FREDERICK ENGELS ORIGIN OF FAMILY, PRIVATE PROPERTY AND STATE dren immediately after birth, might. This custom created a super the female kinship is also recognized and expressed auity of men in each individual tribe, the necessary and immediate male line. This is the restricted outlook of the jurist, who creates sequel of which was the common possession of a woman by a number a rigid legal term for himself and continues to apply it without of men-polyandry. The consequence of this again was that th modification to conditions which in the meantime have rendered it mother of a chil known but the father was not, hence applicable kinship was reckoned only in the female line to the exclusion of In spite of its plausibili the male-mother right. And another conseq ot seem to be too well-founded even to the author himself. At least of women within a tribe-a dearth mitigated but not overcome himself is struck by the fact that "it is observable that the olyandry-was precisely the systematic, forcible abduction form of [mock ]capture is now most distinctly marked and impressive romen of other tribes. "As exogamy and polyandry are referable one and the same cause-a want of balance between the descent through the male line]"(p. I40). And, again: "It is a cu rious fact that nowhere now that we are aware of, is infant- riginally been polyand Therefore we must hold it to be cide a system where and the earliest form of kinship among exogamous races bexist"(p. 146). Both these facts directly refute his interpretation kinship was that whic and he can oppose to only new, still more intricate hy- nly”( McLennan,Sda Ancient History, I886. Primitive Nevertheless, in England his theory met with great approbation McLennan's merit lies in having drawn attention to the gene al prevalence and great importance of what he terms exogamy. But founder of the history of the family, and the most eminent he by no means discovered the existence of exogamous groups, and in this field. His antithesis between still less did he understand it. Apart from the earlier, isolated notes amous" tribes, notwithstanding the few exceptions and modifica- of many observers which served as McLennans sources, Latham tions admitted remained nevertheless th cognized. foundation (Descriptive Ethnology, 1859) exactly and correctly described this of the prevailing view, and was the blinker which made any free institution among the Indian Magars and declared that it was gener survey of the field under investigation and, consequently, any definite ally prevalent and existed in all parts of the world-a passage which McLennan himself quotes. And our Morgan, too, as far back as I847 in his letters on the Iroquois (in the American Review) and in I85I in The League of the Iroquois proved that it existed in this tribe, 3berogue in England and, following the English fashion, else- as well, makes it a duty to point out in contrast that the arm he caused with his completely erroneous antithesis between and described it correctly, whereas, as we shall see, MCLennan's exogamous and endogamous"tribes"outweighs the good done by his lawyer's mentality caused far greater confusion on this subject than esearches Bachofen's mystical fantasy did in the sphere of mother right Meanwhile, more and more facts soon came to light, which It is also to McLennan's credit that he recognized the system of did not fit into his neat scheme. McLennan knew only three forms tracing descent al of marriage-polygamy, polyandry and amy. But once atten- he himself admitted later, Bachofen anticipated him in this, But tion had been directed to this point, more and more proofs were here again he is far from clear; he speaks continually of"k iscovered of the fact that amo eveloped peoples forms of through females only"and constantly applies this expression-cor- marriage existed in which a group of men possessed a group of wome rect for an earlier stage-also to later stages of development, where and Lubbock (in his The Origin of Civilization, I87o> although descent and inheritance are still exclusively reckoned in acknowledged this group marriage ("communal Immediately after, in I87I, Morgan appeared new and Studies in Ancient History, comprising a reprint of in many respects, conclusive material. He had Primi League of the Ho-de-no-sau-nee, or Iroquois. Rochester 1 J. Lubbock, The Origin of Civilisation and the Primitive Condition of Man, menta 185I,一E of Savages, London 1870