With the Zapotecs of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec there is no polygamy; it is forbidden.[509] On the contrary, with all the Indians of Columbia polygamy is general; but the Otomacs, who are reckoned among the most savage, are monogamous.[510] Necessity makes the law; and although it may be the legal form of marriage adopted by the superior races, monogamy does not imply in itself an advanced civilisation. Besides, the numerous facts that I have previously quoted abundantly prove that polygamy and monogamy can coexist in the same society—the former for the sole use of the ruling classes, the latter for the common people.
II. Monogamy in the Ancient States of Central America.
It was thus in Mexico,[511] where, among the wives of the great men, one alone was called lawful; her children inherited the paternal title and wealth, to the exclusion of the others.[512] In Peru, as in Mexico, the law, with the bold partiality which there is no attempt to disguise in barbarous societies, permitted polygamy to the Inca and to the enormous family of the Incas, while exacting a strict monogamy from the poor. State communism, imposed on the country, regulated the sexual unions somewhat as our rural proprietors regulate the coupling of their domestic animals. Peruvian marriage was a civil act, very comparable to enforced military service in modern Europe. Every year in the kingdom of Cuzco it was the practice to assemble together in the squares of the towns and villages all the individuals of marriageable age, from twenty-four to twenty-six years for the men, and from eighteen to twenty for the women. At Cuzco the Inca himself married the persons of his own family, and always in a public square, by putting in each other the hands of the different couples. In their respective boundaries the chiefs of districts, resembling our mayors, fulfilled the same function for the persons of their own rank or of an inferior rank. We are indeed told that the consent of parents was necessary, but it was not a question of the consent of the interested parties.[513] Besides, it was strictly forbidden to marry outside the civil group of which the individuals formed a part. In this case marriages must often have been contracted between relatives more or less near. As to incest, there was little severity, since the Inca was legally bound to marry one of his sisters, with the reservation that she might not be his uterine sister,[514] and the same rule was at last extended to the nobles of the empire.
In sanctioning the civil marriage of the country, the public functionary, the Curaca, administered to the couple the oath of conjugal fidelity, which, according to P. Pizzarre, was generally kept; perhaps because, as we shall see later, the Peruvian law was not tender to adulterers.
There does not appear to have been the least nuptial ceremony in Peru. In Mexico, on the contrary, marriage was celebrated with much show, and it was religious. The bride was conducted in great pomp to the house of the bridegroom, who came with his family to meet her. The two processions mutually perfumed each other with boxes of burning incense. After this the future spouses sat down on the same mat, and a priest married them by tying the robe of the bride to the mantle of the bridegroom. The precaution had previously been taken to consult the diviners and augurs. Nuptial festivals followed, in which the newly-married couple took no part. They lasted four days, and the marriage was not to be consummated until their termination.
III. Monogamy in Ancient Egypt.
In the ancient empires of central America the position of the wife was very subordinate;—this is an ordinary fact in barbarous countries. But in this respect, a singular exception seems to have existed in ancient Egypt, which nevertheless offers so many analogies to ancient Peru. This anomaly must be described with some details, because the believers in a prehistoric gynecocracy complacently rely on it to support their theory.
The general assertions of the writers of antiquity on this point have been confirmed by the demotic deeds recently deciphered. I shall briefly quote both.
Let us listen first to Herodotus on the subject of Egyptian women: “They have established laws and customs opposite, for the most part, to those of the rest of mankind. With them the women go to market and traffic; the men stay at home and weave.... The men carry burdens on the head, the women on the shoulders.... The boys are never forced to maintain their parents unless they wish to do so; the girls are obliged to, even if they do not wish it.”[1] From this last rule it is already logical to infer that the women possessed and inherited property, which is not ordinary in primitive monarchies. Herodotus adds that “no woman performs sacerdotal duties towards a divinity of either sex; the priests of all the divinities are men.”[515] In a country so profoundly religious this interdict clearly proves that in public opinion, at least, the woman was held to be an inferior being. Besides, polygamy was permitted in Egypt, which suffices of itself to exclude the idea of feminine domination in the family. However, Herodotus relates that many Egyptians, especially “those that dwelt on the marshes,” have, like the Greeks, adopted monogamy.[516]
Diodorus goes further than Herodotus. He affirms that in the Egyptian family it is the man who is subjected to the woman: “Contrary to the received usage of other nations, the laws permit the Egyptians to marry their sisters, after the example of Osiris and Isis. The latter, in fact, having cohabited with her brother Osiris, swore, after his death, never to suffer the approach of any man, pursued the murderer, governed according to the laws, and loaded men with benefits. All this explains why the queen receives more power and respect than the king, and why, among private individuals, the woman rules over the man, and that it is stipulated between married couples, by the terms of the dowry-contract, that the man shall obey the woman.”[517]