It is only with the development of society that monogamy, nominal or real, develops, and with it a little respect for woman. She enjoys more liberty, as do also the children who have passed a certain age. Thus is constituted the family of to-day, in which, however, the patriarchal spirit is still dominant.
Patriarchate.—Individual polygamous marriage is most frequently allied to a new form of affiliation, that of kinship through males, which, in its turn, is rooted in the constitution of property and the subordination of woman to man. In the matriarchate the natural protector of the child and the family is the mother’s brother; in the patriarchate his place is taken by the father, who extends the right of property not only to include the mother, but also the children; he may sell them, hire them out, etc. The patriarchate is the régime under which live most half-civilised peoples and a great number of uncivilised.
Several matrimonial customs may be explained by the primitive forms of marriage. Thus the practice of showing hospitality to a stranger by lending him one’s wife, so common among savages and half-civilised nomads, may be explained as a relic of group marriage, in which, as we have seen, the exchange and the lending of women are practised.[277] Similarly, the custom, very prevalent, especially in Malaysia, which requires a husband to live in his wife’s family, is considered by most authors as a relic of the matriarchate. Another custom, nearly always allied to the first, but which is also met with as a survival in the cases where the woman goes to live with her husband’s family, is that prohibiting newly-married couples from speaking to their fathers and mothers-in-law (avoidance). The best known form, widely diffused from the Kafirs to the Mongols, is the forbidding of the husband not only to speak to, but even to see his mother-in-law; if by chance he should meet her, he is obliged to take to flight, or, at any rate, to turn aside out of the way. Among several peoples of the Caucasus and certain North American Indians this custom is observed only until the birth of the first child. This custom, in a general way, is considered as a relic either of exogamy (Tylor) or of anti-incest customs (Westermarck).[278]
Among the most widely diffused practices having a connection with marriage, we must mention the abduction of the wife, whether real (Arabs, Turco-Mongols, Caribs, Patagonians, Burmese, Australians, etc.) or simulated and symbolic, and often forming part of the marriage ceremonies (among a host of peoples). Ethnologists are not agreed as to the origin of this custom; some see in it the last vestiges of exogamy, others the relic of the slavery of women, etc.
Side by side with simulated abduction there is almost always the purchase of the wife from her parents (the “Kalym” of the Turco-Tatars, etc.), which proves that marriage by purchase took the place of marriage by capture in the exogamous relations between tribes, and contributed to their social cohesion, preventing quarrels and wars (Tylor). The marriage portion is only found in societies having a relatively high organisation. It is, as it were, a payment for the guardianship which the husband assumes over the wife and her children under the patriarchal system. The institution of the marriage portion is probably derived from the practice still in vogue among many peoples, according to which the parents offer presents in exchange for the money or the service given as the purchase-price of their daughter.
The duration of the conjugal union varies so much among different peoples that no general rule can be laid down regarding it. From unions of a night (under the régime of group marriage, in temporary or trial marriages) to the indissolubility prescribed by the Christian religions, there is quite a scale of conjugal relations more or less durable. Most frequently the husband may discard the wife when she has ceased to please him; sometimes divorce is hedged round with certain formalities of established custom.
Children.—In all societies, as in the animal world, the family is principally established for the bringing up of children. But it is far from true that the arrival of children is everywhere accepted with joy. The voluntary limitation of progeny is not an invention of advanced civilisation. Savages could teach us much on this point. The Australians with this object practise ovariotomy on women, the operation “mika” (artificial hypospadias) on men, or simply kill off the superfluous infants. Infanticide on a large scale was practised by the Polynesians before their “Europeanisation”; it exists still here and there in Thibet, so far as girls are concerned. Some would even see in this custom the origin of polyandry.
Birth.—But having once decided to let a child live, the uncivilised look well after it. One could write a volume, if one wished to enumerate all the hygienic and at the same time superstitious customs attendant on the pregnancy, parturition, and recovery of the woman among different peoples. The act of generation is considered by nearly all the uncivilised as something at once mysterious and impure. The pregnant woman is kept quiet and rubbed; she has to occupy a hut apart before, during, or after the birth of the child, according to the custom of the different countries. Rarely is the woman allowed to be confined alone; the examples quoted have reference for the most part to isolated cases, such as may happen even among the civilised. She is often assisted at the time of the confinement by one or more women, and sometimes by men.[279]
Among the customs which accompany birth, the most curious is that of the “couvade” practised by the Basques, the Indians of Brazil and Guiana, and other peoples. According to this custom, the husband, after the coming into the world of the child, behaves exactly as if it were he who had been confined; he betakes himself to bed, receives congratulations, sometimes looks after the baby. E. B. Tylor sees in this custom a survival of the matriarchate in a society with a patriarchal régime. It would be the ransom paid by the husband for the right, which formerly belonged to the mother, to be called the head of the house.[280]
As to the child, from the moment of his entrance into the world, every effort is made to keep away from him the spirits which might harm him; the Laotians, in the vicinity of the house which shelters him, hang bells, rattles, and cloth-bands, so that, shaken by the wind, they may make a noise and keep away evil spirits (Harmand, Neis). The Malays and the Nias Islanders for this purpose prepare special fetiches (Modigliani).