of an epoch, more or less distant,
when violence was held in high esteem, and when it was glorious to procure
slaves for all sorts of labour by force of arms. In the countries where the
ceremonial of capture exists, the fine times of rape are generally somewhat
gone by, but the mind is still haunted by it, and even in peaceful marriages,
after the contract or bargain is concluded, men like to symbolise in the
ceremonial the rapes of former days, which they cannot and dare not any
longer commit. These practices have also another bearing: they signify that
the bride, then nearly always purchased from her parents, must be in
complete subjection to the master that has been given her, and occupy the
humblest place in the conjugal house.
For all these reasons the symbolic ceremonial of capture has been, or is
still, in use with many races at the celebration of their marriages. In some
degree it is found all over the world. Among the Esquimaux of Cape York
the marriages are arranged in a friendly way by the parents of the future
couple, and nevertheless, from the infancy of the latter, the conjugal
ceremony must simulate a capture. The future bride must fly, must defend
herself with her feet and hands, scream at the height of her voice, until her
new master has succeeded in taking her to his hut, where she at once settles
happily.[234]
In the same way, in Greenland the bridegroom captures his bride, or has
her captured for him; and in the latter case he has recourse to the help of
two or three old women.[235]
With the Indians of Canada, where sometimes a true marriage is
concluded in presence of the chief of the tribe, when he has pronounced the
matrimonial formula, “the husband turns round, stoops down, takes his wife
on his back, and carries her to his tent, amid the acclamations of the
spectators.”[236]
Some Redskin tribes, observed by Lafitau, symbolised rape even in the
intimate relations between young couples. The husband was obliged to
enter the wigwam of his wife in the night; it would be a grave impropriety
for him to approach it in the day-time.[237]

In ancient Guatemala, where marriages were celebrated with a certain
pomp, the father of the bridegroom sent a deputation of friends to seek the
bride, and one of these messengers had to take the girl on his shoulders and
carry her to an appointed spot, near the house of the bridegroom.[238]
In Asia, over the vast Mongol region extending from Kamtschatka to the
country of the Turcomans, the ceremonial of capture is always held in
honour.
This symbolism of capture is especially curious with the Kamtschatdales.
There it is not as a conqueror that the husband enters the family of the wife,
since he must first do an act of servitude, find the parents of the girl he
desires, put himself at their service, and take his part in the domestic labour.
This period of probation may last a long time, even years,[239] and surely it
is a singular prelude to a marriage by violent capture. However, when the
time of the novitiate is over, the future husband is allowed to triumph
violently and publicly over the resistance of his bride. She is armed with
thick garments, one over the other, and with straps and cords. Besides this
she is guarded and defended by the women of the iourte. However, the
marriage is not definitely concluded until the bridegroom, surmounting all
these obstacles, succeeds in effecting on his well-defended bride a sort of
outrage on modesty, that she herself must acknowledge by crying ni ni in a
plaintive tone. But the girls and women of the guard fall on the assailant
with great cries and blows, tear his hair, scratch his face, and sometimes
throw him. Victory often necessitates repeated assaults and many days of
combat. When at last it is gained, and the bride has herself acknowledged it,
the marriage is settled, and is consummated the same evening in the iourte
of the bride, who is not taken to her husband’s house till the next day.[240]
The ceremonial of capture still continues in the marriages of the
Kalmucks, the Tungouses, and the Turcomans, but has become less coarse.
With the Kalmucks the girl is first bought from her father, and then, after
a pretended resistance, is carried away on a horse ready saddled.[241] The
custom varies: sometimes it is enough to place the bride, by force, on a
horse; sometimes she flees, always on horseback, but is pursued and caught
by the bridegroom, who consummates the marriage on the spot, and then
conducts his prize to his tent.[242]

The Tungouses, coarser still, proceed by an attempt on modesty, as with
the Kamtschatdales; the bridegroom must attack his bride and tear her
clothes.[243]
With the Turcomans, marriage can be concluded with or without the
consent of the parents. In the latter case, the young people fly and seek
refuge in a neighbouring obah. They are always well received there, and
remain a month or six weeks. During this time the elders of the two obahs
negotiate an arrangement with the parents; they agree on the price of the
girl, who afterwards returns to the paternal domicile; she must remain six
months or a year, or even longer, before living with her husband, and during
all this time he may only see her secretly. Sometimes the flight is executed
with the previous consent of the parents, and then it is no more than a
symbolic capture,[244] a comedy.
In reality rape, more or less real, is often replaced by a simple ceremonial
with the greater part of the nomads of Central Asia, and notably the
Turcomans. Then the young girl, clothed in her bridal costume, bestrides a
fiery horse, which she puts to a gallop, having at the saddle a kid or a lamb
freshly killed. The bridegroom and all the wedding guests, also on
horseback, pursue the future wife, who, by clever turns and evolutions,
hides herself, and hinders them from seizing the animal she has carried off.
[245]
All this is plainly the mere mimic of rape, and there is in these divers
customs a designed gradation: at first the actual stealing of the girl, with the
understanding that the affair will not end tragically; then a stealing that may
be called legal, as it is authorised by the parents; at length the simple
ceremony symbolic of rape by violence.
Customs very similar to these are found with a certain number of the
aborigines of Bengal.
The Kurmis and other sudras celebrate marriage by a pretended combat.
Sometimes the bridegrooms mark their foreheads with blood, which seems,
indeed, to be the origin of the singular and nearly universal custom in India
of the sindradan,[246] consisting of marking the forehead of the bride with
vermilion. The vermilion has apparently replaced the blood, and the blood
may, and doubtless does, symbolise a violent rape.

With the Mecks and the Kacharis, the bridegroom, accompanied by his
friends, goes to the house of his future bride; he there meets the friends of
the latter, and the two troupes simulate a combat, in which the future
husband is always victor; the bride finishes by being carried off, and her
husband has only to feast the friends of both parties, and pay the father the
price of the girl.[247]
With the Soligas, the man carries away the young girl with her consent,
and goes, like the Mongols, to a neighbouring village to pass the time of the
honeymoon, after which the couple return home and give a feast.[248]
The custom of simulated capture still exists among other aboriginal tribes
of India, the Khonds, Badagas, etc.
It is evident that in primitive humanity, to carry off a woman with armed
violence was considered a glorious exploit, since in the most diverse races
pacific marriage assumes, with such good will, the pretence of violent
conquest.
In New Zealand, in order to marry a girl, a man applied either to her
father or nearest relation; then, consent being obtained, he ravished his
future bride, who was bound to resist energetically. As the New Zealand
women were robust, the contest, however courteous it might be, was severe;
the clothes of the girl were generally torn to shreds, and it sometimes took
hours to drag her a hundred yards.[249]
Sometimes the mother of the bride interfered. Mr. Yate mentions a case
of this kind. It relates to a mother quite content with the marriage of her
daughter, but obliged by custom to make a show of violent opposition. The
newly-married couple, on coming out of the church, for they were
converted, met the old woman, vociferating and tearing her hair, and
abusing the missionary, but telling him at the same time in a low voice not
to mind, for she was not serious.[250]
In certain districts of New Zealand the future husband was obliged
literally to carry off the girl. When the marriage was negotiated and, in
principle, concluded, all the relatives watched the fiancée with the greatest
care, and held themselves in readiness to defend her. The young man had to
seize his bride at all costs by force of arms; his honour depended on it, and

often he suffered severely in conducting his glorious enterprise to a
successful end.[251]
The ceremonial of capture evidently springs from customs of rape,
whether ancient or not; it is, therefore, quite natural to meet with razzias
among the Bedouins, as among all of their race. With the Bedouins of Sinai,
the comedy is played to the life. The bridegroom, accompanied by a couple
of friends, attacks the girl when she is leading the flocks home. She defends
herself vigorously by throwing stones, and is esteemed according to the
amount of energy she shows. At length they finish by taking her to the tent
of her father, where the name of her future husband is proclaimed. After this
the girl is dressed as a bride, placed on a camel, all the time feigning
resistance, and conducted to the encampment. A feast and presents
terminate the ceremony.[252]
With the Mezeyn Arabs things are pushed further. The girl, in the so-
called capture, evades pursuit and takes refuge in the mountains, where her
friends have prepared provisions for her beforehand. The bridegroom
rejoins his future wife in her retreat, and it is there that the marriage is
consummated. After this the couple return to the paternal domicile, which
the woman, unless she is with child, does not quit for a year.
The matrimonial comedy is not always so complicated. With the Amezas
the bride only runs from tent to tent, and is at last conducted by several
women to a tent prepared at some distance; her bridegroom awaits her
there, but he has to force her to enter it; that done, the women retire.[253]
With the Moors of Java, relates Schouten, the father of the bride carries
her, all swathed up, to the bridegroom. The latter, aided by two of his
paranymphs, lifts her on a horse and rides away with her. Once arrived at
his house he hides his wife there and goes off, without thanking his
assistants and friends.
Many European races have also practised the ceremonial of marriage by
capture. The Bœotians, says Pausanias, conducted the wives to the house of
the husband in a chariot, of which they afterwards solemnly burnt the pole,
to indicate that the woman was henceforth the property of her master, and
was never to think of quitting his abode. But in ancient Greece it was at
Sparta especially that the nuptial ceremony of capture was practised.[254] A

frequently quoted passage from Plutarch’s Life of Lycurgus gives us details
on this point. “In their marriages the bridegroom carried off the bride by
violence; and she was never chosen in a tender age, but when she had
arrived at full maturity. Then the woman that had the direction of the
wedding cut the bride’s hair close to the skin, dressed her in a man’s
clothes, laid her upon a mattress, and left her in the dark. The bridegroom,
neither oppressed with wine nor enervated with luxury, but perfectly sober,
as having always supped at the common table, went in privately, untied her
girdle, and carried her to another bed. Having stayed there a short time, he
modestly retired to his usual apartment to sleep with the other young men,
and observed the same conduct afterwards, spending the day with his
companions and reposing himself with them in the night, nor even visiting
his bride but with great caution and apprehensions of being discovered by
the rest of the family; the bride at the same time exerted all her art to
contrive convenient opportunities for their private meetings,” etc.[255]
At Rome the ceremonial of capture was kept up for a long time in the
plebeian marriages, without confarreation or coemption. As in so many
other countries, they played the comedy of the carrying off of the bride by
the bridegroom with the pretended resistance of the mother and the
relations.[256] In the more respectable marriages the ceremonial of capture
was simplified, but still very significant. The hair of the bride was separated
with the point of a javelin (hasta celibaris),[257] and for this symbolic
ceremony a javelin that had pierced the body of a gladiator was preferred.
Then the bride, conducted to the house of her husband, was to enter it
without touching the threshold; she was lifted over it.[258] It is curious to
find this same custom in China now in our own day, and we can hardly help
recognising in it the symbolic embodiment of capture.
A similar ceremonial is always practised in Circassia. In the midst of a
feast the bridegroom enters, escorted by his friends, and carries off his
bride, who henceforth becomes his wife.[259]
Moreover, as at Sparta, the newly-married Circassian must not visit the
wife, except in secret, for a whole year—a term evidently fixed, as at
Sparta, for the period of probable pregnancy.[260]
It is not very long ago that a ceremonial of the same kind was observed
quite near us, in Wales. On the day fixed, the bridegroom and his friends, all

on horseback, came to take the bride; but they found themselves in the
presence of the friends of the young girl, also on horseback, and a mock
fight ensued, during which the future wife fled on the crupper of the horse
of her nearest relative. But instantly the squadron of the bridegroom,
counting sometimes two or three hundred horse, galloped in pursuit. Finally
they rejoined the fugitive, and all was terminated by a feast and common
rejoicings.[261]
In Livonia every marriage was also the occasion of a simulated combat
of cavalry, as with the Welsh, but it took place before the marriage.[262] In
Poland also, and in Lithuania and Russia, the seizure of the girl often
preceded marriage.
I shall here end the enumeration of these customs, which are all
manifestly symbolical of capture. We still find the trace of it even in the
Brittany of to-day, where the representative of the husband, the bazvalan,
and the parents of the fiancée sing, alternately, strophes of a marriage song,
in which the one asks and the others refuse the bride, offering in her stead
either a younger sister, or the mother or grandmother.[263] Our inquiry is
terminated; it remains now to ask what is the meaning of this ceremonial so
widely spread in all ages and in all countries.

III. Signification of the Ceremonial of Capture.

The author of an interesting book on primitive marriage, Mr. McLennan,
and after him a great number of sociologists, have concluded that in savage
societies sexual unions or associations have been generally effected by the
violent capture of the woman, that by degrees these captures have become
friendly ones, and have at length ended in a peaceful exogamy, retaining the
ancient custom only in the ceremonial form.
It is quite possible to have been thus in a certain number of countries; but
we must beware of seeing in this a necessary and general evolution. Surely
savage hordes and tribes naturally carry off the women and girls of their
neighbours and enemies, the little groups with whom they are incessantly
struggling for existence. They seize their women as they do everything else,
and impose on the captives the unenviable rôle of slaves-of-all-work. Given
the brutality of primitive man, the fate of the captured woman is necessarily

of the hardest, and it is natural that the woman of the tribe should not solicit
it. Thus, with or without reason, the Australian fells to the ground his
captured wife, pierces her limbs with his javelin, etc. A stranger, a prisoner,
violently brought into a society where she cannot count on a single friend,
will evidently be more resigned to this bad treatment, and can nearly always
be made to submit to it without resistance. But we must not accept this as a
sufficient explanation of exogamy. We have seen that the Australian,
accustomed to primitive rape in all its brutality, only has recourse to it when
he cannot procure by simple barter the woman he covets.
There is certainly great temptation to capture a woman. A man thereby
escapes paying a price for her to her parents, which is the rule in nearly all
savage countries, but the operation is not effected without risk and reprisals
more or less dangerous, so that before undertaking it he thinks twice.
We must be careful not to confound rape with marriage; nothing is more
distinct with savage and even with civilised men. Perhaps even the dangers
and the inconveniences of brutal capture have given rise to the idea of
primitive conjugal barter, of a peaceful agreement by which a girl was
ceded to a man for a compensation agreed upon. In principle this
commercial transaction left to the husband the greater part of the rights he
would have acquired by violent capture; but, in reality, these rights were
necessarily mitigated, for the woman, being thus ceded in a friendly
manner, was not completely abandoned by her own people.
Thus in Polynesia, or at least in New Zealand, the husband who
murdered his wife, although he had purchased her, incurred the revenge of
her relations, unless she was guilty of adultery.[264] It was often thus, but
not always, however; for with the Fijians, in delivering a daughter to the
purchaser, the father or the brother said to the future husband, “If you
become discontented with her, sell her, kill her, eat her; you are her absolute
master.”[265] Much nearer home, in ancient Russia, the father at the moment
of marriage gave his daughter some strokes with a whip, saying,
“Henceforth, if you are not obedient, your husband will beat you.”[266]
Such customs show us plainly why, in so many countries, symbolic
practices recalling violent capture are kept up in the ceremony of marriage.
In the first place, by reason even of the dangers to which it exposed the
ravisher, rape was considered a brilliant action, and pleasure was felt in

simulating it. But besides and beyond all, the ceremonial of capture
symbolised also the subjection of the woman sold or ceded by her parents;
it sanctioned the very excessive rights that the husband acquired over the
wife. As a rule, the ceremonial of capture coincides with a very great
subjection of the woman, even where it is only a very distant survival. At
Sparta, for example, the wife might still be lent by the husband, and it was
the same in ancient Rome, where she was, according to the legal
expression, in manu, assimilated to slaves, and where the pater familias had
the right of life and death over her.
We are, therefore, warranted in believing that in civilised countries where
conjugal legislation is still derived from the Roman law, the subordinate
position assigned to woman is the last vestige of primitive marriage by
capture or by rape, attenuated to a purchase, as practised in the earliest
times of the Romans.

FOOTNOTES:
[213] Daily Life and Origin of the Tasmanians, p. 65.
[214] Dumont d’Urville, Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xviii. p. 225.—
Oldfield, Trans. Ethn. Soc., vol. iii. p. 250.
[215] Chambers’s Journal, p. 22 (October 1861).
[216] Collins, English Colony in New South Wales, p. 362.
[217] G. Grey, Travels in North-Western Australia, vol. ii. p. 249.
[218] Chambers’s Journal, 1864.
[219] Notices on the Indian Archipelago, p. 90.
[220] Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, vol. i. p. 174.
[221] McLennan, Primitive Marriage, p. 321.
[222] Campbell, Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxix. p. 343.
[223] Laing, Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxviii. p. 31.
[224] Fitzroy, Voy. Beagle, vol. ii. p. 182.
[225] Fitzroy, loc. cit., vol. ii. p. 205.
[226] McLennan, loc. cit., p. 48.
[227] McLennan, Primitive Marriage, p. 71.—Lewis and Clarke, Travels
to the Source of the Missouri River, vol. i. p. 231.

[228] Hist. Univ. des Voy., vol. xxvii. p. 130.
[229] Code of Manu, book iii. p. 33.
[230] Numbers, ch. xxxi. ver. 7-9.
[231] Ibid. ver. 15-18.
[232] Ibid. ver. 40-47.
[233] R. Smith, Kinship, etc.
[234] T. Hayes, The Open Sea at the Pole, pp. 448, 449.
[235] Egede, History of Greenland, p. 143.
[236] Carver, Travels, p. 374.

[237] Lafitau, Mœurs des Sauvages Américains, t. Ier. p. 576.
[238] Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. ii. p. 668.
[239] Kotzebue (Deuxième Voyage), Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xvii. p. 392.
[240] Beniouski, Hist Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 408.
[241] H. de Hell, Travels in the Steppes of the Caspian Sea, p. 289.
[242] Clarke, Travels, etc., vol. i. p. 433.
[243] Erman, Travels in Siberia, vol. ii. p. 372.
[244] Fraser’s Journey, vol. ii. pp. 372-375.
[245] A. Vambéry, Voy. d’un faux Derviche, p. 295.
[246] Dalton, Ethn. Bengal, p. 319.
[247] Id., ibid. p. 86.
[248] Buchanan, Journey from Madras, vol. ii. p. 178.
[249] Earle, Residence in New Zealand, p. 244.
[250] Yate, New Zealand, p. 96.
[251] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles du Grand Océan, t. ii. p. 68.
[252] Burckhardt, Notes, vol. i. p. 263.
[253] Burckhardt, Notes, vol. i. p. 107.

[254] Démeunier, Esprit des Différents Peuples, t. Ier. p. 296.
[255] Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus.
[256] Apuleius, Golden Ass, iv.
[257] Plutarch, Romulus.—Ovid, Fastes, ii.
[258] Lucan, ii.—Virgil, Æneid, iv.
[259] Louis Moser, The Caucasus and its People, p. 31.
[260] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 401.
[261] Lord Kames, Sketches of the Hist. of Man, book i., sec. 6.

[262] Historia de gentibus septentrionalibus (1555), lib. xiv. cap. 2.
[263] La Villemarqué, Barzas Breis.
[264] Voyage de l’Astrolabe.
[265] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, t. ii. p. 62.

[266] Démeunier, t. ier. p. 191.

CHAPTER VII.

MARRIAGE BY PURCHASE AND BY SERVITUDE.

I. The Power of Parents.—The hypothesis of a primitive
matriarchate—Maternal filiation and the condition of the woman—
Parental right of property in children—Conjugal sales of little girls
in Africa, Polynesia, America, and India.
II. Marriage by Servitude.—Labour and exchange value—
Marriage by servitude with the Redskins, in Central America, in
India, with the Hebrews—Influence of marriage by servitude on the
condition of the woman.
III. Marriage by Purchase.—With the Hottentots and the Kaffirs
in Middle Africa, in Polynesia, in America, with the Mongols in
China, with the aborigines of India, with the Berbers, the Hindoos in
Malasia, and in Greco-Roman antiquity—Dowry marriage—Moral
signification of marriage by purchase.

I. The Power of Parents.

Marriage by capture, that is to say, the custom of rape, necessarily
supposes a profound disdain for the ravished woman, and the antipathies or
sympathies she may feel. It is indeed the truth that, as far back as we can
carry our historical and ethnographical investigations, we find, with very
rare exceptions, the subjection of woman is the rule in all human societies,
and that the more backward the civilisation the harder was the subjection.
Some sociologists have pretended that maternal filiation implied for the
woman a sort of golden age—a reign of Amazons—during which the
woman, as centre of the family, must have been honoured as its chief. All
we know of ethnography gives the lie to this hypothesis. In the present day
the matriarchate does not anywhere exist, but maternal kinship does, and we
do not find that it involves a milder condition for the woman. This system

of filiation necessarily indicates a gross state of society, in which paternity
is still uncertain. Now, as a rule, the subjection of woman is in inverse ratio
to the development of man. In primitive societies, where might is the only
right, the woman, on account of her relative weakness, is always treated
with extreme brutality. It would be difficult, without losing all human
quality whatever, to be less intelligent than the Australian, and equally
difficult to imagine a more cruel servitude than that of the Australian
woman, always beaten, often wounded, sometimes killed and eaten,
according to the convenience of her owner. The Fijians, much more
intelligent than the Australians, amused themselves with beating their
mother, and with binding their wives to trees in order to whip them.[267] A
Fijian named Loti, simply to make himself notorious, devoured his wife,
after having cooked her on a fire that he had forced her to light herself.[268]
No kind of ferocious caprice was condemned by the morality of the country.
But such manners are as far as possible from being consistent with the idea
of a matriarchal society, in which a place of honour is accorded to the wife.
In primitive societies the condition of children is, if possible, still more
subordinate than that of woman. Infanticide at the moment of birth is not
even a venial fault. And later, the parents exercise the undisputed right of
life and death over their progeny; and when slavery is instituted, the
children become a veritable article of merchandise. In short, the rights of a
father of a family are unlimited.
From this primitive right of property accorded to the parents over their
children has resulted quite naturally all over the world the right of marrying
them without consulting them at all. Moreover, as it had long been the
custom to sell them, marriage was naturally considered as a commercial
bargain, and by degrees marriage by purchase even took the place of
marriage by capture, but after having long co-existed with it. Capture and
purchase had each their advantages and disadvantages. Capture cost
nothing, and it procured wives and concubines over whom the husband had
every possible right; but, in practice, it was not exempt from danger, and
once accomplished, it exposed him still to revenge and retaliation. Men
became resigned, therefore, to the purchase of the wife, as soon as they
could dispose of some exchange-values; and as nothing, absolutely nothing,
was any obstacle to the caprice or avidity of the parents, the most

unreasonable marriages were often negotiated, and notably the marriages of
children.
This custom of selling children, especially girls, for a future conjugal
association is very common all over the world.
In New Caledonia the children are betrothed by the parents almost from
the moment of birth.[269] In Africa, among the black races, and notably the
Hottentots, whose women age fast, the prudent men retain, years in
advance, the little girls destined to succeed their actual wives.[270] In
Ashantee little girls of ten and twelve thus sold are already legally
considered the wives of the acquirer, although they have not yet left their
mothers, and any familiarity taken with them by another man is punished by
a fine paid to the future owner.[271]
In Polynesia, also, the fathers, mothers, and relatives arranged the
conjugal unions of the children years before these unions were actually
possible.[272]
With the Moxos and the Chiquitos of South America premature
marriages were such a settled order of things that there were no celibates
above the age of fourteen for the men and twelve for the women. The Jesuit
missionaries in America had completely adopted this native custom, and
they often married young girls of ten to boys of twelve years. Naturally
these child marriages entailed sometimes equally precocious widowhood.
D’Orbigny states that he has seen among these tribes a widower of twelve
and a widow of ten years.[273]
In the time of Marco Polo the Tartars of Asia celebrated marriages that
were more singular still—the marriages of deceased children. The families
drew up the contract as if their children had been living, solemnly
celebrated a symbolic wedding, then burned not less solemnly the fictitious
contract, which would be, they thought, the means of holding it good in the
other world for the vanished young couple. Thenceforward an alliance
existed between the contracting families as if the marriage had been real.
[274]

Among the Reddies of India a young woman from sixteen to twenty
years old is frequently married to a little boy of five or six. The wife then
goes to live either with the father, or with an uncle, or a maternal cousin of

her future husband. The children resulting from these extra-conjugal unions
are attributed to the boy, who is reputed to be the legal husband. When once
this boy has reached manhood his legitimate wife is old, and then he in his
turn unites himself to the wife of another boy, for whom he also raises up
pseudo-legitimate children.[275]
Child-marriages, at least of little girls, are still very common in India
amongst the Brahmins, and it is not unusual to see sexagenarian Brahmins
marry little girls of six or seven years, for whom they pay money.[276]
On this point, as on most others, our European ancestors have not been
more delicate than the savage or barbarous races of other countries. Thus
Plutarch tells us that in ancient Italy the girls were often married before the
age of twelve years, but that they did not become wives before that age.[277]
At the present day the Russian peasants still frequently act like the
Reddies of India, and it is not rare to see, under the Mir system, young boys
of eight or ten years married to women of twenty-five or thirty. Very often,
in this case, the chief of the family becomes the effective husband of the
woman while the legal husband is growing up.[278]

II. Marriage by Servitude.

From all these facts we may evidently conclude that in societies of little
or no cultivation the children are left absolutely to the discretion of the
parents. The latter, having every possible right over their progeny, consider
them as a property, and think it no crime to sell their daughters, pubescent
or not, as soon as they constitute a negotiable value. This sale of daughters
is even the most widely spread form of primitive marriage, or of what it is
convenient to call so. In societies of some degree of civilisation, where
exchange-values exist, as domestic animals, stores of provisions, or slaves,
the sale of a daughter is argued and debated like any other transaction, and
the merchandise is delivered for the price agreed on. In a more primitive
state of civilisation, when man subsists chiefly by the chase, or fishing from
day to day, and is not always rich enough to buy a wife, the exchange-
values considered equivalent of the required daughter are often replaced by
a certain amount of labour or services rendered to the parents, and hence
results a special form of marriage—marriage by servitude.

This mode of marriage was not uncommon with the Indians of North
America. Sometimes the future husband engaged to serve the parents of the
girl for a fixed period of time. He hunted for them, hollowed out or
constructed canoes, or where agriculture was practised he cultivated the
land.[279] Sometimes the husband was not entirely enslaved; he had only to
give to his wife’s parents a part of the produce of the chase, and he was not
exempt from this tribute till a daughter was born to him, who became, by
way of indemnity, the property of the maternal uncle of his wife.[280]
Often during the time of his voluntary servitude the husband remained in
the family of his wife, and he actually took the position there of a sort of
slave.[281]
In the more civilised societies of Central America the custom of marriage
by servitude was nevertheless preserved. Among the Kenaï, the future
husband went every morning for a whole year to the house of the parents of
his betrothed to prepare the food, carry the water, or heat the bath-chamber;
then, when his year of service was over, he took away the daughter.[282] In
Yucatan the son-in-law was obliged to serve his father-in-law for two or
three years. This manner of acting even became a general custom which it
was considered immoral not to follow.[283] With the Mayas, the bridegroom
was required to build himself a house opposite that of his future father-in-
law, and he lived there five or six years, giving his labour during all that
period.[284]
Although more common in America than elsewhere, the custom of
marriage by servitude is not confined to that continent. The Limboos and
the Kirantis of Bengal often buy their wives by giving a certain term of
labour to the father, in whose house they remain until the payment is
finished.[285] We know also that marriage by servitude is not peculiar to
savages of inferior races, since the Bible informs us that Jacob only
espoused Leah and Rachel at the price of fourteen years’ service. Without
dilating further on marriage by servitude, I shall remark by the way that it
had for its result the placing of the husband in a subordinate position
towards the woman, or at least towards the family of the woman, in which
he had so long been treated as a servant. A certain independence was gained
by the wife who had been acquired in this manner. Thus, with the Kenaï, of
whom I was speaking just now, the woman had the right to return to her

father if she was not well treated by her husband.[286] Marriage by servitude
had therefore, in fact, a moral side; it lessened the subjection, always hard
and sometimes cruel, to which woman is liable in nearly all savage or
barbarous societies.

III. Marriage by Purchase.

Marriage by purchase is much more widely spread than marriage by
servitude or service. All over the world, in all races and in all times,
wherever history can inform us, we find well-authenticated examples
permitting us to affirm that during the middle age of civilisation the right of
parents over children, and especially over daughters, included in all
countries the power to sell them. I purpose to consult on this subject all the
great races of mankind, and confirmatory facts will not be wanting; I shall,
indeed, have to limit myself in giving them.
Among the Hottentots and the Kaffirs, the exchange value of the country
being cattle, the daughters are paid for in cows or oxen, and the price of the
merchandise varies according to the fluctuations of demand and supply.
Among the Great Namaquois Levaillant saw a conjugal affair concluded
very cheaply, for a single cow;[287] but this price may be increased tenfold.
[288]
With the Corannas, the man makes his request leading an ox to the
door of the girl. If he is allowed to kill the animal, it means that his demand
is granted. In the contrary case, the suitor is sent away and sometimes
stoned.[289] Hottentot girls are sometimes sold in their own tribe, and
sometimes in a neighbouring one. At the time of Burchell’s travels there
was a lively traffic in girls between the Bachapin Hottentots and the Kora
Hottentots.[290]
According to Livingstone, among the Makalolo Kaffirs the price paid to
the father had also for its object the redemption of the right of ownership
which he would otherwise have in the children of his daughter.
In Central Africa, in Senegambia, in the valley of the Niger, with the
Mandingoes, the Peuls, etc., marriages are reduced to the sale of the girl by
those having the right.[291] With the Timannis, says Laing, the pretendant
first brings a jar of palm wine, or a little rum, to the parents. If his demand
is favourably received the presents are accepted, and the giver is invited to

return, which he does, bringing a second jar of wine, some kolas, some
measures of stuff, and some chaplets. All is then definitely concluded, and
they announce to the girl that she is married.[292]
With the Moors of Senegambia conjugal sales are effected in nearly the
same manner; however, the girl has a right to refuse, but on condition of
renouncing marriage for ever, on pain of becoming the slave of her first
suitor in the case of an attempt to marry her to another.[293] This right of
refusal, limited as it is, already constitutes a notable degree of progress
which does not always exist in much more civilised countries. We must
place by the side of this some other customs in force here and there in this
region of Central Africa, confining ourselves to the Sahara and to where the
population is strongly mixed with Berber blood. It is to be remembered that
in nearly all Berber countries the subjection of women is or has been a little
less severe.
At Sackatoo the daughter is generally consulted by her parents as a
matter of form only, for she never refuses. In the same district the young
people first obtain a mutual consent, and then that of their parents. Among
rich people the husband settles on his future wife a dowry consisting of
female slaves, sculptured calabashes filled with millet, dourra, and rice, of
cloth, bracelets, toilet articles, of stones for grinding the grain, mortars for
pounding it, etc. All these presents are borne in great pomp, on the heads of
female slaves, to the husband’s house when the wife enters it for the first
time.
At Kouranko the young girls are often sold by their parents as dearly as
possible to rich old men. They are forced to submit, but, once widows, they
resume their liberty and recoup themselves by choosing at will a young
husband, on whom they lavish their care and attentions.[294] Now we shall
find that in many civilisations relatively advanced, widowhood even does
not gratify the woman with a liberty of which she is never thought worthy.
At Wowow and at Boussa the emancipation of woman is markedly
greater. It is no longer the father, it is the grandmother who gives or refuses
her grand-daughter, and if the grandmother is dead, the girl is free to act as
she likes.[295] This fact, if correct, is infinitely more curious than all the
others, and it ought to rejoice the sociologists full of faith, who admit in a

distant antiquity the existence of a matriarchal régime assigning to woman
the chief place in the family. But let us continue our inquiry.
In Polynesia marriage by purchase was habitual. In New Zealand the man
bought the girl, and offered presents to her parents.[296]
Generally in Polynesia the suitor offered pigs, stuffs, etc. If his demand
was granted, the bargain was quickly concluded; the girl was there and then
delivered to the husband; a Polynesian bed was arranged in the house of the
bride’s father, and the newly-married couple passed the night there. The
next day a feast was celebrated, to which friends were invited, and which
consisted of several pigs.[297]
At Tahiti temporary marriages were also concluded, and in this case the
presents of pigs, stuffs, pigeons, etc., varied in amount according to the
length of the union.[298]
But, in spite of the sale, the Polynesian father always retained over his
daughter the prior right of ownership, and when the presents seemed to him
to be insufficient, he took back the merchandise to let or sell it to a more
generous lover. If a child was born, the husband was free to kill the infant,
which was done by applying a piece of wet stuff to the mouth and nose, or
to let it live, but in the latter case he generally kept the wife for the whole of
her life. If the union was sterile, or the children put to death, the man had
always the right to abandon the woman when and how it seemed good to
him.[299] She was a slave that he had bought, and that he could get rid of at
will.[300]
On the great American continent, from north to south the custom of the
sale of the daughter is common to a great number of peoples. With the
Redskins female merchandise is generally paid for in horses and blankets.
When the daughter had been sold to a white man and then abandoned, as
frequently happened, the parents resumed possession of her, and sold her a
second time.
In Columbia what was most prized was the aptitude of the woman for
labour, and her qualities as a beast of burden were worth to her parents a
greater or less number of horses.[301]

Among the Redskins of northern California the girls were bought and
sold like any other articles, and there was no thought of consulting them in
the matter. The price was paid to the father, and the girl was led off simply
as if it were a horse-sale. Poor suitors naturally had to give way to rich
ones, and hence all the opulent old men obtained all the beautiful young
women.[302] There was no nuptial ceremony. However, with the Modocs,
the conclusion of the business is marked by a feast, but the newly-married
couple take no part in it.
The Redskin parents do not always entirely abandon their married
daughter, and if she is too ill-treated by her owner, they have the right to
take her back, and then of course to sell her to some one else.[303] Socialist
customs sometimes co-exist with these gross conjugal ones. The nuptial
abode is often prepared by the tribe, or, as in Columbia, the friends join in
paying to the father the price of the daughter.[304] The Californian suitors
sometimes obtain a wife on credit; but then the man is called “half-
married,” and is forced to live as a slave with the parents of the girl until he
has concluded the payment, for there is no essential difference between
marriage by servitude and marriage by purchase. In America, as elsewhere,
morality is simply the expression of habits and needs, and thus the purchase
of the wife has ended by becoming an honourable thing; and among the
Californian Redskins the children of a wife who has cost nothing to her
husband are looked down on.[305]
The Papayos of New Mexico are not content with selling their daughters
by private contract; they put them up to auction.[306] As for the inhabitants
of those curious Neo-Mexican phalansteries called pueblos, as they are
much more advanced than the greater part of their American congeners,
their matrimonial customs are less gross; and the suitor, when accepted by
the parents, tries to charm his bride by daily serenades lasting for hours—a
rare thing in savage countries.[307]
With the half-civilised tribes of Guatemala and Nicaragua conjugal
unions were also determined according to the presents made to the parents,
and in Guatemala the young people were both kept in ignorance of the
affair until the last moment.[308] In Nicaragua, however, there existed a
curious exception in certain towns, where at a particular festival the young

girls had the right to choose their husbands freely from among the young
men present.[309]
With the Moxos and the Guaranis the price paid to the parents is still the
decisive reason of the marriage.[310] However, the Guaranis also exact from
the husband proofs of virile qualities in the chase and in war.[311] The
struggle for existence is still severe, and in order to keep one or more wives
a man must be able not only to feed but to defend them.
The Mongols of Asia buy their wives exactly like the Mongoloids of
America, of whom I have just spoken.
Among the nomad Mongols, the Tartars of northern Asia, the parents
arrange the marriages with absolute authority, and without consulting the
parties more especially interested. The bargain is sharply debated between
the parents, and the price to be paid by the husband or his family is very
precisely settled; the future couple are not even informed of it, their
sentiments, their desires, or dislikes, are not considered in the least. The
price of the girl is paid in cattle, sheep, oxen, or horses; in pieces of stuff, in
brandy, in butter, in flour, etc. Everything being agreed on, the contract of
sale is drawn up before witnesses, but the girl is only delivered to the
purchaser after the ceremony of marriage, which, as we have previously
seen, takes the form of capture.[312]
The Turcomans have customs very similar to those of the Tartars. With
them the price of the girl is chiefly reckoned in camels, and it generally
takes five to pay for a girl; but as in their eyes the woman is not an object of
luxury, as she not only has to manage the housekeeping but to manufacture
articles which have an exchange value, and which are profitable to the
family, experienced women and widows, provided they are passable, are
much more sought for in the conjugal market than young girls. It is no
longer five camels, but fifty, or even a hundred, that must be paid for a
widow still in good condition.[313] If the suitor cannot immediately get
together the price of the woman he covets, he has recourse to marriage by
capture, and takes refuge with his bride in a neighbouring camp.
A settlement is always effected, matters are compounded, and the
ravisher engages to pay a certain number of camels and horses, which he

generally procures by marauding on the frontiers of Persia. It is a veritable
debt of honour for him, and he must pay it with the least possible delay.[314]
These barbarous customs of Mongolia are naturally softened in China,
but without any essential change in their main features. There, as well as in
Tartary, the young girl is considered as the property of her parents, and her
training is so perfect that she has not the slightest desire to be consulted
before being married, or rather sold, for ready money.[315] In the Chinese
family, daughters count for so little value that they are only called by
ordinal numbers—first-born, second-born, etc.—to which is added a
surname.[316] The price of the daughter when purchased is paid to the
parents in two separate portions—the first on the conclusion of the
agreement and the signing of the contract, and the other on the wedding-
day.[317] Marriage by capture has naturally gone out of use in the old
civilisation of China, but the trace of it still remains in the ceremonial, for
the bride is lifted over the threshold of the conjugal dwelling, as was the
custom in ancient Rome.
It has appeared so natural to parents all over the world to dispose of their
daughters as they chose, that many of the aborigines of India do nearly the
same as the Mongols. The daughters are sold by the parents among the
Kolhans, the Bendkars, the Limboos, the Kirantis, the Moundas, the
Santals, the Oraons, the Muasis, the Birhors, the Hos, the Boyars, the
Nagas, the Gonds, etc.[318] The price of the girl varies from three to
fourteen rupees, or is reckoned in head of cattle or measures of rice.
Sometimes female merchandise is rare and dear, for in some countries
female infanticide has long prevailed; it may happen, too, that daughters are
condemned to celibacy, as with the Hos,[319] or, as with the Nagas, that
marriages are delayed, and that the bridegroom must often submit to
marriage by servitude.[320] Sometimes, again, the girls are carried off, as
happens among the Kolhans, by the impatient bridegrooms, and, after the
rape, arbitrators negotiate a settlement.[321] It should be remarked, by the
way, that with the Nagas marriage by servitude has its ordinary effect, that
of abasing the husband and raising the wife; and, in fact, among these races,
although the wife performs severe labour, she is treated as the equal of her
husband.[322]

In some aboriginal tribes of India we even find matriarchal customs.
Thus with the Pani-Koechs the husbands leave to their very industrious
wives the care of their property. In marrying, a man goes to live with his
mother-in-law, and obeys her as well as his wife. Moreover, in this tribe the
mothers negotiate the marriages; the fathers have nothing to do with them.
[323]

Among the Yerkalas the maternal uncle has the right to claim for his sons
the two eldest daughters of his sister, or to renounce them for an indemnity
of eight images of idols.[324]
Money, always money! With all peoples and races marriage is often
reduced to a pecuniary question. In this respect the Berbers, the Semites,
and the Aryans are not distinguished from other human types. With certain
Touaregs of the Sahara, says Duveyrier, it is the daughter herself who
indemnifies the father, and it is after the old Italian manner, more tusco, that
she gains the price of enfranchisement which is necessary for her marriage.
“The father, before the marriage of his daughter, exacts from her the
reimbursement, levied on her body, of what she has cost her family ... and
the girl, dishonoured according to our ideas, but ransomed according to
local ideas, is all the more sought after, the greater her success in the
commerce of her attractions.”[325]
In contrast to the Touaregs, the Semites, Hebrews, and Arabs, attached
and still attach an enormous value to the virginity of the bride; but marriage
was not and is not any the less for them a simple sale. The history of
Jacob’s marriage has already shown us that marriage by servitude was
practised by the ancient Hebrews. In later times the consent of the woman
became necessary, which is a great step in advance, but the husband none
the less bought his wife in some way or other.[326]
With contemporary Arabs marriage is a simple sale, without any disguise.
An Arab jurist gives us the formula of it, which is very clear. It is as
follows: “I sell you my daughter for such a sum.” “I accept.” The same
author says elsewhere: “The woman sells in marriage a part of her person.
In a purchase men buy an article of merchandise; in a marriage they buy the
field of procreation.”[327] It would be impossible to speak more plainly.
Nevertheless, the consent of the woman is necessary; it is she who is

supposed to sell herself, and the price of the bargain constitutes her dowry.
It was the same with the Hebrews.
Whatever may have been their religion, the greater number of the Aryan
peoples have also considered marriage as a commercial transaction. The
Afghan Mussulmans buy their wives, and these are regarded as a property,
so much so that in case of widowhood they cannot re-marry, unless the
second husband indemnifies the family of the first.[328]
In Brahmanic India the daughter is also bought from the parents. A
curious verse of the Code of Manu tells us how the purchaser was
indemnified in the case of substitution of another person: “If, after having
shown a suitor a young girl, whose hand is granted to him, another is given
him to wife, and secretly brought to him, he becomes the husband of both
for the same price; such is the decision of Manu.”[329] Things have not
much changed at present. “When they wish to signify that they are going to
be married,” says an editor of Lettres édifiantes, in speaking of the Hindoos,
“they generally say that they are going to buy a wife.” However, the parents
do not appropriate the entire sum paid by the purchaser; a great part of it
goes to buy jewels for the bride.[330] The ancient Malays of Sumatra had
solved the conjugal problem in three different ways. Sometimes the man
bought and led away the woman, according to the universal custom;
sometimes the woman bought the man, who then came to live with her
family; sometimes the two were married on a footing of equality.[331] We
must note in passing that this last matrimonial form is very exceptional.
Throughout Europe, as well in Greco-Latin antiquity as among
barbarians, the young girl has formerly been considered as a negotiable
property, and marriage as a sale.
The Sagas tell us that the Scandinavian fathers married their daughters
without consulting them—after the manner of savages—and received an
indemnity from the son-in-law.[332]
With the Germans the daughter could not marry without the authorisation
of her father or of her nearest relative, who first received the earnest money
from the bridegroom;[333] as for the bride, she received the oscle, or price of
the first kiss, and then the morgengabe, which constituted her dowry. In
return, the German widow, like the Afghan widow, was the property of the

parents of her husband, and could not re-marry without their authorisation.
[334]

In primitive Greece the daughter was purchased either by presents to the
father or by services rendered to him.[335] The father could marry his
daughter as he thought well, and in default of a son could leave her by will,
with the heritage of which she formed a part, to a stranger.[336]
At Rome also the daughter was the property of her father, and until the
time of Antoninus the father had the right to re-marry her when the husband
had been absent three years.[337] Marriage by purchase had certainly been
the primitive form of the conjugal contract. In reality the confarreatio, a
solemn and religious union in the presence of ten witnesses, was a patrician
marriage. The usus, or the consecration of a free union after a year of
cohabitation, strongly resembles the Polynesian marriage. But the most
common conjugal form, the one which succeeded the usus, and surely
preceded the confarreatio, was marriage by purchase, the coemptio.
Coemption ended in time by becoming purely symbolic; the wife was
delivered to the husband, who, as a formality, gave her a few pieces of
money; but the ceremony is none the less eloquent, and it proves clearly
that in principle the woman had been, at Rome as elsewhere, assimilated by
the parents to a thing, to a venal property. When at Athens and at Rome an
effort was made to give the married woman a less subordinate position,
nothing more was done than opposing money to money by inventing the
dowry marriage; and hence resulted other inconveniences, on which Latin
writers have largely dilated, and which we can easily study to-day from life.
But for the present I must not speak of them. It suffices to have proved that
all over the earth, in all times and among all races, marriage by purchase
has been widely practised.
Now, the custom of marriage by purchase has a very clear and very
important signification from a moral and social point of view. It implies a
profound contempt for woman, and her complete assimilation to chattels, to
cattle, and to things in general. On this point the Roman law leaves no room
for ambiguity, since it makes no essential difference between the marital
law and the law of property. In regard to the woman, as in regard to goods,
possession or use, continued for a year, gave a right of ownership. When
applied to things, this possession is called usucapion; applied to the woman,

it is called usus.[338] The difference between the terms is slight; between the
facts there is none. In reality the wife and the child, especially the female
child, have been the first property possessed by man, which has even
implanted in the savage mind the taste for possession, and the pretension to
use and abuse the things left entirely to his mercy. At Rome this became by
the jus quiritium, for the woman the manus of the husband, and for property
the jus utendi et abutendi of the proprietor. But this abuse, and this use,
nearly always equally an abuse also, have contributed not a little to deprave
man and to render him, from the origin of societies until our own day,
refractory to ideas of equity and justice, especially in what relates to the
condition of woman.

FOOTNOTES:
[267] Williams, Fiji and the Fijians, vol. i. p. 156.
[268] Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, etc., p. 371.
[269] De Rochas, Nouv. Calédonie, p. 231.
[270] Burchell, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxvi. p. 330.
[271] Bowdich, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxviii. p. 430.
[272] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ii. p. 67.

[273] Homme Américain, t. ier. p. 40.
[274] Marco Polo (Edition Populaire), p. 61.
[275] Schortt, Trans. Ethn. Soc. (New Series), vol. vii. p. 194.
[276] Sonnerat, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 350.—Lettres Edifiantes,
t. x. p. 23.
[277] Plutarch, Numa and Lycurgus compared.
[278] E. de Lavelaye, De la Propriété, p. 35.

[279] Lafitau, t. ier. pp. 557-560.
[280] Domenech, Voy. pittoresque, etc., p. 508.

[281] Lafitau, t. ier. pp. 557-560.
[282] H. Bancroft, Native Races of the Pacific States, etc., vol. i. p. 134.
[283] Id., loc. cit., vol. ii. p. 606.
[284] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 662.

[285] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 104.
[286] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 134.
[287] Levaillant, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxiv. p. 348.
[288] Burchell, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxvi. p. 486.
[289] Campbell, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxix. p. 363.
[290] Burchell, ibid. t. xxvi. p. 486.
[291] Neue Missionsreise in Süd-Afrika, vol. i. p. 317.
[292] Laing, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxviii. p. 31.
[293] Clapperton, Second Voyage, vol. ii. p. 86.
[294] Laing, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxviii. p. 71.
[295] R. J. Lauder, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxx. p. 244.
[296] Duperrey, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xviii. p. 157.
[297] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ii. p. 62.
[298] Cook (Third Voyage), Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. x. p. 232.
[299] Id., ibid. t. x. p. 232.
[300] Domenech, Voy. pittoresque, etc., p. 511.
[301] Bancroft, Native Races of Pacific, etc., vol. i. p. 276.
[302] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 349.
[303] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 412.
[304] Id., ibid. vol. i. pp. 276-349.
[305] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 349.
[306] Id., ibid. vol. i. p. 549.
[307] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. i. p. 549.
[308] Id., ibid. vol. ii. pp. 666, 667.
[309] Id., ibid. ii. p. 667.
[310] Lettres Edifiantes, t. x. p. 202.
[311] A. d’Orbigny, L’homme Américain, t. ii. p. 307.
[312] Timkowski, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxii. p. 332.—Huc, Travels in
Tartary, vol. i. pp. 298, 299.
[313] Fraser, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxv. p. 118.
[314] Burnes, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxvii. p. 270.
[315] Lettres Edifiantes, t. x. p. 138.—Huc, Chinese Empire, vol. ii. p.
255.
[316] Comte d’Hérisson, Journal d’un interprète en Chine, p. 7.
[317] Huc, Chinese Empire, vol. ii. p. 256.

[318] Dalton, Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal, passim.
[319] Id., ibid. p. 190.
[320] Id., ibid. p. 41.
[321] Dalton, loc. cit. p. 192.
[322] Id., loc. cit. p. 41.
[323] Id., ibid. p. 91.
[324] Schortt, Trans. Ethn. Soc. (New Series), vol. vii. p. 187.
[325] Duveyrier, Touaregs du Nord, p. 340.
[326] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. ii. p. 68.
[327] Sidi Khelil, Précis de jurisprudence musulmane, trad. Perron
(quoted by E. Meynier) in Études sur l’Islamisme, pp. 152, 156.
[328] Elphinstone, Picture of the Kingdom of Cabul, vol. i. p. 168.
[329] Code of Manu, book viii. p. 204.
[330] Lettres édifiantes, t. xiv. p. 382.
[331] Marsden, Hist. of Sumatra, p. 262.
[332] Nials, Saga, vol. i. pp. 9, 10.
[333] Rambaud, Hist. civil. française, p. 107.
[334] Hist. Succes. des Femmes.
[335] Aristotle, Politics, vol. ii. p. 8.
[336] Legouvé, Hist. Mor. des Femmes, p. 86.
[337] Plautus, Stichus.—Laboulaye, Droit romain.
[338] R. Cubain, Lois civiles de Rome, p. 181.

CHAPTER VIII.

PRIMITIVE POLYGAMY.

I. Polygamy in Oceania, Africa, and America.—Polygamy and
sociability—Polygamy in Australia, in New Caledonia, and at Fiji—
The legitimate wife and concubines at Fiji—Polygamy among the
Hottentots and Kaffirs—Economic reasons of polygamy in Africa—
Brutality of husbands on the Gaboon—Polygamy limited by the law
of supply and demand—Its effects on the morality of women—
Commercial fidelity—Mumbo Jumbo—Love unknown in black
Africa—Legal marriage with the Bongos at Madagascar—
Hierarchical polygamy at Madagascar—Polygamy in Polynesia, in
America—Jealousy unknown to the female savage—The sister-
wives among the Redskins—Religion sanctifies polygamy—
Monogamic tendencies in America.
II. Polygamy in Asia and in Europe.—Polygamy among the
aborigines of India, in Bootan, among the Ostiaks and the Battas—
Universality of primitive polygamy—Polygamy of the ancient
Peruvians, Chinese, and Vedic Aryans—Polygamy among the Gauls
and the Germans—Causes of primitive polygamy—Its evolution.

I. Polygamy in Oceania, Africa, and America.

We have seen that in the animal kingdom species are sometimes
monogamous, sometimes polygamous, but that in general a gregarious life,
a life in association, favours polygamy. Now, man is surely the most
sociable of animals, therefore he is much inclined to polygamy, like the
great anthropoid apes, with whom our primitive ancestors must have had
more than one analogy. We have already spoken of the causes which in
human societies of the earliest ages disturbed the normal relation of the
sexes, or the approximate equilibrium between the number of men and that
of women. We have seen how savage life rapidly uses up the men to such a

degree that often, in spite of the custom of female infanticide, there is still
an excess of women sufficient to impose polygamy. Although primitive
morality may not think in the least of blaming the plurality of wives, it yet
happens that this polygamy, to which all men aspire in a savage country, is
spontaneously restricted; and, as with chimpanzees, and for the same
reasons, it becomes, in fact, the privilege of a small number of the strongest
and the most feared, the chiefs, the sorcerers, or the priests, when there are
any.
In Australia, for example, the adult men take possession of the women of
all ages, and in consequence the greater number of young men cannot
become proprietors of a woman before the age of about thirty years.[339]
Enforced celibacy is, besides, softened by the complaisance of the men
already provided for, the husbands, if we may so call them, who are
generous to the other men, and much more jealous of their rights of
property than of their conjugal rights. It is easy to have an understanding
with them, and, with the aid of a suitable present, to induce them to lend
their wives. In New Caledonia the chiefs and rich men only can indulge in
the luxury of polygamy, and in this archipelago the plurality of wives has
already the character that it nearly always assumes in a primitive country. If
the New Caledonians ardently desire to have several wives it is not
generally with a sensual aim, for among the Canaks the genetic appetite is
little developed; their reasons are of quite another kind. Neither slavery nor
domesticity yet exist in New Caledonia. However, agriculture is already
practised there, and this requires hard labour, from which the men,
especially the chief men, like to exonerate themselves. Now, it is polygamy
that furnishes the Canaks with servile labour, which they cannot do without;
it exactly replaces slavery. Therefore, every man, of however little
importance he may be, procures a number of women in proportion to the
extent of the land he has in cultivation, and also to the figure he must make
in the world. We shall find this servile polygamy in many other countries,
notably among the Fijians, who resemble the New Caledonians, but at Fiji
polygamy had already evolved and become complicated. It was
accompanied by concubinage. As we shall see later, this is generally the
case. Nowhere do we find men passing abruptly from polygamy to
monogamy, and long before arriving at the latter, when first custom and
then law restrains and regulates the loose polygamy of the earlier ages, the

change is only at first effected in the form; a man has a small number of
wives, who, with their children, enjoy certain privileges, but by the side of
these titular wives he possesses concubines in greater or less number. In this
manner everything is reconciled—morality with sensuality, and the family
with the interests of property.
This régime was already in force among the Melanesians of the Fiji Isles,
where the chiefs, living in great state, acquired in one way or another three
or four hundred women, of whom the greater number filled only the
position of servants to the master, and at the same time of concubines, who
were at the disposition of the warriors or of the guests. The wives whose
children inherited were very few in number. They were daughters of chiefs,
and their situation, although less degraded than that of the concubines, was
still very humble. Not only did they resign themselves without difficulty to
polygamy, but they were subjected to a singular duty—that of rearing for
their husband a chosen concubine. The fact is curious, and worth the trouble
of narrating. “The bride takes with her a young girl who is still a child, but
who promises to be beautiful, and who has been carefully selected from the
lower class of the people. It is a virgin destined for her husband. She brings
her up with the tenderest solicitude, and when the girl is marriageable, the
queen, on an appointed day, undresses her, washes her carefully, and even
pours perfumed oil on her hair, crowns her with flowers, conducts her thus
naked to her husband, presents her to him, and retires in silence.”[340]
Excessive as it seems to us, this absolute resignation is quite natural among
savages.
In primitive countries the married woman—that is to say, the woman
belonging to a man—has herself the conscience of being a thing, a property
(it is proved to her often and severely enough), but she does not think of
retaliating, especially in what concerns the conjugal relations. Moreover, as
her condition is oftenest that of a slave over-burdened with work, not only
does she not resent the introduction of other women in the house of the
master, but she desires it, for the work will be so much the less for herself.
Thus among the Zulus the wife first purchased strives and works with
ardour in the hope of furnishing her husband with means to acquire a
second wife—a companion in misery over whom, by right of seniority, she
will have the upper hand.[341]

In consequence of this the greater number of the men in Kaffirland have
two or three wives, and hence a certain scarcity of feminine merchandise in
the country; the young men have difficulty in providing for themselves, and
many girls are sold from infancy.[342] The same customs prevail with the
Hottentots; and both Kaffirs and Hottentots esteem the monogamic
preaching of the Christian missionaries as very impertinent, and on this
point both men and women are agreed.[343]
Along the whole course of the Zambesi, says Livingstone, the number of
wives are the measure of a man’s riches, and the women are the first to find
this quite natural.
It is important to observe that in savage societies the woman could not
live independently; for her, celibacy is synonymous with desertion, and
desertion would mean a speedy death. This is even the reason of the
levirate, of which I shall have to speak later.
As for all the negroes of Africa, whatever the degree of their civilisation
or savagery, they have not even a suspicion of the monogamic régime. But,
in Africa also, sensuality is only one of the secondary causes of the plurality
of wives so strongly desired by all the blacks. Their polygamy is chiefly
founded on economic motives. At the Gaboon,[344] says Du Chaillu, the
supreme ambition of a man is to possess a great number of wives. Nothing
is of more value to him, for they cultivate the ground, and their strict duty is
to serve him and furnish him with food. The wife is always purchased from
her father at a price agreed on, and often from her earliest infancy. In this
case she is placed under the care of the husband’s chief wife. The husband-
proprietor does not interfere at all with the agricultural labour executed by
the wives; he only requires them to supply him with food. If he has bought
them, it is merely as a profitable investment. He consequently treats them as
slaves, or as domestic animals, and has no scruple in lashing them with a
whip for nothing at all, and thus causing ineffaceable scars. “I have seen
very few women,” says Du Chaillu, “who had not traces of this kind on
their bodies.”
The whip which serves for these conjugal corrections has a double thong,
made of hippopotamus or sea-cow hide. “You should hear,” says the
traveller, “the worthy husband cry out—‘Ah, wretch! do you think I have
bought you for nothing?’”[345] The Gaboon tribes, of whom Du Chaillu

speaks, are reckoned the least civilised of negroes; but even among the least
gross of African races the conjugal régime and the degree of subjection
imposed on women are scarcely lessened.
At Tchaki, and at Badagry, etc., when Clapperton spoke of English
monogamy to the natives, all his auditors, without distinction of sex, burst
into a laugh,[346] so absurd did the thing appear to them. Throughout Africa
the number of a man’s wives is only limited by his resources. If, as
Schweinfurth tells us, among the Bongos of the upper Nile, a man rarely
has more than three wives, it is simply on account of the strict law of supply
and demand; for a woman costs no less than ten iron plates, each weighing
about two pounds, to which must be added twenty iron spear heads, all
precious articles and not easily procured.[347] At Bornou also men in easy
circumstances have seldom more than three wives; and the poor have to
content themselves, whether they will or not, with monogamy.[348] But
among the negroes of Kaarta and the Fantis of the coast of Guinea
polygamy is excessive. In Kaarta a private individual often has ten wives
and as many concubines; but princes or knights often have threefold or even
tenfold that number.[349] In consequence of this, about a third of the
inhabitants are of princely or royal blood. As for the Fantis, polygamy is a
source of riches, not only through the labour of the women, but also through
the sale of the children, of whom a large and profitable trade is made.[350]
This trait of morals is not in the least peculiar to them; throughout black
Africa the right of the father of a family includes that of selling the children,
and he exercises it without scruple.
Naturally the last sentiments we may expect to find in African
households are those of delicacy or moral nobility. Humble to servility in
presence of the master, the women give the rein to their shameless excesses
as soon as they can do it without danger.
In Bornou a wife never approaches her husband without kneeling.[351]
When a Poul orders one of his wives to prepare his supper, which implies
that the master desires her company for the night, this signal favour is
received with transports of joy. The chosen wife hastens to obey, and when
the repast is ready she proudly goes to seek the master, thus humiliating her
female colleagues, who retreat in confusion to their cabins to await their

turn.[352] But all this abject behaviour is merely by compulsion, and the
women recoup themselves well for it whenever they have the chance.
The poor women of the Gaboon, who are lacerated by whips for no
offence, do not understand chastity, and their intrigues constantly provoke
conflicts and palavers between the men of the villages.[353] The obscenity
of the Monboottoo women astonished Schweinfurth, well acquainted as he
was with negro customs.[354] The Bambarra women easily forget conjugal
fidelity for a bead necklace, a fine waist-cloth, etc.; and, as in so many other
countries, the husband-proprietors have no scruple in hiring out their wives
for a sufficient price.[355]
Nevertheless, unauthorised adultery is cruelly punished throughout
Africa; but fear is powerless to ensure to the negro husbands the purely
commercial fidelity they exact from their wives, and therefore, in order to
correct feminine morals, they have recourse in certain parts to fantastic
methods—to the Mumbo Jumbo which Mungo Park describes.[356]
Strangely attired and unrecognisable, a singular personage, doubtless a
sorcerer, appears in the evening after being called for by frightful howlings
in the woods, and first goes to the spot where the inhabitants are
accustomed to assemble to talk at their ease. This coming is the signal for
songs and dances, which last into the middle of the night. Then the Mumbo
Jumbo designates the guilty or indocile woman. The latter is immediately
seized, stripped, bound to a stake, and vigorously beaten by the Mumbo
himself, amid the acclamations and laughter of the assembly, and especially
of the other women.
In all negro Africa the husbands are generally strangers to the jealousy of
honour which exists among the intelligent husbands of civilised countries.
They do not care for moral fidelity, based on affection and free choice. The
Kaffir woman, Schouter tells us, is the ox of her husband. A Kaffir said one
day, speaking of his wife, “I have bought her, therefore it is her duty to
work.”
“The negro,” relates another traveller (Monteiro), “knows neither love,
affection, nor jealousy. During the many years that I have spent in Africa I
have never seen a negro manifest the least tenderness for a woman—put his
arms around her, give or receive a caress, denoting some degree of affection

or love on one side or the other.... They have no word in their language to
signify love or affection.”[357]
A French traveller says also of the Malagasies, “Modesty and jealousy
are two sentiments very little developed among the Malagasies of both
sexes and all ranks. They push licence very far in their manners, but quite
unconsciously.”[358]
Throughout black Africa, indeed, marriage does not exist, at least in the
sense we attach to the word. It is not a civil institution, much less a
sacrament; it is a bargain, delivering the woman to the mercy of the buyer.
Here and there, however, we see dawnings of legal marriage—that is to say,
a contract sanctioned by civil authority. Among the Bongos of the upper
Nile, for example, a man who wishes to procure a certain woman generally
applies to the chief or to some dignitary, who enforces his demand.[359]
With the Malagasies, where the social organisation is much more
complex and quasi feudal, there is already a veritable civil marriage. The
future pair, accompanied by their parents, go before the judge or the chief of
the village, declare their intentions, pay the Hasina, or matrimonial tax, and
the union is concluded. As is the case in many countries, Malagasian
polygamy already tends towards monogamy. At Madagascar, as in China,
rich men have one chief wife, who has a house to herself and other
privileges; but by the side of the titular wife there are lesser wives.[360] I
shall have to return to this hierarchical polygamy, which forms a sort of
evolutionary connecting link between primitive polygamy, subjecting all the
wives equally before their owner, and monogamic marriage. But for the
present I must pursue my summary inquiry through the lands of primitive
polygamy.
In the whole of Polynesia polygamy was general and unlimited. There,
again, the number of wives was strictly in proportion to rank and riches.[361]
There were, however, examples of voluntary monogamy[362] among the
chiefs, and a much larger number of monogamists, in spite of themselves, in
the lower classes.[363] In several Polynesian islands polygamy was already
evolving towards monogamy; thus, at Samoa,[364] at Tonga,[365] in New
Zealand,[366] there existed a chief wife, exempted from hard work, and
having pre-eminence over the other wives.

Over all the great American continent polygamy is or has been in force.
The Ancas or Araucanos of South America—nomads and robbers—buy
very dear wives when they can, and make concubines of all the prisoners
procured in their razzias, exactly after the manner of the ancient Arabs. The
poor or the feeble among them, as elsewhere, are badly provided, and are
frequently reduced to remain celibate,[367] or to have only one wife. For the
same reasons, the young men among the Otomacs were often obliged to be
contented with an old woman,[368] and the Charruas waited till their first
wife grew old before procuring a younger one.[369] Herrero tells us also,
that in Honduras forced monogamy was general enough, except, indeed, for
the chiefs, who appropriated the women by the right of the strongest.[370] In
South America, as in Africa, the women were very far from rebelling
against polygamy; for there, also, all the hard work fell to them, and the
burden of it was lightened in proportion to the number of labourers. In the
tribes that were already agricultural, the Guaranis, for example, the men did
nothing to the land but clear off the brushwood and timber; then came the
women, who did all the sowing, harvesting, prepared the fermented drink
for guests,[371] without mentioning other domestic cares. Such a kind of life
is necessarily unfavourable to delicacy, and even amongst civilised people
habitual overwork is hardly compatible with refined sentiments. In all
countries exclusive love and jealousy suppose not only some moral
development, but also a certain amount of leisure and of time and capacity,
to think. It is therefore quite natural that the savage woman should seldom
pretend to possess a man for herself alone, and on this point the women of
the Redskins of North America think and feel like the Guarani women of
Brazil. Thus, with the Omahas, the man hardly ever takes a second wife but
with the consent of the first.[372] Often the initiative even comes from her;
she goes to find her husband, and says to him, “Marry the daughter of my
brother. She and I are of the same flesh.” It must be admitted that America
is the promised land of the matriarchate, or rather, of maternal filiation;
polygamy easily takes an incestuous colour there; the wives of the same
man are often relatives, habitually sisters. In about forty of the Redskin
tribes, and surely they are not the only ones, when a man marries the eldest
daughter of a family, he acquires, by express privilege, the right of taking
afterwards for wives all the sisters of the first as soon as they become
marriageable.[373] This was the custom of the Omahas, the Cheyennes, the

Crees, the Osages, the Black-feet, the Crows, the Spokans of Columbia,[374]
the Chawanons of Louisiana, etc.
The custom was not, however, obligatory. The wives were not necessarily
relatives, or, at least, not necessarily sisters. Thus, with the Omahas, a man
sometimes took as wives an aunt and a niece of his first wife.[375] Among
the Californians a man sometimes married not only a group of sisters, but
also their mother,[376] and in this respect the Greenlanders imitated their
hereditary enemies, the Redskins.[377] But, consanguine or not, polygamy
was general among the savage tribes of North America. The possession of a
numerous flock of wives placed a man above the common as surely as that
of a large fortune does in Europe;[378] religion even sanctified this
polygamy, for in all countries it can accommodate itself to the dominant
morals. Thus, the Chippeways believe that polygamy is agreeable to the
Great Spirit; for it is a means of having a numerous posterity.[379]
Except the habitual consanguinity of the wives, the polygamy of the
Redskins has nothing original in it; it is, as elsewhere, the privilege of the
rich men.[380] Sometimes also the girls are retained from infancy, and then,
as happens with the Noutka-Columbians, the buyer deposits certain
valuable articles as security.[381] In these polygamous families of Redskins
the harmony is rarely disturbed; and the man, always having the power to
repudiate any wife as he may please, only has to command very submissive
ones.[382] Here and there certain customs appear which have a shade of
monogamy about them; for instance, among the Columbians every wife has
her separate habitation, or, at the least, her special fireside.[383] Sometimes
there is a chief wife having authority over the other wives.[384] But
everywhere the subjection of women in regard to man is extreme. Among
the Indians of New Mexico—and these are not by any means the most
savage—the women have to prepare the food, tan the skins, cultivate the
ground, fabricate the clothes, build the houses, and groom the horses. In
return for this, the men, whose sole occupations are hunting and war, beat
their wives without pity, and often mutilate and kill them.[385]

II. Polygamy in Asia and Europe.

We might already deduce some general ideas from our rapid survey of
savage polygamy in Oceania, Africa, and America; but it will be
convenient, before we do so, to interrogate the primitive races of Asia and
Europe. Doubtless, the description of their conjugal manners and customs,
after all that precedes, may seem monotonous; nevertheless, this monotony
even is instructive; it proves that in all times and places, in despite of
differences of race, climate and environment, the evolution of human
groups is subject to certain laws, that the family, marriage, the constitution
of property, and social organisation pass through a series of necessary
phases; in short, that in attempting to construct a science of sociology we
are not pursuing a chimera.
I resume, therefore, my enumeration. Among the indigenous tribes of
India polygamy is widely spread, without, however, being universal; for
each one of these small peoples has evolved, as it has been able, more or
less rapidly. Some among them are polyandrous, and even monogamous.
Often enough polyandry co-exists with polygamy, the one appearing as
moral as the other.
With all these aborigines, marriage, or what we are pleased to call so, is
generally concluded by purchase, and the price of the woman naturally
oscillates according to the law of supply and demand. Most often it is
represented by poultry, pigs, oxen, or cows, given to the parents. From this
manner of procuring wives it seems that, there also, polygamy is the luxury
of the rich or of chiefs. Among the Mishmis these privileged individuals
sometimes possess sixty wives. The Mishmi husbands form a rare exception
on one point—they are not at all exacting about the fidelity of their wives;
they consider them as slaves or servants, and provided they continue to
benefit their masters by their work, the latter willingly shut their eyes to
their intrigues.[386]
Among these polygamous tribes, which it would take too long to
enumerate, may be counted the Miris, the Dophlas, the Juangs, the Khamtis,
the Singphos, etc.
We must again note in certain tribes, the Khamtis, for example, the
monogamic pre-eminence of the first wife.[387] It is one of those
sociological analogies of which I have already spoken, and it is important to
point it out.

Polygamy still prevails with the mountaineers of Bootan, concurrently
with polyandry. It is often incestuous; a man willingly marries two sisters,
the one an adult, the other younger. But no other incest is recognised or
punished except that committed between son and mother.[388]
Farther north, among the Ostiaks, a man feels no repugnance to marrying
several sisters,[389] and, in general, polygamy is very widely spread among
the nomad Mongols. A Yakout, for example, if obliged to make frequent
journeys, takes care to have a wife in every place at which he stops.[390]
The polygamic régime is also in great honour in the Mongolian
archipelagoes of Asia, in the Palos Islands, in the Caroline Islands, etc.
Among the Battas of Sumatra it evidently begins to be distasteful to the
women, since the polygamous husband is obliged to assign to each of his
wives a special hearth, and kitchen utensils of her own, with which she
prepares her food apart, or with that of her husband, when she is on duty,
and required by the master.[391]
In this chapter I confine myself to primitive polygamy, to that of the
grossest savages or barbarians; but there are barbarians of every race and
colour, and the roots of all superior civilisations necessarily go far down
into primitive savagery. Now we have seen that the polygamic régime is
prevalent throughout the world among races that are little cultivated; we
may hence conclude that the most civilised nations must have begun with
polygamy, and, in reality, it has been thus everywhere and always. In the
various civilised societies, living or dead, marriage has commenced by
being polygamous. It is a law which has few exceptions.
In ancient Peru, the Incas decreed monogamy to be obligatory for the
lower classes. The Chinese attribute to Fo-Hi, their first sovereign, the
institution of marriage. This legendary king is said to have raised them out
of promiscuity. Such also was the rôle of Cecrops, in Greece, and the same
thing happened in primitive India. About thirty years ago a number of
erudite Europeans, especially the mythologists and linguists, were smitten
with a blind love for the Indian hymns of the Rig-Veda. They set to work to
torture these old Sanscrit texts, naturally obscure, and by subjecting them to
a sort of linguistic examination, they wrung from them imaginary
revelations. It was decided that a unique and marvellous race, primitively
endowed with every virtue and capacity, had sprung up one fine day on

some plateau or other of Central Asia. The most enthusiastic of them
generously endowed these hypothetical Aryans with superhuman faculties.
A French academician believed and declared that from the high plateaus of
Pâmir they perceived the sea, distant, however, some hundreds of leagues;
he affirms that they understood the “circles of the stars,” and were
omniscient. It is to be presumed that this model race was of necessity
monogamous, since it was perfect. To-day, however, we must demolish all
these castles in the air, too lightly built in primitive and chimerical Arya.
The antiquity of the Vedic hymns has had to be much shortened, and, if we
consent to read them without prejudice, we shall have little admiration for
the authors, those gross Aryans, who tried to make their gods drunk in order
to obtain cows, and who sacrificed and cut to pieces animals, and perhaps
men, on their altars. There is surely room to suppose that their social
condition was not more refined than their religion. On this point the
information that may be drawn from the Vedic hymns is vague and drowned
in the waves of religious effusion. Nevertheless the Rig-Veda speaks of
spouses of the gods, and of princes surrounded by their wives, etc. In fact, a
document much more precise and more recent, the Code of Manu,
abundantly proves that the Hindoos, like all other peoples, have begun by
being polygamous.
I do not now insist on this point, as I shall return to it later. In every
country the primitive races have practised polygamy, when that has been
possible for them. Our European ancestors have not been more scrupulous
on this point than our hypothetical Aryan cousins of Central Asia. Cæsar
tells us that the Gauls were polygamous, and had the right of life and death
over their wives.[392] Tacitus vaunts much the monogamy of the Germans;
this moral feature, says he, distinguishes them from other barbarians, but he
confesses that certain German chiefs had several wives, and that, as it
happens in all barbarous countries, the wife was sold by the parents for
presents consisting of oxen, horses, and arms.[393]
Polygamy was so natural to German morals that, long after Tacitus, the
Merovingian kings, Clotaire and his sons, for example, still practised it, that
Dagobert had three wives, and that Charlemagne himself was bigamous. We
know, too, that Saint Columban was banished from Gaul only for having
blamed the polygamy of King Thierry. Let us resign ourselves, therefore, to
confess the truth. The white race has no divine investiture. Like all the

others, it has sprung from animality; like all the others, it has been
polygamous, and we have only to open our eyes to perceive that, in the
present day, in countries reputed to be the most civilised, and even in the
classes reputed to be the most distinguished, the majority of individuals
have polygamic instincts which they find it difficult to resist.
We are now in a position to form a just opinion of primitive polygamy.
Its causes are manifold. The principal one is often the disproportion of the
sexes, resulting from the enormous mortality of men which savage life
necessitates. The desire of giving the rein to a sensuality that there is, as yet,
no thought of repressing, may have a certain share in the matter; but this
motive, which is perhaps dominant in the polygamous anthropoid apes,
quickly becomes secondary in man.
Even the lowest savage is more calculating, and has more forethought,
than the monkey. His first slave, one may say his first domestic animal, is
his wife. Even when he is still a simple hunter and nomad, he has always
game to be carried, fire to be lighted, a shelter to be erected, without
reckoning that wives are very apt at gathering edible fruits and shell-fish,
and rendering a thousand services. Besides, they give birth to offspring that
can be bartered, sold, or even eaten at need.
It is, therefore, very desirable to possess as many as possible of these
beings, fitted for such various ends. If a man is an agriculturist, the wife is
then of still greater utility; he puts upon her all the hard work; she digs,
plants, sows, reaps even, and all for the profit of her master. She is, besides,
a subjected and feeble creature, whom he can treat just as he will, and on
whom he can let loose his instincts of brutal domination. By force or by
ruse, by capture or by purchase, he therefore procures himself as many
wives as possible. He often buys them in the lump; for example, a lot of
sisters, or of relations of different ages. This diversity of age has its value;
for, in all the numerous uses to which a wife can be put, the younger ones
can take at need the place of the elder when the latter are worn out or
broken down.
Polygamy begins with equality—that is to say, that the man subjects his
little feminine flock to an equal servitude, against which the wives do not
think of rebelling, as they find it quite natural, for they are not of a more
refined nature than their proprietor. By degrees, however, a certain

hierarchy is established among the wives of the same man. This comes to
pass when the social structure is already more complex, when there are
chiefs, nobles, and priests. Polygamy, in this case, is restrained. Though it
continues to be the taste of nearly all men, it becomes the privilege of the
rich and powerful. The latter sometimes even indulge in an excessive
polygamy, and it becomes difficult for them to maintain order and servile
submission among their feminine flock. From this time they have one or
more titular wives, who rule over their companions, and are sometimes
exempt from hard labour. These chief wives are often daughters, sisters, or
relatives of noted warriors, or of important men, with whom the husband is
allied, and whose prestige somewhat protects the wives that they have
given, or more often sold. In consequence of this, a certain tendency to
become a distinct personality awakens in the wives themselves; they insist
on having their separate hearth, and even their distinct apartment; life in the
flock weighs on them.
Polygamy then puts on monogamic tendencies. The greater number of
superior races have adopted this hierarchical polygamy before reaching the
legal monogamy, in a mitigated form, of which I shall treat later. It is
important now to describe with some details this polygamy of superior
races.

FOOTNOTES:
[339] Baudin, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xviii. p. 34.
[340] Moerenhout, Voy. aux îles, etc., t. ii. p. 235.
[341] Waitz, Anthropology, vol. i. p. 299.—Steedman, Wanderings, etc.,
in South Africa, vol. i. p. 240.—Delegorgue, t. ier. p. 154; t. ii. p. 231.
[342] Campbell, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxix. p. 357.
[343] Burchell, ibid. t. xxvi. p. 204.
[344] Du Chaillu, Voy. dans l’Afrique équatoriale, pp. 376, 377.
[345] Du Chaillu, loc. cit. p. 377.
[346] Second Voyage, etc., pp. 18-48.
[347] The Heart of Africa, vol. i. p. 301.
[348] Denham and Clapperton, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxvii. p 437.

[349] Gray and Dockard, ibid. t. xviii. p. 373.
[350] Brodie Cruikshank, Sojourn of Eight Years on the Gold Coast.
[351] Denham and Clapperton, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxvii. p. 437.
[352] Mollien, ibid. t. xxviii. p. 439.
[353] Du Chaillu, loc. cit., pp. 378-435.
[354] The Heart of Africa, vol. ii. p. 91.

[355] Raffenel, Nouv. Voy. aux Pays des Nègres, t. ier. p. 402.
[356] Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxv. p. 58.
[357] Herbert Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. pp. 284-293.
[358] Dupré, Trois Mois à Madagascar, p. 153.
[359] Schweinfurth, The Heart of Africa, vol. i. p. 27.
[360] Dupré, Trois Mois à Madagascar, p. 153.
[361] Pritchard, Polynesian Reminiscences, etc., p. 270.
[362] Th. West, Ten Years in South Central Polynesia, p. 270.
[363] Bougainville, Voyages, p. 244.
[364] Pritchard, loc. cit., p. 372.
[365] Cook (Third Voyage), Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. ix. p. 70.
[366] Dumont d’Urville.

[367] A. d’Orbigny, L’homme Américain, t. ier. p. 403.

[368] Voyage à la Terre-ferme, etc., t. ier. p. 304.
[369] A. d’Orbigny, loc. cit., t. ii. p. 89.
[370] H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 282.
[371] A. d’Orbigny, loc. cit., t. ii. p. 308.
[372] J. Owen Dorsey, Omaha Sociology, p. 260 (Smithsonian
Institution, 1885).
[373] L. Morgan, Ancient Societies, p. 432.
[374] Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 277.
[375] J. Owen Dorsey, loc. cit., p. 260.
[376] Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 388.
[377] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 255.
[378] H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. i. p. 283.
[379] Id., ibid. vol. ii. p. 285.
[380] Domenech, Voy. pitt., p. 509.—Bancroft, vol. i. pp. 168-195.
[381] Bancroft, loc. cit., p. 511.

[382] Domenech, loc. cit., p. 511.
[383] Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 277.
[384] Ibid. vol. i. p. 511.
[385] Ibid. vol. i. p. 511.
[386] Dalton, Descriptive Ethno. of Bengal, pp. 12, 16, 19.
[387] Ibid. p. 8.
[388] Voy. au Bootan, by a Hindoo author, in Revue Britannique, 1827.
[389] Wake, loc. cit., vol. i. p. 269.
[390] H. Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 280.
[391] Id., ibid. vol. ii. p. 292.
[392] De bello Gallico, vi. 19.
[393] Germania, xviii.

CHAPTER IX.

POLYGAMY OF CIVILISED PEOPLE.

I. The Stage of Polygamy.—Primitive polygamy—Man resigns
himself to monogamy.
II. Arab Polygamy.—Why the Mussulmans have remained
polygamous—The inferiority of woman proclaimed by the Koran—
Polygamic restrictions in the Koran—Religion sanctions the right of
conjugal property—The purchased woman—The conjugal
prerogatives of the prophet—Duties of the polygamous husband—
Celestial polygamy—The Mussulman marriage is laic—Female
merchandise—The preliminaries of marriage—Duties and
obligations of the Mussulman husband; his rights—Marriage in
Kabyle—Cruel subjection of the Kabyle wife—Sale and purchase
of the wife—Excessive rights of the Kabyle husband—The Kabyle
marriage is inferior to the Arab marriage—Polygamy and the
subjection of women.
III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.—Monogamy of the
priests in Egypt—Polygamy of the Incas and of the nobles in Peru—
Polygamy of the nobles in Mexico—Polygamy with monogamic
tendency.
IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.—Polygamy and concubinage
of princes in Persia—Severity of sexual morality in the Avesta—
Polygamy according to the Rig-Veda—Polygamy in the Code of
Manu—Evolution of polygamy in India—How monogamy became
established.

I. The Stage of Polygamy.

Our inquiry is already sufficiently advanced to give us an idea of the first
phases of the evolution of marriage. To begin with, both in the case of

human beings and of anthropoid apes, sexual unions have not been reduced
to any rule; promiscuity has been rare and exceptional, but polygamy has
been very common, at least a gross polygamy, not regulated in any way, and
merely resulting from the monopoly of the women by the strongest or the
richest men. It has been a sort of conjugal anarchy, admitting
simultaneously of various matrimonial forms, as polyandry, term marriage,
experimental marriage, etc., during periods of more or less length.
Besides their primordial rôle as child-bearers, wives were found very
useful in other ways—either for the satisfaction of sensual desires, or for
the execution of a number of painful labours; and therefore men
endeavoured to procure as many of them as possible, first by capture, and
then by purchase, or by giving a certain amount of work in submitting to a
temporary servitude. In the preceding chapter I have given the history of
this primitive, savage polygamy which as yet no law regulated.
During the first phases of their social evolution, all the human races have
practised, with more or less brutality, this gross polygamy. We have seen—
and it is a subject to which I shall have to return—how, in the bosom of the
polygamic régime, monogamic tendencies have appeared, which by degrees
have ended by prevailing amongst all the more civilised races. These races
have resigned themselves to adopt monogamy, or at least legal monogamy. I
say “resigned,” for it seems that monogamy costs much to man; in reality
laws and customs have everywhere attenuated the severity of it for him by
various compromises of which I shall soon have to speak.

II. Arab Polygamy.

However, among the superior races, there is one, the Arab race, which, up
to our own time, has maintained and legalised the polygamic régime, while
propagating and regulating it among the various peoples that have come
under its domination. If, in this respect, the Arab race has been an exception
to the general evolution, it is not because it is less gifted than the others; it
has sufficiently proved this. According to the ancients, a fantastic fish, the
remora, had the power of suddenly stopping the passage of ships at sea;
religion has played this part for the Arabs. Theoretically, all the great and
solidly constituted religions are incompatible with progress. Although
relatively they may appear innovations at the moment of their birth, yet they

bar the route of the future, and, as much as is in their power, oppose all
ulterior evolution. This is imperative, since they pretend to declare the
immutable will of divine personages, who are omnipotent, omniscient, and
perfectly wise, and who cannot consequently either re-touch or amend the
laws that they make, and the commands they give to poor human creatures.
Now, Islamism arose amidst the full polygamic régime; its founder could
not even dream of establishing any other. Polygamy was therefore
established by divine right among the faithful, and as at the bottom it is in
accord with the primitive instincts of man, it has maintained itself in
Mussulman countries from the time of Mahomet to our own days. From the
sociological point of view this is a most interesting fact, for it gives us the
opportunity of studying and estimating the polygamic régime in its full
development.
Let us listen at first to the Koran; we will then consult the Arabian jurists
and the customs of contemporary Arabs.
To begin with, the holy book loudly proclaims the inferiority of women,
which naturally justifies their subjection, and this subjection is great in all
polygamous countries. There is no ambiguity on this point in the words of
the prophet: “Men are superior to women by reason of the qualities God has
given them to place them above women, and because men employ their
wealth in giving dowries to women. Virtuous women are obedient and
submissive; they carefully guard, during their husband’s absence, that
which God has ordered them to preserve intact. Thou shalt correct those
whom thou fearest may be disobedient: thou shalt put them in beds apart:
thou shalt beat them: but as soon as they obey thee again, do not seek cause
for quarrel with them. God is merciful and great.”[394]
This text is eloquent. It first of all consecrates masculine superiority by
divine right, then marriage by purchase, and lastly, the liberty of the
husband to treat his wives with brutality.
The restrictions on polygamy found in the Koran are very slight: “Marry
not the women whom your fathers had to wife: it is a sin, and abomination:
except what is already past.”[395]
No retrospective effect here! We may conclude from this that, up to the
time of Mahomet, the sons inherited the harem of their father, as is still the
case in a number of little despotic states of negro Africa.

The holy book also commands respect for the feminine property of
others, save in the case of capture by war or of religious infidelity of the
husband. “You are forbidden to take to wife free women who are married,
except those women whom your right hand shall possess as slaves: such is
the law of God.”[396] “O believers! when believing women come unto you
as refugees, try them. And if you know them to be true believers, send them
not back to their infidel husbands; but give their husbands back what they
have expended for their dower.”[397] In the Koran the respect for money is
already much greater than for females. The wife must be purchased. “It is
permitted unto you to procure wives with money, and you shall keep them
in virtuous ways, avoiding debauchery. Give unto her with whom thou dost
cohabit the dower thou hast promised.”[398]
The prophet counsels the faithful, without however commanding it, to
have a small number of wives: “But if ye fear that ye cannot act equitably
towards the orphans, take in marriage of such other women as please you,
two, or three, or four, and not more.”
The text ends with a permission to the man merely to pay a fictitious
dowry to the wives: “Assign dowries freely to your wives, and if it pleases
them to give you back a part, enjoy it conveniently at your ease.”[399]
As for the prophet himself, he was to be above most of the restrictions
which he imposed on others: “O prophet, we have allowed thee thy wives
unto whom thou hast given their dower, and also the slaves which thy right
hand possesseth of the booty which God hath granted thee, and the
daughters of thy uncle, and the daughters of thy aunts, both on thy father’s
side and on thy mother’s side, who have fled with thee from Mecca, and
any other believing woman, if she give herself unto the prophet.”[400] “O
prophet, if believing women come to thee for an asylum, having promised
thee that they will flee idolatry, that they will not steal, nor commit
fornication, nor kill their children, and will not disobey thee in anything that
is just: believe them and pray for them: God is indulgent and merciful.”[401]
This last text gives a sad enough idea of the morality of the Arab women
before the time of Mahomet; but taken together with the preceding one, it
shows how convenient and even agreeable it is to be the interpreter of the
Divine will.

With such facilities for recruiting, the harem of the prophet must have
been richly furnished; therefore he has taken care to free himself from one
duty which he recommends to others, of debitum conjugale: “Thou
mayest,” he says to himself, “either grant or refuse thy embraces to thy
wives.”[402]
On the contrary, he says to vulgar believers: “Ye can by no means carry
yourselves equally between wives in all respects, though you study to do it;
therefore turn not from a wife with all manner of aversion, nor leave her
like one in suspense; if ye agree and fear to abuse your wives, God is
gracious and merciful.”[403]
Polygamy is not rare in the world. We have seen it and shall see it again
in the course of our inquiries; but the polygamy of the Koran has an
advantage over most of the others; it is at once celestial and terrestrial, for
the paradise of true believers is only an ideal harem: “Say, O believer, what
shall I declare of greater benefit for those who fear God, than gardens
through which flow rivers of water, where they shall dwell for ever, and
there shall be women, who are pure virgins, etc.[404]... Damsels having large
black eyes. Therein shall be agreeable damsels, whom no man or genius
hath deflowered.[405] There shall be young and beautiful virgins.[406]... And
near them (the elect) shall be houris with large black eyes, having
complexions like rubies and pearls.[407] Verily we have created the damsels
of Paradise by a peculiar creation.”[408]
The whole of this sacred code sanctifies the inferiority of the woman, and
this inferiority has not been at all mitigated in practice; for iniquity, always
tenacious, is far more so when it is authorised by religion.
We must notice, however, in regard to Mussulman marriage, a
circumstance which at first sight is singular: it is that Mahometanism
intervenes in nothing, as religion, in all that concerns marriage; all conjugal
matters are absolutely private, and even the civil power does not appear any
more than the religious power in the celebration of marriage.
As a general rule, the future husband goes to declare his union to the
sheik or cadi, who then remits the minute of it to the interested party,
without keeping a copy of it. This formality is, besides, in no way
obligatory; the marriage is considered as a private act, and if afterwards any

disputes should arise in relation to it, the parties concerned arrange them as
well as they can, by appealing to the testimonial proof.[409]
It all amounts to this, that for Mussulmans the wife is a thing, and the
marriage a simple bargain. The wife is always sold to the husband, and the
price is discussed either by her legal representative or by her conventional
agent. The nuptial gift is even essential to marriage, and if it has not been
paid the wife has the right to refuse all intimate commerce. “The wife sells
herself,” says Sidi Khelil; “and every vendor has the right to retain the
merchandise sold until after taking the payment.”[410] Before buying, the
suitor is allowed to see the face and the hands of the bride; for the hands of
the woman are reputed to give an idea of her personal beauty.[411]
A man ought, whenever possible, to marry a virgin, and the bargain may
be concluded several years before the delivery of the merchandise.[412] If
the girl is still a virgin, not emancipated, but beyond the age when it is
considered necessary to commence the special rôle reserved to her sex, the
father has the right to impose marriage on her.[413]
The orphan girl can also be married by the authority of the Cadi, if she is
more than ten years old, and if there is reason to fear that she may lead an
irregular life.[414]
In all other cases the consent of the girl is necessary. This circumstance,
let us especially note, constitutes a real moral progress beyond savage
polygamy, and we shall presently see that it is not yet realised in Kabyle.
The consent of the girl is given in two ways, according to whether she is a
virgin or not. This interesting particular must be frankly declared during the
negotiation; the Koran commands it. If the girl is a virgin, it is understood
that modesty should deprive her of speech, and in order to signify yes or no,
she must have recourse to the language of signs. She can, for example,
show her repugnance by covering her face, and her content by smiling. But
if she is no longer virgo intacta she is allowed to speak freely.[415]
We have seen that, according to the Koran, the woman owes her master
an absolute submission; and he, in return, whatever may be the number of
his wives, binds himself morally not to leave any one of them “as in
suspense.” This precept of the sacred code is specifically carried out. Every

Mussulman owes to his wives an equal share of his nights, and she who has
had the favour of the night has a right to the following day also.
When the husband buys a fresh wife he is indebted to her seven
successive nights if she is a virgin; for three only, in a contrary case. He has
the right to refuse greater exactions than this.[416]
But the husband has other obligations. He must supply food to his wife,
even if she is afflicted with a voracious appetite. This last case is considered
as a calamity, but the husband must resign himself to it, or repudiate the
glutton.[417]
The husband owes, besides, to his wife or wives water to drink, water for
ablutions and purifications, oil to eat, oil to burn, oil for cosmetic unctions,
wood for cooking and for the oven, salt, vinegar, meat every other day or
otherwise, according to the custom in various countries. He must supply
them with a mat or a bed—that is to say, a mattress—and a cover to put on
the mat. These duties have correlative rights. The husband has the right to
forbid his wife to eat garlic, or to eat or drink any other thing which may
leave a disagreeable odour. He may interdict any occupation likely to
weaken her, or impair her beauty.[418] Finally, if she refuses her conjugal
obligations without reasonable motives, the husband can at will deprive her
of salt, pepper, vinegar, etc.[419] The sum total of these restrictions renders
an Arab woman’s position a very subordinate one, both before and after
marriage. But the fate of the Kabyle woman is much more miserable.
We are always hearing it repeated in France that the Kabyle man is
monogamous, and consequently not so different from ourselves in this
respect as the Arab; but among the Kabyles, as among the Arabs, it is
polygamy which is legal; and if the greater number of the Kabyles are
monogamous in practice, it is chiefly from economy.
In spite of their republican customs, of their respect for individual liberty,
of the rights they accord to the mother, and of certain safeguards with which
they protect the women in time of war, contrary also to the liberal
tendencies of the Berbers in relation to women, the Kabyles of Algeria treat
their married women and their daughters as actual slaves, and they are in
this respect inferior to the Arabs themselves.[420] In all matters that refer to
sexual relations the Kabyle customs are ferocious. Outside of marriage all

union of the sexes is severely interdicted in Kabyle, and the married woman
has no personality; she is literally a thing possessed.[421]
The young Kabyle girl is sold by her father, her brother, her uncle, or
some relation (açeb); in short, by her legal owner. In announcing his
marriage, a man says quite bluntly—“I have bought a wife.” When a father
has married his daughter, the phrase in ordinary use is—“He has eaten his
daughter.”[422]
Among the Cheurfas, but it is an exceptional case, the girl is consulted on
the choice of a husband when she has attained the age of reason;
everywhere else the virgin daughter is never consulted, and even the widow
and repudiated wife, to whom the Mussulman law accords liberty, cannot
dispose of themselves in Kabyle countries.[423]
In many tribes, however, the daughter can twice refuse the man that is
proposed to her; but after that she has exhausted her right, and is forced to
submit.[424]
The legal owner of the Kabyle woman generally gives her, at her
wedding, garments and jewels; or rather, he lends them to her, for it is
forbidden to the woman to dispose of them, and at her death these precious
articles must be returned to her relatives.[425]
An essential condition of the Kabyle marriage, as of the Arab, is the
payment of a certain price, generally debated, but which certain tribes of
southern Jurjura have fixed once for all. This price is called the “turban”
(thâmanth), as with us “pin-money” is spoken of. A penal sanction
guarantees the payment of the thâmanth and the delivery of the person sold.
[426]

In principle the woman has no right over the thâmanth.[427]
Besides the purchase money, or thâmanth, the Kabyle further stipulates
in addition that he shall receive a certain quantity of provisions (cattle, or
food, flour, oil, butter) to be consumed during the marriage festivities.
The villages which have tariffed the thâmanth have also fixed the amount
of these presents.

The father likewise stipulates, for the benefit of the daughter who is sold,
a gift of garments and of jewels; but this gift dispenses the husband from
providing in this respect for the maintenance of the wife during one year.
This is particularly necessary, because the bride, in quitting her parents,
leaves them all that she has received,[428] and takes away nothing but her
body.
It is sometimes the mother who thus makes the conjugal sale of her
daughter, but on condition of being recognised as guardian; and even then
she does not enjoy, like the father, an unrestrained power, and she has to
consult her daughter.[429]
Once purchased, the Kabyle wife is entirely at the mercy of the husband-
proprietor. She must follow him wherever it suits him to settle; her only
actual possession is the raiment which covers her. Her husband has the right
to chastise her with his fist, with a stick, with a stone, or even with a
poignard. He is only forbidden to kill her without a reasonably serious
motive.[430]
If, however, when she has become a mother, she is unable to suckle her
child, the law decides that the husband is obliged to provide a wet nurse;
[431]
though this is more for the child’s sake than the mother’s, as she cares
little enough about the infant.
The married woman is considered so entirely as property in Kabyle that
the prolonged absence of the master is allowed to set her free. In this case
she belongs, after four years, to her maternal relations, who have the right
to re-marry her—that is to say, to re-sell her—unless the absent husband has
left her a sufficient provision. However, the husband’s parents can delay the
dissolution of the first marriage, sometimes for seven years, sometimes for
ten years, but on condition of taking the place of the absent husband in
furnishing the deserted wife with food and clothes.[432]
The Kabyle woman, therefore, married or not, is always a thing
possessed. We shall see later that even widowhood does not enfranchise her.
The right of correcting the woman who is not under the power of a husband
ceases only when she has reached an age when marriage would be sterile,
and especially if she has in a way abjured her sex by mixing with men in
the markets.[433]

Very often the assimilation of the Kabyle people to the French is spoken
of as a thing relatively easy. It appears to me that the servile subjection of
the Kabyle woman is an almost insurmountable obstacle to this dream of
fusion. Without doubt the married woman in France is only a minor; but in
Kabyle she is still in the lowest stage of slavery. In this respect the Berbers
of Kabyle are on a level with the coarsest savages; they are even inferior to
the Arabs, although the latter have preserved almost unchanged the
polygamic régime of the old Islamite, and even pre-Islamite ages. But in all
times and all countries the condition of woman is the measure of the moral
development of the whole people. Now, in regard to this there is a gulf
between Kabyle and civilised Europe.
The polygamic régime has, besides, in every country an almost necessary
result—the slavery of women. This is natural. As in the hordes of
chimpanzees, the male, the anthropomorphous paterfamilias, only maintains
his authority by force and by expelling his rivals, so, in human societies, the
polygamous husband can hardly be anything but the proprietor of
subjugated beings, not daring to aspire to freedom. It may be remarked also
that the polygamic appetite, so habitual to man, cannot be strange to
woman. Both have the same blood and share the same heredity. The
polygamous husband, therefore, has always to prevent or repress the
straying of his feminine flock by close confinement or by terror. Under a
polygamic régime the wife has scarcely any rights; she has chiefly duties.

III. Polygamy in Egypt, Mexico, and Peru.

I have dwelt long enough on Mussulman polygamy. From a sociological
point of view it is extremely interesting. It affords us the opportunity of
studying from life customs which, with differences of detail, must have
been those of all civilised peoples at a certain period of their evolution, and
which probably have only been kept up among the Islamites on account of
the confusion of civil and religious laws, these last giving to polygamy a
sort of consecration.
In all the great primitive barbarous monarchies the polygamy of the first
ages has been by degrees restrained or abolished, according to the measure
of social progress.

In ancient Egypt polygamy was still in force; but already it was
interdicted to the priests,[434] contrary to what has happened nearly
everywhere. As a matter of fact, and by the simple necessity resulting from
the proportion of the sexes, even when polygamy is authorised and legal, it
is especially the luxury of rich and powerful men; the common people have
everywhere been reduced to monogamy, whether they wished it or not.
Under most of the great early despotic monarchies which had emerged from
primitive savagery this fact became legalised, and plurality of wives
constituted a privilege reserved to the great ones of the land.
In ancient Peru monogamy was obligatory for men who possessed
nothing, but not for the Inca and the nobles of the kingdom. Thus the last
Inca, Atahualpa, had three thousand wives or concubines. As generally
happens when polygamy is restrained, there was already a hierarchy among
the wives of the Inca; one of them, who was obliged to be his sister, the
coya, was reputed superior to the others, and her eldest son succeeded his
father.[435] On this point, as on many others, ancient Peru had unconsciously
copied Egypt.
In Mexico also, monogamy was habitual for the poor, but the powerful
and the nobles had a number of wives proportioned to their rank and to their
riches.[436] In Mexico, as in Peru, polygamy was monogamic in the sense
that one wife had pre-eminence over the others, and that her children alone
inherited the paternal title and wealth.
This polygamy of princes and potentates, who by right of birth soar
above the common rule, is found also in the great Aryan empires of Asia.
[437]

IV. Polygamy in Persia and India.

The polygamy of the monarchs of ancient Persia seems to have been
copied from that of the kings of Egypt, or of the Incas of Peru. They had
numerous concubines and three or four wives, of whom one was especially
considered as queen, or privileged wife.[438]
As for the Persians of more ancient times still, the Mazdeans who drew
up the sacred code of the Avesta, if we refer to the Zend text, we find they
had a most severe sexual morality. The Avestic code condemns and

punishes resort to prostitutes, seduction, sexual extravagances, abortion, etc.
Throughout that portion of the Avesta which has come down to us there is
no recognition of polygamy, and the verses which mention marriage have
quite a monogamic meaning. It seems, however, says one of the translators
of the Avesta, that among the ancient Persians polygamy may have been
authorised in case of sterility of the first wife.[439] Like anthropophagy,
polygamy is an original sin with human societies. But writings so
exclusively religious and even liturgic as the Avesta constitute very
incomplete sources of information in regard to civil institutions. To study
the marriage of the ancient Persians in the Avesta seems about as illusory as
it would be to study ours in a Catholic prayer-book.
We know also, from the Code of Manu and historical and ethnographical
documents, that polygamy is and has been far from being unknown in India,
and yet it is difficult to prove from the text of the Vedic hymns that the
writers of these chants have practised it.
This may be inferred, however, from several verses. In the beginning the
morals were coarse enough for abortion to be common. “Let Agni,” we read
in a hymn, “kill the rakchasa who, under the form of a brother, a husband,
or a lover, approaches thee to destroy thy fruit.”[440] On the other hand,
woman is held in slight esteem by the sacred chants. She is a being “of
incapable mind and unfit for serious employment.”[441] In one hymn,
Satchi, the daughter of Buloman, boasts of having eclipsed her rivals in the
eyes of her husband.[442] A certain number of verses speak of the wives of
the gods: “The praying cows, these wives of Agni, wish to obtain a proof of
the virility of the god.”[443]
In Sanskrit the word “finger” is feminine, and thus very often the fingers
which handle the sacred mortar are called the ten wives of Agni.[444]
In short, other accounts leave us no room to doubt that in primitive India,
as elsewhere, the great and the powerful have largely practised polygamy
from Vedic times.[445]
That these customs have been those of Brahmanic India, the text of Manu
in antiquity, and the reports of travellers in modern times, attest loudly
enough. One verse of Manu regulates the right of succession of sons that a
Brahmin may have by four wives belonging to different castes. “If a

Brahmin has four wives belonging to four classes, in the direct order, and if
they all have sons, this is the rule of inheritance. Let the son of the Brahmin
(after having deducted the bull, the chariot, and the jewels) take three parts
of the rest; let the son of the Kchatriya wife take two parts; that of the
Vaisyâ, one part and a half; that of the Soudra, one part only.”[446]
Another verse, much more singular, declares that the children of a second
wife belong to the person who has lent the money to buy her:
“He who has a wife, and who, after having borrowed money from some
one, marries another with it, derives no other advantage than the sensual
pleasure; the children belong to the man who has given the money.”[447] As
for the king, the Code of Manu permits polygamy to him in the largest
measure, at least under the form of concubinage. He ought to have a troop
of wives, whose duty it is to fan him, and to pour water and perfumes over
his august person. He refreshes himself with them from the cares of
government, and passes the night in their agreeable company.[448] We must
not forget, besides, that, as the Mahabharata has informed us, the
Kchatriyas practised marriage by capture and polygamy.[449]
To sum up, in India, as everywhere else, polygamy has evolved; it has at
first been common; then, when power and riches have been concentrated in
the hands of a small number, it has become the privilege of the great. The
polygamy of the princes and of the rich Brahmins was even the first
obstacle encountered in the seventeenth century by the preaching of the
Jesuits in India.[450]
In the present time it is the same for the great, and custom tolerates a
second wife, even to common husbands, in case of sterility of the first.[451] I
shall have to speak again of these customs in treating of concubinage.
If we now sum up the general sense of the numerous facts which I have
just passed in review, we see that with the entire human race polygamy has
succeeded to the sexual and conjugal anarchy of the first ages. Like all
other institutions, primitive polygamy has gradually become regulated, but
always while keeping the woman in a very humiliating position. One fact of
great importance, and which has by degrees ruined the régime of a plurality
of wives, even when custom, law, and religion authorised it, is that
polygamy became a luxury within the reach only of rulers, as soon as a

tolerable social condition restrained the too rapid mortality of males.
Indeed, from this moment the sexual equilibrium of births compelled the
greater number of men to practical monogamy, and thenceforth, as Herbert
Spencer justly remarks, a public opinion was necessarily formed in favour
of monogamy. Often, therefore, polygamy constituted a legal privilege; it
was expressly limited to kings, great men, and priests.
Besides this a hierarchy became established among the numerous wives,
and one of them had precedence of her companions.
Finally, legal monogamy was decreed, but this monogamy was in
appearance only. In practice the pain of it was softened by compromises,
notably by prostitution, which was at least tolerated, and by concubinage,
which received the consecration of law.

FOOTNOTES:
[394] Koran, Sourate, iv. 38.
[395] Koran, Sourate, iv. 26.
[396] Ibid. iv. 28.
[397] Ibid. lx. 10.
[398] Ibid. iv. 18.
[399] Ibid. iv. 3.
[400] Koran, xxxiii. 47.
[401] Ibid. lx. 12.
[402] Ibid. xxxiii. 49.
[403] Ibid. iv. 128.
[404] Ibid. iii. 13.
[405] Koran, lii. 20.
[406] Ibid. lv. 56-70.
[407] Ibid. lvi. 22.
[408] Ibid. lvi. 35.
[409] E. Meynier, Études sur l’Islamisme, p. 148.
[410] Sidi Khelil, t. ii. p. 434 (quoted by Meynier).
[411] E. Meynier, loc. cit. p. 159.

[412] E. Meynier, loc. cit. pp. 158-160.
[413] Sidi Khelil, t. ii. pp. 326, 327 (quoted by Meynier).
[414] Ibid. p. 157.
[415] E. Meynier, loc. cit. p. 158.
[416] Sidi Khelil, t. ii. p. 505.
[417] E. Meynier, loc. cit. p. 165.
[418] Ibid. p. 166.
[419] Ibid. p. 167.
[420] E. Sabatier, Essai sur l’origine, etc., des Berbères sédentaires, in
Revue d’anthropologie, 1882.
[421] Hanoteau et Letourneux, La Kabylie, t. ii. p. 148.
[422] Hanoteau et Letourneux, La Kabylie, t. ii. p. 148.
[423] Id., ibid. p. 149.
[424] Id., ibid. p. 150.
[425] Id., ibid. p. 162.
[426] Id., ibid. pp. 152, 153.
[427] Id., ibid.
[428] Hanoteau et Letourneux, La Kabylie, t. ii. p. 161.
[429] Id., ibid. p. 151.
[430] Id., ibid. t. ii. p. 165.
[431] Id., ibid. p. 169.
[432] Id., ibid. t. ii. p. 146.
[433] Id., ibid. p. 151.
[434] Diodorus, book i. 80.
[435] W. Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 46.
[436] W. Prescott, Hist. of the Conquest of Mexico, vol. i. p. 121.—
Herbert Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 283.
[437] F. Müller, Allgem. Ethnogr., p. 263.
[438] Herbert Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 295.
[439] C. de Harlez, Avesta, Introd. clxxi.
[440] Rig-Veda, sec. viii., lect. viii., H. xx., ver. 45.
[441] Rig-Veda, sec. iii., H. ii., ver. 17.
[442] Ibid. sec. viii., H. xvii., ver. 5, 6.
[443] Ibid. sec. iii., lect. iv., ver. 3.
[444] Ibid. sec. vii., lect. viii., H. xxvi., ver. 2.

[445] E. Burnouf, Essai sur le Véda, p. 213.
[446] Code of Manu, ix. ver. 149-151.
[447] Ibid. xi. ver. 5.
[448] Code of Manu, vii. ver. 219, 221, and 224.
[449] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. ii. p. 241.
[450] Lettres édif., t. vi. p. 26; t. xv. p. 286; t. xii. p. 416.
[451] Wake, loc. cit., vol. ii. p. 230.

CHAPTER X.

PROSTITUTION AND CONCUBINAGE.

I. Concubinage in General.—Frequency and reason of polygamic
instincts—Palliatives of monogamy.
II. Prostitution.—Primitive prostitution—Slow rise of scruples—
Specialisation of prostitution in civilised societies—Prostitution in
the ancient States of Central America, in China and Japan—The
right of the father, and prostitution in Japan—Prostitution in India—
Religious prostitution—Prostitution in Europe.
III. Various Forms of Concubinage.—The concubinate—
Concubine captives in Judæa and Homeric Greece—Some modern
facts of the same kind—Slave concubines in Africa, in Abyssinia,
and Madagascar—Legal concubinate in Central America—
Categories of the concubinate in Mexico—The “lesser wives” in
Tartary and China—Concubines in Assyria, among the Arabs, and in
India—Greek hetaïrism—The concubinate in ancient Rome—The
concubinate of the primitive catholic clergy—Concubines “by
precaution”—Contemporary concubinage—Why it does not exist in
Kabyle—The evolution of concubinage.

I. Concubinage in General.

As a connecting link between polygamy and monogamy, concubinage
deserves special study.
Between institutions, as between organised beings, there is no sudden
leap. Societies evolve slowly; it is by degrees that customs become refined,
and that laws are formulated of a less and less brutal kind. It has been with
marriage as with everything else. To the confusion of primitive bestial
unions, when polygamy after the manner of chimpanzees prevailed, have
succeeded sexual associations regulated by laws and customs. I have

successively described these outlines or primitive forms of marriage, ending
with polygamy, which itself is not incompatible with a somewhat advanced
civilisation, but which generally, by its restrictions, soon develops a
tendency towards monogamy.
The abyss is not so very great that separates polygamic from monogamic
marriage.
As we have seen, primitive man, besides having a purely animal absence
of modesty, has generally polygamic instincts, and nothing can be more
natural, since he descends from anthropoid precursors, and the great
monkeys are habitually polygamous. But the solidity of instincts, moral or
immoral, is always in proportion to the duration of their rise. Now, during
enormous chronological periods or cycles, in comparison with which the
historic ages of humanity are but a moment, our nearest animal ancestors
and our prehistoric percursors have, as far as it was possible, lived in a
polygamic régime. It is therefore quite natural that most men, even in the
present time, should be much inclined to polygamy, and that primitive
societies should only have emerged slowly and imperfectly from it, while
tempering monogamic marriage by polygamic palliatives. Of these
palliatives the two principal ones still in use amongst the most civilised
peoples are prostitution and concubinage, which last becomes a concubinate
when legalised.

II. Prostitution.

It would certainly be out of place here to give a detailed history of
prostitution. Having, besides, repeatedly spoken of it in the preceding
chapters, I may now confine myself to recapitulating the chief traits of its
evolution. In primitive societies, as we know, it is general, and in no way
blamed. Free girls and women willingly sell themselves, and more often
still, they are an article of traffic for their parents, like any other
merchandise.
No idea of shame as yet attaches to sexual unions considered in
themselves. Prostitution is a simple barter which shocks no one, and venal
love is merely restrained by respect for the property of another. Women who
are already appropriated, or possessed by a man, are in principle respected,
but solely by the same title as any other property. Their masters, their

husbands, those who have bought or captured them, have a perfect right to
hire them out to whomsoever they will, as the Australian husbands do, and
as the Polynesian ones did.
When the appropriation of women, polygamic as much as possible,
became general, the more than fickle instincts of primitive man persisted
none the less; and, as a matter of fact, it is then that prostitution, in the
modern sense of the word, first arose. Outside the majority of women,
regularly belonging to husband-proprietors, there existed, in much smaller
numbers, women trafficking their persons, either voluntarily for their own
profit, or for that of their legal possessors. At Senaar, for example, and in
many other countries, merchants and slave-dealers trade very profitably in
their feminine live stock.
We know also that, in primitive Athens, the most eminent men possessed
troops of prostitutes, and drew a large revenue from them; for it is very
slowly that prostitution, and all that relates to it, has awakened any scruple
in the human conscience.
Even at the most glorious period of Hellenic civilisation, with what
consideration were the most distinguished hetaïræ still regarded, since
Socrates and Pericles willingly met at the house of Aspasia!
In all the more or less cultivated societies of the old or new world
prostitution has flourished or continues to flourish. It is even in refined
societies alone that prostitution becomes specialised and legalised, and ends
by being regulated, by becoming, in short, a kind of institution,
supplementing legal marriage and being concurrent with it.
Everywhere—in all countries, and among all races—prostitution has
been, or continues to be, tolerated, and sometimes even honoured. It existed
in the great states of Central America, in ancient Peru, in ancient Mexico,
and in Nicaragua, where there were already prostitutes and brothels. In this
last country the morals were still so impure, and continence, although very
relative, so difficult to bear, that at a certain annual festival the women of
all classes were authorised to abandon themselves to whomsoever they
pleased.[452]
In the great societies founded by the Mongoloid races, or the Mongols of
Asia, prostitution displays itself in the open day. In China, tea-houses

abound, although the ancient morality of the Celestial Empire makes
chastity a moral duty for unmarried girls and women. In Cochin-China and
Japan, on the contrary,[453] practice and theory are in accord. No moral
brand of shame attaches to the prostitute. In Cochin-China, says Finlayson,
[454]
a father has the right to give his daughter, for a small sum of money, to
a visitor or even a stranger, without the reputation of the young girl
suffering any harm, and without any hindrance to her finding a suitable
husband afterwards. In Japan the tea-houses (tsiaya) are more numerous
still than in China; in the large towns they form vast quarters, and some of
them are very luxurious. The mode of recruiting for inmates seems at first
improbable to a European, and this alone suffices to show the relativity of
morality.
Everywhere “the right of the father of a family” over his children has
begun by being unlimited. In Japan it is still excessive, even over married
daughters. Thus M. Bousquet, who was travelling in Japan a few years ago,
relates that as he was lodging one day in the house of a young married
couple, the father of the wife offered her to him, and the husband did not
dream of protesting.[455]
A daughter represents a certain amount of capital, belonging first to the
father and then to the husband; to alienate it without the consent of the
proprietor is a theft, but with his authorisation the action becomes lawful,
and therefore parents who are in difficulties negotiate their daughter without
any intervention by the Japanese law. A young girl is even admired when
she prostitutes herself from devotion. “The Japanese romances repeat to
satiety the story of the virtuous virgin who voluntarily submits to this
servitude in order to save her father from misery, or to pay the debts of her
betrothed.”[456] In Japan, houses of prostitution are a national institution;
the law regulates the costume of the women who inhabit them, and the
duration of their stay. On this point Europe has little to envy Japan. But
what is special to Japan is that the tikakie, the inmates of these houses, are
placed there by their parents themselves, and for a price that is debated
beforehand. These inmates of the tea-houses generally enter them from the
age of fourteen or fifteen years, to live there till they are twenty-five years
old. They are taught to dance, to sing, to play the guitar, and to write letters.
They are lodged in handsome apartments, where men go to see them openly
and without any mystery.

They are in no way dishonoured by their trade; many of them marry very
well afterwards; it even happens that respectable citizens go to seek an
agreeable wife in these houses of pleasure. The most beautiful among them
are celebrated. After their death their portraits are placed in the temples. “In
the temple of Asaxa,” says M. Bousquet, “is found a painting representing
several Japanese ladies in full dress; they are, my guides tell me, the
portraits of the most celebrated courtesans of Yeddo, which are annually
placed here in their honour.” So also Dr. Schliemann reports that he has
seen statues of deified courtesans in the Japanese temples. Their celestial
intervention was implored in an original manner. The suppliants first wrote
a prayer on a paper, then masticated the request and rolled it into a bullet,
which they shot with an air-gun at the statues of these strange divinities.[457]
It is clear that the Japanese differ very much from us in their idea of
feminine virtue. They have an idea, however, and do not in the least permit
the women to love as they please. Thus the girl who gives herself to a lover
without paternal authorisation is legally punished by sixty lashes with a
whip, and the Japanese public would not endure in a play the personage of a
young girl in love.[458]
It is not the chastity of woman, as we understand it, but her subjection,
that Japanese morality requires. The woman is a thing possessed, and her
immorality consists simply in disposing freely of herself.
As regards prostitution, Brahmanic India is scarcely more scrupulous
than Japan, and there again we find religious prostitution practised in the
temples, analogous to that which in ancient Greece was practised at Cyprus,
Corinth, Miletus, Tenedos, Lesbos, Abydos, etc.[459]
According to the legend, the Buddha himself, Sakyamouni, when visiting
the famous Indian town of Vesali, was received there by the great mistress
of the courtesans.[460]
But the Brahmins have not been more strict in what concerns prostitution
than the founder of the great Buddhist religion. On this point the accounts
of travellers and missionaries supplement the silence of the Code of Manu.
The writers of Lettres édifiantes found religious prostitution openly
practised in the Brahmanic temples. “The people have put,” writes one of
them, “the idol named Coppal in a neighbouring house; there she is served

by priests and by Devadachi, or slaves of the gods. These are prostitute
girls, whose employment is to dance and to ring little bells in cadence while
singing infamous songs, either in the pagoda, or in the streets when the idol
is carried out in state.”[461] In this case it was a matter of actual commerce,
of trading for the profit of the priests, and the latter had recourse without
any shame to what we call to-day the advertisement to attract the customers.
“I heard,” relates the same missionary, “published with the blowing of a
trumpet, that there was danger in frequenting the Devadachi who dwelt in
the town; but that one could safely visit those who served in the temple of
Coppal.”[462] An old traveller, Sonnerat, confirms the testimony of the
missionaries of the seventeenth century. He affirms that, like all the other
Hindoos, the Brahmins are much addicted to libertinage, and that, in their
practical morality, it is not considered a fault to have commerce with a
courtesan; that they have licentious books in which refined debauchery is
taught ex professo; that they use love-charms, etc.[463]
I stop here, and purposely abstain from speaking of the prostitution of
Europe. We know too well that it has always been very flourishing, as well
in ancient Rome as in the Middle Ages, although they were so catholic. In
old France it established itself boldly, in full daylight, to such a degree that
some towns, that of Rouen for example, had their proxénètes jurés, wearing
bronze medals with the arms of the town on them.[464] As for contemporary
prostitution, it is superfluous to call attention to the fact that it is one of our
great social diseases.
To sum up, the origin of prostitution goes back to the most primitive
societies; it is anterior to all the forms of marriage, and it has persisted
down to our own day in every country, and whatever might be the race,
religion, form of government, or conjugal régime prevailing. Taken by
itself, it would suffice to prove that monogamy is a type of marriage to
which mankind has found it very difficult to bend itself; the very general
existence of the concubinate completes the demonstration.

III. Various Forms of Concubinage.

Between animal love, that can be tasted with the prostitute, and the
noblest monogamic union, there is a wide space, which the concubinate has
filled. Legal concubinage or the concubinate, admitted and practised, as we

shall see, in so many countries, is a sort of free marriage, tolerated by
custom, recognised by law, and co-existing by the side of monogamic
marriage, the rigour of which it palliates. It was at first a blending of
polygamy with monogamy, and then, undergoing itself an evolution
analogous to that which has caused the adoption by degrees of legal
monogamy among nearly all civilised peoples, it ended by becoming in its
turn monogamic in ancient Rome. I will briefly retrace its ethnographical
history.
In its primitive phase, still very confused, the concubinate has been
simply the conjugal appropriation of slaves, especially of women captured
after a victory. These were part of the rights of the victor; the captives were
considered as booty, and shared in the same way. We have already seen in
Deuteronomy that Moses authorises this barbarous practice, and that it was
habitual also among the primitive Arabs. The Homeric warriors did the
same, as various passages of the Iliad and Odyssey prove.
I will quote a few of them. To begin with, we find the old priest Chryses
comes to offer Agamemnon a rich ransom for his daughter, and receives
from the king of kings the brutal reply—“I will not set your daughter free:
old age shall find her in my dwelling at Argos, far from her native land,
weaving linen and sharing my bed. Go, then, and provoke me not.”[465]
Thersites, speaking to Agamemnon, is still more explicit—“Son of
Atreus, what more dost thou require? What wilt thou? Thy tents are full of
brass and of many most beautiful women, that we give first to thee, we,
Acheans, when we take a town.”[466] Elsewhere, Achilles, speaking of his
beloved Briseis, of whom he had been robbed, cries—“Why have the
Atreides led hither this vast army? Is it not for the sake of the dark-haired
Helen? Are they, then, the only men who love their wives? Every wise and
good man cherishes and loves his wife. And I also loved Briseis from my
heart, although she was a captive.”[467]
And, a little further on, he makes a clear distinction between the slave
concubine and the legitimate wife, swearing never to accept as wife a
daughter of Agamemnon.
In the Odyssey, when Ulysses enters unrecognised his own house, and
sees pass before him in the vestibule his female slaves, laughing and joyous
as they go to play with the suitors, his feelings are not merely those of a

lawful proprietor who is offended, but of a jealous man whose harem has
been violated. At first he is tempted to kill these women, which he actually
does a little later, and he hears “his heart cry out in his bosom, as a bitch,
turning around her young ones, barks at a stranger and tries to bite
him.”[468]
But such customs have prevailed here and there up to modern times. In
1548, in Peru, when Pedro de la Gasca had defeated the party of Pizarro, he
distributed amongst his followers the widows of the colonists who were
killed.
At Asterabad, after a small local revolt, Hanway saw the Persian
magistrates sell fifty women to the soldiers.
In Livonia, after the taking of Narva, Peter the Great coolly sold to the
boyars the wives of the inhabitants.[469] Bruce tells us also that in Abyssinia
the victors habitually take possession of the wives of the vanquished.[470]
But if captives serve or have served somewhat in all countries to supply
the domestic concubinate, they were not the only ones reserved for this
purpose; female slaves, however procured, were treated as such. The fact is
so well known that I shall abstain from establishing it by examples. I only
quote one observed at Sackatoo, in tropical Africa, for it proves clearly that
in a barbarous country, concubinage, or the domestic and servile
concubinate, does not outrage morality in any way, and is regarded merely
from a commercial point of view. At Sackatoo, when a married man has
intimate relations with one of the female slaves given as dowry to his wife,
he need simply replace her the following day by another slave who is a
virgin and of equal value. On this purely mercenary condition, the caprice
of the husband never occasions any conflict with the legitimate wife.[471]
The relative and so-called Christian civilisation of the Abyssinians
accommodates itself very easily to such customs. By the side of the oizoro,
the proud and indolent matron, all the great nobles have a troop of pretty
servant girls with sprightly looks.[472]
The king sets the example, and naturally he goes further still. If any
woman has had the good luck to please him, he sends an envoy to invite her
to live in the palace. This distinction is received as it should be: the lady

adorns herself as quickly as possible, and obeys without a murmur; but
above these concubines there is the wife or queen, the itighe.
As far as they can, ecclesiastical dignitaries imitate laic ones. Bruce
found one, the Abba-Salam, guardian of the sacred fire, third personage in
authority in the church, who forced women to yield to him by a threat at the
same time pious and original—the fear of excommunication.
I have already spoken of the Malagasy concubinage, of the chief wife
(vadi-be) having her own apartment and privileges, and ruling over the
“lesser wives” (vadi-keli), who live together in equal submission.[473]
In short, the domestic concubinate is largely practised over all central or
barbarous Africa.
The ancient half-civilised nations of central America did not disdain it
either. In Peru, as we shall see, the monogamic régime was obligatory, but
only for the poorer people.
In the Maya nations, the rich and powerful practised the concubinate
without any moderation.[474] At Guatemala, the parents were filled with
solicitude on this point, and when a young noble married a girl of his own
rank who had not yet attained puberty, they were careful to keep him patient
by giving him a young slave as concubine, whose children, however, would
not be his heirs.[475]
In Mexico the were three kinds of concubines:—
1. Young girls not yet arrived at a marriageable age, and whom the
parents usually chose for their sons at the request of the latter. These unions
required neither ceremony nor contract, but they were often legitimated
later, when they became fruitful.
2. Partially legitimate wives, who were also partially married, retaining
only the characteristic trait of the conjugal ceremony—that is, the tying
together of the garments of the half-married ones. These wives could not be
repudiated without a motive, but neither they nor their children could
inherit.
3. Lastly, the third class comprehended simple concubines, largely kept
by the nobles, and who ranked not only lower than the legitimate wives, but

also than the half-legitimate ones.[476] All this system is ingenious, and it is
certainly difficult to state the gradation better.
However common the concubinate may be, nowhere do we find it so
wisely combined as in ancient Mexico, where four sorts of sexual
association were recognised—monogamic marriage, consecrated by law
and religion; semi-legitimate marriage; free and durable union with a
legitimable concubine; and lastly, free love, escaping all regulation.
I shall proceed soon to take an estimate of these customs, so different
from our own, but it still remains for me to speak of the concubinate among
the superior races, the yellow and the white. The Mongols of Tartary are
monogamous in principle, in the sense of having one sole legitimate wife;
but the rich and noble have by the side of this matron or chief wife,
concubines or lesser wives, subject to the former, who has precedence and
rules over them, who governs the household, and whose children are
considered legitimate and have hereditary rights.[477]
In China, the concubinage of the Mongols has been carefully regulated,
like everything else; it is naturally, as elsewhere, the privilege of the rich
and great, who sometimes keep a veritable harem, and people it by
purchasing pretty girls, scarcely arrived at puberty, from their parents
(Macartney, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxiii. 473).[478] According to the
current morality of China, the concubinate is blamed unless the legitimate
wife remains sterile for ten or twelve years.[479] Formerly an attempt was
made to restrain it, by only tolerating it for the mandarins and childless
quadragenarians;[480] but these severe measures have fallen into desuetude.
At the present day the Chinese concubinate has no other check than
human respect and public opinion. It is perfectly legal. The first or chief
wife is an honoured matron; she commands the lesser wives, who owe her
respect and obedience. If a husband attempts to lower her to the rank of
lesser wife, he incurs the bastonnade with a hundred strokes of the bamboo,
but ninety only if, on the contrary, he tries to raise a lesser wife to the
supreme rank.[481] The legal concubines, the lesser wives, are subordinate to
the especially legitimate wife, and are forbidden to assume the dress
reserved for her.[482] The chief wife is the mistress of the house; she is not
only the mother of her own children, but also the putative mother of the

children of the lesser wives. The latter children wear mourning for her and
not for their natural mother; and it is on the legal mother that they lavish the
expressions of their respect, affection, and obedience.[483] We learn from
Chinese comedies that rivalries sometimes break out between the matron
and her fellow wives; but in general the Chinese woman is so well trained,
so well broken in from infancy, that this is rare enough, and Chinese wives
have even been known to counsel their husbands to take concubines in the
towns where they may be long detained by business.[484] It is well to
remember, by the way, that the human brain can retain all kinds of
impressions, and that morality and instincts strictly result from the nature of
the life and education.
The concubinate must actually have been necessary for man, for we see it
practised by all races, and by the white races as well as the others.
We know that the monarchs of ancient Assyria had, by the side of the
single wife, a good number of concubines, exactly like the Abyssinian
negroes of our own days, or, to keep to antiquity, like the glorious Solomon.
Polygamous as they are, the modern Arabs do not on that account abstain
from the concubinate. Even at Mecca all the rich men keep in their houses,
with their legitimate wives, concubines who are generally natives of
Abyssinia. However, if one of these women becomes a mother, the morality
of the country requires her master to raise her to the rank of legitimate wife.
[485]
The Mekavy of the middle and lower class also buy young Abyssinian
slaves, teach them to cook and to sew, make concubines of them, and re-sell
them afterwards advantageously to passing strangers, especially if they
have been sterile;[486] in this commerce they unite pleasure and profit.
The concubinate is not more rare among the Aryans than the Semites.
The monarchs of ancient Persia had, we know, a troop of concubines; and in
all the great barbarian societies, the princely concubinate is only the
survival of old customs.
In India the Brahmins of the middle class often have one chief wife, and
at the same time several domestic concubines.[487]
We have seen that in Homeric Greece the concubinate was a general
practice, and in no way censured. In later times, when Greece was more
civilised, the primitive domestic concubinate disappeared, but there always

remained to alleviate the ennui of monogamic marriage what we call
concubinage, or hetaïrism, which was openly practised by Socrates and
Pericles. “If,” says Lecky on this subject, “we could imagine a Bossuet or a
Fénelon figuring among the followers of Ninon de Lenclos, and publicly
giving her counsel on the subject of her professional duties and the means
of securing adorers, this would be hardly less strange than the relation
which really existed between Socrates and the courtesan Theodota.”[488]
All societies which have had any legal form of marriage have adopted the
concubinate, either free or more or less regulated, but it has nowhere been
so precisely legalised as in ancient Rome. I shall say a few words about it,
not that I intend to walk in the steps of our legists, but in order to show
what assistance ethnographical sociology could be to the science of written
law. By its means alone can the legal texts, which have been a hundred
times studied, commented on, and criticised in an isolated manner, as if they
related to sociological facts without analogy in the world, be connected
with the general evolution of customs and institutions.
At the bottom, the Roman concubinate is essentially similar to the others;
it has merely been legalised with more care, and transformed into an
institution as regular as marriage proper. It was, besides, indispensable in a
country where the right of marriage, the jus connubii, was restricted. The
leges Julia and Papia Poppæa also expressly authorise it.
In short, the Roman concubinate was a free union between a man and a
woman not wishing, or not being able, to marry.[489] It was lawful to have
as concubine a woman with whom marriage was forbidden—an adulteress,
an actress, a woman of bad life, or a freed slave. This last case was the most
frequent, most moral, and the most protected by the laws.
The intention of the parties, revealed either by a formal declaration, or by
the inequality of conditions, determined between marriage and the
concubinate. The dowry was one of the signs which served to distinguish
marriage from the concubinate.
The Roman concubinate was only, in fact, a marriage of inferior degree.
[490]
Thus a married man could not take a concubine. A bachelor could not
have several at the same time.[491]

The concubinate implied paternity. The child was considered as a natural
child of the father (naturalis, non vulgo conceptus), though he did not enter
the father’s family or become his heir, but followed the status of his mother.
[492]

The institution of the Roman concubinate evolved naturally, and its
conditions were more and more ameliorated.
Under Constantine, the legitimation of children born from a concubinate
was permitted in a general way by marriage between the father and the
woman who had been his concubine up to the day of marriage. It was
necessary, however, that the man should not have at the time a legitimate
child. But Justinian authorised the legitimation even in this last case; he
granted also the benefit of legitimation to the children of an enfranchised
slave marrying her master, provided that the latter had not then any
legitimate children.[493]
When Christian marriage had definitely abolished the Roman legal
concubinate, custom naturally braved the laws, and the clergy themselves
were the first to set the example, thus proving the truth of the assertion in
Genesis, “It is not good for man that he should be alone.” For a long time
the anointed of the Lord had wives or concubines. The latter took the place
of the former when, by St. Boniface, St. Anselm, Hildebrand, etc., and the
Councils, the marriage of priests had become an atrocious crime.
In 1171, at Canterbury, an investigation proved that the abbot-elect of St.
Augustine had seventy children in a single village.[494] During many years a
tax, called by an expressive name (culagium), was systematically levied by
various princes on priests living in concubinage.[495] Better still, it often
happened that the lay parishioners obliged their priests to have concubines,
by way of precaution. A canon of the Council of Palencia (1322)
anathematises the laics who act thus.[496] In his History of the Council of
Trent, Sarpi says that many Swiss cantons had adopted this custom. At the
Council of Constance, an important speaker, Nicolas de Clemangis,
declared that it was a widely-spread practice, and that the laity were firmly
persuaded that the celibacy of the priests was quite fictitious. Bayle quotes
on this point the following remarkable passage—“Taceo de fornicationibus
et adulteriis a quibus qui alieni sunt probro cæteris ac ludibrio esse solent,
spadonesque aut sodomitæ appellantur; denique laici usque adeo persuasum

habent nullos cælibes esse, ut in plerisque parochiis non aliter velint
presbyterum tolerare nisi concubinam habeat, quo vel sic suis sit consultum
uxoribus, quæ nec sic quidem usque quaque sunt extra periculum.”
If, leaving aside the middle age and its clergy, we cast our eyes around us
in the most civilised and polished European societies, we see that the
concubinate has indeed disappeared, but that its inferior form, concubinage,
is very flourishing. Centuries of legal and religious restraint have not been
able to uproot it, and the rigid monogamic marriage inscribed in our laws is
constantly set at defiance by our customs. Nearly everywhere the number of
births called illegitimate is on the increase. In France it constantly
progresses—
From 1800 to 1805 4.75 per cent.
” 1806 to 1810 5.43 ”
” 1821 to 1825 7.16 ”

Since that time the proportion has oscillated round 7.25 in France. But in
Sweden, from 1776 to 1866, it has risen from 3.11 per cent. to 9.5. In
Saxony the return has been 15.37 in 1862-1864.[497]
At Paris, according to the calculations of A. Bertillon, more than a tenth
of the couples (40,000) were living in free union.
In fact, if we interrogate all races, all epochs, and all countries, we see
that the concubinate and concubinage have flourished, and still flourish, by
the side of legal marriage. One country alone is an exception to this—
Kabyle. But the exception confirms the rule. If we find in Kabyle neither
concubinage nor concubinate, neither free unions nor natural children, the
reason is very simple. It is that outside marriage no sexual union is
tolerated, and in case of illegitimate birth the mother and child are both put
to death, whilst retaliation falls on the illegal father.[498]
The concubinate is therefore, or at least has been till now, natural to man.
One may say, borrowing a locution from Bossuet, that this is proved by “the
experience of all the centuries.” It remains for me now to deduce from the
facts I have enumerated a sketch of the general evolution which they
represent, and to estimate their moral significance. The evolution is of the
simplest. Sexual union, without restraint or law, has been the
commencement. Then the right of the strongest or the richest has created

polygamic households. In these households the priority was at last bestowed
on one wife; but as the husband did not intend to curb his changing humour,
he kept by the side of the chief spouse either slaves or “lesser wives,” to
whom, in the end, a legal position was accorded. The monogamic régime
making more and more way, the time came—at Rome, for example—when
this disguised polygamy was no longer tolerated, and the concubinate
became a marriage of the second order, being unable to co-exist with the
other. At length there was a pretence of abolishing it, and there was no other
matrimonial type legally recognised except the monogamic union, lasting
till the death of the husband or wife. But custom has rebelled against the
law, and monogamy has been more apparent than real. Prostitution for the
least refined, adultery and free union for the others, have served as safety-
valves for inclinations too inveterate and too violent to be controlled by
legal texts. Has moral purity gained thereby? Surely not. Moreover, there is
in consequence a whole population of illegitimate children, too often
abandoned by their fathers, and suffering from their birth a legal indignity
of the most iniquitous kind. Hence arise a thousand unmerited sufferings,
which legislation must some day or other remedy, and from which the legal
concubinate has spared China, for example. Doubtless the ideal is a fine
thing, but it is folly to sacrifice the real to it, and to legislate without taking
into account the requirements of human nature.

FOOTNOTES:
[452] Bancroft, loc. cit., vol. ii. p. 676.
[453] Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 133.
[454] Ibid. t. xxxiv. p. 334.

[455] G. Bousquet, Le Japon de nos jours (1877), t. ier. p. 246.

[456] G. Bousquet, loc. cit., t. ier. p. 87.
[457] Schliemann, La Chine et le Japon.
[458] G. Bousquet, Le Théâtre au Japon (Revue des Deux Mondes,
1874).
[459] Lecky, History of European Morals, vol. i. p. 103.
[460] Mrs. Spier, Life in Ancient India, p. 28.
[461] Lettres édifiantes, t. xii. p. 412.

[462] Ibid. p. 417.
[463] Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 351.
[464] Desmaze, Curiosités des anciennes justices, etc., p. 289.
[465] Iliad, i.
[466] Ibid. ii.
[467] Ibid. ix.
[468] Odyssey, xx. xxii.
[469] Houzeau, Études sur les facultés mentales des animaux, t. ii. p.
381.
[470] Les Abyssiniennes, p. 13.
[471] Clapperton, Second Voy., vol. ii. p. 86.
[472] Le Jean, Théodore, ii.
[473] Dupré, Trois Mois à Madagascar, p. 153.
[474] Bancroft, Native Races, vol. ii. p. 671.
[475] Id., ibid. vol. ii. p. 664.
[476] Id., ibid. vol. ii. p. 164.

[477] Huc, Voyage en Tartarie, etc., t. ier. p. 301.—Préjévalsky, t. ier. p.
69; t. ii. p. 121.
[478] Timkowski, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxiii. p. 311.

[479] Sinibaldo de Mas, La Chine et les puissances Chrétiennes, t. ier. p.
51.
[480] Huc, L’Empire Chinois, t. ii. p. 255.
[481] Pauthier, Chine moderne, p. 238.
[482] Milne, Real Life in China, p. 161.
[483] Huc, L’Empire Chinois, t. ii. p. 258.
[484] Milne, Real Life in China, p 161.
[485] Burckhardt, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 148.
[486] Burckhardt, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxii. p. 148.
[487] Sonnerat, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 349.—Ibid., Laplace, t.
xviii. p. 433.
[488] Lecky, Hist. of European Morals, vol. ii. p. 280.
[489] Domenget, Institutes de Gaius, sec. 63.
[490] R. Cubain, Lois civiles de Rome, pp. 188, 189.
[491] Domenget, loc. cit. sec. 63.
[492] R. Cubain, loc. cit. p. 188.
[493] Domenget, Institutes de Gaius, sec. 58.

[494] Lea, History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (Philadelphia, 1867), p. 296.
[495] Id., ibid. pp. 274, 292, 422.
[496] Id., ibid. p. 324.
[497] M. Block, Europe Politique et Sociale, pp. 204, 205.
[498] Hanoteau et Letourneux, La Kabylie, t. ii. p. 148.

CHAPTER XI.

PRIMITIVE MONOGAMY.

I. The Monogamy of Inferior Races.—The causes of monogamy
—The gynecocratic theory of Bachofen—Inferior monogamic races
—Races which are polygamic, although superior—Co-existence of
monogamy and polygamy.
II. Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America.—
Monogamy of the common people in Mexico and Peru—Civil
marriage in Peru.
III. Monogamy in Ancient Egypt.—Gynecocracy in Egypt—Its
raison d’être.
IV. Monogamy of the Touaregs and Abyssinians.—Gynecocracy
among the Touaregs—Fragility of Marriage in Abyssinia.
V. Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia.—Monogamy in
reality in Thibet—Modified monogamy among the Tartars—
Marriage in China—Matrimonial legislation in China—Conjugal
docility of the Chinese women—Japanese marriage.
VI. Monogamy and Civilisation.

I. The Monogamy of Inferior Races.

After having successively studied the inferior forms of sexual and
conjugal unions, it now remains for us to investigate the most elevated of
them—the one that all, or nearly all, the great civilised societies have ended
by adopting, at least in appearance, in their legal systems—monogamy.
Of the great causes which have led to the adoption of monogamic
marriage, the first is the sexual equilibrium of births as soon as it was no
longer disturbed by the casualties of savage life. Without doubt, in a society
composed sensibly of equal numbers of men and women, the more

powerful and rich may monopolise several women by the right of the
strongest, but in doing so they wrong the community, and public opinion
becomes hostile to the practice. It is thus that with the Dyaks the chiefs lose
their authority and see their influence diminish when they indulge in
polygamy, although no law forbids it.[499]
Another cause quite as powerful which contributed greatly to lead to
legal monogamy was the institution of individual and hereditary property.
L. Morgan does not hesitate to refer monogamic marriage to this sole
origin. Indeed, in all societies more or less civilised, the desire for heritable
property has quickly assumed a capital importance; the more or less
equitable regulation of questions of interest, and the anxiety to safeguard
these interests, form the solid basis of all written codes. Now, nearly
everywhere the heritage is transmitted according to filiation, sometimes
maternal, sometimes paternal; but it is only in the monogamic régime that
the parentage of children is the same for all in the paternal as well as the
maternal line.[500]
Over and above this, moral motives have reinforced the great influences
resulting from the laws of natality and the all-powerful questions of interest.
In theory or ideal, the life-long union of two beings, giving and devoting
themselves to each other, engaging to share good and evil fortune, is surely
very noble; but, as we shall see, the realisation of monogamic marriage has
everywhere been most gross, and it is difficult to refer it to elevated
aspirations. Unless we are intoxicated with sentimentalism, we cannot
believe, with Bachofen,[501] that women, naturally more noble and more
sensitive than their gross companions, grew tired of primitive hetaïrism,
and, obeying powerful religious aspirations, enthroned monogamic
marriage by force, becoming by the same stroke heads of the family, and
inaugurating gynecocracy. These Amazonian fables are very energetically
contradicted by history and ethnography.
Nearly in every age, and nearly in every place, woman, by reason of her
native weakness, has been subordinate to her companion, often oppressed
by him, and her subjection is the more severe as the civilisation is the more
primitive. It is a great error to believe that in all times and places
monogamic union is the sign and necessary seal of an advanced civilisation.
A number of primitive tribes are monogamous; certain monkeys are so too.

Among the inferior monogamous races I will mention the Veddahs[502] of
the woods of Ceylon, so low in intelligence that they have not even names
for the numbers; the Bochimans of South Africa,[503] scarcely more
developed; the Kurnais of Australia, among whom monogamy, though not
obligatory, is general.[504] Certain aborigines of India,[505] less primitive, no
doubt, than these very humble specimens of our species, but still very
savage, are also monogamous. These are: the Nagas, who are contented to
make their one wife work very hard; the Kisans, who limit themselves to a
single wife, and have not even any concubines;[506] the Padans, who set a
good example to more than one superior race, for not only do they blame
polygamy and only practise it exceptionally, but they do not buy their
wives, and leave to their young people the liberty of marrying as they
please.[507]
The form of marriage is therefore not necessarily connected with the
degree of general civilisation. The contrary is well proved, since very
civilised peoples have adopted polygamy, sometimes openly, and very often
in a masked form. Man is willingly polygamous by instinct, but he is often
forced to bend to the necessities of social existence. Therefore, in the same
country, and in the same race, we may meet with tribes and ethnic groups
very analogous in everything else, but practising very dissimilar conjugal
forms. It is not rare, for example, to see monogamy and polygamy elbowing
each other. Thus the Redskins are willingly polygamous, and yet the Pimas,
the Cocomaricopas, and a number of tribes on the banks of the Gilo, of
Colorado and of New Mexico, only marry one wife, whilst with the
Navajos, the Comanches, etc., a man has as many wives as he can buy.[508]
With the Zapotecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec there is no polygamy; it
is forbidden.[509] On the contrary, with all the Indians of Columbia
polygamy is general; but the Otomacs, who are reckoned among the most
savage, are monogamous.[510] Necessity makes the law; and although it
may be the legal form of marriage adopted by the superior races,
monogamy does not imply in itself an advanced civilisation. Besides, the
numerous facts that I have previously quoted abundantly prove that
polygamy and monogamy can coexist in the same society—the former for
the sole use of the ruling classes, the latter for the common people.

II. Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America.

It was thus in Mexico,[511] where, among the wives of the great men, one
alone was called lawful; her children inherited the paternal title and wealth,
to the exclusion of the others.[512] In Peru, as in Mexico, the law, with the
bold partiality which there is no attempt to disguise in barbarous societies,
permitted polygamy to the Inca and to the enormous family of the Incas,
while exacting a strict monogamy from the poor. State communism,
imposed on the country, regulated the sexual unions somewhat as our rural
proprietors regulate the coupling of their domestic animals. Peruvian
marriage was a civil act, very comparable to enforced military service in
modern Europe. Every year in the kingdom of Cuzco it was the practice to
assemble together in the squares of the towns and villages all the
individuals of marriageable age, from twenty-four to twenty-six years for
the men, and from eighteen to twenty for the women. At Cuzco the Inca
himself married the persons of his own family, and always in a public
square, by putting in each other the hands of the different couples. In their
respective boundaries the chiefs of districts, resembling our mayors,
fulfilled the same function for the persons of their own rank or of an
inferior rank. We are indeed told that the consent of parents was necessary,
but it was not a question of the consent of the interested parties.[513]
Besides, it was strictly forbidden to marry outside the civil group of which
the individuals formed a part. In this case marriages must often have been
contracted between relatives more or less near. As to incest, there was little
severity, since the Inca was legally bound to marry one of his sisters, with
the reservation that she might not be his uterine sister,[514] and the same rule
was at last extended to the nobles of the empire.
In sanctioning the civil marriage of the country, the public functionary,
the Curaca, administered to the couple the oath of conjugal fidelity, which,
according to P. Pizzarre, was generally kept; perhaps because, as we shall
see later, the Peruvian law was not tender to adulterers.
There does not appear to have been the least nuptial ceremony in Peru. In
Mexico, on the contrary, marriage was celebrated with much show, and it
was religious. The bride was conducted in great pomp to the house of the
bridegroom, who came with his family to meet her. The two processions
mutually perfumed each other with boxes of burning incense. After this the

future spouses sat down on the same mat, and a priest married them by
tying the robe of the bride to the mantle of the bridegroom. The precaution
had previously been taken to consult the diviners and augurs. Nuptial
festivals followed, in which the newly-married couple took no part. They
lasted four days, and the marriage was not to be consummated until their
termination.

III. Monogamy in Ancient Egypt.

In the ancient empires of central America the position of the wife was
very subordinate;—this is an ordinary fact in barbarous countries. But in
this respect, a singular exception seems to have existed in ancient Egypt,
which nevertheless offers so many analogies to ancient Peru. This anomaly
must be described with some details, because the believers in a prehistoric
gynecocracy complacently rely on it to support their theory.
The general assertions of the writers of antiquity on this point have been
confirmed by the demotic deeds recently deciphered. I shall briefly quote
both.
Let us listen first to Herodotus on the subject of Egyptian women: “They
have established laws and customs opposite, for the most part, to those of
the rest of mankind. With them the women go to market and traffic; the men
stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on the head, the women
on the shoulders.... The boys are never forced to maintain their parents
unless they wish to do so; the girls are obliged to, even if they do not wish
it.”[1] From this last rule it is already logical to infer that the women
possessed and inherited property, which is not ordinary in primitive
monarchies. Herodotus adds that “no woman performs sacerdotal duties
towards a divinity of either sex; the priests of all the divinities are
men.”[515] In a country so profoundly religious this interdict clearly proves
that in public opinion, at least, the woman was held to be an inferior being.
Besides, polygamy was permitted in Egypt, which suffices of itself to
exclude the idea of feminine domination in the family. However, Herodotus
relates that many Egyptians, especially “those that dwelt on the marshes,”
have, like the Greeks, adopted monogamy.[516]

Diodorus goes further than Herodotus. He affirms that in the Egyptian
family it is the man who is subjected to the woman: “Contrary to the
received usage of other nations, the laws permit the Egyptians to marry
their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in fact, having
cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death, never to suffer the
approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed according to the
laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains why the queen
receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private
individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between
married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract, that the man shall
obey the woman.”[517]
The assertion of Diodorus seems at first sight inadmissible; nevertheless,
the demotic deeds, in a measure, confirm it. If the family subjection of the
man was not general in Egypt, at least it existed in a number of cases. In
reality, the Egyptian law did not deal with marriages, and the interested
parties contracted them at their will. Now, in virtue of the law of
matriarchal inheritance, the woman was often richer than the man. She
could therefore dictate how the marriage contract should be drawn up. The
conjugal union was manifestly before every thing a commercial agreement,
since the word husband does not appear in the documents until after the
reign of Philopator.[518] The Egyptian woman generally married under the
régime of the separate possession of property; she did not change her
condition, and preserved the right of making contracts without
authorisation; she remained absolute mistress of her dowry. The contract
also specified the sums that the husband was to pay to his wife, either as
nuptial gift, or as annual pension, or as compensation in case of divorce.[519]
Sometimes even, by acts subsequent to marriage, the Egyptian wife could
succeed in completely dispossessing her husband, and therefore the latter
was careful to stipulate, as a precaution, that his wife should take care of
him during his life, and pay the expenses of his burial and tomb.[520]
To sum up, it appears, indeed, that in ancient Egypt no marital power
existed, at least in the families of private individuals.
This state of things lasted till the time of Philopator, who, in the fourth
year of his reign, established the pre-eminence of the husband in the family

by deciding that thenceforth all the transfers of property made by the wife
should be authorised by the husband.[521]
These facts, certainly very curious, have seemed decisive to a number of
sociologists who, with Bachofen, like to believe that in prehistoric times
there has existed a gynecocratic period—an age of gold, when women
reigned as mistresses, and of which the mythic Amazons were a survival.
The very incomplete accounts that we possess of the condition and rôle of
woman in Egypt do not seem to me to warrant the importance that is
attached to them.
In barbarous, as in civilised societies, there are three great means of
influence—religion, military power, and money. In ancient Egypt, Diodorus
tells us, woman was judged unworthy of the priesthood, and therefore
inferior from a religious point of view. She did not possess any warlike
power. Neither monuments, nor writings, nor traditions make any mention
of female warriors, analogous either to the Amazons of fable or those of the
king of Dahomey. There remains the influence of money, doubtless an
enormous influence in all societies where it can accumulate in the hands of
certain individuals to the detriment of others. Now, everything proves that if
in ancient Egypt women have more or less enjoyed great independence, and
have even abused it so as to subject their husbands, they obtained it simply
by the power of money.
Evidently the organisation of property and the laws of succession in
Egypt permitted women to be rich or to become so, and in consequence to
domineer over husbands less favoured in this respect. We shall see that in
ancient Greece and Rome the same causes produced the same effects. Is it
even necessary to go to ancient times to seek examples of feminine
emancipation, even very insolent emancipation, based only on the dowry or
fortune? We also have an abundance of plutocratic Amazons. But these
facts are not incompatible with the legal subjection of women. If they seem
to have been very common in ancient Egypt, it is because legislation did not
meddle with marriage; and it must also be remembered that the demotic
documents only mention, as is natural, the contracts of the upper or middle
classes, the propertied classes, which, of course, are a minority.
So little was gynecocracy inscribed in the laws and customs of Egypt that
a simple royal decree depriving women of the disposition of their property

sufficed to cast them into the subordinate rank which they have occupied
until the present time in all human societies, but which, perhaps, they will
not always occupy.
Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy fact that in a society so rigid as the
Egyptian, a minority of women should have been able to obtain legally a
great amount of independence; it constitutes a remarkable exception, and
may, perhaps, be referred to the influence of the Berber races, which,
according to Egyptian traditions themselves, played an important part in the
foundation of primitive Egypt.

IV. The Monogamy of the Touaregs and Abyssinians.

We have already seen that our contemporary Kabyles, although of Berber
origin, make the yoke of their wives very hard; but it may be admitted that,
in this respect, they have been influenced by numerous conquerors. A
certain emancipation of women seems to be a characteristic trait of Berber
societies. Even at the present time, among the Touaregs of the Sahara, who
have preserved their independence and the purity of their race better than
the Kabyles, the rich woman enjoys a social position analogous to that of
the ladies of ancient Egypt.
In spite of the Mussulman law, the Targui woman practically imposes
monogamy on the man. She would immediately seek a divorce if her
husband attempted to give her a rival.
Amongst the Touaregs filiation is still maternal, and confers the rank.
“The child follows the blood of the mother;” the son of a slave or serf father
and a noble woman is noble. “It is the womb which dyes the child,” they
say in their primitive language.[522] “Absolute mistress of her fortune, her
actions, and her children, who belong to her and bear her name, the Targui
lady goes where she will and exercises a real authority.”[523] She seldom
marries before the age of twenty, and she marries as she pleases, the fathers
only intervening to prevent mésalliances. She eats with her husband, to
whom, however, she owes obedience, and who can kill her in case of
adultery.—(Duveyrier, 339-340.)
The Targui women know how to read and write in greater numbers than
the men. It is well known, besides, that rudimentary instruction in reading

and writing is widely spread among the Mahometan population of North
Africa.
It is to the Targui ladies, says Duveyrier, that is due the preservation of
the ancient Lybian and ancient Berber writing.[524]
Leaving domestic work to their slaves, the Targui ladies occupy
themselves with reading, writing, music, and embroidery;[525] they live as
intelligent aristocrats.
“The ladies of the tribe of the Ifoghas are renowned,” says again
Duveyrier, “for their savoir-vivre and their musical talent; they know how
to ride mehari better than all their rivals. Secure in their cages, they can ride
races with the most intrepid cavaliers, if one may give this name to riders
on dromedaries; in order, also, to keep themselves in practice in this kind of
riding, they meet to take short trips together, going wherever they like
without the escort of any man.”[526] Targui gallantry has preserved for the
women of the tribe of Imanan, who are descended from the ancient sultans,
the title of royal women (timanôkalîn) on account of their beauty and their
superiority in the art of music.
They often give concerts, to which the men come from long distances
decked out like male ostriches. In these concerts the women sing while
accompanying themselves on the tambourine and a sort of violin or rebâza.
They are much sought after in marriage, because of the title of cherif which
they confer on their children.”[527]
The Targui lady often sings in the evenings, improvising and
accompanying herself on the rebâza. If she is married, says Duveyrier, she
is honoured all the more in proportion to the number of her masculine
friends, but she must not show preference to any one of them. The lady may
embroider on the cloak, or write on the shield of her chevalier, verses in his
praise and wishes for his good fortune. Her friend may, without being
censured, cut the name of the lady on the rocks or chant her virtues.
“Friends of different sexes,” say the Touaregs, “are for the eyes and the
heart, and not for the bed only, as among the Arabs.”[528]
Such customs as these indicate delicate instincts which are absolutely
foreign to the Arabs and to the Kabyles. They strongly remind us of the
times of our southern troubadours, and of the cours d’amour, which were

the quintessence of chivalry. But it is important to notice that with the
Touaregs, as with the Provençals and the Acquitainers of the twelfth
century, who may well have had Berber ancestors, these diversions and
gallantries were for aristocrats and princes, and in no way prevented the
general slavery of women. These customs are curious; they show a degree
of moral nobility, and are worthy of note, but at the same time we must
guard against according them a general value which they do not possess. It
is important, also, to remark that the independence of the Berber lady, who
is saved the trouble of grinding the corn, of cooking, etc., rests on the magic
power of money. “By means of accumulation,” says Duveyrier, “the
greatest part of the fortune is in the hands of women”—(p. 339). In short, it
is only by an extraordinary power of illusion that we can recognise in the
relatively favourable situation of the Berber lady a case of Amazonian
gynecocracy.
In Abyssinia, which also is not a gynecocratic country, the women enjoy
very great liberty; their conduct is very dissolute, and their marriage very
easily broken. Bruce, who first made known to us these curious customs,
likens them to those of ancient Egypt. “In Abyssinia,” he says, “the women
live as if they were common to every one. They pretend, however, to
belong, by principle, to one man only when they marry, but they do not act
up to it.”[529] Divorce is so easy in Abyssinia that Bruce says he has seen a
woman surrounded by seven former husbands.[530] The most distinguished
Abyssinian ladies have cicisbei, after the Italian fashion of old times. At
their feasts, according to Bruce again, the lovers yield themselves publicly
to each other. Their neighbours at table simply take care to hide them very
imperfectly by improvising with their cloaks a waving partition.[531] The
young women of the province of Samen, says Bruce, came alone to trade
with the travellers. “They were hard in their bargains, with the exception of
one only, in which they seemed very reasonable and very generous. They
agreed to give rather than sell their favours, alleging that long solicitations
on one side and refusals on the other wasted time that might be more
agreeably employed.”[532] It is clear from this that the monogamic régime
of the Abyssinians is more apparent than real, that it is much modified by
the extreme cicisbeism, by the use of concubines, of which I have already
spoken, and lastly by the abuse of divorce, turning it into a successive
polygamy.

V. Monogamy among the Mongols of Asia.

Among the Asiatic Mongols monogamy is also not very strict. In
Thibetan Himalaya polyandry seems to predominate. It is not rare, either, in
Thibet proper, where, on the other hand, polygamy is not forbidden, for
there is no rigid legislation in regard to marriage. Besides, in these
countries, as in many others, girls enjoy complete liberty before marriage,
and they use it without suffering at all in reputation.[533]
It is singular that in Lamaïc Thibet, in full theocracy, in a country where
the prayers and the practices of religion enter into nearly all the actions of
civil life, marriage escapes all ecclesiastical interference. In fact, the priests
have nothing to do with it, and all the matrimonial ceremony, which is
purely laïc, consists in a simple mutual engagement entered into by the
interested parties before witnesses.[534]
This laïc anarchy of marriage in Thibet must no doubt be attributed to
Lamaïc bigotry itself. The Lamas avoid women, holding marriage in
contempt, and all the great functionaries, as well as many Thibetans of the
other classes, are of the same opinion.[535] Religion does not concern herself
with it; she disdains it, as in Egypt, which seems to show that a sufficient
degree of religious madness hinders theocratic legislators from thinking of
civil institutions.
But in regard to marriage, both civil and religious laws are always
subordinate to the necessities resulting from the social condition and the
proportion of the sexes. In Thibet, therefore, in spite of the entire liberty
allowed to individuals, the marriage of the greatest number is monogamic
quite as much as if the law had prescribed it.[536]
In Tartary the nomad Mongols have adopted for their matrimonial type
monogamy tempered by the domestic concubinate. I have spoken
previously of their “lesser wives,” of their marriage by purchase with the
ceremonial of capture. I need not, therefore, repeat all this. I will only note
in passing that their girls have also very loose manners, which are not
always corrected by marriage.[537] According to one of the most recent
explorers of Mongolia, the proportion of the sexes in that country is the
inverse of that in Europe. The women are much less numerous than the
men. This may probably be the principal reason of the celibacy of the

Lamas, and of the real monogamy of the greater number of laymen who do
not belong to the aristocracy.[538]
Chinese marriage essentially resembles Mongol marriage, but with a
more settled ritual and a more uniform legislation. It is also monogamic,
with the palliative of the concubinate, the “lesser wives” of whom I have
already spoken.[539] Besides this, the subjection of women in China is
extreme. When a Chinaman has only daughters he is said to have no
children.[540] The Chinese woman is submissive in all states, as a daughter
to her parents, as a wife to her husband, and as a widow to her sons,
especially to her eldest son.[541] (Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 239). The
young Chinese girl has not even an idea that she may be consulted in the
choice of a husband.[542] She is bought from her parents, and a part of the
sum agreed on is paid when the contract is signed.[543] As in Mongolia,
matrimonial arrangements are often settled, not only from the infancy of the
future wife and husband, but even before their birth, on the hypothesis of a
difference of sex.[544] These agreements are made by the fathers and
mothers, or, in default of them, by the grandparents or nearest relatives.[545]
Lastly, the women are excluded by law from inheritance,[546] and kept as
much as possible in seclusion, so that they scarcely see any one besides
their parents.[547] By marrying, the young Chinese girl simply changes
masters. “The bride,” says a Chinese author, “ought only to be a shadow
and an echo in the house.” The married woman eats neither with her
husband nor with her male children; she waits at table in silence, lights the
pipes, must be content with the coarsest food, and has not even the right to
touch what her son leaves.[548]
China is a country of very ancient civilisation, where the laws and rites
have regulated everything, and consequently there exists a whole legislation
with regard to marriage.
To begin with, conjugal union is forbidden between persons having the
same family name,[549] and I shall have to return to this circumstance.
As in ancient Rome, the law prohibits marriage between slaves and free
persons.[550] It absolutely forbids marriage to the priests of Fo, and to those
of the tao sect.[551] It orders public functionaries not to contract marriage
with actresses, comedians, or musicians.[552] It seems that in ancient times,

in China as in Greco-Latin antiquity, the father had the excessive right to
unmarry his daughter, for to remedy this abuse the Chinese law pronounces
the punishment of a hundred strokes of bamboo on the father-in-law who
should send away his son-in-law in order to re-marry his daughter to
another.[553] The Chinese widow, no longer belonging to her original family,
but to the family of her husband, can be re-married by the latter.[554]
Moreover, the contract of betrothal concluded between the parents having a
legal value, the family of the betrothed man who dies before the conclusion
of the marriage has the right to marry the bereaved fiancée, or false widow,
[555]
who, by-the-bye, is much honoured when she has the courage to devote
herself to a celibate life.[556]
We have seen that Chinese women are excluded from inheritance; they
have a right, however, in marrying, to a small dowry, either in money or
furniture, but the value of it is optional. It must be at least a chest of
drawers or a small trousseau, which the bridegroom is obliged to supply if
the parents fail to do so. Moreover, he must also give the nuptial bed.[557]
Primitive and even cruel as are the conditions and rules of Chinese
marriage, the Chinese women submit to them not only without murmuring,
but with a sort of devotion, broken in as they are by a long ancestral
education. And besides, for the Chinese in general, it is a strict duty to
marry, from a triple point of view—social, political, and religious.
Everybody marries in the Celestial Empire, and the number of male
celibates over twenty-four years of age is quite insignificant. If a suitable
opportunity of marriage does not present itself, the parents, who are
sovereign arbiters in this matter, do not hesitate to go to an orphanage to
seek a son or daughter-in-law.[558]
In Japan, during the feudal age, the end of which we are now witnessing,
marriage was nearly identical with Chinese marriage, and there would be
nothing to say about it in particular, if during the last few years the fever of
reformation, with which Japan is carried away, had not happily modified
marriage, at least in practice, by giving the young girl a voice in the matter,
[559]
and by awakening in some Japanese consciences doubts on the subject
of the prostitution of young girls. At the present moment, everything in
Japan is being Europeanised, and the adaptation of our Civil Code to the old
Japanese customs is only a question of time.

VI. Monogamy and Civilisation.

The foregoing facts are sufficiently numerous to enable us to deduce
certain conclusions from them. These facts, taken as they are from nearly all
the non-Aryan races, prove in the first place that the monogamic régime is
in no way the appanage of the superior races, for among the lowest of
human races some are monogamic. In regard to marriage, we find that
primordial conditions impose the various forms of sexual union, quite
independently of the caprice of individuals, or of the degree of culture and
social development.
In attempting to estimate the moral worth of a people, a race, or a
civilisation, we are much more enlightened by the position given to woman
than by the legal type of the conjugal union. This type, besides, is usually
more apparent than real. In many civilisations, both dead and living, legal
monogamy has for its chief object the regulation of succession and the
division of property. With much naïveté and effrontery, many legislators
have sanctioned polygamy in reality by recognising the domestic
concubinate by the side of legal monogamy. As for the position of the wife
who is reputed to be specially legitimate, it is often much inferior to that
enjoyed by the woman who lives under other conjugal régimes which are
theoretically less elevated. In the greater number of countries more or less
monogamic, which I have just passed in review, woman, whether married
or not, has been subjected to extreme subordination. In an exceptional case
she acquires a certain independence, where, thanks to maternal inheritance,
she can become possessed of personal or real estate. It is to money alone,
and not to the moralising influence of monogamy, that woman in barbarous
countries owes the power of attaining a certain independence, for the two
peoples who have granted it to her, the Egyptians in antiquity and the
Touaregs of our own day, lived or live under a legislation which authorises
polygamy. It is important also to notice that in the valley of the Nile, and in
the Sahara, feminine emancipation is only the privilege of those women
who belong to the ruling and propertied classes.
Upon the whole, in every country and in every time, woman, organically
weaker than man, has been more or less enslaved by him, unless in the case
where legislation has allowed her to use an artificial force to serve her as a
shield. This fictitious force, before which virile brutality has lowered its

flag, has been money, wherever the laws regulating succession have
permitted women to raise themselves to the dignity of proprietors.
A similar lesson will be given us by the study of the monogamic régime
among the white races of Asia and of Europe. There also we shall see riches
serve woman as a defensive, and sometimes even offensive weapon, against
the severity of laws and customs.

FOOTNOTES:
[499] Herbert Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 301.
[500] Id., ibid. vol. ii. pp. 301, 302.
[501] Das Mutterrecht.
[502] Das Mutterrecht.
[503] Spencer, Sociology, vol. ii. p. 299.
[504] Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai.
[505] Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 41.
[506] Id., ibid. p. 132.
[507] Id., ibid. p. 28.
[508] Doménech, Voyage Pittoresque dans les Déserts du Nouveau
Monde, p. 510.
[509] Bancroft, Native Races, etc., vol. ii. p. 661.
[510] Mollien, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xlii. p. 416.
[511] Fr. Müller, Allgem. Ethnogr., etc., p. 263.
[512] Id., ibid. p. 263.
[513] W. Prescott, Hist. of the Conq. of Peru, vol. i. p. 121.—Garcilaso
de la Vega, Com. de los Incas, pp. 25, 113, 218.
[514] Id., ibid.
[515] Herodotus, bk. ii. p. 35.
[516] Id., bk. ii. p. 42.
[517] Diodorus, bk. i. p. 27.
[518] Révillout, Revue égyptienne, 1880.
[519] Id., ibid.
[520] Id., ibid.
[521] Id., ibid.

[522] Duveyrier, Toûareg du Nord, 337.
[523] Id., ibid.
[524] Duveyrier, Toûareg du Nord, p. 387.
[525] Id., ibid. p. 430.
[526] Id., loc. cit. p. 362.
[527] Id., ibid. pp. 345, 347.
[528] Id., loc. cit. p. 429.
[529] Bruce, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxiii. p. 358.
[530] Bruce, Travels, etc., vol. iv. p. 487.—A. d’Abbadie, Douze ans
dans la haute Éthiopie, t. ier. pp. 100, 128.
[531] Bruce, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxiii. p. 365.
[532] Bruce, loc. cit., t. xxiii. p. 255.
[533] Turner, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 437.
[534] Id., ibid. t. xxxi. pp. 437, 454.
[535] Id., ibid. p. 435.
[536] Lettres édifiantes, t. xv. p. 200.

[537] Préjévalsky, Mongolia, t. ier. p. 69.—Huc, Tartarie, t. ier. p. 301.

[538] Id., ibid. t. ier. p. 71.
[539] Huc, L’Empire chinois, t. ii. p. 258.—Sinibaldo de Mas, Chine et
puissances Chrétiennes, t. Ier. p. 51.
[540] Duhaut Cily, Voyage autour du monde, t. ii. p. 369.
[541] Milne, Real Life in China, p. 159.
[542] Id., ibid. p. 159.
[543] Huc, Empire chinois, t. ii. p. 255.
[544] Milne, loc. cit. p. 151.
[545] Huc, loc. cit. p. 255.
[546] G. E. Simon, La famille chinoise, Nouvelle Revue, 1883.
[547] Milne, loc. cit. p. 154.

[548] Huc, Empire chinois, t. ier. p. 268.
[549] Pauthier, Chine Moderne, p. 238.
[550] Id., ibid. p. 238.
[551] Id., ibid.
[552] Id., ibid.
[553] Id., ibid. p. 288.

[554] E. Simon, Famille Chinoise, Nouvelle Revue, 1883.
[555] Id., ibid.
[556] Milne, loc. cit. p. 153.
[557] E. Simon, loc. cit.
[558] Id., ibid.
[559] Masana Maeda, La Société japonaise, in Revue Scientifique, 1878.

CHAPTER XII.

HEBREW AND ARYAN MONOGAMY.

I. Monogamy of the Races called Superior.—The monogamic
ideal and the monogamic reality.
II. Hebrew Marriage.—Monogamy and concubinage—Position
of the wife—The virtuous woman of the Book of Proverbs—
Obligatory virginity—The levirate.
III. Marriage in Persia and Ancient India.—Marriage in the
Avesta—Marriage in India—General monogamy—Extreme
subjection of the wife—Purchase of the wife—Matrimonial
prohibitions—The ideal spouse—Marriage in modern India.
IV. Marriage in Ancient Greece.—Wives and concubines—Low
position of the wife—Marriage in Sparta—Celibacy chastised—The
young Greek girl assimilated to a thing—Dowry—The wife
emancipated by money.
V. Marriage in Ancient Rome.—Marriages of children—Relative
liberty of the Roman woman—The Patria potestas—The Manus—
Three kinds of marriage—The rights of the husband—The case of
Cato the Elder—The jus connubii—The dowry and its effects.
VI. Barbarous Marriage and Christian Marriage.—Marriage
among the Germans in the Middle Ages, among the Saxons of
England—Marriage according to Christianity.

I. Monogamy of the Races called Superior.

After a long journey of exploration through the inferior forms of the
sexual union amongst mankind, we have in the preceding chapter begun the
study of monogamy, which all the superior races have more or less adopted
in their legislation.

It is impossible to deny that monogamy is theoretically nobler than the
other matrimonial forms. Nothing can be more beautiful than the union of
two intelligent and refined beings freely associating their lives after ripe
reflection “for better, for worse,” as the marriage service of England has it.
But the reality is often very different from this poetic ideal. Even amongst
the most highly civilised peoples, this spontaneous, disinterested, devoted
union, based on moral and intellectual sympathies, is very rare; it does not
exist in civilisations still partly barbarous, whose monogamy easily
accommodates itself to the subjection of women, however extreme. We
shall see that it is so, in studying this matrimonial type amongst the
Hebrews at first, and afterwards amongst the Aryan races, that is to say,
amongst the human types which are reputed par excellence Superior.

II. Hebrew Marriage.

The Hebrews seem to have been alone among the Semites in adopting
monogamy, at least in general practice. Moreover, the Bible tells us that
concubinage was not forbidden to God’s chosen people. In speaking of the
daughter sold by her father to a rich man, the book of Exodus used language
sufficiently explicit on this point—“If she please not her master, who hath
betrothed her to himself, then shall he let her be redeemed: to sell her unto a
strange nation he shall have no power. And if he have betrothed her unto his
son, he shall deal with her after the manner of daughters. But if he take to
him another wife, her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he
not diminish.”[560] The book of Genesis indeed tells us that “a man shall
leave his father and mother, and shall cleave unto his wife; and they twain
shall be one flesh;”[561] but this famous verse seems to indicate the violence
of the love rather than monogamic and indissoluble marriage.
Doubtless the subjection of the Jewish woman was not extreme, as it is in
Kabyle; it was, however, very great. Her consent to marriage was necessary,
it is true, when she had reached majority, but she was all the same sold to
her husband. We must note, nevertheless, that she had a recognised right of
ownership, and that the property of the husband was security for that of the
wife and for her dowry; but the husband none the less held the wife in strict
dependence. The song of the virtuous woman at the end of Proverbs is
generally quoted as a sublime portrait of the Jewish wife by all those who

are still hypnotised by the prestige of the so-called holy books. However, in
reading these celebrated verses with an unprejudiced mind, we hardly find
more than the portrait of a laborious servant, busy and grasping—“She
seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands.... She riseth
while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household, and a portion to her
maidens. She considereth a field, and buyeth it; with the fruit of her hands
she planteth a vineyard. She girdeth her loins with strength, and
strengtheneth her arms.... Her candle goeth not out by night.... She eateth
not the bread of idleness.” We shall see later that the wife, though she might
gain much money, which seems to have been the ideal of the Hebrew
husband according to the Proverbs, was repudiable at will, with no other
reason than the caprice of the master who had bought her. Finally, and this
is much more severe, she was always obliged to be able to prove, cloths in
hand, that she was a virgin at the moment of her marriage, and this under
pain of being stoned. Let us listen to the sacred book—“If any man take a
wife, and go in unto her, and hate her ...” and seeking a pretext to repudiate
her, he imputes to her a shameful crime, saying, “I took this woman, and
when I came to her, I found her not a maid ... her father and mother shall
take her and shall represent to the elders of the city in the gate the tokens of
the damsel’s virginity.” Of what kind were these proofs? The following
verses tell us, “They shall spread the cloth before the elders of the city. And
the elders of that city shall take that man and chastise him, and they shall
amerce him in an hundred shekels of silver, and give them unto the father of
the damsel.... But if this thing be true, and the tokens of virginity be not
found for the damsel, then they shall bring out the damsel to the door of her
father’s house, and the men of the city shall stone her with stones that she
die; because she hath wrought folly in Israel, to play the whore in her
father’s house; so shalt thou put evil away from among you.”[562] If we add
to the preceding, that by the law of levirate, the childless widow, whether
she wished or not, was awarded to her brother-in-law, we shall be
enlightened as to the unenviable position of the married woman under the
Hebrew law.

III. Marriage in Persia and Ancient India.

Of the conjugal customs of the ancient Persians we know little. The only
formal prescription that we find in the Avesta is a strict prohibition against

marrying an infidel. The Mazdean who commits such a crime troubles the
whole universe: “he changes to mud a third of the rivers that rush down the
mountain sides; he withers a third of the growth of trees and of herbs which
cover the earth; he takes from pure men a third of their good thoughts, of
their good words, of their good actions; he is more noxious than serpents
and wolves.”[563]
On Indian marriage we are better informed, at first by the Code of Manu,
and then by modern travellers. India has early practised mitigated
monogamy. Polygamy and concubinage were the privilege of the Brahmins
and rich Kchatriyas; but the mass of the nation generally lived in
monogamy, though nevertheless imposing on the married woman a most
humiliating position. Manu proclaims aloud the necessary dependence and
incurable inferiority of the weaker sex: “If women were not guarded, they
would bring misfortune to two families.” “Manu has bestowed on women
the love of their bed, of their seat, and of adornment, concupiscence, anger,
bad inclinations, the desire to do evil, perversity.”[564] “A little girl, a young
woman, and an old woman ought never to do anything of their own will,
even in their own house.” “During her childhood a woman depends on her
father; during her youth, on her husband; her husband being dead, on her
sons; if she has no sons, on the near relatives of her husband; or in default
of them, on those of her father; if she has no paternal relatives, on the
sovereign. A woman ought never to have her own way.”[565]
Given such an utter subordination of woman, it is self-evident that there
would be no question of her choosing a husband. It is the father’s duty to
marry his daughter; and he need not wait till she has reached puberty: “A
father must give his daughter in marriage to a young man of agreeable
appearance, and of the same rank, according to the law, although she may
not have attained the age of eight years, at which he ought to marry
her.”[566] However, if the father neglects the prime duty of marrying his
daughter, the law ordains that the latter shall proceed to do it. Marriage is a
sacred duty: “Let a girl, although adult, wait three years; but after that
period, let her choose a husband of the same rank as herself.”[567] The girl is
then free, and her husband in marrying her owes no payment to the father:
“The father has lost all authority over his daughter in delaying for her the
time of becoming a mother.”[568] Girls cannot be married too soon; at eight

years old they are given a husband of twenty-eight; at twelve years, a man
of thirty.[569] Some verses, in contradiction to that which I have just now
quoted, forbid the father from receiving any gratuity whatever in marrying
his daughter, not even a cow or a bull: “All gratuity, small or large,
constitutes a sale.”[570] But the prohibition to sell his daughter, though still
very little observed, is evidently of posterior date; and in India, as in all
other countries, the daughter has been esteemed at first as merchandise. The
law imposes at times very curious restrictions on a man who is intending to
marry. He must not take a girl with red hair, or bearing the name of a
constellation, of a river, a bird, or a serpent.[571] He must not, under pain of
hell, marry before his elder brother.[572] Above all, he must not marry below
his rank. To marry a woman belonging to the servile class is, for the
Brahmin or the Kchatriya, an enormous crime, which lowers him to the
rank of the Soudras.[573] It is an unpardonable sin: “For him who drinks the
foam of the lips of a Soudra, or who has a child by her, there is no expiation
declared by the law.”[574] He descends to the infernal abode, and his son
loses caste. As for the son of a Brahmanic woman and a Soudra, he is a
Tchandala, the vilest of mortals.[575] The young Brahmin, after having
received the authorisation of his spiritual director, and having purified
himself by a bath, must marry a woman of his own class, who is well made,
who has a fine down over her body, fine hair, small teeth, limbs of a
charming sweetness, and the graceful movement of a swan or a young
elephant.[576] But, however the wife may be chosen, she is held in a state of
servile submission. “A wife,” says the Code, “can never be set free from the
authority of her husband; neither by sale nor by desertion.” “Once only a
young girl is given in marriage; once only the father says, I give her.”[577]
Taken as a whole, these antique precepts are still observed in India. In
general, monogamy prevails, but the married woman is none the less kept in
a state of abject subjection. It is shameful, says Somerset, for a virtuous
woman to know how to read and dance; these futile accomplishments are
left to the bayadere. “Servant, slave,” are the habitual appellations used by
the husband in addressing his wife, who replies by saying “Master, lord,”
who must take care not to call her husband by his name,[578] and has not the
right to sit at his table.[579] It is the parents who negotiate the marriage,
without any regard to the tastes of the future husband and wife, and

thinking only of rank and fortune.[580] A daughter is always married, or
rather sold, in infancy, often to a sexagenarian Brahmin, and before she is
of age to manifest any preference.[581]
These accounts, which are as authentic as possible, enable us to estimate
the Hindoo marriage. However monogamic it may generally be, it is very
inferior from a moral point of view. The tyrannical right left to the husband,
his unlimited power, the servitude of the wife, yielded or negotiated in
infancy, the pride of caste and the care for wealth outweighing all other
considerations, proclaim loudly enough that matrimonial legislation in India
has been the regulation, for the man’s profit only, of instincts of a very low
order.

IV. Marriage in Ancient Greece.

In primitive Greece the position of woman was little better. On one hand,
the Iliad tells us that the epithet “woman” thrown at a man was the most
contemptuous insult;[582] on the other hand, we have seen that the girl was
purchased by the husband, either by presents or by services rendered to the
father;[583] in short, that the husband might have domestic concubines with
the sole reservation that their children did not inherit from him.[584] In the
first chant of the Odyssey the severe apostrophe of Telemachus to his
mother proves also that in the absence of the husband the wife was humbly
submissive to her sons. “Go to thy chamber; attend to thy work; turn the
spinning wheel; weave the linen; see that thy servants do their tasks. Speech
belongs to men, and especially to me, who am the master here.”[585]
Penelope, like a well-trained woman, meekly allows herself to be silenced
and obeys, “bearing in her mind the sage discourse of her son.”
In later times the virtuous woman was shut up in the gyneceum, where
she could only receive her parents or the friends authorised by her husband.
[586]
She was not even admitted to festivities. But, while the wife was semi-
cloistered in the conjugal house, the husband could at will frequent and
court the hetaïræ (ἑταίραι), and the strangers (ξέναι) with whom the citizens
of Athens had not the jus connubii, and who were not admitted like the
well-born or native Athenian woman (ελευθέρα) to the thesmophors.[587]

It is evident that at Athens primitive marriage was regulated by the man
with very little heed to the tastes or preferences of the woman. At Sparta it
was the sentiment of strict and zealous patriotism which inspired Lycurgus
in all his regulations regarding marriage. The obligation of marriage was
legal, like the military service. The young men were attracted to it by
making them assist at the gymnastic exercises of naked young girls. “This
was an incentive to marriage, and, to use Plato’s expression, drew them
almost as necessarily by the attraction of love as a geometrical conclusion is
drawn from the premises.”[588] In the supreme interest of population, love
was forced on young men, but it was for the sake of fertility. The young
married couple were not allowed to meet except in secret until the first
pregnancy.[589] It was praiseworthy for an old husband to lend his young
wife to a handsome young man, by whom she might have a child.
In our own day it is not very rare, particularly in France, to see poor
young men marry rich old women. Solon did not permit this conjugal
prostitution of man at Athens. “A censor,” says Plutarch, “finding a young
man in the house of a rich old woman, fattening as they say a partridge
fattens by his services to the female, would remove him to some young girl
who wanted a husband.”[590] At Sparta Lycurgus went as far as to put
hardened celibates under the ban of society. In the first place, they were not
permitted to see these exercises of the naked virgins; and the magistrates
commanded them to march naked round the market-place in winter, and to
sing a song composed against themselves.... They were also deprived of that
honour and respect which the young pay to the old.[591]
The young Greek girl could not dispose of her person any more than the
Chinese or Hindoo woman could. She was married by her father; in default
of her father, by her brother of the same blood; in default of a brother, by a
paternal grandfather.[592] The right of brothers who were heirs to their father
to marry their sister was not even exhausted by a first marriage.[593] The
father of the family had the power either to marry his daughter during his
lifetime, or to bequeath her by will, as well as her mother, who was
assimilated, like her, to chattels or property. “Demosthenes, my father,
bequeathed his fortune, which was fourteen talents, myself, aged seven
years, my sister, aged five years, and our mother. At the moment of dying,
when asked what he would have done with us, he bequeathed all these

things to this Aphobus and to Demophontes, his nephews; he married my
sister to Demophontes, and gave at once two talents.”[594] “In the same
way,” says Demosthenes again, “Pasion dying, bequeathed his wife to
Phormion.”[595] It might happen that the daughter or the wife were by law
one body with the estate. Thus a daughter, in default of male heirs,
belonged to the relation who would have inherited in her stead and place, if
she had not lived.
If there were several relatives in the same degree of succession, the
daughter was to marry the eldest of them. Further still, she was obliged in
this case to quit her husband, if previously, and even with paternal
authorisation, she had contracted marriage.[596] In Greece, to safeguard or
conquer her independence, a woman had no other resources than the
seduction of her sex and the love she could inspire. She had early recourse
to these defensive weapons, for Aristotle thinks it his duty to put young men
on guard against the excess of conjugal tenderness and feminine tyranny,
the habit which enchains the man to his wife.[597] At length in Greece, as it
had happened in Egypt, money finished by protecting the woman much
more efficaciously, and even by giving her sometimes the advantage on the
conjugal field of battle. Solon, who knew Egypt, began by decreeing the
absolute poverty of the married woman. “The bride was to bring with her
only three suits of clothes, and some household stuff of small value, for he
wished marriages to be made without mercenary or venal views, and would
have that union cemented by love and friendship, and not by money.”[598]
But this primitive legislation could not stand against the combined action of
the affection of the girl’s parents, her own desire of independence, and
lastly, the cupidity of the husband, and thus the practice of the dowry
became general. This dowry was constituted before marriage by a public
act.[599] Securities and bonds were given to assure the dowry and the
conditions of marriage. The dowry was mortgaged on the husband’s
property, and returned to the wife on the dissolution of the marriage. When
the woman could shelter herself behind the shield of the dowry she was
much more respected, and she even sometimes tyrannised in her turn.
Aristophanes, Menander, Lucian, etc., pour out endless bitter criticisms on
the haughty and extravagant rich woman.

In the comedy of The Clouds the good Strepsiades cries: “I led so happily
in the country a good simple life, without vexation or care, rich in bees, in
sheep, and in olives! Then I married the niece of Megacles, son of
Megacles. I was of the country, she of the town; she was a haughty,
extravagant woman, a true Cesyra. The wedding day, when I lay down by
her, I smelt the wine, the cheese, and the wool; she cares for perfumes,
saffron, tender kisses, expense, good cheer, and wanton transports. I will
not say that she was idle—no—she worked hard at ruining me.” According
to Menander, religion served as an excuse to women for enormous
expenses. Under the pretext of piety they ruined their husbands by religious
sacrifices accompanied with perfumes, with golden clasps for the sandals,
and female slaves ceremoniously ranged in a circle.[600]
One poor hen-pecked husband groans in these terms: “Cursed be the first
man who invented marriage, and then the second, and the third, and the
fourth, and all those who imitated them.” One old husband laments: “I have
married a witch with a dowry. I took her, to have her fields and house, and
that, O Apollo, is the worst of evils.”[601] Listen again to this one: “If being
poor, you marry a rich woman, you give yourself a mistress and not a wife;
you reduce yourself to be at the same time a slave and poor”—
(Anaxandrides).[602]
To sum up, in ancient Greece marriage implied at first the complete
slavery of the wife, who was treated as a thing; then by degrees conjugal
customs were mitigated, and the wife became a person, and even a
proprietor, whom her dowry or personal fortune could protect.
Thenceforward money produced its usual effect on inferior characters: it
debased or infatuated individuals who were without moral nobility; cupidity
blinded certain men; the insolence of money intoxicated certain women.
But this only occurred among the ruling classes, and the fate of husbands
reduced to conjugal servitude by love of a large dowry does not concern us
here.
The important feature in Greek marriage is, that the first legislators
regarded it solely from the point of view of increase of population, and held
individual liberty, especially that of the woman, very cheaply. Whatever we
may think of this legal tyranny, it attained its end perfectly. The small
republics of ancient Greece overflowed with men; thus Attica had four

thousand one hundred and sixty-six inhabitants to the square league—that is
to say, the population was three times more dense than that of France at
present.

V. Marriage in Ancient Rome.

In its general features Roman marriage does not greatly differ from
Greek, but its evolution has been more complete, and the legislation on the
subject is better known to us. Marriages of children, especially of little girls,
were the rule at Rome, since the nuptial majority of girls was fixed at
twelve years. But they were often betrothed, and even married, before that
age. Vipsania Agrippina, daughter of Agrippa and of Pomponia, was
promised to Tiberius from her first year.[603] The Digest authorised betrothal
at the age of seven.[604]
In betrothing his daughter the father contracted a civil obligation,
sanctioned at first by an action for damages, and later by infamy. Every
woman of twenty, if she was neither married nor a mother, incurred the
punishment decreed by Augustus against celibacy and childlessness.[605] We
are indeed told in Roman legislation that the consent of the girl was
necessary before passing finally to betrothal and marriage. But it is evident
that the consent of a child of twelve years, or even less, was illusory; in
reality, the young Roman girl was married by her parents.[606] The young
wife was still such a child, that on the day of her wedding she took a
ceremonious leave of her playthings and dolls, offering them up to the gods.
In reality, it was not the wife who made the engagement, but the persons in
whose power she found herself.[607]
Nevertheless, Roman customs conceded to women a certain liberty of
manners which the Greeks would not have tolerated. The Roman woman
walked in the streets, went to the theatre with the men, shared in banquets,
etc.; yet she was, especially in primitive Rome, subjected first to her father
and then to her husband. And, besides, public opinion obliged the woman to
use in great moderation the practical liberty that was left to her. The famous
epitaph of the Roman matron—domum mansit; lanam fecit—is well known.
This epitaph may perhaps exaggerate, but it does not lie. Thus Suetonius
tells us that the daughters and grand-daughters of Augustus were compelled

to weave and spin, and that the Emperor usually wore no other garments but
those made by the hands of his wife and sister.[608]
Legally, the Roman wife was the property of her husband, who treated
her, not as his equal, but as his child. At Rome, also, conjugal union had
been looked at chiefly from the point of view of procreation (Liberorum
quærendorum causâ). The wife who was the mother of three children
acquired a certain independence; she could make a will even during the
lifetime of her husband, and did not need to have recourse to a trustee.[609]
But the subjection of woman was very great. The father, invested with the
potestas, could sell his child to a third party, in mancipium. The mancipium,
which was almost a right of propriety, passed afterwards to the heirs of the
owner.
We have seen that the pater familias had the right to marry his daughter
without consulting her, but he enjoyed a right more excessive still, that of
re-marrying her when his son-in-law had been absent for three years.[610] It
was Antoninus only who thought of depriving the father of his right to
annul the marriage of his daughter. To the potestas of the father succeeded
the manus of the husband. The woman in manu was considered legally as
the daughter of her husband, and therefore as the sister of her children. If
the husband was himself the son of a family, the wife in manu was held as
grand-daughter of the father of the family. This entailed for her the
extinction of paternal power (on her own side), and of guardianship and the
rights of relationship with the male members of her father’s family. In the
marriage with manus the husband became the proprietor of all the dowry of
his wife. The father, however, could stipulate that the dowry should be
returned to him if his daughter died without children or was repudiated. The
leges Julia and Papia had, in fact, imposed on the father the obligation of
giving a dowry to his daughter; but the dowry could be appointed by third
parties or by the woman herself, if she was sui juris, and then also she had
the right to stipulate for some reservations.
This terrible right of manus was acquired by the husband with every form
of marriage, even the grossest of all, the usus, or simple cohabitation during
one year; but the wife could avoid the conventio in manum by passing three
nights in the year out of the conjugal domicile. The manus invested the
husband with a large right of correction over his wife, though in very grave

cases he was to assemble the family tribunal, which included the children of
cousins-german. These family tribunals took cognisance even of murder
committed by the wife, and they were still in use under the emperors.[611]
On the other hand, the Roman husbands did not let their legal right of
beating their wives fall into desuetude, for Saint Monica consoled the wives
of her acquaintance whose faces showed marks of marital brutality, by
saying to them: “Take care to control your tongues.... It is the duty of
servants to obey their masters.... You have made a contract of
servitude.”[612]
There were at Rome three kinds of marriages, which I have already
named—1st, The usus, resulting from a simple continuous cohabitation,
without contract or ceremony, a sort of Tahitian marriage; 2nd, the coemptio
or purchase, of which I have spoken at length—that is to say, the legal
regulation of the primitive marriage by purchase, in use all over the world
at the origin of civilisations. Coemption, without any palliatives, delivered
the wife’s body and goods to her husband; 3rd, the confarreatio, or
aristocratic marriage, in which the high Pontiff of Jupiter gave, in the
presence of ten witnesses, a cake made of flour, water, and salt to the bride
and bridegroom, who ate it between them. The manus was conferred on the
husband in the marriage by confarreation, the same as in the marriage by
usus and coemptio. We must note that at Rome, as in Greece, the religious
ceremony was in no way essential to the marriage, which was a laic and
civil institution in the first place.[613]
These three forms of marriage very probably represent the evolution of
the conjugal union in ancient Rome. The usus, or free cohabitation, must
have been the commencement; then came the purchase of the wife, the
coemptio, and at length the solemn marriage or confarreatio of the
patricians. But marriage with the husband’s right of manus subsisted for a
long time, and it conferred on him all the customary licence of savages of
every country, notably that of lending the wife, and this exorbitant right
endured till the best days of Rome, since the virtuous Cato of Utica used it
still in lending his wife Martia to his friend Hortensius.
This fact is curious, and deserves attention. Hortensius began by asking
for the loan of Cato’s daughter, Portia, already married to Bibulus, and the
mother of two children. It was, says Plutarch, with the object of selection,

that he might have a child of good race; he promised to return her
afterwards to her husband. On the refusal of Cato, Hortensius fell back on
Martia, Cato’s own wife, who was at the time enceinte. Cato was not at all
shocked at the proposition, but referred it, however, to Philip, his father-in-
law, who also saw no harm in it. A contract was therefore concluded
between Cato, Hortensius, and Philip; and Martia, whom no one thought of
consulting, was yielded to Hortensius, and afterwards taken back, at the
death of the latter, by Cato. She was then the heir of Hortensius, and Cato
had not the least scruple in receiving her back with her money at the same
time.[614]
To any one not versed in ethnographical sociology these customs seem
improbable. Doubt has been cast on this story of Hortensius and Cato,
though it is attested by the Anti-Cato of Julius Cæsar, on which Plutarch
relies; but it has nothing extraordinary for us. We know that at first woman
was everywhere the absolute property of the man. The manus of the Roman
husband was in the main only an attenuated form of primitive conjugal
right, which we know included the power to lend, barter, or cede the wife
without consulting her. The case of Cato is then only a survival of preceding
ages.
Necessarily brief and incomplete as the résumé must be that I can here
give of conjugal legislation at Rome, it will suffice, I hope, to give a clear
idea of what Roman marriage was. I should add that the law, inspired by the
old patriotic spirit and the prejudices of caste, limited the right of marriage,
the jus connubii. The justes noces were at first an aristocratic privilege. The
plebeians coupled more ferarum. At length the jus connubii extended to
marriages between Latin and Roman, Latin and Latin, and even foreigner
and foreigner. The child followed the condition of the mother, which seems
to be a survival of the ancient maternal family. Another vestige of the same
kind is found in the legal position of spurii—that is to say, of children born
of a marriage which is either prohibited or incestuous or bigamous. These
children, irregularly conceived, have a mother, but no legal father; they do
not come under the paternal power of the father, like the child of lawful
marriage, and cannot be legitimated.[615]
The study of the transformations that Roman marriage underwent from
the time of Numa to that of the emperors is most interesting; for we can
follow a complete evolution in regard to it which has never been so

complete in any other country. At first we find conjugal anarchy, the
capricious union or usus, which could be, and which was in fact, often
polygamous, as the ulterior persistence of the concubinate proves; then the
marriage by capture, of which the trace remained in the marriage ceremony;
then the marriage by purchase, the coemptio, with its ordinary consequence,
the servitude of the wife, which even the solemn marriage or confarreation
did not abolish. At length this brutal law of the primitive ages relaxes. The
law which holds the woman under paternal power (patria potestas) is
turned round. The father himself gives his daughter in mancipium to a third
party, who afterwards enfranchises her. Sometimes it is the patria potestas
which is a check to the manus of the husband. The wife, in marrying,
without being subject to the manus, remains subject to her father, who can
even claim her again.
But the institution of the dowry as obligatory and inalienable by the
husband, the power of the woman to marry while remaining in the paternal
family, to have her paraphernalia, to inherit property of her father, to control
both of these, and also the great facility of divorce, ended by rendering the
Roman, or at least the patrician matron, almost independent. Under the
empire Roman marriage had become in fact a sort of free union, in which
money considerations played the predominant part. Plautus already speaks
of the dotal-slave, a creature of the wife’s, managing her property and
ruling the husband—
“Argentum accepi, dote imperium vendidi.”[616]
Horace mentions the wife ruling by means of her dowry—“dotata regit
virum conjux” (Od. iii. 18). Martial declares that he wishes no rich
marriage; it does not suit him, he says, to be married by his wife—“uxori
nubere nolo meae” (Epig. viii. 12). From Seneca to Saint Jerome, who both
speak of it, the dotal-slave is advantageously replaced by the frizzed
steward (Procurator calamistratus) managing the affairs of my lady.[617]
They went further still, and as it happens in Russia at the present day, they
concluded fictitious marriages; but at Rome, these false marriages,
contracted for ready money, had no other object than to elude the laws
against celibacy.[618]

VI. Barbarous Marriage and Christian Marriage.

In order to avoid being too incomplete in this rapid survey of marriage
among all races, I will say a few words on barbarous marriage outside the
Greco-Roman world.
The barbarians of ancient Europe, more or less monogamous, have
differed little from any others. Their marriage resembles that of their
fellows of all races and all times; that which chiefly characterises it is the
subjection of woman.
Barbarous women, says Plutarch, neither ate nor drank with their
husbands, and never called them by their name.[619] Among the Germans,
who were more often monogamous, as Tacitus says,[620] the wife was
purchased; then the purchase-money was transformed into a dower
accorded to the bride under the name of morgengabe or oscle (osculum), the
price of the first kiss.
German betrothals, which could only be annulled for a serious reason,
strongly resembled Latin ones—that is, they were a sale of the girl in
anticipation by her legal owners. It was necessary for the girl to have the
consent of her father, or her nearest relative, for her marriage. As widow,
having been purchased, she belonged to the relatives of her dead husband,
and could not marry again without their leave.[621] The feudalism of the
Middle Ages was careful not to emancipate the woman, and she remained a
minor, or even less, since the Code of Beaumanoir says (titre lvii.)—“Every
husband can beat his wife when she will not obey his commands, or when
she curses him or contradicts him, provided that he does it moderately, and
that death does not follow in consequence.” Among the Saxons, the
Burgundians, and the Germans in general, the widow was subjected to the
rule of her eldest son as soon as he had attained the age of fifteen.
In the Middle Ages the woman surprised in committing adultery might be
executed by her husband, who even had the right to call in the aid of her
son.[622] In the ninth and tenth centuries, however, among the Saxons in
England, an advance that was quite exceptional took place. The young girl
could marry herself, was not repudiable at will, had her own property and
her keys, and the penal law of her husband ceased to weigh upon her.[623]
This progress was quite local, and operated spontaneously, quite
independently of Christian influence. In fact, Christianity has only
emancipated women spiritually, and its real influence on marriage has been

injurious. Doubtless the Christian wife might hope to become a seraph in
the next world, but in this she was only a servant or a slave. In Greco-
Roman antiquity marriage had been considered, as it ought to be, a civil
institution. Legislation, more or less sensible and intelligent, regarded it
simply from the point of view of population.
Christianity, which taught that the earthly country was of no account, and
taxed with impurity all that related to sexual union, made marriage a
sacrament, and consequently an institution quite apart from humble
considerations of social utility. All sexual union outside marriage was
reputed criminal; the ideal preached to women was the mystic marriage
with God. The pious Constantine increased all the penalties against sexual
crimes. Adultery became again a capital offence; the woman guilty of
marrying a slave was condemned to death;[624] marriage was declared
indissoluble; second marriages were blameworthy. At the same time the
fathers of the Church and the preachers did not cease to utter their thunders
against woman, disparaging her, and abusing her as an impure creature,
almost devilish. This encouraged the severe legislation of the barbarians in
conjugal matters. I have previously mentioned some traits of these brutal
laws. I shall return to them in speaking of questions connected with
marriage, which remain still to be treated of—adultery, divorce, and
widowhood. We shall then see how hurtful the influence of Christianity has
been on marriage, and we shall come to the conclusion that in order to
manage earthly affairs well, it is not good to keep our looks constantly
raised to the skies.

FOOTNOTES:
[560] Exodus, xxi. 8-10.
[561] Genesis, ii. 24.
[562] Deut., ch. xxii., ver. 13-21.
[563] Hovelacque, L’Avesta, p. 396.
[564] Code of Manu, book ix. pp. 5-17.
[565] Code of Manu, v. pp. 147, 148.
[566] Ibid.

[567] Ibid. ix. p. 90.
[568] Ibid. p. 93.
[569] Ibid. p. 94.
[570] Ibid. iii. pp. 51, 53.
[571] Ibid. book iii.
[572] Ibid. book iii. pp. 171, 172.
[573] Ibid. pp. 14, 15.
[574] Code of Manu, book iii. p. 19.
[575] Ibid. p. 17.
[576] Ibid. pp. 4-10.
[577] Ibid. ix. pp. 46, 47.
[578] Somerset, Hist. Univ. des Voy., t. xxxi. p. 352.
[579] Id., ibid. p. 341.
[580] Id., ibid. p. 350.
[581] Id., ibid. p. 350.—Lettres édifiantes, t. x. p. 23.
[582] Iliad, ii., vii., viii.
[583] Goguet, Orig. des Lois, t. ii. p. 60.
[584] Odyssey, xiv.
[585] Ibid. i.
[586] Cavallotti, La Sposa di Menecle (notes), p. 246.
[587] Id., ibid. p. 239.
[588] Lycurgus, xxvi.
[589] Plutarch, Apophthegms of the Lacedemonians.—Demandes
Romaines, lxv.
[590] Solon, xxxviii.
[591] Lycurgus, xxxvii.
[592] Demosthenes, cf. Step. ii.; in Cavallotti, loc. cit.
[593] Isaeus, Heritage of Menecles, §§ 5-9.
[594] Demosthenes, Against Aphobus.
[595] Id., For Phormion.
[596] Isaeus, Succession of Pyrrhus.
[597] Nic. Ethics, viii. 14.—Econom., i. p. 4.
[598] Solon, xxxvii.
[599] Isaeus, Succession of Pyrrhus.
[600] Mysogyne, Fr. 3.

[601] Menander, The Necklace.
[602] Cavallotti, La Sposa di Menecle, p. 158.

[603] Friedländer, Mœurs romaines, etc., t. ier. pp. 251-254.
[604] Id., ibid. t. xxiii. pp. 1-14.—Avis de Molestion.
[605] Friedländer, loc. cit. p. 351.
[606] Plutarch, Lycurgus and Numa compared, 4, 2.
[607] Friedländer, loc. cit. p. 356.
[608] Suetonius, Octavius, lxiv.
[609] Plutarch, Numa Pompilius, xvii.
[610] Plautus, Stichus.
[611] L’Italie ancienne, par MM. Duruy, Filon, etc. (passim).
[612] Saint Augustine, Confessions, book ix. ch. ix.
[613] R. Cubain, Lois civiles de Rome, p. 179.
[614] Plutarch, Cato of Utica, xxxvi. lxviii.
[615] Domenget, Institutes de Gaius, i. 64.
[616] Asinaria, v. 70-72.
[617] Seneca, De matrim.—Saint Jerome, Letters, 54, 13, 79, 9.

[618] Friedländer, Mœurs, etc., t. ier. p. 360.
[619] Plutarch, On Herodotus, xxi.
[620] Germania, xviii.
[621] Laboulaye, Hist. de la succes. des femmes.
[622] Summa Cardinalis Hostiensis, lib. v., De Adulteris.
[623] Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. i. p. 381.

[624] Code Theod., lib. vi., tit. ier..

CHAPTER XIII.

ADULTERY.

I. Adultery in General.—Adultery considered as a theft.
II. Adultery in Melanesia.—Indulgence and severity of
Tasmanian and Australian husbands—Adultery at New Caledonia.
III. Adultery in Black Africa.—Among the Hottentots, at the
Gaboon, in middle Africa, in Abyssinia.
IV. Adultery in Polynesia.—Punishment of unauthorised adultery
—The “fire-lighter” at Noukahiva.
V. Adultery in Savage America.—Among the Esquimaux—
Special penalty among the Redskins—Obscene retaliation.
VI. Adultery in Barbarous America.—Among the Pipiles in
Yucatan, in Mexico, in Peru, in Guatemala.
VII. Adultery among the Mongol Races and in Malaya.—Among
the nomad Tartars, in Thibet, in China, in Japan, in Malaya.
VIII. Adultery among the Egyptians, the Berbers, and the
Semites.—Penalty of adultery in ancient Egypt; among the
Hebrews, the Arabs, and in Kabyle.
IX. Adultery in Persia and India.—Penalty of adultery in Persia
—Adultery in the Code of Manu—Fraternal and authorised adultery
—The obligation of a double vengeance.
X. Adultery in the Greco-Roman World.—Legal adultery
according to Lycurgus and Solon—Punishment of illegal adultery—
Adultery in primitive Rome—Lex Julia—Legal vengeance of the
father—Obscene retaliation—Laws of Antoninus, of Septimus
Severus, and of Constantine.

XI. Adultery in Barbarous Europe.—Among the Tcherkesses, the
Visigoths, the Francs, under Charlemagne—Singular penalties of
the Middle Ages.
XII. Adultery in the Past and in the Future.

I. Adultery in General.

We will now pass in review some of the principal penalties (the
enumeration of all of them would be too long) with which the men of all
times and races have attempted to repress adultery. That the human species,
and especially the primitive, unpolished human species, is one of the most
ferocious of the animal kingdom, stands out strikingly from these
investigations; but it is perhaps in regard to adultery that the cruelty and
injustice of men are most strongly shown; and by the word “men” here we
mean the masculine half of mankind, for generally the only adultery which
has been punished has been that of the woman. As for the adultery of the
husband, men have been very slow in admitting that it was a wrong of
which the wife might complain.
The reason of this revolting partiality is very simple. Diderot makes Orou
tell it in his Supplément au Voyage de Bougainville; it is that “the tyranny of
man has converted the possession of woman into a property.”[625]
On the whole, our long inquiry has abundantly proved that very
generally, in human societies, marriage has been, or is still, a bargain, when
not a capture. In all legislations the married woman is more or less openly
considered as the property of the husband, and is very often confounded,
absolutely confounded, with things possessed. To use her, therefore, without
the authority of her owner, is a theft; and human societies have never been
tender to thieves. Nearly everywhere theft has been considered a crime
much more grave than murder. But adultery is not a common theft. An
object, an inert possession, are passive things; their owner may well punish
the thief who has taken them, but him only. In adultery, the object of the
larceny, the wife, is a sentient and thinking being—that is to say, an
accomplice in the attempt on her husband’s property in her own person;
moreover, he generally has her in his keeping; he can chastise her freely,
and glut his rage on her without any arm being raised for her defence. On

the contrary, in letting loose his vengeance the husband will frequently have
public opinion and law on his side, when the latter does not take on itself
the punishment of the guilty one. But let us listen once more to the eloquent
language of facts.

II. Adultery in Melanesia.

In Tasmania and Australia the women were, or are, considered as the
property of the men. We have seen that in these countries there is no care
for decency or chastity, and that wives are often obtained by brutal rape.
Their proprietors also make no scruple of letting them out, lending them, or
bartering them; they have the fullest right to use or abuse them. The
Tasmanians felt very honoured if a white man borrowed their wives, but
they none the less chastised, and very cruelly too, unauthorised infidelities,
on the simple ground, as their panegyrist, the Rev. Bonwick, tells us, of
their right of ownership.[626] In certain Australian tribes, organised in
classes, the women were reputed common to all the individuals of the same
class, but all intimate relation with a man of another group was a most
grave adultery for both the guilty ones—a social adultery.[627]
In the greater number of New Caledonian tribes the punishment of
adultery is left to the care of the injured husband, who kills the thief, if he
can, but often contents himself with giving a severe punishment to his wife,
sometimes inflicting a sort of scalping. At Kanala, however, adultery has
already become a social crime. The man who commits it is led before the
chief, judged by the council of elders whom the chief presides over, and
executed on the spot.[628] But in one way or another, whether he incurs the
social vengeance or that of the offended one—the robbed one, rather—and
of his relatives, the New Caledonian who commits adultery risks his life.
Sometimes, however, he can get off by paying a fine, after the old German
fashion. Often also, in case of adultery committed by a married man, the
New Caledonians practise a singular retaliation: the adult men of the village
simply violate the wife of the delinquent.[629] The wives of the chiefs being
much more sacred than the others, the slightest attempt on the rights of their
proprietors risks being cruelly punished. M. Moncelon has seen a man
condemned to death merely for having looked at the wife of the chief while
she was picking up shells;[630] it was regarded as treason. This ferocity in

the repression of adultery is not at all special to Melanesia. With some
variations, it is found in all times and in all countries. It is worthy of remark
also that even when the adulterous man is punished, it is simply because he
has robbed another husband, and not because he has failed in conjugal faith.

III. Adultery in Black Africa.

We have previously seen that among the black populations of Africa
marriage is a simple bargain, and that the negresses are only moderately
chaste. Now, as the purchase of wives and the absence of chastity in the
women are factors eminently suited to produce adultery, we shall not be
surprised to find that it is very common in Africa; it is nevertheless very
severely punished there, but only because it is a very grave outrage on
property. Among the Hottentots, the husband, having the right of life and
death[631] over his wife or wives, and being allowed to kill them for the
smallest offence, naturally enjoys the same right, with a much stronger
reason, when they commit an unauthorised infidelity, for he can lend or let
them to strangers if he likes.[632]
In the tribes where polygamy already inclines to monogamy, and where
there exists a chief wife ruling over the others, the gravity of the crime of
adultery is in relation to the position occupied by the woman. Thus, at the
Gaboon, Du Chaillu tells us, where the women are extremely dissolute, a
distinction is made in their infidelities. The adultery of the chief wife is an
enormous crime. The man who has been an accomplice in it is, at the very
least, sold as a slave; but adultery with less important wives can be atoned
for by a large compensation.[633] As for the woman, her pecuniary value
often protects her. The husband-proprietor has bought his wife, and he cares
very little for the purity of her morals, since he has no scruple in making her
an object of traffic;[634] therefore, whenever she is unfaithful without his
permission, the consideration of the cost of purchase and of the possible
profit of letting her out, often restrains his vengeful arm. He is free,
however, to punish or to pardon, and sometimes the chastisement of
adultery is terrible. At Bornou, for example, the guilty ones are bound hand
and foot, and their heads are smashed by being struck together.[635] At
Kaarta, says Mungo Park, the two guilty ones are put to death. With the
Soulimas there is a singular exception to this. The adulterous woman

merely has her head shaved, and she loses a privilege which is probably of
Berber origin—viz., that of quitting her husband at will, simply by
refunding him the amount of purchase-money he has paid for her. All the
vengeance of the husband falls on the lover, and he makes him his slave.
[636]
At Jouida, in Dahomey, the offended husband had still the right, in
1713, of invoking judicial power in order to have his guilty wife strangled
or beheaded by the public executioner.[637] Her accomplice was not spared,
and sometimes, says Bosman, he was burned at a slow fire. This cruel wish
to make delinquents suffer a long time is found again in Uganda, where
King M’tesa caused adulterers to be dismembered, having one limb at a
time cut off and thrown to the vultures, who feasted on it before the eyes of
the sufferers.[638] With the Ashantees, the husband, as sovereign justiciary,
can either kill his wife, or marry her to a slave, or cut off her nose,
according to his pleasure.[639] We find this last punishment specially applied
to adultery in various countries, and Diodorus will tell us the motive for it.
On the Senegal coast the all-powerful protection of money saved the life of
adulterers, and the offended husbands spared them in order to sell them to
European slave-traders.
In Abyssinia the conjugal bond is so frail, morals are so shameless, and
divorce is so easy, that adultery is rarely taken in a tragic light. Formerly the
injured husband often confined himself to chasing from his house the
adulterous woman, clothed in rags for the occasion.[640]

IV. Adultery in Polynesia.

Polynesian customs alone would suffice to prove that in primitive
countries adultery is simply punished as a robbery, or commercial fraud. As
regards sexual morality, or rather immorality, nothing can be compared to
what was practised in Polynesia, where all modesty was unknown, where
the husbands willingly let out their wives, and the intimate friend of the
husband (tayo) had the right to share his wife with him. But dissolute as
they were, these islanders were very determined conjugal proprietors, and
they sometimes punished adultery with the most extreme severity. The
missionary, Marsden, relates that a New Zealand chief killed his adulterous
wife by dealing her a blow on the head with his club. Public opinion
approved of the deed, and the brother of the dead woman came to take the

body, only making a feint of retaliation, because the punishment was
considered to be merited.[641]
Cook saw at Tahiti a native man punished in the same way for adultery,
by blows of the club; but in this case there was the aggravating
circumstance that the woman belonged to a class superior to his.[642] In
some islands, especially at Tahiti and Tonga, where the customs were less
savage, and licence was more unbridled than in New Zealand, the women
sometimes got off with a simple correction. We must again remark that
what was blamed and punished was not the adultery itself, but adultery
unauthorised, or not commanded by the legal owner—in short, theft.
At Noukahiva, says Krusenstern, there was a functionary called the “fire-
lighter” who lived with the wife of a king. The duty of this dignitary was, in
the first place, to obey the queen, and in the next to supply her husband’s
place with her in case of prolonged absence on his part.[643] Taking this fact
by the side of others, as, for example, the unlimited right of the friend, or
tayo, over the wife, we see clearly what the Polynesians understood by
adultery.

V. Adultery in Savage America.

The Esquimaux, who are as free from prejudices in their conjugal
customs as the Polynesians, have also, at least certain of them, adopted the
custom of joint husbands, cicisbei, who replace the husband in case of
absence.[644] There are some, however, who blame the adultery of wives,
and believe even that the fairies would kill them if their wives were
unfaithful during their absence.[645] But all the Esquimaux are not equally
easy going; some of them, the reindeer Koriaks, for example, kill at once
the man and woman taken in adultery.[646]
The Redskins are always less tolerant; with them adultery is a very
serious affair, although they often also consider the exchange of wives a
mark of friendship. It is generally the husband who takes vengeance as he
pleases, and he often does so by cutting open with his teeth the nose, and
sometimes the ears, of the guilty woman. This was the practice with the
Comanches,[647] the Yumas,[648] and the Sioux.[649] But the injured, or
robbed, husband is at liberty to make a composition with the seducer.[650]

He can at will either pardon—as did a Mandan husband who sent the wife
to her lover, adding three horses to the present[651]—or he can put to death
the faithless wife and her accomplice. By a rare exception, the Omahas
recognised the right of the wife to revenge herself on an adulterous husband
and his mistress.[652] With the Omahas, also, an adulterous wife was bound
to a stake in the prairie, abused by twenty or thirty men, and then
abandoned by her husband.[653] We have seen that this obscene mode of
retaliation is in use at New Caledonia, and we shall find it again in the
Roman Empire. The mode of vengeance with the Redskins, whether of the
husband or the tribe, varied according to locality, but was often atrocious.
Thus the Modocs of California publicly disembowelled the guilty woman.
[654]
Among the Hoopsas, another tribe of Californian Redskins, the male
accomplice in the adultery lost one eye,[655] or, if he was married, the
injured man took his wife.
The natives of South America were not more clement than their
congeners in the north. The Caribees put both guilty ones to death.[656] The
Guarayos also punished with death the accomplice in adultery as if he were
a thief.[657]
From this rapid survey of savage countries we may conclude that
adultery is everywhere considered as a robbery only, but at the same time as
one of the gravest of robberies. The man who is guilty of adultery suffers
consequently, by virtue of the right of retaliation, a punishment more or less
severe. As for the adulterous woman, she is generally chastised by the
husband-proprietor with extreme cruelty, no restraint existing to moderate
his vengeance.

VI. Adultery in Barbarous America.

In the barbarous monarchies of all countries the chastisement of adultery
is scarcely mitigated, and for a long time it is directly inflicted on the guilty
woman by the husband or the parents.
With the Pipiles of Salvador the man who committed adultery was put to
death, or became the slave of the offended husband.[658] In Yucatan the
guilty ones were stoned or pierced with arrows; before this they were
impaled or disjointed.[659] According to Herrara, among the Yzipecs the

injured husband cut off the nose and ears of the adulterous woman.[660] The
same author tells us that among the Guaxlotillans the woman was taken
before the Cacique, and if found guilty she was cut in pieces and eaten.[661]
In ancient Mexico adultery was generally punished with stoning,[662] and
in certain districts this crime entailed the quartering of the guilty woman;
elsewhere, the judges simply ordered the husband to cut off her nose and
ears.[663]
In Peru the law also punished ordinary adultery with capital punishment.
[664]
There was no chastisement terrible enough for adultery committed with
one of the wives of the Inca, the son of the Sun: the guilty man was burnt,
his parents were put to death, and his house destroyed (Pizarro).
Guatemala offered an exception;[665] there the affair was arranged by a
composition—a fine of precious feathers paid to the husband. The latter
could also repudiate his wife, or pardon her, in which last case he was much
honoured. If the adultery was committed with the wife of a great lord, the
crime naturally acquired an exceptional gravity; the guilty man was then
strangled if he was noble, and if servile, was thrown down a precipice. We
shall find elsewhere this hierarchic iniquity, for in this matter, as in others,
various human societies and races repeat themselves.

VII. Adultery among the Mongol Races and in Malaya.

Thus the Mongols of Asia seem to have copied the Mongoloids of
America. With the nomad Tartars a man of inferior class who has
committed adultery with a woman of his own class pays the injured
husband forty-five head of cattle; but the husband must revenge himself on
the inconstant wife. The law invites him to do so; for if he kills her, the
compensation of cattle remains his property; if not, it goes to the prince. But
if it happens that a man of low condition has illicit intercourse with the wife
of a prince, then the crime is terrible; the man is cut to pieces, the faithless
wife is decapitated, and the family of the guilty man reduced to slavery.[666]
If we may believe a modern traveller, Mongol customs have become
considerably modified on this point, adultery being now extremely common
in Mongolia, and so little repressed that the women hardly take the trouble
to conceal it.[667]

In lamaic Thibet they do not regard adultery as a tragedy. The wife is
corrected, and the lover pays a fine to the husband, or husbands, when there
are several.[668]
Chinese legislation is relatively moderate in regard to adultery. In the
first place it expressly forbids the husband to lend or let out his wife, under
pain of twenty-four strokes with the bamboo.[669] The Chinese woman can
certainly be imprisoned for adultery,[670] but she is chiefly punished by
repudiation, which is obligatory on the husband on pain of twenty strokes of
the bamboo.[671] She can, however, be sold either by the husband or by the
judge to whom the offended husband remits her.[672] In contrast to certain
barbarous legislations, the Chinese law is more severe in regard to adultery
for the strong than for the weak. “Whoever, on the strength of his power or
credit, shall take away the wife or the daughter of a free man to make her
his own wife, shall be imprisoned for the usual time and put to death by
strangulation.”[673]
In Japan the law gives the offended husband the cruel and very general
right to kill the guilty ones if taken in adultery, and forbids him to spare
one.[674] We find this latter injunction, perhaps more humane than it
appears, in ancient Roman legislation and elsewhere.
Nothing is at once more monotonous and more ghastly than this
ethnographic review of the penalties against adultery.
Simple death has not sufficed to punish this crime, so enormous has it
everywhere seemed; and thus other refinements of cruelty have been added
—disembowelling, cutting in pieces, the stake, etc.
So far, among the races we have been investigating, Chinese legislation
has been the wisest and most just, since, contrary to usual custom, it enacts
the most severe penalties against the powerful man who takes advantage of
his social position to commit adultery. Here and there, however, we find
societies where adultery excites less fury. These societies are rare, and they
are not always the most civilised.
At Java, for example, adultery is treated with clemency, especially if it is
not committed with the chief wife. Even in this last case the guilty one, at
least the man, is often only punished by public contempt.[675] The Dyaks

punish conjugal infidelity with a fine only, for both parties.[676] This is a
rare example of clemency, and it is given by a still barbarous race. We look
in vain for such moderation among much more civilised peoples, as we
shall see in studying ancient Egypt and the Berbers and Semites.

VIII. Adultery among the Egyptians, the Berbers, and the
Semites.

Diodorus tells us that in ancient Egypt the man who was guilty of
adultery received a thousand lashes, whilst the woman suffered the
amputation of her nose, a very special penalty, which we have seen used in
America and negro Africa, which we shall find also among the Saxons of
England, and for which Diodorus has given us the reason. “The legislator,”
he says, “has intended to deprive the woman of attractions which she had
only made use of for seduction.”[677]
The Bible, also, is not tender towards adulterers. But it makes no
distinction between the culpability of the man and the woman; stoning is for
both. This terrible punishment is not only inflicted on the faithless wife, but
on the inconstant fiancée. The accomplices even are put to death. There are,
however, some distinctions, and precautions are taken to mitigate the rigour
of the law; thus the guilty woman is only condemned to be stoned if the
crime has been committed in the city. If in the fields, the man alone incurs
stoning;[678] it is thus admitted that the woman may have suffered violence.
Besides this, two witnesses are in all cases necessary to establish the crime.
Lastly, the slave woman is not punished with death.[679]
The ancient Arabs were not more clement towards adultery than their
cousins of Palestine, and the Bedouins, who have preserved more of the old
customs, still consider adultery as the greatest of crimes. Burckhardt tells us
that with them the adulterous woman is beheaded either by her father or her
brother.[680] These are morals that go far beyond the prescriptions of the
Koran. It would seem that Mahomet, much given to sexual pleasures
himself, had not the courage to be too severe on others. He, indeed, calls the
adultery of woman the “infamous action” par excellence, but he directs,
nevertheless, that the crime be proved by four witnesses.[681] Moreover, the
woman can escape the punishment by swearing four times before God that

she is innocent, and that her husband has lied.[682] If she is convicted, both
she and her accomplice receive a hundred lashes in public. Then the woman
must be shut up “until death visits her, or God finds her a means of
salvation,”[683] all of which is relatively mild enough.
Although Mussulmans, the Kabyles of Algeria do not keep to the
somewhat humane prescriptions of the Koran in regard to adultery. In
general, they are pitiless towards all infractions of morals. With them a kiss
on the mouth is equivalent to adultery, and costs more than an assassination.
[684]
Every child born out of marriage is put to death, as well as its mother.
[685]
If the family tries to spare the guilty one, the Djemâa stones her and
imposes a fine on the relatives.[686] The child and mother are stoned by the
Djemâa or the family. Even when a woman is actually separated from her
husband her adulterous child is killed, but the fate of the mother is left to
the discretion of the relatives.[687]
Whoever carries off a woman, especially a married woman, and flees
with her, becomes a public enemy, and the village where the fugitives have
taken refuge must give them up under pain of war. The man is put to death,
and the woman is restored to her family, who do not spare her.[688]
Custom authorises the deceived husband to sacrifice his wife, and if he
rarely does it he is only hindered by the loss of the capital she represents;
but usage requires the repudiation,[689] and the husband must, besides, take
a striking and bloody vengeance on the lover.[690] At the very least he must
simulate it, must fire, perhaps, on the guilty one with a gun loaded only
with powder, and strike or slightly wound his wife’s lover. He has thus
saved his honour; he is content with little, as in our rose-water duels.[691]
With the Kabyles, more than elsewhere, marriage is a mercenary affair;
consequently adultery naturally has pecuniary consequences. Thus, in
compensation for adultery or the abduction of his wife, the husband has a
right to the amount of the purchase, the thâmanth, or to an indemnity,
sometimes arbitrary, sometimes tariffed;[692] but this compensation in
money is distinct from the retaliation, and in no way hinders it.[693]
Lastly, the Kabyle legislation formally interdicts the marriage of the
adulterous woman with her accomplice.[694]

Beginning with Melanesia and reaching Kabyle, I have sought among
very different races, forming altogether the major part of mankind, the
penalties used or decreed against adulterers. The result is a lamentable
enumeration of sanguinary follies. I have passed by in silence the legendary
or exceptional sufferings. I have not spoken of women crushed under the
feet of elephants, violated by stallions, buried alive, etc. The common
reality alone more than suffices to show that man, still far from being very
delicate in conjugal or amorous matters, considers adultery as a great crime,
especially for woman. It remains for us to see how the races calling
themselves par excellence noble—the Indo-European races—have regarded
this fault, so difficult to pardon.

IX. Adultery in Persia and India.

The Avesta does not mention adultery in ancient Persia. In modern Persia
it has been punished with ferocity, except, naturally, when it was committed
by the Shah, who chose, according to his fancy, any young girls or women
among his subjects, without any one daring to find fault with him.[695] But
for private individuals adultery was an abominable crime; the man who had
committed it was put to death; the woman, treated of course more severely,
was tied up alive in a sack and thrown into the water.
The Code of Manu gives us very complete information in regard to the
penalty for adultery in ancient India. In the first place, it is understood that
the adultery of the husband ought not to trouble the wife at all. “Although
the conduct of her husband may be blameworthy, and he may give himself
up to other amours and be devoid of good qualities, a virtuous woman
ought constantly to revere him as a god.”[696] The adultery of the woman is
naturally quite another thing. “If a woman, proud of her family and her
importance, is unfaithful to her husband, the king shall have her devoured
by dogs in a very frequented public place.”[697] If a woman of high rank, the
lover also is not spared. “The king shall condemn her accomplice to be
burned on a bed of red hot iron.”[698] For the less aristocratic adultery the
punishment varies according to the caste. “For adultery with a protected
Brahmanee, a Vaisya loses all his property, after imprisonment for a year; a
Kchatriya is condemned to pay a thousand panas, to have his head shaved
and watered with urine of an ass.” For the Brahmin the penalty is very light.

“An ignominious tonsure is ordered instead of capital punishment for a
Brahmin in the cases where the punishment of the other classes would be
death.”[699] The Soudra, on the contrary, who holds criminal commerce with
a woman belonging to one of the three first classes, “shall be deprived of
the guilty member, and of all his possessions, if she was not guarded; but if
it was so, he loses both his goods and his existence.”[700] It must be noticed,
also, that very slight evidence suffices to prove adultery. “To pay little
attentions to a woman, to send her flowers and perfumes, to frolic with her,
to touch her ornaments or vestments, to sit with her on the same couch, are
considered by wise men as proofs of an adulterous love.”[701]
On the other hand, the husband, if he has had no children, can oblige his
wife to give herself either to his brother or to another relative. “Anointed
with liquid butter and keeping silence, let the relative charged with this
office approach during the night a widow or a childless woman, and
engender one single son, but never a second.” Then, in the following verse,
the Code alters: “Some of those who understand this question well, think
that the aim of this precept is not perfectly attained by the birth of a single
child, and that women may legally engender in this manner a second
son.”[702] One verse, certainly less ancient, contradicts these curious texts,
which are evidently survivals of primitive customs, according to which the
husband disposed as he pleased of his feminine property. More modern
Brahmanic legislation still authorises the husband to kill the wife and her
lover if taken in adultery, and there would be nothing new to us in this, if, as
in Japan, and as formerly at Rome, the law did not formally interdict him
from killing only one of the two culprits.[703]

X. Adultery in the Greco-Roman World.

However Aryan India may be, she differs very remarkably from us. Let
us look now at the way in which adultery has been regarded in Europe, and,
to begin with, in the Greco-Roman world. We know that in classic antiquity
marriage was quite crudely considered as a civic duty, and looked at from
the single point of view of population. Lycurgus and Solon encouraged the
impotent husband to favour the adultery of his young wife. Speaking of the
laws of Lycurgus, Plutarch says—“He laughed at those who revenge with
war and bloodshed the communication of a married woman’s favours; and

allowed that, if any one in years should have a young wife, he might
introduce to her some handsome and worthy young man, whom he most
approved, and when she had borne a child of this generous race, bring it up
as his own. Also he permitted that if a man of character should entertain a
passion for a married woman upon account of her modesty and the beauty
of her children, he might beg her husband that he might be allowed to plant,
as it were, in rich and fertile soil, excellent children, the congenial offspring
of excellent parents.”[704] This is marriage considered without the least
prejudice, from the strict point of view of social utility. Solon imitates
Lycurgus on this point, but with one restriction which recalls the Code of
Manu, that the wife of an impotent husband should, with his permission of
course, choose a lover from among the nearest relatives of the said husband.
[705]

Custom sometimes went further than the laws, and Plutarch relates that
Cimon of Athens, who was a model of goodness and greatness of soul, lent
his wife to the rich Callias.[706] But that did not prevent the laws of Solon
from authorising the husband to kill the adulterer.[707] Further, the law
punished with civil degradation the too indulgent husband, and authorised
the family tribunals to condemn to death the guilty woman, whom the
husband himself executed before witnesses.[708] Lastly, a law of Draco,
which was never abrogated, delivered the adulterous lover to the discretion
of the husband.[709] After all, save for the good of the state, before which
everything had to bend, this Greek legislation only consecrates the old
primitive right by which the wife was the property of her husband.
In all that concerns marriage ancient Rome singularly resembles ancient
Greece.[710] Her customs and regulations regarding the wife were at first of
a savage atrocity. The term adulterer begins by being applied to the woman
alone, and the law of the Ten Tables arraigned the guilty wife before the
domestic tribunal; she was condemned and executed by the relatives
themselves—Cognati necanto uti volent. Family tribunals continued to exist
during the whole period of the republic, and even later, concurrently with
the law Julia; but customs softened, and death was commuted to
banishment to two hundred miles from Rome at the least, with the
obligation of wearing the toga of the courtesan. The flagrante delicto
naturally authorised the husband to kill the wife on the spot;[711] as for the

lover, he could keep him, torture him, mutilate him, raffanise him (I dare
not give the sense of this picturesque word), and deliver him to the
ferocious lubricity of his slaves. Law and public opinion authorised the
husband to fleece the surprised lover, and thus torture could be made a
means of extorting money from him.
The Lex Julia, enacted either by Julius Cæsar or Augustus, attempted a
reform of morals. By the terms of this law, which was in force till the time
of Justinian, the husband could not kill his wife, taken in adultery, without
being punished as a murderer. Neither could he put the lover to death unless
he were a slave, a go-between (leno), a comedian, or a freed man of the
husband or of the family. But the husband could hold him prisoner twenty
hours in order to procure witnesses. The father had more extensive rights
than the husband; he was authorised, in case of flagrante delicto, to kill his
daughter and her lover, but he was to kill them both, and immediately.
However, to enable him to act thus as justiciary, he must have the potestas
still, and the crime must have been committed in his house, or in that of his
son-in-law. The Lex Julia punishes the adulterous man by the confiscation
of the half of his goods; it decrees the same punishment for the woman,
and, besides, forbids her to marry after the repudiation, which was
obligatory for the husband. The latter was obliged even to drive away his
wife at once for fear of being called a go-between. This same Lex Julia
made adultery a public crime which every citizen could bring before the
tribunals, and it punished with the sword the adulterous man.[712] By
degrees, and towards the Christian epoch, the legislation relative to adultery
was amended.
In his quality of philosopher the Emperor Antoninus was more clement
and just than his predecessors; by one law he interdicted the husband, who
might himself be presumably guilty of adultery, to kill or sue his wife
surprised in flagrante delicto. By degrees the customs became in time so
free and so tolerant that, Septimus Severus having enacted new laws against
adultery, the consul, Dion Cassius, found at Rome three thousand plaints on
the register for this cause.[713] Theodosius, says an ecclesiastical writer,
mitigated the penalties against adultery; he abolished an ancient Roman
custom, inspired by the idea of retaliation, according to which the guilty
woman, shut up in a little hut, was given to the passers-by, who even were
to be furnished with little bells to attract attention.[714] The same ignoble