Research Items

Abstract

The Origin of Marriage. Prof. Westermarck in the Rationalist Annual, 1934, replies to the criticisms which have been directed against his theory of the earliest form of human marriage by Dr. Briffault. Prof. Westermarck in “The History of Human Marriage” expressed the opinion that marriage as a social institution developed out of a primeval habit for a man and woman, or several women, to live together, and for the man to be the guardian of the family, the woman the helpmate and the nurse of the children. The argument is based on the fact that in many species of the animal kingdom male and female remain together beyond the pairing season, the male acting as a protector of the family. To this group the anthropoid apes belong, although none of the apes are permanently gregarious. The family, consisting of parents and children, is found among the lowest savages, and we may suppose that the. factors which lead to marital and paternal relations among the apes also operated among our earliest human or half-human ancestors. Dr. Briffault, however, argues that the tendency is for the female to segregate herself and to form an isolated group with her offspring, which the male has no share in forming, and of which he is not an essential member. Fresh evidence, which has come to light since the publication of “The History of Human Marriage”, supports the view therein expressed, and shows that Dr. Briffault's denial of the facts relating to the anthropoids, upon which that argument was based, is erroneous: for example, Munnecke's statements relating to the orang utan of North Borneo, which live in families, the Duke of Mecklenburg's evidence relating to chimpanzees, showing that the old males often accompany the families, though at a distance, and Reichenow's conclusion that the gorilla lives monogamously, although it is most probable that the gorilla is also polygamous.