V. The Family among the Aborigines of Bengal.—Co-existence of the maternal and paternal family; exogamy and endogamy.
VI. The Couvade.—It exists in very different countries—The couvade in antiquity—The couvade in contemporary Europe—Signification of the couvade.
VII. The Primitive Family.
I. The Familial Clan and the Family properly so-called.
At the conclusion of the preceding chapter I have ventured to sketch the probable evolution of the family, or at least that which must have been effected among the greater number of Melanesians, Polynesians, American Redskins, Tamils, and ancient Mongols. The small primitive societies founded by these races seem to have begun, not with the family, in the sense we give to this word, but by groups of consanguine individuals with still very confused filiation. The familial form which first emerged from this primitive clan was most often a matrimonial association between several sisters on the one hand and several brothers on the other. Then, from this household, at once polygamic and polyandric, sprang sometimes the polyandric family, when several brothers had a single wife in common, and sometimes the polygynic family, when a single man married or bought several women, who might, or might not, be sisters to each other.
But has the familial group evolved in the same manner all over the earth and among all races? Except for the countries previously enumerated, precise and detailed information is wanting, and we are reduced to conjectures which are more or less probable. With rare exceptions, the races which it remains for us to examine have definitely emerged from primitive familial confusion, and they have adopted either maternal or paternal filiation. Have they first passed through the familial clan with classes of fictitious or real relations? We cannot certainly affirm it. The existence of a totem and the custom of exogamy seem to bear witness in favour of this hypothesis; but these are insufficient proofs. The totem does not necessarily imply consanguinity; and exogamy may be dictated by very diverse reasons, for we often find exogamic tribes living side by side with endogamic tribes.
What is still more general than the clan, is the institution of the maternal family, or uterine filiation; but this familial type is not invariably deduced from a previous familial clan. Among many animal species the maternal family exists without there ever having been either clan or gens. As a matter of fact, in humanity as well as in animality, the uterine family establishes itself spontaneously, whenever the male abandons the female and her progeny. This familial type will therefore necessarily appear in every horde where there is no durable pairing of males and females, of men and women. In every ethnic group living in promiscuity, for example, uterine filiation shows itself, and it will be the same under a polyandric régime, unless fictitious paternity is established. In short, for the adoption of the paternal family, it is imperative that the wives should be appropriated by a particular man, though it is of no importance whether the marriage be monogamic or polygamic. But this possession of one or more women by one man to the exclusion of all others, presupposes already a complex social condition, which has necessarily been preceded by a period of gross savagery, when only uterine filiation was possible. Now, it is a rule that ancient customs endure for a long time, and survive the social condition which had given birth to them.
II. The Family in Africa.
The uterine family is far from being rare in negro Africa, but this does not in any way hinder the man from exercising a discretionary power over his wife or wives, and still more over his children. We have previously seen how lamentable the fate of woman is among the negro Africans, and how excessive are “the rights of the father of the family,” since he can traffic in his children without rebuke. This virile despotism may easily coexist with the adoption of uterine filiation. In one Kaffir tribe, the men used their own children to bait their traps for catching lions,[976] and yet maternal filiation prevails in Kaffraria; only it does not govern inheritance. This mode of filiation is adopted by other races as well as Kaffirs. “In Guinea,” says Bosman,[977] “if it pleases the daughter of a king to marry a slave, her children are free.” Among the Fantees, the chief slave has the rights of succession, to the exclusion of the son; but the latter is only deprived of paternal succession; the property of his mother, as distinct from that of his father, comes to him.[978] At Dahomey there seems to be, in the royal family, a symbolic survival of the maternal family. At the death of the king, his sister exercises a regency of several days, and her duty is to occupy the throne in reality, and to remain seated on it as long as a successor has not been appointed.[979] But this does not in any way hinder the populations of Dahomey from adopting as a general custom, not only masculine succession, but even the right of primogeniture.[980] Barbarous as Dahomey may be, it is already a society of too complex a structure to accommodate itself easily to the maternal family. Has this savage mode of filiation been formerly in use there? It is possible; but the short regency of the king’s sister is a very insufficient proof of it. In eastern Africa, among the Vouazegouras, and also among the Bangalas of Cassanga, the uncle has the indefeasible right to sell his nephews, and in so doing he has the strong approval of public opinion. “Why,” say they, “should a man remain in need while his brothers and sisters have children?” Yet this relates to tribes long under Arab influence. In the same region, the Vouamrimas generally consider the son of their sister as their heir, in preference to their own children.[981] Among the Bazes and the Bareas, succession is also in the maternal line, and the heirs are, in the first degree, the eldest son of the eldest sister; and in the second degree, the second son of the same sister,[982] etc. In southern Africa the children belong to the maternal uncle, who also has the right to sell them.[983] It is the same among the Basuto Kaffirs. With these last, as a Kaffir chief informed me, it is again the nephew who succeeds to the throne.[984] The Makololo Kaffirs, however, seem to be in process of adopting paternal filiation; or at least they combine it with maternal filiation, by compelling the husband, as Livingstone informs us, to redeem his children by the payment of a tax, without which they would belong to the maternal grandfather.
In short, there is no uniform rule among the Kaffirs, for Levaillant has seen a tribe with whom the inheritance was transmitted at a man’s death to his wife and male children, to the exclusion of the daughters,[985] which is again a transitional régime.