oved, exogamous Aryans either passed
through polyandrous institutions, or borrowed a savage custom derived
from a period when ideas of kinship were obscure.

If we only knew the origin of the prohibition to marry within the family
name all would be plain sailing. At present several theories of the
origin of exogamy are before the world. Mr. Morgan, the author of
'Ancient Society,' inclines to trace the prohibition to a great early
physiological discovery, acted on by primitive men by virtue of a contrat
social. Early man discovered that children of unsound constitutions were
born of nearly related parents. Mr. Morgan says: 'Primitive men very
early discovered the evils of close interbreeding.' Elsewhere Mr. Morgan
writes: 'Intermarriage in the gens was prohibited, to secure the benefits
of marrying out with unrelated persons.' This arrangement was 'a product
of high intelligence,' and Mr. Morgan calls it a 'reform.'

Let us examine this very curious theory. First: Mr. Morgan supposes
early man to have made a discovery (the evils of the marriage of near
kin) which evades modern physiological science. Modern science has not
determined that the marriages of kinsfolk are pernicious. Is it credible
that savages should discover a fact which puzzles science? It may be
replied that modern care, nursing, and medical art save children of near
marriages from results which were pernicious to the children of early
man. Secondly: Mr. Morgan supposes that barbarous man (so notoriously
reckless of the morrow as he is), not only made the discovery of the
evils of interbreeding, but acted on it with promptitude and self-denial.
Thirdly: Mr. Morgan seems to require, for the enforcement of the
exogamous law, a contrat social. The larger communities meet, and divide
themselves into smaller groups, within which wedlock is forbidden. This
'social pact' is like a return to 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 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 observ