Primitive Marriage Research Articles

Primitive Marriage: Victorian Anthropology, the Novel, and Sexual Modernity by Kathy Alexis (review)

Primitive Marriage: Victorian Anthropology, the Novel, and Sexual Modernity by Kathy Alexis (review)

HEAVY MENTAL: Do videos and lyrics alter attitudes?

It9s been four decades since a young man from Tupelo, Miss., took the lead in introducing American youth to a raucous music called rock 9n9 roll. In the mid-1950s, radio stations began playing his music endlessly, and parents worried about the effects it would have on their enthralled youngsters. Then the young man made his TV debut in an early and primitive marriage of music and visuals that would eventually evolve into the music video concept. Parents watched in stunned silence as the man with the slicked-back hair strutted and gyrated his hips in a sexually suggestive manner.

Reply to Tooker

Elizabeth Tooker (AA 94:357-375, 1992) rides to defend Morgan against my imputation that he worked in the shadow of metropolitan science.' She argues that I have proposed three false theses: (1) that the philological models favored by Morgan and Amerindian scholars were adapted from those developed by European scholars of the Indo-European language family; (2) that Morgan's ideas about the evolution of marriage and the family were prompted by the publication of McLennan's Primitive Marriage in 1865; and (3) that the theoretical framework of Ancient Society (Morgan 1877) was largely taken over from Lubbock and Tylor. None of these conclusions correct, she asserts. Morgan drew on American sources that were independent of European guidance, or on the same sources as those that inspired the British anthropologists. Far from responding to external stimuli at different phases of its development, Morgan's work is of piece. Moreover, Morgan bettered the British scholars because he was the first to achieve a comparative worldwide study based on original fieldwork, his own and that done under his supervision, on an ethnographic problem itself suggested by fieldwork (p. 358). 1. On philology, Tooker's argument that the Americanists (in the United States) developed their ideas independently from the same (unspecified) sources that had first inspired the original Indo-Europeanists. She concedes that there was communication

Primitive Marriage, Civilized Marriage: Anthropology, Mythology, and The Egoist

Primitive Marriage, Civilized Marriage: Anthropology, Mythology, and The Egoist

Dravidian Kinship and the Anthropology of Lewis Henry Morgan

KINSHIP AS AN OBJECT of scholarly discourse is thought of, rightly, as the special province of anthropology, and the invention of kinship in the 1860's and 1870's is effectively the invention of anthropology itself, in the form we know it. Kinship's inventors include Bachofen, Maine, Fustel de Coulanges and McLennan;' but the decisive contribution is that of Lewis Henry Morgan. Morgan, a successful railroad lawyer of Rochester, New York, is well known for his Iroquois monograph, the League of the Iroquois (1851) and his synthetic account of social evolution, Ancient society (1877); less well known outside of anthropology is the massive, highly technical work on kinship published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1871, called Systems of consanguinity and affinity of the human family, which is the subject of this article. This Society played a curious role in its publication. On April 29th, 1867, Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian, wrote to the secretary of our Society, the Sanskritist William Dwight Whitney. Accompanying the letter was the manuscript of Morgan's Systems of consanguinity and affinity. Henry asked Whitney to form a committee of the American Oriental Society a view of ascertaining whether it is an article of sufficient originality and importance to merit a place in the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.2 Behind these bland words lay a troubled history which Henry chose not to recount, and considerable anxiety. Nine years previous he had offered the assistance of the Smithsonian to Morgan in printing and sending to correspondents round the world a questionnaire on more than 200 kinship relations. The Smithsonian had given Morgan a grant for an amanuensis to help in the compilation, from the returns, of huge, synoptic tables of the kinship terminologies of many languages. Round these tables Morgan built the first version of the Systems of consanguinity and affinity, which he submitted for publication to the Smithsonian in 1865. Henry was alarmed at the bulk and prolixity of the work to which he had, to a degree, committed the Institution. He sent it to two Princeton professors for review, briefing them in detail as to his own view of its deficiencies; they recommended publication, but obligingly embraced in their reports most of the recommendations for revision which Henry had proposed. Morgan rewrote the manuscript and submitted the revised version in 1867 thinking that as he had now complied with the changes required of him the work was accepted for publication. He asked Henry for confirmation; but before replying Henry sent the manuscript to Whitney for review by an AOS committee. Morgan was furious when he found out that there was to be a second review. * Presented at the 195th meeting of the American Oriental Society, Ann Arbor, 15 April, 1985, this paper draws upon research toward a book on Morgan's kinship work to be called Lewis Henry Morgan and the invention of kinship. I should like to acknowledge, with thanks, the help of the Rush Rhees Library of the University of Rochester for access to the Morgan Papers, and especially of Mr. Karl Kabelac, Manuscripts Librarian, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections; the Smithsonian Institution Archives, for copies of the Joseph Henry correspondence (Mr. William Cox); and the American Oriental Society for copies of letters of Joshua Hall Mcllvaine (Professor Stanley Insler). Research was assisted by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studies, The University of Michigan. I am grateful to Ms. Jeannette Kay Ranta for the typing. I Johann Jakob Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht (1861); Henry Sumner Maine, Ancient law (1861); Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges, La cite antique (1864); John Ferguson McLennan, Primitive Marriage (1865). ' Henry to Whitney, 4/29/1867, Smithsonian Institution. 3 One of the reviewers was Professor Joshua Hall Mcllvaine who, before coming to the College of New Jersey (as it then was) in 1860 had been Morgan's pastor and close friend as stated elsewhere in this paper; the other was Professor William Henry Green. Henry's charge to Mcllvaine, 4/26/ 1865; to Green, 12/65; Green's report, 3/14/66; Mcllvaine's report, 3/29/66; Morgan to Henry 10/29/66, 2/21/67 and

John F. McLennan, Primitive marriage: An inpuiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies. (Edited by Peter Rivière), Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. li + 152. $8.50

John F. McLennan, Primitive marriage: An inpuiry into the origin of the form of capture in marriage ceremonies. (Edited by Peter Rivière), Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1970. Pp. li + 152. $8.50

Primitive Marriage: An Inquiry Into the Origin of the Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies.

Primitive Marriage: An Inquiry Into the Origin of the Form of Capture in Marriage Ceremonies.

Some Problems concerning the Origin of the Theory of Family

This is the third article- “Inquiry in the origin of the theory of family, ” in the Japanese Sociological Review. No.6, 1951 and “The background of origin of the theory of family. ” in Memoirs of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Education of Yamanashi Univ., No. 6, 1955 (both in Japanese) -which was written to criticize the well acknowledged theory which sets the origin of the theory of family in 1861.(I) In this article, I will begin with the problem about the origin of the theory itself. This was the theory which set the origin of the theory of family in Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht. written in 1861, though afterwards Marinowski and others complimented it by Maine's Ancient Law. of 1861. It is generally thought that Engels was the first advocater to set Bachofen's Das Mutterrecht, as its origin in the Vorwort of his Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Slaats. IV Aufl. (1891). But, it is noteworthy that the previous year 1890, there had been published a book, Tableau des origines et de l'revolution de la familie et de la propriete by Kovalevsky, the first chapter of which was very similar to that of Engels. Both assert decisively that there was not any theory of family but arguments under the influence of Pentateuch which they both affirm as “verbiage” or “nicht die Rede sein”. Both of them coincidently take their origin in Bachofen's theory, though Kovalevsky esteems the study of the primitive peoples which has survived by MacLennan's Primitive Marriage. 1865 along with the historical study of Bachofen. It seems to me doubtful that Engels formed his theory of the origin in 1861 only by himself, because Engels made a few supplements in his IV Aufl. referring them to this book of Kovalevsky.(II) I begin the problem by quoting Russell who say, “ The period of history which is commonly called” modern “has mental outlook which differs from that of the medieval period in many ways. Of these, two are the most important : the diminishing authority of the Church, and the increasing authority of science. ” “ The rejection of ecclesiastical authority which is the negative characteristic of the modern age, begins earlier than the positive charactristic, which is the acceptance of scientific authority. ” “ The first serious irruption of science was the publication of the Copernican theory in 1543 ”(History of western philosophy. 1946. p. 511-2). If so there is some probability of finding arguments on the family without bearing the Pentateuchal stamp very early.Of Trattato della famiglia. by L. B. Alberti (1404-72), W. Sombart (Der Bourgeois. 1913) and Y. Kaneko (Kindai-Humanism to Rinri. 1942) speak in high estimation of its modernistic character, in spite of the fact that M. Weber (Protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. 1920) shows sceptism of it. Weber conceives that Alberti in stating the economy of family detached economics from religion, and by so doing he had influences upon “die Entwicklung der modernen Wirtschaftslehre (und auch : des modernen Wirtschaftspolitik)”.

Primitive Marriage and European Law. A South African Investigation. By D. W. T. Shropshire, C.R., D.Phil. London: S.P.C.K.1946. Pp. 185. 12s. 6d.

Primitive Marriage and European Law. A South African Investigation. By D. W. T. Shropshire, C.R., D.Phil. London: S.P.C.K.1946. Pp. 185. 12<i>s</i>. 6<i>d</i>.

Some aspects of Marriage and the Family among the Nuer

Some aspects of Marriage and the Family among the Nuer Get access Some aspects of Marriage and the Family among the Nuer. E. E. Evans-Pritchard ( Rhodes-Livingstone Institute Paper No. II), 1945. 2/-. Primitive Marriage and European Law. A South African Investigation. D. W. T. Shropshire (S.P.C.K.), 1946. 12/6. A. I. R. A. I. R. Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 45, Issue 181, October 1946, Pages 212–213, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.afraf.a093527 Published: 01 October 1946

Book Review: Primitive Marriage and European Law: A South African Investigation

Book Review: Primitive Marriage and European Law: A South African Investigation

Prof. Edward Westermarck

EDWARD WESTERMARCK, whose death at the age of seventy-seven is reported from Finland, must always rank as one of the world's great anthropologists; and, moreover, in view of the fact that his first and perhaps most famous work “The History of Human Marriage” appeared so early as 1891, only one year later than “The Golden Bough”, he can be counted among the actual pioneers of anthropology in its social aspect. Born in 1862 at Helsingfors, he might be said to be connected since his birth with its University, his father being the bursar and his mother a daughter of the librarian; and here, having graduated and taken his doctorate with a thesis on primitive marriage, he became lecturer and afterwards professor of philosophy; only deserting his alma mater after the War of 1914–18, when he was appointed by a liberated Finland to organize as Rector a new Swedishspeaking university at Abo.

On Primitive Marriage: A Rejoinder to Mr. V. F. Calverton

Mr. Calverton has alleged that the author, in his book The History of Human Marriage, has represented the family in mankind as an inheritance from some apelike progenitor and monogramy as the almost exclusive from of marriage among our earliest human ancestors, with a view to justifying these institutions and endowing them with a natural origin and continuity; and, moreover, that in doing so he has distorted evidence out of all proportion and thrown his whole emphasis, to the exclusion of all contradictions, upon those materials which tended to prove his case. The statement concerning monography is quoted from theearlier editions of the author's book, although, owing to more recent evidence, it has been omitted from the re-written edition of 1921; while the author's statement concerning the existence of the family among the apes has been abundantly confirmed by all later authorities. Indeed, according to a recent student of the social life of the subhuman primates, it exists even among the lower monkeys, whose hordes consist of numerous families banded together. Mr. Calverton's criticism is based not on any original research on his part but on statements made by Dr. Briffault, in his work. The Mothers, whose accusationsof the author's inaccurate handing of his material have been proved to be invariably false. Their joint statement that monogamy is not found among the apes is contradicted by an array of facts. Their allegation that the author has misrepresented the reports of the writers quoted by him in his showing that among various other mammals besides the primates male and female live together after the birth of the offspring and both parents take care of the latter is also absolutely untrue. Their assertion that even in mankind the family is nowadays in many instances scarcely found to exist as a solidary and recognized group is contrary to all evidence. What Dr. Briffault says about the absence of any known monogamous society among primitive peoples, and Mr. Calverton about the authors's interpretation of their monogramy, is equally inaccurate. Mr. Calverton's allusion to the breakdown of the absolutistic concept of morality seems singularly out of place, considering that the author, in the course of thelast thirty years, has perhaps more emphatically than anybody else advocated therelativity of all moral values.

A Method of Studying Changes in Primitive Marriage.

A Method of Studying Changes in Primitive Marriage.

Research Items

INHERITANCE FEES.—In Man for May, Mr. J. P. Driberg directs attention to an element in primitive marriage which appears to have escaped general observation, namely, the inheritance fees or dues paid by an inheritor of a widow to the responsible members of her family. Such a fee has been found to be compulsory among three unrelated peoples,—the Lango of Uganda, and the Dedinga and Bari of the Sudan. Among the Lango a widow is normally inherited by a brother of the deceased or by his sister's son, in either case a bull being payable to the woman's family. She is differentiated from the wives by being called an inherited wife. Among the Dedinga the deceased's brother pays the fee and calls the children his own, but if a sister's son or mother's sister's son inherits the widow the son pays the fee and claims any children of the new marriage. Among the Bari, when a sister's son inherits, the fee is paid from the estate and the children belong to the estate. This seems an anomalous custom, as the bride's family had already received the full price from the original husband. It arises from an intention of making clear the economic and social status of the children of the new marriage. Marriage is not regarded as completed until the birth of the first child. The bride may not be called a wife till then. Sometimes she only lives in the bachelor's hut until the child is born. In the case of a divorce the bride price is returned and the children go with the mother; but the father, even after years, may recover the children on payment of the “heifer of upkeep” to the family of the girl or her new husband. Among the Bari, if a marriage takes place without payment of the bride price, the wife's family take all the bride price paid at the marriage of the first daughter of the union. If there is no daughter the family keeps a son until he is ransomed.

(1) The Mothers: a Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions (2) The Mystic Rose: a Study of Primitive Marriage and of Primitive Thought in its Bearing on Marriage

STUDENTS of primitive mankind still indulge too frequently in bitter and futile controversy; their reputation on this score is deservedly bad, and anthropology, I fear, could well be described as the study of rude man by rude people. Among the various hotly discussed subjects, perhaps the most contentious is primitive sexual life and mating—the much disputed ‘marriage of the missing link.’ (1) The Mothers: a Study of the Origins of Sentiments and Institutions. By Robert Briffault In 3 volumes. Vol.1. Pp. xix + 781. Vol.2. Pp. xx + 789. Vol. 3. Pp. xv + 841. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd.; New York: The Macmillan Co., 1927.) Each vol. 25s. net. (2) The Mystic Rose: a Study of Primitive Marriage and of Primitive Thought in its Bearing on Marriage. By Ernest Crawley A new edition, revised and greatly enlarged by Theodore Besterman. In 2 volumes. Vol. 1. Pp. xx + 375. Vol.2. Pp. vii + 340. (London: Methuen and Co., Ltd., 1927.) 30s. net.

Research Items

PROMISCUITY AND PRIMITIVE MARRIAGE.—A discussion on promiscuity and group marriage by Lieut.-Col. E. F. Gordon Tucker and Mr. Leslie H. Gilbert appears in the Sociological Review, vol. 18, No. 4. Col. Tucker holds that the investigation of marriage must start with the physiological facts of the intensity of the sexual inclination. He argues that while no very helpful lesson can be derived from the varied conduct of the Quadrumana as to the sexual relations of human precursors among savage men, we get on one hand a widespread ‘incest horror,’ and, on the other, compulsory marriage among close relatives, but not the closest. Yet among Polynesians brother and sister marriage is a source of honour. Postulating a primitive group, the extent of continuity in gregariousness would be dependent on food supply. If the group were constant and sedentary, promiscuity would arise owing to the strength of the sex instinct and the hypothetical absence of the restraining forces of education, law, and religion. It is a question whether sexual jealousy would be strong enough to overcome these forces. Where the group was not constant owing to scarcity of food supply, either permanent or seasonal, individual men going off to find food would each take a woman to perform woman's work—root and beetle grubbing—and this custom would tend to give rise to individual marriage. In these conditions it is unnecessary to postulate promiscuity as a precedent condition of the classifica-tory system of relationships as Morgan did. The position of the mother's brother follows as a natural result. In his reply Mr. Gilbert argues from the universality of the individual marriage, while the terms of the classificatory system might be deduced from the Levirate and Sororate, which functions actively to-day, and further, that in the marriage groups, eligibility for marriage does not necessarily connote actual sexual relation. The so-called vestigial customs are magico-religious, though no one explanation can account for the diverse sexual orgies. The promiscuity theory demands the abrogation of the parental instinct, both of woman and man, which are essential to the survival of society in view of the conditions of human birth and infancy.

Primitive Promiscuity and Group Marriage

Primitive Promiscuity and Group Marriage

Mr. A. E. Crawley

The death took place on October 21 of Alfred Ernest Crawley, who was well known as the author of several works on anthropological matters. He was born in 1869, the son of the Rev. Samuel Crawley, Rector of Oddington, Oxford, was educated at Sedbergh and Cambridge, and entered the scholastic profession; he abandoned this for journalism in 1908. An adept in several branches of sport, his works on tennis and ball games are of recognised authority. In anthropology, besides contributing to the journals of several scientific societies, to NATURE, and to Hastings's “Dictionary of Religion and Ethics,” he was the author of three books of some importance—“The Mystic Rose, a Study of Primitive Marriage,” published in 1902; “The Tree of Life, a Study of Religion,” published in 1905, and “The Idea of the Soul,” which appeared in 1909. Of. these “The Mystic Rose” was the best known-it undoubtedly exercised no inconsiderable influence on the anthropological thought of that day, especially in so far as it emphasised the importance of marriage ceremonies, a side of the subject to which Westermarck had then paid too little attention in his monumental study of human marriage.

&lt;italic&gt;A History of Matrimonial Institutions, chiefly in England and the United States, with an Introductory Analysis of the Literature and the Theories of Primitive Marriage and the Family&lt;/italic&gt;. By George Elliott Howard, Ph.D (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Callaghan and Company; London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1904. Three vols., pp. xv, 473; xv, 497; xv, 449.)

A History of Matrimonial Institutions, chiefly in England and the United States, with an Introductory Analysis of the Literature and the Theories of Primitive Marriage and the Family. By George Elliott Howard, Ph.D (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Callaghan and Company; London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1904. Three vols., pp. xv, 473; xv, 497; xv, 449.) Get access A History of Matrimonial Institutions, chiefly in England and the United States, with an Introductory Analysis of the Literature and the Theories of Primitive Marriage and the Family. By Howard George Elliott, Ph.D. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; Callaghan and Company; London: T. Fisher Unwin. 1904. Three vols., pp. xv, 473; xv, 497; xv, 449.) Simeon E. Baldwin Simeon E. Baldwin Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The American Historical Review, Volume 10, Issue 3, April 1905, Pages 607–609, https://doi.org/10.1086/ahr/10.3.607 Published: 01 April 1905