A History of Matrimonial Institutions (Vol. 1-3). George Elliott Howard
"rarely happens that both parents jointly take care of their progeny."[276] But the chelonia, or tortoise group, are "known to live in pairs;" and here we reach, among animals, the first trace of the family, properly so called. "The chelonia form, with regard to their domestic habits, a transition to the birds, as they do also from a zoölogical and, particularly, from an embryological point of view." Who that has experienced the keen delight afforded by watching the domestic habits of birds, from the building of the nest to the teaching of the young to make the first wavering trial of its wings, cannot bear witness to the high development of marriage and the family among them? The great work of Brehm supplies abundant evidence of their human-like social life.[277] "Parental affection," summarizes Westermarck, "has reached a very high degree of development, not only on the mother's side, but also on the father's. Male and female help each other to build the nest, the former generally bringing the materials, the latter doing the work. In fulfilling the numberless duties of the breeding season both birds take a share. Incubation rests principally with the mother, but the father, as a rule, helps his companion, taking her place when she wants to leave the nest for a moment, or providing her with food and protecting her from every danger. Finally, when the duties of the breeding season are over, and the result desired is obtained, a period with new duties commences. During the first few days after hatching, most birds rarely leave their young for long, and then only to procure food for themselves and their family. In cases of great danger, both parents bravely defend their offspring. As soon as the first period of helplessness is over, and the young have grown somewhat, they are carefully taught to shift for themselves; and it is only when they are perfectly capable of so doing that they leave the nest and the parents."[278] The bird family is usually monogamic, and the marriage is lasting. Birds are generally faithful to the marriage vow; and this is particularly true of the females.[279] "With the exception of those belonging to the gallinaceous family, when pairing," they do so "once for all till either one or the other dies.[280] And Dr. Brehm is so filled with admiration for their exemplary family life that he enthusiastically declares that 'real genuine marriage can only be found among the birds.'"[281]
With the lower mammals the union of the sexes is generally of short duration, often only for a single birth, though in several species the parents remain together even after the arrival of the young. But among the higher members examples of monogamic marriage are not infrequent, such being the case with animals of prey.[282] As a rule, the quadrumana live in pairs. Gorillas, however, are said sometimes to be polygynous. "According to Dr. Savage, they live in bands, and all his informants agree in the assertion that but one adult male is seen in every band."[283] But monogamy is perhaps most common. M. du Chaillu declares that he found "almost always one male with one female, though sometimes the old male wanders companionless."[284] The orang-utan and the chimpanzee, like the gorilla, also live in families.[285] Of a truth, promiscuity is far from universal in the pre-human stage.
Yet it would be easy to overestimate the value of the argument based upon the sexual relations of the lower animals. But it will not do with Kohler and Lippert to set it aside as entirely irrelevant.[286] Upon the precedents afforded by "anthropomorphic" species in particular, as Hellwald justly insists, no "slight weight should be placed;" for these are "not merely the highest organized animals, but they must also be regarded as the nearest animal relatives of man."[287] Indeed, the transition from the family as it exists among the quadrumana to that of the least-developed races of man is not abrupt, although the lowest examples of mankind yet observed are advanced beyond the supposed primitive human stage. The broad characteristics of the one are the characteristics of the other. The "relations of the sexes are, as a rule, of a more or less durable character." There is conjugal affection. The immediate care of the children belongs to the mother. "Among mammals as well as birds," declares Espinas, "maternal love is the corner-stone of the family."[288] The father is the protector and provider, although paternal love is more slowly developed. Like the male among the lower animals, savage or barbarous man may be "rather indifferent to the welfare of his wife and children, ... but the simplest paternal duties are, nevertheless, universally recognized. If he does nothing else, the father builds the habitation, and employs himself in the chase and in war."[289]
But the argument for the pre-human origin of the elements of marriage and the family does not rest merely upon precedents of sexual habits. It is based rather upon the entire experience of animals in the hard struggle for existence. That struggle, as Hellwald suggests, forced upon them primarily the problem of food-supply, the need of a sort of economic co-operation, more lasting in its results than the pairing instinct. It is the entire social, mental, and moral product of animal experience, of living together, so well described among others by Espinas, Schäffle, Groos, and Wundt, which man in some measure inherited as a rich legacy from his humbler predecessor.[290] Accordingly Westermarck believes that marriage was probably "transmitted to man from some ape-like ancestor, and that there never was a time when it did not occur in the human race."[291] With Starcke, and in harmony with the view of Hellwald already quoted, he holds that marriage and the family cannot rest upon the sexual impulse alone. This is too transitory. Among animals it is obvious that "it cannot be the sexual instinct that keeps male and female together for months and years," for the "generative power is restricted to a certain season;" and it seems highly probable that among men a pairing season prevailed in ancient times. Thus the "wild Indians of California, belonging to the lowest races on earth," are said to "have their rutting seasons as regularly as have the deer, the elk, the antelope, or any other animals."[292] According to Powers, the California Kabinapek "are extremely sensual. In the spring when the wild clover is lush and full of blossoms and they are eating it to a satiety after the famine of winter, they become amorous. This season, therefore, is a literal Saint Valentine's Day with them, as with the natural beasts and birds of the forest."[293] The Tasmanians, the Australian Watch-an-dies, and various other peoples appear to show evidences of the same habit.[294] Vignoli reaches a similar conclusion. "The family union in which man originally finds himself is not an essentially human but likewise an animal fact, since that mode of common social life is found with the greater part of animals and always among the higher. It is the necessity of rearing the young which unites the parents and gives them a common life for a shorter or longer period; indeed in some species this marriage of love and care continues throughout their whole existence. Hence the fact of family sociality is not an exclusive product of humanity, but of the universal laws of the whole animal life upon the earth. Let it not be asserted that in man affection between the sexes and toward their offspring ... is more active, more intense, and more lasting; for it manifests itself with equal strength and sometime with equal duration between animals and toward their young. Thus man loves, cohabits, and lives socially in a primitive family community only because he is an animal and moreover an animal higher in the organic series. So the fact of the family is consummated according to the necessity of cosmic laws governing a great part of the reproductive and social activity of the animal kingdom."[295]
According to Starcke, "we are in some respects disposed to underestimate the great influence which sexual matters exert on all the concerns of social life, and the attempt is sometimes made to sever it from moral life, as a matter of which we are constrained to admit the practical existence, although, from the ideal point of view, it ought not to be. On the other hand, its influence on primitive communities has been greatly overrated." The sexual instinct, however powerful, is "devoid of the conditions which form the basis of the leading tendencies in which man's struggle for existence must be fought out." Hence primitive marriage does not rest upon the tender sentiment which we call love,[296] but "as hard and dry as private life itself," it has its "origin in the most concrete and prosaic requirements." The "common household," he continues, "in which each had a given work to do, and the common interest of obtaining and rearing children were the foundations upon which marriage was originally built."[297] Therefore, according to this view, marriage appears to be a kind of contractual relation from the beginning.[298] The conclusions of Westermarck on this point are in substantial harmony with those of Starcke: "The prolonged union of the sexes is, in some way or other, connected with parental duties.... The tie which joins male and female is an instinct developed through the powerful influence of natural selection." This instinct as well as parental affection are "thus useful mental dispositions which, in all probability, have been acquired through the survival of the fittest." So he concludes that "it is for the benefit of the young that male and female continue to live together. Marriage is therefore rooted in family, rather than family in marriage."[299]