There is the same diversity in the habits of monkeys. Some are polygamous and others monogamous. The wanderoo (Macacus silenus) of India has only one female, and is faithful to her until death.[63] The Cebus capucinus, on the contrary, is polygamous.[64]
Those cousins-german of man, the anthropoid apes, have sometimes adopted polygamy and sometimes monogamy. Savage tells us that the Gorilla gina forms small hordes, consisting of a single adult male, who is the despotic chief of many females and a certain number of young.
Chimpanzees are sometimes polygamous and sometimes monogamous. The polygamous family of monkeys is always subject to the monarchic régime. The male, who is at the same time the chief, is despotic; he exacts a passive obedience from his subordinates, and he expels the young males as soon as they are old enough to give umbrage to him. To sum up, he is at once the father, the protector, and the tyrant of the band. Nevertheless, the females are affectionate to him, and the most zealous among them prove it by assiduously picking the lice from him, which, with monkeys, is a mark of great tenderness.[65] But the master who has been thus flattered and cringed to sometimes comes to a bad end. One fine day, when old age has rendered him less formidable, when he is no longer capable of proving at every instant that right must yield to might, the young ones, so long oppressed, rebel, and assassinate this tyrannous father. We must here remark, that whatever the form of sexual association among mammals, the male has always much less affection for the young than the female. Even in monogamous species, when the male keeps with the female, he does so more as chief than as father. At times he is much inclined to commit infanticides and to destroy the offspring, which, by absorbing all the attention of his female, thwart his amours. Thus, among the large felines, the mother is obliged to hide her young ones from the male during the first few days after birth, to prevent his devouring them.
I shall here conclude this very condensed study of sexual association and the family in the animal kingdom. My object is not so much to exhaust the subject, as to bring into relief the analogies existing between man and the other species. The facts which have been cited are amply sufficient for this purpose, and we may draw the following general conclusions from them:—
In the first place there is no premeditated design in nature; any mode of reproduction, of sexual association and of rearing of young that is compatible with the duration of the species may be adopted. But in a general manner it may be said that a sort of antagonism exists between the multiplicity of births and the degree of protection bestowed on the young by the parents.
A rough outline of the family is already found in the animal kingdom; it is sometimes patriarchal, as with sticklebacks, etc., but most often it is matriarchal. In the latter case the female is the centre of it, and her love for the young is infinitely stronger and more devoted than that of the male. This is especially true of mammals, with whom the male is generally an egoist, merely protecting the family in his own personal interest.
The familial instinct, more or less developed, exists in the greater number of vertebrates, and in many invertebrates. From an early period it must have been an object of selection, since it adds considerably to the chances of the duration of the species. With some species (ants, bees, termites) this instinct has expanded into a wide social love, resulting in the production of large societies of complex structure, in which the family, as we understand it, is unknown. I lay stress on this fact, for it is of great importance in theoretical sociology; it proves, in fact, that large and complicated societies, with division of social labour, can be maintained without the institution of the family. We are not, therefore, warranted in pretending, as is usually done, that the family is absolutely indispensable, and that it is the “cellule” of the social organism. Let us observe, by the way, that the expression “social organism” is simply metaphorical, and we must beware of taking it literally, as Herbert Spencer, with a strange naïveté, seems to have done. Societies are agglomerations of individuals in which a certain order is necessarily established; but it is almost puerile to seek for, and to pretend to find in them, an actual organisation, comparable, for example, to the anatomic and physiologic plan of a mammal.
Terminating this short digression, I revert to my subject by summing up the results of our examination of sexual associations among the animals.
In regard to marriage, as well as to the family, nature has no preference; all means are welcome to her, provided the species profits by them, or, at least, does not suffer too much from them.
We find amongst animals temporary unions, at the close of which the male ceases absolutely to care for the female; but we also find, especially among birds, numbers of lasting unions, for which the word marriage is not too exalted. It does not appear that polyandry—that is, a durable society between one female and many males—has been practised by animals. The female, nearly always weaker than the male, could not reduce a number of them to sexual servitude, and the latter have never been tempted to share one female systematically. On the contrary, they are often polygamous. But it is especially amongst mammals that polygamy is common, and it must often have had its raison d’être either in the sexual proportion of births, or in a greater mortality of males. These are reasons I shall have to refer to later, in speaking of human polygamy.