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I glean here and there from the wealth of Mr. Atkinson’s suggestions, statements which indicate how nearly he came to seeing all that I am trying to establish. Yet, I am compelled to disagree with his main argument; for always when he touches the woman’s side, he falls back at once to consider the question in its relation to the males as the only important members in the group.
It must not, however, be concluded that sexual peace followed this new order. It is part of Mr. Atkinson’s theory that the patriarch’s sexual jealousy would not be broken down by his tolerance of the presence of his sons. Peace could be maintained only so long as the intruders respected his marital rights.
I do not, for instance, accept his view that the captive wives were “mere chattels.” They could not, under the conditions, have been without some considerable power, even if it arose only from the sexual dependence of their owners upon them. Much more significant, however, is Mr. Atkinson’s view regarding the authority of the wife in these new peaceable marriages.
It is clear that the relation of the father to the other group members was not one of kinship, but of power. “Every female in my crowd is my property,” says or feels Mr. Atkinson’s patriarchal anthropoid, “and the patriarch gives expression to his sentiment with teeth and claws, if he has not yet learned to double up his fist with a stone in it. These were early days.”
The strongest of these taboos is the avoidance between brothers and sisters; this is Mr. Atkinson’s primal law. It is a law that is still a working factor among barbarous races, and entails restrictions and avoidances of the most binding nature. Studies. Chap. VII. “Exogamy: Its Origin.” History of Human Marriage. Chap. XIV. “Prohibition of Marriage between Kindred.” Mystic Rose.
Not at all, however, to a change in my belief in mother-right, which, indeed, has now been strengthened, and, as I trust, built up on surer foundations. By a fortunate chance, I was advised to read Mr. Andrew Lang’s Social Origins, which work includes Mr. Atkinson’s Primal Law. I am greatly indebted to the assistance I have gained from these writers.
Then there can be no possible doubt of the part taken by women in the slow advancement of the group by regulation to social peace. But enough on this subject has now been said. Many interesting questions arise from the action of Mr. Atkinson’s “primal law.” His theory offers a solution of the much-debated question of the origin of exogamy, the term used first by Mr.
Atkinson’s theory is to establish the action of what he calls “the primal law.” Only by limiting and defining the marital rights of the males over the females could advancement be gained. Until this was done these small hostile groups could not become larger, and expand into the clan or tribe.
Atkinson’s Primal Law, as well as with other writers, all of whom have shown that promiscuity cannot be accepted as a stage in the early life of the human family. I have now to show how far this rejection of promiscuity affects our position with regard to mother-descent and mother-right. It is clearly of vital importance to any theory that its foundations are secure.
Atkinson’s view is that it takes us so much further back. By it exogamy as a custom must have been much earlier than totemism, as at this stage the different group-families would not be distinguished by totem names; but its action as a law would become much stronger when reinforced by the totem superstitions, and would become fixed in rigid sexual taboos.
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