With the Malagasies, where the social organisation is much more complex and quasi feudal, there is already a veritable civil marriage. The future pair, accompanied by their parents, go before the judge or the chief of the village, declare their intentions, pay the Hasina, or matrimonial tax, and the union is concluded. As is the case in many countries, Malagasian polygamy already tends towards monogamy. At Madagascar, as in China, rich men have one chief wife, who has a house to herself and other privileges; but by the side of the titular wife there are lesser wives.[360] I shall have to return to this hierarchical polygamy, which forms a sort of evolutionary connecting link between primitive polygamy, subjecting all the wives equally before their owner, and monogamic marriage. But for the present I must pursue my summary inquiry through the lands of primitive polygamy.
In the whole of Polynesia polygamy was general and unlimited. There, again, the number of wives was strictly in proportion to rank and riches.[361] There were, however, examples of voluntary monogamy[362] among the chiefs, and a much larger number of monogamists, in spite of themselves, in the lower classes.[363] In several Polynesian islands polygamy was already evolving towards monogamy; thus, at Samoa,[364] at Tonga,[365] in New Zealand,[366] there existed a chief wife, exempted from hard work, and having pre-eminence over the other wives.
Over all the great American continent polygamy is or has been in force. The Ancas or Araucanos of South America—nomads and robbers—buy very dear wives when they can, and make concubines of all the prisoners procured in their razzias, exactly after the manner of the ancient Arabs. The poor or the feeble among them, as elsewhere, are badly provided, and are frequently reduced to remain celibate,[367] or to have only one wife. For the same reasons, the young men among the Otomacs were often obliged to be contented with an old woman,[368] and the Charruas waited till their first wife grew old before procuring a younger one.[369] Herrero tells us also, that in Honduras forced monogamy was general enough, except, indeed, for the chiefs, who appropriated the women by the right of the strongest.[370] In South America, as in Africa, the women were very far from rebelling against polygamy; for there, also, all the hard work fell to them, and the burden of it was lightened in proportion to the number of labourers. In the tribes that were already agricultural, the Guaranis, for example, the men did nothing to the land but clear off the brushwood and timber; then came the women, who did all the sowing, harvesting, prepared the fermented drink for guests,[371] without mentioning other domestic cares. Such a kind of life is necessarily unfavourable to delicacy, and even amongst civilised people habitual overwork is hardly compatible with refined sentiments. In all countries exclusive love and jealousy suppose not only some moral development, but also a certain amount of leisure and of time and capacity, to think. It is therefore quite natural that the savage woman should seldom pretend to possess a man for herself alone, and on this point the women of the Redskins of North America think and feel like the Guarani women of Brazil. Thus, with the Omahas, the man hardly ever takes a second wife but with the consent of the first.[372] Often the initiative even comes from her; she goes to find her husband, and says to him, “Marry the daughter of my brother. She and I are of the same flesh.” It must be admitted that America is the promised land of the matriarchate, or rather, of maternal filiation; polygamy easily takes an incestuous colour there; the wives of the same man are often relatives, habitually sisters. In about forty of the Redskin tribes, and surely they are not the only ones, when a man marries the eldest daughter of a family, he acquires, by express privilege, the right of taking afterwards for wives all the sisters of the first as soon as they become marriageable.[373] This was the custom of the Omahas, the Cheyennes, the Crees, the Osages, the Black-feet, the Crows, the Spokans of Columbia,[374] the Chawanons of Louisiana, etc.
The custom was not, however, obligatory. The wives were not necessarily relatives, or, at least, not necessarily sisters. Thus, with the Omahas, a man sometimes took as wives an aunt and a niece of his first wife.[375] Among the Californians a man sometimes married not only a group of sisters, but also their mother,[376] and in this respect the Greenlanders imitated their hereditary enemies, the Redskins.[377] But, consanguine or not, polygamy was general among the savage tribes of North America. The possession of a numerous flock of wives placed a man above the common as surely as that of a large fortune does in Europe;[378] religion even sanctified this polygamy, for in all countries it can accommodate itself to the dominant morals. Thus, the Chippeways believe that polygamy is agreeable to the Great Spirit; for it is a means of having a numerous posterity.[379]
Except the habitual consanguinity of the wives, the polygamy of the Redskins has nothing original in it; it is, as elsewhere, the privilege of the rich men.[380] Sometimes also the girls are retained from infancy, and then, as happens with the Noutka-Columbians, the buyer deposits certain valuable articles as security.[381] In these polygamous families of Redskins the harmony is rarely disturbed; and the man, always having the power to repudiate any wife as he may please, only has to command very submissive ones.[382] Here and there certain customs appear which have a shade of monogamy about them; for instance, among the Columbians every wife has her separate habitation, or, at the least, her special fireside.[383] Sometimes there is a chief wife having authority over the other wives.[384] But everywhere the subjection of women in regard to man is extreme. Among the Indians of New Mexico—and these are not by any means the most savage—the women have to prepare the food, tan the skins, cultivate the ground, fabricate the clothes, build the houses, and groom the horses. In return for this, the men, whose sole occupations are hunting and war, beat their wives without pity, and often mutilate and kill them.[385]
II. Polygamy in Asia and Europe.
We might already deduce some general ideas from our rapid survey of savage polygamy in Oceania, Africa, and America; but it will be convenient, before we do so, to interrogate the primitive races of Asia and Europe. Doubtless, the description of their conjugal manners and customs, after all that precedes, may seem monotonous; nevertheless, this monotony even is instructive; it proves that in all times and places, in despite of differences of race, climate and environment, the evolution of human groups is subject to certain laws, that the family, marriage, the constitution of property, and social organisation pass through a series of necessary phases; in short, that in attempting to construct a science of sociology we are not pursuing a chimera.
I resume, therefore, my enumeration. Among the indigenous tribes of India polygamy is widely spread, without, however, being universal; for each one of these small peoples has evolved, as it has been able, more or less rapidly. Some among them are polyandrous, and even monogamous. Often enough polyandry co-exists with polygamy, the one appearing as moral as the other.
With all these aborigines, marriage, or what we are pleased to call so, is generally concluded by purchase, and the price of the woman naturally oscillates according to the law of supply and demand. Most often it is represented by poultry, pigs, oxen, or cows, given to the parents. From this manner of procuring wives it seems that, there also, polygamy is the luxury of the rich or of chiefs. Among the Mishmis these privileged individuals sometimes possess sixty wives. The Mishmi husbands form a rare exception on one point—they are not at all exacting about the fidelity of their wives; they consider them as slaves or servants, and provided they continue to benefit their masters by their work, the latter willingly shut their eyes to their intrigues.[386]
Among these polygamous tribes, which it would take too long to enumerate, may be counted the Miris, the Dophlas, the Juangs, the Khamtis, the Singphos, etc.