he primitiveness of, fetichism seem to demonstrate the opposite of
that which he intends them to prove. (2) His own evidence for
_primitive_ practice is chosen from the documents of a _cultivated_
society. (3) His theory deprives that society of the very influences
which have elsewhere helped the Tribe, the Family, Rank, and Priesthoods
to grow up, and to form the backbone of social existence.

THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE FAMILY.

What are the original forms of the human family? Did man begin by being
monogamous or polygamous, but, in either case, the master of his own home
and the assured central point of his family relations? Or were the
unions of the sexes originally shifting and precarious, so that the
wisest child was not expected to know his own father, and family ties
were reckoned through the mother alone? Again (setting aside the
question of what was 'primitive' and 'original'), did the needs and
barbarous habits of early men lead to a scarcity of women, and hence to
polyandry (that is, the marriage of one woman to several men), with the
consequent uncertainty about male parentage? Once more, admitting that
these loose and strange relations of the sexes do prevail, or have
prevailed, among savages, is there any reason to suppose that the
stronger races, the Aryan and Semitic stocks, ever passed through this
stage of savage customs? These are the main questions debated between
what we may call the 'historical' and the 'anthropological' students of
ancient customs.

When Sir Henry Maine observed, in 1861, that it was difficult to say what
society of men had _not been_, originally, based on the patriarchal
family, he went, of course, outside the domain of history. What occurred
in the very origin of human society is a question perhaps quite
inscrutable. Certainly, history cannot furnish the answer. Here the
anthropologist and physiologist come in with their methods, and even
those, we think, can throw but an uncertain light on the very 'origin' of
institutions, and on strictly primitive man.

For the purposes of this discussion, we shall here re-state the chief
points at issue between the adherents of Sir Henry Maine and of Mr.
M'Lennan, between historical and anthropological inquirers.

1. Did man _originally_ live in the patriarchal family, or did he live
in more or less modified promiscuity, with uncertainty of blood-ties, and
especially of male parentage?

2. Did circumstances and custom