Kinship Organisations and Group Marriage in Australia Part 12

The Dieri rule is that of the eight-cla.s.s tribes. The person designated as the proper spouse for a male is his mother's mother's brother's daughter's daughter, in other words, the grandchildren of brother and sister intermarry. This, as we have already seen, is precisely the effect of the eight-cla.s.s rules. We are therefore confronted with three possibilities. Either the Dieri regulations are aberrant or they have introduced these rules under the influence of the neighbouring eight-cla.s.s system; or the eight-cla.s.s organisation is a systematisation of the Dieri rule, adopted perhaps to facilitate the determination of marriageableness or otherwise in the case of persons residing at some distance from each other and therefore less likely to be acquainted with genealogical niceties than the members of a small community. Now if the second of these hypotheses is correct, it is by no means clear why the Dieri, having in view the attainment of the object of the eight-cla.s.s system, did not simply adopt it; for this we can find no reason; and it is clearly more reasonable on other grounds to suppose that these regulations are of independent origin. But we know the eight-cla.s.s rule to have arisen from a division within a generation, which the Dieri rule is not. Therefore the latter must be sporadic.

The same is probably true of the Urabunna, but here our information is very scanty and the precise working of the rules is far from clear. What happens is that an elder brother (A) of a woman (B) marries an elder sister (D) of a man (C); the daughter of this elder sister (D) is the proper mate for the son of the younger sister (B) of her husband; this younger sister's husband is the younger brother, C. Now the term elder brother, elder sister, does not seem to refer to age; the rule appears to be--once an elder brother, always an elder brother from generation to generation.

We learn from Spencer and Gillen, that all the women of a generation in the one phratry, and presumably within the right totem only, are to a man either _nupa_ (=marriageable) or _apillia_. In the case given by Dr Howitt the younger sister is _nupa_ to the younger brother, the elder to the elder brother; but we do not learn how elder and younger are distinguished, if it is not by descent. Apparently it cannot be by descent, however; for we find that the son of the younger brother and sister marries the daughter of the elder brother and sister. As to what would happen if the younger brother and sister have a daughter, the elder a son, we have no information; but apparently they cannot marry.

Such a daughter must find the son of two people who stand to her father and mother as they stood to A and D.

From this example it is clear that the boundaries of the _nupa_ and _apillia_ groups are not fixed in a given group of women; it is not possible to divide the women and the men into elder brothers and sisters on the one hand, younger brothers and sisters on the other. But if this is the case, we are quite in the dark as to the meaning of the marriage regulations.

One thing however seems certain; viz., that the Urabunna regulations do not give the same result as the four-cla.s.s regulations. With them the division is within the generation. There is no cla.s.s of women, who, with their descendants, are the normal spouses of a cla.s.s of men, with their descendants. That being so, the Urabunna case can hardly throw light on the genesis of the four-cla.s.s system.

Among the Urabunna, however, like the Wathi-Wathi, we find the rule that a man must marry in his own generation; and this is _prima facie_ the meaning of the four-cla.s.s rule. It is true that the origin of the eight-cla.s.s rule was not what its _prima facie_ meaning suggests, viz., the desire to prevent the marriage of cousins, for we know that it originated in the distinction between elder and younger sisters. But no similar theory appears to fit the case of the four-cla.s.s tribes. No division within the generation could possibly produce an alternation of generations.

The Red Indians have in many cases different names for the elder and younger sister; the Hausa impose on persons standing in these relations certain prohibitions and avoidances, which are not the same for both elder and younger; in Australia a man may speak freely to his elder sisters in blood, but only at a distance to his tribal _ungaraitcha_. To his younger sisters, blood and tribal, he may not speak save at such a distance that his features are indistinguishable. In many parts the elder brother has special rights with regard to the younger, and many similar customs might be quoted[139].

The question why marriage within the generation--the rule of four-cla.s.s and two-phratry tribes alike--should have come into existence is a complicated one and involves that of the origin of kinship terms. If we take a crucial case of kinship terminology, we find that a child applies the same term to its actual mother as to all the women whom its father might have married, to its potential mothers in fact. If therefore we have to choose between the gradual extension of the terms from the single family to the group or their original application to a group, this instance seems decisive in favour of the latter theory.

Now if marriage was originally not "group" but individual, a question to be fully discussed in later chapters, we can hardly doubt that parent-child marriage was forbidden or perhaps instinctively avoided.

But this would be equivalent to prohibiting marriage with one of a number of men or women embraced under a common kinship term. In the lower culture generally and especially among the Australians there is a tendency to follow things out to their logical conclusions. If this were done in the present case, the result would be to extend the prohibition to all the persons embraced under the kinship term.

In any case the natural tendency in a small group would be to marry within the generation, and this might readily become crystallised in the kinship terms.

The eight-cla.s.s system, as we have seen, resulted from the distinction between elder and younger sister. What is the meaning of this and what a.n.a.logies do we find to it?

Widely extended also are the systems of age-grades. In all parts of the world the men, and sometimes the women, are or have been divided into a.s.sociations, to which reference was made in Chapter I, which begin by being co-extensive with the tribe for all practical purposes, since all pa.s.s through the initiation ceremonies. The various initiation ceremonies during what may be termed the involuntary stage of these a.s.sociations, no less than in their later form of secret societies, determine the rights and duties of the individuals who undergo them. The period at which they take place is determined, broadly speaking, by the age of the individual. It is therefore clear that for the peoples in the lower stage of culture considerations of age are of the highest importance.

We find that in practice the elder brother has much authority, both over the younger brother and the sister. In Victoria he decides whom they are to marry. As we have seen in the tables of terms, the Wathi-Wathi man distinguishes both elder and younger of either s.e.x by special terms, which points to their having special rights or duties[140].

If therefore we cannot see why primitive man should have enacted that the elder rather than the younger, or the daughter of the elder rather than the daughter of the younger, should be preferred, it is at any rate of a piece with his other customs.

From the terms of kinship tabulated above various conclusions have been drawn. It will be seen that a man applies to all the women in the other phratry on the level of his generation the same term as he applies to his actual wife. On this basis it has been argued that at one time all the men in one phratry were united in marriage with all the women in the other within the limits of the generation. Before this again a stage of absolute promiscuity is supposed to have existed. This alternative explanation of the kinship organisations demands to be considered.

FOOTNOTES:

[138] _J.A.I._ XIV, 354; _N. Queensl. Eth. Bull._ VI, 6; Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, p. 90.

[139] Morgan, in _Smithsonian Contr._ vol. XVII; _Globus_, LXIX, 3; _Nat. Tribes_, pp. 88-9.

[140] For lists of tribes where this distinction is found see Mathew, _Eaglehawk_, p. 223-4.

CHAPTER X.

TYPES OF s.e.xUAL UNIONS.

Terminology of Sociology. Marriage. Cla.s.sification 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 s.e.xes, while his readers may imagine that he is dealing with another form. For marriage is the form of s.e.xual union recognised by the law of the land, and its legal sanction distinguishes it from all other forms of s.e.xual 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 const.i.tutes 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 rest.i.tution 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 p.r.o.nounced 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 pa.s.s 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 pa.s.s into something worthy of the name of marriage? What is the status of a union in which the parties are more or less permanently a.s.sociated, 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 pa.s.s 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 s.e.xes 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 s.e.xes, 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 a.s.sociated with two or more females, (2) polyandry, in which one female is similarly a.s.sociated 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-cla.s.ses or of two or more exogamous cla.s.ses 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.

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 s.e.xual relationships. It seems desirable therefore to clear the way by cla.s.sifying the ideas with which we have to deal, and by defining the terms corresponding to them.

Before cla.s.sifying the various forms of s.e.xual 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 s.e.xual 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 menage_, 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 cla.s.sify the position of the mother of these children? The union is obviously fairly permanent, although some of the group enter into s.e.xual 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 subst.i.tute _game_ or gamic union, to express all kinds of s.e.xual 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 cla.s.sify 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 s.e.xual relationship actually found or a.s.sumed to have existed may now be cla.s.sified.

A. PROMISCUITY.

I. Unregulated Promiscuity. (_a_) Primary unregulated promiscuity is the hypothetical state a.s.sumed 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 a.s.sumed 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 const.i.tuted, 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 s.e.xual relations. It may temporarily supersede these as in Australia; or it may take their place, as among the Nairs.

II. Regulated Promiscuity. This again falls into (_a_) primary regulated promiscuity, the hypothetical stage postulated for Australia before the introduction of individual marriage; and (_b_) secondary regulated promiscuity, which is found in certain tribes as an exceptional practice. With this custom I deal in greater detail below.

B. MARRIAGE.

III, Polygamy. This state is const.i.tuted by the union of several men with several women. It may be distinguished, as before, into primary and secondary polygamy. We may further distinguish (_a_) simple and (__) adelphic polygamy; and the latter may be (i) unilateral or (ii) bilateral, according as either the males or females, or both males and females, are brothers and sisters. A further sub-division is const.i.tuted by the relations of the groups of males or females, or both, within themselves. I distinguish these unions by the names of dissimilar (M.) and dissimilar (F.) according as one husband or one wife has a position superior to the others[142].

IV, Polyandric and V. polygynic unions fall into the same divisions, save that they are naturally always unilateral. As a designation for the hypothetical stage postulated by Mr Atkinson in _Primal Law_, we may take "patriarchal polygyny," meaning thereby the state in which (_a_) in the earlier stage all the females of the horde[143] are _ipso facto_ mates of the one adult male of the horde; or (_b_) in the second stage all females born in the horde are equally allotted to him.

Finally we have VI, monogamy.

To the three forms of marriage we can apply the determinants "regulated"