Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia

by Northcote Whitridge Thomas

TYPES OF SEXUAL UNIONS.

Terminology of Sociology. Marriage. Classification of Types. Hypothetical and existing forms.

Students of the sociology of white races enjoy conspicuous advantages over those who devote themselves to the investigation of the organisation of races in the lower stages of culture. In the first place they deal with conditions and forms with which they are personally familiar; and this familiarity is shared by those who form the audience, or the reading public, of these investigators, who may thus count on making themselves understood. Even should they find the already existing terminology insufficient, the knowledge of the phenomena enables them to introduce suitable modifications or innovations without fear of causing misunderstanding. It is true that terminology is often loose, but it exists and can be made to express what is meant.

The student of primitive sociology, on the other hand, is called upon to digest the reports of other observers, who have not always understood the conditions which they describe, who have failed to define to themselves what they are endeavouring to make clear to others, and who make use of a terminology created for an entirely different set of conditions, as if exact definition and care in the use of terms were the last and not the first duty of the observer when he frames his report.

Thus, to take a concrete example, there is not much danger that a writer who discusses the question of marriage in civilised communities will deal with one form of union of the sexes, while his readers may imagine that he is dealing with another form. For marriage is the form of sexual union recognised by the law of the land, and its legal sanction distinguishes it from all other forms of sexual union, however permanent they may be, and however short may be the period before the marriage is dissolved by an appeal to the courts of law. In fact in civilised communities the fulfilment of legal forms and ceremonies constitutes marriage, whatever might be said of a union sanctioned by legal forms but unaccompanied by the cohabitation of the parties. When, however, we are dealing with a people ruled by custom and not by law, the case is far different. The force of custom may and usually does in such cases far exceed the force of law in civilised communities. In the lower stages of culture there is far more reluctance to overstep the traditional lines of behaviour than is felt by the ordinary member of a European state, and this though there are penalties in the latter which do not necessarily exist in the former case. But law, in the sense of a rule of conduct, promulgated by a legislator and enforced by penalties inflicted by law courts and carried out by the agents of the state, does not necessarily exist, and, at most, exists only in a very inchoate state. If therefore we read of marriage among such a people, we are left in complete uncertainty whether it is a union corresponding to marriage in civilised lands, or whether it belongs to a different category. The difficulty of the case lies partly in the inability of the observer to distinguish de jure from de facto unions, partly in the fact that one may be transformed into the other, and no ceremony of any sort mark the change. An Australian may, for example, have a wife who is recognised as his by tribal custom and tradition; if she is abducted the aggrieved husband may vindicate his rights but will not necessarily be supported by even his own kin, and will certainly not find anything to correspond to the tribunal before which an Englishman would sue for the restitution of conjugal rights. If the aggrieved husband proves the weaker, he necessarily abandons his wife, and she becomes ipso facto the wife of the aggressor; divorce is in fact pronounced by the issue of an ordeal by combat. So far the matter is clear to the observer.

But if the aggrieved husband take no steps to vindicate his rights, the woman will equally pass to the aggressor, and in this case there will be no customary ceremonial to mark for the benefit of the observer the exact moment of the transition from a marriage, recognised by public opinion, or tribal custom, with the first husband A to the same kind of union with B.

Again, even where no second mate intervenes to complicate the question, the observer may be confronted with delicate problems; at what point, for example, does a mere liaison pass into something worthy of the name of marriage? What is the status of a union in which the parties are more or less permanently associated, but which confers no rights as against aggressors? If by native custom the union is not of such a nature as to confer on the male party to it any rights over the female, such as the liberty to chastise or punish without fear of the intervention of the woman's kin, are we to regard the tie as equivalent to marriage if only it is permanent? At what point does mere cohabitation pass into marriage?

All these are questions which have to be debated and decided before we are in possession of a suitable terminology for dealing with the unions of the sexes in the lower stages of culture. But they are commonly neglected in controversies as to the origin and history of human marriage.

We have seen above that in a European community we mean by marriage a union between two persons of opposite sexes, entered into with due legal formalities, and not dissoluble simply at the will of either or both the parties concerned. When we go further afield the connotation of the term is extended to embrace (1) polygyny, in which one male is associated with two or more females, (2) polyandry, in which one female is similarly associated with more than one male, and (3) the condition which I propose to term polygamy, in which both these conditions are found. In all these cases the union is properly termed marriage, in so far as it cannot be entered upon without due formalities nor be dissolved without the concurrence of the authority upon the carrying out of whose conditions in the preliminary steps the union depends for its marriage-character.

When however we come to the so-called group marriage, using the term in its original sense of limited promiscuity, we are dealing with an entirely different state of things, and it is difficult to see any justification for the use of the term marriage in this connection at all. By group marriage is meant a condition only removed from absolute promiscuity by the existence of age-classes or of two or more exogamous classes in the community; it demands no special ceremonies prior to the individual union[141], it permits this union to be dissolved at will, and it consequently confers no rights on either of the parties to it, other than perhaps the right to the produce, or some of the produce, of each other's labour.