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Show 362 SEXU.A.JJ SELEC'fiON : l\iAN. PAnT II. American species, aud each family lives separate. Even when this occurs, the families inhabHing the s::trno district arc probably to a certain extent social: the Chimpanzee, for instance, is occasionally met with in largo bands. Again, other species are polygamous~ but several males, each with their own females, live associated in a body, as with several species of Baboons.1 We may indeed conclude from what we know of the jealousy of all male quadrupeds, armed, as many of them arc, with special weapons for battling with their rivals~ that promiscuous intercourse in a state of nature is extremely improbable. The pairing mo.y not last for lifo, but o11ly for ouch birth; yet if tho males which are tho strongest and best able to defend or otherwise assist their females and young offspring, were to select the more attmctivc females, this would suflice for the work of sexual selection. 'l'hercfore, if we look far enough back in the stream of time, it is extremely improbable that primeval men and women lived promiscuously_together .• Judging from the social habits of man as he now exists, and from most savages being polygamists, the most probable view is that primeval man aboriginally lived in small communities, each with as many wives as he could support and obtain, whom he would have jealously guarded against all other men. Or he may have lived with several wives by himself, 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, b 7 Brehm (' Illust. Thicrleben,' B. i. p. 77) says Cynocephalus hamailryas lives in grout troops containing twice as many adult females os adult males. Sec Hcngger ou American polygamous species, and Owen (' Anat. of Vertebrates,' vol. iii. p. 746) on American monogamous species. Other references might be added. CHAP. XX. IN'fERFERING CAUSES. 363 " killing aud driving out the others, establishes himself "as the ltead of the community." 8 Tho younger males,. being thus expelled and wandering about, would, when at last successful in finding a po.rtr.er, 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 tl'ibes practise some form of marriage, but of a far more lax nature than with civilised nations. Polygamy, as just stated, is almost universally followed by the leading men in eyery tribe. N evcrtheless there are tribes, standing almost at the bottom of tho scale, which are strictly monogamous. This is the case with the Vedclahs of Ceylon: they have a saying, according to Sir J. Lubbock,9 "that " death alone can separate husband and wife." An intelligent Kandyan chief, of course a polygamist, " was perfectly scandalized at the utter barbarism of " living with only one wife, and 11ever parting until " !':eparated 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 conjectnre. Infanticide.-This practice is now very common throughout the world, and there is reason to believe that it provo.iled much more extensively during former times.10 Barbarians find it difficult to support them- 8 Dr. Savage, in 'Boston Journal of Nat. Hist.' vol. v. 184:5-47. l)· 423. 0 • Prehistoric 'I'imes,' 1869, p. 424. 10 Mr. M'Lcnnan, ' Primitive Marriage,' 1865. Sco especially on exogamy and infanticide, p. 130, 138, 165. |