Quiz: Primitive Marriage

10 questions drawn at random. Score 80% for a silver medal.

1. 1. What does McLennan conclude from finding the symbol of capture among Indo-European, Turanian and Semitic peoples?

   That the phase of society producing it probably existed almost everywhere That the custom spread outward from the early Aryans to all their neighbours That it was invented by one Semitic people and then borrowed by the others That it is a mark of the Indo-European race alone
2. 2. Why does McLennan doubt that exogamy arose from a natural feeling against marriage of near kin?

   Savages had no idea of incest at all Natural feelings cannot be inherited Exogamy is found only among peoples who have no idea of blood-relationship Early exogamy permitted unions such as half-siblings, uncles with nieces
3. 3. Where does McLennan locate the origin of marriage by sale and purchase?

   In marriages between distinct groups, one of which loses a member In the priestly marriage ceremonies of endogamous tribes In the Roman law of the Twelve Tables In the earliest promiscuous hordes, where women were held in common
4. 4. In the Irish poem McLennan quotes, on what condition did the Irish give wives to the Picts?

   That the Picts should convert to Christianity That the Picts should pay tribute in cattle That the children should be raised as Gaels That succession to the Pictish crown should always pass through the female line
5. 5. In Tibetan polyandry as Turner describes it, who chooses the wife?

   The village lama The youngest brother The mother of the bride The eldest brother
6. 6. How does McLennan explain the name of the Racshasa form of marriage?

   It took its name from the Rakshasas, a people among whom capture was the system It was named after a king who first practised it It means “seizure” in Sanskrit It was the name of the god of war
7. 7. What striking consequence of wife-capture does McLennan report among the Caribbean tribes?

   Children always took their names from the tribes of their captors The tribes had no women of their own and raided for every single wife Men and women of the same tribe did not speak the same language Women outnumbered men two to one
8. 8. Which of these is one of Mr. Skene’s findings about the Pictish kings?

   No son ever succeeded his father Kings were elected from a single royal family Every king was the son of a Pictish father Daughters succeeded when there were no sons
9. 9. Which cases, according to McLennan, probably called for the earliest violations of exogamy?

   Kings marrying their own sisters to keep the royal blood unmixed Heiresses, whose marriages would carry estates out of the gens Captive women taken in war Widows marrying their dead husbands’ brothers under the levirate
10. 10. Why, according to McLennan, could endogamous tribes not develop a system of capture?

    They were too few and too weak to make war on their neighbours Their religion forbade any violence in the conduct of a wedding They married among their own kin, so force was needless They always bought their wives from foreign tribes instead