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nydus/The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the StatePublic
Page 226 of 239
Table of Contents

But I purposely refrain from doing this, with a few exceptions, first because I do not wish to write a general history of the primitive family, and, secondly, because I consider all references of this kind as very doubtful testimony, unless they are accompanied by an analysis of the entire organization. We frequently find analogies to the institutions of a lower stage in a high stage, and yet they are founded on radically different premises and causes. The evolution of the Australian aborigines shows that. Among the Australians of the lower stage, e. g., the hordes are endogamous, among those of the middle stage they are exogamous, and in the higher stage they are again endogamous. But while in the one instance the marriage in the horde is conditioned on the fact that the more remote relatives are not yet excluded from sexual intercourse, it is founded in the other case on the difference between local and sexual organization. Furthermore, the marriage between daughter and father is permitted in the lower stage, and again in that higher stage, where the class organization of the Kamilaroi is on the verge of dissolution. But in both cases the circle of those who are regarded as fathers is entirely different.

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