o the
ideas of Rousseau. Fourthly: The hypothesis credits early men with
knowledge and discrimination of near degrees of kin, which they might
well possess if they lived in patriarchal families, but which, _ex
hypothesi_, they could not possess. But it represents that they did
not act on their knowledge. Instead of prohibiting marriage between
parents and children, cousins, nephews and aunts, uncles and nieces,
they prohibited marriage within the limit of the name of the kin. This
is still the Hindoo rule, and, if the Romans really might not at one
time marry within the _gens_, it was the Roman rule. Now observe, this
rule fails to effect the very purpose for which _ex hypothesi_ it was
instituted. Where the family name goes by the male side, marriages
between cousins are permitted, as in India and China. These are the
very marriages which some theorists now denounce as pernicious. But,
if the family name goes by the female side, marriages between
half-brothers and half-sisters are permitted, as in ancient Athens and
among the Hebrews of Abraham's time. Once more, the exogamous
prohibition excludes, in China, America, Africa, Australia, persons
who are in no way akin (according to our ideas) from intermarriage.
Thus Mr. Doolittle writes,[216] 'Males and females of the same surname
will never intermarry in China. Cousins who have not the same
ancestral surname may intermarry. Though the ancestors of persons of
the same surname have not known each other for thousands of years,
they may not intermarry.' The Hindoo _gotra_ rule produces the same
effects.

For all these reasons, and because of the improbability of the
physiological discovery, and of the moral 'reform' which enforced it;
and again, because the law is not of the sort which people acquainted
with near degrees of kinship would make; and once more because the law
fails to effect its presumed purpose, while it does attain ends at
which it does not aim--we cannot accept Mr. Morgan's suggestion as to
the origin of exogamy. Mr. M'Lennan did not live to publish a subtle
theory of the origin of exogamy, which he had elaborated. In _Studies
in Ancient History_ he hazarded a conjecture based on female
infanticide:--

We believe the restrictions on marriage to be connected with
the practice in early times of female infanticide, which
rendering women scarce, led at once to polyandry within the
tribe, and the capturing of women from without.... Hence the