Now, we have already seen[44] that Mr M’Lennan alludes to the law of Deuteronomy, which imposed the obligation of the younger brother marrying the widow of the elder—and it will, moreover, be seen (Mr M’Lennan, p. 219) that this was also prescribed in the law of Menu.
Whatever may be the true solution of this coincidence the least likely account would seem to be that they had both, under different conditions (different at any rate from the point of divergence, be it exogamy or polyandry), advanced to it independently and by similar stages. Such fortuitous coincidences would imply not merely a succession of similar developments, but also a corresponding succession of accidental circumstances.
If, however, the custom of the younger brother marrying the widow of the elder was of primitive institution (compare Genesis xxxviii. and the Code of Menu), the corruption of this custom into polyandry, in circumstances which may at any time have disturbed the balance of the sexes in the overcrowded East, though it revolts will not absolutely astonish us; whereas the converse, i.e. restriction to successive appropriation contingent upon widowhood, from a state of virtual promiscuity, is so uphill a reform and so contrary to probability that it requires some internal evidence of the stages, and some warrant in modern observation to make it plausible. None are given. For the fact that we find both the “rude” and the “regulated” form existing side by side cuts both ways;[45] and the discovery of a form of capture—the Rakshasa, among the eight forms sanctioned by the code of Menu, enforces our argument—it would exactly correspond to the military exemption among the Jews (Mr M’Lennan, p. 82), supposing we were able to read Deuteronomy xx. 10–14 in the same sense as Mr M’Lennan. In that case, therefore, it would be a departure from or relaxation of a rule laid down—a view which is confirmed when we find that the authority quoted (Dr Muir, “Sanscrit Texts,” the Ramayana) tells that “Ravana, the most terrible of all the Rakshasas, is stigmatised as a destroyer of religious duties, and ravisher of the wives of others” (Prim. Mar. p. 309), which testifies to degeneracy at some period; whereas if Mr M’Lennan’s view is true, this hero must be relegated to a time when the conception of “religious duties,” and even of other men’s “wives” were unknown.
We have seen (supra, [46]), that when mankind had got, we know not how, into tribal exogamous groups, “kinship through females would have a tendency,” and a moment’s consideration will show an immediate tendency, “to render the exogamous groups heterogeneous, and thus to supersede the system of capturing wives.” We ask why did they capture wives? Mr M’Lennan implies that their ideas of incest forbade marriage within the tribe.[46] Apparently, then, the groups must have been exogamous[47] previously to the time when they had attained to the knowledge of “kinship through females,” else “kinship through females” would from the first have operated to produce a state of things which would have rendered exogamy unnecessary and inexplicable. The corollary is curious; they must, therefore, have had the idea of incest before they had the idea of kinship through females!
That some tribes should have arrived at some such state through a perverted traditional notion of incest, would, on the other hand, perfectly fit into the theory of degeneracy.
I had intended to have pursued this subject, but the chapter has already run to too great length. As allusion however, has been made to Sir John Lubbock, I append an extract (see [p. 47]) from which it will be seen that his view, although equally remote from historical truth, has a greater à priori probability. Indeed, if we could only consent to start on the assumption of “an initial state of hetairism,” nothing would be more complete than the following theory:—
“For reasons to be given shortly, I believe that communal marriage was gradually superseded by individual marriages founded on capture, and that this led firstly to exogamy, and then to female infanticide; thus reversing M’Lennan’s order of sequence. Endogamy and regulated polyandry, though frequent, I regard as exceptional, and as not entering into the normal progress of development. Like M’Lennan and Bachojen, I believe that our present social relations have arisen from an initial stage of hetairism or communal marriage. It is obvious, however, that even under communal marriage, a warrior who had captured a beautiful girl in some marauding expedition, would claim a peculiar right to her, and, when possible, would set custom at defiance. We have already seen that there are other cases of the existence of marriage, under two forms, side by side in one country, and that there is, therefore, no real difficulty in assuming the co-existence of communal and individual marriage. It is true that, under a communal marriage system, no man could appropriate a girl entirely to himself, without infringing the rights of the whole tribe.... A war-captive, however, was in a peculiar position, the tribe had no right to her; her capturer might have killed her if he chose; ... he did as he liked, the tribe was no sufferer.”—Sir J. Lubbock’s “Origin of Civilisation,” pp. 70, 71.
I will only ask one question. At what period does Sir J. Lubbock suppose the custom of inheritance through females arose? This as nearly approaches a universal fact as any which Sir J. Lubbock adduces (vide p. 105, et seq.); and, on the point of its having been a prevalent custom, I can have no difficulty. Whenever through degeneracy man arrived at the state of promiscuity or communal marriages, such inheritance as there might be, in such a community, would only be claimed through females, as the paternity would always be uncertain (vide infra, [p. 129]). If, however, mankind commenced with communal marriages, inheritance and relationship through females would also have been from the commencement.
Let us now turn to Sir J. Lubbock’s theory, as expressed in the extract above, in which he shows us how marriage by capture would quite naturally have arisen out of the state of communal marriage. But if natural, it would have been natural from the commencement, quid vetat? There must then have been a system also in operation from the commencement, the inevitable tendency of which, by making paternity distinct and recognisable, would have been to substitute inheritance through males; and this system, by introducing a more robust posterity, would rapidly have gained upon the other system. Male inheritance, it would then appear, commenced and established itself at the outset, and to the displacement of inheritance through females. How, then, do we find traces of the latter custom so prevalent? From this point of view the more instances Sir J. Lubbock accumulates, the more he will excite our incredulity and surprise.
This theory again, equally with Mr M’Lennan’s, supposes mankind originally in a state of hetairism, in which case it is futile to talk of tribes and of marriage out of the tribe; for how did they emerge into this tribal separation out of the state of promiscuity? The difficulty gets more complicated since, ex hypothesi, after emerging from, they still remain within the tribal limits, in the state of hetairism. These preliminaries must be settled before the argument can be carried further.