far into January, without any particular influence upon the number of births in October being observable.1 It has, further, been proved that the unequal distribution of marriages over the different months exercises hardly any influence upon the distribution of births. Again, among the Hindus the December and January maximum of conceptions seems from the lascivious festivities of several Indian peoples to be due to an increase of the sexual instinct. According to Mr. Hill, this increase depends upon healthy conditions with an abundant food supply. But, as I have already said, it is not proved that a strengthened power of reproduction and abundance of food are connected with one another.

I am far from venturing to express any definite opinion as to the cause of these particular phenomena, but it is not impossible that they also are effects of natural selection, although of a comparatively recent date. Considering that the September maximum of births (or December maximum of conceptions) in Europe becomes larger the farther north we go; that the agricultural peoples of Northern Europe have plenty of food in autumn and during the first part of winter, but often suffer a certain degree of want in spring; and, finally, that the winter cold does not affect the health of infants, the woods giving sufficient material for fuel,—it has occurred to me that children born in September may have a better chance of surviving than others. Indeed, Dr. Beukemann states that the number of stillborn births is largest in winter or at the beginning of spring, and that "the children born in autumn possess the greatest vitality and resisting power against the dangers of earliest infancy."3 This would perhaps be an adequate explanation either of an increase of the sexual instinct or of greater disposition to impregnation in December. It is not impossible either, that the increase of the power of reproduction among the Hindus in December and January, which causes an increase of births in September and October-i.e., the end of the hot season and the beginning of winter-owes its origin

1 Wargentin, in 'Kongl. Vet.-acad. Handl.,' vol. xxviii. p. 254.

2 Wappaus, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 242. Bertillon, ‘Natalité (démographie),' in 'Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales,' ser. ii. vol. xi. P. 479. 3 Beukemann, loc. cit. p. 59.

to the fact that during the winter the granaries get filled, and some of the conditions of life become more healthy. But it should be remarked that September itself, according to Mr. Hill, is a very unhealthy month.1

Now it can be explained, I believe for the first time, how it happens that man, unlike the lower animals, is not limited to a particular period of the year in which to court the female.2 The Darwinian theory of natural selection can, as it seems to me, account for the periodicity of the sexual instinct in such a rude race as the Western Australians, among whom the mortality of children is so enormous that the greater number of them do not survive even the first month after birth,3 and who inhabit a land pre-eminently unproductive of animals and vegetables fitted to sustain human life, a land where, "during the summer seasons, the black man riots in comparative abundance, but during the rest of the year. . . the struggle for existence becomes very severe." The more progress man makes in arts and inventions; the more he acquires the power of resisting injurious external influences; the more he rids himself of the necessity of freezing when it is cold, and starving when nature is less lavish with food; in short, the more independent he becomes of the changes of the seasons-the greater is the probability that children born at one time of the year will survive as well, or almost as well, as those born at any other. Variations as regards the pairing time, always likely to occur occasionally, will do so the more frequently on account of changed conditions of life, which directly or indirectly cause variability of every kind; and these variations will be preserved and transmitted to following generations. Thus we can understand how a race has arisen, endowed with the ability to procreate children in any season, We can also understand how, even in such a rude race as the Yahgans in Tierra del Fuego, the seasonable distribution of 1 Hill, in 'Nature,' vol. xxxviii. p. 250.

2 Professor Nicholson says (Sexual Selection in Man,' p. 9) that Darwinism fails to assign any adequate cause for this.

3 Waitz, 'Introduction to Anthropology,' p. 113.

4 Oldfield, in 'Trans. Ethn. Soc.,' N. S. vol. iii. pp. 269, et seq.

5 Darwin,' The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication,' vol. ii. p. 255.

births seems to be pretty equal, as there is, according to the Rev. T. Bridges, "such a variety of food in the various seasons that there is strictly no period of hardship, save such as is caused by accidents of weather." We can explain, too, why the periodical fluctuation in the number of births, though comparatively inconsiderable in every civilized society, is greater in countries predominantly agricultural, such as Chili, than in countries predominantly industrial, as Saxony;1 why it is greater in rural districts than in towns; and why it was greater in Sweden in the middle of the last century than it is now. For the more man has abandoned natural life out of doors, the more luxury has increased and his habits have got refined, the greater is the variability to which his sexual life has become subject, and the smaller has been the influence exerted upon it by the changes of the seasons.

4

2

Man has thus gone through the same transition as certain domestic animals. The he-goat and the ass in southern countries, for instance, rut throughout the whole year. The domestic pig pairs generally twice a year, while its wild ancestors had but one rutting season. Dr. Hermann Müller has even observed a canary that laid eggs in autumn and winter. Natural selection cannot, of course, account for such alterations: they fall under the law of variation. It is the limited pairing season that is a product of this powerful process, which acts with full force only under conditions free from civilization and domestication.

If the hypothesis set forth in this chapter holds good, it must be admitted that the continued excitement of the sexual instinct could not have played a part in the origin of human marriage-provided that this institution did exist among primitive men. Whether this was the case I shall examine in the following chapters.

1 Wappaus, loc. cit. vol. i. p. 247.

2 Ibid., vol. i. p. 246. Quetelet, loc. cit. p. 20. Bertillon, in 'Dictionnaire encyclopédique des sciences médicales,' ser. ii. vol. xi. p. 480.

4 Brehm, Thierleben,' vol. iii. p. 333.

5 Ibid., vol. iii. p. 43.

6 Ibid., vol. iii. pp. 549, 557.

7 Müller, loc. cit. pp. 2, 86, 104. I myself know of a canary that laid eggs as early as March.

CHAPTER III

THE ANTIQUITY OF HUMAN MARRIAGE

IF it be admitted that marriage, as a necessary requirement for the existence of certain species, is connected with some peculiarities in their organism, and, more particularly among the highest monkeys, with the paucity of their progeny and their long period of infancy,-it must at the same time be admitted that, among primitive men, from the same causes as among these animals, the sexes in all probability kept together till after the birth of the offspring. Later on, when the human race passed beyond its frugivorous stage and spread over the earth, living chiefly on animal food, the assistance of an adult male became still more necessary for the subsistence of the children. Everywhere the chase devolves on the man, it being a rare exception among savage peoples for a woman to engage in it.1 Under such conditions a family consisting of mother and young only, would probably, as a rule, have succumbed.

It has, however, been suggested that, in olden times, the natural guardian of the children was not the father, but the maternal uncle. This inference has been drawn chiefly from

Peschel, "The Races of Man,' pp. 229, et seq.

2 Giraud-Teulon, 'Les origines du mariage et de la famille,' p. 148. Lippert, Kulturgeschichte der Menschheit,' vol. ii. pp. 54, et seq. Von Hellwald, 'Die menschliche Familie,' p. 207: 'Was später der Vater, das ist der Oheim zur Zeit des Mutterrechtes und des Matriarchats.' Kovalevsky,' Tableau des origines et de l'évolution de la famille et de la propriété, pp. 15, 16, 21.

the common practice of a nephew succeeding his mother's brother in rank and property. But sometimes the relation between the two is still more intimate. "La famille Malaise proprement dite-le Sa-Mandei,-" says a Dutch writer, as quoted by Professor Giraud-Teulon, "consiste dans la mère et ses enfants: le père n'en fait point partie. Les liens de parenté qui unissent ce dernier à ses frères et sœurs sont plus étrois que ceux qui le rattachent à sa femme et à ses propres enfants. Il continue même après son mariage à vivre dans sa famille maternelle; c'est là qu'est son véritable domicile, et non pas dans la maison de sa femme: il ne cesse pas de cultiver le champ de sa propre famille, à travailler pour elle, et n'aide sa femme qu'accidentellement. Le chef de la famille est ordinairement le frère aîné du côté maternel (le mamak ou avunculus). De par ses droits et ses devoirs, c'est lui le vrai père des enfants de sa sœur." As regards the mountaineers of Georgia, especially the Pshaves, M. Kovalevsky states that, among them, "le frère de la mère prend la place du père dans toutes les circonstances où il s'agit de venger le sang répandu, surtout au cas de meurtre commis sur la personne de son neveu."2 Among the Goajiro Indians, the Negroes of Bondo, the Barea, and the Bazes, it is the mother's brother who has the right of selling a girl to her suitor. Touching the Kois, the Rev. John Cain says, "The maternal uncle of any Koi girl has the right to bestow her hand on any one of his sons, or any other suitable candidate who meets with his approval. The father and the mother of the girl have no acknowledged voice in the matter. A similar custom prevails amongst some of the Komâti (Vaisya) caste." Among the Savaras in India, the bridegroom has to give a bullock not only to the girl's father, but to the maternal uncle; whilst among the Creeks, the proxy of the suitor asked for the con1 Giraud-Teulon, loc. cit. pp. 199, et seq.

2 Kovalevsky, Tableau des origines de la famille,' pp. 21, et seq.

3 Bastian, Die Rechtsverhältnisse bei verschiedenen Völkern der Erde,' p. 181.

4 'Das Ausland,' 1881, p. 1026.

5 Munzinger, 'Ostafrikanische Studien,' p. 528.

6 Cain, 'The Bhadrachellam and Rekapalli Taluqas,' in 'The Indian Antiquary,' vol. viii. p. 34. 7 Dalton, loc. cit. p. 150.