which, in all probability, have been acquired through the survival of the fittest.

But how, then, can it be that among most animals the father never concerns himself about his progeny? The answer is not difficult to find. Marriage is only one of many means by which a species is enabled to subsist. Where parental care is lacking, we may be sure to find compensation for it in some other way. Among the Invertebrata, Fishes, and Reptiles, both parents are generally quite indifferent as to their progeny. An immense proportion of the progeny therefore succumb before reaching maturity; but the number of eggs laid is proportionate to the number of those lost, and the species is preserved nevertheless. If every grain of roe, spawned by the female fishes, were fecundated and hatched, the sea would not be large enough to hold all the creatures resulting from them. The eggs of Reptiles need no maternal care, the embryo being developed by the heat of the sun; and their young are from the outset able to help themselves, leading the same life as the adults. Among Birds, on the other hand, parental care is an absolute necessity. Equal and continual warmth is the first requirement for the development of the embryo and the preservation of the young ones. For this the mother almost always wants the assistance of the father, who provides her with necessaries, and sometimes relieves her of the brooding. Among Mammals, the young can never do without the mother at the tenderest age, but the father's aid is generally by no means indispensable. In some species, as the walrus,1 the elephant,2 the Bos americanus,3 and the bat, there seems to be a rather curious substitute for paternal protection, the females, together with their young ones, collecting in large herds or flocks apart from the males Again, as to the marriage of the Primates, it is, I think, very probably due to the small number of young, the female bringing forth but one at a time; and, among the highest apes, as in man, also to the long period of infancy. Perhaps, 1 Brehm, 'Thierleben,' vol. iii. p. 649. 2 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 479. 4 Ibid., vol. i. p. 299.

3 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 400.

5 The Orang-utan is said to be not full-grown till fifteen years of age (Mohnike, in 'Das Ausland,' 1872, p. 850). Cf. Fiske, 'Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy,' vol. ii. pp. 342, et seq.

too, the defective family life of the Orang-utan, compared with that of the Gorilla and Chimpanzee, depends upon the fewer dangers to which this animal is exposed. For "except man," Dr. Mohnike says, "the Orang-utan in Borneo has no enemy of equal strength." In short, the factors which the existence of a species depends upon, as the number of the progeny, their ability to help themselves when young, maternal care, marriage, &c., vary indefinitely in different species. But in those that do not succumb, all these factors are more or less proportionate to each other, the product always being the maintenance of the species.

Marriage and family are thus intimately connected with each other: it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. Marriage is therefore rooted in family, rather than family in marriage. There are also many peoples among whom true conjugal life does not begin before a child is born, and others who consider that the birth of a child out of wedlock makes it obligatory for the parents to marry. Among the Eastern Greenlanders2 and the Fuegians, marriage is not regarded as complete till the woman has become a mother. Among the Shawanese1 and Abipones, the wife very often remains at her father's house till she has a child. Among the Khyens, the Ainos of Yesso, and one of the aboriginal tribes of China, the husband goes to live with his wife at her father's house, and never takes her away till after the birth of a child. In Circassia, the bride and bridegroom are kept apart until the first child is born; and among the Bedouins of Mount Sinai, a wife never enters her husband's tent until she becomes far advanced in pregnancy. Among the Baele, the wife remains with her parents until she becomes a mother, and if this does not happen, she stays there for ever, the husband getting back what he has 1 'Das Ausland,' 1872, p. 894. 2 'Science,' vol. vii. p. 172.

8

3 Hyades, in 'Mission Scientifique du Cap Horn,' vol. vii. pp. 377, et seq. 4 Moore, 'Marriage Customs, Modes of Courtship,' &c., p. 292.

5 Klemm, 'Allgemeine Cultur-Geschichte der Menschheit,' vol. ii. p. 75.

6 Rowney, 'The Wild Tribes of India,' pp. 203, et seq. v. Siebold,' Die Aino auf Yesso,' p. 31. Gray, ' China,' vol. ii. p. 304.

7 Lubbock, loc cit. p. 80.

8 Burckhardt, 'Notes on the Bedouins and Wahábys,' p. 153.

paid for her.1 In Siam, a wife does not receive her marriage portion before having given birth to a child; while among the Atkha Aleuts, according to Erman, a husband does not pay the purchase sum before he has become a father.3 Again, the Badagas in Southern India have two marriage ceremonies, the second of which does not take place till there is some indication that the pair are to have a family; and if there is no appearance of this, the couple not uncommonly separate.1 Dr. Bérenger-Féraud states that, among the Wolofs in Senegambia, "ce n'est que lorsque les signes de la grossesse sont irrécusables chez la fiancée, quelquefois même ce n'est qu'après la naissance d'un ou plusieurs enfants, que la cérémonie du mariage proprement dit s'accomplit." And the Igorrotes of Luzon consider no engagement binding until the woman has become pregnant.

On the other hand, Emin Pasha tells us that, among the Mádi in Central Africa, "should a girl become pregnant, the youth who has been her companion is bound to marry her, and to pay to her father the customary price of a bride."7 Burton reports a similar custom as prevailing among peoples dwelling to the south of the equator. Among many of the wild tribes of Borneo, there is almost unrestrained intercourse between the youth of both sexes; but, if pregnancy ensue, marriage is regarded as necessary." The same, as I am informed by Dr. A. Bunker, is the case with some Karen tribes in Burma. In Tahiti, according to Cook, the father might

1 Nachtigal, 'Sahara und Sudan,' vol. ii., p. 177.

2 Bock, Temples and Elephants,' p. 186.

3 Erman, 'Ethnographische Wahrnehmungen an den Küsden des Berings-Meeres,' in 'Zeitschrift für Ethnologie,' vol. iii. p. 162.

4 Harkness, 'The Neilgherry Hills,' p. 116.

5 Bérenger-Féraud, 'Le mariage chez les Nègres Sénégambiens,' in' 'Revue d'Anthropologie,' 1883, pp. 286, et seq.

et seq.

6 Blumentritt, Versuch einer Ethnographie der Philippinen,' pp. 27, 7 'Emin Pasha in Central Africa,' p. 103. 8 Ibid., p. 103. St. John, 'Wild Tribes of the North-West Coast of Borneo,' in 'Transactions of the Ethnological Society,' new series, vol. ii. p. 237. Low, Sarawak,' p. 195. Wilken, Plechtigheden en gebruiken bij verlovingen en huwelijken bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel,' in 'Bijdragen tot de taal-, land- en volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië,' ser. v. vol. iv. p. 442.

kill his natural child, but if he suffered it to live, the parties were considered to be in the married state.1 Among the Tipperahs of the Chittagong Hills, as well as the peasants of the Ukraine, a seducer is bound to marry the girl, should she become pregnant. Again, Mr. Powers informs us that, among the Californian Wintun, if a wife is abandoned when she has a young child, she is justified by her friends in destroying it on the ground that it has no supporter. And among the Creeks, a young woman that becomes pregnant by a man whom she had expected to marry, and is disappointed, is allowed the same privilege.5

It might, however, be supposed that, in man, the prolonged union of the sexes is due to another cause besides the offspring's want of parental care, i.e., to the fact that the sexual instinct is not restricted to any particular season, but endures throughout the whole year. "That which distinguishes man from the beast," Beaumarchais says, "is drinking without being thirsty, and making love at all seasons." But in the next chapter, I shall endeavour to show that this is probably not quite correct, so far as our earliest human or semi-human ancestors are concerned.

1 Cook, 'Voyage to the Pacific Ocean,' vol. ii. p. 157.

2 Lewin,' Wild Races of South-Eastern India,' p. 202.

3 v. Zmigrodzki, 'Die Mutter bei den Völkern des arischen Stammes,' pp. 246-248. Cf. Man, 'On the Aboriginal Inhabitants of the Andaman Islands,' in 'Jour. Anthr. Inst.,' vol. xii. p. 81 (Andamanese).

4 Powers, loc. cit. p. 239.

5 Schoolcraft,' Archives of Aboriginal Knowledge, vol. v. p. 272.

CHAPTER II

A HUMAN PAIRING SEASON IN PRIMITIVE TIMES

PROFESSOR LEUCKART assumes that the periodicity in the sexual life of animals depends upon economical conditions, the reproductive matter being a surplus of the individual economy. Hence he says that the rut occurs at the time when the proportion between receipts and expenditure is most favourable.1

Though this hypothesis is accepted by several eminent physiologists, facts do not support the assumption that the power of reproduction is correlated with abundance of food and bodily vigour. There are some writers who even believe that the reverse is the case.2

At any rate, it is not correct to say, with Dr. Gruenhagen, that "the general wedding-feast is spring, when awakening nature opens, to most animals, new and ample sources of living." This is certainly true of Reptiles and Birds, but not of Mammals; every month or season of the year is the pairing season of one or another mammalian species. But

1 Wagner,' Handwörterbuch der Physiologie,' vol. iv. p. 862. Gruenhagen, 'Lehrbuch der Physiologie,' vol. iii. p. 528. Cf. Haycraft, ' Some Physiological Results of Temperature Variations,' in 'Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh,' vol. xxix. p. 130.

2 Janke, 'Die willkürliche Hervorbringung des Geschlechts,' pp. 220–222. 3 Gruenhagen, vol. iii. p. 528.

4 Thus, the bat pairs in January and February (Brehm, 'Thierleben, vol. i. p. 299); the wild camel in the desert to the east of Lake Lob-nor from the middle of January nearly to the end of February (Prejevalsky