a bridegroom may never see his parents-in-law. He carefully avoids them, and they cover their faces when they see him. If the wooer comes from another encampment, he conceals himself from the bride's fellow-villagers, with the exception of a few friends, with whom he lives. He sometimes migrates to the bride's encampment, in which case he takes his cattle with him, becomes one of its members, and ceases to practise any concealment.1 It is more doubtful how we are to interpret the Australian prohibition to speak either of the parents- or children-inlaw by name, and also that an Australian is displeased, even if his mother-in-law's shadow falls upon his legs." There is a similar prohibition in the case of the Araucanians. But if any one attempts to connect these phenomena with the rape of women, further consideration will show that they can have had no independent influence on the symbol of rape, but must rather have been dependent on it.4

1 Caillié, vol. i. p. 139.

3 Fison and Howitt, p. 103.

2

Eyre, vol. ii. p. 339. 4 Smith, p. 217.

CHAPTER VII.

MARRIAGE AND ITS DEVELOPMENT.

Sexual impulse-Civilizing power of religion-Stages of developmentMother's rights-Father's rights-Bellerophon myth-Perpati mythPele and Tamapua myth-Interpretation of myths-Tsui-goab myth -Allegories of theory and conception-Customs of civilizationJealousy-Object of marriage-Use of fire-Primitive wooingDuration of marriage-Birth of child-Marriage-Polygamy-Wedding-Bride's family-Setting aside of polygamy-Tolerant and intolerant forms of marriage-Chastity in marriage-Paternal loveChastity of unmarried girls-The man's obligation of chastity-Love and marriage-Independence of married women-Emancipation of women-Education of children-Unmarried women-Moral independence of married women.

We have now seen that legal considerations for the most part define the conception of the relations between parents and chidren, and also the sphere within which individuals are permitted to intermarry. Exogamy sets its mark on a given sphere as too restricted for the establishment within it of the legal ordinance which is termed marriage; endogamy, on the other hand, prescribes the limits beyond which marriage is no longer possible. We must therefore regard marriage as a legal institution, and the sexual intercourse between husband and wife is only one of the matters with which this institution has to do; it is by no means its central point and raison d'être. We are in some respects disposed to under-estimate the great influence which sexual matters exert on all the concerns of social life, and the attempt

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is sometimes made to sever it from moral life, as a matter of which we are constrained to admit the practical existence, although, from the ideal point of view, it ought not to be. On the other hand, its influence on primitive communities has been greatly overrated. The sexual instinct must be counted among the most powerful of human impulses, and is often unbridled in its expression, but it is devoid of the conditions which form the basis of the leading tendencies in which man's struggle for existence must be fought out. Since it is so easily and quickly gratified, and so transient, it is not adapted to support the heavy burden of social order. In societies in which it is less possible to gratify the sexual instinct, it may become the overmastering passion of the individual, and it may dictate ends to him which decide the direction and nature of his life; but such a state of being will always be opposed to the deepest and most enduring tendencies which render the life of the community vigorous and healthy, and lead it into fresh and higher developments.

Too high an estimate of the sexual impulse has led to the erroneous assertion, which we have disputed above, that the first human community lived in promiscuous intercourse, and that monogamous marriage was gradually developed from this condition by reflections on the sexual relation. We will now attempt to become more accurately acquainted with the process of development through which marriage passed.

Bachofen believes that he can offer a decisive proof of the fact that the spiritual life of primitive men gathered round their sexual relations and the facts of procreation. He asserts that man passed from the state of promiscuous intercourse into a marriage state which was based on the dominating power of women; that this gynocracy subsequently took the savage form it assumed in the Amazon period, and then gave way to an order of things which was based on the superiority of the man.

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authority for Bachofen's statement is sought by him in the observances of the female line, in licentious customs of all kinds, and in polyandry; but he also lays special stress on the value of religious myths. He makes use of this material in such a disconnected manner, that a critic can scarcely undertake a harder task than to glance superficially at Bachofen's comprehensive work. I feel bound to say that his process of thought can only be satisfactorily given in its main features, since most of its details are hopelessly obscure and confused. We should rather call his "Mutterrecht" the rhapsody of a wellinformed poet than the work of a calm and clear-sighted man of science.

Bachofen writes: "Mythical tradition appears to be the faithful expression of the law of life, at a time when the foundations of the historical development of the ancient world were laid; it reveals the original mode of thought, and we may accept this direct historical revelation as true, from our complete confidence in this source of history." And again, "Every age unconsciously obeys, even in its poetry, the laws of its individual life."1 A patriarchal age could therefore not have invented the matriarchate, and the myths which describe the latter may be regarded as trustworthy witnesses of its historical existence. It may be taken for granted that the myths did not refer to special persons and occurrences, but only tell us of the social ideas which prevailed, or were endeavouring to prevail in the several communities." 2 With rather obtrusive self-consciousness, Bachofen goes on to say that the development of the community only advanced by means of these religious ideas. Religion is the only efficient lever of all civilization. Each elevation and depression of human life has its origin in a movement which begins in this supreme department." 3 We cannot fail to see that of the two forms of gynocracy in question, religious and civil, the former 1 Bachofen, Mutterrecht, p. vii. 2 Ibid., p. viii. 3 Ibid., p. xiii.

was the basis of the latter. Ideas connected with worship came first, and the civil forms of life were their result and expression."1 The woman's religious attitude, in particular, the tendency of her mind towards the supernatural and the divine, influenced the man, and robbed him of the position which nature disposed him to take, in virtue of his physical superiority. In this way woman's position was transformed by religious considerations, until she became in civil life that which religion had caused her to be. By such a study of myths, and by the fragmentary accounts of barbarous peoples which have been handed down to us from ancient times, Bachofen undertakes to show that man was developed from a state of promiscuous intercourse into the matriarchate, and the age of Amazons, and then into the patriarchate; each stage was marked by its peculiar religious idea, produced by the dissatisfaction with which the dominating idea of the prior stage was regarded; a dissatisfaction which led to the disappearance of this prior condition.

'It was the assertion of fatherhood which delivered the mind from natural appearances, and when this was successfully achieved, human existence was raised above the laws of material life. The principle of motherhood is common to all the spheres of animal life, but man goes beyond this tie in giving the pre-eminence to the power of procreation, and thus becomes conscious of his higher vocation. . . . In the paternal and spiritual principle he breaks through the bonds of tellurism and looks upward to the higher regions of the cosmos. Victorious fatherhood thus becomes as distinctly connected with the heavenly light as prolific motherhood is with the teeming earth." "3 "All the stages of sexual life, from aphrodistic hetairism to the apollinistic purity of fatherhood, have their corresponding type in the stages of natural life, from the wild vegetation of the morass, the prototype 1 Bachofen, Mutterrecht, p. xv. 2 Ibid., p. xiv. 3 Ibid., p. xxvii.