X. Conclusion

Here our argument ends. Apparently simple as was the problem to be solved, it has now received a solution for the first time. That solution opens a new series of problems for the consideration of the philosopher; of some of which, indeed, we have offered solutions, which, in the fervour of the first conception, may have been put forward in too sanguine a spirit. It will be something, however, if, in proposing and trying to solve such problems, we have at least succeeded in showing their importance, by displaying them on the level of the foundations of civil society. The chief of these questions respect the origin of exogamy and of endogamy. As to the origin of the former, it will be remarked that we have not spent time on the consideration of the question, whether it may not have been due to a natural feeling against the union of near kinsfolk. Its general description might dispose one to think that it might have been due to such a feeling. But, owing to the nature of ancient kinship, as we have seen it, exogamy afforded no proper security against the intermixture of persons near of kin. It permitted, in reality, many marriages which we now disallow. Ties of blood that were not recognised—though that they were ties of blood must have been vaguely perceived—were practically non-existent. And, in the first stages of human development, it was agreeable to exogamy that brothers and sisters of the half-blood should marry, while uncles might marry nieces, and nephews aunts. Afterwards, unions equally incestuous, as we should say, were allowable in consequence of the limitation in blood-ties derived from agnation. One thing is very clear, that in ancient times such questions as have been raised by modern science, as to the propriety of the marriages of near relatives, were never considered. On the whole, the account which we have given of the origin of exogamy, appears the only one which will bear examination. The scarcity of women within the group led to a practice of stealing the women of other groups, and in time it came to be considered improper, because it was unusual, for a man to marry a woman of his own group. Another important question respects the universality of kinship through females only. The strong a priori presumptions in favour of that, as the most archaic system of kinship, backed by so much evidence as we have been able to adduce, seem to us satisfactorily to establish the position which we have taken up. On the other hand, much labour and investigation will yet be needed to show clearly that that kinship was not merely a concomitant of exogamy and polyandry, should cases occur in which it must be held that neither polyandry nor exogamy was primitive custom. Assuming the universality of that kinship, the question remains: What were the stages of development of the family system, founded on the principle of agnation, as at Rome? Some of these questions we have grappled with; at others we have done little more than glance. Are we too sanguine if we venture to predict that their solution will yet be reached, and will exhibit early human history in a very different light from that in which it has hitherto been regarded, by what Dugald Stewart calls “that indolent philosophy which refers to a miracle whatever appearance both in the natural and moral worlds it is unable to explain”?