One primitive form of the family, the matriarchate, which we shall study later, is realised, even in an exaggerated form, by ants and bees. In human societies we shall only find very faint imitations of this system, which has been so strictly carried out by the primates of the invertebrates, and which seems to have inspired the ancients with their fables about the amazons.
The vertebrated species, with the exception of mankind, have founded no society that can be even distantly compared to that of hymenoptera and of ants. With nearly all fishes and amphibia the parents are very poorly developed as regards consciousness, and take no care of their eggs after fecundation. Some species of fishes are, however, endowed with a certain familial instinct, and strange to say, here it is the male who tends his offspring. So true is it, that the imaginary being called Nature has no preference for any special methods, and that in her eyes all processes are good on the one condition that they succeed! Thus the Chinese Macropus gathers the fecundated eggs into his jaws, deposits them in the midst of the froth and mucous exuding from his mouth, and watches over the young when they are hatched.[32] The male of synagnathous fishes and the sea-horses carry their eggs in an incubating pouch; the Chromis paterfamilias, of the lake of Tiberias, protects and nourishes in his mouth and bronchial cavity hundreds of small fishes.[33]
Other fishes also have more or less care for their young. Salmon and trout deposit their eggs in a depression which they have hollowed out in the sand for the purpose. Fishes, belonging to various families, construct nests and watch over the young when hatched (Cranilabrus massa, Cranilabrus melops). Often again it is the male who undertakes all the work. Thus the male of the Gasterosteus leiurus is incessantly occupied in fetching the young ones home, and driving away all enemies, including the mother.[34] The male stickleback, who is polygamous, builds a nest and watches with solicitude over the safety and rearing of the young.[35]
Many reptiles are unnatural parents; some, however, already possess some degree of familial instinct. Thus several males of the batrachians assist the female to eject her eggs. The male accoucheur toad rolls the eggs round his feet, and carefully carries them thus. The Surinam toad, the Pipa Americana, after having aided the female in the operation of laying the eggs, places them on the back of his companion, in little cutaneous cavities formed for their reception.[36]
The Cobra capella bravely defends its eggs. The saurians often live in couples, and the females of crocodiles escort their new-born little ones. Female tortoises go so far as to shelter their young in a sort of nest.[37]
But it is especially among birds and mammals that we find forms of union or association very similar to marriage and the family in the human species. Nothing is more natural; for anatomical and physiological analogy must of necessity lead in its train the analogy of sociology. There is no more uniformity either amongst mammals than amongst men; the needs, the habitat, and the necessities of existence dominate everything, and in order to secure adjustment to these, recourse is had to various processes.
Like men, birds live sometimes in promiscuity, and sometimes in monogamy or polygamy; the familial instinct is also very unequally developed among them. Sometimes even we find their conjugal customs modified by the kind of life they lead. Thus the wild duck, which is strictly monogamous in a wild state, becomes very polygamous when domesticated, and it is the same with the guinea fowl. Civilisation depraves these birds, as it does some men. As may be supposed, it is generally the animals living in troops who are degraded most easily by habitual promiscuity. But this is not always the case; the character of the animal, his mode of life, and the degree of morality previously acquired, determine his manner of acting. It is probable also that certain animals, living in troops during the breeding season, have formerly been less sociable than at present, for they leave the troop and retire apart in couples as soon as they have paired. Social life is burdensome to them.
It is especially interesting to study the various modes of conjugal and familial association amongst birds. This may easily be inferred from the ardour, the variety, and the delicacy they bring to their amours; the moral level among them, to borrow a human expression, is very diverse, according to the species. There are some birds absolutely fickle and even debauched—as, for example, the little American starling (Icterus pecoris), which changes its female from day to day; that is to say, it is in the lowest stage of sexual union, a debauched promiscuity, which we only exceptionally find in some hardly civilised human societies.[38] The starling, nevertheless, is not ferocious, like the asturides, to whom, according to Brehm, love seems unknown, and amongst whom the female devours her male, the father and the mother feast on their own young, and the latter, when full grown, willingly eat their parents. These ferocious habits denote a very feeble moral development. But if we may believe a French missionary, Mgr. Farand, bishop of the Mackenzie territory, similar customs still prevail among the Redskins of the extreme north.[39] We shall not, therefore, be too much scandalised at the birds. These cases of moral grossness are, besides, rare enough with them.
Other species, while they have renounced promiscuity, are still determined polygamists. The gallinaceæ are particularly addicted to this form of conjugal union, which is so common, in fact, with mankind, even when highly civilised and boasting of their practice of monogamy. Our barn-door cock, vain and sensual, courageous and jealous, is a perfect type of the polygamous bird. But the polygamous habits of the gallinaceæ do not prevent them from experiencing very strong sexual passion. When seized by this frenzy of desire, some of them appear to be senseless of all danger. The firing of a gun, for example, does not alarm a male grouse when swinging his head and whistling to charm his female;[40] but this ardour does not hinder him from being a fickle animal, always in search of new adventures, and always seeking fresh mates.[41]
These examples of wandering fancy are for the most part rare among birds, the majority of whom are monogamous, and even far superior to most men in the matter of conjugal fidelity.