Lorimer Fison

“ The lower savages know nothing of that motive. Mr. McLennan lays stress upon the fact that the widow was the Levir's "wife without any form of marriage." But there is no proof that this is a survival of polyandry; for, in the first place there is no need for us to look upon it as a survival of anything at all, and, in the second place, it would serve very well as a survival of group-marriage. In many tribes the brother's widow is the Levir's wife "without any form of marriage." He does not even wait until she becomes a widow. ”

“ It is the girl who is a cause of enrichment to her parents at her marriage. And this is very far from being all the advantage they derive from her. Her husband has to feed them in peace, and to fight for them in war. Thus an Australian native divides all the game he takes according to certain established rules, and the choicest bits go to his wife's father. That a man has to fight on his father-in-law's side among many tribes who reckon descent through females has been recorded by several observers of savage life ”

“ Sproat's account of the Ahts does not prove that tribe to be endogamous, excepting in the sense that a tribe made up of exogamous clans may be said to be endogamous because it prefers not to go beyond its own clans for its wives. If this be endogamy, then the term endogamy is of little value; for in this sense nearly every nation on the face of the earth may be said to be endogamous, in feeling at least. Even among the English the "foreigner" is not looked upon as an altogether eligible husband excepting for princesses, and for them only because of ancient traditions. ”

“ That children "weaken their mothers when young" may be a reason for infanticide, but it is no reason for killing female infants rather than male.
2. The assertion that women "eat and do not hunt" can not apply to the lower savages. On the contrary, whether among the ruder agricultural tribes, or those who are dependent on supplies gathered "from forest and from flood," the women are food-providers who supply more than they consume, and render most valuable service into the bargain. As a general rule they are the hardest workers and the most useful members of the community in times of peace. ”

“ A tribe to satisfy these conditions must be exogamous qua tribe—that is to say, marriage must be forbidden everywhere within its limits. No man of the tribe must be able to take any one of its women to wife; for, if the tribe be so constituted that its men can get their wives anywhere within its boundaries, it is manifest that it is not a tribe such as Mr. McLennan's theory requires. ”

“ If it can be shown, firstly, that exogamous tribes exist or have existed, and, secondly, that in rude times the relations of separate tribes are uniformly or almost uniformly hostile, we have found a set of circumstances in which men could get wives only by capturing them—a social condition in which capture would be the necessary preliminary to marriage. ”

“ The common people may marry at home, but a Derbet noble must marry one of the Torgot stock. One of the good deeds the Queen has done is her breaking through this rule in the case of one of her daughters. ”

“ McLennan treats polyandry as a system of marriage of so extensive a prevalence, and draws with singular ability such wide inferences from it as to kinship, succession, and the change of descent from the female line to the male, that all the most important questions connected with the development of social organization in early communities are involved. ”

“ In forming our opinions as to the customs of savage tribes, in all cases where the significance of a custom depends upon something underlying the visible facts, the accounts given by travelers must be received with caution. ”

“ The dead are dependent upon their male descendants for offerings, without which their shadowy existence would be to the last degree wretched; and therefore, as every man knows he also must die, he is anxious during life to see a good provision made for his future wants—in other words, he is eager to have sons to succeed him. But neither is this motive to be found among the lower savages, for with them descent, and therefore inheritance, is through females. ”

“ Their system of marriage seems to have this peculiarity, that the common people can marry within any one of these great divisions, though not within certain prohibited degrees, while the nobles must marry each without his own division. A Derbet noble, for instance, we are told, must marry a Torgot lady, a Torgot noble a Derbet lady, and so on. ”

“ McLennan's theory of marriage by capture, therefore, requires either—
1. That all the women of a tribe shall be captured by another tribe; or—
2. That men shall be captured for husbands, as well as women for wives. Surely, when a theory brings us to a conclusion such as this, it were better to lay it aside.
The Kocchs and the Hos, brought forward in evidence by Mr. McLennan in a subsequent chapter, are useless witnesses to him, because, as Sir John Lubbock has pointed out, "they are divided into keelis, or clans, and may not take to wife a girl of their own keeli." ”

“ Say that Derbet captures a number of Torgot women sufficient to supply its young men with wives, and Torgot captures Derbet women enough for its wants; we may then ask, "Are all the women on both sides disposed of?" If so, it follows that each tribe has captured all the women of the other. ”

“ Nor will marriage by capture help us here; because, for every woman stolen there must have been x husbands left lamenting, unless we suppose that a non-polyandrous tribe was kept in the neighborhood of each polyandrous tribe for its convenience, and that they never retaliated upon their aggressive neighbors. ”

“ I think it will be found that the practice is far less common with them than it is among the tribes who are more advanced, and for this opinion I will now endeavor to show cause.
Savages are perfectly logical people in their own way, and do not act without a motive, which, to their minds at least, is a sufficient one. ”

“ They are perfectly capable of taking care of themselves [7] in war-time; and, so far from being an incumbrance upon the warriors, they will fight, if need be, as bravely as the men, and with even greater ferocity. ”

“ They are far too valuable a possession to be cast away merely because the neighbors covet them. We do not find the Caffres exterminating their cattle because they are "a temptation to the surrounding tribes." ”