Other aborigines of Bengal are endogamous. Thus it is imperative for the daughters of the Abors to marry in their own clan, or the sun and moon would cease to shine.[1024] According to Heber, the Karens of Tenasserim are more than endogamous, for among them marriages between brother and sister, father and daughter, are frequent enough in the present day.[1025]
What may we deduce from these contradictory facts? A general conclusion, which I have expressed several times over: namely, that in what concerns the evolution of marriage and of the family, there is no absolute law. Nevertheless, by reason of the familial and matrimonial confusion usual in the greater number of primitive societies, maternal filiation has been adopted more often than paternal, and has frequently preceded it.
VI. The Couvade.
There is a custom, at first sight extraordinary but still common enough, which must have arisen during transitional epochs, when, polygamic or monogamic marriage having become established, the husbands have exerted themselves to affirm their parental rights, and to substitute masculine filiation for the ancient uterine filiation. In the same way as in certain countries, Abyssinia,[1026] for example, in order to proclaim an adoption, the adoptive father simulates some maternal practice, sometimes goes so far as to offer his breast solemnly to his adoptive son, so, in very different countries, the husband has found no better way to prove his paternity than to simulate childbirth; and hence the very singular custom of the couvade.
At first sight, it seems very foolish for the husband to take to his bed immediately after the delivery of his wife, and for a certain number of days to be nursed and tended by the mother herself.
The existence of the custom has often been questioned. It will not be out of place, therefore, to quote authentic facts which put all doubt to silence. These facts are numerous enough, and have been observed in various parts of the globe; in America, Asia, and Europe.
In New Mexico, among the Lagunero and the Ahomana, when a woman is delivered of a child, the father goes to bed for six or seven days, and scrupulously abstains from eating fish or meat.[1027] As soon as a Carib became a father, he at once went to bed and simulated childbirth by suitable cries and contortions; the women of the hamlet hastened to his side and congratulated him on his happy delivery.[1028] The Choctaw Redskins formerly had an analogous custom. Brett and Im Thurn have observed this “lying-in” among the Indians of Guiana. The father, Brett says, goes to his hammock quite naked, taking the most indecent posture, and he remains there some days as if he were ill, receiving the congratulations of his friends and tended by the women of the neighbourhood, whilst the mother of the new-born infant goes about her cooking without receiving any attention.[1029]
The testimony of the Jesuit Dobritzhoffer, in regard to the Abipones, is not less explicit: “Among the Abipones of South America,” he says, “as soon as the wife has given birth to a child, the husband is put to bed, and carefully tended; he fasts for a certain time. You would swear that it is he who has just been delivered. I had formerly read of this and smiled at it, not being able to credit such folly, and supposing that this barbarous custom was related more as a joke than seriously, but at last I have seen it with my own eyes amongst them.”[1030] More recent testimony confirms what I have just quoted. In 1842 M. Mazé, Commissioner-General in French Guiana, himself proved the custom of couvade among the Indian tribes on the river Oyapok. In 1852 M. Voisin, justice of the peace in a commune of French Guiana, ascending in a canoe the river Mana, received hospitality one night in the hut of some Galibi Indians. On awaking he learned that during the night, and behind a partition of foliage which separated his hammock from the household of his hosts, a child had been born. The mother had uttered no sound, and at daybreak M. Voisin saw her go to the river-side and make her toilet, then take her new-born child and throw it several times into the water, catching it as it rose to the surface, and then wiping it with her hands. The husband, on the contrary, remained all the while in his hammock, acting the invalid, and receiving with the greatest seriousness the attention lavished on him by his wife.[1031]
The couvade comedy is not always so complete. In certain tribes it is attenuated, and becomes more symbolic.
Thus in California, when the mother is delivered, the father is content to keep to the house and abstain from eating fish and meat.[1032]