battling with their rivals, that promiscuous intercourse in a state of
nature is extremely improbable. The pairing may not last for life, but
only for each birth; yet if the males which are the strongest and best
able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young, were to
select the more attractive females, this would suffice for sexual
selection.
Therefore, looking far enough back in the stream of time, and judging
from the social habits of man as he now exists, the most probable view
is that he aboriginally lived in small communities, each with a single
wife, or if powerful with several, whom he jealously guarded against
all other men. Or he may not have been a social animal, and yet have
lived with several wives, like the gorilla; for all the natives agree
that but one adult male is seen in a band; when the young male grows
up, a contest takes place for mastery, and the strongest, by killing
and driving out the others, establishes himself as the head of the
community. (10. Dr. Savage, in Boston Journal of Natural History,
vol. v. 1845-47, p. 423.) The younger males, being thus expelled and
wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a partner,
prevent too close interbreeding within the limits of the same family.
Although savages are now extremely licentious, and although communal
marriages may formerly have largely prevailed, yet many tribes practise
some form of marriage, but of a far more lax nature than that of
civilised nations. Polygamy, as just stated, is almost universally
followed by the leading men in every tribe. Nevertheless there are
tribes, standing almost at the bottom of the scale, which are strictly
monogamous. This is the case with the Veddahs of Ceylon: they have a
saying, according to Sir J. Lubbock (11. Prehistoric Times, 1869, p.
424.), that death alone can separate husband and wife. An intelligent
Kandyan chief, of course a polygamist, was perfectly scandalised at
the utter barbarism of living with only one wife, and never parting
until separated by death. It was, he said, just like the Wanderoo
monkeys. Whether savages who now enter into some form of marriage,
either polygamous or monogamous, have retained this habit from primeval
times, or whether they have returned to some form of marriage, after
passing through a stage of promiscuous intercourse, I will not pretend
to conjecture.
INFANTICIDE.
616