MARRIAGE. Human beings, like all higher animals, multiply by the union of the two sexes. But neither conjugation, nor even the production of offspring, is as a rule sufficient for the main tenance of the species. The further advanced the animal in the order of evolution, the longer the immaturity and the helplessness of the young and the greater the need for prolonged parental care and training. It is thus the combination of mating with parent hood which constitutes marriage in higher animals, including man. Even in its biological aspect, "marriage is rooted in the family rather than the family in marriage" (Westermarck).
I. The Biological Foundations of Human Mating.—In human societies, however, there are added to the sexual and parental sides of marriage other elements : marriage is given the hall-mark of social approval ; it becomes a legal contract ; it de fines the relations between husband and wife and between parents and children, as well as the status of the latter; it imposes duties of economic co-operation; it has to be concluded in a public and solemn manner, receiving, as a sacrament, the blessings of religion and, as a rite, the good auspices of magic.
Human marriage also appears in a variety of forms : monogamy, polygyny and polyandry; matriarchal and patriarchal unions; households with patrilocal and matrilocal residence. Other forms, such as "group-marriage," "promiscuity," "anomalous" or "geron tocratic" marriages have been assumed by some writers as an in ference from certain symptoms and survivals. At present these forms are not to be found, while their hypothetical existence in prehistoric times is doubtful; and it is important above all in such speculations never to confuse theory with fact.
Marriage again is in no human culture a matter of an entirely free choice. People related by descent or members of certain classes are often debarred from marrying each other, or else they are expected to marry. The rules of incest, of exogamy, of hyper gamy and of preferential mating form the sociological conditions of marriage. To these are added in certain societies such prepara tory arrangements and conditions as initiation, special training for marriage, moral and economic tests, which have to be satisfied before marriage can be entered upon. The aspects, the forms and the conditions of marriage have to be discussed in turn, though it is not possible to draw a sharp line of division between these subjects.
2. Love and Marriage.—Love and marriage are closely as sociated in day-dreams and in fiction, in folk-lore and poetry, in the manners, morals and institutions of every human community —but marriage is more than the happy ending of a successful courtship. Marriage as an ideal is the end of a romance ; it is also the beginning of a sterner task, and this truth finds an emphatic expression in the laws and regulations of marriage throughout humanity.
Love leads to sexual intimacy and this again to the procreation of children. Marriage on the whole is rather a contract for the production and maintenance of children than an authorization of sexual intercourse. The main reason why marriage has not been
regarded as establishing an exclusive sexual relationship lies in the fact that in many human societies sexual relations have been allowed under certain conditions before marriage, while marriage did not necessarily exclude the continuance of similar relations. Marriage, however, remains the most important form of lawful intercourse, and it dominates and determines all extra-connubial liberties. In their relation to marriage the forms of licence can be classified into prenuptial liberty, relaxations of the marriage bond, ceremonial acts of sex, prostitution and concubinage.
3. Prenuptial Intercourse.—In the majority of savage tribes unmarried boys and girls are free to mate in temporary unions, subject to the barriers of incest and exogamy and of such social regulations as prevail in their community. But there are other tribes where chastity of the unmarried is regarded as a virtue, especially in girls, and any lapse from it severely censured or even punished. Many of the lowest savages, such as the Veddas, Fuegians, Kubu of Sumatra, Senoi and other Malayan negritos, do not tolerate sexual intercourse before marriage. Among the Bushmen and the Andamanese instances of prenuptial unchastity do occur, but they are not condoned, still less provided for by custom and moral approval. The Australians, however, allow pre nuptial freedom, except perhaps a few of the South-eastern tribes. On a higher level we find considerable variety in this respect. All over the world, in Oceania, in Asia, in Africa and in both Americas, examples could be quoted of peoples who demand con tinence more or less stringently, and of their neighbours who allow full freedom. In a few cases only can we find the demand of chastity expressed in very definite usages, which physically prevent incontinence, such as infibulation, practiced among the N.E. African, Hamitic and Semitic peoples and reported also from Siam, Burma and Java. The testing of the bride by a publicly exhibited token of defloration, which forms part of certain mar riage ceremonies and which expresses the value of virginity, is car ried out more or less thoroughly and naturally lends itself to deception and circumvention. It is found sporadically throughout the world, in the noble families of Oceania (Tonga, Samoa, Fiji), in Asia (Yakuts, Koryaks, Chuwash, Brahui of Baluchistan, Southern Celebes), in America (Chichimec of Mexico), in Africa (Mandingo, Kulngo, Ruanda, Yoruba, Swahili, Morocco, Al geria and Egypt) and likewise among many Semitic and Hamitic peoples. In other parts of the world we are merely informed that chastity is praised and prenuptial intercourse censured (Bantu, Kavirondo, Wa Giyama, Galla, Karanga, Bechuana of Africa ; Dobu, Solomon Islanders, of Melanesia ; Omaha, Mandan, Nez Perce, Apache, Takelma of N. America; Canelas and Kanaya of S America, Bodo and Dhimal of Indo-China, Hill Dyaks of Borneo).