Social Origins and Primal Law

by Andrew Lang; J. J. Atkinson

This second view of Mr. Darwin's is much like the theory of Mr. Atkinson, and is very unlike Mr. Morgan's theory of a human horde, living in communal marriage, or group marriage. Mr. Darwin's idea, moreover, the primitive groups being small, does not encounter the economic difficulties raised by the hypothesis of the 'undivided commune.' The strongest male practically enforced exogamy, as far as he was able, and maybe conceived to have entertained no scruples as to connection with his daughters. Mr. Darwin admitted that 'the indirect evidence' for communal marriage, and fraternal incest, was 'extremely strong,' but then 'it rests chiefly on the terms of relationship which are employed between members of the same tribe, implying a connection with the tribe alone, and not with either parent.' If, however, we have successfully explained these terms of relationship as not usually meaning degrees of consanguinity, but of customary legal status, under the prevalent customary law, the evidence which these terms yield for promiscuity, or group marriage, is extremely weak, or is nil, above all if our theory of how the legal status arose is accepted. And, if it is not accepted, back we come to primeval 'reformatory movements.'

In Lifu, the word for 'sister' means 'not to be touched,' land this is a mere expression of customary law. A man 'must not touch' any one of the women of his generation whom the totem tabu and the rule of the exogamous 'phratry' (in origin, we suggest, totemic) forbid him to touch. All such women, in a particular grade, are his sisters. Many women, besides his actual sisters, stand to him in the degree thus prohibited. All bear the same name of status as a man's actual sisters bear, but the name does not mean 'sisters' at all, in our sense of that word: namely, daughters of the man's real father and mother. It means tabued women of a generation. If the 'classificatory' terms which include our 'fathers,' 'sisters,' 'wives,' and the rest meant what our 'fathers,' 'sisters,' 'wives,' and so on mean, then the evidence from the terms, for communal or group marriage, would really be 'extremely strong.' But, as Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, 'unless all ideas of terms of relationship as counted among ourselves be abandoned, it is useless to try and (sic) understand the native terms.'[24] Yet the whole force of the argument for communal marriage derived from savage terms of relationship rests precisely on our not 'abandoning' (as we are warned to abandon) 'all ideas of terms of relationship as counted among ourselves.'

The friends of group and communal marriage, it seems to me, keep forgetting that our ideas of sister, brother, father, mother, and so on, have nothing to do (as they tell us at certain points of their argument) with the native terms which include, indeed, but do not denote these relationships, as understood by us. An Urabunna calls a crowd of men of his father's status by the same term as he calls his father. This need not point to an age when, by reason of promiscuity, no man knew his father. Were this so, a man of the generation prior to his father might be the actual parent of the speaker, and all men under eighty ought to be called 'father' by him—which they are not. The facts may merely mean that the Urabunna styles his father by the name denoting a status which his father shares with many other men; a status in seniority, 'phratry,' and totem. We really cannot first argue that our ideas have no relation to the terms employed by savages, and then, when we want to prove a past of communal marriage, turn round and reason as if our terms and the savage terms were practically identical. We cannot say 'our word "son" must not be thought of when we try to understand the native term of relationship which includes sons in our sense,' and next aver that 'sons in our sense, are regarded as real sons of the group, not of the individual—because of a past stage of promiscuity making paternity indiscoverable.'

As Messrs. Spencer and Gillen say, we must 'lay aside all preconceived ideas of relationship,' when we study the Urabunna or other classificatory terms of relationships.[25] Let us do so, and the evidence borne by these terms to a past of communal marriage vanishes at once. That the terms often denote status in customary law is demonstrated. 'There are certain customs which are enforced by long usage and according to which men and women of particular degrees of relationship may alone have marital relations, or may not speak to one another, or according to which one individual has to do certain things for another, such as providing the latter with food, or with hair, as the case may be, and any breach of these customs is severely punished. The elder men of each group very carefully keep alive these customs, many of which are of considerable value to themselves....'[26]

Thus, you have speared a fish, or an opossum, but if you meet any man of your father-in-law's set, you must drop your spoil and make off. Consequently, I venture to take it, the terms of relationship in no way answer to our ideas of kin, but merely denote legal status.

HOW THE TERMS OF RELATIONSHIP ORIGINALLY AROSE

We cannot, as a rule, recover (or Australian students have not recovered) the original sense and etymology of terms like Biaka, Nia, Nupa, and so forth. We are thus left to choose between two competing theories of their nature and diffusion. If we advocate the hypothesis of consanguine marriage and group marriage, we must suppose that the members of the 'undivided commune' of the theory, had once names absolutely identical in sense with our 'father,' 'mother,' 'sister,' 'brother,' 'son,' 'daughter,' and so forth. But the speakers, in each case, were obliged to apply these words with the utmost laxity, because who knew who A's father might be, and whether C's sister were really his sister or not, while every girl was the wife of every male of her generation, not barred by other laws, and so on? The promiscuity of living, then, made this lax use of words for relationships inevitable.

This is the usual hypothesis, and the sweeping scope of savage words for human relationships is accepted as proof that consanguine and group marriage once existed and left their marks in language. On the other hand, if communal marriage prevailed, the people who lived in that condition could not possibly have had ideas equivalent to our father, son, daughter, brother, wife, and so on. Our ideas of these relationships could not enter the human mind, at the hypothetical stage of culture when nobody knew 'who is who' and the hypothesis is wrecked on that fact.

Therefore either the names now used under the 'class system' are of unknown original sense; or, human marriage was, from the first, so far, 'individual' that our ideas of father, mother, brother, sister, son, daughter, could arise and could find expression in terms that still survive, say, among the Urabunna or other Australians. But while tribal customary laws as to classes, totems, generations, marriage rules, and many other social duties were being evolved; some of the ancient names for father, son, brother, sister, were perhaps taken up and applied to each of the large sets of persons whose customary legal status was now (as groups coalesced into large tribes) on the level of actual fathers, sons, brothers, sisters, and the rest. Obviously, in a primitive group of a male senior, his female mates and children, there could not exist (other groups being, on my theory, strange or hostile) large sets of persons occupying a common legal status, as in modern tribes. The existence of such sets of persons is the result of the later and tribal society, of society in which many groups are reconciled and united in a local tribe. Only in such a tribe, which cannot be primitive, is the classificatory system of naming sets of people necessary. It is only in tribal law that the grades of customary status answering to all the many terms can exist, and tribes with their laws cannot be primitive. Most names for the various grades, therefore, are later than Mr. Darwin's hypothetical stage of small and perhaps hostile groups; they were, in a few cases, perhaps originally names for such relationships as our own father, mother, son, brother, &c., but in the evolution of tribal customary law, such names have been extended out of their family, or fire-circle, into their tribal significance, out of recognised kinship, or close contiguity, into terms including all who have the same status, rights, and duties.