Finally, as to social survivals, I agree, certainly, with Mr. McLennan that they are of great importance to Sociology. But we must be extremely careful not to regard as rudiments customs which may be more satisfactorily explained otherwise.
It is only by strictly keeping to these principles that we may hope to derive information touching the early history of man. In doing so, the student will be on his guard against rash conclusions. Considering that he has to make out the primary sources of social phenomena before writing their history, he will avoid assuming a custom to be primitive, only because, at the first glance, it appears so; he will avoid making rules of exceptions, and constructing the history of human development on the immediate ground of isolated facts. It is true that the critical sociologist, on account of the deficiency of our knowledge, very often has to be content with hypotheses and doubtful presumptions. At any rate, the interests of science are better looked to, if we readily acknowledge our ignorance, than if we pass off vague guesses as established truths.
It is one of the simplest of all social institutions the history of which forms the subject of this book. Indeed, next to the family consisting of mother and offspring only, marriage is probably the simplest. I shall not, however, treat this subject in all its aspects, but confine myself to human marriage, though before dealing with it I must, of course, touch upon the sexual relations of the lower animals also.
The expression “human marriage” will probably be regarded by most people as an improper tautology. But, as we shall see, marriage, in the natural history sense of the term, does not belong exclusively to our own species. No more fundamental difference between man and other animals should be implied in sociological than in biological and psychological terminology. Arbitrary classifications do science much injury.
I shall examine human marriage from its different sides, giving, in accordance with my method, an historical account of each separately. The reader may find much that will outrage his feelings, and, possibly, hurt his sense of modesty; but the concealment of truth is the only indecorum known to science. To keep anything secret within its cold and passionless expanses, would be the same as to throw a cloth round a naked statue.
[CHAPTER I]
THE ORIGIN OF MARRIAGE
From remote antiquity we are told of kings and rulers who instituted marriage amongst their subjects. We read in ‘Mahâbhârata,’ the Indian poem, that formerly “women were unconfined, and roved about at their pleasure, independent. Though in their youthful innocence, they went astray from their husbands, they were guilty of no offence; for such was the rule in early times.” But Swêtakêtu, son of the Rishi Uddâlaka, could not bear this custom, and established the rule that thenceforward wives should remain faithful to their husbands and husbands to their wives.[8] The Chinese annals recount that, “in the beginning, men differed in nothing from other animals in their way of life. As they wandered up and down in the woods, and women were in common, it happened that children never knew their fathers, but only their mothers.” The Emperor Fou-hi abolished, however, this indiscriminate intercourse of the sexes and instituted marriage.[9] Again, the ancient Egyptians are stated to be indebted to Menes for this institution,[10] and the Greeks to Kekrops. Originally, it is said, they had no idea of conjugal union; they gratified their desires promiscuously, and the children that sprang from these irregular connections always bore the mother’s name. But Kekrops showed the Athenians the inconvenience to society from such an abuse, and established the laws and rules of marriage.[11] The remote Laplanders, also, sing about Njavvis and Attjis, who instituted marriage, and bound their wives by sacred oaths.[12]
Popular imagination prefers the clear and concrete; it does not recognize any abstract laws that rule the universe. Nothing exists without a cause, but this cause is not sought in an agglomeration of external or internal forces; it is taken to be simple and palpable, a personal being, a god or a king. Is it not natural, then, that marriage, which plays such an important part in the life of the individual, as well as in that of the people, should be ascribed to a wise and powerful ruler, or to direct divine intervention?