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Show 3G4 Sl~XUAL SELECTION: MAN. PART JI. solves and their children, and it is a simple plan to kill their infants. In South America some tribes, as AMra states, formerly destroyed so many infants of both ~:;exes, tlw.t they were on tho point of extinction. In the PolyItesian Islands women have been known to kill from four or five to oven ton of their children; and El1i:s could not find a single woman who had not killed at loa t one. vVherever infanticide prevails the strngglc for existenec will be in so far less severe, and all the members of the tribe will have an almost equally good chance of rearing their few surviving children. In most cases a larger number of female than of malo infants are destroyed, for it is obvious that the latter are of rno t value to tho tribe, as they will when grown up aid in defending it, and can support themselves. But the trouble experienced by the women in rearing children, their consequent loss of beauty, the higher estimation set on them and their happier fate, when few in number, are ussigned by the women themselves, and by various obobservers, as additional motives for infanticide. In .Australia, where female infanticide is still common, Sir G. Grey estimated tho proportion of native women to men as one to three; but others say as two to three. In a village on the eastern frontier of India, Colonel Macculloch found not a single female child.11 \Vhen, owing to female infanticide, the women of a tribe arc few in number, the habit of capturing wives fi·om neighbouring tribes would naturally arise. Sir J. Lubbock, however, as we have seen, attribute· the practice inJ chief part, to the former existence of communal marriage, and to the men having consequently captured 11 Dr. Gcrln.nd ('Ueber dns Aussterben dcr Naturvulkcr,' 18G8) hns collecte'l much information on infanticide, sec espcoio.lly s. 27, 51, 54. Azara ('Voyo.gcs,' &c. tom. ii. p. 94,116) enters in detail on the motives. Soc also M'Lonno.u (ibid. p. 139) for cases in Indio.. CHAP. :XX. INTETIFElliXG CAUSES. 3G5 wom_c~1 from otlter tr_ibes to hold as their sole property. Add1twnal causes 1mght be assigned, such as· the communities being very small, in which ca tc, maniageable women would often be deficient. That tl1e habit of c~ptUI'e was most extensively practised during former tunes, even by the ance tors of ci viliscd nations, is clearly shewn by the preservation of many cmious cu toms and ceremonies, of which l\Ir. M'Lennan has given a most interesting account. In our own marriages _the " best man" seems originally to have been the clnef aLottor of tho bridegroom in tho act of eaptl~ re. Now as ~ong as men habitually procured their wive through vwlence and craft, it is not probable that they would l11we soleciecl the more attractive women· they would have boon too glad to have seized on an; woman .. ~nt as ~oon as tho practice of proclll'ing wives from a ~1stmct tnbo was effeeted through barter, as now occnrs m many places, the more attractive women would generally have been purchased. The incessant erossina, J~owever, between tribe and tribe, which necessarily 1ollows from any form of this habit would have tended to keep a~l. the yeople inhabiting tho same country nearly umform m character; and tltis would have g~·eatly i~t~rfered with the power of sexual selection in d1fforentiatmg the tribes. . The scarcity of women, consequent on female iufanticH. l?, le.ads,. also, to another practice, namely polvandry, wh~ch JS st1ll common in several parts of tho wo;-IJ, and wh10h for!nerly, as Mr. M'Lennan believes, prevailed almost umversally; but this latter conclm;ion is doubted by Mr. Morgan and Sir J. LubbockP \Vhcnever two • 12 ,'Primitive ,1\ianiago,' p. 208; Sir J. Lubbock, 'Origin of Civilisntw1n, Jl. 100. Soo also Mr. Morgan, loc. cit., on former prevalence of po ynndry. |