[261] Ibid., 646, 647. But McLennan meets this difficulty by insisting that wife-stealing, among polyandrous peoples would lead to polygyny on the part of the most successful. This would also explain the inconsistency alleged by Spencer (648) that polygyny and polyandry sometimes coexist, as among Fuegians, Caribo, Eskimo, Warrens, Hottentots, and the ancient Britons. See McLennan, Studies, I, 145, 146; and cf. Post, Familienrecht, 62.
[262] Spencer, op. cit., I, 649.
[263] Primitive Family, 132. Other objections are brought forward by this able writer. "It has been suggested that the motive for the murder of female infants is the fear of becoming the object of the predatory instincts of other tribes; whence we must conclude that the tribe which keeps its women alive is tolerably strong; those tribes which lack women cannot, therefore, obtain them by violence to any great extent. It also seems to be a strange thing to kill the female infants from a dread of being exposed to attack, and at the same time to seek to increase the number of women by carrying them off by violence from other tribes."—Ibid., 132.
[264] Spencer, op. cit., I, 644.
[265] McLennan, Studies, I, 78-80, 124, 142-45, 147 ff.; II, 57 ff. Cf. his article on "Exogamy and Endogamy," Fortnightly Review, XXI, 884 ff., where he seems to waver somewhat in his conclusions on this point.
[266] Among the great living investigators in this field no one, perhaps, has sinned more frequently in making hazardous generalizations than Kohler, who is particularly harsh in his criticism of Westermarck, Curr, and other adversaries. See, for example, his Zur Urgeschichte der Ehe, 2 ff., 150 ff.
[267] Primitive Family, 7, 8.
[268] See Letourneau, L'évolution du mariage, chap. ii, on "Le mariage et la famille chez les animaux;" and his Sociology, 327-30, 380-82.
[269] L'évolution du mariage, chap. i.
[270] Starcke, op. cit., 8, 9.