The History of Human Marriage

Abstract

COMPARATIVE sociology, in many of its branches, started with very simple and homely concepts, and now, after a career of imaginative and somewhat sensational spinning of hypotheses, we find it returning in its latest developments to the position of common sense. The subject of family and marriage, of their origins and evolution, epitomises such a typical course of sociological speculation. In the views about the human family, there was first the uncritical assumption that the family was the nucleus of human society; that monogamous marriage has been the prototype of all varieties of sex union; that law, authority and government are all derived from patriarchal power; that the State, the Tribe, economic co-operation and all other forms of social association have gradually grown out of the small group of blood relatives, issued from one married couple, and governed by the father. This theory satisfied common sense, supplied an easily imaginable course of natural development, and was in agreement with all the unquestioned authorities, from the Bible to Aristotle. The History of Human Marriage. By Prof. E. Westermarck. Fifth edition, rewritten. Vol. 1, pp. xxiv + 571. Vol. 2, pp. xii + 595. Vol. 3, pp. viii + 587. (London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1921.) Three Volumes. 84s. net.