But first as regards the fact of the association of adult males on friendly terms within the group, which fact has seemed to us to constitute the whole problem of progress, it would on a hasty view appear as if it had been already found in the band of exiled sons which we have seen haunting the parent horde. Here we meet with that aggregation of individuals whose combination in peaceful union should apparently be the result of some law in regulation. This idea would even seem to gain support from the fact that all the members being brothers, and living most probably in a state of polyandry, we here appear to find fulfilled exactly those genetic conditions of primitive marriage imperative according to Mr. McLennan's theory of the origin of society. It will not, however, be difficult to prove that, at least at this stage in evolution, such a group would lack the most essential elements of stability. Their unity, in fact, as has been already pointed out, could only endure as long as the youthfulness of the members necessitated union for protection, and their immaturity prevented the full play of the sexual passion. The horde would inevitably dissolve under the influence of jealousy at the adult stage, especially if, as is probable, the number of their female captives had increased with the gain in years and power. The necessary Primal Law which alone could determine peace within a family circle by recognising a distinction between female and female (the indispensable antecedent to a definition of marital rights) could never have arisen in such a body. It follows that if such law was ever evoked, it must have been from within the only other assembly in existence, viz. that headed by the solitary polygamous patriarch, 'the Cyclopean family.'
We have said that this family would be composed of the male head and his wives, the latter consisting of captured females, and further, let us note, of his own adult female offspring, accompanied by a troop of infants of both sexes. The absence of male offspring beyond those of tender years would be another most notable phenomenon. These sons would, as we have seen, have been banished at puberty from the herd, in common with the habit of most animals.
Now we have surmised that at this stage our subject has been modified, both physically and mentally, to a certain extent in approach to the human type, and there is precisely one special modification which would have been of paramount importance in view of the problem of advance in progress. For if we may thus infer a certain increase in the longevity of the nascent race at even so early a stage in evolution, then that evidently entails a more prolonged infancy. It follows that, however precocious, the young males before exile must have passed at least nine to ten helpless years under their mother's care. But, again, the rise of superior intellectual faculties in general presupposes a decided increase in the powers of memory, and this agent, in connection with that of the longer companionship, would here set in movement, sooner or later, a psychological factor of strangely magnified force as compared with what it is in the mere brute—namely, human maternal love.
Separation, however caused, between this mother and her child would be far more severely felt than by any other animal. At the renewed banishment of each of her male progeny by the jealous patriarch, the mother's feelings and instinct would be increasingly lacerated and outraged. Her agonised efforts to retain at least her last and youngest would be even stronger than with her first-born. It is exceedingly important to observe that her chances of success in this case would be much greater. When this last and dearest son approached adolescence, it is not difficult to perceive that the patriarch must have reached an age when the fire of desire may have become somewhat dull; whilst, again, his harem, from the presence of numerous adult daughters, would be increased to an extent that might have overtaxed his once more active powers. Given some such rather exceptional situation, where a happy opportunity in superlative mother love wrestled with a for once satiated paternal appetite in desire, we may here discern a possible key of the sociological problem which occupies us, and which consisted in a conjunction within one group of two adult males.
We must conceive that, in the march of the centuries, on some fateful day, the bloody tragedy in the last act of the familiar drama was avoided, and the edict of exile or death left unpronounced. Pure maternal love triumphed over the demons of lust and jealousy. A mother succeeded in keeping by her side a male child, and thus, by a strange coincidence, that father and son, who, amongst all mammals, had been the most deadly of enemies, were now the first to join hands. So portentous an alliance might well bring the world to their feet. The family group would now present, for the first time, the till then unknown spectacle of the inclusion within a domestic circle, and amidst its component females, of an adolescent male youth. It must, however, be admitted that such an event, at such an epoch, demanded imperatively very exceptional qualities, both physiological and psychological, in the primitive agents. The new happy ending to that old-world drama which had run for so long through blood and tears, was an innovation requiring very unusually gifted actors. How many failures had doubtless taken place in its rehearsal during the centuries, with less able or happy interpreters! It is probable that, in the new experiment, success was rendered possible by the rise of new powers in nascent man. Some feeble germ of altruism may already have arisen to make its force felt as an important factor.
It is also certain that, with such prolonged infancy, there had been opportunity for the development of paternal philo-progenitiveness. It is evident that such long-continued presence of sons could but result in a certain mutual sympathy, however inevitable the eventual exile.
The love and care of a parent for his offspring is, after all, ethically speaking, the normal condition. Habitual desertion at too early an age would be fatal. Their dissociation, the abnormal and only one, took place under the influence of the strongest passion in nature, again largely exaggerated in primitive man. But in such an era purely physical characteristics would undoubtedly have also a vast influence in the development of the incident we have tried to depict. The fiercely solitary patriarch who first consented to the intrusive presence within his family circle of another adult male was, as I think we can prove, a being of abnormal physical power as compared with his fellows. For we have assumed satiety in desire to have been a powerful factor in the innovatory struggle we have witnessed. But such satiety implies extensive polygamy, and yet again a large harem composed exclusively of unwilling outside captives is incredible, escape for them in the primeval forest being too facile. Thus the harem would certainly be formed of the female offspring of the tyrant himself. These alone would need no watch or guard, for them the unknown outside world was hostile ground. But again very many adult daughters imply a father stricken in years. That one of such advanced age, in an epoch when force was all in all, could, defiant of rivals, still retain possession of his female kind, presupposes vast enduring physical power, or at least the protective tradition of past exceptional strength, still enduring in terror. If, again, at so early a date in the history of man we may be permitted to surmise any development of the faculty of psychogenesis, then we may again perceive how extreme physical qualities might have facilitated the solution of the problem of the admission of the intrusive male. For it is credible that long undisputed supremacy of power as the result of personal vigour might, in its incredulous contempt of a possible rivalry, show a tolerance of a situation utterly impossible to a weaker nature.
[1] See Westermarck, History of Human Marriage, ch. ii., 1891. The subject is obscure.