Mr. McLennan has criticised this hypothesis with great freedom. His conclusion is stated generally as follows (Studies, etc., p. 371): “The space I have devoted to the consideration of the solution may seem disproportioned to its importance; but issuing from the press of the Smithsonian Institution, and its preparation having been aided by the United States Government, Mr. Morgan’s work has been very generally quoted as a work of authority, and it seemed worth while to take the trouble necessary to show its utterly unscientific character.” Not the hypothesis alone, but the entire work is covered by the charge.
That work contains 187 pages of “Tables of Consanguinity and Affinity,” exhibiting the systems of 139 tribes and nations of mankind representing four-fifths, numerically, of the entire human family. It is singular that the bare facts of consanguinity and affinity expressed by terms of relationship, even when placed in tabular form, should possess an “utterly unscientific character.” The body of the work is taken up with the dry details of these several systems. There remains a final chapter, consisting of 43 out of 590 pages, devoted to a comparison of these several systems of consanguinity, in which this solution or hypothesis appears. It was the first discussion of a large mass of new material, and had Mr. McLennan’s charge been limited to this chapter, there would have been little need of a discussion here. But he has directed his main attack against the Tables; denying that the systems they exhibit are systems of consanguinity and affinity, thus going to the bottom of the subject.[499]
Mr. McLennan’s position finds an explanation in the fact, that as systems of consanguinity and affinity they antagonize and refute the principal opinions and the principal theories propounded in “Primitive Marriage.” The author of “Primitive Marriage” would be expected to stand by his preconceived opinions.
As systems of consanguinity, for example: (1.) They show that Mr. McLennan’s new terms, “Exogamy and Endogamy” are of questionable utility—that as used in “Primitive Marriage,” their positions are reversed, and that “endogamy” has very little application to the facts treated in that work, while “exogamy” is simply a rule of a gens, and should be stated as such. (2.) They refute Mr. McLennan’s phrase, “kinship through females only,” by showing that kinship through males was recognized as constantly as kinship through females by the same people. (3.) They show that the Nair and Tibetan polyandry could never have been general in the tribes of mankind. (4.) They deny both the necessity and the extent of “wife stealing” as propounded in “Primitive Marriage.”
An examination of the grounds, upon which Mr. McLennan’s charge is made, will show not only the failure of his criticisms, but the insufficiency of the theories on which these criticisms are based. Such an examination leads to results disastrous to his entire work, as will be made evident by the discussion of the following propositions, namely:
I. That the principal terms and theories employed in “Primitive Marriage” have no value in Ethnology.
II. That Mr. McLennan’s hypothesis to account for the origin of the classificatory system of relationship does not account for its origin.
III. That Mr. McLennan’s objections to the hypothesis presented in “Systems of Consanguinity,” etc., are of no force.
These propositions will be considered in the order named.
I. That the principal terms and theories employed in “Primitive Marriage” have no value in Ethnology.