The form of marriage intimately affects two questions of prime importance in ethnic psychology: that of purity or intermixture of blood, and that of the permanence of the group.
In an earlier chapter I have emphasised the results of close and of mixed breeding in man as one of the controlling factors of his advancement. It is obvious that the forms of marriage called endogamous, where the only recognised marriages are within the clan; monogamous, where there is but one wife; and “preferential” polygamous, where there are several wives, but the children of one only are recognised as legitimate, greatly favour close breeding.
General polygamous marriages, on the other hand, lead infallibly to intermixture of stocks and the enfeeblement of the higher in its mental capacity.
Not less do these laws affect the permanence of the group. This depends directly on the amount of property it has, and its ability to keep it.
In any form of communal marriage the property descends in common and belongs to the clan or consanguine group. There is no stimulus to the individual to augment it, as he gains nothing for himself. Hence, such marriages early fell into disuse.
General polygamous marriages are scarcely less fatal. Equal rights of inheritance between the offspring of several mothers lead to dissipation of the inheritance and to family feuds in the division. This is conspicuously true of inherited dignities and power. In history no polygamous nation has long survived the internecine feuds between the many heirs to the throne. The Sultan is safe only when all his brothers are murdered.
The marriage laws powerfully influence the ethnic mind in another direction, heavily fraught with weal or woe for its destiny; that is, in the respect for woman as a sex, in the honour shown her, in the sentiment of chivalry.
This is a true ethnic sentiment, quite apart from personal affection or romantic love. It reflects the position of woman in the group, not in the family, and reflects the feelings of the individual mind toward woman as a sex, as a part of the general group.
If we regard culture as the full development of the sentiment and emotions, as well as the intellectual faculties of a community, then I know no one criterion which will measure its degrees more accurately than the prevailing opinion about woman, her place and her dues.
Where the laws make her distinctly dependent and inferior, where, in marriage, she becomes more or less the property of her husband or the mere instrument of his passion, it is impossible that the general sense of the community can regard her with high esteem. This is the case in all polygamous nations.