The origin and development of the moral ideas

It has been suggested that the transition from marriage by capture to marriage by purchase was brought about in the following way: abduction, in spite of parents, was the primary form; then there came the offering of compensation to escape vengeance; and this grew eventually into the making of presents or paying a sum beforehand.84 The price was a compensation for the loss sustained in the giving up of the girl and a remuneration for the expenses incurred in her maintenance till the time of her marriage. The girl was regarded more or less in the light of property, to take her away from her owner without his consent was theft. To claim a compensation for her was his right, or even his duty. The Indians in Columbia consider it in the highest degree disgraceful to the girl’s family if she is given away without a price;85 and in certain tribes of California “the children of a woman for whom no money was paid are accounted no better than bastards, and the whole family are condemned.”86

With progressing civilisation, however, the practice of purchasing wives has been gradually abandoned, and come to be looked upon as infamous. The wealthier classes took the first step, and poorer and ruder persons subsequently followed their examples. Thus in India, in ancient times, the Âsura form, or marriage by purchase, was lawful for all the four castes. Afterwards it fell into disrepute, and was prohibited among the Brâhmanas and Kshatriyas, whereas it was still approved of in the case of a Vaisya and a Sûdra. But in the ‘Laws of Manu’ it is forbidden altogether.87 It is said there, “No father who knows the law must take even the smallest gratuity for his daughter; for a man who, through avarice, takes a gratuity, is a seller of his offspring.”88 The Greeks of the historical age had ceased to buy their wives. In Rome confarreatio, which suggested no idea of purchase, was in the very earliest known time the form of marriage in force among the patricians; and among clients and plebeians, also, the purchase of wives came to an end in remote antiquity, surviving as a mere symbol in their coëmptio.89 Among the Germans marriage by purchase was abolished only after their conversion to Christianity.90 In the Talmudic law the purchase of wives appears as merely symbolical, the bride-price being fixed at a nominal amount.91 In China, although marriage presents correspond exactly to purchase-money in a contract of sale, the people will not hear of their being called a “price”;92 which shows that here, too, some feeling of shame is attached to the idea of selling a daughter.

We may discern two different ways in which this gradual disappearance of marriage by purchase has taken place. On the one hand, the purchase became a symbol, appearing as a sham sale in the marriage ceremonies or as an exchange of presents; on the other hand, the purchase sum was transformed into the morning gift and the dotal portion, a part—afterwards the whole—being given to the bride either directly by the bridegroom or by her father. These transformations of marriage by purchase have taken place not only in the history of the civilised nations, but among several peoples who are still in a savage or semi-civilised state; and of a few of them it is expressly stated that they consider marriage by purchase a disgraceful practice.93

From marriage by purchase we have thus come to the practice of dower, which is apparently the very reverse of it. But whilst the marriage portion partly derives its origin from the purchase of wives, it does not do so in every case. It serves different ends, often indissolubly mixed up together. It may have the meaning of a return gift. It may imply that the wife as well as the husband is expected to contribute to the expenses of the joint household. It is also very often intended to be a settlement for the wife in case the marriage be dissolved through the husband’s death or otherwise.94 In the social history of the civilised races the marriage portion has played so prominent a part, that, as we have spoken of a stage of marriage by purchase, we may speak of another and later stage where fathers are bound by custom or law to portion their daughters. The Jews95 and Muhammedans96 consider it a religious duty for a man to give a dower to his daughter.

In Greece the dowry came to be thought almost necessary to make the distinction between a wife and a concubine.97 Isaeus says that no decent man would give his legitimate daughter less than a tenth of his property;98 indeed, so great were the dowers given that in the time of Aristotle nearly two fifths of the whole territory of Sparta were supposed to belong to women.99 In Rome, even more than in Greece, the marriage portion became a mark of distinction for a legitimate wife;100 and though later on Justinian in several of his constitutions declares that dos is obligatory for persons of high rank only,101 the old custom did not fall into desuetude.102 The Prussian ‘Landrecht’ still prescribes that the father, or eventually the mother, shall arrange about the wedding and fit up the house of the newly-married couple.103 According to the ‘Code Napoléon,’ on the other hand, parents are not bound to give a dower to their daughters,104 and the same principle is generally adopted by modern legislation. It is true that especially in the so-called Latin countries there is still a strong tendency to dotation,105 but another feeling, in some measure opposed to it, is gaining ground everywhere. In a society where monogamy is prescribed by law, where the adult women outnumber the adult men, where many men never marry, and where married women too often lead an indolent life—in such a society the marriage portion in many cases becomes a purchase-sum by means of which a father buys a husband for his daughter, as formerly a man bought a wife from her father. But, as Mr.

Sutherland observes, “that pecuniary interests, either on one side or on the other, should conspicuously enter into the motives which lead to marriage, becomes repulsive to the increasing delicacy of feeling; and so we find that in cultured communities the dowry dies out, just as the purchase-money declined in the civilised stages.”106

Whilst most of the lower animal species are by instinct either monogamous or polygynous, with man every possible form of marriage occurs. There are marriages of one man with one woman (monogamy), of one man with many women (polygyny), of many men with one woman (polyandry), and, in a few exceptional cases, of many men with many women.107

Among the causes by which the forms of marriage are influenced the numerical proportion between the sexes plays an important part. Polyandry seems to be due chiefly to a surplus of men, though it prevails only where the circumstances are otherwise in favour of it.108 It presupposes an abnormally feeble disposition to jealousy, and has probably at all times been exceptional in the human race. There is no solid evidence for the theory set forth by McLennan that it was the rule in early times.109 On the contrary, this form of marriage seems to require a certain degree of civilisation; we have no trustworthy account of its occurrence among the lowest savages. In polyandrous families the husbands are most frequently brothers, and the eldest brother, at least in many cases, has the superiority. It seems a fair conclusion that in such instances polyandry was originally an expression of fraternal benevolence on the part of the eldest brother, or of urgent demands on the part of the younger ones, who otherwise, on account of the scarcity of women, would have to live unmarried. If additional wives were afterwards acquired, they would naturally be considered the common property of all the brothers; and in this way the group marriage of the Toda type seems to have evolved.110 Polygyny, also, is to some extent dependent upon the proportion between the sexes.

It has been observed in India that polyandry occurs in those parts of the country where the males outnumber the females, polygyny in those where the reverse is the case.111 Indeed, in countries unaffected by European civilisation polygyny is likely to prevail wherever there is a majority of women. But the proportion between the sexes is only one cause out of many to which polygyny is due.

There are several reasons why a man may desire to possess more than one wife.112 Monogamy requires from him periodical continence, not only for a certain time every month, but among many peoples during the pregnancy of his wife, and as long as she suckles her child. One of the chief causes of polygyny is the attraction which female youth and beauty exercise upon a man; and at the lower stages of civilisation women generally become old much sooner than in more advanced communities. The liking of men for variety is also a potent factor; the Negroes of Angola asserted that they “were not able to eat always of the same dish.”113 We must further take into account men’s desire for offspring, wealth, and authority. The barrenness of a wife is a very common reason for the choice of a new partner; the polygyny of the ancient Hindus seems to have been due chiefly to the fact that men dreaded the idea of dying childless, and even now in the East the desire for offspring is one of the principal causes of polygyny.114 The more wives, the more children; and the more children, the greater power. In early civilisation a man’s relations and connections are often his only friends; and where slavery does not prevail, next to a man’s wives the real servant, the only to be counted upon, is the child. Moreover, a man’s fortune is increased by a multitude of wives not only through their children, but through their work.