The problem of the social forms of family life still presents some obscurities. What appears to be most urgently needed is a careful investigation of facts in all the different ethnographical areas. I propose in this study to undertake this task for Australia. I shall avoid making any hypothetical assumptions, or discussing general problems which refer to the origin or evolution of the family. I wish only to describe in correct terms and as thoroughly as possible all that refers to actual family life in Australia. In other words I intend to give in outline the social morphology of the Australian family.
It may be well to show briefly the necessity for this task, which to some may appear superfluous, and to indicate the lines on which it will be attempted. In the first place there are some contradictions with regard to the problem of relationship or kinship in Australia, which can be reduced to the question: Is kinship in Australia exclusively individual; or is it exclusively group kinship (or tribal kinship, as it often is called); and, further, do these two forms exclude each other or do they perhaps exist side by side? When Howitt says: "The social unit is not the individual, but the group; the former merely takes the relationships of his group, which are of group to group,"[1] this obviously means that there is no individual relationship, consequently no individual family in Australia. It is important to note that the passage just quoted is placed in the chapter on Relationship in Howitt's chief work on Australia, and that consequently it refers to all the tribes described by the author, i. e. to the majority of the known Australian tribes. The same opinion that there is only group relationship and no individual family is supported by another passage, no less important and general, for it is placed at the conclusion of Howitt's article on the organization of the Australian tribes in general: "It has been shown that the fundamental idea in the conception of an Australian community is its division into two groups. The relationships which obtain between the members of them are also those of group to group."[2] And again: "The unit of aboriginal society is, therefore, not the individual, but the group. It is the group which marries the group and which begets the group."[3] There are also a few passages in Spencer and Gillen which deny the existence of the individual family, at least in some tribes.[4]
Thus the impression drawn from the passages just quoted[5] is that there is no individual relationship and, what follows as an immediate consequence, no individual marriage, nor individual family in Australia. Such a conclusion would be absolutely false. For the same author (Howitt) writes: "Individual marriage in Australian tribes has been evident to everyone."[6] Curr speaks in still more positive terms: "No relationship but that of blood is known amongst Australians."[7] The social relations which exist amongst the Australian aborigines are of five sorts; first, those of family; second, those of the tribe; third, those between associated tribes; fourth, those of neighbours who belong to different associations; fifth, all other persons.[8] We see that in Curr's statements there is again no room for any kind of group relationship. Obviously Curr's information contradicts in plain terms the foregoing set of statements, and such a contradiction among our best informants is truly puzzling. There seems to be some misunderstanding in the present problem.
This is not only my own opinion. Mr. A. Lang discusses the same question and finds it necessary to prove in a short article that individual relationship exists in Australia. He says: "It is certain that 'blood' or 'own' relations are perfectly recognized. Messrs. Spencer and Gillen inadvertently deny this, saying: 'The savage Australian, it may be said with truth, has no idea of relationships as we understand them.'" This example is not the only one, as has been shown above, and indeed their number could be easily multiplied. Mr. Lang proves by several instances that this opinion of Spencer and Gillen is erroneous, and concludes: "The savage Australian does discriminate between his actual and his tribal relations. It was necessary to make this fact clear and certain, as it has been denied."[9] The same contradiction has also been pointed out by Dr. Westermarck: "As to the South Australians, Mr. Fison's statements have caused not a little confusion. On his authority several writers assert that among the Australian savages groups of males are actually found united to groups of females."[10] And in a footnote Dr. Westermarck quotes Lubbock, Morgan, Kohler, Kovalevsky. With such views Dr. Westermarck contrasts Curr's[11] opinion that strict monogamy obtains, and that of the Rev. J. Mathew,[12] "who fails to see that group marriage 'has been proven to exist in the past and certainly does not occur in Australia now.'"
Again E. Grosse in his well-known book, speaking of Howitt's work on the Kurnai says that this author "... hat sich so gründlich in seine Hypothese einer Gruppenehe ... der prähistorischen Australier vertieft, dass er darüber ganz vergisst, seine Leser darauf aufmerksam zu machen, dass die historischen Australier in Einzelnehe leben."[13] This is quite true, especially the remark that one of the chief sources of error in sociology is speculating on the origins and prehistory of an institution before this institution is thoroughly known in the present state.
And it seems as if in the present case a good many of the difficulties may be solved by understanding some of the statements made as referring to hypothetical earlier stages. As a matter of fact the passage quoted above, where the existence of group relationship is affirmed, is continued thus: "The idea of the relation of individual to individual, and of individual parentage, without reference to the group, is of later origin, and is the result of a number of social forces acting in the same general direction and producing change."[14] It is evident therefore that group relationship is supposed by Howitt to be the former state, and individual relationship a kind of innovation. But there is such a lack of clearness, such a confusion of the past and present tenses, that we are here again at a loss. Take for example the following passage: "The latest advance which has been made in the subject of Australian marriage was the conception of marriage in the group, and of group to group, and of the filial relation of one group to another."[15] This last phrase should be, in all probability, understood in the past tense, as referring to prehistoric times. But the author gives absolutely no hint whether this be so or otherwise. And when he on the next page refers to Mr. Curr's assertion, that there is actually no group relationship in Australia, and criticizes this assertion, a suspicion is aroused that this view of the existence of marital and filial groups is meant to express the actual status. This is enough to show how vague and puzzling the question of the individual family and individual relationship still is.
It is unnecessary to insist on the bewilderment, but the polemical mood in which our informants always approached the problem of relationship and family has had its unfortunate consequences. In the first place it is easy to see that these two groups of facts—individual relationship and group relationship—are treated by the writers as if they excluded each other, or at least as if one of them were gradually encroaching upon the other. Whereas it is quite possible that both individual and group relationship might exist side by side, originating from different sources, and expressing two different sets of social relationships. In the second place, the polemical attitude of our best informants (Howitt, and Spencer and Gillen) against individual relationship resulted in their giving very meagre information about the individual family. As a matter of fact, in all theoretical passages of works devoted to the social organization of the Australian tribes, the individual family is passed over in absolute silence.[16] As this unit obviously plays a foremost part in the social life of Australian tribes, I submit it is quite justifiable that in these pages some information about this unit should be gathered and its importance brought out. Special attention has been devoted to the facts of actual family life.
To sum up, it may be said that the defects in our information as to the individual family, and the contradiction and confusion surrounding it, do of themselves justify an examination of this institution. These contradictions are due probably not to any intrinsic reasons, but to certain theoretical postulates and axioms adopted by some of our informants. And as the exact description of actual facts seems to suffer therefrom, a revision of the theoretical side of the problem, as well as a collection of evidence from a somewhat extensive number of sources appears advisable.
But over and above clearing up some contradictions, solving some difficulties, and filling up a gap in the information concerning Australian kinship organization, there is a much deeper justification for a detailed collection and classification of facts referring to the individual family in Australia. I mean, it is only such a proceeding that can give us a scientific, correct and useful definition of the Australian individual family (or any other social unit in general). A priori only a vague meaning can be attached to the term "individual family," when it refers to a society different from ours. For the essential features of the individual family, as of all other social institutions, depend upon the general structure of a given society and upon the conditions of life therein. A careful and detailed analysis of the family life and of the different aspects of the family unit in connection with other social phenomena is therefore necessary. Such an analysis enables us to describe the said unit in a complete and exact way.
It is Dr. Rivers to whom we are indebted for emphasizing the methodological standpoint in this connection. In his article[17] he points out that we cannot a priori assert the existence of even such an apparently unquestionable fact as individual motherhood in every human society whether actual or hypothetical. To affirm that in a given society motherhood is individual and not communal (group motherhood), a strict analysis of a whole series of circumstances is necessary. Applying Dr. Rivers' argument to the other family relationships, we may say that all the circumstances referring to the relation between man and wife, parents and children, brothers and sisters, must be submitted to a careful and detailed analysis; and that only such an examination can give us the right idea of what may be called the individual family in a given society—in this case the Australian individual family.[18]