ory solution of it. It must be added
that the ruling elements in different societies have molded the
folkways to suit their own interests, and thus they have disturbed and
confused the process of making folkways, and have spoiled the result.

+363. Primary definition of marriage; taboos and conventionalization.+
The definition of marriage consists in stating what, at any time and
place, the mores have imposed as regulations on the relations of a man
and woman who are cooperatively carrying on the struggle for existence
and the reproduction of the species. The regulations are always a
conventionalization which sets the terms, modes, and conditions under
which a pair may cohabit. It is, therefore, impossible to formulate a
definition of marriage which will cover all forms of it throughout the
history of civilization. In all lower civilization it is a tie of a
woman to a man for the interests of both (or of the man). It follows
that the sex relation has been a great arena for the use and perfection
of the mores, since personal experience and reflection never ceased, and
a great school for the education of the race in the use of intelligence,
the development of sympathetic sentiments, and in a sense of the utility
of ethical regulations. The sex taboo is the set of inhibitions which
control and restrain the intercourse of the sexes with each other in
ordinary life. At the present time, in civilized countries, that
intercourse is limited by taboo, not by law. The nature and degree of
the taboo are in the mores. Spanish, French, English, and American
women, in the order named, are under less and less strict limitations in
regard to ordinary social intercourse with men. The sex taboo could,
therefore, be easily pursued and described through the whole history of
civilization and amongst all nations. It seems to be arbitrary, although
no doubt it has always been due, in its origin, to correct or incorrect
judgments of conditions and interests. It is always conventional. That
it has been and is recognized is the sum of its justification. When
Augustine met the objection that Jacob had four wives he replied that
that was no crime, because it was under the custom (_mos_) of Jacob's
time.[1144] This was a complete answer, but it was an appeal to the
supreme authority of the mores.

+364. Family, not marriage, is the institution.+ Although we speak of
marriage as an institution, it is only an imperfect one. It has no
structure. The