The Truth About Woman Part 11

[124] The customs of the Senecas have been noted by the Rev. A.

Wright, who was a missionary for many years amongst them, and was familiar with their language and habits. His account is quoted by Morgan, _House and House-life of the American Aborigines_.

[125] We seem here to have a suggestion of the modern plan of co-operative dwelling-houses. It is extraordinary how many of our new (!) ideas seem to have been common in the mother-age. Was it because women, who are certainly more practical and careful of detail than men are, had part in the social arrangements? This would explain the revival of the same ideas to-day, when women are again taking up their part in the ordering of domestic and social life.

[126] Powell, _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, I, p. 63.

[127] Owen, _Musquakies_, p. 72, quoted by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol.

II. pp. 68-69.

[128] I have summarised the account of the Wyandot government as given by Hartland, who quotes from Powell's "Wyandot Government," _First Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology, 1879-1880_, pp. 61 ff.

[129] "The Beginning of Marriage," _American Anthropologist_, Vol. IX.

p. 376. _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XVII. p. 275.

[130] This is supposed by McGee to suggest a survival of a vestigial polyandry.

[131] Mrs. Stevenson, _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XXIII. pp. 290, 293. Cus.h.i.+ng, _Zuni Folk Tales_, p. 368, cited by Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp.

73, 74.

[132] _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, XIII. p. 340. Solberg, _Zeits. f. Ethnol._, x.x.xVII. p. 269. Voth, _Traditions of the Hopi_, pp. 67, 96, 133.

Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp. 74-76.

[133] _Rep. Bur. Ethn._, IX. p. 19. Hartland, _Ibid._, pp. 76-77. It would seem in some cases, the husband, after a period of residence with his wife's family, provides a separate house.

[134] _s.e.x and Society_, pp. 65-66.

[135] Bachofen's work was foreshadowed by an earlier writer, Father Lafiteau, who published his _Moeurs des sauvages americains_ in 1721.

_Das Mutterrecht_ was published in 1861. McLennan, ignorant of Bachofen's work, followed immediately after with his account of the Indian Hill Tribes. He was followed by Morgan, with his knowledge of Iroquois, and many other investigators.

[136] Lord Avebury, for example, says: "I believe that communities in which women have exercised supreme power were quite exceptional,"

_Marriage, Totemism and Religion_, p. 51. See also Letourneau, _Evolution of Marriage_, pp. 281-282.

[137] In this opinion I am glad to have the support of so high an authority as Mr. Havelock Ellis. See his admirable summary of this question, _Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. VI. pp. 390-393; also the essay already referred to, "Changing Status of Women," _Westminster Review_, Oct. 1886.

[138] Ratzel, _History of Mankind_, Vol. II. p. 130; see Thomas, _op.

cit._, chapter on "s.e.x and Primitive Industry."

[139] Robertson Smith, _Kins.h.i.+p and Marriage in Early Arabia_, p. 65.

[140] Hoffman, "The Menomini Indians," _Fourteenth Rep. of the Bur. of Am. Ethno._, p. 288.

[141] Papers of the _Arch. Inst. of Am._, Vol. II. p. 138.

[142] Fison and Howitt, _Native Tribes of Australia_; also _Kamilaroi_ and _Kurnai_, pp. 33, 65, 66. See also Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I.

p. 294.

[143] Letourneau, _op. cit._, pp. 44, 271-274. Thomas, _op. cit._, p.

61.

[144] Hartland, _Primitive Paternity_, Vol. II. pp. 155-156, 39-41.

[145] Dalton, _Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 54; also Tylor, "The Matriarchal System," _Nineteenth Century_, July 1896, p. 89.

[146] Dalton, _op. cit._, p. 63, cited by Hartland. I would suggest that Mr. Bernard Shaw may have had this marriage custom in his mind when he created Ann. See p. 66.

[147] This custom prevails, for instance, among the Kharwars and Parahiya tribes, and is common among the Ghasiyas, and is also practised among the Tipperah of Bengal. Among the Santals this service-marriage is used when a girl is ugly or deformed and cannot be married otherwise, while the Badagas of the Nil'giri Hills offer their daughters when in want of labourers.

[148] Crooke, _Tribes and Castes_, iii. p. 242.

[149] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. pp. 156, 157.

[150] Risley, _The Tribes and Castes of Bengal_, Vol. I. pp. 228, 231.

[151] Rivers, _The Todas_; Schrott, _Tras. Ethno. Soc._ (New Series), Vol. VIII. p. 261.

[152] Letourneau, quoting Skinner, _Evolution of Marriage_, p. 78.

[153] Thurston, _Ethnographic Notes in Southern India_, p. 114.

Polyandry has flourished not only among the primitive races of India.

The Hindoo populations also adopted it, and traces of the custom may be found in their sacred literature. Thus in the _Mahabharata_ the five Pandava brothers marry all together the beautiful Druaupadi, with eyes of lotus blue (_Mahabharata_, trad. Fauche, t. II. p. 148). For an account of polyandry in ancient India the reader should consult Jolly, _Gundriss der Indo-Arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde_.

[154] Davy, _Ceylon_, p. 286; Sachot, _L'ile de Ceylon_, p. 25.

[155] Turner, _Thibet_, p. 348, and _Hist. Univ. des, Voy._, Vol.

x.x.xI. p. 434; Dalton, _Descriptive Ethnology of Bengal_, p. 36.

[156] Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. II. p. 164.

[157] This is the opinion of Bernhoft, quoted by Iwan Bloch. Marshall points out that among the Todas group-marriages occur side by side with polyandry. Bloch also notes that in the common cases where the husband has a claim on his wife's sister, and even her cousins and aunts, we find polygamy developed out of group-marriage. The practice of wife lending and wife exchange is also connected with the early communal marriage (_s.e.xual History of Our Times_, pp. 193-194). It is possible that prost.i.tution may be a relic of this early s.e.xual freedom. What is moral in one stage of civilisation often becomes immoral in another, when the reasons for its existing have changed.

[158] Havelock Ellis writing on this subject ("Changing Status of Women," _Nineteenth Century_, Oct. 1886) says: "It seems that in the dawn of the race an elaborate social organisation permitted a more or less restricted communal marriage, every man in the tribe being at the outset the husband of every woman, first practically, then theoretically, and that the social organisation which had this point of departure was particularly favourable to women."

[159] It is a matter of dispute whether a woman may have more than one husband at a time. The older accounts state this, while later it has been denied. The probability is that this was the custom, but that it is dying out under modern influences. Hartland, _op. cit._, Vol. I. p.

267.

[160] In north Malabar a custom has arisen by which after a special ceremony the bridegroom is allowed to take the bride to live in his house, but in the case of his death she must at once return to her own family.

[161] _J.A.I._, XII. p. 292; Hartland, _op. cit._, p. 288. Letourneau, apparently quoting Bachofen, says that the women control property.

This was probably an earlier custom, when the power was more truly in the hands of women, and had not pa.s.sed to their male relatives.

[162] Wilken, _Verwantschap_, p. 678; _Bijdragen_, x.x.xI. p. 40.

[163] Havelock Ellis, _Psychology of s.e.x_, Vol. VI. p. 291. A second form of marriage, known as Jujur, was also practised. It was much more elaborate, and shows very instructively the rise of father-right. By it the authority of the husband over his wife is a.s.serted by a very complicated system of payments; his right to take her to his home, and his absolute property in her depending wholly on these payments. If the final sum is paid (but this is not commonly claimed except in the case of a quarrel between the families) the woman becomes to all intents the slave of the man; but if on the other hand, as is not at all uncommon, the husband fails or has difficulty in making the main payment, he becomes the debtor of his wife's family and is practically a slave, all his labour being due to his creditor without any reduction in the debt, which must be paid in full, before he regains liberty. (See Marsden, _History of Sumatra_, pp. 225, 235, 257, 262, for an account of both marriages.)

[164] _Kins.h.i.+p and Marriage in Early Arabia._

[165] Havelock Ellis, _op. cit._, pp. 391-392, quoting Robertson Smith.

[166] Barlow, _Semitic Origins_, p. 45.