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same law be applied to other relationships also, such those constituted by a common descent or a common name?

There is not only an inner circle within which no marriage is allowed, but also an outer circle outside of which marriage is either prohibited or at least disapproved of. Like the inner circle, the outer one varies greatly in extent. Probably every people considers it a disgrace, if not a crime, for its men, and even more so for its women, to marry within a race very race very different from its own, especially if it be an inferior race. The Romans were prohibited from marrying barbarians—the emperor Valentinian inflicted the penalty of death for such unions;2 and a modern European girl who married an Australian native would no doubt be regarded as an outcast by her own society. Among many peoples marriage very seldom or never takes place outside the limits of the tribe or community. In India there are several instances of this. The Tipperahs and Abors view with abhorrence the idea of their girls marrying out of their clan; and Colonel Dalton was gravely assured that, "when one of the daughters of Pádam so demeans herself, the sun and moon refuse to shine, and there is such a strife in the elements that all labour is necessarily suspended, till by sacrifice and oblation the stain is washed away. 4 In ancient Peru it was not lawful for the natives of one province or village to intermarry with those of another. Marriage with foreign women was unlawful at Sparta and Athens." At Rome

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any marriage of a citizen with a woman who was not herself a Roman citizen, or did not belong to a community possessing the privilege of connubium with Rome, was invalid, and no legitimate children could be born of such a union.'

1 Westermarck, op. cit. p. 363 sqq. 2 Rossbach, Römische Ehe, p. 465. 3 Lewin, Wild Races of SouthEastern India, p. 201.

Dalton, Ethnology of Bengal, p. 28. 5 Garcilasso de la Vega, First Part

of the Royal Commentaries of the Yncas, i. 308.

6 Müller, History of the Doric Race, ii. 302. Hearn, The Aryan Household, p. 156 sq.

7 Gaius, Institutiones, i. 56.

Prohibitions of intermarriage also very often relate to persons belonging to different classes or castes of the same community. To mention a few instances. The wild tribes of Brazil consider alliances between slaves and freemen highly disgraceful. In Tahiti, if a woman of condition chose an inferior person as her husband, the children he had by her were killed. In the Malay Archipelago marriages between persons of different rank are, as a rule, disapproved of, and in some places prohibited.* In India intermarriage between different castes, though formerly permissible, is now altogether prohibited. In Rome plebeians and patricians could not intermarry till the year 445 B.C., nor were marriages allowed between patricians and clients; and Cicero himself disapproved of intermarriages of ingenui and freedmen." Among the Teutonic peoples in ancient times any freeman who married a slave became a slave himself. As late as the thirteenth century a German woman who had intercourse. with a serf lost her liberty; and both in Germany and Scandinavia, when the nobility emerged as a distinct order from the class of freemen, marriages between persons of noble birth and persons who, although free, were not noble came to be considered misalliances. Even in modern Europe there survive traces of the former class endogamy. According to German Civil Law, the marriage of a man belonging to the high nobility with a woman of inferior birth is still regarded as a disparagium, and the woman is not entitled to the rank of her husband, nor is the full right of inheritance possessed by her or her children.10 Although in no way prevented by law, marriages out of

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6 Mommsen, History of Rome, i. 371. Rossbach, op. cit. pp. 249, 456 sq. 7 Winroth, Äktenskapshindren, p. 227. Ibid. p. 230 sq. Weinhold, Deutsche Frauen in dem Mittelalter, i. 349, 353 sq.

Weinhold, op. cit. i. 349 sq.

10 Behrend, in von Holtzendorff, Encyclopädie der Rechtswissenschaft, i. 478.

As Sir Henry

the class are generally avoided by custom. Maine observes, "the outer or endogamous limit, within which a man or woman must marry, has been mostly taken under the shelter of fashion or prejudice. It is but faintly traced in England, though not wholly obscured. It is (or perhaps was) rather more distinctly marked in the United States, through prejudices against the blending of white and coloured blood. But in Germany certain hereditary dignities are still forfeited by a marriage beyond the forbidden limits; and in France, in spite of all formal institutions, marriages between a person belonging to the noblesse and a person belonging to the bourgeoisie (distinguished roughly from one another by the particle ‘de' ) are wonderfully rare, though they are not unknown." 1

Religion, also, has formed a great bar to intermarriage. Among Muhammedans a marriage between a Christian man and a Muhammedan woman is not permitted under any circumstances, whereas it is held lawful for a Muhammedan to marry a Christian or a Jewish, but not a heathen, woman, if induced to do so by excessive love of her, or if he cannot obtain a wife of his own religion. The Jewish law does not recognise marriage with a person of another belief; and during the Middle Ages marriage between Jews and Christians was prohibited by the Christians also.* St. Paul indicates that a Christian was not allowed to marry a heathen. Tertullian calls such an alliance fornication; and in the fourth century the Council of Elvira forbade Christian parents to give their daughters in marriage to heathens. Even the adherents of different Christian confessions have been prohibited from intermarrying. In

1 Maine, Early Law and Custom, p. 224 sq.

2 Lane, Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians, i. 123. d'Escayrac de Lauture, Die afrikanische Wüste, p. 68.

Frankel, Grundlinien des mosaischtalmudischen Eherechts, p. xx. Ritter, Philo und die Halacha, p. 71.

+ Andree, Zur Volkskunde der Juden, p. 48. Neubauer, 'Notes on the

Race-Types of the Jews,' in Jour.
Anthr. Inst. xv. 19.

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I Corinthians, vii. 39.

6 Tertullian, Ad uxorem, ii. 3 (Migne, Patrologiæ cursus, i. 1292 sq.).

Concilium Eliberitanum, cap. 15 sq. (Labbe-Mansi, Sacrorum Concili orum collectio, ii. 8). See also Müller, Das sexuelle Leben der christlichen Kulturvölker, p. 54.

the Roman Catholic Church the prohibition of marriage with heathens and Jews was soon followed by the prohibition of "mixed marriages," and Protestants likewise forbade such unions.1 Mixed marriages are not now contrary to the civil law either among Roman Catholic or Protestant nations, but in countries belonging to the Orthodox Greek Church ecclesiastical restrictions have been adopted, and are still recognised, by the State.2

The endogamous rules are in the first place due to the proud antipathy people feel to races, nations, classes, or religions different from their own. He who breaks such a rule is regarded as an offender against the circle to which he belongs. He hurts its feelings, he disgraces it at the same time as he disgraces himself. Irregular connections outside the endogamous circle are often looked upon with less intolerance than marriage, which places the parties on a more equal footing. A traveller relates that at Djidda, where sexual morality is held in little respect, a Bedouin woman may yield herself for money to a Turk or European, but would think herself for ever dishonoured if she were joined to him in lawful wedlock. In Rome contubernium, but not marriage, could take place between freemen and slaves. And among ourselves public opinion regards it as a much more lenient offence if a royal person keeps a woman of inferior rank as his concubine than if he marries her.

Modern civilisation tends more or less to pull down the barriers which separate races, nations, the various classes of society, and the adherents of different religions. The endogamous rules have thus become less stringent and less restricted. Whilst civilisation has narrowed the inner limit within which a man or woman must not marry, it has widened the outer limit within which a man or woman may marry, and generally marries. The latter of these processes has been one of vast importance in man's history. Cf. d'Escayrac de Lauture, op. cit. P. 155.

1 Winroth, op. cit. p. 213 sqq. 2 Ibid. p. 220 sq.

3 de Gobineau, Moral and Intellectual Diversity of Races, p. 174, n. 1.

4 Westermarck, op. cit. p. 372.

Originating in race- or class-pride, or in religious intolerance, the endogamous rules have in their turn helped to keep up and to strengthen these feelings. Frequent intermarriages, on the other hand, must have the very opposite effect.

Like the rules referring to the choice of partners, so the modes of contracting marriage and the ideas as to what in this respect is right and proper have undergone successive changes. The practice of capturing wives prevails in certain parts of the world, and traces of it are met with in the marriage ceremonies of several peoples, indicating that it occurred more frequently in past ages. This practice, as it seems to me, has chiefly sprung from the aversion to close intermarriage, together with the difficulty a savage man may have in procuring a wife in a friendly manner, without giving compensation for the loss he inflicts on her family. We may imagine that it chiefly occurred at a stage of social growth where family ties had become stronger, and man lived in small groups of nearly related persons, but where the idea of barter had scarcely presented itself to his mind. Yet I do not think that capture was at any period the exclusive form of contracting marriage; its prevalence seems to have been much exaggerated by McLennan and his school. It is impossible to believe that there ever was a time when friendly negotiations between families who could intermarry were altogether unknown. The custom prevalent among many savage tribes of a husband taking up his abode in his wife's family seems to have arisen very early in man's history.

Among most uncivilised peoples now existing a man has, in some way or other, to give compensation for his bride." The simplest way of purchasing a wife is to give a kinswoman in exchange for her practice prevalent among

1 Westermarck, op. cit. ch. xvii.

2 Dr. Grosse (Die Formen der Familie, p. 105) goes so far as to believe that marriage by capture has never been a form of marriage recognised by custom or law, but only an occasional and

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punishable act of violence. But, as Dr. Havelock Ellis justly observes (Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Analysis of the Sexual Impulse,' p. 62, n. 2), this position is too extreme.

3 Westermarck, op. cit. p. 390 sqq.

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