28. Monogamy.—Monogamy is not only the most important form of marriage, not only that which predominates in most communities, and which occurs, statistically speaking, in an overwhelming majority of instances, but it is also the pattern and prototype of marriage.
Both polyandry and polygyny are compound marriages, con sisting of several unions combined into a larger system, but each of them constituted upon the pattern of a monogamous marriage. As a rule polygamous cohabitation is a successive monogamy and not joint domesticity; children and property are divided, and in every other respect the contracts are entered individually be tween two partners at a time.
Monogamy as the unique and exclusive form of marriage, in the sense that bigamy is regarded as a grave criminal offence and a sin as well as a sacrilege, is very rare indeed. Such an exclu sive ideal and such a rigid legal view of marriage is perhaps not to be found outside the modern, relatively recent development of Western Culture. It is not implied in Christian doctrine even. Apart from such isolated phenomena as the recent Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and the heretical sect of Anabap tists (16th century), polygyny was legally practised and accepted by the Church in the middle ages, and it occurs sporadically as a legal institution accepted by Church and State as recently as the middle of the 17th century (Westermarck, H.H.M., III., 50-51).
Monogamy as pattern and prototype of human marriage, on the other hand, is universal. The whole institution, in its sexual, parental, economic, legal and religious aspects, is founded on the fact that the real function of marriage—sexual union, production and care of children, and the co-operation which it implies—re quires essentially two people, and two people only, and that in the overwhelming majority of cases two people only are united in order to fulfil these facts.
Conjugation necessarily takes place only between two organ isms ; children are produced by two parents only, and always socially regarded as the offspring of one couple; the economics of the household are never conducted group-wise ; the legal con tract is never entered upon jointly; the religious sanction is given only to the union of two. A form of marriage based on commun ism in sex, joint parenthood, domesticity, group-contract and a promiscuous sacrament has never been described. Monogamy is, has been and will remain the only true type of marriage. To place
polygyny and polyandry as "forms of marriage" co-ordinate with monogamy is erroneous. To speak about "group-marriage" as another variety shows a complete lack of understanding as to the nature of marriage.
29. Theories of Marriage.—The last conclusions reveal once more the important truth of scientific method that a full knowl edge of facts cuts the ground from under most hypothetical specu lations. The theories of human marriage have mainly been con cerned with its "origins" and "history," and attempts were made at ranging the various "forms of marriage" into an evolutionary series. Once we come to recognise that marriage is fundamentally one, and that its varieties correspond not to stages of evolution, but are determined by the type of community, its economic and political organisation, and the character of its material culture, the problem becomes one of obserVation and sociological analysis, and ceases to move on the slippery plane of hypothesis.
The view that marriage originated in "promiscuity," "hetairism" or "matrimonial communism," and that monogamy is a product of gradual development through a multitude of stages, has been advanced by Bachof en, Morgan and McLennan ; has found whole hearted or partial support by a number of eminent writers (Lord Avebury, Fison, Howitt, Tylor, Spencer and Gillen, Post, Kohler, Kovalevsky, Lippert, Schurtz, Frazer and others) ; and has been criticised and combated by Darwin, Westermarck, Lang, Grosse and Crawley.
The writings of Morgan's school suffer from an over-emphasis of the sexual aspect, often coupled with prudish reticences; from a misinterpretation of linguistic evidence (see KINSHIP) ; from a neglect of the parental and economic aspect of marriage. They are full of fantastic and meaningless concepts such as "promis cuity," "group-marriage," "primitive communism," which as a rule are not even laid down with sufficient concrete details to give hold to our imagination and remain mere words on paper. The German writers of this school, who have contributed a volumin ous output, especially in the Zeitschrift f iir vergleichende Rechts wissenschaft, have certainly not neglected the legal side of mar riage, but in applying to primitive societies the dry legal formalism of modern jurisprudence, and in ruthlessly forcing all facts into the cut and dried scheme of "marriage stages," they have con tributed but little which will have lasting value.