each other as "spouse"; and "a Kubi thus meeting an Ipätha, though she were of another tribe, would treat her as his wife, and his right to do so would be recognised by her tribe." 1 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; 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." The same is granted by Mr. Howitt. 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. Moreover, as I have said, "if a Kubi and an Ipätha address each other as spouse, this does not imply that in former times every Kubi was married to every Ipatha 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." " This suggestion derives support from the following statement made by Dr. Codrington with reference to the Melanesians :-" Speak 1 Ridley, Kamilarói, p. 161 sq. (edit. 1866, p. 35 sqq.). Fison and Howitt, Kamilaroi and Kurnai, pp. 36, 51, 53. 2 Fison and Howitt, op. cit. p. 60. 3 Ibid. p. 159 sq. 4 Howitt, Australian Group Relations,' in Smithsonian Report, 1883, p. 817. 5 Westermarck, op. cit. ch. v. ... ing 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." I 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." 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. 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 1 Codrington, Melanesians, p. 22 sq. 2 Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes of Central Australia, p. 140. 3 Iidem, Native Tribes of Central Australia, p. 62 sq. 3 Iidem, Native Tribes, p. 110. 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. Similarly the Urabunna custom may very well have developed out of ordinary individual marriage,2 and the cause of it may perhaps be, as Mr. N. W. Thomas has suggested, the difficulties which an Australian native often experiences in getting a wife. 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 extramatrimonial 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; and that it is a survival of group marriage, in the strict sense of the term, is again only a conjecture. 5 I must admit, therefore, that the facts produced by Messrs. Spencer and Gillen, and the severe criticism which they have passed on my sceptical attitude towards Mr. Fison's group marriage theory have not been able to convince me that among the Australian aborigines individual marriage has evolved out of a previous system of marriage between groups of men and women. Nor has Mr. Howitt, 1 Westermarck, op. cit. pp. 443-448, 457, 458, 508. 2 Cf. Crawley, op. cit. p. 482; Lang, Social Origins, p. 105 sq. 3 Thomas, in a paper read before the Anthropological Institute in 1905. Cf. Idem, Kinship and Marriage in 4 See Westermarck, op. cit. p. 132 sq.; infra, p. 460. See, e.g., Spencer and Gillen, Northern Tribes, p. 137 sq. in his recent work on the Native Tribes of South-East Australia,' in my opinion, sufficiently proved that such an evolution has taken place. He blames certain "ethnologists of the study" for not being willing "to take the opinion of men who have first-hand knowledge of the natives"; but I think we do well in distinguishing between statements based on direct observation and the observer's interpretation of the stated facts. Even suppose, however, that group marriage really was once common in Australia, would that prove that it was once common among mankind at large? Mr. Howitt's supposition that the practice of group marriage " will be ultimately accepted as one of the primitive conditions of mankind " is no doubt shared by a host of anthropologists. The group marriage theory will probably for some time to come remain the residuary legatee of the old theory of promiscuity; the important works which have lately been published on the Australian aborigines have made people inclined to view the early history of mankind through Australian spectacles. But even the most ardent advocate of Australian group marriage should remember that the existence of kangurus in Australia does not prove that there were once kangurus in England. The time during which marriage lasts varies extremely in the human race.1 There are unions which, though legally recognised as marriages, do not endure long enough to deserve to be so called in the natural history sense of the term; there are others which are dissolved only by 1 Mr. Thomas has come to the same result in his book on Kinship and Marriage in Australia,' which appeared when the present chapter was already in type. A detailed examination of the facts which have been adduced as evidence of Australian group marriage (p. 127 sqq.) has led him to the conclusion (p. 147) that prevailing customs in Australia, far from proving the present or former existence of group marriage in that continent, do not even render it probable, and that on the terms of death. As has already been pointed out, it is probable. that among primitive men the union of the sexes lasted till after the birth of the offspring, and we have perhaps some reason to believe that the connection lasted for years. On the whole, progress in civilisation has tended to make marriage more durable. It is evident that at the early stage of development at which women first became valuable as labourers, a wife was united with her husband by a new bond more lasting than youth and beauty. The tie was strengthened by the bride-price and the marriage portion. And a higher development of the paternal feeling, better forethought for the children's welfare, in some instances greater consideration for women, and a more refined love passion. have gradually made it stronger, until it has become in many cases indissoluble. Yet we must not conclude that divorce will in the future be less frequent and more restricted by law than it is now in European countries. It should be remembered that the laws of divorce in Christian Europe owe their origin to an idealistic religious commandment which, interpreted in its literal sense, gave rise to legal prescriptions far from harmonising with the mental and social life of the mass of the people. The powerful authority of the Roman Church was necessary to enforce the dogma that marriage is indissoluble. The Reformation introduced somewhat greater liberty in this respect, and modern legislation has gone further in the same direction. In those Christian states of Europe where absolute divorce is permitted the grounds on which it may be sued for are nearly the same for the man and the woman, except in England, where the husband must be accused of one or other of several offences besides adultery. In Italy, Spain, and Portugal, a judicial separation may always be decreed on the ground of the adultery of the wife, but, on the ground of the adultery of the husband, only if it has been committed under certain aggravating circumstances. These laws imply that marriage is not yet a contract on the footing of perfect equality between the sexes; but there is 1 Glasson, Le mariage civil et le divorce, pp. 291, 298, 304. |