[401] For the literature relating to the levirate and similar customs, see above p. 84, n. 2.
[402] This may be the explanation of the levirate among the Todas: Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 206-9, 213. Similar practical motives influenced the rise of the levirate elsewhere: Dorsey, "Omaha Sociology," III. Rep. of Bureau of Eth., 258; cf. Martius, Ethnographie, 117, notes; idem, Rechtszustande, 64.
[403] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, 679-81, 748 ff., 750. See, however, the criticism of Starcke, op. cit., 151-53, 159 ff.; and compare Westermarck, op. cit., 510 ff.; McLennan, Studies, I, 108 ff.; Fortnightly Review (1877), 701; and Spencer's "Short Rejoinder," ibid., 897. But elsewhere Spencer thinks the levirate may arise in the duty of caring for the brother's children—a general cause of polygyny: op. cit., 691, 692. For examples of inheritance of widows, see Kohler, "Das Recht der Azteken," ZVR., XI, 54; "Das Negerrecht, namentlich in Kamerun," ibid., XI, 416, 423; and for widower inheritance among the Chins, idem, ibid., 186 ff.
[404] Starcke, op. cit., 141 ff. For his theory of juridical fatherhood see ibid., 121-27, 135, 139; and compare the similar view of Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 78 ff. This author gives an interesting discussion of the case of Boaz and Ruth, op. cit., 172-78, which may be compared with McLennan, Studies, I, 109 n. 3. On the evidence for juridical fatherhood among the Arabs, consult Smith, Kinship and Marriage, 119, 120.
[405] Westermarck, op. cit., 455-57.
[406] Ibid., 457-59, 113-17; cf. especially Starcke, op. cit., 135. Hellwald, Die mensch. Familie, 264 ff., gives many interesting details.
[407] Spencer, Principles of Sociology, I, 673-75, 678, 679. Insufficient food-supply may cause polygynic and monogamic families to die out; and it is favorable to the survival of the polyandrous family. But the infertility of polyandrous families is unfavorable to their survival, for there are fewer members available for defense.—Ibid., 681.
[408] Polyandry is favored by poverty and scarcity of women; but it is essentially the outgrowth of ancient sexual relations: Hellwald, op. cit., 258-61; agreeing with Lippert, Kulturgeschichte, II, 10. Marshall, A Phrenologist amongst the Todas, 223 ff., follows Lubbock and McLennan in regarding polyandry as a survival of communism. On the other hand, Fritsch, Die Eingeborenen Süd-Afrikas, 227, is decidedly of the opinion that polyandry among the Kafir Herero is the direct result of poverty and low condition (niedrige Gesinnung); it is, he says, "keine Sitte, sondern eine Unsitte," harmonizing with the laxity of their moral ideas.
[409] Smith, Kinship and Marriage, 125 ff., 128.
[410] Wake, Marriage and Kinship, 172, 134-78.