If the confusion did not extend beyond the terminology, the advance of knowledge would perhaps be but little impeded; but experience shows that confusion in terminology is apt to go hand in hand with confusion in ideas. As will be shown later, this seems to be particularly true of investigations into the history of marriage and sexual relationships. It seems desirable therefore to clear the way by classifying the ideas with which we have to deal, and by defining the terms corresponding to them.
Before classifying the various forms of sexual relationships, it may be well to say a few words on the definition of marriage in general. Dr Westermarck has defined it from the point of view of natural history as a more or less durable connection between male and female, lasting beyond the mere act of propagation till after the birth of the offspring.
It may not be possible to propose a better definition from the point of view selected by Dr Westermarck, which is certainly the one from which anthropology must regard sexual relationships. At the same time it is not entirely free from objection. In the first place we are employing the word marriage in a sense which has but little in common with its ordinarily accepted meaning. Suppose, for example, we are dealing with marriage in Europe, it is confusing to be compelled by our definition to regard as a marriage the faux ménage, not to speak of the not uncommon fairly permanent unions in which there is no common residence. Such monogamous relationships may be, technically speaking, marriages, in Dr Westermarck's sense, but it seems desirable to make use of some other term for them and reserve marriage for the unions sanctioned by legal forms. Or take the union of two people, each of whom has prior matrimonial engagements. Such a union may, as the records of the divorce court show, be anything but impermanent; but it does not make for clearness to call such an union marriage. Let us take a third example—a New Hebridean girl purchased, or in Upa stolen, for the use of the young men, who, of course, reside in their club-house. If any of the bachelors there resident chooses to recognise her children, they are regarded as his children; if not, they are supported by the whole of the residents in the club-house. How are we to classify the position of the mother of these children? The union is obviously fairly permanent, although some of the group enter into sexual relationships of an ordinary type and join the ranks of the married men, and others enter the club-house from the ranks of those hitherto shut out from the enjoyment of the privileges of the adult unmarried male. But the relationship established with the whole body of unmarried men and indistinguishable, so far as definition goes, from polyandry, hardly seems to be a permanent union of the type which Dr Westermarck had in mind when he framed his definition, much less a marriage in any accepted sense of the term.
For Dr Westermarck's general term marriage it would be well to substitute gamé or gamic union, to express all kinds of sexual relationships other than temporary ones. As sub-heads under this we have:
(1) Marriage, a union recognised by law or custom, which imposes duties and confers rights on one, both, or all the parties to it.
(2) Free union, a relationship not recognised by the community as conferring rights, but at the same time not punished and not necessarily regarded as immoral. Temporary unions we may classify as (a) promiscuity where marriage does not exist or is temporarily in abeyance: (b) free love, the relationships of the unmarried: (c i.) temporary polyandry or polygyny of married people, where the unions are limited and recognised by custom: (c ii.) marital licence where the husband is complaisant in the face of public opinion: (c iii.) adultery where neither the husband nor public opinion permits them.
(3) Liaison, a union in which one or both parties have other ties, which renders them liable to punishment, or to some kind of atonement.
Ten various possible forms of sexual relationship actually found or assumed to have existed may now be classified.
A. PROMISCUITY.
I. Unregulated Promiscuity. (a) Primary unregulated promiscuity is the hypothetical state assumed by Morgan and others to be the primitive state of mankind. It may be noted that promiscuity de jure, which is all that is implied by Morgan's hypothesis, is not necessarily also de facto promiscuity. Unless it be assumed that jealousy was absent at this stage, it is clear that free unions must have been the rule rather than the exception. But if this be so, the only distinction between Morgan's promiscuity and the ordinary state of things in an Australian tribe is constituted, intermarrying rules apart, by the fact that the Australian husband is at liberty to reclaim his wife, if he can, without fear of blood feud if perchance he slays his successor in the affections, or perhaps rather in the possession, of his wife, whereas in Morgan's primitive stage might was right and the abductor was on an equal footing with his predecessor and successor. (b) Secondary unregulated promiscuity is distinguished from primary promiscuity by the co-existence of other forms of sexual relations. It may temporarily supersede these as in Australia; or it may take their place, as among the Nairs.