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Edward Westermarck and apparently of Professor Eugen Mogk. It may be called the purificatory theory. Obviously the two theories postulate two very different conceptions of the fire which plays the principal part in the rites.
For these reasons, then, we conclude that the theory of a friendly union having existed among males in the primitive group is the very reverse of the truth. This question has now been sufficiently proved. I am thus brought into agreement with Dr. Westermarck, Mr. Crawley, and Mr. Lang, in his examination of Mr.
From all of these lines of argument, without going over the evidence in greater detail, it seems reasonable to conclude with Westermarck "that the hypothesis of a primitive state of promiscuity has no foundation in fact and is essentially unscientific."
Small groups for protection and social living would precede formal arrangements of monogamy. Westermarck concludes that it was "for the benefit of the young that male and female continued to live together." The importance of this consideration for us lies in the thought of the overshadowing importance of this social group which we now call the family.
In the first place, the affectionate relation existing between husbands and wives and between parents and children, in Western lands, is a product of relatively recent times. In his exhaustive work on "The History of Human Marriage," Westermarck makes this very plain.
In the same work, Part II, chapters i and ii, the author treats of religious or sub-religious ideas as affecting conduct. Compare Westermarck, op. cit., chapter xl. See, also, The Ancient City, by Fustel de Coulanges. In the last chapter referred to, animals, drunkards, idiots, the insane, etc., come on the stage. The chapter is full of curious information.
Westermarck in his History of Human Marriage has reviewed at length all of the evidence from these lower peoples and shows undoubtedly that nothing approaching promiscuity existed among them. Promiscuity is apt to be found at a higher stage of social development, and is especially apt to be found among the nature peoples after the white man has visited them and demoralized their family life.
Those who have studied the work of such writers as Westermarck, and who cannot but agree that on the whole he is right in the contention that each sex desires to accentuate the features of its sex, will be prepared to accept Dr. Havelock Ellis's interpretation of the corset. By constricting the waist it accentuates the salience of the bosom and hips.
Westermarck accounts for their position by the strict monogamy that is enforced, but I do not think this can be the true explanation. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 549. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. I, p. 277. Power’s Tribes of California, pp. 22, 56. Bancroft, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 685. History of Human Marriage, p. 500.
XXII, second half. A. Sutherland, Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct, vol. I. C. S. Wake, Evolution of Morality, vol. I, chaps. V, VI, VII. P. V. N. Myers, History as Past Ethics, chap. I. P. Kropotkin, Mutual Aid, chaps. I-IV. L. T. Hobhouse, Morals in Evolution, part I, chaps. I-III. Westermarck, op. cit, chap.
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