The origin and development of the moral ideas

Nevertheless, however desirable polygyny may be from the man’s point of view, it is altogether prohibited among many peoples, and in countries where it is an established institution it is practised—as a rule to which there are few exceptions—only by a comparatively small class.115 The proportion between the sexes partly accounts for this, but there are other causes of no less importance.116 Where the amount of female labour is limited and no accumulated property exists, it may be very difficult for a man to keep a plurality of wives. Again, where female labour is of considerable value, the necessity of paying the purchase-sum for a wife is a hindrance to polygyny which can be overcome only by the wealthier men. There are, moreover, certain factors of a psychical character which are unfavourable to polygyny. When love depends on external attractions only, it is necessarily fickle; but when it implies sympathy arising from mental qualities, there is a tie between husband and wife which lasts long after youth and beauty are gone. As another obstacle to polygyny we have to note the true monogamous sentiment, the absorbing passion for one, which is not unknown even among savage races. Polygyny is finally checked by the respect in which women are held by men. Jealousy is not exclusively a masculine passion, and it is the ambition of every wife to be the mistress of her husband’s house.

Hence where women have succeeded in obtaining some power over their husbands, or where the altruistic feelings of men have become refined enough to lead them to respect the feelings of those weaker than themselves, monogamy is frequently the result.

It is certain that polygyny has been less prevalent at the lowest stages of civilisation—where wars do not seriously disturb the proportion of the sexes, where life is chiefly supported by hunting and female labour is consequently of slight value, and where there is no accumulation of wealth and no distinction of class—than it is at somewhat higher stages.117 The more advanced savages and barbarians seem to indulge in this practice to a greater extent than the lower ones, many, or most, of whom are either little addicted to polygyny or strictly monogamous. Various forest tribes in Brazil are monogamous,118 and so are several of the Californian tribes—“a humble and a lowly race, … one of the lowest on earth.”119 Thus the Karok do not allow bigamy even to a chief; and though a man may own as many women for slaves as he can purchase, he brings obloquy on himself if he cohabits with more than one.120 Among the Veddahs121 and Andaman Islanders122 monogamy is as rigidly insisted upon as any where in Europe.

The natives of Kar Nicobar “have but one wife, and look upon unchastity as a very deadly sin.”123 Among the Koch and Old Kukis polygyny and concubinage are forbidden;124 whilst among some other aboriginal tribes in India a man, though not expressly forbidden to have many wives, is blamed if he has more than one.125 Among the Karens of Burma126 and certain tribes of Indo-China, the Malay Peninsula, and the Indian Archipelago, polygyny is said either to be prohibited or unknown.127 The Hill Dyaks marry but one wife, and a chief who once broke through this custom lost all his influence.128 In Australia there are said to be some truly monogamous tribes;129 in the Birria tribe, for instance, “the possession of more than one wife is absolutely forbidden, or was so before the coming of the whites.”130 Monogamy is all the more likely to have been the general rule among our earliest human ancestors as it seems to be so among the man-like apes. Darwin certainly mentions the gorilla as a polygamist;131 but the majority of statements we have regarding this animal are to the opposite effect. Relying on the most trustworthy authorities, Professor Hartmann says, “The gorilla lives in a society consisting of male and female and their young of varying ages.”132

Whilst civilisation is thus up to a certain point favourable to polygyny, it leads in its higher forms to monogamy. Owing to the decrease of wars, the death-rate of the men becomes less, and the considerable disproportion between the sexes which among many warlike peoples makes polygyny almost a law of nature no longer exists among the most advanced nations. No superstitious belief keeps the civilised man apart from his wife during her pregnancy and while she suckles her child; and the suckling time has become much shorter since the introduction of domesticated animals and the use of milk. To a cultivated mind youth and beauty are by no means the only attractions of a woman; and civilisation has made female beauty more durable. The desire for offspring becomes less intense. A large family, instead of being a help in the struggle for existence, is often considered an insufferable burden. A man’s kinsfolk are no longer his only friends, and his wealth and power do not depend upon the number of his wives and children. A wife ceases to be a mere labourer, and manual labour is to a large extent replaced by the work of domesticated animals and the use of implements and machines. Moreover, the sentiment of love becomes more refined, the passion for one more absorbing. The feelings of the weaker sex are frequently held in higher regard. And the better education bestowed on women enables them to live comfortably without the support of a husband.

As for the moral valuation of the various forms of marriage, it should be noticed that even among polygynous and polyandrous peoples monogamy is permitted by custom or law, although in some instances it is associated with poverty and considered mean, whereas polygyny, as associated with greatness, is thought praiseworthy.133 Again, the notion that monogamy is the only proper form of marriage, and that any other form is immoral, is due either to the mere force of habit; or, possibly, to the notion that it is wrong of some men to appropriate a plurality of wives when others in consequence can get none; or to the feeling that polygyny is an offence against the female sex; or to the condemnation of lust. As regards the obligatory monogamy of Christian nations, we have to remember that monogamy was the only recognised form of marriage in the societies on which Christianity was first engrafted, and that it was the only form that could be tolerated by a religion which regarded every gratification of the sexual impulse with suspicion and incontinence as the gravest sin. In its early days the Church showed little respect for women but its horror of sensuality was immense.

A few words still remain to be said of a form of marriage which has of late been the subject of much discussion in connection with Australian ethnology. Many years ago attention was drawn to the fact that the Kamilaroi tribes in South Australia are divided into four classes, in which brothers and sisters are respectively Ipai and Ipātha, Kŭbi and Kubĭtha, Mŭri and Mātha, Kumbu and Būtha; and that the members of one class are forbidden to marry among themselves, but bound to marry into a certain other class. Thus Ipai may only marry Kubĭtha; Kŭbi, Ipātha; Kumbu, Mātha; and Mŭri, Būtha. In a certain sense, we were told, every Ipai is regarded as married, not by any individual contract, but by organic law, to every Kubĭtha; every Kŭbi to every Ipātha, and so forth. If, for instance, a Kŭbi meet a stranger Ipātha, they address each other as “spouse”; and “a Kŭbi thus meeting an Ipātha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognised by her tribe.”134 The institution according to which the men of one division have as wives the women of another division, the Rev. L. Fison called “group marriage.” He contends that among the natives of South Australia it has given way in later times, in some measure, to individual marriage. But theoretically, he says, marriage is still communal: “it is based upon the marriage of all the males in one division of a tribe to all the females of the same generation in another division.” The chief argument advanced by Mr.

Fison in support of his theory is grounded on the terms of relationship in use in the tribes. These terms belong to the “classificatory system” of Mr. Morgan;135 but he admits that he is not aware of any tribe in which the actual practice is to its full extent what the terms of relationship imply. “Present usage,” he says, “is everywhere in advance of the system so implied, and the terms are survivals of an ancient right, not precise indications of custom as it is.”136 The same is granted by Mr. Howitt.137 Yet I have pointed out, in my criticism of the classificatory system, to what absurd results we must be led if, guided by such terms, we begin to speculate upon early marriage.138 Moreover, as I have said, “if a Kŭbi and an Ipātha address each other as spouse, this does not imply that in former times every Kŭbi was married to every Ipātha indiscriminately. On the contrary, the application of such a familiar term might be explained from the fact that the women who may be a man’s wives, and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him.”139 This suggestion derives support from the following statement made by Dr. Codrington with reference to the Melanesians:—“Speaking generally, it may be said that to a Melanesian man all women, of his own generation at least, are either sisters or wives, to the Melanesian woman all men are either brothers or husbands….

It must not be understood that a Melanesian regards all women who are not of his own division as, in fact, his wives, or conceives himself to have rights which he may exercise in regard to those women of them who are unmarried; but the women who may be his wives by marriage and those who cannot possibly be so, stand in a widely different relation to him.”140

More recently Messrs. Spencer and Gillen have shown that a marriage system essentially similar to that of the South Australian natives prevails in Central Australia; and they, also, regard it as a later modification of genuine group marriage. Nowadays, they say, the system of individual wives prevails—“modified, however, by the practice of customs according to which, at certain times, much wider marital relations are allowed.” But to this rule there is one exception:—“In the Urabunna tribe group marriage actually exists at the present day, a group of men of a certain designation having, not merely nominally but in actual reality, and under normal conditions, marital relations with a group of women of another special designation”; here “individual marriage does not exist either in name or in practice.”141 But, after all, it appears that even among the Urabunna every woman is the special Nupa of one man, and that certain other men, her Piraungaru only have a secondary right to her. Thus, if the Nupa man (the real, or at all events the chief, husband) be present, the Piraungaru (accessory husbands) are allowed to have intercourse with her only in case the Nupa man consents.142 Is this modification of the Urabunna group marriage a later development from a previous system according to which all the men of a certain group had an equal right to all the women of another group? Here we are on dangerous ground; nothing is more difficult than to decide whether certain customs are survivals or not.

We find modifications resembling those connected with the group marriage of the Urabunna both in polyandry and in polygyny; the first husband in a polyandrous family is usually the chief husband, and the first wife in a polygynous family is very frequently the chief wife. We must certainly not conclude that these restrictions have been preceded by an earlier custom which gave equal rights to all the husbands or all the wives; on the contrary, it is more likely that the higher position granted to the first husband or to the first wife is due to the fact that monogamy was the usual form of marriage.143 Similarly the Urabunna custom may very well have developed out of ordinary individual marriage,144 and the cause of it may perhaps be, as Mr. N. W. Thomas has suggested,145 the difficulties which an Australian native often experiences in getting a wife.146 As for other facts which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group marriage in the past, such as the jus primæ noctis, &c., I only desire to emphasise the circumstance that extra-matrimonial intercourse is practised by the Australian natives in a variety of cases the real meaning of which seems obscure. In some instances at least, a magic significance appears to be attributed to it;147 and that it is a survival of group marriage, in the strict sense of the term, is again only a conjecture.