Ancient society

by Lewis Henry Morgan

From the simplicity of the system it may be seen how readily the relationships of consanguinei are known and recognized, and how a knowledge of them is preserved from generation to generation. A single rule furnishes an illustration: the children of brothers are themselves brothers and sisters; the children of the latter are brothers and sisters; and so downward indefinitely. It is the same with the children and descendants of sisters, and of brothers and sisters.

All the members of each grade are reduced to the same level in their relationships, without regard to nearness or remoteness in numerical degrees; those in each grade standing to Ego in an identical relationship. It follows, also, that knowledge of the numerical degrees formed an integral part of the Hawaiian system, without which the proper grade of each person could not be known. The simple and distinctive character of the system will arrest attention, pointing with such directness as it does, to the intermarriage of brothers and sisters, own and collateral, in a group, as the source from whence it sprung.

Poverty of language or indifference to relationships exercised no influence whatever upon the formation of the system, as will appear in the sequel.

The system, as here detailed, is found in other Polynesian tribes besides the Hawaiians and Rotumans, as among the Marquesas Islanders, and the Maoris of New Zealand. It prevails, also, among the Samoans, Kusaiens, and King’s Mill Islanders of Micronesia,[454] and without a doubt in every inhabited island of the Pacific, except where it verges upon the Turanian.

From this system the antecedent existence of the consanguine family, with the kind of marriage appertaining thereto, is plainly deducible. Presumptively it is a natural and real system, expressing the relationships which actually existed when the system was formed, as near as the parentage of children could be known. The usages with respect to marriage which then prevailed may not prevail at the present time. To sustain the deduction it is not necessary that they should. Systems of consanguinity, as before stated, are found to remain substantially unchanged and in full vigor long after the marriage customs in which they originated have in part or wholly passed away. The small number of independent systems of consanguinity created during the extended period of human experience is sufficient proof of their permanence. They are found not to change except in connection with great epochs of progress. For the purpose of explaining the origin of the Malayan system, from the nature of descents, we are at liberty to assume the antecedent intermarriage of own and collateral brothers and sisters in a group; and if it is then found that the principal relationships recognized are those that would actually exist under this form of marriage, then the system itself becomes evidence conclusive of the existence of such marriages. It is plainly inferable that the system originated in plural marriages of consanguinei, including own brothers and sisters; in fact commenced with the intermarriage of the latter, and gradually enfolded the collateral brothers and sisters as the range of the conjugal system widened. In course of time the evils of the first form of marriage came to be perceived, leading, if not to its direct abolition, to a preference for wives beyond this degree. Among the Australians it was permanently abolished by the organization into classes, and more widely among the Turanian tribes by the organization into gentes. It is impossible to explain the system as a natural growth upon any other hypothesis than the one named, since this form of marriage alone can furnish a key to its interpretation. In the consanguine family, thus constituted, the husbands lived in polygyny, and the wives in polyandry, which are seen to be as ancient as human society. Such a family was neither unnatural nor remarkable. It would be difficult to show any other possible beginning of the family in the primitive period. Its long continuance in a partial form among the tribes of mankind is the greater cause for surprise; for all traces of it had not disappeared among the Hawaiians at the epoch of their discovery.

The explanation of the origin of the Malayan system given in this chapter, and of the Turanian and Ganowánian given in the next, have been questioned and denied by Mr. John F. McLennan, author of “Primitive Marriage.” I see no occasion, however, to modify the views herein presented, which are the same substantially as those given in “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc. But I ask the attention of the reader to the interpretation here repeated, and to a note at the end of Chapter VI, in which Mr. McLennan’s objections are considered.

If the recognized relationships in the Malayan system are now tested by this form of marriage, it will be found that they rest upon the intermarriage of own and collateral brothers and sisters in a group.

It should be remembered that the relationships which grow out of the family organization are of two kinds: those of blood determined by descents, and those of affinity determined by marriage. Since in the consanguine family there are two distinct groups of persons, one of fathers and one of mothers, the affiliation of the children to both groups would be so strong that the distinction between relationships by blood and by affinity would not be recognized in the system in every case.

I. All the children of my several brothers, myself a male, are my sons and daughters.