India and elsewhere no repulsion
appears between persons of the same family. In the ancient world
marriage between such persons was legal and not uncommon.

+432+. The human horde, with its jealous patriarch, appears to be a
creation of the scientific imagination. It, again, was derived by its
author from the procedure of certain beast-herds in which the strongest
male drives away his rivals. It is supposed, however, that in the human
horde the young men, having found wives, are allowed to come back
bringing their wives with them, and these last the patriarch is supposed
not to appropriate. The theory is supported by no facts of actual usage.

+433+. The supposition that the young men of a clan or tribe go off to
seek food, and thus found a new clan, has more in its favor. Being
compelled to seek wives in their new surroundings, they might thus
initiate a habit of outside marriage that would in time become general
usage and therefore sacred. Secession from tribes does occur, and may
have been frequent in prehistoric times, but concerning these times we
have little or no information. It may be said that movements of this
sort would furnish a more probable starting-point for savage customs
than the ideas and schemes mentioned above.

+434+. Proof is lacking also for Durkheim's theory. It is not probable
that the totem was regarded as divine in the period in which exogamy
arose--by the tribes whose ideas on this point are known the totem is
looked on as a friend and an equal but not as a god. And, as is pointed
out above, there is no such general religious respect for the clan blood
as would forbid sexual intercourse between persons of the same clan. The
demand for revenge for the murder of a clansman arises from the sense of
clan solidarity and the necessity of self-defense--it is only in this
regard that the blood of the clan is regarded as sacred.

+435+. Horror of marriage or of sexual intercourse in general, within
the prohibited degrees or areas, is universal in low communities;
violation of the tribal law on this point is severely punished,
sometimes with death. Whence this feeling sprang is not clear.[785] It
cannot have arisen from respect for the purity of women or from a belief
in the sanctity of the family--intercourse with girls before their
marriage is freely allowed, and lending or exchange of wives is common.
Magical dangers are supposed to follow on infringement of marriage
rules, but, as such results