Exogamy is, or has been, as widely
spread as the opposed rule of endogamy just
described. It is the duty enforced by custom,
religion, and law, of marrying outside one’s
own clan, and is usually in force amongst
small and barbarous communities. Its
former distribution is attested by the survival
in nearly all countries, of ceremonies based
on “marriage by capture.” The remarkable
monograph on this subject by the late Mr.
McLennan is of peculiar interest. It was
one of the earliest, and perhaps the most
successful, of all attempts to decipher prehistoric
customs by means of those now
existing among barbarians, and by the marks
they have left on the traditional practices of
civilised nations, including ourselves. Before
his time those customs were regarded as
foolish, and fitted only for antiquarian trifling.
In small fighting communities of barbarians,
daughters are a burden; they are usually
killed while infants, so few women are
found in a tribe who were born in it. It
may sometimes happen that the community
has been recently formed by warriors who
brought no women, and who, like the
Romans in the old story, could only supply
themselves by capturing those of neighbouring
tribes. The custom of capture grows;
it becomes glorified because each wife is a
living trophy of the captor’s heroism, and
marriage within the tribe soon comes to be
considered an unmanly, and at last a shameful
act. The modern instances of this among
barbarians are very numerous.
Australian Marriages. The following
is a brief clue, and apparently a true one,
to the complicated marriage restrictions
among Australian bushmen, which are enforced
by the penalty of death, and which seem to be
partly endogamous in origin and partly otherwise.
The example is typical of those of
many other tribes that differ in detail.